The Moon and the Sun

18

Moonlight flooded through the window and pooled on the floor. Marie-Josèphe slipped out of bed. She stood still; a dizzy weakness passed.

Haleeda slept soundly; Yves was gone. Shivering, Marie-Josèphe slung Lorraine’s cloak over her shoulders and crept into the dressing room. She held herself up by leaning against the wall, by grasping the doorjamb.

Lorraine’s perfume surrounded her. Her stomach clenched. She flung down the cloak and struggled not to vomit. She would never wear the cloak again, no matter how soft and warm it was. She would burn it, if she had a fire.

She opened the window and gazed into the night. The moon, two days from full, loomed over the sea woman’s prison. Marie-Josèphe tried to sing, but she could only whisper.

Yet the sea woman heard her, and replied.

She’s still alive, Marie-Josèphe thought. Bless Count Lucien—

Marie-Josèphe snatched up her pen. A new scene for the cantata poured from the sea woman’s song. The pen sprayed tiny grace-notes above the staff. The candle puddled and drowned.

She wrote the last few notes and waved the page in the air to dry the ink. The cantata was complete.

Marie-Josèphe drew the tapestry from the harpsichord and flung it around her shoulders. She opened the keyboard.

In the shadowy dawn, tears running down her face, she played the story of the sea people’s tragedy.

Lucien attended the King’s awakening, but his thoughts were elsewhere. While Dr. Fagon did his work, Lucien blotted the perspiration from His Majesty’s forehead. He bowed to His Majesty when the King led the procession to Mass, but Lucien did not follow. A church was the one place where he would not follow his King.

“Dr. Fagon.”

Lucien and the First Physician were alone in His Majesty’s bedroom. The doctor looked up from studying the results of His Majesty’s regular purge.

“M. de Chrétien,” he said, bowing.

Count Lucien returned Fagon’s salutation with a nod.

“Mlle de la Croix is better, I trust? I shall look in on her later.” Fagon shook his head with disapproval. “No wonder she broke down, with all her unwomanly tasks. Someone should speak to her brother. I’ve planned an extensive course of bloodletting.”

“That will not be necessary,” Lucien said.

“I beg your pardon?” Fagon exclaimed.

“You’ll let no more blood from Mlle de la Croix.”

“Sir, are you instructing me in my profession?”

“I’m instructing you that she wants no more treatment, and I’m instructing you to respect her wishes.”

Lucien spoke quietly. Dr. Fagon was well aware of Lucien’s influence with His Majesty, the favor the King showed him, and the peril of ignoring him.

Fagon spread his hands. “If His Majesty commands—”

“It is unlikely in the extreme that His Majesty would observe your treatment.”

“It is likely in the extreme that His Majesty’s spies will observe!”

“No one need be present who might betray you. Can you not trust M. Félix?”

Fagon considered, then bowed again. “I shall observe your instructions, subject only—”

Lucien raised one eyebrow.

“—only to His Majesty’s presence.”

Lucien bowed in return. He could not ask Dr. Fagon to defy the King’s orders, in the King’s presence. He hoped Mlle de la Croix would not ask it of him.

The harpsichord traced the story of the sea monster hunt. When Marie-Josèphe began the cantata, she thought the story altogether heroic. With every revision, it had become more tragic.

She closed the keyboard and gazed at the smooth wood. She was spent.

Somehow, somehow, I must make His Majesty see what he’s doing, she thought. He loves music. If he would only listen to the sea woman, he might see what I see, he might understand her.

The door of the dressing room opened. Startled, Marie-Josèphe looked up. She expected no one. Her sister had gone to attend Mary of Modena; Yves had gone to attend the King’s awakening.

Gazing at her ardently, Lorraine stood in the doorway between her bedroom and Yves’ dressing room. Dark circles under his eyes marred his beauty.

“Do you enter a lady’s room without invitation, sir, or chaperone?”

“What need have we of chaperones, my dear? We needed none on the Grand Canal.”

His velvet cloak, sadly wrinkled and salt-stained, lay in a heap in the corner. He retrieved it and shook it out.

“You’ve had your use out of my cloak, I see.”

“You may have it back.”

He held its collar to his face. “Your perfume scents it. Your perfume, your sweat, the secrets of your body…”

She turned away, embarrassed, flustered.

