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“My affection for her has nothing to do with what she told me. You know her stories are true.”
He knelt beside her bed. He took her arm.
“Pray with me,” he said.
Prayer will comfort and sustain me, Marie-Josèphe thought.
Marie-Josèphe slipped to the floor and knelt. She folded her hands, bowed her head, and waited for the welcome embrace of God’s presence.
“Odelette, join us, pray for Marie-Josèphe’s recovery.”
“I will not!” Haleed said. “I’ll never pray like a Christian again, for I am a free woman, and a Mahometan, and my name is Haleed!” Hugging herself for warmth, she turned her back and stared into the moonlit gardens.
“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God...”
Does God have a plan for my suffering? she wondered. But my suffering is nothing, compared to the martyrs — compared to the despair of the sea woman. Other people undergo bleeding without a second thought. I should submit to it bravely.
Instead, she had forced Lorraine to behave in a way that destroyed her high opinion of him. She no longer cared what Lorraine thought. She had diminished herself in Count Lucien’s estimation, which mattered to her a great deal.
“Dear God,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “Dear God, please speak to me, please direct me. Tell me what is right and proper for me to do.”
She begged, she even dared to hope, for a reply. But in the face of her entreaties, God remained silent.
18
Moonlight flooded through the window and pooled on the floor. Marie-Josèphe slipped out of bed. She stood still; a dizzy weakness passed.
Haleed slept soundly; Yves was gone. Shivering, Marie-Josèphe slung Lorraine’s cloak over her shoulders and crept into the dressing room. She held herself up by leaning against the wall, by grasping the doorjamb.
Lorraine’s perfume surrounded her. Her stomach clenched. She flung down the cloak and struggled not to vomit. She would never wear the cloak again, no matter how soft and warm it was. She would burn it, if she had a fire.
She opened the window and gazed into the night. The moon, two days from full, loomed over the sea woman’s prison. Marie-Josèphe tried to sing, but she could only whisper.
Yet the sea woman heard her, and replied.
She’s still alive, Marie-Josèphe thought. Bless Count Lucien —
Marie-Josèphe snatched up her pen. A new scene for the cantata poured from the sea woman’s song. The pen sprayed tiny grace-notes above the staff. The candle puddled and drowned.
She wrote the last few notes and waved the page in the air to dry the ink. The cantata was complete.
Marie-Josèphe drew the tapestry from the harpsichord and flung it around her shoulders. She opened the keyboard.
In the shadowy dawn, tears running down her face, she played the story of the sea people’s tragedy.
Lucien attended the King’s awakening, but his thoughts were elsewhere. While Dr. Fagon did his work, Lucien blotted the perspiration from His Majesty’s forehead. He bowed to His Majesty when the King led the procession to Mass, but Lucien did not follow. A church was the one place where he would not follow his King.
“Dr. Fagon.”
Lucien and the First Physician were alone in His Majesty’s bedroom. The doctor looked up from studying the results of His Majesty’s regular purge.
“M. de Chrétien,” he said, bowing.
Count Lucien returned Fagon’s salutation with a nod.
“Mlle de la Croix is better, I trust? I shall look in on her later.” Fagon shook his head with disapproval. “No wonder she broke down, with all her unwomanly tasks. Someone should speak to her brother. I’ve planned an extensive course of bloodletting.”
“That will not be necessary,” Lucien said.
“I beg your pardon?” Fagon exclaimed.
“You’ll let no more blood from Mlle de la Croix.”
“Sir, are you instructing me in my profession?”
“I’m instructing you that she wants no more treatment, and I’m instructing you to respect her wishes.”
Lucien spoke quietly. Dr. Fagon was well aware of Lucien’s influence with His Majesty, the favor the King showed him, and the peril of ignoring him.
Fagon spread his hands. “If His Majesty commands —”
“It is unlikely in the extreme that His Majesty would observe your treatment.”
“It is likely in the extreme that His Majesty’s spies will observe!”
“No one need be present who might betray you. Can you not trust M. Félix?”
Fagon considered, then bowed again. “I shall observe your instructions, subject only —”
Lucien raised one eyebrow.
“— only to His Majesty’s presence.”
Lucien bowed in return. He could not ask Dr. Fagon to defy the King’s orders, in the King’s presence. He hoped Mlle de la Croix would not ask it of him.
The harpsichord traced the story of the sea monster hunt. When Marie-Josèphe began the cantata, she thought the story altogether heroic. With every revision, it had become more tragic.
She closed the keyboard and gazed at the smooth wood. She was spent.
Somehow, somehow, I must make His Majesty see what he’s doing, she thought. He loves music. If he would only listen to the sea woman, he might see what I see, he might understand her.
The door of the dressing room opened. Startled, Marie-Josèphe looked up. She expected no one. Her sister had gone to attend Mary of Modena; Yves had gone to attend the King’s awakening.
Gazing at her ardently, Lorraine stood in the doorway between her bedroom and Yves’ dressing room. Dark circles under his eyes marred his beauty.
“Do you enter a lady’s room without invitation, sir, or chaperone?”
“What need have we of chaperones, my dear? We needed none on the Grand Canal.”
His velvet cloak, sadly wrinkled and salt-stained, lay in a heap in the corner. He retrieved it and shook it out.
“You’ve had your use out of my cloak, I see.”
“You may have it back.”
He held its collar to his face. “Your perfume scents it. Your perfume, your sweat, the secrets of your body...”
She turned away, embarrassed, flustered.
“May I have not even a smile? The King offers me as a sacrifice to your beauty, but you break my heart. I lay my finest garment at your feet — but it is nothing!” He flung the cloak to the floor. “I destroy myself with worry about you —” He stroked one finger across his cheek, beneath the dark circle.
