The Scroll Read Online Free PDF Page A

What’s happened?”
    “Just come to the bookshop,” Monty repeated. “Ring the bell. I’ll let you in.”
    Half an hour later Monty and Hank were sitting at the table in Monty’s workroom with the scroll open in front of them.
    “Who was this scholar?” Hank said gravely. “He must have given you a name.”
    “No, he didn’t,” Monty replied. “Like the old man with his granddaughter, and the bishop, or whatever he was, they all knew about this,” he glanced at the scroll. “And my name, and where to find me. But I’ve told no one, except you. I didn’t even have a chance to tell Roger.”
    Hank looked at the scroll again, lifting up his glasses to peer beneath them and see it more intensely. He was silent for so long that Monty became restless. He was about to interrupt him when Hank sat back at last.
    “I’ve been swatting up a bit on Aramaic,” he said, his voice quiet and strained, lines of anxiety deeper in his face than usual, perhaps exaggerated by the artificial light. “I can only make out a few words clearly. I’m not really very good. It’s a long way from mathematics, but I’ve always been interested in the teachings of Christ—just as a good man, perhaps morally the greatest.”
    “And …?” Monty’s own voice quivered.
    Hank’s face lit with a gentle smile. “And I have no special illumination, Monty. I can make out a few words, but they seem ambiguous, capable of far more than one interpretation. There are several proper names and I’m almost sure one of them is ‘Judas’. But there is so much I don’t know that I couldn’t even guess at the meaning. It isn’t a matter of missing a subtlety. I could omit a negative and come with a completely opposite interpretation.”
    “But could he be correct … the scholar?” Monty insisted. “Could it be the lost testimony of Judas Iscariot?”
    “It could be a testimony of anyone, or just a letter,” Hank replied. “Or it could be a fake.”
    “No it couldn’t,” Monty said with absolute certainty. “Touch it. Try to photograph it. It’s real. Even you can’t deny that.”
    Hank chewed his lip, the lines in his face deepening even more. “If it is what the scholar says, that would explain why the bishop is so anxious to have it, and perhaps destroy it. Or at the very least keep it hidden.”
    “Why? Surely it would make religion, Christianity in particular, really hot news again.”
    “If it confirms what they have taught for two thousand years,” Hank agreed. “But what if it doesn’t?”
    “Like what?” Monty asked, then immediately knew the answer. It was as if someone were slowly dimming all the lights everywhere, as far as the eye could see, as far as the imagination could stretch.
    Hank said nothing.
    “You mean a fake crucifixion?” Monty demanded. “No resurrection?” Then he wished he had not even said the words. “That would be awful. It would rob millions of people of the only hope they have, of all idea of heaven, of a justice to put right the griefs we can’t touch here.” He swallowed painfully. “Of ever seeing again those we love … and those who didn’t have a chance here …”
    “I know,” Hank said softly. “That is a belief I would never force on others, even if I hold it myself. I would be inclined to give it to Prince of the Church, and let him burn it.”
    “Book burning? You, Hank?” Monty said incredulously.
    “If I had to choose between truth, or what seems to be truth, and kindness … then I think I might choose kindness,” Hank said gently. “There are too many ‘shorn lambs’ I wouldn’t hurt.”
    “Temper the wind to the shorn lamb,” Monty said in a whisper. “And could you do it without even knowing what the scroll said?”
    “That’s the rub,” Hank agreed. “We don’t know what’s in it. It might not be that at all. Do you remember what the Bible says Christ said to Judas? ‘Go and do what thou must’?”
    Monty stared at him.
    Hank looked at the