The Spaniards were seated at a table by the hearth, dominating the room with their mustachioed handsomeness and aggressive good cheer.

Nicolas was dressed exquisitely tonight, with his usual air of effortlessness, in a silk doublet the color of blackberries and dotted with freshwater pearls, snug as a fruitskin against his tiny torso, and a ruff so crisply starched and diaphanous it looked to have been spun from sugar.

Mari's original plan to have the Queen play coy with the King was, she now realized, woefully inadequate—a milkmaid's game, played against actual military commanders.

The Queen wore a resplendent dress, with a skirt wide enough to hide two dwarfs comfortably, and a hatched bodice that looked like a gold-dipped waffle.