Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [40]
A smaller frigate had detached from the fleet and was sailing northeast around the peninsula. They would be landing a small party, Maillart supposed, to get the news and maybe look for pilots. Toussaint seemed indifferent to the movement, if he had noticed it at all, and presently the ship had disappeared around the headland. Maillart remembered what he’d said two nights before, when he’d tossed the musket to Guerrier. But why must this advent be taken for invasion, why not the simple arrival of a friendly force? After all, Toussaint had always professed his loyalty to France and almost always seemed to act on it. Could not this point be put forward? Maillart took a step and cleared his throat, but Toussaint had already spoken.
“Riau.” Now the voice was crisp and clear, though not too loud. “Vin’pal’ou.” That radical compression in the Creole phrase, Come here to me so I can talk to you. Riau lowered his head to Toussaint’s lips, then dashed to Bel Argent’s saddlebags, took out a folding writing desk, and returned to sit cross-legged below the boulder where Toussaint was stationed.
Maillart remained where he was. He felt—no, he knew himself to be held at exactly this distance, just a few paces from Toussaint and his scribe, but, with the noise of the waves slamming into the rocks below, completely out of earshot. Toussaint was on his feet now, pacing, gesticulating, while Riau bent over the desktop on his knees, pen point grooving the parchment. Now and then Toussaint paused, weighing one phrase against another, and once he even glanced at Maillart, but did not ask his opinion. He had not yet recovered his fallen hat, and the yellow madras seemed to throb with the heat of his concentration.
Maillart wondered if someone might have turned a spyglass on him from the fleet, an admiral, perhaps Bonaparte’s brother-in-law Leclerc, who was rumored to command the military force. What would it matter if they were watching? he thought. They won’t know what they’re looking at.
Riau was melting wax in a small flame; Toussaint ground his ring down on the seals.
“Guiaou, Couachy,” he called sharply. Then, after a pause, “Guerrier.” The three men jogged to him.
“Take these messages,” Toussaint said. He had two letters in his hand. “Go to my brother, the General Paul, at Santo Domingo City . . .” He lowered his voice and turned his back so that Maillart could no longer hear him, but he saw that while Couachy had put one of the letters into his outer coat pocket, he’d shoved the other down inside his waistband, and was adjusting the tuck of his shirt to conceal it.
“Maillart!” The major trotted over and threw up a sharp salute. The party for Santo Domingo was already swinging into the saddle, moving out. Toussaint extended a single letter. Maillart grazed the seal with his thumb, warm and still a little malleable.
“Go with Riau,” Toussaint said. “Take the rest of these men and bring my messages to the General Dessalines—he should be at Port-au-Prince, but wherever he is you must reach him.”
For a moment Maillart’s eyes locked with Riau’s. Well, he thought, have I got the real dispatch or the decoy? He had already dropped the letter into an inside pocket. He had been through a number of battles with Riau, and trusted him as much as any man of any color.
“But yourself, sir?” Maillart said. Toussaint had left himself no escort with these orders, not even a pair of heralds.
Toussaint had picked up his round hat and jammed it back on his head. He folded his arms across his chest, took one deep breath, and exhaled through his nostrils so forcefully that Maillart expected to see dust stir on the ground between his feet. He strode to Bel Argent, dropped the folded desk into one of the saddlebags, and from the other pulled out a fat feather pillow sheathed in rose-colored silk. Because of his short legs, his head