The Moon and the Sun (22 page)

“Sea monster?” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “It’s only me, come to give you some supper.”

Ripples spread across the pool. Marie-Josèphe caught her breath.

The ripples glowed with eerie phosphorescence. The glow spread. The luminescence reflected from the gilt of Apollo’s dolphins and tritons.

In Fort de France, on Martinique, the ocean glowed like this. The barrels must have captured glowing sea water, and brought it to Versailles.

“Sea monster?” Marie-Josèphe hummed a melody the sea monster had sung. She wondered if the songs of sea monsters had any meaning, like the cries and yowls of her cat Hercules.

Perhaps I’m saying, I’m glad to be out of the awful gold basin, the awful canvas, Marie-Josèphe thought. That would be very confusing for the poor sea monster.

She sat on the edge of the fountain and hummed a different melody.

A wake like a shining arrow flowed toward Marie-Josèphe. The sea monster swam to the platform, her tails undulating gently, only her eyes and hair revealed above the surface. Marie-Josèphe sat on the lowest step, her feet on the wet platform, and held out a fish to the captive creature.

Shall I hold tight to the fish? she wondered. No, if I force the sea monster to stay near, I’m likely to frighten it.

Instead of snatching the fish and thrashing away into the darkness, the sea monster swam very close, turned, and swept past beneath Marie-Josèphe’s hand. The pressure of the water stroked her skin.

“Sea monster, aren’t you hungry?”

The sea monster surfaced an armslength away.

“Fishhhh,” she said.

“Yes, exactly, fish!”

The sea monster dove again. Marie-Josèphe sat very still, her fingers growing numb in the cold water.

Beneath the glowing surface of the pool, the sea monster’s dark shape rose beneath her hand. The sea monster, floating face-up, gazed at her through luminescent ripples and placed her webbed claws directly beneath Marie-Josèphe’s fingers.

Marie-Josèphe released the fish into the sea monster’s grasp.

The sea monster rolled, stroking her arm along Marie-Josèphe’s palm. Her warmth radiated against Marie-Josèphe’s skin. Marie-Josèphe laid her hand on the creature’s back, as if she were gentling a colt.

The sea monster trembled.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Marie-Josèphe did not like to lie, even to a creature.

Floating face-down, the sea monster quieted beneath her touch.

Marie-Josèphe smoothed one lock, then another, of the creature’s dark green hair.

The glossy strands lay across the sea monster’s skin, iridescent black in the faint light.

The sea monster hummed, like a cat who purred in song. Marie-Josèphe picked up a third strand of hair. The tangle would not straighten, for the hair was knotted.

The sea monster rolled over again, drawing the tangled strand from Marie-Josèphe’s grasp. Floating on her back, she neatly bit off the fish’s head, munched it, ate the other half. Her double tail fanned the water beside Marie-Josèphe’s foot. Marie-Josèphe bent to look more closely. The tails were nothing like fish tails, and not much like seal fins.

Darker, thicker skin covered the sea monster from pelvis downward. A mat of dark-green hair covered her female parts. The upper bones of her tails were rather short, the lower bones longer, with powerful muscles front and back. The joint between them bent both ways. The joint connecting long lower bones to large feet resembled Marie-Josèphe’s wrist. The feet ended in long, webbed toes and wickedly powerful claws.

The sea monster used one toe to flick a drop of water toward Marie-Josèphe’s face.

It spattered her cheek and dribbled down her face.

“Don’t splash me, sea monster,” she said. “I already ruined one gown in your pool, and I cannot afford another. Come, leave off playing. Eat another fish. I have so much to do, I must hurry.” Her stomach growled. The squabs were very long ago and very small.

She smiled at the sea monster. “You’re lucky, you know — I wish someone would bring me a fish to eat!”

The sea monster took the fish, bit off its head, and offered the body and tail to Marie-Josèphe.

Shocked, Marie-Josèphe scooted backwards. Safe beyond the fountain’s rim, she gazed down at the sea monster.

Be calm, she said to herself. It cannot have understood that you are hungry. It brought you a fish, as Hercules might bring you a mouse.

The sea monster sang a few notes.

“Thank you,” Marie-Josèphe said, speaking to the sea monster as she would speak to her cat. “You may eat it now.”

“Fishhhh.” The sea monster popped the piece of fish into its mouth. A bit of the tail stuck out between her lips. She crunched it and swallowed, and the translucent fin disappeared.

