FEAST OF ST. ANSELM, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Mist rose from the water meadows in wisps and fog clung to the riverbank, glowing in the morning sun. Arthur’s dark thoughts of the night before seemed silly in this lovely morning light. Bethany was no minion of the devil; she was here to save books, not destroy them. And she saw things Arthur had never noticed.
“Miss Davis and I made a rather interesting discovery yesterday,” said Arthur as he and Gwyn slogged through the mud toward the river.
“Bethany, you mean?”
“Yes, Bethany. We discovered there is a manuscript missing from the library.”
“Do you think we have a thief in our midst?”
“Not likely,” said Arthur. “I imagine it’s been missing at least since the war. Bishop Gladwyn’s inventory of the manuscripts lists eighty-three and Miss Davis . . . that is, Bethany, astutely pointed out to me that the library contains only eighty-two.”
“Well, I certainly hope you’ll find it for us, Arthur, since you don’t have anything else to do, like finish a guidebook.”
“We’ll check the inventory to see what it is—probably nothing interesting. But one does wonder.”
“You think it’s the lost Book of Ewolda?”
“I doubt it’s a jewel-encrusted treasure, if that’s what you mean. More likely some dull treatise on medieval medicine.”
“If a medieval manuscript is dull to you, Arthur, that would be saying something.”
“I just don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“So you intend to go looking for it?”
“I think it’s more that Bethany intends to go looking for it and she intends to drag me along.”
“Arthur, you can pretend you’re not excited about searching for a lost manuscript, and you can pretend you’re not . . . perhaps aroused is not quite the right word, but pleased, certainly, by the prospect of Bethany Davis joining you on the quest—but unfortunately, my friend, you’re not that good an actor.”
“I’ll admit, the prospect of returning a missing manuscript to the library is intriguing.”
“And the prospect of Bethany Davis?”
But before Arthur could express any opinion on Bethany, Mag (or perhaps Nunc) came bounding out of the weeds and leaped up onto Arthur’s chest, licking him in the face and leaving muddy paw prints all over his shirt.
“Oh, Arthur, I am sorry,” said Gwyn, suppressing giggles.
“Not sorry enough to keep from laughing,” said Arthur with a wry smile. The dogs never jumped on him in dry weather, only when they had been romping in the mud. “I wasn’t going to wear this to work anyway.”
The dean was by now doubled over with laughter, for the other dog had attacked, and Arthur found himself drenched in mud and drool. “So pleased I can provide for your amusement,” he said. In truth, he found the situation fairly amusing himself. “You do have them well trained.”
“Here, take my scarf,” said Gwyn, catching her breath. “You might want to wipe your face.”
“I’ve no intention of wiping away anything that causes you such pleasure,” said Arthur.
“Thank you, Arthur,” said Gwyn, smiling. “It’s a true friend who sacrifices his dignity for the amusement of his walking companion. I think I’ve gone the past forty-five seconds without sparing a thought for this morning’s chapter meeting.”
“Planning to vote on my excommunication?”
“I’m not sure how we could excommunicate someone who never communes,” said Gwyn, “but no, it’s worse than that, I’m afraid.”
“Money,” said Arthur grimly.
“Money,” repeated Gwyn. “It saddens me that my job, which I thought was supposed to be about religion, is so often about money. The coffers are getting close to empty, and there is a movement afoot in the chapter to begin cutting costs and increasing income.”
“How?” asked Arthur.
“On the cost-cutting side one of the canons has suggested fewer vergers, fewer altar flowers, even curtailing the music program.”
“Curtailing . . . you mean no more choir?” Arthur felt a sudden knot in the pit of his stomach at the thought of no more music at cathedral services.
“Not that drastic, perhaps, but fewer choral scholarships, fewer sung services, maybe even making the organist part-time.”
Arthur shook his head at this sad prospect. “And on the increasing-income side?”
“You won’t like it,” said Gwyn, quickening her pace and looking straight ahead to where the dogs waited, panting at the gate to the close.
“Won’t like what?” asked Arthur, taking hold of Gwyn’s wrist and pulling her to a halt.
“There are at least four canons ready to vote today to sell off the manuscripts in the library.”
“Sell off . . .” Arthur could not even process this information. He found himself gasping for breath. “How could they . . .”
“Trust me Arthur, I don’t want it, and I still think we have the votes to defeat any such proposal, but the canons see a cathedral that can’t pay its bills and a collection of perhaps millions of pounds’ worth of manuscripts. They say we are a church, not a museum.”
“Is that why Bethany . . .” Arthur could not quite form the thought.
“There were rumblings before she came, but I do think they added one vote to their side with the knowledge that the manuscripts would be digitized—that we would still have access to their contents.”
Arthur tried to swallow his anger. This was the sort of disaster that happened when you let meddlesome digitizers into a medieval library. “Do they know what they’re throwing away?” he said between clenched teeth.
“They’re not throwing anything away,” said Gwyn. “If anything they’re considering selling the manuscripts to people and institutions who are better suited to care for them than we are.”
“We have a Gospel of John,” said Arthur. “A handwritten Gospel of John that has been used in services at Barchester for over a thousand years. A thousand years! Can you even conceive of how much history, how much faith is connected to that one book? And that’s just one. What about the Barchester Breviary—that has musical settings we’ve been using for eight hundred years. We have a manuscript of medical cures that was used during the plague. We have a book on agriculture that helped the monks six hundred years ago raise the sheep that gave them the hides on which they wrote the very books that stand next to that one on the shelf. And these manuscripts have survived wars and invasion and plundering and bombing and fire—all so we can sell them when we’re a little strapped for cash. This is our history, Gwyn. Every one of those manuscripts is a part of Barchester, just like every organ in your body is a part of you.”
“Arthur, I’m on your side, I promise. But if the body can’t survive, then the organs aren’t much good.”
“You can’t let this happen,” said Arthur, gripping Gwyn’s wrist tighter. “You can’t.”
“I don’t want to,” said Gwyn. “But if the financial situation doesn’t change, it might not be my choice anymore.”