The Moon and the Sun

11

The coolness of the chateau gave way to the warmth of the terrace above the gardens. The sun had already sped halfway to noon. It’s warm today! Marie-Josèphe thought gratefully.

Potted flowers traced the verges of the pathways; the blossoms of a thousand orange trees perfumed the air. Bees bumbled softly through the flower-embroidery.

The fountain mechanisms creaked and groaned, shivering the quiet into pieces. The fountains all burst into sprays and streams: Latona and Poseidon, Neptune, the dragons. Usually the fountains played only for His Majesty, but they would play continuously until after Carrousel.

People filled the gardens, flowing down the Green Carpet and pooling around the Fountain of Apollo and the sea monster’s tent. They carried Marie-Josèphe like a stream, as if she were lighter than air.

The poor sea monster will be so hungry, Marie-Josèphe thought, I did hope to feed her as soon as the servant brought the fish. But perhaps it’s just as well. I induced her to eat from my hand… Marie-Josèphe rubbed her sore wrist and thought, apprehensively, If she’s very hungry, perhaps I can induce her to obey me.

Marie-Josèphe slipped past and between groups of visitors—mothers and fathers and children, elderly grandparents, two and three and even four generations marvelling at the magnificence of their King’s home and the perfection of his gardens. Strolling through the soft, warm afternoon in their best clothes, husbands wearing rented swords, wives defying the sumptuary laws with daring silver lace at sleeve or petticoat, the children in leading-strings and ribbons, the townspeople of Versailles and Paris and every town in France hoped for a glimpse of Louis le Grand.

The rolled-up towel chafed Marie-Josèphe’s legs.

Do I dare take the nuisance off until tomorrow? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Uncomfortable business! Another of God’s jokes, at which you can laugh only if you aren’t the subject.

At the convent, her confessor had been shocked when she asked about God’s jokes. God performed miracles, and He meted out punishment—such as women’s monthlies—but He did not play jokes.

How sad, Marie-Josèphe thought, to be omnipotent, to be immortal, to possess no sense of humor.

At the bottom of the slope, people shouted and clustered closer around the sea monster’s tent. Marie-Josèphe snatched her skirt above her ankles and broke into a run, afraid something had happened to the creature.

“Wait your turn!” snarled a man in broadcloth and homespun as Marie-Josèphe tried to slip past him.

“Papa, papa, I want the sea monster!” His young son pulled at his coattail. “Papa, papa!” The three other boys, all so young they were still in dresses, joined the cry. Their mother hushed her brood, without effect.

The tradesman turned; Marie-Josèphe could not be sure if he intended to slapher or the child who had started the appeal.

“Sir!”

Her velvet and lace protected her; she stood out in the crowd of visitors as a member of His Majesty’s court.

“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle.” He stepped away, pulling his wife and the four young children with him. They vanished into the crowd, the eldest child still begging for the sea monster.

“Guard!” Marie-Josèphe called.

After a moment, one of the musketeers opened a way for her and led her through the crowd and into the open tent.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Why have you let everyone in?”

“His Majesty ordered it,” the musketeer said. “His Majesty’s subjects are to be allowed to see the monster.” The musketeers let the visitors file in through one open side of the tent They looked at yesterday’s sketches—not those from the secret dissection, which she had left safe in the chateau—and peered through the bars of the cage and exited through a second raised section of the tent wall.

The water lay as still as glass.

The musketeer ushered Marie-Josèphe through the gate of the cage to the edge of the fountain.

“There’s nothing in the fountain but Apollo,” one of the visitors said.

“We cannot make the creature show itself,” the musketeer replied.

“Shoot at it, that will bring it out.”

“She’s frightened,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Wouldn’t you be, if a thousand people clustered around your bed?”

“It doesn’t bother His Majesty,” said the musketeer.

“The sea monster is a wild creature.”

“So it was said of His Majesty,” said the musketeer. “In his youth.”

More live fish flapped and splashed. The servant had brought dozens of fish, far more than any person would eat for dinner, even if dinner were the only meal. Marie-Josèphe netted one. She smiled at the servant’s wishful thinking, but grew solemn at the thought of his hunger.

“Sea monster! Fish, nice fish!” She swished the net around in the water.

Beneath the hooves of the dawn horses, the sea monster flicked her tails. A few visitors saw the movement and gasped. They shouted to each other, pointed, called out to Marie-Josèphe to show them more.

