William Dietrich - The Barbary Pirates

"I'm also looking for Og," I tried. That was written on the foil, too, before Aurora Somerset made a mess of the whole thing. She was the reason I'd sworn off women.

At that word, Fouche stiffened and looked at me warily. Cuvier, too, stared curiously. But it was Napoleon who'd gone white.

"What did you say?" the first consul asked.

"Og." It sounded silly even to me.

The first consul glanced questioningly at my three companions, and then addressed the others. "I think Monsieur Gage and I need a moment alone."

We walked fifty paces from the group and stopped by the pond shore, out of hearing from anyone else. "Where did you hear that word?" Napoleon asked sharply.

"In America."

"America! How?"

I sighed. It was the first time I'd even tried to relate what really happened, and I didn't expect anyone to believe me. "You may remember a Norwegian named Bloodhammer who visited Mortefontaine when we celebrated the treaty between France and my own country," I began. "He found a place in the Louisiana Territory, far beyond the frontier, which had Norse artifacts." I decided not to mention anything more about the bewildering site. "One was a gold metal sheet, encased in a rotting shield, which had writing that bore that word. It stuck in my mind because it was so odd."

"What else did it say?" Bonaparte looked disturbed, almost queasy.

"The inscription was in Latin, which I can't read. I could only make out a few words and then a fight broke out and the foil was destroyed. It happened in a struggle with a British woman from the Egyptian Rite, actually-quite a long story." No need to mention I'd been her lover. "Just as I was telling you, I was fighting the British, not spying for them."

"So you don't know what it means?"

"No. Do you?"

He frowned, looking out across the pond. The cluster of aides and police were looking at us curiously from a distance, envious of my sudden intimacy with their leader. "Gage," he finally asked quietly, "have you ever heard of the Little Red Man?"

At the mention of that curious French legend I had the odd feeling I was being watched from an attic window of the pretty chateau. I turned, but there was nothing to see, of course: its small rectangular dormer windows were dark and blank. Josephine had withdrawn inside as well. "I've heard rumor. Everyone has."

"Do you believe in the supernatural?"

I cleared my throat. "I've seen odd things."

"The Little Red Man is a gnomelike creature dressed and concealed in a red hooded cloak. His face is always in shadow, but he is short and bent with long brown fingers. Sometimes you can see the gleam of eyes. Watchful eyes. Disturbing eyes that know far too much."

"All France knows the tale, but it's only a story."

"No, he is real. He first appeared to Catherine de'Medici, and by reputation lives most commonly in the attic of the Tuileries Palace that she built. He appeared to French royalty on occasion, usually in times of crisis. To me it was just a fable as well, the kind of myth to amuse children. But then I saw him in Egypt."

"General!"

He nodded, lost in remembrance. "I've never been so frightened. It was shortly before the Battle of the Pyramids. He came into my field tent at the night's darkest hour, when I'd exhausted all my aides and was the only one still awake. I'd just heard of Josephine's infidelities and was beside myself with rage and sorrow, and couldn't sleep."

I remembered in Egypt when Junot related to me his unhappy task of informing the general of his wife's unfaithfulness, revealed by pilfered letters that had been sent from France.

"A doctor would say it was hallucination, of course. But the creature spoke of the future in a deep, sly voice with a tone I've never heard before or since. He was not of our world, Gage, but as real as your three savants standing by the pond over there. And then he began to prophesy."

That day in Egypt, Napoleon had seemed possessed.

"Later I had similar visions in the Great Pyramid-you'll remember when I lay in the sarcophagus? But troubling ones as well! In any event, the Little Red Man promised me at least ten years of success to accomplish what I need to accomplish, which is why I was so confused by my loss to you and that obstinate Sidney Smith at the siege of Acre. I was not supposed to lose! But I didn't lose, in the end, because my defeat ultimately directed me back to Paris to take charge here, thanks to your Rosetta key. The Little Red Man had known after all."

So was I some blind instrument of fate, setting in motion events I didn't understand? "What has this got to do with Og?"

"The creature said I should seek its ruins, because a machine of great power was at stake. If it fell into the wrong hands it could disrupt my destiny."

"Ruins where?"

"I've ordered research into just that question. Gog and Magog, it seems, are referred to in the Bible, and are sometimes interpreted as lands at the ends of the earth. Og itself is a Celtic reference to a distant, powerful kingdom. I wonder if there was some common, root language."

Magnus had believed in long-ago civilizations and forgotten powers.

"This machine had something to do with Og, I was told. The Little Red Man said he'd warned French leaders at critical times before, and that I must remember that word because I would hear it again someday. I remembered the sound of it-Og-because it was so odd, but I hadn't heard it spoken again until now." He stared. "By you."

Despite myself, I felt a shiver. "I don't know any Little Red Man."

"But you do find ancient things, and fate keeps bringing us together. You're an agent of destiny, Ethan Gage, which is why I've remained intrigued by you. I've told no one of Og, and very few of the Little Red Man, and yet you bear that word. You, the wayward American."

"It was simply written down. I'd no time to make sense of it."

"Sense! Sometimes I think I'm as lunatic as my brothers." Napoleon's odd family was, of course, the source of endless gossip in Paris. The more he tried to elevate his relatives to positions of responsibility, the sharper the public witticisms in cataloging their faults.

"My elder brother Joseph only wants to be rich, and he's loyal enough," Bonaparte confided. "But Lucien is venal and jealous, and Jerome is reportedly smitten by some ship-owner's daughter in Baltimore. Baltimore!" He said it as if it were a barbarian fiefdom. "I forced Louis to marry Josephine's daughter, Hortense, this last January, but Louis doesn't really like women and Hortense loves one of my aides. She spent the night before her wedding weeping."

Why he confessed all this to me I don't know, but men sometimes tell me things because they figure me inconsequential. Of course the actual Paris gossip was more malicious than that. Napoleon's brother Lucien had started a rumor that Napoleon forced the marriage of Hortense and Louis because Napoleon, her stepfather, had impregnated her himself in his desperation to father an heir. Hortense's marriage, so the gossip went, would legitimize a potential successor. Certainly Hortense was heavy with child, but who made it, and when, was open to speculation. I was wise enough not to ask.

"You're not a lunatic," I said sympathetically, to ingratiate myself. I can be a shameless courtier. "You just bear the weight of rule."

"Yes, yes. Ah, Gage. You cannot imagine how carefree you are, floating free of responsibility!"

"But I'm trying to influence the future of Louisiana."

"Forget Louisiana. Nothing is going to happen with Louisiana until the situation in Haiti is resolved. The blacks fight on and on." He scowled. "And now you bring back memory of the gnome! He came into my tent past all my guards. His cloak dragged on the sand, making a track like a snake's." His voice was hollow, his eyes distant.