The Moon and the Sun

4

Marie-Josèphe walked through the silent dawn gardens of Versailles. At first light, the gardeners had vanished but the courtiers still slept and the visitors had not yet arrived. She was alone in the beauty, surrounded by flowers, perfumed by a cloud of orange perfume.

She strode down the Green Carpet toward Apollo, planning her day. She would feed the sea monster, then return to the chateau in plenty of time to wake Yves and break their fast with bread and chocolate. He would attend His Majesty’s awakening. She could not accompany him, because women did not participate in the grand lever. Instead, she would wait for him in the guard room with the other ladies and the less-favored men, and join the procession to Mass.

The morning delighted her. The world delighted her. When she kicked a small stone down the path, she thought, with a few strokes of my pen, with a calculation, I can describe the motion of its rise and fall. I can predict its effect on the next stone, and the next. M. Newton’s discoveries allow me to describe anything I wish, even the future paths of the stars and the planets. And now that I am free of the convent, no one will forbid me to do so.

A breeze rustled the leaves of the potted orange trees. Marie-Josèphe considered how to predict the fluttering motion, and though the solution eluded her for the moment, she felt certain she could discover it with some time and consideration.

M. Newton must have solved such a simple problem, she thought. Dare I write to him again? Would he bother to reply at all, when he condescended to communicate with me once, and I failed to answer? I wish I had seen the contents of his letter.

The chateau of Versailles stood on a low hill; the Green Carpet led downward to the sea monster’s tent.

A much easier walk than last night! she thought. She wore her riding habit, more practical and easier to walk in than court dress.

As she neared the laboratory tent, a half-dozen heavy wagons rumbled along the Queen’s Road toward the fountain. Barrels weighed each one down.

Count Lucien cantered his grey Arabian past the wagons. The fiery horse scattered gravel from its hooves, flicked its jaunty black tail, and drew up beside the tent. Count Lucien saluted Marie-Josèphe with his walking stick. Under his supervision, the workmen raised the tent’s sides and the drivers lined up the wagons.

Marie-Josèphe entered the tent, unlatched the cage door, and hurried in. From the Fountain’s rim, she sought the sea monster.

The creature’s long dark hair and iridescent leathery tails shimmered beneath the hooves of Apollo’s dawn horses.

“Sea monster!”

The creature flicked its tails, pushing itself deeper beneath the sculpture. Marie-Josèphe reached for a fish, then thought better of it. The ice had melted around the basket, and the dead things reeked.

“Lackey!”

Unlike the sea monster, the lackey came running, pulling his forelock and keeping his gaze on the ground.

“Yes, mamselle?”

“Get rid of those smelly things. Where are the fresh fish? And the new ice?”

“Coming along from the kitchen, mamselle, here, just now.” He pointed. Several men approached, one with a wicker basket, two others pushing barrows full of ice.

“Good. Thank you.”

He bobbed a bow and ran to hurry the others along. They set a wicker basket of fish inside the cage, then went to work shovelling fresh ice onto Yves’ specimen.

Marie-Josèphe ran over the rim of the Fountain and down to the platform. The sea monster had not tried to escape a second time, for the planks were dry.

It must be terrified, Marie-Josèphe thought, sighing. Frightened animals are so hard to train.

She splashed the water with one hand, patting the surface as she would pat her bedcovers to call Hercules.

“Come, sea monster. Come here.”

The sea monster watched her from beneath the dawn chariot.

Marie-Josèphe swished a fish through the water. The sea monster raised her head, opened her mouth, and let the water flow over her tongue.

“Yes, good sea monster. Come, I’ll give you a fish.”

The sea monster spat the water noisily into the pool.

“Can you make it eat?”

Startled, Marie-Josèphe turned. “Count Lucien! I did not… I mean, I thought…”

He stood on the fountain’s rim, looking at the sea monster. She had not heard him approach. He turned his cool gaze to her.

“Did you not recognize me,” Count Lucien asked, “without my mustache?”

His tone was so dry that she was afraid to laugh, afraid she might be misinterpreting his joke.

