The Rosetta Key

He looked me up and down. “More, I suspect, than you can afford to pay.”

“So you won’t help me?”

“It’s my contacts in Egypt who won’t help you, not without coin.” I judged he wasn’t trying to cheat me, just tell me the truth. I needed a partner if I was going to get anywhere in my quest, and who better than this blue-eyed blacksmith? So I gave him a hint of what else I was after. “Maybe you can contribute. What if I promised, in return, a share of the greatest treasure on earth?” He finally laughed. “Greatest treasure? Which is?”

“A secret. But it could make a man a king.”

“Ah. And where might this treasure be?” 3 4

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“Right under our noses in Jerusalem, I hope.”

“Do you know how many fools have hoped to find treasure in Jerusalem?”

“It’s not the fools who will find it.”

“You want me to spend my money looking for your woman?”

“I want you to invest in your future.”

He licked his lips. “Smith found a bold, impudent, rascal, didn’t he?”

“And you are a judge of character!” He might be skeptical, but he was also curious. Paying for word of Astiza would not really cost him much, I bet. And he had the same avarice as all of us: Everyone dreams of buried treasure.

“I could see if it’s affordable.”

I’d hooked him. “There’s another thing I need as well. A good rifle.”

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Jericho lived simply, despite some prosperity from his ironmonger trade. Because he was a Christian his house had more furnishings than a Muslim abode: Muhammadans rely on cushions that can be moved so the women can be sequestered when a male guest arrives.

The habit of the Bedouin tent has never been left behind. We Christians, in contrast, are accustomed to having our heads closer to the warm ceiling than the cooler floor, and so sit high and formal, in stationary clutter. Jericho had a table, chairs, and armoires instead of Islamic cushions and chests. The carpentry was plain, however, with a Puritan simplicity. The plank floors were bare of carpets, and any decoration on the plaster walls was limited to the odd crucifix or pic-ture of a saint: clean as a convent, and just as disconcerting. Miriam, the sister, kept it spotless. Food was plentiful, but basic: bread, olives, wine, and what greens the woman could buy each day in the market stalls. Occasionally she’d bring meat for her muscled, hungry brother, but it was relatively rare and expensive. Winter was coming, but there was no provision for heat except that given off by the charcoal of the cooking hearth and the forge below. There was no glass in the screened windows, so the coldest were blocked up by bags of sawdust t h e

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for the season, adding to the autumn gloom. The basin water was cold, winds penetrating, candles and oil precious, and we slept and rose at farmer hours. For a Parisian layabout like me, Palestine was a shock.

It was the forging of my new rifle that first bonded us. Jericho was steady, skilled, quiet, diligent (all things I should emulate, I suppose) and had earned the town’s respect. You could see it in the eyes of the men who came into the sooty courtyard to buy iron implements: Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. I thought I might have to tutor him in the design of a good gun, but he was ahead of me. “You mean like the German jaegar, the hunting rifle?” he said when I described the piece I’d lost. “I’ve worked on some. Show me on the sand how long you want the piece to be.”

I sketched out a forty-two-inch barrel.

“Won’t that be clumsy?”

“The length gives it accuracy and killing power. Just forty-five caliber is enough; the rifle velocity makes up for bullets smaller than a musket’s. I can carry more ammunition for a given weight of shot and powder. Soft iron, deep grooving, a drop to the stock to bring the sights up to my eye for aiming but keep my brow out of the pan flash.

The best I’ve seen can drive a tack three times out of five at fifty yards.

It takes a full minute to load and ram, but the first shot will actually hit something.”

“Smoothbores are the rule here. Quick to load and you can shoot with anything—pebbles, if need be. For this gun, we’ll need precise bullets.”

“Precision means accuracy.”

“In a close fight, sometimes speed wins.” He had the prejudice of the sailors he had served with, who fought in sharp brawls when boarding.

“And the right shot can keep them from getting close at all. To my mind, trying to fight with an ordinary musket is like going to a brothel blindfolded—you might get the result you want, but you can miss by a mile, too.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Damned if I could get him to joke.

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He looked at the pattern in the sand. “Four hundred hours of work.

For which you’ll pay me out of this treasure of yours?”

“Double. I’m going to be searching hard while you craft the rifle.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Easy to promise money you don’t have.