“May I have not even a smile? The King offers me as a sacrifice to your beauty, but you break my heart. I lay my finest garment at your feet—but it is nothing!” He flung the cloak to the floor. “I destroy myself with worry about you—” He stroked one finger across his cheek, beneath the dark circle.

“You destroy yourself,” Marie-Josèphe said drily, “by revelling all night in Paris.”

Lorraine laughed, delighted. “Dr. Fagon did you good! You are yourself—and cured of your fantasies, I trust.” He leaned on the harpsichord, gazing soulfully at her.

“You helped Dr. Fagon steal my strength. If the sea woman dies, I’ll never recover it.”

“When she’s gone, you’ll find another cause to occupy your mind. And your heart. A husband. A lover.” He moved nearer, feigning interest in the musical score.

“It isn’t proper for you to be here, sir.”

Behind her, he pressed against her back. His scent smothered her. He laid his hands on her shoulders, slipped his fingers beneath her hair, beneath her shift, cupped his hands around her breasts. His hands were hot on her skin. She froze, with shock and cold and outrage.

“Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said from the doorway. “I see that you are protected from surgeons.”

His voice broke her paralysis. Count Lucien bowed and disappeared. Marie-Josèphe broke from Lorraine’s grasp.

“Count Lucien!” She ran after him. He limped toward the stairs. “I—the Chevalier—it wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t?” Count Lucien said. “That’s a shame.”

“A—a shame?”

Count Lucien faced her, leaning on his walking stick, gazing up quizzically.

“His Majesty himself favors the match. Lorraine belongs to an illustrious family, but he is perpetually in need of money. You will have a generous dowry from His Majesty. An alliance between you and Lorraine will repair both your fortunes.”

“I have no amorous feelings for the Chevalier de Lorraine.”

“What has that to do with marriage?”

“I scorn him!”

“Against the King’s will?”

“I’ll never marry him!” Marie-Josèphe shivered, seeing Lorraine’s intense blue eyes above her, while the surgeon’s blade slashed her. She slipped her right hand beneath her left sleeve. The bandage was wet with blood.

“Perhaps you should tell that to Monsieur.”

“Why would I tell His Majesty’s brother?”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I have—because I wish you to think well of me.”

“I think well enough of you.”

Lorraine slammed the door of Marie-Josèphe’s room and sauntered toward them. His cloak swept from one shoulder.

“The jester and the wild Carib maiden,” he said, laughing. “What a combination!”

Count Lucien stepped forward, holding his cane at his side as if it were a sword. If they fought, Lorraine would surely wound or kill him. Lorraine wore a real sword, while Count Lucien carried only his dirk.

“You are very rude, sir!” Marie-Josèphe said.

Lorraine laughed. “Chrétien, is she your protector?”

“Apparently she is. I trust yours is as valiant.”

“I have a sovereign who forbids duelling. I choose to obey him—in all things.” He stalked past them and descended the stairs.

“I’m so sorry.” Marie-Josèphe leaned against the wall. “I spoke out of turn.”

A handsbreadth of edged steel gleamed between the staff and the handle of Count Lucien’s walking-stick. Count Lucien pushed and twisted the handle; the sword cane clicked; the blade disappeared.

“Lorraine is quite right,” Count Lucien said. “His Majesty forbade duelling. No doubt you’ve saved my head.”

“You’re making fun of me, sir—”

“On the contrary.”

“—when I hope for your regard.”

“My regard, and more,” Count Lucien said. “For your own happiness, you must set your sights elsewhere.”

Marie-Josèphe returned to her room, pressing through the ruins of all her fine plans. She refused to think about what Count Lucien had said. She returned to the harpsichord, to the one thing that had gone right. She gathered together the score of the sea woman’s cantata.

I’ve done justice to her music, Marie-Josèphe thought. When His Majesty hears it, and I tell him who it belongs to, he must believe what I say about her.

She still felt light-headed, but she no longer feared she would faint. She carried the score through the chateau to the musicians’ room. She peeked in, hoping to find M. Minoret, the King’s strict music master of the third quarter, or M. de la Lande, the charming master of the fourth quarter. For His Majesty’s celebration, all four chapel masters and all the King’s musicians gathered at Versailles. His Majesty’s guests were never without music.

Master Domenico Scarlatti sat alone at the harpsichord. Marie-Josèphe waited, enjoying the unfamiliar music, till he finished with a cascade of embellishments, stopped, looked out at the beautiful day. He sighed heavily. Staring out the window, he fingered variations one-handed.

