Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

He could not even claim an honorable injury. The careening crash of the wagon, the lurching gait of the cart-horse had not affected him. When the ache he suffered constantly rose to agony, the change struck after no particular action and no particular insult.

The only pattern Lucien had ever detected was inconvenience.

And that, he thought, is because any moment would be inconvenient. I must admit this moment is worse than most.

The King dismounted and entered the chateau. His companions closed in around him. They left no place for Lucien to stand; they had already obliterated his position. When the guards came, the rest of the courtiers rode away with the horses, never casting a backward glance. Lucien could not blame them. Anyone who defended him risked sharing his fate.

The guards surrounded the captives and marched them to the guard room of the State Apartments. Lucien leaned heavily on his sword-cane and managed to keep up, but only because the musketeers had to carry Sherzad. The sea woman lay limp in the net, keening an uncanny dirge. In the guard room, the musketeers dropped their burden and moved away, unnerved.

“She needs water, sirs,” Marie-Josèphe said, “or she’ll grow ill. Please be so kind as to give her a drink.”

“Be so kind as to give us all a drink,” Yves said. “And allow us to sit. We’ve been travelling all night.”

Yves’ plea irritated Lucien.

Do you embrace your suffering, priest, Lucien thought, but he resisted the temptation of speaking the irony aloud.

Scrupulously polite, the musketeer captain sent for wine and water. His men brought chairs. Yves sagged into his, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head down. Marie-Josèphe sat so gingerly that Lucien wondered if she had been hurt in the wagon crash. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to comfort her; he wanted her comfort. But the guards would stop him; he had all he could do now to maintain his demeanor.

The captain offered Lucien a chair.

“Do you expect me to sit in the presence of His Majesty?” Lucien asked, his tone severe. He thrust his walking-stick toward a portrait of Louis. Pain stabbed up his back into both shoulders.

“I beg your pardon, M. de Chrétien,” the captain said. “But will you take wine?”

One of the musketeers poured the wine. Yves drank thirstily.

“I will drink to His Majesty.” Lucien lifted the goblet to Louis’ portrait in a pure arrogant salute and tossed the wine down in one gulp. The captain joined the toast.

“No, thank you,” Marie-Josèphe said, when one of the guards offered her the wine. “I mean no disrespect to the King, but… I cannot.”

Lucien realized why she was so uncomfortable, why she would not drink though her lips were dry and her refusal full of regret, and why she was so embarrassed.

“Allow Mlle de la Croix the use of the privy,” Lucien said quietly to the captain.

The captain hesitated, but he knew as well as everyone at court, the endurance of His Majesty’s bladder as well as His Majesty’s habit of travelling without thought for the comfort of ladies. He bowed to Lucien and ordered his men to escort all three captives to relieve themselves.

“Quickly, though, His Majesty will want them soon.”

Alone, Lucien leaned against the wall, letting the stone cool his face. He shivered.

The captain sent in water and towels. Lucien wiped away the worst of the mud, brushed the dirt from his gloves, and straightened his clothes. He wished for a change of linen. He was not fit to face the King, and he was soaked with cold sweat. He never grew used to the cold that accompanied hot pain. The flask of calvados in his pocket tempted him, but the fire of the liquor would do nothing to quench the fire in his back. He pulled a white ribbon from his Carrousel hat, now sadly bedraggled, and tied back his equally disheveled perruke.

“What about the sea monster, M. de Chrétien?” the captain asked when he returned. “Will it piddle on the carpet?”

“Mlle de la Croix is the expert.”

“I don’t know.” Marie-Josèphe drank deep from her goblet, and did not refuse when the captain refilled it. “Sherzad’s never been in a house, she’s never seen a carpet, she wouldn’t know what to do in a privy.”

“It won’t drink.” One of the musketeers stood over Sherzad with a water bottle; the sea woman had not piddled on the rug, but the bottle had dripped upon it.

“Let me sit with her,” Marie-Josèphe said.

The captain allowed Marie-Josèphe to kneel beside Sherzad. Lucien joined her. Yves hesitated, then followed. Lucien put his hand on Marie-Josèphe’s shoulder. She covered it with her fingers, warming and thrilling him. He imagined that the fire of her touch burned away a fragment of his pain.

“My dear friends,” Marie-Josèphe whispered.

Her voice failed her. She stroked Sherzad’s shoulder, her bruised hip. The web of Sherzad’s hand was torn. Clotted blood covered her ankle; bruises covered her neck. She lay with her eyes closed, her dirge nearly inaudible. Marie-Josèphe held the water bottle to Sherzad’s mouth. The sea woman did not respond.

“Sir, may I have the wine?”

The captain handed her the bottle. She poured a few drops on her fingers and wetted Sherzad’s parched lips. The sea woman dreamily, delicately, licked away the wine.

“His Majesty requires your presence.”

Marie-Josèphe walked beside Lucien into the Salon of Apollo. Yves walked alone, his head bowed, his hands folded in his sleeves. Guards flanked them, and carried Sherzad with them. The sea-woman’s moaning echoed in the chamber.

Lucien faced His Majesty. Seated on the throne, the King gazed down at his former favorites. Monseigneur and Maine, Lorraine and Chartres stood around him, stern and silent. Only Monsieur offered a sympathetic glance. Only he could dare to, but even he could not help.

Sweat covered Lucien’s face, and his hand clenched around his walking-stick; he had to push himself upright from his bow.

Marie-Josèphe offered His Majesty a deep curtsy, but her attention remained on Lucien. Is he injured? she thought. Was he hurt in the wagon crash? I’ve never before seen him succumb to his pain.

“I respect my opponents in war,” Louis said. “But I despise friends who betray me.”

“Sire, I’m the one at fault!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “My brother, and Count Lucien—”

“Be quiet! Do you expect mercy because you’re a woman? I’m no fool, mademoiselle, no matter how you’ve played me.”

“I expect no mercy for myself, Your Majesty.” But she had hoped to beg mercy for Sherzad, for Lucien, for Yves.

“And you, Lucien. Will you explain yourself?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Lucien said.

Lucien’s curtness to the King shocked Marie-Josèphe.

“Will you not ask me for the favor I promised?”

So furious, so affronted, that he took a moment to reply, Lucien said, “I asked it of you already, Sire.”

“Stop that noise!” the King cried to Marie-Josèphe.

“I cannot. Sherzad is singing her death song.”

“M. Boursin!”

M. Boursin hurried forward in his shambling bony way.

“Take the creature. Butcher it. Now.”

“But, Your Majesty, the banquet is almost about to start, Your Majesty, there’s no time to prepare it, Your Majesty, if it didn’t please you I should kill myself—”

“Do as you like,” Louis said. “Spare me your protestations. We’ll eat the monster raw and bloody.”

“Your Majesty, I, I will think of something, Your Majesty—”

Marie-Josèphe began to cry, silently, with grief.

Lucien took her hand. Marie-Josèphe could not stop crying, but she had never been so grateful for the comfort of another human being.