The Moon and the Sun

17

The sea woman lay at the bottom of the pool, aware of the dirty water, the fish schooling past, the voices of the men of land. Bright sunlight warned her that she could not dive deep enough to fall into a proper trance. She maintained the languor as best she could, because the land woman had asked it of her. Every little while she gasped water into her lungs, then expelled it gradually.

The land woman was the first being she had dared to trust since her capture, the first being perceptive enough to understand her. She would trust her as long as she dared.

She lay very still, gilded by phosphorescence.

The sea woman drifted supine at the bottom of the pool, her eyes open and staring. Her long green hair floated around her. Underwater, she gasped as if for air.

The King arrived.

Marie-Josèphe rose and curtsied. Count Lucien, Yves, and the gentlemen from the Academy bowed. His Majesty struggled from his wheeled chair. His gout lamed him terribly; he put one arm around Lorraine and leaned his other hand on Count Lucien’s shoulder. Monsieur followed, carrying His Majesty’s walking staff, chasing Lorraine with his gaze. M. Boursin shambled nervously in with the rest of the entourage. The white lace at his collar and cuffs accentuated his prominent Adam’s apple, his bony wrists and skeletal hands. He carried an old book.

“Is it dead?” he muttered. “If it’s spoiled, I’ll be ruined. If it’s dead, I’ll kill myself! It was fat enough yesterday—I should have butchered it then!”

Count Lucien beckoned to an artisan, who apprehensively attacked the lock with a file. Metal rasped on metal.

His Majesty reached the cage and peered inside. “Have you killed my sea monster, Mlle de la Croix?”

“No, Your Majesty.” Marie-Josèphe’s calm was as unshakeable as the King’s.

“Has it drowned itself?” He raised his voice above the racket of the file. Metal shavings fell to the ground.

“No, Your Majesty.”

Count Lucien touched the artisan’s shoulder. The man stopped filing while His Majesty spoke.

“What is it doing?”

The artisan filed at the lock.

“She’s breathing underwater, Sire.”

The artisan stopped—“Why is she doing this?”—and started.

“Because I asked her, Your Majesty.”

The artisan stopped just long enough for His Majesty to speak, then redoubled his efforts at the lock.

“You’ve trained her well.”

“I never trained her at all, Sire.”

“She obeyed you,” Yves said. “Like a dog.”

“She’s demonstrating the function of the unique lobe of her lung. It isn’t—” She hesitated. She kept the false secret. “It only allows her to breathe underwater.”

“How do you know the true function of this organ?”

“Your Majesty, the sea woman told me.”

Lorraine laughed, a short hard bark quickly suppressed. The artisan stopped, filed hard, stopped again.

“Sea woman?” His Majesty exclaimed. “Do you mean to say the sea monster speaks?”

“Marie-Josèphe, enough! I forbid you—” Yves fell silent, like the artisan, when His Majesty held up one hand.

“Answer me, Mlle de la Croix.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I understand her. She understands me.” The artisan sawed at the lock again. “She isn’t a monster. She speaks, she’s intelligent. She’s a woman, she’s human, like me, like all of us.”

“Your Majesty, please forgive my sister—I am entirely to blame, I’ve permitted her to tax herself—”

“Will it awaken and return to the surface?”

“She will do as you command, Your Majesty,” Marie-Josèphe said. “As will I.”

“Stop that noise.” The artisan left off filing and backed away, bowing. “Mlle de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “be so kind as to open the gate.”

She descended, fitted the key in the keyhole, and turned it. The lock fell apart; the gate opened.

Leaning on Count Lucien and Lorraine, His Majesty made his way to the fountain’s rim.

“She understands. I’ll show you.” Marie-Josèphe descended the stairs to the platform. She patted the water. “Sea woman! His Majesty bids you return!” She sang the sea woman’s name.

The sea woman stretched languorously. She opened her eyes. With an abrupt and powerful kick, she ascended. At the surface, she coughed and spat out a great deal of water. She breathed with a great gasp, blew the spent breath out, and gasped again. The swellings on her forehead and cheeks expanded and deflated, making her face grotesque.

“It’s alive!” M. Boursin whispered.

“What is this thing, Mlle de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “if not a monster?”

“She’s a woman. She’s intelligent—”

“It’s no more intelligent than a parrot,” Yves said.

“This vision of ugliness, a woman?”

