Perfume of Paradise

Chapter One

The sun had set at last, though beyond the French windows flung open to the evening air the long tropical dusk lingered. It was close and warm in the bedchamber where Elene Marie Larpent was being dressed for her wedding. The candles burning on either side of the dressing table mirror added their heat to that of the waning day and sent thin gray columns of smoke rising toward the lofty ceiling. Elene's face was flushed, and there was dampness darkening the edges of her hair that had the color and fine texture of spun gold. However, the distress that shone in the clear gray of her eyes had nothing to do with the temperature.

"I can't do it, Devota," she cried in tones of soft despair as she met her maid's gaze in the mirror, "I can't."

Devota never faltered in her task of brushing the long, straight curtain of her charge's hair. "Don't upset yourself, chère. It will soon be over. It won't be so bad, you'll see."

"I can't think why Papa is so set on it now."

"It was decided long ago."

"So it was, but not by me."

The maid surveyed the pale oval of the younger woman's face with its hectic flush across the high cheekbones, the too-firm set of the delicately molded mouth, the pinched look about the straight nose with its slightly retroussé tip. Finally she said, "You aren't afraid, are you, chère?"

"Of course I am! To have so large a wedding in times such as these is madness. Why could we not have been married quietly, with just you and Papa and one or two friends for witnesses? There is no need to flaunt our extravagance in the faces of the renegades."

"I think your papa has accepted at last that things are never going to be as they were, and so he means, for one last time, to pretend that they are."

"And Durant supports him in it." The tone in which Elene spoke the name of the man she was to marry held nothing of loving anticipation and little of respect.

"They are two of a kind."

Devota's quiet voice was soothing. The implied criticism of both her master and Elene's groom was not unusual; the mulatto maid was in fact Elene's aunt, a younger half-sister to her dead mother. The relationship was readily acknowledged, and by no means uncommon. A tall woman with skin a soft golden brown, aquiline features, and crisply waving hair tied up in the kerchief of the islands called a tignon, she had cultured speech reflecting the education she had received along with Elene's mother. She had been Elene's constant companion since her birth, when her own mother had died in childbed.

Devota said now, "But I spoke not of fear for the dangers of our situation, but of your groom. You are not ignorant of what will be expected of you on this night, nor can you doubt Durant Gambier's experience. Surely you can't dread what he may do?"

"No, not the thing itself, or at least only a little, but, oh, Devota, what if he isn't--isn't kind?"

"He is a gentleman--"

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"He will honor you as his wife, the mother of the children you will have together."

"Yes, but will he be gentle? Will he care whether he gives me pain or pleasure? Will he be patient, or will he force me to do his bidding?"

"In short, will he use you with love? This is what you want to know?"

"I suppose it is," Elene said, her voice low.

"What if it could be assured beyond doubt? What if Durant could be made so mad with love that he would become a slave to his desire for you only?"

Elene looked up with a wry smile lighting her eyes, bringing out the flecks that swirled like silver dust motes around the pupils. "Somehow it seems unlikely."

"Wait only a small moment." The maid, her lips pressed together in a line of determination, swung around and left the room.

Elene stared after the woman with a puzzled frown. What could Devota mean? With her it was not always possible to guess; she could be strange at times. Certainly it was not like her to be so abrupt or to interrupt so important a toilette. There was little time to waste if the bride was to appear at the appointed moment.

Suddenly restless, Elene got to her feet and moved to the window. The back gallery on which it opened was empty. The evening gathering outside was still, with an oppressive, muffled quiet. The insects and night birds that usually filled the air with their muted din were silent. The only sounds to be heard were caused by humans, the crunch of carriage wheels in the seashells that surfaced the drive of the house and voices raised in greeting as arriving guests were welcomed at the front door. On the terrace beneath the gallery, where the ceremony would be held, the trio of Negro musicians hired for the occasion could be heard tuning their instruments, playing snatches of melody. And far off there could also be caught, like a bass rumble of distant thunder, the beat of drums in the hills. Elene shivered.

