plantations of the Missouri Territory. The smell of their smoke rasped in the cold air.
The parry had ended at two. Late for Americans, but as January and Hannibal and DeCoudreau (who had invited himself along to late supper at one of the cafes in the Market) had made their way up Rue Chartres they'd passed half a dozen lighted windows where the Creoles still danced, gambled, gossiped, the custom of the country in Carnival season, January's second since his return from Paris.
Madame Redfern's provision for the comfort of her musicians had been decidedly lacking, and by the time the three musicians (Laurent Lamartine of the tin ear and squeaky flute said his wife would worry if he stayed out) had finished oysters, crawfish jambalaya, coffee, and beignets; the black river fog had rinsed to opal gray.
Micajah Dunk at Spanish Bayou. Micajah Dunk kissing Emily Redfern's hands. It was quite clear to January that the five thousand dollars Cora was supposed to have stolen had left the Redfern plantation somehow: the creditors had searched the place fairly thoroughly, and Emily Redfern had been flat on her back in bed. In bed, and loudly proclaiming in that clanking voice that she had been poisoned and robbed. And the minute they were out the door she had taken steps to close off her husband's debts for whatever the creditors would take.
It explained, he thought, why she hadn't claimed the pearls.
To do so would have led to the questioning of someone who had actually spoken to Cora. Someone who might cause Cora to be found. True, a slave could not testify against her mistress, but there were those who would listen to Cora and ask questions of their own. January shivered and glanced over his shoulder at the dew-netted grass, the sleeping dark of the trees. He had never gotten over his uneasiness, born in the fever season, about being followed, had never lost the fear of being watched and stalked.
Helier Lapatie and Liam Roarke were both in their graves, but the knowledge that anyone else could work a kidnapping-and get away with it-lay like a chip of metal embedded in the back of his brain. It was too easy for a free man of color-a free woman of colormerely to drop out of sight.
Easier still, for an escaping slave. No one would ask.
Had Rose guessed? Had Cora told Rose things she hadn't mentioned to him, things that Rose hadn't even recalled until she saw the Redfern woman at the Cabildo? Things that would cause her to guess why Madame Redfern could not afford to have Cora found. It returned to him that Madame Redfern had left Milneburgh within a day or two of seeing, perhaps speaking to, Rose.
The thought tormented him as he edged down the narrow walkway between his mother's house and the cottage next door, as he crossed the silent yard to the gar?onni?re stairs. Hannibal slept once again among the bravos and whores of Girod Street. Rose's books-Anacreon, Plato, and Kant, Dalton's New System of Chemical Philosophy, and Agnesi's Analytical Institutions-still stacked the wall of January's room and the attic above it like bricks.
He passed his hand over them as he entered, the way he had touched the silks and wools folded everywhere in the Paris rooms once upon a time, seeking to feel in them the warmth of the woman whose hands had made them magic.
We have her books, Hannibal had said. We'll be seeing her again.
Rose had no fear. Rose would have gone to speak with La Redfern.
He glanced outside as he shut the door, his heart beating slow but uncomfortably heavy in his chest.
Just light. Too early to amble over to Nyades Street and ask casual questions of the Redfern cook on her way to the market. An hour, he decided and lay down, fully clothed, on the bed.
He had plenty of time. With the epidemics over, he no longer served at the Hospital, but neither was his schedule overburdened with pupils. Did Madame Redfern know of his connection with Rose Vitrac?
Had someone at the Cabildo told her something that had caused her to guess? Was she, in fact, behind the effort to put him out of business, run him out of town, as she had run Rose? But in that case, why hire him to play?
He seemed to be standing at the gateway of the cemetery on Rue des Ramparts, watching a man lead two women away among the tombs. For a moment he thought it