The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes by Sterling E. Lanier Read Free Book Online

paused in the act of opening my door, his face thoughtful. 'We used, back in the old smuggling days, sir, to have a lot to do with the Bretons. Long before my time of course, but I've heard many tales from the older folk. There was a lot of intermarriage among the sailors, back in Napoleon's day and earlier, my granny used to say. Most of us have some Breton blood in us, if you can believe the stories. And they do say, too, that a Cornishman could understand them, and vice versa, those of us who used the old talk, mind you. But there's none of them left now that speaks it any longer.' He paused, still thinking, or rather, trying to recall some thought . 'I don't know, Captain, that we have much in common any longer. This is King Arthur's land, you know, sir, and I do seem to remember somewhere that the Bretons lay some claim to him, too, some old stories about him living there or something. Maybe that's how the languages got to be the same? They tell us now, Captain, that there was no such King and that the whole thing was a made - up tale of some old writer.' He laughed, his rosy countryman's face clearing. 'You'll never get a Cornish man or women to believe that, now. Why, to us the King over there in London, and a fine man he is, meaning no disrespect, I assure you, he's a new chum compared to our king.' His face sobered as he turned to go back downstairs. 'Those two rogues may be Bretons, though I'd hate to claim kinship to such ill - looking scoundrels. But I'll leave you with this, Captain. If those two are Lord Lionel's men, then they're also black evil. None but the worst would willingly do his bidding!'
     
                  "He left me with a good deal more than he thought to mull over. A missing piece had dropped onto my puzzle table, though one I could not yet fully assess. The Pendragon ! The great king of legend, and the savior of what was last and best in Celtic Britain! Arthur, the most towering shape in the mist of legend, the greatest of folk heroes in Western Europe! Was he a last Roman, as some have postulated, an inspired commander of heavy cavalry? One theory I had read made him Dux Brittanorum , the British war leader left behind by the last Roman garrison to save what vestige of civilization he could from the barbarism reaching out of the north and west. Another school thought him to be Comes Littorae Saxoni , The Count of the Saxon Shore, and thus the guardian of the east coast against the migrating hordes from the dark German forests, pagans and sacrificers to the bloodstained idols of the vast Hercynian woods.
     
                  "All accounts agree on a few points, though many of them have become cause for laughter in our present state of so-called enlightenment. Arthur was a Christian, and he fought the sorcery of his enemies with spiritual powers of his own. He was aided by at least one white wizard, usually called Merlin, but sometimes Blaize , or other names. Discounting the Round Table, Galahad, the Sword in the Stone, and other such trimmings, one was left with a series of desperate battles, against diverse foes, such as that of Mount Badon , and final defeat at the hands of ...!
     
                  "I opened my window and leaned against the shutter, staring out into the swirling mist . Could this be the solution to my riddle? If it was, Avalon House was a nexus, a focal point for an historic crime, a crime of the immemorial and incredibly antique past . Was it now in the process of recreation? What was Lord Lionel Penruddock , a man of the foulest antecedents, with a limitless potential for evil, doing in that slag heap without a name out there on the cliff? What was he digging for?
     
                  "I stared out into the dark, my eyes trying to pierce the wraiths of mist and fog, down to the nameless castle on the rock promontory of that ocean-bound crag. The night was silent, save for the distant murmur of the Atlantic surges against the