Page 49

Ellie had read it, of course. She had ordered a copy from Dresden the year before and devoured it in the wingback chair in her room after work one evening.

She always tried to stay up-to-date with the latest research into the ancient history of various parts of the world. It was something of a compulsion, even though it was highly unlikely she would ever have an opportunity to put the knowledge to use.

“Are you familiar with Schellhas’s work?” she asked.

“Nah,” Bates replied. “I just know what I’ve seen.”

“It is quite recent and not yet translated from the original German,” she continued. “But it is my understanding that the slashed face and serpent legarefound combined in the symbology a little further north among the Aztecs—in the god Tezcatlipoca, the master of war, sacrifice, and prophecy. The presence of the disk icon here in the center of the figure would support that identification, as Tezcatlipoca is also strongly associated with the Smoking Mirror…”

“Smoking Mirror?” Bates prompted.

“Oh!” Ellie returned. “Sorry—a mythical piece of flawless obsidian through which the god could supposedly see into the past, the future, or across vast… er, distances,” she finished awkwardly.

Bates had gone quiet. He wasn’t looking at the medallion anymore. His eyes were on Ellie.

She was consumed by a familiar, uncomfortable fear. She was doing it again—rattling off an instinctive stream of knowledge in a way that usually ended with people looking at her as though she had just fallen out of the sky.

Ellie fought the urge to flinch. In her experience, men were often particularly ungracious when confronted with the reality that a woman might be as well informed as they were on a subject—or better.

She pushed the feeling aside. She could hardly expect to succeed in what she was about to attempt if she had to conceal the fact that sheknew things.

“Yet this isn’t an Aztec artifact,” she continued. “The rectangular structure of these characters more closely resembles Mayan script, and the figures are more stylized—less naturalistic.”

She waited for Bates’s response, brushing a hand uselessly across her skirt. He studied her for a quiet moment before returning his sharp blue gaze to the artifact.

“The glyphs might look like Mayan, but they’re not,” Bates finally said. “I don’t know what they are.”

“I suppose we must admit the possibility that it is a fraud.” Ellie was unable to keep the disappointment from her tone.

Bates leaned back in his chair and frowned at the surface of the disk thoughtfully.

“Damned clever one, if it is,” he replied. “It’d have to have been made by someone pretty familiar with the Mayan language. I mean, a fair few of these symbols look close to stuff I’ve seen out in the field—like this lollipop.”

“What lollipop?” Ellie replied, bewildered.

“This one,” he returned, flipping the medallion over and tapping the lone glyph on its reverse side.

Ellie eyed the circle of spiraling, whirling lines skeptically. There was admittedly something just a bit lollipopish about it.

“I am fairly certain that represents some kind of wind or vapor,” Ellie cut in defensively.

“But if they knew enough to replicate the lollipop, why not just carve the actual characters?” Bates continued. “Why bother changing them around at all when the real thing would’ve been more convincing?”

“Yes,” Ellie agreed. Her interest sparked again as she returned to his side and gazed down at the medallion with him. “That was my reasoning exactly.”

The thoughtful look Bates flashed her was a little difficult to read. She was relieved when he returned his attention to the artifact.

“You can’t reach inside a piece of rock and ask it when it was made,” he asserted. “In determining the authenticity of something like this, a lot of it’s got to come down to knowing where it came from.”

He gave her a meaningful look, waiting.

Ellie felt the tingle of rising nerves.

“I can confidently say that it dates back to at least the mid-seventeenth century,” she offered carefully.

Bates’s tone shifted, taking on a warning note.

“Where’d you get the necklace, Princess?”