Born of Metal: Rings of the Inconquo Read online

  The phone light stabbed brilliantly through the dark. Several bits of grimy ceramic and metal lay across the ground, cushioned by a thin bed of dark soil. I cursed under my breath at the fragments of pottery and metal, pretty sure that ‘broken’ wasn’t their original state.

  I’d never damaged an artefact before and vaguely wondered in an unattached way if Shelton would fire me on the spot. The mess alone would drive him up a wall, without even mentioning that I’d destroyed something centuries old.

  Glowering, I stalked towards the supply closet, suddenly glad for the cover of darkness. I needed to get the things cleaned-up and take it to Cataloguing. I’d ask Meredith what to do.

  Meredith Janssen, a senior research assistant, was the closest thing I had to a confidante at work. We’d conversed often while I was there to pick up something from an outgoing exhibit. She’d intimated that she’d been ‘dealing’ with Shelton for years and sympathised. I’d never pressed beyond that, but I hoped now I had a real crisis in which she’d actually be able to help.

  I scrounged up a broom and a dustpan, and I returned to my station just as the power returned.

  In the glare of the overhead lights, the scope of the mess became clear, and I stood there stunned at just how much dirt covered the floor. It seemed implausible that such a small box could have held so much. With a resigned huff, I began sweeping. Fifteen minutes later, I’d returned nearly all of the dirt to the box, and I had only to collect the broken artefact — or what was left of it. I’d laid my roll of packaging tape to reseal the thing, but I wondered after I’d gotten it out if sealing it all back up was tantamount to a cover-up.

  Some angrier, uglier side of me answered who cares? But in the end, I decided to stick with my plan. Ask Meredith.

  I was about to dump the fragments back into the container when something caught my eye. Burnished lustre of metal stood out against the broken bits of pottery. The kind of metal wasn’t immediately obvious, though at a glance, I guessed it was a copper alloy. A quick check of the storage label said that the box was supposed to contain early Hittite pottery — no mention of metals.

  A powerful curiosity took root.

  Setting the dustpan on my work table, I got down on my hands and knees. Delicately, I used a pen to shift the mess around to get a better look at the metal fragments.

  It soon became clear they weren’t fragments at all, but thick rings, two of them, cut through a single piece of metal so they were attached. Each had a wide band etched with cuneiform that looked more Sumerian or Akkadian than Hittite. One side of the rings was uneven, and the lighter grey of exposed metal suggested they’d been broken. If worn, the rings would entirely cover two fingers from the middle to the base knuckle. The strange half-gauntlet had faint, rippling striations. Evidence of a forging process I hadn’t seen even after hours studying metallurgic techniques used by ancient cultures.

  I checked the box over one more time, searching for something that defined such an exciting and unique artefact. There was nothing anywhere in or on the box that explained the two rings.

  Looked like I had more than just my screw-up to discuss with Meredith.

  I called her name softly from the door of Cataloguing Lab D.

  A short, stout woman with a mess of brown curls stepped away from a lab table where she and two other colleagues stood. She blinked owlishly from behind wide spectacles, and her face lit up with recognition.

  “Ibby, I haven’t seen you for donkey’s years,” she said kindly as she came over to the door.

  Meredith was always cheerful and prone to cockney slang, even if it irritated the more uppity members of the staff, not least of all a certain supervisor. That might have been why we got on so well.

  “I’ve missed you too. I’m not interrupting something important, am I?”

  Meredith tossed a dismissive hand. “Don’t think on it for a minute, dear. I’ll just let those boys chase their tails for a bit.” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Between you and me, the two of us together could do the work of three sets of these knobheads.”

  I covered my mouth to hide a smile. It was impossible not to like Meredith. “A true compliment if I’ve ever heard one.” I gestured to the hallway. “Can I show you something out here?”

