by Eli Brown
Durant coughed and turned red. “We will not sit idle while you dishonor —”
Pop! The burst pecan made the ambassadors jump.
“Napoléon Bonaparte needs money to fund his European wars and he needs it now,” Secretary Auburn continued. “He can’t wait for the tobacco to grow, so to speak. His plan to build a palace in Hispaniola was frustrated by the slave revolt there. So he wants to sell his New World colonies to keep his throne in France. The British control his seas. He is not in a position to negotiate.”
Bertolette held his stomach. “Something disagrees with me.”
“Listen, friends.” Auburn laughed. “Why don’t you explain to me how you French settled Louisiana so quickly?”
“Our negotiations with the Indians —”
“I am not talking about trading beads with the mud-eaters.” Auburn set his nutcracker down with a clatter. “I am talking about the settlers themselves. So many! While our industrious pioneers are squatting in sod hovels, your people build three-story villas with European oak. Now, tell me: whence the timber? Whence the settlers? You control no ports.” Auburn leaned intently toward the ambassadors. “And there are no caravans from the north. So how does he manage it?”
“Who?”
“Bonaparte! How does he populate the interior of our continent?”
Durand cleared his throat, but his voice was raspy. “Our trade secrets are —”
“It’s not a trade secret,” Auburn hissed. “It’s an oddity! Your soldiers, your settlers, look identical. I believe they are somehow pulled from a single mold, duplicated in the manner of a plaster bust. I believe that you have multiplied your timber and spices in the same manner. Tell me I am wrong.”
The ambassadors exchanged anxious glances. Bertolette stood and gathered his cape around him. “From now on we will communicate with President Cooper directly —” Then his legs collapsed under him. The ambassador lay in a heap on the floor.
Auburn made no move to help. Durand was struggling to stand but only trembled in his chair.
The ambassadors looked vainly to the door for help, both of them knowing they’d been poisoned. “Traîtrise! You would start a war,” Durand groaned, “for an oddity?”
“The world has watched your squat emperor storm through every country he laid his covetous eyes on,” Auburn said. “His victories aren’t natural. How could we ever feel secure against invasion unless we knew his secret? And what good would owning the territories do us if the French continue to multiply? You would merely reclaim Louisiana in a matter of years anyway. Gentlemen, I am a patriot who wants nothing but the safety of my country. Anyway, I own the rifle factories. A little shooting is good for business.”
“You cannot murder two ambassadors of New France and hope to —”
“Oh, not two,” Auburn interrupted. “One of you will live.” Auburn produced a tiny vial of sky-blue Powder. “I have the antidote here, extremely expensive stuff. One of you will come to your senses and tell me all about Bonaparte’s oddity. The other will die — in just a few minutes, it seems. Now, which will it be?”
Clover blinked the vision away. She found herself leaning against the gilded cannon, trembling with a rage so intense her teeth chattered. The secret that had crawled into her mind swept away the lies she’d been told since she was a child. Napoléon Bonaparte hadn’t started the Louisiana War. It had been Auburn. In retaliation for the missing ambassadors, the French had seized shipments on the Melapoma. Congress ordered troops to reclaim them, and the New World tumbled into anarchy — pushed from a great height by Auburn, who made a fortune selling arms before being elected senator.
But Auburn’s plan for conquering the Louisiana Territories by force did not go well. When the US Army marched west, they found fortified French forts and ranks of soldiers, well armed and decently fed. The Louisiana War lasted four years, killing thousands and bankrupting the nation.
It was a truth too big for one exhausted girl, and for several moments she wobbled on her knees, trying to digest it. Then she steeled herself. She had to be sure there was not another secret waiting to pounce. With her eyes tightly closed, she forced a hand into Smalt’s Hat, running her fingers blindly over its damp nap. She found no more pests lurking near the rim, but she could feel an eager surge from deeper within, like carp jostling for a scrap of bread. Suddenly her hand was enveloped in warmth, as if the faint whispers inside were the steam of a hot bath. Clover yanked her hand out with a yelp and waited. Her hand was clean. The Hat was still. She turned it over and smacked the top. Nothing else slipped out. The Hat was hardly empty, but it was finally holding its secrets.
