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whirling them in a circle of dancers, his hand squeezing hers as they step and turn, his eyes never leaving her face even when his arm surrounds her waist and he swings her around. They laugh as the dance grows more frenzied, dizzy with the joy of being alive and young and together, until a small man with a balding head and shifting eyes taps on the king’s shoulder.
    “Pardon, my lady,” he says, bowing before turning to Louis. “Your Grace, the queen reminds you that she is waiting.” Marguerite’s gaze follows the king’s to see the queen mother silhouetted in an upstairs window, looking over the festivities. Beside her, a familiar paunch-bellied figure with overlong hair: Raimond of Toulouse. Louis drops her hand as though caught in an indecent act.
    “It is late.” He averts his eyes. His shoulders sag. “Let me show you to your room.”
    He strides away so briskly that she must trot to keep pace, back into the palace, up the stairs, past the royal quarters to another set of rooms. He leads her through the door where her uncles sit at a table by a fireplace and sup on fish and vegetables. They leap to their feet, Guillaume nearly knocking over his goblet of wine.
    “I have kept your niece too long. She must be tired and hungry.” Louis’s words tumble out. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. “Is everything to your liking? Are your rooms comfortable? Then I must leave you and attend to business. Good night, gentlemen.” He lifts her hand to his lips but he barely glances at her; his thoughts have already gone elsewhere, and then, just as abruptly, so has he.
    Aimée brings over a chair and sets it at the table, facing the fire. Marguerite plops down, feeling like a sail that has lost its wind. This apartment is smaller than the royal quarters, and filled with wall sconces of shimmering gold and statues: grotesque heads of saints lining the ceiling, and, in the corner, a statue of a nude man with private parts so lifelike she blushes and tries not to look. Uncle Guillaume offers her wine, but she declines. “Dreadful stuff, anyway,” Thomas mutters.
    “The king left hastily.” Guillaume peers at her from under his thick brows.
    “His mother called,” she says. She does not mention Toulouse, dreading their response. They might want to know why she did not join the meeting—why she did not at least try. How could she tell them of the White Queen’s cold demeanor, of her condescending remarks? Country bumpkin.
    “Have you heard the tales about the White Queen and her son?” Uncle Guillaume dips his bread in his wine. “I never believed them, but now I wonder . . .”
    “She said she needs to talk with him about matters concerning the kingdom.” Marguerite closes her eyes.
    “On the eve of his wedding? They must be urgent matters, indeed.”
    “Or maybe she is a mother who clings to her son. King Louis isthe very image of his father,” Thomas says. “Blanche’s passion for her husband was widely known.”
    “Uncle!” She opens her eyes.
    Guillaume grins. “Perhaps the son fills certain . . . needs that the husband once did. He adores her, for one thing.”
    “And yet she would have sold him to gain a kingdom.” Thomas tells the tale: Blanche’s husband, Louis VIII—heir to the French throne—answered the English barons’ call to revolt against the English King John. They promised to award the crown to Prince Louis. Blanche urged him to go, although his father, King Philip Augustus, argued against it. The parochial English would never allow a Frenchman to rule, he insisted. Their tyrant vanquished, they will remember their hatred against France—and turn against you next. Prince Louis went anyway, but King John proved a cunning and brutal opponent. When Louis sent home for more funds, King Philip refused to pay. But Blanche, ambitious from the start, was determined to become England’s queen. If he would not send Louis the money he needed, she threatened, she would sell her