Like all writers, my friend had a fervent imagination and not a lick of sense. ‘Electricity is a natural phenomena, Antoine. It is lightning in the sky and a shock at a parlour party. You sound like that charlatan Cagliostro.’
‘He was a dangerous man who wanted to use Egyptian rites for dark purposes, but no charlatan.’
‘When he practiced alchemy in Poland they caught him cheating.’
‘He was framed by the jealous! Witnesses say he healed sick people that ordinary doctors despaired of. He consorted with royalty. He may have been centuries old, like Saint Germain, who was actually Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania and who personally knew Cleopatra and Jesus. Cagliostro was a student of this prince. He…’
‘Was mocked and hounded and died in prison after being betrayed by his own wife, who had the reputation of being the greatest whore in Europe. You said yourself his Egyptian Rite is occult nonsense. What proof is there that any of these self-proclaimed sorcerers are centuries old? Listen, I don’t doubt there are interesting things to learn in Muslim lands, but I was recruited as a scientist, not a priest. Your own revolution has scorned religion and mysticism.’
‘Which is why there’s so much interest in the mystical today! Reason is creating a vacuum of wonder. Religious persecution has created a thirst for spirituality.’
‘Surely you don’t think Bonaparte’s motive is…’
‘Hush!’ Talma nodded toward the coach wall. ‘Remember your oath.’
Ah, yes. Our expedition leader and ultimate destination was supposed to be secret, as if any fool couldn’t guess it from our conversation. I dutifully nodded, knowing that given the wheel rumble and our position to the rear, they could hear little anyway. ‘Are you saying these mysteries are our true purpose?’ I said more quietly.
‘I’m saying our expedition has multiple purposes.’
I sat back, staring moodily at the grim hills of stumps created by the insatiable hunger the new factories had for wood. It seemed like the forests themselves were being recruited for the wars and trade spawned by revolution. While industrialists grew rich, the countryside grew bare and cities became shrouded in stinking fogs. If the ancients could do things by clean magic, more power to them.
‘Besides, the knowledge to be sought is science,’ Talma went on. ‘Plato brought it to philosophy. Pythagoras brought it to geometry. Moses and Solon brought it to law. All are different aspects of Truth. Some say it was the last great native pharaoh, the magician Nectanebo, who lay with Olympias and fathered Alexander the Great.’
‘I’ve told you I don’t want to emulate a man who died at thirty-two.’
‘In Toulon you will meet the new Alexander, perhaps.’
Or perhaps Bonaparte was simply the latest momentary hero, one defeat away from obscurity. In the meantime, I’d milk him for a pardon for a crime I hadn’t committed by being as ingratiating as I could tolerate.
We left the devastation, the highway entering what once was aristocratic parkland. It had been confiscated by the Directory from whichever noble or church official had owned it. Now it was open to peasants, poachers, and squatters, and I could glimpse crude camps of the poor set amid the trees, wisps of smoke drifting from their fires. It was getting near evening, and I hoped we’d reach an inn soon. My bottom ached from the pounding.
Suddenly there was a shout from the coachman, and something crashed ahead. We reined to a halt. A tree had fallen and the horses had bunched, neighing in confusion. The tree’s butt looked chopped through. Dark figures were emerging from the wood, their arms pointing at the coachman and footman above.
‘Robbers!’ I shouted, feeling for the tomahawk I still wore under my coat. While my skill had rusted, I felt I could still hit a target from thirty feet. ‘Quick, to arms! Maybe we can fight them off!’
But as I bounded off the coach I was met by the napping customs officer, who had suddenly come wide awake, jumped nimbly off, and met me by aiming an enormous pistol at my chest. The mouth of its barrel seemed as wide as a scream.
‘ Bonjour, Monsieur Gage,’ he addressed me. ‘Throw your savage little hatchet on the ground, if you please. I am to take either you or your bauble back to Paris.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The thieves, or agents – they were too often the same in revolutionary France – lined us up like pupils in a schoolyard and began to strip us of valuables. With the addition of the supposed customs officer, there were six of them, and when I studied them in the dim light I started. Two looked like the gendarmes who had first tried to arrest me in Paris. Was the lantern bearer here too? I didn’t see him. Some held pistols aimed at the coachmen, while the others focused on us passengers, taking purses and pocket watches.
‘The police have devised a new way of levying taxes?’ I asked caustically.
‘I’m not certain he really is a customs officer,’ the hatter spoke up.
‘Silence!’ Their leader aimed his weapon at my nose as if I’d forgotten he carried it. ‘Don’t think I’m not acting for people in authority, Monsieur Gage. If you don’t surrender what I want you’ll meet more police than you care to, in the bowels of a state prison.’
‘Surrender what?’
‘I believe his name is actually Gregoire,’ the hatter added helpfully.
My interrogator cocked his pistol. ‘You know what! It must go to scholars who can put it to proper use! Open your shirt!’
The air was cold on my breast. ‘See? I have nothing.’
He scowled. ‘Then where is it?’
‘Paris.’
The muzzle swung to Talma’s temple. ‘Produce it or I blow your friend’s brains out.’
Antoine blanched. I was fairly certain he’d never had a gun aimed at him before, and I was becoming truly annoyed. ‘Be careful with that thing.’
‘I will count to three!’
‘Antoine’s head is hard as a rock. The ball will ricochet.’
‘Ethan,’ my friend pleaded.
‘One!’
‘I sold the medallion to finance this trip,’ I tried.
‘Two!’
‘I used it to pay the rent.’ Talma was swaying.
‘Thr…’
‘Wait! If you must know, it’s in my bag atop the coach.’
Our tormentor swung the muzzle back to me.
‘Frankly, I’ll be happy to be rid of the trinket. It’s been nothing but trouble.’
The villain shouted up to the coachman. ‘Throw his bag down!’
‘Which one?’
‘The brown one,’ I called, as Talma gaped at me.
‘They’re all brown in the dark!’
‘By all the saints and sinners…’
‘I’ll get it.’
Now the pistol muzzle was pressed to my back. ‘Hurry!’ My foe glanced down the road. More traffic would be coming soon, and I had a pleasant mental picture of a hay wagon slowly and deliberately crushing him under.
‘Can you please ease the hammer down? There’re six of you and one of me.’
‘Shut your trap or I’ll shoot you right now, rip open every bag, and find it myself!’
I climbed to the luggage rack on the coach roof. The thief stayed close below.
‘Ah. Here it is.’
‘Pass it down, Yankee dog!’
I dug and closed one hand around my rifle, tucked under the softer luggage. I could feel the small brass door of its patch box where I’d stuffed a cartridge and ball, and the curl of its nestled powder horn. Pity I hadn’t loaded it since shooting my apartment door: no voyageur would make that mistake. The other hand grasped my friend’s bag. ‘Catch!’
I heaved, and my aim was good. The bag’s weight hit the pistol and there was a bang as the cocked hammer came down, shooting Talma’s laundry to flinders. Stupid sod. The coach horses reared, everyone shouting, as I tumbled off the coach roof on the side away from the thieves, pulling the rifle as I fell and landing on the highway margin. There was another shot and a splintering of wood over my head.