Evolution

The Scythian unwrapped the cloth over his face and head, scattering more dust. His face was sharp-nosed, a thing of weather-beaten planes. Athalaric was startled to see that his hair was quite blond, as yellow as a Saxon’s.

Honorius murmured to Papak, "Bid him greetings, and assure him of our best intentions to—"

Papak cut him short. "These fellows of the desert have little time for niceties, sir. He wants to see your gold."

Athalaric growled, "We’ve come a long way to be insulted by a sand flea."

Honorius looked pained. "Athalaric, please. The money."

Glaring at the Scythian, Athalaric opened his wrap to reveal a sack of gold. He tossed a piece to the Scythian, who tested it with his teeth.

"Now," whispered Honorius. "The bones. Is it true? Show me, sir. Show me—"

That needed no translation. The Scythian drew a bundle of cloth from a deep pocket. Carefully he began to unwind the cloth, and he spoke in his own liquid tongue.

"He says this is a treasure indeed," Papak murmured. "He says it comes from beyond the desert with the sand of gold, where the bones of the griffins—"

"I know about griffins," said Honorius tightly. "I do not care about griffins."

"From beyond the land of the Persians, from beyond the land of the Guptas — it is hard to translate," Papak said tightly. "His sense of who owns the land is not as ours, and his descriptions are lengthy and specific."

At last — with a shopkeeper’s sense of timing, Athalaric thought cynically — the Scythian began to open up the wrapped bandages. He revealed a skull.

Honorius gasped and all but fell on the fragment. "It is a man. But not as we are—"

In the course of his education Athalaric had seen plenty of human skulls. The flat face and jaw of this skull were very human. But there was nothing human about the thick ridge of bone over the brow, or that small brain pan, so small he could have cupped it in one hand.

"I have longed to study such a relic," Honorius said breathlessly. "Is it true, as Titus Lucretius Carus wrote, that the early men could endure any environment, though they lacked clothing and fire, that they traveled in bands like animals and slept on the ground or in thickets, that they could eat anything and rarely fall ill? Oh, you must come to Rome, sir. You must come to Gaul! For there is a cave there, a cave on the coast of the ocean, where I have seen, I have seen—"

But the Scythian, perhaps mindful of the gold that still lay out of his reach, was not listening. He held up the fragment like a trophy.

The Homo erectus skull, polished by a million years, gleamed in the sunlight.

II

Under Honorius’s pressure, the Scythian eventually agreed to come to Rome. Papak came along too, as a more or less necessary interpreter — and, to Athalaric’s further dismay, so did two of the porters they had used in the desert.

Athalaric confronted Papak during the sea crossing back to Italy. "You are milking the old man’s purse. I know your kind, Persian."

Papak was unperturbed. "But we are alike. I take his money, you empty his mind. What’s the difference? The young have always fed off the wealth of the old, one way or another. Isn’t it so?"

"I have pledged that I will bring him home safely. And that I will do, regardless of your ambitions."

Papak laughed smoothly. "I mean Honorius no harm." He indicated the impassive Scythian. "I have given him what he wants, haven’t I?" But the Scythian’s demeanor, as he coldly watched this exchange, made it clear to Athalaric that he was not to be regarded as anybody’s property, however temporarily.

Still, even Athalaric’s curiosity was pricked when this desert-dwelling nomad was brought to the greatest city in the world.

On the outskirts of Rome, they spent a night in a villa rented by Honorius.

Set on a slight rise on the edge of the city proper, this was a typical imperial-period home, its design drawn from Greek and Etruscan influences. The house was built on a series of bedrooms grouped around three sides of an open atrium. At the back were a dining room, offices, and utility rooms. Two street-facing rooms had been given over to shops. Honorius told him this had not been uncommon in the days of the empire; he reminded Athalaric of the shop his own family had once run.

But, like the city it overlooked, the villa had seen better days. The little shops were boarded up. The impluvium, the pool at the center of the atrium, had been crudely dug out, apparently to get at the lead piping that had once collected rainwater.

Honorius shrugged at this decay. "The place lost a lot of its value when the sackings came — too hard to defend, you see, so far out of the city. That is how I was able to rent it so cheaply."

That night, amid this battered grandeur, they ate a meal together. Even the mosaic on the floor of the dining room was badly damaged; it appeared that thieves had taken any pieces that showed traces of gold leaf.