# Chapter 24: The King at the Grille
Hello everyone, it’s me again! How are you all doing? Today I will continue to walk with you and review Chapter 24 of "Mistress Of The Sun free digital audiobook." This is a chapter of cold stone, warm fire, broken promises, and the terrible price of loving a king. It opens in a convent on Ash Wednesday, and it closes with the drums of a grand tournament already beating in the distance. So take a breath, settle in, and let’s step through the grille together.
The Prioress moves through the convent chambers and along the inner courtyard, already weary before the hour of prime. The morning has been busy: Ash Wednesday rituals, a young woman collapsing in the parlor, and now a man demanding entrance. When she opens the shutter over the grille, she intones the ancient words of adoration. The tall young man in the gray cloak answers with the sacred response, but his spurs catch awkwardly on the cushioned bench, and his hazel eyes are dark with emotion. He is unusually handsome—proud hooked nose, high cheekbones, broad shoulders. Clearly noble. Clearly dangerous. Where has she seen him before?
He tells her he understands she has a young woman in her care. The Prioress explains that the girl fell into a trance, an insensible swoon, and looks more dead than alive. They tried syrup of dry roses, a fine cordial for trembling hearts, but nothing worked. If she does not wake before terce, they will send for the priest. The convent does not allow men entry. Especially not on Ash Wednesday.
Then the stranger says it: “I am the King.”
She almost scoffs. He repeats it with passion. If she does not let him in to see her, he will have this convent destroyed. The Prioress freezes. He is the King. She recognizes him now. Years ago she saw him touch the sick and cure hundreds of the Evil. She crosses herself and bows her head. She warns him that the young woman is insensible, then opens the door and leads him into the visitors’ parlor, still bone-chilling cold despite the crackling fire.
The young woman lies stretched out on the floor. The Prioress and two nuns had considered moving her onto the bench, but decided it was better to make her comfortable where she lay. They removed her wet boots and stockings and wrapped her in fur and woolen comforters. The King falls to his knees. “Louise,” he whispers, touching her hand.
She opens her eyes.
Thank the Lord, she is alive, the Prioress thinks. The girl looks like a wounded angel, curls spread across the wax-greased floor. But she is no angel, the Prioress knows, judging by the King’s treasuring words. Hurriedly, she withdraws behind the grille and chants the rosary to keep out the sounds.
Petite feels relief first, then alarm. Louis is with her—but where is she? What happened? Something happened. She tries to sit up, but she is too weak. Louis tells her not to move. Why is he crying? Then it comes back in dreamlike fragments: their fight, the water. She asks what happened. He says he is not sure. He looks up at the ceiling and takes a shaky breath. She asks if this is a convent. It is a small chamber with a stone crucifix at one end, a fireplace at the other, biblical tapestries on the stone walls, and only one small barred window high up. She closes her eyes against tears. “I tried… I tried…” she stutters, her breathing coming in gasps.
Louis hushes her with tenderness and takes her in his arms. Slowly, very slowly, she returns to the world. They sit huddled by the fire as her socks and boots dry. He tells her he would never strike her, and he is sorry about what he called her. He loves her. Petite looks away, her eyes filling. Whore. She could forgive him—but could she ever forget? She tells him she made a vow to secrecy and had to honor it. To do otherwise would have been a sin.
He answers that there can be no secrets between them. Petite thinks about this. She wishes he were not King. The nuns can be heard singing in choir. He says he is King, and he must know what is going on at Court. It can be no other way. Petite stirs the embers with an iron. She loves Louis with all her heart—but she does not love the King. How can she live with both? She says she loves him. Louis places two small birch logs on the glowing embers, and the paper-thin bark flares and sparks. Then he says sadly that she must choose.
Petite looks into his soft hazel eyes, so full of feeling. She sees traces of his tears, his love—but she sees his resolve as well. He is King. She has to accept that. “I choose you,” she says quietly, holding her palms to the flames for warmth.
