"Barbara Hambly - Benjamin January 5 - Die Upon A Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

pointed out as they lugged the impresario in through the stage door to the vault where the props were
kept; "Signor Cavallo's clothing is unmuddied. I believe that you knocked down one of your attackers in
the fray." With a Creole gentleman present-tenderly depositing the unconscious d'Isola on a Roman
dining-couch while young Ponte and Hannibal dragged a gilded daybed out of the jumble of flats, carts,
lampstands, chairs, statues of Aphrodite, and stuffed or carven livestock that crammed this low brick
vault beneath the theater itself-he wasn't about to admit to having laid a finger on white men.
"Argue it later," commanded Madame Scie. "We need more light."
"Go upstairs and get candles," ordered Cavallo, giving Ponte a shove toward the stairs. "Get bandages,
too, and brandy from the wardrobe room. I'll fetch the City Guards."
"If you can find any sober at this hour," Madame Scie retorted as the tenor bolted through the outer
door. Madame Montero located a box of fat yellow candles among the props for the castle hall scene in
the upcoming La Muette de Portici. "Good. Thank you." The Creole gentleman still sat on the edge of the
banqueting-couch, gently chafing d'Isola's fragile hand. "Are you hurt, Benjamin?" Madame was the only
one, apparently, who had noticed.
"Just a scratch."
"Dear Virgin Mary, help me!" Belaggio sagged back onto the striped cushions, clutching his arm again.
"Brandy!" The Creole gentleman withdrew a flask from his pocket-mauve Morocco leather with an
amethyst on its silver cap-and held it out. Hannibal took a hearty swig before passing it on to January,
who put it to Belaggio's lips.
"Lorenzo, Lorenzo!" Drusilla d'Isola sat up and pressed lace-mitted hands to her bosom. "Ah, God, they
have killed him! Without him I shall die!" And fainted again. Gracefully, wrist to brow, into the mauve
Creole's powerful arms.
"Hannibal, fetch cloaks from the wardrobe." Marguerite Scie was fifty-seven years old and had seen,
from a garret window, her father and two of her brothers go to the guillotine. Histrionics did not impress
her. "You, Benjamin, sit down and get your coat off. M'sieu Marsan-" This to the Creole gentleman bent
tenderly over La d'Isola, the lamplight new-minted gold on his shining curls. "Where might we find M'sieu
Caldwell at this hour?" In any city but New Orleans, at any time but Carnival, the answer to such a
question at this hour would be, self-evidently, Home in bed. But there was no telling. Considering
Caldwell's former profession as an actor, and his current involvement in a dozen other money-making
schemes in the American community of New Orleans, the theater owner could be anywhere.
"Check the Fatted Calf Tavern," advised M'sieu Marsan, raising his head. The Creole's voice was both
light and melodious, with the soft slur to his speech. His eyelashes were dark, making his sky-blue eyes
all the brighter. "I believe he was going there with M'sieu Trulove to confer about the Opera Society, but
they may have gone on."
As he eased Belaggio out of his coat and waistcoats-the impresario affected the dandyish habit of
wearing two-and made another futile search for anything else resembling a wound, January wondered
what any of these people, let alone all of them, were doing in and around the American Theater at twenty
minutes after three in the morning.
Himself, and Marguerite Scie, he understood. While a twenty-four-year-old student of surgery in Paris,
he had made ends meet by playing piano for the ballet school at the Theatre de l'Odeon. Though close to
forty then, Madame had still been dancing, precise and perfect as Damascus steel. They had been lovers,
the first white woman he had had. When, much later, he had met and sought to marry the woman he
loved, it was Madame who had gotten him a job playing harpsicord for the Comedie Fran├зaise-the job
that had let him and Ayasha wed. Madame had, over the next few years, sent piano pupils his way, and
had recommended Ayasha's skills as a dressmaker to both the Comedie's costume shop and to the
actresses of the company: even in the heartland of Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite, there were few who
would choose a surgeon of nearly-pure African descent over white Frenchmen.
When January had entered the American Theater yesterday to meet the opera company Mr. Caldwell
had brought to New Orleans from Havana, Marguerite Scie's first words to him had been I grieved to
hear of your wife's death.