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Desperate, Marie-Josèphe pounded on the bulkhead until her scratched hands bruised.
The hatch opened. Light poured in, dazzling her.
“Stop that noise.” The King stood before her. “You’ve exhausted my patience three times over.”
“Can’t you hear her? I freed her — she’ll keep her promise, she’ll lead me to your treasure.”
“I hear nothing. She has disappeared.”
“Shh. Listen.”
The King listened in skeptical silence. The ship rocked and complained around them; the pumps rumbled. Beneath the noise, Sherzad sang in a delicate low register.
“She promises. She says, The sand is covered with gold and jewels. She gives them to you, for my sake, despite your betrayals and your broken promises. Afterwards... she declares war on the men of land.”
“I wonder,” Louis said, “if she’s declared war on you.”
The King would never forgive her, treasure or not. Nor could Lucien hope to return to his proper place in the King’s esteem. Marie-Josèphe wondered if Lucien would ever forgive her.
On deck, Lucien peered into the dawn brilliance of the sea, searching for Sherzad. He had locked his dulled and broken sword in its sheath. He leaned on it and grasped the rail as well, preparing for seasickness.
Marie-Josèphe joined him.
Lucien glanced up. “You are perfectly magnificent.”
She sank down beside him and took his hand.
The captain bowed to His Majesty. “The ship may return to Le Havre, Your Majesty,” he said, “but I can’t answer for any hard sailing.”
Marie-Josèphe searched the horizon and the silver sparks of sunlight. She called Sherzad, but heard no answer. She’s out there, Marie-Josèphe thought. It’s so hard to find anything on the whole wide sea —
“Very well,” His Majesty said. “Return to Le Havre.”
A distant splash marred the perfect pattern of the surface of the sea.
“There!” Marie-Josèphe cried. “She’s there.”
“It’s only a fish,” the captain muttered. If the lure of treasure could not overcome his fears, the will of the King did. The captain sailed his ship in pursuit of Sherzad, though he set a sailor on the bow with a sounding-line. When Sherzad led them to a cove, he refused to take the ship inside.
“It’s treacherous, Your Majesty,” he said. “Look at the chart, the wind. We’d go in. We’d never come out.”
Marie-Josèphe fidgeted unhappily while the sailors lowered the skiff. They objected to her presence, even to Lucien’s, but the King climbed into the skiff and commanded Marie-Josèphe to accompany him, and he said nothing when Lucien climbed down the ladder too.
He believes my friend will be even more miserable in a smaller boat, Marie-Josèphe thought uncharitably. To her relief, Lucien’s discomfort eased.
The sailors rowed nervously after Sherzad. They whispered to each other, when they thought their passengers could not hear. They were afraid of Sherzad, afraid of more duplicity, afraid of ambush. Marie-Josèphe could not blame them. What’s more, she would not have blamed Sherzad if the sea woman fulfilled the sailor’s fears.
She caught only an occasional glimpse of the sea woman. Sherzad was frightened, too, of nets and guns, of explosive charges to stun her back into captivity. She hovered by the mouth of the cove, ready to flee at any threat.
In dangerous water among submerged fingers of stone, Marie-Josèphe stopped the skiff. At the mouth of the cove, Sherzad leaped from the water, flicked her tails in the air, dove, and disappeared.
“Here,” Marie-Josèphe said.
Sailors stripped and splashed over the side.
“Send all your men into the water.”
“Your Majesty,” the captain said, “the rest cannot swim. They must keep their strength — and their lives — to row us back.”
His Majesty acceded with reluctant grace. “Very well.”
The divers submerged, and ascended, and vanished again. Soon they were shivering. One surfaced coughing and half drowned. Louis allowed him five minutes’ rest.
“The sea monster has played you an ugly trick, Mlle de la Croix,” the King said.
“The treasure fleet is here,” Marie-Josèphe said.
“Dive again,” the King said to the exhausted sailor.
Marie-Josèphe sang to Sherzad, asking for more direction. She received no answer.
“She’s gone. Perhaps I’ll never see her again.” She wept. Only the touch of Lucien’s hand kept her heart from breaking.
As far away as she could see, a tiny splash burst from the ocean, and another, and a third, all in a group. Suddenly frightened, Marie-Josèphe trembled.
The exhausted sailor splashed through the surface, thrashing, kicking, shouting incoherently. His mates surfaced with him. The rowers thrust pikes and oars over the side, fearing sharks.
“For His Majesty’s glory!”
The divers raised their arms. The weight of handsful of gold and jewels pushed them back underwater. They struggled to the skiff and poured their treasures in a heap before the King.
A closed carriage drove Marie-Josèphe and Lucien to Versailles, at the end of a procession of wagons filled with treasure. His Majesty led in an open caleche. Aztec gold covered him like armor and decked the harness of his horses and spilled out to the wheels. A hundred musketeers guarded the convoy. People lined the road and cheered their King and stared at the treasure in wonder.
Marie-Josèphe peeked past the heavy curtain. Dust and shouts filtered into the carriage.
“He must admit he was wrong,” Marie-Josèphe said. “And we were right.”
“No,” Lucien said. “Right, wrong — what’s important is that we defied him.”
“But that’s nonsense.”
“He can’t afford to forgive us.” Lucien sighed theatrically. “I accept His Majesty’s wrath... As long as he doesn’t sentence us to the galleys — and send us to sea for the rest of our lives.”
Marie-Josèphe managed to return his smile. Lucien twisted the handle of his sword-cane and drew the broken blade.
“It served me well,” he said.
“And Sherzad. And me.”
He sheathed it and locked it. In the dimness of the carriage, his clear grey gaze touched Marie-Josèphe as gently as he had held her hand.
Marie-Josèphe moved from her side of the carriage to his. She took his hand, drew off his glove, and removed his rings. She hesitated when she reached the heavy sapphire, but he did not stop her. She slipped His Majesty’s ring from Lucien’s finger. She pressed her cheek against his palm.
