Free Ran Away by Barbara Hambly Page A

beautifully-cut pale-green coat that made him look like a colossal melon, had the air of one who didn’t even know where the Palais Royale was . ‘I think Elias Haber is here as well. He’s also got connections in Constantinople and family that covers the North African coast from Algeria to Sinai.’
    January noticed that none of the men in question seemed to have family with them. A precaution against the resounding snub from the ancient aristocracy that awaited any woman of Jewish birth, be her husband never so wealthy? He had observed on other occasions that when the Jewish financiers and traders brought their wives, the only ones who spoke to them were the wives of their husbands’ business partners, and even then – if they were Christian – not for any longer than was strictly polite. Most men understood that business is business – except for the diehard Ultras, who did not appear to understand anything whatsoever. The Marquises and Duchesses, and the female hangers-on and cousins of the great families, in their gowns of point lace and Italian silk and their elaborately wired topknots, dared not be seen to speak to those dark, quietly-dressed, often elegant ladies, lest the haut ton whisper: She receives – well – JEWS  . . . 
    Meaning if you went to her teas or her at-homes, you might find yourself in a position of having to recognize a Jewess socially.
    There are some barriers – he had overheard this more than once, while teaching little Mademoiselle La Valette or Coigny or Régnier their simplified scraps of Mozart – that one simply must never let down  . . . 
    ‘I’ll tackle Rothenberg first.’ Ben-Gideon set his champagne glass on the tray of a liveried footman who passed by. ‘He’s a cousin of mine.’
    ‘One other question.’
    Lucien flourished into the opening bars of ‘Le Pantalon’. It was time to get back to work.
    ‘Is there anyone here connected to the French Embassy in Constantinople?’ January whispered hastily, even as his fingers followed the violin’s lead. ‘Can you find out if anyone has recently returned from there, who might have encountered this girl—’
    ‘While casually dropping in on Hüseyin Pasha’s harem?’ Ben-Gideon’s eyebrows bent like neat little bows. ‘I’ll ask.’
    For the next twenty minutes, January devoted the whole of his attention and the whole of his heart to the light-hearted glitter of chassés, jetés, rigadoons and emboittés; to the soft swish of silk petticoats and the light pat of dogskin slippers on the waxed parquet of the ballroom floor. And within seconds, all other concerns vanished. There were times when he missed the sense of helping people that he’d had, in his days as a surgeon; the joy of seeing a woman walk out of the Hôtel Dieu alive, whose life had been despaired of, or of hearing the voices of a family clustered around the bed of an injured child as that child woke once more to life  . . . 
    The sense that he had acted, for a brief space of time, truly as a servant of God.
    But God dwelled in music, too.
    And there was nothing that gave him greater joy and so deep a peace of heart.
    When he looked up again, as the dancers separated – the young men in their clocked silk stockings and bright cutaway coats to fetch lemonade for girls like pastel blossoms in ivory, primrose, cream – it was to see Sabid al-Muzaffar stroll into the ballroom with a young and soberly-dressed gentleman whose face seemed vaguely familiar.
    He leaned over to Lucien Imbot and whispered, ‘Who’s the rutin ?’ with a nod in that direction.
    The violinist shook his head. ‘Not a clue. The one with al-Muzaffar, you mean?’
    January nodded. In the course of several ‘seasons’ of playing for the wealthy, he knew most of them by sight, and old Lucien – who as first violinist in the household orchestra of Queen Marie Antoinette had come within twenty-four hours of losing his head in the Terror – knew them all. Which meant