The Rosetta Key

“You seem to have brushed the opposition out of the way, General,” I said amiably. Bonaparte sundered armies the way Moses parted the sea. “Yet we’re still at the lip of Asia, thousands of miles from India and your ally there, Tippoo Sahib. You’ve not even taken Acre. How, with so few men, can you emulate Alexander?” Bonaparte frowned. He did not like doubt. “The Macedonians were not much more numerous. And Alexander had his own siege, at Tyre.” He looked pensive. “But our world is bigger than theirs, and events progress in France. I have many calls on my attention, and your discoveries may be more important in Paris than here.”

“France?” Kléber asked. “You think of home when we’re still fighting in this dung hole?”

“I try to think of everything, always, which is why I thought to bring relief to your expedition before you needed it, Kléber,” Bonaparte said crisply. He clapped the shoulder of the general that loomed over him, great hair like a lion’s mane. “Just be assured there’s a purpose to what we’re doing. Stand your duty and we’ll rise together!” Kléber looked at him suspiciously. “Our duty is here, not France.

Isn’t it?”

“And this American’s duty is to finish, finally, what we brought him here for—to solve the mystery of the pyramids and the ancients with Count Alessandro Silano! Ride hard, Gage, because time weighs on all of us.”

“I’m more anxious to get home than anyone,” I said.

“Then find your book.” He turned and stalked off with his staff t h e

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of officers, finger jabbing as he fired off orders. I, meanwhile, was chilled. It was the first I’d heard him mention any book. Clearly, the French knew more than I hoped.

And Astiza had told them more than I wished.

So we were in it now, tools of Silano and his discredited Egyptian Rite of Freemasons. The Templars had found something and been burned at the stake by tormentors hoping to get it. I hoped my own fate would be kinder. I hoped I wasn’t leading my comrades to destruction.

We dined on captured Turkish meats and pastries, trying to ignore the stench already rising from the dark battlefield. “Well that’s it, then,” Big Ned remarked gloomily. “If a horde like that can’t stand against a few frogs, what chance do me mates have in Acre? It will be another bloody massacre, like Jaffa.”

“Except that Acre has the Butcher,” I said. “He won’t let anyone run or surrender.”

“And cannon and Phelipeaux and Sidney Smith,” said Mohammad. “Don’t worry, sailor. The city will stand until we get back.”

“Just in time for the final sacking.” He looked at me slyly.

I knew what the sailor was thinking. Find the treasure and run. I can’t say I entirely disagreed.

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French cavalry were still pursuing the remnants of the shattered Ottoman army when we followed their trampled trail and dropped into the valley of the Jordan River. We were past the fields now, in dry goat country except for the groves and meadows along the river. Any number of holy men had followed this stream, John the Baptist holding court somewhere along its fabled banks, but we rode like a company of outlaws. Najac’s dozen French and Arabs bristled with rifles, muskets, pistols, and swords. There were real outlaws as well, and we saw two different bands slink off like disappointed wolves after spying our ordinance. We also passed drowned and shot 1 8 6

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bodies of Ottoman soldiers, bloated like balloons of cloth. We gave them wide berth to avoid the stink and took care to draw water only from springs.

As we rode south, the valley became increasingly arid and the British ships Ned called home seemed ten thousand miles away. One night, he crawled over to whisper.

“Let’s ditch these brigands and strike out on our own, guv’nor,” he urged. “That Najac keeps eyeing you like a crow waiting for a corpse’s eyeball. You could dress these rascals like choirboys and they’d still frighten Westminster.”

“Aye, they have the morality of a legislature and the hygiene of galley slaves, but we need them to lead us to the woman who wore the ruby ring, remember?” He groaned, so I had to settle him. “Don’t think I haven’t retained my electrical powers. We’ll get what we’re coming for, and pay this lot back too.”

“I longs for the day to mash them. I hate frogs. A-rabs too, Mohammad excepted.”

“It’s coming, Ned. It’s coming.”

We trotted past a track Najac said led to the village of Jericho. I saw nothing of it, and the country was so brown it was hard to believe a city with mighty walls had ever been built here. I thought of the ironmonger and again was guilty for my desertion of Miriam. She deserved better.

The Dead Sea was as its name implies: a salt-encrusted shore and brackish, bright blue water that extended to the horizon. No birds thronged its shallows and no fish broke its surface. The desert air was thick, hazy and muggy, as if we’d advanced in season by two months in two days. I shared Ned’s disquiet. This was an odd, dreamlike land, spawning too many prophets and madmen.