From the direction of the kitchen drifted the aroma of roasting meat, mingling with the scent of flowers and fruit and the salt tang of the sea that was always present here on Saint-Domingue. Elene breathed deeply, deliberately, trying to calm herself. These were the smells of her childhood, one of the things about the island she had missed most while in France.

It was while she was away that her father had arranged this marriage. Actually, she thought it had been discussed between the groom's father, M'sieur Gambier, and her own when she was less than a year old and Durant only six. The lands of the two men lay together, and it had seemed a fine thing to join them by the marriage of their offspring. That had been twenty-three years ago. Things had been very different then, before the revolt of the slaves.

Elene had been at boarding school in France when the Negro slaves had risen against their masters on Saint-Domingue. Her father had not been on the island either, but en route to France to take her away from the dangers of the bloody revolution taking place there. It had seemed for a time that everything they had known was being destroyed, that there was no safety anywhere.

Regardless of the numbers of slaves involved in the first rash of attacks on the plantation owners on the island, in spite of the atrocities committed and the tremendous loss of life, no one had expected the slave revolt to last. Elene's father had removed her from the boarding school near Paris and made arrangements for Elene to stay with distant relatives, solid bourgeois merchants at Le Havre who were carefully neutral in the struggle in France. He had then left for New Orleans to join the community of refugees in the city while waiting for the opportunity to return to the island.

Elene had wanted to join her father when at last he had returned home, but matters had remained too unsettled. It was just as well she had not; those had been years of danger, of shifting loyalties and precarious fortune amid near constant fighting.

In the beginning, the Negroes and mulattoes, those of half-white, half-black blood, had joined together against the whites, raping, mutilating, killing, and pillaging. The French government, in the throes of upheaval itself, had been unable to send sufficient troops to put down the uprising, and so it met with a large degree of success. However, the mulattoes despised the Negroes as animals, and the Negroes hated the mulattoes for holding themselves above them, so that any time one of the two groups appeared to be gaining ascendancy the other turned on them. When republican France was finally able to send an army to reestablish its authority, the mulattoes joined with the troops in opposition to the Negroes. The Negroes then, in a bizarre volte-face, joined with the royalist French planters, their old masters, against this new threat. Later, as the Spanish and British brought the war in Europe into the Caribbean, the Negroes, under their leaders Toussaint L'Ouverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines, allied themselves with these French foes.

The British were weakened by the disease-ridden climate and overextended supply lines. With more important battles looming in Europe, they had withdrawn at last. Toussaint L'Ouverture, declaring himself governor-general for life, had then turned on his former Spanish allies and driven them from the country. He paid lip service to French sovereignty, but was in effect the supreme ruler of the island.

A period of peace had descended with the elevation of Toussaint. The governor-general had tried to revive the sugar and cotton commerce. Toward that end, he had invited the planters in exile to return and had forced the former slaves back into the fields. For the first time in over ten years, conditions on Saint-Domingue had seemed stable at last.

That had been just over a year and a half before, in 1801. Elene's father had waited a few months, until he felt certain the conflict was over at last, then he had sent for Elene. She had been instructed to bring with her all the frills and furbelows she would need for a wedding.

Elene had complied with her father's order, though it had meant more delay in returning home. When she had finally reached Saint-Domingue, the army of Napoleon under his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, a force 20,000 strong, had been on her heels, also bound for the island. Napoleon, having consolidated his position as consul, had decided France was in need of the rich produce of this island paradise, and would not tolerate Governor-General Toussaint controlling the shipments. The fighting had commenced once more.

After months of fierce conflict, Toussaint had accepted terms of peace, only to be treacherously arrested and sent to France. The renegade Negroes had been forced into the mountains, from which they launched savage and bloody raids against isolated plantation houses. General Leclerc had reestablished the hated slavery that had been abolished under Toussaint, along with many of the restraints upon the mulattoes.

