Napoleon’s Pyramids

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.

At last a lieutenant appeared to enter my name in the prison record books.

‘At least get me an interview with Bonaparte,’ I pleaded.

‘You’re wiser to stay out of his sight, unless you want to be shot immediately. You are suspected of murder here because of earlier reports of the death of a courtesan in Paris. Something about unpaid debts, as well…’ he studied his papers. ‘A landlady named Madame Durrell?’

I groaned inwardly. ‘I didn’t kill Enoch! I discovered the body!’

‘And you promptly reported it?’ His tone was as cynical as my creditors.

‘Listen, the entire expedition may be in jeopardy if I can’t complete my work. Count Silano is trying to monopolise important secrets.’

‘Don’t try to slander Silano. It was he who provided affidavits about your character from Madame Durrell and a lantern bearer. He predicted your predilection for deviant behaviour.’ He read again. ‘Characteristics of a de Sade.’

So. While I held a measuring tape at the pyramids, Silano had been busy in Cairo enhancing my reputation.

‘I have the right to legal representation, do I not?’

‘An army solicitor should get to you within a week.’

Was I cursed? How convenient for my enemies that I was locked up, unable to follow the count, contest the charges, or make my midnight rendezvous at Yusuf’s harem! The sun was slanting low through the tiny cell window, and supper looked like a wretched pea-and-lentil mash. Our beverage was stale barrel water, our privy a bucket.

‘I need a hearing now!’

‘It’s possible you’ll be returned to Paris to face charges there.’

‘This is insane!’

‘Better the guillotine there than a firing squad here, no?’ He shrugged and left.

‘Better how?’ I shouted after him, slumping to the floor.

‘Have some mash,’ said a private, a would-be entrepreneur caught trying to sell a cannon for scrap metal. ‘Breakfast is worse.’

I turned away.

Well, I’d gambled and lost, hadn’t I? If I couldn’t lose in Paris, I couldn’t get a single lucky card here. Of course if I’d followed Franklin’s homilies, I’d have an honest profession, but his ‘early to bed, early to rise’ advice seemed so counter to basic nature. One of the things I liked about him was that he didn’t always follow his own advice. Even when nearly eighty, he’d party if a pretty lady was in the offing.

Soon it was dark. With every moment, Astiza was farther away.

It was while I was digging deeper into the pit of despair, with a side shaft of self-pity and a veritable mine of regret – all the time trying to ignore the stink of my cellmates – that I heard a hiss from the cell’s window. ‘Ethan!’

What now?

‘Ethan?’ The voice was low and anxious. ‘The American? Is he there?’

I pushed through my fellows and put my face to the small opening. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It is Ashraf.’

‘Ash! I thought you’d abandoned me!’

‘I thought better of it. My brother would want me to help you, I know. You and the priestess are the only hope to safeguard the secrets he lived to protect. And then I hear you’ve been arrested! How did you get in so much trouble so quickly?’

‘It’s a talent.’

‘Now I must get you out of there.’

‘But how?’

‘Move as far away from the window as you can, please. And cover your ears.’

‘What?’

‘It might be a good idea to crouch, too.’ He disappeared.

Well, that was ominous. Mamelukes had a head-on way of doing things. I pushed my way to the opposite corner of the cell and addressed the others in the dimness. ‘I think something dramatic is about to happen. Please move to this side of our apartment.’

No one moved.

So I tried again. ‘I have some hashish, if you’ll all just gather around.’

They formed a nice shield just before there was a loud boom. The outer cell wall below the window blew inward with a spray of stone, a cannonball sailing on to hit the wood-and-iron cell door. The entry flexed, shuddered, and fell neatly away from its frame, hitting the corridor outside with a clang. The cannonball was imbedded in the wood like a berry in a muffin. We’d all sprawled in a heap, me at the bottom, my ears ringing and the air full of dust. Yet I knew opportunity when I saw it. ‘Now! Rush the bailiff!’ I cried.

As the others struggled up and stormed into the corridor, I crawled the opposite way outside, through the hole in the jail wall that Ash had just created. He was crouched in the shadows, waiting. He had a musket slung on one shoulder, two pistols stuffed in his shaft, and a sword at his waist. I recognised the weapons I’d confiscated from him when he was captured. Well, so much for my trophies.

‘Where the devil did you get a cannon?’

‘It was sitting in the yard back here, impounded as evidence.’

‘Evidence?’ Ah, yes, the soldier who’d tried to hock it. ‘They left it loaded?’

