The Moon and the Sun (2 page)

“Yes, Monsieur. Yes, Madame.”

Marie-Josèphe, too, drew back from the sunlight. It would be a shame to ruin her new gown, the finest, by far, that she had ever worn. What did it matter if it was a cast-off of Lotte’s? She smoothed the yellow silk and arranged it to show more of the silver petticoat.

“And you, Mlle de la Croix,” Monsieur said. “You are nearly as dark as the Hurons.

People will start calling you the little Indian girl, and Madame de Maintenon will demand the return of her nickname.”

Lorraine chuckled. Madame frowned.

“The old hag never would claim it,” Madame said. “She wants everyone to think she was born at Maintenon and has some right to the title of marquise!”

“Madame —” Marie-Josèphe thought to defend Mme de Maintenon. When Marie-Josèphe first came to France, straight from the convent school on Martinique, the marquise had been kind to her. Though Marie-Josèphe was too old, at twenty, to be a student at Mme de Maintenon’s school at Saint-Cyr, the marquise had given her a place teaching arithmetic to the younger girls. Like Marie-Josèphe, Mme de Maintenon had come to France from Martinique with nothing.

Mme de Maintenon often spoke of Martinique to the students, her protégées. She recounted the hardships she had endured in the New World. She reassured the impoverished high-born girls that if they were devout, and obedient, as she was, His Majesty would provide their dowries and they too could escape their circumstances.

Monsieur interrupted Marie-Josèphe. “Do you use the skin cream I gave you?” He peered at her over his pomander. His complexion was very fair. He whitened it further with powder, and accentuated his fairness with black beauty patches at his cheekbone and beside his mouth. “It’s the finest in the world — but it won’t work if you insist on staying out in the sun!”

“Papa, don’t be mean,” Lotte said. “Marie-Josèphe’s complexion is ever so much paler than when she arrived.”

“Thanks to my skin cream,” Monsieur said.

“Let her be,” Madame said. “There’s no shame in being a little leaf-rustler, as I was.

As His Majesty says, no one at court enjoys the gardens anymore. Except me, and now Mlle de la Croix. What were you saying a moment ago?”

“It was nothing, Madame,” Marie-Josèphe said, grateful that Monsieur had interrupted her before she expressed her opinion of Mme de Maintenon. Expressing one’s opinion at court was a gamble, and speaking kindly of Mme de Maintenon in Madame’s presence was foolhardy.

“Whoa!” the coachman cried. The coach lurched to a halt. Marie-Josèphe slid forward, nearly falling from the seat. Her ankles touched the elegant long legs of the chevalier de Lorraine. Lorraine took her arm, most chivalrously, and continued to hold her when the coach steadied. His leg brushed against hers. He smiled down at her.

Marie-Josèphe smiled back, then lowered her gaze, embarrassed by her thoughts. The chevalier was devastatingly handsome, despite being an old man. He was fifty-five, the same age as the King. He wore a long black wig, just like His Majesty’s. His eyes were blazing blue. Marie-Josèphe drew back to give him more room. He shifted, seeking a comfortable position. His legs pressed her feet, trapping them against the base of the carriage seat.

“Sit up straight, sir!” Madame said. “No one gave you leave to lie supine in my presence.”

Monsieur patted the chevalier de Lorraine’s knee.

“I give Lorraine leave to stretch, my dear,” he said. “My friend is too tall for my coach.”

“And I’m too fat for it,” Madame said. “But I don’t demand the entire seat.”

Lorraine drew himself up. The top of his wig brushed the roof.

“I do beg Madame’s pardon.” He picked up his plumed hat and opened the door.

As he stepped to the street, he drew the egret feathers across Marie-Josèphe’s wrist.

Monsieur hurried after him.

Marie-Josèphe regained her breath and returned her attention to Madame and Lotte, where it belonged. “I’ll ride back to Versailles with Yves,” she said quickly. “Everyone will have more room on the way home.”

“Dear child,” Madame said, “that had nothing to do with the size of the coach.” She rose and climbed out. Monsieur handed her down, and Lorraine assisted Lotte.

Marie-Josèphe followed quickly, anxious to see her brother again. Lorraine waited for her, treating her as if she were nearly on a level with the family of the brother of the King. He gave her his hand. His attentions both thrilled and embarrassed her. He left her off-balance. Nothing in Martinique had ever embarrassed her, when she had lived a quiet life keeping her brother’s house and helping in his experiments and reading books on all manner of subjects.

