"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 4 - Sold Down the River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

were called-a storyteller and a singer of songs. January had wanted to kill Fourchet and even at
the time had known that if the big man died, at least a couple of the slaves would end up being
sold to pay debts while the man's son was still a young boy. Maybe all of them.
And he'd known then, for the first time, that taste of helpless fear, the awareness that some things
had to be endured for the sake of the slender and priceless good that endurance bought you.
Being in hell wasn't as bad as it might be, if you could sit with your family in the hot dark of
summer nights, listen to the crickets and the soft sweet wailing of singing along the street of the
quarters, in those short lapis hours between supper and bed.
The thought of losing that-even that-was usually enough to make a man or a woman think twice
about open revolt.
Still he said nothing. But he felt as if the whole core of him had shrunk and cured to a rod of iron,
ungiving and utterly cold.
"Then yesterday morning the servants found Gilles, my butler, dead in the storeroom under the
house." Fourchet's mouth hardened. "Beside him was a bottle of liquor, cognac. My cognac. The
cellaret in the dining room was unlocked, the keys lying beside Gilles's hand."
Bitter hatred froze the old planter's face as he gazed unseeing at the bright slim slat of Rue
Burgundy visible beyond the window louvers, remembering whatever sight it was that he had
been brought down to see.
"Livia will have told you I used to drink," he said. "And that when I drank, it was as if there was
a devil in me."
"My mother never spoke of you, sir," replied January, and the dark eyes slashed in his direction
again, then cut toward the straight cool figure in the yellow muslin, sipping her cafe creme. But
since January hadn't actually said, What makes you think she gave you a moment's thought after
she wiped your spunk off her legs and went about her business? there was nothing with which
Fourchet could take issue.
"Just as well. I'd like to say that all the evil in my life sprang from drink, but I don't think even
that's true." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end with carnivorous-looking teeth. "For
eight months now I have not tasted a drop. Nor will I. But I've spoken of this to no one. Only my
wife knows of my decision to put it out of my life, to make some reparation for the harm I've
caused. Not so very long ago poisoning my liquor would have been the quickest way to get shut
of me." He was silent again, as if he expected praise or admiration for this abstinence-as if every
slave on Bellefleur hadn't known to stay out of the master's way when he'd been at the bottle. As
if even the scullery maid hadn't held him in fear-filled contempt.
"Well, it's clear to me what's going on this time." The planter shook his head. "I don't think it's
revolt-they're taking too goddam long over it. No-someone's set out to destroy my land. To
destroy me." His hands balled into fists upon his knees, his face like a storm-scarred stone.
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Percy Shelley had written of an ancient colossus,
battered and alone. A shattered visage . . . whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold
command. . . .
Fourchet held the cigar to his lips and glanced at January, not even expectantly, but impatiently.
A slave, January realized, would spring at once to the spiritlamp beneath the coffee and kindle a
spill for him.
So, of course, would a gentleman host who didn't want to relegate the task to the only lady in the
room. January fetched the spill, his anger smoldering in him like the ember at the spill's tip. The
comparison with Shelley's poem was too grand, he thought. Yet the words would not leave his
mind.
"It might just be my neighbors, the Daubray brothers, are behind this, or paying one of my blacks
to do it." The dark glance flickered sideways to January again through the curl of the smoke. "I've
been in lawsuit against them for near a year now, and the case is coming to court as soon as the
harvest's in. I wouldn't put it past them to burn my mill." For a moment the old black glint of