Master of the Crossroads

by Madison Smartt Bell

  Arnaud shrugged. “We’re rusticating . . . and I’ll confess to some impatience.” He leaned across his mostly untouched plate, lowering his tone. “I would not like to say distrust. But I do not see any sign of an active campaign on the part of these Spaniards. They took care to disarm us when we arrived here—even to our knives!—on the pretext we would be issued regulation muskets later, but nothing of that kind has come about. We sit idly here while our stores dwindle. Don García gives us nothing but evasions. Meanwhile, a mob of our renegade slaves is encamped not a full day’s march from here, I’m told, and all in Spanish uniform.”

  “True,” Tocquet said thoughtfully, and crushed another mosquito on his forearm.

  “So we wait,” Arnaud said. “We wait, and we wonder.”

  Tocquet nodded. The warning he’d had from Altamira seemed too indefinite to pass on. In former days he would not have much troubled himself about what might happen to Arnaud for good or ill, though he’d always felt some sympathy for his wife—a pretty, brittle girl who’d come out from France completely unprepared for what she might find in the colony. Certainly she was no longer that. When she’d crossed the room a few moments before, she’d had the air of moving among a company invisible to all but her. Tocquet shook his hair back briskly, to rid himself of the thought.

  They finished the meal in a thoughtful silence. Arnaud ate little, though he finished the clay pitcher of wine. Tocquet ate slowly, chewed thoroughly, and left nothing. When they were done he paid for both of them, over Arnaud’s mild protest.

  “Do you stop here for the night?”

  “No rooms to be had,” Tocquet said.

  Arnaud nodded. “It’s crowded here—there must be a thousand who’ve lately returned from North America, if you count the families with the men. We might find room for you with us, but for your men . . .”

  “No matter,” Tocquet said. He slapped another mosquito and grimaced at the splash of blood it left on the loose weave of his shirtsleeve. “Those gentlemen know how to manage—they’ll find something for us all.”

  It proved that Bazau had already learned where to go from talking to the servants at the inn. When the rain had stopped, they found the horses and rode out from the eastern limits of the town, more or less in the direction of the Spanish frontier. In half an hour’s time they were mounting a trail that wound up into the foothills. After the rain, the air was fresh, and cooler as they climbed, and the sky was perfectly clear, with a trail of stars hanging from the hook of the moon. A light breeze combing over the hills swept all the mosquitoes away. They passed through an old planting of coffee trees, neglected now and overgrown with vines, and soon a couple of dogs began to bark. They stopped; Gros-jean got down from his horse and waited. Presently someone challenged them from the shadows of the trees, and Gros-jean answered in a soft voice. Tocquet, who had also dismounted and stood mostly concealed by the shoulder of his horse, passed forward a coin from his purse. After a few minutes of negotiation, the dogs were quieted and taken away, and someone led them to a clay-walled case by the side of a still spring-fed pool.

  They spread blankets on the dirt floor, and the two black men lay down at once, but Tocquet went out to smoke a cheroot by the wall of the case. Starlight spread on the quiet surface of the pool, and there was light enough for him to see other cabins in the trees beyond it. He knew the region well enough, but this bitasyon was newly sprung up, since the insurrection.

  The insects of the forest erected a wall of sound on every side, but still there were no mosquitoes. When he was half done with his cheroot, he noticed a couple of women who had come to watch him quietly from the far side of the water, but they exchanged no word. Once the cigar was done, he went inside, stretched out on the blanket and slept until dawn without dreaming.

  At first light the three of them rolled their blankets and rode out on the same path by which they’d entered. As they crossed a clearing, they were hailed by an old woman who was grinding coffee in a hollowed stump, using a wooden pestle taller than herself, but Tocquet did not want to wait for the coffee to be brewed, so they rode on without stopping. The sun was just risen when they came out on the brow of a hill above the town, where the view was clear all the way to the shallow jug-shaped harbor. Along the western road they saw the whole black army of Jean-François, flanked by horsemen, marching into the town.

