Three Emperors (9780062194138) (29 page)

“You thought you killed me, didn't you, witch? Maimed me with your evil trick. But I'm not one to die.”

He stepped forward, or rather staggered, a cross between a waddle and a limp. If Richter had lost his lower face, Auric had lost his right side, the very bones of his jaw caved in and his triumphant grin missing half its teeth. His leg was twisted, his hands burned even more horribly than before. Yet those hands gripped a new set of small pistols.

I realized that he'd been the rider I saw splitting from Richter's group, sent to guard against any escape through a backdoor in the castle.

“Why can't you leave us alone?” My question was as hopeless as it was pointless.

“I swore eternal vengeance, Ethan Gage. Burned, crushed, bleeding, and I knew I had only one purpose left in life. I insisted to Richter that he bring me on a pony, and when the others blundered ahead into the castle and fired off enough shots to win at Austerlitz, I wondered what other escape you might find. You're a worm, but a clever one. A knife to a farmer's eye won me word of an old cave entrance, and the place on the river where you'd either exit or die.” He looked past us. “Where's Catherine?”

“Dead. Drowned.”

“Richter? The others?”

“Dead too.”

“And where's the Brazen Head? Where did you leave it?”

“There is no Brazen Head, Auric. It was all for nothing.”

“I don't believe you. Catherine Marceau would have killed you if there weren't an automaton. My master would have killed you. They needed you only as donkeys.”

“Let us go. It's over.”

“Oh, no.” He lifted the pistols, the pain of the effort twisting him even more. “It's only beginning. You can tell me, and pray I let your child die quickly. Or resist until I take him for roasting, and find the automaton on my own.”

“Auric, please,” Astiza pleaded. “Redeem your soul before it's eternally damned.”

“There is no soul.” He cocked the hammers. “That's the real secret of alchemy, sorceress. No soul, no ka, no spirit, and no stars. Only power.”

And then there was a sound like the thrum of bird wings, and the dwarf's head exploded.

Chapter 40

Astiza

L
ife has its own symmetries. Sometimes things are meant to happen. Sometimes deeds bring their own rewards. And so it was that Gideon Dray saved my husband yet again, saved me, saved my son—with a stone hurled with biblical vengeance.

One moment Auric Nachash was going to shoot us; the next he was brained with a rock the size of a pigeon egg, hurled by a sling that Ethan's Jew had fashioned from a strip of old leather. It was David and Goliath all over again, except this Goliath was a considerably smaller target. And it was the back of his head, not the front, that shattered into pieces.

The pistols fell into the snow.

Hate had kept the dwarf alive after my explosion, but whatever Auric had once meant to be had died long, long ago.

We were shocked, of course. Our executioner had been slain by an agency as sudden and unexpected as a lightning bolt. Neither of us quite knew what had happened, but then Gideon called out cautiously, “Ethan?” When my husband managed a wheezing bark in reply, he emerged from the trees and came toward us.

Dray let his sling trail in one hand and hefted the rock up and down in the other, contemplatively. He kicked his victim to make sure he was dead, then stepped forward to hug us.

“By what miracle?” my husband managed.

“I've been trailing the little ogre since yesterday afternoon. I'd no weapon to help in the castle gun battle, but I was appalled Auric had survived. I decided to track him, since the dwarf seemed to have a very certain plan of his own. I used a dead monk's belt to fashion a makeshift sling.”

“Where did you learn to wield it?”

“Jews are prohibited weapons. It's why we needed a golem. And without one, we learn to fight with fists, teeth, rocks, and slings. I've practiced all my life, even after joining the army. I was determined not to be helpless if the regiment ever ran out of ammunition.”

“Thank the gods,” Ethan said. “Or goddess,” he added, with a nod to me.

“I believe it is simply ‘God,' ” replied Gideon. “You owe Yahweh allegiance if you keep calling on me for rescue.” He looked around. “Are there others?”

“Some may emerge from the castle and hunt for us.”

“Ah. I sent that bunch flying in the other direction. Pulling a cowl over my head, I pretended to be a simple priest, telling them I saw a fugitive family run the opposite way in the snow. It will be some hours before they realize my deception.”

“We owe you for all time,” I said with fervor.