He had shaved his fair mustache. Perhaps someone had told him courtiers these days wore mustaches only during military campaigns, and shaved them off—to be cleanshaven like His Majesty—when they returned to Versailles. He had changed his informal steinkirk tie for proper lace and ribbons, and his tied-back military wig for a fashionably styled perruke. Its curls cascaded down the shoulders of his gold-embroidered blue coat. Most of the other courtiers wore black perrukes, like the King’s, but Count Lucien’s was auburn. The color flattered his fair complexion, and his pale grey eyes.

“I recognize you,” Marie-Josèphe said stiffly. “But you attend to the King’s business, so I did not expect to speak with you.”

“The sea monster is the King’s business, Mlle de la Croix,” he said. “Your brother has the charge of it—”

“I have the charge of it, sir, while he studies the dead specimen.”

“In that case, you must expect to speak to me quite often. Can you persuade the beast to feed?”

“I hope so.”

“Your brother force-fed it.”

“I’m sure I can tame it to eat from my hand.”

“The sea monster need not be tame. His Majesty requires only that it be sleek.”

He bowed and left her, climbing down from the Fountain’s low rim awkwardly, like a child, and leaning on his walking-stick.

On the other side of the Fountain, a driver backed his wagon to the cage. Workmen rolled the barrels down the wagon-bed. The rolling barrels thundered. A gardener appeared from nowhere and raked the wagon tracks out of the gravel.

A workman crashed his sledgehammer against the barrel top, staving it in. Sea water gushed into the pool.

As other workmen in other wagons broke more barrels, the cool scent of the ocean drifted through the air. Ripples and bubbles roiled the surface of the fountain.

With a thrust of its powerful tails, the sea monster propelled its body upward. Water spilled from its open mouth, dripped from its dark hair, and trickled down its body. A tangled lock of its hair had turned light green.

Should I worry about the faded color? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Could it be a sign of illness?

The sea monster trilled a musical cry and ducked its head beneath the surface.

It dove into the pool, leaving hardly a ripple. When it surfaced, a live fish, a silver sea fish, struggled between its teeth. The sea monster flicked the wriggling fish into the air and caught it in its mouth. The tail twitched between the sea monster’s lips. The sea monster swallowed. The fish disappeared.

“Live fish!” Marie-Josèphe said. “It wants live fish!”

The sea monster dove again and raced toward the wagons, toward the fresh sea water. When the cage stopped it, it grabbed the bars and shook them. The iron rattled and rang, like spears clashing. The sea monster screamed and thrust its arm between the bars, snatching at the driver’s ankle.

“Get away, you devil!” The driver stumbled back, surprised and frightened. He fell against a barrel. It rolled, spun, and crashed to bits against the cage. Staves and iron straps rained into the pool. The sea monster screamed again and shook the bars till they shuddered and clanged.

Terrified, the driver grabbed up his whip. Its lash cracked in the air near the sea monster’s hands.

“You damned demon!” The whiplash exploded again.

The sea monster screamed in terror and splashed away beneath the water.

“Stop!”

Marie-Josèphe ran out of the cage and around the edge of the fountain toward the driver. The huge draft horses stamped and snorted.

“Stop!” Marie-Josèphe cried again. The sea monster shrieked and whistled.

Panicked and furious, the driver raised his hand as if to crack the lash again, as if to whip Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe froze, too astonished for fear.

Count Lucien’s ebony walking-stick caught the driver’s wrist at its height, stopping the downstroke. The big man pushed against the cane, too frantic to understand that a touch of restraint, rather than violence, had stopped him.

“Driver!” Count Lucien said.

The driver realized what he had almost done, what he had done.

Count Lucien lowered his cane and sat back in the saddle. The grey Arabian stood stock-still, only its ears moving, swiveling toward its rider, flicking toward the driver, toward the moans and trills of the sea monster.

“Mlle de la Croix has the charge of His Majesty’s sea monster,” Count Lucien said.

“Sir, I—mamselle, your pardon—” In horror and remorse, the driver flung the whip to the ground.

“You are dismissed.” Count Lucien’s tone made his meaning clear: the driver was not to return.

The driver was half again Count Lucien’s height, three times his weight; the knife on his belt exceeded the length of the count’s dirk.

His size made no difference. His punishment could have been far worse, and might be if the musketeers arrived before he fled. The driver grabbed his reins and shouted a curse at his horses. They plunged forward. The wagon rumbled. The gardener hurried out again to sweep the tracks clear.

“Count Lucien—” Breathless, her knees wobbly, Marie-Josèphe could think of nothing to say.