The unrest was palpable, the dull rumble of drums from the renegade bases in the mountains--Voudou drums that carried messages among the scattered bands of the Negro army--was a near-constant undertone. It was unsafe to travel at night without an armed escort. The ranks of Napoleon's soldiers, like the British and Spanish before them, were being slowly depleted, not so much by the rebels as by the virulent tropical diseases such as yellow fever and cholera, malaria and typhoid. The latest victim had been General Leclerc himself.

With the perilous conditions on the island, the wedding had been postponed for a time. Both Elene's father and her prospective groom were in the militia and had been involved in numerous skirmishes. The French army, though larger than any force sent against the Negroes so far, was still outnumbered by nearly twenty to one. If the Negroes under their new leader Dessalines could manage to coordinate their forces, or perhaps find a cause to rally around, they might still win the day. The position of the whites would then be dangerous indeed, for Dessalines was known as a brutal and vengeful man, with a virulent hatred for anyone with white skin.

Elene had been glad of the postponement, even if, after all the delays, she could be considered an old maid, past the freshest age for marriage. As much as she wished to please her father, she had been in no hurry to wed. She had wanted time to get to know him again, time to explore the house and lands she had thought gone forever and to adjust to the hazards of living on the island. But most of all, she had needed time to become acquainted with the man she was to marry.

The wait had proved instructive. Her father had changed beyond recognition, becoming bitter and vindictive. So strict was he in his behavior toward his slaves, so fearful of their treachery, that he would not tolerate so much as a straight look from one of them without ordering the whip. Even with Elene, he could not seem to behave as a loving parent; he lashed out immediately with scathing anger if she voiced a difference of opinion or failed to agree at once to his suggestions for household management or her own activities. It was as if he could not accept the slightest encroachment on what he considered his authority.

As for Durant, Elene had to admit he had charm and gallantry, and could be quite likable when he relaxed his guard. Certainly he was handsome enough in a dark and satanic fashion. Regardless, he was as tainted by the same need to prove his manhood and his power as her father was. He had a habit of telling her when he would come to call, rather than asking when it would be convenient for her to receive him; of instructing her in where she could visit and when she could go on her outings. He stated his preferences that amounted to orders about the style of her gowns and bonnets, how she should wear her hair, and even what music she must play in the evening. He had already decided when they would have children and how many, and had chosen their names. He made it plain that he expected a well-run household and an excellent kitchen, both centered around his own likes and dislikes.

He did not like it when Elene appeared uneasy in his presence. She need not fear that he would mistreat her, he said; he would handle her like the most fragile of ornaments.

Such a promise would have offered more comfort to Elene if Durant had not felt it necessary to make it. He was as much aware as she was, however, that his reputation with his horses and his slaves was not the best; it was even whispered that his mistress Serephine sometimes showed a livid bruise or two.

It had been the arrest of Toussaint and his imprisonment in France that had caused the date for the wedding finally to be set. But it was, Elene thought, the arrogance of her father and her groom that required it to be turned into a lavish entertainment for the countryside. They meant to show the world they did not fear calling attention to themselves, that they scorned to modify their traditional arrangements for mere safety's sake.

Elene, returning to the dressing table, stared at her reflection in the mirror and felt a fleeting scorn for her supine acceptance of the marriage arrangement. There must have been some way she could have made her father understand her reluctance, something she could have done to prevent the plans from going forward. Her cousins in France had scolded her often for her high spirits, her combative energy that caused her to defy curtailment of her movements.

But when she had tried to speak to her father, he had flown into such a rage that she had been afraid he meant to send her to the whipping post like the lowliest of his slaves. She might have run away, certainly, but there were few places to hide on an island, and she had no means, no funds of her own with which to leave it. In any case, for a white woman, or even one of color, to venture out onto the roads alone in these troubled times was like issuing an invitation to grief.

