The Moon and the Sun

by Vonda McIntyre

  Gunsmoke roiled up and hid the forest, while the roar of gunfire drowned out the noise of the beaters. The breeze stirred the powder-smoke like thick fog.

  Marie-Josèphe urged Zachi forward. Berwick’s charger stepped in front of her. Chartres snatched at the lace again, tearing it from her throat. Lorraine tugged at the lace of her sleeve, dragging it against the painful cut of Dr. Fagon’s lancet.

  A cloud of terrified grouse erupted from the underbrush, flapping wildly, so frightened they flew into danger instead of running to safety. Berwick’s horse shied, startling Lorraine’s and Chartres’ mounts.

  Gyrfalcons screeched and arrowed toward their prey. Their claws hit the plump birds with the soft thud of crushed wings.

  Marie-Josèphe touched Zachi’s mouth with the reins. The Arabian rushed backwards, reared and spun and leaped into a gallop. Chartres and Berwick and Lorraine pounded down the trail after her. Zachi sped past gamesmen opening wicker baskets, flinging a score of gobbling dindon from America into the air. Zachi never wavered when the stout brown birds erupted, into the range of the hunters’ guns.

  Hoofbeats echoed so close that Marie-Josèphe feared to look back; she urged Zachi on. Chartres, the lightest of the three men, grasped the hem of Marie-Josèphe’s habit and nearly unseated her, but she tightened her right leg around the saddle-crook and shouted for Zachi to run, to flee.

  Zachi ran, joyous and sure-footed, skimming over the path, outdistancing the larger horses. The hoofbeats and snorts fell behind. The laughter of the pursuers turned to irritation, then to anger. Marie-Josèphe leaned as close to Zachi’s neck as the sidesaddle allowed.

  Zachi outdistanced the horses, the riders, the clamor of the hunt. Marie-Josèphe rode alone. She sat back; Zachi slowed her headlong run. The mare cantered, then trotted, then walked, along the main branch of a tangle of manicured trails, flicking her ears as Marie-Josèphe spoke.

  “No horse can outdistance you,” Marie-Josèphe said. “No horse can even keep up with you. You are magnificent, and when I must return you, I’ll grieve, but I could never afford to keep you as Count Lucien can—as you deserve.”

  As if she had summoned him by speaking his name, Count Lucien appeared from a side trail.

  “If you continue this habit of speaking to animals, Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said, “you’ll earn a reputation you won’t enjoy.”

  Zelis stopped before Zachi; the two mares blew into each other’s nostrils. Marie-Josèphe fantasied that they told each other what had happened, and Count Lucien understood them.

  “A reputation as a witch might aid me now,” she said. “I beg your pardon, of course I didn’t mean that.”

  “You’re missing His Majesty’s hunt.”

  “As are you.”

  “I took a brace of grouse; I don’t eat as much as some men.”

  Marie-Josèphe’s outrage boiled over. “Those wretched boys!” she cried. “That wretched Lorraine!” Her hair hung wild around her face; her lace was ruined; her left arm ached fiercely. She bunched up her hair in her uninjured right hand; she dropped it; she fumbled at her torn cravat. She burst into tears of anger and frustration.

  Humiliated, she turned away from Count Lucien.

  “What you must think of me!” she said. “You see me only when I’m begging for your help, or crying like a child, or making a fool of myself—”

  “Hardly that.” He rode closer. “Hold still.”

  She shivered at his touch, thinking, wildly, Chartres pursued me but Chrétien caught me, they both believe I—

  “I am a dangerous man, but you’ll never be in danger from me. Be easy.” Count Lucien’s voice gentled her.

  He tied her hair back with his own ribbon, letting his chestnut perruke fall free around his shoulders.

  “I liked Chartres,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “A sweet boy—I thought! What did I do, to make him behave so?”

  “He behaved so because he wished to, and because he can indulge his wishes,” Count Lucien said. “It had nothing to do with you, except that you appeared in his sights like an antelope.”

  Marie-Josèphe stroked Zachi’s shoulder. “But I escaped, because you surround me with afrits to watch me.”

  “Zachi is only a horse,” Count Lucien said. “A remarkably swift horse, but only a horse, after all.”

