Witchy Eye

by D. J. Butler

  “Yes, to honor.” The chevalier took a drink before stoppering up the bottle.

  Bill found himself frowning, though there was no reason he should—he’d survived the fire, he’d escaped imprisonment. The chevalier could not possibly have come out onto the Pontchartrain personally for the purpose of killing him, Bill reasoned. Still…best not to hide anything at this point.

  “Suh,” he began, unable to remember what honorific one was supposed to use to address the chevalier, “you know that I killed your son.”

  The chevalier set the bundle at his feet, then turned and looked at the shore, knuckles resting lightly on the polished handrail. Bill didn’t dare say anything else, and just waited. What did this man want? Why did he not shoot Bill and throw him overboard with the idiots?

  “Three hundred thousand,” the chevalier said at last. “That we can count.”

  “Pardon me, suh, but I don’t follow your meaning.”

  The chevalier turned to look at him directly, and his face was unsentimental flint. “I have three hundred thousand children,” he explained, gesturing with one hand at the shore. “At least. When you add in all the uncountables—the illiterate, the homeless, the traders who identify some other place as their home, but who are here all the time—it may be five. Five hundred thousand children, not counting the loa and the rats.”

  “Yes, suh,” Bill said, unsure where the conversation was heading.

  “I can’t allow myself to become too maudlin about any one of them.”

  Bill thought a moment.

  “Your son was a brave fighter and a gentleman,” he offered, and he meant it, but it didn’t sound like enough. Damn your French eyes and your cold French heart, he wanted to shout, I regret that I killed your son, I regret that I am the man I have become, I certainly deserve to die and you have the right to kill me!

  The chevalier nodded. “Thank you.”

  “My Lord Chevalier,” Bill said, remembering the form of address now and wishing he had more clothing, “I don’t know why you’ve freed me.”

  “My children are threatened, Captain Lee. They need you. I free you in exchange for your assistance.”

  Bill’s mind raced. What assistance could the chevalier possibly need from him? He still half expected one of the chevalier’s men to put a gun to his head and blow out his brains.

  “I hope I may help, suh,” he said neutrally. He almost laughed at his own reluctance—he had nothing to lose, so why did he care what the chevalier asked of him? Was there really anything he was unwilling to risk, anything he wouldn’t do?

  “There’s an insect at the heart of New Orleans,” the chevalier continued slowly, gesturing at the veiny yellow lights. “A tiny, wicked, spiderlike man, a parasite who threatens the prosperity, and therefore the safety and the very life, of my half million children. Rid me of that man, and I will not only free you, but will take you into my service and pay you handsomely.”

  Bill nodded. Easy enough. “What man, suh?”

  The chevalier looked at him closely. “The Bishop of New Orleans.”

  Bill spat into the water. “Damned money-lender!”

  The chevalier regarded Bill with a detached and curious look. “Yours is not the gift of tongues, I understand.”

  What kind of question was that? Bill shrugged. “I can Frog it up a little—I beg your pardon, suh, I mean to say that I speak some French. Comment ça va? for instance, and ça va, ça va, and the like. And I possess a similar level of mastery of a smattering of other New World dialects: Igbo and Castilian, among others.” He felt like this was an unflattering portrait of himself and that he needed to say something in his defense. “As much as your predecessor, the old Count Galvéz, I understand.”

  The chevalier snorted an angry, derisive laugh, his disciplined façade splintering. “La Bête was in no sense my predecessor, Captain!”

  “No?” The count had ruled New Orleans for several years on behalf of New Spain, and Bill had always felt kinship for the man who had governed the city without speaking a word of French. “I had heard he was the chevalier for a period, during the war. Though he spoke Dago, I expect, and not English.”

  The chevalier collected himself. “The Chevalier of New Orleans has been a Le Moyne as long as there has been a chevalier. The Beast was a usurper, an interloper, an affront.”

  “Yes, My Lord Chevalier,” Bill agreed quickly. “But my true spiritual inheritance, suh, is the gift of mayhem.”

