The Silent Girl

this blade was made in Asia?”
    “I’m almost certain it was.”
    “You can tell that with just a fragment?”
    “Here,” said Erin, settling down in front of her computer. “Let me show you the images I sent to Dr. Cherry earlier this week. These are micrographs of the fragment.” She tapped the keyboard, and on the monitor they saw an image of gray swirls and waves.
    “What you’re looking at,” said Dr. Cherry, “is called lamellar or Damascus steel. It forms this wavy pattern when different layers of metal are folded and hammered again and again, sandwiching together both soft and hardened steel. The more layers you see beaten together, the finer the workmanship, and the stronger the sword. In China, the best steel is called
bailian jinggang
, or ‘hundred-times-forged steel.’ And that produces these patterns you see here, which we call the blade’s veins.”
    “If this is a Chinese weapon,” said Frost, “why is it called Damascus steel?”
    “To explain that, I have to tell you a little about the history of Chinese weaponry. That is, if you want to hear it.” He paused, glancing at the three detectives to gauge their interest.
    “Go on,” said Jane.
    Dr. Cherry’s eyes lit up, as if there was no subject he enjoyed more. “Let’s go back to the beginning of swordcraft. Thousands of years ago, the Chinese started off making blades out of stone. Then they progressed to bronze, a soft and heavy metal that has its limitations as weapons material. The next advance was iron, but we don’t find many examples of those swords because iron corrodes, leaving very little behind. Ironically enough, you’re more likely to come across a bronze sword than an iron sword, even though bronze is centuries older.”
    “But we’re talking about steel here,” said Tam. “Not iron.”
    “And do you know the difference between steel and iron?”
    Tam hesitated. “If I remember right, it has something to do with the addition of carbon.”
    “Very good!” Dr. Cherry beamed. “Not everyone knows that, not even some of my freshman students at Harvard. So now we’re into the middle Han dynasty, about two thousand years ago, when sword-makerslearned to forge and fold steel, to hammer it into bands and sheets. The technique probably originated in India and later spread to China and the Middle East. And that’s how it got the name Damascus steel.”
    “But it’s not from Damascus at all,” said Frost.
    “No, it’s originally from India. But good ideas are bound to spread, and once the technique reached China, swordmaking truly advanced to an art. As the centuries passed, their technical quality varied, depending on the state of warfare. With every new conflict, weapons always evolve. When the Mongols invaded during the Song dynasty, they introduced sabers. The Chinese adapted that saber into their own curved sword. It’s known as the
dao
, and it was used by cavalry to cut and slash while on horseback. We’re talking about blades that were razor-sharp, so you can imagine the carnage on the battlefield. There would have been mass dismemberment and decapitation.”
    It was a gruesome image that Jane could picture only too vividly. She remembered the alley. The whoosh of the blade, the spray of hot blood on her face. The gentleness of Dr. Cherry’s voice grotesquely underplayed the horror of what he was describing.
    “Who the hell would sign up to be a soldier? Not me,” said Frost.
    “You might not have a choice,” said Dr. Cherry. “For much of ancient history, armed conflict was part of life in China. Warlord pitted against warlord. Invasions by Mongols and pirates.”
    “Pirates? In China?”
    Dr. Cherry nodded. “During the Ming dynasty, Japanese pirates terrorized the Chinese coast. Then a hero named General Qi marched in and defeated them.”
    “I remember hearing about him,” said Tam. “My grandmother told me that General Qi cut off the heads of five thousand pirates. His adventures made great bedtime stories.”
    “Geez,” muttered Jane. “To think all I got was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
    “General Qi’s elite soldiers were renowned for their ingenious tactics,” said Dr. Cherry. “And their weapon of choice was the
dao
.The Chinese saber.” He pointed to the magnified image on Erin’s computer screen and said, with a note of awe: “It’s amazing to think that’s what this fragment probably came from.”
    “A Chinese saber?” said Jane.
    “Yes.”
    “How