States must confine the British to Canada or they’ll take it all! Between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, they dominate. But Louisiana! That’s the real question. Who will control America to the Pacific? Which is why I looked you up, Ethan, even though I’m a busy man, very busy indeed. You’re in danger, you know.”
“If you mean Bloodhammer’s enemies…”
“I don’t know who they are or what they want, but rumors are rife that bad sorts have their eye on you. Millions of square miles are at stake, and a man who has worked for the British, the French, and the Americans in turn is in a position to make a difference—and have foes. You’re quite the momentary celebrity, Ethan Gage, but lie low, lie low. New York can be a dangerous, brutal city.”
“Anyone who meets me knows I mean no harm.”
“Anyone you meet could do you harm. That’s a fact. I understand you have a rifle?”
“Made by a craftsman in Jerusalem.”
“Keep it as close as a frontiersman, Ethan. Keep it as ready as a Minute Man.”
Chapter 12
N OT KNOWING HOW TO EXPLAIN THE N ORWEGIAN AND HIS odd theories, I took him to dinners and balls as an example of an oversized Scandinavian idealist come to see democracy in action.
“So you’re a man of liberty yourself, Mr., er, Bloodhammer?”
“The Danes are our British,” he would growl.
“And you hope to emulate our republic?”
“I want to be the Norwegian Washington.”
When I confided Astor’s warning he took to wearing his map case like an arrow quiver everywhere we went, and with his eye patch, his cloak, and a new cane topped with an ivory unicorn’s head, its horn a steel protuberance, he was inconspicuous as a rooster in a henhouse. “We should go west now ,” he insisted.
“We can’t in the dead of winter.”
In February word finally came that a president had indeed been chosen. “Ethan, shouldn’t we be journeying on to Washington?” Magnus pressed.
“Exploration needs money,” I said as I dealt another hand of faro,which I was playing along with piquet, basset and whist. “Talleyrand’s silver dollars are already half-gone.” Like so many men, I consistently ignored the good advice I gave others, particularly about gambling. But my real reason for stalling was that we’d recently been given hospitality, thanks to my minor fame, in the home of one Angus Philbrick. He had a young German serving girl with braids that bounced on her breasts like drumsticks, and I suspected she’d be a fine bedwarmer if I had just a day or two more to practice diplomacy. The fact that I knew no German, or she English, seemed an advantage.
It’s true that Magnus and I had been experiencing a curious run of bad luck I blamed on coincidence. There was a sausage cart that somehow got away from its donkey and almost ran us down. Then a fire in a hotel that led to Philbrick’s offer of temporary shelter. We’d slipped on a midnight sheet of ice from a carelessly spilled bucket, our downhill skid arrested only by the horn of Bloodhammer’s cane, which sent up a shower of sparks. Hooded figures coming up to presumably assist us took one look at the potential weapon in the fist of my hulking, one-eyed companion and disappeared.
“I think we’ve been followed,” Magnus concluded.
“Across the ocean? You’re daft, man.”
That night, however, when I arranged for Gwendolyn to come to my room and tidy up when the others were abed, our Manhattan sojourn came to an abrupt end. She arrived as promised, and performed as hoped, and I had drifted off when something—the click of the door and the scrape of heavy furniture, perhaps—startled me awake. Gwendolyn’s place beside me was cooling, and there was an odd smell to the air. I slipped on my nightshirt, went to the door, but couldn’t pull it inward: it felt like the latch on the other side was tied to a dresser or chest jammed against the outer wall. I sniffed. Sulfur? I looked more closely. Smoke
“If you mean Bloodhammer’s enemies…”
“I don’t know who they are or what they want, but rumors are rife that bad sorts have their eye on you. Millions of square miles are at stake, and a man who has worked for the British, the French, and the Americans in turn is in a position to make a difference—and have foes. You’re quite the momentary celebrity, Ethan Gage, but lie low, lie low. New York can be a dangerous, brutal city.”
“Anyone who meets me knows I mean no harm.”
“Anyone you meet could do you harm. That’s a fact. I understand you have a rifle?”
“Made by a craftsman in Jerusalem.”
“Keep it as close as a frontiersman, Ethan. Keep it as ready as a Minute Man.”
Chapter 12
N OT KNOWING HOW TO EXPLAIN THE N ORWEGIAN AND HIS odd theories, I took him to dinners and balls as an example of an oversized Scandinavian idealist come to see democracy in action.
“So you’re a man of liberty yourself, Mr., er, Bloodhammer?”
“The Danes are our British,” he would growl.
“And you hope to emulate our republic?”
“I want to be the Norwegian Washington.”
When I confided Astor’s warning he took to wearing his map case like an arrow quiver everywhere we went, and with his eye patch, his cloak, and a new cane topped with an ivory unicorn’s head, its horn a steel protuberance, he was inconspicuous as a rooster in a henhouse. “We should go west now ,” he insisted.
“We can’t in the dead of winter.”
In February word finally came that a president had indeed been chosen. “Ethan, shouldn’t we be journeying on to Washington?” Magnus pressed.
“Exploration needs money,” I said as I dealt another hand of faro,which I was playing along with piquet, basset and whist. “Talleyrand’s silver dollars are already half-gone.” Like so many men, I consistently ignored the good advice I gave others, particularly about gambling. But my real reason for stalling was that we’d recently been given hospitality, thanks to my minor fame, in the home of one Angus Philbrick. He had a young German serving girl with braids that bounced on her breasts like drumsticks, and I suspected she’d be a fine bedwarmer if I had just a day or two more to practice diplomacy. The fact that I knew no German, or she English, seemed an advantage.
It’s true that Magnus and I had been experiencing a curious run of bad luck I blamed on coincidence. There was a sausage cart that somehow got away from its donkey and almost ran us down. Then a fire in a hotel that led to Philbrick’s offer of temporary shelter. We’d slipped on a midnight sheet of ice from a carelessly spilled bucket, our downhill skid arrested only by the horn of Bloodhammer’s cane, which sent up a shower of sparks. Hooded figures coming up to presumably assist us took one look at the potential weapon in the fist of my hulking, one-eyed companion and disappeared.
“I think we’ve been followed,” Magnus concluded.
“Across the ocean? You’re daft, man.”
That night, however, when I arranged for Gwendolyn to come to my room and tidy up when the others were abed, our Manhattan sojourn came to an abrupt end. She arrived as promised, and performed as hoped, and I had drifted off when something—the click of the door and the scrape of heavy furniture, perhaps—startled me awake. Gwendolyn’s place beside me was cooling, and there was an odd smell to the air. I slipped on my nightshirt, went to the door, but couldn’t pull it inward: it felt like the latch on the other side was tied to a dresser or chest jammed against the outer wall. I sniffed. Sulfur? I looked more closely. Smoke
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