‘Why the gloom?’
‘We are to have a treat. Le Duc has charged his chef de ballet to recreate that most famous of ballets – the Ballet of the Night. It was this very ballet which gave our Royal Majesty Louis the name of the Sun King, you know, when he danced the role of Apollon aged just fifteen.’
Kit was well prepared. ‘My grandmother had the honour to wait upon the king’s mother for some years – she was there at the Louvre on the night when His Majesty first danced the role.’
‘It must have been a sight to see,’ whispered De Marsin. ‘Louis was quite the proficient, you know, and the Duc d’Orléans has inherited his uncle’s partiality for the dance. Alas, the king himself is now lost to the art; he retired from the ballet some years ago due to an infirmity.’
Ormonde had expressed it differently. ‘The Sun King is now a fat fuck,’ he’d said. ‘He and the sun have about the same girth.’ Kit sat down, with the rest of the glittering gathering, wondering how an evening spent in silence could help her discover what she needed to know. Every single little light was extinguished, like someone putting out the stars. A hush fell over the company, the viols struck up, and a trapdoor sprung open in the wooden stage, letting a shaft of light burst through. A figure rose as if by magic, with a headdress of sunrays radiating from behind his head. His costume was made of cloth of gold, he wore sunbursts at his wrists and knees and on his feet were gilded shoes, with fashionably high French heels. The audience clapped and clapped, but not for the young slim dancer in the golden clothes. They clapped for Louis – as if time had folded back on itself and the young king was here. They were witnessing anew the birth of the cult of the Sun King, who had come to earth to sponsor his heir’s claim. Kit looked across to Philippe of Orléans, sitting in his gilded chair, watching the sun figure hungrily as if he had the alchemy to exchange the wooden chair for a golden throne.
A narrator spoke from the shadows, turning Kit’s attention back to the stage.
‘As the light arises from the sun, still in the fire of its dawn, Honour follows its luminous train. In its wake ever follow Grace and Victory.’
As he spoke their names other figures appeared to dance about Apollon, bearing laurel wreaths and palm leaves and sceptres, all the symbols of power.
Kit found herself caught up in the spectacle; less for itself than for the feeling that something immense was about to happen, to which this ballet was merely an overture. Those words spoken by the narrator rang like a prophecy. But of what? If she could not find out, she was finished.
She sat through the hours that followed, holding her lower lip in her teeth. The rather sedate music from half a century ago had not the power to move her half so much as ‘John Dwyer’s Jig’ or ‘The Humours of Castlefin’, nor did the grace and lyricism of the dancers tug at her heart. But her self-pity overwhelmed her so much that she had little difficulty in presenting De Marsin, when she turned to him at the final note, with a faceful of tears.
He touched one of them. ‘You are crying. I should not have brought you. Forgive me.’
‘There is nothing to forgive.’
‘But you are upset.’
‘Say rather inspired,’ answered Kit fervently. ‘Oh, Maréchal, who could not love our king and our country? Who could not wish for the Sun King’s heir to sit upon the throne of Spain, and,’ she looked up at him through her lashes, taking a guess, ‘of the Empire too.’
He did not contradict her. ‘I assure you, madame, that day will come; and sooner than you might think.’
She smiled tightly, her thoughts racing. Could it be true that the French would be so foolhardy as to cross the mountains and invade the Holy Roman Empire, with no better foothold in the north than Mantova? But the lamps were lit once more, and there were loftier claims on De Marsin’s attention. Philippe of Orléans raised his beringed hand and beckoned. The maréchal bowed and kissed her glove. ‘My master calls,’ he said. ‘Our leisure time is at an end; time for the business of the evening.’
‘So late?’
‘Time is growing short. Our preparations must be thorough.’
‘I hope you plan for our enemies to be brought low, and for my husband to be avenged.’
‘Trust the duc, madame. I assure you, our plan cannot fail.’ He looked as if he would say more, then checked.
