Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [180]
When they came out of the mill, they saw Claudine standing and staring down at the scorched square where the shed had been until the week before. She was formally attired in a dress of striped silk, and Maillart thought that at that moment she looked no more deranged than any other colonial dame one might find in such circumstances. Guiaou stood at an angle, watching her.
Arnaud came to her side, and she turned and scrutinized him fiercely, as if her sight had been restored, after blindness. When he offered his arm, she took it lightly and allowed him to escort her back toward the house. Her step was graceful, Maillart noticed as he brought up the rear. When they’d gained the porch, Claudine sat down and adjusted her skirts and folded her hands with an air of composure quite unusual for her. The captain caught Isabelle’s eye. She arched her brow, but did not speak, as though there were some bubble which a word might puncture.
On the morning of the third day, all the men returned to work. At breakfast the whites in the house on the hill could hear the singing in the cane fields. Afterward, when Maillart and Arnaud walked down to the mill, they found the animals harnessed to the spokes of the turning wheel, the spoons refastened to their handles, the commandeur, head lowered and eyes averted, awaiting Arnaud’s direction.
About midday, one hundred of Toussaint’s infantry marched into Habitation Arnaud, led by Captain Riau and accompanied by Doctor Antoine Hébert. The doctor looked exhausted. His long rifle tilted crazily across his saddlebow. His legs were rubber when he slid down from the saddle. His shirt was streaked with sweat and dirt, his odor was high, and his face was stubbled out all over, above and beyond the chin beard he always wore, but Maillart ran to him anyway, and kissed him on both cheeks.
“What news, Antoine?”
“Rebellion,” said the doctor. “I thought you’d know.” Seeing the captain’s face, he added, “Well, it is finished now.”
“Tell me,” Maillart said. He led the doctor to the shade of a tree which arched over the well, and drew up fresh water for him to drink. A few paces distant, Riau was calling orders, disposing the foot soldiers about the compound.
“Flaville,” the doctor said. He drank and dumped water over his head, and combed back his wet hair with his fingers. “He raised his troops against Toussaint—a very poor plan, in my estimation. But he set off rioting among the cultivators, and even turned the troops of Moyse at Bas-Limbé to his part.”
“But surely Moyse has not betrayed Toussaint?”
“No,” said the doctor. “It does not look so—Moyse was at Dondon, where order was kept throughout this whole disturbance. Those troops of his who rebelled were detached from his immediate command . . . but you know the suspicious mind of our general. It appears, however, that Villatte was the engine of this affair.”
“Yes,” said Maillart. He thought of the sugar which had been sent to the north coast. “He would hope to expand his influence from his center at Le Cap.”
“Quite so,” said the doctor. “Though he has been frustrated, this time, I believe. But still at the bottom of it all there is a great discontent with the labor policy. And there I believe that Moyse is no better contented than anyone . . .” He pulled a bandanna from his pocket and mopped off his face.
“I am happy to see you safe,” he said. “It has been an inauspicious time to travel these parts, without the escort of an army in force.”
“It has been quiet enough here,” the captain said. “But the result?”
“Oh, there was a little skirmish at Marmelade. I believe that certain rascals were shot in the fighting, and others hanged immediately after, while Major Flaville has taken shelter at Le Cap, to await the disposition of his case.”
“I should report that he showed us every courtesy here,” Maillart said. “And especially to our ladies. It may be that we even owe him our lives.”
“Well, that is something to know,” said the doctor. “I do not think he will suffer so much. That will be for Laveaux to