The Eight

by Katherine Neville

  “You knew I’d come for you,” said Mireille, stroking the feverish brow as the abbess struggled on. “But I’m afraid I’ve come too late. My dear friend—you will have a Christian burial. I shall take your confession myself, as no one else is here.” Tears were streaming down her face as she knelt beside the abbess gripping her hand. But Chariot was on his knees as well, his hands on the abbatial gown that hung from her brittle frame.

  “Mother, it is here in this dress—between the cloth and the lining!” he cried. Shahin came forward, drawing out his sharp bousaadi to cut the cloth. Mireille laid her hand on his arm to prevent him, but just then the abbess opened her eyes and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  “Shahin,” she said, the smile spreading across her face as she tried to lift her hand to touch him. “You’ve found your prophet at last. I go to meet this Allah of yours … quite soon. I bring Him … your love …” She dropped her hand, and her eyes fell closed. Mireille began to sob, but the abbess’s lips were still moving. Chariot leaned forward across from Mireille and pressed his lips to the abbess’s forehead. “Do not cut … the cloth …” she said. Then she did not move.

  Shahin and Alexander stood motionless beneath the dripping trees as Mireille threw herself across the body of the dead abbess and wept. After several minutes Chariot pulled his mother away. With his tiny hands he lifted the heavy robe of the abbess from her withered body. There on the lining of the front panel of her gown, she had drawn a jagged chessboard, written in her own blood—now brown and stained with wear. In each of the squares, a symbol had been printed with great care. Chariot looked up at Shahin, who handed him the knife. The child carefully cut free the thread that held the fabric to the lining. There, beneath the chessboard, was the heavy cloth of midnight blue—covered with glowing stones.

  PARIS

  JANUARY 1799

  Charles Maurice Talleyrand left the offices of the Directory and limped down the long stone steps to the courtyard where his carriage waited. It had been a hard day of accusations and insults, hurled at him by the five directors, over bribes he had supposedly received from the American delegation. He was too proud to justify or excuse himself—and had too recent a memory of poverty to admit his sins and turn over the money. He’d sat there in stony silence as they’d frothed at the mouth. When they’d worn themselves out, he’d left without giving any ground.

  He limped wearily across the cobbled court to his carriage. He’d dine alone tonight, open a bottle of aged Madeira, and have a hot bath. These were the only thoughts on his mind as his driver, sighting his master, rushed toward the carriage. Talleyrand waved him to the box and opened the door himself. As he slipped into his seat, he heard a rustling sound within the darkness of the large compartment. He stiffened at once.

  “Do not fear,” said a soft woman’s voice—a voice that sent chills down his spine. A gloved hand closed over his in the darkness. As the carriage pulled forth into the light of the street lamps, he glimpsed the beautiful creamy skin, the strawberry hair.

  “Mireille!” cried Talleyrand, but she put her gloved fingers upon his lips. Before he knew what was happening, he was on his knees in the rocking carriage, showering her face with kisses, burying his hands in her hair, murmuring a thousand things as his mind fought for control. He thought he was going mad.

  “If you knew how long I’d searched for you—not here only, but in every land. How could you let me go so long without a word, a sign? I was beside myself with fear for you.…” Mireille silenced him with her lips on his, as he drank in the perfume of her body and wept. He wept seven years of unshed tears and drank the tears from her cheeks as they clung to each other like children lost at sea.

  They went into his house under cover of darkness, through the wide French windows overlooking the lawns. Without pausing to shut the windows or light a lamp, he swept her into his arms and carried her to the divan, her long hair flowing over his arm. Undressing her without a word, he covered her shivering body with his and lost himself in her warm flesh, her silken hair.

  “I love you,” he said. It was the first time these words had ever passed his lips.

  “Your love has given us a child,” whispered Mireille, looking up at him in the moonlight that streamed through the windows. He thought his heart would break.

  “We shall make another,” he said, and felt his passion rack him like a storm.

