The Camelot Caper (17 page)

“Two thousand five hundred pounds,” said Cousin John. “Know anyone who'd like to purchase a used soil anomaly detector?”

He spoke lightly; but his eye was on Mr. Pendennis, and Jess saw a spark, cannily suppressed, appear in the old man's own eyes.

“Don't blame me for your grandfather's folly, my boy. I did my best to dissuade him.”

“But I get the impression that you are also interested in archaeology,” David said. “Why did you try to discourage him?”

Pendennis snorted.

“Because he was quite unreasonable about his researches. Oh, he discovered some interesting material—beaker fragments, Roman weapons, medieval artifacts. But he was not interested in scientific archaeology. He was obsessed with
his—er—obsession. Just fancy, Mr. er—um—the old fool thought he was going to find the site of Camelot!”

“That is a shame.” David shook his head. “Even I know that the real Camelot is in Somerset. It's been in the news lately. What's the name of the place? Oh, like the chocolates. Cadbury.”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Pendennis exclaimed. “You've been taken in by all the sensationalism too. There are solid traditions which place Camelot in Cornwall. No, my dear fellow; I have a much sounder reason for knowing that Arthur would never find Camelot here. You see, Camelot is on my property.”

 

David took the curve at sixty, and Jess sat on her hands to keep from grabbing the wheel.

“I share your urge to leave that place,” she shouted over the roar of the wind. “But let's do it alive, can't we?”

David took his foot off the accelerator and the car slowed to a pace more suited to the narrow road and the negligible visibility. It was the most dangerous time of day for driving, near dusk, and a fog hovered over the pastures of Cornwall. Or was it still Cornwall? Jess tried to catch a sign, but there were no markers on this lonely road.

They had been driving for two hours, after a departure whose abruptness had left even Jess gasping. David had turned down the invitation of Mr. Pendennis to come to his place, which adjoined the Tregarth land, and have a look at Camelot. He had refused Cousin John's half-hearted invitation to stay, at least, overnight. He had wanted out, and he had gotten out, without finesse or good manners.

Jess thought it might be nice, for once, to know where she was going, but she was not deeply concerned. Even a foggy dark English road, on a rainy night, with a mad stranger at the wheel of the car, was more restful than what she had been through. She had not forgotten the threats of the last week, nor the still unsolved questions she and David had argued so often; she had simply dismissed them. Probably she would never know what had been behind her cousin's actions. She didn't want to know.

She glanced at her companion's intent profile, with the rakish white bandage and the nose jutting forward like the prow of a ship; and an unaccustomed shyness came over her as she remembered certain episodes. One good thing, at least, had come out of all the confusion—assuming that David felt as she did, and she was sure he must. Most of the relief she felt was on
his account. The ridiculous bandage reminded her that, although they had lost the ring, they had kept something more important—their lives. And the danger must be over now; with the ring gone, and her grandfather dead, there could be no reason to harass them further.

Odd about the ring, though, she thought lazily. All the plotting and pursuit and bloodshed, for an ugly chunk of meaningless jewelry which her grandfather had not even bothered to mention in his will. Yet the plotters had wanted it badly enough to attack David within the house itself. The attacker must have been Algernon; but where had he been the rest of the time? Well, it was a big house. Yet Cousin John had…

With a surge of annoyance she made herself stop thinking. It was over, over and done with. There were more attractive matters to contemplate now. They would be stopping soon, for the night—the first night they would be together without fear or suspicion since they had met. Her mind wandered into primrose paths….

Then David said, “Mind driving all night?”

Jess felt as if he had poured a pail of ice water over her.

“Yes, I do,” she said in a strangled voice.

“Really?” He glanced at her casually. “Tired?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. In that case…I suppose it's just as well. I must ring Cliff.”

“David.”

“Mmm?”

“Where are we going now?”

“Where? Oh. Why, Cadbury, of course.”