These were not the only reasons, however. The truth was, she wanted to please her father, to bring back the warm and loving man she had known as a girl. She had missed him so dreadfully while in France, had so longed to be with him. Now she could only do as he wished in an effort to gain his love and approval.

Elene's reverie was interrupted as Devota returned, swinging into the room and closing the door carefully behind her. Elene turned. "Where did you go? We must hurry or I'll be late, and you know how Papa is."

"Never mind. This is more important, much more important, chère."

"What is it?"

"A secret that will protect you."

The woman reached into her apron pocket and brought out a small jade-green bottle with a cork stopper. She released the cork with a deft twist, and the fragrance of gardenias and roses, jasmine and frangipani and sandalwood wafted on the still, warm air, along with other subtle scents that defied identification.

"Perfume?" Elene inhaled it with appreciation, but shook her head. "It's lovely, but I doubt Durant will be impressed. I've heard his mistress bathes in scented water every day."

"Not in perfume like this."

"How can you be so sure?"

"There is no other like it."

It really was a delicious fragrance. Alluring in its combination of flower and wood fragrances, it was delicate and yet richly exotic, intense but fresh, while floating above the recognizable essences was a grace note of haunting, ineluctable mystery. It lingered on the air and in the mind with rare persistence, a soft, vibrant presence.

Elene held out her hand. "Using it can do no harm."

"One moment, chère. Open your dressing gown, if you please."

"What?"

"This is an oil, a very light one, and should be massaged into your shoulders and arms. It will make your skin supple and like satin to the touch, as well as fragrant."

Devota was only trying to help, Elene knew, with her talk of enslaving Durant and softening her skin. It would be unkind to show open scepticism. Besides, Elene could not deny that she needed any aid she could find to boost her spirits and allow her to walk with confidence to the altar where she and Durant would exchange their vows.

With a faint shrugging motion, Elene slipped her dressing gown from her shoulders, then held out her cupped hand for Devota to pour a small amount of the perfumed oil into it. Following the maid's instructions, she carefully transferred some of the fragrant liquid to her other hand, then smoothed her palms over her shoulders and the hollow of her throat, then down her arms to the bends of wrists and elbows. This application was not enough for Devota. The woman gave her a few drops more, and insisted that Elene spread them over the white globes of her breasts and down the flat plane of her abdomen to the juncture of her thighs.

As Elene massaged it into her skin, Devota began a low, monotone chant not unlike a prayer or a blessing. The sound of it recalled whispers Elene had heard years ago, whispers about Devota being involved with the Voudou cults, the worship of the old gods brought from Africa, whispers that she served sometimes as priestess for the pagan rites. Such priestesses were said to have strange powers, including the ability to cause death with a curse or a doll stuck with pins, to bring the dead to life, to concoct potions to turn love to hate or hate to love. There were many who believed, black and white alike.

Stories, nothing but stories. Devota looked so normal there in the candlelight, with her neatly starched white apron and tignon and her dark brown eyes warm with affection and concern. The whispered tales could not be true. It was the height of folly to think they might be.

The fragrance of the oil enveloped Elene, mounting to her head in near overpowering strength for an instant before it faded to a rich and lovely aura surrounding her.

"Good, good," the maid said softly. "Now when your husband holds you to him in the act of love, he will receive the perfume, increased in power a hundredfold by the added essence of your body, upon his own skin. And when that is done, there will be no escape for him. He will be in thrall to you, and will wish only to please you in all ways. His need for you will be insatiable. No other woman can attract him."

"That's all very well," Elene said with the faintest quiver of humor in her voice, "but what if he takes a bath? Or I do?"

Devota frowned. "You must not take this lightly, chère. Of course the perfume will be removed by bathing. You have only to apply it again, and the effect will be the same."

"Suppose I touch some other man. Will he also be enthralled?"

"You must take care that doesn't happen--unless you are sure it's what you want."