  “I buried them,” said Talleyrand as they sat at the parqueted table in the drawing room beside his bedchamber. “In the Green Mountains of America—though to do him service, Courtiade tried to convince me against it. He had more faith than I. He thought you were still alive.” Talleyrand smiled at Mireille, who sat with disheveled hair, wrapped in his dressing gown, across the table. She was so beautiful, he longed to take her there again. But the conservative Courtiade sat between them, folding his serviette carefully as he listened to their talk.

  “Courtiade,” he said, trying to calm the violence of his feelings, “it seems I have a child—a son. His name is Chariot, after myself.” He turned to Mireille. “When will I get to see this little prodigy?”

  “Soon,” said Mireille. “He’s gone to Egypt, where General Bonaparte is quartered. How well do you know Napoleone?”

  “It was I who convinced him to go there—or at least, so he’d have me believe.” He described briefly his meeting with Bonaparte and David. “It was in this way I learned you might still be alive, that you were with child,” he told her. “David told me about Marat.” He was watching her gravely, but Mireille shook her head as if to rid herself of the thought.

  “There’s something more you should know,” Talleyrand said slowly, his eyes meeting those of Courtiade as he spoke. “There is a woman—her name is Catherine Grand. She is somehow involved in the hunt for the Montglane Service. David told me that Robespierre called her the White Queen.…”

  Mireille had grown very pale. Her hand was twisted around her butter knife as if she would snap it in two. For a moment she could not speak. Her lips were so pale, Courtiade had reached for the champagne to revive her. She looked into Talleyrand’s eyes.

  “Where is she now?” she whispered.

  Talleyrand looked at his plate for a moment, then back at her with direct blue eyes. “If I’d not found you last night in my carriage,” he said slowly, “she would have been in my bed.”

  They sat in silence, Courtiade staring at the table, Talleyrand’s eyes riveted upon Mireille. She put the knife on the table and, pushing back her chair, stood up and crossed to the windows. Talleyrand rose to follow her, came up behind and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’ve had so many women,” Talleyrand murmured in her hair. “I thought you were dead. And then after, when I learned you were not … If you saw her, you’d understand.”

  “I’ve seen her,” said Mireille in a flat voice. She turned to look him in the eye. “That woman is behind it all. She has eight of the pieces.…”

  “Seven,” Talleyrand said. “I have the eighth.” Mireille looked at him in astonishment.

  “We buried it in the forest along with the others,” he told her. “But Mireille, I did right to hide them, to rid us of this dreadful curse. Once, I wanted the service, too. I toyed with you and Valentine, hoping I could win your trust. But you won my love instead.” He grasped her by the shoulders. He could not see what thoughts were ravaging her mind. “I tell you, I love you,” he said. “Must we all be dragged down into this sinkhole of hatred? Hasn’t this game cost us enough?…”

  “Too much,” said Mireille, her face a bitter mask as she pulled away. “Too much to forgive and forget. That woman has murdered five nuns in cold blood. She was responsible for Marat and Robespierre—for Valentine’s execution. You forget—I saw her die, slaughtered like an animal!” Her green eyes were glazed over as if she were drugged. “I saw them all die—Valentine, the abbess, Marat. Charlotte Corday gave her life for me! This woman’s treachery will not go unanswered. I tell you I will have those pieces a
t any cost!”

  Talleyrand had taken a step back and was looking at her with tears in his eyes. He did not notice Courtiade, who’d risen and now moved across the room to place his hand on his master’s arm.

  “Monseigneur, she is right,” he said softly. “No matter how much we long for happiness, no matter how we may wish to turn a blind eye—this game will never end until the pieces are collected and put to rest. You know it as well as I do. Madame Grand must be stopped.”

  “Hasn’t enough blood been spilled?” asked Talleyrand.

  “I no longer wish for revenge,” Mireille said, seeing before her eyes the horrid face of Marat as he’d told her where to place the dagger. “I want the pieces—the Game must end.”

  “She gave me that one piece of her own accord,” said Talleyrand. “Even brute force wouldn’t convince her to part with the others.”

  “If you married her,” said Mireille, “under French law, all her property would be yours. She would belong to you.”