“You will not be further troubled.”

He nodded to her. As he rode away, he leaned down, hooked the whip with his walking-stick, wrapped it into a loose coil, and laid it across the pommel of his saddle.

The musketeers reached her, breathless.

“What happened, mademoiselle?” asked the lieutenant.

“As you see,” Marie-Josèphe said, gesturing to the broken barrel, the spilled sea water. “An accident.”

At the chateau, Lucien saw Zelis, his grey Arabian, safely off to the stables with his groom, then climbed the stairs from ground floor to first floor, the royal floor. Orange blossoms perfumed the air.

For all its magnificence, the chateau of Versailles was an awkward and unpleasant dwelling, built over a marsh, hot and close in summer, smoky and cold in winter. The King of France paid for his glory with the sacrifice of his comfort.

The musketeers bowed to him and stood aside; Lucien passed unchallenged into the hallway behind His Majesty’s bedroom. His Majesty permitted only his sons and a few highly-favored noblemen to use the private entrance.

A footman opened the private door. Lucien entered and took his place at the King’s bedside, behind the gold balustrade that separated the curtained bed from the ordinary onlookers of his awakening.

Silence suffused the cold, dim official bedroom. Tapestries of white silk and gold thread gleamed like autumn dawn. White plumes crowned the bed.

Lucien bowed to Monsieur, to Monseigneur, to the grandsons. He returned Lorraine’s salute. With cool politeness, he acknowledged the bows of M. Fagon the first physician and M. Félix the first surgeon.

Eight o’clock chimed. Servants opened the window-curtains, flooding the room with eastern sunlight and cold air from the open windows. Sunshine doubly gilded the tapestries and the brocade bed-curtains, shimmered from the golden-tan parquet floor, illuminated the fine paintings and the mirrors, accentuated the high relief of the image of France watching over the King’s sleep.

Lucien and Lorraine drew aside the tapestries of the King’s four-poster bed. The first valet bent over the King to whisper, “Sire, it is time.”

Of course the King was already awake. He always appeared majestic; it would not do, to rise bald, snuffling and scratching and rubbing the sleep from his eyes like an ordinary mortal. He seldom slept in his own bed, and Mme de Maintenon never slept in the King’s official bedroom. His Majesty’s custom was to sleep in her apartment and return to his own bed for his morning rituals.

His Majesty sat up, with the unnecessary help of Monsieur.

“Good morning, my dear brother,” Louis said. “I am awake.”

“Good morning, sir,” Monsieur replied. “I am glad to see you so well this morning.”

Monsieur handed his brother a cup of chocolate. The King possessed a hearty appetite, but he never ate in the morning. The liquid in his cup lay cold and congealed, brought all the way from the distant kitchens; at the chateau of Versailles, food never reached the table hot.

His Majesty deliberately traded comfort for splendor; he sacrificed his privacy for the ability to keep the aristocracy in his sight and under his control. Each member of the nobility was a potential enemy, as he had learned all too well during the civil war of his uncle’s instigation. Lucien owed part of his own position at court to his father’s unshakable political loyalty to His Majesty.

When I am middle-aged, Lucien thought, crippled like my father and retired to Barenton, I hope and expect to be able to claim a similar honor.

Lucien drew aside the bedclothes. Monsieur offered his hand to His Majesty to help him out of bed. His Majesty accepted Monsieur’s help. Wearing nightgown and short wig, in the presence of the courtiers favored with First Entry, he stepped down from the enclosure of his tall bed.

Lorraine held the dressing gown for His Majesty.

At the door to the first chamber, the usher knocked his staff on the floor.

“His Majesty has awakened.”

His Majesty’s confessor joined the King in kneeling at his bedside. The courtiers watched the King pray, gossiping all the while.

Lucien, Monsieur, Lorraine, the doctor, and the surgeon accompanied His Majesty to his privy chair. Lucien watched His Majesty carefully for any hint that his affliction had returned. Since the operation, His Majesty’s morning ablutions had ceased, mercifully, to cause him such pain. Lucien had feared for his sovereign’s life. Louis was a stoic, seldom admitting any discomfort. But during that year of illness, his body had tortured him cruelly.

The surgeon had been as unmerciful.

