"H. Warner Munn - Merlins Godson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Munn H Warner)

After the hurricane which swept Key West almost bare, a cylinder of bronze, green with verdigris and
thinned by the years, was dug out from coral and debris by a veteran engaged in the work of
reconstruction. He, perceiving it to be a most ancient relic, though he mistakenly believed it to date from
the Spanish occupation of that island, realized that it might be of more value if unopened. So he took it to
the museum hi his home town, at which I happen to be curator.
I opened it hi his presence, being promised ten percent of any valuables it might contain, should they
chance to be of only ordinary interest.

We were both surprised to find in it a tightly rolled bundle of parchment, upon which was painted hi
rugged soldier’s Latin the following letter.

As I translated it, the eyes of my caller sparkled, for he recognized a bold kindred spirit across the years.

I, too, thrilled, but with the zest of the antiquarian; for I knew that at the time of writing, Rome had
perished, the barbarians had dismembered the Western Empire, and only in Constantinople survived
anything of Roman pomp and power. Yet here, at a date forty years after the fall of Rome, was a man
writing to a Roman emperor!

Had the letter been hi tune to have been of use, the history of the world would have been far different;
but it miscarried, and with it all the hopes of its valiant writer. Let him speak now for himself.

1

The Lost Legion

To whatever Emperor rules in Rome—Greetings:

I, Ventidius Varro, centurion under Arthur the Imperator of Britain, and now King of the Western Edge
of the World, known here by such titles as Nuit-zition, Huitzilopochtli and Atoharo, send these relations
by my only son, who seeks your confirmation of my kingship, that he may rule in my stead when I am
done.

It is now, I estimate, full five generations since the legions finally withdrew from Britain, and though I may
be, in the early part of these writings, but retelling what by now is common knowledge hi Rome, I cannot
be sure of that and it should be told. Bear therefore, I pray, with the garrulous reminiscences of an old
soldier, scarred in the services of a country he has never seen.

It is hard for me to believe that since I left Britain forty years ago it may not have been recovered from
the Saxon pirates? yet I must assume it, for I remember well that for a hundred years previously we
received little or no help.

Nay, when in my great-grandfather’s time we Romano-Britons sent to Aetius for aid, pleading that the
recall of the legion he had sent left us defenseless, did we get even one cohort in return?

Not though we warned that Britain would be lost— as it has been, unless indeed it is true, as Myrdhinn
the seer has told me, that Britain was discarded willfully as of little value to Rome.

How can I credit this, knowing well the fertile soil, the rich mines, the teeming fisheries of Britain? There
must be another reason, and Myrdhinn has said it