copper ore and discarded tools. There are old copper mines there, so numerous you wonder what civilisation worked them.’
Magnus glanced up at the bowman.
‘The Indians had copper,’ the voyageur went on, ‘but nothing on the scale of those workings. It looks like enough was dug to arm the warriors on both sides of the walls of Troy. But how would this copper have got to Greece, eh?’
‘Perhaps people have been crossing the Atlantic and trading metal far longer than we guess,’ Magnus said. ‘Maybe my Norse were part of a train of explorers going back to ancient times.’
‘But who boated all this way in those days?’
I couldn’t resist joining in, even though I knew it would only fuel the speculation. ‘The astronomer Corli, and his colleague Gisancourt, speculated that Plato’s allegory of Atlantis was actually a real place, an island in the Atlantic. Perhaps the miners came from there. Trojan refugees. Carthaginians. Who knows?’
‘There, you see?’ said Magnus. ‘This lake has been a highway.’
‘
‘Not conquistador, but king,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘How about it, Magnus? Somerset called you royalty. What did he mean by that?’
‘Bloodhammer is an ancient name of a Norse monarch,’ my companion said evenly. ‘I’m proud to say I share his bloodline.’
‘You’re Norwegian nobility, cyclops?’ Pierre asked.
‘For what it’s worth. There’s no independent Norway, according to the Danes.’
Here it was then. My companion did not just want independence for his nation. He wanted to reinstitute Norwegian aristocracy in which he might claim a place. He was not so much a revolutionary as a royalist!
‘So you’re a long-lost king, Magnus?’ I clarified.
‘Hardly. And the lineage of my ancestors is nothing compared to what we’re looking for, Ethan.’
‘And explain again just what
‘I told you, a golden age that was lost. Secrets of the gods. In every culture there’s a fount of wisdom, a tree of life, and not just an Yggdrasil. In Norse stories, Iduna’s golden apples conferred to the gods everlasting life.’
‘Like a tree in Eden.’
‘Aye.’ He stroked again. ‘And the serpent is like the dragon who guards the golden hoard.’
At long last we saw the masts of an anchored sloop in the shoreline ahead and realised we’d come to the end of the lake. The faint wail of bagpipes and fiddles floated across the water, and our Indians began yipping like dogs. We stopped short at a small island to dress ourselves for Rendezvous. The voyageurs donned their brightest clothes, tilted their caps at a jaunty angle, and fixed them with feathers. Lord Somerset cleaned his own boots to a high polish, and Aurora disappeared behind some bushes before emerging in a gown fit for the English court, wrinkled and musty but still stupefying in its sheen. The two Indian women stroked their lustrous hair with wooden combs and painted their lips with juice, and the men were bangled with copper and bone ornaments. Magnus and I trimmed each other’s hair, brushed our greatcoats, and traded worn moccasins for fresh ones. I’d quickly seen the practicality of this footwear: light, silent, and quick-drying.
Then, properly attired, we shoved off again and all six canoes began a race around Hat Point to sprint for the grey-weathered stockade. All of us sang the now-familiar French paddling songs at the top of our lungs, paddles dipping in synchronized rhythm. As we came into view a horn sounded ashore and cannon went off, and as we neared the pebbled beach a tide of trappers, Indians, and bourgeois managers poured down to meet us, cheering, insulting, and firing guns in the air. Great cottony puffs of white smoke blossomed, reports echoing merrily across the bay. Indian braves whooped with cries that raised the hairs on my neck, shaking tomahawks like rattles. Women waved blankets and clashed iron kettles. Cecil, Pierre, and I fired in turn, and Aurora waved her parasol, her green eyes bright with excitement.
Then the bowmen leapt lightly into the shallows and we were ashore, strangers pounding our backs and offering swigs of shrub.
Tents, wigwams, and overturned canoes used as lean-tos were spread on either side of the fort, hazy wood smoke hanging over the encampment like a roof. Music drifted, drums thumped, and the pop-pop of shooting competitions filled the air. I could smell roasting meat, spice, and molasses.
Grand Portage itself was a modest stockade a few acres in extent that contained a dozen sawn-log buildings, gardens of corn, herbs, and vegetables, and sheds for furs and trade goods. Amid the stumps outside where the forest had been logged, a dozen assembled Indian tribes camped with hundreds of visiting voyageurs. A muddy trail wound from the fort up through the slash and into the forest for the eight-mile portage that led to the navigable part of the Pigeon River above its falls. From there, canoeists could paddle upstream to waterways that led west to the fabled Rocky Mountains or north to the Arctic. We were at the continent’s crossroads, the edge of empire between British, American, French, and Indians.
‘We’re drawing closer to where my people came,’ Magnus murmured. ‘I feel it. Somewhere beyond the trees is the navel of the world.’
‘Somewhere beyond the trees are blackflies, Red Indians, and plain stream water,’ Pierre advised. ‘Feast while you can.’
Our party split. Magnus and I, as ambassadors of a sort, accompanied the Somersets and Red Jacket through the gates of the fort to the Great Hall. Pierre, his voyageur companions, and the other women fanned into the encampments outside, crying greetings, boasts, insults, and endearments to people they hadn’t seen in a year.
The fort’s interior parade ground grass was trampled flat by the traffic. Bundles of trade goods piled high, and fur presses squeezed lush pelts for shipping to New York and London. Armed guards escorted us past this treasury to the long porch of the Great Hall, a log building whose sash was painted Spanish brown. There a cluster of partners waited, at their centre a tall, stern-faced, white-haired Scot in a black coat and knee-high moccasins.
‘Lord and Lady Somerset!’ he greeted with booming voice. ‘We’ve been awaiting your company!’
Cecil gave the slightest of bows. ‘Simon McTavish! It is an honour, sir.’
‘The honour is ours. And this is your lovely cousin?’
‘May I present Aurora?’
‘Most presentable! Lady, your light outshines the morning.’
She smiled and gave a slight curtsy. It was all a little precious for me, given that things were rustic as Mary’s manger. McTavish was leering like an old goat.
‘Red Jacket you know, I believe,’ Cecil said.
McTavish raised a hand. ‘All men know the fame of the warrior chief, friend of both the Ojibway and Dakota.’
‘And these two gentlemen have accompanied us as well,’ Cecil went on. ‘Ethan Gage is an American with a reputation as adventurer and electrician. He has connections to the French government.’
‘The French!’
‘Who are reacquiring Louisiana,’ Cecil announced blandly. ‘Gage is an emissary of Napoleon, out to tell them what they have. He’s dined with Jefferson as well.’
‘Are you a herald of war, Mr Gage?’
I bowed myself. ‘On the contrary, sir, I helped forge peace between my own nation and the French at Mortefontaine. I am an American who has worked with both the British and the French. Bonaparte and Jefferson sent me as a symbol of peace.’ I smiled brightly as a barmaid.
The old Scot looked sceptical. ‘Did they now?’ Though well past fifty, this empire builder looked hard as iron and quick as an abacus.
‘His companion Magnus Bloodhammer is a Norwegian patriot and descendant of royalty who thinks his ancestors may have preceded us all to this hard country,’ Somerset went on. ‘While the fur trade is one of fierce competition, we here – Red, English, American, and so forth – have joined forces as a symbol of peace and unity. Bonaparte is taking back Louisiana, McTavish, whether we like it or not, and we must have Ethan’s help in