Soon Petite’s carriage jolts forward. She leans back against the hard leather seat, still weak, overcome with fatigue. Louis kissed her, promised the Prioress a generous compensation—the price of her silence—ordered a coach to take Petite back to the Palais Royale, and then left, spurring his horse into a full-out gallop, his cape billowing behind him. Petite pulls her cloak closely around her. She has broken her promise and told Louis what she knew. There was no other way. She sees that now. She had been naive. He is the King, after all. The security of the realm rests on his shoulders.
The sun is well up, and the water is congested with boats. The water. What happened? She remembers looking down at the river, longing for relief, for sleep. But then…? All she can recall is lying on the bank in the cold mud, her boots and the hem of her cloak soaked through. She has a faint recollection of a woman singing and a horse’s scream. A chill goes through her. She remembers sitting up, dazed. She remembers looking for hoof marks in the mud—but of course there were hoof marks everywhere. Tears start again. Gone to the river. What does it mean?
Then she recalls: it was said of a man who had used bone magic and lost his senses. Long ago, men who used bone magic went lunatic—“gone to the river,” it was said. But what of girls? What of a girl who had used the magic—a child? Petite lowers the leather covering so she cannot see the water. She closes her eyes, lulled by the rumbling wagon wheels on the cobbles and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. O Mary…
It is drizzling rain by the time Petite’s coach pulls up in front of the Palais Royale. She gathers the hood of her cloak over her head and alights, heading quickly for the stairwell that leads to the servants’ wing. Clorine cries out when Petite pushes open the door. “Thank God,” she exclaims, then bursts into tears. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Mademoiselle,” she says angrily. Petite apologizes and asks where Nicole is. Her trunk is not against the wall. Her pomade jars, ribbons, and pins have been cleared from the little table by the chimney.
“Banished,” Clorine says. “She even took that useless maid with her, thanks be to Mary. But she left you this.” She hands Petite a rolled-up length of rag paper.
The letter is from Nicole. She has been found out. Princess Henriette will not even speak to her—after all she did for her. Nicole thinks that cow Yeyette snitched. She is being banished from Court and locked away in some musty convent for good measure—in the south, she hopes, where at least it will be warm. “You were right—I should have listened.” Then a postscript: keep an eye on their Goddess of Virginity. Dead Antin’s brother has been sniffing at her like a shit-nosed hound. Another postscript: she overheard la Grande Mademoiselle saying that Princess Marguerite has had a baby—or two?—and that her Tuscan husband is a beast. Poor dear.
Petite sits on a stool as Clorine unbuckles her muddy boots. She feels sick with remorse. Clorine asks if she can take Nicole’s bed. Petite says she is going to miss Nicole. Clorine snaps that they have not had a good night’s sleep in months. Then she tells Petite to let her get her into a clean gown. Madame has summoned her.
Henriette sends the servants out of the room as soon as Petite appears. “Well,” she says, lowering herself slowly onto a wide divan. But for her hard, protruding bulge, she is stick thin. “You told the King,” she says accusingly. “The King who just happens to be your lover,” she adds with contempt. “What a surprise.” She has been crying too.
Petite lowers her head. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I had to.”
Now Henriette knows. “My husband must never find out,” she says, her hands over her belly. Petite knows. Pretty Philippe, who would not kill a bird, can be cruel in his jealous contempt for his wife. Henriette says His Majesty has forced her hand. She must give Armand up. Her voice quavers when she speaks her lover’s name. She takes a sharp breath. Mademoiselle de Montalais has been banished, of course.
Petite protests that Nicole is innocent of wrong. Henriette says wearily that none of them are innocent—particularly Nicole, as Petite no doubt knows. The King was none too pleased by her role as matchmaker, and she certainly should never have told Petite. Petite persists: Nicole vowed her to silence. Henriette answers that she vowed Nicole. Nicole is deceptive by nature, given to schemes and intrigue. Time locked away in a convent may even be for the best. In any case, the King has spoken, and there is nothing more to be done.
