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By Root 1993 0

doctor glanced briefly at Maillart. The candor of General Lacroix was surprising, and yet the predicament was obvious enough, at least to anyone in his own position. He held Lacroix’s gaze for a moment and then looked away, along the close-packed rows of the dying. Even in the open air the stench of their putrid humors was abominable. The scheme of transporting yellow fever patients to the height of La Vigie had not materialized—the rate of fresh infection was so staggering that it could not be achieved. In the weeks since Toussaint’s submission to Leclerc, the doctor had seen a couple of thousand troops march straight from their ships into their graves, this hospital only a way station on their passage to La Fossette. Most expired within a day or two of their first symptoms—Paltre’s long lingering was exceptional, and perhaps after all he would survive, though for many days he had seemed unable either to live or die.

“There is no cure,” the doctor said, looking into Lacroix’s amiable face, answering what he supposed to be the unspoken question behind his eyes. “Some do recover, but by a reason of their own fortitude which I cannot explain. We can do nothing, really, to save them here.”

That evening at the Cigny house they dined on doves that the doctor had brought in the previous day from a hunt on the headland beyond Fort Picolet. His marksmanship was much praised at the table, along with the sauce Isabelle had organized out of oranges and cloves. Maillart ate half a dozen of the bite-sized birds and felt that he could have put away a few more, but afterward, when they’d repaired to the upstairs salon and he’d drunk half a glass of rum, he felt a pleasant glaze settle over him.

There was the usual company—the Arnauds, the doctor, Nanon, and Tocquet, who’d come alone, without Elise. Though much recovered from her miscarriage, she seldom stirred out in the evenings, but remained in her own half-reconstructed domicile, where she and Tocquet had set up temporary quarters in the room where the doctor stored his paraphernalia and herbs.

From downstairs, Maillart could hear Zabeth giggling, and Michau chaffing her in a lower, indistinguishable tone, as the two of them cleared spent dishes from the table. A few more callers trickled in, including Captain Daspir. He was without his usual companions tonight—Guizot and Cyprien had gone whoring, Maillart reckoned, to be more certain of their game. He himself was reasonably certain that Isabelle still entertained Daspir privately from time to time (and after all there really was some fiber in the boy), but tonight she was fully occupied by flirting with General Pamphile de Lacroix, who was enjoying himself tremendously, although with no notion of following through.

Maillart found that he rather enjoyed watching Isabelle practice her wiles on Lacroix. A few years back, he’d have fumed with jealousy, as Daspir was visibly doing now. But tonight he was content to loll in his chair and admire her work, as he half attended to the gossip circulating through the room around him. It was possible that the late Bertrand Cigny had sometimes felt the same—that thought startled Maillart, so much so that he made, surreptitiously, the sign of the cross.

He waited until the others had departed or retired to their rooms, till even Daspir, despairing of Isabelle’s favor, had run his finger around his collar and somewhat sulkily made his adieux. But Isabelle took no notice of Maillart either. As Daspir’s boots clomped down the stairs, she shrugged and sighed and strolled out onto the balcony. Maillart waited a moment before he followed.

The night was cool, and breezy enough to send away the mosquitoes. Below, they heard the door slap shut, and Daspir appeared in the middle of the street, turning his wistful face up to Isabelle, who affected not to notice him. She’d raised her own eyes to the moon, and held them there until Daspir had dropped his head and begun limping slowly back toward the barracks.

“You tease the boy terribly,” Maillart observed.

“Ah.” Isabelle laughed softly, deep in her