Did it still hold the one that Clover wanted more than anything? Not wanted. Needed. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Where is Miniver Elkin?”
The hat lurched and mewled like a sack of kittens. A hiss of whispers, too muffled to understand, sent a mist of spittle onto the brim. The Hat wanted to tell her as badly as she wanted to know. Having asked the question, all Clover would have to do was reach in and retrieve it. But this oddity had devoured Smalt’s soul long before it devoured the shell of his body.
“It would be safer to crawl into a loaded cannon than to use this Hat,” Clover told herself. With the wrecked inn creaking around her, she pressed her palms to her face, wishing there were another way. Someone else must know where the witch was hiding.
“Mean old dog,” Susanna muttered from inside the haversack.
Clover gasped. Of course. She opened the flap and squinted in at the Doll. “Susanna! You must remember where the Seamstress lives!”
Clover rushed out of the ruined inn and into the bright chaos of Brackenweed. The roof of the tannery was smoking. Mill oxen had broken free and were roaming the streets, bellowing. People hurried around the square, hollering, “Smalt is dead! We’re free!” Others cried, “Smalt is dead! We’re doomed!” The newspaper boy ran out of the printing office, his hands and face covered with ink. Above it all, stray secrets could be seen dipping and darting like bats in a fog.
Gunshots and screaming echoed in the distance. Whether blown in a wet wind or carried by his couriers upon news of his death, Smalt’s secrets were spreading quickly. Everywhere Clover looked, people argued:
You stole my goat!
You poisoned my well!
Scoundrel! Liar! Thief!
The city of Brackenweed was coming undone.
A banker ran down the street, his silk coat stuffed with money, dollar bills trailing in his wake like autumn leaves. The sheriff’s deputy sat on a mule backward, both of them braying. A group of laughing children ran after airborne secrets, trying to catch them in a burlap sack. Clover heard snippets of the secrets dancing on the wind:
The dairyman adds plaster to his cheese.
The priest gambles with donations.
The mayor’s father was a voyageur.
Clover watched a secret scuttle quickly up a carriage driver’s sleeve. The man hollered and smacked at it, but the secret slipped into his ear, quick as a word. The driver went very still, then turned and marched into the butcher shop. Seconds later, the skinned head of a pig flew through the doorway and landed in the street, looking surprised.
What secret had provoked this? Why was a high-class lady digging through the bedding of a horse stall? Clover didn’t want to know.
Clutching her possessions, she hurried through the square, hoping no one would recognize the Hat. She knew she made a strange sight, her clothes singed, the bulk of a viper moving under her shirt, the oversize blue Hat bobbling atop her head. But the city was too frenzied to pay her any mind.
It was into this riot that Senator Auburn finally arrived. First his military escort was spotted at the doors of the courthouse, regal in their brass buttons and blue coats. Auburn soon appeared on the balcony above, bracketed by rifle-bearing bodyguards. He was not a tall man, but his striped suit was spotless, with a starched collar and a coat that tapered to his girdled waist.
“Liar,” Clo
ver muttered. “Murderer.”
The agitated crowd surged toward the balcony. The Brackenweed brass band struck up a welcoming march, but they were buffeted by the crowd, their song mangled as the horns were bullied in different directions.
A thunderous roar split the air and the crowd went still. Auburn had ordered the cannon blast, an empty shot that shocked the mob into silence.
Now his voice carried easily over the square: “You are right to be afraid! The French curs are massing on our borders to attack. Their ranks swell with a single goal: to push us into the sea! They attacked us once without warning. This time we will not be taken by surprise.”
The senator tugged at his tie until it dangled loose and swayed with his frenetic energy. He scowled and shook his fist. He was working a charismatic spell not to quiet the fears of the people but to focus them.
“The wolves are at the door. The time has come to stand and fight.”