“Démonico.”

“Signorina Maria!” He jumped up. He sat down, despondent. “I’m not to rise for two whole hours.”

“I won’t interrupt.” She embraced him. “That was lovely.”

“I’m not supposed to play it.” He played another variation. “Only what papa has planned for the King.”

“Is it your own?”

“Did you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Thank you,” he said shyly.

“You’ll be able to play whatever you like, when you’re older,” she said. “I doubt anyone could stop you!”

He grinned. “In two years—when I’m eight?”

“Perhaps in two years—when you’re ten.”

“What’s that? His Majesty’s cantata? Can I see?”

He paged through it, jerking his head to its rhythms, humming an occasional note, fingering with his free hand.

“Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s ever so much better—” He stopped, embarrassed. “I mean—that is—”

“Than what I played at St Cyr?”

“Forgive me, Signorina Maria, but, yes, ever so much better.”

“You said you liked the other songs.”

“I, that is, they were pretty, but I—I wanted you to like me so you’d marry me. When I grow up.”

“Oh, Démonico.” She smiled, amused through her distress, but she could not humiliate him by telling him their stations were impossibly distant. “I’m far too old for you, I’ll be an old lady before you’re ready to marry.”

“I wouldn’t care—and M. Coupillet is an old man!”

“No, he isn’t.” Then she understood: Domenico was jealous. “He is selfish and mean—who would want him?”

“I’m not selfish, and I’m not mean—”

“Of course you aren’t!”

“—and even though I love you, your cantata is wonderful! Your other songs were very pretty, but—”

“—I hadn’t practiced or played or composed a song in many years. I wasn’t allowed.”

“That is horrible,” he whispered.

“It was,” she said.

“How will you ever catch up?”

“I never will, Démonico,” she said, “but that time’s past, stolen, and I must stop feeling sorry about it. The sea woman gave me this music as her gift, it’s entirely to her credit if it has any quality.” She wondered if it did have any quality, if Domenico saw excellence in it because he loved her. She wondered whether her unpracticed talents had debased the song of the sea woman’s life.

M. Coupillet strode into the practice room, followed by a group of sunburned string players wiping their brows, blinking in the dim room, and calling for wine and beer.

Démonico leaned closer, conspiratorially. “M. Coupillet said you’d never finish. He said you couldn’t.”

“Did he!” she exclaimed, then relented. “After all, he was nearly right.”

Domenico bent over the keyboard as if he had never paused in his practice. He played Marie-Josèphe’s cantata.

“The varnish on my viola melted, I swear to God,” said one of the younger musicians. “Next time I have to follow the King around the garden in the sun without a hat, I’ll use my oldest instrument.”

“Michel wants to put a hat on his viola,” said another of the musicians, laughing.

“I’ll use my newest strings,” said a third musician, looking ruefully at the broken string on his violin.

“Your broken string was the fault of that plump little princess,” said Michel. “Under those silver petticoats, I’ll wager she’s bleeding like—”

M. Coupillet stamped his director’s baton on the floor. “Enough, Michel. You’ve blasphemed, insulted the King, and spoken lewdly, all in the space of a minute. And in front of M. Scarlatti’s little arithmetic teacher.”

“I beg your pardon, mamselle.” Michel the viola player bowed to her and turned his attention to a cup of wine and a slice of bread and cheese.

“What do you want, Mlle de la Croix?” M. Coupillet asked. “Why are you here? To beg relief from composing His Majesty’s cantata?”

“It’s finished,” she said. She could hardly listen to him, because she was listening to Domenico. When he played, the music sounded as she imagined it.

M. Coupillet waited. When she neither replied nor gave him the music, he thumped his baton on the floor again, startling her, snatching her attention back.

“You must give me the score,” he said.

“But Domenico is—” She stopped, amazed. The score lay on the seat beside Domenico; he played from memory.

Marie-Josèphe reluctantly gave M. Coupillet the pages. He weighed them in his hand; he riffled through them.

“What is this? An opera? Do you think you’re Mlle de la Guerre? You—an amateur, a woman!—you give me an opera to conduct? Worthless! Hopeless!” He tried to tear the sheaf in half, but it was too thick; his hand slipped and he ripped only the first half-dozen pages. He wrenched it with both hands, like a dog shaking a rat, and flung the whole thing down. The score spilled across the polished parquet.

