‘Is there a way out?’ Talma asked.
‘Past the wine barrels is a grate. The drain is big enough to slip through and leads to the sewers. Some Masons escaped that way in the Terror.’
My friend grimaced, but did not quail. ‘Which way to the leather market?’
‘Right, I think.’ He stopped us with his hand. ‘Wait, you’ll need this.’ He lit a lantern.
‘Thanks, friend.’ We scampered past his barrels, pried off the grate, and skidded thirty feet down a tunnel of slime until we popped out into the main sewer. Its high stone vault disappeared into darkness in both directions, our dim light illuminating the scurrying of rats. The water was cold and stinking. The grate clanged above as our saviour locked it back into place.
I examined my smeared green coat, the only nice one I had. ‘I admire your fortitude in coming down here, Talma.’
‘Better this and Egypt than a Parisian jail. You know, Ethan, every time I’m with you, something happens.’
‘It’s interesting, don’t you think?’
‘If I die of consumption, my last memories will be of your shouting landlady.’
‘So let’s not die.’ I looked right. ‘Why did you ask about the leather market? I thought the stage left near the Luxembourg Palace?’
‘Exactly. If the police find our benefactor, he’ll misdirect them.’ He pointed. ‘We go left.’
So we arrived: half wet, odoriferous, and me without baggage except for rifle and tomahawk. We washed as best we could at a fountain, my green travelling coat hopelessly stained. ‘The potholes are getting worse,’ Talma explained lamely to the postman. Our standing wasn’t helped by the fact that Talma had purchased the cheapest tickets, economising by perching us on the open rear bench behind the enclosed coach, exposed and dusty.
‘It keeps us from awkward questions,’ Talma reasoned. With my own money mostly stolen, I could hardly complain.
We could only hope the fast stage would get us well on the way to Toulon before the police got around to querying the stations, since our odd departure would likely be remembered. Once we reached Bonaparte’s invasion fleet we’d be safe: I carried a letter of introduction from Berthollet. I masked my identity with the name Gregoire and explained my accent by saying I was a native of French Canada.
Talma had his own valise delivered before accompanying my adventure, and I borrowed a change of shirt before it was hoisted to the coach roof. My gun had to go in the same place, with only the tomahawk keeping me from feeling defenceless.
‘Thanks for the extra clothing,’ I said.
‘I’ve far more than that,’ my companion boasted. ‘I’ve got special cotton for the desert heat, treatises on our destination, several leather-bound notebooks, and a cylinder of fresh quills. My medicines we will supplement with the mummies of Egypt.’
‘Surely you don’t subscribe to such quackery.’ The crumbled dust of the dead had become a popular remedy in Europe, but selling what looked like a vial of dirt encouraged all kinds of fraud.
‘The medicine’s very unreliability in France is the reason I want a mummy of my own. After recovering our health we can sell the remainder.’
‘A glass of wine does more good with less trouble.’
‘On the contrary, alcohol can lead to ruin, my friend.’ His aversion to wine was as odd for a Frenchman as his fondness for potatoes.
‘So you’d rather eat the dead?’
‘Dead who were prepared for everlasting life. The elixirs of the ancients are in their remains!’
‘Then why are they dead?’
‘Are they? Or did they achieve some kind of immortality?’
And with that illogic we were off. Our companions in the coach proper were a hatter, a vintner, a Toulon cordage maker, and a customs officer who seemed determined to sleep the length of France. I’d hoped for the companionship of a lady or two, but none boarded. Our passage was swift on the paved French highways, but tedious, like all travel. We slept much of the rest of the night, and the day was a numbing routine of brief stops to change horses, buy mediocre fare, and use the rural privies. I kept looking behind but saw no pursuit. When I dozed I had dreams of Madame Durrell demanding rent.
Soon enough we grew bored, and Talma began to pass the time with his tireless theories of conspiracies and mysticism. ‘You and I could be on a mission of historic importance, Ethan,’ he told me as our coach clattered down the valley of the Rhone.
‘I thought we were merely running from my troubles.’
‘On the contrary, we have something vital to contribute to this expedition. We understand the limits of science. Berthollet is a man of reason, of cold chemical fact. But we Freemasons both respect science yet know the deepest answers to the greatest mysteries are in the temples of the East. As an artist, I sense my destiny is to find what science is blind to.’
I looked at him sceptically, given that he had already swallowed three nostrums against the filth of the sewers, complained of stomach cramps, and thought the fact that his leg had gone asleep signalled final paralysis. His travelling coat was purple, as military as a slipper. This man was journeying to a Muslim stronghold? ‘Antoine, there are diseases in the East we don’t even have names for. I’m astounded you’re going at all.’
‘Our destination has gardens and palaces and minarets and harems. It is paradise on Earth, my friend, a repository of the wisdom of the pharaohs.’
‘Mummy powder.’
‘Don’t scoff. I’ve heard of miracle cures.’
‘Frankly, all this Masonic talk of Eastern mysteries hasn’t really made sense to me,’ I said, twisting to stretch my legs. ‘What’s to be learnt from a heap of ruins?’
‘That’s because you never really listen at our meetings,’ Talma lectured. ‘The Freemasons were the original men of learning, the master builders who constructed the pyramids and great cathedrals. What unites us is our reverence for knowledge, and what distinguishes us is our willingness to rediscover truths from the distant past. Ancient magicians knew powers we cannot dream of. Hiram Abiff, the great craftsman who built Solomon’s temple, was murdered by his jealous rivals and raised from the dead by the Master Mason himself.’
Masons were required to play out some of this fantastic story upon initiation, a ritual that had left me feeling foolish. One version of the story suggested resurrection, while another mere recovery of the body from a dastardly murder, but neither tale had any point to it that I could see. ‘Talma, you can’t really believe that.’
‘You’re just an initiate. As we climb the ranks, we will learn extraordinary things. A thousand secrets are buried in old monuments, and the few with the courage to uncover them have become mankind’s greatest teachers. Jesus. Muhammad. Buddha. Plato. Pythagoras. All learnt secret Egyptian knowledge from a great age long lost, from civilisations that raised works we no longer know how to build. Select groups of men – we Freemasons, the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, the followers of the Rosy Cross, Luciferians – all have sought to rediscover this knowledge.’
‘True, but these secret societies are often at odds with each other, as mainstream Freemasonry is with the Egyptian Rite. The Luciferians, if I understand it, give Satan a status equal to God.’
‘Not Satan, Lucifer. They simply believe in the duality of good and evil, and that gods exhibit a dual nature. In any event, I’m not equating these groups. I’m simply saying they recognise that the lost knowledge of the past is as important as scientific discovery in the future. Pythagoras himself spent eighteen years studying with the priests of Memphis. And where was Jesus for a similar time during his life, on which the gospels are silent? Some contend he studied in Egypt as well. Somewhere there is the power to remake the world, to restore harmony and recapture a golden age, which is why our slogan is ‘Order out of Chaos’. Men like Berthollet go to examine rocks and rivers. They are hypnotised by the natural world. But you and I, Gage, we sense the supernatural one that underlies it. Electricity, for example! We do not see it, and yet it is there! We know that the world of our senses is but a veil. The Egyptians knew, too. If we could read their hieroglyphics, we would become masters!’