by SJ Parris
I was spared any further scrutiny by another commotion at the back of the hall, heralding the breathless and apologetic arrival of King Henri himself, dressed this time in more manly attire of doublet and breeches, though of a startling violet satin with legs and arms puffed. His doublet hung open to show his unlaced shirt and his cheeks were flushed, traces of white lead paint still visible in the creases of his ears and chin. He wore a purple feathered mask pushed up on to his forehead. Flinging himself into the central throne, he stretched out his long legs and leaned across to mutter to his mother, who responded with a sour look as the assembled courtiers swept off their hats and bowed to their sovereign. Henri waved a hand as if such affectation were unnecessary and pulled his mask down over his face. I was greatly relieved by his arrival, not just because he was clearly very much alive, but because I appeared to have been forgotten in the excitement.
I scanned the audience on both sides; most of the guests were busy in conversation, animated by drink and anticipation. There were enough cloaks and voluminous costumes among them to make it easy to hide a weapon, I thought; I had concealed one myself under my doublet. But it was too late to do anything now; the musicians struck up a new tune and servants hastily snuffed some of the candles at our end of the hall, so that all the light was concentrated on the stage where the masque was about to begin.
An expectant hush fell over the room. Eight young women, bare-legged, their skin gleaming with oil, in short costumes of animal skin and wearing masks intended to represent wolves and lions, danced on to the stage and proceeded to circle one another in formation, hands clawing the air to indicate ferocity. The audience emitted a low, male murmur of appreciation. The wild animals were followed by eight more girls, this time dressed as nymphs, their hair loose and woven with garlands of leaves, their gowns made of some clinging, diaphanous fabric that emphasised the curves of their thighs and breasts, so thin that the outlines of their nipples, stiff with cold, were clearly visible. The nymphs undulated down the length of the hall in the space between the two stands, towards the royal platform, weaving in and out of one another in movements carefully choreographed to give the seated spectators an uncompromising view of their bodies, before and behind. With more suggestive gyrations, the nymphs skipped prettily back towards the stage, where the lions and wolves affected to attack them, pawing unconvincingly at their clothing in a manner that clearly delighted the onlookers, to judge by the whistles and stamping that greeted this performance. Then the music shifted tempo to become slow and menacing; the nymphs stopped their frolicking and fell back into two lines, heads bowed; a breathless silence descended on the crowd, and Circe appeared.
THIRTEEN
Her appearance was met with a collective intake of breath from the audience. She entered perched on the shoulders of two Herculean young men, both dressed in animal skins and wearing lion masks. Each of them held her around the upper thigh, their steps perfectly matched to the music, which had darkened and slowed suggestively. She wore a serpentine eye mask of green, shimmering fabric and a gold circlet in the shape of a snake around her brow. Thick, dark hair was coiled and pinned up on her head, loose tendrils falling across her bare shoulders, but this was not her most arresting feature. She was dressed in a gown that made the nymphs look nun-like by comparison, of gauzy blue cloth fixed over one shoulder with a gold brooch, and so entirely transparent as to leave her as good as naked.
I was relieved to see that it was not Gabrielle in the part of the enchantress, though I did not recognise the girl. She was a voluptuous young woman, strong and full-figured: her breasts taut, with large dark nipples grazing the fabric, her thighs firm and rounded. She sat with her legs primly crossed at the knee, a position that made her balance precarious but served teasingly to hide her mound of Venus from sight. She held both arms aloft, a gesture which lifted and emphasised the shape of her breasts; in one hand she clasped a goblet, in the other a golden staff. Her mouth was full and wet, the tip of her tongue poking pinkly between her lips in concentration as her sturdy lions set her carefully down before the curtseying nymphs. Despite myself, I felt the reflex stirrings of desire and recalled Balthasar’s crude boast that I would spend myself in my breeches at the sight. As Circe passed her cup and staff to two of the nymphs and proceeded to gyrate languidly, in a style that involved drawing maximum attention to her attributes, a quick glance around the room at the slack jaws and lust-clouded eyes of the male spectators told me every man present – even the elderly and infirm, I guessed – was feeling the old heat in the blood and surreptitiously adjusting a cockstand.
Despite the distracting pressure in my breeches, I grew alert as she progressed down the hall towards the royal dais. On her high-backed chair Catherine sat upright, following the performance with an expression of grim approval, but it was Henri who caught my attention. He was leaning forward in his seat, hands gripping the carved armrests so that his knuckles turned white, his face rapt. Even with his half-mask, I could see there was something unusual in his expression, beyond lust or mere appreciation for beauty. Was it apprehension? Fear, even?
With that thought, my eyes flicked back to Circe. She was level with me now and facing the royal platform, dancing solely for the King, like Salome, while her nymphs cavorted in symmetry behind her. Her cheeks were flushed from her exertions, her lips parted, but there was a strange intensity in her look as she fixed her eyes on Henri, as if she were aware of no one else, or else trying to communicate wordlessly with him; her face seemed illuminated, feverish almost, with an expression of urgency or compulsion. It looked for all the world as if she truly had the King under some enchantment.
