Napoleon's Pyramids (4 page)

I took it out. “You can’t write about this, my friend.”

“Not write! You might as well say not breathe!”

“It would only make my situation worse. You must save me with secrecy.”

He sighed. “But I could expose injustice.”

I put the medallion on the marble table, shielding it from the view of the other patrons with my torso, and slid it to my companion. “Look: The soldier I won it from said it was from ancient Egypt. Silano was curious. He bid on it, and even wanted to buy it, but I wouldn’t sell. I don’t see that it’s worth killing over.”

Talma squinted, turned it over, and played with its arms. “What are all these markings?”

I looked more closely for the first time. The furrow across the disc, as if marking its diameter, I have already described. Above, the disc was perforated in a seemingly random way. Below were three series of zigzag marks, the way a child might draw a mountain range. And beneath them, scratches like hash marks that formed a little triangle. “I have no idea. It’s extremely crude.”

Talma spread the two arms that hung down to make an upside-down V. “And what do you make of this?”

He didn’t need to explain. It looked like the Masonic symbol for a compass, the construction tool used to inscribe a circle. The order’s secret symbolism often paired the compass with a carpenter’s square, one overlying the other. Spread the medallion arms apart to the limit of their hinge and they would draw the circumference of a circle about three times the size of the disc above. Was this some kind of mathematical tool?

“I don’t make anything of it,” I said.

“But Silano, of the heretical Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry, was interested. Which means that perhaps this has something to do with our order’s mysteries.”

Masonic imagery was said to be inspired by that of the ancients. Some were commonplace tools such as the mallet, trowel, and trestle-board, but others were more exotic such as the human skull, pillars, pyramids, swords, and stars. All were symbolic, and meant to suggest an order to existence I’ve found hard to detect in everyday life. In each degree of Masonic advancement, more such symbols were explained. Was this medallion some ancestor of our fraternity? We hesitated to speak of it in the ice-cream café because lodge members are sworn to secrecy, which of course makes our symbolism all the more intriguing to the uninitiated. We’ve been accused of every kind of witchcraft and conspiracy, while mostly what we do is parade around in white aprons. As one wit declared, “Even if that is their secret—that they have no secret—still, it is an achievement to keep that a secret.”

“It suggests the distant past,” I said as I put it back around my neck. “The captain I won it from claimed it had come with Cleopatra and Caesar to Italy and was owned by Cagliostro, but the soldier thought so little of it that he gambled it away in
chemin de fer.
”

“Cagliostro? And he said it was Egyptian? And Silano took interest?”

“It seemed casual at the time. I thought he was simply bidding me up. But now…”

Talma pondered. “All this is coincidence, perhaps. A card game, two crimes.”

“Perhaps.”

His fingers tapped. “Yet it could also be connected. The lantern bearer led the police to you because he calculated that your reaction to the ransacking of your apartment would be to unwittingly plunge yourself into the scene of a horrific murder, making you available for interrogation. Examine the sequence. They hope to simply steal the medallion. Yet it is not in your apartment. It has not been given to Minette. You are a foreigner of some standing, not assaulted lightly. But if charged with murder and searched…”

Minette had been killed merely to implicate me? My head was whirling. “Why would anyone want this so badly?”

He was excited. “Because great events are in motion. Because the Masonic mysteries you irreverently mock may at last have an effect on the world.”

“What events?”

“I have informants, my friend.” He loved to be coy, pretending to know great secrets that somehow never made their way into print.

“So you agree I’m being framed?”

“But naturally.” Talma regarded me gravely. “You have come to the right man. As a journalist, I seek truth and justice. As a friend, I presume your innocence. As a scribe who writes about the great, I have important contacts.”

“But how can I prove it?”

“You need witnesses. Would your landlady attest to your character?”

“I don’t think so. I owe her rent.”

“And this lantern bearer, how can we find him?”

“Find him! I want to stay away from him!”

“Indeed.” He thought, sipping lemonade. “You need shelter, and time to make sense of this thing. Our lodge masters may be able to help.”

“You want me to hide in a lodge?”

“I want you safe while I determine if this medallion could give both of us an unusual opportunity.”

“For what?”

