Master of the Crossroads - Madison Smartt Bell [339]
Arnaud pulled up beside the barracoons, his face twisted in an expression of irony. In former times, he had arrived here in a much more elegant vehicle—to inspect fresh bossale slaves in whom he might be interested, before they were brought to the block. He would have them turn about at his order, and probe their features with the point of his cane. Now he set the cane’s tip in the damp sod and used it to balance his descent from the wagon box, then turned to assist Claudine.
The members of the firing squad were dragging bodies over the soggy ground and tumbling them into a slow stream that bordered the swamp. Arnaud turned his face from them and walked toward the gate of the barracoons. From the buildings came the stench of human ordure and the musk of people too closely confined. A black sentry jumped up. Arnaud began speaking without breaking his stride.
“You have some of my people here—”
The guard stopped him with a bayonet—the point denting in the fabric of his coat. Arnaud’s temples pulsed, he could feel the flush of anger darkening his face. Claudine caught up and restrained him with soothing motions of her hand along his back. Arnaud’s hand was tight on the pommel of his cane; he wanted terribly to strike down the musket but knew he must not. Claudine drew him back, disengaging him from the point of the bayonet. The squad of soldiers had formed up to march back to the town. Arnaud called out and whirled his cane over his head. At first this action had no result, but then the mounted officer turned his horse and jogged toward them.
Henri Christophe. An imposing figure, in the saddle as well as on foot. He had a natural air of dignity, which had served him well in former times, when he was headwaiter at the Hotel Couronne—an establishment which Arnaud had regularly patronized. He did his best now to keep any trace of that memory from showing in his expression. Christophe had been already a freeman when he used to show Arnaud to his table at the Couronne. He had been free since the 1770s, when he’d attended the American Revolution with the regiment of the Comte d’Estaing. Arnaud had been vehemently against the whole notion of including slaves or even black freemen (especially black freemen) on that mission. And now look at their trouble . . . but that was another thought he must not let betray itself on his face.
“Ki sa ou vlé?” Christophe said, with no sign he particularly recognized whom he was talking to. “Blanc, you have no business here.”
“I’m told that some of my people have been wrongfully imprisoned,” Arnaud said.
“Your people,” Christophe said pointedly. “Yours?”
Christophe’s horse snorted and tossed its head to shake off a fly. Arnaud took a step back from the burst of warm breath.
“Ours—as it were—of the same family.” That was Claudine, moving up to stand beside him.
Christophe studied her for a moment, in silence, his expression grave. Arnaud wondered just what he might be thinking. Claudine had a general notoriety in Le Cap as Madame Skin-Inside-Out—the white woman who went to the African temples.
“Of your same family,” Christophe repeated finally. “What people might these be?”
“The woman Fontelle, and her children.”
“Who are also the children of Père Bonne-chance,” Claudine added.
Christophe transferred the reins to his left hand and stroked his jawline with his right. The soldiers of the firing squad had formed in a wedge behind his horse, and waited with their musket butts resting on the ground. In the farther distance, Arnaud noticed three or four longeared black swine exploring the stream