The Moon and the Sun

10

The sea monster’s eerie plaintive song filled the moonlit gardens. Marie-Josèphe hurried along the Green Carpet. She hugged Lorraine’s cloak close against the chill and damp. The wolf fur warmed her, and it smelled of Lorraine’s musky scent, the scent Monsieur had also offered her.

She wished she were a great lady who could order a coach to take her here and there, or a rich one who could afford to keep a horse. She liked to walk in the gardens, but the hour was late and the night was chilly, and she still had so much to do.

She laughed aloud in wonder that she was living at the center of the world.

And I’ve begun to train the sea monster, she thought. If I have a few days, I might be able to train it to keep silent when His Majesty next sees it. But if His Majesty delays the dissection for those few days, the male sea monster will decompose, and all the training will be for nothing.

Marie-Josèphe’s lantern swung. A wild shadow dance sprang from her feet. She skipped. The shadow leaped, its cape flying in the beautiful night.

I shall have to work on the sketches later, Marie-Josèphe thought. A few hours—

But the moon, almost three-quarters full, had fallen halfway to the horizon. The night was half over.

Before her the tent glowed faintly; across the garden, near the Fountain of Neptune, torches flickered as gardeners set out potted flowers in great drifts, keeping the gardens beautiful for His Majesty.

A dark-lantern flashed open, blinding her with its light. Marie-Josèphe jumped, startled and frightened.

“Who goes there?”

“Mlle de la Croix,” she said, amused by her fear of the sea monster’s guards. “Come to feed the sea monster.” She held up her lantern, beaming its light, in turn, into the musketeer’s eyes.

The dark-lantern rotated, spilling its light between them. Marie-Josèphe lowered her lantern. The light cast a long shadow behind the musketeer and illuminated his face, demonically, from below.

“Do you have authorization to enter?”

“Of course I do—my brother’s.”

“In writing?”

She laughed. Yet he barred her way, standing before the entry.

Inside the tent, the sea monster whistled and growled.

“Father de la Croix said, Let no one enter.”

“He didn’t mean me,” Marie-Josèphe said.

“He said, No one.”

“But I am no one. He’s the head of our family—why would he think to separate himself from me?”

“What you say is true.” The musketeer stood aside. “Be cautious, mamselle. If it isn’t a demon—and I don’t say it isn’t—it is angry.”

She entered the tent, grateful not to have to climb the hill and call Yves from his bed to vouch for her. Shutting her lantern so she would not frighten the sea monster, Marie-Josèphe paused to let her eyes adjust. A pale blur loomed nearby: New screens of heavy white silk woven with gold sunbursts and fleurs de lys shielded the dissection table from the live sea monster’s sight. The white and the gold glimmered.

Marie-Josèphe unlocked the sea monster’s cage. Small fish swam and splashed in a jug of sea water. A strange, faint glow suffused the Fountain. Could Yves have left a lit candle on the stairs, reflecting from the water?

“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.”

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?”

Louis waved away the objections. “Sailors live a hard life. Protection against old age and disease would never save a man from accident or drowning.”

“Cousin,” Innocent said, “perhaps your natural philosopher has the right of it. God drove us from Eden, after all, where we were immortal. Now we are mortal, but we live in the hopes of joining Him in everlasting life.”

“If God created an immortality organ, and commanded us to use beasts as we will—then it is His will that we become immortal.”

Innocent frowned thoughtfully, troubled. “Earthly immortality would be a burden, not a satisfaction.” He hesitated. “Yet, if one were called to continue God’s work—”

“As I am,” His Majesty said.

“—one would submit… however burdened by Earthly flesh.”

Yves continued his exploration of the heart and the lungs. At the top of the chest, beneath the upper ribs, the highest lobe of the lung resisted his probe. He exclaimed wordlessly and pulled the lobe farther into view.

“This is unique.”

Marie-Josèphe glanced from the gutted sea monster to her brother, to Innocent, to His Majesty. All of them stared at the unusual lobe of the lung. The color differed, and the texture. A tangle of blood vessels covered its surface.

Only Count Lucien paid no attention to the carcass. He paid his attention to the King, gazing at his sovereign with hope, and relief, and love.

