Kit (37 page)

‘No.’

‘The blood?’

‘Not mine.’

He walked to the polished dining table, littered with the detritus of dinner. He took the embroidered silk runner from the table, and placed a handful of hefty pomegranates in it. Five, six, seven. Then he wrapped them in a parcel. Kit watched with fascination and dread. He came to her with the bundle, and he swung it round his head.

The first impact knocked her over. Then she could do no more than lie there as he rained down blows upon her with all his strength – a dozen strikes before she lost count. He avoided her face, but concentrated on her torso and back, knocking the breath from her. She coughed and retched, her breath burning, her ribs afire.

At length he stopped, exhausted, and tossed the bundle away. The pomegranates burst from their silken bundle and rolled glossily away across the marble, spacing out in the moonlight’s path like little planets.

‘We will not speak of this,’ said Ormonde, out of breath. ‘We will resume our work tomorrow, and everything shall be as it was.’ Then he strode from the room.

She lay there after he had gone, her cheek on the marble star below the dark chandelier, and let the tears seep from her eyes at last.

Temper your steel in the morning …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

At daybreak Kit limped to the shutters and threw them wide. The sun shone as bright as ever, the water was still as blue as the sky and the pleasure boats scudded unheeding across the water. The church bells rang from their onion spires and cowbells clanged their secular counterpoint from the mountain slopes. Everything shall be as it was, Ormonde had said. And it almost was. But there, chill as that unmistakable freshness on the breeze, was that first breath of autumn. Richard was dead, summer was dying, and Savoy’s name day was in less than a week.

Kit took in a deep breath to quell her fears. As she filled her lungs her ribs pained her. She stripped off her nightgown and looked at her naked body in the long looking glass. There was not a bruise on her. But for the pain, she might have imagined last night’s beating.

Everything shall be as it was. Her routine was exactly the same: in the mornings she would carry out her toilette – her hair and skin, once washed, could be seen to have survived her adventures tolerably well, but she must work hard, now, to restore her hands to their pampered whiteness; they were scratched and grazed, the nails broken and ingrained with dirt. She washed them repeatedly, trying to erase the memory of those terrible hours on the battlefield. However, her young body began to recover. She was a soldier, she was resilient – she had been knocked down before, and got up again.

Lucio Mezzanotte seemed anxious to rehabilitate his lover in Kit’s eyes. ‘He is a good man at heart,’ said the castrato in the privacy of the music room, ‘but he cares so much. This enterprise of yours could be the making of him. He spent years in Ireland, kicking his heels in the backwaters (begging your pardon). If he breaks the deadlock at Mantova, it could be his chance to find preferment with the queen.’

Kit listened, unmoved. She did not hate Ormonde. She did not even blame him for beating her. She had disobeyed him, and jeopardised her safety and his plans. But she did begin to wonder, more and more, what kind of man she served.

For Ormonde’s part, he treated her exactly as before. They danced together, dined together, even laughed together. They would play cards, and listen to Mezzanotte’s arias. And every afternoon after luncheon, they were alone together in the tower. He never laid a hand on her again, except to kiss her fingers, or help her into a carriage. She never connected the hand that held hers with the one that had dealt her blows. As her ribs recovered and she could walk and breathe without pain, she could almost forget he had beaten her, almost forgive.

The only change in him, for those last days before Savoy’s name day, was that his tests became even more rigorous. She was no longer frightened of him, but she feared failure, and applied herself to his interrogations with all the faculties at her disposal.

‘Tell me all you know of Eugene of Savoy.’

She looked out of the windows at the mountains, as if the answers were writ there. ‘He was born in Paris.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Hôtel de Soissons.’

‘Go on.’

‘His mother was Olympia Mancini, his father Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons, Count of Dreux, Prince of Savoy.’

‘And what is particular about his mother?’

‘She was the mistress of Louis’ father, Louis XIII.’

‘And?’

‘It was said that she was a witch.’

He smiled a little. ‘Continue.’

‘Eugene adored his mother above all others, and in fact, we boast a mutual acquaintance; my own
grandmère
, Liliane Saint-Hilaire de Blossac, was lady-in-waiting to her at Versailles.’ She hesitated.

