The Moon and the Sun

2

Sunset spread its light across the park of the chateau of Versailles. The moon, waxing gibbous, approached its zenith. Heading for their stables, the coach horses gained their second wind and plunged through the forest along the hard-packed dirt road.

Marie-Josèphe leaned her head against the side of the coach. She wished she had gone with Madame, in Monsieur’s crowded carriage. Madame would have all manner of amusing comments about today’s journey. Monsieur and Lorraine would engage in their friendly barbed banter. Chartres might ride beside the carriage and tell Marie-Josèphe about his latest experiment in chemistry, for she was surely the only woman and perhaps the only other person at court who understood what he was talking about. Certainly his wife neither understood nor cared. The Duchess de Chartres did exactly as she pleased. It had not pleased her to come from the Palais Royale in Paris to join His Majesty’s—her father’s—procession.

If Chartres spoke to Marie-Josèphe then the duke du Maine might, too. And then the King’s grandson Bourgogne and his little brothers would demand their share of paying attention to Marie-Josèphe.

Maine, like Chartres, was married; Bourgogne was barely a youth, and his brothers were children. Besides, they were all unimaginably above Marie-Josèphe’s station. Their attention to her could come to nothing.

Nevertheless, Marie-Josèphe enjoyed it.

Bored and lonely and restless, Marie-Josèphe gazed out into the trees. This far from His Majesty’s residence, the woods grew unconfined. Fallen branches thrust up through underbrush. The fragile swords of ferns drooped into the roadway. Sunset streaked the world with dusty red-gold rays. If she were riding alone she could stop and listen to the forest, to the twilight burst of bird song, to the soft dance of bat wings. Instead, her coach drove into the dusk, its driver and its attendants and even her brother all unaware of the music.

The underbrush disappeared; the trees grew farther apart; no branches littered the ground. Hunters could ride headlong through this tame groomed forest. Marie-Josèphe imagined riding along a brushstroke of trail, following the King in pursuit of a deer.

A scream of rage and challenge filled the twilit forest. Marie-Josèphe clutched the door and the edge of her seat. The horses shied and snorted and leaped forward. The carriage lurched. The exhausted animals tried to outrun the terrible noise. The driver shouted and dragged his team into his control.

The scream of the tiger in His Majesty’s menagerie awoke and aroused all the other exotic animals. The elephant trumpeted. The lion coughed and roared. The aurochs bellowed.

The sea monster sang a challenge.

The wild eerie melody quickened Marie-Josèphe’s heart. The shrieking warble was as raw, as erotic, as passionate, as the singing of eagles. The tame forests of Versailles hid the same shadows as the wildest places of Martinique.

The sea monster cried again. The Menagerie fell silent. The sea monster’s song vanished in a whisper.

The carriage rumbled around the arm of the Grand Canal. The canal shimmered with ghostly fog; wavelets lapped against the sides of His Majesty’s fleet of miniature ships. Wheels crunched on the gravel of the Queen’s Road; the baggage wagons turned down the Queen’s Road toward the Fountain of Apollo. Marie-Josèphe’s coach continued toward the chateau of Versailles and its formal gardens.

“Driver!”

“Whoa!”

Marie-Josèphe leaned out the window. The heavy, hot breath of tired horses filled the night. The gardens lay quiet and strange, the fountains still.

“Follow my brother, if you please.”

“But, mamselle—”

“And then you are dismissed for the evening.”

“Yes, mamselle!” He wheeled the horses around.

Yves hurried from one wagon to the other, trying to direct two groups of workers at once.

“You men—take this basin—it’s heavy. Stop—you—don’t touch the ice!”

Marie-Josèphe opened the carriage door. By the time the footman had climbed wearily down to help her, she was running toward the baggage wagons.

An enormous tent covered the Fountain of Apollo. Candlelight flickered inside, illuminating the silk walls. The tent glowed, an immense lantern.

