Part 15 (1/2)

”Did he?” January settled onto the other chair, straddling it backward. The table was a litter of plumes, lace, and silk flowers, hurtfully reminiscent of Ayasha. The apricot silk gown lay spread over the divan in the front parlor, gleaming softly in the light of the French doors. ”I wonder. And what he approved of when Angelique was alive, and what he'll countenance now, are two different things. Do you have anything of Angelique's? Something that could pa.s.s as a souvenir, something she wanted him to have?”

”With her mother selling up everything that would bring in a picayune? Here.” Dominique got to her feet and rustled over to the sideboard, returning with a pair of fragile white kid gloves. ”She and I wore the same sizes, down to shoes and gloves-I know, because she borrowed a pair of my shoes once when a rainstorm caught her and never returned them, the b.i.t.c.h. These should pa.s.s for hers.”

”Thank you.” He slipped them into his pocket. ”What do I owe you for them?”

”Goose.” She waved the offer away. ”It'll give Henri something to get me on my next birthday. Why is it men never know what to buy a woman? He has me do the shopping when he needs to buy gifts for his mother and sisters. Not that he ever tells them that, of course.”

”You sure he isn't having some other lady buy the presents he gives you?” suggested January mischievously.

Dominique drew herself up. ”Benjamin,” she said, with great dignity, ”no woman, even one who wished me ill, would have suggested that he buy me the collected works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” woman, even one who wished me ill, would have suggested that he buy me the collected works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”

”I abase myself,” apologized January humbly. ”One more thing.” He took from his breast pocket the envelope and handed it to her. ”I should be back Sunday. I'll come for this then. If I'm not-if I don't-take this to Lieutenant Shaw at the Calabozo immediately.”

And if worse came to worst, he added mentally, hope to h.e.l.l somebody-your Henri, or Livia, or somebody-would be able to come up with the $1,500 it would take to buy me out of slavery. hope to h.e.l.l somebody-your Henri, or Livia, or somebody-would be able to come up with the $1,500 it would take to buy me out of slavery.

If they could find me.

As he had predicted, the crowd at the public masquerade held in the Theatre d'Orleans was far larger than that at the quadroon ball going on next door, and far less well behaved.

The temporary floor had been laid as usual above the seats in the Theatre's pit, stretching from the lip of the stage to the doors. Bunting fluttered from every pillar and curtain swag, and long tables of refreshments had been set out under the eye of waiters to which-both John Davis, the owner of both buildings, and the master of ceremonies had informed the musicians in no uncertain terms-only the attending guests would have access. In the vast route of people bustling and jostling around the edges of the room or performing energetic quadrilles in the center, January recognized again all the now-familiar costumes: Richelieu, the dreadful blue-and-yellow Ivanhoe, Henry VIII-sans wives-the laurel-crowned Roman. The Roman was accompanied by a flaxen, flat-bosomed, and rather extensively covered Cleopatra, and some of the other American planters and businessmen by their wives, but they were far fewer, and the Creole belles evident were of the cla.s.s referred to by the upper-cla.s.s Creoles as chacas: shopgirls, artisans, grisettes.

The young Creole gentlemen were there in force, however, flirting with the chaca girls as they'd never have flirted with the gently bred ladies of their own station. Augustus Mayerling, who for all his expertise with a saber seemed indeed to be a surprisingly peaceable soul, had to step in two or three times to throw water on incipient blazes. Other fencing masters were not so conscientious. There were noticeably more women than men present, at least in part because the Creole gentlemen had a habit of disappearing down the discreetly curtained pa.s.sageway to the Salle d'Orleans next door, where, January knew, the quadroon ball was in full swing. Occasionally, if there was a lull in the general noise level, he could catch a drift of its music.

Philippe Decoudreau was on the cornet again. January winced.

He didn't hear them often, and less so as the evening progressed. In addition to the din of the crowd, the hollow thudding of feet on the suspended plank floor and the noise of the orchestra-augmented for the evening by a guitar, two flutes, and a badly played clarinette-the clamor in the streets was clearly audible. The heavy curtains of olive-green velvet were hooped back and the windows open. Maskers, Kaintucks, wh.o.r.es, sailors, and citizens out for a spree thronged and paraded through the streets from gambling hall to cabaret to eating house, calling to one another, singing, blowing flour in one anothers' faces, ringing cowbells, and clas.h.i.+ng cymbals. There was a feverish quality to the humid air. Fights and scuffles broke out between the dances, sometimes lasting all the way out of the hall to the checkroom where pistols, swords, and sword-canes had been deposited.

