The Moon and the Sun

20

Marie-Josèphe entered the sea woman’s prison. She hesitated, swaying dizzily. Murk clouded the pool. Marie-Josèphe sat down before her equilibrium deserted her. Her arm throbbed.

She whispered the sea woman’s name. “His Majesty will hear me on your behalf. You must tell him a story I could never make up. A story to move him. A story to charm him to our cause.”

The sea woman growled her contempt for the King. She would fight the toothless one for her freedom. The land woman must throw him into the fountain, where the sea woman could sing at him until his heart stopped and his bowels turned to water.

“Don’t say such things! What if someone else learned to understand you?”

The sea woman swam to her. Her whispered song created loneliness and despair. Slow ripples spread outward along her path. Marie-Josèphe plunged her hand beneath the surface, hoping the cool water might soothe the ache. The ripples she created met the sea woman’s wake; their interaction entranced her for a moment.

The sea woman grasped Marie-Josèphe’s swollen hand. Her nostrils flared. Marie-Josèphe gasped; the pain of the touch broke through her feverish distraction.

“Let me go, please, you’re hurting me.”

The sea woman refused to release her. Her eyes gleamed dark gold. She sniffed and licked Marie-Josèphe’s swollen palm. Following the angry purple streaks, she pushed at the sleeve of Marie-Josèphe’s hunting habit and exposed the bandage. She hummed with worry, then changed the key to reassurance. She nibbled at the bandage; with her long pointed webbed fingers she untied the bloody linen. The water had soaked it loose. She exposed the angry wound.

Outside the tent, horses galloped near and pulled up. Men spoke; Count Lucien entered, his distinctive footsteps uneven, punctuated with the tap of his sword-cane.

The sea woman kissed Marie-Josèphe’s arm, tonguing the incision, drooling profusely on the wound. The scab cracked and bled. Marie-Josèphe felt sick.

“What is she doing?” Count Lucien spoke quietly, but the tension in his voice startled Marie-Josèphe. The sea woman released her and submerged in the pool.

“I don’t know,” Marie-Josèphe said. “She didn’t tell me.”

The sea woman fled. The small man of land, in his complicated outer skin, did not behave cruelly, like the one who covered himself with black. The small man intrigued her more than he frightened her, yet still she feared him. If he were the land-woman’s particular friend, she might trust him more. But the land woman had not yet chosen him.

Alone beneath the surface, she cried. She hoped she had helped the land woman. Had she kissed her sick arm sufficiently? She hoped so. She was afraid to tell her ally what she was doing, afraid to say she could help, for if the men of land discovered what she had done, what she could do, they would cut out her tongue and take it away with them. One of them would wear it around his neck on a string of seaweed, like the sailors did. They were such fools, they terrified her.

I’m always afraid, she thought. Ever since the net, ever since the galleon, I’ve been afraid, though I was never afraid in my life before!

The fear made her angry. If the land woman died of her wounds, the sea woman would be all alone with no ally at all to help her escape. She must escape.

Lucien let Marie-Josèphe’s arm bleed.

“Make it stop,” she said, near panic.

“I will. In a moment. The blood will—” He stopped, unwilling to frighten her further with talk of bleeding out the poison. “I will. One moment.” He took off his gloves and dug in his saddlebag for lint, bandage, spirits of wine.

“This will hurt.” He poured the spirits over the wound. It diluted the thick blood and flowed in pink streams down Marie-Josèphe’s arm. Marie-Josèphe neither cried out nor flinched. Lucien pressed a wad of lint onto the open incision. He brought out the small silver casket containing what remained of M. de Baatz’ salve. He had used most of it on Chartres’ wound and his own. He had not yet been home to Brittany to replenish his supply.

If only Papa would give me the recipe, Lucien thought. If only he’ll bequeath it to me, or even to Guy, instead of letting the secret be lost.

“This will soothe you,” he said. As soon as the bleeding ceased, he spread the thick black salve across the wound. He used it all. A wound as corrupt as this could kill a powerful young soldier; even with the salve, Lucien feared gangrene. He dressed the wound and bandaged it.

“There, you see, the swelling’s less already.” Lucien hoped he was not deceiving himself. He smiled, grasping for certainty. “That will see you well in a day or two.”