Yves lifted the unusual structure and cut it free of the normal lung.

“You have found it,” Louis said. “What else could it be?”

Marie-Josèphe hurried up the Green Carpet after Yves, holding her drawing box tight against her chest, protecting the record of her brother’s discoveries. Yves strode along before her. Far ahead, His Majesty’s deaf-mutes pushed his rolling cart at a run, and Pope Innocent’s chair carriers struggled to keep up. Count Lucien’s elegant grey Arabian trotted beside them. Early mist swirled at their heels. Yves might keep up with them, but Marie-Josèphe never could. She broke into a run, glad she was not wearing court dress. Ten paces ahead, Yves paused and waited impatiently. Torches gilded the chateau, cast shadows across the gardens, and haloedYves’ hair.

“Hurry, or we’ll get no sleep at all—you do want me to attend His Majesty’s awakening?” He smiled, teasing her.

She looked at the ground, embarrassed all over again for failing him yesterday.

They climbed the back stairs to the attic and their tiny apartment. As they ascended, a young courtier muffled in cloak and half-mask passed, creeping quietly down. He ignored their salute, as if the mask made him invisible.

Yawning and stretching, Yves disappeared into his bedroom to nap for a few hours.

Odelette and Hercules slept soundly in Marie-Josèphe’s bed, cuddled together, warm and safe. Marie-Josèphe put aside the temptation to join them in their comfortable nest.

If I fall asleep now, she thought, I shall never wake in time to rouse Yves. Besides, I’ve not done a moment’s work on the dissection sketches.

In Yves’ dressing room, she lit tallow candles and settled herself at the table to begin the painstaking task of redrawing the sketches with pen and ink. As she arranged the papers, she found the equation she had scribbled and scratched out. Her thoughts wandered to the problems that fascinated her, the description of God’s creations—God’s will, perhaps—in precise terms. She wrote a second equation for predicting the motion of rustling leaves; she saw that it would not work, either, even when she added the effect of gravity.

This is as difficult a problem as predicting the actions of my dear leaf-rustler Madame! Marie-Josèphe though, amused.

She rubbed out the equation, and turned her attention to Yves’ drawings.

At six o’clock, Marie-Josèphe put several finished drawings away and slipped into her room to change clothes; she and Odelette must attend Lotte; they must all help Madame dress; they must gather in the antechamber outside His Majesty’s bedroom and join the procession to Mass.

I mustn’t fail my duties to Mademoiselle, Marie-Josèphe thought. Not two days in a row. I must attend Mass—

She had promised to attend last night; she had forgotten.

Odelette’s soft breathing was the only sound. Hercules slipped in through the open window, leaving the curtain a handsbreadth open; he stretched and yowled, demanding breakfast. Gray morning light from the west-facing window woke Odelette. She blinked, her long lashes brushing her cheeks, beautiful even a moment out of sleep.

“Have you sat up all night, Mlle Marie?” Odelette whispered. “Come to bed, you can rest a little while.”

“It’s time to get up,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Help me change my dress—and you must do my hair. Mademoiselle wants you this morning.”

Sitting up, Odelette cried out. She drew her hand from beneath the covers. Blood smeared her fingertips.

“Quick, Mlle Marie, before I stain the bedclothes—”

Marie-Josèphe flung open her storage chest, snatched up a handful of soft clean rags, and took them to Odelette.

Odelette thrust the pad between her legs to soak up her monthly flow, then curled miserably beneath the blankets. She always suffered terribly from her monthlies.

“I’m so sorry, Mlle Marie—”

“You must stay in bed,” Marie-Josèphe said. She put Hercules beside Odelette and stroked his soft fur, the tabby stripes of two textures, till he gave up asking for his breakfast and snuggled warm against Odelette’s sore back. “In bed, with our bed-warmer.” Odelette smiled, though her lips trembled. “And I’ll send you some broth. You must drink it, but share a little with Hercules.”

“Mlle Marie, you must wear a towel today.”

She and Odelette had always begun their monthlies on the same day. They had been apart so long, surely that rule had been lost with distance? But when Marie-Josèphe counted, Odelette was right. Marie-Josèphe tied a rolled towel between her legs and struggled into her grand habit. She must not spoil another dress.

