going to come to me and he's going to say 'For God's sake, Sheldon, get off your butt and pull more teeth than Heyford'.'
Faith Audley laughed. 'And what will you say to that?'
'Ma'am, I'll say the only thing wrong with aircrew teeth at Wodden is their molars are too worn—they sit all the time and grind them down worrying about promotion.'
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
Audley gave a small snort. 'Not just aircrew teeth…' He gave Mosby an oddly lop-sided smile. 'Now, in early mediaeval times molars were also heavily worn, I seem to remember reading somewhere.'
'Don't tell me King Arthur's knights were worried about promotion, surely?' said Shirley.
For a moment Mosby was irritated that she had revived the discredited Arthur. But then she was only acting in her assumed character, and—more to the point—she was reacting to what was almost certainly an attempt by Audley to bring the conversation round to the subject which really interested him.
He thought for a moment. 'I guess that would have something to do with their diet, eh?'
Audley nodded. 'Coarse-ground flour, full of fine grit.'
'That would do the trick.' He had to make it easy for Audley to come to the point. 'That would be your special period—the early mediaeval one, huh?'
'Not really, no. I'm a 1066 man—the Norman Conquest onwards.'
'William Marshall,' said Shirley. 'My husband's been telling me about him. He was quite a guy.'
Again Audley smiled, wholly relaxed now. It was like she had once said: the way to a man's heart wasn't through his stomach, it was through an appreciation of what interested him.
' 'Quite a guy',' Audley quoted back at her.
'Sounds like a cross between Winston Churchill, Audie Murphy and Babe Ruth—married to Jackie Kennedy,' she led him on.
Audley laughed. 'That's right! With a bit of Eisenhower and Henry Kissinger thrown in.'
'Who's Babe Ruth?' asked Faith.
'A famous baseball player, love,' said Audley. 'For us the equivalent might be… say Barry John.'
'Who's Barry John?' asked Shirley.
'A famous rugger player.' Faith raised her eyes to heaven. Then she frowned at her husband. 'I didn't know Marshall was a sportsman?'
'Jousting—tournaments, love,' replied Audley. 'Marshall was the top man on the circuit in his youth.
He unhorsed 500 knights in single combat in his lifetime, and even when he was 66 there wasn't one man at King John's court who dared take up his challenge of a trial by battle.' He nodded towards Shirley. 'Quite a guy.'
'Like Sir Lancelot.'
'Sir Lancelot…' As Audley repeated the name his glance settled on Mosby. '… now he would be more in your special field, I take it, Mr Sheldon?'
Mosby had the feeling he was being double-checked for any lingering sign of the Arthurian heresy.
'Not Lancelot, no,' he began warily. 'He's strictly twelfth century.'
'You surprise me. There aren't many non-experts who could pin him down as a twelfth century addition to the legend. For most people he's as important as King Arthur—or even more important.'
'For Queen Guinevere certainly,' murmured Faith drily.
'That's right. The quest for the Holy Grail is a bit out of fashion; three-quarters of the population's probably never heard of it. But they can recognise a sensational case of adultery when they see one, they understand that all right.' Audley paused. 'But then you said you weren't an admirer of Arthur's, I remember now.'
The very obliqueness of the approach—the conveniently delayed memory of the final exchange in the car
—confirmed Mosby's conviction that the Englishman was hooked, and more than hooked: he was positively bursting with curiosity.
Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
'I'm not. It's the period around A.D. 500 I'm interested in—the real history.'
'The real history.' Audley repeated the words, and then fell silent, waiting for Mosby to continue.
'Uh-huh,' Mosby agreed unhelpfully. This time Audley was going to have to work for what he wanted.
'It's a fascinating period.'
Pause.
'But poorly documented.'
'That's what makes it fascinating.'
Again Audley waited—in vain.
'The only new evidence is archaeological nowadays, and there isn't a lot of that,' he said finally, with a hint of self-doubt in his voice.
'There sure isn't,' agreed Mosby. 'Our mutual ancestors weren't exactly well-endowed with the world's goods to leave behind.'
