The Kingdom of Bones

by Stephen Gallagher

  In their blazing majesty, they must have been like a glimpse of something greater. A devil’s fleet, indeed. A peek into the abyss.

  Louise found no other signs of intrusion. Whoever had broken in here that one time, he’d found little reason to stay. It made for an intimidating squat, and there was nothing here to steal.

  She went back to the hallway and out through the front door. Euday had found an exit onto the second-story gallery, and was descending some outdoor stairs with a hand on the rail.

  “Doesn’t look as if the rain’s been getting in,” he said.

  Louise backed off from the house a few steps and looked up at it. “I can imagine living here,” she said.

  “Still needs some work.”

  “I’ve got people.”

  She sensed that he was probably in broad agreement, but in no rush to commit himself without seeing more.

  He said, “Let me take a look at the cistern.”

  While he went off to check on the water supply, she walked around the house and out into the land behind it. A broken fence showed the outline of a kitchen garden. A riot of bushes and weeds now grew within its boundary, so dense that it was impossible to enter. The outbuildings hadn’t weathered so well as the planter’s house. There was a privy and a pigeon tower, and beyond the garden a frame structure that might once have been guest quarters or an overseer’s cabin. The roof was off it now.

  A hundred yards or more from the main house, screened from it by trees and with a wide dirt road running through, there stood two rows of slave cabins. These were wooden shacks with pitched roofs and overhanging porches, raised from the ground on brick pilings. Their unpainted woodwork had turned silver with age.

  Something moved behind her, and she looked back. The dog had followed her out. He was keeping his distance but he seemed to be looking for a signal, some indication of welcome that would allow him to approach. But Euday was right. Stray animals carried all kinds of diseases. The dog would have to look elsewhere for the human company it craved.

  “Shoo,” she said. “Go.”

  But it didn’t obey.

  Following the dirt road back to the mansion, she passed the slaves’ cemetery. At least, she guessed it was. It was a clearing in a ring of trees with recognizable grave mounds, set out in rows just like the slave houses and with stones to mark them. That was all they had: stones to mark them. Some had been roughly shaped, but none bore any inscription.

  It was here that Euday caught up with her. He said, “You notice the graves all face to the east?”

  She hadn’t, but they did. She said, “What’s the reason for that?”

  “So their spirits could fly home to Africa.”

  They started to walk back. The dog was keeping pace at its usual distance. It flinched a little when Euday tried to scare it away, but didn’t take him any more seriously than it had Louise.

  Louise said, “You weren’t born in Africa. So where will your spirit fly home to?”

  “Wherever my kinfolk happen to be,” Euday said. “Same as yours.”

  “Mine are gone,” she said.

  “Most of mine, too,” he said. “But that doesn’t matter. It’s all about those you love and the ones who love you. Dead or alive. That’s your country to me.”

  Their driver was still waiting out front. He’d fed and watered his horse and was stowing the feed bag in a locker between the wheels of the carriage. If she came to settle this far out of the city, she’d need to invest in some transport of her own. And whatever the skills it might take to maintain a trap and look after a horse, the Silent Man and his wife would have to acquire them.

  She said to Euday, “Well, what do you think? Would it be practical to open the house up again?”

  “Take a lot of time and money to put it back the way it was.”

  “I’m not talking about putting it back the way it was. Just opening it up to live in as it is.”

  Euday looked toward the house, and reluctantly committed himself to an opinion. “Well,” he said, “I don’t see why not. First thing you want to do is have your people clear the dead birds out of your drinking water. Unless you want to catch the yellow fever and join those folks back there.” This was said with a nod in the direction of the cemetery.

  He went in and secured the broken window, and then he closed up the house. As they descended the steps to the driveway, he promised to list his observations and send a note of them along to her hotel. These would include such repairs as were needed, and costs and taxes that would have to be taken into consideration.

  He also suggested that she might have the deeds amended to show title in her name. Did she have some way of proving transfer?

  “I have this,” she said, and took out a letter.

  They’d reached the carriage now. Standing alongside it, he opened up the letter and read it aloud.

  “To whom it may concern. Please extend every courtesy to Miss Mary D’Alroy during her time of residence. She is a personal friend of the Patenotre family, formerly of Iberville, Louisiana.”

  He refolded it and handed it back.

  “Would that be enough to satisfy a lawyer?” she said.

  “I expect so,” he said. “If you pick the right one.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  There was no looking glass in the room, but there was a mirror out on the landing. At this hour of the day there was barely enough light in the stairwell to see by, so Sayers took the mirror from the wall and brought it in. He had a chambre garnie on the top floor of a house kept by a colored woman on Dauphine Street. It was a chambre with very little garnie about it. It was, however, his for fifteen dollars a month, with gaslight and heat extra.

  The mirror wasn’t a true mirror, but a framed piece of window glass painted black on one side. Sayers turned himself back and forth, looking critically at the fit of his tails.

