‘Join him?’
‘But you have to marry us.’
Right now that did seem superior to the alternative. ‘Magnus, Little Frog does have a certain charm,’ I encouraged.
‘These women are slaves,’ Cecil seethed. ‘They have no claim on my captives. Red Jacket dare not deny us the torture he’s promised.’
Namida shook her head. ‘You must become our husbands. This band is depleted by Red Jacket’s quarrels with other Indians: everyone hates him. The women know their men will come to me if I don’t have a man for myself.’
Well, once again I could produce harmony, like the treaty at Mortefontaine. Sleeping with Namida was just the job for my diplomatic talents.
The girl was helping me by delaying things, I knew.
Then the runner came back with the map case. While the Indians argued about my matrimonial suitability, Cecil took out the map and unrolled it for Aurora. They looked at it and then at us, over the parchment rim.
‘This is forgery.’
‘It’s Templar ink, damn your eyes,’ said Magnus, who had apparently given up hiding his preposterous theory. ‘You know it’s real.’
‘You’re both quite barmy. It’s worse than elephants.’
‘That we can all agree on,’ I said.
‘Yet what if they aren’t entirely insane?’ Aurora asked. She looked hard at Magnus. ‘This hammer. What can it do?’
‘I thought you called it a myth?’
‘What can it do?’
He shrugged. ‘No one knows. But if it exists, medieval mariners thought it important enough to cross the oceans and take it to a special place – a very special place.’
‘Can it kill people? Lots of people?’
‘It was Thor’s weapon.’
She turned to Cecil. ‘What if they aren’t making this up?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘They would have this map ready-made for such an improbable story? The map looks real, somehow. It’s so ludicrous that it smacks of truth.’
‘I don’t doubt Gage would believe nonsense. The question is whether we should.’
‘We can always kill them later. Let’s have them take us here.’ She jabbed the map.
I nodded encouragingly.
‘No, I want the truth now. I want to roast it out of them now.’
‘What if we need their help finding the hammer?’
‘We’ve travelled with them for weeks. Gage couldn’t find his own ears. If they’re telling the truth and we have the map, then we know what they know.’
‘The Rite said he was resourceful in Egypt and Palestine.’
‘Then we tie him to the stake as we intended, drain what he knows, slake the Indians’ blood lust, and go looking at our leisure.’ He licked his lips, thinking now. ‘Something like this hammer, if it exists, could put us above the North West Company, and Montreal, and even the prudes and hypocrites back in England. We could live as we should, married by our own law. We could blame his disappearance on this map. Give us an hour, Aurora, an hour at the stake, and we’ll know everything!’ He grasped the double-bladed axe. ‘It’s astonishing what men will say just to keep their last fingers and toes.’
‘Then get Red Jacket to silence those captive squaws!’ The tumult Namida was causing was clearly flustering Aurora.
‘To hell with Red Jacket,’ her brother said. He snapped an order and two of the warriors guarding us yanked on our tethers to get us to our feet and pull us towards the stakes, even as Namida and Little Frog shrieked in protest. The tribe’s argument was growing fiercer, Red Jacket unable to quiet either side.
Cecil, Aurora, and our two guards had soon dragged us twenty yards from the main party of yelling Indians. Clearly we were going to be tied to the stake before clearer, more matrimonial heads could prevail. But these were the best odds we’d faced all morning, and I was becoming impatient. When, when? Aurora had the longrifle pointed at me, and Cecil his sword pointed at Magnus, the axe held loosely in his other hand and the map thrust into his belt. He gave a curt command and the brave who’d dragged me by my tether cut away the cords at my wrist so he could bend my arms around the back of the upright post. Another took my neck leash to help drag me the last bitter feet to my doom. I certainly wasn’t going to make it easy by walking! I began to lift my arms and Aurora cocked my gun. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she said. ‘I’ll shoot you in your knee and you’ll still be alive, but in agony before the fire even starts.’
‘Through the heart, Aurora. It’s the least you can do for old times’ sake.’
‘No. I like to make my lovers moan.’
Now the other Indians were beginning to come towards us, still arguing but less heatedly. Namida looked miserable, which was not a good sign.
And then the head of the warrior holding my left arm exploded.
It was about time!
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
One moment he was pulling me to the stake, and the next the top of his skull sprayed away in an arc of hair and blood, dropping him like a stone. For just one moment I was stunned, surprised when it finally happened. Then, more out of instinct than thought, I rotated my body and right arm to swing my other escort into the path of Aurora’s gun.
My rifle went off just as he rotated into her aim, and he dropped too.
Another shot and a cry from Red Jacket who spun, clutching his arm. The other warriors seemed paralyzed. I grabbed the muzzle of my empty longrifle and, with more ferocity than I knew I could summon against a woman, shoved Aurora Somerset straight back against the bark wall of a longhouse and through it. I knocked the wind out of her as the butt rammed her midsection and the wall shattered. Then I swung the stock at a charging Cecil and parried the arc of his swinging sword. The rapier sank into the wood with a thwack and stuck there, the aristocrat’s face livid with rage and fear, and I twisted the rifle to snap it. Little Frog meanwhile snatched up Magnus’s axe, which the nobleman had dropped, and cut the Norwegian’s bonds. We were between the Somersets and the other Indians, so Cecil danced backward towards the waiting stakes, stumbling on firewood as he fumbled for the pistol in his belt. I yanked the broken sword clear.
Another shot, and a charging warrior went down, and then Magnus was free and swinging his axe in a great arc, howling like a Viking berserker of old. He waded into the stunned Indians like a maelstrom, the muscles under his torn shirt rippling, and the blades came up red, slain warriors toppling out of his way. They didn’t have their own guns or bows and his weapon whistled as he swung. He paused a moment to stoop and snatch up his map case in determined triumph.
Why did he care if it didn’t hold the map, which was still in Cecil’s belt?
I sprang over the prostrate Aurora and tore off the powder horn she’d draped across her chest. ‘Your whore is dead!’ I lied to Cecil to draw a quick shot, and rolled as he fired. Now! Could I club him with my musket or stab him with his broken sword before he reloaded?
‘This way, my friends! Hurry, my muskets are empty!’
It was the voice of Pierre Radisson, calling from the stockade wall. Namida and I had seen him from the corner of our eyes.
‘Get them!’ Cecil was yelling to the confused Indians even as he retreated farther, struggling to reload his pistol. He kept glancing at the prostrate form of his sister, face twisted.
Time to retreat! I hurled the haft of his sword at him, making him duck, and then Magnus, Namida, Little Frog, and I ran to the other side of the longhouse I’d shoved Aurora through. Pierre had pried an opening in the crude palisade of saplings, and we scrambled through, hauling on Magnus to get his bulk through the tight entry.
‘Praise Odin, what are you doing here?’ the one-eye asked.