The empress of ice cream

Louise

There is no let-up. On the contrary, they snap at my heels from every side. Arlington, Louis, Louvois . . . Even my ladies-inwaiting have been bribed to whisper in my ear as they brush my hair or hang by the windows of my apartments, hoping for a glimpse of him. How ha.niisome he is, how lucky you ure, I remember my first time, it is u pleasure to lie with one like him . . .

Colbert attends me every afternoon. Today, though, he has something delicate to tell me. He waits until we are alone.

‘His Majesty did me the honour of attending a small supper at my residence yesterday,’ he murmurs.

‘I trust the evening was an enjoyable one?’

‘Indeed.’ Colbert seems unsure how to continue. ‘King Charles became increasingly relaxed.’

‘Relaxed?’

‘That is to say, he unburdened himself’

‘He talked about me?’

‘Not directly. That is to say, there was a young servant girl who served us at dinner. From Gascony. Perhaps you have seen her? A pretty little thing.’

I assure him that I have not given any especial notice to the ambassador’s serving girls.

‘His Majesty certainly noticed her. Indeed, he felt so . . . comfortable in my company, that towards the end of the evening he asked if this girl could join us.’

I raise my eyebrows.

‘His Majesty did me the honour of showing me that he trusted me to the utmost'

‘I see.’

‘What followed . . . There was a most unfettered debauch,’ he says faintly. Um debnuche trh libre.

Indeed I do see, a little. The words of his masked ex-mistress echo in my ear. A libertine, like the rest.

‘I eagerly look forward to the day when His Majesty’s ardour might be tempered by your influence. I feel sure that you will be a force for morality in all this darkness.’ He continues hesitantly, ‘The thing is, we seem to have reached something of an impasse.’

‘Oh.> In what way?’

‘His Majesty appears to have realised that you are not the only one with bargaining counters at your disposal.’

‘He wishes to bar^ninr

‘In a manner of speaking. That is, before he left my residence, he made his position clear.’

‘Yes? What does he intend to offer me, that he believes is more valuable to me than my honour?’

Colbert looks positively uncomfortable now. ‘It is not to you he makes the offer, mademoiselle. It is to our king - to His Most Christian Majesty. Charles has asked me to make it absolutely clear to Versailles that, while there is no mistress, there is no alliance. And vice versa. He is making a quite straightforward proposal. When you are amenable to his entreaties, then he will listen on the subject of the Dutch war. But until then, nothing.’

Carlo

To a pint of blackcurrants, add four sprigs -of mint, chopped, a cup of sugar, and the white of two eggs. This ice, a little sour, is in my opinion even better than the fruit from which it is made.

The Book of Ices

She would not do it.

She would not be blackmailed into his bed, she said, any more than she would be bribed into it.

Arlington said, Tt is entirely her own fault. She has enframed him beyond what any man could bear.’

‘A woman has a right not to be coerced.’

‘Why?’ Arlington demanded. ‘If a girl cannot choose her own husband, why should she have the right to choose whom she is bedded to?’

I was given a letter to take to her.

‘Her last chance,’ Colbert told me. ‘Even now it fttay be too late.’

I looked at the linen envelope in which the letter was wrapped. The seal bore the insignia of a sun, surrounded by molten rays the personal arms of the Sun King himself, Louis XIV.

She read it ashen-faced.

‘What does it say?’

Silently she handed it to me. After the usual courtesies, the matter was short and to the point. Louis’s anger was evident even in the few lines that were written there.

We now consider that there is no more you can do. It is time for you to return to France. You leave next week, from Dover.

‘They will send someone else in my place,’ she said heavily. ‘Someone more amenable. And me to a nunnery, or worse.’

‘At least you will be free of all this.’

She shook her head. ‘I have failed. My promise to Madame the Great Affak - all of it. I have failed. I will never be free of that.’

She looked so despondent, sitting there, that I longed to take her in my arms. But I did not.

‘It’s over.’ She looked around - at her sumptuous apartment, at the king’s gifts: the clocks, the books, the paintings and tapestries and furnishings and the gorgeous marquetry. ‘Over before it has really even begun.’

And I heard myself saying the words I thought I would never say.

‘Perhaps you should yield to the king.’

‘Your virtue does not consist of your virginity,’ I said gently. ‘No woman’s does. It lies in your character, your disposition, who you are and what you believe. But this is the choice you have to make: which is more important to you, your maidenhead or your promise to Madame .!*’

‘You don’t understand. My family - we earned our titles on the battlefield, serving kings. Honour is what makes us different from other men. However poor we are, we have that.’

‘You can be a king’s mistress, and still have honour.’

‘I will have surrendered—’

‘No!’ I said. ‘You will have won. Don’t you see? Once you are his mistress you will have power - such power! - not just over Charles, but over Louis too. Once you are Charles’s mistress, Louis will never again be able to order you back to France. You will be able to do what you set out to do. And what you have lost - what you have discarded - does it really matter, compared with that?’

Her shoulders lifted as she took a breath, and in that moment

•• /

I saw that she would do it. And I saw, too, that I was the only person who could have spoken to her like this; because no one else knew her, or loved her, well enough to consider her own happiness in all these intrigues.

She was a woman to whom love was of secondary importance. I did not love her any less because of it, but it helped, a little, to know that it was not out of desire for him she would do this, but for an aim - a patriotic endeavour - to which she had committed herself long ago.

We talked for a long time - arguing it back and fortli, weighing up the pros and cons. It was, we both knew, an irrevocable step.

‘If I do it,’ she said, ‘you should know that I will do it to the utmost. I will not be his mistress in some hole-in-the-corner, furtive manner. It must be acknowledged, open, in the French way, so that all are aware of my position. I will make him depend on me for every judgement and decision he must make. I will be nothing less than a queen, even if I do not have that title.’

‘I know it.’

For a long moment neither of us spoke. Then she said in a different voice, ‘How would I make them aware that I have changed my mind?’ and I knew the decision was taken.

‘Speak to Arlington,’ I said. ‘Let him be the go-between. He will be only too eager to take the credit for this.’ 1

At the Red Lion I found Hannah making pies.

‘When you are done,’ I said hoarsely.

She took in my meaning with a glance at my face. ‘I have to get these in the oven.’ She indicated the trays of pies.

‘Well, do not spoil them on my account. I will be upstairs.’

When she came to my room she was still wearing her apron.

Always it was the same: her on her knees across the bed; my hips working; my groan of release. Not a word from her. The chink of coins - I checked: she never took too little, or too much.

The only difference this time was a faint smell of pies, and a

little puff of flour in her hair, like a streak of grey, where she had patted it absent-mindedly as she cooked.

I found myself staring down at it as we rutted. I was thinking of a couple long-married, a couple who did this act out of companionship, or dove, instead of pain. Presumably there must be some such in the world.