Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II Read online

  “Why, my dear Frederic, you really are taking a chill,” said La Fayette.

  “Not a bit.”

  “You shivered.”

  “I shuddered.”

  “You must stop pouting and make the best of this. The Irrakwa have been very cooperative. They provided us with the governor’s own barge, free of charge, as a gesture of goodwill.”

  “The governor! The governor? You mean that fat hideous red-skinned heathen woman?”

  “She can’t help her red skin, and she isn’t heathen. In fact she’s a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.”

  “Who can keep track of these English heresies?”

  “I think there’s something quite elegant about it. A woman as governor of the state of Irrakwa, and a Red at that, accepted as the equal of the governors of Suskwahenny, Pennsylvania, New Amsterdam, New Sweden, New Orange, New Holland—”

  “I think sometimes you prefer those nasty little United States to your own native land.”

  “I am a Frenchman to the heart,” said La Fayette mildly. “But I admire the American spirit of egalitarianism.”

  Egalitarianism again. The Marquis de La Fayette was like a pianoforte that had but a single key. “You forget that our enemy in Detroit is American.”

  “You forget that our enemy is the horde of illegal squatters, no matter what nation they come from, who have settled in the Red Reserve.”

  “That’s a quibble. They’re all Americans. They all pass through New Amsterdam or Philadelphia on their way west. So you encourage them here in the east—they all know how much you admire their anti-monarchist philosophy—and then I have to pay for their scalps when the Reds massacre them out west.”

  “Now, now, Frederic. Even in humor, you mustn’t accuse me of being anti-monarchist. M. Guillotin’s clever meat-slicing machine awaits anyone convicted of that.”

  “Oh, do be serious, Gilbert. They’d never use it against a marquis. They don’t cut off the heads of aristocrats who propound these insane democratic ideas. They just send them to Quebec.” Frederic smiled—he couldn’t resist driving home the nail. “The ones they really despise, they send to Niagara.”

  “Then what in the world did you do—to get sent to Detroit?” murmured La Fayette.

  More humiliation. Would it never end?

  The Marie-Philippe was near enough for them to see individual sailors and hear them shouting as the ship made its final tack into Port Irrakwa. The lowest of the Great Lakes, Irrakwa was the only one that could be visited by oceangoing vessels—the Niagara Falls saw to that. In the last three years, since the Irrakwa finished their canal, almost all the shipping that needed to be transported past the falls into Lake Canada came to the American shore and was taken up the Niagara Canal. The French portage towns were dying; an embarrassing number of Frenchmen had moved across the lake to live on the American side, where the Irrakwa were only too happy to put them to work. And the Marquis de La Fayette, supposedly the supreme governor of all Canada south and west of Quebec, didn’t seem to mind at all. If Frederic’s father ever got back into King Charles’s good graces, Frederic would see to it that La Fayette was the first aristocrat to feel the Guillotin knife. What he had done here in Canada was plain treason.

  As if he could read Frederic’s mind, La Fayette patted his shoulder and said, “Very soon, now, just be patient.” For a moment Frederic thought, insanely, that La Fayette was calmly prophesying his own execution for treason.

  But La Fayette was merely talking about the fact that at last the Marie-Philippe was near enough to heave a line to the wharf. The Irrakwa stevedores caught the line and affixed it to the windlass, and then chanted in their unspeakable language as they towed the ship close in. As soon as it was in place, they began unloading cargo on the one side, and passengers on the other.

