'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
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
those last five words only appear in the Cambridge manuscript, seems.'
'Meaning?'
Harry Finsterwald made a tiny, half-strangled sound.
'I've got it translated here somewhere… 'up until the year of the siege of the hosts at Badon Hill which took place near Sabrinum'.'
'And I take it there's no such place as Sabrinum?' said Shirley.
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
'There's a Sabrina, actually, honey—Roman name for the river Severn. But nobody rates the gloss worth a damn. They usually don't even list it among the possible places. They reckon it dates from later mediaeval times.'
He tossed the book back on to the table, watching Schreiner out of the corner of his eye as he did so. It all added up, but then at the foot of the column there was something wrong with the final figure: ultimately this interest in Arthur and Badon and the Novgorod Bede had to be simply a cover for something else, for the KGB and the CIA both. And yet Schreiner's concern for the historical details was curiously intense, as though it mattered to him what Mosby himself felt about it… the way he'd been allowed to run off at the mouth about it, when Harry Finsterwald had been slapped down…
He shrugged. 'All of which means there's no way of finding Badon. And even if there was you'd have one hell of a job selling me the idea that the KGB gives a damn either way.'
Schreiner cocked his head belligerently. 'But I don't have to sell you anything, Sheldon. I just have to tell you.'
Tiger, tiger! thought Mosby. The State Department really was calling the shots on this one.
'Okay. So just tell me.'
'I intend to. Because there isn't going to be any foul-up on this operation.' Schreiner looked round him coolly. 'This isn't a goddamn banana republic where you can throw your weight about. So once we know the shape of things we're going to handle them diplomatically, with no brawling on the side between you and the KGB…And you—' he pointed at Mosby '—are going to do just exactly what you're told to do. No matter how crazy you may think it is.'
'Uh-huh?' Mosby yawned. 'Like playing pat-a-cake with David Audley?'
'Or even with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table?' said Shirley.
Schreiner turned towards her. 'That just happens to be exactly right, Mrs Sheldon. As of now you're going to forget you ever heard of the KGB—because as of now your cover story is your actual mission.
You and your… husband are assigned to locate the map reference of Badon Hill, England. Just that.'
'Just that?' Shirley flicked a glance at Mosby. 'Which according to my… husband… isn't possible.'
Schreiner smiled. ''Improbable' was what he finally settled for, I thought. And with David Audley to help you I'd rate your chances better than even—especially as you have an advantage no one else has ever had before you.'