  Meredith nodded, and together we slid out into the hallway where I’d left the trolley laden with boxes. From the top, I took the box containing the strange rings, looked up and down the hall and stole a glance over Meredith’s shoulder at the knobheads. They weren’t paying us any attention.

  “I had an accident when the power flickered earlier,” I said, keeping my voice low, “but it led me to a fascinating discovery.”

  Popping the box open, I took the pen I’d tucked behind my ear and reached in to hook the rings. Meredith watched wordlessly as they hung in the air before her face, glinting in the subdued light of the hallway.

  “This box is labelled early Hittite pottery, but look at this. I’ve never seen anything like it. If these markings are Hittite, then I’m a dandelion.”

  Meredith produced a latex glove from her jacket pocket and took the rings, curiosity etched across her features. A few times, she used her free hand to raise her glasses to the top of her head and back down again. As she inspected them, she murmured without meeting my eyes, “Exactly what kind of accident did you have?”

  Something in Meredith’s tone made me uncomfortable, but I remembered how seriously she took her job, and I supposed she was just trying to be professional. I told her about Shelton dumping all the extra work on me. That had led to my crowded workstation and accidentally knocking the box off my desk, the power going out and the subsequent discovery. Meredith listened, her expression now unreadable.

  “So now, I have two problems: one is what to do with the compromise in artefact storage, and second is who I should report this to? I don’t trust Shelton not to turn it into an excuse to sack me.”

  She frowned, shook her head and took the box from me. Unceremoniously, she dropped the rings back inside and closed the box. She held it out to me at arm’s length.

  “Seal it and put it back in Archives with the other bits you have there.” She jerked her chin towards the trolley.

  Incredulous, I blinked at her. Was she really telling me to cover it up? Ignore it? Not tell anyone? Was I supposed to pretend I hadn’t found new, possibly unique metallurgical evidence in some forgotten pottery fragments?

  “Really?”

  She nodded emphatically and pressed the box against my stomach, where my arms reflexively came up to take it. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do.”

  “But … why?”

  My mind was racing. I mentally reviewed every word I’d said, everything I’d done, but none of it added up to this. Feelings of betrayal began to creep up my spine. I had thought I could trust her to help me out, not to encourage me to bury the strange thing. Wasn’t that the worst choice? The rings wouldn’t see the light of day again for decades. It would eventually become someone else’s find, but in the meantime, its secrets would remain hidden, its story undiscovered.

  I realised then Meredith didn’t see it as a find but as a problem.

  “Short answer,” she replied, “is that you’ve had a spell o’ bad cheese, love.”

  “I don’t get what that has to do with … ”

  Meredith shook her head abruptly, her mouth opening to say something before it closed again, and she glanced back over her shoulder into the lab. She took my arm and led me a short distance down the hall, which had a window that offered a view of Cataloguing Lab D. Her two colleagues appeared to be engaged in an argument over an artefact on the table. Meredith knocked her head towards them.

  “Do you want to be in here someday, Ibby?”

  “You know I do.” My hopes and ambitions extended well beyond the Cataloguing Lab, but that was beside the point of what she was insinuating. She had my attention.

  “Labs like these exist because museums pay for them
, and like any institution, they don’t take kindly to having their mistakes exposed. No one likes their dirty knickers on display. You follow?”

  I did, and I nodded around the lump of unease that was forming in my throat.

  “Good girl. See, you bring this up to Shelton or one of the other bigwigs, and it will look like we’ve got a major muck up in Collections. Remember some of those artefacts are on loan from other museums or are even of … disputable provenance. Embarrassments galore, then accusations and the great bloody witch hunt. Who do you think serves as the perfect scapegoat?”

  I began to feel very alone. It seemed terribly unfair, worse than unfair; it seemed dishonest and cowardly. I fought to keep my voice from breaking. “But what if this is the discovery of a lifetime? What if this is the revelation that leads to a hundred more?”

