Arthur crept into the library, hoping perhaps Bethany would not notice him, but he needn’t have bothered. She was nowhere to be seen. He carefully withdrew from his bag his photocopy of Bishop Gladwyn’s inventory, pulled a pencil from his pocket, and stood in front of the shelves of medieval manuscripts.
Arthur loved the ancient feel of that case, with its iron chains, though no longer attached to the manuscripts, still hanging above each shelf. But he also loved that, as old as the chained library felt, for some of these manuscripts it had been a new form of storage. The oldest book in the library was the tenth-century Gospel of John, transcribed at least six centuries before this case had been built. It, and other manuscripts, would originally have been stored flat on their sides. As the collection grew and books were piled on top of each other, access became difficult. No records existed of where the books were kept in the following centuries, but Arthur suspected that some, at least, were stacked in wide niches in the wall in the cloisters, close to where the scribes worked. Eventually they may have been placed in wooden chests with iron locks for protection, but not until this chained case had been built, in about 1600, were any of these books ever stored upright. Even then, the manuscripts were kept with their spines inward, to leave room for the chains that were attached to the outer edge of the front covers. This was why most had titles written on their fore edges. But because the front covers had been torn off when the library was reassembled after the war, the manuscripts had been shelved spine out, in the modern fashion, hiding the titles. There had been talk in the 1970s, Arthur had heard, about putting new covers on the manuscripts, but the debate between those who said this would be historically inappropriate and those who claimed it would help protect the books’ contents had been settled by a distinct lack of money.
Arthur was now confronted with three shelves of blank spines. To inventory the manuscripts, he would have to take each volume off the shelf. Most had shelf numbers penciled in the top right corner of the first page—not surprisingly in the handwriting of Bishop Gladwyn—so Arthur could fairly quickly go through Gladwyn’s list, which was arranged by shelf number, to determine what was missing. He had made his way through most of the first shelf and was beginning to think he could succeed in completing this task in peace when Bethany bounded through the door.
“Arthur! Hi,” she said. “Oh, I just photographed the most beautiful Gospel. I could have looked at every page for hours. Had to pop to the washroom after. I wash my hands freshly every ten pages or so. Are you checking Gladwyn’s inventory? That was fun last night. It was sweet of Oscar to invite me.”
For an instant, Arthur thought about ignoring her, but he couldn’t. He shelved manuscript A-22 and turned to see her standing a few feet away, that ever-present wisp of hair dangling in front of her eyes and a warm smile on her face.
“Oscar is the kindest man I know,” said Arthur.
“You were awfully quiet,” said Bethany.
“Lost in thought, I’m afraid,” said Arthur. He was on the verge of adding a comment about the irony of a digital warrior in the encampment of bibliophiles, but something about Bethany’s smile made him want to keep their conversation civil. Then again, Gwyn had told him that morning that Bethany’s project had convinced at least one canon to vote to sell off the cathedral manuscripts. Perhaps that smile was the grin of a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
“You know there’s an easier way to do that,” said Bethany, peering over his shoulder at Gladwyn’s inventory.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The manuscripts are still arranged by their original shelf numbers. A-1, A-2, and so on. One letter for each shelf. All you have to do is—”
“Is count the number of volumes on each shelf . . .”
“And see which total doesn’t match the highest number on Gladwyn’s list. It’s shelf B, by the way.”
“How do you know that?”
“A head for numbers, believe it or not. Ever since I first counted the manuscripts I can tell you exactly how many are on each shelf, and there are twenty-seven on shelf B.”
Arthur looked at Gladwyn’s list and saw that there was an entry for B-28.
“I’ll bet it’s the last one that’s missing,” said Bethany. “If there was one missing in sequence you would have noticed.”
“But if B-28 is missing,” said Arthur excitedly as he pulled out the volume at the far right of the shelf, “I would have assumed there were only twenty-seven volumes on shelf B.” He turned to the first page of the manuscript and saw Bishop Gladwyn’s light pencil marking on the upper corner: B-27.
“So what was B-28?” said Bethany.
Arthur looked back down at the inventory. “Looks rather dull, I’m afraid. It just says ‘Psalter, no illuminations, early sixteenth century.’ Looks like the missing manuscript is utterly ordinary.”
“You really have no imagination, do you, Arthur?” said Bethany. “We’re a strange pair, you and I. I’m obsessed with technology and the modern world, yet to me every book in this library, every stone in this cathedral is pulsing with mystery and intrigue. You live in the past, in a world of manuscripts and illuminations, but to you a five-hundred-year-old Psalter can be ‘utterly ordinary.’”
“You’re really intrigued by the library?” said Arthur, feeling a new respect for Bethany.
“For God’s sake, Arthur, look around you. Who wouldn’t be? You may take all this for granted, because you have the privilege of coming up here all the time, but to most people being in a room like this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s a shame so few people get to see it. But just because I’m somewhat mesmerized by all this . . . this history, doesn’t mean I take things at face value. I don’t believe for a minute that the one manuscript that’s gone missing is the most boring one in the collection.”
Arthur thought about telling her that any intrigue involving the Barchester manuscripts might soon be put to an end, as they might all be heading to the auction block, and that her presence in the library was not exactly helping their cause, but when he looked up and saw the excitement in her eyes he couldn’t bear to squelch it. “So you think that B-28 is something more than an unillustrated Psalter?”
“Wouldn’t it make a better mystery if it were?” she said.
Arthur wanted to believe she was right. He wanted to believe that B-28 was the lost Book of Ewolda, that it would answer all his questions about the cathedral’s founder, even that it would finally cement the connection between Barchester and the Holy Grail. But he found the same part of him that precluded his belief in God kept him from sharing her excitement. Arthur believed what he saw, and what he saw was an entry that said “Psalter, no illuminations, early sixteenth century.”
“It would make a better mystery,” said Arthur. “But perhaps it’s not a mystery, after all.”
“Oh, Arthur, you’re no fun. What do you say we have a cup of tea?”