I sighed. ‘You, too, I suppose.’
‘On the contrary, I want to ensure you dispose of it. Bury it. Lock it away. Throw it, melt it, hide it, or eat it, but just keep the damned thing out of sight until this war is over. I don’t know if my Temple jailer knew more than fairy tales, but anything that tips this contest against Britain threatens civilised order. If you think the piece has monetary value, I will get the Admiralty to compensate you.’
‘Mr Smith…’
‘Sir Sidney.’
His knighthood was from mercenary service to the king of Sweden, not England, but he did have a reputation of being vain and self-aggrandizing. ‘Sir Sidney, all we share is language. I’m American, not British, and France sided with my own nation in our recent revolution against yours. My country is neutral in the present conflict, and on top of that I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Gage, listen to me.’ He cocked forward like a falcon, the very picture of anxious intensity. He had a warrior’s build, straight and broad-shouldered, a sturdy chest tapering to a hard waist, and now that I thought about it, maybe Sarylla was being solicitous to him. ‘Your colonial revolution was one of political independence. This one in France is about the very order of life. My God, a king guillotined! Thousands sent to slaughter! Wars unleashed on every French border! Atheism enshrined! Church lands seized, debts ignored, estates confiscated, rabbles armed, riots, anarchy, and tyranny! You have as much in common with France as Washington has with Robespierre. You and I share not only a language but a culture and political system of law and justice. The madness that has seized France is going to unhinge Europe. All good men are allies, unless they believe in anarchy and dictatorship.’
‘I have many French friends.’
‘As do I! It’s their tyrants I can’t abide. I’m not asking you to betray anyone. I’m hoping you still go wherever this young Napoleon chap leads. All I’m asking is that you keep this talisman secret. Keep it for yourself, not for Boney, or this Silano, or anyone else who asks. Consider that your nation’s commercial future is inevitably with the British Empire, not a revolution bent on ruin. Keep your French friends! Make me your friend as well, and perhaps we’ll someday aid each other.’
‘You want me to spy for England?’
‘Absolutely not!’ He looked hurt, glancing at Stefan as if the gypsy should support his protestations of innocence. ‘I simply offer help. Go where you must and pay attention to what you see. But if you ever tire of Napoleon and are looking for aid, contact the British navy and share what any man could have observed. I’m giving you a signet ring inscribed with a symbol of a unicorn, my coat-of-arms. I’ll notify the Admiralty of its authenticity. Use it as a token of safe passage.’
Smith and Stefan looked at me expectedly. Did they think me a fool? I could feel the lump of the object in the false sole of my boot.
‘First, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I lied again. ‘Second, I’m allies with nobody, neither France nor England. I am merely a man of science, recruited to observe natural phenomena while some legal trouble I have is sorted out in Paris. Third, if I did have what you speak of, I wouldn’t admit it, given the lethal interest everyone seems to display. And fourth, this entire conversation is useless, because whatever I may once have had, even though I never had it, I have no longer, since the thieves plundered my baggage when I fled.’ There, I thought. That should shut them up.
Smith grinned. ‘Good man!’ he shouted, slapping my arm. ‘I knew you had the instincts! Fine show!’
‘And now we feast,’ Stefan said, also apparently approving of my performance. ‘Tell me more of your lessons from Temple Prison, Sir Sidney. We Rom trace our origins to the pharaohs, and to Abraham and Noah. We have forgotten much, but we remember much as well, and we can still sometimes tell the future and bend the whims of fate. Sarylla there is a drabardi, a fortune-teller, and maybe she can cast your future. Come, come, sit, and let us talk of Babylon and Tyre, Memphis and Jerusalem.’
Was everyone but me lost in the ancient world? I slipped on Smith’s ring, reasoning it couldn’t hurt to have another friend.
‘Alas, I threaten all of you the longer I stay,’ Smith said. ‘To tell the truth, a troop of French dragoons has been on my own trail. I wanted this quick word, but must be on my way before they encounter the robbery, hear the story of my timely shot, and look in these woods.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what to make of this fascination with the occult, frankly. My jailer, Boniface, was the worst kind of Jacobin tyrant, but he constantly hinted at mystic secrets. All of us want to believe in magic, even if we adults have been told we shouldn’t. A learned man would dismiss it, and yet sometimes too much learning makes us blind.’