Rows of candles softly lit the way up the hill to the chateau, tracing the edges of le tapis vert, the Green Carpet. The expanse of perfect lawn split the gardens from Apollo’s Fountain to Latona’s, flanked by gravel paths and marble statues of gods and heroes.

Marie-Josèphe held her skirts above the gravel and hurried to the baggage wagons. The sea monster’s basin and the shroud in the ice divided Yves’ attention.

“Marie-Josèphe, don’t let them move the specimen till I get back.” Yves tossed his command over his shoulder as if he had never left Martinique to become a Jesuit, as if she were still keeping his house and assisting in his experiments.

Yves hurried to the tent. Embroidered on the silken curtains, the gold sunburst of the King gazed out impassively. Two musketeers drew the curtains aside.

“Move the ice carefully,” Marie-Josèphe said to the workers. “Uncover the bundle.”

“But the Father said—”

“And now I say.”

Still the workers hesitated.

“My brother might forget about this specimen till morning,” Marie-Josèphe said. “You might wait for him all night.”

In nervous silence they obeyed her, uncovering the shroud with their hands. Shards of chopped ice scattered over the ground. Marie-Josèphe took care that the workers caused no damage. She had helped Yves with his work since she was a little girl and he a boy of twelve, both of them learning Greek and Latin, reading Herodotus—credulous old man!—and Galen, and studying Newton. Yves of course always got first choice of the books, but he never objected when she made off with the Principia, or slept with it beneath her pillow. She grieved for the loss of M. Newton’s book, yearned for another copy, and wondered what he had discovered about light, the planets, and gravity during the past five years.

The workmen lifted the shrouded figure. Ice scattered onto the path. Marie-Josèphe followed the workmen into the tent. She was anxious to get a clear view of a sea monster, either one that was living or one that was dead.

The enormous tent covered the Fountain of Apollo and a surrounding circle of dry land. Beneath the tent, an iron cage enclosed the fountain. Inside the new cage, Apollo and his golden chariot and the four horses of the sun rose from the water, bringing dawn, heralded by dolphins, by tritons blowing trumpets.

Marie-Josèphe thought, Apollo is galloping west to east, in opposition to the sun.

Three shallow, wide wooden stairs led from the pool’s low stone rim to a wooden platform at water’s level. The tent, the cage, and the stairs and platform had been built for Yves’ convenience, though they spoiled the view of the Dawn Chariot.

Outside the cage, laboratory equipment stood upon a sturdy floor of polished planks. Two armchairs, several armless chairs, and a row of ottomans faced the laboratory.

“You may put the specimen on the table,” Marie-Josèphe said to the workers. They did as she directed, grateful to be free of the burden and its sharp odors.

Tall and spare in his long black cassock, Yves stood in the entrance of the cage. His workers wrestled the basin onto the fountain’s rim.

“Don’t drop it—lay it down—careful!”

The sea monster cried and struggled. The basin ground against stone. One of the workers swore aloud; another elbowed him soundly and cast a warning glance toward Yves. Marie-Josèphe giggled behind her hand. Yves was the least likely of priests to notice rough language.

“Slide it down the stairs. Let water flow in—”

The basin bumped down the steps and onto the platform. Yves knelt beside it, unwrapping the net that surrounded it. Overcome by her curiosity, Marie-Josèphe hastened to join him. The silk of her underskirt rustled against the polished laboratory floor, with a sound as soft and smooth as if she were crossing the marble of the Hall of Mirrors.

Before she reached the cage, the tent’s curtains moved aside again. A worker carried a basket of fresh fish and seaweed to the cage, dropped it, and fled. Other workers hauled in ice and a barrel of sawdust.

Her curiosity thwarted, Marie-Josèphe returned to Yves’ specimen. She wanted to open its shroud, but thought better of revealing the creature to the tired, frightened workmen.

“You two, cover the bundle with ice, then cover the ice with sawdust. The rest of you, fetch Father de la Croix’s equipment from the wagons.”

They obeyed, moving the specimen gingerly, for it reeked of preserving spirits and corruption.