Kit had been a soldier long enough to know when to sound the retreat. ‘Do not say any more, my dear maréchal. But let me say, for my own part, that I beg you not to place yourself in the teeth of danger. You have been so good to me. I have already lost a husband. I could not bear to lose such a friend.’ She laid her hand on his arm.
He swallowed. ‘I have called for your carriage, so that you are not put to the trouble of conversing with strangers. Allow me to escort you to the gates.’
She inclined her head to hide her frustration. She might have tried how far her widow’s plight might have taken her with others in the room. But the evening had not been entirely hopeless, for De Marsin took her arm tenderly, and guided her out into the evening with the solicitude of a lover. At the gates of the Palazzo del Te a carriage almost clashed with her own and the drivers traded insults; the strange carriage pulled ahead and stopped before the ranks of burning torches with a crunch of gravel. She and De Marsin stood aside as a cohort of important men in blue militaries disembarked – one of them, the most decorated with brocade and medals, checked when he saw De Marsin and hurried over to greet him. Kit’s heart stopped.
It was Maréchal Villeroi, the commander-in-chief of the French Army, and the very man she and Ross had captured in Cremona.
Pulses, thudding, Kit shrank into De Marsin’s shadow.
‘My dear De Marsin, well met,’ exclaimed Villeroi. ‘Is the Duc D’Orléans within? Shall we begin our council?’
‘We were waiting for you, Haute-Maréchal.’
‘Then let us wait no more.’
Kit’s carriage had stopped behind Villeroi’s, and Livia stepped down to greet her mistress. Kit crept away discreetly, hoping that De Marsin would forget about her in the face of his other priorities; that she could mount to her carriage, and make her escape. But his chivalry would not allow it.
‘I must beg for a moment, Haute-Maréchal, to carry out the labours of Venus before we give ourselves entirely to Mars. Allow me to present the Comtesse Saint-Hilaire de Blossac, whom I promised a hand into her carriage.’
Villeroi bowed, and Kit curtsied, keeping her face low and her eyes on Villeroi’s boots, praying that De Marsin would say no more.
‘The comtesse has made a great sacrifice in our cause, perhaps the greatest; she lately lost her husband, the Vicomte Richard Saint-Hilaire de Blossac, Knight of St Louis.’
‘I regret I did not know the gentleman.’ Villeroi’s voice softened. ‘Of St Louis, was he?’
‘He had that honour, Haute-Maréchal, while he lived,’ said Kit to the ground, quietly.
‘I too am a brother of that order,’ said Villeroi, touching a medal at his lapel with a metallic tap. ‘It is strange that I do not recall hearing his name.’
She raised her eyes from his boots to look at the medal – the same order that had been pinned over the still heart of her counterfeit husband. It was a mistake.
‘But I know you, surely, madame,’ exclaimed Villeroi, peering at her face in the torchlight.
Kit forced a smile. ‘I think not, sir,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I am sure I would remember our meeting.’
‘Have you been at Trianon? Or the Salle du Petit Bourbon?’
She shook her head. ‘We lived very quietly, at Poitiers; we were not often at court.’
‘But I could swear …’ Villeroi’s voice tailed away. He smiled. ‘Well, there. It is salutary to remember that even if he commands a hundred thousand men, a man may still be made a fool by one beautiful woman.’ It was said with great gallantry, and Kit smiled again, but the maréchal had already forgotten her and taken De Marsin by the shoulder, ushering his deputy into the palace b
efore the younger man could take his leave of Kit. Shaking, she climbed into her carriage unaided and settled back into the cushions, heart thudding painfully. The ballet of the night was over.
Kit had to endure an anxious few days. To the dread of the messenger’s return from Paris was added a new fear: that Villeroi would suddenly remember where he had seen her before. But no sergeants-at-arms came to her door, and her fears were a little abated when she saw Villeroi’s carriage leave the city to return the haute-maréchal to the eastern front; but she was still no nearer any certain knowledge of what the French had discussed at the Ballet of the Night.
