The empress of ice cream

Louise

‘They’re here,’ Anne says, looking down from her position at the window. I go to her side.

The procession coming towards us down the Stone Gallery makes a strange sight. The queen is unmistakeable - a tiny woman, she is nevertheless dressed in a fine Spanish gown, her bearing upright as only a princess’s could be. Her ladies-inwaiting, though, are another matter. They wear strange, tall hats like nuns, and their skirts are sewn with hooped farthingales that make them sway from side to side as they walk.

‘Lord help us,’ Lady Arlington says behind me. ‘She’s brought the whole Portuguese fleet. I can’t wait to see the looks on their swarthy faces when they realise they’ve been usurped.’

I can believe the queen is dying. She looks even more frail than Madame did in the months before her collapse, the streaks of grey in her hair suggesting that she has been suffering like this for years.

Lady Arlington’s curtsey is so perfunctory she might simply be ducking something thrown at her head.

‘Your Highness, may I present Louise de Keroualle. I believe at one point she was going to be a lady of your bedchamber,’ she drawls, with just a little emphasis on ‘your’. ‘Although the king has now been pleased to find another place for her at court.’

If the queen notices the insinuation, she does not show it. ‘The king is most considerate,’ she says to me. ‘I remember how kind he was when I first came to this country. If there is anything I want, I only have to ask him.’ She may sound weak, but the meaning is clear. Do not attempt to humiliate me, or I will have you removed.

There is an awkward silence. Fortunately, the ices arrive. ‘This

is the latest fashion in France, Your Flighness,’ I say as Lucy arranges them on a side table. ‘It means one does not have to interrupt one’s card playing. One simply eats the ices at the table, and carries on refreshed.’

She beams. -^That sounds very pleasant.’

The game itself presents a different problem. I know how to play her favourite game, basset - it is also popular in France - but I have no money with which to gamble.

‘I’ll lend you some,’ Lady Arlington says under her breath. ‘After all, you should soon have more than enough.’ In a louder voice she says, ‘Shall I shuffle. Your Highness? The queens are all together.’

There is little skill in basset; it is simply a game of nerve and luck. A winning card pays out whatever has been staked on it. But if, instead of taking the winnings, you leave your card on the table and it wins again, your winnings are seven times the stake; the time after that, fifteen, then thirty. It is possible to win a fortune, but the odds against doing so become increasingly slim. Within a quarter of an hour I have lost fifty guineas, most of it to Lady Arlington.

‘I’ll lend you some more,’ she says immediately.

‘No, thank you - I will sit out for a while, and watch.’

I see how Lady Arlington, having relinquished the bank, becomes flushed with excitement when she makes k quinze^ the fifteen-fold payout, only to lose it all on the next turn of the card. That tells me something about her, I think: not only a gambler, but a reckless one.

‘You do not play?’ a voice murmurs behind me.

I turn. The king has entered, unnoticed and without ceremony. The others start to get to their feet, but he cuts short the formalities with a wave of his hand. ‘Please, do not let me interrupt your game. I shall sit over here, and speak to Mademoiselle de Keroualle.’

The queen darts her husband an anxious look before returning obediently to her cards.

I8I

‘Tell me, why do you sit this out?’ he asks quietly. ‘I can’t flatter myself that it was on the off-chance I might come by.’

‘I do not care greatly for games of risk.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘The plans my sister hatched were bold enough.’

‘I meant, risk for its own sake. In diplomacy, surely, one tries to make the gamble as small as possible. In basset it becomes the whole point of the game.’

He nods. ‘I myself prefer poque. It requires a certain talent for bluffing.’

‘In France poqm is known as the cheating game,’ I say, a little mischievously.

‘I flatter myself I have a certain talent in that direction also,’ he says, the ghost of a smile appearing deep in his eyes.

‘Sir, you keep Miss de Keroualle from the table,’ Lady Arlington calls. ‘And she needs to play, if she is to recoup her losses.’

He looks at me interrogatively. ‘I think she means to get me away from you,’ I explain under my breath. ‘She has some idea that the more you are held back, the more eagerly you will pursue my friendship.’

‘Then you had better go to her,’ he murmurs. ‘But while they are playing basset, we shall be playing poque .i

As I go to the table he follows. ‘How much does^she owe. Lady Arlington?’

‘Fifty guineas, sir.’

‘There is a hundred.’ Charles tosses a pouch onto the baize. ‘And if she accrues any other debts, I hope I am good for them.’

Lady Arlington’s eyes almost reach the top of her head.

‘Madam, I bid you good night,’ Charles says, bowing to the queen. ‘And you. Lady Arlington. Mademoiselle.’ He bows to me last of all, as protocol demands, but it is on me that his eyes remain, a glance of complicity travelling between the two of us.