Abigail already knew that. It was her viva voce, or viva, which was her final board review to determine whether or not she received her Ph.D. in Medieval History. She was here to defend her eighty thousand-word thesis that had taken her three years to write.
Sitting in a lecture hall at the University of Birmingham, she was facing a board of seven people, all of them hand selected from some of the most reputable and important Medieval and ancient historical academics in the world. She even had one guy from the Sorbonne in France whose sole focus was Medieval military battles – Hastings, Crécy, Agincourt, Towton, and everything in between. He’d been called in specifically because of the subject matter of the Battle of Hastings, but all of them had been invited to listen to something that no one had ever heard before.
The Book of Battle.
Abigail turned around and glanced into the audience behind her to see Queensborough and Mr. Groby sitting there, smiling encouragingly at her. Even grouchy Queenie seemed rather pleased by the whole thing. There was also another woman in the audience who’d been allowed to listen in because during the last year of Abigail’s studies, Anne Smith de Wolfe, a professional genealogist and owner of a company called Digging Up Your Roots, had been a massive help to her in ironing out the history of Warwolfe and his descendants. She was married to a de Wolfe, in fact, which made all of this right up her alley.
Now, it was time for Abigail to face the music, as it were. She had seven experts in her field, who had been experts longer than she’d been alive, and she was ready to take them head-on.
“We’ve all had the opportunity to review your dissertation, Abby,” her advisor, department head Dr. Sykes continued to speak. Then she grinned. “Of course, I’ve been looking at this and discussing it with you since it started, but our other panel members have only seen it as of late. I believe Dr. Sorkin wishes to begin the inquiry, so let’s start.”
Abigail turned to the scholar from the Sorbonne, who was looking at something on the table in front of him, his glasses halfway down his nose. When he realized the attention was on him, he glanced up at Abigail.
“The Book of Battle,” he said in his heavy French accent. “You list this as your main source.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is not a published resource.”
“No, sir.”
Dr. Sorkin was silent for a moment. “Young lady, if what you say is true, this source is potentially one of the biggest finds in the world of Medieval history. You do know that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is the book?”
Abigail looked at Dr. Sykes, who spoke up. “It is here,” she said, waving forward a department associate who had been sitting off in the shadows. “If you are worried about its authenticity, don’t. We’ve spent the past six months having it analyzed by independent sources. I will show you the reports. It’s completely authentic and we have two independent lab sources that date the book back to the era of William of Normandy’s conquest. This is the real deal, gentlemen.”
Dr. Sorkin was quite interested in the box the associate put on the table. In fact, they all were. As Dr. Sykes stood up and put on a pair of white gloves that were on top of the box, she spoke to Abigail.
“Abby, do you want to speak about this now?” she asked. “Because, honestly, I think this is the only thing everybody really wants to know about.”
A few titters of laughter came from the panel as Abigail nodded. She was a little nervous, but she knew this subject backwards and forwards. In fact, she was rather excited to finally speak openly about something she’d been keeping to herself for the most part for the past three years. This is what she’d studied hard for and researched until she saw the material in her dreams. Sometimes, she even saw her subject in her dreams.
Warwolfe.
This was the moment Gaetan de Wolfe and his men began to shine for all the world to see.
“As you know, my dissertation is entitled The unsung heroes of the Norman Invasion and their impact upon the Conquest,” she said. “It has been my goal, since the beginning, to give a voice to those men who helped the Duke of Normandy conquer England. The man didn’t do it all by himself and it was my goal to discover who made the biggest impact in his plans for conquest. Of course, as you know, information about the Battle of Hastings is fairly limited. There are only a few trusted sources in Barrow, Bates, Hallam, and other related scholars, but any first-hand account has been impossible to find. When I started visiting the Battle of Hastings museum a few years ago in my quest to find resources for my paper, I became acquainted with Mr. Peters Groby, who was a docent, but he had also lived in the village of Battle his entire life.”
She turned to point out Mr. Groby, who lifted a hand to wave at the panel. Abigail continued to speak even though she was looking at Mr. Groby and Queensborough, seated next to him.
“The man to Mr. Groby’s right is the man to whom I owe everything,” she said. She’d grown quite fond of Queensborough over the past two years. “Meet Mr. Queensborough Browne, a direct descendant of Sir Anthony Browne, who was a close confident of Henry VIII. It’s through Queensborough Browne that I was able to gain access to a Medieval journal that had been in his family’s possession since the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This journal, which is called the Book of Battle because of Battle Abbey, was written by a monk named Jathan de Guerre and when you read the transcript of the Book of Battle, you’ll see that he was probably the very first war correspondent. He gives a detailed account of not only the battle, but of a group of Norman knights known as the Anges de Guerre, led by a man known as Warwolfe.”
By this time, Dr. Sykes had the ancient book out of its box and the assistant was passing out copies of the transcripts. They hadn’t shared any of this before the viva because they had wanted this event to be the introduction of the Book of Battle to the world.
Dr. Sykes put the book on the table so that all of the panelists could get a look at it and, as they all stood up to see it, Abigail was essentially forgotten. For such an artifact to be presented to these historical scholars was like a drug to an addict; they were immediately filled with it, enthralled with it, and Abigail watched them as they fawned over it.
Turning her glance at Queensborough, she could see a hint of pride on the man’s face. From a man who had been terrified to even show her the book those two short years ago to a man who had now gained a great deal of pride for sharing it with the world, Abigail was thrilled with the change. An old man who was able, in the twilight of his life, to find something wonderful to be proud over. She smiled at him and he winked at her.
Bring them back to life, Miss Devlin.