‘He’s worked hard to emphasize your victories, you know.’
‘As I’ve worked hard to win them. I’m depending on him to write my biography for distribution in France. The people need to know what’s really happening here. But no, I don’t take personal roll of thirty-five thousand men. Your friend will turn up if he hasn’t run.’ The idea that some of us would try to sneak away from the Egyptian expedition seemed to gnaw at Bonaparte. ‘Are you any closer to understanding the pyramids and this necklace of yours?’
‘I examined the calendar. It may suggest auspicious dates.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t know.’
He snapped the calipers shut. ‘I’m beginning to wonder about your usefulness, American. And yet Silano tells me there could be significant lessons, military lessons, in what you’re researching.’
‘Military lessons?’
‘Ancient powers. Egypt remained preeminent for thousands of years, building masterworks while the rest of the world was in huts. How? Why?’
‘That’s just the question that we savants are beginning to address,’ I said. ‘I’m curious to find if there are any ancient references to the phenomena of electricity. Jomard has speculated they could have used it to move their mammoth building blocks. But we can’t read their hieroglyphics, everything is half-buried in sand, and we’ve simply not had enough time at the pyramids yet.’
‘Which we’re about to remedy. I’m going to investigate them myself. But first, you will come to my banquet tonight. It’s time you conferred with Alessandro Silano.’
I was surprised at the depth of my relief at seeing Astiza. Perhaps it was having survived another terrible battle, or my worry about Talma, or the French sergeant’s gloomy assessment of our position in Egypt, or Silano’s appearance in Cairo, or Bonaparte’s impatience with my progress: in any event, I felt lonely. Who was I but an American exile, cast up with a foreign army in an even more foreign land? What I did have was this woman who – while withholding intimacies – had become my companion and, in a secret estimation I wouldn’t risk sharing with her, a friend. Yet her past was so vague that I was forced to ask myself whether I knew her at all. I looked carefully for some sign of hidden feelings when she greeted me, but she simply seemed happy that I’d returned unscathed. She and Enoch were eager to hear my firsthand account, since Cairo was a hotbed of rumour. If I’d any doubts about her quickness, they were dispelt when I heard how rapidly her French had improved.
Enoch and Ashraf had no word from Talma, but plenty of stories about Silano. He’d arrived in Cairo with his retinue, made contact with some Freemasons in the French officer corps, and conferred with Egyptian mystics and magicians. Bonaparte had granted him fine quarters in the home of another Mameluke bey, and any number of characters had been seen slipping in and out during all hours of the day and night. He’d reportedly asked General Desaix about impending plans to send French troops up the Nile.
‘He directs men greedy for the secrets of the past,’ Astiza added. ‘He has assembled his own bodyguard of Bedouin cutthroats, been visited by Bin Sadr, and parades his yellow-haired trollop in a fine carriage.’
‘And there is word he asked about you,’ Enoch added. ‘Everyone has wondered if you were trapped at Abukir. Did you bring the calendar?’
‘I lost it, but not before I had a chance to examine it. I’m guessing, but when I aligned the rings in a way that reminded me of the medallion and the pyramids, I sensed it was pointing to a date one month after the fall equinox, or October 21 ^ st. Is that day significant here in Egypt?’
Enoch thought. ‘Not really. The solstice, the equinox, or the New Year when the Nile begins to rise all have meaning, but I know of nothing to do with that date. Perhaps it was an ancient holy day, but if so the meaning has been lost. I will consult my books, however, and mention the date to some of the wiser imams.’
‘And what of the medallion?’ I asked. I’d felt uneasy being so separated from it, yet at the same time was thankful I hadn’t risked it at Abukir Bay.
Enoch brought it out, its gold gleam familiar and reassuring. ‘The more I study it, the older I think it is – older, I think, than most of Egypt. The symbols may date to the deep time when the pyramids were built. It is so old, no books survive from that period, but your mention of Cleopatra intrigued me. She was a Ptolemy who lived three thousand years after the pyramids, and Greek by blood as much as Egyptian. When she consorted with Caesar and Antony, she was the last great link between the Roman world and ancient Egypt. By legend there is a temple, its location lost, dedicated to Hathor and Isis, the goddesses of nurture, love, and wisdom. Cleopatra worshipped there.’
He showed me pictures of the goddesses. Isis looked like a conventionally beautiful woman with high headdress, but Hathor was odd, her face elongated and her ears jutting out like those of a cow. Homely, but in a pleasant way.
‘The temple was probably rebuilt in Ptolemaic times,’ Enoch said, ‘but its origin is far older than that, perhaps as old as the pyramids. Legend contends it was oriented to the star Draco when that star marked the north. If so, secrets might have been shared between the two sites. I’ve been looking for something that refers to a puzzle, or a sanctuary, or a door – something this medallion might point to – so I’ve been combing the Ptolemaic texts.’
‘And?’ I could see he enjoyed working this puzzle.
‘And I have an ancient Greek reference to a small temple of Isis favoured by Cleopatra that reads, “The staff of Min is the key to life.”’
‘Staff of Min? Bin Sadr has a staff, a snake-headed one. Who’s Min?’
Astiza smiled. ‘Min is a god who became the root word of “man”, just as the goddess Ma’at or Mut became the root word for “mother”. His staff is not like Bin Sadr’s.’
‘Here’s another picture.’ Enoch slid it across. On it was a drawing of a stiff-postured bald fellow with one particularly arresting feature: a rigid, upright male member of prodigious length.
‘By the souls of Saratoga. They put this in their churches?’
‘It’s just nature,’ Astiza said.
‘Well-endowed nature, I’d say.’ I was unable to keep envy from my voice.
Ashraf had a wicked grin. ‘Typical for Egyptians, my American friend.’
I looked at him sharply and he laughed.
‘You’re all having fun with me,’ I grumbled.
‘No, no, Min is a real god and this is a real representation,’ Enoch assured me, ‘though my brother is exaggerating our countrymen’s anatomy. Ordinarily I would read ‘The staff of Min is the key to life’ as a mere sexual and mythical reference. In our creation stories, our first god swallows his own seed and spits and shits out the first children.’
‘The devil you say!’
‘And it is the ankh, the predecessor to your Christian cross, which is usually referred to as a key to eternal life. But why Min in a temple of Isis? Frequented by Cleopatra? Why “key” as opposed to “essence” or some other word? And why this after it: “The crypt will lead to heaven”?’
‘Why, indeed?’
‘We don’t know. But your medallion may be an uncompleted key. The pyramids point to heaven. What is in that crypt? We do know, as I said, that Silano has been making enquiries about going south, up the Nile, with Desaix.’
‘Into enemy territory?’
‘Somewhere south is where the temple of Hathor and Isis lies.’
I pondered. ‘Silano has been doing some studying of his own in ancient capitals. Perhaps he has the same clues you’ve found. But he still needs the medallion, I’m gambling. Keep it here, hidden. I’m going to see the sorcerer at a banquet tonight, and if the subject comes up I’ll tell him I lost it at Abukir Bay. It might be our only advantage if we’re in a race to this key of life.’
‘Don’t go to the banquet,’ Astiza said. ‘The goddess tells me we must stay away from this man.’
‘And my little god, Bonaparte, tells me I must sup with him.’
She looked uncomfortable. ‘Then tell him nothing.’
‘Of my investigations?’ Here was the issue the journalist had raised. ‘Or you?’
A blush rose in her cheeks. ‘He has no interest in your servants.’
‘Doesn’t he? Talma told me he’d heard that you knew Silano in Cairo. The reason Antoine went to Alexandria