Yves will have to carry out his dissection quickly, Marie-Josèphe said to herself. Or he’ll have nothing left to dissect but rotten meat on a skeleton.

Marie-Josèphe had grown used to the smell during years of helping her brother with his explorations and experiments. It bothered her not at all. But the workers breathed in short unhappy gasps, occasionally glancing, frightened, toward Yves and the groaning sea monster.

The workers covered the laboratory table with insulating sawdust.

“Bring more ice every day,” Marie-Josèphe said. “You understand—it’s very important.”

One of the workers bowed. “Yes, mamselle, M. de Chrétien has ordered it.”

“You may retire.”

They fled the tent, repelled by the dead smell and by the live sea monster’s crying. The melancholy song drew Marie-Josèphe closer. Yves’ workers tilted the basin off the platform. Water trickled into it.

Marie-Josèphe hurried to the Fountain.

“Yves, let me see—”

As Yves loosened the canvas restraints, the grinding and creaking of the water pumps shook the night. The fountain nozzles gurgled, groaned, and gushed water. Apollo’s fountain spouted water in the shape of a fleur-de-lys. At its zenith, the central stream splashed the tent peak. Droplets rained down on Apollo’s chariot, dimpled the pool’s surface, and spattered the sea monster. The creature screamed and thrashed and slapped Yves with its tails. Yves staggered backward.

“Turn off the fountain!” Yves shouted.

Snarling, the creature struggled free of the basin. Yves jumped away, evading the sea monster’s teeth and claws and tails. The workers ran to do Yves’ bidding.

The creature lurched away and tumbled into the water, escaping into its prison in the Fountain of Apollo.

Marie-Josèphe caught Yves’ arm. A ripple broke against his foot and flowed around the soles of his boots, as if he walked on water. Water soaked the hem of his cassock.

My brother walks on water, Marie-Josèphe thought with a smile. He ought to be able to keep his clothing dry!

The fountains spurted high, then gushed half as high, then bubbled in their nozzles. The fleur-de-lys wilted. The creaking of the pumps abruptly ceased. No ripple, not even bubbles, marked the surface of the pool.

Yves wiped his sleeve across his face. Marie-Josèphe, standing two steps above him, almost reached his height. She laid her hand on her brother’s shoulder.

“You’ve succeeded,” she said.

“I hope so.”

Marie-Josèphe leaned forward and peered into the water. A dark shape lay beneath the surface, obscured by the reflections of candlelight.

“It’s alive now,” Yves said. “How long it will survive…” His worried voice trailed off.

“It need not live long,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I want to see it—Call it to you!”

“It won’t come to me. It’s a beast, it doesn’t understand me.”

“My cat understands,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Didn’t you train it, all those weeks at sea?”

“I had no time to train it.” Yves scowled. “It wouldn’t eat—I had to force-feed it.” He folded his arms, glaring at the bright water. The sea monster drifted, silent and still. “But I fulfilled His Majesty’s wishes. I’ve done what no one has done in four hundred years. I’ve brought a living sea monster to land.”

Marie-Josèphe leaned closer to the water, straining to see. The creature was long, and sleek, longer and more slender than the dolphins that cavorted off the beach in Martinique. Its tangled hair swirled around its head.

“Whoever heard of a fish with hair?” she exclaimed.

“It’s no fish,” Yves said. “It breathes air. If it doesn’t breathe soon—”

He crossed the rim of the fountain and stepped to the ground. Marie-Josèphe stayed where she was, gazing at the monster.

It gazed back at her, its eyes eerily reflecting the light. It extended its arms, its webbed hands.

Yves’ shadow fell across the sea monster. The creature retreated, closing its golden eyes. Yves clenched his fingers around a goad.

“I won’t let it drown.”

He poked the goad at the sea monster, trying to chivvy the creature into motion.

“Swim, damn you! Surface!”

Its hair drifted about its face. Its tail flukes quivered. The creature trembled.

“Stop, you’re scaring it, you’ll hurt it!” Marie-Josèphe knelt on the platform and plunged her hands into the water. “Come to me, you’re safe here.”

