treasury.
‘You sound as confident as Bonaparte.’
‘I’m confident in my father.’
‘Still, it’s a challenging life for a boy at sea, is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s the best life because we have clear duty. That’s what my father says. Things are easy if you know what you must do.’ And before I could consider or reply to this philosophy, he saluted and scampered up the ladder.
An admiral in the making, I thought.
The treasury had both a wooden door and an iron grill. Both were shut behind to lock me in. It took me some rooting in the dim lantern light amid boxes of coin and jewels to find the device that Monge and Jomard had shown me. Yes, there it was, tossed in one corner as the least valuable of all the treasures. It was, as I have described, the size of a dinner plate but empty in its centre. The rim was made of three flat rings, covered in hieroglyphics, zodiac signs, and abstract designs, that rotated within each other. A clue, perhaps, but of what? I sat, enjoying the cool dampness, and worked them one way and another. Each twist aligned different symbols.
I studied the inner ring first, which was the plainest with just four designs. There was an inscribed sphere hovering above a line, and on the opposite side of the circle another sphere below a line. At ninety degrees from each, dividing the calendar into quarters, there were half-spheres, like half-moons, one pointed up and the other down. The pattern reminded me of four cardinal markings on a compass or clock, but the Egyptians had neither, so far as I knew. I pondered. The one on top looked like a rising sun. So at length I guessed this innermost band must be a wheel of the year. The summer and winter solstice was represented by the sun being above and below the lines, or horizon. The half-suns were the March and September equinoxes, when day and night are roughly equal. Simple enough, if I was right.
And it told me absolutely nothing.
A wheel outside the first one turned a zodiac, I saw. I traced the twelve signs that were not so very different when this device was made than they are today. Then a third ring, the outermost, held strange symbols of animals, eyes, stars, sun rays, a pyramid, and the Horus symbol. In places, inscribed lines divided each wheel into sections.
My guess was that this calendar, if that’s what it was, was a way to align the position of the constellations relative to the rising sun throughout the solar year. But what use was it to my medallion? What had Cagliostro seen in it, if indeed it had been his? Back and forth I played, trying combinations in hopes something would occur to me. Nothing did, of course – I’ve always hated puzzles, even though I’ve enjoyed figuring the odds at cards. Perhaps the astronomer, Nouet, could figure it out if I could bring it back with me.
Finally I decided to call the summer solstice, if that’s what it was, the top, and then put the third ring’s five- pointed star – not entirely unlike that on our American flag, or in Masonic symbolism – atop that. Like the polar star! Why not play with symbols I knew? And the zodiac ring I rotated until Taurus, the bull, was between the other two: the age, Monge had said, in which the pyramid had supposedly been built. There had been the age of the bull, the age of the ram, the age of the fish, Pisces, which we now occupied, and, ahead, the age of Aquarius. Now I examined the other signs. There seemed no particular pattern.
Except… I stared, my heart beating. When I arranged the rings so that summer, bull, and star were atop each other, the ends of the tilted inscribed lines connected to make two longer diagonal lines. They angled outward from the innermost circle like the splayed legs of the medallion – or the slope of the pyramid. It was enough of a resemblance that I felt like I was looking at an echo of what I’d left with Astiza and Enoch.
But what did it mean? I saw nothing at first. Crabs, lions, and Libra scales made senseless patterns. But wait! There was a pyramid on the outer ring, and this was now just below the sign for the fall equinox, directly adjacent to that sloping inscribed line. And there was a symbol for Aquarius on the second ring, and this, too, was adjacent to a time that, if I was reading the device correctly, occupied the four o’clock position on the ring, just below the three o’clock position that represented the autumn equinox, September 21 ^ st.
The four o’clock position should correspond to one month later, or October 21 ^ st.
If I’d guessed right, October 21 ^ st, Aquarius, and the pyramid had some kind of link. Aquarius, Nouet had said, was a sign created by the Egyptians to celebrate the rising of the Nile, which would crest sometime in the fall.
Could October 21 ^ st be a holy day? The peak of the Nile flood? A time to visit the pyramid? The medallion had its wavelike symbol for water. Was there a connection? Did it reveal something on that particular day?
I sat back, uncertain. I was grasping at straws… and yet here was something, a date plucked out of nonsense. It was wild conjecture, but perhaps Enoch and Astiza could make sense of it. Tired of the puzzle, I found myself wondering about this strange woman who seemed to have secrets in layered depths I hadn’t suspected. Priestess? What was her mission in all this? Were Talma’s suspicions justified? Had she really known Silano? It seemed impossible, and yet the people I was meeting seemed oddly connected. But I didn’t fear her – I missed her. I remembered a moment in Enoch’s courtyard in the cool of early evening, the shadows blue, the sky a dome, the scent of spices and smoke from the house kitchen mingling with that of dust and fountain water. She sat on a bench without speaking, meditating, and I stood by a pillar not speaking. I simply gazed at her hair and cheek and she gave me leave and time to look. We were not master and servant then, nor Westerner and Egyptian, but man and woman. To touch her would have broken the spell.
So I simply watched, knowing this was a moment I’d carry with me the rest of my life.
Ship noise brought me back from my reverie. There were cries, running feet, and the rumble of drums. I glanced at the beams overhead. What now? Some drill for the fleet? I tried to concentrate, but the excitement only seemed to increase.
So I hammered to be let out. When the door opened, I spoke to the marine. ‘What’s going on?’
His own head was tilted up, listening. ‘English!’
‘Here? Now?’
He looked at me, his face sombre in the dim lantern light. ‘Nelson.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I left the calendar and joined a tide of men climbing to the gun decks, sailors cursing the ship’s lack of readiness. Our flagship was half warehouse, with no time now for careful stowage. Men were scrambling to reattach cannons to their proper tackle, hoist yards, and take down scaffolding.
I came up to the bright air of the main deck. ‘Get those awnings down!’ Captain Casabianca was bawling. ‘Signal the men ashore to come back!’ Then he turned to his son, Giocante. ‘Go organise the powder monkeys.’ The boy, who showed more anticipation than fear, disappeared below to supervise the transfer of ammunition to the hungry guns.
I went up to Admiral Brueys on the quarterdeck, who was studying the sea with his telescope. The horizon was white with sail, the wind swiftly blowing trouble our way. Nelson’s squadron had every inch of canvas up and straining, and before long I could count fourteen ships of the line. The French had thirteen, plus four frigates – even enough odds – but we were anchored and half unready. Six were in line ahead of L’Orient, six behind. It was midafternoon, surely too late for battle, and perhaps Brueys could work out to sea during the night. Except that the British showed no sign of heaving to. Instead they were racing down on us like a pack of anxious hounds, spray flying from their bows. They meant to start a fight.
Brueys glanced aloft.
‘Admiral?’ I ventured.
‘Hundreds of men ashore, our supplies unsecured, our yards and sails down, our crews half sick,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I warned of this. Now we must fight in place.’
‘Admiral?’ I tried again, ‘I think my investigation is finished. Should I go ashore?’
He looked at me blankly for a moment, and then remembered my mission. ‘Ah, yes, Gage. It’s too late, American. All our boats are engaged retrieving sailors.’
I went to the leeward rail and looked. Sure enough, the fleet longboats were making for the beach to pick up men stranded there. To my eye, they didn’t seem in any great hurry to get back.
‘By the time the boats return, the English will be upon us,’ Brueys said. ‘You’ll be our guest for the battle, I’m
