“Ah! I seek conversation! When you’ve killed as many Spaniards as I have, it’s hard to talk about the weather.” Philippe looked at Marie-Therese. “No offense. Some of them were very nice.”

The carriage continued as Philippe rambled on with disjointed stories of soldiers, army food, his horse, and the smell of victory as Louis stared at him silently. But then the carriage shuddered, slowed, and stopped.

“What is this, now?” asked Philippe.

“Rains, perhaps,” said Louis. “The storm took out parts of the road near Chaville.”

Then there were angry shouts outside. Philippe’s drunken expression changed immediately, as if snatched back to soberness by the voices. He pushed the door open. “Stay here!”

A smaller coach had been knocked over and the coachman and two outriders lay face down beside it, dead, their flesh torn apart by musket fire. The body of a fourth man was sprawled in the mud, apart from the others, a large thug with a black, bloodied cloth around his neck. One of his eyes was gone and his leg was badly shredded.

Louis climbed from his coach and Rohan dismounted his horse. They joined Fabien and Philippe beside the bodies.

“It was a shipment from Paris, Sire,” Fabien said. “Stripped of its valuables.”

Louis noticed Fabien staring at the one-eyed thug. “Do you know these men?”

“No, Sire, it pains me to say.”

Philippe bent over the thug to have a closer look. “This one’s alive! There is breath in him still!”

“Deliver him to a doctor!” ordered Fabien. “If he speaks again, it will be to me.”

As the thug was hoisted onto a horse, Fabien turned to the King. “My congratulations.”

“For what?”

“The treaty. Our war is ended.”

Louis surveyed the massacre on the road. “Has it?”

Jacques and Benoit sat upon the scaffolding beside the palace, breaking with a meal, gazing out at the gardens and the intricate and endless patterns created by trees, hedges, pools, and statues.

“If I were King we would not have gone to war,” said Benoit. “We would have stayed here because it is so beautiful. Because it is becoming something even more beautiful.”

Jacques scowled. “And it would have remained so for a week at least. Until the Spanish or Dutch or English ran over us roughshod.”

“Every man needs to build something in his life, whether it abides or not.”

“We’re all dust, Benoit. Nothing last forever.”

“This will. I know it.”

The Montespan hummed as she gazed in her mirror, adding ribbons and feathers to her hair. She would be perfect when the King arrived back at the palace. He would not be able to look away; he would see and want her.

A snide voice spoke from the doorway. “So beautiful and pure.”

The Montespan turned to face Chevalier. “Are you in the habit of loitering around ladies’ dressing rooms?”

“Every chance I get. I live for it.”

The Montespan crossed her arms. “Is that so?”