Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [21]
“Be still,” Quamba said. It was unclear if he was addressing the horse or Guiaou, who was certainly transfixed to his place and barely breathing. Quamba stroked the stallion’s long nose with his free hand, then turned to Guiaou.
“Brush him, as I showed you,” he said. “He’s wanted soon.”
Guiaou did not move from the wall. Quamba sighed. “Hold him, then.” And when Guiaou still remained motionless, Quamba took hold of his wrist and brought his hand to the halter. He picked up a brush and began to work down the stallion’s right side.
Guiaou looked into the stallion’s huge alien face. The stallion’s nostrils flared red, his eyes rolled, and he began to rear, lifting Guiaou to his toes.
“Don’t look at him like that,” Quamba hissed. “You frighten him. Here, don’t face him. Turn this way and hold him gently. Be a post.”
Now Guiaou and the stallion were shoulder to shoulder, both looking out over the half-door down the hallway of the stable. Guiaou could feel the horse’s warm breath flowing over the back of his hand. He took a sidelong glance, then reached and delicately touched the horse above the nostrils. The skin was warm and velvety, astonishingly soft. Both he and the horse now seemed to be growing calmer.
Doctor Hébert walked downhill with the captain and parted from him at the edge of the main compound. Toussaint must be intending to ride out again, he thought, for Quamba and Guiaou had just brought his horse into the yard, saddled and bridled and awaiting its rider. The stallion was stepping high and nervously, hooves slicing in the dust. Muscles twitched under his glossily brushed hide. The doctor turned and slowly began to climb the gallery steps, fatigued and a little giddy from the heat.
“If you please—”
Toussaint’s voice. The doctor turned left along the gallery and saw them sitting at the table where they’d dined the night before: Bruno Pinchon and the colored youth called Moustique. He saw the general’s uniform, stiffly formal and correct, the general’s hat with its white plumes laid on the table. It was odd, he thought again, how one noticed Toussaint’s uniform first—the man inside it reserved into a sort of invisible stillness, until he moved or spoke. Now Toussaint reached across the table to take the sheet of paper Pinchon had been writing on. He sat back, holding the letter close to his face.
The doctor stopped at the table’s edge and remained standing. He was a familiar of such scenes. Most likely it was the same letter he had drafted himself the day before. Toussaint liked his various secretaries to compose in ignorance of each other’s efforts—he himself would decide upon a final synthesis.
Now Toussaint frowned at the paper. His free hand unconsciously adjusted the knot that secured his yellow headcloth, then dropped below the table, to his waist. Pinchon leaned back, elbow on the gallery rail, a smirk on his face—he seemed to wish to catch the doctor’s eye. Toussaint stood up and away from the table with a silent cat-like movement, crumpling the letter with his left hand while with his right he flourished out a flintlock cavalry pistol as long as his own forearm and leveled it at Bruno Pinchon’s forehead. He held the pistol rock-steady for just long enough for the Frenchman to register what was happening and then he pulled the trigger.
The firing mechanism snapped. The doctor was acutely aware of a crow calling, then gliding to light on the eave of the cane mill. Pinchon’s Adam’s apple worked convulsively in an eerie silence. The pistol had not fired. The doctor looked into Toussaint’s face, rigid as some inscrutable wood carving. In the yard, Bel Argent kicked and half-reared. Guiaou cried out and broke away while Quamba followed the horse, dragging at the reins.
Toussaint thrust the pistol into its holster, put on his hat and walked quickly down the steps, hitching up the scabbard of his sword. He said something low, indistinguishable, and Bel Argent calmed