Our man in Camelot

'And you weren't going to say you were.' She shook her head in despair at Shirley. 'We're actually down here so that he can put the finishing touches to a book.'

'A book?' Shirley echoed the words reverently. 'A history book?'

Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

She was out-running the script, but with things going so well it was the right thing to do.

Audley grunted modestly.

'On Oliver Cromwell, maybe?'

'No. Someone a bit earlier.'

'Who would that be—if you don't mind me asking?'

'Not at all. I'm writing a biography of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke. But I don't expect you've ever heard of him.'

'I'm afraid not. I guess he was before Sir Walter Raleigh and John Smith founded Virginia, huh?'

Mosby recognised his feed-line and acknowledged it with a snort of derision. The corner where the road to St Veryan's branched to the left was just ahead now, so he had just enough time to whet Audley's appetite.

'Some, honey, some. Four hundred years, give or take a few.' He glanced sidelong over his shoulder at Audley. 'Right?'

There was a moment's pause, during which Audley was no doubt wondering whether he'd hit the button by guess or by God.

'That's right,' said Audley, with the merest touch of surprise in his voice.

' 'The best knight that ever was',' quoted Mosby. 'It was Archbishop Langton who said that, wasn't it?'

The pause was a fraction longer this time, while Audley tried for the first time to place Mosby in anything narrower than the 'Tourist, male, American' classification. And with reason, because the odds against casually meeting an American familiar with twelfth-century William Marshall were about as long as those against meeting an Englishman who'd ever heard of John Singleton Mosby.

'That's right, it was Langton.' Audley controlled his third-degree surprise well. 'Are you a mediaevalist, then?'

'Heck—no. But I was reading about him just a few days ago… Well, actually I was reading up Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter—and Chretien de Troyes…' He trailed off.

'Chretien—?' Audley had difficulty in keeping the disbelief out of his voice. 'And you're not a mediaevalist?'

Mosby was relieved to see the thatch of the old cottage just ahead. The narrow English country roads, meandering between high banks, required just too much concentration for comfort.

'Far from it.' He laughed.

'Say—' Shirley leant forward excitedly '—is this William Marshall one of your Round Table guys?'

'It was Wace added the Round Table, honey—I told you,' he replied patiently. 'Chretien de Troyes added Lancelot. But I guess William Marshall could have doubled for Lancelot okay any time.'

He braked to a standstill under a roaring jungle of honeysuckle alongside the cottage. Sandcastles and honeysuckle and thatched cottages; Confederate colonels and mediaeval heroes—and now even Sir Lancelot du Lac himself.

For a moment he saw Mosby and Lancelot galloping down the runway at Wodden, plumes flying in the wind, Navy Colt and lance against the SRAMs of General Ellsworth's F-llls. And if that was mind-boggling it was hardly more so than some of his recent reading; if the Agency accountants ever studied the slush fund in detail they might have difficulty swallowing Gilda's De Excidio Britanniae and the Venerable Bede's History of the English Church and People.

Faith Audley shook the sleeping child in her arms gently. 'Come on, sleepy head—wake up.' She Anthony Price - Our man in camelot

smiled at Mosby. 'No problem about bedtime this evening… I'm sorry Mr Sheldon—'

'Mosby. It may sound odd, but it's easy to remember.'

'Mosby—I don't think it's odd. My husband's second Christian name is Longsdon, anyway—' Good manners struggled with her desire to break up the conversation and get the tired child out of the car. 'But I'm beginning to lose track of the conversation. You're not a historian—?'

'No,' cut in Audley decisively. 'An Arthurian.'

The change in inflexion was small, almost unnoticeable. But it was there and it was significant, Mosby sensed instantly. And it reminded him of something which momentarily eluded him: with most Britishers you had to multiply any sign of emotion by ten to get the real message, even among friends.

Among strangers the factor was considerably higher, so that minute distinction could mean—

He had it.

Scorn, contempt and disdain—in an American that Arthurian would have been a sneer of unconcealed derision: to Audley Arthurians were flat-earthers, UFO watchers, Bible Belt ignoramuses, kooks and weirdos of no account.

'Tintagel,' said Audley coolly. 'That's why you're here— to see Tintagel.'

Yes, that had to be it, thought Mosby, remembering Tintagel's clear dedication to the separation of money from the crowds of perspiring tourists who had come to pay homage to King Arthur—but a King Arthur who obviously owed more to Walt Disney and Camelot than to history.