The Dakota Cipher Read online

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  And so Aurora Somerset made her entry. Like Cecil, she descended from the upper floor, but while he had stepped down regally, she seemed to float in her floor-length gown, as if riding a cloud down the flaming rainbow bridge Bifrost in Bloodhammer’s Asgard. Her presence as a white woman was reason enough for the company’s appreciation, but it was her beauty that took us all aback, even the stolid Indians. She was an exquisite portrait come to life, a sculptor’s ideal given animation. A cascading torrent of auburn ringlets framed an aristocratic face of high cheekbones and fine chin, her eyes emerald, her nose upturned, her smile a dazzling display of perfect teeth and pouty, rouged lips so sensual as to make a man think of a woman’s little purse below. There was a beauty mark on one cheek that called out to be kissed, and whether real or pasted it hardly mattered, did it? A newly fashionable high-waisted dress called attention to the glory of her bosom, an inch of cleavage revealed and the silk wonderfully betraying the bump of her covered nipples. The shimmering pink fabric clung to a classical form, hips swaying as she descended, and the slippers that peeked out at bottom were embroidered with tiny seed pearls. Her crown was a small turban sporting what looked like an ostrich plume, and at her throat was a silver choker with a large emerald to complement her eyes. The very candles seemed to bow to her passage, and her gaze danced across the crowd of men before settling on Lord Somerset and, I was certain, me.

  I grinned. I was in love, or at least besotted with lust, the two easily confused in us men. It’s shameful to be so shallow, but by Casanova’s court, she stirred the juices: the most impressive piece of architecture I’d seen since leaving Mortefontaine, and the best painted, too, her lips cherry and cheeks peach. Aurora was as transfixing as a cobra, as frightening as temptation, and as irresistible as Eve’s apple.

  ‘That one’s more trouble than Pauline Bonaparte,’ Magnus whispered. He could be as annoyingly corrective as a parson at a wine press.

  ‘But not necessarily more trouble than she’s worth.’

  ‘Cecil,’ she trilled, ‘you did not tell me our company would be so handsome!’ She beamed at all of us, and more than one grizzled, wilderness-hardened Scot fur-monger blinked and blushed. She eyed Tecumseh as well and licked a lip, but the young chief was alone in regarding her as nothing more than pretty furniture. For just an instant she betrayed annoyed uncertainty, and then her gaze swept on.

  I, in contrast, bowed like a courtier. ‘Lady Somerset. The advertisement of your beauty does not do you justice.’

  ‘It’s so wonderful to have an excuse to dress up. And you must be the remarkable Ethan Gage.’ She held out a slim white hand to be brushed with my lips. ‘Cecil told me you know all kinds of secrets, of electricity and ancient powers.’

  ‘Which I reveal only to my confidants.’ I grinned and Magnus rolled his eyes.

  ‘That sets me a goal, doesn’t it?’ She spread a fan and veiled herself a moment behind it. ‘I so want to hear of your adventures. I do hope we can be friends.’

  ‘Your cousin has been suggesting much the same thing. But a man with the reputation of Mr Simon Girty is going to give any American pause, I’m afraid. I don’t want to be perceived as a traitor in the company I keep, Lady Somerset.’

  ‘Call me Aurora, please. And friendship does not betray anyone, does it?’

  ‘Some have accused me of having too many friends and too few convictions.’

  ‘And I think some cling to conviction because they have no friends.’ She fluttered her fan.

  ‘Ethan was just telling us what he’s doing in the northwest,’ Cecil Somerset prompted.

  ‘I enjoy travel,’ I said.

  ‘With giant Norwegians,’ he amended.

  ‘Another friend, again. I am oddly popular.’

  Magnus put his hand on my shoulder. ‘We both are students of Freemasonry. Did you know, Lord Somerset, that many of the American generals your armies fought in the Revolution were Masons? Is it possible you are one yourself?’

  ‘I hardly think so.’ He sniffed. ‘Rather odd group, I think. There was some scandalous offshoot in London …’ He turned to his cousin. ‘Egyptian Rite?’

  ‘It is reported the secret Egyptian Rite admitted women and that their ceremonies were quite erotic,’ Aurora said. ‘Occult and succulently scandalous.’

