Read Online The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) by William Dietrich - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William Dietrich
Tags: Historical fiction
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least no one is shooting at me yet.
I swooped like a wounded hawk, aimed to crash into the far end of the treasury. It hadn’t occurred to provide a brake.
Can’t think of everything.
It was my own weight that saved me. As I descended the line stretched and sagged, lessening the angle of decline and slowing my plunge. In moments I went from fearing a collision to fearing a humiliating halt in midair.
But no, I skipped across one dome, drooped some more, and splatted with a thump onto another, skidding over its swell in a belly flop that jammed my mouth with snow. I spat, let go of my trapeze, and caught my breath while resting between two domes as white as igloos.
By the dueling pistols of Aaron Burr, my scheme had worked.
I waited for cries of alarm.
Nothing. The weather was foul, the morning still dark, and every sensible man, from prisoner to commander, was snugged inside.
I cut the line, letting it fall against the back of the bell tower where it was unlikely to be noticed until full daylight. In the other direction I heard a soft thump as balloon and grappling hook lost tension and fell onto a drift.
My own boot steps were muffled as I scrambled across the roof to the last dome in line, as Astiza had instructed. I scraped the snowy coverlet from the keystone at the dome’s peak.
The blocks in a dome get their solidity from falling against each other as gravity squeezes them tight. But should the uppermost keystone be removed, the rigidity begins to weaken.
From my pack I took another flask, this one filled with hydrochloric acid for the mortar joints. I poured and watched them bubble as chemistry went to work, a trick I’d used before. Hammer and chisel cracked the weakened bond and I pried the brick out. There was another layer beneath. I boiled and cracked more joints, prying out bricks to excavate a hasty hole in the dome’s peak about a foot in diameter.
A cannonball might bounce off. A patient thief did not. I soon had chipped bricks scattered all around me.
The day kept lightening. Time, time! My burrowing had been as quiet as it had been swift. I dared not pause to look at my watch. Would Harry wait?
The slim hole revealed only blackness in the unlit chamber below. Out came the magnet, tied to another cord. I lowered it like a fishing line.
There was a metallic clang. I pulled. A sword came up, its point glued to the massive magnet by nature’s mysterious force. The weapon was tarnished and looked quite ordinary to me, except for a gilded hilt and a small insignia of the White Eagle of Poland on the blade. I pried it loose and lowered the magnet again. Nothing. The other sword must have slid sideways as I fished out the first. I carefully rotated the line, giving the magnet a slow orbit. Precious seconds ticked by. Finally—clang! I hauled up the second Grunwald trophy, congratulating myself on my genius.
I slid down the dome to rest a moment and then tie the swords to my back. It’s hell-fired difficult for the lowborn to become a prince, I reflected, and yet a night’s perilous work might just have made me one.
“And if not a noble, at least rich from Polish reward,” I reflected. I stood. Dawn was near, but no alarm had been raised. Nobody had looked up. With luck, my theft wouldn’t be discovered for hours.
“A pity no one saw my daring.”
And then a shot rang out, kicking up a feather of snow. I heard a shout in German, and then in French that Russian officers might understand.
“C’est l’ ingérence américaine. Tuez-le!”
“It’s the meddling American! Kill him!”
CHAPTER 7
I leaped from the roof to a drift and rolled, the sounds of shots, alarm, bells, and bugle momentarily muffled. Then up, white as a snowman, the fortress a disturbed anthill. Soldiers were boiling out of the treasury and nearby barracks, guardhouse, and prison. Priests were running like stampeded cattle. Prussian rogues were in a cluster near the river gate, their
I swooped like a wounded hawk, aimed to crash into the far end of the treasury. It hadn’t occurred to provide a brake.
Can’t think of everything.
It was my own weight that saved me. As I descended the line stretched and sagged, lessening the angle of decline and slowing my plunge. In moments I went from fearing a collision to fearing a humiliating halt in midair.
But no, I skipped across one dome, drooped some more, and splatted with a thump onto another, skidding over its swell in a belly flop that jammed my mouth with snow. I spat, let go of my trapeze, and caught my breath while resting between two domes as white as igloos.
By the dueling pistols of Aaron Burr, my scheme had worked.
I waited for cries of alarm.
Nothing. The weather was foul, the morning still dark, and every sensible man, from prisoner to commander, was snugged inside.
I cut the line, letting it fall against the back of the bell tower where it was unlikely to be noticed until full daylight. In the other direction I heard a soft thump as balloon and grappling hook lost tension and fell onto a drift.
My own boot steps were muffled as I scrambled across the roof to the last dome in line, as Astiza had instructed. I scraped the snowy coverlet from the keystone at the dome’s peak.
The blocks in a dome get their solidity from falling against each other as gravity squeezes them tight. But should the uppermost keystone be removed, the rigidity begins to weaken.
From my pack I took another flask, this one filled with hydrochloric acid for the mortar joints. I poured and watched them bubble as chemistry went to work, a trick I’d used before. Hammer and chisel cracked the weakened bond and I pried the brick out. There was another layer beneath. I boiled and cracked more joints, prying out bricks to excavate a hasty hole in the dome’s peak about a foot in diameter.
A cannonball might bounce off. A patient thief did not. I soon had chipped bricks scattered all around me.
The day kept lightening. Time, time! My burrowing had been as quiet as it had been swift. I dared not pause to look at my watch. Would Harry wait?
The slim hole revealed only blackness in the unlit chamber below. Out came the magnet, tied to another cord. I lowered it like a fishing line.
There was a metallic clang. I pulled. A sword came up, its point glued to the massive magnet by nature’s mysterious force. The weapon was tarnished and looked quite ordinary to me, except for a gilded hilt and a small insignia of the White Eagle of Poland on the blade. I pried it loose and lowered the magnet again. Nothing. The other sword must have slid sideways as I fished out the first. I carefully rotated the line, giving the magnet a slow orbit. Precious seconds ticked by. Finally—clang! I hauled up the second Grunwald trophy, congratulating myself on my genius.
I slid down the dome to rest a moment and then tie the swords to my back. It’s hell-fired difficult for the lowborn to become a prince, I reflected, and yet a night’s perilous work might just have made me one.
“And if not a noble, at least rich from Polish reward,” I reflected. I stood. Dawn was near, but no alarm had been raised. Nobody had looked up. With luck, my theft wouldn’t be discovered for hours.
“A pity no one saw my daring.”
And then a shot rang out, kicking up a feather of snow. I heard a shout in German, and then in French that Russian officers might understand.
“C’est l’ ingérence américaine. Tuez-le!”
“It’s the meddling American! Kill him!”
CHAPTER 7
I leaped from the roof to a drift and rolled, the sounds of shots, alarm, bells, and bugle momentarily muffled. Then up, white as a snowman, the fortress a disturbed anthill. Soldiers were boiling out of the treasury and nearby barracks, guardhouse, and prison. Priests were running like stampeded cattle. Prussian rogues were in a cluster near the river gate, their
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