He smiled. “I’ve heard rumors, and rumors of rumors. Your medallion may be timelier than you think. I need to speak to the right people, men of science.”

“Men of science?”

“Men close to the rising young general Napoleon Bonaparte.”

T
he chemist Claude-Louis Berthollet was, at age forty-nine, the most famous student of the guillotined Lavoisier. Unlike his master, he’d ingratiated himself to the revolution by finding a nitrate soil substitute for saltpeter, so necessary to gunpowder. Rising to leadership of the new National Institute that had succeeded the Royal Academy, he’d shared with his mathematician friend Gaspard Monge the task of helping loot Italy. It was scholars who advised Bonaparte on which masterpieces were most worthy of being carted back to France. This had helped make both scientists the confidants of the general and privy to strategic secrets. Their political expediency reminded me of an astronomer who, when making surveys for the new metric system, had been forced to replace his white survey flags, seen as a symbol of King Louis, with the tricolor. No profession escapes the Revolution.

“So you’re not a murderer, Monsieur Gage?” the chemist asked with the barest hint of a smile. With a high forehead, prominent nose, stern mouth and chin, and sad, lidded eyes, he looked like the weary lord of a rural manor, regarding science’s growing alliance with governments the same dubious way that a father contemplates the suitor of his daughter.

“I swear by God, by the Great Architect of the Masons, or by the laws of chemistry.”

His eyebrows barely elevated. “Whichever I happen to worship, I presume?”

“I’m only trying to convey my sincerity, Doctor Berthollet. I suspect the killer was an army captain or Count Silano, who had an interest in a medallion I’d just won.”

“A fatal interest.”

“It seems strange, I know.”

“And the girl wrote the initial of
your
name, not theirs.”

“If
she
wrote it.”

“The police claim the width of her final calligraphy matched her fingertip.”

“I’d just slept with her and paid. I had no motive for killing her, or she of accusing me. I knew where the medallion was.”

“Hmm, yes.” He took out a pair of spectacles. “Let me see it.”

We examined it while Talma watched us, clutching a handkerchief in case he could find some reason to sneeze. Berthollet turned it as Silano and Talma had done and finally leaned back. “Aside from the modicum of gold, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“Nor do I.”

“Not a key, not a map, not a symbol of a god, and not particularly attractive. I find it hard to believe that Cleopatra wore this.”

“The captain said it simply belonged to her. As queen…”

“She’d have as many objects attributed to her as chips of wood and vials of blood are attributed to Jesus.” The scientist shook his head. “What easier claim to make to inflate the price of clumsy jewelry?”

We were sitting in the basement of the Hôtel Le Cocq, used by a branch of the Oriental Lodge of Freemasonry because of the cellar’s east-west orientation. A table with a cloth and closed book rested between two pillars. Benches were lost in the gloom under the arches of the vault. The only illumination was candlelight, flickering on Egyptian hieroglyphics that no one knew how to read and Biblical scenes of the raising of Solomon’s temple. A skull rested on one shelf, reminding us of mortality but contributing nothing to our discussion. “And you vouch for his innocence?” the chemist asked my Masonic friend.

“The American is a man of science like you, Doctor,” Talma said. “He was apprenticed to the great Franklin and is an electrician himself.”

“Yes, electricity. Lightning bolts and flying kites and sparks in a salon. Tell me, Gage, what
is
electricity?”

“Well.” I did not want to exaggerate my knowledge to a renowned scientist. “Doctor Franklin thought it a manifestation of the basic power that animates the universe. But the truth is, no one knows. We can generate it by turning a crank and store it in a jar, so we know it
is.
But who knows
why?
”

“Precisely.” The chemist considered, turning my medallion over in his hand. “And yet what if people did know, in the distant past? What if they controlled powers unattainable in our own time?”

“They knew electricity?”

“They knew how to erect extraordinary monuments, did they not?”

“It is interesting that Ethan finds this medallion and comes to us at this particular point of time,” Talma added.

“And yet science does not believe in coincidences,” Berthollet replied.

“Point of time?” I asked.

“However, one must recognize opportunity,” the chemist allowed.

“What opportunity is that?” I was beginning to hope.

“To escape the guillotine by joining the army,” Berthollet said.

