The Dakota Cipher

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The President’s House, smart enough on the outside with its limestone sheen and classical decorations, was still just half-finished without and half-occupied within. The pile was a grand two-story affair, ostentatious for a democracy, with a little republican rawness provided by a plank walkway that reached the posh porch and pillars by crossing a yard of mud and sawdust like a drawbridge. The house had two rows of ten grand windows each on the north side where we entered – hellish to heat, I’d bet – and the lower row was capped by fancy narrow pediments like eyebrows. The panelled door itself was unexpectedly human-sized, not some bronze gate, and when we pulled a cord to ring its bell the modest oak was opened not by a servant but by a secretary, in plain suit. He was a shy, strapping, strong-chinned young man with prominent nose and small, thin-lipped mouth who looked out at the pillars as if surprised at his own surroundings. His hair was neatly clipped in the Roman fashion I now favoured myself, and his feet were shod in moccasins.

‘Howdee-do,’ he said in the patois of the frontier, pulling us in. ‘I’m Meriwether Lewis. Only arrived a few days ago from Fort Detroit and still exploring. You can make an echo in this pile. Come, come: President Jefferson is expecting you.’

The entrance hall had eighteen-foot ceilings but was barren of furniture or paintings. Like the Capitol, it still smelt of paint. Directly ahead was a panelled door leading into a rather elegant but empty oval room, its windows framing a view of the Potomac. Lewis led us to the right, past stairs that I assumed led up to the president’s private quarters, and into a smaller salon with a couch and side table. ‘I’ll tell him you’ve arrived.’ The secretary stepped through another door with the stride of a hunter, his experience as a frontier soldier obvious.

Magnus looked about. ‘Your president isn’t much for furniture, is he?’

‘Jefferson’s only just moved in, and Adams lived here only a few months. It’s a challenge to decide what fits a republic. He’s been a widower for nearly twenty years.’

‘He must rattle around in here like a pebble in a powder horn.’

Then we heard a bird call.

A door to Jefferson’s office opened and we were beckoned again. This room, in the southwest corner, was more inhabited. The mahogany floor was bare of any carpet but a long table covered with green baize occupied the room’s middle, and fires burnt at either end. Three of the walls were occupied by bookshelves, maps, writing tables, cabinets, and globes; the fourth was windows. One shelf bore an elephant tusk of extraordinary width, curled at its end in a peculiar manner. Others displayed arrowheads, polished stones, animal skulls, Indian clubs, and beadwork. On tables by the windows on the south side were terracotta pots, spring shoots just poking through the black dirt. There were also bell jars, boxes of planting soil, and, in one corner, a bird cage. Its inhabitant sang again.

‘The most beautiful sound in nature,’ Jefferson said, rising from a chair at the table and putting a book aside. ‘The mockingbird inspires me while I work.’

Close up, Jefferson was more commanding than he’d seemed at the inauguration: tall, with a planter’s fitness, his striking red hair matching his ruddy complexion. The speech I’d heard was one of the few Jefferson would ever give; with his high voice he preferred to communicate by letter. But his eyes had a bright intelligence more arresting than any I’d seen. Napoleon had the gaze of an eagle, Nelson a hawk, Djezzar a cobra, ageing Franklin a sleepy owl. Jefferson’s eyes danced with curiosity, as if everything he encountered was the most interesting specimen he’d ever seen. Including us.

‘I’d not expected the president’s office to be a naturalist’s laboratory,’ I said.

‘My habit at Monticello is to bring the outdoors in. Nothing makes me more content than tending my geraniums. I am a student of architecture, but nature’s architecture has the most pleasing proportions of all.’ He smiled. ‘So you are the hero of Mortefontaine!’

I gave a slight bow. ‘No hero, Mr President. Merely a servant of my country. May I introduce my companion from Norway, Magnus Bloodhammer?’