  ‘For a secret you seem to know a lot about it,’ Magnus said.

  ‘Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead,’ I put in. ‘Ben Franklin said that.’

  Aurora laughed. ‘How true! And Norwegians don’t gossip, Mr Bloodhammer? What do they do up there all winter?’ Magnus turned even redder than his normal apple hue.

  I knew that my dispatched enemy Silano had been a member of that Egyptian Rite, and it was interesting that this English pair knew of that organisation. But then the cult had been salon talk in London and Paris, and it was Magnus who had brought up Freemasonry. Despite my misgivings about Girty, I enjoyed the poised presence of this pair. Their elegant style reminded me of Europe. ‘You have sauce to travel into the wild, Aurora.’

  ‘Au contraire, Mr Gage, I have trunks and trunks of clothes. Cecil complains of it all the time, don’t you, cousin?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’m moving a woman or a caravan.’

  ‘For any proper lady it’s necessity. Our comforts introduce civilisation. This is why you should come with us, Mr Gage. The scenery is the same no matter how you go, so why not enjoy it with a proper brandy? Have you tried the American corn whiskey?’ She shuddered. ‘Might as well drink turpentine.’

  ‘Come with you?’ Sharing a boat with the British was contrary to the intentions of my American and French sponsors, but whiling away the journey with Aurora Somerset was tempting. I could learn what the English are up to.

  ‘We’re travelling to Grand Portage for the summer rendezvous. Surely that is in the direction you and your Norwegian companion are travelling anyway?’

  ‘We were planning to take American transport,’ Magnus said.

  ‘Which apparently doesn’t exist,’ I quickly added. ‘Our reception at Fort Detroit has been less than reassuring.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Somerset said. ‘Frightful discipline, what? I do hope your young nation can hold onto the northwest.’ I recognised from his condescension that he hoped just the opposite, but that was not my concern.

  ‘Can you explain the summer rendezvous?’

  ‘Each spring,’ Cecil said, ‘the posts in the Canadian interior package the furs they’ve acquired during the winter from trade and trapping and canoe them south and east to the fort at Grand Portage. Meanwhile, the North West Company sends freight canoes full of fresh trade goods for the Indians west from Montreal. The two groups rendezvous at the fort, frolic in the grandest party ever, exchange the furs for the trade goods, and reverse their paths before the ice returns. The Montreal party takes the furs back for global distribution, and the voyageurs take the trade goods to the interior posts. We plan to meet the freight canoes at Michilimackinac, near the head of Lake Huron. It’s the safest, quickest, easiest way to go west.’

  Once again, my charm had solved all our problems! Instead of a military escort and the rigors of camping, I’d head northwest in luxury. ‘But what of your other guests?’ While Aurora would be a delightful companion, Girty made me fear for my scalp.

  ‘They’re simply here for the evening, Mr Gage,’ Cecil assured. ‘Mr Girty is a near neighbour of Mr Duff, and unlike the Americans we try to cultivate friendship and alliance with the Indians. I frankly was surprised at your reaction: the War of Rebellion is old, old history, and Girty and Brant are old, old warriors. Let the past rest. It’s future peace that you and I need to work to guarantee. The continent divided, as I said, each group with its sphere of influence. What could be more harmonious than that?’

  Magnus put a hand on my arm. ‘Ethan, we’re on a mission for Jefferson and the French.’ He looked at Aurora with suspicion.

  I shook him off. �
�Part of which is to maintain peace with the English.’

  Cecil beamed. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I don’t entirely believe in missions,’ I went on. ‘People who are absolutely certain of things seem to do most of the shooting, in my experience, because they collide with people equally certain about the opposite thing. Yet how can we be certain of anything?’

  ‘You are a philosopher, sir, and one after my own heart. If people simply lived for themselves, and tolerated others, like my cousin and I, then friendship would be universal.’

  I looked at Aurora. ‘Given my experiences with both sides in the Orient, I can think of no one better than myself to bridge the unfortunate gap between France, England, and America. With the close cooperation of the Somersets, of course.’

  ‘Mr Gage, I want to work in intimate partnership,’ Aurora said.

