And then strong hands were grabbing me and I was dragged, wheezing, over the crenellation and onto the Acre battlements, half drowned, scraped, burned, cut, bruised, heartsick at the love and companions I had lost, and yet miraculously unpunctured. I had the lives, and bedraggled look, of an alley cat.
I sprawled, chest heaving, unable to stand. People clustered around: Jericho, Djezzar, Smith, Phelipeaux.
“Bloody hell, Ethan,” Smith said in greeting. “Whose side are you on now?”
But I looked beyond them to the one who had instinctively caught my eye, hair golden, eyes wide and stunned, dress smeared with smoke and powder.
t h e
r o s e t t a k e y
2 4 7
“Hello, Miriam,” I croaked.
And then the French guns really started up.
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In my experience, it’s when you need to collect thoughts most carefully that there are the greatest distractions. In this case it was a hundred French artillery pieces, venting frustration at my survival. I stood and looked out shakily. There was a lot of activity in Napoleon’s encampments, units forming and moving to the trenches. I had, it seemed, something Bonaparte wanted back. Badly.
The wall was trembling under our feet.
Miriam was looking at me with an expression that was a cross between shock and relief, with a rising tide of indignation, a tributary of confusion, a reservoir of compassion, and more than a pitcher of suspicion. “You left with no word?” she finally managed.
It sounded worse the way she put it. “It was difficult to explain why.”
“What was the Christian running from?” Djezzar wanted to know.
“It appears to be the entire French army,” Phelipeaux observed mildly. “Monsieur Gage, they do not appear to like you very much.
And we were thinking of shooting you as well, for desertion and treachery. Do you have any friends at all?”
“It’s that woman, isn’t it?” Miriam had developed a way of getting to the point. “She’s alive, and you went to her.” I looked back. Was Astiza alive? I’d just seen my Muslim friend killed by my own gun, and Astiza turn back toward that villain Silano.
“I had to get something before Napoleon did,” I told them.
“And did you?” Smith asked.
I pointed at the massing troops. “He thinks so, and he’s coming to get it.” Realizing an attack might be imminent, our garrison’s leaders began shouting orders, bugles sounding over the din of cannon.
I addressed Miriam. “The French sent me a sign that she might be alive. I had to find out, but I didn’t know what to say to you—not after our night together. And she
w i l l i a m d i e t r i c h
“Did I mean
“Of course! I fell in love with you! It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I never fell out of love with her.”
“Damn you.”
It was the first profanity I’d ever heard Miriam use, and it shocked me more than a tirade of abuse from someone like Djezzar. I was searching for a way to explain, making clear that higher causes were at stake, but each time I started a sentence it sounded hollow and self-serving, even to me. Emotion had carried us away that night after the defense of the tower, but then fate and a ruby ring had drawn me off in a way I didn’t anticipate. Where was the wrong? Moreover, I had a golden cylinder of incalculable value tucked in my shirt. But none of this was easy to put when the French army was coming.
“Miriam, it was always about more than just us. You know that.”
“No. Decisions hurt people. It’s as simple as that.”
“Well, I’ve lost Astiza again.”
“And me too.”
But I could win her back, couldn’t I? Yes, men are dogs, but women take a certain feline satisfaction in flogging us with words and tears.
There is love and cruelty on both sides, is there not? So I’d take her scorn and fight the battle and then, if we survived, plot a strategy to paper over the past and get her back.
Grateful to have to face only Napoleon’s divisions instead of Miriam’s hurt, I climbed with the others to the top of the great tower. The plain had come alive. Every trench was a caterpillar of hurrying men, their advance fogged by the gun smoke of the furious cannonade.