Poor Odelette, her women’s troubles pained her so. Marie-Josèphe kissed her cheek.

Marie-Josèphe unbraided her hair and dressed it simply, without lace or ribbons. She looked like a naive colonial girl, but she could do no more without Odelette’s help.

In Yves’ room, she sat on the edge of his bed and shook him gently.

“Yves—brother, it’s time to get up.”

“I’m awake,” he mumbled.

Marie-Josèphe smiled fondly and shook him again. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and stretching.

“I am awake,” he said.

“I know.” She kissed his cheek. “I must fly, to Mademoiselle.”

She hurried down the attic stairs. She felt lucky not to suffer from her monthlies as Odelette did. If she had to keep to her bed, she would miss greeting His Majesty after his morning ceremony, she would miss following the King to Mass.

She would miss caring for the sea monster, and Yves might give her place to Chartres.

Lucien’s carriage flew along the Avenue de Paris and past the lines of visitors waiting to enter His Majesty’s gardens. The carriage followed the same route as Pope Innocent’s, all the way to the steps of the Marble Courtyard.

Despite the inconvenience—His Majesty seldom concerned himself with the convenience of his courtiers—the King permitted few carriages to enter the forecourt of the chateau. Lucien accepted the perquisite as the King intended, as a sign of esteem. He rode in his carriage more often than he might otherwise have done, to publicly take advantage of His Majesty’s favor.

His footman placed the steps and held the door. Lucien climbed down, leaning easily on his walking staff. He had not slept, but he had refreshed himself. Thanks to Sieur de Baatz’ salve, his leg had nearly healed; thanks to Juliette, thanks to the distractions of calvados and stimulation, the pain in his back was quite tolerable.

His eight matched coach horses stood rock-still, bay coats and harness gleaming.

“Return to my chateau and put yourself at the disposal of Mme la Marquise,” Lucien said to his coachman. “She will wish to attend today’s picnic at His Majesty’s Menagerie.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lucien crossed the black and white marble of the courtyard, entered the chateau through its central doors, beneath the balcony of the King’s apartment, and took his usual route to His Majesty’s bedroom.

Waiting by his brother’s bed, Monsieur stifled a yawn. The duke d’Orléans often rode to Paris after the King’s evening entertainments, for he found Versailles constraining. On occasion, Lucien joined him. Though he did not share all Monsieur’s tastes, he appreciated the duke’s ability to enjoy himself. But for Lucien, the events of the previous night had been more rewarding than any diversion Monsieur might imagine.

This morning, everything was as it should be. No one could suspect last night of being extraordinary; no one could suspect the King had stayed awake all night seeking immortality. His Majesty performed the rituals of his awakening with his accustomed grace and dignity.

Lucien noted, with approval, that Yves de la Croix had ceased to spurn the privilege of fifth entry. The Jesuit bowed to His Majesty with adequate elegance. Lucien feared de la Croix had been brought too high too quickly, that his abrupt elevation would result in disaster for him and for his sister. Other men waited years for Fifth Entry.

Unlike His Majesty, de la Croix did look as if he had been up all night. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.

Perhaps the King had dozed since returning from the secret dissection, or perhaps he had lain awake considering the implications of Yves de la Croix’s discoveries.

His Majesty might never die, Lucien thought. If he never dies, the realm will never be subjected to Monseigneur’s reign. If he never dies, he will escape the influence of Mme de Maintenon. He will reinstate the Edict of Nantes. He will cease making war on his own people.

Lucien joined His Majesty’s procession from the official bedchamber. The King’s gout troubled him today, but he concealed his discomfort.

In the first chamber, dozens of less favored courtiers crowded together. Inured to their magnificent surroundings, bored by the paintings and frescoes, the carved marble and the gilded representations of Apollo and the sun, they stood, yawning sleepily, gossiping, trading insults veiled as compliments. When His Majesty appeared, they fell silent and saluted their sovereign.

When they rose, Mlle de la Croix gazed at His Majesty, in awe, like the colonial girl she remained. Her cheeks flushed with excitement. Lucien sympathized with her amazement. He loved Louis, as he had loved Queen Marie Thérèse. He missed the queen; he still grieved for her, though she was ten years gone. Having spent most of his life at court, he knew better than to display everything he felt. He hoped Mlle de la Croix would learn, soon, not to reveal herself quite so plainly.