“Thank you, Count Lucien.” She laid her unwounded hand over his. “How many times have you rescued me, today alone? Do you know, you are the only one ever to rescue me.”

Lucien bowed over her hand. He withdrew and put his gloves back on, tempting as it was to leave his hand within her tantalizing touch, to let her warmth soothe his joints, which always ached.

“Many people find Versailles to be full of quicksand and fevers,” he said.

“You rescued me from Saint-Cyr as well,” she said. “Am I wrong in believing that?”

“I did direct the change,” he said.

“As well as my release from the convent on Martinique—and my sister Haleeda’s?”

“Yes, at His Majesty’s desire.”

“Allow me to thank you,” she said, “even if your only thought was to oblige the King.”

“It was entirely my pleasure,” Lucien said.

“Count Lucien,” she said hesitantly, “might I beg you for your assistance in a matter that obliges only me?”

“It would be entirely my pleasure to offer my assistance.”

She explained her wish to free her slave, whom she called sister. Lucien agreed to arrange for the papers, though he warned her that only her brother’s signature would put them into force. He wondered if she would persuade him to follow her will in the matter, for Yves de la Croix’ courtly manner hid a powerful streak of obstinacy.

“Thank you, sir.” Marie-Josèphe laid her hand on his in a gentle touch of gratitude.

Yves hurried into the tent, flung open the cage door, and plunged down the fountain stairs in a single stride. Marie-Josèphe drew her hand from Lucien’s and jerked her sleeve over the bandage.

“For the love of God, sister, why are you doing this?”

“To save the sea woman. To save His Majesty’s soul.”

He flung up his arms in exasperation. “You risk my work and the King’s favor, to save a pet. If Innocent believes the beast is your familiar—you risk your life.”

The guards pulled aside the tent curtains.

His Majesty arrived.

Marie-Josèphe rose, composing herself. “Sea woman,” she whispered, begging her to approach.

The court of Versailles arranged itself in order of rank and precedence. Madame caught Marie-Josèphe’s gaze and gave her a smile part encouragement, part dread. Lotte, her hair perfectly, elaborately dressed, blew her a kiss. Even Monsieur, arm-in-arm with Lorraine, offered her a friendly nod. Lorraine gazed at her with hooded, satisfied eyes.

Once the courtiers had taken their places, the sentries allowed visitors into the tent. Outside, a broadsheet-seller hawked copies of the sea woman’s first story, the visit to Atlantis, illustrated with drawings of sea monsters writhing together in the waves.

His Majesty and Pope Innocent, the two most powerful men in the world, entered the cage to observe His Majesty’s captive.

Marie-Josèphe curtsied, hoping respect would make amends for her hunting clothes, her torn lace, her disheveled hair. The other courtiers had changed into court habit. Innocent wore a robe of incandescent white. His Majesty had donned a magnificent coat of gold velvet, with gold lace and diamonds, and a brown perruke adorned with gold powder.

The sea woman floated beside the statue of Apollo. She snorted, engorging the whorls on her face with air.

She dove, disappeared, and resurfaced like an explosion, leaping from the water, spinning, landing flat with an enormous splash. Pope Innocent stepped back so quickly that he would have lost his balance if Yves had not caught his elbow. His Majesty never moved, though droplets beaded on his coat like tiny pearls.

The sea woman trilled and snarled, spat water, and vanished.

“Ill-trained beast,” Innocent said.

“She said—”

“Hush!” Yves said.

“Let your sister speak, Father de la Croix. What did the creature say?”

“The sea woman said… ‘The white one is as ugly as an eel.’ I beg your forgiveness, Your Holiness, but the sea people think we’re all ugly, because of our smooth faces.”

“Only your innocence saves you from insolence,” Louis said.

“Innocence is no excuse for such presumption,” said the Pope.

“I mean no insult, Your Majesty, Your Holiness. Nor does the sea woman—”

“Do you not?”

“I speak for her. Her name is—” She sang the sea woman’s name. His Majesty listened, his eyes half closed. Marie-Josèphe wished for him to open his mind, to see what she could hear. “She doesn’t know our customs.”

“Do you, Mlle de la Croix?” the King said.

“Our custom,” Innocent said, “is to eat the flesh of sea monsters. God put sea monsters—and all beasts—on Earth for the use of man, as He put women on Earth to submit to men. I look forward to savoring sea monster flesh.”

