Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [395]
“Nursemaids again,” Paltre grumbled, plumping down into the coarse sand. He shot a challenging look at Guizot. “Here’s what’s come of your fine notion to capture Toussaint Louverture—now we’ve got the least of his brats to look after . . .”
Daspir checked to see if the boy had heard, but Saint-Jean was standing some distance off, upwind, and the wind was fresh. Ignoring Dermide’s anxious teasing, he stripped off his clothes and walked down to the water. There he was relieved of the pestering, for Dermide was hesitant to go in. He dithered on the water’s edge, retreating from the dying ripples, as Saint-Jean swam away from him toward the other children.
“I don’t know about that,” Cyprien was saying. “A shrewder general than the one we’ve got might use the boy in a trap to snare Toussaint.”
“What, here?” Paltre turned his head to spit.
“By no means impossible,” said Cyprien. “There was a raid two nights ago that carried as far as Morne des Capucins.”
Daspir looked about himself. “If you’re serious,” he said, “I think our ambush is a little undermanned.”
“He’s not serious,” Paltre snorted. “They never raid by day.” But he too seemed to be inspecting their surroundings somewhat more thoroughly. “Who’s that scarecrow?”
He pointed toward the youth with the musket, whose figure for the moment blocked Nanon’s. Guizot shaded his eyes to look. “It’s only Moustique,” he said. “He traveled here with us from a plantation of Acul.” On the point of mentioning the doctor, Guizot cut himself off. “No harm in him,” he said. “I’ll just go say hello.”
As Guizot made his way across the sand, Daspir pulled off his boots, shoved up the hems of his tight trousers, and waded shin deep into the water. He’d hoped for a flash of refreshing cold, but under the sun these shallows were tepid. There was no risk of sharks whatsoever—this bathers’ cove was closed from the ocean by a reef augmented with a wall of mounded stones, but he did look carefully for urchins before he took each step. One day he’d seen a black child skewer a foot on the long, dark shiny spines—and if any such thing ever happened to dear Dermide they’d never hear the end of it.
Saint-Jean and Paul were dunking each other, and suddenly Sophie erupted from the water behind them, laughing, shaking back her salt-weighted hair. There was something in that movement that reminded Daspir of Isabelle, and certainly the white shift she wore for a swimming garment clung to her most revealingly in the wet. Sophie caught his eye and sobered and concealed herself again beneath the water. Embarrassed, Daspir looked away. Dermide was hopping down on the hot rocks of the sand. Finally he found the courage to wet his feet, though he came in no deeper than his ankles. Beyond him, two men were coming from the direction of the town, one with a major’s epaulettes and the other wearing a blue headcloth and a pair of spectacles that glinted in the sun.
Daspir walked briskly out of the water. Guizot was standing with Moustique; Cyprien sat by Paltre, drawing circles in the sand with a fingertip.
“Who’s that coming?” Cyprien said, glancing up.
“I believe it is Major Maillart,” Daspir said. “It looks like Doctor Hébert is with him.”
“Come after his yellow wench, no doubt,” Paltre said. He tossed up a handful of sand, which blew in the direction of Nanon and her group.
“Ignore them, can you not?” said Cyprien. “Or still better, why not walk down to see who’s standing the watch at Picolet?”
“I’ve no reason to skulk away from such people,” Paltre said hotly. “I’ve as much right to be here as they.”
“You haven’t self-control enough to avoid another quarrel,” Cyprien said shortly.
“But why should I have to give way before them?” Paltre snapped. “They’re collaborators—the lot of them.”
“Not Maillart,” Daspir said in his most reasonable tone, though his throat was swollen with resentment