They leaned toward each other. They kissed.
Marie-Josèphe drew back, touching her lips with her fingertips, amazed that such a simple touch could reach all the way to her center.
Misinterpreting her surprise, Lucien smiled sadly. “Even your kiss can’t change me to a tall prince, with dainty feet.”
“If it did, I’d say, Where is Lucien? Give me back my Lucien!”
He laughed, with no trace of sadness.
Guards took Lucien away as soon as the carriage reached the chateau. They conducted Marie-Josèphe to her attic room and left her with only Hercules for company. If Yves was in his bedroom she could not speak to him through two locked doors and the dressing-room.
Hercules miaowed for cream, despite the mouse stomachs and mouse tails left over from his hunts.
“You may ask for cream in prison,” Marie-Josèphe said, “but you may hope prison rats are tasty.”
She comforted herself with her last sight of Sherzad, leaping with joy in the sea, and with her memory of Lucien’s kiss.
His Majesty will forgive us, she thought. He’ll forgive me because I was right, and because he loved my mother. He’ll forgive Yves because Yves is his son. And he’ll forgive Lucien because he never had a better friend, a friend who defied him once, to help him.
She spared no more thoughts for the soul of Louis the Great.
The key turned in the lock; the door opened. Marie-Josèphe leaped to her feet, her heart pounding.
A scullery maid slipped inside, put down a tray laden with wine and bread and a pitcher of cream, and faced her. Haleed had put away her finery and tied a cloth over her hair.
Marie-Josèphe flung herself into Haleed’s arms.
No one who took a second look at her could ever mistake her for a scullery maid, Marie-Josèphe thought. But... no one at Versailles ever takes a second look — or a first — at a scullery maid.
They sat together on the window seat. Hercules butted his head against Haleed’s hand until she gave him his cream.
“What are you doing here?” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “If His Majesty finds out, he’ll be angry —”
“I don’t mind, I don’t care,” Haleed said, “for I’m leaving Versailles, leaving Paris, leaving France in a moment. As soon as I change these awful clothes!” She grew somber. “I cannot help you, Mlle Marie, but I had to see you.”
“I’ve failed you, sister.” Marie-Josèphe took the parchment of Haleed’s manumission from her drawing box and gazed at it sadly. “I never had a moment to ask Yves to sign it. To make him sign it!”
Haleed took the parchment. “He’ll sign it.” She kissed Marie-Josèphe. “I’m sorry I cannot free you.”
“Only the King can do that. Sister, I’m so afraid for you. Where will you go? What will you do?”
“Never fear. I am rich, I will be free. I can make my way in the world. I’ll go home to Turkey. I’ll find my family, and a prince.”
“Turkey! When you marry they’ll put you in a hareem, with another wife —”
Haleed sat back and regarded her quizzically. “Sister, how is it different from France, except that my sister wives will be acknowledged instead of hidden and lied about and put aside at whim?”
“But it — I —” She fell silent, unable to answer, terrified for her sister.
“How is it different from Martinique?” Haleed said.
The blood drained from Marie-Josèphe’s face, leaving her cold and faint.
“Oh,” she said. “Sister, do you mean...”
“I mean we are sisters — how could you not know? Our father owned my mother, she was his, he did as he pleased, without a thought to what would please her. Or what would horrify her.”
Marie-Josèphe’s shoulders slumped. She stared at her hands, limp in her lap.
“Do you hate him terribly? Did she? Do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate him. It is fate. I love you, Mlle Marie, though I’ll never see you again.”
“I love you too, Mlle Haleed, even if I never see you again.”
Haleed pressed a knotted kerchief into Marie-Josèphe’s hand.
“Your pearls!”
“Not all of them! We promised to share our fortunes. I must go.”
They kissed each other. Haleed slipped out the door. She was gone, to embrace an unknown fate that frightened Marie-Josèphe even more than her own.
Lucien dreaded the approaching interview. The King was too angry with him, too disappointed, to put his fate in the hands of his guards or his jailers. Lucien had every material thing he wanted, clean linen and food and wine. He was treated with scrupulous courtesy. His back hurt only in its ordinary way.
He had everything but liberty, communication, the comfort of intimacy. He hung suspended at a great height, waiting only for Louis to let him fall. He hoped he would not take Marie-Josèphe with him to the depths.
The musketeers took Lucien to the guard room outside His Majesty’s private chamber, where Marie-Josèphe and Yves already waited.
How strange, Lucien thought. The joy of seeing her is equal to the ecstasy of her touch.
He took her hand. Together, they went to face the King.
Treasure filled the room, stacked and tumbled in heaps like an ancient dragon’s hoard. Gold bracelets and pectorals and armor lay in jumbled piles, with headdresses, medallions, and strange flared cylinders. Impassive jade statues clustered on the parquet. One of them eerily resembled Lucien’s father.
His Majesty gazed into the eye sockets of a crystal skull. Pope Innocent sat beside him, indifferent to the treasure, counting a rosary of ordinary beads. The beads tapped against a wooden box in his lap: Marie-Josèphe’s drawing box. A table piled with books and papers stood beside him.
The King picked up a gold pectoral, lowered it over his head, and arranged the curls of his black wig. The wide flare of gold covered his chest.
The strange eyes of gold statues stared from every direction. Louis regarded his prisoners in silence.
“I loved you all.” To Marie-Josèphe he said, “You pleased me with your beauty and your charm and your music.” To Yves he said, “I marveled at your discoveries. I was proud to be your sire.” After a long pause, he turned to Lucien. “I valued your wit, your bravery, your loyalty. I valued the truth you told me.”
He flung the skull to the floor. “You betrayed me.” The crystal smashed. Shards exploded across the parquet.