My family and I hid for three days in an isolated farmhouse, Astiza nursing Harry back to good health. A rider came, inquiring about fugitives, but Gideon paid the farmer to say he’d seen no one. Neighbors said that black-clad strangers had been reported following the river and scouring the ruins, but there was no report of discovery. Finally, they left.
“Where will you go?” Gideon asked me.
“West is France and the sphere of French influence,” I said. “South is where I first encountered the agents of the Invisible College. So north and east, I think, until we decide what to do. We’ll aim for the Baltic and take ship for the life we deserve.”
“Paid for how?”
I laughed, ruefully, at my poverty. So much striving, for so little gain! Except I had a wife, child, freedom, and experiences that can’t be bought. I was rich in the things that count.
“I’ll gamble. Astiza will tell fortunes. Perhaps we can find honest jobs as well. Something that draws less attention, I hope. I once had a fortune in England but lost it to bad investments. My mentor Franklin said it is harder to keep money than to earn it in the first place.”
“My father is adept at keeping it. Here, take a hundred talers to get started on your way.”
“No, you’ve done too much, my friend, and our quest has put both of your lives in jeopardy. Keep it for the Dray children, when you have them.”
He laughed. “What wife would want me?”
Almost any on the planet, I thought, but didn’t need to say that. While great men climbed and fell, Gideon would abide, gleaning his father’s wisdom.
“What will you do, my Jewish friend?”
“Return home with Father, I think, and expand our business together. Nor do I think this recent war will be the last, and there will be other armies our employees can follow. Find a patron, Ethan. It’s an advantage having someone who can help.”
He took his leave on a late January afternoon in the year 1806, and we stayed a final night. When we rose, we found he’d left the hundred talers, and that he’d purchased a horse and sleigh for us besides. The goodness of one man can balance despair over the mendacity of a hundred.
Harry was sick after our river dousing, and, given the mortality rate among children, we worried a great deal. But he recovered, and then bounced back with the vigor small ones have. He had nightmares but talked little of his months of imprisonment. He chattered instead about the farm animals and new adventures. I hoped the alchemical prison would become a vague memory as he blossomed into boyhood. The days slowly lengthened from the darkest time of year.
Finally we set out, traveling north into a Poland that had been dismembered and absorbed by Russia and Prussia a decade before. As I learned to drive our sleigh on snowy roads, I considered our options. One was to be ordinary, doing small things and rejoicing in our smallness. Perhaps I could establish an American trading company in Tallinn, or assemble a cargo for Philadelphia in Copenhagen.
But another was to capitalize on my expertise. All the world was talking of Napoleon, the terrible Prometheus. He was reforming hero to some, predatory dictator to others. And while my adventures had brought me little material gain, they had brought me a wealth of experience. I knew Bonaparte in his many moods, had observed his armies, and understood some of his success and weakness. I’d died, risen, and come away with unusual perspective.
The Russian government in St. Petersburg was famed for hiring foreign savants from the West to modernize its institutions. Did I need a patron? I’d passed through the lands of two emperors. Perhaps we could fetch up for a time in the nation of a third, Czar Alexander. He might not like me, but he certainly could use me.
“Gideon said the most successful advisers have been made Russian nobles, with grants of lands and palaces,” I said. “It would be amusing to be rich for a while.”
“Or at least warm,” my ever practical wife said. So we slid northward, goal in mind, bundled in furs as we passed through endless silver forest. We paid for shelter in the log huts of peasants each winter night.
Armies had stood down for the winter, Napoleon as dominant on land as he was thwarted on the ocean. All his plans to invade England had come to nothing. All of Britain’s plans to overthrow him had left Bonaparte stronger than ever. The world would wait now to see how strong his empire would be, and whether the Prussians would still resist. He cast light and shadow like the sun.
So we traveled unnoticed and unmolested, sled runners hissing on ice. But on the fifteenth day of February, on a snowy road just south of St. Petersburg, we finally encountered a troop of cavalry. We steered our sleigh to the side of the road to let them pass, hoping we wouldn’t be bothered. Except that I recognized the splendid posture of one as they galloped, decided to take a chance at happiness, and called out to my old rival.
“Prince Dolgoruki!”
The riders reined up and the noble squinted. I stood and took off my fur cap to reveal my features. The prince gave an order and the hussars wheeled to surround us, hooves kicking up a surf of snow. My own horse shied nervously as their steeds boxed us in, their nostrils blowing steam.
“By the beard of Saint Basil, is it the American scoundrel? You dare put yourself within reach of my sword?”
“Adviser,” I corrected. “Historian, seer, electrician, and military consultant. With my family, seeking asylum from Bonaparte.” I bowed. “Ethan Gage, American savant, at your service. With Astiza of Alexandria.” She nodded. The soldiers, who couldn’t understand our French, looked impassive.