“What!”

“At the same time, you can be an ally of science.”

“And Freemasonry,” Talma added.

“Are you mad? Which army?”

“The French army,” the chemist said. “See here, Gage, as a Mason and man of science, can you swear to keep a secret?”

“I don’t want to be a soldier!”

“No one is asking you to. Can you swear?”

Talma was looking at me expectantly, his handkerchief to his lips. I swallowed and nodded. “Of course.”

“Bonaparte has left the channel and is preparing a new expedition. Even his own officers don’t know the destination, but some scientists do. For the first time since Alexander the Great, a conqueror is inviting savants to accompany his troops to research and record what we see. This is an adventure to rival those of Cook and Bougainville. Talma has suggested that you and he accompany the expedition, he as journalist and you as an expert on electricity, ancient mysteries, and this medallion. What if it is a valuable clue? You go, contribute to our speculations, and by the time you return everyone will have forgotten the unfortunate death of a whore.”

“An expedition where?” I’ve always been skeptical of Alexander, who may have done a great deal in a short time but was dead one year younger than my own age, a fact which didn’t recommend his career in the slightest.

“Where do you think?” Berthollet said impatiently. “Egypt! We go not just to seize a key trade route and open the door to our allies fighting the British in India. We go to explore the dawn of history. There might be useful secrets there. Better we men of science have the clues than the heretical Egyptian Rite, no?”

“Egypt?” By Franklin’s ghost, what possible interest did I have there? Few Europeans had ever seen the place, shrouded as it was in Arab mystery. I had a vague impression of sand, the pyramids, and heathen fanaticism.

“Not that you’re much of a scientist or a Freemason,” Berthollet amended. “But as an American and frontiersman, you might offer interesting perspective. Your medallion may also be a stroke of luck. If Silano wants it, it could have significance.”

I hadn’t heard much past the first sentence. “Why aren’t I much of a scientist or Mason?” I was defensive because I secretly agreed.

“Come, Ethan,” Talma said. “Berthollet means you’ve yet to make your mark.”

“I am saying, Monsieur Gage, that at the age of thirty-three, your achievement is well short of your ability, and your ambition is shy of diligence. You’ve not contributed reports to the academies, advanced in Masonic degree, accumulated a fortune, started a family, owned a home, or produced writing of distinction. Frankly, I was skeptical when Antoine first suggested you. But he thinks you have potential, and we rationalists are enemies of the mystic followers of Cagliostro. I don’t want the medallion slipping from your guillotined neck. I greatly respect Franklin, and hope you might someday copy him. So, you can seek to prove your innocence in the revolutionary courts. Or you can come with us.”

Talma grasped my arm. “Egypt, Ethan! Think of it!”

This would completely overturn my life, but then how much life did I have to overturn? Berthollet had made an annoyingly accurate assessment of my character, though I was rather proud of my travels. Few men had seen as much of North America as I had—or, admittedly, done as little with it.

“Doesn’t somebody already own Egypt?”

Berthollet waved his hand. “It is nominally part of the Ottoman Empire but is really under the control of a renegade caste of slave warriors called the Mamelukes. They ignore Constantinople more than they pay tribute to it, and they oppress the ordinary Egyptians. They are not even of the same race! Ours is a mission of liberation, not conquest, Monsieur Gage.”

“We won’t have to do the fighting?”

“Bonaparte assures us we’ll take Egypt with a cannon shot or two.”

Well, that was optimistic. Napoleon sounded like a general who was either a shrewd opportunist or blind as a stone. “This Bonaparte, what do you think of him?” We’d all heard his praise after his early victories, but he’d spent little time in Paris and was largely unknown. Word was that he was something of an upstart.

“He’s the most energetic man I’ve ever met, and will either succeed spectacularly or fail spectacularly,” Talma said.

“Or, as is the case with many ambitious men, do both,” Berthollet amended. “There’s no denying his brilliance, but it is judgment that makes greatness.”

“I will be abandoning all my trade and diplomatic contacts,” I said. “And run as if I’m guilty of murder. Can’t the police find Count Silano and the captain who lost the card game? Put us all in a room and let the truth come out?”