It sounded like what Talma had said.
‘The Rom have kept the secrets of our Egyptian ancestors for centuries,’ Stefan said. ‘Yet we are mere children in the ancient arts.’
Well, their Egyptian connection seemed dubious to me – their very name suggested Romania as a more probable homeland – but then again it was a dusky and colourful group, of vests and shawls and scarves and jewellery, including an ankh here and a figurine of dog-headed Anubis there. Their women might not be Cleopatra, but they certainly had an alluring beauty. What lovemaking secrets might they know? I pondered that question for some moments. I am, after all, a scientist.
‘Adieu, my new friends,’ Smith said. He gave Stefan a purse. ‘Here is payment to conduct Monsieur Gage and the talisman he doesn’t have to safety in Toulon. He will escape detection in your slow wagons. Agreed?’
The gypsy regarded the money, flipped and caught it, and laughed. ‘For this much I would take him to Constantinople! But for a man pursued, I would also take him for free.’
The Englishman bowed. ‘I believe you would, but accept the Crown’s generosity.’
Going with the gypsies would separate me from Talma until we reached Toulon, but I reasoned this would be safer for my friend as well as me. He’d worry, but then he always worried.
‘Gage, we will meet again,’ Smith said. ‘Keep my ring on your finger; the frogs won’t recognise it – I kept it out of sight in prison. In the meantime, keep your wits about you and remember how quickly idealism can turn to tyranny and liberators can become dictators. You may find yourself, eventually, on your mother country’s side.’ Then he melted into the trees as quietly as he’d come, an apparition no one would believe I’d encountered.
Meet again? Not if I had anything to say about it. I didn’t dream how Smith would eventually re-enter my life, a thousand miles from where we stood. I was simply relieved the fugitive was gone.
‘And now we feast,’ said Stefan.
The term ‘feast’ was an exaggeration, but the camp did serve us a rich stew, sopped with thick and heavy bread. I felt safe amid these strange nomads, if a little astonished at their ready hospitality. They seemed to want nothing from me but my company. I was curious if they might really know anything about what was in the sole of my boot.
‘Stefan, I’m not admitting that Smith was right about this pendant. But if some such trinket did exist, what about it would make men so covetous?’
He smiled. ‘It would not be the necklace itself, but the fact that it is some kind of clue.’
‘A clue to what?’
The gypsy shrugged. ‘All I know are old stories. The standard tale is that ancient Egyptians at the dawn of civilisation caged a power that they deemed dangerous until men had the intellectual and moral quality to correctly harness it, but left a key in the form of a neckpiece. Alexander the Great reputedly received this when he made his pilgrimage to the desert oasis of Siwah, where he was declared a son of Amon and Zeus before his march into Persia. He subsequently conquered the known world. How did he accomplish so much so quickly? Then he died a young man in Babylon. Of disease? Or murder? The rumour is that Alexander’s general, Ptolemy, took the key back to Egypt, hoping to unlock great powers, but he couldn’t understand what the token meant. Cleopatra, Ptolemy’s descendant, took it with her when she accompanied Caesar to Rome. Then Caesar was assassinated too! On it goes through history, great men grasping and coming to their doom. Kings, popes, and sultans began to believe it cursed, even as wizards and sorcerers believed it could unlock great secrets. Yet none remembered anymore how to use it. Was it a key to good or to evil? The Catholic Church takes it to Jerusalem during the Crusades, again in futile quest. The Knights Templar become its custodians, hiding it first in Rhodes, then in Malta. There are confusing quests for a holy grail, obscuring the truth of what was sought. For centuries the medallion lay forgotten until someone recognised its significance. Now perhaps it has come to Paris… and then walked into our camp. Of course, this you have denied.’
I didn’t like this medallion bringing death to all. ‘You really think an ordinary man like me could stumble
