The Rosetta Key

Now the pack of ruffians rose against me, but meanwhile I’d hauled Cupid up again and had taken the cherub by his head. I swung him in a circle and let go. Two of the devils crashed down again and the statuary shattered. Meanwhile neighbors had heard the ruckus and were raising a hue and cry. A third villain began to draw a hidden sword—obviously sneaked past the police of Jerusalem—so I charged him with my Arab knife before he could clear his scabbard, ram-t h e

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ming the blade home. For all my scuffles, I’d never stabbed anyone before, and I was surprised how readily it plunged in, and how eerily it scraped a rib when it did so. He hissed and twisted away so violently that I lost my grip. I staggered. Now I had no weapon at all.

Meanwhile the one who’d been interrogating Miriam had dragged out a pistol. Surely he wouldn’t risk a shot in the sacred city, violating all laws, voices rising!

But the piece went off with a roar, its flash like a flicker of lightning, and something seared the side of my head. I lurched away, half-blinded. It was time to retreat! I tottered out to the street but now the bastard was coming after me, dark, his cape flying like wings, his own sword drawn. Who the devil was this? The blow of the pistol ball had left me so woozy I was wading in syrup.

And then, as I turned in the lane to meet him as best I could, a blunt staff thrust past me and struck the bastard smack where throat meets chest. He gave an awful cough and his feet slid out ahead of him, landing him on his backside. He looked up in amazement, gulp-ing. It was Miriam, who’d taken a pole from a market awning and hefted it like a lance! I do have a knack for finding useful women.

“You!” he gagged, his eyes on me, not her. “Why aren’t you dead?” Neither are you, I thought, my own shock as great as his. For in the dusky light of the cobbled lane, I recognized first the emblem that Miriam’s thrust had knocked out of his shirt—a Masonic compass and square, with the letter G inside—and then the swarthy face of the “customs inspector” who had accosted me on the stage to Toulon during my flight from Paris last year. He’d tried to take my medallion and I’d ended up shooting him with my rifle, while Sidney Smith had shot another bandit in unseen support. I’d left this one howling, wondering if the wound had been mortal. Obviously not. What the devil was he doing in Jerusalem, armed to the teeth?

But I knew, of course, knew with dread that he had the same purpose as me, to search for ancient secrets. This was a confederate of Silano, and the French hadn’t given up. He was here to look for the Book of Thoth. And, apparently, for me.

Before I had any chance to confirm this, however, he scrambled 5 4

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upward, listened to the shrieks of the neighbors and the cries of the watchmen, and fled, wheezing.

We ran the other way.

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Miriam was shaking as we made our way back to Jericho’s house, my arm around her shoulder. We’d never been physically close, but now we clung instinctively. I took some of the less obvious back alleys I’d learned in my wanderings of Jerusalem, rats skittering away as I looked over my shoulder for pursuit. It was a climb back to Jericho’s—none of the city is level, and the Christian quarter is higher than the Muslim—so after a while we paused for a moment in an alcove, to catch our breath and make sure that with my throbbing head I was taking the right direction. “I’m sorry about that,” I told her.

“It isn’t you they are after, it’s me.”

“Who are those men?”

“The one who shot at me is French. I’ve seen him before.”

“Seen him where?”

“In France. I shot him, actually.”

“Ethan!”

“He was trying to rob me. Shame I didn’t kill him then.” She looked as if seeing me for the first time.

“It wasn’t about money, it was something more important. I haven’t told you and your brother the whole story.” Her mouth was half open.

“I think it’s time to.”

“And this woman Astiza was part of it?” Her voice was soft.

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“A student of ancient times. A priestess, actually, but of an old, old Egyptian goddess. Isis, if you’ve heard of her.”

“The Black Madonna.” It was a whisper.

“Who?”

“There has long been a cult of worshippers around the statues of the Virgin carved in black stone. Some simply saw it as a variation of t h e

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Christian artwork, but others said it was really a continuation of the cult of Isis. The White Madonna and the Black.” Interesting. Isis had turned up repeatedly during my search in Egypt. And now this quiet woman, by all appearances a pious Christian, knew something of her as well. I’d never heard of a pagan goddess who got around so well.

“But why white and black?” I was reminded of the checkerboard pattern of the Paris Masonic lodges where I’d done my best at grasp-ing Freemasonry. And the twin pillars, one black and one white, which flanked the lodge altar.