Ethan Gage Collection # 1

by William Dietrich

  At Joseph Bonaparte’s request, I’d brought along the longrifle I’d helped forge in Jerusalem. A nasty thief named Najac had knocked the piece about, but I’d disposed of him by pushing a ramrod through his heart and later paid twenty francs to restore the stock’s finish. Now I gave a demonstration of the gun’s accuracy. I broke a teacup at one hundred paces and struck a cavalry breastplate five times running at twice that distance, a perforation that impressed officers resigned to the stray aim of muskets. While more than one soldier remarked on the tedious time the rifle took to load, they also said it explained the feared accuracy of our frontiersmen in the North American wars. “A hunting piece,” one colonel judged, not inaccurately. “Light to carry, wickedly accurate. But look at the narrow neck! A conscript would break this beauty like a piece of china.”

  “Or learn to take care of it.” Yet I knew he was right, this was not practical for massed armies. Rifles clog with powder residue after half a dozen shots, while cruder muskets can be banged away by idiots—and are. A longrifle is a sniper’s gun. So I fired again, this time drilling a gold louis at fifty paces. Pretty ladies applauded and fanned themselves, uniformed men sighted down the barrel, and hunting dogs yelped and ran in furious circles.

  Napoleon arrived in the September glow of late afternoon, his open carriage drawn by six white horses, gold-helmeted cavalry clopping in escort, and cannon thumping in salute. A hundred paces back, his wife followed in an ivory-colored coach that gleamed like a pearl. They pulled up with a flourish, steeds snorting and pissing on pea gravel as liveried footmen swung doors open and grenadiers snapped to attention. Bonaparte stepped out in the uniform of his personal guard, a blue tunic with red and white collar, and a sword and scabbard with filigree of wrestling warriors and reclining goddesses. Far from haughty, he was gracious: the fame of the victor at the Pyramids and Marengo spoke for itself! You don’t rise to first consul without some measure of charm, and Napoleon could seduce grizzled sergeants, ladies of the salon, conniving politicians, and men of science in turn—or, if need be, all at once. His calculated sociability was on display this evening. He deferred to Lafayette, who’d helped my own country win independence, and toured the American peace commissioners through the gardens like a country squire. Finally, when the clocks chimed six, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the minister of foreign affairs, called us to hear the text of the treaty read.

  Josephine had popped out of her coach too, and it was all I could do not to scowl. Power became her, I must admit: Though never quite beautiful (her nose a little too sharp, her teeth a little too discolored), she was more charismatic than ever. She sported a string of pearls that had reportedly cost a quarter million francs, coaxing state finance ministers to cook the books so the strand would escape Bonaparte’s scrutiny. Yet no one else begrudged her the jewels. While her husband’s moods could be mercurial, she was consistently well-mannered in gatherings like this, her smile earnest as if the wellbeing of every guest were her personal concern. Thanks to my help, she’d staved off divorce after cheating on Napoleon and in a few years would find herself empress. But the ungrateful wench had betrayed me and my Egyptian love Astiza, sending us into Temple Prison as payment, and it was because I hadn’t forgiven her that the risk of rutting with Bonaparte’s sister Pauline was somehow more tempting. I wanted to tup a Bonaparte as I’d been tupped. I’d been made a fool of (not the first time), and Josephine’s inevitable presence as first lady, beaming as if she’d won the Revolution’s lottery, was to me a small cloud on an otherwise brilliant day. Widowed by the Terror, she’d bet on the young Corsican and improbably found herself in the Tuileries Palace.

  If Josephine brought back pained memories of Astiza’s parting, I was flattered that the American commissioners who’d sought my counsel were generous enough to offer public thanks. Oliver Ellsworth had worked on my nation’s Constitution and served as chief justice of the Supreme Court before taking on this diplomatic task. The two Bills were almost equally renowned: William Richardson Davie, a hero of the Revolutionary War, and William Vans Murray, a Maryland congressman who was now ambassador to the Netherlands. All three had risked the diplomatic snubbing earlier envoys had received in hopes of salvaging John Adams’s sagging presidency. I, their adviser, was younger and rawer and a frustrated treasure hunter, gambler, sharpshooter, and adventurer who had somehow wound up on both the French and the British sides in the recent fighting in Egypt and the Holy Land. But I’d also served briefly as an assistant to the late, great Franklin, had a growing reputation as an “electrician” myself, and—most importantly—had Bonaparte’s ear when he was inclined to listen. We were both rogues (Napoleon was simply better at it than me), and he trusted me as a fellow opportunist. Honorable men are hard to control, but those of us with self-interested common sense are more predictable. So after Marengo I was enlisted as go-between, shuttling from Talleyrand to the impatient Americans, and here we were, making peace.

