“Damaged? What are you speaking of?”
Nordhausen related the details of his mission to London, and the harrowing discovery that no one could read the glyphs upon his return.
“I see,” said LeGrand. He thought for a moment, then broke into a broad smile. “You want to see if it’s damaged upon discovery!”
“Quite so,” said Nordhausen.
“So, that’s what this is all about. The courier didn’t have any details, just a watch order. Still, it seems that the Order is now as interested in the condition of this stone as you two seem to be. I can’t imagine why, but what’s good for the Founders sits well with me.” He dipped his head in a bow and smiled again. “I am at your service then: Jean LeGrand, First Able Sergeant of the Milieu, Order of the Temporal Knights. How may I assist you?”
“We need to observe the discovery, of course,” said Maeve. “And we want to be as inconspicuous as possible. You say you’ve witnessed this event before?”
“Twice.”
“Well man—was it damaged?” Nordhausen was eager for all the information he could get.
“Not that I could tell. No, the discovery went off without any hitch that I could discern. Captain Bouchard is already at the Fort. He’ll be directing the improvements to the west wall tomorrow—that’s where they find it, embedded in the wall of Fort Julien.”
“You can take us there?”
“Of course. It’s just to the north a tad, at the edge of the plantation country, on the west bank of the Nile. We’ll use the carriage. The two of you can sit inside and I’ll lead it right past the dig site at precisely the moment the stone is uncovered. We’ll have a perfect vantage point.”
“Excellent,” Robert rubbed his palms together.
“If I may ask,” LeGrand put in. “What kind of damage are you talking about? Was the stone defaced?”
“Oh nothing as simple as that. It was broken clean across the top when I observed it at the London Museum. All the hieroglyphics were gone, and the curator of antiquities there claims it was always so.”
That news gave LeGrand a start. “I see,” he mused. “This is more serious than I thought. What do you hope to determine here?”
“The time of the damage, for one thing,” said Robert. “If it’s intact when they dig it up tomorrow, it will mean that the damage was incurred somewhere forward of this point on the continuum.”
“Obviously,” said LeGrand.
“I know it’s not much, but it is at least a starting point. We’re fairly hopeful that it will be uncovered intact.”
“Yes, if it was damaged somehow, that narrows down the window of opportunity to just a few years before it reaches London in 1802.”
“Better than that,” said Nordhausen. “The stone was taken to the National Institute in Cairo soon after it’s discovery. My research indicates that Napoleon ordered an inscription made of the writing. Two prominent lithographers were called from France. They’re going to ink the stone and roll paper over it to get a good image of the text. The damage must occur before that is accomplished.”
“I see, then that compresses the affair to just a few months. Very clever! Napoleon won’t bother to pay any attention to it in the next week or so. He’s busy planning his battle with the Turks at Aboukir Bay.”
“That means the time of greatest vulnerability will be the journey from the discovery site to Cairo.”
“Quite so,” LeGrand concurred. “If I were planning something, that’s when I would strike. All the French troops in the area will be converging here, their minds set on the Turks. Let me think… Yes. If I were going to make a move on the stone I would probably arrange an ambush along the road—and considerably south of here so as to forestall any interference by the French.”
“How long is the journey to Cairo likely to take?” asked Nordhausen.
“I’m not exactly certain,” said LeGrand. “I’m here for the discovery, but then I take up with the Engineers as they make ready to join Napoleon’s attack at Aboukir Bay. I usually go on to the battle, but not this time. The watch order didn’t give me any specific instruction but, given this news, I’m afraid I have to stay with the stone. Problem is, the damn thing just lays around here for a good long while before they get round to moving it. Now I’ll have to come up with some plan to account for my necessary interest in the artifact for what may turn out to be a very long month. Too bad you can’t stay to keep me some company.”
“You realize that this situation is likely to be dangerous now,” said Maeve.
“Dangerous? My lady, everything I do here is dangerous. I have to watch things like an owl, being constantly vigilant while also remaining discreetly uninvolved, as much as possible.
“Take those two French soldiers this morning. They were supposed to carry a message to the commander of the garrison at Aboukir Castle. Then I get word to put a watch on the road west of town. Incursion watch! That’s what we call it when someone initiates a breaching point on the continuum in the area. We look for the telltale signs—white haze, extreme cold, and that wonderful aurora that settles around you as you manifest. Well, as far as I could tell, the road was clear of traffic in the pre-dawn hours. Then I learned that this message was being sent, and so I found out who was going and claimed that I had lost track of some associates. I tagged along and, voilá! There you were. I handled the incident quite adroitly, wouldn’t you say? ”
“To be sure,” said Maeve. “You made your rendezvous with us and managed to send the two soldiers on their way to avoid any contamination.”
“Exactly!” LeGrand beamed with satisfaction. “The trick was in figuring how to prevent any interaction between the two of you and the soldiers. I had to find you before they did, and make sure your arrival did not deter them from their courier assignment in any way.”
“Well, you’ve made a fine resolution of that one, and here we are.” Maeve set down her teacup, a pensive expression on her face. “But I have a question,” she said. “Just who would be trying to damage the stone, in your opinion, and why?”
“Our enemies, of course.”
“Enemies? Who exactly are they?”
“Well,” said LeGrand, “that’s quite a long story. As to who, radical Islam has been most inconvenient for us over the last several decades. There have been a hundred nefarious groups that have sprung up over the years, but the heart of the nest is the Ismaili Cult of Assassins. As to why, I suppose you and professor Nordhausen have as much of a clue as I do. These people will simply not stop interfering. They won’t be satisfied until the whole of the world supplicates itself to the will of Allah. Their religion is infused with bad politics, and it’s becoming insufferable—nothing more than a thin veil of hypocrisy for their devious political aims. Do you know that Mohammed was the only major religious figure who was also a warrior?”
“I see,” said Maeve, somewhat unconvinced. “Religion is like that sometimes… the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Hundred Years War, Protestants and Catholics at each other’s throats, popes paying huge bribes to Venetian merchants to have crusading armies delivered to targets of opportunity. You know the routine well enough, I suppose—’Soldiers of Christ,’ out to secure lands and fortunes for the Vicar. When it comes to hypocrisy, there seems to be plenty left over for the Christians.”
“Yes, well at least we had the good sense to work most of that out during the Middle Ages,” said LeGrand.
“Quite so,” Maeve returned. “Now it’s politics and economics to keep things interesting. Take this little adventure by Napoleon…” She gestured broadly to the unseen world outside the walls of the roadside inn. “It’s politically motivated, to be sure, but I wonder what the reaction would be in Paris if thirty thousand Turks suddenly landed in Marseilles?”