Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [178]
“It is well conceived,” the captain said. “If things continue to go amiss with your plantation, you might consider the military.”
Unsurprisingly, Arnaud’s cook did not report for duty. Isabelle busied her pretty hands to cook some cornbread. A few bananas remained of the captain’s stalk, and Arnaud had a little store of tasteless, leathery dried meat. Isabelle chattered throughout the meal, with no more and no less than her usual vivacity. She drank a glass of rum and water, and now and then, when Claudine seemed agitated, reached out to take her hand and soothe her. Maillart, who knew her easy manner was not unconsciousness but courage, admired her speechlessly.
The drums began at moonrise. Maillart was on watch, behind that high boulder, but there was nothing to see. The compound was empty except for pools of moonlight. In the low ground, hidden by the trees, the drums muttered and grumbled, starting and stopping without resolution, then began again more confidently, the interlocked rhythms gathering, swelling. At their peak, when Maillart’s whole nervous system waited for a scream, Claudine came out of the house, pursued by both Isabelle and Arnaud. From his height, the captain watched their dumb show: Claudine darting this way and that in her long white gown, nimbly eluding the hands that would confine her. Quamba and Guiaou had moved to bar her way from the trail head, but Claudine flung herself directly into the bush, where she was lost for a few minutes to Maillart’s view.
Guiaou produced his coutelas and hacked a path in for Arnaud. Claudine must have caught herself in strangler vine and shake-hands briars, for Arnaud soon led her out onto the open ground before the house, a long swath of fabric torn from the hem of her dress and trailing on the ground. Isabelle took her other elbow, and the two of them conveyed her indoors.
Within fifteen minutes, Arnaud had come up to relieve the captain’s watch. Maillart protested that he was before the hour, but Arnaud said that as he could not sleep or rest, it was better for him to take the next watch, and be replaced at midnight. He did not seem to want to talk of what had just passed with his wife, or anything else either, so the captain left him and went down to the house.
It had been arranged that one white man and one black would keep watch at all times. Quamba stood erect, posted at the trail head, while Guiaou lay on a grass mat nearby, his head pillowed on his hands. Maillart could not make out if he was sleeping or gazing at the moon. He went into the house without saying anything to them.
Through the bean-seed curtain he heard Claudine’s voice complaining as in fever, and Isabelle’s, calm and soothing. He parted the curtain with one hand. Claudine twisted on the bed, turning her face to the wall. Her shoulders stiffened, then relaxed. Isabelle watched her, stroking her back, for a few minutes, then raised her head. She stood up and came to meet the captain in the doorway.
“I gave her rum,” she said. “She did not want it, but I made her take it. It will help her to rest.”
“I feel I might benefit from a similar treatment,” the captain said.
Isabelle smiled distantly. “Wait on the porch.”
Maillart went out and took a seat. His hackles rose and fell involuntarily with the rhythm of the drums. Dogs must feel this way, he thought. Then Isabelle came with the rum and the water.
“Ah, merci,” said the captain, drinking deep. Mais, ma belle, he thought, it is your touch that cures, far better than rum. He did not say it. Isabelle took a seat beside him and gazed in the direction of the sentries at the trail head.
“Sometimes I think one ought to let her go.”
“She would never return from such an expedition,” the captain said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I