“Do not force a wife on him. He’s the only one who loves me.”
Mme de Maintenon rose. “Love!” she cried. “How can you call that love? Your behavior—disgraceful, sinful! His Majesty protects you continually. If you weren’t Monsieur, you would have been burned, and your paramour with you!”
Monsieur flung up his arms, pushing his brother away. He glared at Mme de Maintenon with hatred and despair.
“And you!” Monsieur cried. “You want to give her my lover so she won’t take yours!”
Mme de Maintenon collapsed. Taken aback, Louis turned to her. “Madame, it isn’t true!”
“Don’t deny you’re tempted, sir,” Monsieur said. “By her beauty, her intelligence, her innocence. Do you believe she can replenish your youth?”
“Go away, brother,” Louis said.
“Willingly! Give me back my cavalry. Lorraine and I will fight your war, like Alexander and Hephaestion. Perhaps I’ll be killed, like Patroklos—”
“Have the dignity to compare yourself to Achilleus!”
“—and you’ll be rid of me—”
“No. It’s impossible.”
“You give me nothing to do, you block my son from any share of glory, and now—”
“Get out!” His Majesty shouted.
Monsieur bolted. He flung open the door himself, moaning with despair.
“How can he accuse me of treachery?” His Majesty cried. “How can I save him? How can I help him?”
He wept. His tears splashed on the intricate parquet. He caught his breath; he fought for control. His keening grew louder; it filled the room with grief.
“Come to me, my dear,” his wife whispered. “Come to me.”
The King fell to his knees and buried his head in Mme de Maintenon’s bosom. She held him, crooning. She glared at Lucien.
Without waiting for His Majesty’s leave, Lucien bowed, backed away, and fled.
Marie-Josèphe rode Zachi past the marble statues overlooking the Green Carpet. Grateful for a moment’s peace, she looked into each serene stone face, wishing for their calmness.
The orators would never hesitate to speak of the sea woman, she thought, and no one would hesitate to believe them. Roman gods and orators would never feel guilty about skipping Mass; they would set out on adventures, they would win righteous battles, and never think twice about arguing with their brothers or failing to attend Mademoiselle.
Haleeda will arrange Lotte’s hair, Marie-Josèphe said to herself, and Duke Charles will compliment her, and she will never notice my absence.
At the bottom of the garden, a line of visitors snaked onto the Green Carpet, filing into the tent, crowding around the Fountain of Apollo, applauding the sea woman.
She shouldn’t be on display, like an animal in the Menagerie! Marie-Josèphe thought. It’s beneath her dignity! And I’m responsible—I taught her the foolish tricks.
Marie-Josèphe had no authority to close the tent.
Zachi tossed her head and pranced, asking to gallop, asking to run until her mane flew in the wind and Lorraine’s cloak swept back like wings.
“No, my charger,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “We must keep to a stately pace. We might trample someone, if we swooped down to steal the sea woman away.”
She wondered if the sea woman could ride, if perhaps she rode great whales through the ocean. If she could…
Marie-Josèphe dismissed the wild idea. She would never get the sea woman past the guards. Double-burdened, Zachi could not outrace even a cold-blooded horse. She might try, and break her heart.
“It would be to no avail,” Marie-Josèphe said, “for the rescue could not succeed. Yves would never forgive me, for the sake of his work. Count Lucien would never forgive me, for the sake of His Majesty. And I’d never forgive myself, for the sake of you.”
“What time to return, mamselle?” Jacques held the stairs and helped her dismount.
“I cannot say.” She patted Zachi’s sleek neck and her soft muzzle; she breathed into her flaring nostrils. “I’ll send for her.”
“You’re a wonder, mademoiselle,” said one musketeer, “training the sea monster to entertain the visitors.”
“Shame it’s for such a short time,” said the other.
Marie-Josèphe hurried to the cage. The sea woman swam back and forth, around and around, tantalizing the spectators.
The sea woman vanished. The pool stilled.
The surface roiled. The sea woman burst from the water in a rush of spray. Her naked body gleamed. She leaped completely over Triton, flipping her tails—her webbed feet—at the top of her arch. She arrowed down, vanishing without a splash or ripple.
