The Barbary Pirates Read Free Page B

headless, ever since the revolutionary mobs mistook them for French kings and knocked their tops off. It’s like a stone monument to the guillotine! The church itself, which the Jacobins designated a Temple of Reason, is in wretched disrepair. The Te Deum was the first time the bells had rung in ten years, and none of his generals could remember when to genuflect. Instead of kneeling, the rabble presented arms when they elevated the host at consecration. You could hardly hear the Latin for all the snickering, whispers, and clatter of sabers and bayonets.”
    “The common people are happier the Church is back, which was Napoleon’s point.”
    “Yes, the country is drifting to the old ways: faith, tyranny, and war. No wonder the mob has voted overwhelmingly to make him first consul for life! Fortunately, my kind of business thrives in every political climate. Be they royalist or revolutionary, cleric or marshal, they all like to tumble.” She raised a flute of champagne. “To desire!”
    “And discipline.” I took a swallow, eyeing the girls wistfully. The savants seemed to be chatting away as if this were the Institute—trollops can pretend fascination with anything, it seems, even science—and the air was heady with hashish and the aroma of spirits. “I tell you, it feels good to abstain,” I continued doggedly. “I’m going to write a book.”
    “Nonsense. Every man needs vice.”
    “I’ve sworn off gambling, too.”
    “But surely there is something you would wager for,” a male voice interrupted.

CHAPTER THREE
    I turned. A swarthy, hawk-nosed man in the getup of a sultan had entered the antechamber. His eyes were predatory and his lips thin as a lizard’s, giving him the reptilian guise of an inquisitor, or one of my creditors. His turban was decorated with an ostrich feather of the kind the soldiers had collected in Egypt, by shooting the dim-witted beasts that ran wild there. He didn’t really look Arab, however, but French. We all like to pretend.
    “May I present Osiris, god of the underworld,” Isis/Marguerite introduced. “He’s a student of Egypt like you.”
    The man bowed. “Of course I haven’t found treasures like the famed Ethan Gage.”
    “Lost everything, I’m afraid.” People always hope I’m rich, in case I might share. I disabuse them as quickly as I can.
    “And left Egypt before the campaign was over, did you not?”
    “As did Napoleon. I’m American, not French, and I control my own life.” This wasn’t quite true, either—who does control his life?—but I didn’t want it implied I’d scuttled.
    “And would you care to wager that life?”
    “Hardly. I’ve been telling the Queen of Arabia here that I’ve reformed.”
    “But every man can be tempted, which is the lesson of the Palais Royal, is it not? All have something they long for. None are completely guiltless. Which is why we congregate, and never judge! We may admire the righteous, but we don’t really like them, or entirely trust them, either. The most pious are crucified! If you want good friends, be imperfect, no?”
    My companions, I realized, had been led by their consorts out of sight. The savants were either bolder or drunker than I thought. Which meant that I was suddenly quite alone. “Nobody’s more imperfect than me,” I said. “And just who are you, Osiris? Do you procure?”
    “I assist, and learn. Which is how I can offer a wager to tell you what you want to know, and you don’t have to bet a sou to win it.”
    “What do you think I want to know?”
    “Where the priestess is, of course.”
    Astiza was a priestess of sorts, a student of ancient religion. I felt a jolt of memory.
    “She still touches your heart, I think. Men call you vain and shallow, Ethan Gage, but there’s spark and loyalty in there as well, I’m guessing.”
    “How do you know about Astiza?” I was aware that with the absence of my companions, two new men had materialized in the shadows, bulky as armoires. They