Master of the Crossroads (17 page)

No survivors. Just around the curve from the crossroads the trail had been blocked with heavy tree trunks, but for double assurance the ambushers had shot one of the coach horses in the traces. The other horse was tossing its head and trying to rise from under the splintered singletree. The men were dead. The Spanish coat of arms on the door of the coach was mostly obliterated by a perforation of bullet holes. Across the knees of the dead driver lay the body of Toussaint’s brother, Jean-Pierre, riddled with bullet wounds and mutilated by slashes of a
coutelas.
The free coach wheel still ticked on its axle like a cog of a broken watch.

Then the same stiff figure broke from the vines onto the roadway. The doctor covered it quickly with the musket.
Zombi
—a fantasy of the Africans at which he’d scoffed. The doctor had scoffed. The body of a slave laid low by sorcery, then raised from the grave and made to walk, and work, again. Beyond his realm of possibility. The creature advanced toward him blindly, as it had approached the horses. Though fixed in a frozen rictus, the features were those of Chacha Godard, who’d been one of the doctor’s captors in the first phase of the insurrection—but Chacha Godard, he
knew,
was dead. That being the case, he wondered if a shot would be effective.

At a yard’s distance from his musket barrel, the creature spun away and plunged into the jungle. The doctor pointed the musket in one direction, then another, but it seemed there was now no enemy near. He climbed the barricade of tree trunks, to the height of nearly eight feet. The trail toward Camp Barade was empty. In the other direction, he could see back to the crossroads which Toussaint had not been willing to pass. The light had turned almost completely green, as though filtered through thick green glass, and all the air seemed pregnant with rain which had not yet begun, but a reddish bar of sunlight still lay across the crossroads. Just at that vertex appeared the figure of a stooping, grizzled old man, barefoot and bareheaded, weighed down by a long straw sack that dragged from his shoulder almost to the ground. A singing voice seemed to surround him rather than to come from within him, dark and profound as deep blue water.

Attibon Legba
Ouvri baryè pou nou . . .
Papa Legba
Kité-nou pasé . . .

The doctor covered the old man with the musket for a moment, but the other did not seem to threaten him with any physical harm, indeed he seemed quite unaware of the doctor’s presence at the top of the barricade. The doctor lowered the musket. All the same, the hair rose on his arms and the back of his neck, as if he were confronting a ghost or a spirit or someone else’s god.

The stooped old man stepped forward from the light of the crossroads into the shadows of the trees and continued to come nearer through the weird green light. He paused to examine the wreckage of the coach, and again to look at the horse struggling under the broken singletree. When he reached the cadaver of Jean-Pierre, he let out a long wolf-like wail and dropped onto his knees; the straw
macoute
went slack on his shoulder. He covered his face with his hands and shuddered. Grief flowed out of him in a black wave which also poured over the doctor, who climbed down from the barricade and left the musket leaning against it. Softly, empty-handed, he approached the old man, who now stopped his wailing and took from the
macoute
a yellow square of cloth and dredged it in the blood that pooled between the knees of Jean-Pierre, then wrung it out and spread it by the corners. From this drenching the cloth had turned a rusty red. The old man bowed and bound the cloth around his head, knotting it firmly at the back. That well-known gesture . . . when the old man raised his head again, he was familiar, but at the same time deeply strange, as he had always been. The doctor went down on one knee himself and stared into the ancient red-rimmed eyes of Toussaint Louverture. A silent flash of lightning lit the space between them starkly white, and then, all at once, the rain came down.

9

Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.

For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and perish as the green herb.

Captain Maillart shifted position; his buttocks had already grown numb on the backless bench of the Marmelade church. The mulatto youth at the lectern went on intoning the words of the Thirty-seventh Psalm. His voice was thin, reedy and yet possessed of a peculiar urgency which made it difficult to ignore. Thus Maillart could not doze or drift, as he ordinarily did during his rare appearances in church. Vaublanc, who sat to Maillart’s right, seemed more at peace; he breathed with a rasp close to a snore, and his head wobbled on his neck.

Irritably, Maillart studied the colored boy, who was gangly and lean, his acolyte’s robe inches too short for him. His kinky hair was close-cropped, his eyes large and almost feminine, floating in the deep hollows of his skull. At last the captain managed to organize his vague sense of familiarity: this was Moustique, who had been a hanger-on at Toussaint’s camp at Ennery.

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.

For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

Maillart nudged Doctor Hébert, who sat to the left of him on the pew, and muttered, “That priest’s brat from Ennery, is it not?”

The doctor nodded slightly, without turning his head. He sat erect, almost prim, his hands folded on his lap, with the air at least of rapt attention. Maillart moaned inwardly. He looked at the lectern itself; the most elaborate furnishing in all the church. Spread wings of an eagle, carved in mahogany, supported the Holy Writ, but where the eagle’s head should have been was some monstrous chimera from an African woodworker’s nightmare. A fat globule of sweat purled from Maillart’s temple. In a torture of boredom, he let his eyes go unfocused. The voice of the acolyte whined on.

The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.

