The Moon and the Sun (28 page)

“Good day, mademoiselle,” Count Lucien said.

“Good day, Count Lucien,” Marie-Josèphe said, amazed with gratitude that he had compared her intellectual endeavors to his own exploits at Steenkirk and Neerwinden.

“Thank you for everything.”

Count Lucien departed, pausing to bow, and to sweep the plumes of his hat across the floor, before His Majesty’s portrait.

“Your attention,” Yves said, “if you please.”

“Yes, I’m ready. Good day, M. Coupillet, I cannot spare you any more time.”

“Ladies of delicate temperament may wish to avoid this demonstration.” Yves exposed the genital area of the sea monster.

A few gentlewomen left, along with M. Coupillet. The rest stayed, leaning their heads together to whisper and laugh at Yves’ scruples.

oOo

At sunset, a footman respectfully carried away the portrait of the King; the open tent emptied of spectators. Marie-Josèphe finished a last sketch of the sea monster’s generative organs, now dissected out of the smooth furry pouch that had held them protected within the creature’s body. Exposed, they resembled the male organs of the marble statues lounging in the gardens of Versailles.

Yves went away to write up his notes, leaving Marie-Josèphe to arrange the shroud, and direct the replacement of ice and sawdust, and feed the living sea monster.

When everyone else had left, Marie-Josèphe unlocked the cage and netted a fish.

Red-gold sunlight doubly gilded Apollo and his horses.

“Sea monster!”

The sun fell below the horizon, leaving soft dusk behind. In silence, a footman arrived, lit the candles, and departed. A damp breeze fluttered the flames. The tent flapped. Marie-Josèphe shivered. The guards hurried around the tent, closing its open sides. The breeze stopped.

The sea monster whistled.

Marie-Josèphe swished the net through the water.

“Sea monster! Fishhh!”

An arrow of ripples streaked across the fountain.

The sudden warmth of menstrual blood pressed out and dribbled between Marie-Josèphe’s legs, stinging her raw skin.

A blasphemy passed her lips that, a month ago, never would have crossed her mind. Once again, as usual, even about inconvenient matters, Odelette was right.

Marie-Josèphe’s impatience with the bother had made her foolish.

I’ll feed the sea monster quickly and then run back up the hill, Marie-Josèphe thought. And beg Odelette’s pardon if I’ve stained my petticoat. I mustn’t stain my skirt!

Poor Odelette despairs of saving the silver petticoat, and I cannot afford to spoil more clothes.

The sea monster surfaced. Marie-Josèphe stroked her hair. The sea monster screamed and splashed backwards.

Marie-Josèphe waved the desperately wriggling fish back and forth, trying to distract the sea monster from her strange disquiet.

“Sea monster, be easy.”

The sea monster floated, only her eyes and forehead above the surface. Underwater, her nostrils flared and contracted. Her hair swirled around her shoulders. Marie-Josèphe leaned forward, trying to see why the sea monster was in distress.

The sea monster snorted violently. The surface bubbled above her mouth and nose.

She swam backwards, then moaned and sighed and swam to the stairs, approaching uncertainly, her song a question, a comfort.

She opened the net and let the fish swim away uneaten. She took Marie-Josèphe’s hand between her webbed fingers.

Marie-Josèphe stayed very still. The sea monster lowered her face to Marie-Josèphe’s hand. Marie-Josèphe trembled, afraid the creature was about to bite her, praying she was not. The sea monster’s warm lips touched her skin. The beast flicked out her tongue and licked Marie-Josèphe’s knuckles.

Marie-Josèphe laughed with relief.

“You’re like my old pony,” she said to the sea monster. “You just want to lick the salt off my skin!”

As Marie-Josèphe fed the sea monster, she petted her, continuing to tame her to her hands and voice.

“Say ‘sea monster,’” Marie-Josèphe said to the creature, holding out a fish.

“Fishhhh.” The sea monster’s parroting speech dissolved in a long complex song of melody and whistles. She snapped up the fish in two quick bites.

“Say, ‘Marie-Josèphe.’”

“Fishhhh!”

“Say, ‘Your Majesty honors me,’” Marie-Josèphe said, recklessly, flinging a fish into the pool in frustration. Again in frustration, she sang back at the sea monster.

The sea monster fell silent and stared at her.

Marie-Josèphe continued, singing the wordless song she had played for His Majesty.