The spectators applauded. “Throw it a fish!”
“Make it leap again!”
Marie-Josèphe ignored the demands.
I will not ask the sea woman to perform like a trick dog, she thought. She sang the sea woman’s name; the sea woman trilled, creating curtains of light and sound that glowed and hissed like the northern lights. Marie-Josèphe walked between them. All oblivious to the coruscating shimmer, the visitors waited for their entertainment.
“Guard,” Marie-Josèphe said, “kindly call the lackeys, to pour the fish-barrel into the Fountain.”
“Give the fish to—”
She gave him a haughty look. He bowed.
The lackeys tilted the barrel. Sea water and live fish gushed over the rim of the fountain. With a shriek of pleasure, the sea woman burst through the river of sea-water. Terrified, the lackeys dropped the barrel; it tumbled into the fountain. The sea woman dived to evade it. The servants fled, ignoring the curses of the musketeers.
The visitors laughed and applauded. They might as well have been watching an Italian comedy. Her back to the rabble, Marie-Josèphe scowled.
“Now you’ve got no fish to throw to the monster!” a visitor shouted. “We want to see the sea monster!”
“Throw the monster a fish!”
“She’s no monster!” No one heard her. Water rushed; the sea woman leapt, flung a fish, and splashed flamboyantly. The fish flew through the air, between the bars of the cage, and hit the visitor in the chest. Water spattered Marie-Josèphe’s face and her riding habit. Waves surged over her feet, soaking her shoes.
Delighted, the visitors laughed. A child scampered forward and snatched up the fish and flung the flopping creature back through the bars. The sea woman leapt again, caught it, and ate it in two bites. The tail vanished last. The child laughed; the sea woman trilled at her.
“The sea monster wishes to train us!” said the child’s mother. All the crowd and the musketeers joined her laughter. The sea woman flipped her tails and vanished.
The floating barrel bobbed. The sea woman pushed it around the fountain. She made it turn and spin; she rode the spin upward and launched herself, flying into a dive. Her audience applauded.
“Stop it!” Marie-Josèphe cried, humiliated for the sea woman, furious. No one paid the least attention.
“Mlle de la Croix, control yourself, I beg you.”
Count Lucien stood by the Fountain, frowning, leaning lightly on his walking stick.
“Make them stop, please, Count Lucien.”
“What are they doing, that upsets you so?”
“Teasing her—baiting her, like a bear!”
“I doubt you’ve ever seen a bear-baiting, for this is nothing like. Your sea monster plays for them, as she plays for you.”
“It isn’t fitting.”
Count Lucien chuckled.
“Please don’t laugh at me.”
“I had no intention of doing so. On the contrary, I’m sad for you, if you don’t know the pleasure play can bring. To people as well as to animals.”
“She isn’t—”
The barrel bumped up against the platform, interrupting Marie-Josèphe, thudding loudly again and again. Water splashed on Marie-Josèphe’s shoes.
Marie-Josèphe knelt and plunged her hands into the water. The sea woman left o
ff battering the barrel and swam to her, sleeking past her fingers.
With one short burst of song, the sea woman sketched her life. She caught her food, she swam through bright coral reefs in tropical seas. In the north, she capered among inverted iceberg mountains. She traced the depths with an exploration of sound. She played with the children of her family. She swam among the tentacles of a tame giant octopus with her friend—her friend, the man of the sea who lay dead and flayed on the dissection table. She and her friend made love, love for pleasure’s sinful sake with no thought of procreation, in the illumination of the octopus’ spark-spotted skin. When desperate danger threatened, the sea woman sank into the lightless depths and nearly ceased breathing. Ever, and always, the touch and the songs of other sea people surrounded her.
“I only thought of your fear,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “I didn’t think of how bored you must be. How lonely.” She sat with her wet feet on the water-level platform, her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists.
The visitors grew impatient. “Make it leap! Make it scream and laugh!”
