"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 3 - Graveyard Dust" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

It was graveyard dust, a cursing to the death.
There was nothing else, no sign to tell him who might have been here, who had done the rite.
She's probably home in bed. Nothing to do with this at all.
January crossed himself and walked swiftly back to the house. Though the drums had ceased, he
seemed to hear them, knocking in the growl of the thunder, in the darkness at his back.
Colonel Pritchard was waiting for him on the gallery. "When I pay four men for five hours I don't
expect to get only four hours and a half." The American studied January with light tan eyes that
seemed too small for his head. As far as January knew, the man had never been a colonel of
anything-there was certainly nothing of the military in his bearing-but he knew better than to omit
the title in speaking to him.
"No, Colonel," he said, in his best London English. "I am most sorry, sir. I heard a noise, as if of
an intruder, around . . ."
"I have servants to deal with noises if that's what you heard." The dust-colored eyes cut to
Hannibal, who smiled sunnily under his graying mustache; Pritchard's mouth writhed with
disgust. "And when I pay for four men for five hours I don't expect to get only three men and a
half. And you a white man, too." He plucked the flask from the pocket of Hannibal's shabby,
long-tailed black coat. Pulling the cork, the Colonel made another face. "Opium! I reckon that's
what happens when you spend your days playing music with Negroes." He hurled the flask away,
and January heard it smash against the brick of the kitchen wall.
"I suppose that means an end to the champagne as well," Hannibal noted philosophically as they
followed the master of the house back up the stairs. He coughed heavily, January reaching out to
catch him by the arm as he half-doubled over with the violence of the spasm. Pritchard glanced
over his shoulder at them from the top of the stairs, impatience and disdain on his heavyfeatured
face. "Just as well. I think we've seen the last of the chamber pot, too."
They remained in the ballroom, under the Colonel's sour eye, until two in the morning. Despite
the open windows, the room only grew hotter, and the pain in January's back and shoulders
increased until he thought he would prefer to die. Your back carries the music, he was always
telling his pupils. Strong back, light hands. It surprised him that he was able to play at all.
At around eleven, after a particularly gay mazurka, Aeneas came to the dais with a tray of
lemonade. "What's that?" Pritchard loomed at once from among the potted palms. "Who told you
to give these men anything?"
"Mrs. Pritchard did, sir." The cook's English wasn't good, but he took great care with it, as if he
feared the consequences of the smallest mistake.
"Mrs. Pritchard-" The Colonel turned to his wife, who, probably anticipating the objection, had
positioned herself not far away. "I thought I made it abundantly clear that I'm paying these men in
coin, after they have satisfactorily completed their duties, and not by permitting them to make
themselves free with my substance."
"It's such a very hot night, Colonel," she said soothingly. Her English was just as awkward-and
just as wary-as the cook's. "And, you understand, it is what is done. . . ."
"It is not `done' in this house. . . ."
During their low-voiced altercation Aeneas stepped back beside the piano where January sat and
whispered, "There's a boy back in the kitchen asking after you, Michie January. Says he's got to
see you. Says he's your nephew."
"Gabriel?" January looked up, trying to cover the fact that his arms were too weak from the strain
of playing to reach for the lemonade. It was far later than his sister Olympe would ever have
permitted any child of hers to be on the streets.
Panic touched him at the recollection of the drums, the blood. . . .
"That's what he says his name is, yes, sir. He says he has a message for you, but he wouldn't tell
me what." January glanced at his employer. Pritchard was already looking over at him, clearly
expecting the next dance to start up. "I don't think I'm going to be able to get over there until the