The creature’s webbed fingers clutched her wrists and pressed heat against her skin. The sea monster’s claws touched her like the tips of knives, but never cut.

The sea monster dragged her into the pool.

Yves shouted and jabbed with the goad. The monster floated, just out of reach. Marie-Josèphe struggled to her feet, coughing, soaked. The cold water lifted her full petticoats like the petals of a water lily. She pushed them down. Her underskirt collapsed against her legs, scratchy and ungainly.

“Hurry, take my hand—”

“No, wait,” she said. The creature slipped past her, fleeing, then turning back, its voice touching her through the water. “Don’t frighten it again.” She stretched one hand toward the sea monster. “Come here, come here…”

“Be careful. It’s strong, it’s cruel—”

“It’s terrified!”

The creature’s voice brushed against her fingertips. Its song spun from the surface like mist. Barely moving, creeping, floating, the sea monster neared Marie-Josèphe.

“Good sea monster. Fine sea monster.”

“His Majesty approaches,” Count Lucien said.

Startled, Marie-Josèphe glanced over her shoulder. Count Lucien stood on the fountain’s rim. He had come into the tent, crossed the laboratory floor, and entered the sea monster’s cage without her noticing him. Yves remained down on the platform at water level, and Count Lucien up on the fountain’s rim; the two men stood face to face.

On the other side of the tent, the musketeers held the tent curtains aside. A procession of torches marched along the Green Carpet toward Apollo.

“I’m not ready,” Yves said.

Marie-Josèphe returned her attention to the sea monster. It hesitated, just out of her reach. If she snatched at it, it would leap away like a green colt.

“If the King is ready,” Count Lucien said, “you are ready.”

“Yes,” Yves said. “Of course.”

The sea monster stretched its arms forward. Its claws brushed Marie-Josèphe’s fingertips.

“Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said, “His Majesty must not see you in this state of disarray.”

Marie-Josèphe caught her breath, frightened to realize she might insult His Majesty. She waded toward the platform, clumsy in her soaked skirts, unsteady in her heeled shoes on the uneven bottom of the pond.

The sea monster swam around her, cut her off, and lunged upward before her. It gasped a great gulp of air. Marie-Josèphe stared at it, horrified and fascinated. It splashed down and lay still, gazing at her.

Though its arms and hands mimicked a human’s, it was more grotesque than any monkey. Its two tails writhed and kicked. Webs connected its long fingers, which bore heavy, sharp claws. Its long lank hair tangled around its head and over its shoulders and across its chest—its breasts, for it did have flat, wide breasts and small dark nipples. Water beaded on its mahogany skin, gleaming in candlelight.

The monster gazed at Marie-Josèphe with intense gold eyes, the only thing of beauty about it. Grotesque and magnificent, like a gargoyle on a medieval church, its face bore ridged swirls on forehead and cheeks. Its nose was flat and low, its nostrils narrow. The creature’s canine teeth projected over its lower lip.

“Splendid. Splendid and horrible.” His Majesty spoke, his voice powerful and beautiful. Count Lucien and Yves bowed to their sovereign. The King, in fresh clothes, fresh lace, and a new wig, studied his sea monster. His gaze avoided Marie-Josèphe. His court, from Monsieur and Madame to Mme de Maintenon to the grandchildren of France, stared into the fountain. Some gazed at the sea monster; Marie-Josèphe caused others even more amazement.

Frightened, the creature snarled and dove.

If Marie-Josèphe climbed out of the fountain, she would face the King squarely; he could not overlook her. Such a breach of etiquette might force Lotte to dismiss her. She might have to leave court. Trapped, about to burst into tears of embarrassment, seeking shadows, she backed away. Her petticoats nearly tripped her.

Count Lucien flung down his hat, took off his cloak, and held it open between Marie-Josèphe and the King.