Lies. Not one of these people knew what Clover knew, a truth that overturned history. Time had silvered Auburn’s hair, but this was the same man Clover had just watched poison the ambassadors. His arrogance and greed had broken the nation. And now he was doing it again, bent on ruling the entire continent, no matter how many died. He was insatiable.
“Trust not the vile gossip spreading like a contagion,” Senator Auburn shouted. “Trust only your own ears, which hear the distant gunshots. Trust your nose, which smells the smoke of the approaching conflagration! Trust your eyes, which see the skulking stranger, the voyageur among us.”
The crowd bristled with suspicious glares, frightened eyes sweeping for someone to accuse. Some fell on Clover, the strange girl who had destroyed the inn, who had survived the snake’s poison.
It was time for Clover to go. As she pushed her way out of the square, the senator’s voice echoed, “Rise to the defense of your country! Rise against French tyranny!”
The crowd chanted with him. The senator was guiding Brackenweed’s frightened cries into a chorus. “Rise against tyranny!”
Clover shouldered her way through the shouting crowd. She knew, finally, where she had to go. Susanna had told her that the witch’s lair was deep in the abandoned silver mine at Harper’s Ridge. Clutching her belongings, Clover headed for the main road out of the city. But just as she slipped through the throng and into an open alley, the barkeep from the Golden Cannon cut her off. He was wild-eyed, still clutching the soiled bar rag.
“Destroyed my inn!” he snarled, grabbing Clover by the shoulders. He looked ready to strangle her but pulled up short when the barrel of a rifle caught him under the chin. The brute let go and backed away as a squad of uniformed soldiers surrounded them both.
“I was just talking to her,” the barkeep said, rubbing his beard.
“You’re finished talking now, friend.”
Clover knew the voice. The soldiers parted for Hannibal Furlong, sitting atop a white horse. He rode comfortably on a custom-made saddle, grasping the slender reins with one claw.
The barkeep fled into the crowd, and Hannibal winked at Clover. “I should know by now that the place to find you is in a tangle of trouble.”
“Oh, Hannibal! I have to talk to you,” Clover said. “It’s important.”
“Indeed. Come with me,” he said.
Hannibal’s squad guided Clover down the narrow alley, all but empty now that most of the city had converged on the square. Silent and obedient, the soldiers around Clover were nothing like the bumbling guards she’d seen at the checkpoints. All this time Clover could hardly imagine Hannibal actually commanding soldiers, but these intimidating men were clearly his own elite guard. They wore cockerel insignia on their shoulders and kept a tight formation as they hurried through Brackenweed’s streets.
They passed a courtyard where a straw-haired boy was milking a goat. The goat stamped and tugged its halter, alarmed, no doubt, by the chaotic sounds echoing over the rooftops: shouts, occasional gunshots, the brass band trying again to finish a song. But the boy cooed and shushed the goat, filling his bucket one hissing tug at a time. Clover wanted to trade places with the boy, to carry the bucket inside and sip some of the sweet froth off the top. The comfort of simple chores seemed so far away. Clover’s head was still spinning, a chill blew through the burned holes in her clothes, and the viper was still hot as a fever around her ribs.
She looked at Hannibal, so regal atop his horse. She knew Hannibal wouldn’t like the truth about Auburn’s evil history, but he deserved to know.
“Hannibal, I must speak with you —” But Clover’s words caught in her throat when she saw where she was being taken.
A splendid caravan was parked in the middle of a high-walled terrace. The vehicle was beetle black, trimmed with gold ornamentation, and twice as long as Nessa’s wagon.
One of the soldiers opened the caravan door and bowed deeply, waiting for Clover and Hannibal to enter. Stepping in, Clover gaped at the extravagant chamber: walls and couches upholstered in scarlet velvet, the ceiling elaborated with mother-of-pearl palmettes. A custom-forged stove sat opposite a writing desk strewn with loose piles of correspondence. The caravan smelled of brandy and calfskin.
“The senator will be with us shortly,” Hannibal announced as the door snapped shut behind them. “And, I assure you, everything will be sorted out.” He hopped onto a seat and stretched his wings. “Rest yourself, my dear girl. Today you fought a monster most were afraid to face, and you came away victorious.”
