Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [279]
“Another agent of the Directoire has landed, in Santo Domingo,” Maillart told him. “But let that wait.” He grinned. “There is someone else with news for you.”
The doctor followed him through the building out into the bright, white-dusted square of the barracks behind. Maillart stopped and let out a short whistle. From an open doorway across the yard, Riau emerged, checking the buttons of his uniform coat; when he saw the doctor, his face split into a brilliant smile and his step doubled.
“She is found,” Riau said as he joined them. “After all she was at Vallière just as we thought.”
“Nanon?”
“Yes, of course Nanon, monchè!” Riau slammed the doctor on the back.
“She is . . . where is she now?” the doctor said. “At Ennery?”
“No,” said Riau. “But she is with your brother. With Tocquet—she went with him from Vallière to Le Cap.”
“She is not with Choufleur any longer, then?”
Riau’s expression grew elusive. “No, she is at Le Cap now.”
“But where did she mean to go in Le Cap?”
Riau frowned—it did not seem that he had thought to ascertain this information. Then he brightened. “But Tocquet will know.”
Someone called his name from the doorway he’d come out of across the yard. Riau slapped the doctor on the shoulder once more and trotted away. The doctor stared after him, half stupefied.
“You had better sit down,” said the captain.
“I had thought of going on to Ennery,” the doctor muttered.
“You’ll never get there before the rain. Don’t be a fool, but come with me.”
Maillart led the way into the cubicle he occupied. The doctor sat down on the edge of his cot. Maillart passed him a clay vase of water, and he sipped, set the vase on the floor and pulled off one of his boots. His mind was floundering . . . Nanon was found! yet not within his reach. Tocquet would know where she had gone. But Tocquet was as unfindable as Nanon. And she might be anywhere in Le Cap. It had been almost impossible to discover where Paul had got to. But Nanon would be easier to find than Paul, because he knew her ways, and knew a lot of her acquaintances.
He stretched out his leg and flexed his liberated toes. Maillart pretended to flinch from the odor. He poured some rum into a cracked cup and passed it to the doctor, who took a grateful draught, feeling the warmth explode within him. He took off his other boot and rubbed the arch of his foot. There was no use talking to Maillart about Nanon, for the captain did not really understand the extent of his attachment to someone he saw as only a colored harlot.
“Well, and the new agent,” he said.
“It is General Hédouville,” Maillart told him. “Pacifier of the Vendée, as he is now known.”
“Indeed.”
“So they describe him.” Maillart rocked his head against the rough plaster wall. “But let us go outside, it will be cooler.”
He stood and picked up his stool and gestured to the doctor to bring the other. Just outside the door they arranged their seats beneath the shade of the overhanging roof. A breeze was beginning to stir, and several other officers had come out from rooms down the way to take the air. The doctor returned their waves of greeting. His bare feet spread pleasantly on the flagstone floor. He sat down and leaned back against a post. The captain, who had thoughtfully brought out the rum bottle, splashed another measure into his cup.
“He has brought fresh troops, this Hédouville?”
Maillart turned his head to spit into the yard. “His honor guard, no more than that,” he said with a flicker of disgust.
“What can they be thinking in Paris?”
“Apparently,” said the captain, “they are thinking that Hédouville turned all the factions of the Vendée against each other, so that they defeated themselves.”
“And thus Toussaint’s displeasure, I suppose,” the doctor said.
Maillart did not respond immediately. The doctor chewed over the thought in silence. For the time being, Rigaud and Toussaint were acting in concert, if not in perfect harmony, against the British. It was not exactly a relationship of trust. Outlawed by Sonthonax, Rigaud had been in open rebellion