They set fire to the supplies they couldn’t take, great columns of smoke rising into the May air, and blew up the Na’aman and Kishon bridges.
The French were so short of adequate animal transport and fodder that two dozen cannon were abandoned. So were crowds of Jews, Christians, and Matuwelli who had sided with the French in hopes of liberation from the Muslims. They were wailing like lost children, because now they could expect only cruel revenge from Djezzar.
The French vindictively began burning farms and villages along the path of their coastal retreat, to slow a pursuit that never came.
Our dazed garrison was in no shape to follow. The siege had lasted sixty-two days, from March 19 to May 21. Casualties had been heavy on both sides. The plague that had riddled Napoleon’s army had come inside the walls, and the immediate concern was to clear out the dead.
It was hot, and Acre reeked.
I moved with dazed weariness. Astiza was gone again, captive or dead. I put the book in a leather satchel and hid it in the quarters I took at the Merchant’s Inn, Khan a-Shawarda, but I bet I could have left it in the main market and not had it taken, so useless did its strange writing appear. Slowly, reports filtered back of Napoleon’s retreat. He abandoned Jaffa, won at such terrible cost, a week after leaving Acre. The worst French plague cases were given opium and poison to hasten their deaths so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of pursuing Samaritans from Nablus. The defeated soldiers staggered into El-Arish in Egypt on June 2, reinforcing its garrison, and then the bulk of the army went on toward Cairo. A thermometer put on the desert sands recorded a temperature of 133 degrees. When they reached the Nile the march stopped, men resting and refitting: Napoleon couldn’t afford to present a defeated army. He reentered Cairo on June 14 with captured banners, claiming victory, but the claims were bitter. I learned that the one-legged artillery general Caffarelli had an arm shattered by a Turkish cannonball and died of infection outside Acre, that the physicist Etienne Louis Malus had sickened with plague in Jaffa and had to be evacuated, and that both Monge and his chemist friend Berthollet contracted dysentery and were among the sick evacuated by wagon. Napoleon’s adventure was turning into a disaster for everyone I knew.
Smith, meanwhile, was anxious to finish his archenemy off. Turkish reinforcements from Constantinople had not arrived quickly enough to help Acre, but early in July a fleet arrived with nearly twelve thousand Ottoman troops, ready to sail on to Abukir Bay and regain Egypt. The English captain had pledged his own squadron in support of the attack. I had no interest in joining this expedition, which I doubted could defeat the main French army. I still had plans for America. But on July 7 a trade boat delivered to me a missive from Egypt. It was closed with red sealing wax with an image of the beaked god Thoth, and was addressed to me in a feminine hand. My heart beat faster.
When I opened it, however, the script was not by Astiza but in a strong male scrawl. Its message was simple.
I can read it, and she’s waiting.
The key is at Rosetta.
Silano.
CHAPTER 23
I arrived back in Egypt on July 14, 1799, one year and two weeks after I’d first landed with Napoleon.This time I was with a Turkish army, not a French one. Smith was enthusiastic about this counteroffensive, proclaiming it might finish Boney off. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that he stayed offshore with his squadron. And it is difficult to say who had less confidence in this invasion’s ultimate success: me or its aging, white-bearded commander, Mustafa Pasha, who limited his advance to occupying the tiny peninsula that formed one side of Abukir Bay. His troops landed, seized a French redoubt east of the village of Abukir, massacred its three hundred defenders, compelled the surrender of another French outpost at the end of the peninsula, and halted. Where the peninsula’s neck joined the mainland Mustafa began erecting three lines of fortifications in anticipation of the inevitable French counterattack.
Despite the successful defense of Acre, the Ottomans were still wary of meeting Napoleon in open field. After Bonaparte’s ludicrously lopsided victory at the Battle of Mount Tabor, the pashas viewed every initiative on their part as disaster in the making. So they invaded and dug furiously, hoping the French would cooperatively expire in front of their trenches. We could see the first French scouts of Bonaparte’s rapidly assembling blocking force peering at us from the dunes beyond the peninsula.
