The Rosetta Key (8 page)

“You!” he gagged, his eyes on me, not her. “Why aren’t you dead?”

Neither are you, I thought, my own shock as great as his. For in the dusky light of the cobbled lane, I recognized first the emblem that Miriam’s thrust had knocked out of his shirt — a Masonic compass and square, with the letter G inside — and then the swarthy face of the “customs inspector” who had accosted me on the stage to Toulon during my flight from Paris last year. He’d tried to take my medallion and I’d ended up shooting him with my rifle, while Sidney Smith had shot another bandit in unseen support. I’d left this one howling, wondering if the wound had been mortal. Obviously not. What the devil was he doing in Jerusalem, armed to the teeth?

But I knew, of course, knew with dread that he had the same purpose as me, to search for ancient secrets. This was a confederate of Silano, and the French hadn’t given up. He was here to look for the Book of Thoth. And, apparently, for me.

Before I had any chance to confirm this, however, he scrambled upward, listened to the shrieks of the neighbors and the cries of the watchmen, and fled, wheezing.

We ran the other way.

M
iriam was shaking as we made our way back to Jericho’s house, my arm around her shoulder. We’d never been physically close, but now we clung instinctively. I took some of the less obvious back alleys I’d learned in my wanderings of Jerusalem, rats skittering away as I looked over my shoulder for pursuit. It was a climb back to Jericho’s — none of the city is level, and the Christian quarter is higher than the Muslim — so after a while we paused for a moment in an alcove, to catch our breath and make sure that with my throbbing head I was taking the right direction. “I’m sorry about that,” I told her. “It isn’t you they are after, it’s me.”

“Who
are
those men?”

“The one who shot at me is French. I’ve seen him before.”

“Seen him where?”

“In France. I shot
him
, actually.”

“Ethan!”

“He was trying to rob me. Shame I didn’t kill him then.”

She looked as if seeing me for the first time.

“It wasn’t about money, it was something more important. I haven’t told you and your brother the whole story.” Her mouth was half open.

“I think it’s time to.”

“And this woman Astiza was part of it?” Her voice was soft.

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“A student of ancient times. A priestess, actually, but of an old, old Egyptian goddess. Isis, if you’ve heard of her.”

“The Black Madonna.” It was a whisper.

“Who?”

“There has long been a cult of worshippers around the statues of the Virgin carved in black stone. Some simply saw it as a variation of Christian artwork, but others said it was really a continuation of the cult of Isis. The White Madonna and the Black.”

Interesting. Isis had turned up repeatedly during my search in Egypt. And now this quiet woman, by all appearances a pious Christian, knew something of her as well. I’d never heard of a pagan goddess who got around so well.

“But why white and black?” I was reminded of the checkerboard pattern of the Paris Masonic lodges where I’d done my best at grasping Freemasonry. And the twin pillars, one black and one white, which flanked the lodge altar.

“Like night and day,” Miriam said. “All things are dual, and this is a teaching from the oldest times, long before Jerusalem and Jesus. Man and woman. Good and evil. High and low. Sleep and wakefulness. Our secret mind and our conscious mind. The universe is in constant tension, and yet opposites must come together to make a whole.”

“I heard the same from Astiza.”

She nodded. “That man who shot at you had a medal expressing this, did he not?”

“You mean the Masonic symbol of overlapping square and compass?”

“I’ve seen that in England. The compass draws a circle, while the carpenter’s angle makes a square. Again, the dual. And the G stands for God, in English, or
gnosis
, knowledge, in Greek.”

“The heretic Egyptian Rite began in England,” I said.

“So what do those men want?”

“The same thing I seek. That Astiza and I sought. They might have held you for ransom to get to me.”

She was still trembling. “His fingers were like talons.”

I felt guilty at what I’d inadvertently dragged her into. What had been a treasure-hunting lark was now a perilous quest. “We’re in a race to learn the truth before they do. I’m going to need Jericho’s help.”

She took my arm. “Let’s go get it, then.”

“Wait.” I pulled her back into the darkness. I felt our scrape had given us some measure of emotional intimacy, and thus permission to ask a more personal question. “You lost someone too, didn’t you?”

