Conspiracy

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, overblown 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