Vonda McIntyre - The Moon and the Sun

The sounds of the river changed. The silt was so thick she was nearly sound-blind. She surfaced for an instant; she kicked hard to raise herself above the mist. At the next bend, men and horses blocked the river. A long net stretched through the current. She dove again, hoping to find a way around it or beneath it. She slid past plunging hooves. When she touched the horses they screamed and thrashed and unseated their riders. The dangerous game gave her away. Riders jabbed with pikes and fired their muskets. Shot rushed past her, boiling the water with its heat; a ball snatched away a lock of her hair.

She dove. Stones weighted the net to the river bottom. Pushed into the net by the current, she fought to slip beneath the mesh. The hunters felt the strain. They pulled the net around her, tangling her, pushing her into shallows.

She erupted through the surface, burst through the mist, and flung herself over the net.

A piercing pain slashed into her foot. A furred and spotted predator growled and dragged her onto the stony bank. Sherzad writhed into the water, pulling the creature with her. Her blood filled the water, mixing with the predator’s musky pungent scent.

When the predator was submerged and vulnerable, Sherzad shouted out a sharp hard shock. Her voice, transmitted by the water, slammed into her attacker’s heart. The creature convulsed, bit hard, and fell dead.

Its mate leaped and fastened its teeth in Sherzad’s throat. She could not shout. She could not move. The predator’s canines pressed against arteries. One nip, and she would bleed to death. One hard bite, and the creature would sever her spine.

Sherzad went limp. Chaos and clamor swirled around her, the shouts of men and the blows of the pikes. The men of land beat the predator away and dragged her to the shallows. All she knew for sure was the touch of the net.

The Hurons, wearing their diamond suits and greatly amused, galloped toward Marie-Josèphe.

“Be still,” Lucien said quietly.

Marie-Josèphe was too distraught for fear. The Hurons raced past. The older man brushed a feather across her hair. The younger did the same to Yves. The old man galloped by again, leaning down to touch Lucien.

“They have claimed our hair,” Lucien said. “For my part, this perruke is ruined; they may have it.”

When the King rode away to meet his brother, Lorraine tied Marie-Josèphe’s hands to the traces of the cart-horses. Bedraggled, despondent, she made no objection. Yves struggled—a futile exercise—when Lorraine directed the musketeers to tie him at Marie-Josèphe’s left hand. Lucien bore the inevitable disgrace with arrogant disdain. Chartres and Maine bound him at Marie-Josèphe’s right.

“Someone in a high position could be of use to you now,” Lorraine said to Marie-Josèphe.

She raised her head and glared at him.

“A foolish reply.”

The horses lumbered forward. Lucien struggled to keep up, supporting himself awkwardly with his cane. The cart-horses plodded toward dawn.

“M. de Chrétien,” Lorraine said, “you are brought low.”

“And yet still you may slither beneath my foot.”

Lorraine slapped the rump of the near cart-horse. It lurched into a trot, pulling its pair with it. Lucien stumbled, recovered, scrambled.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said softly. The horses slowed, more out of exhaustion, he thought, than obedience.

It would please Lorraine, he thought, to drag me all the way to Versailles.

“Lucien—” Marie-Josèphe said.

“Shh.” He could not bear pity.

Marie-Josèphe twisted around, squinting into the darkness. “Did she escape?”

Splashing out of the shallows, His Majesty appeared through the mist. Monsieur and his teammates followed, carrying Sherzad. She was trapped in a net and suspended on poles. Marie-Josèphe sang; when the sea woman struggled, her song broke off in a sob. Sherzad wailed. Her eyes shone like a cat’s.

The young Carrousel riders, giddy with exhaustion and conquest, sparred with each other, jostled and joked, and jeered at Lucien. Old friendships dissolved without trace in the acid of the King’s disapproval. Lucien had seen it happen to others, this public humiliation. He had crafted his life so it would never happen to him. His painstaking work lay in ruins.

His Majesty stopped when he saw what the Chevalier had done. His gaze passed across Yves, and Marie-Josèphe, and the Chevalier, and fell finally upon Lucien.

“You have all gone insane.”

The sun was rising. The King sounded old, and exhausted.

Lucien and Yves rode the cart-horses, bareback, their hands unbound by the King’s command. Spent from her struggles and restrained by the net, Sherzad droned an eerie hum of grief that spooked riders and horses alike. Marie-Josèphe rode in the hunting chariot. Cheetahs shouldered and snarled, rubbing against her bedraggled petticoat. One sat on its haunches and watched her, its gaze on her bloodstained bodice.

The trip to Versailles took forever; it took no time at all. Marie-Josèphe pushed away exhaustion and despair, seeking escape. She matched her stance to Lucien’s: proud, shoulders straight, head up. Schemes occurred to her, each a more fanciful fairy tale than the next. If she could release the cheetahs from their collars—they might confuse the cavalry, they might frighten all the horses… but they might equally tear out her throat, or pounce on Sherzad when the riders dropped her carry-poles. If she could overpower the driver—she could gallop away in the chariot… but Chartres and Lorraine would make short work of catching her, their powerful war-horses against the stolid zebras. No matter how she escaped, in her fantasies, only Apollo dropping from the sky in his dawn chariot might free Sherzad. No matter how she escaped, the Carrousel riders surrounded Lucien and Yves.

We failed, she thought. Sherzad’s life is forfeit. I drew Lucien into a scheme he never meant to support, with what consequences to him?

She wiped her face indelicately on her sleeve, hoping her captors would think she had dust in her eyes.

Fire burst along Lucien’s spine.

He gasped and clutched the cart-horse’s mane. His sword nearly slipped from his fingers. All his senses turned toward the pain, shutting out the world. If he remained very still, he might not fall, he might not drop his sword, he might not lose consciousness.

“M. de Chrétien,” Yves whispered, “what’s wrong?”

“Don’t touch me, if you please.”

“You’re very pale…”

“It’s fashionable,” Lucien said.

Yves fell silent, for which Lucien was also grateful. Fire burned in his back, remorseless, worse than torture. If he were being tortured, he could recant or confess or convert and the torture would stop. When his body betrayed him this way, nothing, neither wine nor spirits nor loving caress, would stop the pain.

The procession plodded toward Versailles, past the Grand Canal, past the Fountain of Apollo; it continued up the Green Carpet, bearing the sea woman to the chateau.

Lucien reclaimed himself from his affliction long enough to understand the significance of their path. He could not see Marie-Josèphe’s face, but he had no doubt she understood too.

His Majesty has decided, Lucien thought, to end the sea woman’s life.

The procession stopped beneath the chateau’s north wing. Yves dismounted and walked stiffly around his horse. Lucien clutched the mane of his cart-horse and lowered himself to the ground before Yves could reach him. He leaned heavily on his cane, catching his breath.