“Be quiet, I beg you,” she said. “If you’re quiet, she might come out of hiding.”

A ripple moved through the fountain. The sea monster’s long dark hair streamed behind her, protecting her back from the sun, disguising her glowing copper skin. Marie-Josèphe took the fish from the net and held it in her hand.

The sea monster hesitated.

“Good sea monster. Come a little closer, come have your fish.”

“Fishhh!” the sea monster said.

The sea monster surfaced. Marie-Josèphe offered her the fish. She snatched it and gobbled it messily in several bites. Fish guts and bits of fin dribbled into the water.

The audience gasped and murmured in awe and surprise and disgust. Startled, the sea monster slipped back beneath the water. Marie-Josèphe hoped that in the time she had she could train the sea monster not to fear the noise. His Majesty would want to view the creature again; he would want to show off his quarry to the visiting heads of state. He would want the sea monster to be well-behaved.

“It’s all right, sea monster,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The noise means nothing, no more than waves on a beach. It won’t hurt you. Come, let me feed you another fish.”

If I wish her to trust me, I must trust her, Marie-Josèphe said to herself.

Marie-Josèphe dipped her hand into the water. The sea monster swam closer, radiating intense warmth.

The sea monster rose suddenly from the pool. Water splashed against the stairs. Her long tangled hair whipped around her bare shoulders, tumbling over her flat breasts. The paler green strand of hair stuck out at an awkward angle.

Visitors gasped and cried out and applauded. The musketeer clattered away to face the visitors, ready to bully or cajole them: The peace of the King’s gardens must not erupt into riot. But instead of fleeing, the visitors pressed closer, fascinated, entertained. The lucky ones peered through the bars of the cage; the rest tried to see over the heads of the front rank.

The sea monster sank back into the water. Marie-Josèphe stroked the creature’s hair. The sea monster suffered her touch. Marie-Josèphe reached back with her free hand; the musketeer handed her a netted fish. She offered the wriggling creature to the sea monster. The sea monster fumbled at the net, failing to extricate the fish.

Marie-Josèphe untwisted the fabric, pulled the fish from the opening, and handed it to the sea monster.

The sea monster ate the fish in two quick bites and looked around for more. Marie-Josèphe continued to feed her, luring her closer, till the sea monster slithered half out of the water and rested her elbows on the platform. The visitors whispered and murmured in awe.

Marie-Josèphe let the sea monster swim away, then called her back and gave her another fish. After three repetitions of the simple command, the sea monster floated just out of Marie-Josèphe’s reach, singing, but coming no closer. Marie-Josèphe imagined that she should be able to understand the song, then chided herself.

I might as well try to understand a mockingbird, she thought.

“Come, sea monster!” she commanded.

The sea monster stopped singing. She snorted and spat and splashed water with her tail from ten feet away. She snarled. She swam no closer.

“You should beat it!” said the musketeer. “Then it would obey.”

“I’d only frighten her,” Marie-Josèphe said. “She’ll not be beaten while she’s in my charge.” She dangled the fish above the water. “Come, sea monster—”

The sea monster kicked a wave toward the platform; it splashed Marie-Josèphe’s shoes and the hem of her riding habit.

The sea monster sang a peremptory phrase, dove, and disappeared.

Why, Marie-Josèphe thought, she’s bored! She’s learned the lesson already, why should she practice it?

Instead of insisting that the sea monster return, Marie-Josèphe let the fish swim free, living prey. But after she had let it loose, she thought, If the sea monster only obeys when she chooses, can I make any claim to have trained it?

The sea monster surfaced, whistling, swimming at a distance. The audience exclaimed. She splashed her tails on the surface. She surged closer to Marie-Josèphe.

Marie-Josèphe rose. “You may have more fish later, if you come when I call.” On a foolish whim she added, “And an extra portion if you show yourself again to the visitors!” She smiled to herself, and thought, If only creatures really were so easy to train.

Lucien climbed the great stone staircase to Mme de Maintenon’s apartment. Forced blooms glowed with fresh spring colors in gilded pots.

The guard opened one side of the double doors and bowed Lucien through Mme de Maintenon’s doorway.

Mme de Maintenon furnished her apartment as austerely as a cell in a convent. No matter what gifts His Majesty lavished on her, she lived among drab colors. She refused flowers and jewels alike. Even His Majesty’s council table was plain black lacquer with the most moderate gilt and inlay.