  In the glass, he looked like Pepper’s ghost. But he supposed he’d pass. This was the suit in which he’d fled Richmond after his night in jail, having no opportunity to change until he was safely out of town. Another of his many betrayals of trust; the suit should have gone back to the Bijou after use. Stoker had spoken up for him in court, but in his pursuit of Louise he’d let down many who could have spoken against.

  He hadn’t imagined that he’d need it again. But tonight was the night of the governor’s ball.

  For once, Louise had been easy to locate. Almost absurdly so. The New Orleans Transfer Company met all trains and steamships coming into the city, and would check and deliver baggage to private residences and hotels at twenty-five cents apiece. Sayers had gone to their offices, taking the part of an Englishman who’d traveled out to join his sister. She was supposed to have found them a place to stay, but he’d received no message. A little footwork to draw out the name she was using without revealing his own ignorance of it, and there she was—Mary D’Alroy at the St. Charles Hotel.

  Mary D’Alroy? After Richmond, she’d have been safer with a change of identity. But she could not have known that Jules Patenotre had been found.

  His first impulse was to run over to the St. Charles and make himself known. But the impulse was mixed with a tremendous and unexpected fear of the moment.

  And it would not do. Haste could prove fatal—literally so, if the Silent Man should be there. So instead he found himself a spot across from the hotel to wait for a sight of her.

  Time passed. They had not met in so long. What exquisite irony, if she were to walk straight by him with neither knowing the other! It could happen. In his heart and in his memory, she was forever the Desdemona of the photograph that he carried.

  Then he saw her. Returning from somewhere. It lasted no more than a few moments; she came into view on the sidewalk and then, with a swish of her long skirts, she was entering the hotel and gone. As Sayers had predicted, the Silent Man was right behind her, the pistol in his waistband pushing his coat out of shape.

  The brevity of the sighting was of no consequence. If it had bee
n a second or an hour, his sense of shock could have been no more or less profound.

  She was little changed. Not so thin, but only as might be expected in a grown woman rather than a girl. It took him a moment to match the two, one overlaying and replacing the other; and by the time the hotel doors had swung closed behind her, Sayers’ mental picture was revised and complete.

  He felt shaken. He’d been wise not to attempt to confront her. He’d have been hopeless.

  But now, with that moment out of the way, he could begin to prepare.

  That evening, still new in town, he went looking for a game. He was broke, apart from an emergency five-dollar bill that he’d kept in his shoe for so long that he’d almost forgotten it. Gambling was no longer allowed or licensed in New Orleans, but it still went on. Secretly in the part of the city around Canal Street, and openly at Bucktown and along the Carrollton levee.

  Sayers had learned his play from circus folk. By midnight he had nearly sixty dollars, a promissory note that he knew he’d never collect on, and a ticket for the governor’s ball that one card player had thrown in when his cash had run out.

  The next morning, he mailed thirty dollars to the Becker family. Then he scratched out the owner’s name on the ball ticket and wrote in Mary D’Alroy’s before delivering it anonymously to the St. Charles.

  Which brought him to this. Tonight.

  The night of the governor’s ball.

  Toulouse Street, down by the side of the French Opera House, was a jam of carriages and nervous horses. Men and women in spectacular finery were crossing into the grand old building. On the sidewalk opposite, a large crowd of people had gathered just to watch the arrivals.

  Sayers walked on to the wing of the theater where the offices and dressing rooms were. There he joined a line of artistes and theater staff at the stage door. Some of the front-of-house people were in stiff shirts and tailcoats like his own. The line moved slowly as the doorkeeper checked off names under the eye of a private policeman. There was a lot of walking wealth in the French Opera House tonight, and nobody wanted any of it to walk off in some rogue’s possession.

  Sayers was on the employee list; having no ticket of his own, he’d signed up as a waiter. His lack of experience wouldn’t matter. The moment he was inside, he planned to desert and join the revelers.

  And so it went. Once backstage, instead of going to pick up his tray and an apron, he found his way to the pass door and entered the auditorium.

  He had to stop and take it in. The opera house auditorium was a wide oval in shape, of extraordinary breadth. The house rose up in five gilded tiers to a high-domed ceiling of decorated panels. Sayers had never seen anything quite like it. It had to seat two thousand or more. Along with all the gilt the decor was crimson and white, and there were flowers set up everywhere. A temporary floor had been laid over the stalls, transforming the lower level into a ballroom. An orchestra was playing, and the dancing was under way.

  There was enough jewelry on show to finance a small war. The men were all in dark evening wear rather better than his own, apart from a few in military uniform so gorgeous that it might qualify as fancy dress. The women wore the real plumage, and they glittered. Gems around their necks, diamonds on their wrists, jewels in their piled-up hair. As the couples danced, they swept by him in a wash of taffeta and expensive silk.

  Sayers made his way around the dance floor, observing all the women as he went. After that glimpse of Louise in the entranceway of the St. Charles, he knew that he would recognize her. And this time he’d be better prepared. For a moment, she’d stopped his breath, and all but stopped his heart.

  But he did not see her anywhere. At the back of the auditorium was a large foyer that was mostly used for promenading between acts. Now it was steadily filling up with new arrivals. As people came in, they spotted friends or groups of friends, or others that they merely wished to impress.

