Napoleon's Pyramids

by William Dietrich

  He certainly enjoyed boasting. Astiza was looking up at the ruined beams.

  ‘My dear Gage, have you understood a single thing that’s happened to you? The journalist learnt a disturbing thing about our Alexandrian witch: not that word of your coming was sent by gypsies, as she told you, but by me. Yes, we were in communication. Yet instead of helping kill you, as I recommended, she seemed to be using you to discover the secret. What was her game? When I landed in Alexandria, Talma thought he could spy on me as well, but Bin Sadr caught him. I told the fool he could join me against you and we could sell whatever treasure we found to the highest-bidding king or general – Bonaparte too! – but we couldn’t reason with him. He threatened to go to Bonaparte and have the general interrogate us all. Nor was he a bargaining chip once you insisted on the fiction that the medallion was lost. His last chance was to steal it from whoever had it and deliver it to me, but he refused. In the end, the little hypochondriac was more loyal than you deserved, and a French patriot to boot.’

  ‘And you are not.’ My voice was cold.

  ‘The Revolution cost my family everything it had. Do you think I consort with rabble because I care about liberty? Their liberty took everything from me, and now I’m going to use them to get it all back. I do not work for Bonaparte, Ethan Gage. Bonaparte, unwittingly, works for me.’

  ‘So you sent Talma to me in a jar.’ I was so rigid, fists clenched, that my knuckles were white. The sky seemed to be wheeling, the chains a pendulum like some trick of Mesmer. I had just one chance.

  ‘A casualty of war,’ Silano replied. ‘If he’d listened to me, he’d have been richer than Croesus.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Why didn’t your lantern bearer, Bin Sadr in disguise, just take the medallion that first evening in Paris, the moment I stepped into the street?’

  ‘Because I thought you’d given it to the whore, and I didn’t know where she lived. But she didn’t confess to it even when the Arab gutted her. Nor did my men find it in your chambers. Frankly, I wasn’t even sure of its importance, not until I asked more questions. I assumed I’d have the leisure to strip you of it in prison. But you ran, allied with Talma, and were on your way to Egypt as a savant – what amusement! – before I was even certain the trinket was what we’d all been looking for. I still don’t know where you hid the medallion that first night.’

  ‘In my chamber pot.’

  He laughed. ‘Irony, irony! Key to the greatest treasure on earth, and you cover it with shit! Ah, what a clown. Yet what uncommon luck you’ve had, eluding an ambush on the Toulon highway and an Alexandrian street, dodging snakes, coming unscathed through major battles, and even finding your way here. You have the devil’s luck! And yet in the end you come to me, bringing the medallion with you, all for a woman who won’t let you touch her! The male mind! She told me that all we had to do was wait, provided Bin Sadr didn’t get you first. Did he ever find you?’

  ‘I shot him.’

  ‘Really? Pity. You’ve been a most troublesome man, Ethan Gage.’

  ‘He survived.’

  ‘But of course. He always does. You will not want to meet him again.’

  ‘Don’t forget that I’m still in the company of savants, Silano. Do you want to answer to Monge and Berthollet for my murder? They have the ear of Bonaparte, and he has an army. You’ll hang if you harm me.’

  ‘I believe it is called self-defence.’ He pushed slightly with his sword and I felt a faint sting through my robes, and a trickle of my own blood. ‘Or is it attempted capture of a fugitive from revolutionary justice? Or a man who lied about losing a magic medallion so he could keep it for himself? Any will suit. But I am a nobleman with my own code of honour, so let me offer you mercy. You’re a hunted fugitive, without friends or allies and no threat to anyone, if you ever were. So, for the medallion I give you back ... your life. If you promise to tell me what Enoch learnt.’

  ‘What Enoch learnt?’ What was he talking about?

  ‘Your enfeebled mentor threw himself on a bonfire to grasp a book before we could torture him. French troops were coming. So, what did the book contain?’

  The villain was referring to the book of Arabic poetry that Enoch had clutched at. I was sweating. ‘I still want the woman, too.’

  ‘But she doesn’t want you, does she? Did she tell you we were once lovers?’

