Sanctum

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An Oxbridge don’s chambers. Wooden paneling on the walls. Old leather books and papers everywhere—on the desk, on the chair, piled on the floor. Through the window, the last golden light of day limns an old Roman short sword that is keeping the chaos at bay, doing service as a paper weight on the desk.

Controlling hordes of Visigoths was probably easier.

The door opens and a grey-haired gentleman in the black robe of an academic strides in and adds his pile of books to the desk. He strips the robe off and tosses it on top, revealing a tired tweed jacket and green bowtie, which he yanks untied.

He opens the desk drawer and takes out a crystal decanter and a low glass, which he fills halfway with amber liquid. He takes a stiff drink, closes his eyes and shudders.

From a chair in the dark corner, a man sits forward, causing the academic to spill whiskey on his hand.

“For heaven’s sake, Chutney! I have asked you repeatedly not to do that!”

A thin young man in spectacles and a khaki suit, inappropriate for the weather, blinks slowly. “So sorry,” he says, unapologetically. “I have a piece from our man in Alexandria. Do you have the time to authenticate it for me? Usual fee, of course.”

The older man looks around blankly. “Other room,” he grunts.

The inner sanctum is a different world, a spare, Spartan workroom, three of its walls lined by shelves. On one wall, ancient leather books. On the next, shards of pottery, ancient daggers, coins, jewelry, all from empires long since dead and gone. On the last wall, carefully partitioned into cubby holes, scroll after scroll after scroll. In the center of the room a work table, completely bare and clean. The don gestures to the younger man. “Let’s see, then.”

The scroll rolls open across the table, revealing Greek letters in row after row. The young man steps back and watches the older man examine the text meticulously with a magnifying glass, touch the parchment, sniff it, grunt again.

“Hieratic script from the early Ptolemaic dynasty, yes. However, there is no way this could possibly be over  two thousand years old. Two or three hundred perhaps. A slightly old, brilliantly executed copy.”

“I assure you, it is authentic. The dig site was completely sealed against moisture—“

“Young man, when you say something is authentic, it is an assertion, a claim. When I say something is authentic, it means that I can give a detailed provenance, following ownership from hand to hand across millennia. That I cannot do here. Whatever your ‘man in Alexandria’ has found, it is not a historical goldmine, as you promised in your telegram, but rather a genius fraud perpetrated a mere few centuries ago. Practically worthless.”

The young man frowns, “I will take it to London!”

“Yes, yes. Do that. They will say the same.”

The don watches genially as the angry young man rerolls the scroll and delicately wraps it in the oiled leather case, gives him a grudging nod and marches out.

The don retrieves his whiskey, shifts the papers off his desk chair and sits inhaling the fumes from his glass.

So it was true. What in God’s name was he to do now?