Marie-Josèphe petted her good-bye. The sea monster grasped her wrist. Gently, firmly, the sea monster sang and drew Marie-Josèphe closer to the water.

“Let go,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Sea monster —” She twisted her hand, but the sea monster’s claws pinioned her. The creature sang again, loud and insistent. She pulled Marie-Josèphe’s hand beneath the water. “Let — me — go — !” Scared, she tugged her hand from the sea monster’s grip, careless of the sharp claws.

The sea monster freed her. She fell back, clambered to her feet, and scrambled away.

The sea monster gazed after her with only her eyes above water. The creature continued to sing, but the song vibrated strangely through the water and the stone, and trembled against the wooden platform like a primitive drumbeat. Marie-Josèphe felt more than heard it. She shivered, clanged the cage door shut and locked, snatched up the lantern, and hurried from the tent.

“Good night, Mlle de la Croix. Your monster is well-fed, I hope.”

“I hope so,” she said shortly, barely acknowledging his bow. She trudged up the Green Carpet, past the masses of dewy potted flowers, toward silent fountains. She was not used to being frightened by animals; her fear distressed her. Her wrist ached from the sea monster’s grip. Yet the creature had freed her when it could have clawed her arm to shreds and scars.

The sea monster’s song followed her, discordant and eerie. She shivered. The statues loomed, white ghosts, and their shadows spread black pools through the darkness. Marie-Josèphe’s happiness and pride dissolved into the sea monster’s fierce music.

“Yves — ?” Her brother stood pale as the marble, pale as death, bleeding from his hands and forehead. He stood in a pool of blood. She saw him as clearly as if the music were light. And then she did not see him at all.

The music stopped.

“Yves? Where are you?”

Marie-Josèphe’s tears blurred the bright chateau windows, the torches’ flames. She dashed the back of her hand against her eyes and raised her skirts above her ankles and fled.

She rushed through the chateau, tears streaming down her face, her shoes wet with dew. She had enough presence of mind to use the back stairs, hoping no one would see her.

I must stop, she thought frantically, I must stop crying, I must walk instead of run, I must sweep along with the hem of my skirt brushing the floor, so no one will see me and say, She’s just a peasant, hiking her skirts up around her knees.

She ran up the stairs to the attic, choking back her sobs, her breath ragged. She threw open the door to Yves’ dressing room. A single candle lit it. Yves buttoned his cassock, while a servant in the King’s livery stood impatiently nearby.

Marie-Josèphe flung herself into her brother’s arms.

“Sister, what’s wrong?” He held her, comforting her with his strength.

“I thought you were dead, I thought — I saw —”

“Dead?” he said. “Of course I’m not dead.” He smiled. “I’m not even asleep, much as I’d like to be. What’s frightened you so?”

“Your worship,” the servant said.

“Hush, I’ll be along.”

Yves hugged her again, solid and dependable. He found a handkerchief and wiped the tear stains from her cheeks, as if she were a child who had stubbed her toe.

“I thought...” The visions that had spun around her in the darkness of the garden vanished in the candlelight of his room. “I was feeding the sea monster...”

“In the dark? No wonder you were frightened. You shouldn’t go into the gardens alone at night. Take Odelette with you.”

“Yes, you’re right, it must have been the dark,” Marie-Josèphe said, all the time thinking, How strange, I never feared the dark before.

“Please, your worship —”

“Don’t call me that!” Yves said to the servant. “I’m coming.”

“Where are you going?” Marie-Josèphe asked.

“To His Majesty. To the sea monster.”

oOo

The Fountain luminesced, filling the tent with an eerie glow like fox-fire. Triton’s trumpet shone, and the hooves of the dawn horses, and their muzzles, as if they galloped on cold fire and breathed it from their nostrils.

Marie-Josèphe lit the lanterns; the glow vanished. The sea monster whistled and hummed and splashed, luring Marie-Josèphe to her.

“I can’t play with you now, sea monster,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “His Majesty is coming!” She checked the screens of heavy silk to be sure the sea monster could not see past them, then pulled aside the dead monster’s canvas shroud, exposing the carcass, spilling sawdust and melting ice to the floor. Preserving fluids and caked blood stained the canvas. The monster’s ribs lay exposed, stripped of skin and muscle. One arm was flayed to the bone, and the leg on the same side.

