The Moon and the Sun

by Vonda McIntyre

  “Chrétien, enough of your atheistic wit,” His Majesty said.

  “Chrétien!” His Holiness spat out a word he would ordinarily speak with reverence. “Even your name is a mockery!”

  “Then it mocks Charlemagne, who gave it to my family for our service to him.”

  “Cousin,” Louis said to Innocent, “M. de Chrétien enjoys my protection for his beliefs—even for his lack of beliefs.”

  “Your Majesty,” Marie-Josèphe said, “you’re the Most Christian King. Champion the sea folk—their conversion would add to your glory!”

  “This is only a tactic, to save your pet,” Louis said.

  “It’s true I can’t bear to think of her being killed,” Marie-Josèphe said. “But I truly believe she’s a woman. Sire, if you eat her flesh, you’ll endanger your immortal soul.”

  Louis leaned back in his chair, weary and old beneath his bright chestnut perruke.

  “Marie-Josèphe, dear child,” he said, “I’ve ruled for fifty years. Compared to what I’ve done for the glory of France, cannibalism’s a small sin.”

  Marie-Josèphe was too shocked to reply.

  “Give me the sea monster, cousin,” Innocent said. “You must.”

  “Must I?”

  “It must be studied. It’s dangerous. If Father de la Croix is in error, then the creature is a demon, and it must be exorcised. But perhaps Father de la Croix is correct, and we’ve witnessed a miracle of creation. If that is true, the creature must be brought to God. Converted from its pagan wildness, for the glory of God.”

  “I’ll give you my baboon,” His Majesty said. “You have as much chance of converting it.”

  Affronted, His Holiness rose. “You will forgive me,” he said, “if I take my leave. I’m an old man. Your opposition exhausts me. Father de la Croix, attend me.”

  He swept out of the apartment.

  “Please excuse me, Your Majesty,” Yves said. “Please forgive me—”

  “Go,” His Majesty said. “Leave me in peace.”

  Yves bowed to His Majesty and hurried after Innocent.

  Marie-Josèphe’s nails cut into her palms. Tears stung her eyes. The faint melody of Sherzad’s song crept through the open window, her grief carried by the cold breeze.

  “You shouldn’t provoke our holy cousin, M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said.

  “Pardon my bad manners, Your Majesty. Your holy man surprises me, with his revulsion.”

  “What do you care for holy men?”

  “Nothing, Sire. Yet I’m always surprised when they turn out to be hypocrites.”

  “I require him as an ally. France requires His Holiness, his armies—and his treasury.”

  “If you allowed it, you would get more loyalty from the Protestants—”

  Mme de Maintenon jerked her head up, glaring at Lucien; His Majesty replied with cold fury.

  “Don’t provoke me, Chrétien. How fortunate that you’re only an atheist—and not a Protestant.”

  Lucien did not reply. Marie-Josèphe ached for him. She wondered if the King’s basilisk glare might turn them both to stone.

  “Your Majesty,” she asked timidly, “is the treasury in great need?”

  “The kingdom faces many challenges,” His Majesty said. “It will survive—without the help of heretics.” His glare softened, with sadness. “Challenges would be easier to face if the people I favor, the people I love, didn’t oppose me, task me, and destroy my peace. You may withdraw. I do not wish to see you again tonight.”

  Marie-Josèphe expected Count Lucien to bid her goodnight—or farewell—outside Mme de Maintenon’s apartment, but instead, he walked with her to the narrow attic staircase.

  “You needn’t come any farther, Count Lucien,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Thank you for your courtesy.”

  “I’ll show you to your room.” He accompanied her up the stairs, to the dark, dingy attic. He did not belong in such dim places, but in the sun, magnificent in blue and gold, riding his grey Zelis, at the side of his King.

  “Why won’t he listen?” Marie-Josèphe cried.

  “He does listen,” Lucien said. “He listens, but he keeps his own counsel.”

  “Your love for him blinds you.”

  “My love for him helps me understand him,” Lucien said. “You Christians—your claim to love everyone means you love no one.”

  “That isn’t fair!”

  “Of course not—as your holy father proclaims, I’m far from fair.”