  The chevalier nodded solemnly. “I could use you in my service, Captain Lee. The gift of mayhem, indeed. Will you undertake this commission for me? Will you rid me of this criminal?”

  Bill looked to the Incroyable, Bayard Prideux’s outsized funeral pyre, burning down now almost to the waterline. His head was spinning, and he tried to think through his situation. He could serve a real lord again, again be Sir William. He could bring justice to the unknown ‘other’ man, and maybe even to the emperor.

  Was this a trap?

  But why would the chevalier need to do anything to trap Bill, when he could simply shoot him on the spot, or could even have left him to burn on the Incroyable? He considered the fact that the chevalier was blackmailing the emperor and found he didn’t care. Bill had half a mind to kill the bishop anyway, for the beatings he’d received at the hands of Etienne and his thugs.

  He nodded. “My Lord, as you’ve likely noticed, I’m unarmed.”

  The chevalier stooped to pick up the bundle from the deck and uncovered it. Within the cloth wrapping, the bundle contained Bill’s coat, a shirt, neckcloth and cravat, belt, stockings, boots, even his black perruque, all of which gave him an unexpectedly large amount of comfort, as well as a long, sturdy saber—not his own, but it certainly looked deadly enough for the job—and one more thing.

  One more thing that the chevalier took from the top of the long bundle and handed to Bill.

  Bill fist-blocked it into decent shape and pulled it over his short white hair.

  His lucky hat.

  “Very good, suh,” he said, pushing his hand firmly into the saber’s basket guard. “Consider the bishop dead.”

  “Pray do not tell the ladies of New Orleans, suh.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A saber wasn’t going to be enough.

  Bill knew how to use a sword, and the bishop likely didn’t. But the bishop had bodyguards; also, the Quarter was a dangerous place and Bill had enemies. The last time he’d walked about New Orleans without pistols, Bill had been jumped by Etienne and taken by the gendarmes. He needed to defend himself.

  Bill wanted guns.

  It would have been presumptuous to ask the chevalier for further weapons, especially given that the chevalier had given Bill freedom, clothing, and a sword after Bill had murdered his son.

  Much less could he ask for anything so base and venal as cash from his new lord.

  What to do? Take a risk he wouldn’t need a gun? Steal one? He could break into Hackett’s shop and take his own pistols back, but Etienne had likely already redeemed the weapons, and besides, old Hackett had always treated Bill with dignity, and it would be wrong to repay that with burglary. Plus, Hackett’s shop would almost certainly be hexed to high heaven, or guarded by a spring-gun.

  There was the debt—however dubious—owed him by Don Sandoval. Bill had been out of sight for a couple of weeks now, and it seemed unlikely that the hidalgo merchant would be on his guard, expecting Bill to resurface and demand payment.

  Three figures stood on the pier as Bill’s boat approached. Waiting for him? Unlikely—two of the three dressed like monks. Bill’s boat bumped against the pier and Bill scrambled out. When he straightened up again, he looked up the dock and saw a solitary man, watching Bill.

  Hand on the hilt of his newly bestowed sword, Bill sauntered up the wooden walkway to meet the stranger.

  But it was no stranger. “Jake!” Bill cried on seeing his friend in captivity, and dropped his swagger. “Beelzebub’s teeth, man, I was worried they mi
ght have shot you!”

  Hop laughed. “No one has ever shot me, Bill.”

  “I wish I could say the same!” Bill’s shoulder twinged. “Well, Jake, you’ve not been given your leaving pay in lead, at least, but as your place of work has burnt to nothing and your colleagues are all dead, can I assume you’re no longer in the chevalier’s service?”

  “I do not serve the chevalier,” Hop agreed. “I never have.”

  “I like your fire, Jake! As it happens, I have undertaken some service for Monsieur Le Moyne, and I have a commission to attempt tonight. But perhaps afterward, we might meet for a drink, sitting at a bar, like men. Tomorrow, I think, is more likely to be good for me than later tonight. Where are you staying?”

  Hop shrugged. “I was staying on the Incroyable.”

  Bill felt a stab of guilt. “No family in New Orleans, I suppose?”