  Sayers was conscious that he moved alone. Even the young men hunted in twos and threes. He felt a pang of envy for all of them: For years, he’d known no society other than the company of carnival folk, and even they’d merely accepted rather than embraced him.

  When he finally spotted her, it was because she was a still point in all the free-flowing gaiety.

  She was standing by a pillar, gloved hand raised to cover a small cough. Her effect on him was still powerful. Without taking his eyes from her, Sayers moved to a spot from where he could watch.

  Louise.

  Louise, Louise, Louise.

  And no one to step between them.

  Her gown was adequate for the occasion, but fairly plain. She seemed to be waiting for someone, and he found himself using this as an excuse to hold back for just a little longer.

  Her manner was that of a person among strangers, aware of all around her, smiling briefly at anyone who met her eye. Sayers wondered who she might be waiting for. After a minute or so, she moved.

  After watching her watch the dancing for a while, and then seeing her move again to another spot, Sayers concluded that she was alone and waiting for nobody. That was an act. She was changing her position lest it become apparent to all that she had no one to speak to, and nowhere in particular to be.

  He was finally raising the nerve to approach when some man asked her to dance. She accepted with grace, but not before Sayers had seen her give a telltale glace around and beyond her would-be partner, as if checking for witnesses. They vanished onto the dance floor, and Sayers lost sight of her for a while.

  He found her again about fifteen minutes later. Again, she was alone. The dance had been no more than a dance. The liaison had clearly not flourished.

  Watching her was almost painful to him. Has this been your life, Louise? Your reward for the Wanderer’s burden? It was a strange kind of predator that waited to be asked.

  He could hold back no longer, and moved forward from where he’d been standing.

  He positioned himself on her eyeline, and waited to be seen.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Louise was idly studying the crowd all around her. For a moment, she was looking straight at him. Then her gaze moved on, and left him unrecognized.

  Sayers started forward. He saw her become aware that someone was approaching. He saw her composing herself, the beginnings of a polite smile. Then he saw the smile fade as he drew nearer and recognition dawned.

  “Tom,” she said as he finally stood before her.

  No words seemed quite adequate to the moment, so he simply said, “I see that your eyesight hasn’t improved.”

  She’d grown pale. “Tell me that this is just some incredible chance.”

  He shook his head to assure her that it was not.

  She went blank for a moment and then said, “You sent me the invitation.”

  “How else would I catch you without a bodyguard?” he said, and then to reassure her he added, “I’m here alone.”

  She studied him narrowly. He could see that she was trying to work out what his presence implied.

  “How did you find me?” she said.

  “Mary D’Alroy? The name of your part in The Purple Diamond? You might as well have sent me a signal. I was in Richmond. They found the man who died there. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn you in. But there’s a Pinkerton man who will if he gets the chance.”

  “You seem to have me where you want me,” she said, and glanced all around as if trapped.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. No one was paying them any attention, but anyone close by might overhear their business. He said, “I’ve much to say to you. Can we go somewhere else?”

  From the lobby behind the foyer, staircases led to all parts of the house. The various tiers were named in the French manner, from les loges for the Dress Circle all the way up to le paradis at the top of the house. They ascended one level and found relative privacy in the Circle.

  The dance went on below. A few couples had come up here to rest and flirt. The great opera house stage loomed before them,
its cloth painted and lit to represent a starry night sky.

  She was tense and wary, but seemed to have recovered from the initial shock of seeing him. They took a couple of seats in an empty section but even as they sat, the Dress Circle was starting to fill. People were coming up from below in anticipation of the tableaux.

  She said, “You’re looking well, Tom.”

  “Am I,” he said, not really believing it.

  “Yes, you are. I’m glad they didn’t hang you.”

  “Not half as glad as I.”

  She smiled for a moment, but it didn’t stay. “So, tell me,” she said. “Why, Tom? Why are you here?”

  He hesitated, and glanced down at the dancers. Each couple moved with their own purpose but, seen from above, all combined into a swirling pattern like a stream passing over stones.

  He said, “There’s something you have to know.”

  “If you’ve chased me halfway around the world to declare your love for me,” she said, “don’t. It’s wasted on me. I can never deserve it.”

  Sayers said, “I thought we were great friends, once.”

  Her cheek twitched as she recalled. “My devoted servant,” she said.

  “I know I had some small place in your affections then,” he said, “but I was no James Caspar. Do you still believe I took him from you?”

  She looked away, out toward the stage. “No,” she said. “I know exactly what I was to him. And what he would have done to me, had I given him the chance. It can make no difference now.”

  “I’m here to tell you that you can return to the world. If you’ll choose it.”

  “Believe me, Tom,” she said. “There is so much you cannot know.”

  “You thought you would marry. He seduced you ahead of the wedding. You saw no wrong in it and felt no shame. But in the weeks after he died, you found yourself with child. Whitlock procured an abortion for you.”

  She seemed about to deny it, but he said, “I saw you, Louise. I followed you that night. I saw you go into that doctor’s house, and if you pressed me I could tell you exactly what went on inside.”