“No one will even notice that I wasn’t there,” Yves said heartily. “Did the sea monster feed?”
“It ate a few fish,” Marie-Josèphe said miserably.
“That’s wonderful!” Yves exclaimed. “And much more important to the King’s approval. I knew you’d succeed.”
“You are so good to me,” Marie-Josèphe said. “To suffer my error without anger — to make it sound like an achievement!”
“Never think another thing about it,” he said. “Now, leave me to dress, in proper modesty.”
She kissed his cheek. As she passed through the dressing chamber that joined their bedrooms, he called out, “Sister, can you find bread and chocolate? I’m famished.”
5
Marie-Josèphe trudged back down the hill to the Fountain of Apollo and the sea monster. Beyond everything else, her error had caused her to miss going to Mass with His Majesty and his court in the chateau’s small chapel. She whispered a prayer, and promised God that she would go to evening Mass, even though no one else would attend.
She returned to the Fountain of Apollo and entered the tent. The sea monster’s song drew her, but she hesitated. Determined to put aside her worry and embarrassment, so as not to communicate her distress to the creature, she spent some minutes arranging Yves’ instruments for the dissection. The specimen lay beneath a layer of melting ice; water dripped down the legs of the dissection table to form a puddle speckled with bits of sawdust.
Marie-Josèphe settled a sheet of paper on her drawing box so she would be ready when Yves began his work. Thinking again about the fluttering leaves, she scribbled an equation of the calculus in Herr Leibniz’ notation. A moment told her that the solution was insufficient, and that the problem was worth pursuing.
The sea monster whispered, and softly cried. Marie-Josèphe rubbed out the equation so no one could read it. Once more in possession of her equanimity, she entered the sea monster’s cage. The creature peered at her from beneath the sculpture. Its long dark hair, with its odd light green tangle, swirled around its shoulders.
“Come to me, sea monster.” She scooped a fish from the jar — the poor things gasped at the surface; they would all soon expire — took it from the net, and dipped the slippery twitching animal into the pool.
The sea monster dove toward her, its sad song rising eerily. Marie-Josèphe agitated the water with the fish.
The sea monster lunged forward, snatched the fish — claws scraped lightly against Marie-Josèphe’s hand — and stuffed it into her mouth as she dove back and away. Droplets splashed Marie-Josèphe’s face and beaded on her riding habit. She flicked them off before they could stain the velvet. Encouraged if not satisfied, she caught another fish.
The sea monster grew bolder. Soon it dared to take its food delicately from Marie-Josèphe’s hand. The touch of its swimming webs was like silk. Instead of fleeing, it floated within her reach as it ate. Marie-Josèphe moved her hand closer, closer, hoping to accustom the creature to her touch.
Noise and motion startled them both. The tent sides fluttered as a rider galloped by and pulled up in a scatter of gravel. The sea monster snarled and spat, reared in a backward dive, and sped to its sanctuary beneath Apollo. Marie-Josèphe sighed with frustration.
Chartres flung aside the tent curtains, clanged open the cage door, and tramped over the rim of the fountain. The high heels of his shiny gold-buckled shoes struck the platform sharply. Marie-Josèphe curtsied to the duke. Chartres grinned and bowed over her hand.
“Good morning, Mlle de la Croix.”
Flustered and flattered, embarrassed by her water-wrinkled fingers, by the fish scales — and the fishy odor — on her hand, she extricated herself from his grasp, and curtsied.
“Good morning, sir.”
His light brown curls — his own hair, not a wig — gleamed against the collar of his dove-grey coat. He continued to wear his informal steinkirk tie; he kept his mustache. Lotte had confided, giggling, that he sometimes darkened its color with her kohl.
He peered out into the fountain, squinting. She felt sorry for him for being partly blind.
“Where is it? Oh — there — no...”
“Under the dawn horse’s hooves,” Marie-Josèphe said. “See? If you’re quiet and still, it might come out.”
She captured a fish, thrust it into the cold pond, and swished it back and forth. It gave a weak twitch.
“Let me feed the beast!” Chartres said.
I can risk my own hand to the monster’s teeth, she thought. I can’t risk the duke’s. If it bites him, Madame would never forgive me.
She offered him the fish, but let it slip from her hand as if by accident.
“Sir, I’m sorry —”
“I’ll get it!” To her astonishment, he fell to his knees and plunged his hand into the pool, soaking the lace at his wrist. The fish sank out of his reach. It recovered and swam forward. The sea monster appeared, swimming face-up. It snatched the fish from below and darted away. Chartres nearly fell from the platform in excitement. Marie-Josèphe grabbed his wet sleeve and pulled him back.
“It’s magnificent!” he exclaimed. “I do want to help Father de la Croix.” He knelt beside her, oblivious to the effect of splinters on his silken hose. “If you talk to your brother — he might let me hand him his instruments. Or hold the viewing mirror. Or —”
Marie-Josèphe laughed. “Sir, you may claim a seat in the first rank. You’ll see everything. You can concentrate on the dissection completely.”
“I suppose so,” he said, reluctantly. “But your brother mustn’t hesitate to consult me — and of course he may use my observatory — You’ll tell him about my equipment?”
“Of course, sir. Thank you.” Chartres had the newest compound microscope, a telescope, and a slide rule that Marie-Josèphe coveted to the point of sin.
People whispered and gossiped about what Chartres did in his observatory, about poisons and magic and conjurings. They were so unfair, for he knew a great deal of chemistry and had not the least interest in poisons or in demons.
“Sir,” she said, offhand, hiding her anxiety, “have you seen my brother?” What if His Majesty had noticed Yves’ absence and grown angry? What if he had called him to task, what if the King had deprived her brother of his position, of his work?