Scilly Seasons

by Chris Tookey

  Much of Avalon has vanished under the sea, but once it may have stretched all the way from Appletree Point, on the western side of Tresco, to Great Arthur, the island to the south of St Martin’s.

  Great Arthur is the hill where Wyrd and Drains look back towards Castle Otto, and Drains reveals Wyrd’s identity.

  Lyonesse is the land which once, according to legend, linked the Isles of Scilly to Cornwall. You’ll be seeing more of that in future volumes.

  Dumnonia included all of present-day Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, along with western Dorset. Our hero’s village is based on many preserved examples scattered around England.

  Cornubia, which formed the western part of Dumnonia, is now called Cornwall. The town of Iscia Dumnorum has become better known as Exeter. The tidally affected marshlands to the east, which inconvenienced many an army marching west, are in Somerset and are much less marshy and tidally affected – though in 2014 they were repeatedly flooded. They are often called the ‘Somerset Levels’.

  There is a widespread belief that the Romans never went further than Exeter, and that is certainly true of the Roman legions. However, the island Sillina – which can almost certainly be identified with Scillonia and the Isles of Scilly – was used as a Roman prison. The remains of one Roman garrison in the extreme south-west of England can still be found at Nanstallon in modern Cornwall, just west of Bodmin Moor; and there are tales of a Roman shore fort near Padstow, now buried under the sands on the Camel estuary, by St Ebodoc’s Church.

  Armorica, from which Queen Elinor came and so many Britons were to flee for safety as more and more foreigners invaded, is now called Brittany, in northern France.

  The sheep being looked after by Wyrd in the opening chapters were Soay sheep. They still exist today, though not in great numbers. I gather that they are edible. It may just have been our hero’s flock that smelled and tasted terrible.

  A Few Words About Disability

  By Chris Tookey

  I started writing these books because of my son. In April 1991 my son was born in an emergency Caesarian, and possibly because of this had certain problems in early life, which are now known as dyspraxia. Essentially, signals from his brain found difficulty in affecting his motor functions. This first manifested itself, when he reached school age, in very slow writing and an inability to ride a bicycle without falling off.

  He had dyspraxia in a relatively mild form (he never had any trouble speaking, for example, which can be another symptom). However, an educational psychologist told us we shouldn’t expect him to attain any educational qualifications beyond a minimal number of low grades at GCSE. University would never be an option.

  Reluctant to be so defeatist, my wife and I researched what (if anything) could be done to help our child. Thanks to experts in the field of dyspraxia, we were able to assist our son to the extent that he has ridden a bicycle for charity twice across Europe (once from London to Istanbul, once from London to Gibraltar). He achieved a good honours degree from Durham University in Politics and Sociology and an MA in Journalism from City University in London.

  If you met him today, you would not have the slightest indication that he had ever been anything other than ‘normal’. He is, as he always has been, articulate, creative and bright. He is also hard-working, because many talents that others might take for granted (such as the ability to get thoughts down on paper) did not come easily to him.

  When he was in his teenage years, however, he was still frustrated by the slowness of his recovery and convinced that he was much less intelligent and athletic than other children. His early educational experiences had left him unaware of how clever and imaginative he was (because he was so much slower at getting his thoughts on to paper) and that, because of various forms of therapy, his other physical limitations (such as poor balance) were becoming less and less significant. Indeed, because of his slow writing, he had developed typing skills that gave him an advantage over those of his contemporaries who were ‘normal’.

  So, I started writing this book initially as an encouragement to him. I wanted to create a superhero who had started out with similar disabilities and disadvantages, but had managed to triumph despite them.

  Scilly Seasons is the result. My aim was not to be facile or didactic about how to fight dyspraxia but to encourage anyone with any kind of disability. In coping with disabilities, a person can often achieve more than someone who has not had to overcome such challenges.

  When we started to investigate my son’s disability, the internet was in its infancy, as was the study of dyspraxia. Nowadays, it is easy to google dyspraxia or its symptoms and find out what to do about them. The same applies to many other forms of disability. Please don’t assume that because you or your children have a disability, that you or they are hopelessly stupid or unemployable. Find help. There’s plenty of it.

