The Pendragon Legend
Contents
Title Page
The Pendragon Legend
TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD
Copyright
ANTAL SZERB
THE PENDRAGON LEGEND
Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
PUSHKIN PRESS
LONDON
THE PENDRAGON LEGEND
“MY WAY IS TO BEGIN at the beginning” said Lord Byron, who knew his way around polite society.
Strictly speaking, I suppose all my stories begin with the fact that I was born in Budapest and that soon after—though it escaped my notice at the time—I was given the name I still bear today, János Bátky.
I pass over the events of the next thirty-two years—which include the Great War—between my birth and my first encounter with the Earl of Gwynedd, for he rather than myself is the hero of this remarkable tale.
So, to our first meeting.
Early one summer, with the London season drawing to its close, I was at a soirée at Lady Malmsbury-Croft’s. This kind lady had taken me under her wing ever since my time as Donald Campbell’s scientific secretary. I should explain that my occupation is to assist elderly Englishmen in the pursuit of their intellectual whims. Not to earn my living, as it happens: I have a small inheritance from my mother on which I can get by in whatever country I choose. For some years now that country has been England. I am extremely fond of its noble landscapes.
During the course of the evening the hostess seized me and led me off to a tall, grey-haired gentleman with the most wonderfully impressive head. He was seated in an armchair and smiling silently to himself.
“Your Lordship,” said she, “this is Mr John Bátky, the expert on medieval British insectivores—or was it old Italian threshing machines?—I really can’t remember at this moment. But whatever it is, I know you’ll find it absolutely fascinating.”
And with that she left us.
For some time we smiled benignly at one another. The Earl had a remarkably handsome head, of the sort one sees wreathed in laurel on the frontispiece of old books: a kind you don’t often see nowadays.
At the same time, I was rather embarrassed. I felt the noble lady’s somewhat inexact description had made me appear mildly ludicrous.
“Allow me, if I may,” the Earl began at last, “to ask what our hostess actually meant.”
“My Lord, the sorry truth is that the good lady was to some extent right. I am a Doctor of Philosophy, specialising in useless information, with a particular interest in things a normal person would never consider important.”
This was a facetious attempt to fend off a more serious topic, namely, what I actually do. I have found that the English do not approve of displays of intellectual curiosity.
A strange smile crossed the Earl’s face.
“Not at all. I am quite happy to talk about serious topics. I am not English. I am Welsh. That makes me, apparently, fifty per cent more like a Continental. No Englishman, by the way, would ever ask you your occupation. However, for my own intellectual satisfaction, I must insist on an answer to the question.”
He had such an intelligent-looking head that I blurted out the truth.
“At the moment I’m working on the English mystics of the seventeenth century.”
“Are you indeed?” the Earl exclaimed. “Then Lady Malmsbury-Croft has made another of her miraculous blunders. She always does. If she gets two men to sit with each other thinking that they were together at Eton, you may be sure that one of them is German and the other Japanese, but both have a special interest in Liberian stamps.”
“So My Lord is also a student of the subject?”
“That’s a rather strong term to use, in this island of ours. You study something, we merely have hobbies. I dabble in the English mystics the way a retired general would set about exploring his family history. As it happens, those things are part of the family history. But tell me, Doctor—mysticism is a rather broad term—are you interested in it as a religious phenomenon?”
“Not really. I don’t have much feeling for that aspect. What interests me within the general field is what is popularly called “mystic”—the esoteric fantasies and procedures through which people once sought to probe nature. The alchemists, the secrets of the homunculus, the universal panacea, the influence of minerals and amulets … Fludd’s Philosophy of Nature, whereby he proved the existence of God by means of a barometer.”
“Fludd?” The Earl raised his head. “Fludd shouldn’t be mentioned in the company of those idiots.
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