The Rosetta Key (31 page)

“We can trade away the book if we have to.”

“Then what in Lucifer’s privy did we come here for?”

Suddenly she appeared from around the bend, hugging the rock to minimize her chance of being seen, face pale, ringlets of dark hair in her eyes, breathless from having run. I rushed back to her.

“What took you so long?”

“They were so excited they couldn’t sleep. I was the first to go to bed, and it was agony, waiting all night for them to quiet. Then I had to crawl in the canyon wadi past a sleepy guard, for a hundred yards or more.” Her dress was filthy. “I think they’ve already noticed me gone.”

“Can you run?”

“If you don’t have it, I don’t want to.” Her eyes were bright, asking.

“I found it.”

She gripped my arms, her grin like a child’s waiting for a present. She’d dreamed of the book far longer than I had. I pulled the cylinder out. She sucked in her breath.

“Feel its weight.”

Her fingers explored it like a blind man’s. “Is it really in here?”

“Yes. But I can’t read it.”

“For Allah’s sake, effendi, we must
go
,” Mohammad called.

I ignored him, twisted the cylinder open, and unrolled part of the scroll. Once again I was struck by how alien the characters appeared. She held the book with both hands, bewildered, but reluctant to give it back. “Where was it?”

“Deep in a Templar tomb. I gambled there was a twist to their clues, and they required seekers to use pyramid mathematics to prove their knowledge.”

“This will change the world, Ethan.”

“For good, I hope. Things can’t get much worse, from my perspective.”

“Guv’nor!” Ned’s shout broke us from our mutual trance. He had his hand to his ear, pointing. It was the echo of a gunshot.

I grabbed the book from her, twisted the cylinder shut, thrust it back in my shirt, and ran to where the sailor was looking. Sunlight was beginning to flood down the face of the temple, turning the cliff and carvings a brilliant rose. But Ned was pointing back the way we had come, toward Silano’s camp. A mirror was winking as it tilted.

“They’re signaling somebody.” He pointed to the sandstone plateau the entry canyon cut in two. “Some devil on top there, ready to roll a rock.”

“Silano’s men are coming, effendi!”

“So we have to get those tethered horses away from the Arabs at the entrance. Are you up to it, hearties?” It seemed the sort of rallying cry Nelson or Smith might use.

“Home to England!” Ned shouted.

So we ran, swallowed in an instant by the tight entry canyon and absolutely blinded by its many curves. Our footsteps echoed as we charged uphill. Ned’s arms pumped with his club. Astiza’s hair flew out behind her.

There were shouts far above, and then bangs. We glanced up. A rock the size of a powder keg was ricocheting between the narrow walls as it came down, pieces flying off like grapeshot.

“Faster!” We sprinted, getting beyond the missile before it hit the canyon floor with a crash. Arabic was being shouted on the rim above.

On we jogged. Now there was a roar, and a flash of light. The bastards had rigged the whole canyon! Silano must have guessed we might outfox him and that he’d want to block our escape. An avalanche or rock blasted out by gunpowder sluiced down, and this time I pulled my companions back, all of us ducking under an overhang. The avalanche thundered down, shaking the canyon floor, and then we were running again through its concealing cloud of dust, clambering over the rubble.

Bullets whined, to no effect since we were invisible.

“Hurry! Before they set off another charge!” There was another explosion, and another deluge of rock, but this time it came down behind us where it would slow the pursuing Silano. We were more than halfway through this snake hole, I judged, and if all the Arabs were on top setting off gunpowder, there wouldn’t be any left to guard the horses. Once mounted, we’d stampede the remainder and…

Panting, we rounded another bend in the canyon and saw our way blocked by a wagon. It was a caged contraption of the type I’d seen to transport slaves, and I guessed it was the one we’d seen shrouded near camp that the horses had shied from. There was a lone Arab by it, sighting at us with a musket.

“I’ll handle this,” Ned growled, hefting his club.

“Ned, don’t give him an easy shot!”

Yet even as the sailor charged, there was a whistle in the air and a stone flicked by our ears with nearly the speed of a bullet, striking the Arab in the forehead just as he fired. The musket went off but the ball went wide. I looked back. Mohammad had removed his turban and used its cloth as a makeshift sling. “As a boy, I had to keep the dogs and jackals from the sheep,” he explained.

