Ethan Gage Collection # 1 (81 page)

O
NE OF THE PROMISES OF OUR NEW NINETEENTH CENTURY IS
the practical simplicity of women's clothing. In the old days, getting past the skirts, corsets, and garters of a noblewoman was as complicated as reefing a barkentine in a gale. A man might be so wearied by ribbons, stays, laces, and layers that by the time he got to squeezable flesh he'd forgotten what all the effort was for. The new revolutionary fashions, I'm happy to report, are less complicated, and getting at Pauline, nestled between two wine kegs, was not much more complicated than lowering the gallant at top and hoisting the mainsail at bottom, noting she had dispensed with chemise and bunching what little there was at her waist while she sang like a choir. Lord, the girl had enthusiasm! Her breasts were even better than what portraiture has recorded, and her thighs nimble as scissors. We bucked and plunged like a Sicilian stagecoach, Pauline as hot as a Franklin stove, and I could happily have had her in a few more cellar nooks and crannies, sampling the vintages this way and that, if rough hands had not suddenly seized me and jerked me back like a cork popping out of a bottle.

The indignity!

It's hard to fight back with your trousers about your ankles, and I was too surprised in any event to react. Damnation! Had General Leclerc come back from his cantonment after all? I could try to explain we were merely dusting the bottles, but I didn't think he'd believe me, given that both Pauline and I were both more exposed than a Maine lighthouse in a howling nor'easter.

“He assaulted me!” she shrieked, which was no more likely to be believed, given her amorous reputation.

“You shouldn't thrust yourself in where you do not belong,” one of my assailants said with an accent I couldn't place, just before a clout to the head blurred my vision and buckled my knees. My manhood was wilting and my longrifle and tomahawk had been checked with my greatcoat in the anteroom upstairs. I have an all too fervent imagination of what various enemies might do to me and woozily tried to cross my legs.

“I know what this looks like…,” I began.

A gag went into my mouth.

Instead of having my throat or something even more valuable cut, they seemed determined to truss me like a sausage. Ropes were thrown around me as they pummeled and kicked, and in my daze I had the wit to do only one thing: fetch a handful of the chocolates I'd filched from my waistcoat pocket and slip them into my shirtsleeve just as my wrists were being bound. Having been tied before, I'd spent time giving the problem some thought.

I dimly saw Pauline was allowed to flee, pulling up and pushing down her filmy garment. One does not tie up Napoleon's sister! Then, my own pants hauled up as well, I was dragged down a dark corridor to a cellar door that led to the gardens beyond. Given the situation, I didn't expect her to call for my rescue.

So I tried to reason my way out. Unfortunately, my gag reduced my logic to muffled mumphs and growls.

“Save your breath, American. You don't even understand what you're involved in.”

Hadn't I been in the first consul's sister? Or was this about something else entirely? I'd assumed I was being manhandled by the vengeful minions of Pauline's husband or brothers, but perhaps some other retribution was going on. I tried to review who else might want me dead. Had someone really seen me leave that ruined Italian farmhouse, and was Renato just the first attempt at Egyptian Rite retribution, given that I'd incinerated Count Alessandro Silano? Had the Apophis snake cult from Egypt somehow trailed me to Paris? The British might be annoyed that I was once more with the French, like a shuttlecock in the wind. Then there were a few young ladies less than satisfied with the circumstances of our parting, a gambling victim or two, the occasional creditor, the entire Austrian army, the English sailors from HMS
Dangerous
whose pay I had taken in cards, the angry Muslims from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem….

For someone as likeable as me, I'd acquired an astonishing list of potential enemies. I suppose it doesn't much matter
who
kills you, given that you will be dead anyway. Still, one likes to know.

I was dragged down a garden path like a log, thrown in a small, saucer-shaped coracle about as seaworthy as a leaf, and towed by rowboat across the château lake. I half expected to be weighted and tossed in the water, but, no, they beached our craft on the island where the fireworks were to ignite and bundled me past the shrubbery to where the combustibles were mounted. As near as I could tell, Despeaux had stockpiled enough incendiaries to light the Second Coming.

“You always want to be at the center of things. Now you will end that way, too,” my assailants said. I was lashed to a stake in the middle of the display of rockets and mortars as if I, too, were a rocket set to shoot skyward. I realized that at the climax of the celebration of the Convention of Mortefontaine I would go up in flames like a roman candle. If anyone could identify my remains, they'd conclude
poking around fireworks was just the thing the bold, foolish electrician Ethan Gage would try.

