Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [437]
“What is it?” Tocquet said.
A tear must have spilled onto her cheek. “It’s nothing,” Elise said, unclasping her hand from the bougainvillea. “I pricked my thumb.”
Tocquet stooped to kiss away the brilliant dot of blood. Down the drive came the sound of horses, but Elise did not turn to look. She raised her face to her husband and said, “I’m lucky to be alive.”
As they turned in at the Thibodet gate, Captain Daspir spurred up his horse, distancing himself from Guizot, Ferrari, and Aloyse, and overtaking Major Maillart at the head of the column. He leaned across, and Maillart bent his ear to him.
“It’s true what you said,” Daspir told him.
“What,” said Maillart. “What did I say?”
“All the black generals are to be deported, in the end,” Daspir said, lowering his voice as he leaned closer. “Once the disarmament is complete.”
“The disarmament.” Maillart snorted so vigorously his horse whickered in response. Leclerc’s effort to disarm the populace had so far been a complete fiasco. Toussaint had taught them all too well that the musket was the physical embodiment of freedom.
“I had it from Guizot, some time ago,” Daspir said. “About the deportations. Rochambeau speaks of it loosely, when he drinks. And I remembered that you wanted to know . . .”
“Well, thank you.” Maillart looked him in the eye and touched his hat brim. Daspir nodded and fell back, as the Thibodet grand’case came into view around the curve of the drive. Good of the captain to have given him that news, Maillart supposed. It must mean no hard feelings over Isabelle. But in a way he’d rather not have known. He did not much care for his present mission either, though he could not have avoided it without casting his own loyalty in doubt. Soldier’s luck and a soldier’s pay, he thought in the jogging rhythm of his horse’s trot. And of course for the younger officers it would be a great thing to be in at the kill.
“Hello the house,” he called out heartily. “No fever here?”
“Fever? There is none,” Nanon replied from the gallery. Behind her the doctor emerged barefoot, wiping his glasses on the shirt he carried wadded in one hand.
“You’ve come in force,” Elise said, standing to survey the sixty horsemen of their detachment. “Let me send to find out what can be found from the kitchen—but you, Major, come up and take some soup.”
“No, no.” Maillart grinned and belted out his loudest voice. “We’ve only come to greet you—we can’t stop. We must join General Brunet at Habitation Georges.”
“I’ll ride with you that far,” the doctor said. “Let me get my boots.”
“Oh no,” said Maillart, “I don’t think, really—”
“I won’t be a moment,” the doctor said, shrugging into his shirt, and then Guizot was chiming in: “Of course you must come—it will be a grand outing.”
In five more minutes the whole cavalcade had reversed direction and was moving back the way it had come, with the children gamboling after the horses toward the gate, and the doctor bringing up the rear, astride a mule, his rifle balanced across his knees, having professed the intention to bring back wild meat for the table.
“What did they come for if they won’t stop?” Elise directed the question toward Nanon, but it was Tocquet who responded.
“I don’t know,” he said musingly. “But they seem to have left us a good dozen sentries.”
Elise stood up and shaded her eyes. It was true; four dragoons were lingering at the lower end of the drive, and several more had circled behind the house and the cane mill and were fanning out across the rising terraces of coffee.
“Whatever for?” Elise said lightly. Tocquet was lighting one of his cheroots, though it was a little early in the day for him to begin to smoke.
“A kindness of the major, I suspect,” he said. “To see us safe.” He turned toward her, his whole face crooked. “I think they must be going to arrest Toussaint.”
Isaac had unbelted his sword, for it was