We climbed as desperately as the damned. I could hear the mob below scream in frustration as they battered the statue blocking our escape route. More guns went off, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly on the lower stairs. Alarms were called, no doubt alerting compatriots on the Temple Mount above of our imminent emergence. We came to an iron grate that locked us in. Tentwhistle blew its lock apart with his pistol and slammed it aside. It rang like a gong. I used the pause to reload my own rifle. We emerged atop the Temple Mount in the El-Aqsa Mosque. I noticed how it had been modified by the t h e
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Crusaders, its line of arches and high windows giving the cavernous space an architectural cross between an Arabic palace and a European church. As Farhi had guessed, the stairway of the White Madonna must have been built to allow secret access from the main Templar headquarters to the chambers and tunnels below.
We ran to the mosque’s door. The vast temple platform, dimly lit by a predawn sky, was swarming with hundreds of crudely armed Muslims, like so many bees in a hive that’s been disturbed. I could see the blue tile and golden crown of the serene Dome of the Rock beyond, its door boiling as men ran in and out in consternation. The mob was chanting, shouting alarms, and waving cudgels. Thankfully there were few janissaries and few guns. Finally some of them saw us, and with a great shout they turned as if one and began to charge.
“What a bollocks you make of things,” Ned said to me.
So I took aim.
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El-Aqsa Mosque is illuminated at night by enormous hanging brass lamps that can be lowered from white cotton ropes for lighting. One of these lamps—with several dozen individual flames on metalwork ten feet wide, its grillwork weighing well over a ton—
hung above the main door of the mosque. As the mob surged through, I sighted through my rifle-mounted spyglass, put the rope and its hook on the ornate ceiling in my crosshairs, and fired.
My shot shredded the rope and the lamp came down like a guillotine, landing with a great crash as it buried the head of the mob and scattered the rest. Our pursuers momentarily recoiled, looking warily upward. It was enough to give our crew of filthy, bleeding troglo-dytes the precious seconds necessary to retreat toward the back of the mosque.
“They have the sacred relics of Muhammad!” I heard the mob cry.
And I suddenly wondered if the Prophet’s midnight journey to Jerusalem and his ascension to heaven was just a myth, or if he too had truly been here once, seeking and perhaps finding wisdom. Had he, 9 6
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too, heard of the Book of Thoth? What had Jesus learned in Egypt, or Buddha in his wanderings? Were all the faiths, myths, and stories an endless interweaving and embroidery of ancient texts, wisdom built on wisdom, and mystery concealed by yet more mystery? Heresy—but here at the religious center of the world, I couldn’t help but wonder.
We raced over worn red carpets that covered the flagstones of the mosque and into the small anterooms beyond the great hall, dreading a dead-end that would trap us. But at the point where the El-Aqsa and the Temple Mount joined the city’s periphery wall there was another locked door. Big Ned ran at it full tilt and this time smashed it open, the torn splinters like fresh wounds in old wood. We looked out. The wall led off the southern end of the Temple Mount at a downward slope, to enclose Jerusalem. At a tower it turned westward, encompassing the city below.
“If we get into the maze of streets we can lose them,” Farhi gasped.
He, Miriam, and the injured Little Tom began trotting along the rampart toward the steps that led downward at the Dung Gate, staggering with exhaustion, while Tentwhistle and I reloaded on the rampart and Ned and Jericho stood ready with swords. When our first pursuers filled the doorway we’d just exited, we fired. Then our swordsmen charged into the smoke, swinging. There were howls, retreat, and Ned trotted back, speckled with blood.
“They’re thinking now,” he said with a toothy grin.
Jericho looked sickened, his blade wet. “This is evil you’ve brought,” he told the sailor.
“If I remember, blacksmith, it’s been you and your doxy sister leading the way.”
And we retreated yet again.
If the mob had been better armed, we would have been dead.
But we ran a gauntlet of only a few shots, bullets passing with that peculiar hot sizzle that paralyze if you stop to think about it. Then we were down the stairs of the wall and onto a Jerusalem street, the Dung Gate bolted shut by a squad of janissaries, scimitars ready so we couldn’t run outside. Above us, the battlements were crammed with screaming Muslims racing for the stairs.
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“Into the Jewish Quarter!” urged Farhi. “It’s our only chance!” Now there were calls of alarm from the minarets, and Christian bells were ringing. We’d roused the entire city. Shouting people streamed into the streets. Dogs were howling, sheep bleating. A terrified goat galloped past us, going the other way. Farhi, panting, led us uphill toward the Ramban Synagogue and Jaffa Gate, the Muslim mob behind lit by torches in a snake of fire. Even if I could find time to load again, my single shot would be no deterrent to the anger we’d aroused by trespassing under the Dome of the Rock. Unless we got help, we were doomed.
“They want to burn the Ramban and Yochanan ben Zakkai synagogues!” Farhi shouted to the anxious Jews as they poured into the streets. “Get Christian allies! The Muslims are rioting!”
“The synagogues! Save our holy temples!” And with that, we had a shield. Jews ran to block the mob surging