Lucien shrugged off the uneasiness that enclosed him in these rooms. He could do nothing about the darkness, the drabness, or Mme de Maintenon’s dislike of him, except to refuse to allow any of it to afflict him.

A single spot of color brightened the room: a gleaming tapestry covered Mme de Maintenon’s lap. Embroidered silk fell in thick soft folds like the fabric in a great master’s canvas. Gold couching and intricate embroidery in red and orange and yellow, the colors of fire, covered all the silk but the central section.

Despite the room’s close atmosphere, Mme de Maintenon nestled in her cushioned wicker chair, shielded from drafts by its woven sides. She placed careful stitches, covering the last bit of white with the colors of blood and sunlight.

Mme de Maintenon retained the exquisite complexion and the dark lustrous eyes that had made her a great beauty in her youth, but she had accepted age and increasing infirmity as Louis had not.

Lucien bowed. “Mme de Maintenon.” He made it a matter of pride, even of arrogance, to speak to her always in a friendly and respectful manner. No matter what the provocation, no matter what opportunities she offered him—few enough, at that; she was no fool—he resisted exercising his wit against her. “I trust you’re well.”

“Well enough to do good works, sir,” she said. “The ache of one’s bones makes no difference there.”

She did not ask after his health or his family. She never did; and she had never, in his memory, spoken his title. No one else of his acquaintance found any irony in applying the title Count de Chrétien to an atheist.

“Winter approaches,” she said softly, “and people will starve—but His Majesty spends the summer making war and the autumn creating entertainments. Oh—forgive me for mentioning my distress, you would not understand it.” She bent again to her embroidery.

Lucien regarded her with irritation and sympathy. She knew nothing of what he understood or believed; she never deigned to find out, for she knew what any atheist must think. The whole glorious autumn stretched ahead, yet she anticipated winter.

He wanted to say to her, Madame Scarron, was your life with your crippled late husband so dreadful? Did M. Scarron never spend a moment attending to your pleasure, or amusing you with his celebrated wit? If his infirmities prevented him from pleasuring you, could you find no moment of satisfaction in distracting him from his pain? Are you punishing my cherished sovereign in return?

But he did not say it; he would never say it. Not to the wife of his King.

“You are engaged in an intricate task,” he said, with a pang of unaccustomed wistfulness. The Queen used to embroider constantly—he treasured a handkerchief she had given him, though it was so covered with silk flowers that it was useless—for, in truth, the sweet sad foolish lady had no occupation, no place at her husband’s court.

“It is a gift,” Mme de Maintenon said softly. She smoothed the white silk. She held it up for him to see.

People in torment writhed across satin. A man screamed from the rack; blood flowed from a woman’s entrails as an Inquisitor drew her bowels from her body. The central figure, a wild-eyed man in Medieval garb, twisted against the stake, flesh burning in the splash of scarlet silken flames.

Lucien inspected it without reacting. “Free-thinkers, libertines, and dangerous heretics all.”

“My girls at Saint-Cyr embroidered it.”

“Strong images, madame, to inflict upon schoolgirls.”

“Exactly—strong, and instructive. While they worked, they considered heresy, and disobedience, and its consequences. I must finish it quickly.” She bent to the embroidery again, placing another scarlet stitch of fire. “I usually do the eyes last. For this image I did them first.” She plunged the needle into the cloth. “This is Éon de l’Étoile. Arch-heretic, the Leader of Satan’s Army.”

“He was never burned,” Lucien said.

“Indeed, surely, he must have been. He made war upon the Church, he plundered monasteries, he called himself God’s son—”

“He fed the peasants with the riches of the Church.”

“Riches he obtained by thievery and murder.”

“The Church imprisoned him, and he died,” Lucien said. L’Étoile had, of course, been a madman. “His followers never denounced him. They were burned—but he was not.”

“I resign the field in favor of your intimate knowledge of a pagan land.” Mme de Maintenon fixed another flame at l’Étoile’s feet. “No matter. He should have been burned.”

“His Majesty the King!”

The guard threw open both doors for Louis. His Majesty hobbled in, favoring his gouty foot.

Lucien bowed to His Majesty; he acknowledged the greeting of Father de la Chaise and the profound salute of the marquis de Barbezieux. Louvois’ vindictive and brutal son succeeded his father as the King’s military adviser. Only once had he taken liberties when speaking to Lucien. In the face of the King’s sudden indifference to his interests, he proved he was not entirely stupid: he begged the Count de Chrétien for forgiveness—and intercession.

