Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [292]
“But,” he began, dangling a blob of ink from the nib. “Can you really mean—”
He cut himself off, for Toussaint had begun to tremble, from his hands that gripped the table’s edge through the cords of his neck to his temples throbbing beneath the yellow headcloth, where tufts of his iron hair showed under the sweat-stained fold of cloth. His eyes half closed, showing crescents of white. The feeling did not seem part of him but only to pass through him. This turbulence lasted for just a moment, then Toussaint smiled and wiped away the expression with one hand. He clapped and called the two sentries from outside the door: Guiaou and another whose name the doctor did not know. With his forefinger Toussaint indicated the stub of the second man’s left ear (lopped off for some offense like theft or marronage) and the letter R branded on his cheek (which marked him as a rebel).
“Such benefits,” Toussaint said. He lifted the tail of Guiaou’s shirt (for Guiaou now possessed a shirt) and showed the patterns of his horrific scars. Guiaou stood erect, motionless, looking fixedly forward, whether proud or ashamed or indifferent the doctor could not have told.
“These too are graces of the French government,” Toussaint said, his pointing hand vibrating slightly as he spoke, “along with whips and chains for every man and woman stolen out of Guinée, and when the final accounting is made before God, these will be reckoned with the other benefits. Yes, and if the French government had shown me one-half the honor offered by the English—” Toussaint’s arm dropped. “Well, leave off,” he said to the doctor. “I am done with you.”
The doctor quailed, visibly it must have been.
“For the moment,” Toussaint said, more equably. “You are at liberty. Only send in Riau as you go out.”
Sweating, the doctor did as he was bid. Riau was lingering just outside the door and the doctor, having delivered his message, watched as he went in and took his position at the writing desk. As he scanned the draft of the letter, Riau’s face, normally a rich and glossy black, dulled to slatish gray. Then Guiaou and the other sentry pulled the door shut and took up their positions before it.
The doctor wandered blindly down through the gate, toward the blaze of sun and the day-long commotion of the Rue Espagnole, imagining what would follow if Toussaint were to withdraw from the scene. He himself had better throw in his lot with Henri Christophe, or perhaps Maurepas. Ah Christ, it would all shatter and they’d fight among themselves. And who’d emerge the victor? Dessalines, or possibly Moyse. But more than likely, Dessalines—without a Toussaint to restrain him.
He walked across to Government House to find Pascal and ask him what possiby could have happened between Toussaint and Hédouville. “I’ve never seen him show such a humor as today,” the doctor said. “Not in all the time I’ve spent in his company . . . and I’ve seen many things.”
“I don’t doubt that you have.” Pascal tugged at the corner of his thumbnail with his teeth. “Well, I know this much of what has happened in the last few days. The Peacemaker of the Vendée has been most frosty to Commissioner Raimond, and has shown rather more formal courtesy to General Rigaud than to Toussaint.”
“But why—why would he want to offend Toussaint?”
Pascal gnawed at his thumbnail. “It’s more that Rigaud wants placating—he has long resented that Toussaint was promoted to a place above his own.”
“But General Hédouville came out with an order for Rigaud’s arrest.”
“Which Toussaint declined to execute.” Pascal bit into his thumb, then looked absently at the ragged flesh. “You know yourself the commissioners were much at fault in the whole debacle down south. The envoys were ill chosen and they bungled the whole affair—else Rigaud might never have been alienated.”
“All right. But now?”
“Now, Toussaint is the highest military authority in