  “Isn’t that ingenious, how they speed the transfer of cargo,” said La Fayette. “Unload it on those heavy cars, which sit on rails—rails, just like mining carts!—and then the horses tow it right up here, smooth and easy as you please. On rails you can carry a much heavier load than on regular wagons, you know. Stephenson explained it to me the last time I was here. It’s because you don’t have to steer.” On and on he blathered. Sure enough, within moments he was talking again about Stephenson’s steam engine, which La Fayette was convinced would replace the horse. He had built some in England or Scotland or somewhere, but now he was in America, and do you think La Fayette would invite Stephenson to build his steam wagons in Canada? Oh, no—La Fayette was quite content to let him build them for the Irrakwa, mumbling some idiotic excuse like: The Irrakwa are already using steam engines for their spinning wheels, and all the coal is on the American side—but Frederic de Maurepas knew the truth. La Fayette believed that the steam engine, pulling cars on railed roads, would make commerce and travel infinitely faster and cheaper—and he thought it would be better for the world if it were built within the borders of a democracy! Of course Frederic did not believe the engines would ever be as fast as horses, but that didn’t matter—La Fayette did believe in them, and so the fact that he didn’t bring them to Canada was pure treason.

  He must have been forming the word with his lips. Either that or La Fayette could hear other men’s thoughts—Frederic had heard rumors that La Fayette had a knack for that. Or perhaps La Fayette merely guessed. Or perhaps the devil told him—there’s a thought! Anyway, La Fayette laughed aloud and said, “Frederic, if I had Stephenson build his railroad in Canada, you’d have me cashiered for wasting money on nonsense. As it is, if you made a report accusing me of treason for encouraging Stephenson to remain in Irrakwa, they’d call you home and lock you up in a padded room!”

  “Treason? I accuse you?” said Frederic. “It’s the farthest thought from my mind.” Still, he crossed himself, on the off-chance that it was the devil who had told La Fayette. “Now, haven’t we had enough of watching the stevedores loading cargo? I believe we have an officer to greet.”

  “Why are you so eager to meet him now?” asked La Fayette. “Yesterday you kept reminding me that he is a commoner. He even entered the service as a corporal, I think you said.”

  “He’s a general now, and His Majesty has seen fit to send him to us.” Frederic spoke with stiff propriety. Still La Fayette insisted on smiling with amusement. Someday, Gilbert, someday.

  Several officers in full army dress uniform were milling about on the wharf, but none was of general rank. The hero of the battle of Madrid was obviously waiting to make a grand entrance. Or did he expect a Marquis and the son of a Comte to come and meet him in his cabin? Unthinkable.

  And, in fact, he did not think it. The officers stepped back, and from their position by the railing of the canal barge de Maurepas and La Fayette could see him step off the Marie-Philippe onto the wharf.

  “Why, he’s not a very large man, is he,” said Frederic.

  “They aren’t very tall in the south of France.”

  “South of France!” said Frederic scornfully. “He’s from Corsica, my dear Gilbert. That’s hardly even French at all. More like Italian.”

  “He defeated the Spanish army in three weeks, while his superior officer was indisposed with dysentery,” La Fayette reminded him.

  “An act of subordination for which he should have been cashiered,” said Frederic.

  “Oh, I quite agree with you.” said La Fayette. “Only, you see, he did win the war, and as long as King Charles was adding the crown of Spain to his collection of headgear, he thought it would be churlish to court-martial the soldier who won it for him.”

  “Discipline above all. Everybody must know his place and stay in it, or there will be chaos.”

  “No doubt. Well, they did punish him. They made him a general, but they sent him here. Didn’t want him involved with the Italian campaign. His Majesty wouldn’t mind being Doge of Venice, but this General Bonaparte might get carried away, capture the College of Cardinals, and make King Charles pope.”

 
“Your sense of humor is a crime.”

  “Frederic, look at the man.”

  “I am looking at him.”

  “Then don’t look at him. Look at everyone else. Look at his officers. Have you ever seen soldiers show so much love for their commander?”

  Frederic reluctantly tore his gaze from the Corsican general and looked at the underlings who walked quietly behind. Not like courtiers—there was no sense of jockeying for position. It was like—it was like—Frederic couldn’t find words for it—

  “It’s as if each man knows that Bonaparte loves him, and values him.”

  “A ridiculous system, if that’s what his system is,” said Frederic. “You cannot control your underlings if you don’t keep them in constant fear of losing their position.”

  “Let’s go meet him.”

  “Absurd! He must come to us!”

