Our Man in Camelot

by Anthony Price

  Pause.

  “So what did the Bishop say, then, Mr Barkham?”

  “Oh, I don’t know yet, sir. I haven’t been able to lay my hands on a copy of his collected letters. It was privately printed, you see—I’ve never even seen a copy, much less sold one. What I’ve been telling you comes from a colleague of mine in Cambridge, who once had a copy many years ago. But we’ll both continue looking for one, if that is your wish, Mr Merriwether.”

  “Well, I’d sure like to see it—after that story you’ve told, Mr Barkham.”

  “Of course, of course… But I think you’ll be disappointed. Most likely the Novgorod Bede was transcribed from one of our early English copies, possibly from the same one used for the Leningrad Bede. So it is more unlikely to contain any additional material about Mons Badonicus… not that that matters now.”

  Pause.

  “No?”

  Pause.

  “Hah! I can see the Major didn’t favour you with his absolute confidence… And I was rather hoping that he had. What a pity!”

  Pause.

  “You mean about—M—about Badon?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yeah… well, he was kind of close about it just recently.”

  “Close?”

  “He didn’t talk much. He just kind of hinted.”

  Chuckle.

  “Exactly. In fact, I said to him: ‘If you think you’ve found it, then you must prove it.’ And all he would say was ‘When I’m ready’.”

  “That’s just what he said to me—‘When I’m good and ready’. Is that all he said to you, Mr Barkham?”

  “Those were his very words. And when I told him if it was true it was a very great discovery he said ‘And a very great deal of trouble too’. And not one more word would he say.

  Which was really rather provoking in the circumstances.”

  “After all the work you’d done for him, huh?”

  “Not so much that, Mr Merriwether… but I was more afraid he might start digging. And he isn’t an archaeologist —whatever happens it must be left to them. The only testimony now can be the testimony of the spade, I told him.”

  Door opening—door closing.

  “Absolutely right, Mr Barkham.”

  “I’m glad you think so, sir. Though my personal view is that his enthusiasm was, shall we say, premature. In fact, if he hadn’t been so confident I would have said it was impossible… But you must excuse me while I deal with this customer… If you would care to look over those shelves beyond the desk at the back—on the right—the ones marked ‘History’… start at the very top. You’ll need the library steps—“

  Merriwether cut off the tape.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Shirley.

  “He’s a great old guy,” said Merriwether, smiling. “I had to prise those books out of him one by one, like they were his own flesh and blood.”

  “He thought you were after Badon too,” said Howard Morris.

  “That’s it, man. I had to promise I wasn’t going to start digging up the English countryside.”

  Mosby looked towards Morris. “The book the Bishop wrote—have we got it?”

  “Not yet. But we’re looking. And the one thing you mustn’t do on any account, Captain, is start asking for the Novgorod Bede. Don’t even mention it—leave it to us.”

  “Okay. But suppose Audley starts asking?”

  “He won’t.”

  “Why not?” said Shirley.

  “Because he’s not an expert on the period.”

  She frowned. “For God’s sake—he’s writing a book on it!”

  “He’s writing a book on a man who lived in the twelfth century—not the sixth.”

  “But it’s all—what’s the word—mediaeval.”

  “So it is. And George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt are all modern. But you wouldn’t expect an expert on the Second World War to be an expert on the War of Independence, would you, Mrs Sheldon?” Morris looked at her expectantly for a moment. “He knows what any Cambridge history graduate—any good graduate, that is—ought to know. Which for our purposes is enough, but not too much.”

  “He knows enough not to believe in King Arthur—isn’t that too much?”

  Morris turned towards Mosby. “I think you had something to say about that, Captain?”

  “Huh?” Mosby tore himself away from the contemplation of the Novgorod Bede. “I—what?”

  “You said you knew why Audley doesn’t believe in King Arthur.”

  “Oh, sure. He’s just not romantic.”

  “What do you mean—just not romantic?” snapped Shirley.

  “Just exactly that. Remember when you twitted him with the Old South being romantic, and he looked like he’d smelt a nasty smell—like an accountant looking at a bum set of figures? Old Jeb Stuart wasn’t a knight in shining armour to him, he was just a ‘competent cavalry commander’.”

  “But that’s what you said King Arthur might be, Doc,” murmured Merriwether. “In fact it’s exactly what you said.”

  Mosby was unabashed. “Sure I did. Only I can show you a photograph of Jeb Stuart, and you can’t show me one of King Arthur.

  “With Jeb Stuart there’s proof and with Arthur there isn’t—which is what I’ve been saying all along. But Audley, he lives by facts, like any good historian and any good intelligence man should; lives with them, eats them and sleeps with them. And the facts on Arthur are mighty thin on the ground.”

  For a moment no one said anything. Then Shirley shook her head.

  “So—okay. But then what makes anyone think he’s going to help us find Badon Hill?”

  “Well, for a start it’s a fact.” Mosby looked towards Howard Morris.

  “But impossible to find, you said.”

  “I settle for improbable. And it seems Major Davies didn’t do so badly.”

  “But we don’t know how he did it,” said Shirley.