Safely concealed, Marie-Josèphe stood still in the cold water. The sea monster, a dark shape, swam away. It grabbed the bars of its cage, rattled them, turned with an angry flick of its tail, and swam to the platform again. The sea monster peered from the water, revealing only its eyes and its tangled deep-green hair.

Most of the other members of court could see Marie-Josèphe perfectly well. But that did not matter. All that mattered was that His Majesty should not be offended.

Madame caught Marie-Josèphe’s glance and shook her head with disapproval, but her lips twitched with heroically contained laughter. Monsieur, in a gentlemanly fashion, avoided looking, but Lorraine gazed straight at her. He smiled. She wrapped her arms around herself, embarrassed to be seen in such a state by such an elegant courtier.

I suppose I’d laugh, too, Marie-Josèphe thought. If I weren’t so cold.

“You gratify our faith in you, Father de la Croix.” His Majesty joined Yves on the platform within the fountain’s rim. “A live sea monster!”

“Your sea monster, Your Majesty,” Yves said.

“Monsieur Boursin, what is your judgment?” Louis said. “Will it be suitable for our celebration?”

M. Boursin, drab in the plain clothes suited to his place in the King’s household, hurried forward. He bowed, rubbing his hands together, tall and thin and cadaverous as the angel of death.

“Is it stout? Does it feed?”

Boursin peered into the pool. The sea monster swam around the sculpture of Apollo, singing a sorrowful song.

“It accepts only a little sustenance,” Yves said.

“Then you must fatten it.”

“You’re a Jesuit,” Louis said heartily. “You’re clever enough to make it eat.”

The sea monster attacked the cage again, splashing, rattling the iron bars.

“Make it stop thrashing!” M. Boursin said. “It mustn’t bruise its flesh.”

Marie-Josèphe wished she could speak to the sea monster to calm it, but she dared not raise her voice.

“I cannot,” Yves said. “It’s a wild animal. No man can control it.”

“It will calm,” Louis said, “when it has become accustomed to its cage.”

His Majesty stepped to the ground, the high heels of his shoes loud on the wooden stairs. Yves and M. Boursin followed.

“M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said courteously to Count Lucien.

“Your Majesty.”

“Mlle de la Croix,” Louis said, when he had left the cage, when his back was still turned.

Marie-Josèphe caught her breath. “Y-yes, Your Majesty?”.

“Are you hoping for a visit from Apollo?”

The courtiers laughed, and Marie-Josèphe blushed at the reference. The laughter died away.

“N-no, Your Majesty.”

“Come out at once, before you catch your death.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

She struggled onto the platform. Count Lucien continued to conceal her with his cape, using his walking stick to raise it as she climbed the steps. The water was cold, the air on her wet skin colder. Shivering, dripping pond water, she stepped over the fountain’s rim, slipped past the courtiers, and hid in the shadows among the laboratory equipment.

Keeping his back turned, the King joined Mme de Maintenon.

“How do you like my sea monster, my dear?”

The chevalier de Lorraine strode past Count Lucien to Marie-Josèphe, sweeping his long dark cloak from his shoulders. Beneath it he wore a blue coat, the same shade as Count Lucien’s, though with less gold lace. The blue coat marked him as a member of Louis’ inner circle. Monsieur followed Lorraine with quick glances, trying but failing to keep his attention on the King.

“The creature’s horribly ugly, Sire,” Mme de Maintenon said.

“No uglier than a wild boar, madame.”

Lorraine swung his cloak around Marie-Josèphe’s shoulders. The fur-lined velvet, the warmth of his body, and the scent of his perfume enclosed her.

“Thank you, sir.” Her teeth chattered.

Lorraine bowed to her and rejoined Monsieur. Monsieur touched his arm. Diamond rings flashed in the candlelight.

“I think it’s a demon, Sire,” Mme de Maintenon said.

“Your grace, it’s a natural creature,” Yves said. “Holy Mother Church has examined its kind, and judged it merely an animal. Like His Majesty’s elephant, or His Majesty’s crocodile.”

“Nevertheless, Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “you might have captured a beautiful one.”

