This book is your passport into time. Can you survive Briatin during the Dark Ages? Turn the page to find out. Quest for King Arthur by Ruth Ashby illustrated by Scott Caple A Byron Preiss Book Copyright @ 2001, 1984 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications “Time Machine” is a registered trademark of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc. Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. Cover painting by Charles Vess. Cover design by Alex Jay. An ipicturebooks.com ebook ipicturebooks.com 24 West 25th St., 11th fl. Y, NY 10010 The ipicturebooks World Wide Web Site Address is: http://www.ipicturebooks.com Original ISBN: 0-553-27126-1 eISBN: 1-59019-088-2 ATTENTION TIME TRAVELER! This book is your time machine. Do not read it through from beginning to end. In a moment you will receive a mission, a special task that will take you to another time period. As you face the dangers of history, the Time Machine often will give you options of where to go or what to do. This book also contains a Data Bank to tell you about the age you are going to visit. You can use this Data Bank to travel more safely through time. Or you can take your chances without reading it. It is up to you to decide. In the back of this book is a Data File. It contains hints to help you if you are not sure what choice to make. The following symbol appears next to any choices for which there is a hint in the Data File. To complete your mission as quickly as possible, you may wish to use the Data Bank and the Data File together. There is one correct end to this Time Machine mission. You must reach it or risk being stranded in time! THE FOUR RULES OF TIME TRAVEL As you begin your mission, you must observe the following rules. Time Travelers who do not follow these rules risk being stranded in time. 1. You must not kill any person or animal. 2. You must not try to change history. Do not leave anything from the future in the past. 3. You must not take anybody when you jump in time. Avoid disappearing in a way that scares people or makes them suspicious. 4. You must follow instructions given to you by the Time Machine. You must choose from the options given to you by the Time Machine. TIME TRAVEL ACTIVATED. Stand by for Equipment. Click Here EQUIPMENT For your journey into the Dark Ages, you will dress in the clothing of the ordinary Briton: a loose shirt or tunic, a pair of breeches, leather shoes, and a warm woolen cloak. Your cloak will be fastened together with a round metal pin called a brooch. Over your shoulder you will carry a leather knapsack. In addition, you can choose one of the following items to take with you: To begin your mission now, click here. To learn more about the time to which you will be traveling, click here. DATA BANK TIMELINE 2000-1600 B.C.: Building of Stonehenge 55-56 B.C.: Julius Caesar invades Britain A.D. 43: Romans conquer Britain A.D. 59: Revolt of Boudicea A.D. 122: Romans build Hadrian’s Wall A.D. 410: Romans pull out of Britain A.D. 428: Vortigern hires Saxon mercenaries A.D. 490: Battle of Badon A.D. 871-99: King Alfred the Great 1066: Norman Conquest 1468-70: Sir Thomas Malory writes Le Morte D’Arthur 1) The people who inhabited Britain when the Romans arrived in 55 B.C. were known as the Celts. They were divided into tribes, each headed by a chieftain. Their priests, or Druids, were known for their wisdom and learning. But they also practiced human sacrifice as part of their religious rituals. 2) Julius Caesar invaded Britain twice, in 55 and 54 B.C. But the Romans didn’t finally conquer Britain until A.D. 43. 3) The Romans brought civilization to Britain in the form of paved roads, canals, a system of coinage, and fortified walled towns. Like all the conquered tribes on the European mainland, Britons became imperial citizens. 4) In A.D. 59–60, Boudicea, queen of the Iceni tribe, led an unsuccessful revolt against the Romans. 5) In A.D. 122, the Roman emperor Hadrian set up a wall across northern Britain that stretched from sea to sea. Built to keep the barbaric northern tribes, especially the Picts, from attacking the more civilized south, Hadrian’s Wall was only partially successful. 6) After the sack of Rome by the Goths in A.D. 410, the Romans pulled out of Britain. The British were no longer protected against other invaders. 7) About A.D. 428, a British high king named Vortigern hired Saxon troops to help him repel Pictish and Irish invaders. The Saxons came from the coastlands of what is now Germany. 8) Before long, the Saxons in Britain were so numerous that they rebelled against the British. They were joined by other newcomers to the land, most notably the Angles, from what is now southern Denmark. 