He shrugged. “It won’t eat.” He scooped seaweed from the basket and flung it through the bars of the cage. He flung a fish after it. He rattled the gate to test that it was fastened.
The sea monster’s eerie melody wrapped Marie-Josèphe in the balmy breeze of the Caribbean. It stopped abruptly when the fish splashed into the water.
Marie-Josèphe shivered violently.
“Come!” Yves said suddenly. “You’ll catch the ague.”
3
The sea monster floated beneath the surface, humming, its voice a low moan. The edges of the small water reflected the sound.
A rotting fish fell into the pool. The sea monster dove away, then circled back, sniffed at it, scooped it up, and flung it away. It sailed between the cold black bars and hit the ground with a dead splat.
The sea monster sang.
Marie-Josèphe took Yves up the narrow dirty stairs, through the dark hallway and along the threadbare carpet, to the attic of the chateau of Versailles. Her cold clammy dress had soaked the fur lining of Lorraine’s cloak. She could not stop shivering.
“Is this where we’re to live?” Yves asked, dismayed.
“We have three rooms!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “Courtiers scheme and bribe and connive for what we’ve been given freely.”
“It’s a filthy attic.”
“In His Majesty’s chateau!”
“My cabin on the galleon was cleaner.”
Marie-Josèphe opened the door to her dark, cold, shabby little room. Light spilled out. She stared, astonished.
“And my room at university was larger,” Yves said. “Hello, Odelette.”
A young woman of extraordinary beauty rose from the chair where she sat sewing by candlelight.
“Good evening, M. Yves,” said Marie-Josèphe’s Turkish slave, with whom Marie-Josèphe shared a birthday, and to whom she had not been allowed to speak for five years. She smiled at her mistress in a matter-of-fact way. “Hello, Mlle Marie.”
“Odelette!” Marie-Josèphe ran to Odelette and flung herself into her arms. “How — where — Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”
“Mlle Marie, you’re soaked!” Odelette pointed to the dressing-room door. “Go away, M. Yves, so I may get Mlle Marie out of these wet clothes.” Odelette had never, from the time they were all children, shown Yves a moment’s deference.
Yves offered her a mock bow and left to explore his rooms.
“Where did you come from? How did you get here?”
“Was it not your will, Mlle Marie?” Odelette unfastened the many buttons of Marie-Josèphe’s grand habit.
“It was, but I never dared hope they’d send you. Before my ship sailed, I wrote to the Mother Superior, I wrote to the priest, I wrote to the governor —” The clammy wet silk fell away, leaving her bare arms exposed to the cold night air. “And when I reached Saint-Cyr, I asked Mme de Maintenon for help — I even wrote to the King!” She hugged herself, trying to ward off the chill. “Though I don’t suppose he ever saw my letter!”
“Perhaps it was the governor. I attended his daughter during her passage to France, though the Mother Superior wanted to keep me.”
Odelette picked loose the wet knots of Marie-Josèphe’s stays. Marie-Josèphe stood naked and shivering on the worn rug. Her ruined gown and silver petticoat lay in a heap. Odelette hung the Chevalier’s cloak on the dress-rack.
“I’ll brush it, and it might dry unstained. But your beautiful petticoat — !” Odelette fell into their old habits of domesticity as if no time had passed at all. She rubbed Marie-Josèphe with a scrap of old blanket and chafed her fingers and arms to bring back some warmth. Hercules the cat watched from the window seat.
Marie-Josèphe burst into tears of anger and relief. “She forbade me to see you —”
“Shh, Mlle Marie. Our fortunes have changed.” Odelette held a threadbare nightshirt, plain thin muslin, not at all warm. “Into bed before you catch your death, and I have to send for a surgeon.”
Marie-Josèphe slipped into the nightshirt. “I don’t need a surgeon. I don’t want a surgeon. I’m just cold. It’s a long walk from the Fountain of Apollo when your dress is soaking wet.”
Odelette unpinned Marie-Josèphe’s red-gold hair, letting it fall in tangled curls around her shoulders. Marie-Josèphe swayed, too tired to keep her feet.
“Come, Mlle Marie,” Odelette said. “You’re shivering. Get in bed, and I’ll comb your hair while you go to sleep.”
Marie-Josèphe crawled between the featherbeds, still shivering.
“Come, Hercules.”
The tabby cat blinked from the window seat. He yawned, rose, stretched hugely, and dug his claws into the velvet cushion. One leap to the floor and one to the bed brought him to her side. He sniffed her fingers, walked on top of her, and kneaded her belly. The feathers softened his claws to a soft pressure and a faint sharp scratching sound. He curled up, warm and heavy, and went back to sleep.
“Put your arms beneath the covers,” Odelette said, trying to pull the covers higher.
“No, it isn’t proper —”
“Nonsense, you’ll die of a cold in your chest.” Odelette tucked the covers around her chin. Odelette spread Marie-Josèphe’s hair across the pillows and combed out the tangles. “You mustn’t go out anymore with your hair poorly dressed.”
“I wore a fontanges.” Marie-Josèphe yawned. “But the sea monster knocked it loose.” She lost track of what she was saying. “You should see the sea monster. You will see it!”
I’m still too excited to go to sleep, Marie-Josèphe thought. Then, a moment later, Odelette laid her heavy braid across her shoulder. Marie-Josèphe had already dozed, and had not felt Odelette finish her hair. Odelette blew out the candle. The smoke tinged the air with burned tallow. A shadow in the darkness, Odelette moved toward the window.
“Leave it open,” Marie-Josèphe said, half asleep.
“It’s so cold, Mlle Marie.”
“We must get used to it.”
Odelette slipped into bed, a sweet warmth beside Marie-Josèphe. Marie-Josèphe hugged her.
“I’m so glad to have you back with me.”
“You might have sold me,” Odelette whispered.
“Never!” Marie-Josèphe did not admit, to Odelette, how close she had come in the convent to repent of owning a slave. She did repent. The arguments had convinced her and guilt now troubled her. She had understood in time that the arguments were meant to persuade her to sell Odelette, not to free her. The sisters thought Odelette’s abilities too refined for the work in a convent, and would have preferred the money her sale would have brought.