Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [263]
My horse was well rested after all that time I spent lying in the hûnfor.Caco had kept him fed and watered, and brushed his coat to a red gleam. Caco had ridden him a little too, though he did not think I knew it, and he had not ridden him too far or too hard.
The morning after that night when Moyse spoke, I rode to Descahaux. There was some chance that Toussaint might order me shot, I was thinking, while my horse climbed up the path. Twice before I had run away from Toussaint’s army, and shooting was the punishment for that. It was Moyse who received me back the second time when I returned, and as I went riding to Descahaux, I heard an echo of his voice in my head. Toussaint would not shoot a good officer now, said that drowned voice of Moyse, when there was war with so many blancs, and so many of his men were getting killed in battle.
Also I had the letter of Chancy to give Toussaint. As I had hoped, this letter told how Riau had helped Chancy to get out of his cachot where he was waiting to be shot in Port-au-Prince. And beyond that I thought it was not likely Toussaint could know that Riau had been the one to bring Lamour Dérance and Lafortune to the side of the French blanc soldiers, to attack that column of the Eighth and frighten Dessalines away. Toussaint might only believe that I had been held by the blancs there in Port-au-Prince, the same way that Chancy was held.
Toussaint asked me many questions after I had read this letter, and I answered him—that I had not been able to take his message to Laplume in time, before Laplume had sold himself to the blancs after all. I told him how I came to Dessalines before Saint Marc was burned. I told him a little of the fighting I had seen at Port-au-Prince, and how the cannons of the ships blew up the forts. I told him how Major Maillart seemed to fall in with the blancs who had just come, since after all he was himself a French blanc soldier. Then Toussaint asked me more questions about the French blancs I had seen, the quality of their officers and the number of their men. Each one of these questions I answered truly, and any lies I gave to him were hidden underneath the things I did not say.
All this talk did not last so very long, because Toussaint was hurrying to go to Marmelade. When the talk was done, he gave me his long jagged smile and hid it quickly with his hand. Then he told me he would name me to his honor guard. Guiaou was standing by him all this time, and at Toussaint’s word Guiaou stepped forward to give Riau a guard’s uniform, with the silver helmet. These things not long ago belonged to a man who had been killed at Ravine à Couleuvre, but what his name was I never knew. There was a hole in the front of the coat and a bigger hole at the back. The cloth had been washed and scrubbed so only a few brown spots remained, but the holes had not yet been mended.
I bowed to Toussaint to show the honor that I felt. In Toussaint’s guard, Riau would keep his rank of Captain.
Then I took the coat back down to Thibodet. Merbillay smiled as she sewed up the holes, because now both her men belonged to Toussaint’s guard, and that to her was a great thing. It did not take her long to finish and it was not yet noon when I was ready to go and join Toussaint. All the children looked at me round-eyed when I set the silver helmet on my head. I picked up each one of them to kiss, even Caco, though Caco had grown heavy to lift. Maybe if I saw him again, I could not lift him.
Jean-Pic met me at the gate of Thibodet, and he smiled very wide in his beard when he saw my honor guard uniform and helmet. We rode together to join Toussaint. His men were already on the road, but there were not so many. From Guiaou and Guerrier I learned that he had left most of his guard, especially the horsemen under Monpoint and Morisset, to protect the fort at La Crête à Pierrot. He had still some companies of the guard footsoldiers, and some companies of the Fourth commanded by Gabart, but it did not seem a lot of men to fight these French blanc soldiers. I remembered