A week passed without a dinner, an entertainment or even a card game; then De Marsin’s man came at last with another invitation. There was to be a regatta on the lake; a valedictory celebration for the officers before their imminent manoeuvre. The Maréchal de Marsin would be honoured if the Comtesse de Blossac would accompany him as his guest. Kit glanced at the rolling clouds once more as she answered in the affirmative. Before their imminent manoeuvre. She had been in Mantova for fourteen days. The troops were getting ready to leave. Tonight might be her last chance to discover where they went.
Livia found her a magnificent black gown from her own Gonzaga coffer. It had a stiff rebato of jet beads behind the head and a stomacher of dark gold satin. She requested that Livia weave jet beads and dark golden chains in her powdered hair, built up higher than she had ever worn it, and in the curls and waves Livia pinned a little ship, fashioned in ebony and with sails of gold tissue, to honour the spirit of the regatta.
The festa was to begin at sundown, and the lake was already red by the time Kit was escorted across the drawbridge. On the foreshore the Maréchal de Marsin waited for her in a barge bravely painted in gold and blue. He was wearing a smile and his dress uniform, with a full wig of snowy white. He offered her his hand, and she stepped into the boat beside him.
Night was falling, and a thousand torches were lit on stakes all round the lagoon, and in the boats themselves numberless silver-backed candles gave the impression of floating constellations. The lake was dotted with painted vessels, all grand and gilded, but none so great as the barge that carried Orléans himself, which was fashioned like a golden swan. Orléans sat in the helm of the boat, self-possessed and impassive; so well bred was he, thought Kit, that it was impossible to divine whether he was enjoying the spectacle or not. There was another even bigger barge in the very centre of the lake, carrying a small orchestra and all their various instruments. A corpulent singer rode with them dressed head to toe in flowing golden tissue folded almost like a toga. ‘The chanteur represents Olympia,’ De Marsin whispered.
‘Goddess of Mount Olympus,’ supplied Kit.
‘And a symbol of the Gonzaga.’
‘Ah.’ She listened to the song carried across the water, as high and clear as the alpine bells she used to hear across the lake at the Palazzo Borromeo. She could tell from the singer’s tone that he was a castrato, though he had not the quality of tone, for her taste, of Mezzanotte. ‘Purcell,’ she said, identifying his song. ‘An odd choice, the music of the enemy?’
De Marsin turned to her, the candle flames in his eyes, and something else – a light of mischief? ‘Perhaps that is the point. Perhaps we want them to know that anything that is theirs can be ours.’ He nodded across the lake.
Her practised eye caught the glint of a musket barrel in the trees. She could barely prevent herself from ducking down and shouting a warning, as she would have done in the dragoons. But she sat still and narrowed her eyes – there was definitely a red coat in the trees, and another, and another. ‘My Lord Orléans has uninvited guests,’ she said, as calmly as she could. She could see, now, that they were in no immediate danger; she knew the English matchlock could not shoot this far. Kit surveyed the redcoats. Now she looked closely she could see quite a number of them in the undergrowth and posted about the lake. The soldiers leaned on their bayonets and watched the French disporting themselves. She thought then how dangerous this was – to make a trivial festa such as this directly before the serious business of warfare. And then she realised what De Marsin had said. We want them to know that anything that is theirs can be ours.
This was a show. This was a statement of the glory of France, and their comfort and ease in Mantova; everything had been considered and planned, not just for the pleasure of the French officers, but for the humiliation of the Alliance. The Purcell was a part of it – many of the men would recognise the piece. Mantova was a place that had been besieged twice by the Alliance in vain, a citadel for which thousands of soldiers had died. For which Richard had died. The dark blister of his grave lay in the very copse that now sheltered the redcoats, outside the city walls, no headstone, no honour, while the counterfeit Richard lay within the walls entombed in noble marble. She could do this, she could succeed in this mission, for the sake of both of her dead husbands, and for Ross, who lived and breathed.
The guests all moored their boats and came to shore for a great feast laid out on golden boards. In the centre of the fruits and sweetmeats sat a magnificent centrepiece, a castle cunningly wrought of sugar, sitting at the bottom of a model mountain.
She turned to the comte. ‘Olympus again?’
The maréchal smirked. ‘If you will. And perhaps the temple of Olympia sits below?’
