“Our spies report there is a price on your head,” said Louis. “The Spanish have engaged mercenaries to seek you out of the field. They wish to make an example of you, to use you against me. I will not countenance the risk. You are to come with me.”

“Without me beside them, those men may die.”

“This will be the last battle. I will not have it be your last act.”

“On the field there are no Kings. No nobles or peasants. Every man is equal. Fighting to survive the day. Tomorrow, on that field, I will have more in common with my enemy than with my own brother.” He spun toward the tent’s door. “Henriette! Where is my wife?”

“I envy your brotherhood,” said Louis. “For me there is only solitude, the likes of which you have never known.”

“Tomorrow,” said Philippe, “I will be with my brothers.”

“They mean to seek you out and kill you,” said Louis.

Philippe stepped out of the tent, finding the King’s entourage standing nearby. He walked to Henriette, snatched the feather from her hat, and tucked it into his jacket like a jaunty flag. “Then I had better wear something bright or they will not know who I am.” Then he pulled Henriette to himself and kissed her with the raw and angry passion of a man at war. A man ready to conquer.

And the following morning, in the light of early dawn, two thousand French troops marched out across a field toward the enemy. Cannon and musket fire boomed around them, but forward they marched. Some were struck, screamed, and died. But the others marched forward, unfazed, determined.

In the midst of them, leading them, with them, rode Philippe upon his horse, with Rohan riding close beside him. Philippe sat tall, possessed with bloodthirsty fury, and a sense of brilliant, terrifying destiny. He checked his face in the mirror from his pocket, lifted his face to Heaven, then drew his sword, spurred his horse, and charged down the hill into the mist.

5 Early 1668

5

EARLY 1668

“Noble steed, quiet now.” Philippe sat cross-legged on a hillside, deep in a tangle of charred weeds, surrounded by dead enemy soldiers, holding his horse’s head in his lap. The animal lay trembling with a mortal wound to his chest. He snorted and strained, his eyes flashing white, each movement causing the wound to bleed all the more. After many long minutes the struggling eased, slowed, as the horse seemed to accept what was to come. The gray muzzle twitched. The great eyes dimmed. His sides bellowed one last time, and his breath was warm on Philippe’s arm.

“Be at peace,” said Philippe. “Well done.”

A broken carriage lay on a tree-shadowed stretch of the road to Versailles, downed like a horse in battle. The coachman and two police outriders stood trembling with their muskets drawn, facing three masked men whose weapons were also drawn.