  I looked. Astiza had put her hands to one of the swaying manacles as if to hold herself up, looking at both of us with sorrow. ‘Ethan, it was the only way,’ she whispered.

  I tasted the same ashes that Bonaparte must have bit when he learnt of the betrayal of Josephine. I’d come so far – for this? To be held at sword point by an aristocratic braggart? To be humiliated by a woman? Robbed of all I’d struggled for? ‘All right.’ My hands went to my neck and I lifted the talisman clear, holding it out in front of me where it rocked like a pendulum. Even at night it shone coldly. I could hear both of them gasp slightly at its new shape. They had led me, and I had found the part to complete it.

  ‘So it is the key,’ Silano breathed. ‘Now all we must do is understand the numbers. You will help me, priestess. Gage? Turn slowly now, and give it up.’

  I did so, moving back slightly from his rapier. I needed just a moment’s distraction. ‘You’re no closer to solving the mystery than I am,’ I warned.

  ‘Aren’t I? I solved more than you. My journey around the Mediterranean took me to many temples and libraries. I found evidence that the key would be in Dendara, at the temple of Cleopatra. That I was to look to Aquarius. And here to the south I found the temple of Cleopatra, who would of course worship the lovely and all-powerful Isis, not the cow-faced Hathor with her bovine ears and tits. Yet I couldn’t figure where to look.’

  ‘There’s a crypt with the phallic god Min. It had the missing piece.’

  ‘How scholarly of you to find it. Now, give me the trinket.’

  Slowly, leaning over the point of his rapier, I handed it to him. He snatched it with the greed of a child, his look triumphant. When he held it up it seemed to dance, this sign of the Freemasons. ‘Odd how sacred memory is passed down even by those who don’t realise its origin, isn’t it?’ Silano said.

  And it was then that I threw.

  The tomahawk in the small of my back had rested just inches from his sword point, itching beneath my concealing robe. I needed just a moment to steal it out, once my back was turned and he was triumphantly hoisting the medallion. The test, however, would be whether Astiza cried out when she saw what I was doing.

  She hadn’t.

  Which meant that perhaps she wasn’t on Silano’s side after all. That the man was indeed a liar. That I was not entirely a fool.

  So I was quick, very quick. Yet Silano was quicker. He ducked as the hatchet whistled by his ear, spinning to land in the sands beyond the temple terrace. Still, the throw had put him off-balance, requiring an instant to recover. It was enough to seize my rifle! I brought it up …

  And he leant forward, lithe and sure, and rammed his rapier blade right into the mouth of the barrel. ‘Touché, Monsieur Gage. And now we are at an impasse, are we not?’

  I suppose we looked ridiculous. I had frozen, my muzzle pointed at his breast, and he was a statue too, neatly balanced, his sword in my weapon’s throat.

  ‘Except that I,’ he went on, ‘have a pistol.’ He reached beneath his coat.

  So I pulled the trigger.

  My plugged rifle exploded, the shattered stock kicking back at me and the barrel and broken sword whirling over Silano’s head. We both went sprawling, my ears ringing and my face cut by pieces of the ruptured gun.

  Silano howled.

  And then there was an ominous creak and rumble.

  I looked up. A precariously balanced stone beam, already partly dislodged from its ancient perch from some long-ago earthquake, was rocking against the stars. The chain was wrapped around it, I now noticed, and Astiza was pulling with all her might.

  ‘You moved the chain
s,’ Silano said to her stupidly, looking at Astiza in stunned confusion.

  ‘Samson,’ she replied.

  ‘You’ll kill us all!’

  The beam slid off the column and fell like a hammer, crashing against a leaning pillar and starting it falling, too. The worn columns were a house of cards. There was a grinding creak, a growing roar, and the whole overhead edifice began to give way. I winced and rolled as tons of heavy rock came smashing down, heaving the very ground. I heard a pop as Silano’s pistol went off and bits of shattered rock flew like shrapnel, but its sound was dwarfed by groaning columns that rolled and tumbled. Then Astiza was jerking me upward, pushing me toward the edge of the temple platform amid the chaos. ‘Run, run! The noise will bring the French!’ We leapt, a cloud of dust rolling out with us, and hit the sand just as a section of pillar bounced over us like a runaway barrel. It crashed against Cleopatra’s feet. Back on the ruined terrace, Silano was screaming and cursing, his voice coming from the dust and wreckage of the toppled ruins.

