Silano turned to us. ‘He is wiser than his reputation, having turned down my challenge. It means he will live to have a son who will do great things, I predict. As for me, I only ask leave to make enquiries. I wish to hunt for temples when the army marches upriver. I give you brave soldiers all my respect and ask for some small portion in return.’ He looked at me. ‘I’d hoped we could work together as colleagues, but it appears we are rivals.’
‘I simply feel no need to share your goals, or my belongings,’ I replied.
‘Then sell me the medallion, Gage. Name your price.’
‘The more you want it, the less inclined I am to let you have it.’
‘Damn you! You are an impediment to knowledge!’ He shouted this last, his hand slapping the table, and it was as if a mask had slipped from his countenance. There was a rage behind it, rage and desperation, as he looked at me with eyes of implacable enmity. ‘Help me or prepare to endure the worst!’
Monge jumped up, the very picture of stern establishment admonition. ‘How dare you, monsieur! Your impertinence reflects on you poorly. I’m tempted to take you up on your wager myself!’
Now Napoleon stood, clearly annoyed that the discussion was getting out of hand. ‘No one is eating poisoned pig. I want the animal bayoneted and thrown into the Nile this very night. Gage, you’re here instead of the docket in Paris at my indulgence. I order you to help Count Silano in every way you can.’
I stood too. ‘Then I must report what I was reluctant to admit. The medallion is gone, lost when I went overboard at the battle at Abukir.’
Now the table broke into a buzz, everyone betting whether I was telling the truth. I rather enjoyed the notoriety, even though I knew it could only mean more trouble. Bonaparte scowled.
‘You said nothing of this before,’ Silano said sceptically.
‘I’m not proud of my mishap,’ I replied. ‘And I wanted the officers here to see the greedy loser that you are.’ I turned to the others. ‘This nobleman is not a serious scholar. He is nothing more than a frustrated gambler, trying to get by threat what he lost by cards. I’m a Freemason too, and his Egyptian Rite is a corruption of the precepts of our order.’
‘He’s lying,’ Silano seethed. ‘He wouldn’t have come back to Cairo if the medallion were not still his.’
‘Of course I would. I am a savant of this expedition, no less than Monge or Berthollet. The person who hasn’t come back is my friend, the writer Talma, who disappeared in Alexandria the same time you arrived.’
Silano turned to the others. ‘Magic, again.’
They laughed.
‘Do not make jokes, monsieur,’ I said. ‘Do you know where Antoine is?’
‘If you find your medallion, perhaps I can help you find Talma.’
‘The medallion is lost, I told you!’
‘And I said I don’t believe you. My dear General Bonaparte, how do we know which side this American, this English-speaker, is even on?’
‘That’s outrageous!’ I shouted, even while secretly wondering which side I should be on, even while firmly determined to stay on my own side – whatever that was. As Astiza had said, what did I truly believe? In bloody treasure, beautiful women, and George Washington. ‘Duel with me!’ I challenged.
‘There will be no duels!’ Napoleon ordered once more. ‘Enough! Everyone is acting like children! Gage, you have permission to leave my table.’
I stood and bowed. ‘Perhaps that would be best.’ I backed through the door.
‘You are about to see just how serious a scholar I am!’ Silano called after me. And I heard him speaking to Napoleon, ‘That American, you should not trust him. He’s a man who could make all our plans come to naught.’
It was past noon the next day that Ash, Enoch, Astiza, and I were resting by Enoch’s fountain, discussing the dinner and Silano’s purpose. Enoch had armed his servants with cudgels. For no obvious reason, we felt under siege. Why had Silano come all this way? What was Bonaparte’s interest? Did the general desire occult powers as well? Or were we magnifying into a threat what was only idle curiosity?
Our answer came when there was a brief pounding at Enoch’s door and Mustafa went to answer it. He came back not with a visitor, but with a jar. ‘Someone left this.’
The clay-coloured container was fat, two feet high, and heavy enough that I could see the biceps flex in the servant’s arms as he carried it to a low table and put it down. ‘There was no one there and the street was empty.’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s a jar for oil,’ Enoch said. ‘It’s not the custom to deliver a gift this way.’ He looked wary, but stood to open it.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What if it’s a bomb?’
‘A bomb?’
‘Or a Trojan horse,’ said Astiza, who knew her Greek legends as well as her Egyptian ones. ‘An enemy leaves this, we carry it inside
…’
‘And out jump midget soldiers?’ asked Ashraf, somewhat amused.
‘No. Snakes.’ She remembered the incident in Alexandria.
Now Enoch hesitated.
Ash stood. ‘Stand back and let me open it.’
‘Use a stick,’ his brother said.
‘I’ll use a sword, and be quick.’
We stood a few steps back. Using the point of a scimitar, Ashraf broke a wax seal on the rim and loosened the lid. No sound came from inside. So, using the tip of his weapon, Ash slowly raised and flipped the covering off. Again, nothing. He leant forward cautiously, probing with his sword… and jumped back. ‘Snake!’ he confirmed.
Damn. I’d had enough of reptiles.
‘But it can’t be,’ the Mameluke said. ‘The jar is full of oil. I can smell it.’ He cautiously came back again, probing. ‘No… wait. The snake is dead.’ His face looked troubled. ‘May the gods have mercy.’
‘What the devil?’
Grimacing, the Mameluke plunged his hand into the jar and lifted. Out came a snakelike fistful of oily hair entangled with the scales of a reptile. As he hoisted his arm, we saw a round object wrapped in the coils of a dead serpent. Oil sluiced off a human head.
I groaned. It was Talma, eyes wide and sightless.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘They killed him as a message to me,’ I said.
‘But why would they kill your friend for something you said you didn’t have? Why didn’t they kill you? ’ Ashraf asked.
I was wondering the same thing. Poor Talma’s head had been temporarily dipped back into the jar, his hair like river weed. I didn’t want to guess where the body might be.
‘Because they don’t believe him,’ Astiza reasoned. ‘Only Ethan knows for sure if the medallion still exists and what it might mean. They want to coerce him, not kill him.’
‘This is a damned poor way to do it,’ I said grimly.
‘And who is they?’ Enoch asked.
‘The Bedouin, Achmed bin Sadr.’
‘He’s a tool, not a master.’
‘Then it must be Silano. He warned me to take him seriously. He arrives, and Antoine dies. All this is my fault. I asked Talma to investigate Bin Sadr in Alexandria. Talma was kidnapped, or followed Silano to spy on him. He was caught and wouldn’t talk. What did he even know? And his death is supposed to frighten me.’
Ash clapped my shoulder. ‘Except that he doesn’t know what a warrior you are!’
Actually, I was human enough to have nightmares for a month, but that’s not what one confesses at times like this. Besides, if there was one thing I was certain of, Silano would never, ever get my medallion.
‘It’s my fault,’ Astiza said. ‘You said he went to Alexandria to investigate me.’
‘That was his idea, not mine or yours. Don’t blame yourself.’
‘Why didn’t he just ask me his questions directly?’
Because you never fully answer them, I thought. Because you enjoy being an enigma. But I said nothing. We sat in gloomy silence for a while, wrestling with self-recrimination. Sometimes the more innocent we are, the more we blame ourselves.
‘Your friend will not be the last to perish if Silano gets his way,’ Enoch finally said heavily.