Marie-Josèphe curtsied to Monsieur. She raised Madame’s hem to her lips and kissed it. The portly duchess smiled fondly at her, and nodded her approval.
Yves bowed to the members of the royal family. He passed between the double line of courtiers. Graciously, he nodded to their acclaim.
Halfway up the dock, between the dukes and duchesses, and the counts and countesses, Marie-Josèphe and Yves passed the second sedan chair. Its windows were closed tight, and the curtains drawn behind the glass. Poor Mme de Maintenon, whose only task was to follow the King from Versailles to Le Havre and back, showed no interest in the creature and its triumphant captor.
“I wish I’d been with you,” Marie-Josèphe said. “I wish I’d seen the wild sea monsters!”
“We were cold and wet and miserable, and hurricanes nearly sank us. You’d have been blamed — on a warship, a woman is as welcome as a sea monster.”
“What foolish superstition.” Marie-Josèphe’s voyage from Martinique had been uncomfortable, yet exhilarating.
“You were much better off at the convent.”
Marie-Josèphe caught her breath. He knew nothing of the convent. How could he? If he had known, he would never have left her there in boredom and silence and lonely misery.
“I’ve missed you so,” she said. “I worried!”
“Whenever I thought of you, I heard your little tunes. In my mind. Do you still write them?”
“Versailles hardly has room for amateur musicians,” she said. “But you shall hear something of mine, soon.”
“I thought of you often, Marie-Josèphe... though not in such a dress.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s immodest.”
“It’s quite proper,” she said, leaving out her own first reaction to the tight waist and low neckline. She had known nothing of court then.
“It’s unsuited to your station. And to mine.”
“It’s unsuited for a colonial girl. But you’re now the King’s natural philosopher, and I’m Mademoiselle’s lady-in-waiting. I must wear grand habit.”
“And here I thought,” Yves said, “that you’d be safely teaching arithmetic.”
They climbed up the wharf to the quay.
“I couldn’t remain at Saint-Cyr,” Marie-Josèphe said. “All the instructresses must take the veil.”
Yves glanced at her, puzzled. “That would suit you.”
The King’s departure saved her from making a sharp retort; she, and Yves, and all the courtiers bowed as their sovereign climbed into his carriage. It drove away, surrounded by musketeers. The ragged townspeople streamed after the King, cheering, shouting, pleading.
Marie-Josèphe looked around hopefully for the chevalier de Lorraine, but he climbed into Monsieur’s carriage. The other courtiers hurried to their coaches and horses and clattered after the King.
Only Count Lucien, several musketeers, the pigeon-keeper, the baggage wagons, and a plain coach remained on the quiet quay.
The pigeon-keeper hurried to meet his apprentice, who toiled up the dock with the baggage-carriers. The apprentice balanced an awkward load of wicker cages, most of them empty. His master took the cages that still sheltered pigeons.
“Put the basin there,” Yves said to the sailors. He gestured to the first wagon. “Be gentle —”
“I want to see —” Marie-Josèphe said.
The last carriages rattled across the cobblestones.
Frightened by the clatter and the shouts and the snap of whips, the creature screamed and struggled. Its horrible singing cry cut off Marie-Josèphe’s words and spooked the draft horses so they nearly bolted.
“Be gentle!” Yves said again.
Marie-Josèphe leaned toward the basin, trying to see inside. “Now, behave!” she said. The creature shrieked.
The sailors dropped the basin. The carrying poles and the net fell across it. Water splashed the cobblestones. The sea monster groaned. The sailors ran toward the galleon, nearly knocking down the pigeon-keepers. The apprentice dropped the empty cages.
The master, who held live birds in his huge tender hands and let the pigeons perch on his shoulders and head, slipped his pets beneath his shirt for safety.
“Come back —” Yves called to the sailors. They ignored him. Their compatriots, carrying Yves’ other baggage, abandoned the crates and the luggage and the shrouded figure and fled to their ship.
Marie-Josèphe did her best not to laugh at Yves’ discomfiture. The wagon drivers had their hands full reining in the horses: they could not help. The musketeers would not, for fetching and carrying was far below their station. And of course Count Lucien could not be expected to help with the baggage.
Angry and stubborn, Yves tried to lift the basin. He barely raised its corner. Some ragged boys, stragglers from the crowd, rode the quay’s stone wall and jeered.
“You, boys!”
Count Lucien’s command stopped their laughter. They jumped to their feet, about to run, but he spoke to them in a friendly tone and threw each a coin.