But something was wrong. The castle was a great white edifice around three sides of a sugar piazza, with a thousand sugar windows of square gold leaf. It seemed oddly familiar. Then it struck her, like a thunderbolt. She had been to that castle, that castle made of cake and confectionery. She stared at it until her eyes blurred – expecting to see a little gold leaf coach draw up before it, and for a little sugar duke to climb out and hand down a sugar countess dressed in blue. As she watched, Orléans cut the castle with a sabre, the dark cake within a death slash down the architrave of the Palazzo Reale in Turin.
She clasped De Marsin’s arm and set down her cup of punch. He turned to her, with concern. ‘Madame? Are you quite well?’
‘No.’ She looked up at him, her eyes wide with appeal. ‘I am not well.’
He looked about him. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘you must be seated.’ He led her to a low wall.
‘Have you a fan?’
She remembered the fan she had left in the Palazzo Borromeo. ‘No. Soon I will be well.’
‘I will call for your maid.’
‘No!’ Louder this time, but he was already gesturing to one of his men. ‘Fetch the comtesse’s woman.’
Cursing inwardly, she drew him down by her. Now she had left only the time it took for Livia to walk from the castle.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I will be frank with you. I am terrified for my safety. It is clear that you are to embark on some great enterprise, and I am to be caught in the midst of it.’
‘Trust me, madame,’ said the maréchal soothingly, ‘you will not be harmed. I give you my word.’
‘If I could tell you, sir, how many men have sworn as much to me on their word. What is a word? May not a promise be spoken, and as easily broken?’
He straightened. ‘But I think the word of a maréchal of France, madame, may be trusted.’
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘If you could only tell me a little of what you go to do … You have come to mean so much to me.’ She drew back her hand, as if she had said too much. ‘All of you brave gentlemen, so much like my dear husband.’ She pressed her black glove to her lips.
His profile, as he looked over the lake, was impassive. He had been happy to dally with her when he had been kicking his heels, but now his mind had shifted to war. If her feminine wiles were no use, what had she left? She racked her brain, rehearsing once more in that strained silence everything Ormonde had taught her of the Maréchal Ferdinand, Comte de Marsin. Born in Liège. Moved to Paris at the age of five. Ambassador extraordinaire to Felipe V of Spain. Unmarried, but had a secret bastard daughter to whom he is peculiarly attached, with a Spanish noblewoman at the Esc
orial. Had the child conveyed to Paris.
A secret bastard daughter, to whom he is peculiarly attached …
‘Maréchal. Ferdinand.’ She gave her voice a tremor as she spoke. ‘I have lost my husband. But we both knew it might be God’s will that a soldier would die – such is a fighting man’s lot. But I have a child in Poitiers. A daughter called Christiana. She is very young, I was only just churched when my husband was commanded here to Mantova, so she stayed with my mother and wetnurse away from battle and danger.’ She gripped his arm again. ‘Please, Maréchal, tell me I will return home safe. Tell me I will hold my child again, and feel her little hand close about my finger as it used to do.’
It was very dark now, but she could sense that De Marsin’s head had turned towards her.
‘I have a daughter too. She is the delight of my eyes. She is why I fight.’
She said nothing, but pressed his hand now in fellow feeling. Know when to stop, Ormonde had said.
She heard him exhale, very quietly, and held her own breath. Here it came. ‘The mountain is the Superga hill in Piedmont,’ he said, low voiced. ‘And the castle of sugar, it is the Palazzo Reale in Turin.’
So she had been right. She turned to him, eyes wide. ‘You are to take Turin?’
‘In a sevennight, with forty thousand men.’
She swallowed. Turin. She had been right – the French looked to the Empire; Turin was Eugene of Savoy’s headquarters and home. It was audacious, it was brilliant. Turin stood at the gate between the Empire and France – with the taking of Savoy’s own city the Franco-Spanish would control ingress and egress to the peninsula – they could choke it at the throat and take the rest of the boot to the south at their leisure. ‘And will you prevail?’ It was a whisper.
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