The Rosetta Key

Phelipeaux led us up a winding stair until we came out on the roof of Djezzar’s castle. What a magnificent view! After the rain of recent days the air was dazzling, distant Mount Carmel a blue ridge far across the bay. Nearer, the assembling French were as sharp as lead soldiers.

Tents and awnings were blossoming like a spring carnival. From Jaffa, I knew what life would be like in their lines: plentiful food, imported drink to bolster the courage of assault groups, and cadres of prostitutes and servant women to cook, clean, and provide warmth at night, all at exorbitant prices cheerfully paid by men who felt there was a good chance they were about to die. About a mile inland was a hill 1 3 2

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a hundred feet in height, and there I could see a cluster of men and horses amid flapping banners, out of range of any of our fire.

“I suspect that is where Buonaparte will set his headquarters,” Phelipeaux said, drawing out the Italian pronunciation with aristocratic disdain. “I know him, you see, and know how he thinks. We both would do the same. He’ll extend his trenches and try to mine our walls with sappers. So I know that he knows the tower is key.” I followed the sweep of his finger. Cannon were being swung up onto the walls, and there was a stone-lined dry moat just beyond, about twenty feet deep and fifty wide. “No water in the moat?”

“It hasn’t been designed for it—the bottom is above sea level—but our engineers have an idea. We’re building a reservoir on the Mediterranean near the city’s Land Gate that we’ll pump full of seawater.

It could be released into the moat at a time of crisis.”

“That plan, however, is still weeks from completion,” Smith said.

I nodded. “So in the meantime, you’ve got your tower.” It was massive, like a promontory at the edge of a sea. I imagined it looked even taller from the French side.

“It’s the strongest on the wall,” Phelipeaux said, “but it can also be fired upon and assaulted from two sides. If the republicans break it, they will be into the gardens and can fan out to seize our defenses from behind. If they cannot, their infantry will perish uselessly.” I tried to survey the scene with his engineer’s eye. The ruined aqueduct ran off from the walls toward the French. It broke just short of our wall near the tower, having once delivered water. I saw the French were digging trenches alongside it because it provided cover from harassing fire. To one side was what looked like a dried pond.

The French were setting survey stakes inside it.

“They’ve drained a reservoir to provide themselves a protective depression to site a battery,” Phelipeaux said as if reading my mind.

“Soon it will be filled with the lighter guns they brought overland.” I looked down. The garden was an oasis of shade amid the military preparation. The harem women were probably accustomed to visiting there. Now, with so many soldiers and sailors manning the ramparts above, they’d be locked away.

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“We’ve added nearly a hundred cannon to the city’s defenses,” Phelipeaux said. “Now that we’ve captured the heaviest French guns, we must keep them at a distance.”

“Which means not allowing Djezzar to give up,” Smith amended.

“And you, Gage, are the key to that.”

“Me?”

“You’ve seen Napoleon’s army. I want you to tell our ally it can be beaten, because it can be if he believes. But first you have to believe it yourself. Do you?”

I thought a moment. “Bonaparte buttons his breeches like the rest of us. He just hasn’t met anyone yet as pugnacious as himself.”

“Exactly. So come meet the Butcher.”

We did not have to wait for an audience. After Jaffa, Djezzar recognized his own survival depended on his new European allies.

We were ushered into his audience chambers, a finely decorated but nonetheless modest room with an ornately carved ceiling and a carpet of overlapping oriental rugs. Birds tweeted from golden cages, a small monkey hopped about on a leather leash, and some kind of large jungle cat, spotted, eyed us sleepily from a cushion, as if deciding whether we were worth the trouble of eating. I had much the same sense from the Butcher, who was sitting erect, his aging torso still conveying physical power. We sat cross-legged before him while his Sudanese bodyguards watched us carefully, as if we might be assassins instead of allies.

Djezzar was seventy-five and looked like a fiery prophet, not a kindly grandfather. His bushy beard was white, his eyes flint, and his mouth had a cruel set. A pistol was tucked in his sash, and a dagger lay near to hand. Yet his gaze also betrayed the self-doubt of a bully up against another tough: Napoleon.

“Pasha, this is the American I told you about,” Smith introduced.

He took me in at a glance—my borrowed seaman’s clothing, stained boots, skin leathered by too much sun and saltwater—and didn’t try to hide his skepticism. Yet he was curious, too. “You escaped Jaffa.”

“The French meant to kill me with the other prisoners,” I said. “I 1 3 4