“If they did they may have lost it in the purge that followed,” Farhi said. “Your particular Grail may be nothing but ashes, or in other hands. Yet no power followed the Templars. No group of knights ever equaled them, and no fraternity ever again became so widespread over Europe. And when Jacques de Molay, the last grand master, was burned at the stake for refusing to betray Templar secrets, he levied a terrible curse by promising that the king of France and the pope would follow him to the grave within a year. Both did so. So was the book found to begin with? Was it lost? Or was it . . .”
“Re-hidden,” Miriam said.
“In the Temple Mount!” I cried.
“Possibly, but in places so deep it cannot be easily found again.
Moreover, when Saladin recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders, the possibility of penetrating the mount seemed lost. Even now, the Muslims guard it zealously. No doubt they’ve heard some of the stories we have. Yet they allow no exploration. These secrets could shake all religions to their foundations, and Islam is an enemy of witchcraft.”
“You mean we can’t get in there?”
“If we tried and were found, we’d be executed. It is sacred ground.
Excavations in the past have caused riots. It would be as if we tried to excavate St. Peter’s.”
“Then why are we talking?”
They glanced at each other in mutual understanding.
“Ah. So we must not be found.”
“Exactly,” Jericho said. “Farhi has suggested a possible path.”
“Why hasn’t he taken this path himself?”
“Because it is wet, filthy, dangerous, confined, and probably futile,” Farhi said cheerfully. “We were, after all, dealing only with vague historical legend until you come with claims that something 7 0
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extraordinary really existed in ancient Egypt, and was perhaps carried here. Do I believe it? No. You may be an entertaining liar, or a credulous fool. But do I disbelieve, when its existence may have represented great power to my people? I can’t afford to.”
“So you will lead us?”
“As well as a disfigured bookkeeper can.”
“For a share of the treasure, I presume.”
“For truth and knowledge, as Thoth would be content with.”
“Which Miriam said could be used for good or evil.”
“The same could be said about money, my friend.” Well, anytime a stranger announces altruism, and calls me friend, I wonder what pocket he’s reaching into. But in my own months of searching I hadn’t found a clue, had I? Maybe he and I could use each other. “Where do we start?”
“Between the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa Mosque is the Fountain of El-Kas,” Farhi said crisply. “It draws its water from ancient rain cisterns deep within the Temple Mount. Those cisterns are connected by tunnels, to feed each other. Some writers have speculated they are part of a vein of passages that may extend even under the holy rock Kubbet es-Sakhra itself, where Abraham offered his sacrifice to God: the foundation stone of the world. Moreover, these cisterns must also be connected to springs, not just rainwater. Accordingly, a decade ago I was asked by Djezzar to search the ancient records for underground passageways into Temple Mount. I told him I found none.”
“You lied?”
“It was a costly admission of failure. I was mutilated as punishment.
But the reason is that I did find old records, fragmentary accounts, suggesting a secret route to powers so great that a man such as Djezzar must never get them. The Spring of Gihon that feeds the Pool of Siloam, outside the city walls, may offer a way. If so, the Muslims would never see us.”
“The cisterns,” said Miriam, “might lead to the deepest places where the Jews may have hid the ark, the book, and other treasures.”
“Until, perhaps, they were uncovered by the Knights Templar,” t h e
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Farhi added. “And, perhaps, re-hidden—after Jacques de Molay burned at the stake. There is one other problem, however, that has also discouraged me from pursuing any exploration.”
“The tunnels are blocked by water?” I had grim memories of my escape from the Great Pyramid.
“Possibly. But even if they are not, one record I found made reference to doors that are sealed. What was once open may now be closed.”
“Determined men can force any locked door, with enough muscle or gunpowder,” Jericho said.
“Not gunpowder!” Farhi said. “Do you want to arouse the city?”
“Muscle, then.”
“What if the Muslims hear us poking around down there?” I asked.
“That,” the banker said, “would be most unfortunate.”
¤
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¤
My rifle was complete. Jericho had carefully pasted two of Miriam’s hairs on its telescope to give an aiming point, and when I tested the gun outside the city I found I could reliably hit a plate at two hundred yards. A musket, in contrast, was inaccurate after fifty.
But when I took the piece up to watch for the French brigands from our rooftop, peering until my eye ached, I saw nothing. Had they left?
I fantasized that they hadn’t, that Alessandro Silano was here, secretly directing them, and that I could capture and interrogate him about Astiza.
But it was as if the gang had never existed.
Miriam has used bright brass to inset two replica seraphim on each side of the wooden stock as patch boxes where I kept my greased wadding. Pushed by the bullet, it cleans the barrel of powder resi-due with each shot. The seraphim crouched with wings outstretched like those on the Ark. She also made me a new tomahawk. I was so pleased I gave a dubious Jericho some instruction on how to win at pharaon, should he ever find a game, and bought a small golden Spanish cross for Miriam. I also wasn’t entirely surprised, when our evening of adventure came, that Miriam insisted she come along, despite 7 2
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the custom to cloister women in Jerusalem. “She knows old legends that bore me,” Jericho admitted. “She sees things I don’t, or won’t.
And I don’t want to leave her alone with the French thieves skulking about.”
“We agree on that,” I said.
“Besides, the two of you need a woman’s sense,” she said.
“It’s important we move stealthily,” Jericho added. “Miriam said you have red Indian skills.”
Truth be told, my red Indian skills had consisted primarily of avoiding the savages whenever I could, and buying them off with presents when I couldn’t. My few scrapes with them had been terrifying. But I had exaggerated my frontier exploits to Miriam (a bad habit of mine), and it wouldn’t do to set the record straight now.
Farhi also came, dressed in black. “My presence may be even more important than I thought,” he said. “There are Jewish mysteries too, and since our conversation I’ve been studying what the Templars studied, including the numerology of the Jewish kabbalah and its Book of Zohar.”
“Another book? What’s this one for?”
“Some of us believe the Torah, or your Bible, can be read at two levels. One is the stories we all know. The second is that there is another story, a mystery, a sacred story—a story hidden between the lines—embedded in a number code. That is Zohar.”
“The Bible is a code?”
“Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet can be represented by a number, and there are ten more numbers beyond, representing the sacred sefiroth. These are the code.”
“Ten what?”
“Sefiroth. They are the six directions of reality—the four cardinals of east, west, north, and south, plus up and down—and the makings of the universe, being fire, water, ether, and God. These ten sefiroth and twenty-two letters represent the thirty-two ways of wisdom, which in turn point toward the seventy-two sacred names of God.