A Deceit to Die For Read Online Free PDF Page B

promising. Anything else?”
    “Strangely enough, I also found a couple of Byzantine manuscripts.”
    “I hope you were able to acquire them.”
    “Yes, I was. Thanks to Charles, I was the first buyer to show up. It was weird though. If you recall, at every sale for the last three years, someone has beaten me to the punch, purchasing everything of interest before I was even able to view them. Well, thanks to Charles, this time I got there first. Still, when I arrived, the seller said he had only just published the details of the sale on the Internet and had received an offer almost immediately to buy everything—sight unseen for the full asking price. He only agreed to sell them to me because he had not yet responded to their email.”
    “Excellent!” Her enthusiasm charged the air with electricity. “I know how disappointed you were at missing the other sales. Maybe these letters will hold some clue.”
    “Maybe, but I’m beginning to wonder who these people are? It’s not normal.”
    “Probably just some collector. You don’t seem overly excited,” she remarked as he poured her a cup of tea.
    “The personal letters may prove interesting, but the manuscripts are known works. They bring nothing new to the field, and what we need is something new. The Roman Empire continued in the East for one thousand years after it had fallen in the West, and yet the northern Barbarians left more in Rome than was able to survive in Constantinople. Where are the archives of one of Earth’s greatest empires? Less than two thousand works have survived the ravages of time and tyranny, and we must content ourselves with hashing them over and over and over again.”
    “We all share the same frustration, Ian, but there is nothing for it. We shall continue to labor on quietly in our little corner of academia, unappreciated and unknown. I used to resent it too, but not anymore, especially when I can work with you.”
    “It has been fun working together, but you spend most of your time sipping champagne. You rub shoulders with power-brokers in government, education and business, and conferences aimed at ensuring the values of the world’s peoples do not result in conflict that leads to war.”
    “That is not a bad thing,” she rejoined.
    “No, of course not. The problem is most of the people you work with have no sense of value.”
    “Their work would be impossible without yours.”
    “Maybe. Whatever the case, I must be content with trying to ensure that the facts of the past are passed down to the next generation and occasionally indulging in a bit of historic sleuthing.”
    “Sleuthing? That is the most pathetic attempt at humility I’ve heard in a long time. More published journal articles than anyone in the department for, what is it, twelve years running? You have won two awards for distinguished history teaching on two different continents, three international awards for scholarly research and you’ve been nominated Historian of the Year twice in Britain. Sleuthing indeed!”
    He smiled. It was meant to hide the shock he felt at how much she knew about his accomplishments. It didn’t work.
    “You think I haven’t researched everything about you? I do not easily give away my affection and certainly not to some dark horse. I love your mind and your passion.”
    “Is that all?”
    “And your blue eyes.”
    She sensed the all-too-familiar look of melancholy detachment settle over his eyes like a fog, turning them from cerulean blue to gray. She wasn’t going to let this happen again.
    “Tell me, Ian. What is the locomotive of human history?”
    “Am I sitting for an exam?”
    “Just play the game with me.”
    “Power, of course.”
    “True, but let’s give it some nuance. Conquest, Ian. It’s conquest, pure and simple. And, not just for men, but for women like me too. The thrill of victory, the sense of challenge, this is what fuels the human race. And women thrive on it as much as men do. I have never laid