Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Volume 10

Annette drew her fan up to her ear and flicked Sylvain a telling glance from across the room. He took Gérard’s arm. “Come along; we are being summoned to an audience with Madame.”

The royal mistress was dressed in white and silver. Her snowy wig was fine as lamb’s wool, her skin frosted with platinum powder. A bouquet of brightly clad ladies surrounded her like flowers around a statue. The monkey slept in her lap. She had tied a silver ribbon around its neck.

The standard palace practice was to praise Madame’s face and figure in public and criticize it in private. Sylvain had seen her often, but always at a distance. Now after months of maneuvering, he was finally close enough to judge for himself.

“A triumph worthy of our Turkish friends, is it not?” Madame offered Sylvain her hand. “I shall never be able to enjoy champagne at cellar temperature again. It is so refreshing. One feels renewed.”

“Our host has distinguished himself,” said Sylvain, brushing her knuckles with his lips. Madame let her fingers linger in his palm for a moment before presenting her hand to Gérard.

“Le Turque is an old man and has resources appropriate to his age and rank,” said Madame. “I wonder how young men can become distinguished in the king’s gaze.”

“Perhaps by murdering the king’s enemies on the battlefield every summer?” said Gérard.

The ladies tittered. Madame slowly drew back her hand and blinked. Pretty, thought Sylvain, at least when surprised.

“Excuse my friend, Madame. Cold champagne has frozen his brain.”

Madame eyed Gérard up and down. “Everyone respects our valiant soldiers, and your devotion to manly duty is admirable.” She turned back to Sylvain. “If your brawny friend the Marquis de la Châsse is content with his achievements, who are we to criticize? But you, monsieur, I know you care about the honor of France both on and off the field of war.”

“Every Frenchman does, madame, but especially when he has been drinking champagne,” said Sylvain. Gérard lifted his glass in salute.

Madame flicked her fan at Annette. “You may have heard an idea of mine. At first, it was just an idle thought, but now le Turque has thrown down the gauntlet. Is there a man who will accept the challenge?”

“No man could refuse you anything, madame. The rulers of the world fall at your feet.”

“I would rush to serve you,” said Gérard, “if I had any idea what you meant. Madame is so mysterious.”

Madame dismissed Gérard with a flick of her fan. “Be so good as to fetch me one of those dancers, monsieur.”

“A Turk with a full magnum, Madame?” Gérard saluted her and set off with a jaunty military stride.

Madame shifted on the sofa. She seemed to be considering whether or not to invite Sylvain to sit. Then she lifted the monkey from her lap and set it beside her.

Not nearly so lovely as Annette, Sylvain decided.

“You may not know, monsieur, how highly you are praised. I am told that even when the Bassin d’Apollon was new, fountain-play was a parsimonious affair, the water doled out like pennies from a Polish matron’s purse.”

She paused to collect dutiful titters from her ladies for this jab at the queen. Perhaps not pretty at all, thought Sylvain. Hardly passable.

“You have found a way to keep all of the fountains constantly alive without pause. Some members of the royal household call you a magician, but the word from the highest level is less fanciful and more valuable. There, you are simply called inspiring.”

Sylvain puffed up at the praise. Gérard returned with a beefy Turk. The dancer’s fingers were blue from the cold, and he struggled to fill Madame’s saucer without dribbling.

“Just like a commander on the battlefield, a woman judges a man by his actions.” She lifted the monkey and planted a kiss between its ears. “Any other man would have collared this monkey’s neck with a diamond bracelet before presenting it to a lady of the court. We would call that vulgar.”

Her ladies nodded.

“You have taste and discernment. So give me champagne, free-flowing and cold. That is a triumph worthy of Versailles.” She presented her hand to Sylvain again, then waved him away. The ladies closed around her like a curtain.

“Vulgar, indeed,” said Gérard as they retreated. “I’ve never seen a woman greet a diamond with anything other than screeches of delight. Have you?”

“My experience with diamonds is limited.”

“Madame knows it. She was spreading you with icing.”

“She wants to secure a valuable ally. Compliments are the currency of court.”

Gérard drained his champagne and rubbed his knuckles over his jaw as if it ached. “She just wants to drink champagne at another man’s expense. As with most pleasures, it comes with a little pain. She wants the pain to be yours, not hers.”

“The champagne fountain is a whim. She will ask me for something else next time.”

“Very well. Madame will ask you to do something expensive and original with only a few pretty words as payment. Will you do it?”

Two full glasses of red wine had been abandoned at the foot of a statue. Sylvain fetched them and passed one to his friend. After the sweet champagne, the warm wine tasted flat and murky as swamp water.

“Only a fool would pass up the opportunity.”

“PAPA, COME PLAY!”

The nixie swam backward against a vortex of current, dodging spinning hunks of ice that floated like miniature icebergs, splintering and splitting as they smashed together. Overhead, the red-and-blue parrot climbed among the fern fronds, screeching and flapping its wings.

As he had suspected, the little fish loved ice. He had once seen a nixie swimming at the foot of a glacier, playing with ice boulders as they calved from the ice field’s flank. The nixie had pushed them around like kindling, building a dam that spread a wide lake of turquoise meltwater over the moraine.

“Papa, come play!”

“Papa!” The parrot screeched its name.

Sylvain had purchased the bird from an elderly lady who was moldering in a north-wing garret, wearing threadbare finery from the Sun King’s reign and living off charity and crumbs of her neighbors’ leftover meals. The parrot was a good companion for the little fish. It was old and wily, and with its sharp beak and talons, it was well equipped to protect itself if she got too rough. It could fly out of reach and was fast enough to dodge sprays and splashes.

“Papa?” The nixie levered herself up the lip of her nest and stared at Sylvain expectantly. “Papa come play?”

Sylvain felt in his pockets for the last of the walnuts. “Here, little one. See if you can lure Papa down with this.”

“Bird! Food!” she yelled, waving the walnut aloft. The parrot kited down to the nest and plucked the nut from her fist.

“Come play, Papa?” she asked. She wasn’t looking at the bird. Her uncanny gaze was for him alone.

“That’s quite enough of that,” he said. “The bird’s name is Papa, and you’ll do well to remember it, young lady.”

She leaned close and spoke slowly, explaining. “Bird is Bird, Papa is Papa.”

“Papa,” agreed the parrot, its beady gaze fixed on Sylvain.

“You are impossible.” Sylvain waved at the surface of the pond, which was now carpeted with icy slurry circulating in the slowing current. “Clear away your toys or I’ll freeze swimming across.”

“Papa go away?”

“The bird is staying here with you. I am going to see about my important business. When I come back, I’ll bring more walnuts for Papa and nothing for you. Now clean up the ice.”

She laughed and dove. The water bubbled like a soup pot, forcing the slush to congeal into wads the size of lily pads. As the turbulence increased the leaves tilted and stacked, climbing into columns of gleaming ice that stretched and branched overhead.