Ormonde sensed her disquiet. ‘Do not trouble yourself about this falsehood. Olympia Mancini was out of favour and long gone before Savoy was old enough to look at women. And when she was in favour she had a revolving carousel of ladies – the pretty ones were the first to be dismissed. Go on.’

‘Young Eugene was raised at Versailles with the young Louis XIV. They were the best of friends.’

‘Yet now they fight on opposite sides. What caused their schism?’

‘The king wanted Eugene to enter the Church because of his poor physique, but Eugene longed for an army career. He petitioned Louis for a commission at nineteen, but was refused.’

‘In what manner?’

‘Louis dismissed him from the court for meeting the royal gaze. He said that no one else ever dared to stare him out so insolently.’

‘Then what?’

‘Savoy transferred his allegiance to the Emperor Leopold I at the court of Vienna, but was tested immediately when he was tasked with defending the capital against the Turks. He crushed them at the Siege of Belgrade, where he took a musket ball to the knee.’

‘Which knee?’

She considered. ‘The left.’

He nodded. ‘Good. And then?’

‘Then he met his partner in warfare.’ She glanced up at him, warily. ‘The Duke of Marlborough.’

‘Jack Churchill,’ sneered Ormonde.

‘Yes.’

He shut the book he held. ‘I think you are ready. I have written to Savoy to tell him that your husband is working for us behind the French lines. He hates Louis with that particular passion we reserve for those we once loved.’

She watched him replace the volume on the shelves. ‘If you pull this off, and you will, you will gain your heart’s desire.’

The phrase sounded oddly clumsy and old-fashioned on Ormonde’s lips. She reckoned she had done enough to achieve it by now. But first you had to know what it was. She had thought it was Richard all this time – it had taken her longer to find out that it was Ross. All she wanted now was to see him again – beyond that she did not know. She looked at the duke, hoping he was right. ‘Fitzjames? You once said I could ask you anything.’

‘You can. The question is,
may
you.’

‘Then can I,
may
I ask, what is your heart’s desire?’

‘I want to prove to the queen that cunning trumps bombast. I want to replace Jack Churchill and see him brought low.’

‘Why? Why do you hate him so?’

A pause.

‘You said I could ask.’

‘But I did not say I would answer.’ He changed the subject. ‘Tomorrow, think only of this: whatever happens, you will be travelling back in the carriage with me after the ball. We play for low stakes in Turin.’ But higher ones in Mantova, thought Kit. ‘The worst that can happen there is that you are unmasked as a fraud, everyone laughs at my jest for the prince’s name day, and my reputation as a buffoon is assured. It does not matter.’

It sounded as if it mattered more than he owned. Now she thought she knew the answer to her question. Ormonde had been passed over for the office Marlborough held. Ormonde had once been a great general, and now whiled away his summers surrounded by women and eunuchs. What he wanted most of all was to be taken seriously, to be reputed as Marlborough was reputed, not as a voluptuary, nor a jester, but as commander-in-chief of the forces of the Grand Alliance.

The night before Savoy’s name day she could not sleep. What made her restlessness worse was the knowledge that she must. Dark shadows beneath her eyes always angered Ormonde. She tried to recite her lessons, but could only remember the roll call of the regiment of the Scots Greys, Queen’s Royal Dragoons. The names of the Bourbons and the Capets and the Valois eluded her but she could remember without difficulty Southcott, Hall, O’Connell, Wareham, Swinney, Rolf, Noyes, Crook, Page, Dallenger, Kennedy, Lancaster, Farrant, Gibson, Laverack. Names not as noble as the Bourbons, but all good men and true. She could even remember their given names, all the Johns and Jacks and Jameses – except for Captain Ross, whose given name she had never learned. The dragoons went trooping through her sleepless mind in their red coats on their grey horses. But of the streets of Poitiers, the great hotels and pleasure gardens of Paris and the life of Eugene of Savoy she could remember nothing.