“Sir!” She stooped to gather the torn, rumpled sheets.

“Incompetence! It’s dreadful.” He waved his baton toward Domenico. “You think to match yourself against genius such as Signor Alessandro Scarlatti!”

Domenico’s shoulders shook from laughter, but his hands never faltered, playing the piece M. Coupillet took for his father’s.

“Signor Scarlatti admired it!”

“What do you expect? He’s Italian—Signor Alessandro admires your white bosom, your—”

“You insult me on every level, sir!” She tried to leave, but M. Coupillet barred her way.

“His Majesty asked you for a song—a few minutes of music!” M. Coupillet said. “You insult me—you insult him—with this, this bloated abortion.” He emphasized his words by thumping his baton. “You charmed him with your coquettish ways, but your charm won’t distract him from your arrogant failure.”

“You’re unfair, sir.”

“Am I? I should have had this commission—He never would have noticed you if not for my embellishments—”

“Little Domenico’s embellishments, if you please, M. Coupillet. It’s contemptible enough for you to steal my accomplishments, but to steal a child’s—”

“A child? A child!” He shook his baton toward Domenico. “I have it on good authority, the boy’s a midget of thirty years!”

“I’m six!” Domenico shouted, and kept on playing.

Marie-Josèphe burst out laughing, but her sense of the absurd only infuriated M. Coupillet the more.

“Do you dare to laugh at me? Am I insufficiently grand? I, who brought you to His Majesty’s attention?”

“Through no desire of your own, sir!”

“Desire? How dare you mention desire? You flirt with the Neapolitan, you flirt with the King, you even flirt with dwarves and sodomites, but you ignore and despise me—”

“Good-bye, sir.”

Still he would not let her pass.

“Do you imagine I noticed you for your music? For your amateurish compositions and your fumble-fingered playing? I do not say you would not have been adequate—adequate, no more—if you’d devoted yourself to the art, but you’ve wasted whatever talent you ever had, and it’s just as well! Women play by rote! Women play as if they were still in the schoolroom! And as for the compositions of women—Women should be silent! Women are good for only one thing, and you’re such a fool you don’t even know what it is.”

A fleck of spittle, foaming, collected at the corner of his mouth. He loomed over her, shouting.

She clutched the untidy pile of paper. “Let me pass.” She meant her voice to freeze him, but her words revealed her vulnerability. Across the room, the young musicians stood in uncomfortable silence, their backs turned, as afraid as Marie-Josèphe of their master.

“Give me the score,” he said. “I’ll condescend to carve a song out of it, but you must show me some gratitude—and His Majesty must know the credit is mine.”

“No, sir. I won’t insult His Majesty with my inferior female music.”

Coupillet moved aside. His bow was a taunt, an insult.

“Do you wish to go? Yes, go! You’ll fail without my help. I’ll explain to His Majesty how you neglected his commission!”

Marie-Josèphe rode Zachi toward the Fountain of Apollo, holding tight to her drawing box and the score inside it. She dared not return to the musicians’ room. Perhaps she could find Domenico when he had finished his practice.

Do I have reason to find him? she wondered. He’s only a little boy, prodigy or not, how can he judge the music? Besides, M. Coupillet will surely forbid him to play it. I should have let M. Coupillet pick out a few measures, and then I wouldn’t be utterly humiliated in front of the King.

In truth, she could not bear the thought of letting M. Coupillet alter the sea woman’s music.

In the Fountain of Apollo, the sea woman sang and leaped for the entertainment of the visitors. Marie-Josèphe put aside all her own worries and humiliations. They were trivial compared to the sea woman’s peril.

She pushed through the crowd to the cage, where a bright flock of noblewomen sat watching the sea woman. Mme Lucifer smoked a small black cigar and whispered to Mlle d’Armagnac, whose hair was hidden beneath an iridescent headdress of peacock feathers.

When Mlle d’Armagnac saw Marie-Josèphe, she rose to her feet. All the other ladies followed her lead. Baffled, Marie-Josèphe curtsied to them.

She knelt at the edge of the fountain and sang the sea woman’s name. “Sea woman, will you tell these people of land a story?”

The sea woman swam to the foot of the stairs. She lifted her arms; Marie-Josèphe slipped her fingers into the sea woman’s webbed hands.

