“Why do kings have mistresses, Uncle Guy?” Simon asked.

“For the honor of France.”

But what Guy was really thinking—though he did not say it to the boy—was that the reign of François I had been the time when his own father and his uncle Robert had both made large fortunes. The king might have spent too much, but the Renard brothers had done very well out of supplying his court.

Whereas Simon’s grandfather had not. Uncle Robert had even offered to bring him into his own business, but Charles had refused. In that glorious age of adventure, he’d managed to lose most of his money.

And to make matters worse, his son Pierre had no interest in getting the money back. He worked just hard enough to get by, and hardly that. He seemed to have no ambition of any kind. He didn’t want any help. He was completely placid. As the years passed, this younger branch of the Renards had been written off by the rest of the family as poor relations. But Pierre didn’t seem to mind. He was always cheerful.

And this situation irked Guy. He couldn’t help it. He was proud of his family’s success. He was ashamed if any of them went down in the world. And so he’d gone on a personal mission to see if he couldn’t do something about it.

“It’s good of you to try,” his father had told him, “but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

“Pierre’s hopeless,” Guy agreed, “but the boy’s a dear little fellow, and he seems quite intelligent.”

Once when he was visiting the family, Guy had casually mentioned the marriage of Cécile Renard to de Cygne. Young Simon had turned to his father in astonishment. “Our family married nobility?” he’d cried.

“Oh, that was just one rich lady, centuries ago,” Pierre told him. “Nothing to do with us.” And afterward he’d taken Guy aside and gently requested: “Don’t put ideas into the boy’s head. We live in quite a different world these days.”

“What are your plans for Simon?” Guy had asked him once.

“One of our friends is a baker, and he’s suggested he might take Simon as an apprentice in a few years. Simon quite likes the idea.”

Guy was careful after that. If he was going to have any hope of doing something for Simon, he knew he had to keep on good terms with the parents. He never let his irritation with Pierre show. But he was constantly on the lookout for ways to engender some spark of ambition and adventure in the boy. If young Simon showed that, then the rest of the family might be prepared to do something for him when he was older.