“And yet still you may slither beneath my foot.”
Lorraine slapped the rump of the near cart-horse. It lurched into a trot, pulling its pair with it. Lucien stumbled, recovered, scrambled.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said softly. The horses slowed, more out of exhaustion, he thought, than obedience.
It would please Lorraine, he thought, to drag me all the way to Versailles.
“Lucien —” Marie-Josèphe said.
“Shh.” He could not bear pity.
Marie-Josèphe twisted around, squinting into the darkness. “Did she escape?”
Splashing out of the shallows, His Majesty appeared through the mist. Monsieur and his teammates followed, carrying Sherzad. She was trapped in a net and suspended on poles. Marie-Josèphe sang; when the sea woman struggled, her song broke off in a sob. Sherzad wailed. Her eyes shone like a cat’s.
The young Carrousel riders, giddy with exhaustion and conquest, sparred with each other, jostled and joked, and jeered at Lucien. Old friendships dissolved without trace in the acid of the King’s disapproval. Lucien had seen it happen to others, this public humiliation. He had crafted his life so it would never happen to him. His painstaking work lay in ruins.
His Majesty stopped when he saw what the Chevalier had done. His gaze passed across Yves, and Marie-Josèphe, and the Chevalier, and fell finally upon Lucien.
“You have all gone insane.”
The sun was rising. The King sounded old, and exhausted.
27
Lucien and Yves rode the cart-horses, bareback, their hands unbound by the King’s command. Spent from her struggles and restrained by the net, Sherzad droned an eerie hum of grief that spooked riders and horses alike. Marie-Josèphe rode in the hunting chariot. Cheetahs shouldered and snarled, rubbing against her bedraggled petticoat. One sat on its haunches and watched her, its gaze on her bloodstained bodice.
The trip to Versailles took forever; it took no time at all. Marie-Josèphe pushed away exhaustion and despair, seeking escape. She matched her stance to Lucien’s: proud, shoulders straight, head up. Schemes occurred to her, each a more fanciful fairy tale than the next. If she could release the cheetahs from their collars — they might confuse the cavalry, they might frighten all the horses... but they might equally tear out her throat, or pounce on Sherzad when the riders dropped her carry-poles. If she could overpower the driver — she could gallop away in the chariot... but Chartres and Lorraine would make short work of catching her, their powerful war-horses against the stolid zebras. No matter how she escaped, in her fantasies, only Apollo dropping from the sky in his dawn chariot might free Sherzad. No matter how she escaped, the Carrousel riders surrounded Lucien and Yves.
We failed, she thought. Sherzad’s life is forfeit. I drew Lucien into a scheme he never meant to support, with what consequences to him?
She wiped her face indelicately on her sleeve, hoping her captors would think she had dust in her eyes.
Fire burst along Lucien’s spine.
He gasped and clutched the cart-horse’s mane. His sword nearly slipped from his fingers. All his senses turned toward the pain, shutting out the world. If he remained very still, he might not fall, he might not drop his sword, he might not lose consciousness.
“M. de Chrétien,” Yves whispered, “what’s wrong?”
“Don’t touch me, if you please.”
“You’re very pale...”
“It’s fashionable,” Lucien said.
Yves fell silent, for which Lucien was also grateful. Fire burned in his back, remorseless, worse than torture. If he were being tortured, he could recant or confess or convert and the torture would stop. When his body betrayed him this way, nothing, neither wine nor spirits nor loving caress, would stop the pain.
The procession plodded toward Versailles, past the Grand Canal, past the Fountain of Apollo; it continued up the Green Carpet, bearing the sea woman to the chateau.
Lucien reclaimed himself from his affliction long enough to understand the significance of their path. He could not see Marie-Josèphe’s face, but he had no doubt she understood too.
His Majesty has decided, Lucien thought, to end the sea woman’s life.
The procession stopped beneath the chateau’s north wing. Yves dismounted and walked stiffly around his horse. Lucien clutched the mane of his cart-horse and lowered himself to the ground before Yves could reach him. He leaned heavily on his cane, catching his breath.
He could not even claim an honorable injury. The careening crash of the wagon, the lurching gait of the cart-horse had not affected him. When the ache he suffered constantly rose to agony, the change struck after no particular action and no particular insult.
The only pattern Lucien had ever detected was inconvenience.
And that, he thought, is because any moment would be inconvenient. I must admit this moment is worse than most.
The King dismounted and entered the chateau. His companions closed in around him. They left no place for Lucien to stand; they had already obliterated his position. When the guards came, the rest of the courtiers rode away with the horses, never casting a backward glance. Lucien could not blame them. Anyone who defended him risked sharing his fate.
The guards surrounded the captives and marched them to the guard room of the State Apartments. Lucien leaned heavily on his sword-cane and managed to keep up, but only because the musketeers had to carry Sherzad. The sea woman lay limp in the net, keening an uncanny dirge. In the guard room, the musketeers dropped their burden and moved away, unnerved.
“She needs water, sirs,” Marie-Josèphe said, “or she’ll grow ill. Please be so kind as to give her a drink.”
“Be so kind as to give us all a drink,” Yves said. “And allow us to sit. We’ve been travelling all night.”
Yves’ plea irritated Lucien.
Do you embrace your suffering, priest, Lucien thought, but he resisted the temptation of speaking the irony aloud.
Scrupulously polite, the musketeer captain sent for wine and water. His men brought chairs. Yves sagged into his, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head down. Marie-Josèphe sat so gingerly that Lucien wondered if she had been hurt in the wagon crash. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to comfort her; he wanted her comfort. But the guards would stop him; he had all he could do now to maintain his demeanor.
The captain offered Lucien a chair.
“Do you expect me to sit in the presence of His Majesty?” Lucien asked, his tone severe. He thrust his walking-stick toward a portrait of Louis. Pain stabbed up his back into both shoulders.