The Barbary Pirates

ever since the revolutionary mobs mistook them for French kings and knocked their tops off. It’s like a stone monument to the guillotine! The church itself, which the Jacobins designated a Temple of Reason, is in wretched disrepair. The Te Deum was the first time the bells had rung in ten years, and none of his generals could remember when to genuflect. Instead of kneeling, the rabble presented arms when they elevated the host at consecration. You could hardly hear the Latin for all the snickering, whispers, and clatter of sabers and bayonets.”

“The common people are happier the Church is back, which was Napoleon’s point.”

“Yes, the country is drifting to the old ways: faith, tyranny, and war. No wonder the mob has voted overwhelmingly to make him first consul for life! Fortunately, my kind of business thrives in every political climate. Be they royalist or revolutionary, cleric or marshal, they all like to tumble.” She raised a flute of champagne. “To desire!”

“And discipline.” I took a swallow, eyeing the girls wistfully. The savants seemed to be chatting away as if this were the Institute—trollops can pretend fascination with anything, it seems, even science—and the air was heady with hashish and the aroma of spirits. “I tell you, it feels good to abstain,” I continued doggedly. “I’m going to write a book.”

“Nonsense. Every man needs vice.”

“I’ve sworn off gambling, too.”

“But surely there is something you would wager for,” a male voice interrupted.

CHAPTER THREE

I turned. A swarthy, hawk-nosed man in the getup of a sultan had entered the antechamber. His eyes were predatory and his lips thin as a lizard’s, giving him the reptilian guise of an inquisitor, or one of my creditors. His turban was decorated with an ostrich feather of the kind the soldiers had collected in Egypt, by shooting the dim-witted beasts that ran wild there. He didn’t really look Arab, however, but French. We all like to pretend.

“May I present Osiris, god of the underworld,” Isis/Marguerite introduced. “He’s a student of Egypt like you.”

The man bowed. “Of course I haven’t found treasures like the famed Ethan Gage.”

“Lost everything, I’m afraid.” People always hope I’m rich, in case I might share. I disabuse them as quickly as I can.

“And left Egypt before the campaign was over, did you not?”

“As did Napoleon. I’m American, not French, and I control my own life.” This wasn’t quite true, either—who does control his life?—but I didn’t want it implied I’d scuttled.

“And would you care to wager that life?”

“Hardly. I’ve been telling the Queen of Arabia here that I’ve reformed.”

“But every man can be tempted, which is the lesson of the Palais Royal, is it not? All have something they long for. None are completely guiltless. Which is why we congregate, and never judge! We may admire the righteous, but we don’t really like them, or entirely trust them, either. The most pious are crucified! If you want good friends, be imperfect, no?”

My companions, I realized, had been led by their consorts out of sight. The savants were either bolder or drunker than I thought. Which meant that I was suddenly quite alone. “Nobody’s more imperfect than me,” I said. “And just who are you, Osiris? Do you procure?”

“I assist, and learn. Which is how I can offer a wager to tell you what you want to know, and you don’t have to bet a sou to win it.”

“What do you think I want to know?”

“Where the priestess is, of course.”

Astiza was a priestess of sorts, a student of ancient religion. I felt a jolt of memory.

“She still touches your heart, I think. Men call you vain and shallow, Ethan Gage, but there’s spark and loyalty in there as well, I’m guessing.”

“How do you know about Astiza?” I was aware that with the absence of my companions, two new men had materialized in the shadows, bulky as armoires. They now guarded the brothel door. And where was Marguerite?

“It’s my fraternity’s business to know what men wish to know.” And he drew from his robe that symbol I’d encountered before on the neck of my enemy in North America: a golden pyramid entwined with the snake-god Apophis hanging from a chain: the crest of arms, of sorts, of my old nemesis the Egyptian Rite. The last time I got entangled with this bunch it was for torture at an Indian village, and I automatically stiffened and wished for my longrifle, which of course I’d left at home. This Osiris seemed snakelike himself, and I felt dizzy in the smoky musk of the room. It smelled of hashish.

“You’re part of the Rite?” The Egyptian Rite was a renegade group of corrupt Freemasonry founded a generation before by the charlatan Cagliostro, and which had been plaguing me since I won a medallion in a Paris card game four years before. I’d hoped I was done with them, but they were persistent as taxes.

“I’m part of a group of like-minded people. Pay no attention to rumor. We’re reformers, like you.”

“Can I see the emblem?”

He handed it to me. This one was heavy, perhaps solid gold. “Try wearing it, if you like. I think it conveys a sense of power and confidence. There’s magic in what one puts on.”

“Not my style.” I hefted it, considering.

“I respect your pledge against gambling, Monsieur Gage. How inspiring to encounter reform! But please don’t be alarmed by this symbol. I’m offering alliance, not enmity. So I propose a simple riddle, a child’s puzzle. If you answer it correctly, I will take you to Astiza. But if you answer it incorrectly, your life will be mine, to do as I say.”

“What does that mean? Are you the devil?”

“Come, Monsieur Gage, you have a reputation as a master of electricity, a savant. Surely a child’s game doesn’t daunt you?”

Daunt me? I was holding in my hand a symbol of what, as far as I knew, was a cabal of snake worshippers, sorcerers, perverts, and conspirators. “And what do you risk?”

“The priceless information I hold. After all, you’ve staked no money.”

“Nor have you! So if you want to play riddles, we both must play. Your purpose against my life, Osiris.” That should give him pause. “If I win my riddle and you lose mine, you must not only send me to Astiza but explain once and for all the business of your odd Rite. What are you eccentrics really after?” I’d remembered a puzzle Franklin had told me once, and decided to try it on him.

He considered, and shrugged. “Very well. I never lose.” He held up a minute glass.

My blood was up. “Start the sand, then.”

“My riddle first. Two condemned men are at the bottom of a sheer pit that can’t be climbed, and are scheduled for execution at dawn. If they could reach the lip of the pit they could escape, but even with one standing on the other’s shoulders, they cannot reach that high. They have a shovel to tunnel, but to dig far enough will take days, not hours. How can they escape?” He turned the timer.

I watched its hiss of grains and tried to think. What would old Ben have advised? He was a font of aphorisms, half of them annoying. Buy what you have no need of and soon you will have to sell your necessaries. True enough, but what fun is money if not to squander?

Confinement? They that can give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither. That was no help either. The sand was piling up at the bottom of the glass and Osiris, or whatever his name really was, was regarding me with amusement. We get old too soon and wise too late. Well, that certainly applied to me. Sand, sand, draining down…

But that was it! Sand! “They tunnel,” I announced, “but only to obtain sand to pile on one side of the pit. When it is high enough, they stand on it to reach the well’s lip.”