  He guided Zelis to Zachi’s left, where he straightened Marie-Josèphe’s cravat and arranged it like a steenkirk, fastening its end to her hunting jacket with his own diamond pin.

  “I’ll be in the forefront of fashion,” Marie-Josèphe said.

  “At its very zenith.”

  Marie-Josèphe gathered the reins in her right hand. Swelling and waves of pain made her left hand useless. She nestled it in her lap.

  “What is wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You are flushed with fever.”

  “With the wind. With escape—”

  Count Lucien took her hand. She pulled away.

  “Truly, nothing—”

  “Be still!” Count Lucien said sharply. He exposed her wrist. His fair complexion paled to chalk white.

  The red streaks had turned ugly purple. Dried blood stuck the bandage to her skin. Her arm throbbed. She thought, Though he’s an officer, he doesn’t like the sight of blood.

  “I’ll send to my lodge for M. de Baatz’ salve. It’s infallible for wounds and fever. It saved my life this summer.”

  “I’m very grateful to you, sir.”

  “Can you ride back, or shall I fetch a carriage?”

  “I can ride.” She was ashamed to admit she feared being left alone. “I’m very strong, I never get sick.”

  “Good. If you ride, no one will be tempted to send for Fagon.”

  To avoid Dr. Fagon, Marie-Josèphe thought, I’d ride to the Atlantic—I’d ride the Silk Road to the Pacific. At the shore, Zachi will turn into a sea horse, the sea woman will magically meet us, and we’ll all swim to Martinique.

  “M. de Chrétien,” she said, “I don’t have delusions.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “When I thought I saw Yves in the garden, bleeding—when I fled from the tiger that wasn’t there—it was the sea monster, as I thought she was then. It was the sea woman, showing me how to hear her. Teaching me to recount her stories.”

  “Hard lessons.”

  “Effective ones. As you heard—”

  “Yes,” Count Lucien said. “It was extraordinary.”

  They passed the trampled, bloody hunting meadow. Dogs growled over offal; servants gutted the catch and loaded it onto carts. Powder smoke thickened the air. The scent of blood and fear dizzied Marie-Josèphe. Her cheeks burned. She sought to distract herself from the fever, from the throbbing of her arm.

  “May I ask you something, Count Lucien?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Madame said something I didn’t understand. She said, `I wish Monsieur would love someone worthy of him.’ How can such a great princess consider herself unworthy?”

  “You misunderstood her,” Count Lucien said. “She meant he loves Lorraine.”

  “Lorraine?”

  “Monsieur,” Count Lucien said carefully, “has been passionately attached to M. de Lorraine these many years.”

  Marie-Josèphe considered. “Do you mean, like Achilleus and Patroklos?”

  “Rather, like Alexander and Hephaestion.”

  “I didn’t know…”

  “It isn’t much spoken of, being so dangerous.”

  “…anyone in the modern age was like Alexander. I thought passionate love between men was as mythical as centaurs—Did you say, dangerous?”

  “Without His Majesty’s protection, Orléans and Lorraine might both be burned.”

  “Burned! For love?”

  “For sodomy.”

  “What is sodomy?”

  “Passionate love between men,” he said. “Or between women.”

  She shook her head, confused.

  �
�Physical love,” Count Lucien said. “Sex.”

  “Between men?” Marie-Josèphe asked, amazed. “Between women!”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?” she exclaimed. She asked nothing about how, because she had little notion of the how, between a man and a woman, and she was not supposed to possess such knowledge.

  “Because your Church forbids it.”

  “I mean, why would they want to, without the promise of children—”

  “For love. For passion. For pleasure.”

  She laughed outright. “Oh, nonsense!”

  “You’re laughing at me, Mlle de la Croix. Do you know more of sex than I do?”

  “I know what the nuns told me.”

  “They know nothing of sex at all.”

  “They know it’s a sin, a plague upon the human race, a curse for women, a trial for men, to remind us of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.”

  “That is the nonsense.”

  “What have I said to make you so angry?”

  “You? Nothing. But your teachers make me angry. They have corrupted your intelligence with lies.”

  “Why would they lie?”

  “That has always puzzled me,” Count Lucien said. “Perhaps you should ask Pope Innocent—but I doubt he’d tell you the truth either.”

  “Will you?”