  “What I like about you, Gage, is that you focus on what is practical, not what is consistent,” Bonaparte whispered at one point.

  “And what I like about you, First Consul, is that you’re as happy to use an enemy as to destroy him,” I cheerfully replied. “You tried to have me executed, what, three or four times? And here we are, partners in peace.” It’s splendid how things work out, the English captain Sir Sidney Smith had told me.

  “Not partners. I am the sculptor, you are the tool. But I care about my tools.”

  This was hardly flattering, but part of the man’s charm was his blunt, sometimes clumsy honesty. He’d tell women their dresses were too bright or their waists too thick, because he liked his females slim, demure, and dressed in white, apparently as part of some fantasy of virginal beauty. He got away with it because his power was an aphrodisiac. I, meanwhile, was learning to be a diplomat. “And I appreciate your toolbox, Paris.”

  I can be obsequious when I’m in the mood, and Napoleon’s chambers at the Tuileries were littered with grand plans to make his city the most beautiful in the world. The theater was flourishing from new government subsidies, the tax and civil codes were being overhauled, the economy was recovering, and the Austrians were beaten. Even the whores dressed better! The man was a brilliant rascal, and gambling salons were so crowded with newcomers that I’d been able to supplement my modest salary with winnings from drunks and fools. Things were going so well that I should have crawled into a hole and braced for the worst, but optimism is like wine. It makes us take chances.

  So here I was at the French château of the first consul’s brother, semirespectable to my American brethren, and with a certain cachet as a savant who had charged a chain to electrocute attaching soldiers at 1799’s siege of Acre in the Holy Land. The fact that I’d done this for the British side, not the French, seemed to bother no one, since I was presumed to have no real loyalties or convictions in the first place. Rumors that I had slain a prostitute (absolutely untrue) and burned a sorcerer (accurate, but he had it coming) simply added to my allure. Between that, my longrifle, and my tomahawk, I was accorded the distinction of being a potentially dangerous man, and there is nothing more likely to raise a flush on the neck of a lady.

  I sat smugly through the interminable speeches (my name was actually mentioned, twice) and ate energetically at the state dinner since the food was better than what I could normally afford. I pretended to modesty as I shared adventures that left me with a reputation as somewhat diabolical, or at least oddly durable. Many leading Americans were Freemasons, and theories of Knights Templar and ancient mysteries intrigued them.

  “There may be more to those old gods and ancient ways than we modern men of science have allowed,” I said grandly as if I knew what I was talking about. “There are still secrets worth recovering, gentlemen. Mysteries yet veiled.” Then we joined in toasts to martyrs for liberty and finally stood from the ceremony. My vanity satisfied, I looked forward to a night of gaming, dancing, and sexual conquest.

  The music
began and I wandered, gaping like the American I was, at the splendor of French architecture. Mortefontaine made the fancy houses I’d seen in my homeland seem like stables, and Joseph was sparing no expense—now that his brood had access to the French treasury—at making it even better.

  “Grand, but not entirely different from our new home for our president,” a voice murmured at my side.

  I turned. It was Davie, amiable after those champagne toasts. He was handsome, with thick hair, long muttonchops, and a strong, cleft chin. Being in his midforties, he was a good ten years older than me.

  “Really? If they produce this in that swamp between Virginia and Maryland, my nation has come a long way indeed.”

  “The president’s house is actually based on a government building in Ireland—used to be a Masonic temple, I understand—and yes, quite grand for a new nation.”

  “They use a Masonic lodge for the president? And what an extraordinary idea, building a new capital in the middle of nowhere!”