“Sing your story again,” Marie-Josèphe whispered to the sea woman. “So they can hear it.” She rose and spoke to the visitors. “The sea woman tires of leaping, but she’ll tell you a story.”
The sea woman sang, not the story of her life, but a story from her people’s history. Surprised, apprehensive, Marie-Josèphe described the images with inadequate words.
“Four hundreds and three thousands of years ago, the people of the sea first met the people of the land.”
An entrancing ship, its sail painted with octopuses and fish, glided graceful as an albatross. The sea people watched, unafraid, curious. Handsome, narrow-waisted youths—boys and girls alike, their hair curled in ringlets—threw off their short belted kilts and dived from the ship to meet the people of the sea. They played and sang together. The people of the land were like no others Marie-Josèphe had ever seen or heard of, exotic and dark-eyed and unimaginably lovely, graceful as the wind.
We gave them songs, they gave us stories, the sea woman sang, that cannot be taken, only given. We met as friends.
The sea people accompanied the ship to an island, gold in the shimmering heat of the sapphire-blue Mediterranean. The ship glided into a harbor. A stone palace spread across a cliff. At the harborside, bare-breasted women in bell-shaped skirts, their hair dressed with gold, led the way to greet their visitors. The children threw flowers into the water; the sea people twisted the blossoms into their hair.
“The sea people entered the chief city of the land of Atlantis,” Marie-Josèphe said. “We rode in pools painted with dolphins and squids. The sea people and the people of the land exchanged shells and flowers.”
The song changed. The melody grew dark, the harmonics threatening. Marie-Josèphe fell silent as an immense explosion wracked the ground and whipped a hot wind across the island. Burning cinders and molten stones rained down. Ash rolled over the sea-people’s chariots.
The eruption ended. The city was destroyed.
We searched for our friends, the sea woman sang. We saw them no more. They were the first of us to perish when we met the people of land.
“That is all,” Marie-Josèphe said, leaving the sea people as they accepted flowers in the lost city of Atlantis. The visitors applauded.
The sea woman snarled and splashed her angrily, demanding an explanation.
“How could I tell them—?”
You must always finish the story, the sea woman sang. Promise, or I’ll tell no more. You must always finish the story.
“Very well,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I promise. From now on, no matter what, I’ll finish the story.”
“Tell another!” the visitors shouted. “Yes, another story!”
A servant pushed through the crowd, hurrying to Count Lucien, handing him a note. The count read it, then tramped to the area between the cage and the line of applauding visitors. His limp had nearly gone.
“Guests of His Majesty,” he said. His pleasant voice, barely raised, filled the tent. The visitors fell silent, respectful of the King’s representative. “His Majesty asks that you leave the sea monster for today.”
Without objection, without complaint, the visitors filed out. The men bowed to Count Lucien; the women curtsied. Even the little ones, delighted to face an adult at their own level, offered him childish salutes, which he returned as graciously as he recognized their parents.
The sea woman surfaced, making a rude sound, spraying water. She asked Marie-Josèphe where all the people of land were going, and what she was to do for amusement.
Marie-Josèphe leaned over the top stair. “Count Lucien! Count Lucien, you were right,” she said. “She’d rather play, and tease the visitors—I was wrong to ask you to send them away.”
“I didn’t send them away to please you, Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said.
“Of course you wouldn’t send them away to please me.” Bone-weariness caught her. She sank onto the lowest step. “I’d never think such a thing.” The musketeers lowered the sides of the tent, closing in the silence.
Count Lucien climbed onto the rim of the fountain. “Are you quite all right, Mlle de la Croix?”
“Yes, sir.” And yet she did not move.
Count Lucien handed her his flask. She drank the pungent calvados gratefully.
The sea woman glided to her and hovered at her feet, one webbed hand on each of Marie-Josèphe’s ankles. The sea woman poked and prodded with her sharp nails, exploring Marie-Josèphe’s shoes, her stockings, singing to ask, what is this strange second skin grown by the people of land?
