The Saxon Shore

This is the fourth book in this series and I have chosen to review it here because it is the one in which Arthur makes his appearance; Arthur and Guenevere are proving to be key figures on this site, marking the beginning of our period as as they struggle in vain to preserve and restore the ancient, the Roman, world which, even then, had passed into history. The Camulod Chronicles is the on-going story of Camulod, a place (and a dream) founded many years earlier as a refuge and a sanctuary of civilisation whilst outside its walls the Roman world collapsed.

This series is also 'Arthur without the magic' (the polar opposite of Alice Borchardt's Guinevere Tales) though even here there are prescient dreams, and druids, Merlin himself (Caius Merlin Britannicus, the hero - and narrator - of this volume) having been brought up partly by a druid (in the previous volume, The Eagles' Brood) though he is certainly no magician. It covers the first eight years of Arthur's life, from Merlin's dramatic rescue of him as a baby to the moment when he has to quit Camulod because his life is in danger and spend the rest of his childhood elsewhere.

For me, although I am not one for demythologising things (quite the reverse!), the book works, as does the post-Roman (and in many ways still-Roman) world it posits, and I am certainly going to read (and review here) its sequel, The Fort at River's Bend. I was struck by the physician, Lucanus (there is a visit to a group of lepers - very moving and realistic), and I particularly liked two female characters, one of whom is Lucanus' wonderful assistant Ludmilla. The other is Shelagh, an Irish girl that Merlin falls in love with, though well aware that she can never be his. Ludmilla is adorable, but Shelagh, the beautiful dreamer (she predicts the birth of her two sons, Arthur's companions, long before her marriage) and warrior (she kills five men in as many seconds), is a goddess, and the description of her handling of Merlin's love is Jack Whyte writing at his very best.

I have one niggle. Those of you who have read the article on Camelot on this site will know that I am a supporter of Colchester (Camulodunum, the pre-Roman and Roman capital of Britain) as the site of Camelot. Now I am used to reading books in which Camelot is sited elsewhere, and that does not worry me. Jack Whyte renders Camelot as Camulod, consistently, which is fine, for he uses Roman place-names (Venta, Isca, Glevum, etc) thoughout all the books of the series. What I find bizarre - and telling - is that in a list of Latin/Roman place-names, he find himself forced to use the word Colchester: "Verulamium, Londinium, Colchester, Lindum". That should be either London, Colchester, Lincoln, or Londinium, Camulodunum, Lindum. But he has used the word Camulod five lines earlier and uses it again immediately afterwards, and so cannot use the name Camulodum without immediately giving the game away - and suddenly having to rewrite all The Camulod Chronicles. It is not that he is unaware of the problem; he is acutely aware of it. This, for instance, is from the previous volume, The Eagles' Brood:

It was Publius Varrus's wife, my great-aunt Luceiia, who had thought of naming the colony Camulod, in honour of Camulodunum, her brother's - my grandfather's birthplace, an ancient place sacred to Lod, war god of the tribe of [] the Trinovantes.

But that - as well as openly admiiting the problem - is fudging the issue.

Nevertheless, a great read, and in many ways the best of all the modern versions of the Arthur story.