I stopped in the woods to reload, ramming down the ball and listening after I did so. A branch snapped. Was someone following? I’d kill them if they got close. But what if it was poor Talma, trying to find me in the gloom? I hoped he’d simply stay with the coach, but I dared not shoot, shout, or tarry either, so I went deeper into the forest.
The spring air was cool, the nervous energy of escape evaporating and leaving me chill and hungry. I was debating circling back to the road in hopes of finding a farmhouse when I saw the steady glow of a lantern, then another lamp and another, amid the evening trees. I crouched and heard the murmur of voices in a language distinctive from French. Now here was a way to hide myself! I’d stumbled upon an encampment of the Rom. Gypsies – or, as many pronounced the word, Gyptians, reputed to be wanderers from Egypt. Gypsies did nothing to discourage this belief, claiming they were descended from the priests of the pharaohs, even though others considered them a plague of nomadic rascals. Their assertion of ancient authority encouraged lovers and schemers to pay money for their augury.
Again, a sound behind me. Here my experience in the forests of America came into play. I melted into the foliage, using a shadow cast by the lantern light to cloak myself. My pursuer, if that’s what he was, came on oblivious to my position. He stopped after spying the glow of the wagons, considered as I had, and then came ahead, no doubt guessing I’d sought refuge there. When his face came into the light I didn’t recognise him as either an assailant or a passenger, and now was more confused than ever.
No matter, his intentions were plain enough. He, too, had a pistol.
As the stranger crept toward the nearest wagon, I slid noiselessly behind him. He was looking at the multicoloured marvel that was the nearest gypsy vardo when my muzzle eased over his shoulder and came to rest on his skull.
‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ I said quietly.
There was a long silence. Then, in English, ‘I’m the man who just helped save your life.’
I was startled, uncertain whether to reply in my native tongue. ‘Qui etes-vous?’ I finally demanded.
‘Sir Sidney Smith, a British agent fluent enough in the tongue of France to recognise that your accent is worse than mine,’ he replied again in English. ‘Get the gun barrel off my ear and I’ll explain everything, friend.’
I was stunned. Sidney Smith? Had I encountered the most famous prison fugitive in France – or a mad imposter? ‘Drop your pistol first,’ I said in English. Then I felt something poke my own back, pointed and sharp.
‘As you will drop your rifle, monsieur, when you are at my home.’ In French again, but this time with a distinctive Eastern accent: A gypsy. A half-dozen more emerged from the trees around us, their heads covered in scarves or broad-brimmed hats, sashes on their waists, and boots to their knees, looking raffish and tough. All had knives, swords, or clubs. We stalkers had become the stalked.
‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘There may be other men chasing me.’ I laid my rifle on the ground as Smith surrendered his pistol.
A handsome, swarthy man came around to my face, sword in hand, and gave a grim smile. ‘Not anymore.’ He drew a finger across his throat as he collected the rifle and pistol. ‘Welcome to the Rom.’
When I stepped into the light of the gypsy campfires, I stepped into another world. Their barrel-roofed wagons with paint-box colours created an elfin village amid the trees. I smelt smoke, incense, and cooking spicy enough to be exotic, heavy with garlic and herbs. Women in colourful dresses, with black lustrous hair and golden hoops in their ears, glanced up from steaming pots to evaluate us with eyes as deep and unfathomable as ancient pools. Children crouched by the coloured wheels like watching imps. Shaggy gypsy wagon ponies stamped and snorted from the shadows. All was cast in amber by the glow from their lamps. In Paris all was reason and revolution. Here was something older, more primitive, and free.
‘I am Stefan,’ said the man who’d disarmed us. He had dark, wary eyes, a grand moustache, and a nose so shattered in some past fight that it was as rumpled as a mountain range. ‘We do not care for guns, which are expensive to buy, costly to maintain, noisy to use, tedious to reload, and easy to steal. So explain yourselves, bringing them to our home.’
