The Rosetta Key

I’m a gambler, and I gambled Silano and Najac wouldn’t retrieve their horses anytime soon. So we stopped, the castle stones briefly orange t h e

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as the sun sank, and ate meager rations of bread and dates we found in the saddlebags. We dared not light a fire.

“You two sleep first,” Mohammad said. “I’ll keep watch. Even if the French and Arabs are stranded on foot, there are still bandits around here.”

“You’re as exhausted as us, Mohammad.”

“Which is why you must relieve me in a few hours. That corner has grass for a bed and the stone will still be warm from the sun. I’ll be up in the broken tower.”

He disappeared, still my guide and guardian.

“He’s leaving us alone on purpose,” Astiza said.

“Yes.”

“Come. I’m shivering.”

The grass was still green and soft this time of year. A lizard skit -

tered away into its hole when evening pulled down its shadow. We lay together in the wedge of warm stone, our first opportunity to be truly close since she’d slapped me in front of Silano. Astiza snuggled for warmth and comfort. She was shaking, her cheeks wet.

“Always it is so hard.”

“Ned wasn’t a bad sort. I led him to disaster.”

“It was Najac who put the lion there, not you.” And I who took Ned along, and Astiza who carried the ring. I suddenly remembered it and brought it out from her little purse. “You kept this even after saying it was cursed.”

“It was all I had of you, Ethan. I meant to offer it back.”

“Did the gods have a purpose, letting us find it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She clung even tighter.

“Maybe it’s good luck. After all, we have the book. We’re together again.”

She looked at me in amazement. “Hunted, unable to read it, a companion dead.” She held out her hand. “Give it.” When I did she sat up and hurled it to the far corner of the ruined courtyard. I could hear it clink. A ruby, big enough to set a man for life, was gone. “The book is enough. No more, no more.” And then she bent back down, eyes fierce, and kissed me, with electric fire.

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

Someday, perhaps, we’ll have a proper bed, but just as in Egypt we had to seize the time and place given. It was an urgent, fumbling, half-clothed affair, our desire not so much for each other’s bodies as for reassuring union against a cold, treacherous, relentless world. We gasped as we coupled, straining like animals, Astiza giving out a small cry, and then we slumped together in almost immediate unconsciousness, our tangle of linen drawn like a shell. I dimly pledged to relieve Mohammad as promised.

He woke us at dawn.

“Mohammad, I’m sorry!” We were struggling with as much deco-rum as possible to get dressed.

“It’s all right, effendi. I fell asleep too, probably minutes after I left you. I checked the horizon. Nobody has come. But we must move again, soon. Who knows when the enemy will recover his horses?”

“Yes, and with the French in control of Palestine, there’s only one place we can safely go: Acre. And they know it.”

“How will we get through Bonaparte’s army?” Astiza asked with spirit, not worry. She looked rejuvenated in the growing light, glowing, her eyes brighter, her hair a glorious tangle. I felt resurrected too.

It was good to shed the pharaoh’s ring.

“We’ll cut toward the coast, find a boat, and sail in,” I said, suddenly confident. I had the book, I had Astiza . . . of course I also had Miriam, a detail I’d neglected to tell Astiza about. Well, first things first.

We mounted, and galloped down the castle hill.

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We dared not pause a second night. We rode as hard as we could push the horses, retracing our route to Mount Nebo and then descending to the Dead Sea and the Jordan, a plume of dust floating off our hooves as we hurried. The Jerusalem highlands, we assumed, were still swarming with Samaritan guerrillas who might or might not regard us as allies, so we pushed north along the Jordan and back into the Jezreel Valley, giving Kléber’s battlefield there a t h e

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wide berth. Vultures orbited the hill where we’d made our stand. My party was still weaponless, except for my tomahawk. Once we saw a French cavalry patrol and dismounted to hide in an olive grove while they passed by a mile distant. Twice we saw Ottoman horsemen, and hid from them too.

“We’ll strike for the coast near Haifa,” I told my companions. “It’s only lightly garrisoned by the French. If we can steal a boat and reach the British, we’ll be safe.”

So we rode, parting the high wheat like Moses, the City of Ghosts as unreal as a dream and Ned’s bizarre death an incomprehensible nightmare. Astiza and I had regained that easy companionship that comes to couples, and Mohammad was our faithful chaperone and partner. Since our escape, not once had he mentioned money.

We’d all been changed.

So escape seemed near, but as we rode northeast toward the coast hills and Mount Carmel that embraced Haifa, we saw a line of waiting horsemen ahead.