Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

He tied her hair back with his own ribbon, letting his chestnut perruke fall free around his shoulders.

“I liked Chartres,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “A sweet boy—I thought! What did I do, to make him behave so?”

“He behaved so because he wished to, and because he can indulge his wishes,” Count Lucien said. “It had nothing to do with you, except that you appeared in his sights like an antelope.”

Marie-Josèphe stroked Zachi’s shoulder. “But I escaped, because you surround me with afrits to watch me.”

“Zachi is only a horse,” Count Lucien said. “A remarkably swift horse, but only a horse, after all.”

He guided Zelis to Zachi’s left, where he straightened Marie-Josèphe’s cravat and arranged it like a steenkirk, fastening its end to her hunting jacket with his own diamond pin.

“I’ll be in the forefront of fashion,” Marie-Josèphe said.

“At its very zenith.”

Marie-Josèphe gathered the reins in her right hand. Swelling and waves of pain made her left hand useless. She nestled it in her lap.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You are flushed with fever.”

“With the wind. With escape—”

Count Lucien took her hand. She pulled away.

“Truly, nothing—”

“Be still!” Count Lucien said sharply. He exposed her wrist. His fair complexion paled to chalk white.

The red streaks had turned ugly purple. Dried blood stuck the bandage to her skin. Her arm throbbed. She thought, Though he’s an officer, he doesn’t like the sight of blood.

“I’ll send to my lodge for M. de Baatz’ salve. It’s infallible for wounds and fever. It saved my life this summer.”

“I’m very grateful to you, sir.”

“Can you ride back, or shall I fetch a carriage?”

“I can ride.” She was ashamed to admit she feared being left alone. “I’m very strong, I never get sick.”

“Good. If you ride, no one will be tempted to send for Fagon.”

To avoid Dr. Fagon, Marie-Josèphe thought, I’d ride to the Atlantic—I’d ride the Silk Road to the Pacific. At the shore, Zachi will turn into a sea horse, the sea woman will magically meet us, and we’ll all swim to Martinique.

“M. de Chrétien,” she said, “I don’t have delusions.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“When I thought I saw Yves in the garden, bleeding—when I fled from the tiger that wasn’t there—it was the sea monster, as I thought she was then. It was the sea woman, showing me how to hear her. Teaching me to recount her stories.”

“Hard lessons.”

“Effective ones. As you heard—”

“Yes,” Count Lucien said. “It was extraordinary.”

They passed the trampled, bloody hunting meadow. Dogs growled over offal; servants gutted the catch and loaded it onto carts. Powder smoke thickened the air. The scent of blood and fear dizzied Marie-Josèphe. Her cheeks burned. She sought to distract herself from the fever, from the throbbing of her arm.

“May I ask you something, Count Lucien?”

“Certainly.”

“Madame said something I didn’t understand. She said, ‘I wish Monsieur would love someone worthy of him.’ How can such a great princess consider herself unworthy?”

“You misunderstood her,” Count Lucien said. “She meant he loves Lorraine.”

“Lorraine?”

“Monsieur,” Count Lucien said carefully, “has been passionately attached to M. de Lorraine these many years.”

Marie-Josèphe considered. “Do you mean, like Achilleus and Patroklos?”

“Rather, like Alexander and Hephaestion.”

“I didn’t know…”

“It isn’t much spoken of, being so dangerous.”

“…anyone in the modern age was like Alexander. I thought passionate love between men was as mythical as centaurs—Did you say, dangerous?”

“Without His Majesty’s protection, Orléans and Lorraine might both be burned.”

“Burned! For love?”

“For sodomy.”

“What is sodomy?”

“Passionate love between men,” he said. “Or between women.”

She shook her head, confused.

“Physical love,” Count Lucien said. “Sex.”

“Between men?” Marie-Josèphe asked, amazed. “Between women!”

“Yes.”

“But why?” she exclaimed. She asked nothing about how, because she had little notion of the how, between a man and a woman, and she was not supposed to possess such knowledge.

“Because your Church forbids it.”

“I mean, why would they want to, without the promise of children—”

“For love. For passion. For pleasure.”

She laughed outright. “Oh, nonsense!”

“You’re laughing at me, Mlle de la Croix. Do you know more of sex than I do?”

“I know what the nuns told me.”

“They know nothing of sex at all.”

“They know it’s a sin, a plague upon the human race, a curse for women, a trial for men, to remind us of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.”

“ That is the nonsense.”

“What have I said to make you so angry?”

“You? Nothing. But your teachers make me angry. They have corrupted your intelligence with lies.”

“Why would they lie?”

“That has always puzzled me,” Count Lucien said. “Perhaps you should ask Pope Innocent—but I doubt he’d tell you the truth either.”

“Will you?”

“If you wish.”

She hesitated. She had always sought the truth, in all other ways.

“I’ve always been told,” she said, “that modest young women should know nothing of intimate matters.”

“You’ve been told to restrict yourself in all manner of ways—your studies, your music, your intelligence—”

“I wish you to tell me!”

“The truth,” Count Lucien said. “Passionate love—sexual love—is the greatest pleasure one can experience. It dispels sadness. It banishes pain. It’s like the finest wine, like the morning of a day of perfect weather, like the most beautiful music, like riding free forever. And it’s like none of those things.”

Count Lucien’s voice—could it only be his voice?—made her pulse race with the excitement of danger and forbidden sins. Her arm throbbed, but at the same time a mysterious string of ecstasy tightened, its note rising toward the music of the spheres. Marie-Josèphe caught her breath.

“Enough, please.” Her voice shook. Her body trembled with the same pleasure that had awakened her to the sea woman’s song.

“As you prefer.”

Riding in the cool forest shade, she regained her composure. “Count Lucien, if M. de Lorraine loves men—what does he want with me?”

“M. de Lorraine does not so much love men, or women, as himself and his own interest.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me? Warn me?”

“Perhaps because you didn’t ask.”

“I always asked questions, when I was a child.” She met his transparent grey gaze. “I delighted in asking.”

“You may ask me whatever you like, Mlle de la Croix, and if I know the answer I will tell you.”

Zachi snorted. Undergrowth crackled nearby.

“There she is, our lost Mlle de la Croix!”

Lorraine, Chartres, and Berwick burst out of the forest, whipping their lathered horses. Chartres forced his mount ahead of the others.

“I thought you’d been eaten by a bear!” Chartres cried. He aimed for Marie-Josèphe, but found himself separated from her by Zelis and Count Lucien. His horse tossed its head. Bloody foam flew from the bit.

“Bears are shy,” Marie-Josèphe said. “They’ll never harm you, unless you provoke them. Unlike other predators.”

“The provocation is so delightful,” Chartres said. “I may die of a broken heart.”

Berwick and Lorraine spurred their powerful, exhausted horses up close behind Zachi and Zelis.