The things Devota was saying did not seem real. However, Elene thought, she might as well play the game. She tipped her head. "And what of me? Does it have no effect on me at all?"

"To you it is only a perfume. Yet it is best for a woman who wishes to hold a man not to fall too deeply in love with him."

"That sounds so calculating." A frown creased Elene's brow.

"It is. What I speak of is control, control of your life with your husband, not of perfect happiness. If you must have happiness, then seek love without any aid except a loving heart."

"I'm not certain a loving heart is what Durant wants," Elene said. "More likely, it's a suitable wife and Papa's land."

"Trust me, chère. Now we must hurry to dress you, or your papa will be angry."

The fashion in women's dress, as dictated by Paris, was patterned after the simple, draped lines of the clothing of ancient Greece and Rome as it had been for more than a decade. Elene's wedding gown was of the same order, in cream-colored tissue silk with puffed sleeves and a flowing skirt falling from just under the bust, and embroidery in gold thread at the hem and around the deep, square decolletage in a pattern of scrolls and leaves. Her hair was swept up in a shining coronet formed of a single thick braid that had been interwoven with a length of metallic gold ribbon. Her only jewelry was an exquisite cameo necklace that had belonged to her mother and a pair of gold earrings shaped like leaves that, along with a Kashmir shawl and a fan with ivory sticks, had been sent to her in the corbeille de noce, the basket of bridal gifts from the groom.

Elene did not, ordinarily, care for face painting, but she looked so pale this evening that she agreed to a little carmine cream on her lips and a brush of red Spanish paper across each cheekbone. Her brows and lashes were naturally dark, in spite of the pale color of her hair, so that they needed no more than a touch of oil to give them a soft sheen.

Devota was lavish with her compliments when at last Elene stood ready. Elene thanked her, but could feel no gratification. It did not matter what anyone thought of her appearance, including Durant. She felt more like a sacrifice than a bride, and all the praise and platitudes that usually surrounded such affairs were not going to change that. If she must go through with this wedding, all she really wanted was for it to be over.

There came a faint tap on the door. "It's time, mam'zelle," the butler called from the other side.

Devota told him they were ready. Suddenly flustered, she looked around for Elene's fan, in case she should be overcome by the heat, and also the nosegay of yellow roses and fern she would carry. Placing these things in Elene's hands, Devota gave her a quick, fierce hug, then moved to open the door.

The music heralding the coming of the bride rose from below, sweeping up the outside stairway and along the gallery to where Elene stood. She took a deep breath, then started forward.

"Remember," Devota said, her voice low, "your man will love you beyond life itself. He cannot help himself."

"Yes," Elene whispered, and stepped through the door and out onto the gallery.

The Larpent house was built of limestone cut and hauled laboriously from the mountains of the island. It had escaped burning in the years when Elene's father was in exile, but had not been free from looting or from damage. Most of the once-grand furniture was gone from the rooms, and the gallery floor was scarred by the dragging of heavy objects from the house. The railing of the gallery, carved of the same soft limestone, had been hacked by machete and bayonet, and several of the urn-shaped balusters across its width were missing, doubtless knocked out by carelessness or carried away for some other use. The carved pineapple that had once decorated the newel post of the stone stairs that descended to the terrace was gone. To cover the jagged hole where it had been ripped away was a large porcelain jardiniere filled with cascading pink geraniums. More of the same flowers sat at intervals down the stair steps and were grouped about the bottom newel post.

Elene paused at the head of the stairs. Below her were the wedding guests seated on small gold-painted chairs in a semicircle about the altar. Among them, in the first row, was her father. The altar itself was draped with gold and red and set about with ferns. The priest in his surplice stood ready in front of it, watching, as were they all, for her arrival.

The faint murmur of conversation died away and clothing rustled as those congregated below discovered her presence and turned in their seats. It suddenly came to Elene as she stood there, the focus of attention, that she could no longer hear the beat of the drums in the hills.