As he always did, Lucien left the procession when His Majesty approached the chapel.

As His Majesty disappeared into the chapel to perform his religious devotions, Lucien wondered, Does immortality extend life into endless sickness and aging? Or… might it convey perfect health, and everlasting youth?

Marie-Josèphe curtsied low with the other courtiers as His Majesty strode from his room. His brother and his son and his grandsons and the Foreign Princes Condé and Conti and Lorraine and the legitimized duke du Maine and the Chevalier de Lorraine and Count Lucien followed. In their brilliant company, Yves was as drab as a crow. She wished, sometimes, that he was a young courtier rather than a Jesuit, that he practiced war instead of learning, that he dressed in diamonds and silk.

But, then, she thought, I would be even less a part of his life, and I would be nothing to his work, because he would have none. He would marry, his wife would manage his household, he would have no room for a spinster sister.

She sighed, then thought, I might not be a spinster, if he were not a priest. He would promote my marriage; our family might have the resources to allow it.

She shrugged off her fantasies. As the King passed, people stepped forward to press letters into his hands, to beg him for favors, for pensions, for a position in his household. Even ordinary folk could petition him, as he paraded with his family on his way to Mass.

Mme de Maintenon and the other women of the royal family joined His Majesty. Marie-Josèphe surveyed Mademoiselle as she passed, criticizing herself. She had not dressed Lotte’s hair as beautifully as Odelette would have done.

A roar of greeting and affection rose from the crowd of visitors as soon as the King appeared. Lesser nobles, tradesmen and their wives, all those who presented themselves at the gate decently dressed, had the right to enter the chateau grounds and see their sovereign. The crowd parted for him, but pressed close as soon as he had passed. Marie-Josèphe pushed through the crush of bodies, trying to keep her place, trying not to feel afraid.

“Your Majesty, a boon to ask—”

“Please, Your Majesty, heal my son—”

The procession paused as the King accepted the petitions of his subjects and passed the letters to Count Lucien. He laid his hand on the swollen throat of a child, when the mother begged for a cure for the King’s Disease.

The crowded, echoing chapel was a relief after the crush of the courtyard. Marie-Josèphe took her place in the pew behind Madame’s. Hugging her shawl close, Madame kissed Marie-Josèphe’s cheek.

“Perhaps the new chapel will be warmer,” Madame said, but her tone was not very hopeful.

Marie-Josèphe had to smother a giggle. References to Hell freezing over often accompanied speculations about the new chapel’s eventual completion. She wondered if hell, frozen, would be warmer than the old chapel. She wished she could tell Madame the joke. In her own way, Madame was very pious, but she loved God rather than the rituals and ceremonies of the church. She had been a heretic, a Protestant, in her youth; court gossips claimed her conversion was a fraud, entered into only to allow her to marry Monsieur.

Marie-Josèphe thought she might tell Count Lucien the joke, but Count Lucien was nowhere to be seen.

Yves joined Marie-Josèphe. She squeezed his arm fondly.

“Aren’t you glad you attended His Majesty this morning? Was it wonderful, in his room? I wish I—”

“Shh,” he said gently.

The choir’s voices, as one, rose to the frescoed ceiling. Marie-Josèphe shivered at the pure beauty of the singing.

Splendid new cloths draped the altar, and a thousand new wax candles burned in silver candelabra. Marie-Josèphe admired the altar, then turned with the rest of His Majesty’s court to face the back of the chapel.

“What are you doing?” Yves whispered, horrified. He faced the altar, with a foolish expression of confusion.

Marie-Josèphe tugged at his sleeve. “I should have explained,” she whispered. At Mass, His Majesty’s court always faced him, while he faced the altar and the priest.

Yves resisted her, but yielded to the combined stares of Madame and the princes of the blood royal. He turned around.

Above, His Majesty arrived in his balcony at the rear of the chapel.

The King gazed down at his court, who worshipped him to worship God. With a gesture of elegant magnanimity, he directed them toward the altar. Obediently, respectfully, they all turned again, as His Holiness Pope Innocent XII came to the altar to conduct Mass.