The other two were Indians, both tall and of imposing bearing. One was the white man’s age but shaved bald except for a scalp lock, and dressed in a black European business suit. His pate, high cheekbones, and Roman nose were the colour of beaten copper, setting off eyes dark as a rifle ball. His manner conveyed dignity, his posture tall and straight.
The second native, thirty years younger, had black hair to his shoulders in the Shawnee fashion and was dressed entirely in fringed buckskin. If the first chief kept his gaze remote, this one’s bright and oddly hazel eyes took us all in with a sweep, as if examining the heart and soul of each man before flickering on. He had a string of three tiny brass moons hanging from his nose, and on his chest was an antique medal of King George, brightly polished. A single feather lay in his hair and he had that electric magnetism more inherited than learnt. It was interesting that his inspection finally rested on Magnus. He said something to his companions.
‘Tecumseh says that one’s different,’ the white man interpreted.
‘A Scandinavian giant is what he is!’ said Duff. ‘We also have an American visitor, Ethan Gage. They wish to visit the west beyond Grand Portage.’
‘American?’ The grey-haired, grizzled white fixed on me and spoke rapidly to his companions in the native tongue. The long-haired Indian said something more, and he translated again. ‘Tecumseh says Americans go everywhere. And stay.’
The company laughed.
‘I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,’ I said coolly.
‘This is Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawnee,’ Duff introduced. ‘Born with a comet, so his name means Panther Across the Sky. He thinks your country has enough land and its people should stay where they are.’
‘Does he now?’
‘His grasp of geography and politics is quite remarkable. His companion is the famed Mohawk Joseph Brant, and their translator is frontier captain Simon Girty.’
Girty! Everyone waited for my reaction. Here was one of the most famed villains in America, an Indian fighter who had switched sides during the Revolution and even bested Daniel Boone. Enemies claimed he delighted in the torture of white captives. He just looked like a feral old man to me, but then his war was a generation in the past. ‘What’s Girty doing here?’ I blurted.
‘I live here, Mr Gage,’ he replied for himself, ‘as do thousands of other loyalists forced from their rightful homes by an insane rebellion. I’m a refugee farmer.’
‘Brant fought for the king as well, as you know,’ Duff said. ‘He’s visiting to speak to Tecumseh. All of us think highly of the young chief.’
I couldn’t pretend to pleasantries since Girty’s infamy had reached across the Atlantic. ‘You turned on your own people like Benedict Arnold!’
He eyed me in turn like a piece of gristle spat out on a plate. ‘They turned on me. I mustered a company for the Continentals and they denied me a commission because I was raised captive by the Indians. Then they were going to betray the very tribes that helped them! But I don’t have to explain about switching sides to Ethan Gage, do I?’
I flushed. It was circumstance, not betrayal, that had left me bouncing between the British and French side in the Holy Land, but it was damn difficult to explain. This was Girty’s point, of course. ‘Mr Duff,’ I managed, ‘I recognise that I’m a guest on foreign soil here in Canada, and a guest in your house. You’ve the right to invite whoever you please. But I must say that if this trio were to cross the Detroit River there is every possibility they would be hanged, or worse. Simon Girty committed the worst kind of atrocities on American captives.’
‘That’s a damned lie!’ Girty said.
‘My guests are well aware of their reputation in the United States, Ethan, which is why they are in Canada,’ Duff said. ‘But Simon is right, the rumours are untrue. They’re simply brave soldiers who fought for another cause. Mr Girty in fact tried to save captives from Indians, not torture them. He was, and is, a man of honour wronged by the foolishness of your own nation and then slandered by men embarrassed by their wrongs. We share dinner tonight as a fraternity of warriors.’
‘Like Valhalla,’ Magnus said. ‘Where the Viking hero goes to feast.’
‘Exactly,’ Duff said, glancing at my companion as if he might be daft. ‘I included you, Bloodhammer, because we’re curious about your purpose. Lord Somerset wishes to meet you, and Gage has a reputation as a man – usually – fair and broad-minded.’
His point was obvious and it would do no good to make a scene. I took a long swallow from my cup. ‘And where is Lord Somerset?’
‘Here!’
And he did look the lord, descending stairs from the bedrooms above as if stepping to a coronation. Tall, fit, and impeccably dressed in green swallowtail coat and glistening black boots, he was a handsome man in his forties, with a crown of prematurely silvered hair, eyes focused at some point just above our heads, and sensually sculpted nose and lips like those marble generals in Napoleon’s hallway. He seemed born to command, and the only ones who matched him for presence were the two Indian chiefs. There was an actor’s precision to Somerset’s movements, a sheathed rapier swinging theatrically from one hip. Something in his poise, however, made me suspect that unlike many aristocrats, he actually knew how to use the weapon.
‘An honour to make your acquaintance, Mr Gage.’ Somerset’s rank negated the need for him to hold out his hand. ‘My friend Sir Sidney Smith has spoken quite highly of you, despite your disappearance back into France. You are not just a warrior, but something of a wizard, I understand.’ He spoke to the others. ‘Mr Gage, by reputation at least, is an electrician!’
‘What’s an electrician?’ Girty said suspiciously.
‘A Franklin man, interested in lightning, the fire of the gods,’ Somerset replied grandly. ‘Explorer, savant, and counselor. I’m flattered, Mr Duff, by the august company you’ve assembled. Any one of these men is a hero, but to put them together – well.’
Damn it, the man had a title, and even though I’m a solid Yankee democrat, I couldn’t help but preen. I’d caught the lightning!
‘Nor should we neglect notice of Mr Gage’s companion, the Norwegian adventurer Magnus Bloodhammer, scholar of history and legend. A descendant of noble blood himself, a lost prince so to speak. Am I correct, Mr Bloodhammer?’
‘You flatter me. I’m interested in my country’s past. And yes, I trace my ancestry to the old kings before my nation lost its independence.’
This was the first I’d heard of that. Magnus was royalty?
‘Now you’re here in the American wilderness, very far from Norway and its illustrious past,’ Somerset said. ‘Or are you? We may find we all have things in common, what?’
Tecumseh spoke again.
‘He says the big Norwegian has medicine eyes,’ Girty translated. ‘He sees the spirit world.’
‘Really?’ Somerset’s appraisal was intent as a jeweller’s. ‘You see ghosts, Magnus?’
‘I keep an eye out.’
The company laughed again, except for Tecumseh.
Cups were refilled and we began to relax, even though I half-expected Girty, Brant, or Tecumseh to pull out a tomahawk at any moment and commence howling. The frontier wars during the American Revolution had been brutal and merciless, and memory of their cruelties would linger for generations. What intrigued me this night was that the two older and notorious warriors seemed almost deferential to the younger one, Tecumseh, whom I’d never heard of. And what was an English lord doing in this corner of Canada, opposite the desultory garrison of Detroit? I sidled over to Nicholas Fitch, the aide we’d met across the river. He seemed well into his cups and might say something useful.