  “None,” Hop said, “but I thought I might come with you, Bill. I could help you on your commission.”

  Bill had worked alone during his time in New Orleans, but mostly because he could never manage to work well with frogs or dagoes. And once upon a time, not really so very long ago, Bill had been a leader of men. Also, the talking deaf-mute was at least a passable wizard.

  “I’d be honored to have you, friend Jake.” He’d take care of the Dutchman. For a moment, he imagined Jacob Hop as his son, but then shook that thought from his mind. He already had a son. But he didn’t have an aide, a protégé, and Hop might fill that role. “If it should happen, in the course of our errands, that you are able to assist me with a minor cantrip or two, I encourage you to feel free to do so.”

  “A minor cantrip or two,” Hop agreed, and they shook hands.

  Sarah stepped out of Etienne’s anti-cathedral and was stopped by a wall of human flesh.

  “Excuse us,” Father Chigozie said mildly, and was ignored by the throng. “I said excuse us. Please make way.”

  He was answered by jeers and indifference.

  “Git outta the way.” With elbows and shoulders forward Cal hammered into the crowd. Behind him a space opened up and Sarah darted into it, following him through the would-be dancers and gamblers until they reached open street. Etienne was right; Calvin would make a good ruffian, if he had the mind.

  Sarah felt sick to her heart from her interaction with the Vodun priest. She regretted her promise to the man that she would owe him a favor. When she’d said it, she meant it as a trick on a stranger, like she’d have been happy to play on any foreigner around Calhoun Mountain. Like she’d tried to play on Thalanes, that day at the Tobacco Fair that now seemed an eternity ago. But when she had made her offer and met Etienne Ukwu’s gaze, her words had no longer seemed like a trick to her, and she had felt a little frightened.

  The man was a Vodun priest. Sarah knew enough about Papa Legba to identify the images in Etienne’s mural, but that didn’t make her comfortable with the idea that she was trifling with dark powers.

  Papa Legba was the man at the crossroads, the great Vodun spirit of the doorway and communication, but he had another aspect, too. Maitre Carrefour. Younger than Papa Legba, a demon, a killer, associated with black magic.

  Time to find William Lee and get out of New Orleans.

  If she was lucky, Etienne’s favor might never be called.

  “Cal,” she tapped him on the shoulder, “git us a quiet spot for a minute, would you? No big deal, just git us off this main street.”

  Cal nodded and steered down the nearest narrow alley. Light from the street pierced the narrow way, but the only occupants were two men huddling in the alley mouth, taking turns at a pipe emitting a sweet, cloying smell. They blinked slowly at Calvin and then retreated deeper into the darkness. Once the smell of their pipe faded, the alley stank like a privy.

  “This all right?” Calvin’s voice was strained.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Sarah cupped the ticket in her palms. It wasn’t much. “Ducem bellorum quaeso,” she muttered, and willed her strength into the little scrap of paper, urging it to move and show her where William Lee was.

  It twitched, once, and then lay inert.

  “Hell,” Sarah said. It had failed. She hoped that the failure was because the claim ticket did not have a strong enough connection to Lee. She wondered how long it had been in his possession and tucked the paper safely away with her acorn.

  “We’ll get Sir William’s guns in the morning,” she announced.

  “He probably didn’t have the ticket very long,” Thalanes said blandly, repeating her own guess.

  Sarah nodded. Thinking of how to prosecute her search to find Captain Lee, she was reminded of the parties searching for her. “I need to go down to the river.”

  “First thing in the mornin’ll likely be a sight safer,” Cal pointed out.

  “I need to go tonight,” she insisted, a little more firmly than she meant to.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he muttered, and led the way silently back onto the street. They crossed the dueling ground, passed the cathedral, and headed across the Place d’Armes toward the Mississippi River. A trio of drunks huddled beneath the mouldering remains of Andrew Jackson, serenading him.

