Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [356]
“Look there,” Daspir alerted the others, when they’d ridden perhaps two hundred yards toward the road. A gang of Makaya’s men had swarmed out of the ditches and were busy flaying the dead horse and dressing out joints of meat with their coutelas. One scurried away with the saddle, which Paltre had forgotten to salvage. With a curse, Paltre pulled out his pistol and fired, scarcely aiming. The men scattered briefly, then returned to their work.
The rest of Leclerc’s column, similarly disconsolate, was re-forming on the road. A good number of Makaya’s men had reappeared in the open, just out of musket range to the south, blocking the roadway to Morne Rouge. They capered rudely, sounded their conch shells, swirled long whips fashioned from the tails of bulls. Leclerc’s teeth clenched, and his hand crawled on the pommel of his sword. But the men were drained from their bootless pursuit and half-choked on all the ash they’d inhaled. Moreover it was now very late in the day, and heavy clouds were blowing in from the mountains to the east. Leclerc ordered their march to continue toward Le Cap.
They reached the gate with the rain coming behind them in a neat line across the plain, like the blade of a knife scraping crumbs from a table. The troops moved out smartly along the Rue Espagnole. Civilians turned out to cheer them, with some real enthusiasm, lining the streets under the balconies of houses beginning to be rebuilt. A few young women even had flowers to toss. Word was that Hardy had been whipped from Dondon to the gates of Le Cap a few days earlier, so Leclerc’s arrival in force was more than welcome.
Most of the division turned uphill in the direction of the barracks there, but Paltre, Daspir, and Cyprien continued with Leclerc and a few other staff officers in the direction of the Governor’s house. The rain blew after them; the streets were clearing in its wake. Daspir tossed his reins to a groom and hurried under the portico. Here, thanks to Pauline’s pressure, prodigies of restoration had been achieved: the roof retimbered, walls freshly plastered, and any trace of soot whitewashed away. Pauline turned a cool cheek to Leclerc’s embrace. With her was Isabelle Cigny; Daspir went toward her and began to bow over her hand, but Leclerc’s voice arrested him.
“You’ll frighten the ladies, Captain.” Leclerc laughed harshly. “Why, you look like one of our blackamoors.”
Daspir touched a finger to his cheek and looked at the soot on the ball of it. But he was no worse than the others, especially Paltre, who was covered in horse blood along with the ash. He drew himself rigidly upright, snapped a salute at his commander, and stalked out blindly into the hammering rain.
There was no ash left on him by the time he’d crossed the block to the barracks of the Carénage; it was as if the rain had peeled him, though in his angry discontent he scarcely noticed it. He went into the barracks and sat down on the edge of a wooden bench, trembling from exhaustion as much as the wet and chill. Upset as he was, he scarcely noticed his trembling either. Why had Leclerc retained him on staff if he couldn’t stand the sight of him? He had probably saved the Captain-General’s life at the moment when Placide—Placide!—would have cut him down. And yet—well, there was the heart of it, Daspir saw in a quick cold flash: his presence could only remind Leclerc of that moment of his helplessness, and of course the embarrassing wound