  Meredith looked me in the eye, seeming ten years older and very sad. “Then it is up to somebody else to find out.” At my stricken look, she offered me a bone. “Maybe you can rediscover it when you’re not at bottom of the pile. For you, right here, right now,” she jabbed at the box in my arms, “that little find is a landmine.”

  I looked down at it, blinking back my disappointment. My hands trembled, and I thought I could hear bits rattling about inside, the metallic clink of the rings against the ceramics seemed to taunt me. Or were they calling to me?

  Meredith reached out and steadied my hands. I met her eyes and saw they were filled with pity. “That’s my advice, love. I know you’ll do what’s for the best.”

  Then she was gone, and I was left standing there with the landmine.

  Pushing the trolley towards Archives, I was thankful that besides the odd porter on patrol, hardly anyone came here. Otherwise, my foot-dragging pace might have drawn some attention.

  The nefarious little box sat on top of the stack, reminding me I hadn’t made up my mind to follow Meredith’s advice. People travelled to the far corners of the earth, hoping for a discovery like this. A good number of them never found anything. When one literally fell on the floor in front of me, could I cover it up and pretend that nothing had happened?

  I was approaching a corner when I heard the click of hard soles on the floor. My heart skipped a beat. The porters and most of the staff all wore soft shoes to avoid excessive noise on the hard floors. But Dr Shelton wore loud-soled shoes. I often thought he did it on purpose to call attention to himself. The steps were coming my way. Any second now, he’d round the bend.

  On impulse, I snatched up the box and slipped it into my bag. The movement was so simple and smooth I realised I had made up my mind after all. I just hadn’t admitted it. Putting my weight behind the trolley, I did my best to appear as diligent and innocuous as possible.

  Only it wasn’t Dr Shelton who came around the corner.

  He was a tall gentleman in a tweed sport coat, whose feathered silver hair did an admirable job of covering his thinning hairline. Salt and pepper stubble on his cheeks seemed a little out of place, considering how traditionally well-dressed he was.

  I didn’t recognise him at all.

  That alone was notable, given we were in a part of the museum that was only for staff; further, I was familiar with everyone from both the day and evening shifts. It was not as though members of the public made tours down to Archives on a whim. This unfamiliarity, paired with how he didn’t appear to notice me and my trolley as he walked past, made things downright bizarre.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, halting the trolley and casting my eye over him for an ID badge. Perhaps, he was a new professor at the university.

  The man stopped dead in his tracks and turned to regard me. His dark eyes were wide behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. He just stared.

  “Sir?” I prompted when he made no reply.

  Old instincts kicked in, reminding me I was on a nearly abandoned floor of the museum with some strange, staring man I didn’t know. Putting the trolley squarely between us, I gathered up the straps of my bag. Hidden artefact or no, I’d swing it right into those spectacles if he stepped out of line.

  His eyewear sparked something in my memory. I had seen him before, coming off the elevator after my encounter with Shelton this morning. The look he’d given me then was not dissimilar to the one he wore now. I relaxed. In all likelihood, I was dealing with a visiting scholar — one of the more socially awkward academics. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to deal with some gawky bookworm who struggled to communicate with members of his own species, particularly those of the opposite sex. Training and working in a specialised field attracted eccentric personalities. While some were easier to get along with than others, a smile and patience went a long way with most.

  I put on my gentlest smile. “Are you lost?”

  He started at my question, one hand coming up to his mouth. Then with what seemed like an incredible effort, he finally spoke, “S-s-so sor-ry, madame. I’m-m feeling a touch-ch under the w-weather.”

  He seemed healthy enough to me, maybe a little thin. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  His gaze wandered to the stacked trolley between us where it lingered on each box before meandering back to me. When he spoke this time, the words seemed to come easier.

  “Excuse me, I’m being rude. I’m Professor James Lowe, Mesopotamian Studies. You are headed down to Archives, Miss …?”

  “Ibby Bashir, and yes, but if you need something, I’d be happy to be of assistance.”