  Old King Andy Jackson, he was the best of men

  He visited New Orleans, in eighteen hundred ten

  The frenchies threw old Jackson out, but he marched back in again

  Doff your hat to old King Andy Jackson

  Old King Andy Jackson was thirsty for a drink

  The Mississippi water’s wet, but it has a mighty stink

  Jean met him on the Pontchartrain, and there he let him sink

  Raise your glass to old King Andy Jackson

  Old King Andy Jackson’s a fellow no one grieves

  Some nameless soldier shot him, with stripes upon his sleeves

  They hung him in an iron cage, between two Geechee thieves

  Bow the knee to Old King Andy Jackson

  The clicking of Sarah’s staff on the stones became loud in her ears, even over the drunken whistles and jeering of the makeshift choir.

  On the far side of the Place d’Armes, Calvin’s pace slowed and he held up a warning hand slightly to his side. At the same time he moved directly in front of Sarah and completely blocked her view.

  “Calvin!” She almost raised her walking stick to hit him with it, but then she heard Thalanes speaking behind her.

  “Facies muto,” the little monk said.

  He and Calvin had seen something she had missed.

  She let herself drift to one side and look ahead. At the south gate of the Place d’Armes, exiting onto Decatur, she saw two men in blue uniforms. Not the gendarmes’ blue-and-gold with fleur-de-lis, but a plain blue with a tricorner hat. She had seen such uniforms before, the morning she had escaped with Thalanes and Calvin from Calhoun Mountain. She had seen them again on the Natchez Trace.

  The Philadelphia Blues.

  Calvin kept up his long-stepped amble, walking straight for the two men. Sarah followed him, trying her best to look unconcerned while at the same time keeping an eye on the soldiers.

  The two Blues stood together, scanning the Place d’Armes and Decatur Street.

  Calvin kept walking. His course would have him turn within an elbow of Angleton’s men, but he kept a steady pace. Sarah’s heart beat wildly. She breathed deeply and controlled herself.

  Calvin was ten feet from the Blues.

  Five feet.

  He was passing them, nodding slightly. Sarah looked at her feet.

  A horse neighed, directly ahead. Sarah lifted her eyes slowly, afraid to attract any attention from the soldiers, now within arm’s reach. More Blues had appeared in the gate, another half-dozen, riding up from Decatur Street—the horses were theirs, and they had nearly trampled Calvin. Calvin ducked and bowed and retreated, and as he shifted about, Sarah caught a glimpse of his disguise. She struggled to refrain from laughing at the sight of the dark-complected, bulbous-nosed face.

  Then Calvin was
past, and then Sarah, and they were heading along Decatur with the others in their wake. Sarah held her breath, waiting to hear yells and the thud of pursuing bootheels, but instead the nighttime crowd of the Quarter swallowed her and her companions, and the Blues disappeared.

  Sarah quickened her step and caught up to Cal as they cut through the knot of gendarmes around the Mississippi Gate. His face looked sullen and withdrawn.

  “Why’re you actin’ like a baby?” she asked. “What wrong with you?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me.”

  “Cal, don’t you git mad at me. What did I do?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” His face was hard. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I can’t stand it, Cal, not from you! Tell me what’s stuck in your craw.” Sarah was conscious that Thalanes, Cathy Filmer, and Chigozie were all only a step or two behind them, and afraid to have a public row with Calvin, but she was also stung by his cold shoulder.

  Cal sighed. His normal easy lope had become a wooden clomp. “Nothin’, I suppose. I reckon I jest wanted more’n to be your servant.”

  “Calvin, you are more,” she tried to assure him.

  “Thanks,” he said dryly.

  She knew what he wanted, or what he thought he wanted—Calvin was still fixated on the idea of marrying her. She’d turned his head with her hex, and it had never turned back. “Cal, you shouldn’t ought to confuse love with love-hexin’.”

  “No.” His voice quivered. “I reckon you shouldn’t ought to do that.”

  The Quarter piled right up against the tall gray stone walls of the city, and, as if the city had funneled at high pressure through the Mississippi Gate, the evidence of human activity exploded again just on the other side, in a long row of wharves, piers, and warehouses, stretching a quarter mile in either direction along a hard-packed gravel street. Despite the hour, there were still ships being loaded or unloaded, and men with lights moving up and down the quay.