Without being invited, I politely suggested to Mustafa that he strike south and try to link up with the Mameluke resistance my friend Ashraf had joined, a mobile cavalry under Murad Bey. The rumor was that Murad had dared come to the Great Pyramid itself, climbing to the top and using a mirror to signal his wife kept captive in Cairo. It was the gesture of a dashing commander, and I expected these Turks would fare better under Murad’s wily command than under cautious Mustafa. But the pasha didn’t trust the arrogant Mamelukes, didn’t want to share command, and was terrified of leaving the protection of his earthworks and gunboats. As Bonaparte had been impatient at Acre, the Ottomans had landed too quickly, with too little force, in Egypt.
Yet things were in strategic flux. Yes, Napoleon’s original grand strategic scheme had unraveled. His fleet had been destroyed by Admiral Nelson the year before, his advance in Asia been halted at Acre, and Smith has received a dispatch that the Indian sultan whom Bonaparte hoped ultimately to link up with, Tippoo Sahib, had been killed at the siege of Seringapatam in India by the English general Wellesley. Yet even as Mustafa landed, a combined French-Spanish fleet had sailed into the Mediterranean to contest British naval superiority. The odds were getting complex.
I decided my own best gamble was to do my business with Silano in Rosetta, a port on the mouth of the Nile, as quickly as possible.
Then I’d scuttle back to the Turkish enclave before their beachhead dissolved and take a boat going anywhere but here. If I succeeded, Astiza might come with me. And the book?
Bonaparte and Silano were right. I felt ownership, and was as curious as ever to hear what its mysterious writing actually said. Could old Ben himself have resisted? “What makes resisting temptation so difficult for people,” he had written, “is that they don’t want to discourage it completely.” Somehow I had to get Silano’s “key,” once more rescue Astiza, and then decide for myself what to do with the secret. The only thing I was certain of is that if the text promised immortality, I wanted nothing to do with it in this world. Life is hard enough without bearing it forever.
While the Turks entrenched in the summer’s oppressive heat, their tents a carnival of color, I hired a felucca to take me to the western mouth of the Nile and Rosetta. We’d sailed by the place during my first entry to Egypt the year before, but I didn’t recall the town meriting particular attention. Its location gave it some strategic value, but why Silano wanted to meet there was a mystery; its convenience for me would be the last thing on the sorcerer’s mind. The likeliest explanation was that his message was a lie and a trap, but there was just enough bait—the woman and a translation—to make me stick my head in the snare.
Accordingly, I had my new captain, Abdul, heave to midway in order to make an important modification to the sail, a thing he accepted as ample evidence of the balminess of all foreigners. I swore him to secrecy with the aid of a few coins. Then we once more passed from the blue sea to the brown tongue of the great African river.
We were soon intercepted by a French patrol boat, but Silano had sent a pass to give me entry. The lieutenant on the chebek recognized my name—my adventures and crisscrossing of sides had given me a certain notoriety, apparently—and invited me on board. I said I preferred to stay in my own craft and follow.
He consulted his paper. “I am then ordered, monsieur, to confiscate your baggage until such time as you meet with Count Alessandro Silano. It says this is necessary for the security of the state.”
“My baggage is what you see on me, given that my exploits have left me penniless and without allies. Surely you don’t wish me to dis-emb
ark naked?”
“Yet there is a satchel you carry over your shoulder.”
“Indeed. And it is heavy, because it is weighted with a large stone.”
I held it over the side of the boat. “Should you try to take this meager belonging, Lieutenant, I will drop it into the Nile. Should that happen I can assure that Count Silano will have you court-martialed at best, or put under a particularly uncomfortable ancient spell at worst. So let us proceed. I’m here of my own volition, a lone American in a French colony.”
“You have a rifle as well,” he objected.
“Which I have no plan to discharge unless somebody tries to take it away. The last man who attempted to do so is dead. Trust me, Silano will approve.”
