Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

She sat up, weak and light-headed.

Yves woke. “Sister—are you recovered?”

“How could you let him bleed me?”

“It was for your own good.”

He had found her sketches. He flicked through them, his face impassive.

“The sea woman told me that story,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The true story of the hunt. You caught three sea people. Not two. They struggled. The sailors killed one—”

“Hush,” he said. “ I told you the story.”

“You never did. They killed one. They ate his flesh. You ate—”

“—the flesh of an animal! It was delicious. Why shouldn’t I eat it?”

“You claim to love truth! But when you hear it, you deny it. Please believe me. Yves, my dear brother, what’s changed so, that you have no faith in me?”

Her agitation woke Haleeda. “Mlle Marie?” She pushed herself up on her elbow, blinking sleepily. Marie-Josèphe took her hand, desperate for her comfort.

“The sea monsters are beasts, created for the use of man,” Yves said. He sat next to her on her bed. “You should retire from court. Too much attention has distracted you. In a convent, you’d be safe from this agitation of your spirits.”

“No.”

“You’d be happy, back in the convent.”

“She’d never be happy there!” Haleeda cried.

“For five years, I read no books,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sisters said knowledge would corrupt me, like Eve.” She had tried to forgive her brother his awful decision, but she could not let him repeat it. “I heard no music. The sisters forbade it. They said, Women must be silent in the house of God. The Pope demands it. I did without books, without studying—I had no choice! I couldn’t stop my thoughts, my questions, though I couldn’t speak them. Mathematics—!” Her laugh was wild and angry. “They said I was writing spells! I heard music that was never there, I could never stop it, no matter how I prayed and fasted. I called myself a madwoman, a sinner…” She looked into his face. “M. Newton replied to my letter—but they burned it, unopened, before me. How could you send me there, where every moment tortured me? I thought you loved me—”

“I wanted you to be safe.” His beautiful eyes filled with sudden tears. He put his arms around her, relenting, hugging her protectively. “And now, I’ve asked too much of you—the work is too difficult.”

“I love the work!” she cried. “I do it gladly. I do it well, and I’m not a fool. You must listen to me!”

“I have the obligation to guide you. Your affection for the sea monster is unnatural.”

“My affection for her has nothing to do with what she told me. You know her stories are true.”

He knelt beside her bed. He took her arm.

“Pray with me,” he said.

Prayer will comfort and sustain me, Marie-Josèphe thought.

Marie-Josèphe slipped to the floor and knelt. She folded her hands, bowed her head, and waited for the welcome embrace of God’s presence.

“Odelette, join us, pray for Marie-Josèphe’s recovery.”

“I will not!” Haleeda said. “I’ll never pray like a Christian again, for I am a free woman, and a Mahometan, and my name is Haleeda!” Hugging herself for warmth, she turned her back and stared into the moonlit gardens.

“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God…”

Does God have a plan for my suffering? she wondered. But my suffering is nothing, compared to the martyrs—compared to the despair of the sea woman. Other people undergo bleeding without a second thought. I should submit to it bravely.

Instead, she had forced Lorraine to behave in a way that destroyed her high opinion of him. She no longer cared what Lorraine thought. She had diminished herself in Count Lucien’s estimation, which mattered to her a great deal.

“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God, please speak to me, please direct me. Tell me what is right and proper for me to do.”

She begged, she even dared to hope, for a reply. But in the face of her entreaties, God remained silent.

Moonlight flooded through the window and pooled on the floor. Marie-Josèphe slipped out of bed. She stood still; a dizzy weakness passed.

Haleeda slept soundly; Yves was gone. Shivering, Marie-Josèphe slung Lorraine’s cloak over her shoulders and crept into the dressing room. She held herself up by leaning against the wall, by grasping the doorjamb.

Lorraine’s perfume surrounded her. Her stomach clenched. She flung down the cloak and struggled not to vomit. She would never wear the cloak again, no matter how soft and warm it was. She would burn it, if she had a fire.

She opened the window and gazed into the night. The moon, two days from full, loomed over the sea woman’s prison. Marie-Josèphe tried to sing, but she could only whisper.

Yet the sea woman heard her, and replied.

She’s still alive, Marie-Josèphe thought. Bless Count Lucien—

Marie-Josèphe snatched up her pen. A new scene for the cantata poured from the sea woman’s song. The pen sprayed tiny grace-notes above the staff. The candle puddled and drowned.

She wrote the last few notes and waved the page in the air to dry the ink. The cantata was complete.

Marie-Josèphe drew the tapestry from the harpsichord and flung it around her shoulders. She opened the keyboard.

In the shadowy dawn, tears running down her face, she played the story of the sea people’s tragedy.

Lucien attended the King’s awakening, but his thoughts were elsewhere. While Dr. Fagon did his work, Lucien blotted the perspiration from His Majesty’s forehead. He bowed to His Majesty when the King led the procession to Mass, but Lucien did not follow. A church was the one place where he would not follow his King.

“Dr. Fagon.”

Lucien and the First Physician were alone in His Majesty’s bedroom. The doctor looked up from studying the results of His Majesty’s regular purge.

“M. de Chrétien,” he said, bowing.

Count Lucien returned Fagon’s salutation with a nod.

“Mlle de la Croix is better, I trust? I shall look in on her later.” Fagon shook his head with disapproval. “No wonder she broke down, with all her unwomanly tasks. Someone should speak to her brother. I’ve planned an extensive course of bloodletting.”

“That will not be necessary,” Lucien said.

“I beg your pardon?” Fagon exclaimed.

“You’ll let no more blood from Mlle de la Croix.”

“Sir, are you instructing me in my profession?”

“I’m instructing you that she wants no more treatment, and I’m instructing you to respect her wishes.”

Lucien spoke quietly. Dr. Fagon was well aware of Lucien’s influence with His Majesty, the favor the King showed him, and the peril of ignoring him.

Fagon spread his hands. “If His Majesty commands—”

“It is unlikely in the extreme that His Majesty would observe your treatment.”

“It is likely in the extreme that His Majesty’s spies will observe!”

“No one need be present who might betray you. Can you not trust M. Félix?”

Fagon considered, then bowed again. “I shall observe your instructions, subject only—”

Lucien raised one eyebrow.

“—only to His Majesty’s presence.”

Lucien bowed in return. He could not ask Dr. Fagon to defy the King’s orders, in the King’s presence. He hoped Mlle de la Croix would not ask it of him.

The harpsichord traced the story of the sea monster hunt. When Marie-Josèphe began the cantata, she thought the story altogether heroic. With every revision, it had become more tragic.