“Listen, Hannibal; Smalt wasn’t the only monster. Look around. Is this how a servant of the people travels?”
“You cannot blame the senator for wanting a bit of comfort on the long road.”
“Auburn started the first war for his own profit,” Clover whispered, not knowing how much could be heard through the caravan walls.
“A shameful rumor.”
“I’m telling you. I saw it. It came from Smalt’s Hat —”
But the sound of the soldiers outside clicking their arms to attention shut Clover’s mouth. Then, before Clover was ready, Senator Auburn himself ducked into the caravan, pulling off his wrinkled necktie. This close, close enough for Clover to see a spot of stubble under his chin that the barber had missed, Senator Auburn was shorter than he had appeared on his balcony, though he was still flushed pink from his theatrics. The tufts of his eyebrows swept up toward his hairline.
“Hannibal tells me you’re difficult to find,” the senator said as he dropped into a seat opposite Clover. The caravan felt suddenly much too small. “But I am terribly happy to meet you at last. I hear such promising things.”
Leaning to push a small kettle onto the stove, he said, “I’ll have some tea ready shortly.”
“I know better than to take tea from you, Mr. Auburn,” Clover blurted, remembering the faces of those poisoned ambassadors.
It was a dangerous thing to say, but Clover couldn’t take it back. For a moment, Senator Auburn blinked at Clover, saying nothing.
“Please understand,” Hannibal intervened. “Her nerves are in tatters. She has survived ordeals, several, and she . . . says things.”
“The air today is literally filled with lies,” Senator Auburn said. His rabble-rousing had left him hoarse. He squeezed a dropper full of laudanum into a glass of lavender water and gargled it before continuing. “And who can we thank for that? You’ve kicked over Pandora’s box. Quite the mess. But even this may be to our advantage, wouldn’t you say, Hannibal? I thought it would take another year of campaigning before we had total support for the war, but now old wounds are opening. Smalt’s gossip will only spread panic from city to city, and frightened people deserve security. Clover, you have helped our cause already.”
“That’s as I’ve been trying to tell you,” Hannibal said. “Nurse Elkin is a force of consequence, and we must position her accordingly. I have seen her bravery, her determination. When she sets her heart to it, she is practically unstoppable.”
Hannibal talked about Clover as if she we
ren’t there. She tried to take deep breaths, but the red-upholstered walls seemed to press in like the gut of a beast digesting her. She considered kicking the door open to leap out, but those soldiers were waiting just outside.
“You see how Hannibal has taken a liking to you,” the senator told her. “We can’t blame him. You’re clearly a remarkable child, so remarkable, it seems, that he’s been keeping your exact whereabouts from me.”
“Sir, I assure you —”
Auburn flicked his hand at Hannibal dismissively and leaned close to Clover, bringing a waft of ambergris perfume and tobacco. “The witch wants you, poor child.” Senator Auburn sat back and crossed his arms as if to ponder a riddle. “Now, why in the world would that be?”
Clover shook her head.
“I don’t know either. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a mountain hag? But it puts us in a difficult position because we sorely need something from the witch. I am showing you my every card, Clover, so you know you can trust me.” He licked the pad of his thumb and ran it along his eyebrows, grooming them the way another man might wax his mustache. “You are going to help us acquire a crucial element only she possesses.”
“You’d have to know where to find her,” Clover said.
“But I do. I paid Smalt for that secret years ago. Very expensive. Knowing where she hides isn’t enough, though. Here’s the dilemma: the witch has what I need, and it seems you’re the only way to get it.”
“But, to lure the witch out of her lair, we would have to leave Clover unprotected at the mine,” Hannibal objected. “Senator, I respectfully remind you that bait is frequently eaten.”
“Am I to be bait?” Clover asked, staring shocked at the Rooster she had thought was her friend.
Hannibal ignored her and continued, “As you know, sir, vermin are unpredictable and savage. That mountain is crawling with them. Even with the best planning, we could not both capture the witch and protect Clover. It’s an unacceptable risk.”