The Book of the Lion Read Free

works, it will still be of equal importance to scholars.”
    â€œI’m starting to see a way of recouping some of the price,” Spanner said. “The publishing rights might help.”
    â€œIt probably wouldn’t be a crowd-pleaser,” said Hallkyn. “But it would sell to scholars in every English speaking country. The United States, Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland—”
    â€œI’m familiar with the English-speaking countries.”
    â€œAnd it would keep selling modestly forever. Every student who studies Chaucer would read it. And not every student of English literature is from an English-speaking country. Two thirds of Germany and Switzerland speak English, eighty-five percent of Sweden and the Netherlands, twenty percent of India.”
    â€œAll right,” said Spanner. “We can estimate that whoever owns the manuscript would be able to defray a tiny part of what he paid for it from sales.”
    â€œThere might also be grants from foundations or even the government,” said Hallkyn. “But that all takes time, and they might not add up to much.”
    â€œWe still have to come up with an idea of what the manuscript is worth if we want to deal with this man,” Spanner said. “Suppose we add the twelve million paid by the German cartel for the old gospel in 1983 and the six million paid for the Shakespeare folio in 2001. That’s eighteen. I think eighteen million is our number. At least it’s based on something real. And it’s a number that shows we’re serious.”
    â€œI think so,” Hallkyn said. “Is it possible to get that much?”
    â€œI’ll see what I can do,” Spanner said. “We’ll need investors. It’s going to be tricky. We can’t tell anybody what the investment is, or we’ll be turning our allies into competitors. They’ll have to be willing to put up money without knowing what I want to buy with it.”
    â€œAre there people like that?”
    â€œWe’ll see whether my reputation is good enough to make some. Have another scotch, put your feet up, and remain calm. I’m going to start making some calls tonight. The more money we have lined up before this person calls again the better.”
    Hallkyn slept fitfully that night. Whenever he woke up, he would go over the whole topic in his mind, separating dream from memory until he had them clear, but then couldn’t get back to sleep for a time.
    He waited for the second call. A day passed, and Hallkyn could hardly bear it. Then a second night passed, and he began to feel unsure of himself. He played back the voicemail from the caller a dozen times, trying to be sure he hadn’t misunderstood or missed any part of it—a phone number, a name. Then he called the phone company to be reassured that the messages could not have been cut short by the company’s equipment. Yes, they were sure. The plan that Mr. Hallkyn had been paying for would have allowed a message several minutes long. Everything was digital, and so there was not a question of a tape running out. There was no tape. And the caller’s number was blocked.
    The day after that Hallkyn had to go to the university and teach his classes—a morning medieval survey that the undergraduates had decided to call “ Beowulf to the Bowel Shift.” That was quick and simple. His goal was mostly to infect the little cynics with the enthusiasm he felt for the early period, and once again the literature itself was doing the job for him. The graduate seminar had been a tedious business—John Gower’s Confessio Amantis , a perfectly fine and masterful work, but today he kept thinking that Gower was no Chaucer. Nobody else was Chaucer either. Not even the Pearl poet or the Gawain poet had been capable of the breadth of vision, the fascination with humanity, the sheer ambition of Chaucer.
    Hallkyn rushed home, swerving