Yves strode to the dissection table, forcing Marie-Josèphe to retreat farther into the shadows. Count Lucien continued to hide her from His Majesty. Lorraine’s cloak concealed her soaked dress, but her hair hung in snarls around her face. Her headdress tilted at a ridiculous angle, stabbed her with its wires, and pulled her hair as it fell to the ground.

Yves unfolded the canvas shroud from his dead specimen. Ice scattered across the planks.

“The sea monsters are all ugly, Your Majesty,” Yves said. “Females and males alike.”

The courtiers clustered around him, anxious to see the dead creature. On the wall of the tent, shadows jostled for position near the shadow of Marie-Josèphe’s brother. Yves was the moon to His Majesty’s sun, and the other courtiers hoped to capture some of the reflected light.

“It reeks of foul humours.”

Marie-Josèphe peeked over the edge of Count Lucien’s cloak. Monsieur covered his nose with his handkerchief. Marie-Josèphe could hardly blame anyone not used to dissections, for wishing he had brought along his pomander.

“Stay out of sight, Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said, with strained patience. He would prefer, of course, to be in his proper place beside the King. Louis, ever the gentleman, overlooked his absence.

Marie-Josèphe shrank back behind the concealing cloak, where she could see only the shadows of her brother, the King, and the courtiers.

“The preserving spirits do have a strong odor, Monsieur,” Yves said.

“I confess—if my confessor will excuse a moment’s infidelity to him—”

The shadow of Louis nodded toward Father de la Chaise, his confessor, and his voice bore only the faintest hint of mockery. Father de la Chaise bowed low.

“I confess that I doubted your claims, Father de la Croix,” the King said. “And yet you found the creatures, in the wild sea of the new world. Your predictions were correct.”

“All the evidence pointed to a single place and a single time of their gathering,” Yves said modestly. “I was merely the first to collect the reports. The monsters converge in the shelter of Exuma Island, where the midsummer sun crosses over a great ocean trench. There they mate, in animal depravity.”

An expectant silence fell.

“We need hear no more of that,” the Marquise de Maintenon said severely.

“Every subject’s fit for a natural philosopher to study!” The duke de Chartres broke in with the obsessive enthusiasm that earned him annoyance from the court and suspicion from the lower classes. “How else will we ever understand the truth of the world?”

“What is fit for a natural philosopher may trouble the minds of others,” His Majesty said. “Or lead us astray.”

“But the truth—”

“Be quiet, boy!” Madame’s tone was soft but urgent.

Marie-Josèphe felt sorry for Chartres. His position warred with his desire for knowledge. He would be happier if he was, like Marie-Josèphe, no one.

Happier, Marie-Josèphe thought—but he would not have all the best scientific instruments.

“Since the time of St. Louis,” His Majesty said, “no one has brought a live sea monster to France. I commend you, Father de la Croix.”

His Majesty’s deft change of subject eased the tension.

“Your Majesty’s encouragement guaranteed my success,” Yves said.

“I shall commend you to my holy cousin Pope Innocent.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“And I shall observe your study of the dead monster.”

“I—I—”

Marie-Josèphe silently begged Yves to reply with adequate grace and appreciation.

“Your Majesty’s interest honors my work beyond imagination,” Yves said.

His Majesty turned to Count Lucien. They conferred for a moment; the King nodded.

“Tomorrow. You may begin your study after Mass.”

“Tomorrow, Your Majesty? But it’s essential—the carcass already decomposes.”

“Tomorrow,” His Majesty said calmly, as if Yves had not spoken. “After Mass.”

Marie-Josèphe wanted to appear from behind Count Lucien’s cloak and add her pleas to her brother’s, so His Majesty would understand that Yves must waste no time. But she could not add to her breach of etiquette. She could not show herself to the King; she should not even speak to him unless he spoke first.

Yves’ shadow bowed low against the silken tent wall.

“I beg Your Majesty’s pardon for my excess of enthusiasm. Thank you, Sire. Tomorrow.”

The shadows moved and melded and separated into pairs.

