‘liberating’ Egypt from the Mameluke caste as a ‘favour’ to the sultan in Constantinople. They would reform a backward corner of the Arab world and create a springboard to contest British advances in India. ‘The European power that controls Egypt,’ Napoleon had written to the Directory, ‘will, in the long run, control India.’ There was hope of recreating the ancient canal that had once linked the Mediterranean and Red Seas. The ultimate goal was to link up with an Indian pasha named Tippoo Sahib, a Francophile who had visited Paris and went by the title ‘Citizen Tippoo,’ and whose palace entertainment included a mechanical tiger that devoured puppet Englishmen. Tippoo was fighting a British general named Wellesley in southern India, and France had already sent him arms and advisers.
‘The war in Italy more than paid for itself,’ Berthollet said, ‘and thanks to Malta, this one is guaranteed to do so as well. The Corsican has made himself popular with the Directory because his battles turn a profit.’
‘You still think of Bonaparte as Italian?’
‘His mother’s child. He told us a story once of how she disapproved of his rudeness to guests. He was too big to paddle, so she waited until he was undressing, unclothed enough to be embarrassed and defenceless, and pounced on him to twist his ear. Patience and revenge are the lessons of a Corsican! A Frenchman enjoys life, but an Italian like Bonaparte plots it. Like the ancient Romans or the bandits of Sicily, his kind believes in clan, avarice, and revenge. He’s a brilliant soldier, but remembers so many slights and humiliations that he sometimes doesn’t know when to stop making war. That, I suspect, is his weakness.’
‘So what are you doing here, Doctor Berthollet? You, and the rest of the scholars? Not military glory, surely. Nor treasure.’
‘Do you know anything at all about Egypt, Monsieur Gage?’
‘It has sand, camels, and sun. Beyond that, very little.’
‘You’re honest. None of us know much about this cradle of civilisation. Stories come back of vast ruins, strange idols, and indecipherable writing, but who in Europe has really seen these things? Men want to learn. What is Maltese gold compared to being the first to see the glories of ancient Egypt? I came for the kind of discovery that makes men truly immortal.’
‘Through renown?’
‘Through knowledge that will live forever.’
‘Or through knowledge of ancient magic,’ amended Talma. ‘That is why Ethan and I were invited along, is it not?’
‘If your friend’s medallion is truly magical,’ the chemist replied. ‘There’s a difference between history and fable, of course.’
‘And a difference between mere desire for a piece of jewellery and the ruthlessness to kill to possess it,’ the scribe countered. ‘Our American here has been in danger since winning it in Paris. Why? Not because it’s the key to academic glory. It’s the key to something else. If not the secret to real immortality, then perhaps lost treasure.’
‘Which only proves that treasure can be more trouble than it’s worth.’
‘Discovery is better than gold, Berthollet?’ I asked, trying to feign nonchalance at all this dire talk.
‘What is gold but a means to an end? Here we have that end. The best things in life cost nothing: knowledge, integrity, love, natural beauty. Look at you here, entering the mouth of the Nile with an exquisite woman. You are another Antony, with another Cleopatra! What is more satisfying than that?’ He lay back to nap.
I glanced at Astiza, who was beginning to pick up French but seemed content to ignore our chatter and watch the low brown houses of Rosetta as we sailed by. A beautiful woman, yes. But one who seemed as locked and remote as the secrets of Egypt.
‘Tell me about your ancestor,’ I suddenly asked her in English.
‘What?’ She looked at me in alarm, never anxious for casual conversation.
‘Alexander. He was Macedonian like you, no?’
She seemed embarrassed to be addressed by a man in public but slowly nodded, as if to concede she was in the grasp of rustics and had to accede to our clumsy ways. ‘And Egyptian by choice, once he saw this great land. No man has ever matched him.’
‘And he conquered Persia?’
‘He marched from Macedonia to India, and before he was done people thought he was a god. He conquered Egypt long before this French upstart of yours, and traversed the pitiless sands of our desert to attend the Spring of the Sun at the oasis at Siwah. There he was given tools of magic power, and the oracle proclaimed him a god, son of Zeus and Amon, and predicted he would rule the entire world.’
‘Must have been a convenient endorsement to have.’
‘It was his delight with this prophecy that convinced him to found the great city of Alexandria. He marked out its limits with peeled barley, in the Greek custom. When birds flocked to eat the barley, alarming Alexander’s followers, his seers said this meant that newcomers would migrate to the new city and it would feed many lands. They were right. But the Macedonian general needed no prophets.’
‘No?’
‘He was a master of destiny. Yet he died or was murdered before he could finish his task, and his sacred symbols from Siwah disappeared. So did Alexander. Some say his body was taken back to Macedonia, some say to Alexandria, but others say Ptolemy took him to a secret, final resting place in the desert sands. Like your Jesus ascending to Heaven, he seems to have disappeared from Earth. So perhaps he was a god, as the Oracle said. Like Osiris, taking his place in the heavens.’
This was no mere slave or serving girl. How the devil had Astiza learnt all this? ‘I’ve heard of Osiris,’ I said. ‘Reassembled by his sister Isis.’
For the first time she looked at me with something resembling true enthusiasm. ‘You know Isis?’
‘A mother goddess, right?’
‘Isis and the Virgin Mary are reflections of each other.’
‘Christians wouldn’t care to hear that.’
‘No? All kinds of Christian beliefs and symbols come from Egyptian gods. Resurrection, the afterlife, impregnation by a god, triads and trinities, the idea a man could be both human and divine, sacrifice, even the wings of angels and the hooves and forked tail of devils: all this predates your Jesus by thousands of years. The code of your Ten Commandments is a simpler version of the negative confession Egyptians made to profess their innocence when they died: ‘I did not kill.’ Religion is like a tree. Egypt is the trunk, and all others are branches.’
‘That’s not what the Bible says. There were false idols, and the true Hebrew god.’
‘How ignorant you are of your own beliefs! I’ve heard you French say your cross is a Roman symbol of execution, but what kind of symbol is that for a religion of hope? The truth is that the cross combined your saviour’s instrument of death with our instrument of life, the ankh, our ancient key of life everlasting. And why not? Egypt was the most Christian of all countries before the Arabs came.’
By the ghost of Cotton Mather, I could have paddled her for blasphemy if I hadn’t been so dumbfounded. It wasn’t just what she was claiming, but the casual confidence with which she claimed it. ‘No Biblical ideas possibly came from Egypt,’ I sputtered.
‘I thought the Hebrews escaped from Egypt? And that the infant Jesus resided here? Besides, what does it matter – I thought your general assured us yours is not an army of Christians anyway? Godless men of science, are you not?’
‘Well, Bonaparte puts on and takes off faiths like men do a coat.’
‘Or faiths and sciences have more unity than Franks care to admit. Isis is a goddess of knowledge, love, and tolerance.’
‘And Isis is your goddess.’
‘Isis belongs to no one. I am her servant.’
‘You truly worship an old idol?’ My Philadelphia pastor would be apoplectic by now.
‘She is newer than your last breath, American, as eternal as the cycle of birth. But I don’t expect you to understand. I had to flee my Cairo master because he finally didn’t either, and dared corrupt the old mysteries.’
‘What mysteries?’
‘Of the world around you. Of the sacred triangle, the square of four directions, the pentagram of free will and