Prince Peter Petrovich Dolgoruki, the very same man I’d conducted to a conference with Napoleon before the Battle of Austerlitz, regarded me warily. The disastrous defeat had aged him in the two months since we’d talked.
“You travel to the losing side, Gage?” he asked in the same French, the language of the Russian court. Their nobility aped the manners of their enemies, admiring France as much as they feared it. “I thought you’d tied your fate to the frogs.”
“I was conscripted, not recruited,” I said. “And the balance of power has been upset with Austerlitz. Napoleon is a tyrant, his ambition boundless. I know him as well as any man alive and am prepared to offer my expertise to a monarch seeking to best him.” I tried to smile winningly.
“You mean he dismissed you.” Dolgoruki was not entirely stupid.
“I deserted to care for my family. Now, after Austerlitz, I believe my knowledge will be better appreciated in Russia. I’m neutral, as I said, but perhaps of use to Czar Alexander. Good card player, too.”
He looked at Astiza and Harry. “This is your family?”
“My wife and son. We’ve been reunited after many trials. Consider them evidence of my friendly intent. No spy brings his family.” Well, I did, but no need to go on and on about our oddities.
He leaned down to address Harry. “So you’re an adventurer like your father. You’re a brave little lad, aren’t you?”
“We killed the bad men.”
The prince’s smile was tight. “Not the most awful one. Not yet.”
“Will you introduce me to your sovereign, Prince?” I said.
“I’m sure he’ll remember you,” Dolgoruki said sourly, “and your deceptive diplomatic mission with the sly Savary.”
“I was pressed into service and said nothing false. I tried to warn you.”
He knew this was true. It was Russian rashness, not the diplomatic posing of Ethan Gage, that led to disaster at Austerlitz. “And your mission to us now?”
“Do you want to beat Napoleon? I can tell you how.” A cheeky promise, but the first step toward recovering our fortunes was to get in the Winter Palace door. Should I play our cards right, we’d have an empire to protect us, respite from travel, a good home, and maybe a puppy for Harry. We’d make our fortune and go home to America. I might even write a book.
“You are impudent.”
“Opportunistic. Improvisational. And my wife is a scholar and priestess of Egypt, offering the wisdom of the ages.”
“Is this true, madame?”
“My husband and I met when I helped my master take shots at Napoleon. His regime tore my family apart, and now we’re trying to put it back together. Please, Prince. Give mercy. And my husband a chance.”
He shook his head, persuaded, as so many are, by her beauty and my bargaining. “War makes strange allies.”
“And strong friends,” I encouraged.
“You’d betray your former master?”
“Napoleon was never my master. And he must be contained to achieve peace, both of nations and of my family. Fascinating fellow, but as troublesome as the devil. I understand he’s his mother’s child.”
Dolgoruki was too proud to befriend a commoner, but perhaps if I achieved a title . . . My imagination always outruns my accomplishments. Finally he shrugged. “We’ll let the court decide your fate.” He turned to his men. “Colonel!”
“Yes, Your Excellency?”
“A salute to our new allies! And back to St. Petersburg, as escort of this . . . embassy, of sorts.” Now that a decision had been made, the order was crisp and princely. There was a thrilling rasp as the sabers came out and were shouldered in salute, Harry wide-eyed at the hedge of steel. Dolgoruki was making plain who was in control. “In desperate times, even Ethan Gage may be of use.”
Had we finally found safe harbor? Russia sprawled from where we conferred to the Pacific and Russian America. Distance enough from Napoleon.
“Now we can seek refuge to truly make our marriage,” my wife murmured. “Perhaps it is over at last.”
I cracked the whip and our sleigh slid back onto the frozen road, the soldiers forming an escort around us. A cry of command, and off we raced, the cavalry setting a brisk pace for our normally uninspired horse. Within the hour, St. Petersburg loomed into view.
We paused to take it in. The place was only a century old, built on the bones of a hundred thousand slaves, and invented from scratch like my own Washington. It had canals to rival Venice, frozen to white ribbons. It looked new, ambitious, ostentatious, and huge. The prince rode back and reined up next to our sleigh. “While the nobility speaks French, you should begin to learn Russian as well, Ethan Gage. To start, try, Ya durak.”
“Ya durak? What does that mean?”
“I am a fool.”
I scowled, but the prince leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re about to enter the greatest capital in the world, in the greatest country, of the greatest people.” He evaluated our rags. “And finally see your fortunes turn.”
I looked at the golden domes and spires of the Russian capital, glowing in the late winter sun of 1806. For the first time in years, I thought this might prove true.