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as a peasant’s, exposed to the sun during your rambles in the southern fields, I presume. Your hairline encroaches most unattractively onto your forehead, and your gown looks thin and garishly dyed. You remind me of one of those vulgar flowers that grow in the South, or of a common servant prancing about in her mistress’s clothes.”
    “Yes, my lady.” Heat rises in her face.
    “But these superficial flaws are easily remedied. I will send someone over in the morning, before the wedding ceremony, to pluck your forehead and to help you with your makeup. I will also provide you with a wedding gown, for I am sure the one you have brought is inadequate.”
    From outside, shouts: Where is our new queen? We want the queen! The queen mother’s smile disappears.
    “That is all for now. Louis, my love”—her voice becomes acaress—“you are in demand. Go and present your little wife to the people, then send her to her room to rest. I will wait for you here, darling. We have matters of the kingdom to discuss.”
    “Yes, Mama.” The king kisses her hand, then offers Marguerite his arm. When they turn to leave, she remembers her uncles, standing in the doorway and waiting for their introductions.
    She turns back to the White Queen. “My lady, may I present my guardians, my uncles Guillaume and Thomas of Savoy? They have come to pay their respects.”
    The White Queen heaves a sigh, as if exhausted by the short meeting with Marguerite. “Not tonight. Tomorrow. I have had my fill of country bumpkins for one day.”
    Tears spring to her eyes. “Yes, my lady.” As they start to walk away, the queen speaks her name.
    “You may call me ‘Mama.’ I have only one daughter, and she is a silly child. It may please me to have a girl in the household with some sense in her head. As long as it has not gone to your head.”
    “Yes, Mama,” Marguerite says. And walks out of the room with her husband, the king, her emotions whirling like bees around a vulgar flower.

     
    O UTSIDE, WHEN THEY emerge: Cheers and a burst of music. Jongleurs hurl sticks of fire; a golden goblet, filled to the brim with wine, finds its way into her hand. The king leads her beneath a spreading oak, up onto a platform ringed with candles; their light, reflected in his gold mail, makes him look aflame. “Vive la nouvelle reine!” people shout. “Vive Marguerite!”
    The king gestures toward the goblet. She drinks the sour stuff—not Languedoc wine, to be certain. But she squelches her distaste and lifts her cup to toast her new countrymen and women, soon to be her subjects.
    “Vive la France!” she cries. The crowd’s response rolls like thunder over the lawn. The king’s eyes shine as he accepts the goblet from her.
    Two men ascend the steps, carrying a large trunk. From it they pull gifts, which the king presents to her: two new leather saddles; a golden bridle; a necklace dripping with diamonds and rubies; a bejeweled tiara, and, the pièce de résistance, a cloak of rich sable with fifteen gold buttons, each inscribed with the fleur-de-lis, the symbol of France, and sparkling with sapphires. Gasps and murmurs swirl as he drapes the soft fur over her shoulders, then fastens the buttons one by one.
    “How beautiful she is!”
    “See the roses in her cheeks—so delicate and feminine.”
    “Only the best for our King Louis, non ?”
    The king hands the goblet to her; she drinks again, more deeply now, her blood warmed by the adoration, the cloak, or the wine—or all three. Then music begins anew, and the crowd begins to dance.
    Her husband leaps to the grass, then turns toward her with arms outstretched. Marguerite leans in; he grasps her at the waist and twirls her down, sets her before him, she laughing, knowing the stars do not twinkle more brightly in the sky than do her eyes, and he gazing at her as though she were a gift he cannot wait to unwrap.
    The music and the crowd sweep them along as if they were petals on a summer breeze,