  “It was the fact that it was nowhere—and near Washington’s home—that made political agreement possible. The government is moving into a place that has more stumps than statues, but our capital of Washington, or Columbia, is expected to grow into itself. Our nation has doubled in population since Lexington and Concord, and victory against the Indians has opened the Ohio country.”

  “The French say that they rut like rabbits and we Americans breed like them.”

  “You are a confirmed expatriate, Mr. Gage?”

  “More a confirmed admirer of the civilization that produced this château, Mr. Davie. I do not always like the French—I even found myself fighting them, at Acre—but I like their capital, their food, their wines, their women, and, at this scale, their houses.” I picked up a new novelty from one of the tables, chocolate that had been cleverly hardened into little squares instead of taken as liquid in a cup. Some ingenious Italian had solidified the delicacy and the French made it fashionable. Knowing how quickly fortunes can turn, I pocketed a fistful of them.

  Good thing, for they were about to save my life.

  Chapter 2

  “YOU WOULD NOT CONSIDER RETURNING HOME, THEN?” DAVIE asked me.

  “Frankly, I’d planned to, but then I became embroiled in Napoleon’s recent Italian campaign and these negotiations. The opportunity has not arisen, and perhaps I can do more for my country here in France.” I’d been seduced by the place, as Franklin and Jefferson had been.

  “Indeed. And yet you’re a Franklin man, are you not? Our new expert on the science of electricity?”

  “I’ve done some experiments.” Including the harnessing of lightning in a lost city and turning myself into a friction battery to ignite my arch-enemy, but I didn’t add that. Rumors floated, and they served my reputation well enough.

  “The reason I ask is that our delegation has encountered a gentleman from Norway who has a particular curiosity about your expertise. He thinks you may be able to enlighten each other. Would you care to meet him?”

  “Norway?” I had a vague mental picture of snow, dank forest, and a medieval economy. I knew people lived up there, but it was hard to understand why.

  “Governed by Denmark, but increasingly interested in its own independence after our American example. His extraordinary name is Magnus Bloodhammer—it’s of Viking origin, apparently—and his looks fit his moniker. He’s an eccentric, like you.”

  “I prefer to think of myself as individualistic.”

  “I would say you both are…open-minded. If we find him, I’ll introduce you.”

  A modicum of fame requires you to meet people, so I shrugged. But I was in no hurry to make conversation about electricity with a Norwegian (to tell the truth, I always worried about betraying my own considerable ignorance), so I had us stop at the first amusement we came to, a new gambling device called a roulette, or “little wheel.” Paulette was playing there.

  The French have taken an English device and improved upon it, adding two colors, more numbers, and a patterned board that offers intriguing betting possibilities. You can wager on anything, from a single number to half the wheel, and play the odds accordingly. It’s been eagerly seized on by a nation enthralled with risk, fate, and destiny since the Terror. I don’t play roulette as much as cards, as there is little skill, but I like the convivial crowding at the tables, men smelling of smoke and cologne, ladies leaning provocatively to give a glimpse of décolletage, and croupiers raking chips as adroitly as fencers. Napoleon frowns on both the wheel and the new female exhibitionism, but he’s smart enough not to prohibit either.

  I talked Davie into placing a small bet or two, which he promptly lost. Competitive enough to bet again, and then again, he lost still more. Some men are not born to gamble. I repaid his losses from my own modest winnings, earned by conservative wagers on column and row. Pauline, excitedly leaning across from me, bet more recklessly. She lost money I’m sure she’d been given by her famous brother, but then did win a single number at odds of 35 to 1 and clapped her hands, squeezing her breasts together most enchantingly. She was the loveliest of Napoleon’s siblings, sought after by portraitists and sculptors. There were reports she was posing in the nude.

  “Madame, it seems your skill matches your beauty,” I congratulated.

  She laughed. “I have my brother’s luck!” She wasn’t particularly bright, but she was loyal, the kind who’d stick to Bonaparte long after craftier friends and siblings had deserted him.

  “We Americans could learn from a Venus such as you.”