Jefferson shook our hands. ‘You look like your Viking forebears, Magnus. Not entirely inappropriate for your mission, perhaps?’ The American commissioners in Paris had written him of our coming, and we’d sent a note ahead ourselves explaining our quest for evidence of early Norse explorers.

‘I’d be honoured to emulate my ancestors,’ my companion said.

‘Not with a war axe, I hope!’ Our host had a sense of mischief. ‘But I admire your spirit of inquiry; it would do Franklin proud. And you, Gage, of Acre and Marengo? Most men are content to ride with just one side. How do you keep it all straight?’

‘I have odd luck. And my fame, I’m afraid, pales beside the writer of the Declaration of Independence. Few documents have so inspired men.’

‘Compliments all around,’ the president acknowledged with a nod. ‘Well. My gift is words and yours action, which is why I’m delighted you’ve come. We’ve much to talk about. I’m anxious to hear your impressions of France, where I, too, served – just after our revolution and before theirs. Extraordinary events since then, of course.’

‘Bonaparte is a meteor. But then you’ve done well, too.’

‘This house is a start, but Adams and his architects had no sense. A privy outdoors? The man hung his laundry there too. Most undignified for a chief executive. I wouldn’t move in until they installed a water closet. There are a hundred improvements needed to make this a proper place to receive dignitaries, but first I must pry out of Congress more than the $5,000 they’ve allotted. They have no concept of modern expenses.’ He looked about. ‘Still, there is elegance here, a balance between national pride and republican sensibility.’

‘The place needs furniture,’ Magnus said with his usual bluntness.

‘It will fill up, Mr Bloodhammer, just as our capital and country will. But enough about housekeeping! Come, good dinner makes better conversation!’

He ushered us into an adjoining dining room for our mid-afternoon repast, Lewis coming too. As soup was served by Negro servants, I began mentally rehearsing the carefully edited description of the Great Pyramid I typically shared, certain Jefferson would be curious about Napoleon’s mystic experience in that edifice. Then a word about Jerusalem, an observation on French military success, some comments about my experience with electricity, an assessment of Bonaparte’s government, something learnt about one of Jefferson’s wines …

The president sipped his soup, set down his spoon, and took me by surprise. ‘Gage, what do you know about mastodons?’

I’m afraid I looked blank. ‘Mastodon?’ I cleared my throat. ‘Is that near Macedonia?’

‘Elephants, Ethan, elephants,’ Magnus prompted.

‘The American name is mammoth, while European scientists have suggested mastodon,’ Jefferson said. ‘It’s the name scientists have given to the bones of prehistoric elephants that have been found in Russia and North America. Nearly an entire skeleton has been obtained from the Hudson Valley, and many bones from the Ohio. They dwarf the modern kind. Perhaps you noticed my tusk?’

‘Ah. Franklin mentioned this once. Woolly elephants in America. You know, Hannibal used elephants.’ I was trying to hide my ignorance.

‘Just one mastodon would fill this room to the ceiling. They must have been extraordinary creatures, majestic and magnificent, with tusks like a curved banister.’

‘I suppose so. I encountered a lion once in the Holy Land …’

‘A mere kitten,’ Jefferson said. ‘I have the claws of a prehistoric lion of truly terrifying stature. For some curious reason, the animals of the past were bigger than those now. As for mastodons, no live specimen has been encountered, but then our cold, heavily wooded landscape is not the landscape for elephants, is it?’

‘Certainly not.’ I took a sip of wine. ‘Excellent vintage. Is this Beaujolais?’ I knew Jefferson was something of an obsessive when it came to the grape, and felt safer with a subject I had some practise in.

‘But in the west, beyond the Mississippi, the landscape reportedly opens up. Isn’t that so, Lewis?’

‘That’s the word from the French fur trappers I interviewed,’ the young officer said. ‘Go far enough west, and there are no trees at all.’

‘Like a cold Africa, in other words,’ the president went on. ‘Home only to Indians with their primitive bows, the arrows of which must just bounce off mastodon hide. There are rumours, Gage, that the great beasts might still survive in the west. Is it possible that where civilisation has not penetrated, the giant beasts of the past might still exist? What a discovery to actually find one, and even to capture it and bring it back!’