We raced to tackle the dazed Arab and get past the wagon, Ned in the lead, Astiza next. Yet as the man groggily slid down, he released a lever and the back of the cage dropped with a bang. Something shadowy and huge rose and bunched.

“Ned!” I shouted.

The thing sprang as if launched by a catapult instead of its own hind haunches. I had a terrifying glimpse of brown mane, white teeth, and the intimate pink of its mouth. Astiza screamed. Ned and the lion roared in unison and collided, the club whacking down even as the predator’s jaws crunched on his left forearm.

The sailor howled in agony and rage, but I could also hear the crack of the lion’s ribs as the pine club smashed into its side, again and again, the velocity so powerful that it shoved the animal onto its side, taking Ned’s arm, and him, with it. The two rolled, the human shouting and the cat snarling, a blur of fur and dust. The sailor reared up and the club struck again and again even as he was raked by the claws. His clothes were being shredded, his flesh opened up. I was sickened.

I had out my tomahawk, puny as a teaspoon, but before I could think things through and turn tail like a sensible man, I charged too.

“Ethan!” I heard Astiza only dimly.

Another stone from Mohammad sung by me and struck the cat, making its head whip, and the distraction was timed so exquisitely that I was able to dash into the melee and take a swipe at the lion’s head. I connected with the brow of one eye and the cat let go Ned’s arm and roared with pain and fury, its tail lashing and its hindquarters churning in the dirt. Now Astiza was charging too, a heavy rock held high over her head, and she heaved like an athlete so it came right down into the beast’s bloody vision, crashing against its snout.

Our wild assault bewildered it. Against all expectation, the lion broke and ran, vaulting past the wagon cage that had brought it here. It raced up the canyon and then charged, I now saw, more of Najac’s Arabs coming up to contest our way. Screaming at this reversal of their secret weapon, they turned and fled. The bloodied lion took one of them down, pausing to snap the man’s neck, and then set off after the others and the freedom of the hills beyond.

The horses were screaming in terror.

We were in shock, hearts racing. My tomahawk’s edge was stuck with blood and fur. Astiza was bent over, chest heaving. Astonishingly, all but Ned were unscathed. I could still smell the cat stink, that rank odor of piss, meat, and blood, and my voice was quavering as I knelt beside the giant sailor. His charge into the lion’s jaws was the bravest thing I’d ever seen.

“Ned, Ned! We’ve got to keep going!” I was wheezing. “Silano’s still coming, but I think the lion cleared the canyon for us.”

“Afraid not, guv’nor.” He spoke with difficulty, his jaw clenched. He was bleeding like a man flogged. He glowed with vivid blood. Mohammad was wrapping his turban cloth around the giant’s mangled forearm, but it was pointless. It looked like it had been shredded by a machine. “You’ll have to go on without me.”

“We’ll carry you!”

He laughed, or rather gasped, a sneezelike chortle between clenched lips, his eyes wide at the knowledge of his own fate. “Bloody likely.”

We reached to lift him anyway, but he shrieked with pain and shoved us aside. “Leave me, we all know I’m not making it back to England!” He groaned, tears staining his cheeks. “He scraped me ribs raw, the leg feels like it’s sprained or broken, and I weigh more than King George and his tub. Run, run like the wind, so it’s worthwhile.” His knuckles were white where he grasped the club.

“Ned, I’ll be damned if I leave you! Not after all this!”

“And you’ll be dead if you don’t, and your treasure book in the hands of that mad count and his lunatic bullyboy. By Lucifer, make my life mean something by
living
! I can crawl back to that rubble heap and catch ’em when they’re coming across.”

“They’ll shoot you down!”

“It will be a mercy, guv’nor. It will be a mercy.” He grimaced.

“Had a feeling I wouldn’t see England if I went with you. But you’re a damned interesting companion, Ethan Gage. More than just a Yankee card sharp, you are.”

Why do our worst enemies sometimes become our best friends? “Ned…”

“Run, damn your eyes! Run, and if you find me mums, give her a bit of that gold.” And, shaking us off, he rose doggedly, first to his knees and then his feet, weaving, and began staggering back the way we came, his side a sheet of blood. “Christ, I’m thirsty.”

I was transfixed, but Mohammad hauled at me. “Effendi, we must go. Now!”

