Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [174]
“A trader.” The small dark beads of Rochambeau’s eyes fixed on Tocquet. “You are?”
“Xavier Tocquet.”
“A Frenchman.”
“I was born here,” Tocquet said. “Likewise my father, and his father before him.”
Rochambeau sniffed. Tocquet felt the little eyes scouring him for any visible sign of African or Indian blood. Without waiting for an invitation, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He took off his dripping straw hat and smoothed the brim out on the table in a shape that it might hold when it dried. Rochambeau looked at him with a certain asperity; Tocquet affected unconsciousness.
“A trader,” Rochambeau said slowly. “I suppose you must trade with the rebel Negroes, as you seem to have come out of their camp.”
“I have a few bolts of cloth and some spices only,” Tocquet said. “No material of war.” He congratulated himself that what he claimed was true—well, he’d foreseen before he set out that it would be no time to get caught moving guns—and in any case Toussaint had snapped up every gun in the country, so there were none to move.
Rochambeau stood up. He was a short man, barrel-shaped; his black shako seemed to account for a fifth of his height. With a bobbing movement, like the walk of a parrot, he went to the open arcade overlooking the square. Bazau and Gros-Jean waited by the horses and mules, just within the shelter of the roof’s overhang. Rochambeau studied them for a moment, then snapped his fingers for the young captain and the pigtailed, mustachioed sergeant who attended him. He set the sergeant to inspecting the packs. Bazau and Gros-Jean looked on impassively, making no move to assist. Rochambeau, meanwhile, exchanged a few muttered sentences with the captain which Tocquet could not overhear. He took off his black-and-white head cloth and wrung water out of it onto the floor.
“Splendid horses you have there,” Rochambeau said. “Do you also trade in horse flesh?”
“No,” said Tocquet.
Rochambeau strolled back toward the table. “A pity,” he said. “But my captain tells me you own land in this region.”
“Only a small coffee plantation, and not so very near.” It was a lie; he knew that if the French came upon his hatte at Terre Cassée they would certainly commandeer all his livestock. “A matter of no more than forty carreaux, on the heights of Vallière,” he said. In fact he knew of such a place, though he did not own it; it belonged to some mulatto acquaintances of his.
“Oh,” said Rochambeau. “And would that have been your destination?”
“Yes,” said Tocquet, lying still, for his real intention was to head southeast toward Santo Domingo City. “A little further, even, to the frontier at Ouanaminthe, where I might trade cloth for tobacco.” He loosened the thong at the back of his neck and spread his hair on his shoulders to dry. Noël Lory was watching him. Tocquet had never liked him much, had never trusted him at all. It was possible that Lory knew he owned no land at Vallière, and likely he knew all about the hatte at Terre Cassée.
“I cannot recommend it,” Rochambeau plumped back into his chair at the head of the table. “There is too much fighting in that area for a small party like yours to get through safely.”
“Is it so?” Tocquet said. “I had understood that General Christophe controlled the Cordon de l’Ouest at least as far as Dondon, if not further.”
Rochambeau smiled. “The rebel Christophe was defeated yesterday at Dondon, and today at Marmelade.”
“Are those your victories, General?” Tocquet said silkily.
“Those battles are to the credit of General Hardy,” said Rochambeau. “And the Captain-General Leclerc is himself on the march. Today Hardy has beaten Christophe back as far as Ennery, perhaps. If you are coming from that direction, I wonder that you did not meet the remnants of his force.”
“I left near dawn,” Tocquet said. It was happening, then, as he had thought; somehow he hadn’t quite believed it, for all his insistence to Elise. “Though the distance is not so great, the way is difficult.”
“How did you come?” said Rochambeau.