‘Capture a woolly elephant?’ I was not prepared for this.

‘Or at least sketch one.’ He pushed his bowl aside. ‘Let’s talk business.’ Our congenial host had revealed a new briskness. ‘You might expect me to be cautious about your proposal to look for Norse ancestry, but in fact I’m intrigued by it. Here is an opportunity for all of us. I can help you two look for whatever artefact you’re after, and you can look for my elephants, plus any other natural wonders you might encounter. Magnus,’ Jefferson said, turning to my companion, ‘you’ve come to America to look for signs of Norse exploration, correct?’

‘Aye. I believe my people came here in medieval times to found a utopian community and might possibly have left things of value,’ my companion said with the enthusiasm one gives to a newly discovered soul mate. Having braced for scepticism, he was looking at Jefferson with delight. ‘Ethan, who is an expert in ancient mysteries, has agreed to help me. This would mean a great deal to the pride of my people and perhaps inspire them to seek our own independence from Denmark. From the cradle of liberty I can carry liberty, perhaps.’

‘The ideals of America may infect the world and bring fear to tyrants everywhere, from the czars of the steppes to the pasha of Tripoli.’

‘I have a group, Forn Sior, dedicated to this goal. You’ve heard of it?’

‘“Old Custom”? It really exists?’ The president seemed to know more about Bloodhammer’s group and mission than I did. ‘Why am I surprised? Look at Ethan here, always embroiled in the thick of things. I want you to see the elephant, Gage. I want you to prove it exists.’

I cleared my throat. ‘You support, then, the idea of our going west?’ I’d rather hoped he’d prohibit the entire idea and send me back to Paris.

‘What wonders must lie between the Mississippi and the Pacific!’ Jefferson had the dreamy tone of one who’d never been beyond the Blue Ridge, did his exploring in atlases, and would be pressed to camp in his own yard. If I sound a little cynical, well, I’d been hard-used the past three years. ‘All kind of strange creatures could be out there, rivaling the menagerie already found. There are also rumours of odd volcanoes far up the Missouri. There has been speculation about vast mountains of salt. Not to mention more conventional prizes, such as waterways to cross the continent and furs to supply our commerce. We’ve found the mouth of the Columbia, gentlemen; now we must find its beginning! Geographers speculate it is but a short portage from the source of the Missouri to the source of the Columbia.’

I didn’t like the prospect of volcanoes any more than room-sized mammoths. ‘So you want Magnus and me to find the headwaters?’ I tried to confirm.

‘Actually, I hope to send young Lewis here on an expedition to answer what lies between the oceans. Captain Lewis is my protégé, a lad – well, you’re twenty-six now, aren’t you? – who grew up about ten miles from Monticello and for the last six years has served with the First Infantry Regiment, attaining the rank of captain. I have every confidence in him. But I must persuade Congress to finance an expedition. Plus, there’s a little matter of boundaries and empires. The Spanish stand in our way.’

Here I could earn my dinner. ‘Actually, sir, it is the French.’

Jefferson beamed. ‘Then that rumour is true as well! This is an auspicious start to my presidency.’

‘According to Foreign Minister Talleyrand, a secret agreement was signed the day after the Convention of Mortefontaine conveying the Louisiana Territory back to France,’ I confirmed. ‘The French asked me to inform you. That gives Napoleon Bonaparte an empire in America as big as our own United States, but he’s not at all decided what to do with it. I’m to report back to Paris the condition of Louisiana.’

‘And report to me,’ Jefferson said. ‘We’re as keen as Napoleon. You’re the bridge between nations, Ethan Gage. You can serve Bonaparte and me at the same time. Are he and I at all alike?’

‘In curiosity,’ I assured. ‘The first consul envisions a friendly boundary along the line of the Mississippi and ready American access to the sea via New Orleans.’

