A Radical Act of Free Magic

by H. G. Parry

  She smiled herself, reluctantly. “I promised not to enter your head. Not Maitland’s. Besides, I wanted to know how he felt about it.”

  “And how did he feel?”

  Fina sat down and scraped around, as always, to find words to fit the vague feelings of others. She remembered the dim tent, the fine silver dinner set at which the two of them had sat, the taste of the wine in fine goblets. “Fear at your displeasure. Worry that the treaty might fail. He wanted to go home.”

  “I thought as much. I wish he’d been posted here last year, instead of Whyte. Things might have been over faster.”

  Fina brushed this off impatiently. She never saw the point in dwelling on what might have happened. “Never mind him. What terms were made? Are you content with them?”

  “The British will leave these shores and won’t interfere with this colony as long as I hold it,” Toussaint said. “And they’ve agreed to lift the economic blockade and trade with us on equal terms.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “You want to trade with them?”

  “I do. And with America. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because Britain and France are still at war. Saint-Domingue is still a French colony. Are you mad? Hédouville will be furious.” The new French commissioner had arrived at the same time that Maitland had taken command. He was famous for pacifying the rebellious royalist regions of France during the French Revolution; his job now was to do the same to Saint-Domingue.

  “Hédouville means to force our people back into unbreakable contracts with their old plantations,” Toussaint said with scorn. “You know as well as I do that would be one short step away from reinstating slavery. The only difference is the workers will be paid, and I doubt even that would last for long. He’ll bring back spellbinding, sooner or later—consensual, of course, only as a means of increasing productivity. I don’t care what he thinks.”

  “I’ll tell you what he’ll think,” Fina retorted. “He’ll think you’re acting above your station. He’ll think you’re trying to take control for good. He’ll think you mean to betray France and make Saint-Domingue independent.”

  “I will, if I have to.” It was the first time he had ever said it outright. “Does Hédouville think he scares me? I’ve been fighting a long time, and if I must continue, I can. I have had to deal with three nations, and I have defeated all three. I don’t want to go to war with France, but if she attacks me, I will defend myself.”

  It was moments like this when Fina knew that she wasn’t just helping Toussaint because they had common goals—she didn’t only respect his skill in battle, or admire his principles, or value his intellect. She loved him, fiercely and devotedly, and for this reason he scared her both for her sake and for his own. “It isn’t only Hédouville you’ll contend with.” She kept her voice level. “You know that.”

  “Yes,” he acknowledged, “I do.” He paused. “Fina—”

  Her heart knew Toussaint’s voice better than she did. It sank before she understood why. “What is it?”

  “I need to talk to the stranger.”

  “You said that earlier. I told you it would be a foolish idea.”

  “I need to talk to him as soon as I return home. Tonight, if possible.”

  Fina’s veins turned cold. “Why?”

  “You know why.” His gaze was quiet and even, and relentless. “Because with the British gone, the French no longer need us, and we no longer need them. Rigaud will go to war with me over who controls which parts of the colony; the French and the British alike will encourage it to stop either of us gaining in power. And with the British gone, there’s every chance that the stranger will no longer help me. I need him to continue to give me his magic if I want to keep any control over the colony. And I need to keep control over the colony if I am to keep it from falling back into the days of slavery.”

  “And how are you going to persuade the stranger to do that?”

  “Perhaps I can’t. But I need to try.” There was no laughter in his eyes now, and no scorn. “Fina, I spoke to Hédouville before I came here. I’ve agreed to send my sons to school in France.”

  This stopped her short. She had come to know Toussaint’s oldest sons over the years, living in their house and accompanying them on campaign. They had always been kind to her, even affectionate. “Isaac?”

  “And Placide.” Placide, technically, was Suzanne’s son from before she and Toussaint were married, but Fina had never heard Toussaint draw any distinction between him and his half brothers. “Saint-Jean stays here, of course; he’s too young.”