“I shall hear what the monster—what Mlle de la Croix has to say.”

Faint with relief, Marie-Josèphe fell to her knees before the King. She grasped his hand and kissed it.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

He extricated his hand from her grasp; he brushed his fingertips across her hair. He left the cage and settled in his armchair, Pope Innocent at his right hand.

Could I make the sea woman sound more diplomatic? Marie-Josèphe wondered. No: I’d tangle myself in lies. Besides, she’d correct me herself.

The sea woman waited. Floating at the platform in the scummy water, she kicked the surface to tan foam with her double tail. She slithered up the stairs and lay exposed and vulnerable on the rim of the fountain. She snarled.

Marie-Josèphe bent to kiss her gnarled forehead. The sea woman grabbed her left hand and buried her face in her palm, sniffing her skin, touching it with her tongue, in a crude and flagrant parody of the kiss Marie-Josèphe offered the King. Like Louis, Marie-Josèphe twisted her hand away. She settled her drawing box.

The sea woman cried out a surge of anger like a tidal wave.

“No, sea woman, please,” Marie-Josèphe whispered, “this might be your last chance, it’s a story they want, tell a tale of sea creatures, of great storms, of Atlantis—”

The sea woman murmured, promising a story, an extraordinary, glorious story, if only Marie-Josèphe would interpret.

Marie-Josèphe faced His Majesty and sought to turn the sea woman’s images into words.

“Why did you murder my friend and slash him to pieces?”

Yves’ face paled to gray beneath his tan.

“If you want to see inside him, you should touch him with your voice.”

The sketch formed as if the sea woman had burned it into the paper. The sea man, alive, joyful, dove through the waves, his bones and organs a clean clear shadow within him.

“Why did you kill my best sweet friend, who shared the touch of…” Paralyzed with embarrassment, Marie-Josèphe struggled for a description she could say in front of the King. “Who shared the touch of our secret places?”

Marie-Josèphe saw before her the broken body of the sea man, drifting into dark depths. The sea woman swam beside him, weeping, her tears mingling with the water.

“You did not respect his life,” Marie-Josèphe said. “You do not respect his death.”

The sea woman swam beside the body of her friend, braiding her hair with his, dark green with light.

“After you killed him, you should have taken him properly into the sea.”

She sank deeper into the darkness with her dead friend. Marie-Josèphe’s tears blurred her vision, blurred her sketch. The song’s images remained clear. She feared the sea woman planned to die.

The sea woman’s friend sank into a darkness swirled with light. Luminescent sea creatures shone like stars in the night sky. The sea woman cut the lock of her friend’s hair with a shell blade.

In the fountain, the sea woman fingered the tangled light-green hair knotted to her darker hair.

“He gave me a token, a pretty thing, a shiny stone, to tie into my hair. I would return it to him.”

The sea woman’s song faded; the image of her friend’s body disappeared, falling through darkness and beyond the pinpoint lights and glowing ribbons. The images disappeared entirely. Marie-Josèphe bent her head and wiped her tears on her sleeve. The true world returned to her sight.

Her heart sank, for His Majesty frowned and His Holiness glared and Yves looked ready to faint, while the nobles whispered to each other, appalled. But the audience of commoners sighed and wept with pity. Count Lucien, behind His Majesty, stared at the floor. The curls of his perruke hid his face.

“That is all,” Marie-Josèphe whispered.

“Pagan ritual,” His Holiness said. “Did you learn these things from wild men, Mlle de la Croix?”

His Majesty rose. “Doesn’t the sea monster wish to keep this love token?”

Lorraine laughed at His Majesty’s witticism, enjoying Marie-Josèphe’s anguish. Monsieur chuckled briefly, but with more distress than amusement.

The sea woman sang a melody of heartbreaking beauty, a distillation of love and grief.

“I would send it with him,” Marie-Josèphe sang, following the melody. “Send it into the depths with him, to acknowledge that I, too, will die.”

“Does she not,” His Majesty said carefully, “claim to be immortal?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“We are all immortal in the love of God,” His Holiness said. “Does your sea monster believe in the Resurrection? In God’s everlasting life?”

“Life itself is everlasting,” Marie-Josèphe sang, in harmony. “People live, people create new life, people die. People never come back.”

