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Vercovicium is only a
suggested name for Houseteads, we do
not know its definite
Roman name, and I confess that
Winifred
Castre for Winchester is total
fabrication on my part – my only
defence is
that there is no agreed explanation for this city’s
name! Caer Cadan is also my own. I needed
something to reflect
the Camelot of
legend with the actual hill fort of Cadbury
Castle, Somerset. Strictly
speaking the ‘c’ of Cadan should, in today’s Welsh, mutate to a ‘g’ (Gadan).
However, I have been
advised that mutations
did not influence the language until well
after Arthur’s time, and I
therefore ask Welsh-speaking readers to forgive my liberty with their language.
The building of the Valle Crucis Abbey came a long time after my story – but
who knows what stood there first! The Wandsdyke was built after the Romans but
before the
Saxons, as a defence from the
North. The English did not know
of it before they conquered this area,
hence its name, ‘Woden’s dyke’. It seems strange that if it was built to keep
the Saxons
out, why did they not know of it?
The answer can only be
because it
was built
long
before they were in that area, and must
therefore
have been erected by British against British. It has often been attributed to
Ambrosius, but as there is no proof of this, I have given its building to
Arthur.

The Medieval Norman stories – created when
only the firstborn, legitimate male inherited – make much of Arthur having no
son. Earlier references contradict this. Nennius writing his
Historia Brittonum in the ninth century, mentions
Amr who was
‘slain by his father, Arthur the soldier’ and who was buried
beneath the ancient stones in what is now Hereford. Llacheu,
Arthur’s son, was killed in battle and in the
Mabinogion, we find
the story of Gwydre, son of Arthur, killed by the
boar Twrch Trwyth... .

Nennius is also a source of Arthur’s battles.
He describes twelve, the locations of which are heatedly debated. My
conclusions are a general hotchpotch of theory
and guesswork.
For those who know about Arthur, and are asking. ‘But
what
about the battle of Badon?’ you will
have to wait for Book
Three.

The distances and speed
of Arthur’s horses are not far
fetched. It is quite
possible to average thirty or forty (modern) miles a day without overtaxing
horses if they have adequate feeding, a moderated pace and the occasional day’s
rest. In 207
bc the Consul Nero covered
three hundred miles in a seven-day
forced march with no ill effect, save
the horses lost weight.

The story of Gwenhwyfar’s
offer to be shared between Arthur
and Amlawdd is
borrowed from a most ancient tale. Correctly,
the
other man involved should have been Melwas, who
appeared briefly in The Kingmaking, but Gwenhwyfar’s trickery
did
not fit neatly into that particular story and so I have used it against Amlawdd
in this. The same story is also credited to Tristan and
Isolde.
Perhaps
those early Tellers of Tales felt
justified
in re-using a good plot to fit their heroine’s needs. I feel
equally
justified in blatantly borrowing it for myself!