Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [70]
“How far is it to Santo Domingo City?” Couachy said.
“Oh,” said the Spaniard, “not so far at all. You are quite near. But have something to eat before you go on, and you must fodder your horses, certainly.”
“You are kind—” Couachy began, but Guiaou broke in: “Let us go on.”
The Spaniard looked sharply into Guiaou’s face. “Is your mission so urgent?” His fingers worked the sprigs of hair on his pointed chin; they did not quite amount to a beard. As his gaze lowered from Guiaou, it caught for a moment on the red wax seal of the letter visible in Couachy’s pocket.
“Not at all,” Couachy said. He turned in Guiaou’s direction but without quite meeting his eyes. “Though, after all, we must not stay long.”
“Very good,” the Spaniard said. The young woman was coming back from the well with her pail slopping onto the dirt, free hand still running over the string. From the fixed regard when she came near, Guiaou guessed she must be blind. She had pleasant features, but these were confused by many dark red blotches on her face, from some disease.
Two larger boys, both of them white, were peeking around the door frame now. “Take these horses to the barn,” the Spaniard said. “And bring some eggs to feed our visitors.”
Unhappily Guiaou slid down from the saddle; Guerrier followed suit.
“Go in, go in!” The Spaniard gestured to the open door. Guiaou let his horse be taken and led around the corner of the cabin. Clutching his musket to him still, Guerrier followed Couachy into the house. Guiaou looked back and saw that the Spaniard had walked closer to the boys as they led the horses off, to give them some further instruction.
Guiaou stepped over the threshold, cradling his helmet, blinking in the dim interior.
“Sit down.” The Spaniard walked inside, waving his arms at a rough-hewn table against the wall. The others were already seated there. Guiaou lowered himself gingerly to a three-legged stool and pushed his helmet under the table, out of sight.
The Spaniard rattled off a phrase of his own tongue to the older woman, the one who was not blind. She grunted something in reply and stooped to lift an iron tripod and a kettle. Guiaou moved to take the tripod, an excuse to follow her out the back door. Another string, he noticed, ran from the door frame to a small barn at the crest of a little rise behind the house. The horses had been taken there, he thought. He did not see the horses, but the figure of one of the white boys flashed for a second across the rise, running down toward a dark tree line beyond it.
Very slowly, the old woman was arranging the tripod, the kettle, the pan below the kettle which would be spooned full of coals, once the fire which had yet to be kindled had produced the coals. It would all take too much time, Guiaou thought. He stepped back into the house. The Spaniard had picked up his helmet and was turning it in his hands, muttering the phrase embossed on the front of it: Qui pourra en venir à bout?
Guiaou moved to whisper to Couachy that they must not wait for this promised meal, but the Spaniard seemed to intercept his thought.
“Where are those boys?” he said, his beard wisps lifting in a rubbery smile. “Our hens are all half wild, you see? They hide their eggs, and it takes time to find them.”
“I will help them,” Guiaou said. Couachy sat looking vacantly out the doorway, eyes half shut. He had put one hand under his shirt tail to warm his belly for the reception of hot food. Guiaou could not get his attention. He reached for the helmet, but the white man’s hands stuck to it, his fingertips lingering on the raised