railing. Considering the hour at which the fiddler had come in last night-well after January's predawn return from the Hospital-he suspected this illness was the usual result of Hannibal's drinking, but went to him nevertheless, and while steadying him, unobtrusively checked for fever.
"Won vinum virus moderari," whispered Hannibal at last, draped like a wet rag doll over the railing. "Sed viri vino solent. Have I died of the fever yet?" He was panting as if he had run a long distance.
"No," replied January unfeelingly. Given the present possible fates of free colored who lived alone with no one in the houses on either side, he felt safer knowing there was another person on the premises, and he was genuinely fond of the fiddler, but sharing quarters with Hannibal Sefton did have its disadvantages.
"It isn't Bronze John-just your old friend John Barleycorn. And if you'd moderari your intake of vinum you wouldn't be having this problem."
"Ah, but think of the others that would be caused by worry in its place." He wavered back into the dark little chamber that had from time immemorial been occupied by the Widow Levesque's cook Bella and, unequal to the task of fighting his way back through the mosquito-bar, simply collapsed on the floor with his back against the foot of the bed. "I'll sleep here, thanks."
January went into his own room and brought in the tub of water he'd drawn to sluice his head and arms before getting dressed for the Blanque girls' piano lessons. Hannibal thrust his head into it as if he expected there to be a twenty-dollar gold piece on the bottom that he could pick up only with his teeth.
He came up dripping and gasping, like a drowned elf.
"Thank you," he said.
"Thank you," replied January seriously. "The two young ladies who brought you home this morning told me you'd been making enquiries among their friends about people spending more money than is their wont to have. Did you learn anything?" Anything you can remember? he wanted to add, but didn't.
Hannibal was having enough problems this morning.
"Ah. The lovely Bridgit and the equally lovely Thalia. They did say that nobody's showed up with five thousand all in a lump, but, of course, if Cora were abducted by a group the money would have been split. No one seems to have even been throwing around as much as a thousand. They did say that Roarke, the proprietor of the Jolly Boatman, had been expecting such a sum, that he'd won from one Otis Redfern, but nothing came of it: Roarke's inamorata du jour, one Miss Trudi, abused the other girls for a week on the strength of the disappointment."
"That sounds genuine," murmured January. He thought that one of the girls who'd greeted him in the yard in the small hours-an incapable Hannibal in tow had looked vaguely familiar. She'd been dishing the crawfish and rice yesterday, behind the gotch-eyed bartender's back.
"Are you off to Mademoiselle Vitrac's, when you're feeling better? Then let her know I've gone up to Spanish Bayou, to have a look at the Redfern place. They're auctioning it Monday. The slaves are gone;
Madame Redfern herself is in Milneburgh; this is our last chance to see anything there that is to be seen. I should be back tomorrow, when the Lancaster makes her usual run down from Natchez. Copies of my papers are in my desk."
Hannibal nodded. January scooped aside the mosquito-bar and helped him back into bed, exasperation and pity in his heart. January knew better than to remonstrate with a man whose illness and pain had led him into addiction. The road that led away from opium would lead only back to pain, and both had given Hannibal an uneradicable taste for oblivion. So he said only, "Will you be all right?"
"Eripere vitam nemo non homini potest, at nemo mortem; mille ad hanc aditus patent. I'll look after Athene of the Bright Eyes. You watch yourself, upriver."
There wasn't time to walk to the levee and check on the progress of the Philadelphia's cargo; January could only hope it was delayed. Most steamboats left before noon, and with the waning moon rising late he guessed the captain of the vessel would be pressing the pilot and the engincer to be off as soon as could be. The next upriver boat was the Lancaster, early Sunday morning, and January did not like to count on the house at Spanish Bayou remaining empty for that long. As he walked the length of