keep researching, and yours to keep working with the savants, until we learn where this door is and secure it before Silano can enter. We are in a race for rediscovery. Let’s not lose it by fleeing now.’ Enoch was glowering. Trying to send him into hiding would be like budging a barnacle.
‘Then at least we need a safe place for both Astiza and the medallion,’ I argued. ‘It’s madness to keep it here now. And if I’m assaulted or killed, it’s imperative they not find the medallion on me. In fact, if I’m kidnapped, its absence might be the only thing to keep me alive. Astiza could be used as a hostage. Even Napoleon has noticed my, er, interest in her.’ I kept my eyes averted while I said it. ‘Meanwhile, Bonaparte is about to lead a group of savants to the pyramids. Maybe in combination we’ll learn something to head Silano off.’
‘One cannot send a beautiful young woman off by herself,’ said Enoch.
‘So where does one put a woman, in Egypt?’
‘A harem,’ Ashraf suggested.
I’ll confess that some erotic fantasies concerning that mysterious institution flickered through my mind. I had a vision of shallow bathing pools, fanning slaves, and half-draped, sex-starved women. Could I visit? But then, if Astiza went into a harem, could she get back out?
‘I’m not going to be locked in a seraglio,’ Astiza said. ‘I belong to no man.’
Well, you belong to me, I thought, but it didn’t seem the time to push the issue.
‘In a harem, no man except the master can enter, or even learn what goes on,’ insisted Ashraf. ‘I know a nobleman who did not flee the French, Yusuf al-Beni, who has retained possession of his house and his household. He has a harem for his women and could give the priestess refuge. Not as a harem girl, but as a guest.’
‘Can Yusuf be trusted?’
‘He can be bought, I think.’
‘I don’t want to sit blinded from events, sewing with a bunch of silly women,’ Astiza said. Damnation, she was independent. It was one of the things I liked about her.
‘Nor do you want to be dead or worse,’ I replied. ‘Ashraf’s idea is excellent. Hide there as a guest, with the medallion, while I go to the pyramids and Enoch and I solve this thing. Don’t go out. Don’t give the neckpiece any significance, should anyone in the harem see it. Our best hope is that Silano’s scheming may be his undoing. Bonaparte will see through it and realise the count wants these powers for himself, not for France.’
‘It’s just as risky to leave me alone,’ Astiza said.
‘You won’t be alone, you’ll be with a bunch of silly women, as you said. Stay hidden and wait. I’ll find this Book of Thoth and come get you.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Napoleon’s visit to the pyramids was a grander excursion than the visit I’d made earlier with Talma and Jomard. More than a hundred officers, escorting soldiers, guides, servants, and scientists crossed the Nile and hiked up to the Giza plateau. It was like a holiday outing, a train of donkeys bearing French wives, mistresses, and a cornucopia of fruits, sweets, meats, and wine. Parasols were held in the sun. Carpets were spread on the sand. We would dine next to eternity.
Conspicuous by his absence was Silano, who I was told was conducting his own investigations in Cairo. I was glad I’d tucked Astiza safely out of the way.
As we trudged up the slope I reported Talma’s hideous death to Bonaparte, to gauge his reaction and plant doubt in his mind about my rival. Unfortunately, my news seemed to annoy our commander more than shock him. ‘The journalist had barely started my biography! He shouldn’t have wandered off before the country is pacified.’
‘My friend disappeared when Silano arrived, General. Is that coincidence? I fear the count may be involved. Or Bin Sadr, that Bedouin marauder.’
‘That marauder is our ally, Monsieur Gage. As is the count, an agent of Talleyrand himself. He assures me he knows nothing about Talma, and in any event he has no motive. Does he?’
‘He said he wanted the medallion.’
‘Which you said you lost. In a nation of a million restive natives, why do you suspect only the people who are on our side?’
‘But are they on our side?’
‘They are on my side! As you will be, when you begin to solve the mysteries we brought you here for! First you lose your medallion and calendar, and now you make accusations against our colleagues! Talma died! Men do in war!’
‘They don’t have their heads delivered in a jar.’
‘I have seen parts worse than that delivered. Listen. You saw the defeat of our fleet. Our success is imperilled. We are cut off from France. Rebel Mamelukes are gathering in the south. The population is not yet resigned to its new situation. Insurgents commit atrocities precisely to sow the kind of terror and confusion you’re exhibiting. Stand fast, Gage! You were brought to solve mysteries, not create them.’
‘General, I’m doing my best, but Talma’s head was clearly a message…’
‘A message that time is of the essence. I cannot afford sympathy, because sympathy is weakness, and any weakness on my part invites our destruction. Gage, I tolerated an American’s presence because I was told you might be useful in investigating the ancient Egyptians. Can you make sense of the pyramids or not?’
‘I am trying, General.’
‘Succeed. Because the moment you are of no use to me, I can have you jailed.’ He looked past me, the admonition given. ‘Ah. They are big, aren’t they?’
The same awe that I’d felt on my initial visit was experienced by others as they came within view of the Sphinx and the pyramids behind. Customary chatter went silent as we clustered on the sand like ants, the depth of time palpable. Their shadows on the sand were as distinct as the pyramids themselves. It was not the ghosts of the long-vanished workmen and pharaohs I experienced, but rather the serene spirit of the structures themselves.
Napoleon, however, scrutinised the monuments like a quartermaster. ‘As simple as a child might build, but they certainly have size. Look at that volume of stone, Monge! Building this big one here would be like marshalling an army. What are the dimensions, Jomard?’
‘We’re still digging, trying to find the base and the corners,’ the officer replied. ‘The Great Pyramid is at least seven hundred and fifty feet on each side and more than four hundred and fifty feet high. The base covers thirteen acres, and while the building stones are huge, I calculate there are at least two and a half million of them. The volume is large enough to easily contain any of the cathedrals in Europe. It is the largest structure in the world.’
‘So much stone,’ Napoleon murmured. He asked the dimensions of the other two pyramids as well and, using a Conte pencil, began jotting calculations of his own. He played with mathematics in the way other men might doodle. ‘Where do you think they got the stone, Dolomieu?’ he asked as he worked.
‘Somewhere nearby,’ the geologist replied. ‘Those blocks are limestone, the same as the bedrock of the plateau. That’s why they appear eroded. Limestone isn’t very hard, and wears easily from water. In fact, formations of limestone are frequently perforated with caves. We might expect caves here, but I must assume this plateau is solid, given the aridity. Reportedly there is also granite inside the pyramid, and that must have come from many miles away. I suspect the facing limestone also came from a separate quarry of finer rock.’
Napoleon displayed his calculations. ‘Look, it is absurd. With the stone in these pyramids you could build a wall two metres high and one metre thick around all of France.’
‘I hope you don’t expect us to do so, General,’ Monge joked. ‘It would weigh millions of tons to take home.’
‘Indeed.’ He laughed. ‘At last I have found a ruler who eclipses my own ambition! Khufu, you dwarf me! Yet why not simply tunnel into a mountain? Is it true the Arab tomb robbers didn’t find a corpse inside?’
‘There is no evidence anyone was ever buried here,’ Jomard said. ‘The main passage was blocked by enormous granite plugs that seem to have guarded… nothing.’
‘So we are presented with another mystery.’
‘Perhaps. Or perhaps the pyramids serve some other purposes, which is my own theory. For example, the