The music of the trio of musicians swelled. Below her, the guests rose to their feet in her honor. There was a flicker of movement and Durant stepped from beneath the gallery to the newel post at the foot of the stairs. He stood waiting, a handsome figure in his wedding attire of a gold satin swallow-tailed coat and white knee breeches. On his mouth was a smile of satisfaction.

Elene stared down at him, at his thick brown hair, which he wore rather long, and his deep-set black eyes. His face was square, with a long lower jaw, a Roman nose, and muscular lips. Though of average height, with a stocky build, there was about him an air of supreme self-assurance that intimidated some men and infuriated others. A man of refinement, he was used to the best and would tolerate no less, whether in a glass of wine or a woman. He would not be an easy husband to please, she thought, though he might be one other women would envy.

Durant put his foot on the bottom stair and rested his hand on the stone bannister, ready to reach out to Elene, to lead her to the altar. Elene moved down one step, then another, striving for poise, trying to ignore the stiff reluctance in her muscles that threatened to trip her.

It was then a woman screamed.

The cry, shivering with a knife-edge of horror and hysteria, rang out from the back row of guests. Immediately it was echoed by savage yells and undulating war cries of a kind that lived in nightmare-haunted dreams. It was an attack of the Negro renegades.

The guests leaped up and stared around them, shouting, uttering exclamations of terrified disbelief. Women began to scream. There came the rasping sounds of men drawing the dress swords that hung at their sides. Others sprinted for pistols and muskets left in the house. Across the lawn the black figures ran, waving their weapons, their teeth bared in ferocious blood lust.

In an instant, the terrace was a mass of struggling, flailing bodies from which rose curses and grunts, desperate cries and the sickening sound of blades slicing flesh to the bone. Bright red droplets of blood splashed on the paving stones.

Elene, standing in stunned disbelief, saw Durant fling away from the stairs to grapple with a wiry Negro in a loincloth. Her groom wrestled the man's machete from a grasp slippery with blood. Hacking, slashing around him, Durant was lost in the melee as Elene swung her gaze toward her father. She was in time to see him struck down, an ax buried in his neck, half severing his head.

She screamed, the sound rising unbidden in her throat in her horror and sick rage. She stumbled downward a step, her gaze on the fallen body of her father. Below her, a pockmarked attacker turned, then started at a lope up the stairs. There was a knife held blade uppermost in his fist and a glaze of murderous fury in his eyes.

Elene hurled her nosegay and fan at him, then spun around, snatching up her skirts as she leaped back up the stairs. She could hear the thud of the man's bare feet on the treads below her. The noise acted like a goad, Nearing the top, she dropped her skirts and reached for the heavy jardiniere of flowers on the newel post. Dragging it from its place, she wrenched around and heaved it down upon her pursuer. It crashed into him in a spill of dirt and geraniums. He howled as he tumbled backward down the stairs amid broken crockery. Elene did not wait to see the damage, but whirled once more.

There was a dark face above her. Her heart gave a painful leap, then recognition came. Devota. The maid grasped her arm, pulling at her.

"This way! Quickly!"

They plunged across the gallery and through the main doors of the house, coming to a skidding halt in the stair hall. Ahead lay the broad width of the grand staircase that led down to the front entrance, while to the right was the dark, twisting well of the servants' stairs. They swung to the right, diving down the narrow steps in a headlong scramble until they reached the bottom.

There was a small door closing off the stairs, one that opened into the butler's pantry that in turn was connected to the formal dining room. Devota turned the knob and eased the door ajar. She looked and listened for an instant, then gave a beckoning nod.

Once more they were running, crossing the pantry and dining room, thrusting through the French windows that opened onto a secluded side garden. They clattered down the steps of the small terrace and, fleeing across a stretch of lawn, threw themselves among the tall hibiscus of the shrubbery border. Using that concealment, they angled away from the house toward the cane fields, scurrying like hunted animals across open spaces, glancing over their shoulders, gasping for breath. Then they were plunging between the first tall stalks of the sugarcane, thrusting into the protection of its great, waving stand.