9) After a major victory over the invaders in about A.D. 490, the British held out against complete domination for the next fifty years. By the time the Saxons and Angles took over the country, they had abandoned their more barbaric customs and intermarried with some of the British. Many had adopted the Christian faith. 10) The Anglo-Saxons ruled most of Britain for the next 600 years. Their language, Old English, is the ancestor of modern English. Their land came to be called Angle-land, or England. 11) The last two major invasions of Britain occurred during the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vikings attacked from Scandinavia, and in 1066, when William of Normandy sailed across the British Channel and conquered the English at the Battle of Hastings. 12) Medieval historians included Arthur in their list of British kings. Their histories which were generally inaccurate, told of a King Arthur who reigned from a castle called Camelot. Presumably he built a round table for his knights so that everyone seated around it would have equal rank. 13) In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries French authors wrote long fabulous tales, called romances, about the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table. In 1468–70, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte d’Arthur, “The Death of Arthur,” the most famous English version of the legendary stories. 14) Interest in the Arthurian tales revived in the nineteenth century. In 1839, a British peer held a mock tournament, in which “knights” jousted and women dressed up as medieval ladies. 15) After John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, many writers likened the years of his presidency to the idealistic days of Camelot. The Arthurian legend has persisted to this day. DATA BANK COMPLETED. TO BEGIN YOUR MISSION. Don’t forget, when you see this symbol, you can click it to check the Data File for a hint. Trrrraa-da-da-da! A trumpet blasts in your ear. Startled, you jump and bump into a bald-headed monk wearing a long brown robe. “Eh, watch where you’re going, mate,” he says, looking annoyed. “Sorry,” you mumble, as the monk strides off. Touchy fellow. You look around. You’re in the middle of a large crowd of people, all of whom are dressed up. You see women wearing long velvet gowns and tall, pointed hats with veils that trail on the ground behind them. Men strut by, encased in armor and flashing long bright swords. There are jugglers juggling, tumblers tumbling, and vendors selling food from trays strapped around their necks. On a hill high above the whole scene rises a castle, its pennants waving proudly in the breeze. You must be back in the time of King Arthur and his knights! “Excuse me,” you say to a jester wearing a red, yellow, and green cap with little bells jingling from each pointed end. “Is that King Arthur’s castle?” The man looks startled for a moment. Then he breaks into a wide grin. “Well now, maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, my young friend. Depending.” “Depending?” you repeat, confused. “Depending on who you ask, of course.” He puts a finger beside his nose, looks wisely at you and, turning a cartwheel, disappears into the crowd. This jester is just speaking in double-talk, you realize. Someone else might give you a straight answer. You are trying to decide whom to ask when smack! A flying object hits you in the side of your face. “Ouch!” you cry out. Looking down, you pick up the orange lying at your feet. “That’s mine, guv’nor,” says a boy in a short tunic and tights. He runs up and plucks the orange from your hand. “I’d let you keep it, but the tournament hasn’t even started yet and I’m running out of oranges. I can’t seem to get the knack of juggling four at once.” “That must be quite a trick,” you say sympathetically. “What tournament is this, anyway?” “The Eglinton Tournament, of course.” The boy gives you an odd look. “What are you doing here if you don’t know? My family heard about it as far away as Suffolk. There’s to be riding, and jousting, and a Queen of Beauty crowned, and a jolly lot of food and dancing. His lordship has opened his grounds to anybody who wants to come.” The boy looks you up and down. “You’ve dressed up for it, anyway, even if your clothes are a bit rum. You’ll need that cloak if it starts raining.” You look up at the sky and see masses of dark clouds gathering ominously over the castle. “Does King Arthur live there?” you start to ask the juggler, but he is gone. If King Arthur is here, he must be in the castle, you think to yourself. Trudging up the hill, you pass monks and pages and horses decked out in gaily colored ribbons. As you near the castle, you look down and see a wide, open area on the plain below you. It is surrounded by little striped tents and open grandstands filled with thousands of people. That must be where the tournament will take place. By the time you finally re...
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