Ash: A Secret History (40 page)

I don’t have Isobel’s technical archaeological expertise, but she wants me to stay and give her more of the cultural background – all these finds are late 15th century. This is not her period, she’s a Classicist. The ‘messenger’ golem we have here is being measured by the latest high-tech equipment, and *still* all that I can tell you, Anna, is that at some point in the past, this thing walked.

What I can’t tell you is *how*.

There appears to be nothing to power it, and no means for anything to be fitted. Isobel and her team are baffled. She *cannot* believe that the ‘golem’ descriptions in the ASH documents are a coincidence or mediaeval fable. Anna, she WILL NOT believe it is coincidence.

I am baffled, too. You see, in many senses, we shouldn’t be finding what we’re finding here. Certainly, I believe I have the, evidence for a late-Gothic settlement on the North African coast, but I have always known that the manuscripts‘ reference to ’Carthage‘ can be nothing but poetic licence. THERE IS NO CARTHAGE! After the Punic Wars, Rome destroyed Carthage completely. Carthage of the Carthaginians ceased to be an inhabited, powerful city in 146 BC. The great later Roman settlement, on this site, which they themselves called Carthage, was itself obliterated by Vandals, Byzantines, and the Arab conquest in the late 7th century AD – the ruins outside modern-day Tunis’ are a considerable tourist attraction.

‘Delenda est Carthago’, as Cato used to say in the Roman Senate, at every conceivable opportunity: ‘Carthage must be destroyed! ’ And so it finally was. Two generations after the Carthaginian army under Hannibal was wiped out by Scipio at Zama, Rome had the inhabitants of Carthage deported, the city demolished, and the area ploughed under and sown with salt, so that nothing could ever grow there again – a little excessive, possibly, but at this point in our history it was a toss-up whether we were going to have a Roman Empire or a Carthaginian Empire, and, having been victorious, the Romans methodically made sure they wouldn’t have any trouble from that area again.

History eradicates thoroughly. Until a decade ago, we did not know for certain which of the ruins on the ten-mile stretch of coast around Tunis was any of the Carthages! I am now having to speculate that the Visigoth expedition from Iberia itself resettled a site that they, like the Romans before them, also CALLED Carthage; and that it was within a reasonable distance of the same location. If this didn’t happen until quite late in the day – not until the High Middle Ages, perhaps – then that might account for the sparse documentary evidence of it. I intend to seek more in the way of Islamic sources to support this.

My theory, I THINK, remains intact. And now we have technological evidence to back it up!

– Pierce

  Message: #48 (Anna Longman)

Subject: Ash mss, media projects

Date:    09/11/00 at 12.27 p.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Anna –

I forgot to check my previous mail! Shi Sorry. *Sorry*.

Isobel just downloaded your e-mail herself and is extremely interested in the TV project you propose – if not entirely flattered by your description of herself. She said, ‘This woman makes me sound like Margaret Rutherford! ’ A remark which, I may add, despite her being only 41 and merely having a predilection for old black-and-white film comedies, *does* make her sound like Margaret Rutherford. (Fortunately for British television, Isobel is rather more chic.)

We are discussing what might best be done, given a certain tension between the dumbing-down effect of television upon scientific enquiry, and the undoubted attractions of gaining popular publicity for archaeology and literature. And, if I can be honest, discussing the attractions that publicity holds for me. I should not mind my fifteen minutes of fame, no, not at all! Especially since it seems that someone else would be paying me for the privilege. I assume we will receive a fee of some kind?

Isobel wishes to consider her options and consult with her team, and the university. I should be able to get back to you later today. Now that I am certain I understand the uses of the Internet, I am forwarding the next section of ‘Ash’. You will want to look it over while we hammer out some of the fine details here.

– Pierce

Message: #49 (Anna Longman)

Subject: Ash Project

Date:    09/11/00 at 12.44 p.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Ms Longman –

I am reluctant to teleconference with your editorial committee. The phone lines here are not good, and moreover I doubt they are secure. I will fly back to talk in person as soon as I can take a break from the site. I would be obliged if you could put me in contact with an association of literary agents, or ‘media’ agents, assuming that there is such an association; my University will then be in a position to enter into negotiations.

I see no reason why we should not reach agreement. Footage from our videocam team is being sent digitally back to my department at █████████████████ University, and processed there. I suggest that you liaise with my departmental head, Stephen Abawi, about any use of research footage for publicising Dr Ratcliff’s edition of ‘Ash’.

At Dr Ratcliff’s suggestion, I am encouraging the team to film more of the actual ‘felt experience’ of this dig, in addition to our archaeological findings. This may need to be limited in scope, as the soldiers do not like to be filmed and small bribes are not always sufficient to placate them. However, it will, as Dr Ratcliff points out, be necessary to have this footage if a documentary is to be later constructed from our time here.

It is possible that Dr Ratcliff and I may collaborate on a documentary script. I am considering using quotations from the previous editors of the ‘Ash’ material. Are you familiar with Charles Mallory Maximillian’s 1890 edition? –

…the great mediaeval spoked Wheel of Fortune is always turning; the Goddess Fortuna always sweeping up each man in turn from beggarhood to crowned king, to falling fool, and back to the darkness below the wheel, which is death and forgetfulness. In 1477, upon the field of Nancy, Burgundy vanishes from history and memory, lies as cold and dead as the frost-bitten Corpse of Charles the Rash, who had been the shining Prince of Christendom, and whose own enemies thought, for two days, that they beheld the body of a mere peasant soldier, so wretched, filthy and torn it was. We recall a golden country. Yet, history has turned, and the past is lost…

Here on the coast of Tunisia, the Wheel is turning again.

– I. Napier-Grant

  Message: #63 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash, documents

Date:    10/11/00 at 01.35 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

Thank Dr Napier-Grant for her mail.

Your news about the messenger-golem find is stunning. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ll tell you WHY I don’t know what to make of it.

You’ve found mobile golems.

I’ve lost the Angelotti manuscript.

– Anna

  Message: #50 (Longman)

Subject: Ash mss.

Date:    10/11/00 at 02.38 p.m.

From:    Ngrant@

Anna –

I don’t understand. How can you LOSE the Angelotti text? It’s in four major world collections! Explain!

– Pierce

  Message: #66 (Pierce Ratcliff)

Subject: Ash mss.

Date:    10/11/00 at 02.51 p.m.

From:    Longman@

Pierce –

No. It isn’t.

I wanted to check on this ‘forgotten invasion’ of yours for myself.

If you weren’t out in Tunis with Dr Grant – if this turns out NOT to be golems – I’m pulling the book. I mean it. THERE IS NO ANGELOTTI MANUSCRIPT!

The problem isn’t that a ‘Visigoth invasion’ seems to have been swept under the historical carpet.

The PROBLEM is that since I wanted to check the Angelotti text myself, I phoned the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Glasgow Museum.

The Glasgow Museum no longer hold a copy of the Latin text attributed to one ‘Antonio Angelotti’.

Both the British Library and the Metropolitan Museum now classify it as Mediaeval Romance Literature. As FICTION, Pierce!

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

  Message: #54 (Longman)