about the emerald and your boy.”
“But why did Martel ask me about flying machines?”
“One of the stories is that the Aztecs, or their ancestors, knew how to fly. This treasure reportedly contains representations of their fabulous machines.”
“That’s nonsense. Why didn’t they beat the conquistadors, then?”
“Maybe the secret had been lost, and they only retained fragments. In any event, it doesn’t matter if the story is true, it only matters that Martel believes it true. If he could come to Napoleon with flying machines from a fantastic treasure, he would be not only rich, but powerful.”
And if Leon Martel had the sense of ordinary men, he’d settle down and enjoy life for what it was, not what it could be. Alas, that’s not the way of the ambitious, is it?
“But I’m perfectly useless. I’ve known nothing of this until now.”
“As a neutral American and slightly famous hero, you’re the one man who might convince Toussaint L’Ouverture that his best hope is England. Tell him that he can help Haiti secure its freedom from the French by letting us secure the treasure’s secrets. Britain’s victory is L’Ouverture’s victory, and Britain’s defeat is the reenslavement of the oppressed blacks of Saint-Domingue. You have the motivation to break him free from his cage, get him to safety, and learn what he knows.”
“What motivation?”
“Well, ten percent of any treasure, to start.”
“Ten percent! Why not all of it?”
“You’ll need British expertise and pluck to pull this off, Gage. The lion’s share goes to the Crown and the black rebels, plus expenses. You’ll still be a very rich man.”
I frowned. “I’m to risk my life for ten percent? A week ago I had an entire emerald and not a care in the world.”
“That was a week ago.”
“Ethan, don’t you see?” Astiza said. “We need to rescue L’Ouverture to get the treasure to trade the secret of flight to return our son.”
“Certainly there can be no thought of ‘we,’ ” I grumbled. “I’ve already dragged you into a dangerous trap.” There was no false gallantry here; I was merely afraid I’d misplace her, too.
“This spy’s plan is that I slip ahead to L’Ouverture’s cell by pretending to the French guards to be his whore who can solicit secrets from him,” she said matter-of-factly. “He’s notorious for concubines of every color. The French will think I am working for them, and the British for them, while we’re really working for Horus.”
“You have the mind of a spy, madame,” Frotte said admiringly.
“If we don’t succeed,” I protested, “you’ll already be locked in their prison!”
“So you must win, Ethan, in order that Martel is forced to bargain with us and we can get our son back.”
Frotte nodded. “And then kill Martel, on ground of your choosing.”
Chapter 10
So after the robbery of my emerald and the kidnapping of my son, I found myself scaling a prison wall in wretched spring weather at the edge of the Alps. When the woman at the window of the Fortress de Joux opened her mouth to scream, I put my finger to my lips and raised my brows suggestively. It’s difficult to appear suave when dangling from a grappling hook above a precipitous drop, laden with equipment and spattered with snow, but I do have practiced charm.
Accordingly, I wasn’t surprised when she hesitated in her alarm. An encouraging smile from me, and she bent forward to peer into the blackness at my peculiar situation. Motioning for the damsel to wait, I finished crab-walking to a crenellation and hauled myself over the lip of the wall, muscles shaking. I looked back down. I couldn’t see aeronaut George Cayley or his contraption, but I tied off the rope to the stonework and jerked the line as a signal. It jerked back, like a fish on the end of the line.
Well, first things first. Glancing about for sentries (they were huddled inside as promised, the idlers), I danced lightly to the parapet door of the tower I’d just scaled and rapped. The beauty opened it a crack and looked out cautiously. “Monsieur, why were you hanging like a spider outside my window?” She was ripe, rumpled, and Rubenesque. Lord, it’s hard to be married.
“Not a spider but a butterfly, my wings opened by the fires of love,” I cheerfully lied, a necessity with strange women. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, which gave her a start but also a blush of excitement. And yes, I was mindful that my wife was in theory somewhere in the castle below, pretending to be L’Ouverture’s long-lost mistress. What can I say? Ours is a unique marriage, and the fate of nations was at stake, not to mention the rescue of brave little Harry. “Prepare yourself, my love, while I haul up a surprise.”
“Monsieur,” she said, confused but intrigued, “do I know you?”
“If you know longing, if you ache for beauty as I do, if you dream desire, then you know my heart. Please, patience for just minutes more! I will confess all, soon!” And I gently pushed her backward and shut the door. With any luck she was a romantic nitwit who would sleepily confuse me with some other swain who’d given her the eye.
Then I hurried back to the fortress edge and hauled on the rope. Cayley’s flying machine, a twenty-foot-long cylinder of sticks and twine wrapped in canvas, as delicate as a veined leaf, came lurching up toward me. I heaved it over to lie on the parapet and cast the rope back down for the inventor to pull himself up. The plan was he’d assemble his flying machine while I rescued the Negro. Assuming either of us was still alive by then, we’d trust our lives to something that was little more than lattice and oiled cotton.
Well, it would be quicker than waiting for the guillotine.
For days, Cayley had tried to assure me he knew what he was doing. “The wings of Daedalus and Icarus need not be mere myth, Mr. Gage,” he told me as we prepared for our mission. “Not only is man destined to fly, he already has.”
I had peered upward skeptically. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“The Berber Ibn Firnas launched himself from a mountain near Cordoba with artificial wings in about 875. The monk Eilmer flew from a tower at Malmesbury Abbey just before the Norman Conquest. Leonardo da Vinci sketched flying machines, and the Spaniard Diego Aquilera flew from the highest part of the castle of Coruna del Conde just ten years ago.”
“What happened to them all?”
“Oh, they crashed. None died, however. A few broken bones for the early ones and just bruises for Aguilera.”
“I suppose that’s progress.”
“I’ve studied bird wings and learned from my predecessors’ failures, which included the lack of a tail. I believe we can launch from Fort de Joux and glide for miles, far outdistancing any pursuit. All it takes is courage.”
“There’s a fine line between heroism and idiocy.” I’m an expert.
“My test models suggest curved wings provide more lift, just like a bird, and the knack is adjusting the weight. The real problem is stopping. I’ve yet to duplicate the legs and talons of a raptor.”
“So you’re proposing a controlled fall down the side of a mountain and a crash at high speed? Just to be clear what we’re planning.”
“No, I’m proposing that we aim for a lake for our landing.”
“Landing where there is no land? End of winter? Freezing water?”
“Frozen water, perhaps. It will take the French entirely by surprise, won’t it? Ingenuity against elan, Ethan, that’s the English secret. This is just a first step. Someday ordinary men will fly everywhere in luxurious comfort, in enormous padded chairs in floating cabins, attended by beautiful servant girls feeding them courses worthy of a Sunday dinner.”
Obviously the man should be packed off to an asylum, but what stopped me from laughing is that while we had a plan to get into L’Ouverture’s prison, we didn’t have one to get back out. Or, if we did, we could expect the entire angry garrison to hunt us down. The French would spare no effort to recapture the Black Spartacus, and Cayley was the only person with a scheme to give us a head start.
