The Barbed Crown

Chapter 12





The Big Box had a floor of black enamel, silver wallpaper, and an azure ceiling painted with a golden eagle hurling thunderbolts at England. No wonder the French were interested in flying machines; Napoleon could be inspired by the idea every time he tilted his head. There was also a large oval conference table covered by felt cloth like a green England. A huge map of the Channel hung on one wall, and there was an inkstand with sheets of paper and quill pens cut ready for use, should Bonaparte need to dictate an order.

Pasques pushed Astiza and me through the pavilion door and took up sentry duty outside with the bodyguard Roustan. We’d been searched for weapons.

The new emperor was standing at a window, feet planted, hands clasped behind his back, to stare into the Atlantic haze toward Britain. His uniform coat was his favorite chasseur green again this day, boots bright as obsidian, and vest buttoned tight across his stomach. The foul weather had at least temporarily scrubbed away the habitual yellow pallor that new acquaintances commented on, giving him a ruddy flush of health. He turned and smiled, reminding me how capable he was of mercurial charm. “Ethan, my savior! And your lovely wife. Welcome.”

We’d left Harry with Catherine, the two planning to stroll the port boatyard. My son liked to watch the men hammer and saw, and the comtesse enjoyed the glances and catcalls of brawny carpenters.

“I’m honored, sire.” I suppose an American should have sought a democratic alternative to such honorifics as “sire” and “majesty,” but I no longer knew what else to call my old friend and enemy. Since I well remembered the crunch of the guillotine blade, I’d call him anything he liked, until either he was dead or I was a safe ocean away.

“The honor is mine. You saved me from the surf.” He addressed my wife. “I made a fool of myself, I know.”

The confession had the intended effect of thawing her. “You cannot fight heaven,” Astiza said.

“It’s stubbornness I must master. From my will comes success, but it also tempts danger.” He turned to me. “I find it very odd, Gage, how you circulate in and out of my life to cause trouble and then rescue. I’m inclined to suspect you’re a Little Red Man yourself.”

Napoleon had a firm belief that a peculiar French gnome unpredictably appeared in the night to make murky forecasts of his future. He was as superstitious as the black rebels of Saint-Domingue, scoffing at religion one moment and crossing himself the next.

“Just an American trying to make my way with my family.”

“And a spy.” He said it matter-of-factly.

“For both sides.” I shrugged as though this were the normal state of affairs, even though my heart hammered.

“Yes, the perfidious British. Why are you working for that devil Sidney Smith again?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Since Napoleon was in my debt for saving him from the surf, there was no better time for the truth. “I feared I’d lost Astiza in a hurricane. A renegade French policeman with your secret tattoo blamed you for the circumstances that put us all there. I wanted revenge, and the British offered a way to achieve it. Except that it turns out my wife miraculously survived.”

“Blamed me?” He struck a pose of injured innocence but also seemed amused, as if the suggestion that he could influence anything was absurd. This from a man who had cut down a Paris mob with grapeshot, abandoned an army in Egypt, and tried to reinstate slavery in his colonies.

So why not make the accusation and hear his defense, since I seemed to have little aptitude as an assassin? “The former policeman Leon Martel said it was your idea to steal my son and hold him for ransom. He said you knew about an emerald I’d found, and used it and my boy to manipulate me to search for an Aztec secret of flight.”

Bonaparte looked genuinely puzzled. “Ethan, I’m trying to govern a large, intractable nation surrounded by ruthless enemies. Employ you, yes. Extort you through the theft of your son? Mon Dieu! I’ve no time for kidnapping children. I truly have no idea what you’re babbling about. Come, we’re old campaigners. Remember the Alps?”

I was sweating from making accusations to a powerful man. “I know what I heard. He made you a monster. I called him a liar, and he called me naive.”

“Did he, while wearing my tattoo?” He wasn’t in a rage at my accusation, so he wanted something. “And do you have the golden pendant I gave you?” He knew the answer, of course, since I’d already shown it to Réal.

I brought the trinket out. There was the N, for Napoleon, circled by a wreath. “It’s proved useful at times,” I admitted. “I saved it through a hurricane.”

I didn’t tell him I’d ripped it from my wife’s throat to cast aside in the ocean, and that it had floated unbidden back into my pocket.

“Saved a monster’s pendant? Perhaps you weren’t sure this renegade policeman was telling the truth. Perhaps, Gage, I don’t have time to make plots with henchmen I’ve never heard of. I thought you were helping me make the bargain for Louisiana. The next thing I know, you’re missing for months and then reported hiding in Paris as a British spy. It makes no sense.”

