fools, he did enjoy the stimulation of argument. ‘True enough, American. True enough. Will and luck. In one day I went from a cheap Parisian hotel, in debt for my uniform, to having my own house, coach, and team. In one day of fortune!’ He addressed the others. ‘Do you know what happened to Josephine? She was imprisoned too, destined for the guillotine. In the morning the jailer took her pillow away, saying she wouldn’t need it because by nightfall she wouldn’t have a head! Yet just hours later word came that Robespierre was dead, assassinated, that the Terror had ended, and that instead of being executed, she was free. Choice and destiny: What a game we play!’
‘Destiny seems to have trapped us in Egypt,’ a half-drunken Kleber said. ‘And war is not a game.’
‘On the contrary, Kleber, it is the ultimate game, with death or glory the stakes. Refuse to play and you only guarantee defeat. Right, Gage?’
‘Not every game must be played, General.’ How strange this man was, who mixed political clarity with emotional restlessness, and the grandest dreams with the meanest cynicism, daring us to call him on it. A game? Is that what he’d say to the dead?
‘No? Life itself is war, and all of us are defeated in the end, by death. So we do what we can to make ourselves immortal. The pharaoh chose that pyramid. I choose… fame.’
‘And some men choose home and family,’ Astiza said quietly. ‘They live through their children.’
‘Yes, that’s enough for them. But not for me, or the men who follow me. We want the immortality of history.’ Bonaparte took a swallow of wine. ‘What a philosopher you’ve made me at this meal! Consider your woman, there, Gage. Fortune is a woman. Grasp her today, or you will not have her tomorrow.’ He smiled dangerously, his grey eyes dancing. ‘A beautiful woman,’ he told his companions, ‘who tried to shoot me.’
‘It turns out, General, that she was trying to shoot me. ’
He laughed. ‘And now you’re a pair! But of course! Fortune also turns enemies into allies, and strangers into confidants!’ Then he abruptly sobered. ‘But I’ll not have you running around the desert in Egyptian dress until this matter with Silano is sorted out. I don’t understand what’s going on between you and the count, but I don’t like it. It’s important we all stay on the same side. We’re discussing the next stage of our invasion, the conquest of Syria.’
‘Syria? But Desaix is still pursuing Murad Bey in Upper Egypt.’
‘Mere skirmishing. We have the means to push north and east as well. The world awaits me, even if the Egyptians can’t seem to grasp how I could remake their lives.’ His smile was tight, his disappointment obvious. His promise of Western technology and government had not won the population over. The reformer I’d seen in the great cabin of L’Orient was changing, his dreams of enlightenment dashed by the seeming obtuseness of the people he’d come to save. Napoleon’s last innocence had evaporated in the desert heat. He waved aside a fly. ‘Meanwhile, I want this pyramid mystery resolved.’
‘Which I can best do without the count’s interference, General.’
‘Which you will do with the count’s cooperation. Right, Monge?’
The mathematician looked puzzled. ‘I suppose it depends on what Monsieur Gage thinks he has figured out.’
And then there was a rumble, like distant thunder.
We turned toward Cairo, its minarets lacy across the Nile. Then another echo, and another. It was the report of cannon.
‘What’s that?’ Napoleon asked no one in particular.
A column of smoke began rising into the clear sky. The gunfire went on, a low mutter, and then more smoke appeared. ‘Something’s happening in the city,’ Kleber said.
‘Obviously.’ Bonaparte turned to his aides. ‘Get this mess packed away. Where’s my horse?’
‘I think it may be an uprising,’ Kleber added uneasily. ‘There’s been street rumour, and mullahs calling from their towers. We didn’t take it seriously.’
‘No. The Egyptians have not taken me seriously.’
The little party had lost all focus on me. Camels lurched upright, horses whinnied in excitement, and men ran to their mounts. As sabres were pulled from the sand, the awnings began to droop. The Egyptians were rising in Cairo.
‘What about him?’ the aide-de-camp said, pointing at me.
‘Leave him for now,’ Bonaparte said. ‘Monge! You and the savants take Gage and the girl with you. Get back to the institute, close the doors, and let no one in. I’ll send a company of infantry to protect you. The rest of you, follow me!’ And he set off on a gallop across the sands toward the boats that had transported them across the river.
As the soldiers and servants hurriedly packed away the last awnings and tables, Astiza quietly kept a candle. Then they scurried off too, following the trail of officers. In minutes we were left alone with Monge, except for the footprints of the vanished banquet. A whirlwind had passed, once more leaving us all breathless.
‘My dear Ethan,’ Monge finally said as we watched the exodus toward the Nile, ‘you do have a way of arriving with trouble.’
‘I’ve been trying since Paris to stay out of it, Dr Monge, with little success.’ The sound of revolt was an unmelodic rattle echoing across the river.
‘Come, then. We scientists will keep our heads down during this latest emergency.’
‘I can’t go back to Cairo with you, Gaspard. My business is with this pyramid. Look, I’ve got the medallion and am on the brink of understanding, I think.’ At my gesture, Astiza brought out the pendant. Monge started at the new design and its seeming Masonic symbolism.
‘As you can see,’ I went on, ‘we’ve found another piece. This trinket is a kind of map, I think, to hidden places in the Great Pyramid, the one you said embodied pi. The key is this triangle of scratches on the central disc. In a tomb to the south I realised they must represent Egyptian numbers. I think they’re a mathematical clue, but of what?’
‘Scratches? Let me see it again.’ He took the piece from Astiza and studied it under a hand lens.
‘Imagine each bunch of scratches as a digit,’ I said.
He counted silently as his lips moved, then looked surprised. ‘But of course! Why didn’t I see this before? Now this is an odd pattern, but appropriate given where we are. Oh dear, what a disappointment.’ He looked at me with pity, and my heart began to sink. ‘Gage, have you ever heard of Pascal’s triangle?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Named for Blaise Pascal, who wrote a treatise on this particular progression of numbers just one hundred and fifty years ago. He said many wise things, not the least of which was the more he’d seen of men, the better he liked his dog. See, it’s a pyramidal kind of progression.’ Borrowing a dragoon’s sabre, he began scratching in the sand and drew a number pattern that looked like this:
1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
‘There! You see the pattern?’
I must have looked like a goat trying to read Thucydides. Groaning inwardly, I remembered Jomard and his Fibonacci numbers.
‘Except for the ones,’ Monge said patiently, ‘you’ll notice that every number is the sum of the two numbers to each side above it. See that first 2? Above it are two 1s. And the 3 there: above it are a 1 and a 2. The 6? Above it are two 3s. That’s Pascal’s triangle. That’s just the beginning of the patterns you can detect, but the point is that the triangle can be extended downward indefinitely. Now, look at the scratches on your medallion.’
I
I I
I II I
I III III I
‘It’s the start of the same triangle!’ I exclaimed. ‘But what does that mean?’
Monge passed the medallion back. ‘It means the pendant can’t possibly be ancient Egyptian. I’m sorry, Ethan,