“When the gag burns through you can scream, because by that time it will be impossible to hear you over the explosions,” a captor said, not altogether helpfully. “Each shout will suck burning air into your lungs.” And then they lit a slow fuse and departed without so much as an
adieu
, their oars quietly dipping as they made for shore.

I was doomed, unless my chocolate melted.

Having been tied before, upon return to Paris I'd made some study of the matter. It seems that the knack of getting out of knots is to have some slack, and that expanding the chest and bulging the muscles is a trick escape artists use to get them started on their bonds. In the case of my wrists, the chocolate in my sleeves had made their circumference bigger. Now, as the hard candy turned liquid, I squeezed my wrists together and the confection squirted out, loosening my ropes. Thank goodness for culinary invention! Being able to twist and move my hands, however, was not the same thing as being free. I saw with growing panic that the crowd from the party had come outside the château to watch the fireworks, their gaiety backlit by the glowing windows. Flirtatious laughter floated across the water and paper lanterns were set afloat on the lake. I could smell the burning fuse.

Sweating, unable to call out, I worked my wrists raw, thumbs pulling at strands, the mess of chocolate both lubricating the ropes and making them sticky. Finally, a key cord came loose.

Then there was a flash at the corner of my vision, and a sizzle. The pyrotechnics were about to ignite!

Thrashing my lower arms, I got the last bonds off my aching hands, freeing my arms to my elbows. By reaching up I managed to snag my gag and haul it to one side. “Help!”

The bloody orchestra, however, had broken into a rousing version of “Yankee Doodle,” as cacophonous as a flight of geese. The crowd
whooped as the fuse flamed toward the arsenal, its spark bright as a tiger's eye.

So I clawed at the ropes holding my torso to the pole. My upper arms were still tied to my chest, but I had enough freedom below my elbows to get one end of the bond free and begin to awkwardly fling it to unwind myself, moaning at my own slowness. There was a whistle of powder and the first cluster of skyrockets soared up, smoke blinding anyone to my presence on the island. They exploded in a galaxy of stars, bright bits raining down. Some of the mortars coughed and burped, shells soaring. It was getting damnably hot damnably fast, and I was sweating. On and on the loose rope flew, growing longer and beginning to burn, even as the vile choir of exploding fireworks increased. If the climax was reached and the ground display turned the island into a fountain of flame, I was cooked, and dead.

“Help!” I called again.

Now they were playing the “Marseillaise”!

Finally I unwound myself free of the pole, went to run, and fell. My feet were still bound! Something was still strapped to my back! I didn't have time for this! Skyrockets were screaming up in every direction, hot sparks were raining on my hair and clothes, and I was dazed and half-blinded by the excruciating light. I began hopping toward the water, clawing at the bonds at my chest.

Then the island seemed to erupt.

To the shrieking delight of the crowd, the ground display went off like a sun's corona. Huge sheets of sparks shot up in pulsing arcs, the air a hell of sulfur, smoke, and stinging ash. The cords around my ankles caught fire, and if I hadn't still had my boots on (Pauline and I had been in a hurry) I would have been badly burned. On I hopped like a panicked rabbit, until I spied the saucer-shaped coracle I'd been towed out in. I collapsed on it, my momentum pushing it into the lake and dragging my own feet into the water. The flames extinguished with a hiss. Now I had my arms mostly free, but some
rope still around my chest and biceps. My hair was smoking, and I threw water on that and got the now-burnt-through ropes off my feet. Finally I kneeled, barely balancing in the wobbly craft, and hand-paddled toward the crowd, Hades in tumult behind me.

“Look, what's that! Something's coming from the island!”

The damned idiots began to applaud, drowning my complaints once again. They thought I was part of the show! And just when I finally got near enough to shout about brigands and kidnappers, my hair nearly ignited again!

Or, rather, a molten fountain my torturers had cruelly stuck to my back, held by cords still around my chest, went off with a whoosh. The wooden tail was tucked in the back waist of my trousers, and apparently its fuse had ignited as I was fleeing the island. Now it—I—was a flaming torch. I reached behind and yanked the missile out of my bonds before it could finish roasting me and desperately held the spouting tube away from me by its hot nose, sparks shooting great, pulsing gouts of flame out the tail. The exhaust illuminated my figure, and actually giving me slight propulsion as I drifted toward the onlookers. Now everyone was cheering.

“It's Gage! What a character! Look, he's holding up a torch to celebrate our convention!”

“They say he's a sorcerer! Lucifer means ‘light-giver,' you know!”

“Did he plan the entire show?”

“He's a genius!”

“Or a prima donna!”