Maillart lowered his moist forehead into his hands, then raised it, looking about himself. The little church was filled past its capacity, with many of Toussaint’s junior officers lining the walls, their black faces sweat-shiny and impassive. There was a general stench of too many men perspiring in their woollen uniforms. A hard-shelled flying beetle buzzed over the heads of the congregation and tumbled down the back of Maillart’s coat collar. He grunted and clawed at his neck. Toussaint glanced back from between two Spanish officers on the bench ahead. Maillart felt himself flushing. His hand seemed full of splintered beetle legs and wings. Beside him, Doctor Hébert suppressed a laugh.

Toussaint sat uncovered in a posture of devotion, his bicorne hat balanced on his knees. Maillart stared at the glossy black bald spot in the center of his commander’s head. He had no clue to Toussaint’s thinking. He had delivered Laveaux’s invitation—after Tocquet had done the same, after the delegation Laveaux had sent directly from Port-de-Paix had also presented itself at Ennery. And following Maillart’s return from Môle Saint Nicolas, Toussaint had held numerous late-night councils with Moyse and Dessalines, Clervaux and Charles Belair. He had sent couriers to all his outposts from Dondon to Gonaives. In the wake of this activity, l’Abbé Delahaye had removed himself and his acolyte from Dondon to the more secure location of Marmelade.

But in the end, if such was the end, Toussaint had done no more than to renew his oath of fealty to the Spanish crown, as represented by the person of the Marquis d’Hermonas. This renewal of vows had taken place yesterday, here at Marmelade, after which Hermonas had ridden back to Saint Raphael, leaving the town with a light Spanish garrison under the command of a Major Verano, who now sat next to Toussaint on the bench. Verano was slight, with a yellowish cast to his skin; he stooped and there was something supercilious in his manner. A straggly beard hung from his chin, and as he listened to the service, or pretended to listen, he would alternately chew on the end of it or roll the dampened hairs between his fingers.

As for Toussaint’s intention in all this affair, there was no fathoming it. Maillart dropped bits of crushed beetle on the floor, then scratched again underneath his collar, where he still seemed to feel the scrabble of insect legs—if it were not the Spanish cloth that chafed him.

... and as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?

And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.

And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.

Moustique had progressed, finally, to the New Testament reading . . . would this service never, ever be concluded? As Maillart released that irritable thought, Moustique closed the heavy book and carried it to the altar. L’Abbé Delahaye, who had been kneeling with his back to the people, rose and turned with a light alacrity, approached the lectern and began to preach.

The white priest’s voice was deeper, more sonorous, than the voice of his colored acolyte. Maillart felt himself drifting almost comfortably, back toward his dream of the night before, which he had until this moment forgotten. In dream he had been swimming by moonlight, or rather diving, down through current after current of dark water with ripples lightly silvered by the moon. He was diving in pursuit of something that had slipped from his hand as he swam. He struck the silty bottom with a light rebound and groped in the swirl and murk until his fingers curled through the hilt of a silver sword. Above him, he saw leaves and lily pads and flower petals floating on the moonlit surface of the water. There was a beauty that snatched at his breath, and somewhere behind it the thought of Isabelle Cigny . . . He rose, carrying the heavy sword, and broke a surface of leaves and lilies, but there was no air; he was still covered by the water, and above him plane after plane of petal-sprinkled surfaces; each time he broke through he was somehow still submerged, and at last his limbs went slack and loose, and he was towed back to the bottom by the weight of the silver sword. When he struck against the bottom again, he understood that he should have let the sword go long ago, and now he let it fold into the layers of silt, and rose again more buoyantly, through many planes of leaf and moonlight, but it was too late; his lungs had opened, and he was already breathing in the silver water . . .

The captain popped awake with a jolt. He had slumped over onto Doctor Hébert’s shoulder; the doctor shrugged him off with a sardonic smile. But finally the sermon was at an end, and the captain rose and joined the line of people shuffling toward the altar rail. He knelt, and accepted a morsel of bread from the hand of Delahaye. Then Moustique was coming with the wine, murmuring,
the blood of Jesus Christ,
the cup of your salvation . . .

Maillart swallowed, returned to his seat. Dream-fog still covered him, like a spiderweb. He covered the worst of his yawn with his hand. The occupants of the front pews began to file out of the church, following the cross. Maillart rose and marched in line behind Toussaint and the Spanish officers with Doctor Hébert walking immediately behind.

Outside the little building was a flurry of activity. The black captains, Dessalines and Clervaux and Belair, had all hurried to mount their horses, while the priest Delahaye, together with his acolyte and cross-bearer, had vanished as if the earth had swallowed them. A ripple of restlessness ran through the black troops surrounding the church; Toussaint had come to Marmelade in unusual force this time, bringing nearly three thousand of his men. But the black commander himself seemed calm and unhurried. He handed Maillart his bicorne hat to hold, and withdrew from his breast pocket a kerchief unevenly stained a brownish red.

Major Verano watched Toussaint with his slightly slanted, olive-colored eyes, as the black commander pinched the kerchief at diagonal corners, pulling its square into a triangle. Verano put the end of his beard in the corner of his mouth and drew on it as if it were a fine cigar. Maillart, who found this habit revolting, looked away, drumming his fingers absently on the brim of Toussaint’s hat. Guiaou and Quamba were leading over Toussaint’s horse, the sleek white charger Bel Argent.

