Our man in Camelot

'He owed only thirty-eight pence?' asked Shirley.

'Always paid cash money except the last time. Which was lucky for us, we'd never have got on to Barkham otherwise. Here we go—'

'—depends where your particular interest lies, sir. There is the formal history of the period, as represented by Collingwood and Myres, and by Stenton for example… and what might be termed the Arthurian history, by—ah—by those who take his historical existence for granted… which is a literature in itself.'

Dry chuckle.

'Some might say more literature than history, a good deal of it… Malory and Spenser, for example, and the early French writers… But I don't think they would be your taste, sir… very specialised… And there's the modern literature of fiction—Miss Sutcliffe's Sword at Sunset and T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone are the superior representatives of that, I would say.'

'Isn't that a kid's book— The Sword in the Stone!'

'Indeed it is, sir. And Miss Sutcliffe's book is also popular with the younger readers. But they are both a great deal more—ah—adult than much of the fiction their elders ask me for—'

'Get that,' said Merriwether. 'They ask for, but they don't receive, not from old Jim Barkham they don't.

He'd sooner sell canned beans than books he doesn't like.'

'—may find them rewarding.'

'I don't seem to remember Major Davies talking about them.'

'Ah, no sir. The Major is strictly inclined towards the history. He is acquainted with the literature…

indeed, he is remarkably well-acquainted with it. But history is his first love, I would agree.'

'Mine too, Mr Barkham. I was thinking of starting with, say, Bede?'

'Bede? Well, that really would be starting at the beginning… I take it you do not read Latin?'

'I'm afraid not. They didn't teach that at my school.'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

'Nor do they teach it at many of our English schools now, I fear, sir… They maintain there is no call for it—a very short-sighted view, but there it is… However, there is Mr Sherley-Price's translation in the Penguin Classics, which is both excellent and inexpensive—a rare conjunction these days.'

'You don't have a Novgorod Bede by any chance?'

Pause, then the same dry chuckle, this time more prolonged—

'I can see you've been talking to the Major, sir—Mr—?'

'Merriwether, Mr Barkham. I understood you were getting him a copy, huh?'

'Oh, no sir. I think you must have misunderstood him there, Mr Merriwether. Indeed, I'm now tolerably certain that no translation or facsimile has ever been made of the Novgorod manuscript… and I don't expect there ever will be now.'

'Why not?'

'Well, frankly, I don't think the Russians are much interested in such things these days. The man at their embassy to whom I spoke—although he was alleged to be concerned with cultural matters—was singularly unforthcoming at first.'

Pause.

'At first?' Merriwether's voice was casual. 'You mean he came back to you?'

'That is correct. Yesterday in fact, and he was most discouraging… though I suppose we should be grateful that he followed up my enquiry in the first place, which I did not expect him to do.'

'So what did he say?'

'Yes… well, it appears that many of the manuscripts from the old monastery there were severely damaged in a German air raid, and—though now I'm reading between the lines of what he said, as it were

—and no attempt was made to repair any of them until quite recently. Which means, of course, that many of them will have been allowed to decay irreparably, because you cannot leave a damaged parchment to its own devices for thirty years and expect it to improve… it is unpardonably careless of them, really…'

'Uh-huh?' Merriwether's voice was distant now rather than casual.

'Well, now it seems they have at last got round to it, and repairs are in progress. Which means, of course, that the manuscript will be totally unavailable for study for months, possibly years. Restoration is a very slow process, Mr Merriwether.'

'Yeah, I guess it must be… So I'm not going to be atfle to write the Major that you've had any success, huh? We're never going to know what was in it?'

'Oh, no, Mr Merriwether, that's not quite true. There is Bishop Harper's description of it, don't forget that.'

'Bishop Harper?'

Pause.

'There now! I was forgetting that I haven't seen the Major for a fortnight or so… And I didn't even learn about the good Bishop until this Monday, after I had written to him.'

Pause.