  “But, Monsieur Gage,” she returned, her eyelids flashing like a semaphore, “I am told you are a man of much experience already.”

  I gave a slight bow.

  “You served with my brother in Egypt in the company of savants,” she went on. “Yet found yourself opposed to him at Acre, embroiled with him at 18 Brumaire when he took power, and allied yet again at Marengo. You seem a master of all positions.”

  The girl did make herself clear. “Like a dance, it’s all in the partner.”

  Davie, no doubt seeing banter with the first consul’s married sister as a diplomatic disaster in the making, cleared his throat. “I don’t seem to share the luck of you and the lady, Mr. Gage.”

  “Ah, but you really do,” I said generously—and honestly. “I’ll tell you the secret of gambling, Davie. You lose eventually as certainly as we all die eventually. The game is about hope, and the mathematics about defeat and death. The trick is to beat the arithmetic for a moment, take your winnings, and run. Very few can do that, because optimism trumps sense. Which is why you should own the wheel, not play it.”

  “Yet you have a reputation as a gambling winner, sir.”

  “Of battles, not the war. I am not a rich man.”

  “But an honest one, it seems. So why do you play?”

  “I can improve my odds by taking advantage of the less practiced. More important is the game itself, as Bonaparte himself told me. The play’s the thing.”

  “You are a philosopher!”

  “All of us ponder the mystery of life. Those of us with no answers deal at cards.”

  Davie smiled. “So perhaps we should adjourn to a table and let us supplement your income by playing pharaon. I suspect you can handle your rustic countrymen. I see Bloodhammer over there, and there’s considerable curiosity about these experiments of yours. Moreover, I understand you’ve experience in the fur trade?”

  “In my youth. I daresay I’ve seen some of the world. A cruel, fascinating, rather unreliable planet, I’ve concluded. So, yes, let’s have some claret and you can ask me what you’d like. Perhaps the lady would care to join us?”

  “After my luck turns here, Monsieur Gage.” She winked. “I do not have your discipline to retreat when I am ahead.”

  I sat with the men, conversing impatiently until Pauline—I was thinking of her as a pretty Paulette by now—could drift over. Ellsworth wanted to hear about the Egyptian monuments that were already inspiring Nap
oleon’s plans for Paris. Vans Murray was curious about the Holy Land. Davie beckoned to the odd bear of a man lurking in the shadows, the Norwegian he’d referred to earlier, and bade him sit. This Magnus was tall like me, but thicker, with a fisherman’s rough, reddened face. He had an eye patch like a pirate’s—his other eye was icy blue—and a thick nose, high forehead, and bushy beard: most unfashionable in 1800. There was that wild glint of the dreamer to him that was quite disturbing.

  “Gage, this is the gentleman I told you about. Magnus, Ethan Gage.”

  Bloodhammer looked like a Viking, all right, as ill fit in a gray suit as a buffalo in a bonnet. He gripped the table as if to overthrow it.

  “Unusual to meet a man from the north, sir,” I said, a little wary. “What brings you to France?”

  “Studies,” the Norwegian replied in a rumbling bass. “I’m investigating mysteries from the past in hope of influencing my nation’s future. I’ve heard of you, Mr. Gage, and your own remarkable scholarship.”

  “Curiosity at best. I’m very much the amateur savant.” Yes, I can be modest when women aren’t around. “I suspect the ancients knew something of electricity’s strange power, and we’ve forgotten what we once knew. Bonaparte almost had me shot in the garden outside the Tuileries, but decided to retain me on the chance I might be useful.”

  “And my brother spared a beautiful Egyptian woman at the same time, I heard,” Pauline murmured. She’d come up behind us, smelling of violets.

  “Yes, my former companion Astiza, who decided to return to Egypt to continue her studies when Napoleon talked of sending me as an emissary to America. Parting was sweet sorrow, as they say.” In truth I longed for her, yet also felt unshackled from her intensity. I was lonely and empty, but free.

  “But you’re not in America,” Ellsworth said. “You’re here with us.”

  “Well, President Adams was sending you three here. It seemed best to wait in Paris to lend a hand. I do have a weakness for gaming, and the little wheel is rather mesmerizing, don’t you think?”