The Moon and the Sun

by Vonda McIntyre

  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.”

  3

  THE SEA MONSTER FLOATED beneath the surface, humming, its voice a low moan. The edges of the small water reflected the sound.

  A rotting fish fell into the pool. The sea monster dove away, then circled back, sniffed at it, scooped it up, and flung it away. It sailed between the cold black bars and hit the ground with a dead splat.

  The sea monster sang.

  Marie-Josèphe took Yves up the narrow dirty stairs, through the dark hallway and along the threadbare carpet, to the attic of the chateau of Versailles. Her cold clammy dress had soaked the fur lining of Lorraine’s cloak. She could not stop shivering.

  “Is this where we’re to live?” Yves asked, dismayed.

  “We have three rooms!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “Courtiers scheme and bribe and connive for what we’ve been given freely.”

  “It’s a filthy attic.”

  “In His Majesty’s chateau!”

  “My cabin on the galleon was cleaner.”

  Marie-Josèphe opened the door to her dark, cold, shabby little room. Light spilled out. She stared, astonished.

  “And my room at university was larger,” Yves said. “Hello, Odelette.”

  A young woman of extraordinary beauty rose from the chair where she sat sewing by candlelight.

  “Good evening, M. Yves,” said Marie-Josèphe’s Turkish slave, with whom Marie-Josèphe shared a birthday, and to whom she had not been allowed to speak for five years. She smiled at her mistress in a matter-of-fact way. “Hello, Mlle Marie.”

  “Odelette!” Marie-Josèphe ran to Odelette and flung herself into her arms. “How—where—Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

  “Mlle Marie, you’re soaked!” Odelette pointed to the dressing-room door. “Go away, M. Yves, so I may get Mlle Marie out of these wet clothes.” Odelette had never, from the time they were all children, shown Yves a moment’s deference.

  Yves offered her a mock bow and left to explore his rooms.

  “Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

  “Was it not your will, Mlle Marie?” Odelette unfastened the many buttons of Marie-Josèphe’s grand habit.

  “It was, but I never dared hope they’d send you. Before my ship sailed, I wrote to the Mother Superior, I wrote to the priest, I wrote to the governor—” The clammy wet silk fell away, leaving her bare arms exposed to the cold night air. “And when I reached Saint-Cyr, I asked Mme de Maintenon for help—I even wrote to the King!” She hugged herself, trying to ward off the chill. “Though I don’t suppose he ever saw my letter!”

  “Perhaps it was the governor. I attended his daughter during her passage to France, though the Mother Superior wanted to keep me.”

  Odelette picked loose the wet knots of Marie-Josèphe’s stays. Marie-Josèphe stood naked and shivering on the worn rug. Her ruined gown and silver petticoat lay in a heap. Odelette hung the Chevalier’s cloak on the dress-rack.

  “I’ll brush it, and it might dry unstained. But your beautiful petticoat—!” Odelette fell into their old habits of domesticity as if no time had passed at all. She rubbed Marie-Josèphe with a scrap of old blanket and chafed her fingers and arms to bring back some warmth. Hercules the cat watched from the window seat.

  Marie-Josèphe burst into tears of anger and relief. “She forbade me to see you—”

  “Shh, Mlle Marie. Our fortunes have changed.�
� Odelette held a threadbare nightshirt, plain thin muslin, not at all warm. “Into bed before you catch your death, and I have to send for a surgeon.”

  Marie-Josèphe slipped into the nightshirt. “I don’t need a surgeon. I don’t want a surgeon. I’m just cold. It’s a long walk from the Fountain of Apollo when your dress is soaking wet.”

  Odelette unpinned Marie-Josèphe’s red-gold hair, letting it fall in tangled curls around her shoulders. Marie-Josèphe swayed, too tired to keep her feet.

  “Come, Mlle Marie,” Odelette said. “You’re shivering. Get in bed, and I’ll comb your hair while you go to sleep.”

  Marie-Josèphe crawled between the featherbeds, still shivering.

  “Come, Hercules.”

  The tabby cat blinked from the window seat. He yawned, rose, stretched hugely, and dug his claws into the velvet cushion. One leap to the floor and one to the bed brought him to her side. He sniffed her fingers, walked on top of her, and kneaded her belly. The feathers softened his claws to a soft pressure and a faint sharp scratching sound. He curled up, warm and heavy, and went back to sleep.

