The Rosetta Key

I began to feel uneasy. Other sailors were watching this exchange with growing interest, since they weren’t going to get their money back any other way. “To the contrary, gentlemen, we’ve been at arms over cards all night. I’m sorry you lost, I’m sure you did your best, I admire your perseverance, but perhaps you ought to study the mathematics of chance. A man makes his own luck.”

“Study the what?” Big Ned asked.

“I think he said he cheated,” Little Tom interpreted.

“Now, there’s no need to talk of dishonesty.”

“And yet the marines are challenging your honor, Gage,” said a lieutenant whom I’d taken for five shillings, putting in with more enthusiasm than I liked to hear. “The word is that you’re quite the marksman and fought well enough with the frogs. Surely you won’t let these redcoats impugn your reputation?”

“Of course not, but we all know it was a fair . . .” Big Ned’s fist slammed down on the deck, a pair of dice jumping from his grip like fleas. “Gives us back our money, play these, or meet me on the waist deck at noon.” It was a growl with just enough smirk to annoy. Clearly he was of a size not accustomed to losing.

“We’ll be in Jaffa by then,” I stalled.

“All the more leisure to discuss this between the eighteen-pounders.” Well. It was clear enough what I must do. I stood. “Aye, you need to be taught a lesson. Noon it is.”

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

The gathering roared approval. It took just slightly longer for the news of a fight to reach from stem to stern of Dangerous than it takes a rumor of a romantic tryst to fly from one end of revolutionary Paris to the other. The sailors assumed a wrestling match in which I’d writhe painfully in the grip of Big Ned for every penny I’d won. When I’d been sufficiently kneaded, I’d then plead for the chance to give all my winnings back. To distract my all-too-fervent imagination from this disagreeable future, I went up to the quarterdeck to watch our approach to Jaffa, trying my new spyglass.

It was a crisp little telescope, and the principal port of Palestine, months before Napoleon was to take it, was a beacon on an otherwise flat and hazy shore. It crowned a hill with forts, towers, and minarets, its dome-topped buildings terracing downward in all directions like a stack of blocks. All was surrounded by a wall that meets the harbor quay on the seaward side. There were orange groves and palms landward, and golden fields and brown pastures beyond that. Black guns jutted from embrasures, and even from two miles out we could hear the wails of the faithful being called to prayer.

I’d had Jaffa oranges in Paris, famed because their thick skin makes them transportable to Europe. There were so many fruit trees that the prosperous city looked like a castle in a forest. Ottoman banners flapped in the warm autumn breeze, carpets hung from railings, and the smell of charcoal fires carried on the water. There were some nasty-looking reefs just offshore, marked by ringlets of white, and the little harbor was jammed with small dhows and feluccas. Like the other large ships, we anchored in open water. A small flotilla of Arab lighters set out to see what business they could solicit, and I readied to leave.

After I’d dealt with the unhappy marine, of course.

“I hear your famous luck got you into a tangle with Big Ned, Ethan,” Sir Sidney said, handing me a bag of hard biscuit that was supposed to get me to Jerusalem. The English aren’t known for their cooking. “Regular bull of a man with a head like a ram, and just as thick, I wager. Do you have a plan to fox him?”

“I’d try his dice, Sir Sidney, but I suspect that if they were weighted any more, they’d list this frigate.”

t h e

r o s e t t a k e y

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He laughed. “Aye, he’s cheated more than one pressed wretch, and has the muscle to shut complaints about it. He’s not used to losing.

There’s more than a few here pleased you’ve taken him. Too bad your skull has to pay for it.”

“You could forbid the match.”

“The men are randy as roosters and won’t get ashore until Acre.

A good tussle helps settle them. You look quick enough, man! Lead him a dance!”

Indeed. I went below to seek out Big Ned and found him near the galley hearth, using lard to slick his imposing muscles so he’d slide out of my grip. He gleamed like a Christmas goose.

“Might we have a word in private?”

“Trying to back from it, eh?” He grinned. His teeth seemed as big as the keys of a newfangled piano.

“I’ve just given the whole matter some thought and realized our enemy is Bonaparte, not each other. But I do have my pride. Come, let’s settle out of sight of the others.”

“No. You’ll pay not just me back, but every jack-tar of this crew!”

“That’s impossible. I don’t know who is owed what. But if you follow right now, and promise to leave me alone, I’ll pay you back double.”

Now the gleam of greed came to his eyes. “Damn your eyes, it will be triple!”

“Just come to the orlop where I can show my purse without caus-ing a riot.”