“Look at the skull of the sea-woman’s mate, Sire. Look at his bones, look at his hands. Listen to the sea woman, and I’ll tell you what she says.”

“The monster’s nothing like a man,” Yves said. “Look at its grotesque face, the joints of its legs—the concealment of its parts, if Your Majesty will forgive my mentioning the subject.”

“A dog, a parrot, a creature!” His Majesty exclaimed. “But certainly not a woman!” He turned away.

The shock of failure overcame Marie-Josèphe, as cold and suffocating as if she had fallen into the sea woman’s prison. The sea woman, swimming back and forth at her feet, understood the King’s refusal. She shrieked and spat.

“M. Boursin,” His Majesty said. “Your plans, if you please.”

“Your Majesty, I’ve discovered perfection!” M. Boursin joined His Majesty inside the cage. He opened his shabby old book and displayed it for the King.

“Excellent, M. Boursin. I am pleased.”

“Be so kind as to throw it a fish, Mlle de la Croix, make it leap, so I may estimate it.” M. Boursin gazed greedily at the sea woman; Marie-Josèphe gazed with disbelief at M. Boursin and the King.

The sea woman spattered droplets at them with sharp flicks of her webbed toes.

“Your Majesty, the Church deems it a fish, suitable for Fridays. But its flesh is said to be succulent as meat. If I butcher it now, Your Majesty, I might make a dish—a little dish, for Your Majesty alone, perhaps a paté—for your supper alone, so you need not wait for midnight feast.”

“That is most thoughtful of you, M. Boursin.”

“And with the rest of the flesh, I’ll recreate Charlemagne’s banquet, it will be my masterpiece!” He leaned precariously over the rim of the fountain, glancing from the book to the sea woman and back.

He displayed the book to the Academicians, to Yves, to Marie-Josèphe.

A sea woman lay on her belly on a huge platter, her back unnaturally arched and her knees bent; her webbed feet nearly brushed the top of her head. She held a dead sturgeon as if it were suckling at her swollen breasts.

“I’ll fatten its teats with shrimp and scallops. I’ll stuff its body with baked oysters. I’ll dress its hair with golden caviar! What a shame the male died, what a shame I can’t prepare two! I must butcher this one soon.”

In the woodcut, the roasted sea woman stared with eyes wide open and empty.

Marie-Josèphe screamed.

“I’ll need a Caspian sturgeon… Why, Mlle de la Croix, don’t be alarmed, the creature is grotesque, but I can almost make it beautiful!”

“Close your book, M. Boursin,” said Count Lucien.

Lorraine took the stairs in one leap and snatched Marie-Josèphe into his arms, holding her, muffling her sobs against his chest.

“What’s the matter?” M. Boursin said. “Mlle de la Croix, don’t you like seafood?”

“Where’s my smelling bottle?” Monsieur said. “I put it in my pocket—Did I leave it in my muff…?”

“Your Majesty,” Yves said, “I beg your forgiveness, my sister has forever been tender-hearted. She’s made a pet of the monster…”

Marie-Josèphe huddled against Lorraine, trembling terribly, fighting to control her sobs.

“Here it is!” Monsieur said.

A pungent explosion in her nostrils sent her into a fit of sneezing. Tears blurred her vision.

“May I take it, Your Majesty? The meat must hang, Your Majesty, or it will taste gamy, Your Majesty.”

“The creature is a fish,” Count Lucien said.

“A fish, M. de Chrétien?”

“If the sea monster isn’t human,” Count Lucien said, “then it’s a beast. M. Boursin himself brought to Your Majesty’s attention that the Church has judged sea monsters to be fish. If M. Boursin kills it today, its flesh will be rotten before Your Majesty’s banquet.”

“But—” M. Boursin said.

“M. de Chrétien is correct,” His Majesty said.

“But—”

“No more, M. Boursin! You may not butcher the creature today! M. de Chrétien, if you please, arrange for Dr. Fagon to attend Mlle de la Croix.” The King remained perfectly calm, perfectly in control.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Count Lucien departed.

Lorraine swept Marie-Josèphe up in his arms. His musky scent overpowered the sharp sweetness of Monsieur’s swooning compound.

“My deepest apologies, Sire,” Yves said. “I overtaxed her—her natural sympathy—a shock—”

Lorraine pushed past courtiers and Academicians alike, carrying Marie-Josèphe from the tent. Sunlight spread over her face like hot wine. Zelis’ hoofbeats struck a rhythm in the distance; Count Lucien rode away toward the chateau.

