Sunlight streams through the high windows, illuminating the long aisle of the Notre Dame Cathedral. At the end waits Father Geoffrey of Beaulieu, his round face pink and sweating, his hand moist as he kisses Marguerite’s ring. “The king speaks of you with the utmost love,” she says, even as she wonders which of her secrets Louis has confided in the private recesses of the confessional. “If you love King Louis, too, then you must help him.” The Father smiles, but his gaze seems out of focus, as though a competing voice clamored for his attention. She opens her purse and pours silver into his hands. “I’d like to make an offering to my name-saint, Marguerite.” The patron saint of pregnancy. “Will you help me, Father?” The clouds clear from his eyes. He looks at the coins, licks his lips. “You say the king is having difficulties? He has not spoken of it. Come, my lady. Sit in my inner sanctum and tell me how I can help.” What she asks for, sipping fine Languedoc wine with the Father amid red-curtained walls hung with gilded crosses, is not much.