They could not stop, even then. They pounded down the rows, like long green tunnels with broad, grasslike leaves of cane arching above them. They held up their arms before their faces to protect themselves from the dry and viciously sharp lower blades, ducking under or leaping over the canes that were so thick and heavy with juice that they leaned into the rows. Sometimes they slowed to a walk to catch their breaths, but quickly pushed on again. Behind them, the screams and yells, blasts of gunshots, and tinkling of broken glass receded. It was both a relief and a torment when they could hear the sounds no longer.

The fields seemed to go on forever, mile after endless mile. They crisscrossed one another, running with the lay of the land and of the irrigation ditches. Now and then there was a cane patch gone to seed, choked with weeds and wild coffee bushes and vigorously growing vines, or else a stretch that had not been planted since the first uprising and was already being reclaimed by the forest. These patches grew more and more frequent, turning at last into the forest itself.

The two women moved more slowly after a time, partly from exhaustion, partly from the fear of running into a remnant of the attacking Negroes or else another band altogether. When they were well into trees, they stopped at last. This section of wooded land was no more than a strip perhaps a mile and a half in width, with the cane fields through which they had come on one side and the main road leading to Port-au-Prince on the other.

They pushed into its depths. When they could go no farther, they staggered underneath a great tree and dropped to the ground. They sat with their backs to the trunk, their heads tilted back and eyes closed as they sought to draw air into their lungs and ease the ache in their heaving sides. It was some moments before they could move or speak.

At last, Elene opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was that somehow, without her noticing, darkness had fallen. The second thing was the flickering red glow in the sky back the way they had come. She tested the warm air and smelled the unmistakable taint of smoke.

"The house, they're burning the house," she said in flat tones.

"Yes," Devota answered without opening her eyes.

"And look over there. Is that--can it be another house on fire?"

Devota peered through the canopy of leaves above them. "Where?"

Elene pointed. "There, you can see the glow reflecting against the clouds."

"It must be an islandwide uprising, then," the maid said. "What can have set it off?"

Elene shook her head, letting her eyelids fall shut again. "Does it matter? The question is: What are we going to do?"

Her father was dead. She had seen him die. She should feel terrible grief, but beyond that first instant of horror, all she could feel was a pervasive numbness. She shuddered from the scenes of carnage as they passed through her mind; still they seemed without reality. In the lethargy that held her, she could not seem to think what would be the best means to reach safety. As far as she could see, there was no such thing.

"It may be we could go to the French soldiers at Port-au-Prince." Devota's tone was tentative.

Elene felt the brief stir of an emotion she had not known since before she had learned she was to be married. It jolted along her veins, then faded, but in that brief moment, she recognized it in something near shock as interest in the future. She said slowly, "Perhaps we could."

"We would have to take care."

"Yes," Elene agreed. "The road will most likely be too dangerous. It would help if we could discover just what is happening."

"I might find out," Devota said.

"What do you mean?"

"If I could come upon some of the slaves from the house, they might be able to tell me what Dessalines is up to, or at least give some idea of why these attacks have been ordered."

"It's too risky," Elene said with decision. She had known the slaves from her home must have taken part in the uprising, the people she had tended with her own hands in their illnesses, the men and women who cleaned and dusted in the house and pruned and raked in the gardens, the hands who sang in the fields. She had known, but had not wanted to face it.

"There's no great risk, not for someone of my color."

It was seldom Elene thought of Devota as being non-white, just as she hardly ever thought of her as being related. She was just Devota, always there, ever thoughtful, ever wise. Was it possible the woman might have known what was to happen tonight, could have warned her father and the others? No, it could not be. There were some things that had to be taken on trust.

