‘She is gone too.’
It was an answer I didn’t want to believe. ‘Do I have to bring a platoon of soldiers? The sultan Bonaparte is not a man who wants to be left waiting.’
The doorman shook his head in dismissal. ‘Go away, American. She is sold.’
‘Sold!’
‘To a Bedouin slave trader.’ He went to slam the door in my face, so I jammed the end of the carpet in it to stop him.
‘You can’t sell her, she’s mine!’
He grasped the end of my carpet with a hand that had the span of a frying pan. ‘Take your rug from my door or you will leave it here,’ he warned. ‘You have no business with us anymore.’
I rotated the carpet to aim at his midriff and slipped my hand up the other end of the roll, grasping my rifle. The click of its hammer being pulled back was clearly audible, and that checked his arrogance. ‘I want to know who bought her.’
We studied each other, wondering if either was quick enough to overcome the other. Finally he grunted. ‘Wait.’
He disappeared, leaving me feeling like a fool or a penitent. How dare the Egyptian sell Astiza? ‘Yusuf, come out here, you bastard!’ My cry echoed in the house. I stood for long minutes, wondering if they would simply ignore me. If they did, I’d go in shooting.
Finally I heard the heavy tread of the doorman returning. He filled the doorway. ‘It’s a message from the woman’s buyer, and is simple to relate. He says you know what is needed to buy her back.’ Then the door slammed shut.
That meant Silano and Bin Sadr had her. And it meant they didn’t have the medallion, and must not know I didn’t either.
Yet wouldn’t they keep her alive in hopes I’d bring it? She was a hostage, a kidnap victim.
I stepped back from the entryway, trying to think what to do. Where was the medallion? And with that something tiny fell past my ear, landing with a soft splat in the dust. I looked up. A grilled opening in an ornate screen far above was being closed by a feminine hand. I picked up what had been dropped.
It was a packet of paper. When I unrolled it I found Astiza’s golden eye of Horus and a message, this time in English in Astiza’s writing. My heart soared:
‘The south wall at midnight. Bring a rope.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There was no wider gulf between the invading French army and the Egyptians than the subject of women. To the Muslims, the arrogant Franks were dominated by crass European females who combined vulgar display with imperious demands to make a fool of every man who came into contact with them. The French, in turn, thought that Islam locked its greatest source of pleasure away in opulent but shadowy prisons, foregoing the titillating wit of female company. If the Muslims thought the French slaves to their women, the French thought the Muslims frightened of theirs. The situation was made even tenser by the decision of some Egyptian females to form liaisons with the conquerors and to be displayed, without veil, arms and necks bare, in officers’ carriages. These new mistresses, giddy at the freedoms the French had granted them, would call up gaily to the screened windows their carriages trotted past, shouting, ‘Look at our freedom!’ The imams thought we were corrupting, the savants thought the Egyptians medieval, and the soldiers simply wanted the pleasures of the bed. While under strict orders not to molest Muslim women, there was no such prohibition against paying for them, and some were more than willing to be bought. Other Egyptian damsels defended their virtue like vestal virgins, withholding favours unless an officer promised marriage and life in Europe. The result was a great deal of friction and misunderstanding.
The grain-sack draping of Muslim women, designed to control male lust, instead made every passing female, her age and form unknown, a subject of intense speculation among the French soldiers. I was not immune to such discussion, and in my imagination the glories of Yusuf’s female household were fuelled by stories of Scheherazade and the Arabian Nights. Who had not heard of the famed seraglio of the sultan in Constantinople? Or of the skilled concubines and castrated eunuchs of this strange society, in which the son of a slave could grow up to be a master? It was a world I struggled to understand. Slavery had become a way for the Ottomans to inject fresh blood and loyalty into a stultified and treacherous society. Polygamy had become a reward for political loyalty. Religion had become a substitute for material self-improvement. The remoteness of Islamic women made them all the more desired.
Was the medallion still inside the harem’s walls, even if Astiza was not? This was my hope. She had persuaded her captors that I still held it, and then left a message for me behind. Clever woman. I found an alley alcove to temporarily hide my rifle, covering it with my rug, and set off to buy a rope and provisions. If Astiza was a prisoner of Silano, I wanted her back. We had no proper relationship, yet I felt a mix of jealousy, protectiveness, and loneliness that surprised me. She was the closest thing I had left to a true friend. I’d already lost Talma, Enoch, and Ashraf. I’d be damned if I lost her too.
My European complexion under Arab dress drew only casual glances, given that the Ottoman Empire was a rainbow of colours. I entered the dim warren of corridors in the Khan al-Khalili bazaar, the air redolent with charcoal and hashish, piled spices making brilliant pyramids of green, yellow, and orange. After buying food, a rope, and a blanket for the desert nights, I carried these supplies to my depository and set off again to bargain for a horse or camel with the last of my money. I’d never ridden the latter, but knew they had more endurance for a long chase. My mind was boiling with questions. Did Bonaparte know that Silano had taken Astiza? Was the count after the same clues I was? If the medallion was a key, where was the lock? In my haste and preoccupation, I stumbled onto a French patrol before remembering to squeeze into shadow.
The sweating soldiers had nearly filed past when their lieutenant suddenly pulled out a paper tucked in his belt, glanced at me, and cried a halt. ‘Ethan Gage?’
I pretended not to understand.
Half a dozen musket barrels came up, needing no translation. ‘Gage? I know it’s you. Don’t try to run, or we’ll shoot you down.’
So I stood straight, slipped off my head covering, and tried to bluff. ‘Please don’t give away my identity, Lieutenant. I’m on a mission for Bonaparte.’
‘On the contrary, you are under arrest.’
‘Surely you’re mistaken.’
He looked at the picture on his paper. ‘Denon did a quick sketch of you and it’s quite a good likeness. The man has talent.’
‘I am just about to return to my studies at the pyramid…’
‘You are wanted for investigation in the murder of the scholar and imam Qelab Almani, who also goes by the name Enoch, or Hermes Trismegistus. You were spotted hurrying from his house with gun and hatchet.’
‘Enoch? Are you mad? I’m trying to solve his murder.’
He read from his poster. ‘You are also under arrest for being absent from the pyramids without leave, insubordination, and being out of uniform.’
‘I’m a savant! I don’t have a uniform!’
‘Hands up!’ He shook his head. ‘Your crimes have caught up with you, American.’
I was taken to a Mameluke barracks that had been turned into a makeshift prison. Here French authorities tried to sort out the insurgents, petty criminals, deserters, profiteers, and prisoners of war the invasion had swept up. Despite my protests I was thrown in a cell that was a polyglot mix of thieves, charlatans, and rogues. I felt as if I were back in a gambling salon in Paris.
‘I demand to know the charges against me!’ I cried.
‘Uselessness,’ growled the sergeant who locked the door.
The absurdity of jailing me for Enoch’s death was exceeded only by the calamity of missing my midnight rendezvous at the south wall of Yusuf’s house. Whoever had dropped the eye of Horus probably didn’t have many opportunities to help a male stranger gain access to the harem. What if they gave up, and the medallion was sold or lost? Meanwhile, if Astiza was in the hands of Silano and being taken south by Desaix’s expedition to upper Egypt, she was drawing farther away by the hour. At the one time in my life when I didn’t have a moment to waste, I was immobilised. It was maddening.