Petite’s eyes sting with tears. There will be no imploring Louis, no way to protest. She knows the rules, and she has made her choice. Henriette adds sharply, her voice bitter, that in addition to giving up her beloved, she must keep Petite on as her attendant—so that His Majesty can have his secret pleasure. She stands and walks the length of the room, her arms crossed tightly, her hands gripping her sleeves. She turns to face Petite, her eyes red-rimmed, her neck flushed. “I ask you: do you not find that ironic?” With abrupt passion, she sweeps the pomade jars off her toilette table. One shatters, filling the air with the aroma of Hungary water. “I hate this stinking world!”
Petite falls to her knees. “I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I understand your torment.” She shares it. Henriette lightly taps her shoulder. “Rise, Mademoiselle,” the Princess says. Awkwardly, wiping her wet cheeks with her sleeve, Petite gets to her feet. Henriette smiles sadly. “It won’t do, you know, for the King’s paramour to grovel. You’re going to have to be stronger.”
As the leaves of the chestnut trees unfurl, Henriette goes into childbed. Her doctors fear she will die. After two days of pain, she gives birth to a weak baby girl. “Throw her in the river,” the Princess cries out in her rage. Only a girl, after all that. Two weeks later, she is uprised, churched, and ready to entertain. It is May now, after all, the old “Joy Month.” Court festivities continue unabated in spite of duels and infidelities, tragedies and scandal. Nicole disappears without a trace into a convent somewhere in the south. The duelists—including Athénaïs’s intended—disappear into foreign realms. And the Court? The King and his courtiers disappear into the wilds, hunting, hawking, and riding.
The Court returns to Paris in June to find preparations underway for the next grand event. In the quadrangle between the Louvre and the Tuileries, where the bread ovens for the hungry had been not long before, stands are being constructed to hold five thousand spectators. The city is now enlivened: the people have survived a famine and escaped the Plague. The weather has turned fine: crops are growing, and money is flowing once again. Their Spanish queen has birthed a healthy baby boy: the Dauphin is now six months old and thriving. There is cause for celebration.
Heralds are sent out to announce a tournament in honor of the King’s fat son. Foreigners fill the city as news spreads that the King himself will compete. In the evenings, men arrive at the salons complaining of sore muscles and smelling of the stable. Everyone is in a state of excitement, talking of armor and horses, anticipating an old-fashioned carousel with tilting at the ring and chariot races, dancing bears and chattering monkeys. “Just like in days of old,” Henriette says in an effervescent rapture. “Just like in the celebrated days of King Henry II.” She has been studying her French history.
Reader’s Impressions & Star Rating
This chapter feels like a quiet knife turning. The convent scene is haunting—the King on his knees, the Prioress chanting behind the grille, Petite waking into a choice she cannot escape. I loved the emotional honesty between Louis and Petite, even as it wounded me. She chooses him, but the cost is already written on her face and in Henriette’s shattered pomade jars. The mystery of the river and the phrase “gone to the river” adds a dark, almost supernatural chill beneath the courtly drama. And Henriette’s pain is so raw that it makes the glitter of Versailles feel like glass underfoot.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.8 / 5 Stars
Next Chapter Prediction
The stage is set for the grand carousel, and that final mention of King Henry II feels like a warning rather than a celebration. I predict the next chapter will plunge us into the tournament’s spectacle: armor flashing, horses thundering, the King risking his life before a roaring crowd, and Petite watching with her heart in her throat. Henriette will have to smile beside the husband who controls her, while her lost love Armand haunts her thoughts. I also suspect the river mystery is not finished with Petite—something from that lost time may return, perhaps in the form of a memory, a witness, or a dangerous piece of magic. And with Athénaïs’s intended exiled and Nicole gone, new rivalries will begin circling the King like hawks.
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