The Moon and the Sun (12 page)

Marie-Josèphe sketched the male sea monster’s torso. The layer of fat softened the lines of its body, but could not conceal its well-developed muscles and powerful bones.

“Mlle de la Croix.”

Marie-Josèphe jumped, startled. Count Lucien stood at her shoulder, speaking softly. With all the racket, he could have spoken in a normal voice without distracting Yves any more than he was distracted already. As for His Majesty and the courtiers, they assiduously ignored Marie-Josèphe and Count Lucien’s conversation.

“The creature must be silenced,” Count Lucien said. “For His Majesty’s sake —”

“I fed it,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “That isn’t the cry it made when it was hungry.

I don’t know — maybe it doesn’t like the music.”

“Don’t be impudent.”

She blushed. “I wasn’t —”

But he was right to chastise her. If the din drove His Majesty away, his regard for Yves would fall. Yves’ position, and his work, would suffer.

“It sings like a bird,” she said. “If the cage were covered, the sea monster might fall silent like a bird.”

Count Lucien’s disgusted glance at the cage said more than if he had cursed her for a fool. The cage enclosed the Fountain and rose nearly to the tent peak. To cover it completely would require a second tent.

Count Lucien limped toward the sea monster’s cage, gesturing to several footmen to attend him.

“Bring that net.”

The stout ropes of the net clattered against planking.

The sea monster’s wailing never faltered. Marie-Josèphe wanted to wail, herself, for if they wrapped the sea monster in the net, if they silenced it, gagged it, all Marie-Josèphe’s taming would go to waste.

Marie-Josèphe sketched frantically to keep up with Yves’ lecture. Derma, sub-derma, subcutaneous fat, fascia. She would draw the skin in detail — perhaps Chartres would allow her to use his microscope until she could buy a new one — in large scale, before it lost its integrity.

Beyond the Fountain, footmen took down the silken tent sides and carried them to the cage. Count Lucien pointed; they fastened the white silk to the bars, hanging it first between the sea monster and His Majesty. The thin curtain hardly baffled the sound, nor would it cut off enough light to make the creature sleep. Marie-Josèphe supposed it was worth a try. Heavy canvas could not be brought from the town of Versailles in under an hour, from Paris in less than a day.

The sea monster’s cries faded. Everyone — except the King — glanced toward the cage with surprise.

Random whistles dissolved to quiet; a murmur of relief passed across the crowd.

Count Lucien gestured; the servants returned to their places. The count bowed in Marie-Josèphe’s direction. She smiled uncertainly. It must be chance, not her suggestion, that the sea monster had chosen this moment to sink into silence. The answering roars of the menagerie animals tapered off, ending with the hoarse coughing roar of a tiger.

The quartet played more softly. Count Lucien returned to his place; Yves returned to his lecture; Marie-Josèphe returned to her drawing. The King watched the dissection of chest and shoulder muscles with great interest.

The line of sketches stretched across the frame. Half a dozen, a dozen: the sea monster’s body, its leg, its webbed, clawed foot. Marie-Josèphe’s hand cramped.

“I will next expose the internal organs —”

His Majesty spoke a word to Count Lucien, who motioned for the King’s deaf-mutes to take their places.. The seated courtiers leaped to their feet. The rush and rustle of silk and satin filled the tent.

“— which should resemble —” Caught in his work, Yves picked up a new, sharp dissection knife.

“Father de la Croix,” Count Lucien said.

Yves straightened, looked blankly at Count Lucien, and recalled where he was, and in whose presence.

“Most intriguing,” His Majesty said. “Immeasurably interesting.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Yves said.

“M. de Chrétien,” the King said.

Count Lucien came forward. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Order the Academy of Sciences to publish Father de la Croix’s notes and sketches.

Commission a medal.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty.”

“Father de la Croix, M. de Chrétien will inform you when I shall be free to observe again. Perhaps your Holy Father will wish to attend as well.”

Marie-Josèphe’s heart sank: another delay. If the King did not free Yves to do his work, the sea monster might never be properly described.

Yves bowed. Marie-Josèphe curtsied. Charcoal dust from her hand smeared the skirt of her riding habit.

“At Your Majesty’s convenience,” Yves said.

When His Majesty had left the tent, when the musicians had followed him, still playing, and his court had accompanied him, when his servants and guards and the visitors had departed, Marie-Josèphe was left all alone with Yves and Count Lucien.