  “Count Lucien—” Marie-Josèphe’s voice faltered. “You’re fair to me.” She meant it in all senses of the word. But she could not continue, for she was not strong enough to resist what might come of her declaration.

  She opened her door. Her room was empty; she wondered, worried, where Haleeda might be. Dressing Lotte’s hair, carrying Mademoiselle’s handkerchief, standing with the Queen of England, waiting for the fireworks.

  Will Lotte wonder where I am? Marie-Josèphe thought. Will Haleeda? It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the entertainments.

  “I lived in this attic, when I was a youth,” Lucien said. “I hated it—so much I almost welcomed being sent away from court.”

  He slipped past her, hoisted himself onto the window seat—Hercules leaped from curled sleep, hissing—and climbed out the window.

  “Count Lucien!” Marie-Josèphe ran to the window.

  He stood between a pair of sculpted musicians, gazing down the length of the garden, past the fountains, past Sherzad’s prison, to the forest.

  “Come back in, you’ll fall—”

  “The attic was hot, it was stuffy—when I couldn’t bear it any longer, I came out here.”

  “I wish it were hot.”

  “The evening is balmy, and the sky is beautiful.”

  The view was neither spectacular nor severe, but it was beautiful: crowded garden paths bordered with candles that flickered behind oiled paper, the Grand Canal leading away from Sherzad’s glowing tent, geometric perfection arrayed against the green expanse of the distant forest. The highest, westernmost clouds reflected the last sliver of the setting sun.

  Count Lucien sought out depressions in the stone side of the chateau: handholds, toeholds.

  “I haven’t climbed to the roof since I was a youth. Will you come with me?”

  “In those clothes? In these clothes?”

  He shrugged out of his coat and his gold-embroidered waistcoat and tossed them onto the window seat. He kicked off his shoes and removed his perruke. His fair hair, an astonishing white gold, gleamed in the faint light.

  Count Lucien and Hercules eyed each other; Hercules kneaded the cushion, careless of his claws. Count Lucien placed his new perruke safely on the head of the musician who graced Marie-Josèphe’s window.

  Marie-Josèphe laughed. “He could attend His Majesty’s entertainment, if he wished.” She sighed. “I can’t climb to the roof.”

  “Why not?”

  “Stays. Slippery shoes. What will you think of me, if I climb to the roof in my shift?”

  “I’ll think you want to climb to the roof. Decide, quickly, if you please—when everyone gathers on the terrace for the fireworks, I won’t be standing here bareheaded for His Majesty to see.”

  She collected her breath, and her nerve. “If you will unlace me.”

  She took off the coat of her riding habit; she took off her shoes and stockings. She turned her back to the window; Count Lucien untied her laces with a touch both gentle and sure.

  Barefoot and in her shift, she faced the window and the twilight.

  “Come out,” Count Lucien said. “It isn’t so dangerous.”

  She took his hand and crept onto the ledge beside him. She clutched the statue of a lutenist, her hand on the musician’s bare breast. No one would mistake her for one of the statues, for she had on too many clothes.

  Count Lucien scrambled up the wall, showing her old and well-used hand and foot-holds. From the roof, he reached down to help her.

&nbs
p; Voices drifted upward. Guests streamed out of the chateau, onto the terrace. Marie-Josèphe shrank behind the musician.

  “Hurry!”

  She stole after him, partly hidden by the statue as she climbed. In an exhilarating moment she was over the edge and sitting on the low-pitched roof.

  “You’re right, Count Lucien,” she said. “The view is much better from here. But if His Majesty found out—!” She drew her knees up under her shift and hugged her arms around them. The roof tiles gathered the day’s warmth.

  “His Majesty spent a good deal of time on these roofs, when he was a youth.”

  “Why?”

  “To visit his paramours—and the parlourmaids.”

  Marie-Josèphe gave him a startled glance.

  “You’re in no danger of seduction, Mlle de la Croix. The roof is an adequate seat, but an uncomfortable bed. I’ve told you—”

  “That I’m in no danger from you. I trust you, sir.”

  “—I’ve told you, I require all the comfort I can find.”

