Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [219]
Placide only stared at him, bemused.
“Maré têt ou!” Guiaou said. Tie up your head!
It was his father’s fashion, Placide realized, and that of many men as they went into battle. Guiaou had just pulled the cloth from his own head; the corners were still creased to the old knot. But Placide’s head was larger. Automatically, he turned to the wind, letting the air carry the fabric from his forehead to the back. His fingers fumbled behind his head. Then the knot was solid, the pressure secure along his temples and at the nape of his neck. Guiaou grinned and nodded to him.
“Alé,” he said. Go.
Placide squeezed his heels to his horse’s flanks. In a moment he had overtaken the last rider in Morisset’s squadron; the man looked back once but gave no sign of disapproval. He faced forward again, and Placide closed the distance. Guiaou’s mouchwa têt had worked for him, maybe, like an invisibility cap. Onward and downward they jogged. A couple of small bats flittered back and forth across the trail, losing themselves in the bordering trees at the end of each pass. By some trick of the land’s lie, the sound of French cheering grew fainter for a time, then abruptly much louder.
It was full dark when they reached the slope of the cemetery hill on the southwest edge of town, but the moon was well risen, picking out the crypts and crosses in a cool white light, spreading shadows of the riders long across the graves. Placide prickled with something other than fear. He checked the knot at the nape of his neck. Thus the world would appear to Baron Lacroix, when that spirit arose through the cemetery. Placide’s blood beat a different pattern than before.
The iron cemetery gate hung shut before them. Morisset bunched his men in cover of the wall beside it. Firelight from the burning buildings warmed their faces and the horses’ manes. The cemetery was only a couple of blocks from the main square. Some effort must have been made to put the fires out, for most of the shells only smoldered now; just a few were fully ablaze. Spectral figures of blanc soldiers were black against the fire glow as they scurried back and forth across the streets, flittering like the bats on the trail above. Many were probably drunk by now, on looted rum.
Morisset looked over his men. His eye brushed over Placide but did not stop. As he faced the bars of the gate, his lips pulled back far enough that firelight wavered on his front teeth. At his gesture, a man got down to raise the bar from the gate and then quickly remounted. Placide checked the knot of his mouchwa têt once more. Something inspired him to close his left eye. His drumming pulse quickened, changed its beat; his right eye locked forward with a doubled concentration. The two wings of the gate went floating open with a squawl of rusted hinge. They charged in silence, except for the hooves.
“You there,” Daspir called to a passing grenadier. “Lay down that cask!”
The soldier stopped, but only stared at the captain. Cyprien was staring at Daspir too. But Daspir, emboldened by the effect of half an orange and a whole avocado, persisted.
“Looting may be punished by death, I should warn you,” he said smoothly. “In the case of drunkenness on duty, there is flogging to consider.”
“Vive la France!” The soldier rolled the bunghole of the cask to his lips; slightly choking as clear fluid spilled from both corners of his mouth. “Vive le Capitaine-Général! —and three cheers for the beautiful Pauline!”
With that he loosed the cask from his hands and ran off. Daspir was on it almost before it hit the ground, tumbling it like a dog pawing a ball. Not much had spilled before he caught it up. It was only a small keg, perhaps a gallon. Daspir tilted it back with both hands and gasped at the syrupy burn of the new white rum.
“Well ordered!” Cyprien said, his eyes alight with appreciation, if it were not merely the glitter of