  But La Fayette, as usual, did not hesitate between the word and the deed—he was already on the wharf, striding the last few yards to stand before Bonaparte and receive his salute. Frederic, however, knew his station in life, and knew Bonaparte’s as well, and Bonaparte would have to come to him. They might make Bonaparte a general, but they could never make him a gentleman.

  La Fayette was fawning, of course. “General Bonaparte, we’re honored to have you here. I only regret that we cannot offer you the amenities of Paris—”

  “My lord Governor,” said Bonaparte—naturally getting the form of address all wrong, “I have never known the amenities of Paris. All my happiest moments have been in the field.”

  “And the happiest moments, too, for France, are when you are in the field. Come, meet General de Maurepas. He will be your superior officer in Detroit.”

  Frederic heard the slight pause before La Fayette said the word superior. Frederic knew when he was being ridiculed. I will remember every slight, Gilbert, and I will repay.

  The Irrakwa were very efficient at transferring cargo; it wasn’t an hour before the canal barge was under way. Naturally, La Fayette spent the first afternoon telling Bonaparte all about Stephenson’s steam engine. Bonaparte made a show of being interested, asking all about the possibilities of troop transport, and how quickly track could be laid behind an advancing army, and how easily these railed roads might be disrupted by enemy action—but it was all so tedious and boring that Frederic could not imagine how Bonaparte kept it up. Of course an officer had to pretend to be interested in everything a Governor said, but Bonaparte was taking it to extremes.

  Before too long the conversation obviously excluded Frederic, but he didn’t mind. He let his thoughts wander, remembering that actress, What’s-her-name, who did such an exquisite job of that part, whatever it was, or was she a ballerina? He remembered her legs, anyway, such graceful legs, but she refused to come to Canada with him, even though he assured her he loved her and promised to set her up in a house even nicer than the one he would build for his wife. If only she had come. Of course, she might have died of fever, the way his wife did. So perhaps it was all for the best. Was she still on the stage in Paris? Bonaparte would not know, of course, but one of his junior officers might have seen her. He would have to inquire.

  They supped at Governor Rainbow’s table, of course, since that was the only table on the canal boat. The governor had sent her regrets that she could not visit the distinguished French travelers, but she hoped her staff would make them comfortable. Frederic, supposing this meant an Irrakwa chef, had braced himself for another tedious Red meal of tough deer gristle—one could hardly call such fare venison—but instead the chef was, of all things, a Frenchman! A Huguenot, or rather the grandson of Huguenots, but he didn’t hold grudges, so the food was superb. Who would have imagined good French food in a place like this—and not the spicy Acadian style, either.

  Frederic did try to take a more active part in the conversation at supper, once he had finished off every scrap of food on the table. He tried his best to explain to Bonaparte the almost impossible military situation in the southwest. He counted off the problems one by one—the undisciplined Red allies, the unending flow of immigrants. “Worst of all is our own soldiers, though. They are a determinedly superstitious lot, as the lower classes always are. They see omens in everything. Some Dutch or German settler puts a hex on his door and you practically have to beat our soldiers to get them to go in.”

  Bonaparte sipped his coffee (barbaric fluid! but he seemed to relish it exactly as the Irrakwa did), then leaned back in his chair, regarding Frederic with his steady, piercing eyes. “Do you mean to say that you accompany foot soldiers in house-to-house searches?”

  Bonaparte’s condescending attitude was outrageous, but before Frederic could utter the withering retort that was just on the tip of his tongue, La Fayette laughed aloud. “Napoleon,” he said, “my dear friend, that is the nature of our supposed enemy in this war. When the largest city in fifty miles consists of four houses and a smithy, you don’t conduct house-to-house searches. Each house is the enemy fortress.”

  Napoleon’s forehead wrinkled. “They don’t concentrate their forces into armies?”

  “They have never fielded an army, not since General Wayne put down Chief Pontiac years ago, and that was an English army. The U.S. has a few forts, but they’re all along the Hio.”