  “If you wish.”

  She hesitated. She had always sought the truth, in all other ways.

  “I’ve always been told,” she said, “that modest young women should know nothing of intimate matters.”

  “You’ve been told to restrict yourself in all manner of ways—your studies, your music, your intelligence—”

  “I wish you to tell me!”

  “The truth,” Count Lucien said. “Passionate love—sexual love—is the greatest pleasure one can experience. It dispels sadness. It banishes pain. It’s like the finest wine, like the morning of a day of perfect weather, like the most beautiful music, like riding free forever. And it’s like none of those things.”

  Count Lucien’s voice—could it only be his voice?—made her pulse race with the excitement of danger and forbidden sins. Her arm throbbed, but at the same time a mysterious string of ecstasy tightened, its note rising toward the music of the spheres. Marie-Josèphe caught her breath.

  “Enough, please.” Her voice shook. Her body trembled with the same pleasure that had awakened her to the sea woman’s song.

  “As you prefer.”

  Riding in the cool forest shade, she regained her composure. “Count Lucien, if M. de Lorraine loves men—what does he want with me?”

  “M. de Lorraine does not so much love men, or women, as himself and his own interest.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me? Warn me?”

  “Perhaps because you didn’t ask.”

  “I always asked questions, when I was a child.” She met his transparent grey gaze. “I delighted in asking.”

  “You may ask me whatever you like, Mlle de la Croix, and if I know the answer I will tell you.”

  Zachi snorted. Undergrowth crackled nearby.

  “There she is, our lost Mlle de la Croix!”

  Lorraine, Chartres, and Berwick burst out of the forest, whipping their lathered horses. Chartres forced his mount ahead of the others.

  “I thought you’d been eaten by a bear!” Chartres cried. He aimed for Marie-Josèphe, but found himself separated from her by Zelis and Count Lucien. His horse tossed its head. Bloody foam flew from the bit.

  “Bears are shy,” Marie-Josèphe said. “They’ll never harm you, unless you provoke them. Unlike other predators.”

  “The provocation is so delightful,” Chartres said. “I may die of a broken heart.”

  Berwick and Lorraine spurred their powerful, exhausted horses up close behind Zachi and Zelis.

  “Mind her heels,” Count Lucien said, for Zelis laid her ears flat back in irritation. Lorraine and Berwick forced their stallions to lag a step or two.

  “What an animal!” Berwick exclaimed. “I’ve never seen such speed as this bay possesses. Mlle de la Croix, you must sell the creature to me.”

  “I must not, sir, as Zachi isn’t mine.”

  “Is it the King’s horse? He’ll give it to me, I’m his cousin.”

  The relationship was more intricate, but Marie-Josèphe could not remember exactly what it was; it was, as well, complicated by Berwick’s bastardy.

  “Berwick,” Chartres said with condescension, “these petit horses all belong to Chrétien.”

  Lorraine guffawed. “Who else would they belong to?”

  “It may be too small, but it’s marvellously swift. Monarch will cover her. Their issue will win every race—”

  “That’s impossible, M. de Berwick,” Count Lucien said. “You may send a mare to my stud in Finisterre, if you covet a foal with some qualities of the desert Arabian.”

  “No, no, that won’t do, your stud on my mare? Absurd.”

  “Somehow,” Lorraine said, “he would manage.”

  “M. de Lorraine, M. de Berwick,” Chartres said severely, “you are in the presence of a lady.”

  Marie-Josèphe almost burst out laughing at Chartres’ hypocrisy, but she feared the men would take her for an hysteric. This time, they would not be so far wrong.

  “I beg your pardon, miss,” Berwick said offhand, mixing his languages, never taking his attention from Count Lucien. “Chrétien, you must sell me this bay mare!”

  “Must I?”

  “I’ll give you ten thousand louis!”

  “Do you mistake me, sir, for a horse-trader?”

  The French aristocracy did not engage in trade. Count Lucien’s voice contained no anger, but from that moment Marie-Josèphe never doubted he was a dangerous man.

  “Not at all, not at all!” Berwick strove to retract the insult. “But an arrangement between noblemen, an exchange—”

  “I do not part with these horses. They were a gift. Were Zachi to bear a foal from any sire but her own desert breed, her bloodline would never be pure again.”

