Before Versailles Read Online Free PDF Page A

long, dark, curling hair that was his brother’s glory, as thick and beautiful as any woman’s at court.
    “Ow!” Philippe yelped, his mocking dance effectively stopped, and those watching laughed louder.
    “You won.”
    “Let go!”
    Louis did as commanded, faced his brother, grabbed his shoulders, kissed each of his cheeks hard, and said, “You won this time,” making the “this time” both a threat and an insinuation.
    Philippe grinned, stepped back to bow, and strutted over to the watching courtiers, all men he and his brother had grown up with, Vardes, Vivonne, Brienne, Guiche, Péguilin, Marsillac, others, the pride of the kingdom, these young men, some princes in their own right or sons of dukes, counts, marquises, the best France had to offer of her ancient nobility, her warrior class who defended her boundaries and then warred among themselves if bored. Like Philippe and Louis, they all wore their hair long, flowing, thick to their shoulders or past it. It was the fashion. They wore lace and voluminous shirts and wide, short breeches that showed off their calves, calves they encased in stockings of colored silk. A man was judged as much by the shape of his legs and the way he danced as by his valor on the battlefield. Philippe had set the style for a higher-heeled shoe, with a crimson heel, and every one of them wore those, stiff bows at the front. Knots of ribbons set off shoulders or garters or hatbands.
    They were peacocks, all of them, their virility on display in a proud show of fashion and bravado. They drank too much wine, were unfaithful whether married or not, gambled as if their pockets had no bottom, and looked for the slightest affront to their pride. They were rowdy, raucous, witty, and dazzling. There wasn’t a woman around, young or old, whose heart didn’t flutter the minute they came into view. There wasn’t a woman around, young or old, who didn’t wish to be noticed by them. And at their center was their gallant and grave young king, only two months into his solitary reign without his adviser, the cardinal—a king who’d asked none of them to join his councils yet; and they were waiting. They’d grown up with war, within and without the kingdom. They’d seen parents, uncles, aunts, without remorse betray the king’s father, then his mother, the queen regent and her chief minister, the cardinal, afterward gracefully bowing to whoever was victorious. Off their leashes, they were as dangerous as wolves, as heedless, as ruthless, as ravenous.
    “Another, your majesty?”
    The dueling master knew his king well enough to know he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had won, and sure enough, Louis nodded his head and pointed to the captain of his household guard. The man, short and homely with frizzy hair that stood out from his head like a halo, leapt down several steep steps—they stood in a palace courtyard famous for broad, even exterior steps that led to another level. The man pulled off the tight bolero jacket he wore and threw it to the ground in a dramatic gesture. He bowed to Louis and took a rapier from the dueling master.
    “On guard.” Louis spoke softly. He was tired, but he knew this man well. An impetuous, impatient duelist who would soon become bored with Louis’s steadiness and make a flamboyant gesture that would give Louis the opening he needed. And he needed only one.
    They were dueling in what was called the fountain courtyard, bordered on three sides by buildings and on the fourth by a large pond. The palace of Fontainebleau had become a favorite royal residence of French kings in the 1500s, in the time of François I, Louis’s ancestor. François had been an avid collector, and so the palace was filled with paintings, sculpture, objets d’art, and books, to which heirs to the throne had made wise and wonderful additions. Various kings and a strong queen or two had built wings and pavilions here and there, even a moat, so that the palace was sprawling and