The Moon and the Sun (26 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“The Englishman.”

“The mathematician and philosopher.”

Count Lucien chuckled. Marie-Josèphe blushed.

“I’m sorry you think it absurd, that a mere woman dare approach a man of —”

“I don’t think it absurd at all.” He shook his head. “If your brother’s reaction to an admirer concerns you, you’d not wish to witness His Majesty’s reaction to an English correspondent. No matter how learned.”

“It’s only a letter about a curious mathematical problem.”

“Mlle de la Croix. By writing to M. Newton, you’d put yourself in danger. I have no doubt you’d put M. Newton in danger as well. We are at war with England. Do you trust a censor to understand your curious mathematical problem? More likely, he’d judge your letter to be in cipher, and your M. Newton to be a spy.”

“As the nuns judged me to be writing spells,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing. I’d never wish to put M. Newton in danger. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize...”

“You should never have to,” he said, with sympathy. “It would be better if we weren’t at war, if you could carry on your correspondence without concern. I regret to tell you, it isn’t possible.”

“Thank you for your good advice,” she said, downcast.

“Pardon me, I must take my leave.”

“Count Lucien...”

He glanced back.

“Will my letter to Mynheer van Leeuwenhoek cause any difficulty for him?”

Count Lucien gave her a long look of disbelief, listened to her explanation of dashing off her request and entrusting it to an officer of the ship from Martinique, told her that he hoped the letter might have been lost, and said he would see if anything could be done.

In response to her thanks, Count Lucien bowed and left the makeshift room.

Marie-Josèphe stared at the laboratory table, distressed, grateful to Count Lucien for saving her from another misstep, angry that an innocent exchange of knowledge might be considered treason.

A cheer rose outside. Marie-Josèphe peeked out, expecting to see the visitors salute Count Lucien, who so often dispensed the King’s alms. But the count had already ridden away. Instead, the visitors crowded around the sea monster’s cage, cheering again in response to a splash and a trill of song.

The sea monster’s song, such a constant sound that she hardly noticed it while she was working, had been going on for some time. So had the applause.

The sea monster is showing herself to the visitors! Marie-Josèphe thought, delight overshadowing her distress. I’ve succeeded in gentling her, she’s no longer frightened of people.

She wanted to show off the sea monster’s trick of coming when she was called, but she could not delay telling her brother Count Lucien’s good news. She stepped out of the laboratory tent.

The sun had reached its zenith. If she did not hurry, she would be late to help Mademoiselle dress for His Majesty’s picnic at the Menagerie. She ran out of the tent and hurried up the Green Carpet, passing groups of people strolling down the slope toward the Fountain of Apollo and the sea monster.

12

By the time Marie-Josèphe reached Mademoiselle’s apartments, she was out of breath and damp with sweat. She hesitated in the cold shadows of the corridor until her breathing eased, then indicated her presence by tapping her fingernails on the door.

“Marie-Josèphe!”

Lotte ducked from beneath Mlle d’Armagnac’s attempt to rearrange her hair and emerged from the bright crowd of ladies-in-waiting and friends. She raised Marie-Josèphe from her curtsy.

“You must help — My hair has driven Mlle d’Armagnac to tears. Where’s your girl?

She’s such a wonder! Where have you been?”

“Tending to the sea monster, Mademoiselle.”

“Make a lackey throw it a fish. Send for little Odelette, will you? And — your dress!

You can’t attend His Majesty’s luncheon in your riding habit!”

Lotte’s ladies-in-waiting, all beautifully gowned for His Majesty’s luncheon, arranged Mademoiselle’s grand habit and petticoats and polished her jewels with silk handkerchiefs.

“I’m responsible for the sea monster, Mademoiselle. My brother charged me with keeping it and studying it.”

“What good will studying it do? My dear silly thing, next you’ll be speaking Latin and reciting lectures on the planets like those boring old sticks from the Academy.”

I’d love to hear such a lecture, Marie-Josèphe thought — and to know I still remember my Latin!

“Odelette is ill, Mademoiselle. Your hair looks beautiful. I cannot do better than Mlle d’Armagnac.”

“Shall I call the barber to see your girl? Perhaps she should be bled.”

“Perhaps she should be whipped,” said Mlle d’Armagnac, annoyed to have her talents at enhancing beauty compared unfavorably to those of a servant. “Isn’t that what you do to lazy slaves, in the wild colonies?”