  “Ridiculous!”

  “The sheik believed it. I choose to respect his beliefs. I will not part with the mares: I gave my word.”

  “Your word!” Berwick exclaimed. “You gave your word to a Mahometan? No Christian need keep such a promise!”

  Even Chartres and Lorraine flinched. Marie-Josèphe stared at Berwick in shock.

  “No doubt that’s true,” Count Lucien said coldly. “But I am not a Christian.”

  Berwick laughed. No one joined in his hilarity. He retreated into an uncomfortable silence.

  “Let us return to the hunt.” Count Lucien impelled Zelis forward with sudden urgency.

  Marie-Josèphe spoke to Zachi, freeing her to run. The two Arabians galloped together, outdistancing the three stallions that Zachi had raced to exhaustion.

  Marie-Josèphe followed Count Lucien through the straggled hunting party. The huntsmen and gun-bearers bowed him past; the courtiers on horseback gave way for His Majesty’s adviser. He approached His Majesty’s caleche, where Mme de Maintenon spoke intently to His Majesty and His Holiness. Her animation enlivened her, as if she were in her favorite place, Saint-Cyr, instructing her beloved students. Monsieur spoke flirtatiously to Yves, who valiantly attended to Mme de Maintenon’s discourse without snubbing Monsieur.

  Madame rode behind the King, chatting and laughing with her ladies, who rode in a caleche and wore grand habit.

  “Do you ride with Madame,” Count Lucien said. “Chartres cannot misbehave too badly in her sight, or the formidable lady will turn him over her knee, and Lorraine as well.”

  Marie-Josèphe wished it were true; she wished Count Lucien would ride beside her back to the chateau.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You must attend His Majesty—”

  “I must send for M. de Baatz’ salve,” Count Lucien said. “Return to your apartment, rest—I’ll have the salve brought to you.”

  “I cannot. The sea
woman is alone—”

  “Someone else can feed her.”

  “—and lonely. If I don’t tend to her, I’ll arouse comment—they’ll think I’m ill!”

  “The Fountain of Apollo, then.” He tipped his hat courteously, rode ahead, paused to send a musketeer galloping off toward the chateau, then allowed Zelis to take him briskly to his place at His Majesty’s side.

  Marie-Josèphe hoped Count Lucien’s salve would soothe her arm. The purple streaks stretched across her palm.

  I mustn’t let anyone else see, she thought as she joined Madame, or they’ll send for Dr. Fagon…

  “Mlle de la Croix!” Madame said smiling. “There you are, my dear. Did you see my fox?”

  The hunt might have taken place a year ago, for all she recalled of it. She had forgotten the fox. Free of Chartres and Lorraine, relatively safe in the company of Madame and His Majesty, she felt weary and feverish.

  “Yes, Madame, of course, your fox.”

  “I’ll present him to His Majesty.” A servant in Madame’s livery ran toward the caleche carrying the limp scrap of red fur. “But His Majesty will return him to me. His pelt will make a lovely tippet. I dispatched him with a single shot, so the fur will hardly be damaged at all.”

  The servant handed the fox to a huntsman, who presented it to Yves, who offered it to His Majesty. Pope Innocent drew back from the bloody carcass. His Majesty touched the dead fox; his reply returned by a route as circuitous as the fox’s arrival.

  Madame’s servant dodged between horses and stopped at Marie-Josèphe’s side.

  “His Majesty asks Madame to attend him.”

  “Madame,” Marie-Josèphe said, “His Majesty—”

  As Marie-Josèphe spoke, Madame advanced like a cavalry officer. Marie-Josèphe followed in her substantial wake. Count Lucien surrendered his place in respect of the Princess Palatine; only Madame separated Marie-Josèphe from the King.

  Lorraine, Chartres, and Berwick rode their lathered horses out of the forest. They rejoined the hunting party, riding up next to Monsieur.

  Lorraine tipped his hat to Marie-Josèphe. She ignored him. Between Madame and Count Lucien, she did feel safe. Monsieur brushed his fingertips across Lorraine’s hand, a possessive gesture that Marie-Josèphe now understood, as she understood Pope Innocent’s frown. She felt sorry to have caused Monsieur concern and jealousy.