The Flag on Gorbachev Crater

6. Rothstein

Beckwith and az-Zahra were sitting in Beckwith’s office looking at the two biggest jewels. The lawyer shook his head slowly. “Surely they’re not genuine?”

“I believe true rubies,” she said.

“I think we ought to find out for sure. There was a chap in appraising the jewelry in the Londale estate. Eccentric… tends to ramble… expensive. But he specializes in rubies.” He flipped a switch to open an outside line. “Dr. Aaron Rothstein.” They listened as the phonocomputer found the number and made the connection.

“Rothstein,” said the answer machine blandly. “State your business and leave your number.”

“My name is Daniel Beckwith. I’m a lawyer, my client has some gems, including two rather large red stones that may be rubies. From present information, they originated in Cordoba, Spain. We—”

“Mr. Beckwith?” said a raspy voice from the phone set.

The lawyer was startled. “Yes? Dr. Rothstein?”

“Yeah. Cordoba, you said?”

“That’s correct.”

There was a pause, as though the speaker was trying to be totally noncommittal. “You’ve seen the stones, Mr. Beckwith?”

“Yes. They’re here on the desk, right in front of me.”

“Do you see anything unusual about them?”

“Well, I don’t know as you could call it unusual. However, if they were sapphires, I’d call them star sapphires.”

“It’s called asterism, Mr. Beckwith. Is that what you see?”

“Yes.”

“Is your client sitting there with you?”

“She is. Shall we turn on the visi?”

“No. You say she’s from Cordoba?”

“Yes.”

“Ask her if she has ever heard of an Arabian gentleman named Masud ibn Malik.”

“Whatever for?”

“Just do it, Mr. Beckwith.”

The lawyer swiveled around to the girl. “Az-Zahra, you heard his question…?”

“Masud… ibn… Malik?” she repeated slowly.

“Yes.”

“Fué mi abuelo—my grandfather.”

“She claims he was her grandfather,” said Beckwith.

“Well, well…”

“So?” demanded the lawyer.

“The gentleman in question died sometime about A.D. 1200,” said Rothstein dryly.

“Look, Rothstein, if you don’t want to take the case, just say so.”

“Not so fast. I will take the case.”

That stopped the lawyer. “You will?”

“Yes. Come on over.”

Beckwith had pictured Rothstein as some sort of shriveled gnome, something like a Wagnerian Nibelung, burrowing away in a dim-lit den and clutching his treasures to his chest. He was agreeably surprised to find a tall erect man with white Lincolnesque beard, blue eyes, and wearing a spotless full length lab coat. After the introductions the expert motioned his guests over to his work desk, and they took chairs on the other side.

The lawyer handed over both stones, and Rothstein examined them cursorily with a loupe. After this he took one of the stones and placed it in an auto lab balance. The oscillations damped very quickly. He read the LED output. “8.021 grams. That translates to 41 carats. Hm. I have to inform you, Mr. Beckwith, the largest know gem-ruby is 10-plus carats. Larger uncut stones are known, of course.” He weighed the other stone. “It’s 8.02. An identical twin, one might say.”

He stopped for a moment, stared at the gems, then placed one under a modified microscope. “Crystal habit checks. Hexagonal. And we see the striae, characteristic microscopic scratches left by the emery dust used in grinding. That’s the way they did it up until about 1300, when the best artisans switched to diamond dust. Emery grinding is easily faked, though.” He shrugged. “But not asterism.”

“So they’re genuine?” asked Beckwith.

The appraiser looked up at him almost curiously, then arose from the work bench and walked to a bookshelf behind him. He searched the volumes a moment, then pulled down one. “Hmm. Yes. De Laniel, Les Lapidaires Arabes. My Renaissance French is terrible, but here’s the sense of what I think the passage says. Two unusually large star rubies were found in Burma about A.D. 1000, sold to a jewel merchant in Persia, where they were cut en cabochon, sold to the imperial treasurer in Baghdad a few years later, and then lost to view temporarily. They were supposed to have been taken from the caliph’s vaults when Toghrul the Seljuk seized Baghdad in 1055. After that, like all great stones, they migrated to the money, which at that time was in Byzantium. And now we go to Cordoba, in Hispania. A very famous Cordoban lapidary named Masud ibn Malik was hired to fashion a dazzling coronation crown for Alexis III of Byzantium. He duly made and delivered the crown. As payment he accepted two great identical star rubies, cut en cabochon. And there the story ends. According to De Laniel the stones disappeared when Ferdinand of Castile sacked the town in 1236. They have not been seen since.”

Beckwith was watching az-Zahra covertly. She had turned very pale.

Rothstein continued. “We are fortunate in that De Laniel has provided an unusually precise description. We have been able to feed this into the computer, and for what it’s worth, here’s what those two stones probably looked like.” He clicked a toggle on the instrument and indicated the monitor screen. “According to De Laniel, they were well known in Islamic circles as—”

Az-Zahra gasped. “¡Los ojos! ¡Los ojos de Ayesha!”

Rothstein spoke directly to her. “Have you ever seen a light shine in the stones?”

She nodded vigorously. “¡Si! Djinns live in the stones and awaken when I use the rug.”

The jewel expert stared at her for a long moment. Finally he turned off the monitor. “Yes, truly the Eyes of Ayesha. Good God. In the business forty years… I never expected… Ironic, really. Ayesha was the favorite of the Prophet Mohammed, but she died centuries before the stones entered history.” He replaced the stones in the little black bag and handed it to Beckwith. “I’ll send you a notarized certificate in the morning. And a bit of advice, my innocent friends.”

“Yes?”

“Insure these things right away.”

“For how much?”

“How do you put a value on something priceless? Oh well, try something nominal, like twenty-five million per stone.”

Beckwith felt a sudden pain in his stomach. How much was the annual premium on fifty million dollars’ worth of rubies, not to mention az-Zahra’s other gems? And should he get coverage on the djinns also? He gurgled, “Yes, a good idea.”