”Do you see Peralta?” asked January worriedly at one point, dabbing the sweat from his face and scanning the crowd. The press of people raised the temperature of the room to an ovenlike stifle, a circ.u.mstance that didn't seem to affect the dancers in the slightest degree. Almost no breeze stirred from the long windows and the air was heavy with the smells of perfume, pomade, and uncleaned costumes.

Hannibal, white with fatigue and face running with sweat, swept the room with his gaze, then shook his head. ”Doesn't mean he isn't here,” he pointed out. His hoa.r.s.e, boyish voice was barely a thread. ”He might be in the lobby-I went out there a few minutes ago, it's like a coaching inn at Christmas. Or he might be next door.”

Or in Davis's gambling rooms up the street, thought January. Or at some elegant private ball. Or riding back to Bayou Chien Mort tonight, to make sure no one comes asking awkward questions about his son. Or at some elegant private ball. Or riding back to Bayou Chien Mort tonight, to make sure no one comes asking awkward questions about his son.

In the cathedral, where he'd gone to make his Lenten confession early and pray desperately for the success of his journey, January had been tormented by the conviction that Peralta would walk in and see him, recognize him, somehow know what his plans were. It irritated him that he should feel like a criminal in his search for the justice that the law should be giving him gratis. Confession and contrition and the ritual of the Ma.s.s had calmed his fears for a time, but as the evening progressed and Peralta did not make an appearance, like scurrying rats the fears returned.

The band occupied a dais set on the stage, and with the temporary floor slightly below even that level, January had a good view of the dancers. Dr. Soublet was there, arguing violently with another physician who seemed to think six pints of blood an excessive amount to abstract from a patient in a week.

Though the buffet tables were situated on the opposite side of the room from the windows, Henri Viellard-duly garbed as a sheep-seemed to have chosen gourmandise over fresh air; he patted his forehead repeatedly with a succession of fine linen handkerchiefs but refused to abandon proximity to the oysters, tartlets, meringues, and roulades. In his fluffy costume he bore a more than pa.s.sing resemblance to a bespectacled meringue himself, with an apricot silk bow about his neck. His sisters, January noticed, were likewise clothed as fanciful animals: a swan, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse (that was the little one who looked like she'd escaped from the convent to attend), and something which after long study he and Hannibal agreed probably had to be a fish.

”Which I suppose makes Madame Viellard a farmer's wife,” concluded January doubtfully.

”Or Mrs. Noah,” pointed out Hannibal. ”All she needs is a little boat under her arm.”

He glimpsed both William Granger and Jean Bouille, moving with calculated exactness to remain as far as possible from one another while still occupying the same large room. As Uncle b.i.+.c.het had remarked, Bouille's wife did seem to disappear up to the screened private theater boxes every time Bouille vanished down the pa.s.sageway to the Salle next door. When the dance concluded and Granger and Bouille led their respective partners toward the buffet in courses that threatened to intersect, the master of ceremonies scurried to intercept Bouille before another disaster could occur.

While Monsieur Davis's eye was elsewhere, January rose from the piano and moved discreetly along the wall to the buffet. He didn't like the white look around Hannibal's mouth, or the way he had of leaning inconspicuously against the piano as he played. He looked bled out, the flesh around his eyes deeply marked with pain, and the watered laudanum, January suspected, was not doing him very much good. As he drew close to the buffet Mayerling caught his eye, signaled him to stay where he was, and wandered over himself to collect a gla.s.s of champagne and one of the strong mola.s.ses tafia, then strolled back up to the stage as January returned to his place at the piano.

”I wanted to thank you again for standing physician the other day,” said the fencing master. ”You behold your compet.i.tion.”

Soublet and his adversary had reached the shouting stage and were brandis.h.i.+ng their canes: It was obviously only a matter of time until they named their friends.

”Maybe not being able to practice in this city is what the preachers call a blessing in disguise,” said January.

”And a fairly thin disguise at that. You know Granger is now claiming that he deloped-fired into the air-and Bouille is hinting to everyone he thinks will listen that his opponent flinched aside at the last moment-in other words, dodged out of cowardice, surely one of the most foolish things to do under the circ.u.mstances since most pistols will throw one direction or the other, especially at fifty feet.”

