Free Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price Page B

Englishman to see the Novgorod Bede since it was sent with the English missionaries to Germany in the eighth century… Did you know that the early English Christians played a notable part—one might even say a heroic part, since so many of them were martyred— in the conversion of the heathen Germans?”
    Pause.
    “Can’t say that I did, no.” Merriwether ’ s voice was now not so much distant as hollow .
    “Not many people do know, it’s true. Yet it was one of the most glorious periods in our whole history. Bede wasn’t unique, he was one of a generation of great English churchmen… But there it is: the manuscript probably went to a German monastery like Fulda, and thence to somewhere like Wismar or Stralsund on the Baltic, and from there in a Hanseatic ship to the lands of the Teutonic Knights who were invading Russia in the middle of the Middle Ages—the ‘Drang nach Osten’, Mr Merriwether:
    Russian, Russian,
Wake yourself up!
The German is coming,
The uninvited guest—
    “That’s not a 20th century poem, it was written in the fourteenth century… and so to some German-Lithuanian monastery, at least according to Bishop Harper’s theory— somewhere like Dorpat—where it was captured by a Prince of Novgorod. And from Novgorod finally to Nijni Novgorod, five hundred miles further east and fifteen-hundred miles from Jarrow, where it was written. Always travelling with the missionaries of God, English and German and finally Russian —isn’t that fascinating, eh? Only to be threatened in the 20th century by another ‘Drang nach Osten’—Hitler’s bombers! There’s the pattern of European history for you—twelve hundred years of it. And now two American gentlemen like the Major and yourself want to find out about it—even more remarkable!”
    Pause.
    “So what did the Bishop say, then, Mr Barkham?”
    “Oh, I don’t know yet, sir. I haven’t been able to lay my hands on a copy of his collected letters. It was privately printed, you see—I’ve never even seen a copy, much less sold one. What I’ve been telling you comes from a colleague of mine in Cambridge, who once had a copy many years ago. But we’ll both continue looking for one, if that is your wish, Mr Merriwether.”
    “Well, I’d sure like to see it—after that story you’ve told, Mr Barkham.”
    “Of course, of course… But I think you’ll be disappointed. Most likely the Novgorod Bede was transcribed from one of our early English copies, possibly from the same one used for the Leningrad Bede. So it is more unlikely to contain any additional material about Mons Badonicus… not that that matters now.”
    Pause.
    “No?”
    Pause .
    “Hah! I can see the Major didn’t favour you with his absolute confidence… And I was rather hoping that he had. What a pity!”
    Pause.
    “You mean about—M—about Badon?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Yeah… well, he was kind of close about it just recently.”
    “Close?”
    “He didn’t talk much. He just kind of hinted.”
    Chuckle.
    “Exactly. In fact, I said to him: ‘If you think you’ve found it, then you must prove it.’ And all he would say was ‘When I’m ready’.”
    “That’s just what he said to me—‘When I’m good and ready’. Is that all he said to you, Mr Barkham?”
    “Those were his very words. And when I told him if it was true it was a very great discovery he said ‘And a very great deal of trouble too’. And not one more word would he say.
    Which was really rather provoking in the circumstances.”
    “After all the work you’d done for him, huh?”
    “Not so much that, Mr Merriwether… but I was more afraid he might start digging. And he isn’t an archaeologist —whatever happens it must be left to them. The only testimony now can be the testimony of the spade, I told him.”
    Door opening — door closing .
    “Absolutely right, Mr Barkham.”
    “I’m glad you think so, sir. Though my personal view is that his enthusiasm was, shall we say,