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Marie-Josèphe ran over the rim of the Fountain and down to the platform. The sea monster had not tried to escape a second time, for the planks were dry.
It must be terrified, Marie-Josèphe thought, sighing. Frightened animals are so hard to train.
She splashed the water with one hand, patting the surface as she would pat her bedcovers to call Hercules.
“Come, sea monster. Come here.”
The sea monster watched her from beneath the dawn chariot.
Marie-Josèphe swished a fish through the water. The sea monster raised her head, opened her mouth, and let the water flow over her tongue.
“Yes, good sea monster. Come, I’ll give you a fish.”
The sea monster spat the water noisily into the pool.
“Can you make it eat?”
Startled, Marie-Josèphe turned. “Count Lucien! I did not... I mean, I thought...”
He stood on the fountain’s rim, looking at the sea monster. She had not heard him approach. He turned his cool gaze to her.
“Did you not recognize me,” Count Lucien asked, “without my mustache?”
His tone was so dry that she was afraid to laugh, afraid she might be misinterpreting his joke.
He had shaved his fair mustache. Perhaps someone had told him courtiers these days wore mustaches only during military campaigns, and shaved them off — to be cleanshaven like His Majesty — when they returned to Versailles. He had changed his informal steinkirk tie for proper lace and ribbons, and his tied-back military wig for a fashionably styled perruke. Its curls cascaded down the shoulders of his gold-embroidered blue coat. Most of the other courtiers wore black perrukes, like the King’s, but Count Lucien’s was auburn. The color flattered his fair complexion, and his pale grey eyes.
“I recognize you,” Marie-Josèphe said stiffly. “But you attend to the King’s business, so I did not expect to speak with you.”
“The sea monster is the King’s business, Mlle de la Croix,” he said. “Your brother has the charge of it —”
“I have the charge of it, sir, while he studies the dead specimen.”
“In that case, you must expect to speak to me quite often. Can you persuade the beast to feed?”
“I hope so.”
“Your brother force-fed it.”
“I’m sure I can tame it to eat from my hand.”
“The sea monster need not be tame. His Majesty requires only that it be sleek.”
He bowed and left her, climbing down from the Fountain’s low rim awkwardly, like a child, and leaning on his walking-stick.
On the other side of the Fountain, a driver backed his wagon to the cage. Workmen rolled the barrels down the wagon-bed. The rolling barrels thundered. A gardener appeared from nowhere and raked the wagon tracks out of the gravel.
A workman crashed his sledgehammer against the barrel top, staving it in. Sea water gushed into the pool.
As other workmen in other wagons broke more barrels, the cool scent of the ocean drifted through the air. Ripples and bubbles roiled the surface of the fountain.
With a thrust of its powerful tails, the sea monster propelled its body upward. Water spilled from its open mouth, dripped from its dark hair, and trickled down its body. A tangled lock of its hair had turned light green.
Should I worry about the faded color? Marie-Josèphe wondered. Could it be a sign of illness?
The sea monster trilled a musical cry and ducked its head beneath the surface.
It dove into the pool, leaving hardly a ripple. When it surfaced, a live fish, a silver sea fish, struggled between its teeth. The sea monster flicked the wriggling fish into the air and caught it in its mouth. The tail twitched between the sea monster’s lips. The sea monster swallowed. The fish disappeared.
“Live fish!” Marie-Josèphe said. “It wants live fish!”
The sea monster dove again and raced toward the wagons, toward the fresh sea water. When the cage stopped it, it grabbed the bars and shook them. The iron rattled and rang, like spears clashing. The sea monster screamed and thrust its arm between the bars, snatching at the driver’s ankle.
“Get away, you devil!” The driver stumbled back, surprised and frightened. He fell against a barrel. It rolled, spun, and crashed to bits against the cage. Staves and iron straps rained into the pool. The sea monster screamed again and shook the bars till they shuddered and clanged.
Terrified, the driver grabbed up his whip. Its lash cracked in the air near the sea monster’s hands.
“You damned demon!” The whiplash exploded again.
The sea monster screamed in terror and splashed away beneath the water.
“Stop!”
Marie-Josèphe ran out of the cage and around the edge of the fountain toward the driver. The huge draft horses stamped and snorted.
“Stop!” Marie-Josèphe cried again. The sea monster shrieked and whistled.
Panicked and furious, the driver raised his hand as if to crack the lash again, as if to whip Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe froze, too astonished for fear.
Count Lucien’s ebony walking-stick caught the driver’s wrist at its height, stopping the downstroke. The big man pushed against the cane, too frantic to understand that a touch of restraint, rather than violence, had stopped him.
“Driver!” Count Lucien said.
The driver realized what he had almost done, what he had done.
Count Lucien lowered his cane and sat back in the saddle. The grey Arabian stood stock-still, only its ears moving, swiveling toward its rider, flicking toward the driver, toward the moans and trills of the sea monster.
“Mlle de la Croix has the charge of His Majesty’s sea monster,” Count Lucien said.
“Sir, I — mamselle, your pardon —” In horror and remorse, the driver flung the whip to the ground.
“You are dismissed.” Count Lucien’s tone made his meaning clear: the driver was not to return.
The driver was half again Count Lucien’s height, three times his weight; the knife on his belt exceeded the length of the count’s dirk.
His size made no difference. His punishment could have been far worse, and might be if the musketeers arrived before he fled. The driver grabbed his reins and shouted a curse at his horses. They plunged forward. The wagon rumbled. The gardener hurried out again to sweep the tracks clear.
“Count Lucien —” Breathless, her knees wobbly, Marie-Josèphe could think of nothing to say.
“You will not be further troubled.”
He nodded to her. As he rode away, he leaned down, hooked the whip with his walking-stick, wrapped it into a loose coil, and laid it across the pommel of his saddle.
