January was shocked, but not so shocked that he didn't make a grab for the pressure pad Barnard had dislodged from the pouring wound. Barnard pushed his hand away, "Keep your hands off him," he commanded ringingly. "I am a doctor. The man's constitution needs to be lowered before any further medical attention can be of the slightest avail."
"That man is bleeding to death!"
"Don't give way to panic at the sight of a little blood," said Barnard. "What kind of a surgeon are you?"
He removed his glove, and pushed the sodden towel just slightly to one side, so that the blood would not spurt. "Indeed, I may have to bleed the man again tomorrow, should his sanguine humors remain elevated." He took the scissors from January's hand, snipped Brinvilliers's shirt free, and proceeded to extract a pad of clean bandages from his own medical bag, which someone had brought him double-time from the cloakroom below.
"Now this," he said, holding up a phial from his bag, filled with something that looked like rusty water to the view of the crowd, "is a formula of my own making, a compound of calomel and opium, to further depress the patient's humors and-"
"The man is bleeding to death," January interrupted grimly, pressing forward and pulling another towel from the nerveless grip of one of the waiters. He started to slide it under Brinvilliers' body, to tighten the dressing; again, Barnard thrust him aside.
"Will someone please remove this man? He is interfering with me when Monsieur Brinvilliers's life may be at stake!"
Someone took January's arm. "The man knows what he's doing, son," said a firm but kindly voice.
January stared at the speaker, a Creole businessman probably ten years his junior. "He does not know what he's doing," he said, surprised at how level his own voice was. "Less than five months ago he was stealing clothes off the dead at the Charity Hospital! He-"
"You're speaking of a partner of one of the foremost physicians in the city, boy," snapped someone else, and Froissart hurried between, catching January's arm. Exasperated at being handled, January pulled free, but Froissart was already herding him to the back of the crowd.
"It's all right," the manager was saying in a mollifying tone, "he's only upset at the sight of the blood..."
"Monsieur Froissart," said January in a low voice, as the manager pushed him toward the little hallway that led from the vestibule to the supper rooms-closed during the Blue Ribbon Balls-and a sort of retiring parlor where women could fix their hems and flounces and hair. "Monsieur Froissart, I was a surgeon at the Hotel Dieu in Paris for six years! When a man is bleeding-"
"Yes, yes, but Monsieur Couret is right, you know," said Froissart. "Emil Barnard is one of the rising doctors of the city, one of the best of the new young men. Surely he knows what he's doing. I hope he didn't hear your remarks about him..."
"I don't give a... it doesn't concern me if he did! Sir," added January. "If Brinvilliers were conscious enough to choose his own treatment it would be one thing, but-"
"You're upset," said Froissart. "I understand. Perhaps it would be better if you went home now. The others can manage without you, and I'm afraid after all this unpleasantness you probably wouldn't be able to perform."
That was all I needed, thought January, swiftly descending the service stairs to the courtyard a few minutes later, his bloodied coat and gloves folded carefully into his music satchel and his shirtsleeves damp from the wash water in the upstairs parlor in which he'd wrung them out. What may be my only work this season-the quadroon balls -and now Froissart's worried about what his clients will think of me.
The night was mild and thickly foggy, permeated with the haunting burnt smell of the sugar houses across the river. Each paper lantern on the courtyard trees was ringed in its own muzzy moondog of light. By their glow January saw a pale figure beneath the trees: the round little face, the explosion of pomaded curls beneath turban and jewels.
"It's only me, Mademoiselle Marie-Neige, Monsieur Janvier. It's all right." He nodded back toward the ballroom. "You can go back in. The trouble's over."
"Thank you." The girl's voice was small and shaky. For all her pushiness, Agnes Pellicot kept her daughters fairly sheltered. It would have been Marie-Neige's first encounter with the violence of the city in which she lived. She started to hurry