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Barefoot and in her shift, she faced the window and the twilight.
“Come out,” Count Lucien said. “It isn’t so dangerous.”
She took his hand and crept onto the ledge beside him. She clutched the statue of a lutenist, her hand on the musician’s bare breast. No one would mistake her for one of the statues, for she had on too many clothes.
Count Lucien scrambled up the wall, showing her old and well-used hand and foot-holds. From the roof, he reached down to help her.
Voices drifted upward. Guests streamed out of the chateau, onto the terrace. Marie-Josèphe shrank behind the musician.
“Hurry!”
She stole after him, partly hidden by the statue as she climbed. In an exhilarating moment she was over the edge and sitting on the low-pitched roof.
“You’re right, Count Lucien,” she said. “The view is much better from here. But if His Majesty found out — !” She drew her knees up under her shift and hugged her arms around them. The roof tiles gathered the day’s warmth.
“His Majesty spent a good deal of time on these roofs, when he was a youth.”
“Why?”
“To visit his paramours — and the parlourmaids.”
Marie-Josèphe gave him a startled glance.
“You’re in no danger of seduction, Mlle de la Croix. The roof is an adequate seat, but an uncomfortable bed. I’ve told you —”
“That I’m in no danger from you. I trust you, sir.”
“— I’ve told you, I require all the comfort I can find.”
“Do you have any calvados?”
“I left my flask in my coat.”
“Too bad,” Marie-Josèphe said.
“I do recommend sobriety on some occasions.”
“Such as?”
“Climbing to the roof of a chateau.”
She laughed. In the midst of the laughter she felt like bursting into tears.
“And perhaps sobriety’s best when you lose your temper. I’m sorry my brother and I caused you such annoyance today,” she said. “But... you were very severe with Yves.”
“He spoke to me like a servant! How did he — how did you — expect me to reply? Mlle de la Croix, you have no idea how severe I can be. If you’re fortunate, you’ll never see me lose my temper — when I’m sober.”
“I’m so sorry we offended you —”
“He offended me. You only requested that I accomplish the impossible.”
“That doesn’t offend you?”
“To be thought a miracle worker?” Count Lucien smiled, and Marie-Josèphe considered herself forgiven.
“Will you forgive Sherzad for causing you pain?” As soon as she had spoken, she wished she had not, but she could not call back her words. She tried to soften them. “I know she never meant —”
Count Lucien turned to her abruptly, silencing her with a gesture. “Her story gave me understanding,” he said, “as I have no doubt she intended. You must believe that it makes no difference.”
“Only the King’s belief matters.”
“Yes.”
“It would cost him nothing to free her.”
“Nothing?” Lucien exclaimed. “Immortality?”
“She cannot bestow immortality, Count Lucien, I promise you. Only God can do that.”
Count Lucien gazed down across the gardens, somber.
“I’m sorry,” Marie-Josèphe said.
“I hoped...” Count Lucien shook his head. “What will happen, when he dies...”
“We all must die. He’d kill her for nothing.”
“No. He has public reasons to dominate the sea monsters. It adds to his glory and his power. It demonstrates the vitality of France.”
“What a great deal to ask of one small sea monster! Should she win the war, end the famine, and fill the treasury as well?”
“If she could do that by living instead of by dying,” Count Lucien said, “then His Majesty might free her.”
The moon, nearly full, blossomed over the roof of the chateau behind them. A ragged cloud passed across its face, fragmenting its silver light like falling petals. The shards of silver fell gleaming across Count Lucien’s head and shoulders, across his short hair, so blond, so fair, the color of white gold. The moonlight traced his profile, the arch of his eyebrow.
Lucien turned toward Marie-Josèphe, wondering why she had gasped.
“You aren’t His Majesty’s son!”
“So I’ve assured you,” Lucien replied.
“You’re the son of —”
“I am my father’s son.” Lucien spoke sharply, trying to distract her from her dangerous insight.
“— the queen!” she exclaimed. “Queen Marie Thérèse! You have her fair hair, her grey eyes — she loved you —”
Very few people had ever divined the truth of Lucien’s parentage, or, if they had, they had the sense to remain silent about it.
“The greater love she bore was to my father.” Lucien could not lie to Marie-Josèphe de la Croix. “And my father loved his Queen. He responded to her grave unhappiness. He loves his King. He gave the King his respect and his friendship. The queen is dead and beyond reproach, but my father is alive: if you shout your suspicion to the world, you accuse him of treason, and me of —”
“I’ll never speak of it again,” she said.
They sat together in silence. Below them, the gardens filled with people: His Majesty’s royal guests, the court, His Majesty’s subjects. Clouds gathered above the park, blocking out the moonlight.
“How was it possible?” Marie-Josèphe whispered.
Lucien smiled. Despite the risks of knowledge, he appreciated the recomplications. “My birth was worthy of a Molière farce. And indeed M. Molière considered a play on the subject: A noblewoman — he did not quite dare to make her the Queen — bears the child of her noble dwarf lover, who — in the midst of a dozen court observers! — exchanges his infant son for the newborn daughter of the queen’s jester’s mistress, and spirits the boy away to his gracious wife, so they may claim him as their own, while a convent fosters the changeling, and the true child returns to his true mother as her page, like any noble youth —”
“What a remarkable tangle,” Marie-Josèphe said.
“Yes.”
“Molière never wrote his play.”
