The King's Jewel

THE KING’S JEWEL

by

Dennis M. Lane

Dedication

Once again, for Chantell, who spends extended

periods as a ‘laptop widow’ and puts up with it.

Without your support I wouldn’t be writing.

Text © Dennis M. Lane 2013

Cover Art © Dennis M. Lane 2013

www.terrandreamarchive.com

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Table of Contents

Notes on Anglo-Saxon Spelling and Pronunciation

List of Actual Historical Characters

Anglo-Saxon Place Names

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Glossary of Anglo-Saxon Terms

About the Author

Notes on Anglo-Saxon Spelling and Pronunciation

The Anglo-Saxon alphabet included letters that no longer appear in the English language.

Æ

Ælfred - Pronounced ale-fred (English equivalent 'Alfred')

ð

Leðer - Pronounced le-ther (English equivalent 'Leather')

ðe - (English equivalent 'the')

(For a glossary of Anglo-Saxon terms please refer to the end of the book.)

Genealogy

While this story is fiction, the ancestors of Granddad Dennis (me!) are real. Thanks to my sister, Dorinda Balchin, and to the numerous members of the Worcester branch of the Stanley Family, who have put in the long hours to uncover our illustrious lineage.

List of Actual Historical Characters

Ælfred the Great, King of Wessex (849–899) Frequently used the title ‘rex Angul-Saxonum’ (King of the English Saxons).

Ælfthryth of Wessex (877-929) Daughter to Ælfred and Ealswitha, mother to Arnulf I of Flanders (born in 890). The author's 36-Greats Grandmother.

Denewulf, Bishop of Winchester (-908) Consecrated as bishop in 878, the position that he held until his death.

Ēadweard the Elder (874-924) Brother to Ælfthryth; became King of Wessex upon the death of his father, Ælfred.

Ealswitha of Mercia (852-902) Wife of King Ælfred (according to West Saxon custom she was not given the title Queen). Mother to Ælfthryth.

Eiríkr (Christian name, Eohric) (-903) Succeeded Guthrum as King of East Anglia.

Guthrum (Christian name, Æthelstan) (-889) King of the Danes in Britain, founder of the Danelaw and, after his defeat at the Battle of Edington in 878, ruler of East Anglia until his death.

Hereferth, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey (-891) Appointed abbot in 867, remained in that position until his death.

Anglo-Saxon Place Names

Ambresbyrig – Amesbury

Corn-wealas – Cornwall

Dumnonia – A kingdom that covered Devon, but included Cornwall and parts of Somerset and Dorset.

Glestingaburg – Glastonbury

Hrothtun – Hopton-on-Sea

Æthelinga íeg (Isle of the Princes) – Isle of Athelney

Kingdom of Guthrum – East Anglia

Lundenburgh – London

Mercia – One of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, centred on the valley of the River Trent and its tributaries in the region now known as the Midlands.

Norðfolc – Norfolk

Nortpetret – North Petherton

Searobyrg – Salisbury

Srath Chluaidh – The Kingdom of Strathclyde in Scotland.

stān hencg – Stonehenge

Sumorsaete – Somerset

Temese – Thames

Walter's Brycg – Bridgwater

Wēalas – Wales

Wessex – Kingdom of the West Saxons in south-west England.

Wintonceastre – Winchester

Chapter One

Hey, Shara! The Gorgon is about to lift off!

It was Granddad Dennis calling me, I'd been under my VR Hood scrolling through all the specs of the launch, but he wanted me with him when the ship actually took off.

I know Granddad, I'm coming!

I ripped the hood off and ran through from my room; Granddad was there on the couch with a space reserved for me next to him. I could hear Grandma Chantell rattling in the kitchen. Grandma!

I’ll be right there!

I sat down just in time for the final countdown and my grandma rushed in to join us.

"10" I held Granddad's hand and looked over at him, his eyes were fixed on the screen, shining with, what I thought were tears.

"9" On the screen, billows of exhaust fumes were rising around the base of the gigantic lifting body.

"8 Granddad squeezed my hand, I can't believe it, he whispered, I've actually lived long enough."