The sea monster drifted closer and hummed an exotic, compelling, haunting second melody that broke every rule of music.

Tears spilled down Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks.

I have nothing to be sad about, she thought. Why am I crying? Because it’s my time of month...?

She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand.

But my time of month never made me sad before, she thought. Only impatient with the inconvenience, with being told I must not do this, I must not do that.

The sea monster took her hand. Hearing footsteps, Marie-Josèphe waved the net behind her, hoping the guard would understand that she wanted a fish.

She continued to sing. The sea monster embroidered variations on the melody.

The net left her hand and returned. The sea monster must have seen the morsel, for she ended her song, accepted her reward, and submerged with the fish held delicately between her claws.

“Thank you, sir.” Turning, Marie-Josèphe nearly ran into Count Lucien, standing behind her on the fountain’s rim.

“Your song was extraordinarily beautiful.”

“I thought you were the musketeer!” Marie-Josèphe said, too flustered to reply to his compliment.

He took the net from her hand and scooped up another fish. The sea monster swam to the stairs and snarled. Marie-Josèphe quickly threw her the treat.

The sea monster tossed the fish in the air, caught it, and let it swim free.

Marie-Josèphe laughed, delighted by the sea monster’s play.

Beside the stairs, the sea monster rolled over and over in the water and splashed spray with her tail.

I wonder, she thought, how His Majesty would like a sketch of the sea monster juggling fish? I wonder how Count Lucien would like it?

“Stop it, sea monster!” Marie-Josèphe brushed droplets from the sleeve of her habit.

“What do you want? You aren’t even hungry.”

“It wants to play,” Count Lucien said. “With the fish. Like a cat with a mouse.”

Marie-Josèphe scooped up the last live fish and threw them into the pond. They darted away. The sea monster whistled and dived, chasing them, letting them escape, flicking spray into the air.

“Good-night, sea monster!” Marie-Josèphe whispered.

The sea monster surfaced by the platform. Marie-Josèphe gave her a final caress.

The sea monster took her hand and held it to her lips, wailing and touching Marie-Josèphe’s fingers delicately with her tongue.

Marie-Josèphe thought, Why would the sea monster lick salt from my hand, when she’s swimming in salt water?

oOo

The sea monster crawled up the steps to the edge of the small water, crying with despair and warning. The fearless, foolish woman of land walked bleeding toward great predators whose roars and snarls filled the darkness and the dawn. If the predators of land could smell as keenly as the sharks of the ocean, the woman was doomed.

The sea monster echoed the land-woman’s simple song of childish babble. Only silence replied.

The sea monster’s song of warning burst through the gardens, filled them, and faded away.

Calm once more, the sea monster washed thick salt tears from her eyes.

Singing a different song, soft and lyrical, she swam to shelter beneath the hooves of Apollo’s horses.

13

Marie-Josèphe was all too aware of the slickness of blood between her legs as Count Lucien escorted her from the tent. It was very awkward; the count courteously tried to allow her to precede him, while she tried not to turn her back on him. She hoped her burgundy habit would not show bloodstains.

Count Lucien might not realize I’m bleeding, even if he saw a stain, Marie-Josèphe thought. Do men take any notice? As for Count Lucien, he might not know what it means.

Then she wondered, Why is he here? and answered her own question: to observe His Majesty’s sea monster.

Outside the tent, the setting sun turned the Grand Canal molten gold. The moon, nearing full, loomed beyond the chateau. A groom on a dun cob held the reins of Count Lucien’s grey Arabian and a splendid bay of the same breed.

Marie-Josèphe curtsied to Count Lucien. “Good night, Count Lucien.” She rose, expecting his horse to bow so he could mount; expecting him to ride away.

“Can you ride, Mlle de la Croix?”

“I haven’t ridden for a long —” Then she thought — she hoped! — he might invite her, in the name of His Majesty, to ride with the hunt. “Yes, sir, I can.”

“Come speak to this horse.” He nodded toward the bay.

His requests, the requests of an agent of His Majesty, were more important than Marie-Josèphe’s embarrassment. She approached the horse, apprehensive. Stallions were said to go mad in the presence of a bleeding woman.

But the bay, like the grey, was a mare.

She let the bay mare lip her palm and caress her with the soft warmth of its muzzle.