  “Put your arms beneath the covers,” Odelette said, trying to pull the covers higher.

  “No, it isn’t proper—”

  “Nonsense, you’ll die of a cold in your chest.” Odelette tucked the covers around her chin. Odelette spread Marie-Josèphe’s hair across the pillows and combed out the tangles. “You mustn’t go out anymore with your hair poorly dressed.”

  “I wore a fontanges.” Marie-Josèphe yawned. “But the sea monster knocked it loose.” She lost track of what she was saying. “You should see the sea monster. You will see it!”

  I’m still too excited to go to sleep, Marie-Josèphe thought. Then, a moment later, Odelette laid her heavy braid across her shoulder. Marie-Josèphe had already dozed, and had not felt Odelette finish her hair. Odelette blew out the candle. The smoke tinged the air with burned tallow. A shadow in the darkness, Odelette moved toward the window.

  “Leave it open,” Marie-Josèphe said, half asleep.

  “It’s so cold, Mlle Marie.”

  “We must get used to it.”

  Odelette slipped into bed, a sweet warmth beside Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe hugged her.

  “I’m so glad to have you back with me.”

  “You might have sold me,” Odelette whispered.

  “Never!” Marie-Josèphe did not admit, to Odelette, how close she had come in the convent to repent of owning a slave. She did repent. The arguments had convinced her and guilt now troubled her. She had understood in time that the arguments were meant to persuade her to sell Odelette, not to free her. The sisters thought Odelette’s abilities too refined for the work in a convent, and would have preferred the money her sale would have brought.

  I must free her, Marie-Josèphe thought. But if I free her now, I can only send her out into the world, a young woman alone and without resources. Like me, but without the protection of good family or a brother, without the friendship of the King. Her only resource is her beauty.

  “I’ll never sell you,” she said again. “You’ll be mine, or you’ll be free, but you’ll never belong to another.”

  A phrase of music, exquisitely complex, soared in and filled the air with sorrow.

  “Don’t cry, Mlle Marie,” Odelette whispered. She brushed the tears from Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks. “Our fortunes have changed.”

  Can you hear the singing? Marie-Josèphe asked.

  Did I ask the question? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Or did I only dream it? Do I hear the sea monster’s song, or do I dream it, too?

  A dreadful racket of tramping boots, rattling swords, and loud voices woke Marie-Josèphe. She tried to make it a dream—but she had been having a different dream. Hercules stared toward the door, his eyes reflecting the faint light, his tail twitching angrily.

  “Mlle Marie?” Odelette sat up, wide awake.

  “Go back to sleep, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  Odelette burrowed under the covers, peeking out curiously.

  “Father de la Croix!”

  Someone pounded on the door of Yves’ room. Marie-Josèphe flung off the bedclothes and snatched Lorraine’s cloak from the dress stand. She opened the door to the corridor.

  “Be quiet! You’ll wake my brother!”

  Two of the King’s Musketeers filled the low, narrow hallway, the plumes of their hats brushing the ceiling, their swords banging the woodwork when they turned. Mud from their boots clumped on the carpet. The smoke of their torch smudged the ceiling. Burning pitch overcame the odors of urine, sweat, and mildew.

  “We must wake him, mademoiselle.” The shorter of the two was still a head taller than Marie-Josèphe. “The sea monster—the tent is full of demons!” Indoors, and in a lady’s presence, the musketeer corporal snatched off his hat.

  Yves’ door opened. He peered out sleepily, his dark hair tousled and his cassock buttoned partway and crooked.

  “Demons? Nonsense.”

  “We heard it—leathery wings flapping—”

  “We smelled brimstone!” said the taller musketeer.

  “Who’s guarding the sea monster?”

  They looked at each other.

  Yves made a sound of disgust, slammed his door behind him, and strode down the hallway with the musketeers in his wake.

  “Mlle Marie—” Marie-Josèphe waved Odelette to silence. She hung back so Yves would not order her to stay behind. When the men disappeared, she followed.