“No, madame, a good deed does not require repayment, or it is not truly good. Yet someday perhaps you can do your own good deed for me or my people, and that will be payment more proper.” He squatted. “And you, Harry, are you all right?”

My boy looked at our friend solemnly, his tears dried. “The bad man is finally dead.”

“So he is.” Gideon stood, looked about, and looked back at Ethan. “And where is it? I trust you found it?”

“Found what?”

“The Brazen Head.”

As strange as it seems, we actually needed to be reminded of what he was talking about, so traumatic was our encounter with the dwarf. Then we hesitated. Should we admit to its existence? We were embarrassed at its loss, but also protective of its watery grave. It would never be found by anyone. Except, perhaps, by us.

“It turned out not to be useful,” Ethan finally said. “It spoke in riddles.”

“What kind of riddles?”

“Nonsense things. Catherine destroyed it.”

He doubted us, as any intelligent man would, but he also didn't seem to lust for the machine. The Jews already had a golem, and wisely left it in an attic.

He inventoried our condition. “Every time we meet, you are soaked. Do you like being coated in ice?”

“I think we are done with swimming.”

“I doubt it. But you need shelter and a fire. And rest. And food. Here are some crusts of bread.”

We ate like the starving animals we were.

Then we began a slow, weary walk—keeping to the trees, our eyes wary of more surprises—toward a wisp of smoke in the distance that might mark a friendly farm. The scraps of food warmed us sufficiently to keep going.

“And are they riddles, Ethan?” I murmured to my husband as we walked along, talking turns carrying an exhausted Harry, who'd lapsed into sleep. “Do you think the Brazen Head was useless? Is that why Albertus let Rosenkreutz take it? Or was it evil and brought here to be locked away? Was it too powerful a seer?”

“Not a seer so much as a repository of wisdom,” my husband said to me.

“You found wisdom in its answers?”

“Certainly all men are successful for a time but are ultimately defeated, every one. By death if nothing else.”

“Yes,” I said. “And surely the truest gold is within our hearts. The only gold you can never lose, and never spend without it being replenished.”

“Richter will stay in his little hell forever. He and Rosenkreutz together, eternal in their own way. The Brazen Head predicted that.”

“But the purpose of death is life?” I asked. “And the purpose of life is death?”

“I spent several weeks dead while in search of you,” Ethan said. “I shared a coffin, heard the dirt thrown on, and wondered the meaning many times in the thunder of navies and tramp of armies.”

“And?”

“Look at these winter woods. A graveyard of leaf and fern, but death that is necessary to bring forth the next round of life. An eternal cycle, as reassuring as a rainbow or calendar or clock. We all die, Astiza. But in that death, we become immortal. Not just supernaturally, but in nourishing and making way for the next round of life.”

I smiled at his conversion. “Ethan, you sound like a priestess.”

“Catherine would finally call me a realist.”

“We
make
life, too.” I nodded toward our soggy son, on his shoulder.

“It's too bad we can't relax like the animals do,” Ethan mused, “and accept the cycle. We're forever dissatisfied.”

“If we didn't strive and worry, we wouldn't be human, would we? We'd be an android, like the Brazen Head.”

“So what do we strive for now, my dear wife?”

“Rest. Refuge. Renewal. To finally stay together as a family.”

He smiled. “To be common for a change.”

But neither of us is. That is our blessing. That is our curse.

Chapter 41

M
y family and I hid for three days in an isolated farmhouse, Astiza nursing Harry back to good health. A rider came, inquiring about fugitives, but Gideon paid the farmer to say he'd seen no one. Neighbors said that black-clad strangers had been reported following the river and scouring the ruins, but there was no report of discovery. Finally, they left.

“Where will you go?” Gideon asked me.

“West is France and the sphere of French influence,” I said. “South is where I first encountered the agents of the Invisible College. So north and east, I think, until we decide what to do. We'll aim for the Baltic and take ship for the life we deserve.”

“Paid for how?”

I laughed, ruefully, at my poverty. So much striving, for so little gain! Except I had a wife, child, freedom, and experiences that can't be bought. I was rich in the things that count.

“I'll gamble. Astiza will tell fortunes. Perhaps we can find honest jobs as well. Something that draws less attention, I hope. I once had a fortune in England but lost it to bad investments. My mentor Franklin said it is harder to keep money than to earn it in the first place.”

