Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

“Odelette!” Marie-Josèphe ran to Odelette and flung herself into her arms. “How—where—Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

“Mlle Marie, you’re soaked!” Odelette pointed to the dressing-room door. “Go away, M. Yves, so I may get Mlle Marie out of these wet clothes.” Odelette had never, from the time they were all children, shown Yves a moment’s deference.

Yves offered her a mock bow and left to explore his rooms.

“Where did you come from? How did you get here?”

“Was it not your will, Mlle Marie?” Odelette unfastened the many buttons of Marie-Josèphe’s grand habit.

“It was, but I never dared hope they’d send you. Before my ship sailed, I wrote to the Mother Superior, I wrote to the priest, I wrote to the governor—” The clammy wet silk fell away, leaving her bare arms exposed to the cold night air. “And when I reached Saint-Cyr, I asked Mme de Maintenon for help—I even wrote to the King!” She hugged herself, trying to ward off the chill. “Though I don’t suppose he ever saw my letter!”

“Perhaps it was the governor. I attended his daughter during her passage to France, though the Mother Superior wanted to keep me.”

Odelette picked loose the wet knots of Marie-Josèphe’s stays. Marie-Josèphe stood naked and shivering on the worn rug. Her ruined gown and silver petticoat lay in a heap. Odelette hung the Chevalier’s cloak on the dress-rack.

“I’ll brush it, and it might dry unstained. But your beautiful petticoat—!” Odelette fell into their old habits of domesticity as if no time had passed at all. She rubbed Marie-Josèphe with a scrap of old blanket and chafed her fingers and arms to bring back some warmth. Hercules the cat watched from the window seat.

Marie-Josèphe burst into tears of anger and relief. “She forbade me to see you—”

“Shh, Mlle Marie. Our fortunes have changed.” Odelette held a threadbare nightshirt, plain thin muslin, not at all warm. “Into bed before you catch your death, and I have to send for a surgeon.”

Marie-Josèphe slipped into the nightshirt. “I don’t need a surgeon. I don’t want a surgeon. I’m just cold. It’s a long walk from the Fountain of Apollo when your dress is soaking wet.”

Odelette unpinned Marie-Josèphe’s red-gold hair, letting it fall in tangled curls around her shoulders. Marie-Josèphe swayed, too tired to keep her feet.

“Come, Mlle Marie,” Odelette said. “You’re shivering. Get in bed, and I’ll comb your hair while you go to sleep.”

Marie-Josèphe crawled between the featherbeds, still shivering.

“Come, Hercules.”

The tabby cat blinked from the window seat. He yawned, rose, stretched hugely, and dug his claws into the velvet cushion. One leap to the floor and one to the bed brought him to her side. He sniffed her fingers, walked on top of her, and kneaded her belly. The feathers softened his claws to a soft pressure and a faint sharp scratching sound. He curled up, warm and heavy, and went back to sleep.

“Put your arms beneath the covers,” Odelette said, trying to pull the covers higher.

“No, it isn’t proper—”

“Nonsense, you’ll die of a cold in your chest.” Odelette tucked the covers around her chin. Odelette spread Marie-Josèphe’s hair across the pillows and combed out the tangles. “You mustn’t go out anymore with your hair poorly dressed.”

“I wore a fontanges.” Marie-Josèphe yawned. “But the sea monster knocked it loose.” She lost track of what she was saying. “You should see the sea monster. You will see it!”

I’m still too excited to go to sleep, Marie-Josèphe thought. Then, a moment later, Odelette laid her heavy braid across her shoulder. Marie-Josèphe had already dozed, and had not felt Odelette finish her hair. Odelette blew out the candle. The smoke tinged the air with burned tallow. A shadow in the darkness, Odelette moved toward the window.

“Leave it open,” Marie-Josèphe said, half asleep.

“It’s so cold, Mlle Marie.”

“We must get used to it.”

Odelette slipped into bed, a sweet warmth beside Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe hugged her.

“I’m so glad to have you back with me.”

“You might have sold me,” Odelette whispered.

“Never!” Marie-Josèphe did not admit, to Odelette, how close she had come in the convent to repent of owning a slave. She did repent. The arguments had convinced her and guilt now troubled her. She had understood in time that the arguments were meant to persuade her to sell Odelette, not to free her. The sisters thought Odelette’s abilities too refined for the work in a convent, and would have preferred the money her sale would have brought.

I must free her, Marie-Josèphe thought. But if I free her now, I can only send her out into the world, a young woman alone and without resources. Like me, but without the protection of good family or a brother, without the friendship of the King. Her only resource is her beauty.

“I’ll never sell you,” she said again. “You’ll be mine, or you’ll be free, but you’ll never belong to another.”

A phrase of music, exquisitely complex, soared in and filled the air with sorrow.

“Don’t cry, Mlle Marie,” Odelette whispered. She brushed the tears from Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks. “Our fortunes have changed.”

Can you hear the singing? Marie-Josèphe asked.

Did I ask the question? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Or did I only dream it? Do I hear the sea monster’s song, or do I dream it, too?

A dreadful racket of tramping boots, rattling swords, and loud voices woke Marie-Josèphe. She tried to make it a dream—but she had been having a different dream. Hercules stared toward the door, his eyes reflecting the faint light, his tail twitching angrily.

“Mlle Marie?” Odelette sat up, wide awake.

“Go back to sleep, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Odelette burrowed under the covers, peeking out curiously.

“Father de la Croix!”

Someone pounded on the door of Yves’ room. Marie-Josèphe flung off the bedclothes and snatched Lorraine’s cloak from the dress stand. She opened the door to the corridor.

“Be quiet! You’ll wake my brother!”

Two of the King’s Musketeers filled the low, narrow hallway, the plumes of their hats brushing the ceiling, their swords banging the woodwork when they turned. Mud from their boots clumped on the carpet. The smoke of their torch smudged the ceiling. Burning pitch overcame the odors of urine, sweat, and mildew.

“We must wake him, mademoiselle.” The shorter of the two was still a head taller than Marie-Josèphe. “The sea monster—the tent is full of demons!” Indoors, and in a lady’s presence, the musketeer corporal snatched off his hat.

Yves’ door opened. He peered out sleepily, his dark hair tousled and his cassock buttoned partway and crooked.

“Demons? Nonsense.”

“We heard it—leathery wings flapping—”

“We smelled brimstone!” said the taller musketeer.

“Who’s guarding the sea monster?”

They looked at each other.

Yves made a sound of disgust, slammed his door behind him, and strode down the hallway with the musketeers in his wake.

“Mlle Marie—” Marie-Josèphe waved Odelette to silence. She hung back so Yves would not order her to stay behind. When the men disappeared, she followed.

She hurried down the back stairs and through the mysterious and deserted and dark chateau. Gentlemen of His Majesty’s household had already claimed the partially burned candles, a perquisite of their office. Her hands outstretched, she made her way through Louis XIII’s small hunting lodge, the heart of Louis XIV’s magnificent, sprawling chateau.