"Etruria was the name given to the land of the Etruscans. And Galileo was born in Pisa, which was once an Etruscan city. But do you see my point? Galileo isn't likely to be critical of a prophecy which praises him so plainly."

"Even though one could argue that it was more likely written after his discovery than seventeen hundred years before it?"

"Even so."

The librarian showed Lewis recipes for the two types of ink, and Lewis whipped up a batch of each.

Cavriani had fetched him several samples of linen cloth, chosen to match, as closely as possible, the appearance of Curzio's specimens. Lewis dipped one quill into the first ink and wrote with it. Then, with a second quill, he wrote with the other ink. He labeled his handiwork, and continued.

Lewis didn't remember the standard forensic tests for inks. But he had plenty of chemicals to experiment with, including weak and strong acids and alkalis. He found that the acids bleached or eliminated the galled ink writing, while the sodium hydroxide changed the color to a dark red.

So now all he needed was to persuade the grand duke to let him surrept.i.tiously carry out some chemical tests on the Etruscan artifacts sent by Curzio. That shouldn't be difficult, given Ferdinand's interest in science. In fact, Lewis suspected that he would be the first American to have a duke as a lab a.s.sistant. Lewis returned to his studies. After some minutes, the curator came up behind him. "Dottore. We have an unpublished ma.n.u.script which you should read."

""What is its name?"

"De Etruria Regali Libri Septum. Or, in English,Seven Books on Etruria of the Kings . It was written by Thomas Dempster, a professor at the University of Pisa, at the request of Cosimo II de' Medici. It a.n.a.lyzes all of the references to the Etruscans in Greek and Roman literature. It even presents a small Etruscan vocabulary."

"Wonderful. Oh. Can you also provide me with access to the laboratory? I will need to carry out some alchemical operations."

"That will not be a problem."

Lord Bailiff Andrea Cioli called for silence. "This proceeding is convened by the order of His Grace Ferdinand the Second, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to determine whether certain artifacts, discovered by Curzio Inghirami and various persons working under his supervision, are to be receive a writ of authenticity from the Mother Church."

The first witnesses were men whose interest was in cla.s.sical literature. They knew Latin and the history of Rome; they had studied the Etruscan inscriptions on stone and metal, and had tried to make sense of them.

The strongest points in Curzio's favor were that he was a n.o.bleman with an unblemished reputation, the chrysali he found had been found in an area known to possess Etruscan remains, and, most of all, the messages were written on linen cloth, as only cla.s.sical scholars would have expected.

Still, the courtroom discussion was heated. The learned scholars of Pisa insisted that the tales told in Latin by Curzio's Etruscan were inconsistent with the histories of Livy and other Roman authors. Their colleagues of Florence told the court that it was a mistake to a.s.sume that the Roman version of the early history of Italy was accurate or complete. "Now we are hearing the Etruscan point of view," they explained. Pisa and Florence had been traditional enemies for centuries; their ancient enmities had rea.s.serted themselves in this courtroom.

Theprofessori of Pisa also declared that the Latin used by this supposed Etruscan was of an inferior quality, at odds with the high priestly position he claimed. They denounced the writing as that of a schoolboy. No one missed the implication that it could be that of a modern schoolboy, like Curzio.

The Florentines, on the other hand, argued that one could not expect a leader of the Etruscan people, chafing under Roman rule, to write Latin as if he were a Roman patrician. They excused all mistakes as being those of a foreigner, albeit one having some dealings with Rome.

Then there was the controversy concerning the way in which the inscriptions were written. It was accepted by all scholars that the Latin alphabet evolved from the Etruscan one. Certain of the Latin letters look different when flipped to face backward. There were Etruscan counterparts to the Latin letters C, E, F, K, and L, but they all faced backwards on almost every known Etruscan writing . . . save for Curzio's.

Moreover, a few of the inscriptions provided several lines of text. These were aligned on the right side, but had a ragged left margin. In contrast, in the text provided by Signore Anghirami, the reverse was true.