He nodded toward Bouille, deep in conversation with Monsieur Davis, who was steering him in the direction of a group of Creole businessmen and their wives. ”So now we can only hope to keep them apart for the evening. After tomorrow, of course, they will both be sober more of the time.”

”Thompsonian dog!” screamed Dr. Soublet, his opponent evidently favoring the do-it-oneself herbalist school of that well-known Yankee doctor.

”Murderer!” shrieked the Thompsonian dog, and the two men fell upon each other in a welter of kicking, flailing canes, and profanity.

”Birds in their little nests agree,” sighed Hannibal, draining the tafia, sighed Hannibal, draining the tafia, ”And 'tis a shameful sight When children of one family Fall out, and chide, and fight.”

Monsieur Davis and half a dozen others hustled the combatants from the room.

Mayerling remained where he was, shaking his head in a kind of amazement. Hannibal picked up his violin again, playing to cover the chatter of the crowd; the music was frail as honey candy, but with an edge to it like gla.s.s.

”I never saw the point of dueling, myself.” January turned back to the keyboard. His hands followed the trail the violin set, a kind of automatic embellishment that could be done without thinking. ”It might be different were I allowed to give challenges, or accept them, but I don't think so.”

”Of course not,” said the Prussian in surprise. ”You have your music. You are an intelligent man, and an educated one. You are seldom bored. It is all from boredom, you know,” he went on, looking out into the room again. ”It is like the Kaintucks in the Swamp or the Irish on Tchoupitoulas Street. They have nothing to do, so they get into fights or look for reasons to get into fights. They are not so very different from the Creoles.”

He shook his head wonderingly.

”...It's not like she's got room to be so d.a.m.n choosy,” said a man's voice, beside one of the boxes on the stage. ”If Arnaud sinned he must have had his reasons. No man whose wife is making him happy goes straying like that.”

There was a murmur of agreement. January turned his head sharply, saw that it was the Jack of Diamonds, Charles-Louis Trepagier, and another man, shorter than he but with the same st.u.r.dy, powerful build. The shorter man wore the gaudy costume of what Lord Byron probably had conceived a Turkish pasha to look like, ballooning pistachio-colored trousers, a short vest of orange and green, an orange-and-green turban with a purple gla.s.s jewel on it the size of an American dollar. An orange mask hid his face, orange slippers his feet, a long purple silk sash that had clearly started its life as a lady's scarf wrapped two or three times around his waist.

”It isn't like she hasn't had offers,” added another of the Trepagier clan resentfully. ”Good ones, too-I don't mean trash like McGinty. She thinks she's too good...”

”Too good! That's a laugh!” The stranger threw back his head with a bitter bark. He leaned closer, lowering his voice but not nearly enough. ”If the woman's turned you down it's because she's got a lover hidden somewhere. Has had, since she shut Arnaud out of her bed. I've even heard she's put on a mask and come dancing.”

”At public b.a.l.l.s?”

”Public b.a.l.l.s, certainly,” said the pasha. He nodded back over his shoulder toward the discreet doorway of the pa.s.sage to the Salle. ”And other places, maybe not so public.”

”Sir...”

January hadn't even seen Mayerling move. The young fencing master slipped through the crowd like a bronze fish, a dangerous glitter of blue-and-black jewels like dragon scales, his big, pale hands resting folded on the gems of his belt buckle. Behind the modeled leather of his mask, his hazel eyes were suddenly deadly chill.

”I a.s.sume,” said Mayerling, ”that you are speaking third-hand gossip about someone whom none of you knows. Certainly no gentleman would bandy any woman's name so in a public place.”

The Trepagier boys regarded him in alarmed silence. In his five years in New Orleans the Prussian had only fought three duels, but in each he had killed with such scientifically vicious dispatch, and such utter lack of mercy, as to discourage any further challenges. The wolf-pale eyes traveled from their clothing to their faces, clearly recognizing, clearly identifying.

”This is fortunate, since I only duel with gentlemen,” Mayerling went on quietly. He turned to regard the pasha in green. ”Should I happen to find,” he said, as if he could see the face behind the garish satin of the mask, ”that a woman's name is being spoken by those whose blood would not dishonor my sword, then of course, as a gentleman, I should have no choice but to avenge that lady's honor and put a halt to that gossip in whatever way seemed best to me.”

The yellow gaze swept them like a backhand cut. There was no cruelty in it, only a chill and terrifying strength. January could almost see the line of blood it left.