  ‘Please, call me Ethan.’

  ‘Ethan …’ Magnus nagged. ‘People who agree with everything end up being used by everyone.’

  ‘Or helped.’ I was more than happy to be used by Aurora Somerset. Let Magnus be a Templar; I was ready to enjoy life. ‘Here we are all headed in the same direction and after much the same goal. We’ll accompany you to Grand Portage, Lord Somerset, and then go our separate ways.’ I smiled at his cousin. ‘I want to watch you spread civilisation.’

  ‘And I want to put you in the middle of things when I do.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I sent Colonel Stone a note announcing we would accompany the Somersets on my mission for Jefferson, just in case someone back in Washington wondered what the devil had become of us. I didn’t go to the officer in person because I didn’t want to risk him offering alternative transportation, costing me the chance to escort the lovely and enticingly risky Aurora. I persuaded the dubious Magnus that this was the fastest way to get to the supposed hiding place of Thor’s hammer, and that it never hurt to have countries like Britain on your side if you were trying to liberate your country from the Danes. ‘This way, no matter who prevails in the struggle between England and France, you’ll be allied with the winner!’

  ‘And an object of revenge for the loser,’ he grumbled with annoying logic.

  We boarded a cutter, Swallow, for a trip up Lake Huron to the American post at Mackinac Island. From there, we’d join the freight canoes taking trade goods to Grand Portage. Then a jaunt into the interior, a quick glance around for blue-eyed Indians, woolly elephants, and electric hammers, and back to civilisation with treasure at best, burnished reputation at the least.

  It’s good to have new friends.

  I did have a moment of disquiet when I saw, as I waited for the last trunks and servants to be loaded, that Lord Somerset was holding an intense conversation with Girty, Brant, and Tecumseh on the lawn of Alexander Duff’s house and that glances were cast my way. I feared for a moment that the trio meant to join us, but no, they looked hard in our direction and then gestured goodbye to Cecil, as if some decision had been made. I had, after all, the protection of my new president and the first consul of France. With that, the aristocrat strode aboard, nodded as if to reassure me, and we cast off for the north, firing a salute to Detroit on the opposite shore. No canoe full of American officers came out, begging me to come back and become their responsibility.

  We passed wooded Ile Aux Cochons, or Hog Island, where feral pigs were still hunted, and anchored that night on Saint Clair, which would be a giant lake in any other country but hardly a puddle in this one. The next morning we rose after sunrise, breakfasted pleasantly on tea, biscuits, and cold cuts left from Duff’s party, and were on our way again in a building breeze. This was the way to travel! I stretched out on deck to take in the view as we made our way up the Saint Clair River to Lake Huron, while Magnus studied his maps of vast blank spaces and Somerset bent to fur trade bookkeeping. Even aristocrats have to work, it seemed.

  Aurora and I got on famously. She found my stories about Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and his unsuccessful siege of Acre the height of entertainment, never failing to laugh gaily at my little jokes with that flattery that goes with flirtation. She was, I presumed, understandably smitten by my charm, inflated reputation, and agreeable good looks. I related bright little stories about Sir Sidney Smith and Bonaparte, Franklin and Berthollet, old Jerusalem and ancient Egypt … and now I had descriptions of mercantile New York, rustic Washington, and the curious new president to offer as well! The Somersets in turn told me how threatening Bonaparte seemed to England and how they hoped his acquisition of Louisiana would not set off a new North American war. ‘You and I must work to keep the peace, Ethan,’ Aurora said.

  ‘I prefer affection to fighting.’

  ‘Someday, England and America will be reconciled.’

  ‘Reunion can start with us!’

  Aurora and I had both met Nelson, I on a warship and she in London, and the lady was brimming with gossip about his rumoured infatuation with Emma Hamilton, a one-time adventuress who had married well and was sleeping her way even higher. ‘She’s a beauty with her portraits all over London, and he’s the greatest hero of the age,’ Aurora sighed. ‘It’s magnificent scandal!’ There was envy in her voice.

  ‘You’ll eclipse her, I’m sure.’