  He glanced at the trolley again, probing and sifting. I had just begun to wonder if the man was senile or possibly intoxicated, when his gaze snapped back to me.

  “I’ll be fine, thank you. Carry on. I imagine you have a schedule to keep.”

  He stepped to the side and waved me by.

  I steered the trolley past him with a word of thanks and farewell. He mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out, and I heard his hard soles setting off down the hallway again as I rounded the corner.

  I was shaking my head at the bizarre incident when what he’d said about schedules sank in. I snatched out my phone to check the time.

  “Bollocks!” I snarled and threw myself against the trolley.

  The drama of the morning had driven all other thoughts from my mind. Shelton’s recent threats echoed in my memory as I realised I simply had to be at my first lecture on time. I could not afford to be late, and the class started in ten minutes!

  Chapter Four

  I made it to each of my lectures, though I did have to admit defeat and creep into the first one nearly ten minutes late. The first one was the largest and held in a big auditorium with poor lighting, especially when it was raining. Which — during the London winter — meant often. I was thankful for that.

  For all the effort I’d exerted to get to my lectures, I didn’t learn a thing. I sat there the entire time keenly aware of the artefact sitting in my bag. The stolen artefact.

  I felt ill thinking about it.

  I hadn’t intended to steal it. The whole thing just sort of happened. Hiding it in my bag when I thought Shelton was coming turned into forgetting it was there while racing to get to my lectures, which turned into yanking open my bag to get a pad for notes and realising that I’d committed a crime. If I hadn’t seen a few classmates noticing my flabbergasted expression, I would have continued to sit there, blinking into my bag in horror. I grabbed the pad, closed my bag, faced the front and scribbled notes about nothing.

  It was awful. I almost lost my nerve altogether. When moving between lecture halls, I collided with a young woman in the corridor. The box gave a rattle, and I looked down to see the clasp was undone. Squeaking out an apology, I frantically ducked into the nearest loo while trying to refasten the bag. Shutting myself in a stall, I closed the bag and sat on the toilet lid to catch my breath. I gulped in air and realised I was sweating … sweating and talking to myself under my breath.

  “This is mad. I’m mad. It’s a nightmare. I just need to take it back. Take it back and listen to Meredith.”


  “Everything all right in there, dear?” The voice was husky and slightly accented.

  I froze, not daring to breathe. I hoped she was talking to someone else.

  Two laboured heartbeats later, there came a soft rap on the stall door and the question was repeated. This was not my day. Scrambling, I flushed and called out over the rushing water.

  “Out in a minute!”

  I checked the bag was firmly shut and opened the stall door.

  A young woman I’d run into in the hallway stood a respectful distance away, but was clearly waiting for me. Of medium height and build, she was a striking woman with full lips and a smooth, rich complexion. Her skin had dark, deep tones close to my own, but her features and hair were not African or Asiatic. Dark, expressive eyes filled with concern locked on mine.

  “I don’t usually follow people into the loo,” she said, “but you took off like a shot, looking in a bad way. I just wanted to make certain you were all right. You seem … distressed.”

  “I’m fine.” The words came out in a waspish snap I hadn’t intended. I moved past her to the sinks. In the bathroom mirror she watched me, studying my face. I looked into the mirror and frowned. I looked like a wretch. No wonder she’d pursued me. Sweat beaded on my forehead and upper lip. My clothes were dishevelled, and the muscles in my arms trembled, making my hands shake.

  I took a breath and willed my brain to think of something to say. It would be easy to put the woman off by being rude, but she didn’t deserve that.

  Ibby. My father’s voice rose in my mind with gentle admonition. Just because the world is ugly, this is no excuse to make things worse. Make it better by being better.

  I ran my hands under the water, snatched a paper towel, then turned to face the good Samaritan as I dried my hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I am having a rough day. I’m afraid there is no easy answer for pushy bosses and missing my family.”