On the same day they beheaded her, he proposed to me. As they were dismantling the scaffold and wiping her blood off the henchman’s blade, I was trying on my wedding dress. It did not bother me, though the court whispered behind their hands, though they stared at me unabashedly. I knew what they must have been thinking – they must have thought I was an opportunist, more manipulative than even she had been. Well, she was dead now and I was still here, living.

Far be it from me to gloat outwardly, though, as his former wife would have done. Instead I sat in my room praying at my prieu-dieu. When he entered the room, the other girls left, not bothering to stifle their giggles. I am eager to begin my work as queen and tighten the reins on what has become a too lax court.

They are holding bets to see how long it will take for him to tire of me. But I know this will not happen. I shall do what the other queens failed to do – I shall give him a son. The king and the crown will both be mine, till death do us part.