For these two reasons, the Pisans argued that Etruscan inscriptions were clearly written from right to left, and Curzio's weren't. Still, there were instances, although rare, in which indisputably authentic Etruscan text was written from left to right. And that gave Curzio's defenders an out.

Eventually, it was Lewis' turn to speak. "I am Lewis Bartolli, consulting detective and citizen of Grantville.

I have been appointed by the grand duke to investigate the artifacts in question.

"If the writings are taken at face value, they were auth.o.r.ed by an Etruscan more than seventeen hundred years ago. If that be true, then there will be certainalchemical signs of the age of the writing. Signs which natural philosophy, as taught in Grantville, can reveal, whether to praise or d.a.m.n.

"I would like to direct the attention of this court to the ink used on these artifacts. I have consulted with the professors of Tuscany, and hence have determined that the inks of the ancients were described by Pliny the Younger, Vitruvius, and other authorities. The princ.i.p.al one was made from soot mixed with water and gum, and I have prepared a duplicate of it.

"The black ink in common use today is made according to a recipe which your schoolchildren learn as a rhyme:Una due tre e trenta / A far la bona tenta . It means one part of gum arabic, two of green vitriol, and three of galls in thirty parts of water. The galls are soaked in rainwater to liberate what we call tannic and gallic acids. They react with the green vitriol, which in Grantville is called iron sulfate, to form the dark iron tannate and gallate. I have prepared this galled ink, as well.

"I wrote with both inks, using a quill pen, on both paper and linen. I then had to find a way of differentiating the two. I experimented with different reagents, and found several which caused a change in color in the modern ink, but affected the ancient one not at all." Lewis demonstrated that this was the case.

"So, there is clearly a detectable chemical difference between the two kinds of ink.

"Now, I can carry out the same tests, only with the inks on the linen messages brought to us by Signore Inghirami."

Curzio was quick to complain. "I must object, Your Grace. These are priceless artifacts. They could be damaged irretrievably by this foreigner's chemicals."

Ferdinand was unimpressed. "I fully appreciate your position, Signore Inghirami. However, it is you who have to come to us for a decree of authenticity. Either you must consent to such tests as we authorize, or you must withdraw your request."

Curzio conferred hurriedly with his supporters. "We withdraw the objection." Ferdinand motioned to Lewis to continue with his alchemical operations. He took out one of the fabrics, read out for the record the text which he was going to treat chemically, and with what, and proceeded accordingly. He then displayed the results triumphantly.

"As you can see, Your Grace, the behavior of the ink on this linen is that which would be expected of the iron-based modern ink, not the Plinian one."

Curzio turned to one of the people behind him, dressed in the formal robes of a member of the faculty of the University of Florence. They whispered to each other, and then Curzio addressed his ruler. "Most wise grand duke, Pliny the Younger has described several inks which were in common use by theRomans his day. However, that does not mean that his list was exhaustive. I am told that he actually described an experiment in which he soaked papyrus in an infusion of galls, and showed that it was blackened by vitriol."

Lewis bristled. "If he knew that it blackened paper, and still did not list it in his chapter on inks, then surely that means that no one in his day used it for that purpose. It was merely a curiosity."

"But what was a mere curiosity in his day might have been a standard ink of the Etruscans." Curzio paused. "Please a.s.sume, for the sake of argument, that this was the case. Would you then have any reason to doubt the authenticity of the chrysali?" Curzio beamed triumphantly at his buddies in the courtroom. For someone who professed to have no interest in law, he certainly seemed to enjoy playing lawyer.

Lewis gave Curzio a long stare. "Yes, I would." He turned to face the grand duke. "I have been asked to a.s.sume that the ink used by the Etruscans was the gall-green vitriol ink with which we are all familiar. It is only in this way that the Inghiramis can explain the chemical behavior of the supposedly Etruscan ink.

"But let us now consider the physical characteristics of the two types of inks. If it is a carbon-based ink, then the black matter of the ancient ink remains on the surface, where it can readily be sc.r.a.ped off.

Indeed, that is why you can use ancient ma.n.u.scripts as palimpsests.

