A closed carriage drove Marie-Josèphe and Lucien to Versailles, at the end of a procession of wagons filled with treasure. His Majesty led in an open caleche. Aztec gold covered him like armor and decked the harness of his horses and spilled out to the wheels. A hundred musketeers guarded the convoy. People lined the road and cheered their King and stared at the treasure in wonder.
Marie-Josèphe peeked past the heavy curtain. Dust and shouts filtered into the carriage.
“He must admit he was wrong,” Marie-Josèphe said. “And we were right.”
“No,” Lucien said. “Right, wrong — what’s important is that we defied him.”
“But that’s nonsense.”
“He can’t afford to forgive us.” Lucien sighed theatrically. “I accept His Majesty’s wrath... As long as he doesn’t sentence us to the galleys — and send us to sea for the rest of our lives.”
Marie-Josèphe managed to return his smile. Lucien twisted the handle of his sword-cane and drew the broken blade.
“It served me well,” he said.
“And Sherzad. And me.”
He sheathed it and locked it. In the dimness of the carriage, his clear grey gaze touched Marie-Josèphe as gently as he had held her hand.
Marie-Josèphe moved from her side of the carriage to his. She took his hand, drew off his glove, and removed his rings. She hesitated when she reached the heavy sapphire, but he did not stop her. She slipped His Majesty’s ring from Lucien’s finger.
She pressed her cheek against his palm.
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.
oOo
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.