  “Is Suzanne willing to allow that?”

  “She understands. It’s an opportunity for them, and it’s a way to cement our alliance with the French. But I’m not blind to the fact that it’s also a ransom. If I had refused, my loyalty would have been in question; now that I’ve accepted, my sons will always be vulnerable to reprisals. I need to know they’ll be safe. I need the stranger not to turn against us.”

  He wasn’t trying to manipulate her, exactly. He meant every word. He loved his sons deeply, and he was scared for them. But the trouble with very clever people, Fina had learned, was that they were capable of meaning something and yet still using it to get their own way. She tried one last time. “You don’t understand. You think you know the stranger, because you’ve met him in person. But you’ve never been inside his head. I am, every night. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “What is it like?”

  Fina paused, searching for a word more precise than “evil.” Toussaint didn’t believe in evil, really, even after all he had seen in his lifetime. And yet it was what she meant.

  That was the problem, perhaps. Toussaint was too clever. He was too used to playing multiple games at once, to dealing with whomever he had to in order to bring about his vision of a free and equal Saint-Domingue. He didn’t understand that some deals were too dangerous to make, for reasons that went beyond cleverness and into the realms of magic.

  “Then that’s another reason to do this,” he said into the silence. “I need to know.”

  She laughed, somewhere between admiration and bitterness. “You have an answer to everything, don’t you? It doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about.”

  Toussaint didn’t reply. He watched her, and waited.

  He was waiting for an argument, perhaps. But all at once, she knew she wouldn’t give one. It wasn’t just that he would win in the end, as he always did. Deep down, she had known since Toussaint had first raised the question that she and the stranger would speak. She was tired of hiding and watching the stranger every night. She wanted him to hear her, if only to break the agony of suspense.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  Unusually for him, he looked surprised. It was strangely satisfying. “You will?”

  She nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. It needs to be done. But you need to promise me that you’ll be careful, even if you don’t really understand why.”

  “I promise,” he said—not lightly, it was true, but too quickly for her comfort. “When?”

  “As soon as you get home. You’ll want to be somewhere safe in body, at least, if not in mind.”

  “You can ride home with me, then. Thank you, Fina. I know—”

  She cut his thanks short. “Make sure you sleep tonight, sometime before midnight. I can usually hear him then. I’ll try to speak to him. But he might not hear me, remember. He didn’t the first time I saw him on Jamaica.”

  “Things have changed since then,” Toussaint said. “I think he’ll hear you now.”

  It wasn’t difficult to find the stranger on Jamaica anymore. It was only a matter of closing her eyes and reaching out through trauma and loss for the only home she could remember.

  In the years she had been gone, the old slave barracks had remained unchanged. It was becoming more common to leave slaves unbound at night these days and allow them their own huts and meager gardens—perhaps with the thought it might prevent rebellion, perh
aps because the French Revolution and the campaigners in Europe really had done some good. Her old plantation had not followed that example. Its slaves still slept on the bare floor, worn out by labor and silenced by alchemy. The roof was cracked in places and in others had been roughly patched over. The slatted walls revealed glimpses of the soft night sky. Many of the men and women in those barracks were strangers to her.

  She hadn’t seen Jacob for the last six months. Perhaps he had been sold, or freed, or had fallen outside the stranger’s influence. It was far more likely that he had died. The survival rate for slaves on Jamaica was slightly higher than it had been on Saint-Domingue before the rebellion, but it was not high. And those who were spellbound often, as Jacob had been, had the shortest time of all. She tried not to grieve too much—she had seen so much death, and she always tried to tell herself it brought its own kind of freedom. There were many who believed it brought a return home to Africa, across the floors of the sea. But the memory of the last touch of his hand bit deeply. She had promised to come back, and as long as she was alive she hadn’t yet failed. But she had failed Jacob. And the longer she stayed away, the longer it took to keep her promise, the more of her friends she would fail.