Father de la Chaise always behaved with perfect courtesy to Lucien, hoping, futilely, to convert him and save his soul.

M. de Barbezieux carried his tooled leather campaign desk, while Father de la Chaise carried the Pope’s gift, the reliquary, with great reverence.

Mme de Maintenon gasped. “Sire, the saint’s relic, it should be in the chapel, under guard—”

“Don’t you want to look at it, Bignette?” His Majesty asked. “Once Father de la Chaise takes it away, we will never see it except on the saint’s day.”

She made as if to rise from her chair, then sank back within its protection. Father de la Chaise brought the reliquary to her. She whispered a prayer.

“It is beautiful.” She bit off the last strand of flame-colored silk, and held out the tapestry to Father de la Chaise. “Father de la Chaise, my girls made this—you must take it, so it may lie beneath His Holiness’ precious gift.”

“That will be glorious, madame.”

Louis invited his advisers to sit at the council table. Father de la Chaise placed the domed cylinder before His Majesty. Louis idly caressed its chased gold sides and the pearls on its top.

“A rare gift from His Holiness,” Barbezieux said.

Lucien snorted with disgust. “The saint had no use for the relic… and His Majesty has no need of it. Or its cage.” He wondered what lunatic had first dismembered a body and enclosed it, bit by bit, in magic amulets.

Louis chuckled, then chided Lucien gently. “None of your atheistic wit, Chrétien. Innocent has made peace with me. I shall assume he means no insult with his cage.”

His Majesty called for Quentin, his personal valet, who tasted the wine, poured for Barbezieux and de la Chaise, then for Lucien, and finally, when His Majesty’s guests had also tasted the wine without being poisoned, for the King.

Barbezieux toyed with his goblet.

“Your health, Your Majesty.” Lucien drank, appalled by the young minister’s rudeness, amused by his discomfiture. He believes the slander, Lucien thought, that Mme de Maintenon poisoned his father. He fears the same.

His Majesty accepted the wishes for his health, then drank from his own goblet and settled into work.

“Chrétien,” the King said, “Brittany lacks a bishop. Were I to nominate one, His Holiness will invest him with the others, as soon as he signs the treaty. To whom do you wish the appointment offered?”

“To Nemo, Sire.”

His Majesty raised a questioning eyebrow. “To no one?”

“If M. de Chrétien has no nominee, Your Majesty, the position and the revenue might best be given to—”

Lucien interrupted Father de la Chaise. “It suits my family for the appointment to remain empty.” He finished his wine; Quentin poured again.

“Sir, you’re trading the spiritual health of Brittany for a few bits of gold,” de la Chaise said. “Your people need direction. Your family is sufficiently wealthy, and Brittany already bears the reputation—”

“Enough, sir. I asked for M. de Chrétien’s suggestion, and he has given it. About my decision, I will see.”

A new bishop would send much of the revenue from his lands to Rome. Without a bishop’s household and responsibilities to support, the parishioners would pay their taxes to His Majesty, and be left with something to eat after what threatened to be a poor harvest.

You’re too proud for your own good, Lucien said to himself. You neglect to explain yourself to His Majesty because you think Mme de Maintenon will give herself credit for your decision, because she might believe she shamed you into unaccustomed acts of charity.

Explaining himself to His Majesty was unnecessary. Lucien’s sovereign possessed great political astuteness; His Majesty often understood the motives of his subjects and his advisers before they understood themselves.

“What have you for me today, M. de Barbezieux?”

“Orders, Your Majesty, for quartering troops among the Protestants.” Barbezieux drew papers from his campaign desk.

“Very good.” Louis signed the documents. Barbezieux and de la Chaise looked on with approval. Already busy with another bit of needlework, Mme de Maintenon smiled.

Lucien said nothing, for nothing he could say would make Louis change his mind. He had already tried, harder than was prudent. The proposal was meant to hasten the conversion of the heretics, but as far as Lucien had seen, it had caused only disaster and treason and the enrichment of men who did not deserve any rewards. Yet instead of withdrawing the failed orders, the King extended them. His Majesty’s intolerance—Mme de Maintenon’s, as Lucien preferred to believe—prevented him from seeing how severely the draconian measures against Protestants damaged France and His Majesty himself.

It’s easier to be an atheist, Lucien thought. And less dangerous. The King’s troops do not have permission to quarter themselves in my house, to loot it, to abuse without limit the members of my household.

