The Rosetta Key

Or was it? I was in no mood to nest just yet, and really had no idea where this next adventure might take me. Nor was Astiza the type of woman to trail docilely in my wake. I, too, was intrigued to learn more about ancient Egypt, so maybe she could start that path while I ran Bonaparte’s errands in America. A few diplomatic dinners, a quick look at a sugar isle or two, and I’d be free of the man and ready to plan our future.

“Won’t you miss me?” I risked.

She smiled sadly. “Oh, yes. Life is sorrow. But life is also destiny, Ethan, and this stay of execution is a sign that the next door must be opened, the next path taken.”

“How do I know we’ll see each other again?” She smiled sadly, regretfully, and yet sweetly, and kissed me on the cheek. Then she whispered. “Bet on it, Ethan Gage. Play the cards.”

H i s t o r i c a l

N o t e

If we learn more from our mistakes than our successes, then Napoleon’s 1799 campaign in the Holy Land was education in the extreme. His attacks were impatient and ill-prepared at Acre. He alienated most of the indigenous population. The massacre and subsequent execution of prisoners at Jaffa were to plague his reputation the rest of his life. Scarcely better were reports that he was guilty of mercy-killing his own troops by distributing opium and poison to dying plague victims. He would not experience such an embarrassing military and political setback until his invasion of Russia in 1812.

And yet, by the close of 1799, Bonaparte had not just survived a military debacle; the Corsican had so adroitly manipulated public opinion back in France that he found himself first consul of his adopted nation, on his way to becoming emperor. Modern politicians who seem coated with Teflon (meaning that nothing critical sticks to them) cannot compare to the slickness of Napoleon Bonaparte. How could he achieve such turnaround from such disaster? That’s the mis-chievous mystery at the center of this book.

For fiction readers curious about such things, much of this novel 3 3 8

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is true. The tragedy of Jaffa, the Battle of Mount Tabor, and the siege of Acre went much as described, although I have taken liberties with details. Ethan Gage and his electrified chain are an invention, and so is Napoleon’s battering-ram torpedo. But Sir Sidney Smith, Phelipeaux, Haim Farhi, and Djezzar were real. (In reality, Phelipeaux died of exhaustion or sunstroke in the siege, not bayonets.) Acre and Jaffa—the latter now a suburb of Tel Aviv—retain some of the architectural flavor of 1799, and it’s not hard to imagine Gage’s sojourn in the Holy Land. While the strategic tower and walls of the siege of Acre are gone—they were replaced after the battle with new ones by Djezzar because of the extensive damage—there’s abundant romance in walking the ramparts of this lovely Mediterranean town. To the east, a highway to Galilee cuts by the foot of the hill where Napoleon had his headquarters.

For readers interested in the history of Bonaparte’s Syrian campaign, I recommend Napoleon in the Holy Land by Nathan Schur and Bonaparte in Egypt by J. Christopher Herold. Evocative documentary watercolors made by the English artist David Roberts in 1839 are collected in a number of art books.

While I’ve imagined some of my subterranean vaults under Jerusalem’s Temple Mount—a necessity since even long-visited chambers such as Solomon’s Stables have been closed to visitors by Muslim authorities—Jerusalem is riddled with caves and tunnels.They include a dark, thigh-deep subterranean waterway from the lower Pool of Siloam that this author dutifully waded through to get a feel for the underground adventure I describe. Underground gates to long-secret tunnels under the Temple Mount exist: You can see at least one as a tourist. The Temple Mount is kept off-limits to archeologists because of fear that discovery could ignite religious strife. Explorers have been chased off by angry mobs in the past, but doesn’t that lend credence to the idea that there might still be revelations there? Just don’t show up with a shovel. You might ignite a holy war.

Some readers will recognize that the “City of Ghosts” is in fact the breathtaking Jordanian ruin of Petra, built by the Nabataean Arabs shortly before Christ and ultimately administered by the Romans.

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At the time Gage visits, it was indeed a lost city that would stun the first nineteenth-century Europeans to see it. While I’ve taken some obvious liberties, much is as I’ve described it. There is a High Place of Sacrifice.

The Tuileries Palace in Paris was begun in 1564 and burned down in 1871. It served as the palace of Napoleon and Josephine beginning in February of 1800, three months after he seized power. Temple Prison was also real, but has since been demolished. And yes, Notre Dame is built on the site of a Roman temple to Isis.