  “That’s true,” said Morris.

  “And the idea of trying to use Audley is crazy anyway. The British are going to be so mad when they find out—“

  “If they find out. Audley’s still got a clear two months of his leave. He’s not likely to report back that he’s decided to take a day or two looking for a 1,500-year-old battlefield. It doesn’t sound like a security risk,” said Morris.

  Merriwether grinned. “No one’s going to argue with you there.”

  “Except we know better,” said Shirley. “So suppose we run into trouble?”

  “Then there’s a fair chance that Audley’s presence will protect you,” Schreiner’s voice came out of the depths of his armchair. “Even Panin might think twice about making that sort of trouble. It’s even possible that Audley’s appearance will put them off. Or at least buy us some more time.”

  Shirley stared at him. “Whereas Mose and I are strictly expendable?”

  “Mrs Sheldon—“ Schreiner sat up “—we don’t even know you. If there is any trouble you are strictly on your own: just an American couple who stumbled into something nasty.”

  “Oh, great! The British will believe that, I’m sure.”

  “They’ll have to. The chief reason you were both chosen for this is that your cover is perfect. The CIA will never have heard of you—we shall invite MI5 to check you both back to the cradle if they want to. You were trained and programmed for just such an operation as this.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “It should be. I said the CIA won’t know you. The State Department will fight for you as we would fight for any innocent American citizens in trouble abroad.” He nodded. “But what matters is that the CIA remains uninvolved—completely. The situation is too delicate for us to take more scandal.”

  “You mean the domestic business?” Shirley went bald-headed at him.

  Schreiner winced as though he’d bitten on a sore tooth. “Mrs Sheldon, the details don’t concern you.”

  “When it’s my neck that’s sticking out they do, Mr Schreiner.”

 
; Schreiner regarded her balefully. Then he sighed. “Very well—domestic business, as you put it, plus interference in the affairs of a foreign country.”

  “We just can’t do a thing right,” said Merriwether lightly. “No way.”

  The lighter side of the situation was clearly not evident to Schreiner. “I used the word ‘delicate’ and I meant it. The CIA has had too much bad publicity, over here as well as in the States. They gave Watergate a lot of coverage… and after that the business of the domestic espionage. And they know we keep a big CIA presence over here keeping an eye on their trade unions, too… there have been questions about it in the Post story about the East German freighter that was rammed and sunk in the Thames a few years back—the Agency was blamed for that, and it didn’t help us one bit.” His voice became increasingly mournful as the litany continued. “Even the fact that Cord Meyer was a dirty tricks specialist was pretty well driven home by their Press. So we have a new Station Head now—and a new Ambassador at the Court of St James—and we don’t want them compromised.”

  “But we still have to do our job,” said Howard Morris. “So if the Russians are mounting an operation against us over here we can’t hand it to the British. It’s our baby and we’re paid to look after it. You understand, both of you?”

  Mosbv understood, to the uttermost part. Not for the first time, the Agency was between the devil and the deep blue sea. It could not afford to duck the dirtiest jobs, because handling dirty jobs was its designed function and any failure to handle them would be further proof of its incompetence. But if it glitched a dirty job, then that too would be disastrous—and doubly disastrous at this precise time, when its whole function was being questioned. On this one there would be no mercy either in Washington or in London.

  “There’s a whole bunch of left-wing Members of Parliament—and some of their journalists who admire the Watergate press job—who are just itching to crack the UK Station wide open,” said Schreiner to no one in particular. “That’s why you are on your own this time.”

  Mosby looked at Shirley. So that was why two innocent American citizens, who were not at all innocent, were about to sucker an innocent British citizen, who was also not in the least innocent… It was going to be just like riding point for General Custer in his advance to the Little Bighorn.

  “But as to why Audley will help you,” Morris changed the subject smoothly, “he will because he simply won’t be able to resist it. The historian in him will snap at Badon Hill—and the intelligence man in him will snap at the puzzle. It’s as near as dammit a psychological sure thing, knowing the way his mind works.”

  “Not without tangible evidence,” said Shirley.

  “Okay. So that’s what we’re going to give him, Mrs Sheldon. Tangible evidence.”

  V

  THEY SAT OPPOSITE each other beside the stone fireplace in the big soft chintz-covered armchairs, he with his massive copy of Keller’s Conquest of Wessex and she with her Practical Flower Arrangement, the first fruits of which blazed on the hearth between them. Room dusted and polished, drinks and titbits on the sideboard, front door on the latch: the very portrait of domestic respectability waiting to dispense friendly hospitality, as painted by the Father of Lies.

  Shirley glanced at her watch. “It’s nearly nine,” she said.

  “No sweat.” Mosby lowered Keller, trapping the pages with his finger. There was nothing more to be got from him; like Stenton, he was Anglo-Saxon orientated, conceding the existence and importance of Mount Badon, but relegating Arthur to one equivocal footnote. His heroes were not the unknown Britons of the years of resistance, but the invading chieftains, Aelle, Cerdic and Cynric and the all-conquering Ceawlin.

  She frowned at him. “You’re sure he’ll come?”