“Let me down,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Call Count Lucien back, please, I don’t want to see Dr. Fagon.”

“Shh, shh.” Lorraine embraced her more strongly.

His Majesty climbed into his wheeled chair and sat at his ease while his deaf-mutes pushed him away.

“Be easy, mademoiselle. Dr. Fagon will set you right.”

Lorraine laid Marie-Josèphe on her bed. Haleeda jumped from the window-seat, dropping the lace and wires of Queen Mary’s new fontanges.

“Mlle Marie, what’s happened?”

Yves sat beside Marie-Josèphe.

Lorraine said, “The surgeon will be here soon.”

“That’s what I fear!” Marie-Josèphe whispered.

Haleeda sponged her face.

“You know the creature’s to be butchered,” Yves said. “How could you become so attached to it? This is just like your lamb, when you begged papa not to kill it—”

“Don’t task me with what I did as a child,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I’m not a child any longer.”

“Your behavior—”

“I’m attached to the sea woman as I’m attached to you, as I’m attached to Mlle Haleeda—I beg for her life because she is a thinking, reasoning person, a being with a soul, and because I do not wish my King to be a cannibal—”

Dr. Fagon cleared his throat. Marie-Josèphe fell silent.

“You’re speaking nonsense,” Yves said.

Dr. Fagon and Dr. Félix entered Marie-Josèphe’s room without asking her consent. Marie-Josèphe thought wildly that her apartment was becoming as crowded as one of His Majesty’s evening entertainments.

“His Majesty is right to be concerned with your well-being,” the first physician said.

“I’m perfectly well, sir.” Her voice was steady, but she was trembling. She felt cold and light-headed.

“Hush, you are pallid and hysterical.” Fagon bent over her and peered into her eyes. “What happened?”

“She received a shock,” Lorraine said. “She fainted.”

“Nonsense,” Haleeda said. “Fainted!”

“Be silent!” Dr Félix said.

“She’s only tired,” Haleeda said, outraged. “She’s hardly slept since M. Yves returned.”

“No one spoke to you.” Dr Félix swung around toward her so violently that Haleeda flinched.

“Sir!” Yves said. “The King’s favor doesn’t allow you to abuse members of my household.”

“Don’t touch her!” Marie-Josèphe said. “Don’t touch me!”

“Marie-Josèphe, let him examine you,” Yves said.

Haleeda flung herself across Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe buried her face against her sister’s shoulder, grateful and terrified.

Dr. Félix and Lorraine pulled Haleeda up. She struggled and keened. Félix propelled her toward Yves.

“Take your servant away,” Fagon said. “We cannot work with two hysterical women in the room!”

Yves held Haleeda so she could not move from his side.

“Brother—” Haleeda cried.

“Take this madwoman away,” Fagon said. “I shall send the barber to bleed her, as well.”

“It’s for your own good, sister,” Yves said, “I’m sure it is.” He backed out of Marie-Josèphe’s room, into his dressing room, taking Haleeda with him.

“Yves, don’t let them—please—remember papa—” Fear overtook Marie-Josèphe, for she was lost.

Félix held her face between his powerful hands. Fagon forced her mouth open. His fingers tasted of blood and dirt. She could not scream. He poured a bitter draught down her throat. She gagged and struggled.

“Sir,” Dr. Fagon said to Lorraine, “will you condescend to help, for His Majesty’s sake?”

“I’ll help for my own sake, for she’s mine.” Lorraine pinioned Marie-Josèphe’s arms with his hard hands.

“I never fainted, I never faint.” She turned her head away from Dr. Fagon’s dirty fingers. “I assure you, sir—”

“I shall bleed her,” Dr. Félix said. “Bloodletting will calm her mind.”

Marie-Josèphe fought, terrified, but she could not overcome the strength of all three men. She tried to bite.

“Don’t struggle so. We’re acting for your benefit.”

Her scream came out as a strangled cry. Kneeling on the bed beside her, Lorraine covered her with his musky scent. He pressed her shoulders down with all his weight. The long locks of his perruke tumbled around his face and curled at Marie-Josèphe’s throat. She kicked. Someone held her feet, one bare, one shod.

“Show some courage,” Lorraine said. “Make His Majesty proud of your fortitude—not ashamed of your cowardice.”

