Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [308]
“Perhaps another will be tempted,” he said lightly. “ Putain c’est putain. Am I right, my dear?—a whore is forever a whore.” He turned his head toward Nanon, who remained as dull and lifeless as before. Then to the doctor. “Of course, it makes for a short career.”
The doctor swiveled away from him and went to the floor-length window facing the street and wrenched the shutters open. The men at the nearer end of the table flinched from the last light of the day; one of them muttered a complaint. Round the sofa at the far end of the room there was laughter and a few handclaps—apparently that embrace had reached its goal.
Slowly the doctor walked back around the table. At the head, Choufleur sat very upright, his hands palm down before him, facing the fresh light from the arched window. Nanon had begun reeling the chain up from the floor and was gathering it into her lap with both hands. Without breaking his step, the doctor leaned across and slapped Choufleur on the side of his face, thrusting his weight into the heel of his palm to add as much injury to the insult as possible. A gasp from the other gamblers. Choufleur’s head snapped sideways, then slowly revolved toward the doctor again. His freckles seemed to shrink and concentrate, hot and dark on the pale skin like stipples on the dice. His finger found a runnel of blood at the corner of his mouth.
Then he was up, slavering, “I’ll kill you!” but two of his fellows were also on their feet, knocking their chairs backward in their haste to restrain him. The blade was half out of his sword-stick, but their grip on his wrists kept him from drawing it free. He spat, but the doctor turned sideways and the gobbet went past him.
“Excellent,” he said. “I accept your challenge. If the choice of weapon is mine, let it be pistols.”
“As you like,” Choufleur sputtered. “You’ll not get away with a saber cut. I’ll blow your head off and piss in the hole.”
He relaxed, and the men at his sides let him go. With a twist he reseated the slender blade in the sword-stick. The doctor looked at Nanon, who seemed oblivious to the entire episode. She had stood up, cradling the gathered chain below her breasts as if it were an infant. Making a trance-like turn, she moved slowly toward a staircase in the corner of the room.
“I propose we allow three days to settle our affairs,” the doctor said, his eyes tracking Nanon as she began to mount the stairs.
“So long as you do not run away, blanc,” Choufleur said. “I won’t be denied the pleasure of killing you. Of trampling your spilled brains into the dirt. Or maybe I will feed them to my dogs.”
“After three days you may find me on the ground at La Fossette.” The doctor returned his smile. “Bring whatever seconds you like.”
“You may count on me, blanc.” Choufleur turned from him, and picked up the dice.
The doctor leaned forward and plucked a card from the scattered deck and tossed it up toward the ceiling. With the same hand he reached to his opposite hip, drew a pistol from under his coat flap and fired. As it crossed the shaft of fading daylight the card jerked sideways and planed toward the unshuttered window. One of the gamblers scrambled to retrieve it from the floor, and held it high with a bark of astonishment. The nine of clubs, with the numeral shot out of the top corner. Choufleur looked fixedly at the card, expressionless.
“I shall look forward to our meeting very much,” the doctor said. He holstered his pistol as he turned away. Riau followed him out.
He was expected that evening to dine with the Cignys, but first accompanied Riau back to the casernes, with the thought of meeting Captain Maillart, who was also invited. He found Maillart shirtless, washing himself at the well; the captain looked bloodless beneath his sunburn, and sweat kept bursting out on his torso faster than he could rinse it away. The doctor thought at first he had taken fever, but it turned out the captain was simply shaken by what he had seen that day: an insurrection