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The sea monster released Marie-Josèphe’s hand. Though the marks of her claws remained, she had not broken Marie-Josèphe’s skin, or even scratched her.
The fish wriggled and splashed. The sea monster snorted and plucked the fish from the net, as Marie-Josèphe had shown her only once.
“Can you leap, will you play?” Marie-Josèphe said, speaking to herself more than to the creature. “If you entertained the King, he might spare you.” She gave the sea monster another fish.
“Fishhh!”
“You are very clever, but His Majesty already has parrots.”
The sea monster splashed away, arched her back, and sank slowly head-first into the water. She waved her webbed toes in the air. Marie-Josèphe laughed along with the visitors. Then the sea monster parted her double tail, exposing her female parts, opening the pink skin like a flower.
Spectators tittered and whispered.
Marie-Josèphe slapped the water.
“No!” she said severely as the sea monster splashed down and surfaced. You’re only a beast, she thought, but even a beast might offend Pope Innocent — or Mme de Maintenon. She remembered, blushing, the time at Saint-Cyr when an adolescent puppy, confused by its animal urges, had mistaken Mme de Maintenon’s ankle for a bitch. Mme de Maintenon had shaken her foot so hard that the poor silly dog, its tongue hanging out, its eyes glazed with its cravings, spun across the room and fetched up against the doorpost.
The sea monster swam to her, singing and snarling, splashing her hand on the water as Marie-Josèphe had done.
“Never mind,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “I know you don’t understand. I know you don’t mean anything by it.”
Back in Martinique, an old man who lived on the beach used to play with the dolphins. He threw them an inflated pig-bladder and they returned it to him, passing it from one to another as if they were playing tennis.
“Could you play tennis, sea monster?”
The sea monster spat and dived.
The cage door clanged; Yves descended the stairs in one long stride. The sea monster vanished beneath the water, leaving barely a ripple.
“Good morning,” Yves said.
“Isn’t it a glorious day?”
“It is glorious. Your sea monster looks much healthier. Practically sleek.” He smiled at her. “I knew that if anyone could persuade it to feed, you could.”
“She begins to obey me. And to speak.”
“Yes, like a parrot, I know.” Yves glanced away, troubled. “Don’t become too fond of the beast.” He sat on the edge of the fountain. “Don’t make it your pet. I can’t bear to think of your heart broken out of fondness for it.”
“Such a waste!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “Her kind is so rare... Can’t you —”
“My net caught the sea monster’s destiny. There’s no appeal.”
The sea monster, swimming slowly closer, flicked droplets at Marie-Josèphe’s skirt.
Yves offered Marie-Josèphe his hand; she took it. The sea monster hissed and flung a handful of water at them both. It splashed across Marie-Josèphe’s neck and shoulder, soaking her cravat.
“Oh — !” She brushed at the water, managing to sweep away the droplets before they stained her riding habit.
“Fishhhh!” the sea monster snarled.
Marie-Josèphe scooped a whole netful of fish from the barrel and freed them into the fountain. The sea monster chased them, diving with a great splash of her tails.
Marie-Josèphe’s hand cramped and her pen flew from her fingers, spattering ink across her sketch. The pageboy lunged to catch the quill, but it fluttered to the laboratory floor and stained the planking with a black blob. The boy snatched it up.
“Yves, a moment, please.”
Stiff and pale, her brother straightened from sectioning the sea monster’s brain. “What’s the matter?”
The page brought a fresh quill. Marie-Josèphe massaged her palm. The spasm eased.
“Nothing. Please continue.”
Yves looked around. Long shadows dimmed to dusk as the sun set. Servants moved through the tent, lighting candles and lanterns, lowering the sides of the tent against the evening breeze. The duke de Chartres sat beside the portrait of the King; the rest of the audience, all visitors, remained standing.
Yves stretched, arching his back. He squeezed shut his eyes, bloodshot from the reek of preserving spirits.
“By your leave, M. de Chartres, I’ll continue tomorrow,” Yves said, “when my sister has light enough to draw.” He placed the brain in a jar and shrouded the sea monster’s carcass. Servants brought ice and sawdust.
The page-boy pinned Marie-Josèphe’s final sketch to the display frame. The sequence of drawings led from a full view of the sea monster’s grotesque face, through skin, layers of muscle, odd facial cavities, to its skull and its heavily convoluted brain.
Chartres jumped up and peered closely at the sketches with his good eye, holding a candle so close that Marie-Josèphe feared he would set the paper on fire.
“Remarkable,” he said. “A remarkable day. Remarkable sights. Father de la Croix, observing your work is a privilege.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How strange,” Marie-Josèphe said, looking at her sketches as a progression, from the intact face with its swollen resonance cavities, through skin and muscle, to bone, each layer less grotesque, more familiar.
“What’s strange?” Yves said.
“The skull. It looks human. The face muscles —”
“Nonsense. When have you ever seen a human skull? I never dissected a cadaver till I was at university.”
“At the convent. The relic. They brought out the saint’s bones on her feast day.”
“It’s the skull of a beast,” Yves said. “Look at the teeth.” He pointed to the prominent canines.
“I grant you the teeth.”
“It’s like a monkey skull,” Chartres said. “An example of God’s humor, no doubt, like the form of many orchids —” He bowed to Marie-Josèphe. “If you’ll forgive me for mentioning the similarity to —”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” Yves said. “My sister’s natural delicacy...”
Chartres grinned.
“The creature’s very little like a monkey,” Marie-Josèphe said quickly. “I have dissected a monkey.”
