Most of the other members of court could see Marie-Josèphe perfectly well. But that did not matter. All that mattered was that His Majesty should not be offended.
Madame caught Marie-Josèphe’s glance and shook her head with disapproval, but her lips twitched with heroically contained laughter. Monsieur, in a gentlemanly fashion, avoided looking, but Lorraine gazed straight at her. He smiled. She wrapped her arms around herself, embarrassed to be seen in such a state by such an elegant courtier.
I suppose I’d laugh, too, Marie-Josèphe thought. If I weren’t so cold.
“You gratify our faith in you, Father de la Croix.” His Majesty joined Yves on the platform within the fountain’s rim. “A live sea monster!”
“Your sea monster, Your Majesty,” Yves said.
“Monsieur Boursin, what is your judgment?” Louis said. “Will it be suitable for our celebration?”
M. Boursin, drab in the plain clothes suited to his place in the King’s household, hurried forward. He bowed, rubbing his hands together, tall and thin and cadaverous as the angel of death.
“Is it stout? Does it feed?”
Boursin peered into the pool. The sea monster swam around the sculpture of Apollo, singing a sorrowful song.
“It accepts only a little sustenance,” Yves said.
“Then you must fatten it.”
“You’re a Jesuit,” Louis said heartily. “You’re clever enough to make it eat.”
The sea monster attacked the cage again, splashing, rattling the iron bars.
“Make it stop thrashing!” M. Boursin said. “It mustn’t bruise its flesh.”
Marie-Josèphe wished she could speak to the sea monster to calm it, but she dared not raise her voice.
“I cannot,” Yves said. “It’s a wild animal. No man can control it.”
“It will calm,” Louis said, “when it has become accustomed to its cage.”
His Majesty stepped to the ground, the high heels of his shoes loud on the wooden stairs. Yves and M. Boursin followed.
“M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said courteously to Count Lucien.
“Your Majesty.”
“Mlle de la Croix,” Louis said, when he had left the cage, when his back was still turned.
Marie-Josèphe caught her breath. “Y-yes, Your Majesty?”.
“Are you hoping for a visit from Apollo?”
The courtiers laughed, and Marie-Josèphe blushed at the reference. The laughter died away.
“N-no, Your Majesty.”
“Come out at once, before you catch your death.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She struggled onto the platform. Count Lucien continued to conceal her with his cape, using his walking stick to raise it as she climbed the steps. The water was cold, the air on her wet skin colder. Shivering, dripping pond water, she stepped over the fountain’s rim, slipped past the courtiers, and hid in the shadows among the laboratory equipment.
Keeping his back turned, the King joined Mme de Maintenon.
“How do you like my sea monster, my dear?”
The chevalier de Lorraine strode past Count Lucien to Marie-Josèphe, sweeping his long dark cloak from his shoulders. Beneath it he wore a blue coat, the same shade as Count Lucien’s, though with less gold lace. The blue coat marked him as a member of Louis’ inner circle. Monsieur followed Lorraine with quick glances, trying but failing to keep his attention on the King.
“The creature’s horribly ugly, Sire,” Mme de Maintenon said.
“No uglier than a wild boar, madame.”
Lorraine swung his cloak around Marie-Josèphe’s shoulders. The fur-lined velvet, the warmth of his body, and the scent of his perfume enclosed her.
“Thank you, sir.” Her teeth chattered.
Lorraine bowed to her and rejoined Monsieur. Monsieur touched his arm. Diamond rings flashed in the candlelight.
“I think it’s a demon, Sire,” Mme de Maintenon said.
“Your grace, it’s a natural creature,” Yves said. “Holy Mother Church has examined its kind, and judged it merely an animal. Like His Majesty’s elephant, or His Majesty’s crocodile.”
“Nevertheless, Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “you might have captured a beautiful one.”
Yves strode to the dissection table, forcing Marie-Josèphe to retreat farther into the shadows. Count Lucien continued to hide her from His Majesty. Lorraine’s cloak concealed her soaked dress, but her hair hung in snarls around her face. Her headdress tilted at a ridiculous angle, stabbed her with its wires, and pulled her hair as it fell to the ground.
Yves unfolded the canvas shroud from his dead specimen. Ice scattered across the planks.
“The sea monsters are all ugly, Your Majesty,” Yves said. “Females and males alike.”
The courtiers clustered around him, anxious to see the dead creature. On the wall of the tent, shadows jostled for position near the shadow of Marie-Josèphe’s brother. Yves was the moon to His Majesty’s sun, and the other courtiers hoped to capture some of the reflected light.
“It reeks of foul humours.”
Marie-Josèphe peeked over the edge of Count Lucien’s cloak. Monsieur covered his nose with his handkerchief. Marie-Josèphe could hardly blame anyone not used to dissections, for wishing he had brought along his pomander.
“Stay out of sight, Mlle de la Croix,” Count Lucien said, with strained patience. He would prefer, of course, to be in his proper place beside the King. Louis, ever the gentleman, overlooked his absence.
Marie-Josèphe shrank back behind the concealing cloak, where she could see only the shadows of her brother, the King, and the courtiers.
“The preserving spirits do have a strong odor, Monsieur,” Yves said.
“I confess—if my confessor will excuse a moment’s infidelity to him—”
The shadow of Louis nodded toward Father de la Chaise, his confessor, and his voice bore only the faintest hint of mockery. Father de la Chaise bowed low.
“I confess that I doubted your claims, Father de la Croix,” the King said. “And yet you found the creatures, in the wild sea of the new world. Your predictions were correct.”
“All the evidence pointed to a single place and a single time of their gathering,” Yves said modestly. “I was merely the first to collect the reports. The monsters converge in the shelter of Exuma Island, where the midsummer sun crosses over a great ocean trench. There they mate, in animal depravity.”
An expectant silence fell.
“We need hear no more of that,” the Marquise de Maintenon said severely.
“Every subject’s fit for a natural philosopher to study!” The duke de Chartres broke in with the obsessive enthusiasm that earned him annoyance from the court and suspicion from the lower classes. “How else will we ever understand the truth of the world?”
“What is fit for a natural philosopher may trouble the minds of others,” His Majesty said. “Or lead us astray.”
“But the truth—”
“Be quiet, boy!” Madame’s tone was soft but urgent.
Marie-Josèphe felt sorry for Chartres. His position warred with his desire for knowledge. He would be happier if he was, like Marie-Josèphe, no one.
Happier, Marie-Josèphe thought—but he would not have all the best scientific instruments.
“Since the time of St. Louis,” His Majesty said, “no one has brought a live sea monster to France. I commend you, Father de la Croix.”
His Majesty’s deft change of subject eased the tension.
“Your Majesty’s encouragement guaranteed my success,” Yves said.
“I shall commend you to my holy cousin Pope Innocent.”