Félix pushed her sleeve above her elbow and held her wrist tight. He took up his blade. The sharp steel pierced the soft skin of her inner arm. Hot blood flowed through pain, its coppery scent cutting through Lorraine’s heavy perfume. She moaned. Her blood gushed into the bowl, spattering her riding habit and the bedclothes. Bright flecks stained the lace spilling from Dr. Fagon’s sleeves.

Smiling, gazing into her eyes, Lorraine held Marie-Josèphe down.

Lucien limped along the narrow, dim corridor, ignoring the faded pain of his wounded leg and the stronger, nearly constant ache in his back. He disliked the attic of the chateau. He disliked its shabbiness, its smell, its memories. As a child, a page, he had lived in the Queen’s apartments. After the Moroccan embassy, returned to the King’s good graces, he had lived in the town of Versailles until the builders finished his own country lodge. He had lived here in the courtiers’ warren only during the most miserable months of his life, when he was alienated from His Majesty.

Mlle de la Croix’ door opened. Dr. Fagon, Dr. Félix, and Lorraine stepped into the hallway. Mlle de la Croix’ cry of despair dissolved into a whimper. Lucien frowned. He judged character well; he did not often mistake courage. He had considered her stalwart, if impetuous.

Lucien nodded to Fagon and Félix; he returned Lorraine’s cool bow. Félix rubbed his thumb over the back of his hand, smearing drops of blood to faint streaks.

“I have cured her hysteria,” Félix said.

“His Majesty will be glad to hear it. He’s fond of the young lady and her family.”

“And of her golden hair and her white bosom,” Lorraine said.

Lucien replied with a conventional compliment. “No one could fail to admire her.”

Though Mlle de la Croix was entirely innocent, rumors of a liaison with the King could work only to her benefit. Lucien wished His Majesty would in fact form such a liaison. His connection with Mme de Maintenon, drawing him deep into piety, did little to sustain his vital spirit.

“She may require another bloodletting tomorrow, to augment the cure.” Fagon tilted the basin. Liquid blood moved beneath the clotted skin.

Félix probed the blood with his finger, breaking the elastic surface. Fagon righted the basin as the blood flowed over the edge and stained the carpet.

“Her blood is far too thick, as you must observe,” Fagon said, “but I shall balance her bodily humours.” He chuckled. “Though she may bite my finger off!”

“She tried to bite me, too,” Lorraine said as they walked away. “The minx.” He chuckled. “Like a trapped animal. But she has quite trapped my heart.”

All alone, Mlle de la Croix lay crying in a tangle of bedclothes and bloody lint, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow. She heard or felt Lucien standing beside her. She reached weakly toward him.

“Dear God, please, no more—”

She touched his arm, fumbling. A bloodstain widened on the bandage. Lucien took her hand.

“Oh!” She drew away, shocked and startled. Her hair fell in damp untidy strands around her drained face. “Forgive me… I thought you were my brother.”

“I will call him.”

“No—! I don’t want to see him.”

“Do you feel better? Calmer? Cured of delusions?”

“I don’t see delusions! I can talk with the sea woman! You must believe me, sir—if you don’t, why did you take such a risk on her behalf?”

“His Majesty does as he pleases,” Count Lucien said. “I only offered him the rationale.”

“Is that the only reason you spoke?”

Lucien did not reply.

“Very well,” she whispered. “You care for nothing but His Majesty. You spoke because you know he mustn’t murder the sea woman—he mustn’t risk his immortal soul!”

“Sleep,” Lucien said, preferring not to continue a conversation that took this direction. “Dr. Fagon will return in the morning.”

“Do you want me to die of bleeding, like my father?”

Her voice fell to a horrified whisper. Lucien regretted dismissing her courage, for everyone he had ever known possessed a secret terror. As far as Lucien was concerned, fearing physicians was perfectly rational.

“Do you hate me?” she whispered.

“Of course I do not hate you.”

“Don’t let him bleed me again,” she said. “Please.”

“You do ask too much of me.” If the King ordered Mlle de la Croix to be bled, Lucien could do nothing to stop it. He devoted himself to carrying out Louis’ wishes, not to hindering them.

“Please. Please promise me.” She struggled up, clutching his hand with awful desperation. Fear and pain had leached the intelligence from her face. “Please help me. I have great need of a friend.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Give me your word.”

“Very well,” he said, against his better judgment, but moved by her fear. “I give you my word.”

