“Allow me.”

Zephyrin stood back a little and watched as Countess Valmont ever so delicately scritched on the white door with an exquisitely manicured fingernail, the sound practically inaudible but immediately acknowledged by the trained ear of a lackey stationed on its opposite side. The door opened, and he and the countess were ushered by a valet into the queen’s bedchambers.

The room in which my mother the Empress gave birth to me, Zephyrin scarcely had time to think, before a peal of feminine laughter dismissed all historical—or was it future?—considerations from his mind.

“Faramond, you are an incorrigible fibber!”

“Upon my solemn honor, Madame, your humble servant has uttered nothing but the unvarnished truth.”

Entering the room, Zephyrin’s gaze was immediately drawn to the woman seated on a low, velvet cushioned stool, over whom hovered a clean-shaven, ruffle-collared and frilly-cuffed man in his mid-twenties, ascertaining her voluminous hair as a general might a battlefield, making deft snips here and there with a pair of scissors. Already imprisoned in a court dress of prodigious dimensions, its green and pink silken folds inlaid with impossibly intricate gold and silver embroidery, the queen’s girlish merriment was in sharp yet not displeasing contrast with the magnificence of her attire.

Carelessly strumming the unicornhair strings of a willow-wood harp as she replied alternately to one of her ladies-in-waiting, or to her voluble hairdresser, her eye flashed with joyful recognition as she caught sight of Zephyrin, favoring him with an open, radiant smile that would have made the happiness of many an ambitious courtier or colonel, before returning her attention to her lively colloquy with her hairdresser and ladies-in-waiting.

“Madame, it is highly likely that Faramond is exercising his creativity more than his memory,” suddenly interposed a noblewoman older than the other three flanking the queen, her face visibly unamused. Thin-featured and sunken-eyed, she seemed a living reproach to the queen’s vitality and vivaciousness. “He is from Arrace, is he not? And so you must expect some exaggeration, if not outright fabrication.”

While the hairdresser maintained a dignified silence, the queen laughingly replied, “That may be so, but his anecdotes are so very droll! Faramond, give free rein to memory or fancy, I care not!”

“If Madame wishes it… have I recounted to Madame the mishap involving a certain lord of this court and his lack of powder, and the baker who became a wig-maker?”

“I can affirm for a fact that you have not, Faramond, for I would certainly remember such a curious preamble! Who is the lord to whom you refer?”

“My apologies, but I believe the gentleman in question would prefer to remain anonymous… may I propose that we dub him, “Lord X”?

“Very well, we shall please ourselves to withhold the gentleman’s name, for I have a pleasant presentiment that your tale is injurious to his dignity. Tell me, what is the fate that befell our poor Lord X?” said the queen animatedly, while Countess Valmont discreetly approached closer, with Zephyrin following in her train.

“Madame will remember that not less than a fortnight past, she organized a grand ball for the pleasure of her subjects…”

“My! It is a pleasure to know that it succeeded in making an impression, despite the meager means at my disposal. To think, a mere 400,000 crowns for a court ball!…”

“Be that as it may, Lord X was much touched by Her Majesty’s generosity, and resolved to do justice to the latest fashions—but, herein lies the rub…”

“Lord X found his funds unequal to his desires?”

“No, his attire presented no impediment to his presence… rather, the problem lay with his wig, or lack thereof. As fate would have it, the very evening prior his maid discovered that his faithful head-covering was, to her great horror, lice-ridden. She threw it out—it, and all his spares, to which the infestation had spread.”

“Good gracious!”

“What was our Lord X to do? Attend the ball, without a wig? Perish the thought! Yet it was not too late, reasoned he; there was still time! Thus he ran from perruquier to perruquier, certain of finding one that would have something to fit his needs. Though all the major shops he tried were already closed for the eve, he still had hope; surely one princely proprietor would oblige him with a spare wig or two!”

“However…”

“… it was Sunday, and wig-makers are—difficult to believe though it may be—a class of men who harbor unsuspected wells of piety in their bosoms. To a man, they had all closed their shops. Your own faithful Faramond, who would have gladly succored the hapless lord…”

“… was receiving the plaudits of the court for the latest miracle he had erected upon my head,” said the queen knowingly.

The hairdresser inclined his head profoundly, while a lady tittered. Proceeding as if he hadn’t heard this interruption, Faramond continued, “Being a rather enterprising sort, Lord X betook himself to finding a solution. It was not long before one presented itself, and Lord X seized upon the expedient to his—I blush to admit it—criminal designs. There is no use mincing words: the gentleman bent over, picked up a brick, scrutinized it, handled it, then sent it clean through a blameless baker’s place of work.”

Gasps were emitted by most of the ladies present; the older, elegant lady’s frown deepened; the queen’s delight seemed almost complete. “To think, a man of my court capable of so bold an action! Why, I should have thought most of them too thin-wristed to even lift a brick, never mind successfully break glass with it.”

“Madame’s words cut deeply, yet not unjustly. At any rate, our good Lord X cannot be accused of pusillanimity. Having secured entrance to the bakery, he was not long in providing a sequel to his first feat—once inside, he indifferently ripped upon a bag of flour and then—with the resolution of a man driven by necessity to transgress the hallowed boundaries of the law—plunged his head into its contents.”

“Really now! Is this drivel fit for a queen’s ears—” broke in the elderly lady in a tone of personally affronted dignity, only to subside with great reluctance as a laughing Queen Adelaide-Estelle lifted a hand and motioned for her hairdresser to conclude his recital.

“Lest I be falsely thought to elevate vice over virtue, I will leave out the second half of the tale, wherein our resourceful gentleman is surprised by the outraged baker, flees, and is pursued by grim, duty-bound guardsmen straight to the palace gates. Thus we arrive at a happy ending for all: with the nameless gentleman universally complimented on the unequaled whiteness of his wig, the glazier given gainful employment, and the guardsmen made to feel useful for a wholesome hour.”

“You have conspicuously left out the baker-cum-perruquier!” exclaimed one lady, sending the queen into another fit of giggles. Daubing at the corners of her tears with a handkerchief, she beckoned at last for Countess Valmont and Zephyrin to approach. Zephyrin waited for the countess to complete her curtsy, then performed a deep bow in turn, seeing as he raised his eyes that the queen’s were still twinkling under her finely arched brows. She regarded him fully, with a kind of fond appreciation, as if he were a painting she enjoyed contemplating and whose brushstrokes she wished to commit to memory.

Just as Zephyrin was growing uncomfortable under her scrutiny and wondering whether he ought to break silence, the queen addressed him in a light, almost playful tone, but one which did not entirely conceal a note of intrigue. “Dear child, I have been pondering your words from yestereve. I must say, though my Superintendent has deemed my hairdresser guilty of several untruths, I find myself much more inclined to doubt your tale!”

Zephyrin’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. He felt rather than saw Countess Valmont stiffen beside him.

The queen’s brows drew together apologetically as she observed Zephyrin’s consternation. Preempting his stammered response, she continued penetratingly, “I am convinced that you have spoken no lie. that is what I perceive when I look at you. Truth.” Her tone grew softer, almost intimate. “However… what I want, Zephyrin, is for you to help me understand. Are you quite certain that your parents can lay no claim no Elysian ancestry?”