Not knowing what else to do, I held my rocket upside down as flames spewed skyward and tried to muster singed dignity, my smile gritted against the pain of the burns. There! Were hooded onlookers melting into the trees? The final sparks were cascading past my figure to hiss into the water as I grounded and finally stepped ashore, like Columbus.

“Bravo! What a scene stealer!”

I bowed, more than a little shaken. I was half-blind, coughing from the acrid fumes, and wincing from my burns and abrasions. My watering eyes cut rivulets down my blackened cheeks.

The American commissioners pushed their way to the front of the throng. “By heavens, Gage, what the devil are you trying to symbolize?” Ellsworth asked.

I dazedly tried to think fast. “Liberty, I think.”

“That was quite the performance,” Davie said. “You might have been hurt.”

“He's a plucky daredevil,” said Vans Murray. “It's an addiction, is it not?”

Then Bonaparte was there, too. “I might have known,” he said. “I'm grateful you are not in politics, Monsieur Gage, or your instinct would be to upstage me.”

“I'm afraid that would be impossible, First Consul.”

He looked skeptically from me to the island. “You were planning this stunt all along?”

“It was a last-minute inspiration, I assure you.”

“Well.” He looked at the others. “Holding that torch aloft was a nice touch. This will be an evening for us all to remember. The friendship of France and the United States! Gage, you obviously have flair. It will stand you in good stead as you carry my messages to your president.”

“America?” I glanced around for Pauline's husband, Egyptian snake worshippers, Muslim fanatics, or British agents. Perhaps it
was
time to go home.

An arm went around my shoulder. “And now you have new friends to keep you safe!” said Magnus Bloodhammer, squeezing me like a bear. He smiled at Napoleon. “Gage and I have been looking for each other, and now
I
will go to America, too!”

M
AGNUS PUSHED ME INTO SHADOWS AT THE EDGE OF THE
crowd, his embrace rough and his breath smelling of alcohol. “You should not have crept off with that Bonaparte wench,” the Norwegian lectured quietly. “You would have been safer with me!”

“I had no idea her husband's men were lurking around. Nor that he was so possessive. My God, her reputation…”

“Those were not Leclerc's men, you fool. Those were Danes.”

“Danes?” Why did they care whom I was rogering?

“Or they were the church, or worse. It's too late for you now, Gage, you've been seen with me. They know how crucial you are to our cause. Your life is in terrible danger.”

“
Who
knows?
What
cause?” I swear I draw lunatics like bees to honey.

“Were they going to burn you on the island?”

“Yes. If it hadn't been for this newfangled solid chocolate…”

“They're trying to warn me off. And make a statement. Don't
think they didn't mean for us to mark the similarities to the medieval stake of the Inquisition. Your incineration was to be a signal to the rest of us. Which only convinces me the map is real. I tell you Gage, your nation needs me as much as I need it.”

“
What
map?”

“How many are there? Are they well-armed?”

“Frankly, I didn't get a good look. I was rather busy…”

“Who can we trust? The odds appear long. Do you have any allies at all?”

“Bloodhammer…”

“Call me Magnus.”

“Magnus, can you take your arm from my shoulder, please? We're barely acquainted.”

Reluctantly, the big man did so, and I got some breathing room. “Thank you. Now, I don't know any Danes, the church has been thrown out of France by the revolution, and I know nothing of any map. We're here to celebrate a Franco-American peace treaty, if you'll recall, and I try to be a friend to everyone, when I can. Including Pauline Bonaparte. Perhaps my assailants made some mistake. They gagged me, so I couldn't explain who I really was.”

“Your new enemies don't make mistakes.”

“But I don't have any new enemies!” I glanced about. “Do I?”

“I'm afraid my enemies are now yours, because of your fame and expertise. You are an electrician, are you not? An investigator of the past? A protégé of the great Franklin?”

“More of an assistant, at best.” It was beginning to occur to me that while boasting of my exploits might win me alliance with fine ladies, it also seemed to draw the attention of the worst kind of men. Someday I'm going to be more careful. “I'm a wastrel, actually. Hardly worth caring about.”

“Gage, I'm on a quest, and there's only one man in the world with
the curious combination of talents I need to help me succeed. That man is
you
, and everything you've said tonight only confirms it. No, don't protest! Has not Bonaparte himself put his trust in you? Destiny is at work. What I am after is important, not only to Norway but to your own young nation. You are a patriot, sir, are you not?”

“Well, I like to think so. God rest George Washington. Not that I ever met the man.”

He leaned close, his whisper masked by the noise of the milling, inebriated crowd. “What if I were to tell you that Columbus was not the first to reach your shores?”