  “Do you have any calvados?”

  “I left my flask in my coat.”

  “Too bad,” Marie-Josèphe said.

  “I do recommend sobriety on some occasions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Climbing to the roof of a chateau.”

  She laughed. In the midst of the laughter she felt like bursting into tears.

  “And perhaps sobriety’s best when you lose your temper. I’m sorry my brother and I caused you such annoyance today,” she said. “But…you were very severe with Yves.”

  “He spoke to me like a servant! How did he—how did you—expect me to reply? Mlle de la Croix, you have no idea how severe I can be. If you’re fortunate, you’ll never see me lose my temper—when I’m sober.”

  “I’m so sorry we offended you—”

  “He offended me. You only requested that I accomplish the impossible.”

  “That doesn’t offend you?”

  “To be thought a miracle worker?” Count Lucien smiled, and Marie-Josèphe considered herself forgiven.

  “Will you forgive Sherzad for causing you pain?” As soon as she had spoken, she wished she had not, but she could not call back her words. She tried to soften them. “I know she never meant—”

  Count Lucien turned to her abruptly, silencing her with a gesture. “Her story gave me understanding,” he said, “as I have no doubt she intended. You must believe that it makes no difference.”

  “Only the King’s belief matters.”

  “Yes.”

  “It would cost him nothing to free her.”

  “Nothing?” Lucien exclaimed. “Immortality?”

  “She cannot bestow immortality, Count Lucien, I promise you. Only God can do that.”

  Count Lucien gazed down across the gardens, somber.

  “I’m sorry,” Marie-Josèphe said.

  “I hoped…” Count Lucien shook his head. “What will happen, when he dies…”

  “We all must die. He’d kill her for nothing.”

  “No. He has public reasons to dominate the sea monsters. It adds to his glory and his power. It demonstrates the vitality of France.”

  “What a great deal to ask of one small sea monster! Should she win the war, end the famine, and fill the treasury as well?”

  “If she could do that by living instead of by dying,” Count Lucien said, “then His Majesty might free her.”

  The moon, nearly full, blossomed over the roof of the chateau behind them. A ragged cloud passed across its face, fragmenting its silver light like falling petals. The shards of silver fell gleaming across Count Lucien’s head and shoulders, across his short hair, so blond, so fair, the color of white gold. The moonlight traced his profile, the arch of his eyebrow.

  Lucien turned toward Marie-Josèphe, wondering why she had gasped.

  “You aren’t His Majesty’s son!”

  “So I’ve assured you,” Lucien replied.

  “You’re the son of—”

  “I am my father’s son.” Lucien spoke sharply, trying to distract her from her dangerous insight.

  “—the queen!” she exclaimed. “Queen Marie Thérèse! You have her fair hair, her grey eyes—she loved you—”

  Very few people had ever divined the truth of Lucien’s parentage, or, if they had, they had the sense to remain silent about it.

  “The greater love she bore was to my father.” Lucien could not lie to Marie-Josèphe de la Croix. “And my father loved his Queen. He responded to her grave unhappiness. He loves his King. He gave the King his respect and his friendship. The queen is dead and beyond reproach, but my father is alive: if you shout your suspicion to the world, you accuse him of treason, and me of—”

  “I’ll never speak of it again,” she said.

  They sat together in silence. Below them, the gardens filled with people: His Majesty’s royal guests, the court, His Majesty’s subjects. Clouds gathered above the park, blocking out the moonlight.

  “How was it possible?” Marie-Josèphe whispered.

  Lucien smiled. Despite the risks of knowledge, he appreciated the recomplications. “My birth was worthy of a Molière farce. And indeed M. Molière considered a play on the subject: A noblewoman—he did not quite dare to make her the Queen—bears the child of her noble dwarf lover, who—in the midst of a dozen court observers!—exchanges his infant son for the newborn daughter of the queen’s jester’s mistress, and spirits the boy away to his gracious wife, so they may claim him as their own, while a convent fosters the changeling, and the true child returns to his true mother as her page, like any noble youth—”

  “What a remarkable tangle,” Marie-Josèphe said.

  “Yes.”

  “Molière never wrote his play.”

