Read Online Our Man in Camelot by Anthony Price - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Anthony Price
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Yes, well take the Knights of the Round Table, which is a load of crap. One guy added the knights and another added the Table, and they built the whole story up from that. Because mediaeval knights wanted to read about mediaeval knights… But if you actually go back to A.D. 500, that’s the time when the heavy cavalryman is the big new secret weapon. And just before the Romans got to hell out of Britain they set up a mobile strike command. So if you add those two facts together, you’ve just maybe got something that isn’t a load of crap. No knights rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons, but a disciplined cavalry force… the Saxons fought on foot, remember, so they’d have been at a disadvantage… And no ‘King’ Arthur, but just a first-rate cavalry commander—“
“A war leader,” said Shirley.
For a moment Mosby thought she was making fun of his brand-new academic pretensions. But when he looked into her eyes there was nothing to confirm the suspicion; rather, she seemed on the edge of being interested.
He nodded cautiously. “A war leader, yes.”
“Very good,” Schreiner made no attempt to hide his approval. “That fits very well.”
“Fits very well with what?”
“Never mind. It’ll keep. So where does Badon Hill figure in this folk-memory?”
Mosby rubbed his chin, the hastily-acquired facts suddenly blurring in his memory. He was so used to Shirley cutting him down to size that she had diminished him now without even intending to, reducing him to what he knew himself to be: an instant expert whose shallow understanding was impressive only in the company of those more ignorant than himself. Up against Audley it would be very different.
“It doesn’t really figure at all,” he said finally.
“But you said there was such a place?”
“Sure I did. There was. In fact if there’s one sure fact in the whole thing it’s Badon Hill.”
“Because Gildas and Bede say so?”
“Gildas and Bede and everyone who matter: somebody gave the Saxons the biggest hiding of their lives about A.D. 500. Even the modern archaeologists check it out, because Saxon burials inland stop dead about that time and don’t really start up again for half a century or more—two, maybe three generations. So it must have been a great battle.”
Merriwether unwound gracefully. “Then how come most people never heard of it, Doc? I read some British history once. Long time ago, but I remember the battles—Hastings, Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar and such. But no Badon Hill.”
“Because the Britons threw it away, is why. If they’d carried on the good work they could have finished the Anglo-Saxons for good—the Britons were better organised, the Saxons were just savages. It was like—like if the Red Indians had tried to invade the United States in about 1800… So the Britons had them licked but they squabbled among themselves, like Gildas said, and blew the deal. If they hadn’t then there’d have been no England—and no English. It’d all have been Britain, all speaking Welsh or something like it. In fact we’d be speaking Welsh at this moment.”
Merriwether laughed. “Man—you’ve made your point. If it’d got me speaking Welsh it must have been some battle!”
“You’re darn right. One of the all-time big ones: Saratoga, Gettysburg, Midway, Waterloo—Badon. But as it is, we don’t even know where it is.”
Schreiner frowned at him. “No clues at all?”
“No real clues. It was a hill and it was a siege of some sort. So perhaps a hill-fort, or an isolated hill. But nothing for certain. There’s a gloss in one Gildas manuscript, where some old monk wrote in extra words—“
“Which manuscript?” asked Schreiner quickly.
“I don’t know—not the Novgorod one, anyway.” Mosby searched through the books again. “Here we are—it’s a footnote in Arthur of Britain …
usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis qui prope Sabrinum hostium habetur…
those last five words
“A war leader,” said Shirley.
For a moment Mosby thought she was making fun of his brand-new academic pretensions. But when he looked into her eyes there was nothing to confirm the suspicion; rather, she seemed on the edge of being interested.
He nodded cautiously. “A war leader, yes.”
“Very good,” Schreiner made no attempt to hide his approval. “That fits very well.”
“Fits very well with what?”
“Never mind. It’ll keep. So where does Badon Hill figure in this folk-memory?”
Mosby rubbed his chin, the hastily-acquired facts suddenly blurring in his memory. He was so used to Shirley cutting him down to size that she had diminished him now without even intending to, reducing him to what he knew himself to be: an instant expert whose shallow understanding was impressive only in the company of those more ignorant than himself. Up against Audley it would be very different.
“It doesn’t really figure at all,” he said finally.
“But you said there was such a place?”
“Sure I did. There was. In fact if there’s one sure fact in the whole thing it’s Badon Hill.”
“Because Gildas and Bede say so?”
“Gildas and Bede and everyone who matter: somebody gave the Saxons the biggest hiding of their lives about A.D. 500. Even the modern archaeologists check it out, because Saxon burials inland stop dead about that time and don’t really start up again for half a century or more—two, maybe three generations. So it must have been a great battle.”
Merriwether unwound gracefully. “Then how come most people never heard of it, Doc? I read some British history once. Long time ago, but I remember the battles—Hastings, Agincourt, Waterloo, Trafalgar and such. But no Badon Hill.”
“Because the Britons threw it away, is why. If they’d carried on the good work they could have finished the Anglo-Saxons for good—the Britons were better organised, the Saxons were just savages. It was like—like if the Red Indians had tried to invade the United States in about 1800… So the Britons had them licked but they squabbled among themselves, like Gildas said, and blew the deal. If they hadn’t then there’d have been no England—and no English. It’d all have been Britain, all speaking Welsh or something like it. In fact we’d be speaking Welsh at this moment.”
Merriwether laughed. “Man—you’ve made your point. If it’d got me speaking Welsh it must have been some battle!”
“You’re darn right. One of the all-time big ones: Saratoga, Gettysburg, Midway, Waterloo—Badon. But as it is, we don’t even know where it is.”
Schreiner frowned at him. “No clues at all?”
“No real clues. It was a hill and it was a siege of some sort. So perhaps a hill-fort, or an isolated hill. But nothing for certain. There’s a gloss in one Gildas manuscript, where some old monk wrote in extra words—“
“Which manuscript?” asked Schreiner quickly.
“I don’t know—not the Novgorod one, anyway.” Mosby searched through the books again. “Here we are—it’s a footnote in Arthur of Britain …
usque ad annum obsessionis Badonici montis qui prope Sabrinum hostium habetur…
those last five words
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