Should I believe his denial? Maybe he really didn’t know of Martel’s manipulation of my family. Maybe he did but hadn’t played a direct role. Maybe Martel had exaggerated events in order to torment me, and divert blame from himself. Or maybe, like so many things in our histories, the entire scheme was one more misfire on all sides. In payback I’d broken into a prison, helped win a slave revolt that robbed France of its richest colony, and sent Martel to hell, so by that measure accounts were settled. Napoleon was ambitious, I was an adventurer, and our relationship was a complicated mess of debts, appreciations, and slights.

“Neither did it make sense to save you from drowning,” I said, “but I did so, even after your order forcing my family to come here. An order that makes no sense, either. You’re emperor. Why do you need us in Boulogne?”

“I need every soldier you can see from these windows. And I invited you here to explain our cause and get you and Astiza to help. France is going to win, Ethan, and when it does the world will be a better place, unshackled from moribund royals and medieval prejudices. Parliaments and Congresses don’t work. You can’t get two ambitious rascals to agree, let alone two hundred. But a single great man of ability, not birth, can accomplish something! I mean to allow trade between all nations, instill public instruction, open Jewish ghettos, reform the courts, and build canals and bridges. Does that sound like a monster to you?”

I have cheek I learned from him. “Accomplished at the point of a bayonet.”

He barked a laugh. “What an idealist you’ve become, gambler and scamp! You know as well as I that it’s only by bayonet that anything gets done. But my bayonets are propelled by ideas. I worry about newspapers, philosophers, politicians, and, yes, spies, but only because they influence opinion. And I worry about opinion only because I need it to accomplish my task on earth, which is to turn slogan into law and mobs into armies. So: I could have you shot in an instant for treachery, but instead, I invite you here to consult, observe, and, if you wish, pass on the truth to the British. I’m a general, yes, but a man of peace forced into war.”

“With a hundred thousand men,” I persisted.

“Two hundred thousand by next year, and the boats to carry them. All to end, once and for all, a contest that has dragged on for centuries. The British have tried to assassinate me a dozen times, Gage. They’re implacable and conspiratorial, a cabal of cowardly plotters who buy Austrians and Russians to do their fighting for them. England is a wretched nation of shopkeepers, a global bully, and the world will be better when France scrubs their grubby island clean as the Normans did in 1066. Tell me, what’s the name of that water out there?” He pointed out the window.

I was puzzled by the question. “The English Channel.”

“No, Ethan. La Manche, the Sleeve, the name given by France, and yet the world sees it as the property of the English. Soon that will change. My own generals are skeptics, but the reason I’m emperor and they are not is that I have the vision to imagine a better world, while they have the perspective of pygmies.”

“You do understand that Sidney Smith has a different view.” My tone was dry. Every nation edits history, and no one likes to be called a pygmy.

“I understand that as a neutral you see both sides, which only confuses you.” He moved to look at the map. “And I understand that in your adventures with this Martel, who has completely disappeared”—he cast a glance in my direction—“you did find an Aztec artifact that looks like some kind of mechanical bird.”

“I don’t think it’s of practical use.”

“Show it.”

So I took the curious object out. A helmeted man on a delta-shaped machine, but with no detail on how it might work. The solid gold was heavy and smooth. I handed it over. Good men had died to retrieve it.

Napoleon rubbed the ornament with his fingers. “A pretty toy.”

“Maybe they did fly, but I think you’d have to find the actual machine to copy them, not this representation. To learn from this is like trying to build a Napoleon from the image on a Legion of Honor medal.”

He smiled at the analogy. “Is there a different place we should search?”

“This came from an underwater cave, but there were no other clues. Maybe the Spanish know more in Mexico.”

“Perhaps I should ally with Spain.” He handed it back. “Men are beginning to dream of flight. Have you heard of an English inventor named Cayley?”

I was sweating again. Did he know of our insane escape from Fort de Joux? “Never heard of him,” I lied.

“He’s trying to emulate birds. Well.” Napoleon looked at me skeptically. “Show this to my savants; maybe it will inspire them to leap the Channel. In the meantime, I want to put you all to more immediate work.”

“All?”

“Confer with Duhèsme this summer on skirmishing tactics. I know you’re not an officer, but you’ve observed fighting prowess from the Mamelukes to Red Indians. You’re worldly, and you can share some of that wisdom with my officers.”

“Betraying England.” It’s damn hard feeling noble about yourself while working for both sides, and I felt like a fly in a European web, trying to negotiate my way under constantly changing circumstances. I admired Napoleon, and feared him. Smith was my ally, but England was America’s frequent foe. I needed a chart to sort my sentiments out.

