Only my wife knows of my decision to put it out of my life, to make some reparation for the harm I've caused. Not so very long ago poisoning my liquor would have been the quickest way to get shut of me." He was silent again, as if he expected praise or admiration for this abstinence-as if every slave on Bellefleur hadn't known to stay out of the master's way when he'd been at the bottle. As if even the scullery maid hadn't held him in fear-filled contempt.

"Well, it's clear to me what's going on this time." The planter shook his head. "I don't think it's revolt-they're taking too goddam long over it. No-someone's set out to destroy my land. To destroy me." His hands balled into fists upon his knees, his face like a storm-scarred stone.

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, Percy Shelley had written of an ancient colossus, battered and alone. A shattered visage... whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command...

Fourchet held the cigar to his lips and glanced at January, not even expectantly, but impatiently.

A slave, January realized, would spring at once to the spiritlamp beneath the coffee and kindle a spill for him.

So, of course, would a gentleman host who didn't want to relegate the task to the only lady in the room. January fetched the spill, his anger smoldering in him like the ember at the spill's tip. The comparison with Shelley's poem was too grand, he thought. Yet the words would not leave his mind.

"It might just be my neighbors, the Daubray brothers, are behind this, or paying one of my blacks to do it." The dark glance flickered sideways to January again through the curl of the smoke. "I've been in lawsuit against them for near a year now, and the case is coming to court as soon as the harvest's in. I wouldn't put it past them to burn my mill." For a moment the old black glint of unreasoning hate showed through his brooding self-control.

"Sneaking bastards. They know what my land means to me." He puffed his cigar like a caged dragon blowing smoke.