Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [434]
How good if that cloud had been dissolved. But when Monpoint emerged from Toussaint’s company, his face was dark. At his glance, Placide got up and followed him down the steps and around the corner of the house, into the blighted garden of tea roses.
“He says he will go to meet General Brunet at Habitation Georges,” Monpoint said unhappily, pushing the dry dirt with the toe of his boot.
“Yes,” Placide said vaguely; he was reluctant to have his sense of harmony in the day disrupted.
“But it cannot be wise for him to go,” Monpoint said, turning to pace along the desiccated rose plants, then sharply turning back. “And there were two more ships landing many blanc soldiers at Gonaives only yesterday—”
The rising sun cleared the roof of the house, striking Monpoint harshly in the face. He and Placide moved away from the house wall into the shade of the citrus grove.
“Those soldiers are boasting they have come to arrest Toussaint,” Monpoint said gloomily. “Let them come to take him here, if they have the heart to try it!” He raised one hand and closed it so tight that it trembled. Out of uniform and without his tall silver helmet, Monpoint looked a little smaller than Placide had thought him, but this gesture restored his full size. “But if he puts himself into their hands . . .” Monpoint dropped his hand and scuffed the turf between the roots of the lime trees.
“The soldiers have been boasting that way ever since the fleet sailed out of France,” said Placide, who had overheard more of his guardians’ rash talk during the voyage than any of the four captains ever suspected. “So far those boasts have come to nothing.”
Monpoint glanced up, startled by a footfall. Isaac had appeared, one arm draped over a lime tree branch. For some reason he’d clothed himself today in the uniform of Bonaparte’s gift, and even had strapped on the ornamental sword.
“And you, monchè?” Monpoint said. “Have you been near enough to the blanc General to breathe his spirit?”
Placide knew that Isaac often looked sullen when he was worried. That explained the sulkiness with which he plucked a small, lumpy lime and cut the skin with his thumbnail before he replied.
“It is Dessalines more than anyone who wants to hurt my father in the eyes of the Captain-General. Dessalines who whispers and insinuates. The Captain-General showed to me letters signed by Dessalines, which tell stories that are not true.”
“What stories?” Monpoint said.
Isaac licked the flesh of his lime before he answered. “That our father is in league with Sylla at Plaisance and Sans-Souci at Grande Rivière. That he will use the battalion of Gonaives to start up the war all over again.”
“The battalion of Gonaives!” Monpoint snorted. “No one could start a war against all those blancs with that. And Toussaint is not even at the head of it.” He shook his head, looking down at the ground. “Well. I know the blancs are unhappy because they can’t dig Sylla out of his place at Mapou. But they cannot prove that your father has anything to do with that.”
No, thought Placide, it couldn’t be proved, but the fort of Mapou was not far off from Ennery. In fact it was near enough that a fair number of the men who worked at Descahaux by day walked back to Mapou to sleep at night, and so everyone knew that Sylla was doing all he could to gather and stockpile provisions and materials for war.
“But maybe the Captain-General does not believe the lies of Dessalines,” Isaac said. “He has written to my father very cordially.”
“Maybe,” said Monpoint, but without much verve. He had plucked another misshapen lime from another tree and was turning it over and over in his hands. “But why will Toussaint put his head in the lion’s mouth? Vernet and I have warned him against it, and even his brother Paul.” Monpoint shrugged and let