Badly frightened, Kit rose in the true dark of the small hours and lit a lamp. She sat at the little dressing table and took up a stub of lead pencil. Spreading the fan wide she wrote, as faintly as she could, on the reverse. She crammed the writing small, each ivory strut dividing her remarks under the headings
Prince Eugene of
Savoy
,
Count Wirich Philipp von Daun
,
Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia
,
The Prince of Anhalt Dessau
; all the dignitaries Ormonde had warned her she might meet. She scribbled tiny words that could be cues, the name of an eldest son, a youngest daughter, a well-fought campaign, a favourite summering place. Then she closed the fan upon its secret, huffed out the candle and repaired to bed for the last remaining hours of night, little comforted by her actions.

For the day being pleasant and charming …

‘Arthur McBride’ (trad.)

On the eighteenth day of October, at seven of the clock, a golden carriage drew up at the Palazzo Reale in Turin, the royal residence of the House of Savoy. Seated inside were James Fitzjames Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, 13th Earl of Ormond, 7th Earl of Ossory, 2nd Baron Butler, accompanied by the Comtesse Christiane St-Hilaire de Blossac, to attend the name-day ball of Prince Eugene of Savoy.

The duke was wearing dark gold satin and a long periwig of iron grey. His Order of the Garter sparkled through the tumbling curls like the Pole Star peeping through cloud. But his magnificence was nothing in comparison to his companion’s. The
comtesse
was a true, timeless beauty. She was wearing a priceless Rockingham mantua of nacreous duck-egg blue silk, the colour of the duke’s garter ribbon, and the gossamer sheen of the fine tissue captured the moonlight. The stomacher was worked with crystals in curlicues and florets and the fleur-de-lis which betrayed her origins. The skirts were so wide that the
comtesse
’s consort was obliged to sit on the other side of the carriage, for half a dozen petticoats and a stiff cane frame left him no room. The gown had been laced at the back with blue satin ribbons, tied and tightened by no less than six maids. Two miniature diamond chandeliers hung from the
comtesse
’s ears, lengthening the lobes with the weight of their worth. A simple sky-blue ribbon was tied about her swanlike neck, but below it was fastened a diamond collar of such price that it would have bought the carriage and four that conveyed it. The
comtesse
sat straight as a ramrod – she had no choice for a carved wooden busk sat between her breasts – she could not have slouched like a soldier even if she had a mind to. Two perfect half-moons of bosom were bolstered so high as to rest beneath her collarbones. Her locks were powdered white as snow, and built up over pads of horsehair to add another two feet to her already considerable height. Not a single red hair showed under the powder, not a freckle showed through the lead-white make-up. Her red brows had been painted out, and other higher brows, crescents of perpetual surprise, had been painted in an inch higher. Her cheeks were rouged in small, doll-like circles, her lips were stained with ceruse, and a heart-shaped patch rode high on one cheek. From her outward show, she bore no resemblance to Kit Kavanagh, one time dragoon of Her Majesty’s Scots Greys. The
comtesse
even wore a wedding band under her the wide weave of her lace mitten, something Kit Kavanagh had not worn for over a year.

As they pulled up before the entrance the duke laid a hand on the countess’s arm, quite kindly. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘whatever happens, you will be travelling back in this carriage with me tonight.’ And then the footman was at the door, the steps were let down and the
comtesse
was handed out of the carriage.

Kit laid her lace-mittened hand on the duke’s glove, and walked up the paved way to the entrance between ranks of burning torches as tall as she.

Turin seemed a city made for giants; the great dome of the Duomo loomed over this titanic and perfect square, three sides of which comprised the Royal Palace of Savoy. The palazzo had a vast frontage of snowy marble and was the biggest building Kit had ever seen, with perhaps a thousand square-paned windows molten with torchlight. Two mighty statues of long-dead Savoyard cavaliers reared on either side of the huge oak doors, which were thrown wide open in welcome for the exalted guests of tonight’s entertainment.

Inside, there was a press of people, enough diamonds to blind the sight, chatter to burst the eardrums, and heat and music to overwhelm the senses. No wonder, thought Kit, that women of quality swooned, in such gowns, in such gatherings. She gripped Ormonde’s arms as she toiled up the magnificent marble staircase into a huge cathedral of a ballroom, with a coffined ceiling studded with gilt bosses like morning stars. Far below, a floor of polished ebony, inlaid with geometric shapes of ivory in stark contrast, reflected the glory above. Kit’s embroidered slippers slid on the floor as if she skated on ice – dancing on such a surface, she thought grimly, would be well-nigh impossible.