“No!”

Marie-Josèphe told the lie without a second thought because Mlle d’Armagnac made her angry, because her own family’s slaves had never been whipped, and because Odelette would never be whipped if Marie-Josèphe had anything to say about it. Nor would she be bled.

“Please, no, Mademoiselle, this is —” Marie-Josèphe could not bring herself to tell the King’s niece that Odelette always bled too heavily for her health. “It’s an old complaint.”

“Ah,” said Lotte, “it’s like that, is it?”

“She’ll be better this evening or tomorrow. I’ll tend to her as soon as you’re dressed.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Lotte said, “you’ll attend me, and go to the picnic.”

“But —”

“Shh!” Lotte called for a servant to take broth and warm flannel to Odelette.

“And to remind my brother of the luncheon, if you please, Mademoiselle. His work engrosses him so.”

“If we cannot whip the slave for dereliction, perhaps we can whip the brother,” Mlle d’Armagnac said, and all the ladies giggled at her daring wit.

“Of course, fetch Father de la Croix.” To Marie-Josèphe she said, “You both must see the Menagerie.”

“Mademoiselle, I haven’t anything to wear.”

Lotte laughed, threw open her cupboard, pulled out dresses, and chose a beautiful brocade. Marie-Josèphe might have been in a whirlwind for all the power she had: Lotte’s other ladies stripped her to her shift and stays and dressed her in the new gown, leaving her only a moment to blush furiously, fearing they might notice the rolled-up towel. She wished she had risked taking it off, for as yet it had been of no use.

“This is my best court gown from last summer,” Lotte said. “I was a little thinner, and you’re not so scrawny as some fashionable ladies — lace it up, it will look fine!

Now, you mustn’t bother that it’s a year old, with this season’s petticoat no one will notice.”

Marie-Josèphe doubted that. She was grateful for Lotte’s generosity, but she wondered, shamed by her envy, if she would ever have a new dress of her own.

oOo

Mademoiselle’s carriage rumbled down the road toward His Majesty’s Menagerie.

Marie-Josèphe sat beside Lotte, squeezed in among the other ladies in their full court dresses. Weariness overtook her. She tried to recall when she had last eaten, when she had last slept.

The gilded gates of the Menagerie swung open. The sound and smell of exotic animals filled the courtyard. Chartres, on horseback, accompanied by Duke Charles, met Lotte and escorted her through the gates toward the central octagonal dome.

Marie-Josèphe followed with the other ladies, noticing their significant glances, hearing their whispers about the attraction between Mademoiselle and the Foreign Prince.

They climbed to the balconies overlooking the animal pens. Cages of birds from the New World decorated the passageway: Bright screeching parrots and macaws, and hummingbirds who shrieked even more loudly.

At the central dome, servants held aside sheer white curtains. His Majesty’s guests stepped into a jungle.

Drifts of orchids covered the walls and ceiling, hot with color and lush as flesh.

Scarlet tanagers and cardinals screamed and fluttered on the branches, not caged, but entrapped with silken threads around their legs. A few had broken free and flew madly back and forth. Gamekeepers rushed back and forth as madly as the birds, trying to capture them before they soiled the food, trapping them in bags, tying them more tightly to the branches of the orchids.

The central dome was filled with tables laden with baked peacocks, their iridescent tails spread wide, with bowls of oranges and figs, roast hare, ham, and every sort of sweet and pastry. Marie-Josèphe could hardly bring herself to pass; the scents made her mouth water. Dizzy, she followed Mademoiselle past the curtain onto one of the balconies overlooking the animal enclosures.

A more pungent odor overwhelmed the smell of the food. In the tiny stone enclosure beneath them, a tiger paced two steps, flung itself around, paced two steps back. It stopped, looked upward, snarled, and launched itself toward Marie-Josèphe. Its claws scraped the wall beneath the balcony railing. Lotte and the other ladies shrieked.

Marie-Josèphe caught her breath in terror, frozen by the tiger’s glare.

On the ground again, the tiger growled and paced and jerked its tail and sprayed a cloud of acrid musk, the hot juniper reek of cat spray. The other ladies giggled, pretending to be frightened, pretending to be shocked. They had all been here a hundred times before.

“Did it frighten you?” Lotte asked. “It frightened me the first time I saw it.”