‘I was en route to Toulon when our coach was accosted,’ I said. ‘I’m fleeing from bandits. When I saw your wagons I stopped and heard him’ – I pointed to Smith – ‘coming up behind me.’
‘And I,’ said Smith, ‘was trying to speak to this gentleman after helping save his life. I shot a thief who was about to shoot him. Then our friend ran like a rabbit.’
So that had been the other shot I’d heard. ‘But how?’ I objected. ‘I mean, where did you come from? I don’t know you. And how could you be Smith? Everyone assumes you escaped to England.’ In February, the flamboyant British naval captain, scourge of the French coastline, had with female help escaped from Paris’s Temple Prison, built from a former castle of the Knights Templar. He’d been missing ever since. Smith had originally been captured while trying to steal a French frigate from the mouth of the Seine, and was so bold and notorious a raider that the authorities had refused to ransom or exchange him. Engravings of his handsome likeness were sold not just in London, but in Paris as well. Now, here he claimed to be.
‘I was following in hopes of warning you. That I came upon your coach shortly after the moment of ambush was no coincidence; I’d been trailing all day at a mile or so behind, with plans to contact you at your inn tonight. When I saw the brigands I feared the worst and crept up on the group. Your work at getting away was brilliant, but you were outnumbered. When one of the villains took aim, I shot him.’
I remained suspicious. ‘Warn me of what?’
He glanced at Stefan. ‘People of Egypt, can you be trusted?’
The gypsy straightened, his feet planted as if ready to box. ‘While you are a guest of the Rom, your secrets stay here. As you protected this fugitive, Englishman, in like manner we protected you. We, too, saw what unfolded, and we make a distinction between criminals and their victims. The thief who attempted to follow the pair of you will not return to his fellows.’
Smith beamed. ‘Well, then, we are all fellow men at arms! Yes, I did escape from Temple Prison with royalist help, and yes, I fully intend to soon reach England. I’m simply waiting for the necessary documents to be forged so I can slip out of a Normandy harbour. New battles wait. But while held in that hideous edifice I whiled away some of my time talking with the prison governor, who was a student of the Templars, and was told all kinds of stories of Solomon and his masons, of Egypt and its priests, and of charms and powers lost in the mists of time. Pagan nonsense, but interesting as all hell. What if the ancients knew of powers now lost? Then, while I was in hiding after my escape, royalists brought rumours that French forces are being gathered for some expedition to the East, and that an American had been invited to join them. I’d heard of you, Mr Gage, and your expertise in electricity. Who would not have heard of a confederate of the great Franklin? Agents reported not only your departure south, but also that rival factions in the French government had a special interest in you and some artifact you carried: something to do with the same legends I’d heard from my warden. Factions within the government hoped to seize you. It seemed we might have common enemies, and the idea of enlisting your help before we both departed France occurred to me. I decided to discreetly follow. Why would an American be invited on a French military expedition? Why would he accept? There were stories of Count Alessandro Silano, a wager in a gambling hall…’
‘I think you know entirely too much about me, sir, and are entirely too quick to repeat it aloud. What is your purpose?’
‘To learn yours, and enlist your service for England.’
‘You are insane.’
‘Hear me out. My new friend Stefan, might we share some wine?’
The gypsy agreed, snapping an order to a comely lass named Sarylla who had swirling dark hair, liquid eyes, a figure fit for museum statuary, and a flirtatious manner. I suppose it’s to be expected: I am a bit of a handsome rogue. She fetched a wineskin. Christ, I was thirsty! Children and dogs squatted in the shadows by the wagon wheels while we drank, watching us intently as if we might soon sprout horns or feathers. Quenching his own thirst, Smith leant forward. ‘Now, there’s some jewel or instrument you hold, is there not?’
Good heavens, was Smith interested in my medallion too? What had the poor strangled French captain found in Italy? Was I, too, going to end up throttled and in some river because I’d won his trinket? Was it truly cursed? ‘You are misinformed.’
‘And others want it, is this not so?’