She was impatient. “Please, we must hurry.”

“I could see it in your eyes when the messenger told me there’s no trace of Astiza. I’ve wondered why you’re not married, or betrothed: You’re too pretty. But there was someone, wasn’t there?”

She hesitated, but the peril had breached her reserve as well. “I’d met a man through Jericho, an apprentice smith in Nazareth. We were engaged in secret because my brother became jealous. Jericho and I were close as orphans, and suitors pain him. He found out and there was a row, but I was determined to marry. Before we could do so, my fiancé was pressed into Ottoman service. He was eventually sent to Egypt and never came back. He died at the Battle of the Pyramids.”

I, of course, had been on the opposite side in that battle, watching the efficient slaughter the European troops carried out. What a waste. “I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

“That is war. War and fate. And now Bonaparte may come this way.” She shuddered. “Is this secret you seek, will it help?”

“Help what?”

“Stop all the killing and violence. Make this city holy again.”

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? Astiza and her allies had never been certain whether they could use this mysterious Book of Thoth for good or must simply ensure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands for evil.

“I only know it will hurt if that bastard who shot at us gets it first.” And with that, I decided to kiss her.

It was a stolen kiss that took advantage of our emotional turmoil, and yet she didn’t immediately pull away, even though I was hard against her thigh. I couldn’t help my arousal, the action and intimacy had excited me, and the way she kissed back I knew it was reciprocated, at least a little. When she did pull away it was with a little gasp.

To keep me from pressing against her again, she looked from my eyes to my temple. “You’re bleeding.” It was a way to not talk of what we’d just done.

Indeed, the side of my head was wet and warm, and I had the damndest headache. “It’s a scratch,” I said, more bravely than I felt. “Let’s go talk to your brother.”

“W
e’d better finish this rifle of yours,” Jericho said when I told him our story.

“Capital idea. I might get you to forge me a tomahawk, too.
Ouch!
” Miriam was dressing my wound. It stung a little, but her strong fingers were wonderfully gentle as she wrapped my head. The pistol ball had only grazed me, but it shakes a man to come that close. Truth to tell, I also enjoyed being nursed. The woman and I had touched more in the last hour than the previous four months. “There’s nothing more useful than those hatchets, and I lost mine. We’re going to need every advantage we can get.”

“We’ll need to stand watch in case these ruffians come around. Miriam, you’re not to leave this house.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Jericho was pacing. “I have an idea to improve the gun, if the rifle is as accurate as you claim. You said it is difficult to focus on targets at its farthest range, correct?”

“Once I aimed at an enemy and hit his camel.”

“I’ve noticed you peer around the city with your spyglass. What if we used it to help you aim?”

“But how?”

“By attaching it to the barrel.”

Well, that was a perfectly ridiculous idea. It would add to the weight, make the gun clumsier, and get in the way of loading. It
must
be a bad idea because no one had done it before. And yet what if it would really help to see distant targets up close? “Could that work?” Franklin, I knew, would have been intrigued by this kind of tinkering. The unknown, which frightens most men, lured him like a siren.

“We can try. And we need allies if that gang of men is still in the city. You think you killed one?”

“Stabbed him. Who knows? I shot their leader in France, and here he is, big as life. I seem to have a hard time finishing people off.” I thought of Silano and Achmed bin Sadr in Egypt, who both kept coming at me after various wounds. I not only needed that rifle, I needed practice with it.

“I’m going to send word to Sir Sidney,” Jericho said. “The French agents here may be important enough for the British to send help. And Miriam said all this has something to do with that treasure you keep promising. What’s really going on?”

It was past time to bring them into my confidence. “There may be something buried here in Jerusalem that could affect the course of the entire war. We hunted for it in Egypt, but decided in the end that it must have come to Israel. Yet every time I find a stair or a ladder leading downward, I come to a dead end. The city is a rubble heap. My quest may be impossible. Now the French are here, undoubtedly after the same thing.”

“They asked about you,” Miriam reminded.

“Yes, and did they just discover my presence or hear of it from afar? Jericho, could the people who asked about Astiza in Egypt have let slip my own existence?”

