‘Perfect,’ he sighed, passing it to Declan Broekhart.

‘He is a charmed boy. What will you call him?’

Broekhart grinned, deliriously happy.

‘I thought perhaps Engel. He came from the skies, after all. And our family name is Flemish.’

‘No, Declan,’ said Catherine, stroking her son’s white-blond hair. ‘Though he is an angel, he has my father’s brow. Conor is his name.’

‘Conor?’ said Declan, in mock protest. ‘Irish from your family. Flemish from mine. The boy is a mongrel.’

Vigny lit two cigars, passing one to the proud father. ‘Now is not the time to argue, mon ami.’

Declan nodded. ‘It never is. Conor he shall be called. A strong name.’

Vigny bonged a knuckle on Lady Liberty’s chin. ‘Whatever he is called, this boy is indebted to Liberty.’

This was the second omen of the day. Conor Broekhart would eventually pay his debt to liberty. The first omen was, of course, the airborne birth. Perhaps he would have been a sky pilot even without Le Soleil, or perhaps something was awakened in him that day. An obsession with the sky that would consume Conor Broekhart’s life, and the lives of everyone around him.

And so a few days after Conor’s famous birth, Captain Declan Broekhart and his family sailed from France back to the tiny sovereign state of the Saltee Islands off the Irish coast.

The Saltee Islands had been ruled by the Trudeau family since 1171 when England’s King Henry II had given them to Raymond Trudeau, a powerful and ambitious knight. It was a cruel joke as the Saltee Islands were little more than gull-infested rocks. By placing Trudeau in charge of the Saltee Islands, Henry fulfilled his contract of granting his knight an Irish estate, but also made it clear what happened to overly ambitious knights.

When Raymond Trudeau objected to the king’s grant, Henry delivered the often-quoted Trudeau Admonishment.