“A book?” He was disappointed. “I thought you said it was treasure.
I’ve spent the winter making a rifle for a book?”
“Books have power, Jericho. Look at the Bible or the Koran. And this book is different, it’s a book of wisdom, power and . . . magic.”
“Magic.” His expression was flat.
“You don’t have to believe me. All I know is that people have shot at me, thrown snakes in my bed, and chased me on camels and boats to get this book—or rather a medallion I had that was a clue to where the book was kept. It turned out the medallion was a key to a secret door in the Great Pyramid, which Astiza and I entered. We found an underground lake heaped with treasure, a marble pavilion, and a golden repository for this book.”
“So you already have the treasure?”
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“No. The only way to escape the pyramid was to swim through a tunnel. The weight of the gold and jewels threatened to drown me.
I lost it all. The Jews might have hidden a different treasure here in Jerusalem.”
He had the same skeptical look I used to get from Madame Durrell in Paris when I explained the lateness of my rent. “And the book?”
“The repository was empty. All that was left was a shepherd’s crook lying next to it. Astiza convinced me that the crook had been carried by the man who stole the book, and that that man must have been . . .” I hesitated, knowing what this all must sound like.
“Who?”
“Moses.”
For a moment he simply blinked, in consternation. Then he laughed, a scornful bark. “So! I have been hosting a madman! Does Sidney Smith know you are insane?”
“I haven’t told him all this, and wouldn’t tell
“A book Moses stole.”
“Is it that impossible? An Egyptian prince kills an overseer in a fit of rage, flees the country, and then comes back after conversations with a burning bush to free the Hebrew slaves. All this you believe, correct? Yet suddenly Moses has the power to call down plagues, part the waters, and keep the Israelites fed in the wilderness of Sinai. Most men call it a simple miracle, a gift from God, but what if he discovered instructions to tell him how to do so? This is what Astiza believed.
As a prince, he knew how to get in and out of the pyramid, which was but a decoy and a marker to protect the book from the unworthy. Moses takes it, and when Pharaoh discovers it gone, he pursues Moses and the Hebrew slaves with six hundred chariots, only to be swallowed by the Red Sea. Later, this tribe of ex-slaves enters the Promised Land and proceeds to conquer it from its civilized, estab-lished inhabitants. How? By an ark with mysterious powers or a book of ancient wisdom? I know it sounds improbable, and yet the French 6 0
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believe it too. Otherwise, these men wouldn’t have seized your sister.
This is a crisis as real as the bruises on her arms and shoulders.” The blacksmith looked at me, drumming his fingers. “You
It was the fact that these kneeling angels, their wings outstretched toward each other, were a tiny model of the ones that had once decorated the top of the Ark of the Covenant. This wasn’t a cheap trick I could have had made up in an artisan’s shop. The workmanship was too good, and the gold too heavy.
“One old man I met called these a compass,” I went on. “I don’t know what he meant. I don’t know how much any of this is true. I’ve been operating on science, faith, and speculation since I fled Paris a year ago. But the pyramids seem to encode sophisticated mathematics that no primitive people would know. And where did civilization come from? In Egypt, it seemed to spring wholly formed. The legend is that human knowledge of architecture, writing, medicine, and astronomy came from a being called Thoth, who became an Egyptian god, predecessor of the Greek god Hermes. Thoth supposedly wrote a book of wisdom, a book so powerful that it could be used for evil as well as good. The Egyptian pharaohs, realizing its potency, safeguarded it under the Great Pyramid. But if Moses stole it, the book may have—must have—been brought here by the Jews.”
“Moses didn’t even get to the Promised Land,” objected Miriam.
“He died on Mount Nebo, looking across the river Jordan. He was not allowed by God to enter.”
“But his successors came, with the ark. What if this book was part of the ark, or supplemented it? What if it was secreted under Solomon’s Temple? And what if it survived the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians and the Second Temple by Titus and the Romans? What if it’s still here, waiting to be rediscovered? And what if it is found first by Bonaparte, who dreams of being another Alexander? Or by the followers of Count Alessandro t h e
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Silano, who dream of enriching themselves and their corrupt Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry? What if Silano survived his fall from my balloon, even if Astiza did not? This book could tip the balance of power. It must be found and safeguarded or, if worse comes to worst, destroyed. All I’m saying is we have to look in every likely place before those French do.”
“You live in my house, and work at my forge, and not until now do you tell me this?” Jericho was annoyed, and
