Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [346]
In the midst of this work the doctor had learned as much as he could of his family—all the whites had left Thibodet for Le Cap some weeks before, and that was as much as anyone knew of them; no word had come back since, not that any was expected.
But the scent of roasted pigeon distracted them all from this subject as they settled around the table. Merbillay brought out a platter of nicely browned birds, with a plate of greens and stewed sweet potatoes. Then she vanished toward the rear of the grand’case. Riau, however, joined them for the meal. He had gone to his dwelling while the pigeons cooked, and put on the tunic of his uniform for the occasion. Indeed it was the coat of Toussaint’s honor guard, the doctor took note, an elegant costume, only a little worn, with a couple of holes in it meticulously darned. Tearing into the breast of his pigeon, Riau urged the doctor to follow his example. Pigeon meat was believed to fortify the blood. But the doctor, whose stomach was still shrunken from the siege of the fort, approached his bird more cautiously, nibbling on the end of a drumstick.
“You’ve wandered a little way out of your road,” Maillart remarked to Riau, once his first hunger had been blunted by pigeon and potato.
Riau only looked back at him blandly.
“I mean the road from Croix des Bouquets to Port-au-Prince,” Maillart pursued. “It does not ordinarily pass through Ennery, no?” Maillart pulled shreds of meat from the ribcage of his bird with the point of his knife. “We were a long time waiting for you to come back from the delivery of that dispatch.”
Belatedly, the doctor kicked him under the table.
“Maybe Toussaint is still waiting for you to come back from your mission to Port-au-Prince from Point Samana,” Riau said smoothly.
Maillart froze for a moment, then shrugged. “It may be so,” he said, and forced a laugh. “I accept your point. But possibly you are the one who can tell us, Riau, more exactly what Toussaint may be expecting.” He scraped his chair away as the doctor kicked at his ankle once more. Guizot had laid aside his fork and was looking from Maillart to Riau, bemused.
“No one knows for certain what Toussaint thinks about.” Riau smiled tightly. “But maybe he is expecting a bad answer to the question Paul Lafrance asked of your General Lacroix.”
Maillart seemed to flush a little, though the normal baked-clay shade of his complexion made it hard to tell. “And how would he know of that question if not from you?” he muttered. But he seemed to have lost confidence in his needling, and when Riau did not answer, he let it drop.
“And the way north?” the doctor asked Riau. “Is it secure?”
“There has been some fighting around Dondon,” Riau said. “But that was a few days ago.”
“I don’t think we mean to go so far east,” said the doctor. “I was thinking more of the road to Le Cap through Plaisance and Limbé.”
“The Captain-General Leclerc marched up that road not long ago,” Riau said. “He may have met some trouble . . . perhaps at Limbé, or in the mountains before. But he had a lot of soldiers with him.”
“And how do you estimate the chances of a group the size of our own?” the doctor asked.
For a moment Riau appeared to be looking at the inside of his head. “I think you would get through,” he finally said. “If I go with you.”
The doctor nodded and returned to his plate. Chewing slowly, carefully, thoroughly, he was able to dispatch about two-thirds of his pigeon.
“You ought not to pick at Riau like that,” the doctor told the major later,