  A Brief Foretaste of Volume 2

  Too Many Arthurs

  Night fell as Wyrd and Drains walked back up the hill to the encampment. Wyrd’s head was spinning with everything the dwarf had told him. Could it really be true that he was to be the Arthur, King of all Albion, foretold in the Delphic Oracle’s prophecy? Wyrd felt he needed to discuss this with somebody, preferably Wenda. She’d know what to do. Mind you, she might tell him not to be so stupid.

  He wondered too if he could possibly get out of the dreadful situation of having to impersonate Prince Artorus. Wyrd knew that even if he were to survive the hazardous journey to Vortigern’s stronghold at Tintagel, someone there was sure to spot him as an impostor. Wyrd didn’t know what Vortigern did to impostors, but he suspected it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  Just before they reached the top of the hill, Drains halted and raised his hand for Wyrd to stop as well.

  “That’s odd,” whispered Drains.

  “What is?” asked Wyrd.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “I don’t hear anything,” said Wyrd. “Just the crackle of the camp fire.”

  “That’s what I mean,” whispered Drains. “No voices.”

  As soon as Drains mentioned it, Wyrd realised he was right. Drains darted behind a large, granite rock and beckoned.

  Wyrd moved swiftly to join him, and they made the last part of the journey up the hill, darting from rock to rock, keeping low to the ground. In the case of the dwarf, this was easy, but Wyrd found himself wishing for the first time that he wasn’t so tall. He felt big, clumsy and far from unobtrusive.

  The camp had been pitched just below the brow of the hill on the eastern side, so that the rocks at the top would act as a barrier against the westerly winds. When Wyrd peered at the scene below him, he gasped. The sour-faced orc called Slinker, who had been one of the kitchen staff, no longer had a sour face, or indeed a sour head. That had rolled away from the rest of his body and lay near the crackling fire. It wore an expression of permanent surprise.

  Almost everything that had been part of the expedition had vanished. The two wooden carts remained, but the coffer containing the money to pay King Vortigern’s protection tax had been levered open. A few coins lay nearby, glinting in the firelight.

  “Is it the bugbears?” breathed Wyrd. “Do you think they’ve stolen the money and made off with it?”

  Drains shook his head.

  “If it was bugbears,” he said, “there would be dead bodies all over the place. They don’t take prisoners. Remember?”

  With a shudder, Wyrd did remember. Seven years ago, when he was ten, four of the bugbears now in his expedition had, for no apparent reason, murdered his parents and everyone else in his village. Even his beloved dog Rulf had perished. Drains always told the truth, however tactless. The disappearance of the expedition members had to have another explanation.

  “What should we do?” asked Wyrd. “Go down and look around?”

  Wyrd didn’t like to guess what might have happened to Wenda, or Princess
Melisande. For a moment, he felt angry that Osprey had not been able to protect them, nor the four bugbears King Otto had assigned to the expedition.

  Drains shook his head.

  “Stay here a moment, and wait,” said the dwarf. “There are still a few gold coins down there. I wouldn’t mind betting that whoever – or whatever – did this will be back to collect them.”

  They didn’t have to wait for long. The granite boulder behind which they were hiding began to shake, and Drains ran behind another one. He beckoned to Wyrd to join him, and no sooner had Wyrd obeyed than the first rock fell sideways with a crash. Out of the hole in the ground flooded a score or more of hideously misshapen goblins, hardly more than two foot high.

  As they began to pick up the remaining coins from near the fire, the blaze showed them to be a startling brick-red in colour and revoltingly slimy in texture. Unlike any goblins Wyrd had seen before, they had webbed feet, and they were naked except for loincloths which seemed to be made of seaweed.

  “What are they?” whispered Wyrd.

  “Tommyknockers,” said a voice from behind him. And that was the last thing he heard, for as Wyrd turned a club smashed down on his head.