Diddles of the King Historical Fiction
After the Romans, the obvious period full of romance is King Arthur. It’s fairly easy to have a knight errant who cames to the aid of a damsel in distress, or, for that matter, a maiden who comes to the aid of a handsome knight faced with what seems an insoluble problem. I’ve been lucky to know several such women, the teacher I eulogised in A Land Fit for Heroes and who turned up in Best in Show to shepherd Broon into standing up to the company trying to take over the local flower show was based on someone whon taught me arithmetic. I like my heroes to be vulnerable and need a bit of a push to get them going and, while I have used a male in that role, a matriarch is a good motivator. That arrangement allows me to let the hero worry about the problem and allow it to be fully explained. The solution comes from the background character but is implemented by the protagonist.
What would I do with Arthur? In a book called The Debatable Land by Graham Robb, dealing with the border country between England and Scotland, the author suggests that Artur may have been a Scot. (I think the legend has its roots in the Biblical King David) So how did the legend grow that he fought battles in England – or Wales, if you like? Mahri, the wife of King Arthur of of Dalriada in Scotland was sick to death of her plates being broken on their stone slab of a table. When she heard that the latest fashion among the nobility of France and England was for a round table, she insisted Arthur get her one. Unfortunately, there was no one in Scotland who could make one, so Arthur had to send south, then go to collect it. He stayed in a tavern owned by a woman called Guinevere, who had a barman called Sergei Alanad, who tried to steal the table. The table was large and awkward to carry and had to be rolled, making the trip slow. As they went north they were attacked several times by Saxons and this has led to the legend of Arthur fighting the Saxons at the battle sites mentioned in The Idylls of the King.