  “Too dangerous.”

  “That never stopped M. Molière.”

  “He was fearless when confronted by censors and prisons, it’s true,” Lucien said. “It isn’t so easy to be fearless when confronted by my father.”

  “Your father challenged him?”

  “Challenge a commoner? Certainly not. He offered to have lackeys beat him senseless for insulting the Queen. M. Molière rather lost his sense of humor about the situation.”

  “Poor M. Molière.”

  “Poor M. Molière indeed, he could have been the downfall of my family. And of His Majesty’s family, if Monseigneur’s birth were also called into question.”

  “It’s true that Monseigneur doesn’t quite resemble—”

  “Please do not insult the late Queen in my presence.”

  “I beg your pardon. But why such complexity? Why not simply spirit you away?”

  Amazed that she could be so intelligent and yet so naive, Lucien said, “Because the daughter of a queen and a commoner is not much threat. The son of a queen and a companion of Charlemagne might challenge the throne of France as well as Spain.”

  She nodded her understanding. “What of your sister?”

  “I have no sister. Do you mean the changeling?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s content, she says, in her convent; she possesses all the piety my family lacks. Her true parents were Spanish, of course, members of Her Majesty’s retinue.”

  “Doesn’t she want to live in the world?”

  “Perhaps not,” Lucien said, “for she too is a dwarf. And a Moor, with a Christian vocation. She’s respected where she is. France is her home. Where would she go? To the Spanish court as her true father’s successor? She could speak truths to their pathetic king, but he’d never hear her.”

  “Is this why you’ve decided not to have children?”

  “Because they might be snatched away and put on the throne of Spain?” Lucien laughed. “A horrible fate. No, I told you why I’ll never father a child. Why do you think there’s any other reason?”

  “What of the future of your house? And your ancient title?”

  “My younger brother will carry it on.”

  “Your b
rother! Does he—”

  “Resemble me? Not in any way.”

  “—come to court?”

  “Not if I can keep him from it.”

  “Why not?”

  Lucien sighed. “My brother’s a fool.”

  “I cannot believe it!”

  “Don’t misunderstand me. Guy is perfectly amiable. He’s good-hearted. But as for wit, or intelligence—he has neither. He allows himself to be drawn into mischief, thinking only that it will be good fun.”

  “And yet you give him the future of your family.”

  “I found him a good wife,” Lucien said. “She’s of excellent origin and no little fortune. She isn’t her own first cousin. Even better, she isn’t Guy’s first cousin. She’s fond of Guy and she manages the family well. Her children are a joy. When my nephew comes of age, I’ll grant him the title comte de Chrétien. He won’t disgrace it.”

  “Will your nephew have your spirit?”

  “He’ll have my mother’s spirit—and my brother’s strong back.”

  “What of—” Marie-Josèphe said hesitantly. “What of the woman you call mother? Your father’s wife? Did she hate you terribly?”

  “I honor and love her. She’s my mother, as her husband is my brother’s father.”

  “In the eyes of the law, but—?”

  “In the line of inheritance, which is the important thing. We’re both acknowledged, and legitimate, and cherished. She treats me graciously, as my father treats her son. She and my father are dearest lovers. Unlike most husbands and wives, they aren’t unfaithful to each other for their pleasure or their love. Only for their children.”

  “Who is your brother’s father?”

  “That isn’t my secret to tell,” Lucien replied. “You must ask me some other question.”

  She thought for a moment. “How did you come to leave court? I can hardly imagine you anywhere else.”

  “I didn’t leave willingly. I left in disgrace.”

  “I cannot believe it!”

  “Do you see in me no potential for disobedience?”

  Marie-Josèphe laughed. “You’d disobey any order, you ignore all convention! But, displease the King? Never.”

  “Youthful foolishness. I was barely fifteen.”

  He had never told anyone the truth, that he took the blame for his brother’s foolishness. He was the eldest, after all; it was his responsibility to help Guy find his place in His Majesty’s court. At that he had failed. Guy bore the worst punishment; His Majesty never exiled him, but Lucien sent him home to Brittany and refused all his entreaties for a second invitation to Versailles.