Read Online Days of the Dead by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Barbara Hambly
Ads: Link
sinister scrolled serpents, glyphs he could not read. Here a kneeling man could be made out, piercing his tongue with what appeared to be an enormous needle. Elsewhere four men held a fifth down upon an altar while a figure in a feathered headdress carved out the victim’s heart.
“Consuela tells me you were seen putting something into the young man’s wineglass,” he said.
“In point of fact,” said Hannibal, “I was putting it into my
own
wineglass, and it was laudanum, and not very much of it, either. After sitting for three hours at that table with Doña Josefa glaring at me from one side and Doña Gertrudis from the other, believe me, I needed it. But of course Werther—Fernando’s valet—is convinced I poisoned his master. And after three weeks of watching me walking about in a state of what he considers freedom—having himself never been subjected to what amounts to house arrest by a raving lunatic—he got sick of waiting for the Principles of Universal Law to go into effect and took matters quite literally into his own hands. He crept into my room one night and tried to strangle me. Discouraged from that activity, he promptly fled the hacienda, rode straight to Mexico City, and informed Capitán Ylario that when he had found Franz, Franz was not yet dead, and that he died with the words ‘The
Norteamericano
has poisoned me’ upon his purpling lips.”
“Ah,” said Rose in a tone more resigned than surprised.
“Is there a chance he could be speaking the truth?” asked January. “Werther, I mean, not Franz.”
“Not unless the laws governing the transmission of heat and cold have altered themselves for my confusion,” answered Hannibal wearily. “Which is entirely possible, the way things have been going.” He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, rather resembling a dilapidated cricket in the westering sun that slanted through the arcade. “Not that there was any doubt, cold or not, that the poor brute was dead. It was . . . quite obviously a horrible death. The problem is . . .”
In the court below one of the vaqueros called out something in their nearly-unintelligible
Indio
Spanish; there was a great jingling of traces and the creak and rumble of carriage-wheels. “Ah,” said Hannibal, glancing over the turned wood of the rail. “Where the battle is, there will the eagles gather, full of schemes for the Army to pay them for supplies at six or seven times the market rate.”
January, stepping over to the rail and following his gaze, saw an extremely handsome traveling-coach draw up in the courtyard, barely to be seen through the dust-cloud raised by its six matched bay horses and innumerable brightly-liveried outriders. A slender, graying, and extremely dandified gentleman in a suit of elaborately-ruched red linen stepped from the vehicle, bowing as he gave his hand to help down an elderly matron with a nose like a hatchet and enough diamonds around her throat to purchase the populations of several villages.
“Doña Imelda de Bujerio,” identified Hannibal, coming to the rail at January’s side. “The gent in crimson is her son, Don Rafael; he’ll explain to you a little later what it’s like to be a black slave on a sugar plantation, he knows all about it from reading the novels of the Duchesse de Duras.”
A second coach—smaller and plainer than the first—came through the gates. By the way Doña Imelda immediately began giving orders to the man and two women who got out it was clear that these were servants.
“In addition to being betrothed to that minx Valentina, Don Rafael is engaged with Don Prospero in selling cattle to the Army for the invasion of Texas. Doña Imelda was part of the group sitting out with me here on the night of the wedding-feast, along with Valla’s duenna Doña Filomena Borregos.
Procul este, severae . . .
Señora Lorcha was here, too, playing dragon to her daughter the lovely Natividad, like the three Fates accompanying the
“Consuela tells me you were seen putting something into the young man’s wineglass,” he said.
“In point of fact,” said Hannibal, “I was putting it into my
own
wineglass, and it was laudanum, and not very much of it, either. After sitting for three hours at that table with Doña Josefa glaring at me from one side and Doña Gertrudis from the other, believe me, I needed it. But of course Werther—Fernando’s valet—is convinced I poisoned his master. And after three weeks of watching me walking about in a state of what he considers freedom—having himself never been subjected to what amounts to house arrest by a raving lunatic—he got sick of waiting for the Principles of Universal Law to go into effect and took matters quite literally into his own hands. He crept into my room one night and tried to strangle me. Discouraged from that activity, he promptly fled the hacienda, rode straight to Mexico City, and informed Capitán Ylario that when he had found Franz, Franz was not yet dead, and that he died with the words ‘The
Norteamericano
has poisoned me’ upon his purpling lips.”
“Ah,” said Rose in a tone more resigned than surprised.
“Is there a chance he could be speaking the truth?” asked January. “Werther, I mean, not Franz.”
“Not unless the laws governing the transmission of heat and cold have altered themselves for my confusion,” answered Hannibal wearily. “Which is entirely possible, the way things have been going.” He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, rather resembling a dilapidated cricket in the westering sun that slanted through the arcade. “Not that there was any doubt, cold or not, that the poor brute was dead. It was . . . quite obviously a horrible death. The problem is . . .”
In the court below one of the vaqueros called out something in their nearly-unintelligible
Indio
Spanish; there was a great jingling of traces and the creak and rumble of carriage-wheels. “Ah,” said Hannibal, glancing over the turned wood of the rail. “Where the battle is, there will the eagles gather, full of schemes for the Army to pay them for supplies at six or seven times the market rate.”
January, stepping over to the rail and following his gaze, saw an extremely handsome traveling-coach draw up in the courtyard, barely to be seen through the dust-cloud raised by its six matched bay horses and innumerable brightly-liveried outriders. A slender, graying, and extremely dandified gentleman in a suit of elaborately-ruched red linen stepped from the vehicle, bowing as he gave his hand to help down an elderly matron with a nose like a hatchet and enough diamonds around her throat to purchase the populations of several villages.
“Doña Imelda de Bujerio,” identified Hannibal, coming to the rail at January’s side. “The gent in crimson is her son, Don Rafael; he’ll explain to you a little later what it’s like to be a black slave on a sugar plantation, he knows all about it from reading the novels of the Duchesse de Duras.”
A second coach—smaller and plainer than the first—came through the gates. By the way Doña Imelda immediately began giving orders to the man and two women who got out it was clear that these were servants.
“In addition to being betrothed to that minx Valentina, Don Rafael is engaged with Don Prospero in selling cattle to the Army for the invasion of Texas. Doña Imelda was part of the group sitting out with me here on the night of the wedding-feast, along with Valla’s duenna Doña Filomena Borregos.
Procul este, severae . . .
Señora Lorcha was here, too, playing dragon to her daughter the lovely Natividad, like the three Fates accompanying the
Similar Books
