Free The Rosetta Key by William Dietrich

my medallion and I’d ended up shooting him with my rifle, while Sidney Smith had shot another bandit in unseen support. I’d left this one howling, wondering if the wound had been mortal. Obviously not. What the devil was he doing in Jerusalem, armed to the teeth?
    But I knew, of course, knew with dread that he had the same purpose as me, to search for ancient secrets. This was a confederate of Silano, and the French hadn’t given up. He was here to look for the Book of Thoth. And, apparently, for me.
    Before I had any chance to confirm this, however, he scrambled upward, listened to the shrieks of the neighbors and the cries of the watchmen, and fled, wheezing.
    We ran the other way.
     
     
    M iriam was shaking as we made our way back to Jericho’s house, my arm around her shoulder. We’d never been physically close, but now we clung instinctively. I took some of the less obvious back alleys I’d learned in my wanderings of Jerusalem, rats skittering away as I looked over my shoulder for pursuit. It was a climb back to Jericho’s — none of the city is level, and the Christian quarter is higher than the Muslim — so after a while we paused for a moment in an alcove, to catch our breath and make sure that with my throbbing head I was taking the right direction. “I’m sorry about that,” I told her. “It isn’t you they are after, it’s me.”
    “Who
are
those men?”
    “The one who shot at me is French. I’ve seen him before.”
    “Seen him where?”
    “In France. I shot
him
, actually.”
    “Ethan!”
    “He was trying to rob me. Shame I didn’t kill him then.”
    She looked as if seeing me for the first time.
    “It wasn’t about money, it was something more important. I haven’t told you and your brother the whole story.” Her mouth was half open.
    “I think it’s time to.”
    “And this woman Astiza was part of it?” Her voice was soft.
    “Yes.”
    “Who was she?”
    “A student of ancient times. A priestess, actually, but of an old, old Egyptian goddess. Isis, if you’ve heard of her.”
    “The Black Madonna.” It was a whisper.
    “Who?”
    “There has long been a cult of worshippers around the statues of the Virgin carved in black stone. Some simply saw it as a variation of Christian artwork, but others said it was really a continuation of the cult of Isis. The White Madonna and the Black.”
    Interesting. Isis had turned up repeatedly during my search in Egypt. And now this quiet woman, by all appearances a pious Christian, knew something of her as well. I’d never heard of a pagan goddess who got around so well.
    “But why white and black?” I was reminded of the checkerboard pattern of the Paris Masonic lodges where I’d done my best at grasping Freemasonry. And the twin pillars, one black and one white, which flanked the lodge altar.
    “Like night and day,” Miriam said. “All things are dual, and this is a teaching from the oldest times, long before Jerusalem and Jesus. Man and woman. Good and evil. High and low. Sleep and wakefulness. Our secret mind and our conscious mind. The universe is in constant tension, and yet opposites must come together to make a whole.”
    “I heard the same from Astiza.”
    She nodded. “That man who shot at you had a medal expressing this, did he not?”
    “You mean the Masonic symbol of overlapping square and compass?”
    “I’ve seen that in England. The compass draws a circle, while the carpenter’s angle makes a square. Again, the dual. And the G stands for God, in English, or
gnosis
, knowledge, in Greek.”
    “The heretic Egyptian Rite began in England,” I said.
    “So what do those men want?”
    “The same thing I seek. That Astiza and I sought. They might have held you for ransom to get to me.”
    She was still trembling. “His fingers were like talons.”
    I felt guilty at what I’d inadvertently dragged her into. What had been a treasure-hunting lark was now a perilous quest. “We’re in a race to learn the truth