Trouble on the Heath Read Online Free Page A

thought we already knew it all.”
    But you had to take the Medieval Academy of America’s logo seriously. It gave the subject weight.
    Then there were a dozen bills, all from the university, and addressed to “Prof. Michael Thomas, Department of History”.
    â€œYou’d think they could get my name right by now,” Malcolm murmured as he stuffed them into his bag.
    The university had a new Managing Director, whose greatest achievement had been to change his title from ‘The Principal’ to ‘The Managing Director’.
    His second greatest achievement was to introduce a new system of accounting. Instead of the university owning the buildings, and using them for research and teaching, the new Managing Director had sold the buildings off (for a vast fortune). Lecturers and staff now had to compete on the open market to hire the lecture halls and classrooms.
    Whenever a lecturer used a lecture hall, he had to pay the university out of his own salary. The lecturers’ salaries were then topped-up by grants, made possible by the sale of the buildings.
    The new Managing Director called the system ‘Transparency in Action’. The staff called it ‘Stupidity in Action’.
    In addition, the new Managing Director had ordered that ‘students’ must now be referred to as ‘clients’ or ‘customers’. ‘Subjects’ were, in future, to be referred to as ‘areas of future expertise’.
    Malcolm continued pulling envelopes out of his pigeon hole. There was the History Now! magazine. He would keep that to read over coffee. Nothing gave him more pleasure, in the whole month, than reading History Now! over a cup of coffee, and sneering at the articles.
    But then at the bottom of the pigeon hole was an envelope that he didn’t recognise. The writing was unfamiliar and it bore a Russian stamp.
    Curious, he slit it open. Inside was a scrap of paper, upon which someone had written in capital letters the words: “STOP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING”.
    Malcolm thought for a while. Was the author of the note talking about teaching History? If so, Malcolm would take their advice seriously. When the new Managing Director had taken over as head of the university, he had spent a large part of his Opening Address being rude about any university teaching that did not contribute to the Gross National Product or produce some commercial breakthrough, like the mobile phone or soft ice-cream.
    Malcolm had the distinct feeling that the teaching of Medieval History was high on the Managing Director’s hit list.
    If Malcolm were looking for a secure future, he should certainly stop what he was doing, but there was nothing else he wanted to do. History was his chosen subject and Medieval History, in particular, was his passion.
    But he had a creepy feeling that the writer of the note was not advising him to stop teaching History.
    That evening he showed the note to his wife Angela over supper.
    â€œI received this weird note this morning,” he said as he poured out two glasses of Chilean Merlot. He pushed the note across the table and watched her read it.
    â€œOne of your students perhaps?” she said, with a slight curl of the lip.
    â€œBut what are they talking about?” Malcolm took the note back, and examined it again, as he might examine a medieval manuscript. The colour of the ink, the style of the lettering, the pressure of the pen on paper, the age of the paper – all these things might give a clue as to who had written it, when they had written it, and why.
    Although Malcolm was an expert in unlocking the secrets of medieval manuscripts, this scrap of paper told him nothing.
    â€œHave you got something going with one of your students again, Malcolm?” Angela’s eyes were not narrow slits at the moment, but he knew they would become narrow slits if he didn’t head off this line of enquiry. He knew that once Angela’s