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not wanting to leave the comforts of home,” the old monk said. “Why should these merchants be allowed to escape their duty?”
    “Villeins are good for little else besides tilling the soil and manning the battlefield,” Romano said. “And fighting is a knight’s sole task. As our towns prosper, however, so does our kingdom. If their merchants wish to devote their energies to trade, why resist, especially if they are offering fees in lieu of military service?”
    I agreed with Romano, but wondered if a compromise could be found between the two positions. “What if England invades? The townspeople would lose as much as the barons, if not more. If they won’t fight for us when we need them, should they expect our protection?”
    Louis came into the chancellery then, a wax tablet in his hand and a stricken expression on his face. “Read this, Mama,” he said, thrusting the tablet at me.
    What kind of king clings to his mother’s apron strings? the message etched on the tablet read. It bore no signature, but I knew the work of Pierre Mauclerc.
    I burst into laughter. “By God’s head, did we ever fear these petulant little boys?” I handed the tablet to Romano. He laughed, too, and told Louis to reply that the mighty Blanche de Castille wears an “apron” of chain mail with strings long enough to hang a man. Guérin shook his head. “We should not treat these taunts lightly,” he said.
    “Disregarding their slander will only embolden them,” he said. “You ought to arrest Pierre de Dreux for treason, my lady.”
    I was loath to do so. The House of Dreux’s influence reached throughout the realm and into the Holy Roman Empire—to the Emperor Frederick II himself. Only a few barons supported me now, and that number would further decline if I dealt harshly with Pierre. Even Robert Gâteblé might abandon me.
    “If ridicule is the worst Pierre can do, then I am far from worried,” I said airily. How could I fail, with Romano by my side? When Louis and Guérin had gone, leaving us to ourselves, I said as much to him.
    “Then you will not mind my letter to our new pope, asking for permanent assignment to France,” he said. “I told him that, as a weak woman, you must have my help or the kingdom might be torn apart.” His wink—as if his words were untrue—made me laugh. Romano, in Paris for good! Was it any wonder that, at the sound of the pipe, I danced him around the room?
    A week later, Hugh of Lusignan sent his own message to Louis. The lady Blanche, your mother, ought not to rule so great a thing as the realm of France, for it is not meet that a woman do such things. Unlike the first missive, this was no prank: It bore the signatures of Pierre and six other barons. And now they called me “Queen” no longer, but merely “lady.” The rebels had not abandoned their plan to oust me but had merely shifted strategies. Guérin was right: the time had come for action.
    “The only way to counter this ridicule is to present the king as his own man, in spite of his young age,” he said.
    The time to do so was at hand. We were even now planning to tour the castles of the realm, during which many of our subjects would see Louis for the first time. “We shall let Louis lead the tour, to show all the world that he is in command,” I said.
    “Even better, my lady, would be to let him go alone,” Guérin said. “Without his mother, I mean.”
    I hesitated. Send my boy into the hostile world unguarded? Guérin took offense. “Have I earned your mistrust? I protected him well, I thought, on the journey home from Loudun. Do you think I wouldn’t do so now?”
    He had a point. After our victory, Louis had preferred to lead his army directly home to Paris rather than linger in the towns with Romano and me. I had worried then, too, that rebels disappointed with our peace treaty might try to attack Louis—but Guérin had convinced me that my son would be safe. Perhaps I needed to release the strings binding