Free Grantville Gazette, Volume 59 by Paula Goodlett

Catholic and Protestant friends yet?"
    "Larry Mazzare answered my telegram. He's on board with it, he came over and saw some of this stuff when I first came to town. Dean Gerhard hasn't said anything yet."
    Leon came in and glanced up at the lunch baskets they'd put out of the way on top of the corner cabinet, then at Albert. "I just heard your congregation coming into the dining room and setting out lunch. I hadn't noticed the time. Where should Yakov and I eat?"
    "You can join us in the dining room, if you like. We can leave a place empty on each side if that makes you more comfortable. Or you could use the picnic table under the maple tree out back."
    Leon's face lit up. "That sounds wonderful, if you wouldn't mind. It's such a fine day out, and I miss my walks along the canals in the sun."
    "Sure. I'll catch up with you afterward. I think it's time for us to talk."
    ****
    Leon said nothing at first, though it wasn't the food that held his attention so closely. He was looking off into the trees, and probably not seeing them rustling in the warm breeze either, or hearing the blue jay overhead. Finally he let the hand holding what was left of his sandwich settle onto the wrapper, and came back to the present. "Rabbi Yakov, we must have those scrolls."
    Yakov chuckled. "Green will not give them up. You might as well seek in the Wish Book for the Ark of the Covenant."
    "Oh, I have not made myself clear. Not those atrocious copies, no, he should not give those up, and I do not mean us personally." He picked up the sandwich again, and paused with it half-raised. "I mean the whole community of the children of Abraham, we must have the actual scrolls, the hidden library. They must be found, and taken where they can be safe, before they fall into the hands of plunderers and strangers, the worst kind of goyim, not the ones like your friend. He is everything you said." The hand holding the sandwich wavered aimlessly in the air. "Yakov, I will speak to whom I must. There are letters to be written, money to be raised. Jerusalem shall be informed. Green told you there are books which hint at where to start looking? We must read them first, and act before others do." He paused for a few heartbeats, with his eyes looking somewhere off into the distance, probably seeing something that wasn't in front of them at all. "But until then, what he has is all we have. As he says, we must publish it all, and make sure it is done correctly, with proper respect for what it is." He sighed. "I could only wish they were complete."
    Yakov sat back on the bench and cocked his head. "And when the scrolls are found, how are they to be cared for? For we are told, by now they are very fragile, and much may already have crumbled away beyond the ability of even the best antiquarians to salvage. Not that any such experts ever lived in Grantville."
    The hand holding the sandwich twitched through a small gesture, half dismissive and half an acknowledgment. "Hmmph. We must study that question, and ask who has dealt with such things. I admit, I myself have never handled anything so old."
    An admission of anything, from this man, was a marvel. Yakov kept his expression bland, in what Green called a "poker face."
    ****
    Al and William stepped out the back door and glanced over to the picnic table. "Looks like they've finished eating. Shall we get this show on the road?"
    William looked at him inquiringly, nodded as he seemed to get the gist of the idiom, and strode across the yard beside him.
    Al climbed over the bench seat, settled down, crossed his forearms on the table top, and favored the two rabbis with a direct look. "What do you think?"
    Leon put his fingertips together and a look on his face that was probably meant to project judicious wisdom. He sat that way for a couple of seconds, and then intoned, "I believe my colleague was right. It is wondrous. You do indeed seem to have here pictures of works that were written before Rome burned the temple. I understand