“Is that all? Good day, then, gentlemen,” the King said to Barbezieux and de la Chaise. “M. de Chrétien, you will stay for a glass of wine.”

Barbezieux and de la Chaise bowed and withdrew.

Quentin refilled His Majesty’s goblet, and Lucien’s. Mme de Maintenon refused refreshment. Lucien sipped the wine; it was too fine a vintage to gulp even for medicinal purposes.

His Majesty closed his eyes, revealing for a moment his exhaustion, his age.

“Give me some simple task, M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said. “Nothing to do with statecraft or religion. Something I may grant with a purse, with a wave of my hand.”

“There’s the matter of Father de la Croix, Your Majesty. The dissection.”

“Did he not complete it?”

“He completed the important part, Your Majesty. Apparently some few small muscles and sinews remain for him to observe.”

“His first attention must be to the matter we investigated last night.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

His Majesty waved his hand. “Otherwise, as his time permits, he may do as he likes with the carcass.”

“I will tell him, Your Majesty. He’ll be grateful.”

They sipped their wine in companionable silence, as if they were campaigning or at Marly, where etiquette weighed less heavily.

“You trouble me, M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said.

“Trouble you, Sire!”

“You ask me for nothing.”

“No wonder I trouble you, Sire,” Lucien said. “Nothing is difficult to give, being so insubstantial.”

His Majesty chuckled, but would not be diverted. “All around me people beg for rank, for position, for pensions. For themselves, for worthless family members.”

Lucien wondered if he were being used to convey a message to Mme de Maintenon, who had obtained endless perquisites for her feckless brother. It was equally likely—more likely—that His Majesty spoke without considering her feelings.

“I’m afraid, M. de Chrétien, that if you are dissatisfied, you’ll flee my court again to the adventures of Arabia.”

“I have no reason to return to Arabia, Your Majesty,” Lucien said. “I went there only because you commanded me to leave your sight.”

“I often wished for your good counsel, while you were gone. Will you not take some reward, if only a token?”

You have given me a place in your confidence, Lucien thought, which honors me beyond wealth or rank.

“Your Majesty, I ask for nothing more than I already have.”

“Someday, Chrétien, you’ll ask me for a great favor. My honor will require me to grant it, whatever the cost.”

Marie-Josèphe closed up the cage and crossed the plank floor to Yves’ laboratory. The guards had moved the screens, surrounding it, hiding the shroud and protecting the equipment and the samples. She slipped past the curtains. Inside, everything was just as Yves had left it. Marie-Josèphe breathed a sigh of relief. His Majesty had not bothered to tell her brother that the sea monster would be put on display—for, after all, why should he? It was his sea monster. And he had, no doubt, been certain that his guards would protect the laboratory from casual curiosity or inadvertent damage.

The shroud was piled with fresh ice and a layer of sawdust. A hint of decay tinged the air. If His Majesty would only give Yves a single session, he could complete the gross dissection and preserve samples for study.

She sat at the laboratory table. The sea monster’s internal organs, including the anomalous lobe of the creature’s lung, lay preserved in spirits in heavy glass jars. The tissue looked quite ordinary, no different from that of the porpoise she had helped Yves dissect when they found it stranded and dead on the beach back home.

Shouldn’t an organ of immortality shine with light and glow with gold? Marie-Josèphe wondered. If the precepts of alchemy are true, after all, if base metals may transmute to the perfect metal gold, if living beings may achieve immortality…

She had never believed in transmutation or immortality. The discipline of observation and description and deduction and interaction spoke to her more clearly.

She prepared samples of kidney and liver, pancreas and lung, mounted them, and made a careful drawing of each, studying them with Yves’ old microscope. The sea voyage had done the mechanism no good. She hoped Mynheer van Leeuwenhoek would condescend to sell her one of his instruments. His lenses were said to be the best in the world, though devilishly difficult to focus.

She opened the final jar and carefully prepared a sample of the anomalous lung. Its texture was firmer than ordinary lung, its tissue denser.

At the microscopic level, the anomalous tissue differed greatly from ordinary lung. Instead of air sacs, the tissue lay in delicate overlapping leaves. She picked up her pen and began to draw.

“Mlle de la Croix.”

She lifted her gaze from the microscope. Count Lucien stood within the makeshift room of white silk, aloof and elegant as always. They exchanged salutes; he not only bowed, but tipped his hat.

