1 Prologue

He barged into her office. For a change. He knew she might have been manipulating valuables. He didn't care one bit. Spooking her and making her drop something precious was business as usual for him. Did it ever cross his mind that actual antiques might get damaged?! Truth is, he didn't find it all that important anymore. He'd become blasé. That was the main problem. After having travelled the world, hunted artifacts, sweated under scorching suns, been assailed by all sorts of bugs, all in the name of reconstructing the histories of dynasties your average teenager didn't even know ever existed … Professor David Kessler had given up. He'd become a machine. Computed to be an anthropologist and nothing but. Unmarried, childless, he had submitted his whole life to History. With a capital "H".

But Anna was not like him. Nothing like him. Kessler was a tree that had started rotting from the inside. And she was his last effort, his last battle for survival. She was the green sprout that had gloriously sprung from his carcass. So she liked to think. He'd thought the same when he'd been doing his PhD under a boring, blasé supervisor himself. Time would teach her.

She shut him out. Like she usually shut out everything and everyone around her. In fact, her old chair's cracking was the only indication she was still alive. Such was always the case when she was absorbed by something. As she was at that moment, examining the two photographs in her hands.

On one side, an intricate headdress of Hūna craftmanship. It must have been worn by a woman of high rank. A chieftain's wife? Daughter? On the other side, earrings. She had seen those earrings. She had touched them. They had been part of the aforementioned headdress. However, their origin … Their origin was unclear. They indeed showed marks of Hūna workmanship. However, the mother-of-pearl inlay was Hua, no doubt.

Kessler leaned over Anna's shoulder. His fetid breath, a mixture of cold coffee and cheap cigarette, brushed against her cheek.

"If you smile at me, I might tell you more about the beauty of AT4/37."

AT4/37. The site where they had fished all these relics out. First discovered in 1924 and being rediscovered from time to time, for shits and giggles. If the archeologists were to dig everything out at once, they would be left jobless quick enough. The archeologists never messed with their bread and butter.

And what was that bullshit?! Smile at him?! The fact they'd had sex on the very table Anna was seated at (among other uncomfortable places) did not make her his object. The sun must have gotten to his head. He imagined himself some Hūna noble and her his concubine?! She jerked her head away. Kessler was messing with her, Anna knew. Knowing did not imply that she wasn't getting pissed, though.

"Unless you have something for me, get the fuck out. I am working, unlike you."

Old, self-centered, arrogant asshole. And that smile he flashed her, walking from behind and leaning against the corner of the table, was so infuriating it made her want to break something of his. Something between his legs. Not that it had a bone, but heck, Anna could always try to see!

He clicked his tongue at her vulgarity. Women had changed much since his youth. Gosh, he sounded like an old geezer. Which was exactly what he was.

Irritatingly pocking at the two pictures she was still holding, he started his exposé, the same type he gave the undergrads that interned under him. What was it with him?! He really wanted her to kick his sorry ass. It was all insecurity on his part, she knew. Provoking her to lash out at him and see whether she would leave his lonely, pathetic little self hanging. One day Anna would, she truly would.

"The beauty of AT4/37 was between thirty and thirty-two years old when she died. Gorgeous teeth, the lab rats say. And even more gorgeous pelvis. She bred twice."

She hated it when Kessler used the word 'breed' for women. Sure, for him, these skeletons were nothing but relics, no different from the jewelry, pottery, silks unearthed alongside them. But they had been breathing creatures, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. They had shed tears, suffered pains and might have loved and hated the fruits of their loins. They had not just bred like horses. Anna also hated when he called the forensics lab rats. If it weren't for them, he'd have nothing to do but play bridge all day long. Living at a gross retirement home somewhere in Asshole, Arizona.

"A fertile Hūna woman who had had nothing but two births? Rare. A concubine that was not favored? Then again, all that splendor for a concubine? I would have thought a chieftain's wife or, at the very least, sister."

"Oh, she isn't Hūna."

Anna had only been giving him half of her attention, still thinking about the mysterious earrings. But those last words of his made her snap out of it. She let the two photographs slip from her fingers and lifted her head to meet his unwavering stare.

Kessler was looking down on her, his eyes glistening dangerously behind his glasses. He had her where he wanted her. This was the reason Anna stayed. Kessler had a way to use her passion as a carrot to lead her into his traps. She knew that she would be having a sore back by tomorrow just by the way he smiled like the Cheshire cat. That cat should become roadkill sooner rather than later, if you asked her.

"An Hūna tomb. With Hūna artifacts. But the skeleton in the tomb is not Hūna. What have you smoked?!"

His face took a bored expression. Taking off his glasses, Kessler wiped them against his shirt before putting them back on.

"Oh, there is an Hūna skeleton in there. In fact, I would say two. But not the woman's."

Ok, Kessler was trying to get a reaction out of her. And Anna couldn't bear to disappoint him. She gave him the most disgusted, spiteful look she could muster. What the hell was he saying?! All the artifacts, all the valuables, all the silks found in that burial site were obviously the belongings of a woman. Carefully selected for a woman.

