River-water closed around Sherzad. It was thick with the filth of animals and land-humans. She surfaced, spat with disgust, dove again, and set out swimming. She was bruised and sore, tiring quickly after her long imprisonment. The current helped, but she was far from the sea.
The sounds of the river changed. The silt was so thick she was nearly sound-blind.
She surfaced for an instant; she kicked hard to raise herself above the mist. At the next bend, men and horses blocked the river. A long net stretched through the current. She dove again, hoping to find a way around it or beneath it. She slid past plunging hooves.
When she touched the horses they screamed and thrashed and unseated their riders. The dangerous game gave her away. Riders jabbed with pikes and fired their muskets. Shot rushed past her, boiling the water with its heat; a ball snatched away a lock of her hair.
She dove. Stones weighted the net to the river bottom. Pushed into the net by the current, she fought to slip beneath the mesh. The hunters felt the strain. They pulled the net around her, tangling her, pushing her into shallows.
She erupted through the surface, burst through the mist, and flung herself over the net.
A piercing pain slashed into her foot. A furred and spotted predator growled and dragged her onto the stony bank. Sherzad writhed into the water, pulling the creature with her. Her blood filled the water, mixing with the predator’s musky pungent scent.
When the predator was submerged and vulnerable, Sherzad shouted out a sharp hard shock. Her voice, transmitted by the water, slammed into her attacker’s heart. The creature convulsed, bit hard, and fell dead.
Its mate leaped and fastened its teeth in Sherzad’s throat. She could not shout. She could not move. The predator’s canines pressed against arteries. One nip, and she would bleed to death. One hard bite, and the creature would sever her spine.
Sherzad went limp. Chaos and clamor swirled around her, the shouts of men and the blows of the pikes. The men of land beat the predator away and dragged her to the shallows. All she knew for sure was the touch of the net.
oOo
The Hurons, wearing their diamond suits and greatly amused, galloped toward Marie-Josèphe.
“Be still,” Lucien said quietly.
Marie-Josèphe was too distraught for fear. The Hurons raced past. The older man brushed a feather across her hair. The younger did the same to Yves. The old man galloped by again, leaning down to touch Lucien.
“They have claimed our hair,” Lucien said. “For my part, this perruke is ruined; they may have it.”
When the King rode away to meet his brother, Lorraine tied Marie-Josèphe’s hands to the traces of the cart-horses. Bedraggled, despondent, she made no objection. Yves struggled — a futile exercise — when Lorraine directed the musketeers to tie him at Marie-Josèphe’s left hand. Lucien bore the inevitable disgrace with arrogant disdain.
Chartres and Maine bound him at Marie-Josèphe’s right.
“Someone in a high position could be of use to you now,” Lorraine said to Marie-Josèphe.
She raised her head and glared at him.
“A foolish reply.”
The horses lumbered forward. Lucien struggled to keep up, supporting himself awkwardly with his cane. The cart-horses plodded toward dawn.
“M. de Chrétien,” Lorraine said, “you are brought low.”
“And yet still you may slither beneath my foot.”
Lorraine slapped the rump of the near cart-horse. It lurched into a trot, pulling its pair with it. Lucien stumbled, recovered, scrambled.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said softly. The horses slowed, more out of exhaustion, he thought, than obedience.
It would please Lorraine, he thought, to drag me all the way to Versailles.
“Lucien —” Marie-Josèphe said.
“Shh.” He could not bear pity.
Marie-Josèphe twisted around, squinting into the darkness. “Did she escape?”
Splashing out of the shallows, His Majesty appeared through the mist. Monsieur and his teammates followed, carrying Sherzad. She was trapped in a net and suspended on poles. Marie-Josèphe sang; when the sea woman struggled, her song broke off in a sob. Sherzad wailed. Her eyes shone like a cat’s.
The young Carrousel riders, giddy with exhaustion and conquest, sparred with each other, jostled and joked, and jeered at Lucien. Old friendships dissolved without trace in the acid of the King’s disapproval. Lucien had seen it happen to others, this public humiliation. He had crafted his life so it would never happen to him. His painstaking work lay in ruins.
His Majesty stopped when he saw what the Chevalier had done. His gaze passed across Yves, and Marie-Josèphe, and the Chevalier, and fell finally upon Lucien.
“You have all gone insane.”
The sun was rising. The King sounded old, and exhausted.
27