He began to whistle. Jess ground her teeth together. The gesture failed to relieve her feelings, much less enlighten her as to the significance of that name. It sounded vaguely familiar; but try as she might she could not remember where she had heard it, nor what its significance might be for the quest which David had, clearly, never abandoned.

 

Two days later she was none the wiser, though she stood on the heights of Cadbury Castle itself. It did not resemble a castle. It looked like, and was, a cow pasture on a hill. Rough high grass covered all of the plateau except for a section in the center of the area which was enclosed by a fence. The grass inside the enclosure was even higher.

From the little village of South Cadbury, with its gray stone houses and thatched roofs, they had climbed a steep, muddy lane which got
steeper and muddier the higher they went, between thickly massed trees and bushes, until they reached the cleared crest.

It had rained all the previous day and this afternoon was still partially overcast; the shapely clouds and moving shadows on the plain below gave a sense of drama to the placid beauty of the landscape. Another high rise, greenly wooded, raised itself up across the valley. Except for that, the countryside for miles around was flat, spotted with peaceful villages and with the pale puffy shapes of fruit trees in bloom. In the distance, clear to the imagination, if not to the sight, was the towering height of Glastonbury Tor, where the Cup of the Last Supper had been hidden; Glastonbury, in the Island of Avalon, the last resting place of Arthur and his guilty queen.

None of the Tennysonian Romanticism of Glastonbury haunted Cadbury Hill. Jess glanced from the red-and-white cow which was trying to look over her shoulder to the irate, bearded youth who was expostulating with David.

“Dragging me all the way down here,” he bellowed. “Right in the middle of a lecture series! I could have written you a letter!”

Not only was he bearded; he was thickly thatched—like the cottages, Jess thought, eye
ing the furious youth's uncombed head. At least he was sensibly attired for the site; his unpressed trousers were tucked into high boots which were thick with mud. Though there was a stiff breeze on the height, he was in shirt sleeves, his jacket slung over his shoulder and held by one hand. The other hand, shaped into a fist, was at present just under David's nose.

“I was in a hurry,” David said mildly. His own black locks were blowing in the breeze, and his attire was only slightly more formal than his friend's. He wore a jacket, but no tie, and in his haste to climb the mysterious hill he had tramped through mud up to his knees. “Stop raving, you maniac,” he went on. “You're here now, so you may as well talk.”

The maniac tugged at his beard. Then he glanced at Jess, and after a moment the beard split in two and a set of even white teeth appeared in the middle of it.

“Where did you meet this fellow, Miss Tregarth? You look like such a nice girl, too…. Ah, well. Precisely what is it you want to know?”

“Precisely,” said David precisely, “what details define, identify, or characterize, an Arthurian site?”

For a second Jess was afraid the bearded
youth was going to explode. He calmed himself with a visible effort.

“First, get one thing clear. There is no such thing as an Arthurian site. There may not have been any such person as Arthur. Wait!” He raised a long, peremptory finger. “What you probably mean to ask about is a site dated to the period which would be the right period for a character such as the historical Arthur might have been if there had ever been such a character.”

David opened his mouth, closed it, and looked blank.

“I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about,” Jess said.

The young man looked at her and seemed to find the sight soothing.

“Well, see here. You know that the Arthur of Malory and Tennyson, the chivalrous king in clanking armor, is impossible. Or do you? Oh, God. Let's start from the beginning. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was a poet.”

Jess couldn't resist. She struck an attitude, swept her hand across her brow, and remarked,

“Close enough,” said Cliff wanly. “Thank you, love, for putting me in my place. How are you on Nennius?”

“You've got me there.”

“What a beautiful thought.”

“Don't encourage him,” David said.