"On the other hand, if it is a gall-based ink, then that is not so easy. The acid from the galls bites into the paper, carrying the black matter with it. Hence, after sufficient pa.s.sage of time, the writing cannot be readily removed. That is why this ink is preferred for official doc.u.ments.

"So, let us make trial of the ink on the first message exhibited by Curzio, as it is known to been on the cloth for several months." Lewis took out a knife, and sc.r.a.ped at the linen.

"Aha! It does not come out easily. But let me do the same to the samples I prepared before. Examine the sc.r.a.ped areas with the magnifying gla.s.s, and it is manifestly evident. Curzio's ink penetrated deeply, like a modern galled ink, and unlike an ancient ink formed from soot.

"But, wait! I was instructed toa.s.sume arguendo that the Etruscans had a ink made from green vitriol and galls. That a.s.sumption leads us down a path which Curzio would have been wiser to leave unthought of.

"One unfortunate problem with these galled inks is that, because of their acidic nature, they corrode away the writing surface. I have ascertained experimentally that linen fabric is just as vulnerable to acid damage as is rag paper. The curator of the collection here has shown me rag-paper ma.n.u.scripts which were a mere four hundred years old, and in which the ink had chewed its way entirely through the leaf, leaving a hole. Only inked portions of the paper were so affected.

"I was also shown a map, perhaps two centuries old, which was folded so that the heavily inked compa.s.s rose was brought into contact with an area which originally was blank. The vitriol from the rose left a scorch mark on the latter.

"But the young gentleman would have us believe that a linen could be written upon with a galled ink sixteen hundred years ago, yet show not a iota of damage. This is beyond belief."

Curzio was not ready to concede that the ink could not be Etruscan. "The papers were not exposed to the elements, but rather were sealed within a protective bubble of tar. Perhaps that curbed the acid." Lewis had antic.i.p.ated this argument. Indeed, he suspected that Curzio, when "designing" the chrysalis, had used the tar specifically in order to provide a ready excuse for the survival and fine state of preservation of the "Etruscan" writings.

"The tar would have protected the cloth from the air, and thus from normal aging. But the acid was already on the cloth, brought in by the ink, and it did not require air to function. Indeed, alchemists will acidify materials inside a hermetically-sealed retort. I have placed flax fibers inside a stoppered test tube and demonstrated that they are attacked by acid."

Murmur, murmur. Curzio turned to speak quietly with one of the scholars hired by his family. Finally, he came out of this huddle and said, "we believe you mentioned that the soot-based ink was the princ.i.p.al one used in ancient times. However, that implies that there were other inks. My venerable colleague here informs me that one such ink was that of the cuttlefish, in Latin,sepia . Have you tested that ink?"

"No, but if I am provided with the cuttlefish, and shown how to remove the ink sac and extract the ink, then I will test that sepia ink in the same way that I did the carbon ink." Obviously, Lewis didn't trust Curzio not to tamper with the sample.

Curzio coughed. "Is it not possible that the Etruscan scribe wrote with an iron stylus, rather than a quill or reed? If so, could there not have been an alchemical contagion of the ink with the qualities of the stylus? Could your reagents, then, have been quivering in sympathy with that accidental iron, rather than with green vitriol in the ink proper?"

Lewis bit his lip. "An iron stylus is hard; very few atoms of iron would be released into the ink and fabric.

The color change I observed was too p.r.o.nounced to be the result of that trivial sort of contamination."

"But since you did not carry out your test with an iron stylus, you don't know that."

"I can modify the test and find out."

"But are there not other problems? We know from Pliny'sHistoria Naturalis that some ink was made from charring bones which once lay in the earth. Who knows what metals could have been absorbed before these bones were converted into ash? Or whether the presence of those metals could have affected the alchemical properties of an ink made from that ash?" Curzio spread his hands, as if to emphasize the vast number of possibilities still untested by Lewis.

"Proving a negative is very difficult," said Lewis drily. "But it is your burden to prove to us that these artifacts are authentic, and I don't think you have succeeded.

