“But, reasonably, it is unlikely that an account of settlement could have survived two and a half thousand years to be recorded by an obscure Welsh monk.”
“If there were an accurate relation of settlement,” Freya said, her voice rising, “how else would you expect it to be recorded? Besides, the fact that there are many other surviving, corroborating, independent reports-”
“Not independent-derivative.”
“You say that they’re derivative of a lost source because they’re similar, but why can’t they be similar because they’re all true?”
The professor sighed and took a moment to collect herself. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be drawn in; she was falling behind schedule. Was this some sort of gag? “It makes no sense to spar with me about veracity when I have an entire section dedicated to authorial ‘tricks’ or ‘stunts’ of authenticity. You’ve obviously read some of the material, but if you understood half of what you know, then you would realise how outlandish your claims are.
“Why,” the professor continued plaintively, “on the same grounds, you could argue the case that Britain was populated by giants as was also popularly believed and recorded.”
“I do argue the case on the same grounds,” Freya said. This brought shouts of derision from the other students, and a couple of them slipped out of the hall to fetch the porter. “The history of giants in Britain is too independently supported to argue credibly against. Accounts of giant occupation are recorded in nearly all of the Brut legends, as well as Irish tales and sagas, such as the Fenian Cycle’s Acallam na Senorach, and Scandinavian histories like the Vatnsdal Saga-let alone those recorded in the Bible and other Middle Eastern histories as well as Slavic traditions.”
Dr. Fowler snorted and then smiled. “This is a joke . . . ,” she murmured.
“I’m talking about human interaction with giants in each of these cases,” Freya continued. “Not creation myths or rationalisations about the acts of nature. These are one-on-one encounters.”
A man in a blue uniform was now standing at the end of Freya’s row, beckoning furiously at her. The class had dissolved into noise-much of it directed at Freya. The professor seemed to be in a mild form of shock. The porter leaned into the row and called to her. “Miss, could you come with me please?”
“If giants had existed,” Freya continued defiantly, “in the way that they are reported to have been, they would have left exactly such an imprint on history. There are too many disparate sources, all with the same interior logic.”
“No, it’s impossible,” the professor replied, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “There is no archaeological evidence for-”
“That’s irrelevant!” Freya shouted. “There’s no archaeological evidence for anything until someone finds it! Absence of evidence isn’t the same thing as-”
“Miss,” the porter urged. He had now come partway into the row and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I must insist that you come with me!”
Freya gathered her bag and rose. “That’s no argument at all! If we were having this conversation two hundred years ago, you’d say that Troy didn’t exist either, but they found that, didn’t they? Then they thought twice about the so-called Myths of Troy!”
The professor stood silently and patiently as Freya was led out of the room in the company of the porter, and then she resumed her lecture with the legend of Brut. She had to run very quickly through, rather ironically, textual variants in Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, but she came through the ordeal in the end.
Outside, Freya was enduring another stern and predictable talk that referred to the student code of conduct and the privileges and responsibilities of studying at Oxford. Her mind was racing and she was angry, though mostly at herself. Idiots. They didn’t understand. Things weren’t “true” or “not true” just because they wanted them to be. History didn’t follow the rule “the most convenient is true.” But it was impossible to explain to anyone who didn’t want to listen. Why did she even try?
That was the real question: why did she even try?
“This is your second warning,” the porter was saying, not unkindly. “The next time I come in to remove you may be the last.
This is the sort of discussion that you should be having with your tutor.”
Freya nodded. That was something else they wouldn’t understand. She couldn’t talk to her tutor because her tutor wouldn’t know what Freya was talking about. She wasn’t reading English. She was reading philosophy and theology.
“Okay,” the porter continued. “I can allow you back in if you promise not to talk or make a fuss. Can you do that?”
Freya turned without saying a word and went outside. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she was a good way down High Street before she realised that she’d only gone through the doorway once on her way outside. She stopped immediately, paralysed by a building tidal wave of panic. She braced herself against the wall and watched the people pass her on the pavement and the traffic rattling up and down the street, oblivious of the terrible chaos that engulfed them-that existed in all things.
She needed order; she needed to know that things could make sense, that she could enforce her will upon the storm of existence. She crossed the street twice, and then four more times. This calmed her and she kept crossing the street as she made her way into town.
Why did she do it? What did it matter what people thought and believed, even if it was a lie? What right did she have to burst the fragile bubble of unreality that people surround themselves with? So long as they live happily, what does it matter if they live a lie? Ignorance is a blessing. It was futile to try to wake people up, so why did she do it?
Freya sighed. She knew exactly why she did it.
She was so wrapped up in these thoughts that she almost walked right into Daniel Tully, the one person in the whole city she was deliberately trying to avoid. She held her breath and saw that he seemed to be so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice her either. She walked closely by him, very nearly brushing his shoulder, and then took an immediate turn down a side street.
She forced herself not to break into an immediate run. If he didn’t notice her by now, he didn’t have a reason to come after her. Freya’s heart felt like breaking, though, seeing him like that, clearly living off the street. She had spotted him yesterday, sitting outside the Sheldonian Theater, begging. She was in a bookshop cafe across the street and must have stared at him for almost an hour, not sure if she should go to him or leave him alone. If she did, what would she say? What could she say? Did it matter if she said anything, and if it didn’t, then why should she put herself or him through the torture of awkwardness. And so she just sat there, oscillating between action and inaction, and doing nothing, on the verge of tears.
“Freya!” came a shout from behind her. It was definitely his voice even though it was deeper-a man’s voice now but unmistakably his.
Her heart nearly stopped but she kept walking.
“Freya, come back!”
That was too much for her; she broke into a flat-out run. She made it to the end of the street and did a quick turn left and then right, not stopping until she reached the Bodleian Library, which was students only-they wouldn’t allow him in there. She managed to keep herself together until she found an unoccupied study desk, sank into it, head in her arms, and started sobbing silently.