His courtiers dared to titter at his joke.
“You are fortunate to live in the modern age.” Innocent gazed on Marie-Josèphe with concern, and suspicion. “In times past, a woman who spoke to animals — to demons — risked the stake.”
The courtiers stopped laughing. Yves paled. “Your Holiness, my sister has made a pet of the monster. She doesn’t realize —”
“Be easy in your mind, my son,” Innocent said to Yves. “I don’t accuse your sister of being possessed. I do suspect she may be mad, mistaking beasts for people.”
“As the Church mistook beasts for demons,” Count Lucien said.
Innocent glared. “There was no mistake about it — they were products of demonic possession. The Inquisition drove out the satanic influence.”
“Their status changed once — why not again? What remains to be proven,” Count Lucien said to His Majesty, “is whether the creature speaks a human language and therefore is not a creature. This is a scientific age. If I understand what Father de la Croix has said of science — he will correct my errors, I trust — science demands proof. Allow Mlle de la Croix to prove her contention.”
His Majesty’s gaze searched Count Lucien’s face. Finally, impassively, he said, “I will see.”
20
Marie-Josèphe entered the sea woman’s prison. She hesitated, swaying dizzily. Murk clouded the pool. Marie-Josèphe sat down before her equilibrium deserted her. Her arm throbbed.
She whispered the sea woman’s name. “His Majesty will hear me on your behalf.
You must tell him a story I could never make up. A story to move him. A story to charm him to our cause.”
The sea woman growled her contempt for the King. She would fight the toothless one for her freedom. The land woman must throw him into the fountain, where the sea woman could sing at him until his heart stopped and his bowels turned to water.
“Don’t say such things! What if someone else learned to understand you?”
The sea woman swam to her. Her whispered song created loneliness and despair.
Slow ripples spread outward along her path. Marie-Josèphe plunged her hand beneath the surface, hoping the cool water might soothe the ache. The ripples she created met the sea woman’s wake; their interaction entranced her for a moment.
The sea woman grasped Marie-Josèphe’s swollen hand. Her nostrils flared.
Marie-Josèphe gasped; the pain of the touch broke through her feverish distraction.
“Let me go, please, you’re hurting me.”
The sea woman refused to release her. Her eyes gleamed dark gold. She sniffed and licked Marie-Josèphe’s swollen palm. Following the angry purple streaks, she pushed at the sleeve of Marie-Josèphe’s hunting habit and exposed the bandage. She hummed with worry, then changed the key to reassurance. She nibbled at the bandage; with her long pointed webbed fingers she untied the bloody linen. The water had soaked it loose. She exposed the angry wound.
Outside the tent, horses galloped near and pulled up. Men spoke; Count Lucien entered, his distinctive footsteps uneven, punctuated with the tap of his sword-cane.
The sea woman kissed Marie-Josèphe’s arm, tonguing the incision, drooling profusely on the wound. The scab cracked and bled. Marie-Josèphe felt sick.
“What is she doing?” Count Lucien spoke quietly, but the tension in his voice startled Marie-Josèphe. The sea woman released her and submerged in the pool.
“I don’t know,” Marie-Josèphe said. “She didn’t tell me.”
oOo
The sea woman fled. The small man of land, in his complicated outer skin, did not behave cruelly, like the one who covered himself with black. The small man intrigued her more than he frightened her, yet still she feared him. If he were the land-woman’s particular friend, she might trust him more. But the land woman had not yet chosen him.
Alone beneath the surface, she cried. She hoped she had helped the land woman.
Had she kissed her sick arm sufficiently? She hoped so. She was afraid to tell her ally what she was doing, afraid to say she could help, for if the men of land discovered what she had done, what she could do, they would cut out her tongue and take it away with them. One of them would wear it around his neck on a string of seaweed, like the sailors did. They were such fools, they terrified her.
I’m always afraid, she thought. Ever since the net, ever since the galleon, I’ve been afraid, though I was never afraid in my life before!
The fear made her angry. If the land woman died of her wounds, the sea woman would be all alone with no ally at all to help her escape. She must escape.
oOo
Lucien let Marie-Josèphe’s arm bleed.
“Make it stop,” she said, near panic.