“It doesn’t frighten me,” Chartres said. He pitched a purloined orange at the furious tiger. The tiger swatted at its flank as if at a mosquito, catching the orange with its claw, ripping it in half, crushing it against the ground.

“I thought nothing could frighten you!” Lotte said to Marie-Josèphe. “I thought you’d pull off one of its whiskers to study.”

“I’d never pull the whisker off such a creature.”

“Are its claws so much sharper than the sea monster’s?”

“Sharper — and it has bigger teeth. It wouldn’t sing to me when I spoke to it!”

The ladies laughed. As if she had commanded it, music sparkled upward from the grotto beneath the octagonal tower.

“The musicians are in the grotto.” Lotte whispered, “It’s full of water pipes — if you know where the faucets are, you can soak anyone who walks through! My uncle the King used to douse anyone who dared enter. Such fun!”

The tiger diverted her from the fun. It hurled itself at the dividing wall between its compound and the next. The camels lurched away, grunting and spitting with fear. The stench of their shit mixed with the tiger’s scent-mark. Their fear aroused the lions in the next compound. The lions roared and the tiger challenged them; the camels huddled in the center of their enclosure. On the other side of the dome the elephant trumpeted in fury. An ancient aurochs, its red hide turned roan with age, tossed its wide horns and bellowed continuously. Leashed birds — bluebirds and bluejays — on the balcony shrieked and beat their wings. Torn feathers fluttered to the ground.

In the distance, the sea monster cried out in answer.

On the circle of balconies overlooking the enclosures, courtiers shouted and applauded. Chartres was not the only one to torment the creatures with oranges, or stones.

Everyone, even the animals, suddenly fell silent.

His Majesty had arrived.

All the court gathered in the central dome: the men, bareheaded, nearest His Majesty; the women at the back of the group, conscious of the honor, for women did not usually attend His Majesty’s public dinner. Marie-Josèphe looked for her brother, but Yves was nowhere to be seen. The bound birds cried and beat their wings. A cardinal broke free, hit the curtain like a powder-puff, fell stunned, recovered in mid-air, flew into the curtain again, and tumbled to the floor, its neck broken. A servant scooped it up and out of His Majesty’s sight.

His Majesty sat alone at a small, elegant table beneath an arch of scarlet and gold orchids; Monsieur stood nearby with his napkin. The most favored courtiers served his food: Count Lucien poured his wine. His Majesty ate as he performed every task: calmly, majestically, deliberately. He gazed straight forward, chewing steadily through course after course of his first meal of the day: a platter of thick soup, fish, partridge, ham and beef, a plate of salad.

After the partridge, His Majesty turned to Monsieur.

“Will you be seated, brother?”

Monsieur bowed low; a servant hurried to bring a chair of ebony and mother-of-pearl. Monsieur sat beside his brother, facing him, holding his napkin ready.

When His Majesty had finished his ham, he glanced toward M. du Maine, standing in the front row with Monseigneur the Grand Dauphin and the legitimate grandsons.

“M. du Maine, the weather is fine for Carrousel, is it not?”

M. du Maine replied with a bow even deeper than Monsieur’s. The legitimate son watched the bastard favorite with a foolish expression of transparent envy.

His Majesty ate alone. Out of respect for the King, Marie-Josèphe resisted the temptation to pilfer a bit of meat from the tables behind her. No one paid her any mind; if she dared, she could take the edge off her hunger. She might also find herself curtsying and trying to fashion a proper greeting through a mouthful of food. She imagined Count Lucien’s disapproval. She would die of embarrassment.

But I’m hungry enough to eat one of the sea monster’s fish, she thought. Alive.

Wriggling.

His Majesty finished, put down his knife, wiped his mouth, and dipped his fingers into a bowl of spirits of wine to clean them. When he rose, all his court bowed.

An instant later — as if by coincidence, but surely by careful plan — Pope Innocent, with his retinue of Bishops, Cardinals, and Yves, paraded into the dome. The courtiers bowed again.

“Cousin, welcome,” His Majesty said.

His Majesty, accompanied by his brother and his sons and grandsons, and His Holiness, accompanied by his bishops and cardinals and his French Jesuit, strolled together out of the hexagonal room onto the balcony overlooking the lion’s enclosure.

The musicians on the balcony — several strings and a harpsichord — struck up a bright tune.