Watching them, I felt as if another significant shard of the mirror was within my grasp. When I had told Henri that Circe meant him harm, had he assumed I was talking about this woman? He had declared it to be impossible, but the way he was sitting now, every sinew taut as a bowstring, suggested he had taken the warning to heart; more than once I noticed his eyes dart sideways to the armed guards by the dais. I wondered if she could be the recent mistress he had mentioned. I found that I too was braced for any sudden movement on her part, though I was fairly certain she was not concealing a weapon anywhere in that dress. Across the hall I noticed the man in the Greek mask and the tricorn hat had advanced a few paces, so that he now stood between the front left corner of the royal platform and the edge of the tiered benches. He kept his cloak wrapped tight around himself, his arms hidden from view. As far as I could tell, his gaze was fixed on the King. Bodyguard or potential assassin? My fingers flexed; he and I were equidistant from the royal dais. If he were to dart forward, I would have to match him for speed and precision if I were to have any hope of stopping him, and if he were concealing a pistol I would surely die.
But then the music changed tempo again – lighter this time, less sinister – the spell was broken and Circe pirouetted once, gave Henri a last piercing glance and danced her way back to the girls dressed as animals on the stage, her magnificent hips swaying in mesmeric rhythm as she passed, to further lascivious cheers from the audience.
The rest of the masque unfolded as a confused patchwork of stories, in which more women scantily dressed as Greek warriors fell under Circe’s bewitchment and were turned to swine, then rescued by the cunning of a tall, slender girl in the guise of Odysseus, who was in turn seduced by the sorceress in an erotically charged ballet between the two women, requiring intercession to Heaven by the Four Cardinal Virtues. The highlight was the arrival of a giant painted wooden eagle descending from the gallery via an impressive system of ropes and pulleys, with a girl dressed as the god Jupiter balanced precariously astride it, to a swelling choral accompaniment. Jupiter took the serpent-crown from Circe and, with a great show of solemnity, strode the length of the hall to kneel and present it to the King, who accepted it with a suitably grave expression and held it aloft to cries of ‘Vive le roi!’ from the dancers, quickly echoed by the audience in the stands. The whole was an absurd, overb
lown piece of flattery and self-mythologising by the Valois, but as a spectacle it was undeniably arresting; there must have been at least thirty young women on stage in varying states of undress, and a good deal of that Gondi money was evident in the construction of the eagle. I had been so intent on watching the man in the Greek mask that it had taken me some moments to recognise the young woman playing Odysseus, costumed in a short tunic with her long legs bare and her hair pinned up under a battle helmet. With the recognition came a small jolt of anxiety: Gabrielle de la Tour, the only one of Catherine’s women to have defeated my resolve when I was last in Paris.
Every man at the French court knew the stories of the Flying Squadron and their purpose, and yet it never ceased to amaze me how foolishly they – we – fell for their wiles, each of us wilfully deceiving himself that in his case it was different, that the girl’s desire must be genuine. Henri was right: his mother knew exactly how to exploit the weaknesses of men. She selected and cultivated an entourage of the most beautiful and accomplished daughters of noble families, to be in name her attendants, and in practice her spies. She made it her business to know the particular tastes and predilections of every man she considered worth monitoring, and without compunction would direct the girl most suited to his fancy to seduce him, win his affection and, in return for her liberal favours, draw from him his deepest secrets, particularly those concerning his political and religious loyalties. Catherine’s detractors put about that she trained up her girls in the debauchery of Florentine harlots, the better to win confidences from their enthralled targets; it was also said that she had her magician Ruggieri prepare spells and philtres that would ensnare a man’s wits and rob him of discretion and wisdom. I did not think I had been bewitched, though the night I spent with Gabrielle had revealed innovations I had not previously encountered in my dealings with women, so perhaps there was truth in the former accusation. Whatever her methods, it was certain that the Flying Squadron had proved itself a highly effective operation: some years ago, when Henri’s brother Charles was on the throne, Catherine had intercepted a coup against him because one of the conspirators had unwisely murmured his plans in his beloved’s ear in a moment of post-coital intimacy that had cost the pretender and his comrades their heads.
I watched Gabrielle now, as the women removed their masks and curtseyed prettily to rousing cheers and stamping feet, smiling to the spectators on either side. She had set her sights on me at the time when Ruggieri was trying to turn Catherine against me; Gabrielle had not been the first of Catherine’s women to approach me, so that when she did I was in no doubt as to her intentions. She, for her part, knew this perfectly well, but that had become part of the game and we had derived a good-humoured amusement from seeing how long I could maintain my resistance as she was obliged to become ever more creative in her efforts to lure me to her bed.
To look at her now, tall and lithe in her boyish tunic, you would not guess that she had been bustled away from court to deliver an inconvenient child – an occupational hazard for the women of the Flying Squadron, but not one that need impede their position at court if their skills were valued. At the thought, that same falling sensation came over me, as if I had missed my footing on a stair. But there was no point in dwelling on that – I told myself, sternly – until I could ask her exactly when her child had been born.
