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“Except you, Lord Yourstone. You attacked me. This morning.”
“I said nothing derogatory about Your Majesty.”
“You insulted my family, which is the same thing.”
“I merely spoke the truth. As, I assume, you want us all to do. We did not create this problem.”
Another poke at Richard’s parentage.
Victoria shifted slightly in the chair, which seemed to calm the tremors in her hands. He realized she would never publicly disparage a member of her family, no matter what he or she may have done. Royals always defended royals. But he also knew, from Eleanor, that privately the queen and prince were furious with Richard. So he said, “The Prince of Wales simply has yet to realize that he will one day be king. That, to me, is his greatest fault.”
“And will he be king?” Victoria asked.
“That is wholly dependent on your son.”
“What if he were to abdicate in favor of Albert? Would that satisfy the ministers who want the monarchy abolished?”
“Your grandson is a gentleman. The people love him. He would make an excellent king.” He was perplexed why Victoria was directing her comments only to him. Perhaps it was because he was family and she believed he would be honest. “Of course, though, Albert will not be king for many years. We all wish Your Majesty a long life, and Richard is relatively young. Albert will surely be older if, and when, he ever inherits the throne. He will have a lifetime to prepare. It is our nation’s blessing that the Saxe-Coburgs enjoy long lives.”
“And our curse,” Victoria quickly added.
“Might I inquire, Your Majesty, as to the purpose of this gathering? Rarely does the palace involve itself directly with the affairs of Parliament, particularly on matters such as this. Many have attempted to change the Crown, and few have ever succeeded. Why does this seem different?”
“It is always prudent to be cautious of another Cromwell,” James said.
“Quite correct,” Yourstone said. “But Charles I was a tyrant who plunged the nation into civil war. Cromwell had an easy matter to seize that opportunity. I would hope many lessons were learned from what happened all those centuries ago.”
“But another Guy Fawkes could be lurking,” Victoria said.
The reference to a potential royal assassin bothered him. Fawkes was hanged in 1605 for plotting to blow up James I. The nation continued to remember that betrayal every November 5 when bonfires, topped by Fawkes’ effigy, were ceremonially lit all over the country.
“Are you suggesting a possible regicide?” he asked.
“World leaders are often murdered. There is nothing that makes this monarchy immune.”
“But the royal family enjoys the finest protection. This is not the 17th century, when conspirators can could stockpile gunpowder beneath Parliament.”
“And even then,” James said, “it was only thanks to one of Fawkes’ men turning coat and revealing the plan that the effort failed.”
Yourstone caught a gleam in the prince’s eye. Was he being tested? Surveyed? Analyzed? Perhaps he’d underestimated these aging icons. And there was still the matter of Cotton Malone, whom he knew had spoken with them. He’d yet to learn the substance of that conversation. How much did these people know? Not enough. Obviously. Otherwise they’d be arresting instead of baiting him.
So he seized the moment and said to James, “What you say is true, as to what happened all those centuries ago. But as I have learned, from both life and politics, today there are so few secrets in this world.”
He paused for effect.
“So precious few.”
CHAPTER NINE
Malone was perplexed. “I’ve never considered Arthur a historical figure. I took him more as a creation of poets and novelists.”
Goulding explained that, until the 12th century, Arthur was known only in bardic tales and Welsh poems. But Geoffrey of Monmouth changed everything in 1136 when he translated the History of the Kings of Britons, a fanciful account, more fiction than reality, that elevated Arthur to a king. The story was immensely popular, and the Welsh seized on Geoffrey’s imagination. They’d never submitted to Saxons or Normans and saw in Arthur a way to keep a rebellious spirit simmering. Three hundred years later, when Sir Thomas Malory finally wrote his epic, Arthur was forever ingrained into the realm of myth.
“He was real,” Goulding said. “But not the chivalric character Malory envisioned. More likely a brutal, barbarous man who fought Saxons, not unlike a thousand other warrior leaders who arose during our Dark Ages. He was fortunate, though, that later poets saw something more in him. So they manufactured a legend.”
Malone knew about the History of the Kings of Briton, a famous and valuable rare edition. Books were his private passion. He collected them by the hundreds, his house back in Atlanta lined with shelves. His dream was to one day own a bookshop, but he doubted that would ever happen.
“It’s absolutely impossible, though, to know where truth stops and fiction begins,” Goulding said. “We can only hypothesize.”
Malone faced Mathews. “I’m assuming all of this is important in some way to what’s currently happening?”
“Vitally. But to comprehend what we are facing, you must know the historical background.”
Malone motioned to the book on the desk and the passage Goulding had read to them. “The cross found by the monks noted, Here in the Isle of Avalon lies buried the renowned Arthur. What’s the connection to Glastonbury?”
“That’s the easy part. Arthur lived in the middle to latter part of the 6th century. Glastonbury was then to English Christendom what Westminster and Canterbury are now. The abbey was situated on an island surrounded by the River Brue. The Welsh called it Ynys Avallon, the Island of Apples. So it’s easy to see how the cross’ inscription came into being. Remember, it was Malory, 300 years later, who bestowed magical qualities on Avalon. Before that, it was simply a place.” Goulding motioned again to the computer screen. “The cauldron tells us a great many things. Are you aware of the Irish settlement in Iceland?”
He shook his head. “I’m aware of Viking colonization, but know nothing about the Irish.”
“There’s a journal. Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. Voyage of St. Brendan. It’s in the British Museum and details how a party headed by St. Brendan left County Kerry, Ireland, in 539 CE. They sailed across the Atlantic to the Hebrides, then on to the Faeroes.” Goulding paused. “It was only a short hop from there to Iceland, and St. Brendan made the journey. He discovered, though, that Irish monks had already been traveling there, using the isolated land as a religious retreat. Which was no small feat for the time, sailing the cold waters of the open Atlantic in tiny boats made only of skins.”
When Malone thought of Iceland what came to mind were volcanoes, whales, and snow. Not religion.
“The Landnámabók,” Goulding said, “is a famous Icelandic text that te
lls of a mariner, Ari Marson, who was driven off course by a storm to a place he called Hvitramannaland. There, he found Irish Christians. Translated, Hvitramannaland means ‘Greater Ireland.’ We know that place today as Iceland.”
“I had no idea Europeans ventured west before the Vikings,” Malone said.
“Traditionalists would argue pre-Norse Irish colonization of remote western regions was isolated or accidental. It’s a two-day sail from Scotland to Iceland, and they contend anyone who made that journey did so involuntarily. A victim of a shipwreck or blown off course. But there is a respectable amount of evidence to suggest an intentional Irish presence in Iceland, Greenland, and perhaps even North America long before the Vikings arrived.”
Goulding reached toward the table and grabbed several color photographs.
“These are close-ups from the plates on the cauldron. Notice the images of volcanoes, icebergs, and whales. None of those would have existed in England or Ireland. Clearly, the engraver was aware of Iceland. The ceremonial bowl is definitely 5th- or 6th-century Celtic and, most important, depicts a great warrior’s death.”
Malone studied the images. A man dies from a blow to the head. He’s placed on a boat and taken to an island where there are volcanoes, whales, and icebergs. Then the body is carried ashore and encased within a mountain.
He faced Mathews. “What the hell is going on here?”