The spirits drove back Marie-Josèphe’s exhaustion. She rolled down her stocking so the sea woman could touch her skin. The sea woman’s swimming webs were as smooth and fine as China silk. She stroked Marie-Josèphe’s leg, probing her shoe. She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her face turned toward Marie-Josèphe’s foot though her eyelids drooped shut. She sank into the water, drawing Marie-Josèphe’s foot with her, to look at it with her voice.
“Wait, sea woman! I cannot afford to ruin these shoes.” Marie-Josèphe bared her foot. “Now you may look at my feet however you like.”
The cold fountain water rose above Marie-Josèphe’s ankle. The sea woman submerged. Her voice tickled Marie-Josèphe’s toes.
Marie-Josèphe giggled. “May I look at your foot?”
Without lifting her head or body from the water, the sea woman slid one foot over the edge of the platform. Her hips and knees were far more limber than the joints of a land human. Marie-Josèphe stroked the sea woman’s instep, and the sea woman wriggled her clawed toes. Warmth radiated from the rough skin of her legs.
“Mlle de la Croix, I believe you’ve had enough calvados.” Count Lucien retrieved his flask. “The scholars of the Academy of Sciences will not like to see you unclad.”
“The Academy!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. Yves had said not a word about the honor. She snatched her foot from the sea woman’s hands, startling her so she surfaced, snorting.
Marie-Josèphe saw an opportunity, but she had no time to plan. She sang the sea woman’s name.
“Sea woman, dive, breathe underwater. If you value your life, don’t come up until I beg you to return.”
The sea woman whistled in distress, kicked hard, and dove backward in a long graceful curve. Bubbles rushed from her mouth and nose. She breathed out the last of her air and lay on the bottom of the pool, quiet as death.
Outside the tent, footsteps crunched on gravel.
Marie-Josèphe scooped up her shoe and stocking and ran to the laboratory, her left shoe tapping on the planks, her bare right foot silent. She reached her place by the dissection table just in time to conceal her bare foot and her shoe and stocking beneath her skirt.
Footmen ceremoniously positioned the King’s portrait. Yves entered the tent, leading a half-dozen dark-clad scholars and their students. He barely nodded to Marie-Josèphe. The scho
lars bowed to the portrait and to Count Lucien; they gathered around the dissection table. Count Lucien’s groom brought a step-stool for him to stand on.
Yves uncovered the body of the sea woman’s friend and spoke expansively, in Latin, before the King’s philosophers. “Natural philosophy proves the sea monsters are natural creatures, albeit ugly ones, like dugongs and sea-cows.”
He had saved an arm to dissect for the gentlemen of the Academy. He cut it, exposing sinews, bones, joints.
In the silence of the sea woman’s languor, Marie-Josèphe documented the work. She drew with difficulty. Now that she knew the truth she saw the human features of the dead man. The long fine bones of his fingers reminded her of Count Lucien’s beautiful hands.
Yves put down his knife. Marie-Josèphe laid down her charcoal and flexed her cramped hand. A student displayed her final drawing.
The gentlemen of the Academy questioned Yves about his hunt, his work, the King’s patronage.
“The creatures have large lungs, as one would expect, similar to those of the slower sea mammals. I’ve observed one to remain underwater for ten or twelve minutes.” He moved quickly to the body’s other organs. “The heart—”
He never mentioned the anomalous lobe of the lung.
“Nothing remains to be learned from the monster’s carcass,” Yves said. “I shall of course compare female to male, inasmuch as the female’s fate allows, though we gain little knowledge from the imperfect female copy of any creature.”
“Remarkable work, M. de la Croix,” said the senior scholar, also speaking Latin. “Let us observe the living sea monster for a moment, if you please.”
“Call the sea monster, sister.” Yves left off speaking Latin, as if he had no idea Marie-Josèphe understood it.
Hurrying ahead, a little awkward with one bare foot, Marie-Josèphe entered the cage. She locked the door, put the key into her pocket, and sat composed on the fountain’s rim with her hands folded in her lap.
How strange it feels, she thought, to do nothing. I cannot remember the last time I sat without drawing or needlework or copying or prayer.
Yves tried the locked gate. “Open the gate.”
The Moon and the Sun Page 27