"Indeed, let us look us look closely at this Etruscan of yours. He is a high-ranking priest, living at a time when the Etruscans were Roman subjects, yet he speaks Latin like a schoolboy. He also has trouble remembering his history lessons.

"He demonstrates his individuality by writing Etruscan from left to right, as if he were Roman, or Tuscan, rather than in the traditional Etruscan direction.

"According to my chemical tests, his ink is of the modern kind, which contains iron and acid, yet the linen is undamaged by the vitriol. To explain this, Curzio first suggests that the Etruscans had in fact used galls and green vitriol to make ink. When I showed that a modern ink, over the course of nineteen hundred years, would eat great holes in the linen, Curzio changed his tune. "The ink was of an ancient kind, after all, but the iron was imparted by the Etruscan's iron-tipped pen or by some iron implement lying in the earth.

"So have these mysterious Etruscan iron-tipped pens been referred to by the Roman and Greek authors? Have any been found by other excavators? And how could iron in the soil have affected chrysali which weren't actually buried?"

Lewis turned to face Curzio directly. "So, Signore Inghirami. In view of the evidence presented, are you willing to concede the possibility that you have been deceived by some forger, and withdraw your request for a decree of authenticity?"

Curzio conferred with his family. "The evidence you have presented is inconclusive. It is insufficient basis for overturning the finding of the Provedditore of Volterra, Tomma.s.so de Medici."Bit of name-dropping there , thought Lewis.

Lewis approached Fredinand. "As your consulting detective, I would like to discuss with you privately as to how best to proceed from here." Ferdinand nodded.

"It is already late in the day," declared the grand duke. "We will recess until tomorrow." The crowd filed out of the courtroom.

Lewis was closeted with Ferdinand. "Do you presently think these artifacts are authentic?"

"I am not sure what to think. You have built a strong case against them," Ferdinand admitted. "And if they are false, then Curzio would be the most likely culprit. It could not be one of the tenant farmers; they wouldn't know how to write Latin and they wouldn't know about the Etruscans' linen books. It couldn't have been a stranger; his presence would have been noted, sooner or later. And it could not have been buried many years ago by one of Curzio's ancestors, as they would not have known of the Ring of Fire.

"Still, it is difficult for me to believe that Curzio Inghirami, a young gentleman of a distinguished family, would stoop to forging an antiquity."

"Perhaps it was abeffa , a practical joke, which got out of hand," Lewis suggested.

Ferdinand winced. "I have only ruled Tuscany for five years. Inghiramo and Giulio are Knights of the Order of Saint Stephen, and Giulio is one of the more influential n.o.bles in my realm. They cannot, without losing honor, admit that a member of their family, whose cause they have strongly espoused, is a forger.

And thus far they are unwilling to even concede that Curzio has been deceived. What would your Sherlock Holmes do?"

Lewis mulled over the many Holmes stories he had read over the years. There wasA Scandal in Bohemia . AndThe Norwood Builder . Both times, Holmes used a false threat to panic a criminal into doing something unwise.

Could Lewis bluff the Inghiramis into accepting the lesser offense of having been deceived by person or persons unknown? Curzio didn't know what up-time forensic science could do, or which of its tools Lewis could duplicate here and now. Or did he? Since coming to Volterra, Lewis had heard rumors that Curzio had visited Grantville. Of course, it was not enough just to claim, say, that up-timers could date the linen. Mere words would not be enough. There had to be a dramatic demonstration of some kind, so the Ighiramis could visualize how the courtroom scene would play out in the end.

When Lewis explained what he had in mind, Ferdinand was delighted. Lewis went off to collect the necessary materials, and then sat down with Ferdinand to prepare the first part of the "demonstration."

The next morning, Lewis told the court about a new way to test the authenticity of the Inghirami artifacts.

"In 1686, 'old time line,' your fellow Italian, Marcello Malpighi, reported that on our fingers, we have minute ridges and valleys which form distinct patterns. He recognized three basic configurations which we now call ridges, spirals and loops." Lewis paused for a moment, wondering whether Malpighi had been born before the Ring of Fire had changed the flow of time and, if so, what he would do with his talents in the new world which it had created.