He grumbled and looked at his paper a few times more, but since I was poised at the rail with rifle in one hand and the other propped over the river, confiscation was impractical. So we sailed on, the chebek herding us like a mother hen, and docked in Rosetta. It’s a palm-shaded, well-watered farming town in the Nile Delta, made of brown mud brick except for the limestone mosque and its single minaret.
I left instructions with my felucca captain and set off through the winding lanes toward a still unfinished French fort called Julian, the tricolor flapping above its mud walls and a crowd of curious street urchins following in my wake. These were halted at the gate by sentries with black bicorne hats and enormous mustaches. My notoriety was confirmed when these soldiers recognized me with a clear expression of dislike. The harmless electrician had become something between a nuisance and a threat, and they eyed me like a sorcerer.
Tales from Acre must have filtered back here.
“You can’t bring that rifle in here.”
“Then I won’t come. I’m here by invitation, not command.”
“We’ll hold it for you.”
“Alas, you French have a habit of borrowing and not giving back.”
“The count will not object,” interrupted a feminine voice. And stepping from an alcove was Astiza, dressed modestly in a full-length gown, a scarf pulled over her head and wrapped around her neck so that her lovely but worried face was like a moon. “He’s come to consult as a savant instead of as a spy.”
Apparently she carried some of Silano’s authority. Reluctantly, the soldiers let me through to the courtyard, and the main gate clicked shut behind me. Brick-and-board buildings lined the inner walls of the square, simple fort.
“I told him you’d come,” she said quietly. The fierce sun beat down on the parade ground and it, and the scent of her—of flowers and spices—made me dizzy.
“And go, with you.”
“Make no mistake, we are both prisoners, Ethan, rifle or not. Once more, we must forge a partnership of convenience with Alessandro.”
She gave a nod of her head to the walls and I saw more sentries watching us. “We need to learn if there’s anything to this legend at all, and then make a plan what to do.”
“Did Silano tell you to say that?”
She looked disappointed. “Why can’t you believe I love you? I rode with you all the way to Acre, and it was a cannon shot that separated us, not choice. It was fate that brought us both together again. Just have faith a little longer.”
“You sound like Napoleon. ‘I have made all the calculations. Fate will do the rest.’”
“Bonaparte has his own wisdom.”
And with that we came to the headquarters building, a one-story stucco structure with a shed roof of tile and a porch thatched with palm. It was cool and dim inside. As my eyes adjusted from the glare, I saw Silano waiting at a plain table with two officers. The older one I’d known since the French landing at Alexandria. General Jacques de Menou had fought bravely and later, by report, had converted to Islam.
He was fascinated with Egyptian culture, but he was not a particularly commanding officer with his pencil moustache, round accountant’s face, and balding pate. The other, a handsome captain, I didn’t know.
On either side of the room were closed doors, with locks.
Silano stood. “Always you are trying to escape me, Monsieur Gage, and always our paths entwine!” He gave a slight, courtly bow. “Surely you recognize destiny by now. Perhaps we’re meant to be friends, not enemies?”
“I’d be more persuaded of that if your other friends didn’t keep shooting at me.”
“Even the best friends quarrel.” He gestured. “General de Menou you know?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t expect to see you again, Americain. How poor Nicolas was angry about his stolen balloon!”
“That came from the shooting part,” I told the general.
“And this is Captain Pierre-Francois Bouchard,” Silano went on.
“He was in charge of construction at the fort here when his men dug up a piece of rubble. Fortunately, Captain Bouchard was quick to recognize its significance. This Rosetta Stone may change the world, I think.”
“A stone?”
“Come. Let me show you.”
Silano led us to the room on the left, unlocked its door, and ushered us inside. It was dim; the slit window looking out onto the courtyard draped for privacy. The first thing that caught my eye was the wooden coffin of a mummy. Brightly painted and remarkably preserved, it bore paintings that looked like a depiction of a soul’s journey through the land of the dead.
“Is there a body inside?”
“Of Omar, our sentry,” Menou joked. “He is tireless.”