  “Married!” cried Talleyrand, leaping away as if burned. “But I love you! And besides, I am a bishop of the Catholic church. With or without a See, I’m bound for life by Roman law, not French.”

  Courtiade cleared his throat. “The monseigneur might receive papal dispensation,” he suggested politely. “There have been precedents, I believe.”

  “Courtiade, please do not forget in whose service you’re employed,” Talleyrand snapped. “It’s out of the question. After all you’ve said of the woman, how could either of you suggest such a thing? For seven miserable pieces, you’d sell my soul.”

  “To end this game for once and all,” said Mireille, the dark fire gleaming in her eyes, “I’d sell my own.”

  CAIRO, EGYPT

  FEBRUARY 1799

  Shahin forced down his camel near the great pyramids of Gizeh and let Chariot slide from the saddle to the ground. Now that they’d arrived in Egypt, he wanted to bring the child at once to this holy place. Shahin watched as Chariot scampered across the sands to the base of the Great Sphinx and began to climb its gigantic paw. Then he himself dismounted and crossed the sand, his dark robes billowing in the breeze.

  “This is the Sphinx,” Shahin told Chariot when he reached the spot. The red-haired child, now nearly six, could speak fluent Kabyle and Arabic as well as his native French, so Shahin could converse freely with him. “An ancient and mysterious figure, with the torso and head of a woman, the body of a lion. She sits between the constellations of Leo and the Virgin, where the sun rests during the summer equinox.”

  “If it’s a woman,” said Chariot, looking up at the great stone figure looming over his head, “why does it have a beard?”

  “She is a great queen—the Queen of the Night,” Shahin replied. “Her planet is Mercury, god of healing. The beard shows her tremendous power.”

  “My mother’s a great queen—so you told me,” Chariot said. “But she doesn’t have a beard.”

  “Perhaps she does not choose to display her power,” said Shahin.

  They looked across the stretch of sand. In the distance sat the many tents of the encampment from which they’d come. Around them the gigantic pyramids loomed in the golden light, scattered like children’s blocks forgotten on the empty plain. Chariot looked up at Shahin with wide blue eyes.

  “Who left them there?” he asked.

  “Many kings over many thousand years,” said Shahin. “These kings were great priests. That is our name for them in Arabic—kahin. One who knows the future. Amongst the Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Khabiru—the people you call Hebreu—the name for priest is kohen. And in my tongue, Kabyle, we call him kahuna.”

  “Is that what I am?” asked Chariot as Shahin helped him down from the lion’s paw where they sat. A cortege of riders was moving across the sands from the encampment in the distance, their horses making puffs of dust in the golden light.

  “No,” Shahin said quietly. “You are more than that.”

  As the horses came to a halt, one young rider at front leapt to the ground and strode across the rough ground, pulling off his gloves as he approached. His long chestnut hair swung loose at his shoulders. He went down on one knee before little Chariot as the other riders dismounted.

  “So here you are,” said the young man. He was dressed in the close-fitting breeches and high-cut jacket of the French army. “Mireille’s child! I am General Bonaparte, young man—a close friend of your mother. But why has she not come with you? They said at the camp you’d come alone, seeking me.”

  Napoleon put his hand on Chariot’s bright red hair and mussed it, then tucked his gloves in his waistcoat and stood up, bowing formally to Shahin.

  “And you must be Shahin,” he said without waiting for the child’s reply. “My grandmother, Angela-Maria di Pietra-Santa, has often spoken of you as a great man. It was she who sent the boy’s mother to you in the desert, I believe? It must have been five years ago or more.…”

  Shahin gravely drew back his lower veil. “Al-Kalim brings a message of great urgency,” he said in a quiet voice. “To be heard by your ears only.”

  “Come, come,” said Napoleon, waving his hand toward the soldiers. “These are my officers. We leave at dawn for Syria—a hard march. Whatever it is can wait until tonight. I invite you to be my guests at dinner at the bey’s palace.” He turned as if to depart, but Chariot took the general’s hand.