‘I’m glad to hear of friendship. We’ve come near war with the Spanish. And yet I see the west beyond the Mississippi as the natural territory of the United States, not the European powers. If Russia can stretch to the Pacific, so can we. A single nation, Ethan, from Atlantic to Pacific!’

First mastodons, now this. ‘What would the United States do with all that land?’

Jefferson glanced out the west-facing windows. ‘Hard to imagine, I admit. I’ve calculated that just filling up the frontier between the Appalachians and the Mississippi will take a thousand years. Yet our population is growing. We have more than five million now, a third of Britain and a fifth of France, and we’re gaining on those nations. That’s what you must impress upon Napoleon, Gage. Mere demographics suggest American hegemony. Do not tempt him with thoughts of American empire!’

‘The French remain obsessed with the British. Talleyrand asked me to scout out their designs and enquire about alliances with the Indians.’

‘So everyone is plotting, with Louisiana as the prize. Tell me, what kind of man is Bonaparte?’

I considered. ‘Brilliant. Forceful. Ambitious, to be sure. He sees life as a struggle and himself at war with the world. But he’s also idealistic, practical, sometimes sentimental, and tied to his family, and he has a wry view of human nature. He’s obsessed with his place in history. He’s as hard and multifaceted as a cut diamond, Mr President. He believes in logic and reason, and can be talked to.’

‘But a tough negotiator?’

‘Oh, yes. And that rarest of men: he knows what he wants.’

‘Which is?’

‘Glory. And power for its own sake.’

‘The old tyrant dream. What I want is human happiness, which I believe comes from independence and self-reliance. Right, Lewis?’

The frontier officer smiled. ‘So you have told me.’

‘Happiness comes from the land,’ Jefferson lectured. ‘The independent yeoman farmer is the happiest of all men – and the need for land justifies our need for expansion. For democracy to work, Gage, men must be farmers. If Greece and Rome taught us anything, it is that. Once we cluster in cities we become slaves to a few, and the American experiment is finished. Land, land – that’s the key, isn’t it Lewis? Land!’

‘There’s no shortage of that in the west,’ the secretary said. ‘Of course, it’s occupied by Indians.’

‘And now we have a Norwegian, Magnus Bloodhammer, who wants to explore it. Indians, bears, wolves – none of that daunts you, does it, Magnus? What is so fascinating that you take such risk?’

‘That America’s social experiment in fact started with Norwegians,’ my companion said. ‘My ancestors sought refuge here first.’

‘You really think Vikings preceded us all on this continent?’

‘Not just Vikings, but Norsemen. There’s evidence they came here in the fourteenth century, nearly one hundred fifty years before Columbus.’

‘What evidence?’

Magnus shoved his china aside and took out his map from his cylinder. Once more I wondered what was in the compartment that must be at the cylinder’s end. ‘You’ll see the significance immediately,’ he said, unrolling the chart. ‘This was found in a knight’s tomb in a medieval church, meaning it was drawn about 1360. Is this coastline mere coincidence?’

Jefferson stood, peering. ‘By the soul of Mercator, it looks like Hudson Bay.’

Lewis came around the table to look and nodded. ‘Remarkable, if true.’

‘Of course it’s true,’ Magnus assured.

My mind was caught on the president’s comment of Indians, bears, and wolves. Yet instead of the mockery I’d half expected, the other three had formed a little triumvirate. ‘I’m surprised you’re not more surprised,’ I said.

‘At what?’ Lewis asked.

I gestured to the map. ‘At what may be one of the most startling historical finds of all time. The Norse before Columbus? You believe it?’

Jefferson and Lewis looked at each other. ‘There have been rumours,’ Lewis said.

‘Rumours of what? Tigers as well as elephants?’

‘Of blue-eyed Indians, Mr Gage,’ Jefferson said. ‘Pierre Gaultier de La Vérendrye reported them when he explored the lower Missouri River in 1733. He came across a tribe called the Mandans, who live in communities reminiscent of northern European habitation in medieval times. A dry moat, stockade, and wooden houses. They farm instead of roam. And some of them are surprisingly fair in colouring, with their leaders sporting beards. Never heard of an Indian with a beard.’

