He said with a touch of bitterness, ‘Because you’ve never needed to find out?’
‘Well, not yet, no.’
‘Then… has anyone told you?’
‘Not first hand.’
He sighed. ‘I could never face doing it. It’s one of those things I’m never going to know.’
‘There are others?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Thomas. I am a mediaevalist. I know the facts that were written down. I try to feel my way into that lost world. I cannot smell it, hear it, live it. I can’t know its secret fears and its assumptions. I’ve spent a lifetime learning and teaching at second hand. If I went to sleep now and awoke in the year fourteen hundred, I wouldn’t understand the language or know how to cook a meal. You’ve heard the old saying that if Jesus returned to do a replay of the Sermon on the Mount, no one now living would understand him, as he would be speaking ancient Hebrew with a Nazareth carpenter’s accent? Well, I’ve wasted a lifetime on an unintelligible past.’
‘No, Professor,’ I protested.
‘Yes,’ he said resignedly, ‘I don’t think I any longer care. And I no longer have anyone to talk to. I can’t talk to boring social workers who think I need looking after, and who call me “dearie”. But I find I’m talking to you, Thomas, and I’m an old fool who should know better.’
‘Please go on talking,’ I said. ‘Go on about Valentine.’
‘These last years, I haven’t seen him much. His wife died. So did mine. You might think it would have drawn us together, but it didn’t. I suppose it was our wives who had arranged our meetings. Valentine and I just drifted apart.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘years ago… he knew you were interested in knives?’
‘Oh yes, of course. He was enthusiastic about my collection. He and his wife used to come over to our house and the women would chat together and I would show Valentine the knives.’
‘He told me he gave you one.’
‘He told you…?
‘Yes.’
The professor frowned. ‘I remember him saying I wasn’t ever to say who had given me that knife. He said just to keep it in case he asked for it back… but he never asked. I haven’t thought about it. I’d forgotten it.’ He paused. ‘Why do you want to see it?’
‘Just curiosity… and fondness for my old friend.’
The professor thought it over, and said, ‘I suppose if he told you, he wouldn’t mind.’
He got to his feet and returned to the bedroom, with me on his heels. The light went on dimly; an economical bulb.
‘I’m afraid,’ my host said doubtfully, ‘that there are three levels of knives in this chest, and we have to lift out the second tray to reach the knife you want to see. Are you able to lift it out onto the floor? It doesn’t have to go up onto the bed.’
I assured him I could, and did it left-handed, a shade better. The third layer, revealed, proved not to be of brown cardboard boxes but of longer parcels, each wrapped only in bubble plastic, and labelled.
‘These are mostly swords,’ Derry said. ‘And swordsticks, and a couple of umbrellas with swords in the handles. They were a defence against footpads a hundred or two hundred years ago. Now, of course, they are illegal. One has nowadays to allow oneself to be mugged.’ He cackled gently. ‘You mustn’t hurt the poor robber, you know.’
He surveyed the labels, running his fingers along the rows.
‘Here we are. “Present from V.C.’ ” He lifted out a bubble-wrapped package, snapped open a sellotaped fastening and unrolled the parcel to reveal the contents.
‘There you are,’ Professor Derry said, ‘that’s Valentine’s knife.’
I looked at it. It was like no knife I’d ever seen. It was at least fifteen inches long, possibly eighteen. Its blade, double-edged and clearly sharp, took up barely a third of the overall length and was of an elongated flat oval like a spear, with a sharp spear’s point. The long handle was narrow and was twisted throughout its length in a close spiral. The end of the spiral had been flattened into a circular embellishment, perforated with several holes.
‘It’s not a knife,’ I said. ‘It’s a spear.’
Derry smiled. ‘It’s not meant for throwing.’
‘What was it for?’
‘I don’t know. Valentine simply asked me if I’d like to put it in my collection. It’s hammered steel. Unique.’
‘But where would he buy such a thing?’
‘Buy it?’ The full cackle rang out. ‘Have you forgotten Valentine’s trade? He was a smith. He didn’t buy it. He made