Berthollet looked away. Talma sighed.

“Silano has disappeared. There’s word that the foreign ministry has ordered his protection,” my friend said. “As for your captain, he was fished from the Seine one night ago, tortured and strangled. Naturally, given your acquaintance and the fact that you have disappeared, you are a prime suspect.”

I swallowed.

“The safest place for you now, Monsieur Gage, is in the middle of an army.”

I
t seemed prudent that if I was going to join an invasion, it would be wise to go with a weapon. My costly longrifle, dating from my sojourn in the fur business, was still cached in the wall of my apartment. Made in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, its maple stock nicked and stained from hard use, the firearm remained remarkably accurate, as I’d demonstrated occasionally on the Champ de Mars. Equally important, the curve of its stock was as graceful as the limbs of a woman, and the filigree on its metalwork as comforting as a purse of coin. It was not just a tool but a steady companion, uncomplaining, smooth, the iron blue-hued, its scent a perfume of powder grains, linseed, and gun oil. Its high velocity gave its small caliber better killing power at greater range than a big-bore musket. The criticism, as always, was the awkwardness of a firearm that came up to my chin. Reloading took too long for the quick, mass volleys of European combat, and it wouldn’t fit a bayonet. But then the whole idea of standing in a line, waiting to be shot, was foreign to us Americans. The great disadvantage of any gun was the need to reload after one shot, and the great advantage of an accurate rifle was that you might actually hit something with that first shot. The first order of business, I thought, was to fetch my firearm.

“Your apartment is exactly where the police will look for you!” Talma objected.

“It’s been more than two days. These are men paid less than a potter and corrupt as a judge. I think it unlikely they’re still waiting. We’ll go tonight, bribe a neighbor, and pry at the wall from his side.”

“But I’ve got tickets for the midnight stage to Toulon!”

“Plenty of time, if you help.”

I deemed it cautious to enter the building as I’d left Minette’s, by a back courtyard window. Even if the police were gone, Madame Durrell would still be lurking, and I was no closer to paying repairs and rent. That evening, Talma reluctantly boosted me up a downspout so I could peek into my own apartment. It was unchanged, the mattress still torn, feathers spotting my abode like flakes of snow. The latch was shiny, however, meaning the lock had been changed. My landlady was trying to make sure I’d settle my debt before getting my things. Given that my floor was her ceiling, I’d decided an oblique attack would be best.

“Keep a lookout,” I whispered to my companion.

“Hurry! I saw a gendarme down the alley!”

“I’ll be in and out without a peep of noise.”

I sidled on the sill to my neighbor Chabon, a librarian who each evening tutored the children of the newly striving. As I’d hoped, he was gone. The truth was that I had no hope of bribing a man of his rigid and rather dull rectitude, and was counting on his absence. I broke a pane and opened his window. He’d be disturbed to find a hole in his wall but I was, after all, on a mission for France.

His room smelled of books and pipe smoke. I dragged a heavy chest away from the wall opposite my own place and used my tomahawk to pry at the wainscoting. Did I mention the hatchet could work as wedge and lever, too? I’m afraid I splintered a few boards, but I’m no carpenter, either. I was making more sound than I’d promised, but if I was quick it wouldn’t matter. I saw my powder horn and the butt of my gun.

Then I heard the click of the lock on my own door, and footsteps in my apartment. Someone had heard the noise! Hastily, I shouldered the horn, grabbed the rifle, and started to slowly draw it out the wall, fighting the awkward angle.

I just about had it free when someone grabbed the barrel from the other side.

I peered through the hole. Facing me was the visage of Madame Durrell, her red hair seemingly electrified, her hideously rouged mouth pursed in triumph. “You think I don’t know your tricks? You owe me two hundred francs!”

“Which I’m traveling to earn,” I whispered hoarsely. “Please let go my gun, Madame, so I can satisfy my debts.”

“How, by murdering another? Pay, or I shout for the police!”

“I haven’t murdered anyone, but I still need time to put things to right.”

“Starting with your rent!”

“Be careful, I don’t want to hurt you. The rifle is loaded.” It was a frontier habit acquired from the voyageurs.

“Do you think I’m afraid of the likes of you? This gun is collateral!”