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princess of the foremost kingdom of Europe and was now queen of France, was lonely for her native Spain, lonely for the majestic and glacial ritual she’d left behind, lonely for the manners and way of life, so different from here. Unlike her mother-in-law, she was having a hard time embracing that which was French.
    Louis bent down and kissed her on the mouth. He was strict about who might kiss her, allowing only his mother and brother, and now, his new sister-in-law, to do so. It wasn’t from jealousy, but from his sense of pride. This was a princess of Spain, most powerful kingdom in the western world, fat with a hundred years of riches from her colonies across the sea. There was no one higher born than she. She is such an important princess that if she doesn’t marry you, she has to marry Christ and take the veil, his dear cardinal had joked with him. You’re the only one of her stature. You’re the only one worthy. Louis’s mother was a Spanish princess, too, aunt to his wife, and she’d planned this marriage when he and Maria Teresa were in their cradles.
    France and Spain had been at war for a long time, and this marriage had secured a peace, a peace his dear cardinal had killed himself working toward. For forty-one years, there had been war at some border of France. Take her and defang a faltering Spain. Take her and be the lion of the west. France will supercede Spain. I know it. I feel it. And Mazarin had smiled as he spoke, eyes crinkled in his lively face, a face that was too thin, a face that Louis had seen all his life, literally. One of his first memories was of Mazarin leaning over his baby bed, something loving, something safe radiating from his eyes. He was the handsomest man in the world when he came to court, his mother’s favorite lady-in-waiting liked to gossip. When we first saw him, we all swooned, and even your mother noticed.
    Louis’s kiss opened Maria Teresa the way a knife does a ripe melon. She looked almost pretty, a light flush on her alabaster cheeks.
    “I’m so glad to see you, dear heart. I had a bad dream, my husband. I can’t remember it now, but I didn’t like it. It has made me sad. Cats were in it, I think. Stealing my breath. Was it an omen? About dying in childbed?”
    Louis sat down on bed covers whose embroidery was so thick that the color of the fabric upon which it was sewn could barely be seen. He took her hands in his, listening thoughtfully, as she continued on, in Spanish, of course.
    “I might, you know. Anyway, I just lay here for a while and I thought about my bedchamber at the Alcázar, the vines that grew there in the summer, covering the iron on the balcony. I always smelled them when I woke up, and their smell made me happy. And their color. ‘Cup of gold’ they’re called because they are shaped like a chalice, like the Lord’s chalice at the Last Supper. And then the viscount’s little gift arrived. Do look, dear heart. It’s a fan.”
    She spread it open for Louis to see the scene painted across it.
    “It’s the Alcázar! It’s just what I needed. Some reminder of home, and so I’ve been fanning myself with it and thinking perhaps I might not eat breakfast. I’m not hungry, you know, which is strange for me. A fever, do you think I might be coming down with a summer fever?”
    Louis put his hand on her forehead. “No, sweet, there’s no fever.”
    She sighed. Several of the maids of honor sighed too, imagining his touch.
    “No fever, dear one,” said Louis, “and as for home, this is your home now. You are France’s queen, and I must have you by my side, and our son is not going to cause any trouble. He is going to pop out like a bean from a pod and say, Mama, Papa, where is my milk? And we’re going to find the strongest, fattest, cleanest wet nurse in France to feed him. Maybe we’ll even send for a Spanish one. Would you like that? A fat Spaniard to feed him when our French one tires?”
    All the time he was talking, answering her