Marie-Josèphe lit the lanterns; the glow vanished. The sea monster whistled and hummed and splashed, luring Marie-Josèphe to her.
“I can’t play with you now, sea monster,” Marie-Josèphe whispered. “His Majesty is coming!” She checked the screens of heavy silk to be sure the sea monster could not see past them, then pulled aside the dead monster’s canvas shroud, exposing the carcass, spilling sawdust and melting ice to the floor. Preserving fluids and caked blood stained the canvas. The monster’s ribs lay exposed, stripped of skin and muscle. One arm was flayed to the bone, and the leg on the same side.
Outside the tent, His Majesty’s wheeled cart creaked; hooves crunched in gravel; footsteps tramped. Yves greeted the King and Count Lucien. The King’s deaf-mutes pushed his chair into the tent. Count Lucien walked beside His Majesty. Four carriers followed with a sedan chair hung with white velvet and gold tassels. Marie-Josèphe hugged Lorraine’s dark cloak around her and stood by her drawing box, hoping to attract as little attention as possible.
“I think it best to examine the sea monster’s internal organs in private,” the King said.
“Your Majesty,” Yves said, “the sea monsters are ordinary animals.”
The deaf-mutes lifted the cart onto the plank floor and pushed it to the lab table.
The sedan chair followed; the carriers lowered it and fled the tent, bowing.
His Majesty did not bother to dismiss his deaf-mutes; he treated them, as always, as if they hardly existed. Count Lucien remained by his side, leaning easily on his staff.
Marie-Josèphe returned his polite nod with a quick curtsy. Yves helped His Holiness from the palanquin and conducted him to an armchair.
Exhaustion paled the old man’s face, and he leaned heavily on Yves’ arm. His Majesty swung himself out of the cart and hobbled to the dissection table, leaning only a little on Count Lucien’s shoulder. He gazed with fascination at the creature. His Majesty showed no signs of having been up all night; even the swelling of his gout had eased.
“Every feature I’ve studied so far,” Yves said, “every muscle, every bone, has its match within every other furred creature known to natural philosophy.”
“Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said, “I did not charge you to find what is common about the sea monsters. I charged you to find what is unique.”
“I will look, Your Majesty.” Yves took up his heaviest lancet. “Are you ready, sister?”
Marie-Josèphe settled a fresh sheet of paper.
Yves sliced open the creature’s belly, exposing its viscera. The intestines and stomach lay flat and shrivelled, empty of food. Perhaps the male sea monster had successfully resisted being force fed. Marie-Josèphe regretted the creature’s death, but she was glad the organs would not explode upon His Majesty and His Holiness when Yves pierced them.
“The intestines are rather short for a creature that must sustain itself mostly on seaweed, with an occasional garnish of fish,” Yves said, “by which I surmise that seaweed is easily digested.”
He cut the intestines out delicately, measuring and inspecting, taking small samples, placing the organs in jars of spirits. Marie-Josèphe drew as best she could in lantern light. The sea monster’s intestine sported an appendix, unusual in most animals.
Yves dissected out the kidneys, the pancreas, the bladder; he even sought stomach-stones and kidney-stones. He found nothing unusual or notable in the lower abdomen. He might have been dissecting any carcass, or even the corpse of a man.
His Majesty watched with increasing impatience; His Holiness with increasing discomfort. Count Lucien watched unmoved.
With a heavy pair of shears, Yves cut open the ribs at the breastbone. He separated the rib cage, exposing the lungs and the heart.
“It is as I thought,” Yves said. He probed delicately into the chest, moving aside lobes of the lungs to expose the heart and the various glands. “The creature presents no attributes of the fish, neither gills nor swim-bladder. It is very like the dugong. And as you have seen, Your Majesty, the sea monster possesses internal organs normal to all mammals.”
“Father de la Croix, whether the monster is a fish or a beast is of no interest to me.
What is of interest is its organ of immortality.”
“I’ve found no evidence of such an organ, Sire. Immortality, like the transmutation of gold, is the province of alchemy, abhorred by the Church and by natural philosophy.”
“You dismiss ancient tales cavalierly, Father de la Croix,” His Majesty said. “How did you come to accept this undertaking, if you believe my quest futile?”
“I wished to please Your Majesty,” Yves said, taken aback by the King’s sharp tone.
“The quest for the sea monsters was anything but futile. As for the organ of immortality, it exists, or it does not exist. My beliefs are immaterial.”