“Hardly. Send them coded letters from inside our camp about exactly what we’re doing. Emphasize the quality of our regiments, which I’m certain you’ll find impressive. Confirm my popularity, which will be repaired from the recent gale. We simply ask to read your letters first, and suggest amendments that might make Britain sue for peace.”

Napoleon took pride in finding the special utility of each man, and each man’s weakness. He took comfort in judging me an opportunistic scoundrel because he was one himself. Napoleon liked me because he thought I was so incorrigible that I couldn’t judge him.

But I’d changed. Mostly.

I cleared my throat. “Advise Duhèsme for how long?”

“A month or two, and then back to Paris to confer with my savants. Monge, you know; he continues to improve my artillery. I fired a monster mortar myself the other day.”

“Your hearing has recovered?”

He ignored this. “The mining engineer Mathieu has proposed we dig a tunnel to England. My adjutant Quatremère Disjonual has proposed we train dolphins to carry sharpshooters across the Channel, or infiltrate saboteurs by diving bells.”

I didn’t say anything of my own diving bell experience.

“Jean-Charles Thilorier,” he went on, “has an idea for gigantic balloons.”

“Franklin had the same notion.”

“All I want is your habitual skepticism, married to your considerable imagination. Your mind works in strange ways. The notion that men flew in ancient times makes it possible we’ll fly again. Share your bauble with my scientists.”

Since I constantly question my own worth, I am susceptible to flattery. We all wish to be useful. I glanced at Astiza, who had an expression of careful neutrality. She was more suspicious of the Corsican and yet said nothing, because she was still wondering why she was here at all.

“I’m hard-pressed,” I said, to say something. “Réal mentioned a salary?”

He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, you’re on his payroll—take up the details with him. I’ll give you a letter testifying to your mission.”

“I appreciate your confidence, Your . . . Majesty.”

“I’m not confident in you at all, Gage, but you have a knack for strange success.” He rubbed his hands. “Now, your royalist conspirator, Catherine Marceau, must also work for me if she wishes to live. She doesn’t have to betray her friends, but I want her to advise on my coronation to give it royalist endorsement. The whole point is to demonstrate that my ascension can never be reversed, and so its symbolism must include the reintegration of royalist émigrés like her. I understand Marceau is a student of fashion, so she can confer on gowns and protocol. Do you think she’ll be willing?”

“She loves opulence. As long as you can persuade her that she has no choice but to work on your coronation, what you’re proposing will entirely seduce her.”

“Good. Now, the most important member of your triad is your wife. And how do you regard me, my dear?”

“Competent, but too quick to risk your men.” She glanced at the shore. The girl is honest to a fault, as I’ve said.

He colored. “You began our relationship by shooting at me in Egypt.”

“And you killed my Alexandrian master with a cannon blast.”

“You and I are not so different, madame; we are both fond of the desert. If the entire world was land, not water, I couldn’t be stopped. But the sea frustrates me.”

“Controlled by gods instead of men.”

“Controlled by weather: we’re not in the Dark Ages. Yet from our blustery beginnings, Astiza, things can only improve, no? Was I really so bad for Egypt?”

“A better question is whether Egypt was bad for you. You fled when you could.”

“I didn’t flee, I was called to duty by the plight of France. And you ask that of me, a Corsican? I’m not a man confined by borders. Perhaps I’ll return to Egypt someday. In any event, my invasion there is history, and it is because of history that I’ve asked you here.” He straightened to emphasize he was brisk and commanding, but he was still only her height. “You’re a historian. I understand you’ve been frustrated in getting access to archives in Paris.”

She was surprised. “You know about that?”

“My agents haven’t just followed you, they’ve thwarted you, because I was wary of what you were searching for. I remember the Book of Thoth and your skills as a scholar.” He glanced at me. “Yes, Ethan, I learn everything, and forget nothing.” Then, to her. “But now I promise unlimited access to the records of church, state, and university—if you do something for me in return.”

“Sire?” She used the word before thinking about it.

“Have you heard of the Brazen Head of Albertus Magnus?”

Astiza was cautious, but not surprised. “A very odd legend. The machine was destroyed by Saint Thomas Aquinas, according to the same stories.”

“Perhaps.” He began to pace in front of the bank of windows, lines of troops marching far below like blue centipedes.

“The Brazen Head?” I interrupted. “What the devil is that?”

“Tell your husband, madame.”

She was looking at Napoleon warily, and replied slowly. “Albertus was a Dominican friar who lived in the thirteenth century,” she began.

