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.
Instead of lurching into the dark forest, I rolled under the carriage, dodging the grinding wheels as the coach rocked back and forth. Lying in its shadow, I feverishly began to load my rifle while prone, a trick I’d learnt from the Canadians. I bit, poured, and rammed.
‘He’s getting away!’ Three of the bandits ran around the rear of the coach and plunged into the trees on the side I’d leapt, assuming I was escaping that way. The passengers looked ready to bolt as well, but two of the thieves commanded them to stand where they were. The fake customs inspector, cursing, struggled to reload his pistol. I finished my own ramming, poked my rifle barrel out, and shot him.
The flash was blinding in the darkness. As the bastard buckled I got a startling glimpse of something that had been hanging inside his own shirt, now dangling free. It was a Masonic emblem, no doubt expropriated by Silano’s Egyptian Rite, of crossed compass and square. There was a familiar letter in the middle. So that explained it!
I rolled, stood, and swung my weapon by the barrel as hard as I could, clubbing another thief with my gun butt. There was a satisfying crack as eleven pounds of maple and iron trumped bone. I scooped up my tomahawk. Where was the third rascal? Then another gun went off and someone howled. I started running toward the trees in the opposite direction from where the first three had gone. The other passengers, including Talma, scattered as well.
‘The bag! Get his bag!’ the one I’d shot was shouting through his pain.
I grinned. The medallion was safe in the sole of my boot.
The woods were dark and getting darker as night fully descended. I trotted as best I could, alone, my rifle a makeshift prod to keep me from running into trees. Now what? Were the robbers in league with some arm of the French government, or entirely imposters? Their leader had the correct uniform and knowledge of my prize and position, suggesting that someone with official connections – an ally of Silano, and a member of the Egyptian Rite – was tracking me.
It wasn’t just the thief’s readiness to cock a pistol in my face that disturbed me. Inside his Masonic symbol, I’d been reminded, was the standard letter said to represent God, or gnosis, knowledge, or perhaps geometry.
The letter G.
My initial, and the same letter which poor Minette had scrawled in her own blood.
Was such an emblem her last sight on earth?
The more anxious others were for my trinket, the more determined I was to keep it. There must be some reason for its popularity.