“The Indians were there, I suppose…”

“My own ancestors reached North America centuries before those Italian and Spanish interlopers, Ethan Gage. Norse voyagers were the real discoverers of your continent.”

“Really? But if they did, they didn't stick, did they? It doesn't count.”

“It does!” he roared, and people looked at us. He dragged me back even farther, to the shadow under an oak, and seized my shoulders in the dark underneath. “The Norse came, and drew a map, and left behind an artifact so powerful, so earthshaking, that whoever finds it will control the future! I'm talking about the fate of your own United States, Ethan Gage!”

I was suspicious. “What do you care about the United States?”

“Because the rightful return of this artifact to my own nation will be a rallying point for its independence at the same time it saves your own from foreign domination. We have a chance to change world history!”

Well, I'd heard this kind of talk before, and what did I have to show for it? I'd run around Egypt and Jerusalem on the hinge of history and ended up bruised, singed, and heartbroken. “I'm not much for affecting history, I'm afraid. It's hard, dirty work, quite tiring, with very little recompense, I've found.”

“And we'll discover something worth more than an emperor's
crown.” He looked at me with the crafty expertise of a mule salesman.

That stopped me, shameless mercenary that I am. “Worth more? As in money?”

“You're a gambler, Ethan Gage. Wouldn't you like to be rich?”

This Bloodhammer, who had the gleam of a Pizarro eyeing a roomful of Inca gold, was suddenly more interesting. I coughed to clear my throat. “My primary interest is the advancement of knowledge. I am a man of science, after all. Yet if there is reward to be had, I'm not opposed to compensation. As my mentor Franklin said, “Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.”

“You didn't have dinner?”

“I'm chronically in debt. Just what is this treasure, Magnus?”

“I can only confide in a place less public than this.” He surveyed the assembly, now drifting back inside and preparing to go home, the way Bonaparte took in a battlefield. “Soon they will scatter, and we will be at risk again from the foul brigands who accosted you. Our first challenge is to make it out of Mortefontaine alive.”

 

W
HEN YOU'RE WATCHFUL, EVERY STRANGER SEEMS TO BE
watching. What had seemed an hour before to be an assembly of friends now looked ominous and menacing. With so many soldiers about, my assailants could most easily have infiltrated by being invited guests—but if so, which ones were they? I hadn't gotten a proper view in the dark. Gaiety still reigned, inebriation was almost universal, laughter and wit were loud, and the only person who looked out of place was the one proposing to be my companion, Magnus Bloodhammer. Wouldn't Danes be blond? I looked at every light-haired male with suspicion, but none even noticed my scrutiny.

Perhaps they were lurking by the gate. My hired coach wouldn't be hard to spot and follow, once I climbed in, and in the dark forest between the château and Paris I'd be easy prey. I could ask Bonaparte
for escort, but then I'd have to explain about Magnus, treasure, and his married sister. Better to steal off discreetly. I was considering how when a small hand pulled my arm.

“Come,” Pauline whispered. “There's time for another round in a boudoir upstairs!”

By Cupid's arrow, the randy girl didn't discourage easily, did she? I'm dragged off, half-cooked, have to boat myself back to the party with my hair on fire, and she behaves like all we've had is a lover's recess. I couldn't imagine what a full night with the minx would be like. Actually, I
could
imagine, and it was intimidating.

“I'm afraid I have to leave.” Then inspiration struck. “Say, could I share your carriage? I'm trying to avoid those men who interrupted us.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Such delightful temptation! But if you were seen by my brother or his officers, word could get back to my husband.” She cast her eyes down, as if demure. “I do have my reputation.”

Indeed she did. “I could disguise myself as a footman. Do you have one my size I could trade clothes with? It would be a great favor to have him draw those rascals off. He could have my coat as payment.”

Now she looked impish. “And how might you repay
me
, monsieur?”

I bowed. “By discussing the customs of a Cairo harem I once visited.” No need to tell her it had been more discouraging than a cold tub in an unheated woodshed.

“I do adore geography.”

“There are all kinds of places we could explore,” I encouraged. “Say, I have a friend…”

“Monsieur!” Her eyes widened. “Ménage à trois?”

“Who would be happy to ride outside beside the coachman.”

I swear, the girl looked disappointed that there would be no three-some. But I didn't have time to gauge her full reaction, instead quickly
ushering her through the crowd so she could send a message to the stables where the servants loitered. Two of her men were to trade places with Magnus and me. While the lads were fetched, I retrieved my rifle and tomahawk to secrete in her coach. Then I sought out Jean-Etienne Despeaux, the organizer of the festivities, and asked if there were any leftover fireworks from the display.

