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why he had a sharp penknife always at hand. Literally. He had picked it up in his right hand even as he reached for the quill with his left. In the twelfth century, all church-taught scribes were right-handed. The fact that this calligrapher was left-handed explained his choice of text as well: a secular history of the Learned clan as seen through the eyes of their greatest scholar rather than ruminations on the nature of God.
    Erik settled in to begin work. Calligraphy in the medieval style required two hands, one to hold the quill, one to hold the penknife. The quill did the writing. The penknife did everything else: keeping the sleek vellum in place on the slanted table, sharpening quills at the bottom of every page, and erasing any errors by scraping off the ink before it could dry.
    Holding the pen in a way which seemed odd to a modern man—so that the quill was at a right angle to the vellum, and the whole arm rather than the hand provided the motion—he reached out to dip the point into a pot of ink which he had made following a recipe that was older than the chant he hummed. Though he preferred lampblack as a personal matter when he was replicating ancient manuscripts, the stubborn client had insisted on the ancient combination of iron sulfate and ashes of oak gall. The resulting ink was pleasing enough to work with but faded to brown as years piled up like autumn leaves.
    That wouldn’t be Erik’s problem. When the ink began to fade, he would be long dead. At least now that he was no longer working for the Security side of Rarities Unlimited, he had a better chance of living long enough to collect most of the Book of the Learned.
    Before he could touch virgin quill to ink, the phone rang.

Chapter 4
    E rik was tempted to ignore the ringing demon, but didn’t. It might be a paying client. It might be a medieval scholar wanting to discuss some arcane aspect of calligraphy or mixing paints for illumination.
    It might be Rarities Unlimited.
    He set aside the quill and picked up the portable hand unit that was fixed to the side of his drafting board. As soon as the unit left its charging cradle, the ringing stopped.
    “North,” Erik said curtly.
    “Niall.”
    Adrenaline kicked. S. K. Niall—rhymes with kneel, boyo, I’m not a bleeding river—was the cofounder of Rarities Unlimited, which wasn’t so much a business as a collaboration of international talents held together by a shared reverence for the best that human culture had to offer. Some of Erik’s most interesting assignments had begun with that low-voiced growl or Dana Gaynor’s soothing, feminine tenor. Niall’s specialty was Security, which covered a multitude of operations, some of them quite private.
    “How’s life in Smog City?” Erik asked.
    “Up yours.”
    “That bad, huh?”
    “You’re just jealous. L.A. is all clean from the last rain and you’re stuck in Palm Springs with dusty sidewalks and bars full of bad Elvis imitators.”
    Erik waited. The other man hadn’t called to talk about the weather and they both knew it. The dark, highly trained head of Security had more work than he had time to handle. On the other hand, Niall and Erik were rock-climbing buddies as well as professional allies. Friends, in a word.
    “I have a question for you from Factoid,” Niall said.
    Erik blinked. Factoid, aka Joseph Robert (Joe-Bob) McCoy, was the Rarities computer expert and the completely wired twenty-first-century man. Due to the peculiarity of his mind, with or without benefit of computer, Joe-Bob McCoy had command of a staggering number of unconnected facts.
    “You still there?” Niall asked.
    “I’m speechless. What do I know that Factoid can’t find in his databases or his terrifying brain?”
    “The mind of a woman.”
    “Sorry, you must have called the wrong number.”
    Niall laughed. “He figures that anyone with shoulders like yours must have the secret of the feminine psyche.”
    “Better he should ask you,” Erik said