  She stooped and handed me the tomahawk I’d hurled. ‘We may need this.’

  I looked at her in amazement. ‘You brought the whole temple down.’

  ‘He forgot to sheer my hair. Or hold his prize.’ The medallion, wide and clumsy in its new assembly, swung from her fist like a cat’s toy.

  I hefted the tomahawk. ‘Let’s go back inside and finish him.’

  But there were shouts of French from the front of the temple compound, and the signal shots of sentries. She shook her head. ‘There’s no time.’

  So we ran, fleeing out a rear gate in the eastern wall and into the desert beyond, weaponless, horseless, without food, water, or sensible clothing. We heard more shouts, and shots, but no bullet buzzed near.

  ‘Hurry,’ she said. ‘The Nile has almost peaked!’

  What did that mean?

  We had nothing except the tomahawk and the cursed medallion.

  And each other.

  But, who was this woman I had rescued, who had rescued me?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Nile was high, brown, and powerful. It was October, the year’s peak flood, and we were approaching the date the circular calendar seemed to suggest. We stole a small boat and set off down the river, headed back for the Great Pyramid that Monge had suggested must be the key to the riddle. I’d give it a last crack, and if we couldn’t puzzle it out I’d just keep going to the Mediterranean. Whether the strange woman beside me would follow, I had no idea.

  By the time the sun rose we were miles from Desaix’s army, drifting with the current. I might have relaxed except that I saw a French courier galloping along the river bank, spying us and then cutting inland on a shortcut while we took the river’s looping bends. No doubt he was carrying word of our escape. I lowered the boom to set the lateen sail, giving us even more speed, the boat leaning with the wind and water hissing as I tacked. We passed a yawning crocodile, prehistoric and hideous. Water glistened on his scales, and yellow eyes looked at us with reptilian contemplation. After Silano, he seemed an improvement in company.

  What a pair we made, I in Arab costume and Astiza in temptress regalia, sprawled on the muddy floorboards of a small felucca that stank of fish. She’d said little since we reunited, gazing over the Nile and fingering the medallion she’d draped around her own neck with an air of ownership. I hadn’t asked for it back.

  ‘I came a long way to find you,’ I finally said.

  ‘You followed the star of Isis.’

  ‘But you weren’t chained as you pretended.’

  ‘No. Nothing was as it seemed. I fooled him, and you.’

  ‘You knew Silano before?’

  She sighed. ‘He was a master and lover who turned to darker arts. He believed Egypt’s magic was as real as Berthollet’s chemistry and that he, following in the footsteps of Cagliostro and Kolmer, could find occult secrets here. He cared nothing for the world, only for himself, because he was bitter over what he’d lost in the Revolution. When I realised how selfish he was, we had a falling-out. I fled to Alexandria and found sanctuary with a new master, the guardian. Silano’s dreams were shallow. Alessandro wanted Egypt’s secrets to make him powerful, even immortal, so I played a double game.’

  ‘Did he buy you from Yusuf?’

  ‘Yes. It was a bribe to the old lecher.’

  ‘Lecher?’

  ‘Yusuf’s hospitality was not entirely selfless. I needed to get away from there.’ She saw my look. ‘Don’t worry, he didn’t touch me.’

  ‘So you went with your old lover.’

  ‘You hadn’t come back from the pyramids. Silano told me he hadn’t found you at Enoch’s. Going with the count was the only way to make progress in solving the mystery. I knew nothing of Dendara, and neither did you. That place had been forgotten for centuries. I told Alessandro you had the medallion, and then left you a message of where to find it in the harem. We both knew you’d come after us. And then I rode freely, because the French would have asked too many questions if I’d been bound.’

  Alessandro! I didn’t like the familiarity of a first name. ‘And then you brought a temple down on him.’

  ‘He believes in his own charm, like you.’