  She hurried down the back stairs and through the mysterious and deserted and dark chateau. Gentlemen of His Majesty’s household had already claimed the partially burned candles, a perquisite of their office. Her hands outstretched, she made her way through Louis XIII’s small hunting lodge, the heart of Louis XIV’s magnificent, sprawling chateau.

  Hugging Lorraine’s cloak around her, she hurried onto the terrace. The moon had set but the stars shed a little light. The luminarias marking the King’s pathway had burned to nothing. The fountains lay quiet. Marie-Josèphe ran across the cold dew-damp flagstones, past the Ornamental Pools, and down the stairs above the Fountain of Latona. Beyond, on the Green Carpet, the musketeers’ torch spread a pool of smoky light.

  Motion and a strange shape in the corner of her eye startled her. She stopped short, catching her breath.

  The white blossoms of an orange tree trembled and glowed in the darkness. Gardeners, dragging the orange-tree cart, slipped from the traces to bow to Marie-Josèphe.

  She acknowledged the gardeners, thinking, of course they must work at night; His Majesty should see his gardens only in a state of perfection.

  They took up the cart again; its wheels crunched on the gravel. When His Majesty took his afternoon walk, fresh trees, their blossoms forced in the greenhouse, would greet him. His Majesty’s gaze would touch only beauty.

  Marie-Josèphe hurried to the sea monster’s tent. The lantern inside had gone out; the torch outside illuminated only the entry curtain and its gold sunburst.

  “Say a prayer before you go in!” said the musketeer corporal.

  “An incantation!”

  “He means an exorcism.”

  “There isn’t any demon,” Yves said.

  “We heard it.”

  “Flapping its wings.”

  “Wings like leather.”

  Yves grabbed the torch, flung aside the curtain, and strode into the tent. Out of breath from running, Marie-Josèphe slipped past the musketeers and followed her brother.

  The tent looked as they had left it, the equipment all in place, melted ice dripping softly to the plank floor, the cage surrounding the fountain. The odor of dead fish and preserving spirits hung in the air. Marie-Josèphe supposed the guards might have mistaken the unpleasant smells for brimstone.

  She believed in demons—she believed in God, and in angels, so how could she not believe in Satan and demons?—but she thought, in these modern days, demons did not often choose to visit the earthly world. Even
if they did, why should a demon visit a sea monster, any more than it would visit His Majesty’s elephant or His Majesty’s baboons?

  Marie-Josèphe giggled, thinking of a demon on a picnic in His Majesty’s Menagerie.

  Her laughter brought her to Yves’ attention.

  “What are you laughing at?” he said. “You should be in bed.”

  “I wish I were,” Marie-Josèphe said.

  “Superstitious fools,” Yves muttered. “Demons, indeed.”

  The torchlight reflected from a splash of water on the polished planks.

  “Yves—”

  A watery trail led from the fountain to the cluster of lab equipment. The gate of the cage hung open.

  Yves cursed and hurried to the dissection table. Marie-Josèphe ran into the cage.

  The sea monster floated a few strokes from the platform, its hair spreading around its shoulders. Its eyes reflected the torchlight, uncanny as a cat’s. It hummed softly, eerily.

  “Yves, it’s here, it’s safe, it’s all right.”

  “Stay there—There’s broken glass. Are you barefoot?”

  “Are you?”

  Shards of glass flung sharp sounds as Yves swept them into a pile.

  “My feet are like leather—we never wore shoes on the galleon.”

  He joined her in the cage, holding the torch out over the water. A spark fell and sizzled. The sea monster spat at it, whistled angrily, and dove.

  “It slithered around out here. It climbed the stairs! I didn’t think it could make progress on land. It knocked a flask over, it fled back to the fountain… I must have left the gate ajar.”

  “You tested it,” Marie-Josèphe said. “You latched it and rattled it.”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t have. Tomorrow I’ll get a chain.”

  Yves sat abruptly. He slumped forward, his head down, hair hanging in rumpled black curls. Marie-Josèphe snatched the torch before it fell. Concerned, she sat beside her brother and put her arm around his shoulder.

  He patted her hand. “I’m only tired,” he said.

  “You work so hard,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Let me help you.”

  “That wouldn’t be proper.”

  “I was a good assistant when we were children—I’m no less able now.”