“You’ve used geography to great advantage. In America, we call terrain this steep ‘land that stands on end.’ ”
He smiled. “An apt description.”
“I think I’ll congratulate your general on your position. I’m just as happy being on this side of your guns, not charging them.”
The colonel smiled wryly. “I hope Dessalines shares your caution.”
I strode to the stream, scooped up water, and washed my hot face, taking in the geography and trying to memorize it. “But your real enemy has always been the fevers, hasn’t it?”
“Disease demoralizes everyone.”
“More armies have been conquered by plague than artillery.”
“The mal de Siam lingers because our men are weak.”
“And your doctors are baffled?”
“Our doctors are dead.”
I thought of slavery. “Do you see God’s hand in all this carnage?”
“When fortune is against you, you see the devil.”
I nodded. “I’m a card player, you know. I ponder luck.”
“All of life is a throw of the dice, Monsieur Gage.”
“Yes. God. Satan. Fate. Fortune. My wife ponders the imponderable.”
“Your wife, sir, is in as much danger from fever as from General Rochambeau. Come. I’ll show you a hospital for what the British call the yellow jack. It will hurry you on your way back to your marriage, and your home.”
Chapter 21
As expected, Astiza returned to me with virtue intact.
“I told him I was shy and feared the return of my husband,” she related, “but that perhaps we could explore his quarters when you were distracted during the ball. That was enough to reassure him of his own charm and get him to postpone advances. Of his army, he told me nothing. Of treasure, I’m fairly certain he knows nothing, or he’d be seeking it. I also asked about lone children in this city, and he said there are too many orphans to count. It clearly wasn’t what he’s interested in.”
“This city is a death trap, Astiza. I saw men dissolving from yellow fever. If Harry is here, I fear for him. If he isn’t, it’s almost a blessing.”
“He is. It’s a mother’s instinct.”
“But wouldn’t a man like Martel draw comment with a lad at his side? He’s hardly the fatherly type. Surely we’d hear of it.”
“If Horus is at his side. What if he’s hidden away somewhere? Locked in a cellar, or sold to some monster?”
“Not sold. Martel took Harry to keep control of us. He’s waiting for me to find the treasure, discover the secret of flight, give him the key to conquering England, and then swap for my boy.”
She grimaced. “We hope. Or he’s so tired of waiting that he kills.”
“He’s too calculating.”
“Just be sure you don’t care about treasure more than your son.” It was a mean statement, said in haste as partners sometimes do. But it was also revealing, and it stung. I’d gotten us free from the Barbary pirates, but she gave me no credit, and losing Harry while hocking the emerald would always rankle. If children can bond couples together, their loss can strain them irreversibly apart.
“I care about the treasure because of my son.”
She nodded glumly, knowing I loved our boy, but also knowing how I wanted ordinary success. She’d be content in a nun’s cell, while I dreamed of mansions. But I wanted both boy and jewel, each linked to the other and tied up in Aztec ransom. I also wanted to best male rivals like Leon Martel and the Vicomte Rochambeau, and to impress strategists like Napoleon and Smith. Yes, I wasn’t as single-minded as her, but wasn’t that a good thing?
“The way to Harry might be through Dessalines.”
She remained reluctant. “But if we leave Cap-Francois, we can’t get back in.”
“We can if the city falls, and I think I know how to take it.”
“You’ll provoke a massacre with our son in the middle of it.”
“It’s riskier to linger here, hoping Rochambeau will let something slip as you flirt. They know the agreement on Louisiana is completed. Why then do we stay? If they learn our diplomatic papers are a forgery, or that we really came from Antigua, we’ll be hanged, shot, or guillotined.”
Astiza went to a window to regard the mountains beyond. “Do you really think the blacks know about this mythical treasure?”
“I’ve no idea, but I’ve met one chap I like, a great big one named Jubal. He thinks a priestess might help.” This mention of a priestess was calculated to get her intrigued by the other side. “And I don’t like the idea of that lecher having another go at you.”
“I can handle Rochambeau.”
“If he promises you your son in return for favors, what would you do?” Now I was the one being mean in the heat and tension of this besieged place, and my jealousy was silly. Yet people will do extraordinary things to get what they want. Astiza seemed desperate, Rochambeau seemed reckless, Cap-Francois felt doomed, and my instinct was to get us out and seek alliance with the rebels.
“I’d hold the point of a knife to whatever part of his body he holds most dear to get Harry back,” she retorted. “I’m not leaving Cap-Francois until I’m certain that either our child isn’t here, or I have him to take with me.”
I sighed, hardly surprised. “All right. How about this? We attend this ball. You flirt with Rochambeau and learn what you can. If you discover where Harry is held, we free him, somehow. If there’s no word, we go to Dessalines. After the blacks take the city we turn it upside down for evidence of our son.”
“If you give me enough time.”
“I lingered in Paris, and now you want to linger in Cap-Francois.”
“But for better reason.”
“The blacks have spies, you know. They might be more use than trying to pry information out of Rochambeau.”
She considered this point, and offered a concession to patch over our differences on strategy. “The blacks have their holy spirits; their women have been instructing me. When we go to Dessalines, I’ll call on the gods of Haiti to help us. I hear them whispering from the jungle beyond the walls.”
Astiza believed in the supernatural as firmly as I believe in money and luck, and as I’ve said she was rather inclusive of which gods she’d call on. My wife thought all religions were a manifestation of the same central idea, and this world a mere dream of a more tangible realm somewhere beyond. I knew better than to call her wrong. We’d seen strange things together in the Great Pyramid and the City of Ghosts.
“My escort today said their gods give the blacks extraordinary courage,” I said, agreeing to patch our testiness. “They put their arms in cannon muzzles.”
“All political change requires belief.”
“Unfortunately, their arms are then blown off.”
Now she smiled, knowing the habitual skepticism that was a gift from Benjamin Franklin. “And yet the French are losing,” she said. “I’ve been learning more about the history here. This war started, I’m told, in a gathering of African religion called voodoo held in a sacred wood. Their gods told them to rise. They have a supreme god, Mawu, but then personal spirits. There is Damballah, the serpent god; Legba, who brings change; Ogu of fire and war; Baron Samedi from the Land of Death; and Ezeli, the goddess of beauty.”
“Jubal suggested I consult the latter.”
“You most certainly will not. Your gods should be Sogbo, god of lightning, and Agau, the god of storms and earthquakes. You’ve called down the lightning before, my American electrician.”
Indeed I had, and I’d no desire to repeat the experience. It was terrifying. “If gods really worked,” I reasoned, “the slaves would have triumphed a decade ago.”