So we ran. I’m not proud of it, but if we stayed to fight Silano’s armed Frenchmen we’d lose for sure, and for what? So we hurtled past the Arab slumped at the wagon, leapt the one chewed by the lion, and on and on up the sloping canyon, our chests heaving, half expecting the maddened cat to leap out at us at every turn. But the lion was gone. As we came to the mouth of the canyon we heard the echo of shouts and then shots behind. There was screaming, a roaring scream a big man might make when subjected to unbearable pain. Ned was still buying us time, but with agony.

The horses were tethered where we’d left them the day before, but they were stamping with shrill neighs, eyes rolling. We saddled the three best, seized the line rope of the others, and began galloping back the way we’d come. There was more gunfire, but we were well out of range.

As we climbed to the highland plateau we looked back. Silano’s group had emerged from the canyon and were following in dogged pursuit, but they were on foot. The gap was growing. We couldn’t handle the extra horses, so except for three remounts we let the other horses go. It would take our pursuers time to recapture them.

Then, weeping and utterly drained, we set off north for Acre.

A
t sunset we reached the Crusader castle where we’d camped before. I suppose we should have ridden farther, but after losing a night’s sleep retrieving the book and fleeing through the canyons, Mohammad and I were reeling in our saddles. Astiza was little better. I’m a gambler, and I gambled Silano and Najac wouldn’t retrieve their horses anytime soon. So we stopped, the castle stones briefly orange as the sun sank, and ate meager rations of bread and dates we found in the saddlebags. We dared not light a fire.

“You two sleep first,” Mohammad said. “I’ll keep watch. Even if the French and Arabs are stranded on foot, there are still bandits around here.”

“You’re as exhausted as us, Mohammad.”

“Which is why you must relieve me in a few hours. That corner has grass for a bed and the stone will still be warm from the sun. I’ll be up in the broken tower.”

He disappeared, still my guide and guardian.

“He’s leaving us alone on purpose,” Astiza said.

“Yes.”

“Come. I’m shivering.”

The grass was still green and soft this time of year. A lizard skittered away into its hole when evening pulled down its shadow. We lay together in the wedge of warm stone, our first opportunity to be truly close since she’d slapped me in front of Silano. Astiza snuggled for warmth and comfort. She
was
shaking, her cheeks wet.

“Always it is so
hard
.”

“Ned wasn’t a bad sort. I led him to disaster.”

“It was Najac who put the lion there, not you.”

And I who took Ned along, and Astiza who carried the ring. I suddenly remembered it and brought it out from her little purse. “You kept this even after saying it was cursed.”

“It was all I had of you, Ethan. I meant to offer it back.”

“Did the gods have a purpose, letting us find it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She clung even tighter.

“Maybe it’s good luck. After all, we have the book. We’re together again.”

She looked at me in amazement. “Hunted, unable to read it, a companion dead.” She held out her hand. “Give it.”

When I did she sat up and hurled it to the far corner of the ruined courtyard. I could hear it clink. A ruby, big enough to set a man for life, was gone. “The book is enough. No more, no more.” And then she bent back down, eyes fierce, and kissed me, with electric fire.

Someday, perhaps, we’ll have a proper bed, but just as in Egypt we had to seize the time and place given. It was an urgent, fumbling, half-clothed affair, our desire not so much for each other’s bodies as for reassuring union against a cold, treacherous, relentless world. We gasped as we coupled, straining like animals, Astiza giving out a small cry, and then we slumped together in almost immediate unconsciousness, our tangle of linen drawn like a shell. I dimly pledged to relieve Mohammad as promised.

He woke us at dawn.

“Mohammad, I’m sorry!” We were struggling with as much decorum as possible to get dressed.

“It’s all right, effendi. I fell asleep too, probably minutes after I left you. I checked the horizon. Nobody has come. But we must move again, soon. Who knows when the enemy will recover his horses?”

“Yes, and with the French in control of Palestine, there’s only one place we can safely go: Acre. And they know it.”

“How will we get through Bonaparte’s army?” Astiza asked with spirit, not worry. She looked rejuvenated in the growing light, glowing, her eyes brighter, her hair a glorious tangle. I felt resurrected too. It was good to shed the pharaoh’s ring.

“We’ll cut toward the coast, find a boat, and sail in,” I said, suddenly confident. I had the book, I had Astiza… of course I also had Miriam, a detail I’d neglected to tell Astiza about. Well, first things first.