  By the time Tocquet and his men came to the church, Jean-François’s black soldiery had filled the Place d’Armes. A thin line of Spanish troops stood before the church steps where they exchanged salutes with the black auxiliaries. As the men stood at ease, Tocquet rounded the church, and found Altamira waiting on the street behind it, holding a donkey loaded with two small bales of tobacco. The bales were strapped to a triangular wooden pack frame and covered with a blanket. Tocquet reached under the cover to crumble some leaf; he raised his palm to his face and sniffed, then nodded.

  Altamira did not want to meet his eyes. He accepted the money they’d agreed on, and pointed farther along the street.

  “Go that way,” he said, “and turn to the right—you can reach the main road without crossing the square.” Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared around the corner of the church.

  They mounted again and went the way Altamira had indicated, Gros-jean leading the donkey ahead of the other two. At the next corner they turned and were soon crossing another street which led back again to the square. A number of the recently arrived French were walking to morning mass and among them Tocquet saw Arnaud, striding with a hint of his former arrogance and swinging the twisted cane lightly from his left hand. At his side, Claudine went gliding, her hands folded before her and her eyes fixed on some faraway horizon. She wore a white cambric dress with red embroidery like threads of blood; the hem of the dress trailed in the dust of the unpaved street, but she seemed completely unconscious of that. She walked in the same manner as she’d crossed the tavern floor yesterday—as if she were going to her execution amidst a mob of invisible mockers.

  Neither of them had noticed Tocquet, and he did not call to greet them. When the Arnauds had passed, he and his two men went on toward the western road, but before they had reached the next corner, Tocquet pulled his horse up sharply.

  “No, not this way,” he said to Gros-jean. “Go to the hill where we were this morning and wait there till we come.”

  Gros-jean changed course without a word or hint of curiosity about the new direction. Tocquet motioned to Bazau, and the two of them rode back at a trot toward the Place d’Armes.

  They did not overtake Arnaud and his wife. Tocquet imagined the couple must have gone into the church, because they were not to be seen among the other newly arrived French who stood around the edges of the square, peering uneasily at the black soldiers assembled in the center. Tocquet dismounted and led his horse to the foot of the church steps, where he handed his reins to Bazau. Before the doors of the church he turned and looked back over the square. No sign of anything untoward: the black men were quiet, and held their muskets carelessly, but there was something in their stillness that made the hair rise on Tocquet’s arms and the back of his neck, and brought the taste of iron into his gullet.

  He went into the church and stood in the rear, among a loose group of Spaniards loitering there, both soldiers and civilians. No one took notice of him, except Altamira, who simply shook his head, then turned his back. The service was already ending; a pair of horns sounded the recessional. The group around the doorway parted for the cross to pass, followed by the huge brass-bound Bible, held high by an acolyte. Next came the priest, Vasquez, huffing and wheezing under the bulk of his embroidered vestments, and after him the Spanish Colonel Montalvo, and finally Jean-François, resplendent in a dress uniform whose breast was jumbled with military decorations, ribbons and sacred medals. Once these had passed, the recession became general. Arnaud caught sight of Tocquet and began speaking to him, but Tocquet was too distracted to hear; he took hold of the other’s sleeve and drew him o
ut the doorway of the church. Claudine floated a pace ahead of them.

  At the passage of Vasquez, Tocquet’s skin had broken out in gooseflesh, though he did not know why. He knew Father Vasquez was vicar general to the troops of Santo Domingo and he also knew, from the many months he’d run guns to the black camps, that Vasquez had become the personal confessor of Jean-François. The presence of Montalvo also seemed to signal something, for he was a very different stamp of soldier than the enfeebled, indecisive Cassasola.

  The cross bearer stopped halfway down the church steps. Jean-François and Vasquez stood beside him—to their right, the acolyte held the Holy Writ high. Montalvo gave an order and the Spanish troops below the steps separated into two wings and regrouped at the corners of the church, making way for Jean-François’s standard bearers to come forward. Wheezily, but loudly enough to be heard in the square, Vasquez gave a full ceremonial blessing to the flags. Then he turned to Jean-François and said in a slightly lower tone, Exterminez ces athées, mon fils, ces régicides, ces hébreux.

