She had done nothing else. She mounted Zachi. The mare pranced, offering to run, offering to outdistance the plodding mounts of the King’s guard. Marie-Josèphe stroked her neck and calmed her. Zachi might carry her over the rooftops of Versailles, but she still had nowhere to go.
The musketeers escorted her to the top of the garden and into the chateau.
She gasped when she entered His Majesty’s council room. The King sat surrounded by bars of silver and gold bullion, by chests of gold coins, by heaps of jeweled chains.
The King played with a heavy golden chalice. Marie-Josèphe curtsied; she knelt before him.
“What does your monster say?”
“Nothing, Sire. She won’t sing, she won’t eat. Her death will be on your hands if you don’t let her go.”
“Many deaths are on my hands, Mlle de la Croix.”
“Deliberate murder? We saved you from that, Lucien and Yves and I. We saved your soul.”
“Why do you persist in this delusion?” he cried.
“My friend Sherzad is dying of despair.”
“Beasts know nothing of despair. If the sea monster doesn’t please me, I might as well give it to my cousin’s holy Inquisitors.”
He put down the chalice. He wore dark brown and black, with only a little gold lace.
He offered Marie-Josèphe his hand. She took it and let him raise her to her feet, as if they were back on the floating platform in the Grand Canal, about to dance.
“Or I could eat it, which would be a kinder fate.”
Marie-Josèphe wanted to cry, You promised! You’re a great King, how can you break your word, how can you betray me, and Sherzad, and break Lucien’s heart?
“Your Majesty,” she said, as calmly as she could, “you have the power to destroy her. To destroy me, and my brother, and Lucien, who loves you.”
“Do you say you do not love me, Mlle de la Croix?”
“Not as Lucien does.”
“He loves you more.”
“I know it, Your Majesty. It doesn’t mean he loves you less. Please, Your Majesty, is he all right?”
“He lives.”
“You haven’t —”
“I’ve done nothing but ferret his men out of my guard. Why should I trouble myself? His body tortures him.”
“May I see him?”
“I will see.”
“Sire, you have the power to show mercy to us all.”
“You’re even more stubborn than your mother!”
Marie-Josèphe’s outrage exploded. “She — you — my mother submitted to you entirely!”
“She refused...”
Marie-Josèphe watched, in amazement, as his expression grew sad and his eyes filled with tears.
“She refused everything I wished to give her.” He turned away until he recovered his dispassionate expression. “Come with me. Persuade her to carry out my will.”
For an eerie moment, Marie-Josèphe thought the King meant to refer to her mother.
His Holiness stood beside the cage. He sprinkled holy water through the bars. He chanted, in Latin, a rite of exorcism.
“Cast off your pagan ways,” he said. “Accept the teachings of the Church, and you will receive everlasting life.”
Sherzad snarled.
“If you defy me, your soul will never rest.”
Marie-Josèphe ran to the cage. “Let me in!”
Agitated, wild, Sherzad swam back and forth. Louis pushed himself from his wheeled chair. The musketeer unlocked the cage. Marie-Josèphe dashed in ahead of the King, oblivious to etiquette or simple manners.
“Sherzad, be easy, dear Sherzad —”
“Don’t interfere, Signorina de la Croix,” Innocent said. “You ignore my counsel at your peril!”
Marie-Josèphe ran down to the platform, while His Majesty remained at the top of the stairs.
Sherzad saw him. She shrieked.
“Sherzad, no!”
The sea woman propelled herself toward Marie-Josèphe. She swam with desperate speed. She launched herself, snarling, her claws extended, straight toward the King. Marie-Josèphe flung herself at Sherzad. They crashed together and fell in a heap. The edge of the stairs knocked the wind out of Marie-Josèphe. Sherzad lay in her arms. Blood poured from a splintery gouge across her forehead. Marie-Josèphe tried to stop the bleeding. Her hands, her dress, turned scarlet.
“Suicide is a mortal sin,” Innocent said. “She must vow obedience and repent before she dies, or I’ll know her for a demon.”
Marie-Josèphe looked up at the two men, the holy man who thought Sherzad had tried to kill herself, and the King who must believe she had tried to murder him. Perhaps they were both right.
Sherzad raised herself and sang furiously. Blood streaked her face. She looked like a monster.
“What did she say?”
Marie-Josèphe hesitated.
“Tell me!”
“She said — forgive her, Your Majesty — she said, Toothless sharks amuse me. She said, Will a fleet of treasure ships buy my life?
“Where?”
“She’ll tell me — after you free her.”
“With what assurance?”
“Mine, Your Majesty.”
She thought he would dismiss her, call her a thief, accuse her of lying.
“You do not ask me for leniency? For yourself, for your brother, for your lover?”
Marie-Josèphe hesitated, then shook her head. “No, Your Majesty.”
Sherzad thrashed in the basin, splashing water through the net that restrained her. She cried and struggled, smelling the sea, desperate to reach it.
“Sherzad, dear friend, don’t injure yourself.” Marie-Josèphe worked her hand through the rough mesh so she could touch and comfort the sea woman.
Marie-Josèphe sat beside Sherzad’s basin, under a canvas canopy on the main deck of His Majesty’s flagship. On the upper deck, the King sat in a velvet armchair, shaded by tapestry. He spoke a word to the captain, who shouted to his men. The sailors burst into activity, preparing the ship to sail.
The flagship’s skiff cast off from the dock and rowed toward them. Marie-Josèphe whispered encouragement to Sherzad. She tugged her hand free of the net. The skiff came alongside. Lucien, elegant in white satin and gold lace, handed his sword-cane up the side and climbed the ladder to the deck. Marie-Josèphe ran to him; she caught his hands, fine and strong in deerskin gloves. No one would ever guess he had come straight from prison.