"7" My heart was pounding, I'd seen plenty of launches before, but this was different, this was taking the main drive of the Hermes up to Earth Station to begin construction of the starship.

"6" Everything around me disappeared, all I could see was the screen and the ship. I wondered what it felt like to be lying in a g-couch on board a rocket as the power builds up below.

"5" The gantry fell away and the view shifted to a distant camera, showing the stretch of Spaceport One with the massive ship poised ready to go.

4 ... 3 ... All systems nominal ... 1 ... We have lift off on the initial stage of Earth's first mission to another star.

The camera panned upwards as the Gorgon roared its way into the sky, it seemed to be rising impossibly slowly, but that was just a function of distance and the incredible size of the ship.

Well, that's it, said Granddad, I saw the first moon landing and now I've lived to see the start of the next Giant Leap.

I looked up into his craggy face, a face wet with tears, and I scrambled up onto my knees to put my arms around his neck. And you'll be around to see the Hermes leave orbit in four years time.

For all of my life, Granddad has been talking about space. He'd told me about how Earth seemed to lose its way after the Moon landings and that, for decades, no one even left Earth orbit; but things had changed as he got older. First there was Moonbase, then the missions to Mars and Titan and finally this - the first expedition to another star.

._.*._.

Before I get too enthusiastic and drone on about the history of spaceflight, which I'm sure you know already, maybe I should say a bit about myself. My name is Shara, Shara Lane (I said that in a laconic way just like 007) and, for the launch, I was sitting in my Grandparent's cottage just outside Port St. Johns on the Wild Coast of South Africa. I was born there on a dark and stormy night just over twelve years ago. Born there, but I don't live there. When I was four, Mum divorced Dad and decided to move back to Cambridge, so I was dragged from beautiful South Africa and had to make my way with the larny kids of the various faculty members there.

England's alright I suppose, but everyone is so miserable! I hate the weather too, the rain might be warm for most of the year but the mozzies are killers. Still, Mum has accepted that my heart belongs to South Africa and so, every school holiday, I get to come back to my roots and stay with Granddad Dennis and Grandma Chantell.

Grandma Jackie, who lives in England, calls me precocious, but what do you expect with a famous biochemist for a Mum, a Tri-V naturalist for a Dad, and Granddad Dennis who tells the best stories in the whole world? Dad? Oh yes, him... I love him, don't get me wrong, but I don't really know him. He is always off on some massive expedition, I get to see him on Tri-V but he rarely gets back to his home in South Africa. Every now and then we cross paths, but, one of these days I'm going to get Granddad Dennis to chain him up in the cottage so I can have him for more than just a quick visit.

As I said, Granddad Dennis tells the best stories in the world and I want to be a writer myself some day, so this holiday I decided to keep a journal - and here it is! Anyway back to the launch...

._.*._.

As we sat there, watching the different feeds showing the Gorgon lifter clawing its way up to orbit, I held on to Granddad's hand with my left and ate some of Grandma Chantell's famous vanilla cake with my right. I don't know who you are – or if anyone is ever going to read this – you may be from years down the line when interstellar flight is no more exciting than me flying from England to South Africa; but you have to understand, that first launch was a big deal. One thing that South Africans can be proud of is that it was the Square Kilometre Array, out in the Karoo, that finally confirmed that all three of the prospective life sustaining planets of Gliese 667C actually have potentially breathable atmospheres. They had first been observed to be in the star's 'Goldilocks Zone' back in 2013, and, after they were recognised as ‘potential Earths’, there had been a lot of argument about naming the planets, no one wanted to call them 667C-c, 667C-e and 667C-f, so, after years of discussion, the International Space Administration settled on Newton for c, Einstein for e and Cannon for f; personally I hope that that Cannon turns out to be the best prospect for life, as Annie Jump Cannon is one of my heroes. Well, with it confirmed that there are other planets out there that could possibly support us, we just had to go. Gliese 667C is a red dwarf, part of a triple-star system, 22.1 light years away from Earth (in the constellation of Scorpius if you are like me and have your own telescope). The plan is that the Hermes will be built in orbit at ISS3, better known as Earth Station, and then, in about four years, it will leave on its mission to visit strange new worlds...