She stepped into the street beside Madame, who was far too stately to acknowledge the dirt and the smells. The King wished to meet his expedition at the waterfront, and Madame was a part of his court, so Madame accompanied him and did not complain.

Marie-Josèphe smiled to herself. Madame did not complain in public. In private the Princess Palatine used plain speech and seldom held back her opinions about anything.

Monsieur touched Lorraine’s elbow. Lorraine bowed over Marie-Josèphe’s hand.

He joined Monsieur, but Madame had claimed her place at her husband’s side. Chartres leaped from his horse, threw the reins to a footman, and offered his arm to his sister.

Marie-Josèphe curtsied and stepped back. She must find her proper place at the end of the line of precedence.

“Come with us, Mlle de la Croix,” Madame said. “The chevalier will escort you.”

“But, Madame — !”

“I know what it is, to miss your family. I haven’t visited mine since I came to France twenty years ago. Come with us, and you won’t miss your brother a moment longer than necessary.”

With gratitude and wonder, Marie-Josèphe stooped and kissed the hem of Madame’s gown. Next to her, Lorraine bowed to Madame and Monsieur. Marie-Josèphe rose. To her surprise, the chevalier kissed Monsieur’s hand, not Madame’s. The chevalier de Lorraine offered Marie-Josèphe his arm, smiling his charming, enigmatic smile.

Entranced, Marie-Josèphe found herself near the front of the extravagant procession, where she had no right to be, in the company of one of the most handsome men at court.

The King’s carriage stood at the head of a line of fifty coaches. The gold sunburst gleamed from its door. Eight horses stamped and snorted and jingled their harness.

They were white, with coin-sized black spots. The Emperor of China had sent the spotted stallions to his brother monarch for his coach, and spotted ponies for his grandsons.

“Be careful, Mlle de la Croix,” Lorraine said softly as they passed the magnificent team. The pungent smell of horse sweat mixed with the odor of fish and seaweed.

“Those creatures are part leopard, and eat meat.”

“That’s absurd, sir,” Marie-Josèphe said. “No horse can breed with a leopard.”

“Don’t you believe in gryphons —”

“The world holds unknown creatures, but they’re natural beings —”

“— or chimeras —”

“— not mixtures of eagles and lions —”

“— or sea monsters?”

“— or demons and human beings!”

“I forget, you study alchemy, as your brother does.”

“Not alchemy, sir! He studies natural philosophy.”

“And leaves the alchemy to you — the alchemy of beauty.”

“Truly, sir, neither of us studies alchemy. He studies natural philosophy. I study a little mathematics.”

Lorraine smiled again. “I see no difference.” She would have explained that unlike an alchemist, a natural philosopher cared nothing about immortality, or the transmutation of base metals to gold, but Lorraine dismissed the question with a shrug.

“The fault of my small understanding. Mathematics — do you mean arithmetic? How dangerous. If I studied arithmetic, I should have to add up all my debts.” He shuddered, leaned over, and whispered, “You are so beautiful, I forget you engage in...

unusual... activities.”

Marie-Josèphe blushed. “I’ve had no occasion to assist my brother since he left Martinique.” Nor to study mathematics, she thought with regret.

Young noblemen leaped from their horses; their fathers and mothers and sisters stepped down from their carriages. The dukes and peers and the duchesses of France, the foreign princes, the courtiers of Versailles in their finery, arranged themselves in order of precedence to salute their King.

Beside the King’s carriage, the count de Chrétien slid down from his grey Arabian.

The other men of Count Lucien’s rank all carried swords; a short dirk hung from his belt.

He stood below the height of fashion in other ways. Despite his gold-embroidered blue coat, the sign of a favored courtier, he wore neither lace nor ribbons at his throat. Instead, he wore an informal steinkirk scarf, its end tucked into a buttonhole. His small mustache resembled that of an army officer. Chartres still gloried in his success on the summer’s campaign, but all the other courtiers stayed clean-shaven like the King. Count Lucien’s perruke was auburn, knotted at the back of his neck in the military style. It should be black like the King’s; it should fall in great curls over his shoulders. Marie-Josèphe supposed that someone who enjoyed the King’s favor could dispense with fashion, but she thought it foolish, even ridiculous, for the Count de Chrétien to dress and groom himself like a captain of the army.

