The sailors flinched. The creature fought the canvas that swaddled it.
Count Lucien opened the sedan chair. His Majesty leaned out. His court saluted him with bow or curtsy. The men removed their hats. Marie-Josèphe curtsied. Her silken skirts rustled. Even the sailors tried to bow, laden as they were, and ignorant of etiquette. The creature shrieked again, and strands of its black-green hair whipped over the edge as the basin rocked and tilted.
“It lives,” Louis said.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Yves said.
Yves pulled aside a flap of dripping canvas. The creature thrashed, splashing Louis’ silk coat. Louis drew away, raising a pomander to his face. Yves covered the creature again.
His Majesty turned to the captain. “I am pleased.”
The King withdrew into the sedan chair. Count Lucien closed the door, and the carriers quickstepped away. Marie-Josèphe curtsied again. Louis’ court stood aside, bowing to their King as his palanquin passed.
Count Lucien handed a small, heavy leather sack to the galleon’s captain. The count nodded to Yves, then followed the King’s conveyance.
The captain opened the King’s purse, poured gold pieces into his hand, and laughed with delight and satisfaction. Count Lucien had presented him with a double handful of louis d’or, the gold coins commemorating the King. For a man of the captain’s station, it was a fortune.
“Thank you, Your Majesty!” the captain called after Louis’ sedan chair. “Thank you, royal jester!”
Members of the court gasped. The chevalier de Lorraine chuckled and bent to whisper to Monsieur. Monsieur hid behind his pomander and his lace to conceal his amusement.
Count Lucien made no response, though he must have heard the captain. His walking stick thudded solidly on the carpet as he climbed to the quay.
Yves grabbed the captain’s arm to silence him. “His excellency Lucien de Barenton, Count de Chrétien!”
“No!” The captain laughed and shook his head. “Now you’re playing the jester, Father de la Croix.” He bowed. “A profitable voyage, sir. I’m at your service at any time — even when you hunt sea monsters.”
He strolled off toward the galleon.
Madame nudged Marie-Josèphe. “Greet your brother.”
Marie-Josèphe curtsied gratefully, lifted her silk skirts above the shiny stinking fish scales, and ran toward Yves. Still he did not acknowledge her.
Marie-Josèphe’s stride faltered. Is he angry at me? she wondered. How could he be?
I’m not angry with him, and I have some right to anger.
“Yves...?”
Yves glanced at her. He raised his dark arched eyebrows. “Marie-Josèphe!”
His expression changed. One moment he was the serious, ascetic, grown-up Jesuit, the next her delighted older brother. He took three long strides toward her, he embraced her, he swung her around like a child. She hugged him and pressed her cheek against the black wool of his cassock.
“I hardly recognize you — I didn’t recognize you! You’re a grown woman!”
She had so many things to tell him that she said nothing, for fear her words would spill out all at once in a tangle. He set her down and looked at her. She smiled up at him.
Sun-lines creased his face when he smiled. His skin had darkened to an even deeper tan, while her complexion was fading to a fashionable paleness. His black hair lay in disarrayed curls — unlike most of the men at court, he wore no perruke — while pins and the hot iron had crafted Marie-Josèphe’s red-gold mane into ringlets beneath the lace-covered wire and the ruffles of her headdress, a fashionable fontanges.
His eyes were the same, a beautiful, intense dark blue.
“Dear brother, you look so well — the voyage must have agreed with you.”
“It was dreadful,” Yves said. “But I was too busy to be troubled.”
He put his arm around her and returned to the gold basin. The creature thrashed and cried.
“To the quay,” Yves said. The sailors hurried up the dock. Their bare tattooed arms strained at the weight of basin and water and Yves’ living prey. Marie-Josèphe tried to see inside the basin, but wet canvas covered everything. She leaned against Yves, her arm tight around his waist. She would have plenty of time to look at his creature.
They walked between the lines of courtiers. Everyone, even Madame and Monsieur and the princes and princesses of the Blood Royal, strained to see the monster Yves had captured for the King.
And then, as Yves passed, they saluted him.
Startled for a moment, Yves hesitated. Marie-Josèphe was about to dig her fingers into his ribs — Yves had always been ticklish — to give him a lively hint about his behavior. As a boy he had always paid more attention to his bird collection than to his manners.
To Marie-Josèphe’s surprise, and delight, Yves bowed to Monsieur, to Madame, with perfect courtliness and the restraint proper to his station.