Outside the tent, His Majesty’s wheeled cart creaked; hooves crunched in gravel; footsteps tramped. Yves greeted the King and Count Lucien. The King’s deaf-mutes pushed his chair into the tent. Count Lucien walked beside His Majesty. Four carriers followed with a sedan chair hung with white velvet and gold tassels. Marie-Josèphe hugged Lorraine’s dark cloak around her and stood by her drawing box, hoping to attract as little attention as possible.

“I think it best to examine the sea monster’s internal organs in private,” the King said.

“Your Majesty,” Yves said, “the sea monsters are ordinary animals.”

The deaf-mutes lifted the cart onto the plank floor and pushed it to the lab table.

The sedan chair followed; the carriers lowered it and fled the tent, bowing.

His Majesty did not bother to dismiss his deaf-mutes; he treated them, as always, as if they hardly existed. Count Lucien remained by his side, leaning easily on his staff.

Marie-Josèphe returned his polite nod with a quick curtsy. Yves helped His Holiness from the palanquin and conducted him to an armchair.

Exhaustion paled the old man’s face, and he leaned heavily on Yves’ arm. His Majesty swung himself out of the cart and hobbled to the dissection table, leaning only a little on Count Lucien’s shoulder. He gazed with fascination at the creature. His Majesty showed no signs of having been up all night; even the swelling of his gout had eased.

“Every feature I’ve studied so far,” Yves said, “every muscle, every bone, has its match within every other furred creature known to natural philosophy.”

“Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “I did not charge you to find what is common about the sea monsters. I charged you to find what is unique.”

“I will look, Your Majesty.” Yves took up his heaviest lancet. “Are you ready, sister?”

Marie-Josèphe settled a fresh sheet of paper.

Yves sliced open the creature’s belly, exposing its viscera. The intestines and stomach lay flat and shrivelled, empty of food. Perhaps the male sea monster had successfully resisted being force fed. Marie-Josèphe regretted the creature’s death, but she was glad the organs would not explode upon His Majesty and His Holiness when Yves pierced them.

“The intestines are rather short for a creature that must sustain itself mostly on seaweed, with an occasional garnish of fish,” Yves said, “by which I surmise that seaweed is easily digested.”

He cut the intestines out delicately, measuring and inspecting, taking small samples, placing the organs in jars of spirits. Marie-Josèphe drew as best she could in lantern light. The sea monster’s intestine sported an appendix, unusual in most animals.

Yves dissected out the kidneys, the pancreas, the bladder; he even sought stomach-stones and kidney-stones. He found nothing unusual or notable in the lower abdomen. He might have been dissecting any carcass, or even the corpse of a man.

His Majesty watched with increasing impatience; His Holiness with increasing discomfort. Count Lucien watched unmoved.

With a heavy pair of shears, Yves cut open the ribs at the breastbone. He separated the rib cage, exposing the lungs and the heart.

“It is as I thought,” Yves said. He probed delicately into the chest, moving aside lobes of the lungs to expose the heart and the various glands. “The creature presents no attributes of the fish, neither gills nor swim-bladder. It is very like the dugong. And as you have seen, Your Majesty, the sea monster possesses internal organs normal to all mammals.”

“Father de la Croix, whether the monster is a fish or a beast is of no interest to me.

What is of interest is its organ of immortality.”

“I’ve found no evidence of such an organ, Sire. Immortality, like the transmutation of gold, is the province of alchemy, abhorred by the Church and by natural philosophy.”

“You dismiss ancient tales cavalierly, Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said. “How did you come to accept this undertaking, if you believe my quest futile?”

“I wished to please Your Majesty,” Yves said, taken aback by the King’s sharp tone.

“The quest for the sea monsters was anything but futile. As for the organ of immortality, it exists, or it does not exist. My beliefs are immaterial.”

Pope Innocent stared at him, exhaustion transformed by outrage.

“That is to say, I might form a hypothesis, but it must be tested...” Yves’ voice trailed off. His quest for knowledge had for an instant overcome his restraint; he was doing himself no credit with Pope Innocent.

“If you believe the organ does not exist,” His Majesty said, ignoring Yves’

embarrassment, “you surely will not find it.”

“If the monsters impart everlasting life to those who consume them, Sire,” Yves said, “why, how many sailors would be a thousand years old?”