Ethan Gage Collection # 1

by William Dietrich

  As for the Book of Thoth, it might well be a myth—all we’d found in the pyramid, after all, was an empty repository for it, and perhaps Moses’ taunting staff—and yet what if it wasn’t, and really rested somewhere under my feet? Jericho was nearing completion on a rifle that I’d had a hand in building, and which seemed likely to be superior to the one I’d lost. And then there was Miriam, who I guessed had suffered a tragic loss before mine, and who was a partner in sorrow. With Astiza vanished, the woman whose house I shared, whose food I ate, and whose hands were shaping the wood of my own weapon, suddenly seemed more wondrous. Who did I have to return to in America? No one. So despite my frustration I found myself deciding to stay a little longer, at least until the gun was completed. I was a gambler, who waited for a turn of the cards. Maybe a new card would come now.

  And I was curious who Miriam had lost.

  She treated me with proper reserve as she had before, and yet our eye contact lingered longer now. When she set my plate she stood perceptibly closer, and the tone of her voice—was it my imagination?—was softer, more sympathetic. Jericho was watching both of us more closely, and would sometimes interrupt our conversations with gruff interjections. How could I blame him? She was a beautiful helpmate, loyal as a hound, and I was a shiftless foreigner, a treasure hunter with an uncertain future. I couldn’t help but dream of having her, and Jericho was a man too: he knew what any man would wish. Worse, I might take her away to America. I noticed that he began devoting more hours to my rifle. He wanted to get it finished, and me gone.

  We endured the late winter rains, Jerusalem gray and quiet. Reports came that Bonaparte’s best general, Desaix, had reported fresh triumphs and seen spectacular new ruins far up the Nile. Smith was roving at sea between Acre, the blockade off Alexandria, and Constantinople, all to prepare for Napoleon’s spring assault. French troops were assembling at El-Arish, near the border with Palestine. The strengthening sun slowly warmed the city stone, war drew nearer, and then one dusky evening when Miriam set out to the city’s markets to fetch a missing spice for our evening’s supper, I impulsively decided to follow. I wanted an opportunity to speak with her away from Jericho’s protective presence. It was unseemly for a man to trail a single woman in Jerusalem, but perhaps some opportunity for conversation would present itself. I was lonely. What did I intend to say to Miriam? I didn’t know.

  I followed at a distance, trying to think of some plausible reason to approach, or a way to circle ahead so our meeting would seem to be coincidence. How odd that we humans have to think so deviously about ways to express our heart. She walked too quickly, however. She skirted the Pools of Hezekiah, descended to the long souk that divided the city, bought food once, passed up goods at two other stalls, and then took the lanes toward the markets of the Muslim Bezetha District, beyond the pasha’s residence.

  And then Miriam disappeared.

  One moment she was descending the Via Dolorosa, toward the Temple Mount’s Gate of Darkness and the El-Ghawanima Tower, and the next she was gone. I blinked, confused. Had she noticed me following, and was she trying to avoid me? I accelerated my pace, hurrying past locked doorways, until finally realizing I must have gone too far. I retraced my steps and then, from the courtyard adjacent to an ancient Roman arch that bridged the street, I heard talking, rough and urgent. It’s odd how a sound or smell can jar memory, and I could swear there was something familiar about the male voice.

  “Where does he go? Where is he looking?” The tone was threatening.

  “I don’t know!” She sounded terrified.

  I stepped past iron grillwork into a dark, rubble-strewn courtyard, the ruins sometimes used as a goat pen. Four brutes, in French cloaks and European boots, surrounded the frightened young woman. I was, as I have said, weaponless, except for the Arab dagger I carried in my sash. But they hadn’t seen me yet, so I had the advantage of surprise. These didn’t look like the kind of men to bluff, so I glanced around for a better weapon. “To be thrown upon one’s own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune,” Ben Franklin used to say. But then he had more resources than most.

  I finally spied a discarded stone Cupid, long since defaced and castrated by either Muslims or Christians trying to obey edicts about false idols and pagan penises. It lay on its side in the debris like a forgotten doll.

  The sculpture was a third my height—heavy enough—and fortunately not held down by anything but its own weight. I could just barely lift it over my head. So I did, said a prayer to love, and heaved. It struck the huddled rascals in their back like pins in a bowl and they went down in a heap, cursing.

  “Run for home!” I cried to gentle Miriam. They’d already ripped her clothing.

  So she gave me a fearful nod, took a step to leave, and then swung back as one villain grabbed at her again. I thought maybe he’d pull her down, but even as he clawed she kicked him hard in his cockles as neatly as dancing a jig. I could hear the thump of the impact, and it froze him like a flamingo in a Quebec snowstorm. Then she broke free and sprang past out the gate. Brave girl! She had more pluck, and better knowledge of male anatomy, than I’d imagined.

  Now the pack of ruffians rose against me, but meanwhile I’d hauled Cupid up again and had taken the cherub by his head. I swung him in a circle and let go. Two of the devils crashed down again and the statuary shattered. Meanwhile neighbors had heard the ruckus and were raising a hue and cry. A third villain began to draw a hidden sword—obviously sneaked past the police of Jerusalem—so I charged him with my Arab knife before he could clear his scabbard, ramming the blade home. For all my scuffles, I’d never stabbed anyone before, and I was surprised how readily it plunged in, and how eerily it scraped a rib when it did so. He hissed and twisted away so violently that I lost my grip. I staggered. Now I had no weapon at all.

  Meanwhile the one who’d been interrogating Miriam had dragged out a pistol. Surely he wouldn’t risk a shot in the sacred city, violating all laws, voices rising!

  But the piece went off with a roar, its flash like a flicker of lightning, and something seared the side of my head. I lurched away, half-blinded. It was time to retreat! I tottered out to the street but now the bastard was coming after me, dark, his cape flying like wings, his own sword drawn. Who the devil was this? The blow of the pistol ball had left me so woozy I was wading in syrup.

  And then, as I turned in the lane to meet him as best I could, a blunt staff thrust past me and struck the bastard smack where throat meets chest. He gave an awful cough and his feet slid out ahead of him, landing him on his backside. He looked up in amazement, gulping. It was Miriam, who’d taken a pole from a market awning and hefted it like a lance! I do have a knack for finding useful women.

  “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.

  Miriam 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 inst
inctively. 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.”

  We’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.