“My father is adept at keeping it. Here, take a hundred talers to get started on your way.”

“No, you've done too much, my friend, and our quest has put both of your lives in jeopardy. Keep it for the Dray children, when you have them.”

He laughed. “What wife would want me?”

Almost any on the planet, I thought, but didn't need to say that. While great men climbed and fell, Gideon would abide, gleaning his father's wisdom.

“What will you do, my Jewish friend?”

“Return home with Father, I think, and expand our business together. Nor do I think this recent war will be the last, and there will be other armies our employees can follow. Find a patron, Ethan. It's an advantage having someone who can help.”

He took his leave on a late January afternoon in the year 1806, and we stayed a final night. When we rose, we found he'd left the hundred talers, and that he'd purchased a horse and sleigh for us besides. The goodness of one man can balance despair over the mendacity of a hundred.

Harry was sick after our river dousing, and, given the mortality rate among children, we worried a great deal. But he recovered, and then bounced back with the vigor small ones have. He had nightmares but talked little of his months of imprisonment. He chattered instead about the farm animals and new adventures. I hoped the alchemical prison would become a vague memory as he blossomed into boyhood. The days slowly lengthened from the darkest time of year.

Finally we set out, traveling north into a Poland that had been dismembered and absorbed by Russia and Prussia a decade before. As I learned to drive our sleigh on snowy roads, I considered our options. One was to be ordinary, doing small things and rejoicing in our smallness. Perhaps I could establish an American trading company in Tallinn, or assemble a cargo for Philadelphia in Copenhagen.

But another was to capitalize on my expertise. All the world was talking of Napoleon, the terrible Prometheus. He was reforming hero to some, predatory dictator to others. And while my adventures had brought me little material gain, they had brought me a wealth of experience. I knew Bonaparte in his many moods, had observed his armies, and understood some of his success and weakness. I'd died, risen, and come away with unusual perspective.

The Russian government in St. Petersburg was famed for hiring foreign savants from the West to modernize its institutions. Did I need a patron? I'd passed through the lands of two emperors. Perhaps we could fetch up for a time in the nation of a third, Czar Alexander. He might not like me, but he certainly could use me.

“Gideon said the most successful advisers have been made Russian nobles, with grants of lands and palaces,” I said. “It would be amusing to be rich for a while.”

“Or at least warm,” my ever practical wife said. So we slid northward, goal in mind, bundled in furs as we passed through endless silver forest. We paid for shelter in the log huts of peasants each winter night.

Armies had stood down for the winter, Napoleon as dominant on land as he was thwarted on the ocean. All his plans to invade England had come to nothing. All of Britain's plans to overthrow him had left Bonaparte stronger than ever. The world would wait now to see how strong his empire would be, and whether the Prussians would still resist. He cast light and shadow like the sun.

So we traveled unnoticed and unmolested, sled runners hissing on ice. But on the fifteenth day of February, on a snowy road just south of St. Petersburg, we finally encountered a troop of cavalry. We steered our sleigh to the side of the road to let them pass, hoping we wouldn't be bothered. Except that I recognized the splendid posture of one as they galloped, decided to take a chance at happiness, and called out to my old rival.

“Prince Dolgoruki!”

The riders reined up and the noble squinted. I stood and took off my fur cap to reveal my features. The prince gave an order and the hussars wheeled to surround us, hooves kicking up a surf of snow. My own horse shied nervously as their steeds boxed us in, their nostrils blowing steam.

“By the beard of Saint Basil, is it the American scoundrel? You dare put yourself within reach of my sword?”

“Adviser,” I corrected. “Historian, seer, electrician, and military consultant. With my family, seeking asylum from Bonaparte.” I bowed. “Ethan Gage, American savant, at your service. With Astiza of Alexandria.” She nodded. The soldiers, who couldn't understand our French, looked impassive.

Prince Peter Petrovich Dolgoruki, the very same man I'd conducted to a conference with Napoleon before the Battle of Austerlitz, regarded me warily. The disastrous defeat had aged him in the two months since we'd talked.

“You travel to the losing side, Gage?” he asked in the same French, the language of the Russian court. Their nobility aped the manners of their enemies, admiring France as much as they feared it. “I thought you'd tied your fate to the frogs.”

