He shook his head, wriggling in his bonds. “Very well. I’ll betray my country to join a pirate American on an insane mission that will probably get us killed.”
“A wise choice. Otherwise, I’d just shoot and drown you.”
He looked at me slyly. “And your secret?”
“I’ll confide when we’re on our way to Bohemia. First we must reach England. We’ll put ashore near Argenteuil, aim the steamer downstream, tie the tiller, and let her go. Then we need to use a rose to find a redheaded Rose. And more roses, where we need to go.”
CHAPTER 21
With the help of Rose and Pasques, I returned to England that December of 1805 to save its navy with the secret plans I’d found in Talleyrand’s cloak. I expected to play the prodigal hero, while arranging transport to rescue my family.
Instead, I found myself reduced to jail, government service, penurious pay, and the disappointment of the French policeman. “You seem to be humiliated everywhere you go,” Pasques told me.
My problem was once again my naive trust, this time in financial advisers. In my absence from England my bankers had knotted my fortune with loss and exorbitant management fees. Not only couldn’t I afford passage to Venice, I was told, I must pay the boarding cost of feeding my new French ally during our jailing in a British castle used as a headquarters for spies. Instead of being applauded for changing world history, I found myself discredited and dependent.
I was mad with frustration and helpless to escape. Reuniting with wife and son must wait, I was told, on the outcome of Napoleon’s invasion of England.
“You’re not the only one being asked to make sacrifices,” Sir Sidney Smith told me when I complained. “Lord Nelson hasn’t set foot on land for years.”
As irksome as bad luck is getting no sympathy.
At first our escape from France went well. Pasques and I jumped off the Vulcan at Argenteuil and tied its tiller, sending it steaming downriver until it thrashed its way into a riverbank more than three miles away. The boat drew our pursuers to its column of smoke while I sent a flower to fetch the redheaded spy Rose, whose blue eyes appraised us skeptically before agreeing to help. She and Pasques warily combined their knowledge of French security to smuggle us to the Channel coast.
As we made our way the Frenchman began to warm toward me, as people do, and was intrigued by our comely spy. “Why is every woman you deal with as fair as a flower?” he asked as Rose led us on secret paths.
“Maybe I’m not as charmless as you think, Pasques. It was Rose who elected to deal with me.”
“Every woman I get is uglier than my sisters, and you can imagine, by looking at me, how truly ugly that is.” He glanced at me. “Can you help me do better?”
“You have to prove yourself dashing and exemplary.”
“I’m fleeing my own country in disgrace with a scoundrel.”
“But you’ve been in a steamboat and are after storied treasure. We’ll find you better clothes, too. Catherine always said fashion makes all the difference, and she’s the expert on being a poseur.”
We eventually arranged to signal Tom Johnstone’s smuggling sloop from the Channel coast, ran for England, and tidied ourselves for a hero’s welcome after handing over the French naval plans I’d stolen. I was desperate to go after Astiza and Harry and expected enthusiastic British reward.
Instead, we were jailed adjacent to the soldier’s kitchens in the bowels of Walmer Castle, a Tudor fort not far from Dover. We were being held, it was explained, as possible French saboteurs because of the likelihood I’d sold myself to the enemy due to my desperate poverty.
“What poverty?”
“You’re a ruined man and apparently deserve it,” our jailer said.
I hounded him with protest until I finally got to see Smith.
“We thought you’d thrown in with Boney again, Ethan,” my spymaster told me when Pasques and I were escorted from our dungeon cells. “You disappeared with an English stipend, and instead of Napoleon being assassinated or overthrown, he triumphed at his coronation. In fact, it was such a smashing success that he plans to repeat it in Milan, putting on the crown of Italy. Good heavens, you’ve enabled bloody Julius Caesar. I’m frankly surprised you’d the nerve to return at all after such a fiasco. And with a gigantic Frenchman?” He peered at Pasques. “He’s