“They weren’t supposed to… but wait. Find
what
, exactly? What is this treasure you seek?”

I took a breath. “The Book of Thoth.”

“A book?” He was disappointed. “I thought you said it was treasure. I’ve spent the winter making a rifle for a book?”

“Books have power, Jericho. Look at the Bible or the Koran. And this book is different, it’s a book of wisdom, power and… magic.”

“Magic.” His expression was flat.

“You don’t have to believe me. All I know is that people have shot at me, thrown snakes in my bed, and chased me on camels and boats to get this book — or rather a medallion I had that was a clue to where the book was kept. It turned out the medallion was a key to a secret door in the Great Pyramid, which Astiza and I entered. We found an underground lake heaped with treasure, a marble pavilion, and a golden repository for this book.”

“So you already have the treasure?”

“No. The only way to escape the pyramid was to swim through a tunnel. The weight of the gold and jewels threatened to drown me. I lost it all. The Jews might have hidden a different treasure here in Jerusalem.”

He had the same skeptical look I used to get from Madame Durrell in Paris when I explained the lateness of my rent. “And the book?”

“The repository was empty. All that was left was a shepherd’s crook lying next to it. Astiza convinced me that the crook had been carried by the man who stole the book, and that that man must have been…” I hesitated, knowing what this all must sound like.

“Who?”

“Moses.”

For a moment he simply blinked, in consternation. Then he laughed, a scornful bark. “So! I have been hosting a madman! Does Sidney Smith know you are insane?”

“I haven’t told him all this, and wouldn’t tell
you
if we hadn’t seen that Frenchman. I know it sounds odd, but that villain was allied with my greatest enemy, Count Silano. Which means time is short. We have to find the book before he does.”

“A book Moses stole.”

“Is it that impossible? An Egyptian prince kills an overseer in a fit of rage, flees the country, and then comes back after conversations with a burning bush to free the Hebrew slaves. All this you believe, correct? Yet suddenly Moses has the power to call down plagues, part the waters, and keep the Israelites fed in the wilderness of Sinai. Most men call it a simple miracle, a gift from God, but what if he discovered instructions to tell him how to do so? This is what Astiza believed. As a prince, he knew how to get in and out of the pyramid, which was but a decoy and a marker to protect the book from the unworthy. Moses takes it, and when Pharaoh discovers it gone, he pursues Moses and the Hebrew slaves with six hundred chariots, only to be swallowed by the Red Sea. Later, this tribe of ex-slaves enters the Promised Land and proceeds to conquer it from its civilized, established inhabitants. How? By an ark with mysterious powers or a book of ancient wisdom? I know it sounds improbable, and yet the French believe it too. Otherwise, these men wouldn’t have seized your sister. This is a crisis as real as the bruises on her arms and shoulders.”

The blacksmith looked at me, drumming his fingers. “You
are
mad.”

I shook my head in frustration. “Then why do I have these?” And I reached in my robe to bring out the two golden seraphim, each four inches long. Miriam gasped and Jericho’s eyes went wide. It wasn’t just the brilliance of the gold, I knew, still vivid after thousands of years. It was the fact that these kneeling angels, their wings outstretched toward each other, were a tiny model of the ones that had once decorated the top of the Ark of the Covenant. This wasn’t a cheap trick I could have had made up in an artisan’s shop. The workmanship was too good, and the gold too heavy.

“One old man I met called these a compass,” I went on. “I don’t know what he meant. I don’t know how much any of this is true. I’ve been operating on science, faith, and speculation since I fled Paris a year ago. But the pyramids seem to encode sophisticated mathematics that no primitive people would know. And where did civilization come from? In Egypt, it seemed to spring wholly formed. The legend is that human knowledge of architecture, writing, medicine, and astronomy came from a being called Thoth, who became an Egyptian god, predecessor of the Greek god Hermes. Thoth supposedly wrote a book of wisdom, a book so powerful that it could be used for evil as well as good. The Egyptian pharaohs, realizing its potency, safeguarded it under the Great Pyramid. But if Moses stole it, the book may have — must have — been brought here by the Jews.”