Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [442]
Someone hissed from the next corner of the hedge: “Is it done?” And Daspir heard his own voice answer, “Yes, we are all secure.”
This other man gestured him urgently toward the house. Daspir had unconsciously been stripping blood from his blade with his fingers; now when he saw his bloody hand he held out the palm for the rain to cleanse it. Guizot nudged him, and Daspir began to walk toward the house, with Guizot a pace behind. He nudged him once more when they reached the steps, and Daspir remembered to return the saber to its sheath.
Riau only struggled a moment when Maillart flattened him to the ground, for Maillart pressed his lips to his ear as if he would kiss it and hissed, “Lie still, if you want to live. Lie still.” Then Riau went completely limp, pressed down into the damp earth by Maillart’s weight and so completely covered that no one could reach him.
When Daspir and Guizot had gone, Riau began to speak in a low voice, almost indistinguishable in the rain. “Tell me, my captain.” He had the rank wrong, and yet it was right. Maillart had been Riau’s captain at the start; that had been their first relation.
“My captain, you mean to betray us all to slavery.”
Maillart turned his face to the side and found himself looking at Guiaou’s head, upright on its stump against the hedge, the eyes still open and holding the false gleam of the rain. Nearby were the toes of Aloyse’s boots, and Maillart felt the weight of the sergeant’s unhappiness settling on him like shame, but Aloyse was soldier to the bone; he would not deviate from orders.
“Captain, you don’t look at me,” Riau still whispered. “You don’t answer, my captain. That is because you do not want to lie.”
Rainwater poured from Guiaou’s open eyes, filled the deep furrows of his scarred face, and carried the blood of his death into the ground. Maillart was choking uncontrollably, spilling fat salty tears into the cup of Riau’s collarbone, so bitter to him was the sum of his own actions. He did not remember any time when he had wept before, though he supposed he must have done so when a child. Riau wriggled to disengage one arm and laid it over Maillart’s back. Aloyse’s feet shifted as he trained his musket, but it was clear enough that Riau only meant to hold Maillart a little closer to him.
“So?” Brunet whispered when Daspir and Guizot entered the hall. The general’s face was pale and speckled with cold sweat.
“His guards are in our hands,” said Daspir, as that seemed to be the reply expected.
“It’s well it was done quietly,” Brunet said. A dozen more officers were with Ferrari in the foyer, and the salon opposite was full of bristling grenadiers.
“Let us get on with it,” Brunet said. But it was clear that the general himself did not mean to enter the room where Toussaint waited. And so for that moment there was no leader. Daspir saw in a flash that he and Guizot might very well take command in this vacuum, and make the capture they had wagered to make. But he no longer desired the prize, and he saw from a glance at Guizot’s face that Guizot didn’t either.
In the end it was Ferrari who took them through the door. Since Paltre’s death, Ferrari had completed the quartet of captains. He was a more agreeable fellow than Paltre, though because they had shared less, the other three did not feel as close to him. And Cyprien was absent,