“So, darling, what do you think of our little featurette so far?” he asked, with a flash of his trademark lop-sided grin.
“To be honest, Max, …”
“Maxwell,” he interjected.
“…it exceeds my expectations.”
“Thank you!”
“Just one thing missing, that I might have expected, Max.”
This time it was Tori who interjected, “Maxwell.”
“You haven’t recorded the basic folkloric research. You did do some, didn’t you?” Amanda asked. “And I should warn you, it’s a trick question because I believe I already know the answer. You’re so focused on getting to the end of the trail that you’re cutting corners again. You can’t do that, because if you missed someone who holds part of the jigsaw, they’ll call you on it.”
“Of course we researched!” said Tori, defensively. “But this a completely new find, so we could hardly be expected…”
“Tori, dear,” said Amanda, “I think you should listen before…”
“You condescending old cow! How dare you! Maxwell is the country’s foremost expert when it comes to the Roman occupation, and the Roman military. Who are you to question him? You’re only the TV company’s Miss Moneybags! You wouldn’t know history if it smacked you round the face!”
Maxwell cut in, smoothly, saying, “Tori, darling, your defence of me is completely endearing, but not really necessary. Maybe I was a little remiss with my introductions. This is Doctor Amanda Booker-Smart, a very old friend from Oxford. Amanda has an MA in archaeology, another one in prehistory, a postgraduate diploma in Mesolithic studies and a Doctorate in ancient history. She is well worth listening to.”
“Oh. I… I didn’t…” Tori abruptly stood and pouted her way out of the camper van. Once outside, she smiled to herself. That should have reinforced the role she was playing, as Maxwell’s empty-headed thrall.
“As I was saying,” said Amanda. “You’re inclined to get tunnel vision. Where did you find Miss Bandra? Because a really good research assistant would have known what bases need covering, and would have gone out to cover them.”
“All right, all right. Yes, I get tunnel vision when it comes to my work. And yes, all right, maybe I figured that Tori’s warm personality, let’s call it, compensated for limited experience. But you wouldn’t fund anything up front, remember, and Tori would work for a mere promise, so she’s a godsend. So come on, you clearly found something you’re dying to tell me about.”
“Oh, it’s my fault?”
“Let’s leave it there. What have you got for me?”
Before Amanda could say any more, the sound of Owain and Gilda laughing over their exploration of ancient Roman latrines signalled their return. They entered in a wave of noisy good humour, and Tori slouched in after them, stony-faced.
“Well met!” cried Maxwell, theatrically. “Well met, young Gilda, young Owain! And pray tell, what wonders have you unearthed in yonder drainage ditch?”
“Wooden anal scrapers,” said Owain. “Or at least what I assume are the remnants of them.”
“Not a xylospongium to be seen,” added Gilda. “Does that mean there were no real Romans in this camp, do you think? Just barbarians?”
“Fragments of pottery?” asked Maxwell.
“Hardly any,” said Owain. “But then this camp wasn’t occupied for long, so maybe rubbish just didn’t have time to accumulate down there.”
“But that’s not the most interesting find,” said Gilda. “The soil is heavily stained – rust coloured. We followed the line of the wall for a little way, and dug test holes. The staining follows the walls.”
“You know what that means, don’t you!” said Owain.
“Iron Fort!” the two students shouted together, high-fived, and roared with laughter.
“So the iron fort really did have iron walls?” Maxwell sounded surprised. “That’s just so impractical, I wasn’t really expecting that.”
“Well now, Max, I think this is a judicious moment to get back to my contribution,” said Amanda. She opened her shoulder bag and pulled some folded sheets of paper. She handed them to Maxwell. “Read.”
Maxwell scanned the first page, and his eyebrows went up. He scanned the second page and his mouth opened. “Well bugger me,” he breathed. He looked up and gazed into Amanda’s eyes. “I am soooo glad you found this.”
“What is it?” asked Gilda.
“Yeah, let’s have a look,” said Owain.
“I feel quite melodramatic,” replied Maxwell. “I feel a piece to camera coming on.” He snapped his fingers excitedly. “Owain, get the camera set up. Amanda, how did you find this?”
“I checked with the National Museum of Wales and Saint Fagan’s History Museum. They have extensive curated folklore collections, but nothing in their indices sounded relevant.” Amanda looked round at Tori. “It would be worth a personal visit to their collections, pick a few brains, all that stuff.” Tori glared back at her.
“Anyway,” Amanda continued, “a helpful lady at Saint Fagan’s mentioned a privately held folklore collection that she’s visited several times. She said the owner was a bit indiscriminate in what he collected, but he has some good, unusual stuff, that she’d love to acquire for Fagan’s some time. It’s the Broadleaf Collection, and it’s on the way here, just off the A55. I called ahead and stopped off.
“You should see the place! If it wasn’t for the Mr Broadleaf’s memory, you would never find anything. I described the sort of subjects I was interested in, and it was only when I mentioned ‘Iron Castle’ or ‘Iron Fort’ that he suddenly perked up. He said, ‘Now that rings a bell,’ and vanished for a couple of minutes then came back with that. He photocopied it for me, and here we are.”
Tori had moved behind Maxwell and was looking over his shoulder at the papers in his hand. “Pendragon?” she said incredulously. “Knights? This got you interested?”
“Yes, Tori, darling,” said Maxwell. “Many folk tales have their origins in oral accounts of real events. They were embellished by bards in the re-telling, to make them more memorable and more relevant to the audience. So a reference to King Arthur Pendragon would give the tale some legitimacy as being very old, and by association with Arthur, very heroic. Any kind of ancient warrior would end up being a knight. And names would change – a lot of people find the sounds of ‘R’ and ‘L’ quite hard to distinguish, so it’s common for them to be interchanged. It’s the same with vowel sounds. ‘A’, ‘E’ and ‘I’ are commonly interchanged. So our Big Beardy – ‘Barba’ – could plausibly end up being recorded as ‘Belba’.” He made a wry face. “If we’d missed this, then at best we’d have looked academically sloppy, or at worst, dishonest. You could bet your life that Mr Broadleaf would come forward with this sooner or later.”