“I beg your pardon, M. de Chrétien,” the captain said. “But will you take wine?”
One of the musketeers poured the wine. Yves drank thirstily.
“I will drink to His Majesty.” Lucien lifted the goblet to Louis’ portrait in a pure arrogant salute and tossed the wine down in one gulp. The captain joined the toast.
“No, thank you,” Marie-Josèphe said, when one of the guards offered her the wine. “I mean no disrespect to the King, but... I cannot.”
Lucien realized why she was so uncomfortable, why she would not drink though her lips were dry and her refusal full of regret, and why she was so embarrassed.
“Allow Mlle de la Croix the use of the privy,” Lucien said quietly to the captain.
The captain hesitated, but he knew as well as everyone at court, the endurance of His Majesty’s bladder as well as His Majesty’s habit of travelling without thought for the comfort of ladies. He bowed to Lucien and ordered his men to escort all three captives to relieve themselves.
“Quickly, though, His Majesty will want them soon.”
Alone, Lucien leaned against the wall, letting the stone cool his face. He shivered.
The captain sent in water and towels. Lucien wiped away the worst of the mud, brushed the dirt from his gloves, and straightened his clothes. He wished for a change of linen. He was not fit to face the King, and he was soaked with cold sweat. He never grew used to the cold that accompanied hot pain. The flask of calvados in his pocket tempted him, but the fire of the liquor would do nothing to quench the fire in his back. He pulled a white ribbon from his Carrousel hat, now sadly bedraggled, and tied back his equally disheveled perruke.
“What about the sea monster, M. de Chrétien?” the captain asked when he returned. “Will it piddle on the carpet?”
“Mlle de la Croix is the expert.”
“I don’t know.” Marie-Josèphe drank deep from her goblet, and did not refuse when the captain refilled it. “Sherzad’s never been in a house, she’s never seen a carpet, she wouldn’t know what to do in a privy.”
“It won’t drink.” One of the musketeers stood over Sherzad with a water bottle; the sea woman had not piddled on the rug, but the bottle had dripped upon it.
“Let me sit with her,” Marie-Josèphe said.
The captain allowed Marie-Josèphe to kneel beside Sherzad. Lucien joined her. Yves hesitated, then followed. Lucien put his hand on Marie-Josèphe’s shoulder. She covered it with her fingers, warming and thrilling him. He imagined that the fire of her touch burned away a fragment of his pain.
“My dear friends,” Marie-Josèphe whispered.
Her voice failed her. She stroked Sherzad’s shoulder, her bruised hip. The web of Sherzad’s hand was torn. Clotted blood covered her ankle; bruises covered her neck. She lay with her eyes closed, her dirge nearly inaudible. Marie-Josèphe held the water bottle to Sherzad’s mouth. The sea woman did not respond.
“Sir, may I have the wine?”
The captain handed her the bottle. She poured a few drops on her fingers and wetted Sherzad’s parched lips. The sea woman dreamily, delicately, licked away the wine.
“His Majesty requires your presence.”
Marie-Josèphe walked beside Lucien into the Salon of Apollo. Yves walked alone, his head bowed, his hands folded in his sleeves. Guards flanked them, and carried Sherzad with them. The sea-woman’s moaning echoed in the chamber.
Lucien faced His Majesty. Seated on the throne, the King gazed down at his former favorites. Monseigneur and Maine, Lorraine and Chartres stood around him, stern and silent. Only Monsieur offered a sympathetic glance. Only he could dare to, but even he could not help.
Sweat covered Lucien’s face, and his hand clenched around his walking-stick; he had to push himself upright from his bow.
Marie-Josèphe offered His Majesty a deep curtsy, but her attention remained on Lucien. Is he injured? she thought. Was he hurt in the wagon crash? I’ve never before seen him succumb to his pain.
“I respect my opponents in war,” Louis said. “But I despise friends who betray me.”
“Sire, I’m the one at fault!” Marie-Josèphe exclaimed. “My brother, and Count Lucien —”
“Be quiet! Do you expect mercy because you’re a woman? I’m no fool, mademoiselle, no matter how you’ve played me.”
“I expect no mercy for myself, Your Majesty.” But she had hoped to beg mercy for Sherzad, for Lucien, for Yves.
“And you, Lucien. Will you explain yourself?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Lucien said.
Lucien’s curtness to the King shocked Marie-Josèphe.
“Will you not ask me for the favor I promised?”
So furious, so affronted, that he took a moment to reply, Lucien said, “I asked it of you already, Sire.”
“Stop that noise!” the King cried to Marie-Josèphe.
“I cannot. Sherzad is singing her death song.”
“M. Boursin!”
M. Boursin hurried forward in his shambling bony way.
“Take the creature. Butcher it. Now.”
“But, Your Majesty, the banquet is almost about to start, Your Majesty, there’s no time to prepare it, Your Majesty, if it didn’t please you I should kill myself —”
“Do as you like,” Louis said. “Spare me your protestations. We’ll eat the monster raw and bloody.”
“Your Majesty, I, I will think of something, Your Majesty —”
Marie-Josèphe began to cry, silently, with grief.
Lucien took her hand. Marie-Josèphe could not stop crying, but she had never been so grateful for the comfort of another human being.
“You cannot come in! You must not come in!” The usher’s voice penetrated from the next Salon. “Guards!”
A pigeon fluttered wildly into the Salon. It dashed back and forth, it saw the sky through the window, it flung itself headlong toward the glass, it swerved at the last moment. It fluttered to the royal pigeon-keeper, who held it and cradled it against his chest. Other birds rested in his shirt and on his shoulders.
Without anyone’s leave, Lucien approached the pigeon-keeper. Leaning heavily on his stick, he held out his hand.
The pigeon-keeper dug in his pocket. He tipped a fistful of silver message capsules into Lucien’s palm.
Lucien did not condescend to open one. He returned to his place before the King. The tears in Marie-Josèphe eyes created a halo around the gleaming silver. She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to stop crying, trying not to shout, Open one, read the message —