Free The Inheritance by Simon Tolkien

The book’s pretty interesting, though. Except that there’s nothing in it about what he did to you. Look, here.” Sasha opened the book and pointed to a series of entries dating from late 1937. “Anyone reading this would think that he won that professorship on merit. It’s vile. He called himself a historian, and yet he spent his whole life falsifying history. He knew you were going to win, and so he fabricated that story about you and that student.”
    “Higgins. He wasn’t very attractive.” Andrew Blayne smiled, trying to defuse his daughter’s anger.
    “I thought I could get you back your good name.”
    “I know you did. But it doesn’t matter now. It’s all ancient history.”
    “It matters to me.” Sasha’s voice rose as her old sense of outrage took over. She felt her father’s humiliation like it had happened only yesterday. Cade had persuaded one of his rival’s pupils to allege a homosexual relationship and the mud had stuck. Andrew Blayne had lost the contest for the chair in medieval art history and had then been forced by his college to resign his fellowship. Since then he had supported himself through poorly paid private tutoring and temporary lecturing jobs at provincial universities, until ill health had put a stop even to that.
    His wife, Sasha’s mother, was a strict Roman Catholic and had chosen to believe every one of the scurrilous allegations against her husband. She’d left him in his hour of need, taking their five-year-old daughter with her and had then stopped the girl from seeing her father for most of her childhood. Sasha had always found this cruelty harder to forgive than all her mother’s neglect, and Andrew Blayne had remained the most important man in his daughter’s life.
    “Clearing my name wasn’t the main reason why you ignored all my objections and went to work for that man, was it, Sasha?” said Andrew reflectively, as he stirred the tea in his chipped mug. He noticed how Sasha had filled it only halfway to the top to avoid the risk of his spilling hot tea on his trousers. It suddenly made him feel like an old man.
    “You wanted to find the Marjean codex. Just like I did years ago. Because you thought it would lead you to St. Peter’s cross,” he went on when she didnot answer. “You should be careful, my dear. You’re not the first to have followed that trail. Look what happened to John Cade.”
    “That’s got nothing to do with the codex,” said Sasha, sounding almost annoyed. “Cade’s son killed him. He’s on trial at the Old Bailey right now, and I’ve got to give evidence next week. Don’t you ever read the newspapers?”
    “Not if I can avoid it. And plenty of innocent people get put on trial for crimes they didn’t commit, Sasha. They get convicted too.”
    “Not this one. The evidence is overwhelming. But look, I didn’t come here to talk about Stephen Cade’s trial.”
    “You came here to talk about the codex.”
    “Yes.” Sasha’s voice was suddenly flat, full of her disappointment over all her fruitless searches of the last few weeks.
    “I’ll tell you again. I think you should leave it alone.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because the codex, the cross—they should be yours. He stole everything from you.”
    “No, he didn’t, Sasha. I could have looked for the cross if I’d wanted to, but I didn’t. I chose not to.”
    “With no money?” said Sasha passionately. “What could you do after he’d taken your livelihood away?”
    The old man didn’t answer. He looked up at his daughter and smiled, before using both hands to contrive a sip of tea from his mug. But Sasha wouldn’t let it go.
    “I want to make it all up to you, Dad. Can’t you see that?”
    “I know you do, Sasha. But can’t
you
see that I don’t need objects? They mean nothing to me any more.”
    “I don’t believe you. Not this object.”
    Not for the first time her father’s quiet stoicism grated on Sasha. It was beyond her