She collapsed, still holding his hand, trembling. She closed her eyes. Her agitation calmed; her fingers relaxed.

Lucien sighed, and smoothed her sweat-darkened hair.

Marie-Josèphe drifted, awake, asleep, aware of Count Lucien, comforted by his promise, aware of the denizens of her imagination, afraid to see them in her dreams. She feared sleep, but she shrank from waking.

When she woke, moonlight spilled through the window, pooling on the floor like molten silver. Count Lucien had gone. Haleeda slept beside her, holding her, a welcome warmth. Dr Félix must have forgotten his threat to bleed Marie-Josèphe’s sister; Haleeda’s arms bore neither wound nor bandage. Yves dozed, slumped over a sheaf of papers. He would have a terrible crick in his neck in the morning.

Yves and Haleeda must have undressed her, for she wore only her blood-spattered shift. She hoped Haleeda had asked Count Lucien to withdraw; she hoped she had not been unclothed before the King’s adviser. She was no royal lady, to be dressed by tailors and observed by men at the most intimate times of her life.

She sat up, weak and light-headed.

Yves woke. “Sister—are you recovered?”

“How could you let him bleed me?”

“It was for your own good.”

He had found her sketches. He flicked through them, his face impassive.

“The sea woman told me that story,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The true story of the hunt. You caught three sea people. Not two. They struggled. The sailors killed one—”

“Hush,” he said. “I told you the story.”

“You never did. They killed one. They ate his flesh. You ate—”

“—the flesh of an animal! It was delicious. Why shouldn’t I eat it?”

“You claim to love truth! But when you hear it, you deny it. Please believe me. Yves, my dear brother, what’s changed so, that you have no faith in me?”

Her agitation woke Haleeda. “Mlle Marie?” She pushed herself up on her elbow, blinking sleepily. Marie-Josèphe took her hand, desperate for her comfort.

“The sea monsters are beasts, created for the use of man,” Yves said. He sat next to her on her bed. “You should retire from court. Too much attention has distracted you. In a convent, you’d be safe from this agitation of your spirits.”

“No.”

“You’d be happy, back in the convent.”

“She’d never be happy there!” Haleeda cried.

“For five years, I read no books,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sisters said knowledge would corrupt me, like Eve.” She had tried to forgive her brother his awful decision, but she could not let him repeat it. “I heard no music. The sisters forbade it. They said, Women must be silent in the house of God. The Pope demands it. I did without books, without studying—I had no choice! I couldn’t stop my thoughts, my questions, though I couldn’t speak them. Mathematics—!” Her laugh was wild and angry. “They said I was writing spells! I heard music that was never there, I could never stop it, no matter how I prayed and fasted. I called myself a madwoman, a sinner…” She looked into his face. “M. Newton replied to my letter—but they burned it, unopened, before me. How could you send me there, where every moment tortured me? I thought you loved me—”

“I wanted you to be safe.” His beautiful eyes filled with sudden tears. He put his arms around her, relenting, hugging her protectively. “And now, I’ve asked too much of you—the work is too difficult.”

“I love the work!” she cried. “I do it gladly. I do it well, and I’m not a fool. You must listen to me!”

“I have the obligation to guide you. Your affection for the sea monster is unnatural.”

“My affection for her has nothing to do with what she told me. You know her stories are true.”

He knelt beside her bed. He took her arm.

“Pray with me,” he said.

Prayer will comfort and sustain me, Marie-Josèphe thought.

Marie-Josèphe slipped to the floor and knelt. She folded her hands, bowed her head, and waited for the welcome embrace of God’s presence.

“Odelette, join us, pray for Marie-Josèphe’s recovery.”

“I will not!” Haleeda said. “I’ll never pray like a Christian again, for I am a free woman, and a Mahometan, and my name is Haleeda!” Hugging herself for warmth, she turned her back and stared into the moonlit gardens.

“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God…”

Does God have a plan for my suffering? she wondered. But my suffering is nothing, compared to the martyrs—compared to the despair of the sea woman. Other people undergo bleeding without a second thought. I should submit to it bravely.

Instead, she had forced Lorraine to behave in a way that destroyed her high opinion of him. She no longer cared what Lorraine thought. She had diminished herself in Count Lucien’s estimation, which mattered to her a great deal.

“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God, please speak to me, please direct me. Tell me what is right and proper for me to do.”

She begged, she even dared to hope, for a reply. But in the face of her entreaties, God remained silent.