  Perhaps after all, Toussaint was right to speak to the stranger. It wasn’t safe, and she didn’t trust the stranger’s intentions one bit. But if Toussaint really could take Saint-Domingue from the French, then perhaps he could take Jamaica from the British too. Perhaps all the time and blood could be worth it. She couldn’t believe this was the way, but she wanted to.

  The stranger was there. Of course he was. All of this, really, was the inside of his head, and not Jamaica at all. It was the place where its inhabitants’ minds met his, like the garden where he had met Robespierre. Only there were far more than two people here—she could feel others’ minds outside her plantation and had begun to suspect all of Jamaica was in his grasp. And he was not speaking to them as equals or as a benefactor. He stood in front of the door, looking upon the sleeping forms. His magic was thick in the air.

  Fina walked up to him. His eyes, clear blue, looked straight through her to the wall beyond. And yet something flickered in them; his brow crinkled, as though he were trying to make out a shape in a mist. She had to swallow twice before she spoke, even without a body.

  “I’ve come from Toussaint Louverture.” She spoke in her native language, and Toussaint’s. “He wants to speak to you.”

  The stranger didn’t respond.

  Fina found she could raise her voice this time. “I said—”

  “I heard you,” the stranger said. He said it mildly, without moving, but his eyes were darting wildly about the room. They lit on the walls, the sleeping figures on the floors—once or twice they even rested somewhere in the proximity of her face. That, and the sudden rigidity of his shoulders, were all that betrayed him.

  Fina was as practiced at not betraying her feelings as the stranger. She held her ground, and her face didn’t show a whisper of her fear.

  “Who are you?” the stranger asked. “Where do you come from?”

  She didn’t answer. Now that he had heard her, she had nothing further to say.

  “What does Toussaint Louverture wish to speak to me about?” the stranger said. When she didn’t reply, his lips curved in a faint smile. “Very well. Perhaps I’ll see you there.”

  That was all the warning she received before the Jamaican plantation dissolved around her. The darkness shifted and swirled; the floor dissolved and blossomed into sand under her bare feet. The walls of the barracks opened into dusky sky, and cliffs unfurled at her back. The stifling air stirred in a breeze off the sea.

  They stood in a cove at twilight. Fina recognized it at once. It was the beach at the Môle, just under the fort the British had surrendered. It was the place where, three years ago, she had stood beside Toussaint as he had unleashed a storm upon the British fleet sent to enslave them. Toussaint stood there, as he had that day. He met her eyes and nodded his thanks before shifting his gaze to the stranger.

  The stranger looked smaller in the memory of the cove. His voice was almost whipped away by the stirring wind. “Toussaint Louverture,” he said. “I had no intention of speaking with you again.”

  “I know,” Toussaint said. “But I wished to speak to you.”

  “So I gathered.” He looked around. “Who was it that delivered your message?”

  Fina felt a chill that was nonetheless mingled with a fierce satisfaction. He couldn’t see her: his eyes slid right over the space she occupied in Toussaint’s mind. But after all these years, he had finally been forced to notice her.

  “Does it matter?” Toussaint asked.

  “It matters how they did it. I’ve never had someone drop by when I’ve been paying a visit to somebody else before. It would have been considered very impolite in the old days, if it had been considered possible at all.”

  Toussaint said nothing.

  “We made our deal,” the stranger said at last. “I gave you the magic you desired. You helped me return to my home. I see nothing further to discuss.”

  “Nothing,” Toussaint agreed. “As long as you continue to uphold that deal.”

  “And you suspect I will not?”

  “I suspect nothing. I have heard, however, that you have promised Saint-Domingue to another. A Frenchman, whom you meet at nights as you once met Robespierre.”

  There was a quick intake of breath, almost a hiss. For the first time, Fina felt something ripple behind the stranger’s eyes, in the place her magic couldn’t enter. She wasn’t sure where Toussaint meant to take this, but it was going somewhere very dangerous. An icy coil of fear entwined her stomach.

