By morning of the fourth day, bored with the meticulous work and inconclusive speculation, I wandered to a viewpoint overlooking Cairo across the river. There I saw a curious sight. Conte had apparently manufactured enough hydrogen to inflate a balloon. The coated silk bag looked to be about forty feet in diameter, its top half covered with a net from which ropes extended downward to hold a wicker basket. It hovered on its tether a hundred feet off the ground, drawing a small crowd. I studied it through Jomard’s telescope. All those watching appeared to be Europeans.
So far the Arabs had displayed little wonder about Western technology. They seemed to regard us as a temporary intrusion of clever infidels, obsessed with mechanical tricks and careless with our souls. I’d earlier enlisted Conte’s help to make a cranked friction generator for a store of electricity in what Franklin had called a battery, and was invited by the savants to give a mild shock to some of Cairo’s mullahs. The Egyptians gamely joined hands, I jolted the first with a charge from my Leyden jar, and they all jumped in turn as the current passed through them, provoking great consternation and laughter. But after their initial surprise they seemed more amused than awed. Electricity was cheap magic, good for nothing but parlour games.
It was while watching the balloon that I noticed a long column of French soldiers issue from Cairo’s southern gate. Their regularity was a marked contrast to the mobs of merchants and camel drovers who clustered around the city’s entrances. The soldiers tramped in a line of blue and white, regimental banners limp in the hot air. On and on the ranks came, a glittering file undulating like a millipede, until it seemed a full division. Some of the force was mounted, and more horses pulled two small field guns.
I called to Jomard and he joined me, focusing the spyglass. ‘It is General Desaix, off to chase the elusive Murad Bey,’ he said. ‘His troops are going to explore and conquer an upper Egypt that few Europeans have ever seen.’
‘So the war isn’t over.’
He laughed. ‘We’re talking about Bonaparte! War will never be over for him.’ He continued to study the column, dust drifting ahead of the soldiers as if to announce their coming. I could imagine them good-naturedly cursing it, their mouths full of grit. ‘I think I see your old friend as well.’
‘Old friend?’
‘Here, look for yourself.’
Near the column’s head was a man in turban and robes with half a dozen Bedouin riding as bodyguard. One of his henchmen held a parasol above his head. I could see the slim rapier bouncing on his hip and the fine black stallion he’d purchased in Cairo: Silano. Someone smaller rode by his side, swathed in robes. A personal servant, perhaps.
‘Good riddance.’
‘I envy him,’ Jomard said. ‘What discoveries they’ll make!’
Had Silano given up his quest for the medallion? Or gone to look for its missing piece in Enoch’s southern temple? I picked out Bin Sadr as well. He was leading the Bedouin bodyguard, rocking easily on the back of a camel while holding his staff.
Had I avoided them? Or were they escaping me?
I looked again at the smaller, shrouded figure and felt disquiet. Had I been too obedient, lingering at the pyramids too long? Who was that riding at Silano’s side?
I knew of him, she had confirmed.
And she had never explained what, precisely, that meant.
I snapped the telescope shut. ‘I have to get back to Cairo.’
‘You can’t go, by Bonaparte’s orders. We need a compelling hypothesis first.’
But something disastrous had happened in my absence, I feared, and I realised that by staying out so long, I’d unconsciously been putting off the task of tackling the medallion and avenging Talma. My procrastination may have been fatal. ‘I’m an American savant, not a French private. To hell with his orders.’
‘He could have you shot!’
But I was already running down the slope, past the Sphinx, toward Cairo.
The city seemed more ominous on my return. Even as Desaix’s division had emptied some houses of French troops, thousands of inhabitants who’d fled after the Battle of the Pyramids were returning. Cairo was emerging from post-invasion shock into being the centre of Egypt again. As the city grew more crowded, the inhabitants regained their urban confidence. They carried themselves as if the city still belonged to them, not us, and their numbers dwarfed ours. While French soldiers could still cause pedestrians to scatter as they rode racing donkeys or marched on patrol, there was less scuttling out of the way of lone foreigners such as myself. As I hurried through the narrow lanes I was bumped and jostled for the first time. Again I was reminded of the oddities of electricity, that strange prickling in the air after the parlour experiments that women found so erotic. Now Cairo seemed electric with tension. News of the defeat at Abukir Bay had reached everyone, and no longer did the Franks seem invincible. Yes, we were dangling on a rope all right, and I could see it beginning to fray.
Compared to the bustle of adjacent lanes, the street at Enoch’s house seemed far too quiet. Where was everyone? The home’s facade looked much as I’d left it, its face as unreadable as that of the Egyptians. Yet when I got near I sensed something was amiss. The door wasn’t tight against its frame, and I spied the bright yellow of splintered wood. I glanced around. Eyes watched me, I sensed, but I could see no one.
When I pounded on the entry it gave slightly. ‘ Salaam.’ My greeting’s echo was answered by the buzzing of flies. I pushed, as if shoving against someone holding the door on the other side, and finally it yielded enough that I could squeeze in. It was then I saw the obstruction. Enoch’s gigantic Negro servant, Mustafa, was lying dead against the door, his face shattered by a pistol shot. The house had the sickeningly sweet scent of recent death.
I looked at a window. Its wooden screen had been shattered by intruders.
I went on, room by room. Where were the other servants? There were spatters and streaks of blood everywhere, as if bodies had been dragged after battle and butchery. Tables had been toppled, tapestries ripped down, cushions overthrown and cut. The invaders had been looking for something, and I knew what it was. My absence had saved no one. Why hadn’t I insisted that Enoch hide, instead of staying with his books? Why had I thought my absence and that of the medallion would protect him? At length I came to the antiquities room, some of its statuary broken and its caskets overthrown, and then the stairs to the musty library. Its door had been staved in. Beyond was dark, but the library stank of fire. Heartsick, I found a candle and descended.
The cellar was a smoky shambles. Shelves had been toppled. Books and scrolls lay heaped like piles of autumn leaves, their half-burnt contents still smouldering. At first I thought this room was empty of life too, but then someone groaned. Paper rustled and a hand came up from the litter, fingers painfully curled, like an avalanche victim reaching from snow. I grasped it, only to elicit a howl of pain. I dropped the swollen digits and shovelled blackened papers aside. There was poor Enoch, sprawled on a pile of smouldering books. He was badly scorched, his clothes half-gone, and his chest and arms roasted. He’d thrown himself onto a bonfire of literature.
‘Thoth,’ he was groaning. ‘Thoth.’