At home, she sang to Marie-Josèphe, we could shout our wishes into the sea.
Everyone would hear. But if you shout into the wind, your voice disappears.
Marie-Josèphe laughed sadly. “You have the truth of it, sister.”
Swim with me, Sherzad sang. I am dying, friend, I need the touch of other people to sustain me.
“I cannot,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “I’m so sorry, dear Sherzad, it’s impossible.”
The musketeers opened the tent and allowed the visitors to enter. They clustered around the cage, calling to Sherzad, whistling, stretching their hands through the bars to attract her attention.
A footman brought His Majesty’s portrait and settled it in his armchair.
“We must tell another story,” Marie-Josèphe said to Sherzad. “A cheerful story, please, Sherzad.”
Lorraine, Chartres, and the duke of Berwick strolled in. They sat in the front row, bowing with exaggerated courtesy to His Majesty’s picture. Marie-Josèphe pretended they were not there, even when they whispered together, laughed, and insulted her with significant glances.
If they come one step toward me, she thought, I’ll slam the cage door in their faces!
“We’ve come for a story, Mlle de la Croix!” Chartres exclaimed.
Marie-Josèphe ignored him, a dangerous discourtesy. She stretched her hand to Sherzad, who enclosed her fingers with the silk-soft swimming webs, then broke away and swam across the pool at a hazardous speed. She leaped, soaring out of the water, arcing over Triton’s trumpet.
“Sherzad, stop, be careful!”
Lorraine laughed. “Make her do that again!”
“No!” Marie-Josèphe cried, too distressed, too furious to pretend Lorraine did not exist. “She hasn’t enough room in this tiny cage.”
“His Majesty gives the sea monster more space than he gives his courtiers.”
Sherzad swam back to her, leaping again, coming down perilously close to the platform. Her gold eyes shone with wild rage and desperation.
“Brava!” cried Lorraine.
“If you please, Mlle de la Croix,” Chartres said, “give us our story.”
oOo
Sherzad swam across the pool, turned at the last instant, and swam across again. The prison tormented her. She dove to the inlet and struggled with the grating. It never moved. The fountain contained nothing she could use as a tool or a pry, for the bits of metal littering its bottom were all soft and useless; the gray metal and the sun-colored metal alike bent in her hands.
Marie-Josèphe called to her; Sherzad ignored her. She swam back and forth, as fast and as hard as she could in the small space, not nearly as fast as she could swim in the open ocean. She keened and cried into the murky water. A fish swam past. She snatched it and ripped it to bits. Scales flickered and floated away.
She leaped. With her powerful legs she propelled her body entirely out of the water. She let herself fall with a great splash. Water washed over the steps and gushed above the stone rim, soaking Marie-Josèphe’s feet. Marie-Josèphe drew back with a cry of dismay. Sherzad could not understand why she never wanted to keep her feet wet.
Beyond the bars of the cage, the land people in their strange chaotic coverings gathered to listen to her. Most stood — Sherzad wondered how they could bear the pain of standing — but a few sat. Marie-Josèphe had tried to explain why this was; she had begged Sherzad to lower her eyes when the toothless man looked at her. Sherzad found no reason to do so.
The toothless man’s picture sat in his place today. The people of land made pictures with colors on surfaces, poor flat representations of their subjects. They should set someone to sing the image of absent guests.
Sherzad leaped again. The land people exclaimed and slapped their hands together.
She leaped again, and again they covered her with a wave of meaningless noise.
Meaningless to her, but significant to them, their way of showing interest or approval.
The small man came into the tent. Sherzad snarled and dived. She no longer hoped to trust him. He had smeared that nasty black stuff on Marie-Josèphe’s arm. Did he want to kill her? She would claw him if she got the chance, for trying to hurt Marie-Josèphe.
She wished she could warn her friend, but she would have to explain how Marie-Josèphe came to be healed. She did not dare.
All the land people suddenly stood up. The man in white, with the gold cross, came into the tent. All the land people bowed until he sat beside the picture of the toothless one. Marie-Josèphe ran out and knelt and kissed his hand. The action puzzled Sherzad, for the man in white responded to the kiss without pleasure, and Marie-Josèphe gained no pleasure from kissing him.
Marie-Josèphe returned to the Fountain and sang, begging Sherzad to tell a story.
Sherzad leaped again, testing the reaction of the land people. She landed dangerously near the rim of the Fountain, splashing hard. The land people made a considerable noise.