“About 1200 to 1280,” Napoleon put in, pacing back and forth.

“He was a German, educated in Italy, who came from Cologne to Paris, and became the foremost scholar of his age. Albert was appointed chair of theology at Saint James. Like many learned men he sought the Philosopher’s Stone, that alchemist’s grail with the reputed power to turn lead into gold and grant immortality. He never found it. But unlike others, he didn’t just yearn, he built. Legend says he spent thirty years constructing a manlike figure that could speak.”

“The Brazen Head,” Napoleon said. “A mechanical head made of brass. Not so different from the clever automatons craftsmen make today, which seem to talk, eat, or play chess. Except those are toys, and this was not.”

“Some say Albertus Magnus built an entire body,” Astiza went on, “and one account holds that it was made of iron, not brass, and was called the Iron Man. Still others contend it was wood. About eighty years ago, a new name was suggested for this being: An ‘android.’”

“By Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, what does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s coined from Greek, meaning ‘in the likeness of man,’” she said.

“How do you know all this?”

“Ethan, it’s what I do.” She addressed Napoleon. “Your agents told you I was attempting to research that subject.”

“Yes, and I became intrigued,” the emperor replied.

“The Brazen Head was designed not just to talk and possibly walk, but—according to legend—to answer peculiar questions.”

“Questions about the future. It could forecast events.”

She cocked her head, as intrigued by the emperor’s curiosity as he was by hers. I have a bad habit of being jealous, and that prickly emotion stabbed again. “But legend says Albert’s protégé, Thomas Aquinas, was horrified and destroyed the android,” she said. “He thought the machine infused with Satan. No one can truly know the future, he said, or should know.”

“But wait,” I objected. “You try to see the future all the time.”

Napoleon smiled. “As do I. Predicting the future is what makes us human. No other creature records its history, tries to learn from it, and anticipates what might come next. I want a reliable fortune-teller of my own: not a sideshow charlatan but a real machine of uncanny accuracy. Can you imagine knowing disaster before it occurs, and avoiding it? Or knowing of fortune before it occurs, and investing?”

I agreed with Thomas Aquinas: this was wicked. “Surely no such thing ever existed.”

“Just like the Mirror of Archimedes or the Book of Thoth never existed.” He watched me.

Since I’d found both those things, and Thor’s Hammer besides, I understood Napoleon’s real reason for offering alliance. He didn’t want sharpshooting tips. He wanted my expertise, or luck, as a treasure hunter. He wanted us to find this Brazen Head, just as he’d wanted an Aztec flying machine. My wife said the head had been destroyed. But she clearly didn’t believe so, or she’d never have researched it to begin with.

“We’re hundreds of years too late, aren’t we?” I tried.

“Perhaps,” Napoleon said mildly. “Or perhaps it wasn’t burned but instead secreted in a castle deep in Austrian territory.”

“And you want us to get this devil’s tool for you.”

“Just locate it, my armies will do the rest.”

“In the Austrian Empire?”

“Looking into the future, again.”

His army was pointed west, not east. Had I learned something of importance for Smith? Or, knowing me a spy, was Napoleon misdirecting me? “But a machine that predicts the future would give you unprecedented advantage.”

“Put to unprecedented good use.” A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle, Franklin had remarked.

“No, this is another of your goose chases,” I said. “You’re as mad as Sidney Smith. The Brazen Head? How could Albertus construct such a thing? And even if he did, why would we find it for you?”

“To avoid the massacre of your own family.” He walked to plop down in the sole chair, a portable wooden one with a green cushion. His threat was given plainly, without drama, as something so obvious as not to require repeating. His level tone emphasized his power more than a shout would have done, and his lack of emotion was as cold as a bayonet. “To solve a scholarly puzzle, which your wife loves to do. But most important, Gage, to cement your own place in history.”

“I don’t want a place in history. People who do have a tendency to be dead.”

“If I know the future I can outmaneuver my enemies and defeat them without war. You will end this conflict by helping me checkmate the British and their European allies with perfect foresight and, by so doing, save thousands and thousands of lives.” He set his fists on the green table. “If the android of Albert the Great still exists, we’re going to find it, harness it, and usher in a glorious new age of unity in Europe. Under my leadership.” His look was commanding. “Tell Sidney Smith anything you like about my army in Boulogne, but this is a mission you will keep from him, on pain of death.” He stood again, restless as a rabbit, and addressed my wife. “I was defeated by the sea, but the response to any defeat is a different attack. Come see my legion ceremony if you doubt my future, Ethan. And then attend my coronation, both of you. Your governess should make it quite a show.”