"There were three pairs of skeletons in that tomb."

He leaned into her, the tips of their noses almost touching.

"A Hua woman. Do you hear me? Hua! And lying on her pelvis, hidden among all the debris, the flesh of her flesh, the blood of her blood. The fine, small bones, at least those that survived the test of time, of a seventh-month old fetus. The third child, the one that did not make it to birth."

Her breath got caught in her throat. Hua! That the Hūna had had Hua slaves was a known fact. The Hūna were pillagers and raiders. They would drag Hua back to their settlements. However, the Hua, with their great dynasties, strong empires, developed social constructs, literature, poets and intellectuals were no match for the hardy Hūna. Rarely did the Hua survive in the Central Plains. Rarely did they live through the great migrations, the suns that scorched the plains, the winters that froze them to their core. And when they succumbed, they were not granted such lavish burial sites. In fact, not one Hua skeleton had been found among the Hūna tombs and burial sites that had been excavated.

Hua. A Hua woman who had died in advanced pregnancy. Or had she died from a miscarriage? The fetus, had it been stillborn or was it an in utero death? A Hua woman who had lived a lavish life among the Hūna tribes. Who might have borne children to a high-ranking Hūna man.

But wait, he had said that there had been three skeletons!

"The third skeleton …?"

His eyes were set ablaze. At that moment, Kessler looked like a madman. Such discoveries did nothing to him anymore. What got him off was that horrified curiosity his little protégée exhibited whenever a historical incongruence was presented her.

"Kurgan No. 4."

Kurgan. The elaborate mounds built over the burial sites of great Hūna chieftains, nobles and chanyu. Those burial sites were large and meant to fit much more than simple jewelry. Kurgan No. 4 had been one of the most lavish, impressive that had ever been excavated. Hundreds of horse, guard and servant skeletons to be found. Enough weapons to challenge all the creatures of the Heavens if ever they wished to defy the soul of the dead lord. Kurgan No. 4. Jihoushan chanyu's kurgan. The leader who had driven the Hūna hordes to knock at the gates of the Hua capital. Who had mocked and threatened the powerful Hua Xinlong Emperor.

But there had been one thing that had been missing in that lavish kurgan of his. His skeleton. A skull had been found. And exactly because the rest of the body had been missing, no one had had the courage to openly assert that Kurgan No. 4 was indeed Jihoushan chanyu's tomb.

"What are you saying …?!"

Kessler laughed heartily. Stupid little goose. She knew exactly what he was saying. But it was frightening. The idea they had finally found the missing piece that would permit to reconstruct the history of a whole period was truly terrifying. He understood. He understood Anna's fear. He enjoyed it too.

"What I am saying? There were three bodies found in AT4/37. The Hua beauty whose tomb it is. Her seven-month old fetus. And a beheaded male skeleton, intertwined with her own bones. Don't you women like such tales? Until death do us apart and whatnot. And it so happens that the DNA harvested from that male skeleton corresponds to that of the master skull found in Kurgan No. 4."

He could shove his little misogynistic comments up his! Did he realize what he was saying?! They might have very well solved the mystery surrounding the great Jihoushan chanyu, the terror of the plains! The missing link in Hūna and Hua history!

"Assuming that skeleton is truly Jihoushan chanyu's … then, Jumixu chanyu …"

"Ah, yes, the strange heir. The great genetic mystery of the Hūna. Well, I believe we have uncovered the secret. A Hua mother."

A half-Hua had been chanyu to the Hūna. A revered chanyu had been beheaded so that his body could be buried with his Hua lover's. A Hua woman had lived and strived among the Hūna, going as far as becoming the partner of a chanyu and the mother of another one.

"I am surprised you are not picking up on the most important part of all of this, though. If the body of Jihoushan chanyu had been buried alongside that of the Hua beauty, it would imply that they had died around the same time. We estimate her to have been in her thirties. Whereas, the skull and the skeleton of the man make us believe he would have been between twenty-four and twenty-six at the time of his death. She was older than him by at least six years! Go figure. Some men like their women older. Jihoushan chanyu seems to have been one of them. And poor Jumixu chanyu. He mustn't have been more than ten when he lost his parents. A tragic event that might explain his bloodthirstiness in later years."

Once again, she paid him no heed. Her head between her hands, her eyes fixed on the photograph of the Hūna earrings on the table, Anna was going insane.

"Who is that woman?", she whispered in anguish.

He heard her and knew it was time for him to take his leave. Peeling his hip off the table, Kessler patronizingly squeezed her shoulder. Reminding Anna of the tacit hierarchy that reigned in their charming department.

"You tell me."

The exquisite gold and white-jade earrings. Carved into patterns of dragons, tigers and deer. Inlayed with semi-precious stones, green jade and mother-of-pearl. Intricate and transcendent. The union of Hūna and Hua art and cultures.

The tomb with three skeletons.

A chanyu who had given his head to his people. And his body to a Hua woman.

Beauty of AT4/37, who are you?