“You’re like my old pony,” she said to the sea monster. “You just want to lick the salt off my skin!”
As Marie-Josèphe fed the sea monster, she petted her, continuing to tame her to her hands and voice.
“Say ‘sea monster,’” Marie-Josèphe said to the creature, holding out a fish.
“Fishhhh.” The sea monster’s parroting speech dissolved in a long complex song of melody and whistles. She snapped up the fish in two quick bites.
“Say, ‘Marie-Josèphe.’”
“Fishhhh!”
“Say, ‘Your Majesty honors me,’” Marie-Josèphe said, recklessly, flinging a fish into the pool in frustration. Again in frustration, she sang back at the sea monster.
The sea monster fell silent and stared at her.
Marie-Josèphe continued, singing the wordless song she had played for His Majesty.
The sea monster drifted closer and hummed an exotic, compelling, haunting second melody that broke every rule of music.
Tears spilled down Marie-Josèphe’s cheeks.
I have nothing to be sad about, she thought. Why am I crying? Because it’s my time of month...?
She scrubbed the tears away with the back of her hand.
But my time of month never made me sad before, she thought. Only impatient with the inconvenience, with being told I must not do this, I must not do that.
The sea monster took her hand. Hearing footsteps, Marie-Josèphe waved the net behind her, hoping the guard would understand that she wanted a fish.
She continued to sing. The sea monster embroidered variations on the melody.
The net left her hand and returned. The sea monster must have seen the morsel, for she ended her song, accepted her reward, and submerged with the fish held delicately between her claws.
“Thank you, sir.” Turning, Marie-Josèphe nearly ran into Count Lucien, standing behind her on the fountain’s rim.
“Your song was extraordinarily beautiful.”
“I thought you were the musketeer!” Marie-Josèphe said, too flustered to reply to his compliment.
He took the net from her hand and scooped up another fish. The sea monster swam to the stairs and snarled. Marie-Josèphe quickly threw her the treat.
The sea monster tossed the fish in the air, caught it, and let it swim free. Marie-Josèphe laughed, delighted by the sea monster’s play.
Beside the stairs, the sea monster rolled over and over in the water and splashed spray with her tail.
I wonder, she thought, how His Majesty would like a sketch of the sea monster juggling fish? I wonder how Count Lucien would like it?
“Stop it, sea monster!” Marie-Josèphe brushed droplets from the sleeve of her habit. “What do you want? You aren’t even hungry.”
“It wants to play,” Count Lucien said. “With the fish. Like a cat with a mouse.”
Marie-Josèphe scooped up the last live fish and threw them into the pond. They darted away. The sea monster whistled and dived, chasing them, letting them escape, flicking spray into the air.
“Good-night, sea monster!” Marie-Josèphe whispered.
The sea monster surfaced by the platform. Marie-Josèphe gave her a final caress. The sea monster took her hand and held it to her lips, wailing and touching Marie-Josèphe’s fingers delicately with her tongue.
Marie-Josèphe thought, Why would the sea monster lick salt from my hand, when she’s swimming in salt water?
The sea monster crawled up the steps to the edge of the small water, crying with despair and warning. The fearless, foolish woman of land walked bleeding toward great predators whose roars and snarls filled the darkness and the dawn. If the predators of land could smell as keenly as the sharks of the ocean, the woman was doomed.
The sea monster echoed the land-woman’s simple song of childish babble. Only silence replied.
The sea monster’s song of warning burst through the gardens, filled them, and faded away.
Calm once more, the sea monster washed thick salt tears from her eyes.
Singing a different song, soft and lyrical, she swam to shelter beneath the hooves of Apollo’s horses.
13
Marie-Josèphe was all too aware of the slickness of blood between her legs as Count Lucien escorted her from the tent. It was very awkward; the count courteously tried to allow her to precede him, while she tried not to turn her back on him. She hoped her burgundy habit would not show bloodstains.
Count Lucien might not realize I’m bleeding, even if he saw a stain, Marie-Josèphe thought. Do men take any notice? As for Count Lucien, he might not know what it means.
Then she wondered, Why is he here? and answered her own question: to observe His Majesty’s sea monster.
Outside the tent, the setting sun turned the Grand Canal molten gold. The moon, nearing full, loomed beyond the chateau. A groom on a dun cob held the reins of Count Lucien’s grey Arabian and a splendid bay of the same breed.
Marie-Josèphe curtsied to Count Lucien. “Good night, Count Lucien.” She rose, expecting his horse to bow so he could mount; expecting him to ride away.
“Can you ride, Mlle de la Croix?”
“I haven’t ridden for a long —” Then she thought — she hoped! — he might invite her, in the name of His Majesty, to ride with the hunt. “Yes, sir, I can.”
“Come speak to this horse.” He nodded toward the bay.
His requests, the requests of an agent of His Majesty, were more important than Marie-Josèphe’s embarrassment. She approached the horse, apprehensive. Stallions were said to go mad in the presence of a bleeding woman.
But the bay, like the grey, was a mare.
She let the bay mare lip her palm and caress her with the soft warmth of its muzzle. At the scent of fish, the Arabian blew out its breath, snorting softly. Marie-Josèphe blew gently into the mare’s nostrils. The bay pricked its ears forward and breathed against Marie-Josèphe’s face.
“How did you learn that?” Count Lucien asked.
Marie-Josèphe had to think back to her childhood, to the happiest times of her life.
“My pony taught me.” She smiled and blinked and glanced away, surprised by her tears. “When I was little.”
“The Bedouins speak to their horses in that manner,” Count Lucien said. “At times I thought they were kinder to their horses than to each other.”
“She’s beautiful,” Marie-Josèphe said. “Do you always ride mares?” She scratched the bay mare delicately beneath the jaw. The horse stretched its head forward, leaning into Marie-Josèphe’s fingertips.