'Arthurian business,' said Handforth-Jones. 'Because—'
'Because Dr Sheldon is what he says he is.'
'And a man can always change his mind.'
They were both grinning now, increasingly sure of themselves.
'A man who insists on seeing the marks of the nails. Only now he wants to know the latest score on Arthur: who's writing, who's digging.' Sir Thomas paused.
'Pure as driven snow,' murmured Handforth-Jones.
'Pure indeed… What have you got, David?'
Handforth-Jones nodded towards Mosby. 'Or what has Dr Sheldon got. Something to change David's mind, perhaps?'
'And that would have to be… quite something, I rather think,' agreed Sir Thomas. 'What have you got, the pair of you? The Holy Grail?'
So the infallible Audley could miscalculate too, thought Mosby, taking a quick nervous look at the man.
Or, if he hadn't miscalculated the extent of their powers of addition, he'd underrated their ability to sum him up. The only reassuring sign was that at least he didn't look much disconcerted at the way they played their little games.
'Christ, but we're sharp this afternoon!' Audley acknowledged the look with a nod. 'It's exactly as Mr Toad said—The Clever men at Oxford know all that is to be Knowed'.'
'Not all, not quite,' admitted Sir Thomas modestly. 'But we do know you, David, we do know you. So what have you dug up now?'
''Dug up'?'
'Figuratively speaking. I know you don't soil your hands with work in the field.'
Mosby breathed an inward sigh of relief.
'Except that it would have to be dug up,' said Handforth-Jones. 'Nobody's going to turn up an Arthurian text now.'
'Are people digging any Arthurian sites?' asked Audley.
'Not that I know of. There's some early Anglo-Saxon work going on, of course. There usually is.'
'On an Arthurian site?'
'All depends what you mean by Arthurian.'
'What do you mean?'
'God knows.' The archaeologist shrugged. 'Not my field, as you know jolly well… But say, late fifth century, early sixth for argument's sake.'
Mosby felt it was time he joined the fray. 'Where would you look for an Arthurian site?'
Handforth-Jones regarded him silently for a moment, as though adjusting himself to a damn-fool question within the limitations of good manners. '
Handforth-Jones worked some more at the adjustment. 'Why there? Well, I suppose that would be the sort of area someone like Arthur would have to defend. The Anglo-Saxons started off in Kent and East Anglia—and they were already in the Middle Thames, of course. That's where the early burial evidence Anthony Price - Our man in camelot
is. And then they were coming up from the south, from Sussex and Hampshire, in the early sixth century, and north-east from Cambridgeshire.'
'But someone stopped them.'
Handforth-Jones pursed his lips. 'Yes… well that's the theory, and there is some evidence, I agree. But when they did finally break through in the second half of the sixth century, this is where they did it—
battle of Dyrham, near Bath, in 577. The Britons were finished then: the West Country and Wales were split in two… So I see your Arthur as fighting somewhere in these parts, yes.'
Audley gave a grunt. 'But the Arthurian place-name evidence doesn't exactly fit that, does it.'
'It doesn't fit anything. If place-names are anything to go by he must have been a superman. Place-names aren't worth a damn, if you ask me—'
'They have their uses, Tony,' said Sir Thomas.
'Not for Arthur, they don't.'
'Why not for Arthur?' asked Mosby.
'Because they're too widely spread, for one thing. You can find Arthur's Tombs all over the place, even outside the old boundaries of Britain—where the Picts were, for instance, in Scotland. What he was doing in Pictland, heaven only knows.'
'Gee, but I thought he lived in Tintagel,' said Shirley breathlessly. 'The guide-book
'Yes… well, that's what guide-books are good at,' said Handforth-Jones. 'But there isn't a shred of proof— historical proof, that is. Geoffrey of Monmouth invented the Tintagel bit in the twelfth century.'