“I remember,” Louis said, “when I was young like Father de la Croix, I too could see in the dark.”

His Majesty’s courtiers laughed at his joke.

As the King and Mme de Maintenon led the courtiers from the tent, Count Lucien lowered his cloak and swung it around his shoulders. He clenched and unclenched his hands.

Lorraine paused before Marie-Josèphe.

“You may keep my cloak, Mlle de la Croix—”

Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “Thank you, sir.”

“—and perhaps you’ll reward me when I retrieve it.”

The heat of embarrassment did nothing to drive away Marie-Josèphe’s shivering.

Monsieur slipped his hand around Lorraine’s elbow and drew him away. They followed the King. Monsieur whispered; Lorraine replied, and laughed. Monsieur looked away. Lorraine spoke; Monsieur glanced at him with a shy smile.

The fountain mechanisms creaked and grumbled. The Fountain of Apollo remained still, but the Fountain of Latona at the upper end of the Green Carpet would shower water into the air, for the pleasure of the King.

“Count Lucien,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I’m grateful—”

“His Majesty must not be exposed to unseemly sights.”

The count bowed coolly. He tramped toward Yves, passing the equipment and the dissection table, disguising his slight lameness with the support of his walking-stick. Marie-Josèphe rubbed warmth into her chilled body.

Count Lucien offered Yves a leather sack twice the size of the purse he had given the galleon captain.

“With His Majesty’s regard.”

“I am grateful, Count Lucien, but I cannot accept it. When I took religious orders, I took a vow of poverty as well.”

Count Lucien gave him a quizzical glance. “As did all your holy brothers, who enrich themselves—”

“His Majesty saved my sister from the war in Martinique. He gave me the means to advance my work. I ask nothing else.”

Marie-Josèphe stepped between them and held out her hand. Count Lucien placed the purse, with its heavy weight of gold, in her palm. Her fingertips brushed his glove.

He withdrew his hand, longer and finer than hers, without acknowledging the touch. Marie-Josèphe was embarrassed by her rough skin.

He has never scrubbed the floor of a convent, Marie-Josèphe thought. She could not imagine him in any but elegant surroundings.

“Thank you, Count Lucien,” Marie-Josèphe said. “This will advance my brother’s work. Now we may buy a new microscope.” Perhaps, she hoped, even one of Mynheer van Leeuwenhoek’s, with enough left over for books.

“Learn your sister’s lesson, Father de la Croix,” Count Lucien said. “All wealth and all privilege flow from the King. His appreciation—in any form—is too valuable to spurn.”

“I know it, sir. But I desire neither wealth nor privilege. Only the freedom to continue my work.”

“Your desires are of no consequence,” Count Lucien said. “His Majesty’s wishes are. He has given permission for you to attend his awakening ceremony. Tomorrow, you may join the fifth rank of entry.”

“Thank you, M. de Chrétien.” Yves bowed. Conscious of the honor Yves had been given, Marie-Josèphe curtsied low.

The count bowed to the brother, to the sister, and left the tent.

“Do you know what this means?” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed.

“It means the King’s approval,” Yves said, his smile wry. “And time stolen by ceremony that I’d rather use in study. But I must please the King.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re shivering.”

She leaned against him. “France is too cold!”

“And Martinique is too remote.”

“Are you glad His Majesty called you to Versailles?”

“Are you sorry to leave Fort-de-France?”

“No! I—”

The sea monster whispered a song.

“It sings,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea monster sings, just like a bird.”

“Yes.”

“Give it a fish—perhaps it’s as hungry as I am.”

He shrugged. “It won’t eat.” He scooped seaweed from the basket and flung it through the bars of the cage. He flung a fish after it. He rattled the gate to test that it was fastened.

The sea monster’s eerie melody wrapped Marie-Josèphe in the balmy breeze of the Caribbean. It stopped abruptly when the fish splashed into the water.

Marie-Josèphe shivered violently.

“Come!” Yves said suddenly. “You’ll catch the ague.”