“Nennius, monkish chronicler of the ninth century. Mentions Arthur. Then there are Welsh sources…. Ah, Hell, what's the use of talking to you people? Point is, after the Romans left Britain, in 411 A.D., the southern part of the country was partially Romanized—villas and towns, old retired legionnaires, an upper class who spoke Latin and took baths and wore togas. When the Saxons invaded, these people appealed to Rome for help. They didn't get it. The Saxons came on. According to the exceedingly unreliable contemporary sources, the Saxons encountered opposition from a general of the combined British forces, whose name was Arthur, or Artos, or something. We're in the fifth century, the so-called Dark Ages; very little is known about this period. But…a Romanized Briton, trained in Roman methods of warfare, might have led a troop of mounted soldiers—knights in armor, if you want to call 'em that, but not blokes wearing sheets of tinware, just local boys equipped with the weapons of Celtic and Roman Britain.

“All this nonsense about Camelot is…” He glanced at Jess, and said mildly, “nonsense. Cadbury—this here—is a hill fort, one of about seventy such sites, which were fortified in the Iron Age. Prehistoric earthworks, that's all they were. The Romans took them when they overran Britain, and they were still here when the Romans left. Such sites would be logical places to refortify against later invaders such as the Saxons. And at Cadbury, as well as at other places, we've found evidence of fifth-century occupation. That's what the newspapers are going on about, that and an old tradition which identifies Cadbury with Camelot. Or do I mean vice versa?”

“That's all?” David looked slightly dazed by this spate of information.

“Well, Cadbury's the biggest of the fifth-century sites,” Cliff admitted. “Then there's the Tintagel pottery—found at Tintagel, as you might guess, and other places, as well as Cadbury. It's related to pottery from the Mediterranean area—we date the site from these scraps—and it suggests that the man who was in charge here was rich enough to enjoy and afford imported wine.”

“Pots,” David muttered.

“Potsherds,” Cliff corrected. “Meat bones. A cloak pin or two. Rusty scraps of knife and sword blades. No coins, no inscriptions. And some holes in the ground.” He swept one arm out in an inclusive gesture which took in the mild-faced cows, the tall grass, and the circle of raised turf which surrounded the brow of the hill. “That's the fortification, that raised section. Part is Roman wall, part is Saxon; the middle bit, the one the Arthurians are so hysterical about, could be fifth century. Or early Saxon. Or late Roman. There are some postholes, trenches—no buildings, most of the structures of that period would be of wood and thatch. Perishable.” His voice broke. “I don't know why the
hell
you dragged me all the way down here for this.”

A friendly cow, moved by his distress, wandered up and leaned on him. He staggered. “Get away, you brute,” he said, and hit the cow. It lowed irritably and left.

Jess was struck with a brilliant idea.

“Didn't I see a pub in the village?”

The melancholy searcher for Camelot looked at her.

“That's the first intelligent question I've heard today,” he said, and led the way down the hill.

Much later they dropped him off in Glaston
bury, where he could catch a bus that would eventually take him home; and on his way out of town David parked the car, suddenly and illegally, in front of the prosaic wooden gates that led to the Abbey ruins. Jess followed him along the alley and through the turnstile; they stood at one end of the green park and looked at the noble walls, glowing in the sunset. The flowering thorns of Glastonbury looked like fallen clouds.

David stood with hands in his pockets and lips pursed, but his expression was sober.

“You've figured it out, haven't you,” Jess said.

“I think so. It's mad—completely mad—and comic—and, in an odd fashion, rather beautiful! All based on another insanity, an old man's senile dream…”

“Dreams have their beauty, too. Even senile dreams, I guess.”

“We'll know, in the due course of time. Shall we dream our senile dreams together, Jess?”

He took one hand out of his pocket and put his arm around her shoulders. Her head against the hard muscle of his upper arm, Jess looked up at him.

“That's the most romantic proposal I've ever had,” she said, and saw his face change, the
mouth taking on an expression that made her knees go weak.

“We'd better get out of here,” he said. “I don't think the ghosts of Glastonbury would object, but we may shock the tourists. And I may be collecting a summons for illegal parking.”

“Aren't you going to tell me?” Jess trotted meekly at his heels.