scooped up the dice, put them in the bowl, waggled it like a sifter, and threw the dice against the hide. A roar went up, fading to a mutter. There were five white sides, and five decorated. Neither of us won.
He scooped them up to throw again.
‘Wait, don’t I get a turn?’
‘Under the circumstances, Mr Gage, I think it’s safer to keep you bound.’
Red Jacket threw again and this time there were six white, four decorated. The crowd whooped as if it were a horse race! The chief took one bean.
He threw again, and once more got six white. Delirium! Drumming and chanting!
‘By John Paul Jones, I don’t think anyone’s on our side. Be sure to cheer if we win a bean, Magnus.’
‘They’re just making sport of us.’
‘It’s better than the alternative.’
Another throw, and this time seven decorated dice turned up. The crowd groaned in dismay. I got two beans to even our pile, and there was enough mourning to animate a Greek chorus. I’m lucky at gambling, so my spirits rose.
Two more throws, each of us taking a bean, and then seven white for Red Jacket, giving him six beans for my three. There was one bean left in the middle. Luck seemed to be running the rascal’s way: hysteria among the onlookers.
‘I appear to be losing,’ I told Cecil resignedly.
‘Not yet. You’ll play until you’re entirely bankrupt.’
I actually won the next toss, taking the final bean between us, and then the one after that, taking one of Red Jacket’s beans and making us even again. Now the Indians muttered and mourned, poor losers.
But then he took two of mine, then one, I won that one back, then the chief took it yet again, and another besides. I had one bean left, he had nine. The Indians were dancing, singing, and anticipating my demise with frolic worthy of a Neapolitan carnival. I hadn’t caused this much amusement since Najac and his gang of French-Arab thugs hung me upside down over a snake pit. I really should have been a thespian.
Red Jacket grinned, scooped the die up while dragging the sleeve of his ratty English coat, and gave a victory whoop as he shook to throw. The Indians howled with anticipation.
But I’d watched this sly devil with a gambler’s eye. I suddenly twisted off my knees, landed in the sand on my rump, and lashed out with a free foot, kicking the bowl out of his hand and sending the dice flying. I had that small cache of silver dollars I’d hidden in the sole of my moccasin to keep them from the shrub-drinking voyageurs, and I’ll bet the metal made the kick sting even more.
‘He’s cheating!’ I cried. ‘Check the dice!’
I hadn’t actually spotted it, but each time he scooped up the dice he gave no opportunity for me to inspect them. Judging how he’d gambled for Namida, I was betting he’d slipped one or more dice with two white sides into the game. And yes, I saw one likely example and slapped my foot down over it, even as an angry Red Jacket tried to pry it off.
Cecil stepped forward between us and gestured for me to sit back. I uncovered the dice and he lifted it. Sure enough, two sides were white.
The crowd was silent.
‘Clever guess, Mr Gage. If you’d made a more civilised gesture we might have cause to question the entire propriety of this contest.’ He flipped the die in the air, catching it, and slipping it into his own pocket. ‘But you lashed out like a brute.’ Red Jacket looked murderous.
‘He cheated! Set us free!’
‘On the contrary, you upset the final throw of the game before its conclusion could be reached. We thus have to go by the score when you unceremoniously backed out. It was, I recall, nine to one.’
‘Only because he rigged the game!’
‘You upset the contest rather than make proper challenge. You can blame your own boorish manners for what is to come.’ Then he shouted something to the assembled Indians and they yelped anew, ecstatic that the fun of our torture could finally begin. Cecil turned back to me. ‘Don’t you understand that the game has been stacked against you from the start, Ethan? Do you really think we were going to allow a French-American spy to blithely blunder around British fur territory?’
‘Spanish territory, now French.’
‘Don’t think I’m disturbed by that technicality.’
‘Norwegian territory!’ Magnus shouted.
He smiled. ‘How quaint. It’s historical progress to have you both die.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Red Jacket snapped some orders and the tribe began backing from the beach to form two parallel lines towards the gate of their palisade village. The women eagerly pushed into position ahead of the men, shaking their sticks and screeching contempt, which is usually something women do only when they’ve known me for a while. I saw gaping mouths, white teeth, and black, remorseless eyes. It took every ounce of courage to take the first tottering step forward.
We were about to run the gauntlet towards the stake and the fire.
‘Don’t fall,’ Cecil coached. ‘They’ll beat you until you’re unconscious and see how many bones they can break. That makes it hurt even more when they tie you to the stake.’
‘Perhaps you could show how it’s done?’
‘Quite unnecessary. Running the gauntlet is instinctive, Mr Gage, or so Girty told me. He’s quite the mentor, you know.’
Someone shoved from behind and I staggered forward, wrists still bound behind my back. I’d have to be quick, ducking the blows of the strongest and meanest and trying to keep my face down and undamaged. So I dug my feet in the gravel of the beach, crouched while my tormentors howled with anticipation, and then, when a musket went off, sprang. They whooped.
My speed took them by surprise so the first few clubs missed, wind singing by my ears. But then blows began striking my arms, back, and thighs. Someone thrust out a stick to trip me and I had the wit to jump and come down on it, snapping the wood and eliciting a cry of surprise. I butted another brute and kept staggering. One particularly fierce crack stung the side of my neck but the pain jolted me forward just as I was faltering. I surged ahead again, clubs a tattoo on my torso.
‘Good show, Gage!’ Cecil was shouting. ‘Oh, that must hurt!’
‘His head! Hit his head!’ Aurora screamed. At least she wasn’t urging them to aim for more private areas.
There was a great shout behind and I glanced to see that Magnus, charging like a bull, had knocked over half a dozen of his assailants and was stomping on indignant, writhing forms as other Indians howled with laughter. The distraction allowed me to squirt ahead the final ten yards with only a few last smart blows. I plunged through the gate of the village where half a dozen armed warriors waited in a blocking semicircle and sank to my knees, too excited for the full pain to yet register. Bloodhammer’s size had turned his ordeal into sport, the gauntlet widening around him like a swollen python. As he ploughed forward he dragged Indians with him, grunting with each thwack and spit, and when his knee went down once he simply genuflected and shoved off again, gasping. Finally he broke free of his tormenters and joined me in the dirt. A trickle of blood ran from one temple and his chest heaved. Norse fire burnt in his eyes.
‘Did they crack a rib?’ I asked.
‘Barely dusted me. I broke a nose with my foot. I heard it crunch.’ He grinned, his teeth red with blood.
‘Look for any chance you can. I’d rather die fighting than burn.’
The cordons on his neck popped out as he strained at his bonds. ‘If I get loose, it won’t be just us dying.’
It seemed appropriate to concede some fault, given the circumstances. ‘I’m not always the smartest judge of women,’ I admitted.
He spat blood. ‘We’ll pay her back.’
‘And living in nature doesn’t improve human character,’ I went on, a regular Locke to dispute the Rousseau of