‘To use against the prisoners, if they tried to escape.’

There were musket shots, and we ran.

We flitted through the dark streets like thieves, retrieving my weapons, rope, and provisions where I’d hid them. Then we watched the march of the moon, waiting for the appointed hour. When we crept to the south wall of Yusuf’s house I wasn’t sure what to expect. The heavy door that marked the separate women’s entrance at the rear was thick wood with a large iron lock. There was no entry that way. So all I could do is wait silently below a south wall window, hoping that the French patrols scouring the city didn’t stumble upon us.

‘Now I’ve made you a fugitive too,’ I whispered.

‘The gods would not let you avenge my brother’s murder by yourself.’

The night was lengthening, and I heard nothing and saw nothing from the screened windows above. Was I too late for the rendezvous? Had my informant been found out? Impulsive and impatient, I finally took the golden eye of Horus from my pocket and lofted it upward at the opening. To my surprise, it didn’t fall back.

Instead, the charm weighted a silken thread that slithered down. I tied my rope to the thread and watched as it was hauled skyward. I gave a moment for it to be tied off, pulled to test, and planted my feet on the wall. ‘Wait here,’ I told Ashraf.

‘You think my eyes aren’t as curious as yours?’

‘I’m the expert on women. You hold the rifle.’

The harem window was fifty feet overhead, the shutter in its screen just big enough to get my head and shoulders inside. Panting from anticipation and exertion, I heaved my way in, my tomahawk on my belt. Given the trying events of the day, I was more than ready to use it.

Fortunately, lithe young arms helped drag me into the room, putting me in a better mood. My anonymous assistant, I saw, was young, pretty, disappointingly clothed, and even veiled. But then her almond eyes alone were enough to make a man fall in love: maybe there was method to Muslim madness. Her finger went to where her lips would be, signalling quiet. She handed me a second piece of paper and whispered, ‘Astiza.’

‘ Fayn? ’ I asked. Where?

She shook her head and pointed at the paper. I opened it. ‘It is hidden to be seen,’ it said in English, in Astiza’s hand.

So she had left the medallion behind! I looked about and suddenly noticed half a dozen pair of eyes staring at me, like animals from a forest. Several of the women in the harem were silently awake, but like my young guide they were dressed for the street, and timid as deer. All put fingers to veiled lips. Clear enough.

Whatever fantasies I had about limpid pools, serenading damsels, and diaphanous garments were disappointed. The harem quarters looked plainer and more cramped than the public rooms I’d seen, and no one seemed to be preening herself for Yusuf’s next nocturnal visit. It was, I realised, simply a segregated wing from which the women could cook, sew, and gossip without intruding on male territory.

They watched me in fear and fascination.

I began moving around their dim quarters looking for the medallion. Hidden to be seen? Did she mean by a window? All were shielded with mashrabiyya screens. The harem had one large central room and a warren of small ones, each with a rumpled bed, chest, and pegs hung with clothes, some revealing and others concealing. It was a world turned upside down, all colour turned inward, all thought confined, all pleasure locked.

Where had I hidden it? In a shoe, a cannon, a chamber pot. None of those were ‘hidden to be seen’, it seemed to me. I bent to lift up a bed covering, but the young woman who was my guide stayed my hand. They were waiting for me to spot it, I realised, to prove that I knew what I was looking for. And then of course the obviousness of my task became clear to me. I straightened, looking around more boldly. Hidden in plain sight, she’d meant. Round a neck, on a table, on…

A jewellery rack.

If there is one thing universal in human culture, it’s the love of gold. What these women would never display on the street they would drape on their skin for Yusuf and each other: rings, coins, bracelets and bangles, earrings and anklets, tiaras and waist chains. On a dressing table was a waterfall of gold, a yellow delta, a treasure like a small echo of L’Orient ’s. And there in the midst of it all, thrown as casually as a copper in a tavern, was the medallion, its shape obscured by the necklaces atop it. Bin Sadr and Silano never got in here, of course, and no one else had bothered to look.

I untangled it. As I did so, a heavy bangle of an earring came off the table and dropped to the floor like a gong.

I froze. Suddenly other heads came up from beds, these faces older. One started at the sight of me and leapt out, pulling street robes around her.