“You didn't get a close enough look on that island, Monsieur Gage?” he asked with raised brows.

“It was such a powerful experience I'd like to do some experimentation. Might electricity be harnessed to augment such a magnificent spectacle?”

“Do you ever rest, American?”

“It's surprising how difficult that is to do.”

He did have some pyrotechnics remaining—it hadn't been clear just how much of the arsenal would fit in the middle of the pond—and I carefully packed as many explosives as I could in a small trunk liberated from the château. I sprinkled loose powder on top and fastened a spare rifle flint on the lid against the lock so that when the box opened, there would be a spark. Then I made something of a show of carrying it through the dispersing crowd, looking secretive and important, and lashing it to the back of the carriage I'd ridden to reach Mortefontaine. Once this pantomime was acted out, I disappeared to change clothes with Pauline's servants, inspecting the laundry of the lower class for fleas.

“You can keep my coat as payment for this favor,” I told a strapping lad.

“And you mine, conjurer,” he said cheerfully. “And now I get to play the Yankee, with sprawling stride, loose elbows, and gaping curiosity.” He pretended to imitate me in an annoying manner as he marched out in the dark to my carriage, cloak and hat masking his features. I daresay my posture and walk is more elegant than
that.

At the same time Magnus and I made our way to Pauline's coach
where it waited in line. He had a leather cylinder strapped on his back like a quiver, but I took it to be a case for his promised map. He'd also bundled an old cape and slouch hat under one arm. He went to climb inside but I blocked him. “Up on top, Bloodhammer, where the servants ride. Unless you'd rather hang off the back.”

“Your disguise is no different than mine, Gage,” he hissed. “Why do you get to be inside and I have to be outside?”

“Because I'm the servant with the service our hostess requires.”

“Are you mad? Hasn't she caused you trouble enough?”

“Actually, no. We didn't sample the vintage as much as I'd hoped.”

He was frustrated, but much more arguing and we'd draw attention to ourselves. “Caution, American,” he muttered. “We're not out of danger yet.”

“Which is precisely why you need to climb to the top of our conveyance. Keep a lookout, will you?”

Pauline departed the château and minced quickly across the gravel, her woolen cloak flaring behind as she held its throat shut against her flimsy gown. I sunk low in the coach as she boarded. “To Paris!” she ordered, rapping the ceiling, and we moved out with a jerk and smart pace, on a journey that wouldn't be completed until well after the sun rose. My own carriage had already departed, and I hoped that the Danes, if that's what they were, had taken the bait and followed it and its tempting trunk.

I figured they'd howl when they realized I'd switched places with a footman, but do the servant no harm. In frustration they'd have a look at my things. And then…

“You've had quite the brilliant evening, Monsieur Gage,” Pauline murmured once I risked sitting higher.

“More dramatic than I intended.”

“Who were those horrid men in the cellar? I should have my brother arrest them and shoot them for their rude timing. I was not really finished, you know.”

“I'm not sure of their identity. Maybe they were jealous of your beauty.”

She sniffed. “I shouldn't blame them. I'm sitting for portraits.”

“You must favor me with one.”

She smiled. “I'm sure you can't afford it, but it's sweet of you to ask. And so bravely escaped! Did you thrash the rascals?”

“They ran.”

She looked up at the brocaded ceiling. “Is your friend along, as you asked?”

“He's playing watchman next to the coachman at this very moment.”

“How gallant. Then you and I can continue our discussions of antiquity.” She hoisted a bottle. “I liberated this from Joseph when I fled his cellar.”

“You have foresight as well as beauty.”

“It's a long way to Paris. Is that where we're going?”

“Actually, Madame, it would suit my purposes better to set course for Le Havre.” I'd been thinking ahead. While I hated to leave the comforts of Paris, it would be the first place any enemies would look for me. How long before Leclerc learned I was dallying with his wife? “I have pressing business in America.”

“Then we must make the most of your time here.” She rapped the coach roof again. “Henri! The coast road!”

“Yes, madame.”

She turned back to me. “We'll take you to a public coach, but only when we are far enough away from Mortefontaine that you're safe. Meanwhile, I have glasses in the compartment there. Let us toast.”

“To survival?”

“Monsieur Gage, I always survive. To reunion!”

As we clinked glasses I heard the echo of an explosion through the estate's forests and looked out the window. There was a glow, two rockets arcing through the air. My assailants apparently
had
followed my carriage. And ransacked my things.