Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [119]
“That I was,” said Cyprien.
“I have happened to meet them at an inopportune moment—for them, at least,” Daspir said. “Yet I confess to find them very amiable, especially Madame Cigny.”
“Yes, she can be . . . ingratiating,” Cyprien said. “She held quite a court in that house we just left, during the mission of Hédouville. No sign of any children in those days. She must have sent them away from the island, for their safety.”
“Then they have had an unlucky hour for their return.” Daspir felt a real twinge at this thought; he had a half sister in France about the age of Héloïse.
“They say she’s had more lovers than hairs on her head,” Cyprien went on, still gazing at Isabelle’s supple back.
“I take it you were not among them?” Daspir divined from the other’s tone that if he’d applied, he’d been rejected.
Cyprien coughed and cleared his throat. “Maybe not all of them were white men either. Toussaint’s black so-called officers were frequent enough in her parlor at that time, if not in some chamber closer to her . . . well. The husband is a cipher, turns a blind eye to it all. Was mostly absent in the countryside—they have a plantation near Haut de Trou.”
“Scandalous,” Daspir said. His voice emerged ironic, though what he felt was simple curiosity.
Cyprien shot him a critical glance. “As for your Michel Arnaud, he was renowned for torturing his slaves to death, before the insurrection, and how he escaped being murdered by them afterward is a great mystery. They say his wife chopped off her own finger and gave it to the brigands—”
“What, in exchange for his life?”
“Who knows?” Cyprien said. “They say she participates in their savage rites. A madwoman.”
“These are interesting people indeed,” Daspir said. “And what do you know of Doctor Hébert?”
“The good doctor? He has a skill in native remedies, along with his European education. I’m told he’s saved a great many limbs that another sawbones might have hacked off and thrown to the dogs. His sister ran off with a notorious gunrunner, while her legal husband was still groaning on his deathbed, and since then they’ve been playing both sides of the game.”
“And the doctor?”
“Certainly he has been very thick with Toussaint,” Cyprien said. “Beyond that, I can tell you that he is not entirely what he seems to be—”
At that, almost as if he’d overheard, the doctor twisted in the saddle and looked back at them, lowering a hand to balance his long gun across the pommel of his saddle. He did no more than give them a wide smile, whose mood was unintelligible because the reddening sunlight flashed from his spectacles and hid his eyes.
Cyprien fell silent. They rode on. Long since they’d passed the city gate. On either side of the road they traveled, an expanse of devastation continued to unfurl. The air was heavy with the scent of scorched sugar. No human activity was anywhere to be seen; the charred landscape was utterly still except for occasional swirls of smoke, and carrion birds wheeling above certain points on the plain. Daspir glanced at the red orb of the sun, which was dropping rapidly toward the ridge line of the mountains to the west. He wondered how far it might be to their destination, but did not like to ask.
For distraction, he turned his attention to Placide and Isaac, who rode on either side of their tutor. Now and again one of them pointed out some feature they were passing to Monsieur Coisnon, though how they could identify anything from what now remained of it, Daspir could not imagine. But both the youths looked more impressive horseback than shipboard. They were both good riders, erect in the saddle, holding their heads high. Isaac had perhaps the firmer seat, and certainly held a tighter rein, whereas Placide seemed to proceed from a natural sympathy with the animal.
Now they were passing along a citrus hedge which did not seem to have been scorched at all. And then, between two grand gateposts, appeared a glimpse of tall cane trembling in the evening breeze. Placide reached between the horses to tap