She spoke sharply. The young one replied impatiently. A hissing conversation broke out in rapid Arabic. I began easing toward the window. The older one gestured at me to put the medallion down, but instead I slid it over my neck and inside my shirt. Isn’t this what they’d expected? Apparently not. The older one gave a shout, and several of the women began to wail and scream. Now I heard a eunuch’s cry from outside the door, and male shouts from below. Was that the scrape of drawn steel? It was time to go.

As I made for the window the older woman tried to block me, arms flailing, sleeves wide, like a huge black bat. I shoved past, even as her fingers scrabbled creepily at my neck. She fell away, yelling. A bell began clanging, and there was a gunshot of alarm. They’d rouse the whole city! I grabbed the frame and kicked, busting out half the wooden screen. Pieces rattled down into the alley below. I rolled out the window and started slithering down the rope. Below, I saw the rear door burst open and servants, armed with clubs and staves, stream out. Other men burst into the harem behind me. Even as I descended, someone began trying to haul the rope back up.

‘Jump!’ Ashraf shouted. ‘I will catch you!’

Did he know what I weighed? And I didn’t want to simply let go because I figured we might use the line I’d bought just that afternoon. I grabbed the tomahawk from my belt and chopped at the rope above my head. It snapped and I fell the last thirty feet, landing with a whump in something soft and stinking. It was in an alley cart that Ash had wheeled to catch my fall. I heaved myself over the side, clutching the remains of the rope, and braced to fight.

There was a bang, the sound of Ashraf’s musket, and one of the servants charging from the rear door pitched backward. My rifle was shoved into my hands and I shot a second man, then whooped like an Indian and cracked the head of a third with the tomahawk. The others fell back in confusion. Ashraf and I dashed the other way, vaulting a low wall and sprinting down twisting lanes.

Yusuf’s men came in a mob after us, but were shooting blind. I paused to reload my own rifle. Ash had his sword out. Now we had only to escape the city…

‘There they are!’

It was a French military patrol. We cursed, wheeled, and fled back the way we had come. I heard the French commands to aim and fire, so I grabbed Ash to pitch both of us down to the dirt of the street. There was a roar, and several bullets sizzled overhead. Then cries and screams ahead. They’d hit Yusuf’s men.

We crawled into a side street, using the smoke as cover. Now we could hear shouts of alarm and wild shots in all directions.

‘What was that excrescence I fell into?’ I panted to Ash.

‘Donkey dung. You have fallen into what the Franks call merde, my friend.’

Another bullet wanged off a stone post. ‘I can’t disagree.’

At length we rose to a crouch and rounded a corner. Then we trotted until we entered a wider avenue leading more or less to the southern gate. We seemed to have lost immediate pursuit.

‘We’ve also lost my provisions. Damn that old woman!’

‘Moses found manna in the desert.’

‘And King George will find crumpets at his tea table, but I’m not him, am I?’

‘You’re becoming surly.’

‘It’s about time.’

We were almost to Cairo’s wall when a squadron of French cavalry turned onto our street. They were on routine patrol, not yet spotting us, but they blocked our path.

‘Let’s hide in that alcove,’ Ashraf suggested.

‘No. Don’t we need horses? Tie our rope to that pillar, as high as the shoulder of a mounted officer.’ I took the other end and did the same on the opposite side of the street. ‘When I shoot, get ready to steal a horse.’

I strode to the middle of the street, facing the approaching cavalry, and casually waved my rifle to let them see me in the dark.

‘Who goes there?’ an officer called. ‘Identify yourself!’

I fired, plucking off his cap.

They charged.

I darted toward a pool of shadow, slung my rifle, jumped to catch a pole, and swung myself up to an awning and sill. The cavalry patrol hit the rope at a dead run. The lead troopers were plucked from their saddles like puppets, colliding with the rank just behind. Horses reared, men toppled. I leapt, knocking a rider loose from his plunging mount. Ashraf had wrestled his way onto another horse. Pistols went off in the dark but the bullets whined harmlessly. We lashed our way out of the tangle.

‘The French are going to begin wondering whose side you’re on,’ Ash gasped as we began our gallop, looking back at the shouting troopers.

‘So am I.’

We rode for the wall and the gate. ‘Open wide! Couriers for Bonaparte!’ I cried in French. They saw the cavalry horses and tack before they spied us, lying low in our Arab robes. By then it was too late. We burst through the sentries toward the desert beyond, shots buzzing overhead as we galloped into the night.

I was out, the medallion mine, free to rescue Astiza, find the Book of Thoth, and become master of the world – or at least its saviour!

And I was now prey for every Bedouin, Mameluke, and French cavalryman in Egypt.