  As did she, toying with both of us as a means to her end. ‘You asked me what I believed in, Astiza. Who do you believe in?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You helped Silano because you want the secret too.’

  ‘Of course. But to safeguard it, not ransom it to some greedy tyrant like Bonaparte. Can you imagine that man with an army of immortals? At its peak, Egypt was defended by an army of just twenty thousand men, and seemed impregnable. Then something seemed to happen, something was lost, and invasions began.’

  ‘Going with the men who murdered Talma …’

  ‘Silano knew things I did not. I knew things he did not. Could you have found the temple of Dendara that we came from by yourself? We didn’t know which temple Enoch’s books referred to, but Silano did after his studies in Rome and Constantinople and Jerusalem. We would never have found the other arms of the medallion by ourselves, just as Silano could not complete the medallion without you and Enoch. You had some clues and the count had others. The gods brought us all together.’

  ‘The gods, or the Egyptian Rite? Gypsies didn’t tell you I was coming to Egypt.’

  She looked away. ‘I couldn’t tell you the truth because you’d misunderstand. Alessandro lied and sent word that you’d stolen the medallion from him. I pretended to help so I could use him. You survived our assassination attempt. Then Enoch persuaded Ashraf to try to find us in the battle – you, the man in a green coat, who conveniently stood up on an artillery caisson – so that he could see this medallion all were so curious about. Everything that happened was supposed to, except poor Talma’s death.’

  My mind was whirling. Maybe I was naïve. ‘So we’re all just tools for you – me for the medallion, Silano for his occult knowledge? No different, here to be used?’

  ‘I did not fall in love with Silano.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were in love with him, I said …’ I stopped. She was looking away from me, rigid, trembling, her long fine hair blowing in the warm wind that kicked up little wavelets on the river. Not in love? With him. Did that mean that perhaps my pursuit had not gone unnoticed, my charm not entirely unappreciated, my good intentions not misunderstood? But then how much did I feel about her now? I wished to have her, yes, but to love her? I didn’t even know her, it seemed. And love was truly dangerous ground for a man like me, a prospect more daunting than a Mameluke charge or a naval broadside. It meant believing in something, committing to more than a moment. What did I really feel toward this woman who’d seemed to betray me but perhaps had not?

  ‘What I mean is, I haven’t loved anyone else either,’ I stumbled. Not the most eloquent of replies. ‘That is, I’m not even sure love exists.’

  She was exasperated. ‘How do you know electricity exists, Ethan?’

&
nbsp; ‘Well.’ That was actually a damned good question, since it seemed naturally invisible. ‘By sparks, I suppose. You can feel it. Or a lightning bolt.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Now she was looking at me, smiling like a sphinx, enigmatic, unapproachable, except that now the door had been opened and all I had to do was step through it. What had Berthollet surmised about my character? That I had not realised my potential? Now here was a chance to grow up, to commit not to an idea, but to a person.

  ‘I don’t even know what side you’re on,’ I stalled.

  ‘I’m on our side.’

  Which side was that? And then, before our conversation could get to some kind of agreeable conclusion, the crack of a gun echoed across the river.

  We looked downstream. A felucca was sailing toward us, its rigging taut, deck thick with men. Even at a distance of three hundred metres, I could recognise the bandaged arm of Achmed bin Sadr. By all the tea in China, could I not get clear of this man? I hadn’t felt so weary of someone’s company since Franklin had John Adams to dinner and I had to hear his irascible opinions on half the politicians in the United States.

  We had no weapons except my tomahawk, and no chance, so I put the rudder over and made for shore. Perhaps we could find a cliffside tomb to hide in. But no, now a squadron of red-and-blue-jacketed hussars was spilling down a hill to the bank to greet us. French cavalry! Had I even got twenty miles?

  Well, better them than Bin Sadr. They’d take me to Bonaparte, while the Arab would do things to Astiza and me that I didn’t even want to think about. When we met Napoleon, Astiza could simply claim I’d kidnapped her, and I’d confirm it. I considered grabbing the medallion from her pretty neck and hurling it into the Nile, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d invested too much. Besides, I was as curious about what it might lead to as anyone. It was our only map to the Book of Thoth.