  Jean-François raised his plumed, argile helmet in both hands and settled it carefully on his head. He jerked his uniform coat straight by the tails, then raised his right palm over his men: the black troops straightened and lifted their guns. Jean-François gave a deep, explosive shout in Creole:

  Touyé-yo kon kochon!

  As he spoke his hand closed; the fist dropped like an iron hammer.

  At first Arnaud could not grasp what had been said: the words entered his ears, but without their intelligence. First Vasquez: Exterminate these atheists, my son, these regicides, these Hebrews. Then Jean-François: Slaughter them like hogs! When the black general’s hand fell, the whole Place d’Armes convulsed, and finally Arnaud understood what had been meant—what he’d feared since the Spanish had disarmed the members of his own party. He jerked involuntarily free of Tocquet’s grip on his arm, then stilled himself and reached behind him for his wife’s elbow, drawing her a step down to stand between him and Tocquet. Her head was high, chin forward, eyes surveying the scene below. If the spectacle impressed her, she did not show it. The black soldiers had exploded in all directions to kill the French who surrounded the square. They worked at first in a ghastly silence, butchering with bayonets and coutelas and musket stocks exactly as Jean-François had ordered (since their victims were unarmed, they could conserve their ammunition), but soon enough the air was torn with screaming, and grew thick with the fragrance of fresh blood.

  Where they stood was an island of calm on the steps, directly behind the priest, cross, and Bible. Montalvo was already gone, and the Spanish troops were quietly withdrawing, filing into the alleys at either side of the church. As they retreated, the blacks began swarming up the steps to drag French men and women out of the church, slashing their throats or disemboweling them with bayonets. Just inside the narthex two women were being vigorously raped, their cries muffled by long skirts flung up over their heads.

  Tocquet caught Arnaud’s eye and jerked his head. With Claudine between them, they moved cautiously down the steps. At the foot, where the last of the Spanish troops were unwinding into the column of retreat, one of Tocquet’s men stood holding two horses, his face impassive, apparently calm. Tocquet helped Arnaud boost Claudine onto the nearest horse; she sat sidesaddle, fingers of one hand twined loosely in the mane.

  “Doucement,” Tocquet said to Arnaud. “Don’t hurry, don’t show fear, and don’t look directly at anything you see.”

  Slowly they moved behind the retreating Spanish column, down the alley beside the church. Arnaud walked beside his wife to steady her in the saddle. Bazau led the riderless horse ahead and Tocquet strolled beside him, his Spanish cattleman’s hat pulled low over his eyes.

  The Spanish column turned sharply to the left, marching down toward the harbor and its forts. Arnaud’s every instinct summoned him to follow, but Tocquet shook his head. “They’ll leave us locked outside the gate,” he said. “Come on, this way.”

  There was gunfire now, sporadically audible from the square behind them, along with war cries of the blacks and screams of the slaughtered. Arnaud could not make out if these sounds were coming nearer. Then a hideous, desperate shriek erupted immediately behind him, as if from the ground over which he’d just passed. He made to look over his shoulder but stopped himself before he’d seen anything. He fastened his gaze on a sweat stain at the back of Tocquet’s shirt. The ululating cry was suddenly cut off by a thunk and crunch, an exhalation. In its aftermath Arnaud thought he heard the sound of someone weeping. Claudine twisted her torso in the saddle and looked back at whatever was there to see, her eyes arid and crystalline, like two chips of salt. Arnaud’s intestines went into a gelid knot. What Tocquet had said now seemed to Arnaud an article of faith—to look in the wrong direction meant certain death. He dug his fingers into his wife’s thigh until she reacted and turned forward again.

  They swung into the Rue Bourdon. It was calm here, no sign of any disturbance yet; there was even birdsong from the enclosed arbors around the houses. A man in the uniform of a Spanish lieutenant stood in the arched doorway of an eight-foot-high stone wall, looking in their direction. Tocquet approached him but in no great haste. The lieutenant made to shut the door, but Tocquet said something to him in Spanish. Arnaud made out only the phrase por favor, but spoken without urgency or pleading. Tocquet and the Spaniard conferred in the doorway, their voices low. Arnaud began helping Claudine down from her horse. At the far end of the street a mob of howling blood-stained blacks appeared. Arnaud’s guts twisted again. He would not look at them.

