The Barbary Pirates

“Oh.”

“And you, Cuvier, will accompany these men as a French patriot to provide this quartet with Gallic logic and purpose. You will be the expedition’s leader and purser. Unless you prefer disgrace, dismissal from the Institute, and loss of the education ministry?”

“I wish only to reclaim my honor, First Consul. We savants have a reputation, even if Gage does not. I apologize for associating with riffraff, but perhaps good can come of it.”

“And me?” I asked, not happy that no one was objecting to the “riffraff” description.

“According to Madame Marguerite, who is secretly in our employ, this Osiris fellow you ran over promised to take you to your lost love Astiza,” Fouche said. “He wanted to take you to Thira, too. The woman must be there, or at least you might find a clue to her whereabouts. Do this errand for France and we’ll send you on to the Egyptian lady. If not, you can go back to the United States to explain that your efforts to persuade us about Louisiana came to a complete failure and that our Caribbean army will soon occupy New Orleans. You will be banned from France, blamed for abject diplomatic failure in America, and forced to find a real job.”

I swallowed. The prospect of actual work does daunt me. “So all we have to do is go to Thira, talk to this Greek fellow, and poke about for an ancient weapon?”

“Find an ancient weapon. Or at least bring back word of it before Ottoman soldiers, foreign spies, pirates, rebels, bandits, or the Egyptian Rite get to it first. Consider it a holiday from normal duties, gentlemen. A boy’s adventure.”

Sleepless, gritty, sore, and frightened, we numbly assented. What choice did we have?

“But how are we to find this weapon?” Cuvier asked.

Fouche took out a small velvet bag. “Before our troops were forced out of the Ionian Islands, one of our officers made purchase of a relic, a ring, from a distressed noblewoman. She said it was forged late in the fifteenth century. It was oddly fortuitous; the man said the duchess was quite beautiful and quite enigmatic. Some contend the ring was made by Templars themselves. When my agents heard about it, I decided to acquire it. I think you’ll see why.”

The ring had a flattened section like a miniature seal, and we saw immediately that it bore the word “Thira.” In the background was a domed building with part of the dome missing, as if someone had taken a bite, like a crescent moon. In the foreground was what looked like a stone sarcophagus meant to bury the dead, with its lid open. A man in robes and a medieval cap appeared to be climbing into the coffin, as if it were a bath. Or perhaps he was climbing out.

“What does it mean?”

“No one knows,” the policeman said, “but it obviously refers to the island. Why would Templars forge this of such an obscure place? Thira is little more than a cinder. This Greek patriot you will meet may find this useful in helping you.”

“Perhaps that’s where the weapon is,” I said, studying the piece. “He’s climbing in to get it.” Compared with the medallion I’d carried in Egypt, this one seemed plain enough.

“Then you’re to do the same. Look at its reverse.”

I turned the ring to inspect the flattened part that would be against the skin. There was another dome, this one quite normal, and inside it the letter “A.”

“What does that mean?”

“We have no idea. Deciphering this object will keep you occupied on your trip to Thira. The essence, gentlemen, is speed. Go swiftly, go silently, and go ahead of any pursuit.”

“Pursuit?” I always hate that.

Cuvier rubbed his weary face. “At least we can study the volcano. Maybe we will be lucky enough to have it erupt.”

“Wouldn’t that be a treat,” I said drily.

“Good!” Napoleon said. “Now—who wants a shot at my swans?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Napoleon promised we could accomplish our mission in a month or two. And indeed, with Europe in peace and the roads mostly dry in high summer, we made our way overland from Paris to Venice in a mere two weeks, traveling south through France and then east across the new Cisalpine Republic that Napoleon had created after his victory at Marengo. I saw no evidence we were being followed. Of course our enemies, if they hadn’t given up, might guess exactly where we were going, given that Osiris, Marguerite, and Fouche all seemed more aware of what was going on than we were. Our quest was probably about as secret as a failure of contraception in the ninth month. On the other hand, perhaps we’d discouraged the Egyptian Rite or Fouche had delayed them, and the entire trip would be a holiday lark.

While my companions were less than happy at being drafted and blamed me for Bonaparte’s coercion, they were also excited about traveling at French government expense. Cuvier had been entrusted with our allowance, though like all pursers he was hard to persuade to spring for the nobler vintage of wine or choicer haunch of meat. “I have to account for your consumption at the end of all this,” he’d grumble, “and I’m damned if I know how to explain to the ministry why this wheel of cheese was necessary over that one—which is cheaper and a hundred grams heavier, as well.”

“I thought you French put food above art, or even love,” Smith said.

“But when it comes to expenditures, our accountants have the taste of the English.”

I didn’t complain. I was aware that I was riding in a coach, with no assignment but to get somewhere, when so many people were not. We’d pass long rows of peasants scything at dusk, or stable boys mucking out horse stalls with sunburned shoulders, or a maid parting a sea of chickens that closed up behind her as she left a trail of scattered grain. I thought how different, how safe and how dull, to be tied to one place and have one’s days dictated by the turn of the seasons. I’d walk to stretch in the evenings, eating a piece of fruit, and if I came upon a boy who seemed smart or a mademoiselle who was pretty, I might show them my longrifle and even help by shooting a crow out of a tree. They treated such a diversion like magic, and me like an exotic visitor from another world.

The savants were apprehensive but excited. They’d see a geologically dramatic island at the edge of the Ottoman Empire, dabble in political intrigue, and maybe make an archaeological discovery or two. Certainly our mission was more thrilling than academic meetings. The truth was that I still had some reputation as a hero, and the scholars hoped a little of my dash might rub off. I couldn’t blame them.

We settled into roles: I the not-entirely-trusted-yet-redoubtable guide, Cuvier our paymaster and skeptical supervisor, Smith the make-the-best-of-it dogged Englishman always ready to shoulder more than his share of luggage or responsibility, and Fulton our tinkerer, who proved fascinated by every waterwheel and canal lock. The inventor helped pass the time by sketching out schemes to improve the suspension of our coach, all of which the driver dismissed as impractical or too expensive.

We also discussed, from boredom, the need to rewrite the history of the world.

“What we know is that rocks have been laid down and worn away over eons,” Smith said. “But how? By catastrophe, like a volcano or great flood, or the patient erosion of wind and rain? And why all that fuss at all, before we humans even appeared in Creation? What was God’s point?” He picked up rocks at every way station, marked their type on his map of France—the stones all looked the same to me, but he told them apart like a drover picks out his cattle—and then tossed them out the coach window.

“We also know that there were many creatures alive on earth that no longer exist,” Cuvier said, “many of them gigantic. Did Creation start with more variety and greater grandeur that has since been thinned and shrunken by time? That seems a peculiar kind of progress. Are we the pinnacle of Creation, or its shrunken fruit? Or have animals actually changed from one kind into another, as suggested by Saint-Hilaire? I find his proposal ridiculous for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have no idea how such a mutation could occur.”

“He told me that odd idea in Egypt,” I put in, cradling my longrifle between my legs. It wasn’t just nervous habit; I’d been robbed on the stage before. “More interesting to me is the question of how civilization got started,