  “This campaign is ill-fated,” said the little boy. Napoleon turned to him in astonishment, but Chariot had not finished. “I see hunger and thirst. Many men will die, and nothing will be won. You must return to France at once. There you will become a great leader. You will have much power over the earth. But it will only last for fifteen years. Then it will be finished.…”

  Napoleon pulled his hand away as his officers stood looking on uncomfortably. Then the young general threw back his head and laughed.

  “They told me you were called the Small Prophet,” he said, smiling down at Chariot. “In the camp, they said you told soldiers all sorts of things—how many children they would have, in what battles they would meet with glory or death. I only wish it were true such vision existed. If generals were prophets, they could avoid many pitfalls.”

  “There was once a general who was also a prophet,” Shahin said softly. “His name was Muhammed.”

  “I too have read my Koran, my friend,” said Napoleon, still smiling. “But he fought for the glory of God. We poor Frenchmen only fight for the glory of France.”

  “It is those who strive for their own glory who must beware,” said Chariot.

  Napoleon heard the officers muttering behind him as he glared at Chariot. His smile had faded. His face was dark with an emotion he struggled to control. “I’ll not have insults hurled at me by a child,” he said under his breath. Then, in a louder voice, he added, “I doubt my glory will burn so bright as you seem to think, my young friend—or be extinguished so quickly. I leave at dawn for my march through the Sinai, and only the command of my government will hasten my return to France.”

  Turning his back upon Chariot, he went to his horse and mounted, snapping a command at one of the officers that Chariot and Shahin be brought to the palace at Cairo in time for dinner. Then he rode away alone across the desert as the others looked on.

  Shahin told the disconcerted soldiers that they’d make their own way, that the child still had not seen the pyramids closely. When the officers departed reluctantly, Chariot took Shahin’s hand and they wandered alone across the vast plain.

  “Shahin,” said Chariot pensively, “why was General Bonaparte angry with what I said? Everything I told him was true.”

  Shahin was silent for a moment. “Imagine you were in a dark forest where you could see nothing,” he said at last. “Your only companion was an owl, who could see far better than you because his eyes were equipped for the dark. This is the kind of vision you have—like the owl—to see ahead where others move in darkness. If you were they, would you not be afraid, too?”
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  “Maybe,” Chariot admitted. “But I certainly wouldn’t be angry with the owl if he warned me I was about to fall into a pit!”

  Shahin looked down at the child for a moment, an unaccustomed smile hovering about his lips. Finally he spoke.

  “Possessing something others do not have is always difficult—and often dangerous,” he said. “Sometimes it is better to leave them in the dark.”

  “Like the Montglane Service,” said Chariot. “My mother said it was buried in darkness for a thousand years.”

  “Yes,” Shahin said. “Like that.”

  Just then they came around the side of the Great Pyramid. There on the ground before them a man was seated on a woolen robe spread in the sand, with many papyrus scrolls unfolded before him. He was gazing at the pyramid that towered above, but looked over his shoulder as Chariot and Shahin approached. His face lighted with recognition.

  “The little Prophet!” he said, standing and brushing the sand from his breeches as he came to greet them. His jowly cheeks and biscuit-shaped chin crumpled into a smile as he pushed back the forelock from his brow. “I’ve been at the camp today, and the soldiers were laying odds General Bonaparte would reject the advice you planned to give him about returning to France! He’s not much of a believer in prophecy, our general. Perhaps he thinks this ninth crusade of his will succeed where the other eight failed.”

  “Monsieur Fourier!” said Chariot, releasing Shahin’s hand to run to the side of the famous physicist. “Have you discovered the secret of these pyramids? You’ve been here so long and worked so very hard.”

  “I’m afraid not.” Fourier smiled and patted Chariot on the head as Shahin came up to join them. “Only the numbers in these papyri are Arabic numerals. The rest is all in gibberish we’re wholly unable to read. Picture drawings and such. They say they’ve found some stone at Rosetta that seems to have several languages written on it. Perhaps that may help us translate all. They’re taking it back to France. But by the time they decipher it, I may well be dead!” He laughed and took Shahin’s hand. “If your little companion were really the prophet you claim he is, he’d be able to read these pictures and save us a good deal of trouble.”