‘There’s also an old legend that a Prince Madoc of Wales set out from Britain to the west in 1170 with ten ships, never to return,’ Lewis explained. ‘The names Mandan and Madoc are enough alike to make one wonder if the legend could somehow be true.’

‘Wait. The Welsh got to the middle of America?’

Jefferson shrugged. ‘It’s a possibility. The Mississippi and Missouri, or the Saint Lawrence and the Great Lakes, or the Nelson and Red rivers from Hudson’s Bay – all could lead wanderers to the general area of the Mandan, the centre of our continent.’

‘I’ve seen fair-eyed Indians myself at Kaskaskia, in the Illinois country,’ Lewis said. ‘General George Rogers Clark has reported the same. Where did they come from?’

‘Mr President, I believe past men of power in your country wouldn’t have been entirely surprised at my information either,’ Magnus interrupted. ‘Many, like Washington or Franklin, are or were Freemasons – true?’

‘Yes. But not me, Bloodhammer.’

‘Still, if these leaders were your friends, you know of Masonic ties to the persecuted Knights Templar,’ he insisted.

I groaned inwardly. We were about to lose any credibility.

‘Is it possible Templars fled to America?’ Magnus went on. ‘And created a utopian idea that is being recreated, even here in your new capital? These are very grand buildings and avenues for a new nation. And your streets make intriguing patterns to anyone familiar with the sacred geometry of the east.’

‘Simply modern planning.’ The president looked guarded.

‘No. The United States was created for a purpose, I’m certain of it. A secret purpose. I think it was to recreate a golden age long lost, an age of gods and magic.’

‘But why would you think that?’

‘This city, for one. When it was founded, when cornerstones were laid, its size. And because of that.’ He pointed to the hammer symbol on his map.

‘What is that, Magnus?’

‘It’s a symbol for the hammer of the god Thor.’

‘You think you’ll find Thor in America?’

‘No, just his legacy.’

I expected Jefferson to have us packed off to a madhouse, but his bright eyes flashed with more understanding than I was comfortable with. ‘His legacy? How interesting. Well, I’m a scholar of the past myself, with quite the library. I’ve read of your Forn Sior, and more besides. We don’t know just what lies beyond, do we, or who walked there? Pale Indians. Prehistoric beasts. Rumours of violent weather unknown in Europe. Medicine men warning of baleful spirits. I am not certain of any of it, gentlemen. But I am curious. I’m curious.’

Magnus said nothing. I, meanwhile, was realising why I was reluctant to leave New York. Baleful spirits?

‘The Welsh are one possibility,’ Jefferson said. ‘That you two have given us another just strengthens the possibility that Vérendrye was not exaggerating. What if a lost colony of Welshmen, or Norsemen, interbred with the native population and persists as a tribe living in walled towns somewhere up the Missouri? Alternately, there are theories that some of the lost tribes of Israel might have somehow made their way to America and provided the ancestry of the American Indian. And tales that the Carthaginians defeated by Rome might have fled across the Atlantic to escape the sack of their city.’

‘Yes!’ said Magnus. He nodded at me.

‘Plato wrote of a lost Atlantis, and the astronomer Corli has contemplated its location. Indians say tobacco grows where the hairs of a burning god fell from the sky. Is the bloodline of King David or Hannibal roaming the western desert? All these groups might have forgotten their origins. But if it could be proven, the stakes are significant.’

‘How so?’ I asked.

‘European empires in the New World are based in part on claims of first arrival,’ Lewis explained. ‘If it turns out the first arrivals from Europe were other groups entirely, it undermines the legitimacy of British, French, and Spanish claims to land ownership.’