Leaning on his ebony walking stick, Count Lucien gestured to six footmen. They unrolled a gold and scarlet silk rug along the wharf, so His Majesty would be in no danger of coming in contact with slime or fish guts.

The courtiers formed a double line, flanking the Persian carpet, smiling and hiding their envy of Count Lucien, whom the King favored, who served His Majesty so closely.

Marie-Josèphe found herself near the King’s carriage, separated from it only by a few members of His Majesty’s immediate family. The legitimate offspring of His Majesty stood nearest to the King, of course. Madame marched past Maine and his wife and his brother, insisting on her family’s precedence before the children His Majesty had declared legitimate.

Count Lucien called for the sedan chairs. Four carriers in the King’s livery brought his chair, and four more brought Mme de Maintenon’s.

Count Lucien opened the door of His Majesty’s carriage.

Marie-Josèphe’s heart beat fast. She stood almost close enough to touch the King, except that the carriage door was in the way. Its golden sunburst gazed at her impassively. She caught a glimpse of the sleeve of the King’s dark brown coat, of the white plumes on his hat, of the red high heels of his polished shoes. His Majesty acknowledged the cheering crowd.

One ragged fellow pushed forward. “Give us bread!” he shouted. “Your taxes starve our families!”

The musketeers spurred their horses toward him. His compatriots pulled him back into the crowd. He disappeared. His desperate shouts ended in a muffled curse. The King paid him no attention. Following His Majesty’s example, everyone pretended the incident had never occurred.

His Majesty entered the sedan chair without stepping on the ground or on the Persian rug.

Mme de Maintenon, drab in her black gown and simply-dressed hair, entered the second sedan chair. Everyone said she had been a great beauty and a great wit, when the King married her in secret — or, as some claimed (and Madame believed), made her his mistress. Marie-Josèphe wondered if they complimented her in hopes of gaining her favor. As far as Marie-Josèphe could tell, Mme de Maintenon cared for the favor of no one except the King, and God, which amounted to the same thing; she favored no courtier but the Duke du Maine, whom she treated as a son.

Count Lucien led the sedan chairs down the ramp to the wharf, limping a little. His cane struck a muffled tempo on the Persian carpet.

Mme de Maintenon’s carriers took her sedan chair aside, waiting to enter the procession in her proper place. In public, the King’s wife ranked only as a marquise.

The double line of courtiers turned itself inside out to follow the King: the widowed Grand Dauphin, Monseigneur, His Majesty’s only immediate legitimate offspring, proceeded first. Monseigneur’s little sons the dukes of Bourgogne, Anjou, and Berri, marched just behind him.

Monsieur and Madame, Chartres and Mademoiselle d’Orléans, and Lorraine and Marie-Josèphe entered the procession. The courtiers accompanied their King in strict order of rank. Only Marie-Josèphe was out of place. She felt both grateful to Madame and uneasy about the breach of etiquette, especially when she passed the Duchess du Maine, who favored her with a poisonous glare.

The King’s galleon rocked at the far end of the wharf, its sails furled, its heavy lines groaning around the stanchions. Apollo’s dawn horses, gleaming gold, leaped from the stern, the motion of the ship giving them the illusion of life.

A breath of breeze crept in from the harbor, pungent with the smell of salt and seaweed. The King’s sigil fluttered, then fell again, limp in the heat. Sailors unloaded Yves’ belongings to the dock: crates of equipment, baggage, a bundle like a body in a shroud.

Yves swept down the gangplank. Marie-Josèphe recognized him instantly, though he had been a youth in homespun the last time she saw him. Now he was a grown man, handsome, elegant and severe in his long black robe. She wanted to run the length of the wharf to greet him. Saint-Cyr and Versailles had taught her to behave more sedately.

A half-dozen sailors trudged down the gangplank, bowed under the weight of shoulder-poles. A net hung between the poles, cradling a gilded basin. At the end of the narrow ramp, Yves placed his hand on the rim of the basin, steadying its sway. The captain of the galleon joined him, and together they strode up the dock. Yves kept his hand on the basin, protecting and possessing it.

A haunting air, sung in exquisite voice, flowed over the procession. The unexpected beauty of the melody so surprised Marie-Josèphe that she nearly stumbled. No one in the King’s entourage would sing here, or now, without his order. Someone from the galleon must be singing, someone familiar with the music of foreign lands.

Yves approached. He reached into the gilded basin. The song exploded with a snort, a growl.