The sea woman snorted; the swellings on her face rippled. She drew Marie-Josèphe’s left hand toward her, forcing Marie-Josèphe to stoop. She prodded the bandage and nibbled at the knot that held it. The pressure increased the throbbing.

“Please, don’t.” Marie-Josèphe pulled her hand away. “You’re hurting me.”

A group of noblemen entered, laughing and pushing their way past the visitors. Lorraine led half a dozen young men to the front of the audience. They bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the ladies and to His Majesty’s portrait; they threw themselves into their chairs, lounging and slouching and smoking. Marie-Josèphe turned away from Lorraine, away from Chartres.

“Please, sea woman,” Marie-Josèphe said. “A story?”

Madame arrived, with Lotte; Count Lucien accompanied them. Marie-Josèphe rose and curtsied. She smiled shyly, tentatively, at Count Lucien, hoping he would forgive her for her foolishness this morning. He nodded to her in a gentlemanly fashion. Madame’s presence—or was it Count Lucien’s?—brought the men to proper behavior.

The sea woman began her tale in a melodious whisper.

“She will tell you a story,” Marie-Josèphe said.

“ ‘The ocean cradled the sea people for a thousand hundred years. We lived in peace with the men of land.’ ”

Marie-Josèphe found herself in the midst of the story. The sea surrounded her, cool on her bare skin. She continued to speak, to sing, to tell the story, but her audience vanished and the people of the sea surrounded her. She swam, and sang; she caught fish and ate them raw; laughing, she played with sea-children among the spark-speckled tentacles of a giant octopus.

“ ‘Then the men of land discovered good sport in pursuing us from their ships…’ ”

A strange sound raked the water. She and her family surfaced into the sunlight. Curious and unafraid, ready to welcome the land people as they had greeted the Minoans, the sea people swam toward the dragon-prowed ship floating on the waves.

“ ‘They sailed into our waters…’ ”

A great net soared over the sea people, fell among them, and captured one of her brothers and two of her sisters. Men of land leaned over the side of the ship, laughing and shouting. They landed the sea people, ignoring their cries.

“ ‘They raided the sea people.’ ”

With sails and long oars, the Northmen set their ship in motion. The free sea people followed, horrified. The screams of their friends echoed through the wooden sides of the ship, filling the sea with pain.

“ ‘And they tortured us.’ ”

The Northmen tied the sea man to their dragon prow. His screams warned them of rocks and reefs. Sometimes they aimed their figurehead toward the rocks, and laughed at his cries.

“ ‘They used the sea women against their will, as no woman wishes to be used.’ ”

The Northmen threw the sea women overboard. They floated, limp, bruised, bleeding from secret places.

“The sea people—” Marie-Josèphe choked on tears. “Please, sea woman, please, no more.”

You must finish, the sea woman sang. You promised to finish the story.

Marie-Josèphe continued. The sea people comforted the injured sea women. But just out of the sight of the eyes, sleek and deadly shapes appeared. Hunting sharks surrounded the group, scenting the blood, moving in to attack.

The sea people turned outward to defend themselves, circling their injured friends and their children for protection. They sang a song of description and warning into the sea, so other families would hear it and beware the men of land and their marauding ships.

Yves stared at Marie-Josèphe, shocked. He had arrived, with Dr. Fagon, while the story surrounded her, filling her sight. Marie-Josèphe stammered out the end of the tale; she covered her face with her hands, hiding her tears. Her heart thrashed wildly, driven by horror on the sea woman’s behalf, fear and embarrassment on her own.

The visitors and most of the courtiers applauded, cheering as they would for the greatest drama of Racine.

“There, there, my dear,” Madame said softly. The Princess Palatine embraced Marie-Josèphe, holding her gently against her ample bosom, stroking her hair. Lotte joined them, patting Marie-Josèphe’s hand.

“What a tragic story! How imaginative you are!”

“Overwrought melodrama,” Lorraine said.

“You’re too harsh, sir,” Chartres said mildly.

“Come along, child,” Madame said. “We’ll ride with the King’s hunt. The fresh air will have you well in no time.”

“Fagon,” Lorraine said, “you should bleed her again.”

Marie-Josèphe started, ready to fly to Zachi, ready to run. Lorraine laughed, her first true enemy.

Count Lucien cleared his throat.

“Letting blood is not,” Fagon said nervously, “is not indicated, at this time.”