Hardly a half-hour passed before Claudine entered the King’s bedchamber through the private rear door, ushered there by Bontemps, and approached the King with a quick and silent curtsey. She removed the heavy hooded cape she had worn so that no one would know she was female and draped it over a chair.

Seated at the bed’s edge in only his trousers, Louis pulled his hand away from his forehead. “Your father’s work,” he said, “I’d like you to inspect it.”

Claudine checked the wound and the leaky dressings. She grimaced but did not criticize what her father had done. “It will need to be stitched.”

Louis nodded.

“It will hurt.”

Louis looked across at the portrait of himself and his brother; children, then, not yet knowing their fates. “Good,” he said.

Louise de la Valliere entered the Queen’s outer apartment hesitantly. She curtseyed before Marie-Therese and drew her shawl more closely around her shoulders.

“You received my message,” said the Queen.

“Yes, Majesty. I’ve been praying for your lost child every day.”

“You are kind to say such a thing.”

Louise rubbed her back and winced, her pregnancy making her uncomfortable.

“Be seated,” Marie-Therese said.

Louise lowered her head and sat.

“It is warm,” said the Queen. “Take off your shawl.”

Louise hesitated then handed her shawl to the Queen’s lady.

“My words to you were not kind,” said the Queen. “I said them in a moment clouded by my own failings. I’d like us to be friends. Not because I do not still resent every moment you’ve stolen from my husband and me, but because I sense something in your soul. The fabric is torn.”

The Queen walked around Louise and noticed the savage red marks on her back, the barely healed wounds of selfflagellation.

“My concern is not as such for you, but the innocent life inside you can feel this pain.”

Louise looked over her shoulder at the Queen. “I will join a community of prayer, Majesty, when the time permits.”

“Do you love the King?”

“I love God.”

“That is not an answer.”

“I…also love the King. But the price is too great.”

Marie-Therese came around again to look Louise in the eye. “Your back. What have you done to yourself?”

“Nothing I do will ever be enough. It hurts so much.”

“It’s supposed to,” said the Queen as she looked away.

The door to Masson’s house opened and Claudine entered from the street, the mist of night following her into the warm firelight of the kitchen. Masson glanced up as he stirred a pot that boiled on the stove.

“I’m making potage for supper,” he said. His voice was ragged, suspicious. “Potatoes, carrots, celery. I thought since you are now the man of the house I would take on a more wifely role.”

“Father,” Claudine interrupted as she removed her cape. “Let me do it.”