Her eyes were wide, her gaze solemn. ‘Of faith that has run through every religion for ten thousand years: that there are worlds beyond the ones we see, Ethan, and mysteries beyond what we think we understand. Isis is a gate to those worlds.’
‘You’re a bloody pagan.’
‘And what is a pagan? If you look at the origin of the word, it means country dweller, a person of nature who lives to the rhythm of seasons and the sun. If that is paganism, then I am a fervent believer.’
‘And a believer in what else, exactly?’
‘That lives have purpose, that some knowledge is best left guarded, and some power sheathed and unused. Or, if released, that it be used for good.’
‘Did I lead you to this house or did you lead me?’
She smiled gently. ‘Do you think we met by accident?’
I snorted. ‘My recollection is by cannon fire.’
‘You took the shortest route to the harbour of Alexandria. We were told to watch for a civilian in a green coat coming that way, possibly accompanying Bonaparte.’
‘We?’
‘My master and I. The one you killed.’
‘And your house just happened to be on our route?’
‘No, but a house of a Mameluke who’d fled was. My master and I commandeered it and our acolytes brought us guns.’
‘You almost killed Napoleon!’
‘Not really. The Guardian was aiming at you, not him.’
‘What!’
‘My priesthood thought it best to simply kill you before you learnt too much. But the gods apparently had other plans. The Guardian hit almost everyone but you. Then the room exploded and when I came to, there you were. I knew then that you had purpose, however blind you might be.’
‘What purpose?’
‘I agree it’s hard to imagine. But you are supposed to help, somehow, guard what should be guarded or use what should be used.’
‘Guard what? Use what?’
She shook her head. ‘We don’t know.’
By Franklin’s lightning, this was the damnedest thing I’d ever heard. I was supposed to believe my captive had found me instead of the other way around? ‘What do you mean, the Guardian?’
‘Simply one who keeps the old ways that made this land the world’s richest and most beautiful, five thousand years ago. We too had heard rumours of the necklace – Cagliostro couldn’t keep silent in his excitement at finding it – and of unscrupulous men on their way to dig and rob. But you! So ignorant! Why would Isis put it in your hands? Yet first they lead you to me. Then us to Ashraf, and from Ashraf to Enoch. Secrets that have slumbered for millennia are being awakened by the march of the French. The pyramids tremble. The gods are restless, and directing our hand.’
I didn’t know if she was daft as a lunatic or smart as a seer. ‘Toward what?’
‘I don’t know. All of us are half-blind, seeing some things but missing others. These French savants you boast of, they are wise men, are they not? Magi?’
‘Magi?’
‘Or as we in Egypt called them, magicians.’
‘I think men of science would draw a distinction between themselves and magicians, Astiza.’
‘In ancient Egypt, no such distinction existed. The wise knew magic, and performed many spells. Now, you and I must be a bridge between your savants and men like Enoch, and solve this puzzle before unscrupulous men do. We’re in a race with the cult of the snake, the serpent god Apophis, and its Egyptian Rite. They want to learn the secret first and use it for their own dark designs.’
‘What designs?’
‘We don’t know, because none of us are entirely sure what it is we seek.’ She hesitated. ‘There are legends of great treasures and, more importantly, great powers, the kind of power that shakes empires. What, exactly, it is too early to say. Let Enoch study some more. Just be aware that many men have heard these stories throughout history and have wondered at the truth behind them.’
‘You mean Napoleon?’
‘I suspect that he understands least of all, but hopes someone will find it so he can seize it for himself. Why, he isn’t sure, but he’s heard the legends of Alexander. All of us are in a fog of myth and legend, except perhaps Bin Sadr – and whoever Bin Sadr’s true master is.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I began with one of the expedition’s astronomers, Nicholas-Antoine Nouet. While most of the French had cursed the desert for its enervating heat and scuttling vermin, Nouet had been delighted, saying the dry air made it unusually easy to chart the heavens. ‘It’s an astronomer’s paradise, Gage! A country without clouds!’ I found him crouched at the new institute, coat off and sleeves rolled up, sorting through a stack of calibrated rods used to measure the position of the stars against the horizon.
‘Nouet,’ I addressed, ‘is the sky constant?’
He looked up with irritation since I’d broken his chain of thought. ‘Constant?’
‘I mean, do the stars move?’
‘Well.’ He straightened, looking outside to the shaded garden that the scientists had expropriated. ‘The earth rotates, which is why the stars seem to rise and set like the sun. They make a wheel around our northern axis, the polestar.’
‘But the stars themselves don’t move?’
‘That is still under debate.’
‘So thousands of years ago,’ I pressed, ‘when the pyramids were built, the sky would have looked like it does now?’
‘Ah, now I see what you’re driving at. The answer is yes – and no. The constellations would basically be unchanged, but the earth’s axis wobbles on a twenty-six-thousand-year cycle.’
‘Doctor Monge told me about that, on L’Orient. He said the position of the zodiac, relative to the rising sun on a particular date, changes. Would anything else?’
‘One difference over many millennia would be the polestar. Because the earth’s axis wobbles, it pointed to a different North Star thousands of years ago.’
‘Is there any chance that star might have been Draco?’
‘Why, yes, I believe so. Why do you ask?’
‘You’ve heard I have an artifact of the past. My preliminary investigations here in Cairo suggest it may represent the constellation of Draconis, the dragon. If Draco was the polestar…’
‘It tells you to orient your artifact north, perhaps.’
‘Precisely. But why?’
‘Monsieur, it is your fragment of antiquity, not mine.’
‘Monge showed me something else in the hold of L’Orient. It was a circular device with signs of the zodiac. He thought it was some kind of calendar, perhaps to predict future dates.’
‘That wouldn’t be unusual among ancient cultures. Ancient priests exhibited great power if they could predict how the heavens would look in advance. They could forecast the rising of the Nile and optimum dates for sowing and reaping. The power of nations and the rise and fall of kings hinged on such knowledge. To them, religion and science were one. Do you have this device? Perhaps I could help decipher it.’
‘We left it aboard L’Orient with the Maltese treasure.’
‘Bah! So it could be melted down and spent by the next batch of rascals to seize control of the Directory? Why are such treasures on a warship that might go into battle? These are tools we need here in Egypt! Get Bonaparte to let you fetch it, Gage. These things are usually simple, once you puzzle them out.’
I needed something more substantial before going to our general. Enoch was still ensconced with the medallion in his library when I learnt, two days later, that the geographer Jomard whom I’d met in the hold of L’Orient was going to cross the Nile to Giza and make the first preliminary measurements of the pyramids. I volunteered my services and those of Ashraf as guide. Talma came too while Astiza, now subject to the customs of Cairo, stayed behind to help Enoch.
The four of us enjoyed the morning breeze as we ferried across. The river ran close to the mammoth structures, along a sand-and-limestone bluff that led up to the plateau where they were built. We beached and began climbing.