  Cecil educated us on fur politics in Canada. The Hudson’s Bay Company operated from its huge namesake in the north and had the advantage of being able to transport its trade goods to the shore of the bay in cargo ships, meaning shorter river distances to trading posts in the Canadian interior. Magnus nodded at this, since his theory was that his Norsemen had used the same route. The Bay Company’s disadvantage was short summers and long winters. The rival North West Company, dominated by Scots who employed French voyageurs in long-distance canoes, operated out of Montreal on an epic, five-thousand-mile water route across the Great Lakes and connecting rivers. Their season was longer, but they were limited to canoes, requiring an immense workforce of two thousand men. And then there was Astor, who had organised trappers on the American side of the border and monopolised the fur trade going to New York via the Mohawk and Hudson rivers.

  ‘Each route has its advantages and problems, and the sensible thing would be to form an alliance,’ Somerset said. ‘Cooperation always achieves more than competition, don’t you think?’

  ‘Like us on this boat. You sail me to Mackinac, and I’ll use my letter of introduction from Jefferson to smooth the way with the American garrison. We have a little league of nations here, with you representing England, Magnus Norway, and me America with ties to France.’ I looked at Aurora. ‘Partnership has its pleasures.’

  I wished the boat had been bigger so the girl and I could get off by ourselves, but each night she commandeered the captain’s private cabin like a pampered princess while we dozen men slept on deck between the trunks, bags, satchels, and shipments that made up the Somerset luggage. There were Fitch, a cook, a butler, a French Canadian maid who slept in Aurora’s cabin, and a master-of-arms who looked after the assortment of sporting weaponry and swords that Cecil had brought with him. The English lord greeted each dawn with fencing exercises at which he thrust and slashed while balanced on the bowsprit, the captain keeping a wary eye lest the nobleman cut an important line.

  Meanwhile, civilisation slipped steadily away.

  As we sailed north on the vast freshwater sea that is Lake Huron, the sky seemed to inflate, stretching to ever-emptier horizons. The shoreline, when we could see it, was a flat, unbroken expanse of forest. Not a white village, nor a farm, nor even a lonely cabin broke its endless green face. We once passed an Indian encampment, bark wigwams set on a sandy shore, but spotted only a couple of figures, a wisp of smoke, and a single beached canoe. Another time I saw wolves loping on a sand beach and my throat caught at their easy wildness. Eagles soared overhead, otters splashed in the shallows, but the world seemed emptied of people. The planet had turned back to something infinite, pristine, and yet oddly intimidating. Here, Earth didn’t care. The custodial God of Europe had been
displaced by the lonely wind and the spirits of the Indians. So much space, such yawning possibility, everything unrealised! Even in bright sunlight, the great northern forest seemed cold as the stars. Nothing and no one out here had ever heard of the famed Ethan Gage, hero of the pyramids and Acre. I had shrunk to insignificance.

  While the crew of the ship regarded this unbroken forest as so expected and monotonous to be beyond comment, Magnus was transfixed by the ceaseless rank of trees. ‘This was the world of the gods who were the first men,’ he said to me as we cruised. ‘This is what it all was once like, Ethan. Great heroes wandered without leaving a mark.’

  ‘It’s the world of the Potawatomi and the Ottawa,’ I replied. ‘And whatever they are, it’s not gods. You’ve seen a few: poor, diseased, and drunk.’

  ‘But they remember more than we do,’ he insisted. ‘They’re closer to the source. And we’ve just seen the ones corrupted by our world. Wait until we get to theirs.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mackinac Island was a green knob between the reflecting blue platters of lake and sky, its American garrison of ninety men guarding the straits that led to Lake Michigan. It represented the edge of the United States. Beyond were only British posts, trappers, and tribes. Our little cutter banged a one-gun salute as we coasted into the island pier, and the fort replied in turn, the bark of its guns flushing great clouds of birds from the forest and then echoing away into emptiness.

  The fort was in the shape of a triangle, with three blockhouses and two ramparts for cannon, earth and stone on the water side, and a log stockade facing the land. The high white officers’ quarters, with hipped roof and twin chimneys, was the dominant building. Other cabins and sheds marked out a parade ground. The forest was cut back around the fort to make pasture and cropland, giving the outpost light to breathe.