“Such a fine devotion,” Verano said, pulling his beard out from his lips and molding the damp tip with his dirt-creased fingers. His speech had the Castilian lisp. Maillart was unsure whether his tone of light sarcasm was addressed to himself and the doctor, who stood at his right shoulder, or directly to Toussaint. Verano tasted his beard tip once more, and then withdrew it and squinted at the end. “He fights with the lion’s ferocity,” he said half mockingly, “but communes with the meekness of the lamb.”

Toussaint, flipping the tails of the red kerchief over his head, seemed oblivious to the remark at first. His eyes went white for an instant, as if they were looking through the back of his skull at his fingers tying the cloth. When the knot was accomplished, his eyes came clear; he took his hat back from Maillart and settled it carefully over the red headcloth.

“Blessed are the meek,” Toussaint pronounced, “for they shall inherit the earth.”

As he spoke, he drew his huge cavalry pistol and shot Major Verano through the center of his chest. At the explosion, Bel Argent jerked his head back against the reins; Quamba and Guiaou restrained him. Verano had snapped over backward like a broken cornstalk; his body sagged into the arms of one of his Spanish subordinates.

“Vive la France!”
Toussaint cried out, glancing at Maillart as he swung into the saddle, his long, bright sword whirling high around his head. All over the town square the black cavalrymen were riding down the scattering Spanish troops. One of Verano’s fellows rounded on Maillart with a shriek of outrage and astonishment. Maillart stood too near to bring a weapon effectively into play. He struck the Spaniard with his fist, then stepped back, hand on his pistol grip, but Guiaou had already skewered the man from behind; the spoon-shaped blade of Guiaou’s
coutelas
thrust out for a moment from between the Spaniard’s coat buttons, then retracted as the dying man fell.

“Vive la France!”
Maillart shouted; his voice came back to him with a small, tinny sound, as if someone else had shouted the phrase from a far distance.

He looked for Antoine Hébert, but the doctor had already run to his own mount and was unshipping his long rifle from the scabbard lashed to the saddle. Vaublanc had made it into the saddle and was riding down a side street, his face blank with confusion and his saber pointing at the sky. Maillart scrambled onto his own horse. The snout of his drawn pistol quested this way and that.

“What did you know of this?”
he called to the doctor. Hébert, who had remained afoot, bracing his rifle barrel across the saddle of his horse, shook his head. Toussaint had not taken the
blancs
into his confidence . . . Both men held their fire now; there was no target. The black cavalry had swept the Spaniards from the square and were picking off the stragglers in the side streets. A pair of men had already struck the Spanish colors, and begun to run the French tricolor up the flagpole.

“Vive la France,”
Maillart said again, wonderingly, looking again at the doctor. L’Abbé Delahaye appeared for a moment in the door of the small house behind the church. He made the sign of the cross and then withdrew, pulling Moustique after him as he shut the door. The doctor pulled his rifle down, put it back in the scabbard. Ten minutes and it was already over, the last man of the Spanish garrison wiped out; the French were, in theory at least, masters of Marmelade. Someone tied the Spanish flag to the tail of a donkey and drove the braying animal through the dusty streets, to much laughter and flinging of stones. But fifteen minutes later Toussaint had organized his force and was riding from the town at the head of his cavalry, leading two thousand-odd men on foot at a fast pace toward the north. Maillart rode in the vanguard, following the doctor; they still exchanged bewildered glances, but the euphoria of victory washing over all of Toussaint’s troops had caught them up as well.

Biassou, installed at Habitation La Rivière, had not attended church that day. Toussaint’s advance guard reached the outskirts of his camp before noon. Biassou had no real pickets posted; Toussaint’s men overran a few wanderers gathering wood or wild mushrooms, and silenced them by slitting their throats. The surprise was perfect, for Biassou’s camp was still asleep. Only a few breakfast fires had been lit, and most of the men still snored in their shelters. The trampled ground before Biassou’s tent, surrounding a pole striped with the serpentine images of Damballah and Ayida Wedo, suggested that the ceremony had gone late the night before. Nearby, a lone old woman pounded coffee in a hollowed stump, her withered breasts flapping as she worked the long stave she used as a pestle. Her mouth popped open when she saw the riders, but no sound came out; she dropped the stave and ran in silence toward the ragged edge of the trees.

Biassou’s tent was festooned with snake bones, cat skulls and other
ouangas
strung to the exterior ropes and corners of the canvas. The flaps were down and the tent was quiet, except for a series of little brass bells which gave a ghostly ringing in the breeze. Toussaint pressed Bel Argent into a canter. Not for the first time, Maillart took note of what a superb horseman he was, as he drew his sword and rode down on the tent, handling the weapon with a remarkable dexterity, considering it was more than half the length of his own entire person. Circling on the horse, Toussaint cut all the support ropes, then leaned low from the saddle to strike down the center pole with the flat side of the blade. The tent collapsed on itself like a net drawn tight.