grows where the hairs of a burning god fell from the sky. Is the bloodline of King David or Hannibal roaming the western desert? All these groups might have forgotten their origins. But if it could be proven, the stakes are significant.’
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘European empires in the New World are based in part on claims of first arrival,’ Lewis explained. ‘If it turns out the first arrivals from Europe were other groups entirely, it undermines the legitimacy of British, French, and Spanish claims to land ownership.’
‘Which could improve the chances of United States’ claim or purchase,’ Jefferson said. ‘Our expanding population gives us the possibility of ownership by occupation, but that can lead to wars we don’t want. A sale is preferable, from a party whose past claim is in historical doubt. If the Norse came first, it could shake world politics. The important thing is that we learn the truth, and ideally learn it before the French, Spanish, or British do. That, gentlemen, is why you can count on my support for your scouting expedition – but only if you confide to me. I trust your first loyalty is to your home country, Ethan?’
‘Of course.’ Actually, it was to self-preservation, but that seemed down the list of everyone else’s priorities.
‘What you learn will, I hope, provide information that Captain Lewis will expand on, if I can persuade Congress to send a more ambitious quest.’
‘How ambitious?’
Jefferson shrugged. ‘Perhaps twenty to forty men and several tons of supplies.’
‘Impressive. And how many men will accompany my expedition?’
‘Why, just one, I believe. Magnus Bloodhammer.’
The Norwegian beamed.
‘One?’
‘I want you two to go swiftly and silently, scouts before an army.’
‘What supplies, then?’
‘I’m prepared to furnish one hundred dollars and a letter of introduction to the newly acquired American forts at Detroit and Michilimackinac, asking for escort. I suggest you travel as far west as you can on the Great Lakes before starting overland. With luck, you can finish your exploration within the season and report back, and we can refine our strategy for both Lewis’s expedition and dealing with Napoleon. If you survive.’
I took a big swallow of wine. ‘I was hoping for more help.’
‘I’ve just started in office and Adams left a mess. It’s the best America can do. Fortunately, Gage, you’re a patriot!’
‘Meaning anything valuable you find is properly the property of the United States,’ Lewis added.
‘Not if it’s not on American soil,’ Magnus countered. ‘And the Norse went farther than any American yet has. Which means it is Norwegian soil …
Jefferson smiled. Magnus had taken the bait. ‘Then you
‘Yes, and such artefacts by right are mine and my country’s. And Ethan’s. Am I not correct, Gage?’
‘Rusty trifles only,’ I hastily assured. ‘Old spearheads. A rivet here, a stud there.’ No need to talk about magical hammers that might be worth a king’s ransom.
‘I want to back an explorer, not a treasure hunter, Gage.’
I pretended mild indignation. ‘It seems to me we’ve earned your trust. I’ve secretly carried word of the French-Spanish treaty on Louisiana. Magnus here has shared a map of incalculable value. We’ve confided in you, Mr President, and only ask that you return our confidence.’
‘Well said. We’re all partners here, gentlemen, in one of the greatest adventures in history. So I leave you to it. Your only competitors are the British in Canada, the French and Spanish in Louisiana, howling wilderness, gigantic animals, and hostile Indian tribes. Nothing more than what you’ve faced a dozen times before, eh?’
‘Actually, I think we might need two hundred dollars.’
‘Come back alive, with useful information, and I’ll pay
It was dark when we left, my head full of woolly elephants, lurking Indians, baleful spirits, mountains of salt, and the usual dubious state of my finances. Well, I was in it now. ‘You found a fellow visionary, Magnus,’ I said as we stood outside looking at the candles in the President’s House. ‘I expected more scepticism.’
‘Jefferson wants to use us, Ethan, just like Bonaparte uses us. As we use them! So we’ll see their Louisiana and let them fight over it if they wish.’ There was a tone of hard realism in his voice, very different from my usual Norwegian dreamer. ‘As for you and me, if we find Thor’s hammer we’ll have a chance to change the entire world!’ His eyes were dark and gleaming in the twilight.
‘Change the world? I thought we just wanted to profit from it.’
‘Restore it. There’s more at stake here than you think.’
‘Restore what?’
He patted his map case. ‘The human heart.’
And I wondered again just who my new companion really was.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For our journey west, Magnus chose a musket that could be used as a fowling piece and a huge double- bladed axe that he strapped to his back like a Norse marauder. ‘Jefferson gave me the idea!’ He spent happy hours shining it with file, oil, and cloth. ‘With this and that little tomahawk of yours, we’ll have no problem making a fire.’
‘Make a fire? That axe is big enough to heat hell, deforest half the Ohio Valley, or serve as a dining table.’
‘If I ever shaved it would make a good mirror, too.’ He held it up for inspection. ‘I wish I had a broadsword.’ He was as excited as I was dubious.
Our route was northwestward up the Potomac and across the Appalachians on the road first carved out by the British general Braddock before his disastrous defeat during the French and Indian War. Then we’d go down to Pittsburgh at the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, take the Ohio River to the Great Trail established by the Indians to Lake Erie, and board a boat to Fort Detroit, five hundred miles from Washington. From there, Lakes Huron and Superior would provide a water route of another five hundred miles to the edge of the blank wilderness on Bloodhammer’s map.
The first artefact of civilisation that disappeared as we rode up the Potomac was paint. As we ascended the mountains, farmhouses faded to weathered wood; milled lumber gave way to squared logs. Our road followed an undulating scar of vegetable plots, trampled pasture, and wounded hillsides of stumps and slash. No firmer than porridge, it curved and coiled tighter than a barrister’s argument and was worn to a trench by traffic that never paused to repair it. Always we smelt smoke, hardscrabble farmers trying to burn back the forest to make room for corn. And then, deep in the mountains, finally there were no farms at all. Winter-barren brown ridges, the tops still frosty most mornings, ran like multiple walls into haze. Hawks orbited by day, and wolves howled in the dark. When the wind blew, the brown carpet of last winter’s leaves rustled like tattered pages. It sounded like the forest was whispering.
We slept outdoors when the weather was fair, hardening ourselves to our new lives as frontiersmen and avoiding the stiff fees and biting fleas of Appalachian accommodation. We’d make a bed of boughs, have a simple dinner of ham, cornbread, and creek water, and listen to the night sounds. Through the lattice of slowly budding trees, we had a spangled canopy of a million dazzling stars. Magnus and I talked sometimes of the ancient belief that each was an ancestor, gone to reside in the sky for all eternity.
‘Maybe one is Signe,’ he said, wistful.
‘How long were you married?’
‘Just one year.’ He paused before going on. ‘The only time I’ve truly been happy. I loved her as a youth, but my family had filled my head with tales of gods and mysteries, so I sailed north to where the Templars might have been, so far north that the sun never set and the air barely warmed. I found mines so deep they might have been