  Slow down, she willed him, with all her heart. She didn’t dare speak aloud again. Don’t push him.

  “I see,” the stranger said, too calmly. “Who told you this?”

  “No matter.” Toussaint’s voice was just as even. “If it isn’t true, then you may pretend we never spoke. But if it is, please know that I will not allow this country to fall back into the hands of a man who would make slaves of us again. Saint-Domingue may remain a French colony, as we agreed, but it will be a free one, governed by free people.”

  “I see. By any free people in particular, to be clear? Or do you really mean by you?”

  Toussaint didn’t answer that. “If my magic fails now, I will know why. And I will consider our agreement at an end.”

  “Perhaps I no longer need your agreement to govern Saint-Domingue.”

  “Perhaps not. But what about Jamaica?”

  The ripple was fainter this time, more hidden, more prepared for. But Fina saw it. The coil about her stomach tightened.

  “Jamaica,” the stranger repeated flatly.

  “Hmm.” Toussaint tilted his head. “If what I know about this Frenchman is true, then I also know you visit Jamaica every night. I know you use your mesmerism to work your way into the minds of those enslaved there, little by little, bit by bit.”

  Fina had been afraid already, but her fear had been of what the stranger might do. Now her fear began to shape itself into something colder and darker. For the first time in her life, words burst from her against her will. “Toussaint—”

  The stranger’s eyes flickered to the space where she stood, and she fell silent. Toussaint ignored her.

  “You know nothing,” the stranger said. “Not really.”

  “I know that if the British in Jamaica had any idea of your influence, they would not allow it to continue.”

  The silence lasted a long time.

  “Very well,” the stranger said at last. His voice was the same terrible parody of calm. “Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you know all this. What is your proposal?”

  “Oh, it isn’t a proposal,” Toussaint said, and for the first time, he smiled. “It’s a threat. I made a promise to Britain today, in exchange for their trade. I promised that I will leave Jamaica alone. I make that same promise to you. If y
ou want to take control of Jamaica, if the British want to keep control themselves, it remains between the two of you. That is what you intend to do, isn’t it? That’s why you’re working your way into the dreams of every enslaved person on that island. You want to take control of them, and you want to use them to take control of that colony.”

  No. Fina didn’t dare speak aloud again, but she screamed it in her head. If she could have torn Toussaint and the stranger apart now, before any promise could be made, she would have done it. But the dream was between the two of them. She was powerless.

  It couldn’t be. Toussaint would never betray her like that. He couldn’t.

  “My priority is Saint-Domingue,” Toussaint was saying. “I’m willing to let you and the British do what you will on Jamaica, as long as I can hold this colony here in the name of France.” His eyes turned to steel. “But if I find my magic betrays me, if I start to suspect you mean to give Saint-Domingue back to the slavers—and if, by the way, I suspect that my sons are in any danger while they are in France—then I will go to the governor of Jamaica and tell him what I know of you. You’re working your way in through the spellbinding. All they need to do is break that spellbinding, and your influence will end.”

  “They’ll never break the spellbinding,” the stranger said. “They’ll think it’s a trick.”

  “Perhaps. But they’ll wonder, at the very least. And if they do break the spellbinding, they’ll leave you with nothing. Whatever you plan to do, you’ve been planning it for a long time. Are you truly willing to risk it slipping away?”

  “A long time.” There was a bite of contempt in his voice. “You have no idea of a long time. To you, half a century is a lifetime.”

  “I intend to live longer than that, in fact. And I will know if you try to thwart that intention. Assuming, of course, that what I have heard is true. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly,” the stranger said. His control was back in place. “And as you say, if it isn’t true, let us pretend we never spoke.” He paused. “As we are speaking, however, I may as well use the opportunity to point out that I never intended you to take Saint-Domingue from France. Our arrangement was that you would defend it against France’s enemies.”