“I see you are a scholar,” he said.

“I cannot claim such a distinction. I’m only preparing samples for Yves to study.”

“Where is your brother? I have a message for him.”

“I’m sure he’s writing up his notes—”

She cut off her careless words even before he raised his hand to silence her about last night’s secret meeting.

“—about the other matter,” she said. “Has His Majesty set the time of the next dissection? Please, tell me.”

“His Majesty desires your brother to concentrate his efforts upon… the other matter. But inasmuch as his time allows, M. de la Croix may conduct the dissection when His Majesty is not present.”

“Thank you, Count Lucien.”

“I’ll convey your gratitude to His Majesty.”

“You see?—I didn’t ask too much of you, after all.”

“I’d gladly take credit if I deserved it. The decision rested completely with His Majesty. But, Mlle de la Croix, have I asked too much of you?”

“In what way?”

“The submission for His Majesty’s medal.”

“It’s nearly finished.” I’m not lying, she thought, hiding her dismay. Not exactly lying. The dissection sketches have prepared me to draw a proper likeness of the living sea monster.

“When may I have it?”

“Tomorrow. I promise.”

“Very well.”

“Sir, may I beg a favor of you? A word of advice? It will take a moment of your time, no more.”

“Certainly.”

“Before I entered the convent—” She stopped, and waved her words away; Count Lucien had no time to spare for her history. “I would like to resume a correspondence…” She hesitated, afraid he might laugh at her presumption.

“With an admirer?” He smiled, in a kindly fashion. “Secret letters?”

“Certainly not, sir! It would be improper—my brother wouldn’t approve. I corresponded about optics, and the laws of motion, and asked a few ignorant questions about the nature of gravity. I only want to know who to give the letter to, so M. Newton will receive it.”

“M. Newton,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“The Englishman.”

“The mathematician and philosopher.”

Count Lucien chuckled. Marie-Josèphe blushed.

“I’m sorry you think it absurd, that a mere woman dare approach a man of—”

“I don’t think it absurd at all.” He shook his head. “If your brother’s reaction to an admirer concerns you, you’d not wish to witness His Majesty’s reaction to an English correspondent. No matter how learned.”

“It’s only a letter about a curious mathematical problem.”

“Mlle de la Croix. By writing to M. Newton, you’d put yourself in danger. I have no doubt you’d put M. Newton in danger as well. We are at war with England. Do you trust a censor to understand your curious mathematical problem? More likely, he’d judge your letter to be in cipher, and your M. Newton to be a spy.”

“As the nuns judged me to be writing spells,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. I’d never wish to put M. Newton in danger. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize…”

“You should never have to,” he said, with sympathy. “It would be better if we weren’t at war, if you could carry on your correspondence without concern. I regret to tell you, it isn’t possible.”

“Thank you for your good advice,” she said, downcast.

“Pardon me, I must take my leave.”

“Count Lucien…”

He glanced back.

“Will my letter to Mynheer van Leeuwenhoek cause any difficulty for him?”

Count Lucien gave her a long look of disbelief, listened to her explanation of dashing off her request and entrusting it to an officer of the ship from Martinique, told her that he hoped the letter might have been lost, and said he would see if anything could be done.

In response to her thanks, Count Lucien bowed and left the makeshift room.

Marie-Josèphe stared at the laboratory table, distressed, grateful to Count Lucien for saving her from another misstep, angry that an innocent exchange of knowledge might be considered treason.

A cheer rose outside. Marie-Josèphe peeked out, expecting to see the visitors salute Count Lucien, who so often dispensed the King’s alms. But the count had already ridden away. Instead, the visitors crowded around the sea monster’s cage, cheering again in response to a splash and a trill of song.

The sea monster’s song, such a constant sound that she hardly noticed it while she was working, had been going on for some time. So had the applause.

The sea monster is showing herself to the visitors! Marie-Josèphe thought, delight overshadowing her distress. I’ve succeeded in gentling her, she’s no longer frightened of people.

She wanted to show off the sea monster’s trick of coming when she was called, but she could not delay telling her brother Count Lucien’s good news. She stepped out of the laboratory tent.

The sun had reached its zenith. If she did not hurry, she would be late to help Mademoiselle dress for His Majesty’s picnic at the Menagerie. She ran out of the tent and hurried up the Green Carpet, passing groups of people strolling down the slope toward the Fountain of Apollo and the sea monster.