dead crocodile. The shooting had slackened.
I took Silano’s experimental paints from his pots and smeared some on my rolling pin. Then I ran it over the top part of the Rosetta Stone, coating the surface with paint but leaving the incised symbols paint-free. I did the same to the Greek.
“Strip to the waist, please.”
“Ethan!”
“I need your skin.”
“By the grace of Isis, men! Is that all you can think about at a time like . . .”
So I took her nightgown by the shoulders and tore, ripping it down her back as she shrieked. “Sorry. You’re smoother than me.” Then I kissed her, her rags held against her breasts, and backed her against the stone.
She twitched. “What are you doing?”
“Making you a library.” I pulled her off and looked. Not perfect, some symbols lost at the indent of her spine, but still, a mirror image had been painted there. I pressed her again against the Greek, some carrying down onto the top of her buttocks. It was oddly erotic, but t h e
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then women have quite lovely backs, and I did like the swell of the fabric draped on her hips. . . .
Back to work! While she stood there, too shocked to be angry yet, I attacked the monument, not to deface it but to truncate it. I had to aim for the middle of the hieroglyphics, hoping some savant wouldn’t curse me years later. One blow, two, three, and then the granite began to crack! I took final aim and swung with all my might, and the top quarter of the Rosetta Stone broke free, taking all of Thoth’s script and a portion of the hieroglyphics with it. The fragment crashed to the floor.
“Help me drag it.”
“Are you completely mad?”
“We have the key script on you. We’re going to destroy this piece.
We can’t move the whole stone, but we can get this into the armory.”
“And then?”
“Blow it up when we blow the wall. It will make the book worthless until we steal it back!”
The stone was heavy, but we managed to tug, shove, and scrape it across the entry room and into the armory on the far side. I wedged it against the gunpowder kegs, figuring it would help direct their blast against the wall.
Then I retreated, took a candle, and lit the train of powder. I glanced back. Astiza was crouched by the window, looking out. Men were shouting and running. The flames were growing brighter.
“Ethan!” she warned. Then the whole world erupted.
Fort Julian’s magazine went first, a thunderous explosion that shot flaming debris hundreds of feet into the sky. Even sheltered as we were inside, the concussion knocked us sprawling. A moment later there was a second boom from the armory and debris rained out from it, too. Bits of the Rosetta Stone flew like shrapnel. Astiza’s lovely torso would be the only record of Thoth. I touched her.
“The paint is already dry.” I smiled. “You’re a book, Astiza, the secret of life!”
“You’d better get this book a cover. I’m not running around Egypt naked.”
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I fetched an officer’s cloak. My tomahawk I had to leave in the dead crocodile. With my rifle we pushed through the wreckage of the armory. The mud fort wall had breached, and we climbed over its rubble to the streets of Rosetta. Down at the end of the lane some laundry hung by a donkey cart, not far from a corralled and very frightened donkey.
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Fleeing at the pace of a donkey cart is not the swiftest way to avoid one’s enemies, but it has the advantage of being so ridiculous as to be overlooked. Liberation of laundry allowed us to be more or less in Egyptian dress, my leg wound throbbing but tightly bound. My hope was that in the confusion caused by a rampaging crocodile, stampeding horses, and an exploding magazine, we might slip away. With any luck, the faith-less Silano might assume I was in the belly of his gigantic reptile, at least until someone thought to slit open its stomach. If not that, he’d assume we were trying to slip by the patrol boats on the Nile. My vague plan was to slip by the French into the Ottoman camp, go to Smith’s squadron offshore, and bargain from somewhere safe. If we’d lost the book, Silano had lost the ability to continue deciphering it.
The success of this scheme began to diminish as the sun rose and the day grew hotter. As we left the green flood plain of the Nile for the red desert toward Abukir, a grumble like thunder began to be heard, but in such a clear sky it was the thud of guns. A battle was underway, which meant unless the Turks won and the French broke, the entire Frankish army was in our way. It was July 25, 1799.
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“We can’t turn back,” Astiza said. “Silano would spot us.”
“And battles are confusing. Maybe a way will present itself.” We parked the donkey in the lee of a high sand dune and ascended to look out at the bay beyond. The panorama was heartbreaking.
Once more, the atrophy of Ottoman arms was apparent. There was nothing wrong with the courage of Mustafa’s men. What was lacking was firepower and tactical sense. The Turks waited like a paralyzed hare; the French bombarded and then attacked with their cavalry. We were spectators to a disaster, watching a headlong charge by Joachim Murat’s troopers not merely breach the first Ottoman line, but knife through the second and third