Marie-Josèphe sank onto a chair. Not His Majesty’s, of course; for her to sit in it would be ill-mannered. She sat in the seat that was still warm from the presence of the Chevalier de Lorraine.

The new shoes Marie-Josèphe had been so pleased with pinched her feet intolerably.

“When may I expect to continue, Count Lucien?”

Without replying, Count Lucien looked thoughtfully at the display of Marie-Josèphe’s drawings.

“Mlle de la Croix, can you draw life as well as death?”

“Oh, yes, M. de Chrétien, life is much easier.”

“You may submit a drawing of the sea monster — a live sea monster, if you please

— for His Majesty’s medal. I don’t promise your drawing will be chosen.”

“But when may my brother continue his work?”

“Sister,” Yves said, “Count Lucien has offered us a singular honor. Be so kind as to offer him some gratitude.”

“I do!” she said. “Of course I do, I’m flattered, sir, and I thank you. But drawings and medals don’t decay. The sea monster, the dissection —”

“His Majesty dictates the progress of the dissection,” Yves said. He plucked a long shard of glass from the lab table and flung it into the garbage bucket. It shattered with a sound like bells. Yves folded the canvas over the dead sea monster’s flayed body.

PRIVATE

“You said yourself, only a few of the creatures remain. What if this is the only one you ever have to study?”

“It would be a shame. Still, the world holds many unknown creatures.” Yves directed the lackeys in packing ice around the specimen.

“In two or three days, the dissection might proceed,” Count Lucien said offhand.

“Not today?” Marie-Josèphe asked.

“I cannot see how that is possible. Today, His Majesty welcomes your Holy Father.”

Yves nodded, agreeing with Count Lucien. “I must attend His Holiness. The sea monster will have to wait.”

The lackeys covered the ice with a thick layer of sawdust.

“Tomorrow, then?” Marie-Josèphe asked.

Count Lucien laughed. “I assure you, His Majesty will be occupied from morning till after midnight. Ceremonies, entertainments, the luncheon in his Menagerie. Planning Pope Innocent’s crusade against heretical shopkeepers. His Majesty expects to conduct his regular council meeting, and he must practice for Carrousel.”

“Must His Majesty observe?” Marie-Josèphe asked.

“His Majesty wishes to observe,” Count Lucien said, settling her question.

“But if he’s so busy, would he even notice if Yves —”

“Your brother will gain precious little knowledge,” Count Lucien said dryly,

“locked in the Bastille.”

“Marie-Josèphe,” Yves said, “I have no intention of opposing His Majesty’s wishes.”

“Count Lucien,” Marie-Josèphe said, “do you explain to His Majesty. My brother’s work preserves the glory of capturing the sea monsters. His Majesty’s glory!”

“You expect too much of me, Mlle de la Croix. It might be best,” Count Lucien said, with some impatience, “to continue after Carrousel, when the live sea monster will no longer scream.”

“By then, nothing will be left but the sea monster’s bones, and the vermin its flesh generates!”

“Regrettable,” Count Lucien said.

“Forgive my sister, please, M. de Chrétien,” Yves said. “She understands little of ceremony.”

Embarrassed, Marie-Josèphe fell silent. The lackeys swept up the wet, slushy pulp around the dissection table. Their brooms scratched softly against the planks.

“Is your understanding any better, sir?” Count Lucien asked. “You disappointed His Majesty when you missed his awakening. I advise you not to disappoint him again.

He expects you at Appartement, for his entertainments, this evening. Don’t throw away these honors.”

Marie-Josèphe jumped to her feet. “I can’t allow His Majesty to think that was my brother’s fault!” she cried.

The sea monster echoed her exclamation.

“Hush, Marie-Josèphe,” Yves said. “No need to involve M. de Chrétien. His Majesty forgave me —”

“For my error!” The sea monster whistled, as if to emphasize Marie-Josèphe’s mistake.

“What does it matter? All’s well.”

Count Lucien considered, his brow furrowed for a moment. “M. de la Croix has the right of it,” he said to Marie-Josèphe. “His Majesty need not be troubled twice to forgive a single transgression. I must caution you against another lapse.”

Count Lucien bowed to Yves, to Marie-Josèphe, and took his leave. He leaned on his walking stick heavily, after the long hours of inactivity. Though the sides of the tent remained open, he departed through the entrance, and the musketeers held the curtains aside. Outside, his Arabian bowed. He clambered into the saddle and galloped away.