“I was conscripted, not recruited,” I said. “And the balance of power has been upset with Austerlitz. Napoleon is a tyrant, his ambition boundless. I know him as well as any man alive and am prepared to offer my expertise to a monarch seeking to best him.” I tried to smile winningly.

“You mean he dismissed you.” Dolgoruki was not entirely stupid.

“I deserted to care for my family. Now, after Austerlitz, I believe my knowledge will be better appreciated in Russia. I'm neutral, as I said, but perhaps of use to Czar Alexander. Good card player, too.”

He looked at Astiza and Harry. “This is your family?”

“My wife and son. We've been reunited after many trials. Consider them evidence of my friendly intent. No spy brings his family.” Well, I did, but no need to go on and on about our oddities.

He leaned down to address Harry. “So you're an adventurer like your father. You're a brave little lad, aren't you?”

“We killed the bad men.”

The prince's smile was tight. “Not the most awful one. Not yet.”

“Will you introduce me to your sovereign, Prince?” I said.

“I'm sure he'll remember you,” Dolgoruki said sourly, “and your deceptive diplomatic mission with the sly Savary.”

“I was pressed into service and said nothing false. I tried to warn you.”

He knew this was true. It was Russian rashness, not the diplomatic posing of Ethan Gage, that led to disaster at Austerlitz. “And your mission to us now?”

“Do you want to beat Napoleon? I can tell you how.” A cheeky promise, but the first step toward recovering our fortunes was to get in the Winter Palace door. Should I play our cards right, we'd have an empire to protect us, respite from travel, a good home, and maybe a puppy for Harry. We'd make our fortune and go home to America. I might even write a book.

“You are impudent.”

“Opportunistic. Improvisational. And my wife is a scholar and priestess of Egypt, offering the wisdom of the ages.”

“Is this true, madame?”

“My husband and I met when I helped my master take shots at Napoleon. His regime tore my family apart, and now we're trying to put it back together. Please, Prince. Give mercy. And my husband a chance.”

He shook his head, persuaded, as so many are, by her beauty and my bargaining. “War makes strange allies.”

“And strong friends,” I encouraged.

“You'd betray your former master?”

“Napoleon was never my master. And he must be contained to achieve peace, both of nations and of my family. Fascinating fellow, but as troublesome as the devil. I understand he's his mother's child.”

Dolgoruki was too proud to befriend a commoner, but perhaps if I achieved a title . . . My imagination always outruns my accomplishments. Finally he shrugged. “We'll let the court decide your fate.” He turned to his men. “Colonel!”

“Yes, Your Excellency?”

“A salute to our new allies! And back to St. Petersburg, as escort of this . . . embassy, of sorts.” Now that a decision had been made, the order was crisp and princely. There was a thrilling rasp as the sabers came out and were shouldered in salute, Harry wide-eyed at the hedge of steel. Dolgoruki was making plain who was in control. “In desperate times, even Ethan Gage may be of use.”

Had we finally found safe harbor? Russia sprawled from where we conferred to the Pacific and Russian America. Distance enough from Napoleon.

“Now we can seek refuge to truly make our marriage,” my wife murmured. “Perhaps it is over at last.”

I cracked the whip and our sleigh slid back onto the frozen road, the soldiers forming an escort around us. A cry of command, and off we raced, the cavalry setting a brisk pace for our normally uninspired horse. Within the hour, St. Petersburg loomed into view.

We paused to take it in. The place was only a century old, built on the bones of a hundred thousand slaves, and invented from scratch like my own Washington. It had canals to rival Venice, frozen to white ribbons. It looked new, ambitious, ostentatious, and huge. The prince rode back and reined up next to our sleigh. “While the nobility speaks French, you should begin to learn Russian as well, Ethan Gage. To start, try,
Ya durak
.”

“Ya durak?
What does that mean?”

“I am a fool.”

I scowled, but the prince leaned in conspiratorially. “You're about to enter the greatest capital in the world, in the greatest country, of the greatest people.” He evaluated our rags. “And finally see your fortunes turn.”

I looked at the golden domes and spires of the Russian capital, glowing in the late winter sun of 1806. For the first time in years, I thought this might prove true.