Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

A nobleman writhed on her bed, scrabbling beneath the bedclothes, his hat upside-down on the rug and tangled with his coat. His breeches twisted around his knees. His shirt hiked up, exposing his naked buttocks. One of his shoes flew from his foot and clattered to the floor.

“You want me.” Desperation thickened the familiar voice. “I know you want me.”

“Please—”

Marie-Josèphe bolted forward and grasped the young man’s shoulder. Odelette clutched his arms, her fine dark hands clenching, fighting.

“Go away,” said Philippe, duke de Chartres. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

“Leave her alone!” Marie-Josèphe cried. “How dare you!” His lace shirt tore in her hands.

“Mlle de la Croix!”

Astonished, flustered, Chartres leaped from the bed and fumbled to cover himself. Odelette sat up, her blue-black hair spilling around her shoulders, her eyes pure black in the candlelight, her complexion suffused with heat.

“How dare you, sir! How do you come to assault my servant!”

“I thought—I meant to—” His hair stood out in wild ringlets. “I thought she was you!”

He smiled into her silence. Odelette burst into tears.

Chartres bowed to her. “Though I would certainly enjoy an hour in your company.”

Odelette flung herself around and sobbed into her pillow.

“I believe you do not dislike me,” Chartres said.

He held out his hand. Marie-Josèphe slapped him hard.

“How dare you think I’d welcome the attentions of a married man—of any man not my husband!”

Marie-Josèphe pushed past Chartres. She sat next to Odelette and gathered her into her arms.

“If you intended to drive me away,” Chartres said, “you might as well have pelted me with roses.”

“Leave us, sir.”

“You tempted me, mademoiselle, and now you wrong me.” Chartres gathered up his plumed hat, his gold-laced coat, his high-heeled shoe.

The door slammed.

“Oh, my dear, are you all right? Did he hurt you? I swear I never gave him reason to think I—or you—”

Odelette sobbed and pushed her away, more violently than Marie-Josèphe had pushed Chartres.

“Why did you interfere? Why did you stop him?”

“What?” Marie-Josèphe asked, baffled.

“He might have got a bastard on me, he’d acknowledge me, he’d buy me and free me and take me home—my royal husband!” She cried out in anger and grief and drew her knees to her chest and buried her face and wrapped her arms over her head.

Marie-Josèphe stroked her hair until her sobs eased.

“He can never marry you. He’s already married.”

“That only matters in your world—not in mine!”

Marie-Josèphe bit her lip. She knew only what Odelette’s mother had told them both, about Turkey. Odelette saw it as a paradise, but Marie-Josèphe did not.

“He’d never acknowledge you. Or any child you bore him.”

“He would! He must! He has other bastards!”

“But he thinks of you as a servant. He’d command me to turn you away—turn you out—you and your baby!”

Odelette raised her head, glaring with such fury that Marie-Josèphe drew back in astonishment.

“I am a princess !” Odelette cried. “Slave or no, I am a princess. My family is a thousand years older than Bourbons—or any Frenchman. My family ruled when the Romans skewered these barbarians on their spears!”

“I know.” Marie-Josèphe dared to hold her.

Odelette huddled against her, shivering with despair, crying with rage.

“I know,” Marie-Josèphe said again. “But he wouldn’t acknowledge you. He wouldn’t take you to Constantinople. I’d never turn you out, but if he applied to the King and the King banished you, I could never stop him.”

She stroked Odelette’s long hair. It tumbled down her back and pooled on the bed behind her.

“I’ll free you,” Marie-Josèphe said.

Odelette drew away and looked into her face. “She said you never would.”

“Who?”

“The nun. The mother superior. Whenever I did her hair, when her lovers would come—”

“Her lovers!”

“She did have lovers, I don’t care if no one believes it.”

“I believe you,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I’m astonished, but I believe you.”

“—she said you would never give me my freedom. She said you refused to give me up.”

“The sisters persuaded me it was a dreadful sin to own a slave—”

“It is,” Odelette said severely.

“Yes. But they never wanted me to free you. They wanted me to sell you, to give the money to the convent.” She held Odelette’s hands and kissed them. “I feared to do that, dear Odelette. They never let me speak to you, I never knew what you wanted, and I thought—though sometimes I wondered—no matter how dreadful it is here, it could be so much worse…”

“It was never dreadful at the convent,” Odelette said. “I dressed their hair. I would rather embroider the linen of nuns than wash your brother’s stockings…”

Tears ran down Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks, tears of shock at Chartres’ actions, relief at Odelette’s revelation, and, if she admitted it, of self-pity, because for Marie-Josèphe the convent had been terrible.

“No wonder Mademoiselle and Queen Mary steal you away from me,” she said, trying to smile. “But that doesn’t matter now. I refused to sell you—”

“I’m glad of that,” Odelette said. “I shouldn’t be a slave. I’ll never be a slave except to you.”

“You’ll never be a slave to anyone,” Marie-Josèphe declared. “You are free. We shall be as sisters.”

Odelette said nothing.

“I’ll ask—” Marie-Josèphe hesitated. She doubted her own judgment, for she had trusted Chartres. “I’ll ask Count Lucien.” Count Lucien, though a dangerous freethinker, at least was honest. “He’ll know how to go about it—what papers you want—but from this moment you are free. You are my sister.”

“Yes,” Odelette said.

“I promise you.”

“Why have you waited so long?”

“You never asked it of me before.” Marie-Josèphe dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She took Odelette by the shoulders. “What was the difference in our station? We lived in the same house, we ate the same food, if you washed my brother’s stockings, I washed his shirt! I never thought of you as slave or free.”

“You cannot understand,” Odelette said.

“No, I cannot. Until the sisters plagued me about my sin, I never thought of it, and for that I beg your forgiveness. But, dear Odelette, afterwards I did think, and I thought, if I free you, the convent will put you out in the street with nothing. No resources, no protector, no family. I had nothing to give you!”

“I can make my own way,” Odelette said angrily.

“And you shall, if you wish. But, think, sister, our fortunes are improving. If you wait, only a while, I’m convinced, if you stay with me, you’ll share in them. You’ll go into the world better than a lady’s maid. You might go to Turkey—if you truly wish to go to Turkey, which you have never seen—”

“As you had never seen France,” Odelette said, “but here you are.”

“That’s entirely different,” Marie-Josèphe said.

“How, Mlle Marie?”

“Perhaps it isn’t different after all, Mlle Odelette. But if you do go home to Turkey, would it not be better to return rich and well-attended, as suits your true station, rather than as a maidservant, or a gypsy?”

“That would be better,” Odelette said. “But… I cannot wait too long.”

“I hope you won’t have to,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Now, come, go back to sleep if you can. I’ll lock the door.”