  He stared at the back of Tocquet’s shirt, and over his shoulder saw the Spaniard shaking his head no (this word distinctly audible); he started to close the door again, but suddenly his whole manner changed. He laid a friendly hand over Tocquet’s shoulder, and his expression softened, slackened. The door swung inward and Tocquet crossed the threshold, seeming to support the Spaniard, who leaned into him as if overcome with dizziness or heatstroke . . . Arnaud led Claudine through the doorway. He was watching the Spaniard’s face over Tocquet’s shoulder, the mouth open in a round of surprise. A little blood ran out from the corners, then Tocquet disengaged himself and Arnaud saw that his right sleeve was blood-soaked to the elbow, and then he saw the foot-long dirk in his right hand. The Spaniard knelt, then stretched out face down on the flagstones of the paved enclosure.

  Around the edges of the wall were planted hibiscus and other flowering shrubs; there was even a fountain whose stream tinkled through a couple of broken red-clay jugs. A cool shaded gallery ran lengthwise toward the corner of the house’s ell, where now a door popped open: another Spanish officer came out, calling hoarsely and moving half at a run. Tocquet had his back turned, closing the door, saying something to Bazau, who still stood outside holding the horses, through a small iron grille through which the black man’s profile could be seen. Arnaud was unable to react at first, though he took in that the Spaniard held a pistol. Claudine confronted him, pulling herself up; her bones protruded whitely from her face and her hands twitched on her dress front, as if she meant to draw some terrible weapon out of herself . . . an instrument of complete annihilation. In the instant that the Spanish officer hesitated before her, Arnaud came unbound from whatever spell held him and swung his cane as hard as he could at the back of the Spaniard’s head. The cane rebounded with a jolt that numbed his palms, and the Spaniard fell forward, unconscious if not dead. His pistol went skittering across the flagstones.

  Turning from the door, Tocquet looked at Arnaud and nodded solemnly. A shrill, high scream came from the gallery, and Arnaud looked to see a young woman standing with her fingers mashed tight across her lips, supported by a black-clad duenna standing behind her. Tocquet grimaced at the bloody dirk still in his hand, then tucked it away under his loose shirttail. With a bound he was on the gallery, holding the younger woman by her hair, twisting it hard at the nape of the neck so that her head rolled backward and her mouth opened s
oundlessly.

  “Take the keys.” Tocquet gestured with his chin; Arnaud lifted the key ring from the duenna’s belt. Together they herded the women into the house. It was dim, disorienting at first, but Tocquet moved surely through one room to the next and stopped at a pantry door. Arnaud tried one key after another; it was the fourth that fit. The pantry was deep, stone walls lined with shelves. Tocquet flung the women in and closed the door, then reopened it halfway.

  “Take off your dress,” he said.

  The duenna spat at him, and in almost the same instant Tocquet had slapped her back against the wall. “I want the dress,” he snapped. “No one means to attack your virtue.” He banged the door shut and locked it with the key.

  Two black servants, a man and woman in middle age, knelt in the corridor, their hands raised in attitudes of supplication. Arnaud ignored them, and went back out into the courtyard, where Claudine stood motionless between the two prone bodies, staring at the trickle of the fountain. There was a commotion outside the door, where the black marauders seemed to be interrogating Bazau.

  “Were those French who came in here?”

  “Non, pa sa,” Bazau said, disinterestedly. “They are Spanish.”

  Ice in his blood, Arnaud moved to a position where he could not be seen from the grille in the door. A black hand appeared at the top of the wall, groped, then yanked sharply away. The wall was crowned with broken bottles set in the masonry. Tocquet came hastily out of the house, calling to Bazau in Spanish to stop gossiping and bring the horses around to the back at once. A silence, then they heard the black mob moving onto the next house.

  Tocquet opened another door in the rear of the wall, which led into a larger enclosure, with a kitchen garden and two stalls with a horse in each. Beside the stalls was a wider gate and Tocquet opened this to admit Bazau and the horses; as he did so, the two black servants bolted from the house, shot past him and escaped into the alley. Tocquet cursed, then bolted the gate.