‘Each spring,’ Cecil said, ‘the posts in the Canadian interior package the furs they’ve acquired during the winter from trade and trapping and canoe them south and east to the fort at Grand Portage. Meanwhile, the North West Company sends freight canoes full of fresh trade goods for the Indians west from Montreal. The two groups rendezvous at the fort, frolic in the grandest party ever, exchange the furs for the trade goods, and reverse their paths before the ice returns. The Montreal party takes the furs back for global distribution, and the voyageurs take the trade goods to the interior posts. We plan to meet the freight canoes at Michilimackinac, near the head of Lake Huron. It’s the safest, quickest, easiest way to go west.’
Once again, my charm had solved all our problems! Instead of a military escort and the rigors of camping, I’d head northwest in luxury. ‘But what of your other guests?’ While Aurora would be a delightful companion, Girty made me fear for my scalp.
‘They’re simply here for the evening, Mr Gage,’ Cecil assured. ‘Mr Girty is a near neighbour of Mr Duff, and unlike the Americans we try to cultivate friendship and alliance with the Indians. I frankly was surprised at your reaction: the War of Rebellion is old, old history, and Girty and Brant are old, old warriors. Let the past rest. It’s future peace that you and I need to work to guarantee. The continent divided, as I said, each group with its sphere of influence. What could be more harmonious than that?’
Magnus put a hand on my arm. ‘Ethan, we’re on a mission for Jefferson and the French.’ He looked at Aurora with suspicion.
I shook him off. ‘Part of which is to maintain peace with the English.’
Cecil beamed. ‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t entirely believe in missions,’ I went on. ‘People who are absolutely certain of things seem to do most of the shooting, in my experience, because they collide with people equally certain about the opposite thing. Yet how can we be certain of anything?’
‘You are a philosopher, sir, and one after my own heart. If people simply lived for themselves, and tolerated others, like my cousin and I, then friendship would be universal.’
I looked at Aurora. ‘Given my experiences with both sides in the Orient, I can think of no one better than myself to bridge the unfortunate gap between France, England, and America. With the close cooperation of the Somersets, of course.’
‘Mr Gage, I want to work in
‘Please, call me Ethan.’
‘Ethan …’ Magnus nagged. ‘People who agree with everything end up being used by everyone.’
‘Or helped.’ I was more than happy to be used by Aurora Somerset. Let Magnus be a Templar; I was ready to enjoy life. ‘Here we are all headed in the same direction and after much the same goal. We’ll accompany you to Grand Portage, Lord Somerset, and then go our separate ways.’ I smiled at his cousin. ‘I want to watch you spread civilisation.’
‘And I want to put you in the middle of things when I do.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
I sent Colonel Stone a note announcing we would accompany the Somersets on my mission for Jefferson, just in case someone back in Washington wondered what the devil had become of us. I didn’t go to the officer in person because I didn’t want to risk him offering alternative transportation, costing me the chance to escort the lovely and enticingly risky Aurora. I persuaded the dubious Magnus that this was the fastest way to get to the supposed hiding place of Thor’s hammer, and that it never hurt to have countries like Britain on your side if you were trying to liberate your country from the Danes. ‘This way, no matter who prevails in the struggle between England and France, you’ll be allied with the winner!’
‘And an object of revenge for the loser,’ he grumbled with annoying logic.
We boarded a cutter,
It’s good to have new friends.
I did have a moment of disquiet when I saw, as I waited for the last trunks and servants to be loaded, that Lord Somerset was holding an intense conversation with Girty, Brant, and Tecumseh on the lawn of Alexander Duff’s house and that glances were cast my way. I feared for a moment that the trio meant to join us, but no, they looked hard in our direction and then gestured goodbye to Cecil, as if some decision had been made. I had, after all, the protection of my new president and the first consul of France. With that, the aristocrat strode aboard, nodded as if to reassure me, and we cast off for the north, firing a salute to Detroit on the opposite shore. No canoe full of American officers came out, begging me to come back and become their responsibility.
We passed wooded Ile Aux Cochons, or Hog Island, where feral pigs were still hunted, and anchored that night on Saint Clair, which would be a giant lake in any other country but hardly a puddle in this one. The next morning we rose after sunrise, breakfasted pleasantly on tea, biscuits, and cold cuts left from Duff’s party, and were on our way again in a building breeze. This was the way to travel! I stretched out on deck to take in the view as we made our way up the Saint Clair River to Lake Huron, while Magnus studied his maps of vast blank spaces and Somerset bent to fur trade bookkeeping. Even aristocrats have to work, it seemed.
Aurora and I got on famously. She found my stories about Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign and his unsuccessful siege of Acre the height of entertainment, never failing to laugh gaily at my little jokes with that flattery that goes with flirtation. She was, I presumed, understandably smitten by my charm, inflated reputation, and agreeable good looks. I related bright little stories about Sir Sidney Smith and Bonaparte, Franklin and Berthollet, old Jerusalem and ancient Egypt … and now I had descriptions of mercantile New York, rustic Washington, and the curious new president to offer as well! The Somersets in turn told me how threatening Bonaparte seemed to England and how they hoped his acquisition of Louisiana would not set off a new North American war. ‘You and I must work to keep the peace, Ethan,’ Aurora said.
‘I prefer affection to fighting.’
‘Someday, England and America will be reconciled.’
‘Reunion can start with us!’
Aurora and I had both met Nelson, I on a warship and she in London, and the lady was brimming with gossip about his rumoured infatuation with Emma Hamilton, a one-time adventuress who had married well and was sleeping her way even higher. ‘She’s a beauty with her portraits all over London, and he’s the greatest hero of the age,’ Aurora sighed. ‘It’s magnificent scandal!’ There was envy in her voice.
‘You’ll eclipse her, I’m sure.’
Cecil educated us on fur politics in Canada. The Hudson’s Bay Company operated from its huge namesake in the north and had the advantage of being able to transport its trade goods to the shore of the bay in cargo ships, meaning shorter river distances to trading posts in the Canadian interior. Magnus nodded at this, since his theory was that his Norsemen had used the same route. The Bay Company’s disadvantage was short summers and long winters. The rival North West Company, dominated by Scots who employed French voyageurs in long-distance canoes, operated out of Montreal on an epic, five-thousand-mile water route across the Great Lakes and connecting rivers. Their season was longer, but they were limited to canoes, requiring an immense workforce of two thousand men. And then there was Astor, who had organised trappers on the American side of the border and monopolised the fur trade going to New York via the Mohawk and Hudson rivers.
‘Each route has its advantages and problems, and the sensible thing would be to form an alliance,’ Somerset said. ‘Cooperation always achieves more than competition, don’t you think?’
‘Like us on this boat. You sail me to Mackinac, and I’ll use my letter of introduction from Jefferson to smooth the way with the American garrison. We have a little league of nations here, with you representing England, Magnus Norway, and me America with ties to France.’ I looked at Aurora. ‘Partnership has its pleasures.’
I wished the boat had been bigger so the girl and I could get off by ourselves, but each night she commandeered the captain’s private cabin like a pampered princess while we dozen men slept on deck between the trunks, bags, satchels, and shipments that made up the Somerset luggage. There were Fitch, a cook, a butler, a French Canadian maid who slept in Aurora’s cabin, and a master-of-arms who looked after the assortment of sporting weaponry and swords that Cecil had brought with him. The English lord greeted each dawn with fencing