“Sentry?”
“I brought this downriver and told the soldiers we found it at this fort site,” Silano said. “Fear surrounds these mummies, and this one is now reputed to haunt Rosetta. It’s better than a cobra for keeping the curious out of this room.”
I touched the lid. “Amazing how bright the colors are.”
“Magic too, perhaps. We can’t do the same now, just as we’ve lost the formula for the leaded glass in the medieval cathedrals. We can’t match either beauty.” He pointed to some paint pots in one corner of the room. “I’m experimenting. Maybe Omar in there will give me a hint one night.”
“And you don’t believe in curses?”
“I believe I’m about to control them. With this.” Beside the wooden sarcophagus, something bulky, about five feet high and a little less than three feet wide, was shrouded with a tarpaulin. With a dramatic gesture, Silano whisked the cover off. I bent, peering in the dim light.
There was writing in different languages. I’m not a linguist, but one block of words looked Greek, and another like writing I’d seen in Egyptian temples. A third script I couldn’t identify but the fourth, at the top, just above the temple writing, made my heart beat faster. It was the same curious symbols I’d read on the scroll I’d found in the City of Ghosts. I realized what Silano had meant with his cryptic message. He could compare the Greek words to the secret ones of Thoth and possibly unravel the language!
“What’s this text here?” I pointed to the one I didn’t recognize.
“Demotic, the Egyptian language that followed the ancient hieroglyphs,” Silano said. “My guess is that these are in order of time—the oldest language, that of Thoth, at the top, and the newest, Greek, at the bottom.”
“When Alessandro brought me here I recognized what we’d seen on the scroll, Ethan,” Astiza said. “See? I was meant to be captured again.”
“And now you want me to help you decipher it,” I summarized.
“We want you to give us the book so we can help you decipher it,” Silano corrected.
“And I get?”
“The same that I offered before.” He sighed, as if I were a particularly dim child. “Partnership, power, and immortality if you want it. The secrets of the universe, perhaps. The reason for existence, the face of God, and the world in your palm. Or, nothing, if you prefer not to cooperate.”
“But if I don’t cooperate, you don’t have the book, right?”
I saw Menou make a small gesture. Captain Bouchard maneuvered behind me, and
I noticed he had a pistol in his belt.
“On the contrary, monsieur,” Silano said. He nodded and my satchel was yanked from my shoulder and roughly opened.
“Merde,” Bouchard said. He turned my leather bag upside down and a wooden rolling pin fell out, making a dent in the building’s packed-earth floor. The general and the captain looked puzzled and Astiza stifled a laugh. Silano’s look grew dark.
“You didn’t really think I’d deliver it like Franklin’s post, did you?”
“Search him!”
But there was no scroll. They even peered in my rifle barrel, as if I could have somehow stuffed it down there. They pried open the soles of my boots, checked the bottom of my feet, and grabbed at places that left me indignant.
“Are you going to look in my ears, too?”
“Where is it?” Silano’s frustration was plain.
“Hidden, until we form a true partnership. If we Americans and French represent liberty and reason, then the translation is for all mankind, not the Egyptian Rite of renegade Freemasons. Or ambitious generals like Napoleon Bonaparte. I want it given to the institute of savants in Cairo for dissemination to the world. The British Academy, as well. And I want Astiza once and for all. I want you to give her up, Silano, to trade her for the book, no matter how much power you have over us. And I want her to promise to go with me, wherever I choose to go. Now and forever. I want Bonaparte to know we’re all here, working together for him, so that none of us conveniently disappear. And I want the bloodshed to end. We’ve both lost friends. Promise me all that, and I’ll fetch your book. We’ll both have our dreams.”
“Fetch it from where? Acre?”
“You can have it within the hour.”
He bit his lip. “I’ve already had your felucca and wretched captain searched. They even hauled the boat to check its keel. Nothing!”
Again, some of that impatient frustration I’d glimpsed the year before in Egypt broke through his urbane mask.
The Rosetta Key Page 28