"Suppose you are recognized as my maid? It might be enough to put you in jeopardy."

"It's a chance I'll have to take. We must know something, and soon. If this really is a general uprising, we will need a place of hiding, need it desperately, by morning."

Devota pushed to her feet and straightened her apron and tignon. Elene watched her shadowy movements there in the darkness. She could order Devota to stay, as mistress to slave, but that had never been their relationship. In any case, Elene was by no means certain Devota would obey, particularly now, or that she herself would want her to stay for that reason.

"If you must go, I'll come with you, at least part of the way."

"What good will there be in that, chère? No, no, it will be easier if you remain here. I won't be long."

"I could keep watch--" Elene began, then stopped abruptly. Where Devota had been standing seconds before there was only darkness. She had disappeared into the night.

The other woman was used to moving about in the dark countryside, Elene told herself. As a follower of the Voudou rites, or perhaps even a leader of them as a priestess, she must have left the house often in the midnight hours to travel to the gatherings in the hills. Devota would be all right.

Time crept past. Elene became aware of soft rustlings around her. It was only the stirring of small night creatures, or perhaps the fall of a dead twig or limb or the drift of a vagrant breeze through the thick tropical foliage. There was nothing to alarm her. Once she caught the sound of voices raised in drunken celebration. It was some distance away, however, perhaps on the main road beyond the wooded strip where she stood. The noise grew no louder. After a time, it faded out of hearing.

The night was without a cloud. Moonglow brightened the horizon beyond the far-stretching cane fields. The moon itself cleared the treetops and lifted slowly into the sky to filter its beams through the leaves overhead. It made the shadows under the spreading limbs appear darker, while shafting odd-shaped puddles of silver light poured down onto the forest floor. A spot the size of a man's hand penetrated the branches above where Elene sat. Its brilliant gleam pooled in her lap of cream silk, turning the material of her skirts to shimmering tissue of gold. The radiance, soft as it was, dazzled her eyes.

It might as well be a signal light, directing the renegades to her.

Elene scrambled to her feet and whisked herself into the shadows. Even there, the fabric of her gown seemed like a beacon, and the gold of the chain that held her mother's cameo glinted back and forth along its length with her every breath, her every movement. She removed the cameo and thrust it into her petticoat pocket. She thought of discarding the gown, but her petticoats underneath were hardly less lustrous. She wished she had thought to snatch a cloak, a blanket, anything to hide the pale sheen of what she was wearing.

Perhaps if she smeared her gown with dirt? There would be dampness under the mulch of leaves on the forest floor, but would it be enough? And her skin with its pearl sheen caught the light nearly as well as her clothing. It could use dulling also.

She knelt down, raking at the leaves at her feet, scraping the earth with her cupped hand. The rich, fecund smell of it filled her nostrils while the rustling she was making sounded loud in her ears. She scratched up a handful of the damp dirt and smeared it along one arm. Its moisture acted on the perfumed oil she wore, drawing out its scent so that it mingled with that of the earth. The crumbling black soil fell back to the ground, leaving no more than a smudge. She reached for more.

A short, sharp exclamation brought her head up. Standing not ten yards away was a pair of Negro men, one squat, one tall. They wore only rough breeches, leaving their upper bodies bare. The designs they had painted on their chests and faces in orange and white made them appear cruel and inhuman. One carried a silver pitcher by its handle in his left hand and a machete in his right. The other man had no trophies, but hefted an ax on a short handle.

Elene rose slowly erect and took a step backward. The movement brought her into a direct flood of moonlight. She felt it pour over her, glinting, shimmering on her hair, her skin, her dress. She stood at bay, but held her head high and regal with her determination not to show the terror that coursed along her veins.

The two men drew in their breaths with a rasping noise of amazement, as if they had seen a vision. The one with the silver pitcher muttered what might have been a prayer. The other with the ax flung him a short hard glance. He spat.

"Get her," he said.