Fagon and Félix did cure His Majesty of the anal fistula, Lucien had to admit. The surgeon tried out the cure on any number of peasants and prisoners. He killed not a few of them, and buried them at dawn. He forbade the bells to ring, so no one would know of the failures.

He saved a few, Lucien thought, I’ll give him that. He did return the King to us. What will happen when His Majesty dies, and Monseigneur reigns…

How His Majesty could spawn such an insignificant heir as Monseigneur was a mystery that did not bear examination.

Lucien took comfort in the robustness of his King. His Majesty was an old man, but an old man restored to health.

Monsieur offered His Majesty a bowl of spirits of wine. His Majesty dipped his fingers. Lucien brought him his towel. He wiped his hands.

Fagon examined the King, as he did every day.

“Your Majesty is in excellent health.” Fagon spoke loudly enough for the courtiers to hear. They murmured their approval. “If Your Majesty wishes, I will shave Your Majesty today.”

“I’m flattered, M. Fagon,” Louis said. “When did you last shave anyone’s chin?”

“When I was an apprentice, Sire, but I have kept my razor sharp.”

The royal barber stepped aside, hiding his disappointment at being displaced on this day of all days. Dr. Fagon shaved His Majesty’s face. He removed His Majesty’s small morning wig and shaved the gray stubble of what remained of his natural hair, without a misplaced motion.

“Excellent work, sir. Perhaps you are wasted as a doctor.”

If Fagon were insulted, he concealed his reaction.

“All my talents are perpetually at Your Majesty’s service.”

As the rising ceremony progressed, the usher allowed successive groups of courtiers into His Majesty’s bedroom. When Fifth Entry arrived, Lucien noted with disgust that Father de la Croix had disregarded His Majesty’s invitation.

For anyone to rebuff such an honor is appalling, Lucien thought. For a Jesuit to do so is remarkable.

Monsieur divested His Majesty of his nightgown and handed him his shirt. Lace cascaded from the throat and the cuffs. His stockings were of the finest white French silk, his pantaloons of black satin. Pearls encrusted the scabbard of his sword, and his swordbelt, in an intricate design. Embroidered golden fleurs de lys covered his long coat. All the fabric of his clothes came straight from the finest French manufactories, made especially for today: for today was a day to impress the Italians, who liked to pretend their cloth and lace, their leather and designs, were the height of fashion.

Monsieur knelt before his brother and helped him slip into his high-heeled shoes. Though His Majesty no longer dressed in the colors of flame and sunlight, as he had early in his reign, he continued his custom of wearing red shoes for state occasions. Diamonds encrusted the heavy gold buckles. The tall heels lifted His Majesty to a height of more than five and a half feet.

A footman brought a short ladder; Lucien climbed it. The royal wig-maker handed him the King’s new periwig, an elegant, leonine construct of glossy black human hair. Lucien placed it on the King’s head and arranged the long perfect curls across his shoulders. The wig added another three inches to his stature. Somewhere near Paris, a peasant girl had earned her father a year’s wages by sacrificing her hair.

Monseigneur the Grand Dauphin handed His Majesty his hat. The white ostrich plumes glowed in the morning light.

A murmur of appreciation rippled across the courtiers beyond the balustrade; as one, they bowed to their King.

The King led his family and the most favored members of his court out to face the day.

The workers grumbled, but Marie-Josèphe persuaded them to strain the sea water from the last few barrels. Along with bits of seaweed and a few periwinkles, the screen produced a half-dozen live fish.

“Just pour the water in the fountain, mademoiselle,” said the musketeer lieutenant. “The demon will catch the fish, like it caught the other.”

“It must come to me to take its food,” she said.

The musketeer grimaced. “Watch your fingers,” he said.

“It could have bitten me last night,” she said. “It could have drowned me. I’m safe enough.”

“You can never tell, with demons,” he said, as if he had considerable experience with demons.

“Can you bring me more live fish?” she asked one of the workers.

“Live fish, those aren’t easy to get, mamselle.” He ran his hand through his thin brown hair.

“Count Lucien will pay you well if you bring live fish.”

“And whip you if you don’t.” A tanned young worker with a sweaty scarf tied across his forehead laughed at his comrade. “With Georges’ whip.”

“He never would!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. But then she thought, He very well might, if he thought someone had slighted His Majesty.