His Holiness made a sound of utter disgust. “Your games have passed beyond amusement, Mlle de la Croix—even beyond pagan belief. You tread the edge of heresy!”

“I didn’t invent the story, Your Holiness,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Please, please believe me. The sea woman told it. She doesn’t understand heresy—”

“You should,” Innocent said.

“But she could understand God!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “She could, if Your Holiness taught her. You could give Our Savior to the people of the sea—”

“Be silent!” His Holiness said. “Convert beasts?”

“She thinks Jesus on the Mount should have preached to loaves and fishes instead of to people.”

No one laughed at Lorraine’s observation; Count Lucien gave him a glare of perfect animosity.

“Where’s the token?” Louis ignored both Lorraine and Count Lucien. “The token she wishes to give to her mate?”

The sea woman snarled. Marie-Josèphe winced, shocked by the reply: shocked, but not surprised. She hesitated, hoping in vain that she would not have to lie.

“Your Majesty, someone took it.”

“Who?”

“One—one of the sailors.”

The sea woman protested, thrashing her tails, splashing Marie-Josèphe’s back with cold fetid water.

“Your Majesty, isn’t this proof that she talks to me? I have no other way of knowing about her token.”

“Dear foolish child,” Louis said, “I have no way of knowing the token ever existed.” He gazed at her sadly. His next words, she knew, would be a death sentence.

“Don’t kill it,” a visitor whispered from the back of the tent. Other commoners took up the refrain: Don’t kill it, don’t kill it. His Majesty’s brow clouded. Marie-Josèphe wanted to cry to the visitors, Don’t you know, His Majesty cannot be cajoled or threatened? With all goodwill, the spectators only made things worse. A musketeer strode toward the disturbance; the whispers stopped.

“You’re most clever,” His Majesty said to Marie-Josèphe, “trying to save your pet by making it into Scheherazade.”

His Majesty’s courtiers laughed, all but Count Lucien.

“One Thousand and One Ocean Nights, by Scheherazade the Sea Monster!” Chartres cried.

The sea woman clambered past Marie-Josèphe, dragging herself to the top of the stairs. She glared at the King.

“Shhhhrrrzzzzaaddddd,” she snarled.

“The clever Mlle de la Croix has taught it to talk!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Though not as well as a parrot.”

Monsieur laughed. “Sherzad the parrot!”

“The myth requires—” His Majesty said.

The laughter ended.

“—that I allow it to live for another day.”

In amazement, in desperate gratitude, Marie-Josèphe flung herself at the King’s feet and kissed the cold hard diamonds at the hem of his coat. He brushed his fingertips over her hair.

His Majesty left the tent, walking as strongly as if he had never been afflicted with gout. Innocent and his attendants accompanied him. The courtiers followed. The visitors cheered His Majesty as if their protests had had something to do with his decision.

“Let us have another sea monster story, mamselle!” shouted one of the spectators when His Majesty had left.

Cries of approval and agreement surrounded her in an opaque cloud of noise. They threatened to overwhelm her. Count Lucien grasped Marie-Josèphe’s elbow.

“Are you quite well?”

She was too faint with exhaustion and relief to get to her feet. Count Lucien pushed her sleeve above her wrist. The swelling had vanished, and the streaks had receded.

Marie-Josèphe drew back, for his touch made her tremble.

“Will he spare her?” she whispered.

“I cannot say. This is a reprieve.”

“A day…”

“Anything can happen in a day.”

Yves slipped away from the other courtiers. Agitation gripped him. If anyone saw him, they would surely send him to the madhouse. His eyes must be staring, white-rimmed; his hair must be wild as a hermit’s. He gripped the ring in his pocket. The gold burned patterns into his flesh.

He left the Green Carpet, where the courtiers attending the King were likely to see him. He strode past the Obelisk, up the hill, into the Star Garden.

He ran, his heart pounding, through the Circle.

He stumbled, panting, into the chapel. It was, of course, deserted. At the altar, before the image of the Crucifixion, he fell. He shuddered, holding back sobs till his chest and his throat ached with unshed tears. The world spun around him as if he were drunk. He lost all track of time.

Lying prone, his burning hand pressed to the cool marble floor, Yves de la Croix prayed.