Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

“I don’t care about that!” Marie-Josèphe said. “If you weren’t Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien, I’d feel the same.”

“Ah. If I were a starving peasant, beaten because I couldn’t pay my taxes, my hovel pillaged by the soldiers of my own King—you’d love me?”

“You’re an atheist , and I love you.”

Lucien’s sense of the ridiculous evaporated his anger. He laughed. When he regained control of himself, he said, “Mlle de la Croix, if I were a peasant, I’d have been sold to gypsies in my cradle… or drowned, like the child in Sherzad’s story.”

“Surely, no, not now . Not you .”

“Mlle de la Croix, you want a husband.”

“Yes, Count Lucien,” she said softly.

“I’ll never marry. I’ll never bring a child into this life.”

“But your life is wonderful. The King loves you, everyone respects you—”

“Pain torments me,” he said, telling her what he never admitted to anyone, except a lover.

“Every life bears pain.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” he said, irritated by her ignorant assurance. “I am in pain every moment of my existence. Except when I love a woman—” He hesitated, then began again. “When I love a woman, especially if I loved a woman, how could I pass my affliction to her children? You want a husband, you want children. I will never marry, and I will never father a child.”

“God gives us little choice in that matter,” she said. “If we choose love.”

He laughed at her. “No god has anything to do with it. Even the most unimaginative lover can trouble to wrap his member in a baudruche. We have one way to make a child, a thousand ways to love.” He said again, “I will never marry,”

“Why are you saying this to me?” she cried. “Why not say, I have no affection for you, I cannot return your love?”

“Because I promised to tell you the truth, if I knew it.”

She fell silent with hope and confusion.

“Do you still want me?” Lucien asked. “As your lover?”

“I… It isn’t right, Count Lucien, I can’t—” She blushed and stammered; she spread her hands in supplication. “The Church says—My brother wouldn’t—”

“I’m perfectly indifferent to the wishes of the church or to the demands of your brother. What do you want?”

She answered his question, if obscurely. “If you marry, your children might be—they might not—”

“My father is a dwarf. He retired, crippled—”

His father had ridden beside Louis XIII; valiant, renowned, he had ridden in the service of the child-King Louis XIV during the civil war.

Lucien’s father no longer rode.

“I am my father’s image,” Lucien said.

“Rumor says—”

“Rumor lies.”

“Many people believe it.”

“Louis has enough misshapen children without counting me among his brood. Besides, he acknowledges his bastards.”

She sank down before him and grasped his hands.

“I didn’t make up Sherzad’s story, I didn’t conspire with her to hurt you. I heard the story as you did, as she sang it. If I’d known what she planned, I would have made up a story. I’d never willingly cause you pain. I beg you, please believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said gently. “But I can’t give you what you wish for. If you love me, I’ll break your heart. If you defy His Majesty for the sea woman’s sake, the King will break your heart. Or worse.”

“But Sherzad is human . As human as you or I.”

“Yes,” Lucien said. “Yes, I believe it. Only a human could be so cruel.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“Not cruel to me,” he said. “Cruel to you.”

Footsteps drew Yves from his fugue, the footsteps and the fear they struck in him. Few members of the court of Versailles visited the chapel unless His Majesty was in attendance. Yves could not face His Majesty. He raised himself on his elbow, stiff from the chill of the marble.

“There you are.” Marie-Josèphe’s voice chilled him.

Yves noticed what he should have seen long before: her exhaustion, her despair, her love for him, her disappointment.

“I was worried.” She sat on the confessional bench. “Forgive me.”

He opened his mouth to reply, to chastise her—

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Yves climbed to his feet. “It isn’t proper for you—for me—”

“You promised to hear confession. You promised His Holiness.”

She folded her hands in her lap and sat with preternatural stillness. As a child, she could sit in the woods till she became invisible to the birds and the creatures. She would never move until he overcame his terror and heard her confession.

He sat beside her. He stared at his hands. “How did you sin, my child?”

“I lied to my King.”

“That never bothered you before!” he exclaimed.

“About the sea woman.”

If she had made up everything about the sea monster, then how could she also know—But it did not matter.

“I thank God that you’ve repented,” he said, relieved. “Go, and sin—”

“I’m not finished! ” Marie-Josèphe said. She looked straight at him. “No sailor took Sherzad’s token! You know it, but you said nothing. She said, The dark man took it. The dark man, the man in black robes.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “The man who is my brother.”

“You saw the ring—you guessed—”

“I’ve never seen it. You took it while she fainted, after you forced seaweed and dead fish down her throat—”

“It did speak to you…” Yves whispered.

“I couldn’t say to the King, My brother is a common thief. So I lied! I lied, and my lie may kill Sherzad!”

Yves pulled the ruby ring, the gold ring with the shiny stone, from his pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

He fled the chapel.

He flew down the hill to the Fountain, leaving Marie-Josèphe struggling to keep up. He pushed his way through the visitors, flung open the cage door, and ran down the stairs. His breath tore his throat.

Oblivious to the spectators, Yves stepped off the platform. The water rose up around him, soaking his cassock. He waded toward Apollo.

“Sea woman! Sherzad!”

The sea woman surfaced beneath Triton. She spat at Yves and snarled.

“Forgive me, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand—I didn’t believe…”

The sea woman watched him, submerged but for the top of her head and her eyes.

Marie-Josèphe hurried to the Fountain. Yves turned to her.

“Tell her—I thought nothing of taking her ring. I thought, how strange to find rubies tangled in an animal’s hair…”

“Tell her yourself,” Marie-Josèphe said, out of breath. “But you frighten her, so be gentle.”

“I captured you,” Yves said. “I allowed your friend to die, and now I’ve sentenced you to death as well. I didn’t understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, for the love of God, please forgive me.” He held out the ring, offering it to her.

Sherzad swam slowly closer, keening.

Outside the tent, draft horses stamped impatiently, jingling their harness. Their driver waited for his cargo, to take it to the sea.

Marie-Josèphe sat on the rim of the Fountain of Apollo, holding Sherzad’s hand, stroking her coarse dark hair. The sea woman lay on the steps, bracing herself on the stone rim; she leaned against Marie-Josèphe, dripping fetid water, her naked body warming Marie-Josèphe’s side. She pressed her cheek into Marie-Josèphe’s palm, wetting it with her tears. Marie-Josèphe held her close, wishing she could comfort her. The song of Sherzad’s mourning pierced her skin like tiny knives.