A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [54]
“What, and miss a duel?” As usual for this hour of the morning the fiddler looked as if he’d been pulled through a sieve, but his dark eyes sparkled with irony. “The single, solitary chance of an entire lifetime to see a Creole and an American actually taking potshots at each other? Heaven forfend.” He raised the backs of his fingers to his forehead in the manner of a diva quailing before circumstances too awful to endure. “It’s all a matter of timing,” he explained and went back to the dregs of his coffee.
“When now Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy luster purpled o’er the lawn …
“The very hour, my friends, when the sporting establishments in the Swamp customarily close their doors and disgorge the flatboat crews into the—er—I suppose I have to call it a street. They’ll still be drunk, but not drunk enough yet to pass out, and they don’t go back to work until sunrise. If I come along to the duel I only have to worry about one bullet.”
“I like to see a man who is provident as well as talented.” Mayerling nodded gravely, then held out a gloved hand to January. “Thank you again for agreeing to accompany us. It’s a nuisance, and cuts into your rest—and mine, I might add—but they seem to think their manhood will fall off in the dirt if they are deprived of the chance at least to put their lives in danger to prove the veracity of their claims. You’re familiar with their quarrel?”
“Only that it’s the biggest shouting match since that last mayoral election when the editors of the Argus and the Courier got into that fistfight in the Café Hewlett,” said Hannibal cheerfully.
“I gather Granger started out by accusing Bouille of deliberately voting against the proposed streetcar route of his LaFayette company in favor of another one that he says would favor the French population.”
January finished the last scrap of beignet, and he and Hannibal followed the Prussian through the clutter of tables and patrons toward the street. “Bouille came back saying Granger was only angry because he, Bouille, hadn’t accepted the bribes offered by the LaFayette and Pontchartrain railway, and from there they went on to accuse each other of cowardice, bastardy, enticing young girls to run away from convents in order to lead them to ruin, infamous personal habits, and accepting a slap in the face from the mayor without demanding retribution.”
January tucked his music satchel under his arm and sprang lightly across the gutter, the weight of his black leather medical bag a weirdly familiar ballast in his hand.
“I am armed with more than complete steel,” quoted Hannibal expansively. “The justice of my quarrel.”
“My mother says she can’t believe Bouille didn’t accept whatever bribes Granger was handing out because Bouille’s palm is greasier than a candlemaker’s apron, but that Granger makes his money stealing cows in St. Charles Parish and selling them back to their owners, so what does he care about his silly streetcar line anyway? I’d forgotten,” he added reminiscently, “how much I loved New Orleans politics.”
The sword master gave him a quick grin. “Better than Balzac, no? I am a peaceful soul … no, it’s true,” he added, seeing January’s eyebrows shoot up. “Fighting is either for joy, or for death—to push and test yourself against your friend, or to end the encounter as quickly as possible so that your enemy does not get up again, ever. This silliness …” He waved a dismissive hand, as they dodged through the early traffic of carts and drays and handbarrows in the flickering oil-lit darkness of Rue du Levée.
Mayerling’s students were