Félix probed the blood with his finger, breaking the elastic surface. Fagon righted the basin as the blood flowed over the edge and stained the carpet.
“Her blood is far too thick, as you must observe,” Fagon said, “but I shall balance her bodily humours.” He chuckled. “Though she may bite my finger off!”
“She tried to bite me, too,” Lorraine said as they walked away. “The minx.” He chuckled. “Like a trapped animal. But she has quite trapped my heart.”
All alone, Mlle de la Croix lay crying in a tangle of bedclothes and bloody lint, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow. She heard or felt Lucien standing beside her. She reached weakly toward him.
“Dear God, please, no more —”
She touched his arm, fumbling. A bloodstain widened on the bandage. Lucien took her hand.
“Oh!” She drew away, shocked and startled. Her hair fell in damp untidy strands around her drained face. “Forgive me... I thought you were my brother.”
“I will call him.”
“No — ! I don’t want to see him.”
“Do you feel better? Calmer? Cured of delusions?”
“I don’t see delusions! I can talk with the sea woman! You must believe me, sir — if you don’t, why did you take such a risk on her behalf?”
“His Majesty does as he pleases,” Count Lucien said. “I only offered him the rationale.”
“Is that the only reason you spoke?”
Lucien did not reply.
“Very well,” she whispered. “You care for nothing but His Majesty. You spoke because you know he mustn’t murder the sea woman — he mustn’t risk his immortal soul!”
“Sleep,” Lucien said, preferring not to continue a conversation that took this direction. “Dr. Fagon will return in the morning.”
“Do you want me to die of bleeding, like my father?”
Her voice fell to a horrified whisper. Lucien regretted dismissing her courage, for everyone he had ever known possessed a secret terror. As far as Lucien was concerned, fearing physicians was perfectly rational.
“Do you hate me?” she whispered.
“Of course I do not hate you.”
“Don’t let him bleed me again,” she said. “Please.”
“You do ask too much of me.” If the King ordered Mlle de la Croix to be bled, Lucien could do nothing to stop it. He devoted himself to carrying out Louis’ wishes, not to hindering them.
“Please. Please promise me.” She struggled up, clutching his hand with awful desperation. Fear and pain had leached the intelligence from her face. “Please help me. I have great need of a friend.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Give me your word.”
“Very well,” he said, against his better judgment, but moved by her fear. “I give you my word.”
She collapsed, still holding his hand, trembling. She closed her eyes. Her agitation calmed; her fingers relaxed.
Lucien sighed, and smoothed her sweat-darkened hair.
oOo
Marie-Josèphe drifted, awake, asleep, aware of Count Lucien, comforted by his promise, aware of the denizens of her imagination, afraid to see them in her dreams. She feared sleep, but she shrank from waking.
When she woke, moonlight spilled through the window, pooling on the floor like molten silver. Count Lucien had gone. Haleed slept beside her, holding her, a welcome warmth. Dr Félix must have forgotten his threat to bleed Marie-Josèphe’s sister; Haleed’s arms bore neither wound nor bandage. Yves dozed, slumped over a sheaf of papers. He would have a terrible crick in his neck in the morning.
Yves and Haleed must have undressed her, for she wore only her blood-spattered shift. She hoped Haleed had asked Count Lucien to withdraw; she hoped she had not been unclothed before the King’s adviser. She was no royal lady, to be dressed by tailors and observed by men at the most intimate times of her life.
She sat up, weak and light-headed.
Yves woke. “Sister — are you recovered?”
“How could you let him bleed me?”
“It was for your own good.”
He had found her sketches. He flicked through them, his face impassive.
“The sea woman told me that story,” Marie-Josèphe said. “The true story of the hunt. You caught three sea people. Not two. They struggled. The sailors killed one —”
“Hush,” he said. “I told you the story.”
“You never did. They killed one. They ate his flesh. You ate —”
“— the flesh of an animal! It was delicious. Why shouldn’t I eat it?”
“You claim to love truth! But when you hear it, you deny it. Please believe me.
Yves, my dear brother, what’s changed so, that you have no faith in me?”
Her agitation woke Haleed. “Mlle Marie?” She pushed herself up on her elbow, blinking sleepily. Marie-Josèphe took her hand, desperate for her comfort.
“The sea monsters are beasts, created for the use of man,” Yves said. He sat next to her on her bed. “You should retire from court. Too much attention has distracted you. In a convent, you’d be safe from this agitation of your spirits.”
“No.”
“You’d be happy, back in the convent.”