We sat watching the various manoeuvres of the Gorgon until it was finally in orbit, the next operation would be to catch up to Earth Station and then set the main drive at the heart of the construction rig. There wasn't much to see now, and it was getting pretty late, so I went upstairs, finished working on my journal, and hit the sack.

._.*._.

Wake up sleepy head. I cracked open an eye, it was Granddad. I sat up yawning and Granddad smiled. You can catch up on your sleep in the bus.

The bus? What are you talking about?

It's a surprise, smiled Granddad, just get up, get cleaned up, and then pack for a four day trip. Grandma is downstairs making the froggy dogs, so get moving.

It was typical of my grandparents; somehow they'd managed to keep this trip, whatever it was, a secret. There's no way I would have been able to do that, no one ever tells me about surprise parties because the excitement gets to me and you can just tell that I'm hiding something. I woke myself up under the shower and threw some clothes in a bag; and soon we were heading towards Mthatha in The Mystery Machine.

I suppose that I should tell you about The Mystery Machine, it says a lot about my grandparents. For those of you who don't know, years and years ago there was a cartoon series called Scooby Doo. The main group of characters drove around in an old microbus. Years back, when Granddad retired, he found an old Volkswagen campervan and restored it, and he painted it just like the cartoon. So, when we go on road trips, we can be seen from miles off tootling along in a sky blue and green van with bright red splats on it and The Mystery Machine written down the side in big red letters. I'm convinced that Granddad has never really grown up, but I'm not complaining.

As we drove along I asked where we were going, but that was still a secret; so I contented myself with munching on a couple of froggy dogs - hollowed out bread rolls with tomato sauce squirted inside and a vienna sausage pushed in to plug the hole - the perfect road trip food!

We continued west all day (no one ever said that an eighty year old vehicle is fast...) until we were entering the Karoo. That was when my excuse for a brain kicked in, the Karoo... the Gorgon launch... We were going to the Square Kilometre Array!

We parked up for the night in the middle of nowhere, that's the benefit of having a camper, and spent ages outside in the clear chilly air looking at the stars. That's one thing I love about South Africa, the stars, in England we have a combination of almost continual rain clouds and the light from all the built up areas. That's why the SKA was built here; it's a long way from anything!

The next morning we carried on into the desert. Way to the south of us I could see the dolerite outcrops of the Nuweveld range and it reminded me of the location of those really old Western movies, I think it's called The Painted Desert. But we didn't get any closer to the Nuwevelds as our destination was the flat area northwest of Carnarvon.

The sun was going down when we reached the site of the SKA and we parked up for our second night in the visitor’s park outside the fence. The enclosed area of the site was like a field of giant alien flowers, hundreds of massive white radio dishes all pointing in one direction like the sunflower fields we'd passed through the day before.

The next morning we went to the Visitor's Centre, you're not allowed to just wander around amongst the dishes. We weren't the only ones who had been spurred to come and take a look by the launch, there were probably about twenty of us in the group that was shown around. The guide was a doctoral student and he really knew his stuff; first of all he took us to the control room which guided the different antennas so that they are all focused on the same point in the sky. He explained that what I had been looking at through the fence was the central 'core' of dish antennas and it contained well over a thousand of the giant mechanical flowers, each one 15 metres high and 12 metres in diameter. That central core was linked to mid region stations running out for 180 kilometres, and, finally, there was an outer region of five spiral arms with groups of 20 dishes, these arms ran up to 3000 kilometres. At one point he lit up every antenna on the large screen and it looked just like a diagram of our galaxy. We were standing at the centre of it all – where all of the data was combined, ready to be sent on to the various scientists around the world who analysed what was being collected.

Next, he took us outside to walk around under the massive antennas. When I thought about the fact that there were thousands of these, it made me realise how big a project it had been to set it up. But it had been worth it - we'd found Newton, Einstein and Cannon!

._.*._.

On the way back to the coast, we stopped again in the middle of nowhere. It was an impressive night, one of those that you get now and then in Africa, there must have been