Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [27]
She shifted her position when she noticed this, and felt that Etienne’s attention had focused too, though neither of them spoke. They watched the dot of dust until it grew into a plume, pushing its way toward them through the silence. Then Claudine saw the silver flashing of the white horse in full gallop, and the small, tight-knit figure of the leading rider. The men of his escort carried pennants on long staves.
“Come!” she said, jumping up from her stone. “We must go down quickly.”
It seemed unlikely that Etienne would have recognized the horseman, but he ran down the path ahead of her in a state of high excitement, his velocity attracting other small children into his wake. Claudine went more slowly, careful of the grade. As she passed the house, Cléo came out onto the long porch, shading her eyes to look into the west, and Marie-Noelle joined her, wiping her hands on her apron.
Claudine stopped at the edge of the compound, looking down the long allée to the point where Arnaud had recently hung a wooden gate to the stone posts from which the original ironwork had been torn. She watched; for a time there was no movement. Nearby a green shoot had sprung four feet high from the trunk of a severed palm, and a blue butterfly hovered over its new fronds. Etienne and the playmates he’d gathered went hurtling down the allée, scattering a couple of goats that had wandered there. The children braked to a sudden halt at the skirl of a lambi shell. Immediately the wooden gates swung inward. Flanked by the pennants of his escort, Toussaint Louverture rode toward her at a brisk trot, astride his great white charger, Bel Argent.
Claudine drew herself a little straighter and crossed her hands below her waistline. She was conscious of how she must appear, fixed in the long perspective of the green allée. There was a hollow under her heels where once had been a gallows post. She took a step forward onto surer ground, and recomposed herself for the reception.
Spooked by the advancing horsemen, the children turned tail and came running back toward her. Etienne and Marie-Noelle’s oldest boy, Dieufait, took hold of her skirts on either side and peeped out from behind her. Toussaint had slowed his horse to a walk several yards short of her, so as not to coat her with his dust. He slipped down from the saddle and walked toward her, leading Bel Argent by the reins. As always, she was a little surprised to see that he was no taller than she was herself once he had dismounted. Shaking the children free of her skirt, she curtsied to his bow.
“You are welcome, General,” she said, “to Habitation Arnaud.”
“Merci.” Toussaint took her hand in his oddly pressureless grip and bowed his head over it. Claudine felt a tingle that sprang upward from the arches of her feet—when she’d thought herself long immune to such a blush. There was a pack of rumors lately, that Toussaint received the amours of many white women of the highest standing, attracted by the thrill of his power if they were not simply angling for gain. He did not kiss her hand, however, but only breathed upon her knuckles, and now he raised his eyes to meet her own. His hat was in his other hand, his head bound up in a yellow madras cloth. The gaze was assaying, somehow. Toussaint broke it with a click of his tongue, as if he’d seen what he’d been looking for.
“You’ll stay the night,” Claudine said. “I trust—I hope.”
“Oh no, Madame,” Toussaint told her, and covered his mouth with his long fingers, as if it pained him to disappoint her. “Your pardon, but we are pressed—we stop for water only, for our horses and ourselves.”
Behind him, Guiaou and Riau had ridden up, Guiaou still brandishing the rosy conch shell he’d used to trumpet their arrival. Claudine pressed her hand to the flat bone between her breasts.
“But—tomorrow we will celebrate the Mass.”
“Is it so?” said Toussaint, smiling slightly, with the same automatic movement to cover his mouth. “Well then. Of course.