"Hundreds of years later, it was recognized that, if these patterns are examined closely enough, they are distinctive to a particular individual. Even identical twins have different patterns.

"Now, it turns out that when we touch something with our fingers, our sweat leaves an impression of those ridges. The resulting fingerprint may be obvious, as when a dying man, his hand covered in blood, touches a wall, or it may be cryptic. Up-time police forces have found that with certain powders or vapors, they can render a latent fingerprint visible. I am prepared to offer proof of this, should this court desire it.

"Fingerprint evidence was routinely accepted in up-time courts, throughout the world, as proof of ident.i.ty. Or lack of ident.i.ty."

Curzio rose to his feet. "Setting aside the alleged practices of the future, this evidence has never been accepted as proof by the most Holy Church, or by any prince of this world. Is that not true?"

"Actually, I would direct the learned n.o.bleman to the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, which says, 'The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write.' That is a clear reference to the use of an entire hand print for identification. There are patterns on the palm, not just the fingers. The Book of Job says, 'He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his work.'

That means that men can know each other just by properly examining their hands.

"I have also read, admittedly in up-time books, that the Chinese emperors have used fingerprints for identification purposes for a thousand years."

"Very well, but I don't see the relevance of fingerprints to this proceeding."

"It is implicit in this proceeding that there is a possibility that the artifacts, rather than being Etruscan, are a fabrication. If they are a fabrication, they must have been created by a person, or group of persons, who can write Latin, has seen some Etruscan inscriptions, and has access to sites where the artifacts were found. Moreover, the fourth artifact must have been created after the Ring of Fire, in 1631.

"Conceivably, that person is a stranger. But in our quest to determine the truth, we must entertain the possibility that he or she is a member of the Inghirami household, or of one of their tenant families.

Consequently, I intend to take the fingerprints of every one of these individuals and compare them to the fingerprints on the Etruscan writings." "But of course we have fingerprints on the cloths!" Curzio exploded. "I broke open the chrysali; I held the ancient writings in my hands. I gave them to my father, and Father Valdorini, and my friend Raffaelo, to hold and study. Many others, even perhaps the grand duke himself, have done the same."

"That is true for most of the chrysali. But there were several which you were kind enough to offer to the grand duke so that he could open himself. The contents of those chrysali will bear the fingerprints only of your Etruscan. Or, if they are false, the hoaxer.

"His Grace magnanimously offered to set an example by letting me take his prints. So, too, did Niccolo and Lorenzo Cavriani."

Ferdinand recognized his cue. "All three were different in some way. Even though the Cavrianis are father and son."

"I will then take the prints of every individual known to us who could possibly have partic.i.p.ated in the hoax. From the Inghiramis down to the meanest laborer." What Lewis didn't tell them was that the art of cla.s.sifying fingerprints required great skill and experience, in order to find all the distinguishing minutiae.

Skill and experience which Lewis didn't have.

"Once this information has been collected, and I have cla.s.sified the prints according to their patterns, I propose to have His Grace slice open those virgin chrysali. He and I will, together, examine with a magnifying gla.s.s the fingerprints found on the sticky inner surface of the tarry container, as well as those on the linen itself. It is finely woven, so that it can be written on, which means that it is more likely than a coa.r.s.e fabric to bear a clean impression."

This was the most delicate point, Lewis knew. It was in fact extremely difficult to detect a latent impression on fabric. Prior to the hearing, Lewis had experimented with various powders, unsuccessfully.

He could sometimes develop a latent print on linen by placing it in a container with iodine crystals, laboriously extracted from seaweed. The crystals sublimated, and the vapor then marked the print. But it was very hit-and-miss.

"We will then compare them to the fingerprint file. If there is a matching set of prints, then we will know definitively, who the hoaxer is. And if the prints on the artifacts do not match the prints taken, then we know that those people were not hoaxers."