“How many live fish do you want, mamselle—and how much are you paying?”

“Bring me as many as you’d eat for dinner—if you could eat only fish, and if you could eat only dinner.”

The workers dragged the last staves of the broken barrel out of the water and threw them into a wagon-bed. The clatter frightened the sea monster farther under one of Apollo’s dolphins. The workers touched their hats, clambered into the wagons, and drove away.

Several gardeners hurried to rake the wagon tracks and the hoofprints from the path, to clean away every clod of horse manure, and to vanish again, leaving potted flowers and trees in precise lines, carrying with them any wilted blooms.

The musketeers busied themselves lowering the sides of the tent, closing Marie-Josèphe off alone with the sea monster. She sat still in the silence, in the silken sunlight that poured through the top and sides of the tent. The sea monster, underwater, drifted closer.

Marie-Josèphe regarded the live fishes doubtfully. They twitched and quivered. If she did not feed them to the sea monster herself, soon, she might as well tip them into the fountain. Otherwise they would die. She rolled her embroidered velvet sleeve up above her elbow, reached into the jar, and grabbed one of the fish.

Gripping the wriggly thing tight, Marie-Josèphe knelt and swished the fish through the water.

“Come, sea monster.”

The sea monster lunged forward, but quickly turned aside. Ripples lapped around Marie-Josèphe’s wrist.

“Come here, sea monster. Come get a nice fish.”

The sea monster swam back and forth, a few armslengths from the stairs.

“Please, sea monster,” she said. “You must eat.”

The live fish writhed feebly. Marie-Josèphe opened her hand. The sea monster darted so close that her claws brushed Marie-Josèphe’s fingers. Marie-Josèphe gasped with delight. The creature snatched the fish and shoved it into her mouth.

“Good sea monster!” Enthralled, Marie-Josèphe captured another fish. “Fine sea monster!”

Frightened by her own boldness, the sea monster fled to Apollo to nestle beneath the hooves of the dawn horses.

Perhaps Apollo is driving the wrong way in order to retard time, Marie-Josèphe thought. Perhaps if he drives against the sun, time will go backwards, and we shall all live forever.

She glanced over her shoulder, toward the glow of the sun shining through the translucent tent wall.

She caught her breath. The sun was high, much higher than she expected. She flung the fish into the pond, ran up the stairs and out of the cage, slammed the door, and hurried outside.

When did Count Lucien ride away? she wondered. It was only a few minutes ago, was it not?

She tried to convince herself that she was not very late as she ran up the Green Carpet to the chateau.

She burst into Yves’ room, hoping his bed would be empty, hoping he had gone, hoping Odelette had awakened him. But he lay snoring softly in his dark room.

“Yves, dear brother, wake up, please, I’m so sorry—”

“What?” he mumbled. “What is it, what’s wrong?” He sat up, his curly dark hair sticking out at all angles. “Is it seven already?”

“It’s at least half past eight, I’m so sorry, I went to feed the sea monster, I forgot the time.”

Anger would have been easier to bear than his stricken expression, his silence.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“It was important,” Yves said.

Marie-Josèphe hung her head. Her error made her feel like an errant child, not a grown woman, and she had no excuse, no defense.

“I know,” she whispered.

The silence weighed upon her.

“Where is Odelette?”

“I sent her to attend Mademoiselle in my place,” Marie-Josèphe said. “She had no way to know you should be awakened! This is all my fault, my responsibility.”

Yves put his arm around her shoulder.

“Never mind,” he said, his voice falsely cheerful. “I’d much rather sleep, than rise at dawn to watch an old man get out of bed and use his open chair.”

Marie-Josèphe tried to laugh, but bit her lip instead to hold back her tears.

“No one will even notice that I wasn’t there,” Yves said heartily. “Did the sea monster feed?”

“It ate a few fish,” Marie-Josèphe said miserably.

“That’s wonderful!” Yves exclaimed. “And much more important to the King’s approval. I knew you’d succeed.”

“You are so good to me,” Marie-Josèphe said. “To suffer my error without anger—to make it sound like an achievement!”

“Never think another thing about it,” he said. “Now, leave me to dress, in proper modesty.”

She kissed his cheek. As she passed through the dressing chamber that joined their bedrooms, he called out, “Sister, can you find bread and chocolate? I’m famished.”