When he was out of earshot, Marie-Josèphe said, “I’m so sorry, I’ve made such a dreadful tangle of today — of your triumph.”

“Truly,” Yves said, “it’s forgotten.”

She gave him a quick, grateful hug.

“Go feed the creature — hurry. And bid it be silent!”

Marie-Josèphe entered the sea monster’s cage and captured a fish. It twisted in the net, weak and nearly dead.

“Sea monster! Dinner! Fish!” She swept the net through the water. Her fingers dipped beneath the surface, into the low vibration of the sea monster’s voice.

Beneath the hooves of the dawn horses, the sea monster lifted her head. Her hair, her forehead, her eyes rose above the water. She peered at Marie-Josèphe.

“Will it scream again if I take down the curtains?” Yves asked.

“I don’t know, Yves — I don’t know why it started screaming. Or why it stopped, or why it sings.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter — the noise won’t trouble the King.”

The lackeys pulled down the makeshift curtains and remade the sides of the tent.

“It was in such distress,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Come here, sea monster. Are you all right? Are you hurt?’

Silent, the sea monster swam toward her. Marie-Josèphe let the live fish free. The sea monster darted forward, netted it between its webbed hands, and ate it in one bite.

“It’s so quick!”

“It wasn’t quick enough to escape the net.”

Marie-Josèphe threw it another fish. The sea monster kicked its tails, jumped halfway out of the water, and caught the fish in the air. It disappeared into the pool, crunching the fish’s bones and fins between its teeth.

“But you said — it was mating, it was entranced —”

“I don’t care to discuss that.” Yves’ face flushed beneath his fading tan.

“But —”

“I will not discuss fornication, even animal fornication, with my sister who is straight from the convent!”

Yves’ tone startled her. When they were children, they had discussed everything. Of course, when they were children, neither had known a thing about fornication, animal or otherwise. Perhaps he still knew nothing, and his ignorance embarrassed him, or the truth of it frightened him, as what Marie-Josèphe had learned in the convent frightened her.

She netted the last fish and offered it to the sea monster from her bare hand. The sea monster swam within an armslength. The fish thrashed in Marie-Josèphe’s fingers.

“Come, sea monster. Fish, good fish.”

“Fishhhhh,” said the sea monster.

Marie-Josèphe caught her breath, delighted. “She talks, just like a parrot.”

She let the fish swim into the sea monster’s hands. The sea monster crunched it between her teeth, and submerged.

“I can train her —”

“To be silent?” Yves said.

“I don’t know,” Marie-Josèphe said thoughtfully. “If I were sure what distressed her. She sounded so sad — she almost made me cry.”

“No one minds if you cry. But the sea monster’s wailing distressed His Majesty.

Come along, we must hurry.”

Marie-Josèphe packed her drawing box while he chained the gate and fastened it with a padlock. She drew out her sketch of the male sea monster’s face, with its halo of glass and gold.

“What are these decorations? Where did the glass come from? The gilt?”

“A broken flask. Debris from the Fountain.”

“The live sea monster put them here? Is that what she was doing last night? Why?”

He shrugged. “The sea monsters are like ravens. They collect shiny things.”

“It looks like —”

“— nothing.”

Yves took the sketch from her hand, crumpled it, and thrust it against the slow-match. The paper ignited. The halo around the dead sea monster’s head blackened and crumpled. Yves threw Marie-Josèphe’s sketch into a crucible and let it burn.

“Yves — !”

His smile dazzled her. “Come along.” He folded her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her from the tent.

Behind them, the sea monster whispered, “Fishhhh....”

6

Marie-Josèphe stretched her arms up into the new court dress as Odelette lifted it over her head.

The beautiful blue satin and silver lace banished all Marie-Josèphe’s regrets for the ruined yellow silk. One of Lotte’s servants had brought the dress; Odelette had worked magic on it, taking it in and rearranging the trim.

The boned bodice and skirt slipped down over camisole, stays, and stockings, petticoat and underskirt. Odelette did up the fastenings, tucked back the skirt to reveal the petticoat, and deftly adjusted the ruffles.

Marie-Josèphe was so grateful to Lotte. Mademoiselle’s gift allowed her to attend the Pope’s arrival in a proper dress.