The cheering continued long after the girls had left the stage. I realised I had been distracted by the appearance of Gabrielle for so long that I had taken my eye off the man in the Greek mask; now I saw that he had disappeared, and I felt an unpleasant prickling in my palms at the thought that he was no longer in sight.
The King stood, followed by his wife and mother; at this cue the assembled guests also rose to their feet and bowed, while Henri formally thanked them for their presence and invited them to join him for the fireworks in the gardens. Attendants dashed forward holding out heavy fur-lined cloaks and hats for the royal party; the armed men by the dais moved in formation around them as they stepped down and processed the length of the hall to the door leading to the terrace. In the swarm of people that followed them I lost sight of the King, and could only pull my cloak tight around me and allow myself to be carried along in the crowd.
* * *
It might be regarded as folly to stage a firework display outside at the beginning of December, but Catherine was not deterred by such considerations; braziers had been lit the length of the terrace to give a faint semblance of warmth to the spectators, and the sky was still startlingly clear, the stones glittering with frost. Her guests wrapped themselves tight in furs, huddling together, though I noticed a few were already taking the opportunity to slip away in pairs from the crowd and melt into the deep shadows on the far side of the lawns, where winding paths led into arbours, copses and carefully cultivated wildernesses. Servants passed among the masked figures with pitchers of hot wine. I helped myself to a cup and drank it off almost immediately, the rush of warmth a welcome, if brief, defence against the biting cold.
While the fireworks fizzed and exploded in bright starbursts overhead to a chorus of gasps and cries, I edged my way around the periphery of the crowd, scanning it for any sign of the man in the Greek mask. Against the palace wall, a couple grappled with one another in the shelter of a window embrasure, the man’s hand thrust under her skirts, his face pressed into her neck as she arched her head back and moaned softly. I moved away, though I doubted they had even been aware of my presence. At the rear of the terrace, I found a step on which I could stand in the shadows to survey the guests as they watched the fireworks. Henri was right, I thought, as I sought him out in his furs at the front of the spectators; it would be the work of a moment for a masked man – or woman – to slip up behind him and put a blade between his ribs, despite the bodyguards. Perhaps his mother felt that to appear in a crowd like this as if he had nothing to fear would look like a show of strength.
I was musing on this when I noticed a hooded figure sidling towards me along the palace wall, half hidden in the dark. My right hand crept inside my cloak, feeling for my dagger. The figure stopped a few feet away and darted a furtive glance in my direction. I could see nothing of its face. Our breath clouded around us, leaving trails in the air. I waited, fingers closing around the handle.
‘Buona sera, Dottore,’ said a woman’s voice, after a while.
I breathed out, and let go of the knife. ‘Gabrielle?’
A soft laugh. ‘It is you,’ she whispered, in French. ‘Thank goodness. You are not the only one wearing the Doctor’s costume tonight, you know. I have already approached the wrong man once. He thought it was his lucky night.’
‘I bet he did.’
‘I should have known you’d be the one standing apart from everyone else. You always did prefer your own company.’
‘Not always,’ I murmured.
She drew her hood back a little so that I could see her mischievous smile. The top half of her face was covered by a jewelled mask of midnight blue silk, but her eyes held a knowing sparkle, seeming in that moment so familiar it sent a jolt of affection through me. Her look implied complicity; though I knew her loyalty was always to Catherine first, it warmed me to think there might be one more person in this city who was pleased to see me. Though immediately I had to remind myself not to take anything at face value where Gabrielle was concerned.
‘When Balthasar said you were here, I could hardly believe it,’ she said, keeping her voice low. ‘You know Catherine has forbidden the King from seeing you. I should have guessed you would contrive to defy her, between you.’ She sounded amused.
‘Will you tell her?’
‘Give me one good reason why I should not.’ Her tone was teasing. She was still looking at me from the corner of her eye.
‘Because you are secretly in love with me, and you have been praying since I left that I would come back and marry you and take you away from all this,’ I said, straight-faced.
She laughed aloud, a pleasingly unl
adylike snort. ‘Still the same high opinion of yourself, I see.’
‘I must hold myself in high regard, madam – no one else in Paris will.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You still have a certain roguish appeal for the ladies of the court. And one or two of the men, I don’t doubt.’ She flashed me an impish smile, holding my gaze boldly until I shook my head, laughing. Gabrielle was never an obvious beauty, not in the provocative way of the woman who played Circe; her allure was all in the way she carried herself, with a natural elegance and an insouciance that suggested she didn’t much care if men paid her attention or not – an attitude which, naturally, made their interest all the keener. She was tall, with long limbs, dark-gold hair and a strong-featured face whose natural expression in repose made her look as if she had just remembered a filthy joke. It had been difficult to resist her for as long as I did, and she knew it.
‘It’s good to see you,’ I said, falling back on understatement. ‘You look well.’
‘I’d like to say the same, but I can see nothing of you under that disguise.’
‘I can’t take it off in public view.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you suggesting you take it off somewhere more private?’