The Rosetta Key

If our hunt at sea was anxious and discouraging, the time it took was not. Astiza and I had rarely had time to take a breath together.

It had always been campaigns, treasure hunts, and perilous escapes.

Now we shared a lieutenant’s cabin—our intimacy an issue of some jealousy among the lonely officers and crew—and had time to know each other at leisure, like a man and wife. Time enough, in other words, to scare any man wary of intimacy.

Except I liked it. We had certainly been partners in adventure, and lovers. Now we were friends. Her body ripened with rest and food, her skin recovered its blossom, and her hair its sheen. I loved to simply look at her, reading in our cabin or watching the bright sea by the rail, and loved how clothes draped her, how her hair floated in the breeze. Even better, of course, was slowly taking those clothes off.

But our ordeals had saddened her, and her beauty seemed bittersweet.

And when we came together in our cramped quarters, sometimes urgently and at other times with gentle care, trying to be quiet in the thin-walled ship, I was transported. I marveled that I, the wayward American opportunist, and she, the Egyptian mystic, got on at all.

And yet it turned out we did complement and complete each other, anticipating each other. I began thinking of a normal life ahead.

I wished we could sail forever, and not find Napoleon at all.

But sometimes she was lost to me with a troubled look, seeing dark things in the past or future. That’s when I feared I would lose her again. Destiny claimed her as much as I did.

3 0 0

w i l l i a m d i e t r i c h

“Think about it, Ethan. Bonaparte with the power of Moses?

France, with the secret knowledge of the Knight Templars? Silano, living forever, every year mastering more arcane formulae, gathering more followers? Our task isn’t done until we get that book back.” So we landed in France. Of course we couldn’t dock in Toulon.

Astiza conferred with our English captain, studied the charts, and insistently directed us to an obscure cove surrounded by steep hillsides, uninhabited except by a goatherd or two. How did she know the coast of France? We were rowed ashore at night to a pebble beach and left alone in the moonless dark. Finally there was a whistle and Astiza lit a candle, shielded by her cape.

“So the fool has returned,” a familiar voice said from the brush.

“He who found the Fool, father of all thought, originator of civilization, blessing and curse of kings.” Men materialized, swarthy and in boots and broad hats, bright sashes at their waists that held silver knives. Their leader bowed.

“Welcome back to the Rom,” said Stefan the gypsy.

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I was pleasantly astounded by this reunion. I’d met these gypsies, or “gyptians,” as some in Europe called them—wanderers supposedly descended from the ancients—the year before when my friend Talma and I had fled Paris to join Napoleon’s expedition. After Najac and his gutter scoundrels had ambushed us on the Toulon stage, I’d escaped into the woods and found refuge with Stefan’s band. There I had first met Sidney Smith and, more agreeably, the beautiful Sarylla who had told my fortune, told me I was the fool to seek the Fool (another name for Thoth) and instructed me in lovemaking tech-niques of the ancients. It had been a pleasant way to complete my journey to Toulon, encapsulated in a gypsy wagon and safe from those pursuing my sacred medallion. Now, like a rabbit popping from a hole, my gypsy saviors were here again.

“What in the tarot are you doing here?” I asked.

“But waiting for you, of course.”

t h e

r o s e t t a k e y

3 0 1

“I sent word ahead to them on an English cutter,” Astiza said.

Ah. Hadn’t these same gypsies sent word ahead to her, of the medallion and my coming? Which almost led to my head being blown off by Astiza’s former master, not the easiest of introductions.

“Bonaparte is ahead of you, and word of his latest victories just ahead of him,” Stefan said.“His journey to Paris has become a triumph.

Men hope the conqueror of Egypt may be the savior of France. With only a little help from Alessandro Silano, he may achieve everything he desires, and desire is dangerous. You must separate Bonaparte from the book, and safekeep it. The Templar hiding place lasted nearly five centuries. Yours, hopefully, will last five millennia, or more.”

“We have to catch him first.”

“Yes, we must hurry. Great things are about to happen.”

“Stefan, I’m delighted and amazed to see you, but hurrying is the last thing I thought gypsies capable of. We ambled to Toulon about as fast as a grazing cow, if I remember, and your little ponies can’t pull your wagons much faster.”

“True. But the Rom have a knack for borrowing things. We’re going to find a coach and a fast team, my friend, and drive you—a member of the Council of Five Hundred, let us pretend—at break-neck pace to Paris. I shall be a captain of police, say, and André here your driver. Carlo as your footman, the lady as your lady . . .”