Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [289]
“Let me ride with them,” Placide said suddenly.
Morisset looked at him, uncertain at first. Placide turned into the wind, opened his headcloth into the air that fanned back over his head, and tightened the knot on the base of his neck.
“Go, then,” Morisset said. “Do you need a fresh horse?”
Placide shook his head. “No, mine has rested.” Though the bay he rode was not Bel Argent, it did come from Toussaint’s personal stable, and Placide thought it stouter than most of the honor guard’s horses, though the guard was generally well mounted. Morisset stretched out a hand and brushed the knot of the headcloth, letting his hand slip down from Placide’s shoulder as Placide trotted away.
They entered the field at a gallop from the Grand Cahos Road. Placide, a length behind Monpoint, managed the staff of the flag with his left hand and the reins with his right. At the first shock he seated the staff in the scabbard, switched hands on the reins, and drew the sword Napoleon had given him. His eye had tightened on Leclerc from the moment they rode into view. Later he would reason through his motives: how Toussaint always took care to blame Leclerc personally for this war, rather than the French nation or its leader. How strangely suitable it would be all the same for Leclerc to be struck down with the weapon Napoleon’s treacherous hand had placed in Placide’s. But at this moment there was no such notion in his head; there was nothing at all, only the wind flowing in and out of the bottle.
Maillart was a dozen yards away when the little group surrounding Leclerc disappeared in a cloud of dust. At first he thought the Captain-General had been directly hit by a cannonball or an exploding shell. Later on it turned out that the ball had struck somewhat short and thrown up a fist-sized stone into Leclerc’s groin; not a lethal injury but more than enough to flatten him. Daspir picked him out first where he lay, and scrambled down from Maillart’s horse, landing at a run. He’d managed to hang on to his sword amid all the confusion when his own horse had been shot down. Now the trumpets blared from the fort behind them and were answered again from the tree line across the way, and already the silver-helmed horsemen of Toussaint’s guard were thundering down on them. Daspir had learned to flinch at this sight. He forced himself to keep going. Leclerc lay foetally curled, breathless, clutching his groin, his pale face smudged with dust. Maillart fought to control his dancing horse. He could not see General Lacroix anywhere. He turned Monpoint’s blade with his own as the black commander barreled past him, thinking, Damn it! Remember all the rum we’ve shared? The next rider carried Maillart’s own flag, and he thought, Riau, Riau; it was what he had dreaded, and Riau often wore such a red rag into battle, but the face under the tight band of the headcloth belonged to Placide Louverture.
Maillart was frozen. He would not strike the boy. But Placide was riding for Leclerc, whom Daspir had assisted first to his knees, then, unsteadily, to his feet, as Placide rode down on him with his head floating empty under the red cloth and his whole being poured into his right arm, the force and direction of the blow. Daspir just managed to get his own sword up, awkwardly angling his blade above his own head, like raising an umbrella in a rainstorm. Placide’s falling blade snagged on Daspir’s hilt, and Daspir, with his arm crooked over his head, unbalanced by Leclerc’s weight on the other side, felt the muscle tear behind his right shoulder in the instant before Placide’s horse struck him in the back and knocked him winded into the dirt.
Look at him