Ash: A Secret History (146 page)

Subject: Ash/Sib. Hed.

Date:    11/12/00 at 04.23 p.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Anna –

I can only do a translation just so fast! Mediaeval Latin is notoriously difficult, and if it weren’t for the fact that I’m used to this hand and this author, you could expect to wait for years!

From a quick-and-dirty read through of the whole ms, I can state now that the Sible Hedingham document is definitely a continuation of the ‘Fraxinus’ text, by the same hand. But it differs in almost all of its particulars from our conventional history of the events of the winter of 1476/77. I don’t recognise this history! And some of the passages towards the end of the ms are impenetrably resistant to translation!

Even towards the end of this section that I’m about to forward to you, the text becomes very difficult. The language is obscure, metaphoric: I may be mistaken – a tense, a case, an unfamiliar word-usage, can alter so many meanings! Bear in mind this is a *first* draft!

Let’s reserve our opinions. The first part of this very document – ‘Fraxinus’ – gave us a street-map accurate description of the city that we have since discovered on the bed of the Mediterranean Sea. And it may be that, reading and translating late at night, I’m getting confused. I haven’t worked at quite *this* intensity since Finals, and coffee and amphetamines will only take one so far!

I’ve been told to take a short break today, before getting back down to it. Isobel wants me to meet some of her old Cambridge friends (as a post-grad, she was apparently very friendly with the physics people) – and the helicopter’s due in an hour.

*And* the ROV team have got the Stone Golem as cleaned up _in situ_ as is desirable with our equipment, and I want to see the new images as they come through. If the new equipment passes its checks, the first divers will be going down later today. What I really want, of course, is to get my hands on the physical object. That won’t be for weeks – I’m no diver! Even if it can be lifted from the seabed, I’m considerably far down the queue. I’ll have to be content at the moment with the images coming in as the settlement is mapped.

Between this and the new manuscript, I don’t know which way to turn! I have, of course, tried to bring this new information to Isobel’s attention. Surprisingly, I found her abstracted, abrupt.

It’s useless to tell her that she’s working too hard – she has always worked far too hard, all the years that I have known her, and she is, understandably, spending all twenty-four hours of the day on this site – and as much of the time as is physiologically possible under the Mediterranean! Perhaps that’s why, when I asked her on your behalf about releasing more details of the archaeological finds, she ‘bit my head off’, as they say. Perhaps it isn’t surprising at all!

I’ll show her more when I have more translated.

– Pierce

  Message: #310 (Anna Longman)

Subject: Ash/golems

Date:    12/12/00 at 06.48 p.m.

From:    Ngrant

Anna –

I just thought I would let you know: Isobel has given me the new report on the ‘messenger-golem’ that we found at the Carthage land-site.

Apparently, the metallurgy department are _now_ stating that materials incorporated into the bronze-work during the smelting process indicate a time period of *five to six hundred years ago*!

Isn’t it nice of them to admit their error like that?

(Yes, I do feel smug.)

When I’ve had time to read the full text of the report, I’ll ask Isobel – if I can get hold of the woman! – if I can have it to incorporate in an appendix to our book.

Back to translation and the Sible Hedingham document––

– Pierce

  Message: #180 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    12/12/00 at 11.00 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

I’m so pleased, Pierce! How in the world did they come to make such an error in the first place? Dr Isobel needs to use a far better metallurgy department. All that unnecessary worry!

I think we have to think about moving fast. Jon Stanley’s started to mention rumblings on the American academic publishing grapevine: apparently someone knows that you’re translating ‘something’. ‘Fraxinus’, I’d guess – I’ve kept the existence of anything else utterly confidential. But Pierce, I can’t tell William Davies what to do with the original Sible Hedingham manuscript, can I?

I expect there’s an archaeological grapevine, too, and that it’s working overtime. Can you suggest to Dr Isobel that some sort of controlled press release might be _really_ _useful_ about now?

Isn’t this exciting? I’m so happy to be involved, even if it is only long-distance!

Love,
Anna

  Message: #187 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    13/12/00 at 06.59 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

I NEED THE REST OF THE TRANSLATION.

Theories are all very well, Pierce, but

No. It doesn’t matter. Something did happen, IS happening. Isn’t it? I’ll tell you why I know –

I came home tonight, about half an hour ago, and flaked out in front of the TV, which happened to be on local news. I get London local, or East Anglian. By sheer chance I was on East Anglian news. The lead story was a human interest piece on a war veteran reunited with his long-lost brother after sixty years.

I heard half of it – no names – sat up and stared – picked up the phone, thought who can I call, and realised: there was a message waiting for me.

I’ve just played it. It’s William Davies. Such a kind, formal voice, speaking to the empty air of an answering machine. He wants to know if I would like to speak to his brother, Vaughan. Vaughan has ‘been away’. Now he’s back.

No, I don’t want to, I want YOU to fly back to England and talk to him, Pierce. This isn’t me, this isn’t what I do. I’m an editor, not a journalist or historian, and I don’t think I even want to go near him. He’s YOUR baby. YOU do it.

– Anna

  Message: #188 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    13/12/00 at 07.29 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Answer my message!

– Anna

  Message: #189 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    13/12/00 at 09.20 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Read your bloody mail!!!

– Anna

  Message: #192 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash

Date:    14/12/00 at 10.31 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Where the hell are you?

Well, I did it. I drove out to the old people’s home this evening, and I saw William Davies and his brother Vaughan. Two very elderly gentlemen, with nothing much to say to each other. That’s sad, don’t you think?

Vaughan Davies isn’t frightening. Just elderly. And senile. He’s lost his memory – as the result of a wartime trauma, bombed in the Blitz. He’s not a distinguished academic any more.

It seems the amnesia is genuine. William is a surgeon, and of course he has all his old medical contacts, even though he is retired, so Vaughan has been checked up in the best hospital in England, by the best neurosurgeons. Amnesia after traumatic shock. Basically, he got blown up, got picked out of the rubble, didn’t know who he was, was put in a home after the Second World War, forgotten, and then chucked out on the streets a few years back for ‘care in the community’.

The police eventually picked him up when he appeared in Sible Hedingham and tried to get into his old house. He’s pretty gaga, and no one would have known who he was, except one of the family who own Hedingham Castle was there the third or fourth time he tried this, and finally recognised him.