‘Which could improve the chances of United States’ claim or purchase,’ Jefferson said. ‘Our expanding population gives us the possibility of ownership by occupation, but that can lead to wars we don’t want. A sale is preferable, from a party whose past claim is in historical doubt. If the Norse came first, it could shake world politics. The important thing is that we learn the truth, and ideally learn it before the French, Spanish, or British do. That, gentlemen, is why you can count on my support for your scouting expedition – but only if you confide to me. I trust your first loyalty is to your home country, Ethan?’

‘Of course.’ Actually, it was to self-preservation, but that seemed down the list of everyone else’s priorities.

‘What you learn will, I hope, provide information that Captain Lewis will expand on, if I can persuade Congress to send a more ambitious quest.’

‘How ambitious?’

Jefferson shrugged. ‘Perhaps twenty to forty men and several tons of supplies.’

‘Impressive. And how many men will accompany my expedition?’

‘Why, just one, I believe. Magnus Bloodhammer.’

The Norwegian beamed.

‘One?’

‘I want you two to go swiftly and silently, scouts before an army.’

‘What supplies, then?’

‘I’m prepared to furnish one hundred dollars and a letter of introduction to the newly acquired American forts at Detroit and Michilimackinac, asking for escort. I suggest you travel as far west as you can on the Great Lakes before starting overland. With luck, you can finish your exploration within the season and report back, and we can refine our strategy for both Lewis’s expedition and dealing with Napoleon. If you survive.’

I took a big swallow of wine. ‘I was hoping for more help.’

‘I’ve just started in office and Adams left a mess. It’s the best America can do. Fortunately, Gage, you’re a patriot!’

‘Meaning anything valuable you find is properly the property of the United States,’ Lewis added.

‘Not if it’s not on American soil,’ Magnus countered. ‘And the Norse went farther than any American yet has. Which means it is Norwegian soil … gentlemen.’ It was amazing how much force he packed into that last word.

Jefferson smiled. Magnus had taken the bait. ‘Then you do think you’ll find something valuable, even priceless, that is tangible proof of Norse exploration?’

‘Yes, and such artefacts by right are mine and my country’s. And Ethan’s. Am I not correct, Gage?’

‘Rusty trifles only,’ I hastily assured. ‘Old spearheads. A rivet here, a stud there.’ No need to talk about magical hammers that might be worth a king’s ransom.

‘I want to back an explorer, not a treasure hunter, Gage.’

I pretended mild indignation. ‘It seems to me we’ve earned your trust. I’ve secretly carried word of the French-Spanish treaty on Louisiana. Magnus here has shared a map of incalculable value. We’ve confided in you, Mr President, and only ask that you return our confidence.’

‘Well said. We’re all partners here, gentlemen, in one of the greatest adventures in history. So I leave you to it. Your only competitors are the British in Canada, the French and Spanish in Louisiana, howling wilderness, gigantic animals, and hostile Indian tribes. Nothing more than what you’ve faced a dozen times before, eh?’

‘Actually, I think we might need two hundred dollars.’

‘Come back alive, with useful information, and I’ll pay three hundred. But a hundred to start. I know a sharpshooter like you will want to live off the land!’

It was dark when we left, my head full of woolly elephants, lurking Indians, baleful spirits, mountains of salt, and the usual dubious state of my finances. Well, I was in it now. ‘You found a fellow visionary, Magnus,’ I said as we stood outside looking at the candles in the President’s House. ‘I expected more scepticism.’

‘Jefferson wants to use us, Ethan, just like Bonaparte uses us. As we use them! So we’ll see their Louisiana and let them fight over it if they wish.’ There was a tone of hard realism in his voice, very different from my usual Norwegian dreamer. ‘As for you and me, if we find Thor’s hammer we’ll have a chance to change the entire world!’ His eyes were dark and gleaming in the twilight.

‘Change the world? I thought we just wanted to profit from it.’

‘Restore it. There’s more at stake here than you think.’

‘Restore what?’

He patted his map case. ‘The human heart.’

And I wondered again just who my new companion really was.