  “He said they would—I think they will. Honey, you know the British don’t like arriving on time, they think it’s bad-mannered.” He smiled into the frown. “I think we’ve got him figured right—he won’t be able to resist Badon. I certainly wouldn’t if I was him. It’s the 64,000 dollar question of the Dark Ages.”

  “64,000 dollars?”

  “Uh-huh. And if you throw in Arthur I’ll make it a million.”

  “The price of a hill no one can find and a king who maybe never existed.” She stared back reflectively. “The Sheldon valuation.”

  He shrugged. “Just a guess. You can’t really put a price on a bit of truth like that—not that bit of truth, anyway.”

  Again she didn’t react immediately, but continued to examine him, still with a trace of the original frown.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked finally. “I got egg on my face or something?”

  “No, not egg… I was thinking, maybe you’re a bit of a weirdo. And that’s slightly unnerving.”

  “Huh? A sex maniac, you mean?”

  “Hell, no. Nothing odd about that, it’s standard red-blooded chauvinist American male… It’s this Badon thing—and King Arthur?”

  “Don’t call him ‘King’, honey. That’s the mark of ignorance. Remember your Nennius: he was the war leader. In those days British kings were fifty cents each and three for a dollar. But there was only one Arthur—if there was one. ‘Fact, I wish Audley did believe in him. He’s just about the most interesting thing I’ve ever come across.”

  “That’s what I mean.” She leant forward, clasping Practical Flower Arrangement to her chest. “I detect a note of enthusiasm you’ve never shown before, except for other people’s teeth and my bed. This thing’s really got under your skin.”

  “Under my skin?” Mosby looked at her in surprise. And yet maybe she was right at that, or at least half right. “I don’t know about my skin, but it’s certainly been bugging the British for a thousand years. You know what they called him? The Once and Future King—like he’s going to come back from the dead one day. A man nobody knows anything about, not even for sure if he ever lived. And yet as far as they’re concerned he’s really kept going. I don’t care what Audley thinks. He’s really strange, Arthur is.”

  “It’s not Arthur who’s strange, it’s you getting steamed up about him.”

  “Not at all, just line of duty research. I’m just Mr Average.”

  The dark hair swung in disagreement. “Not in this company. Makes me wonder how you got into this business.”

  From her, after having been kept literally at arm’s length for so long, it was an odd question as well as an improper one. “You’re not supposed to ask that one, I thought.”

  “Oh, sure. But now I think I need to know what makes you tick, honey—same as you have to figure how David Audley ticks.” She sat back. “Besides… sharing a bedroom with a strange man confers some privileges, I guess. Even when it’s in the line of duty. Kind of special relationship.”

  “Special platonic relationship.”

  “That’s the way it goes: up to the line of duty, not above and beyond it.” She regarded him coolly. “But you don’t have to answer, naturally.”

  It was ironic, not to say annoying, that the first signs of interest she was showing in him beyond the curiosity of a labourer in the same vineyard should coincide with more urgent matters.

  “Naturally. But you’re right: a man shouldn’t have big secrets from the woman in his twin bed. I’m a volunteer, not a draftee, put it like Sam Smith did —

  My country, ‘tis of thee,

  Sweet land of liberty,

  —General Ellsworth and I are brothers under the skin. Two old-fashioned patriots.”

  “I read somewhere that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

  “Shouldn’t believe all you read. I’m a Sam Smith patriot. Now Harry Finsterwald, he’s a Stephen Decatur patriot—‘My country, right or wrong’. What I call an interchangeable patriot, like those Action Man dolls—dress him up in any uniform, CIA, KGB, MI5. Pull his string and he’ll say ‘buddy’ or ‘comrade’ or ‘old boy’ for you. But not me.”

  “You only say ‘buddy’?”

  The door
bell rang.

  “You’ll find out when you pull my strings.” He stood up. “But you just concentrate on Audley’s string for the time being, honey. I’m on your side—remember?”

  One trouble with the British was breaking the ice. Or rather, you could break it the first time and get on easy terms, only to find that they were frozen over again the second time and you were back where you’d started.

  Mosby had been mildly worried about this, since it was important not to get off on the wrong foot, causing Audley to shy away from the curiosity he must be feeling. With a fellow American it would have been easy, and his approach would have been instinctive. But the average well-bred Britishers of his acquaintance generally twisted themselves into knots to avoid seeming curious about anything; and as for enthusiasm, they treated any manifestation of that as an infectious disease which they could best avoid by keeping their mouths closed.

  True, Audley was almost certainly not average—nobody with his job could be that. But he qualified as well-bred, one of Doc McCaslin’s “establishment products” until proved otherwise, at least as far as ordinary social intercourse was concerned.

  But here, quite unexpectedly, St Veryan’s House came to their rescue. Both the Audleys immediately and unashamedly expressed their interest in the building itself, its present layout and the stages of renovation and conversion which had turned it from a spartan farmstead into a comfortable holiday home. Indeed, they poked and pried in such an unEnglish way that Mosby was already halfway to the correct reassessment of their behaviour when Faith presented him with the explanation.