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“I was worried.” She sat on the confessional bench. “Forgive me.”
He opened his mouth to reply, to chastise her —
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Yves climbed to his feet. “It isn’t proper for you — for me —”
“You promised to hear confession. You promised His Holiness.”
She folded her hands in her lap and sat with preternatural stillness. As a child, she could sit in the woods till she became invisible to the birds and the creatures. She would never move until he overcame his terror and heard her confession.
He sat beside her. He stared at his hands. “How did you sin, my child?”
“I lied to my King.”
“That never bothered you before!” he exclaimed.
“About the sea woman.”
If she had made up everything about the sea monster, then how could she also know — But it did not matter.
“I thank God that you’ve repented,” he said, relieved. “Go, and sin —”
“I’m not finished!” Marie-Josèphe said. She looked straight at him. “No sailor took Sherzad’s token! You know it, but you said nothing. She said, The dark man took it. The dark man, the man in black robes.” She drew a deep, shaky breath. “The man who is my brother.”
“You saw the ring — you guessed —”
“I’ve never seen it. You took it while she fainted, after you forced seaweed and dead fish down her throat —”
“It did speak to you...” Yves whispered.
“I couldn’t say to the King, My brother is a common thief. So I lied! I lied, and my lie may kill Sherzad!”
Yves pulled the ruby ring, the gold ring with the shiny stone, from his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know...”
He fled the chapel.
He flew down the hill to the Fountain, leaving Marie-Josèphe struggling to keep up. He pushed his way through the visitors, flung open the cage door, and ran down the stairs. His breath tore his throat.
Oblivious to the spectators, Yves stepped off the platform. The water rose up around him, soaking his cassock. He waded toward Apollo.
“Sea woman! Sherzad!”
The sea woman surfaced beneath Triton. She spat at Yves and snarled.
“Forgive me, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand — I didn’t believe...”
The sea woman watched him, submerged but for the top of her head and her eyes.
Marie-Josèphe hurried to the Fountain. Yves turned to her.
“Tell her — I thought nothing of taking her ring. I thought, how strange to find rubies tangled in an animal’s hair...”
“Tell her yourself,” Marie-Josèphe said, out of breath. “But you frighten her, so be gentle.”
“I captured you,” Yves said. “I allowed your friend to die, and now I’ve sentenced you to death as well. I didn’t understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry, for the love of God, please forgive me.” He held out the ring, offering it to her.
Sherzad swam slowly closer, keening.
Outside the tent, draft horses stamped impatiently, jingling their harness. Their driver waited for his cargo, to take it to the sea.
Marie-Josèphe sat on the rim of the Fountain of Apollo, holding Sherzad’s hand, stroking her coarse dark hair. The sea woman lay on the steps, bracing herself on the stone rim; she leaned against Marie-Josèphe, dripping fetid water, her naked body warming Marie-Josèphe’s side. She pressed her cheek into Marie-Josèphe’s palm, wetting it with her tears. Marie-Josèphe held her close, wishing she could comfort her. The song of Sherzad’s mourning pierced her skin like tiny knives.
Yves spread a silk handkerchief over the man of the sea’s ruined face, and wrapped the canvas shroud around him. With his own hands he helped three servants lift Sherzad’s friend. They placed him in the coffin. Yves folded the canvas around him. The servants carried the coffin to the cage, so Sherzad could look on her friend one final time.
The sea woman fell silent. Though she would not touch her friend with her voice, she placed her webbed hand onto his chest. Her fingers trembled.
“He received no last rites,” Yves said. “I was with him, but I gave him no last rites...”
“Never mind,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea people aren’t Christians. They have no god.”
“I could have saved him,” Yves said. “If I’d known... I will save Sherzad, I’ll save her people.”
“Give Sherzad her ring.”
Sherzad plucked the ring from Yves’ palm with extended claws.
“I will bury your friend at sea,” Yves said. “I promise it.”
Sherzad whispered, I want to go, I want to acknowledge his death and contemplate my life.
Yves shook his head.
“Dear Sherzad,” Marie-Josèphe said, “I’m so sorry, it isn’t possible.” Sherzad’s grief made Marie-Josèphe want to weep, but how could she indulge her own sorrow in the face of the sea woman’s loss?
Sherzad freed one of her friend’s last straggled locks from beneath the kerchief; she knotted the ring into his hair.
She bent over the coffin, her long hair shadowing her face. Marie-Josèphe put her arm around Sherzad’s shoulders, but the sea woman shrugged her off, slid down the stairs, and submerged without a sound.
“Was he her husband, whom I allowed to die?”
“Her friend, her lover, not her husband,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The sea folk don’t marry, they make love for pleasure, and on Midsummer Day they mate —”
“I know it! I predicted it, I found it, I saw it — I should have known no mere beasts could behave with such depravity. Perhaps they’re demons, after all —”
“The Church says they aren’t. And isn’t the Church infallible?”
Yves flinched at the anger and sarcasm in her voice.
Yves helped the servants move the coffin back to its supports. They fitted its lid. Yves set the nails himself. He helped them carry the coffin to the freight-wagon, gave the driver a gold coin, and sent the wagon off on the road to Le Havre.
At the sea woman’s tent, Lucien asked Zelis to bow; he dismounted carefully. Pain edged his spine, creeping up on him like a tiger as the day went on. He regretted Juliette’s departure desperately, but he could not ask her to return.
