Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [373]
A little before dawn the doctor rose, slipped on his drawers, and crept downstairs bare-chested, carrying his pistols wrapped in his shirt. On the ground floor he lit a candle and sat at the dining table, to clean and sight the pistols. Somewhere on an upper floor one of the smaller children began to whimper and was shushed. A few minutes later, Zabeth appeared, up before her accustomed hour. She must have been up and active for quite some time, for she served the doctor a bowl of steaming soupe giraumon, with a fried egg and a boiled plantain. He smiled his thanks, and ate with good appetite. The pistols lay barrel to butt by his right hand, but Zabeth appeared to take no notice of them, though doubtless she was perfectly well aware of his program for the day.
Maillart arrived with the first light at the windows, a little later than the doctor had expected him.
“They will be waiting for us at La Fossette,” he said.
“No hurry,” Maillart said. He looked from the doctor’s bowl to Zabeth, who brought him his own portion.
“What do you mean?” the doctor said. For the first time that morning he felt a little restive. He very much wanted to be on his way before Nanon or his sister appeared.
Maillart interrupted his spoonfuls of soup. “We are not expected at La Fossette today,” he said. “Captain Paltre has offered an apology.”
“An apology?” The doctor sat back.
“If you reject it,” Maillart said, “the encounter will take place tomorrow.”
“Let him cut out his own malicious tongue,” the doctor said. “I will accept that as a token of repentance. Otherwise, he will have the satisfaction he has asked for.”
“I surmise that you mean to reject the apology,” Maillart said. “Yes? For form’s sake, I might just remind you that the Captain-General takes a dim view of dueling at present—officers of whatever quality being in short supply.”
“That is no concern of mine,” said the doctor.
“So be it, then.” Maillart pushed away his bowl. “Captain Guizot is waiting for you in the street. On a different errand—it isn’t his fault. The Captain-General requests your presence at the hospital.”
“I’ll be going then,” the doctor said, happy enough to have something to occupy his time. He got up from the table, holstered his pistols, collected his straw sack of herbs, and went out to the street.
Leclerc had sent a coach for him. Sergeant Aloyse sat on the box. Guizot stepped down and held the door for the doctor, then climbed in after him. Sergeant Aloyse snapped the reins across the horses’ backs and the coach creaked around the corner and up the slope toward the Rue Espagnole.
“The position is awkward—” Guizot commenced.
“We needn’t speak of it,” the doctor said. He faced strictly forward, his eyes tight on Aloyse’s salt-and-pepper pigtail.
“But I—”
“We needn’t speak of it,” the doctor said. His throat relaxed as he turned toward Guizot, with an involuntary smile which reminded him that, after all, it was more pleasant to save a life than to take one.
Leclerc awaited them already, just within the hospital gate, which the old guardian began to drag open as soon as the coach appeared. Though the doctor had seen him several times from a distance in the aftermath of La Crête à Pierrot, this was the first time the Captain-General had appeared to take any direct notice of him.
“Doctor Hébert,” he said, “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance. I am told that you are expert not only in the treatment of wounds but also in dysentery, and these devastating fevers which we suffer.”
“I fear my skills may have been exaggerated,” the doctor said, barely attending to this formula as he uttered it.
“I have heard also that you have come through many trials at La Crête à Pierrot.”
Leclerc’s look was sufficiently pointed to remind the doctor of what Tocquet had said the night before. “Like all who survived that experience,” he said, “I must thank God and my