At the scent of fish, the Arabian blew out its breath, snorting softly. Marie-Josèphe blew gently into the mare’s nostrils. The bay pricked its ears forward and breathed against Marie-Josèphe’s face.

“How did you learn that?” Count Lucien asked.

Marie-Josèphe had to think back to her childhood, to the happiest times of her life.

“My pony taught me.” She smiled and blinked and glanced away, surprised by her tears. “When I was little.”

“The Bedouins speak to their horses in that manner,” Count Lucien said. “At times I thought they were kinder to their horses than to each other.”

“She’s beautiful,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Do you always ride mares?” She scratched the bay mare delicately beneath the jaw. The horse stretched its head forward, leaning into Marie-Josèphe’s fingertips.

“It’s the custom, with this breed,” Count Lucien said. “The mares are fast and strong and fierce. They’ll turn their fierceness to your will, if you request it. If they trust you.”

“So will His Majesty’s stallions,” Marie-Josèphe said.

“You must compel the fierceness of a stallion. You must waste its strength — and your own.” Count Lucien’s clear grey gaze lost itself in the distance. He brought himself back; his voice recovered its usual straightforward tone. “Your time is valuable to His Majesty. You mustn’t waste it trudging up and down the Green Carpet. Jacques will keep Zachi at His Majesty’s stables, and bring her to you at your request.”

Marie-Josèphe stroked the sleek neck of the bay Arabian mare, made shy by the attention, by the responsibility, by the doubt that she could ride this magic creature. The creature renounced its claim to magic by lifting its tail and depositing a load of droppings on the path. A gardener ran up and cleaned away the mess with a shovel, as if he had been waiting. Perhaps he had.

“I haven’t ridden since I was a little girl,” Marie-Josèphe admitted. “I wasn’t allowed, in the convent, because —”

She thought, she hoped, the reason was foolish. She did not want to sound foolish to Count Lucien, or embarrass him. She did not want to find that the reason was true, for if riding truly destroyed a maiden’s virginity, then no husband would ever believe her pure.

“We weren’t allowed.”

“We’ll see if you remember.” Count Lucien nodded to Jacques, who jumped down from the cob and placed the mounting-stairs beside Zachi’s stirrup. “If you don’t, a sedan chair would answer better.”

Marie-Josèphe could not bear the thought of riding in a sedan chair if she had the choice of Zachi. She hesitated. She feared her blood would stain the saddle.

I should have made an excuse, some excuse, any excuse, she thought. There’s nothing to do now but brazen it out.

She had never ridden en Amazone, only astride like a boy. She was surprised at how sure she felt in the side-saddle, with her left foot in the stirrup and her right knee hooked around the pommel. She settled herself on the bay.

The grey Arabian bowed, going down on one knee to lower the stirrup. Count Lucien mounted.

“Wait at the stables,” Count Lucien said to the groom. Jacques bowed and swung up on his cob without bothering about stairs or stirrup. He slung the mounting stairs across the pommel of his saddle and urged the cob into a trot toward the chateau and the stables beyond.

The grey and the bay set off at a leisurely walk up the hill toward the chateau. Even at a walk the mare moved with intense energy. A hard hand on the bit made her jig and fret. Marie-Josèphe eased her nervous grip on the reins. Zachi calmed. Her ears swiveled back toward Marie-Josèphe; the mare only waited for a single word, a single touch, and she would spring free into a gallop and fly out of the garden and into the woods.

Marie-Josèphe maintained a sedate pace. It could not be proper to gallop through the King’s gardens.

“Will you lend a horse to my brother?” Marie-Josèphe asked.

“No,” Count Lucien said.

The edge in the count’s voice piqued Marie-Josèphe’s curiosity.

“Why not?” Will he say, she wondered, that Yves’ legs are so long he needs no horse?

“Because I never knew a priest,” he said, “who could use a horse without ruining it.”

I should defend Yves, Marie-Josèphe thought. But, it’s true... he isn’t a fine rider.

Dusk softened the edges of the fountains and turned the statuary to white ghosts.

The sea monster sang; in the Menagerie, a lion roared.

Marie-Josèphe shivered. When they passed the spot where she had seen the apparition of Yves, she glanced nervously sideways.

A rippling shadow stalked the edge of the path.

“Count Lucien, run!”

The King’s tiger, sleekly striped, obscure in twilight, glared silver-eyed. Blood dripped from its teeth and claws. Zachi shied and spun and snorted.