The Moon and the Sun

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.

He could not even claim an honorable injury. The careening crash of the wagon, the lurching gait of the cart-horse had not affected him. When the ache he suffered constantly rose to agony, the change struck after no particular action and no particular insult.

The only pattern Lucien had ever detected was inconvenience.

And that, he thought, is because any moment would be inconvenient. I must admit this moment is worse than most.

The King dismounted and entered the chateau. His companions closed in around him. They left no place for Lucien to stand; they had already obliterated his position. When the guards came, the rest of the courtiers rode away with the horses, never casting a backward glance. Lucien could not blame them. Anyone who defended him risked sharing his fate.

The guards surrounded the captives and marched them to the guard room of the State Apartments. Lucien leaned heavily on his sword-cane and managed to keep up, but only because the musketeers had to carry Sherzad. The sea woman lay limp in the net, keening an uncanny dirge. In the guard room, the musketeers dropped their burden and moved away, unnerved.

“She needs water, sirs,” Marie-Josèphe said, “or she’ll grow ill. Please be so kind as to give her a drink.”

“Be so kind as to give us all a drink,” Yves said. “And allow us to sit. We’ve been travelling all night.”

Yves’ plea irritated Lucien.

Do you embrace your suffering, priest, Lucien thought, but he resisted the temptation of speaking the irony aloud.

Scrupulously polite, the musketeer captain sent for wine and water. His men brought chairs. Yves sagged into his, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head down. Marie-Josèphe sat so gingerly that Lucien wondered if she had been hurt in the wagon crash. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to comfort her; he wanted her comfort. But the guards would stop him; he had all he could do now to maintain his demeanor.

The captain offered Lucien a chair.

“Do you expect me to sit in the presence of His Majesty?” Lucien asked, his tone severe. He thrust his walking-stick toward a portrait of Louis. Pain stabbed up his back into both shoulders.

“I beg your pardon, M. de Chrétien,” the captain said. “But will you take wine?”

One of the musketeers poured the wine. Yves drank thirstily.

“I will drink to His Majesty.” Lucien lifted the goblet to Louis’ portrait in a pure arrogant salute and tossed the wine down in one gulp. The captain joined the toast.

“No, thank you,” Marie-Josèphe said, when one of the guards offered her the wine. “I mean no disrespect to the King, but… I cannot.”

Lucien realized why she was so uncomfortable, why she would not drink though her lips were dry and her refusal full of regret, and why she was so embarrassed.

“Allow Mlle de la Croix the use of the privy,” Lucien said quietly to the captain.

The captain hesitated, but he knew as well as everyone at court, the endurance of His Majesty’s bladder as well as His Majesty’s habit of travelling without thought for the comfort of ladies. He bowed to Lucien and ordered his men to escort all three captives to relieve themselves.

“Quickly, though, His Majesty will want them soon.”

Alone, Lucien leaned against the wall, letting the stone cool his face. He shivered.

The captain sent in water and towels. Lucien wiped away the worst of the mud, brushed the dirt from his gloves, and straightened his clothes. He wished for a change of linen. He was not fit to face the King, and he was soaked with cold sweat. He never grew used to the cold that accompanied hot pain. The flask of calvados in his pocket tempted him, but the fire of the liquor would do nothing to quench the fire in his back. He pulled a white ribbon from his Carrousel hat, now sadly bedraggled, and tied back his equally disheveled perruke.

“What about the sea monster, M. de Chrétien?” the captain asked when he returned. “Will it piddle on the carpet?”

“Mlle de la Croix is the expert.”

“I don’t know.” Marie-Josèphe drank deep from her goblet, and did not refuse when the captain refilled it. “Sherzad’s never been in a house, she’s never seen a carpet, she wouldn’t know what to do in a privy.”

“It won’t drink.” One of the musketeers stood over Sherzad with a water bottle; the sea woman had not piddled on the rug, but the bottle had dripped upon it.

“Let me sit with her,” Marie-Josèphe said.

The captain allowed Marie-Josèphe to kneel beside Sherzad. Lucien joined her. Yves hesitated, then followed. Lucien put his hand on Marie-Josèphe’s shoulder. She covered it with her fingers, warming and thrilling him. He imagined that the fire of her touch burned away a fragment of his pain.

“My dear friends,” Marie-Josèphe whispered.