  “Then why are those forts still standing?”

  La Fayette chuckled again. “Haven’t you read reports of how the English king fared in his war against the Appalachee rebels?”

  “I was otherwise engaged,” said Bonaparte.

  “You needn’t remind us you were fighting in Spain,” said Frederic, “We would all have gladly been there, too.”

  “Would you?” murmured Bonaparte.

  “Let me summarize,” said La Fayette, “what happened to Lord Cornwallis’s army when he led it from Virginia to try to reach the Appalachee capital of Franklin, on the upper Tennizy River.”

  “Let me,” said Frederic. “Your summaries are usually longer than the original, Gilbert.”

  La Fayette looked annoyed at Frederic’s interruption, but after all, La Fayette was the one who had insisted they address each other as brother generals, by first names. If La Fayette wanted to be treated like a marquis, he should insist on protocol. “Go ahead,” said La Fayette.

  “Cornwallis went out in search of the Appalachee army. He never found it. Lots of empty cabins, which he burned—but they can build new ones in a day. And every day a half-dozen of his soldiers would be killed or wounded by musketry.”

  “Rifle fire,” corrected La Fayette.

  “Yes, well, these Americans prefer the rifled barrel,” said Frederic.

  “They can’t volley properly, rifles are so slow to load,” said Bonaparte.

  “They don’t volley at all, unless they outnumber you,” said La Fayette.

  “I’m telling it,” said Frederic. “Cornwallis got to Franklin and realized that half his army was dead, injured, or protecting his supply lines. Benedict Arnold—the Appalachee general—had fortified the city. Earthworks, balustrades, trenches all up and down the hillsides. Lord Cornwallis tried to lay a siege, but the Cherriky moved so silently that the Cavalier pickets never heard them bringing in supplies during the night. Fiendish, the way those Appalachee Whites worked so closely with the Reds—made them citizens, right from the start, if you can imagine, and it certainly paid off for them this time. Appalachee troops also raided Cornwallis’s supply lines so often that after less than a month it became quite clear that Cornwallis was the besieged, not the besieger. He ended up surrendering his entire army, and the English King had to grant Appalachee its independence.”

  Bonaparte nodded gravely.

  “Here’s the cleverest thing,” said La Fayette. “After he surrendered, Cornwallis was brought into Franklin City and discovered that all the families had been moved out long before he arrived. That’s the thing about these Americans on the frontier. They can pick up and move anywhere. You can’t pin them down.”

  “But
you can kill them,” said Bonaparte.

  “You have to catch them,” said La Fayette.

  “They have fields and farms,” said Bonaparte.

  “Well, yes, you could try to find every farm,” said La Fayette. “But when you get there, if anyone’s at home you’ll find it’s a simple farm family. Not a soldier among them. There’s no army. But the minute you leave, someone is shooting at you from the forest. It might be the same humble farmer, and it might not.”

  “An interesting problem,” said Bonaparte. “You never know your enemy. He never concentrates his forces.”

  “Which is why we deal with the Reds,” said Frederic. “We can’t very well go about murdering innocent farm families ourselves, can we?”

  “So you pay the Reds to kill them for you.”

  “Yes. It works rather well,” said Frederic, “and we have no plans to do anything different.”

  “Well? It works well?” said Bonaparte scornfully. “Ten years ago there weren’t five hundred American households west of the Appalachee Mountains. Now there’s ten thousand households between the Appalachees and the My-Ammy, and more moving farther west all the time.”

  La Fayette winked at Frederic. Frederic hated him when he did that. “Napoleon read our dispatches,” La Fayette said cheerfully. “Memorized our estimates of American settlements in the Red Reserve.”

  “The King wants this American intrusion into French territory stopped, and stopped at once,” said Bonaparte.

  “Oh he does?” asked La Fayette. “What an odd way he has of showing it.”

  “Odd? He sent me,” said Bonaparte. “That means he expects victory.”

  “But you’re a general,” said La Fayette. “We already have generals.”