TREASURE OF KINGSWATER POOL

t was a crisp winter's day with a watery sun shining out of a pale blue sky onto the bleak December countryside. Giles had decided to take the afternoon off from his business in Lower Kingsbierre. He made his way down to Knights Pastures to watch them filming scenes for Lost Treasure of Camelot, an Arthurian adventure movie which was going to be shown on TV sometime next summer.
	The Pastures had been chosen because of its lake, Kingswater Pool, which had a traditional association with Arthurian myth. It was believed that King Arthur had sunk a treasure-chest here containing priceless relics from Camelot to prevent them from falling into the hands of invading barbarian soldiers. There had, Giles knew, been several attempts to locate the supposed cache, but without any success. It was a mistake to read too much into these legends, he thought. It was just a piece of colourful local folklore, whose real significance would be more elusive and certainly less romantic than Arthur's lost treasure.
On reaching The Pastures, he chatted to some of his friends from the village who were acting as film extras, dressed in medieval costume and wearing suits of cardboard armour. They didn't look too happy.       "I wish as how they'd film something that'd happened in midsummer," said Joseph Dunwoody, barman at Kingsbierre's Castle Arms. "It might look pretty on film, but it isn't half bloody well cold in this outfit."        "Well, think of the money," said Giles. "It must be better than pulling pints in the Castle Arms for a living."

           He sat down in someone's abandoned chair by Kingswater Pool to watch them shooting some scenes. They'd been waiting for such a day as this, with a blue sky and a landscape coated with a recent smattering of snow. Giles pulled up his coat collar and rubbed his hands. It was getting late, but there was still plenty of daylight, and they seemed to be about to shoot the final sequence, where Arthur sinks his treasure in the Pool.
      A horse-drawn cart pulled up by the side of the lake, and a man who was presumably Arthur leapt down to the ground, walked to the back and lifted off a heavy chest. If King Arthur had ever really existed, Giles thought, he would probably have been an uncouth peasant leader, not much different from the so-called barbarians, nothing like this tall, romantic actor who was playing the part. He had a short, neatly-trimmed ginger beard and hair almost down to his shoulders. Over the top of a leather jerkin he wore a breastplate covered by a white tabard bearing a bright red cross, and on his legs he had greaves. At his side was a handsome, jewel-hilted broadsword.
      The Arthur character carried and placed the chest in a rowing boat, which had been pulled up out of the water. Then, pushing it out into the lake, he clambered aboard and began to pull on the oars. The sides of the boat were dangerously low in the water and any slight disturbance would have upset it, but the lake was as calm as it could possibly be, with not even a breath of wind to ruffle the surface. A bird flew low over the water, its shrieks echoing forlornly. The only other sound was the gentle splashing of oars in the water.
      The actor pulled out into the centre of Kingswater Pool and stopped for a minute to regain his strength, then heaved the chest over the side, where it sank with a tremendous splash. Ripples radiated outwards, creating little tidal waves on the shoreline. Turning the boat around, he rowed back the way he'd come. A dog barked in the distance. The Arthur character seems to be taking his time, thought his observer wryly, considering the urgency which the popular folklore tale claimed. The barbarian knights are sacking Camelot, and they will be here at any moment. But this, after all, was a romantic version of the story. When he returned to the shore, the actor jumped out and pulled his craft to its original position. He was about to jump back onto the cart, when he noticed Giles watching him. He walked up to the other man.

       "So you've been watching me, have you? And you saw where I sank the chest?" He felt in his breeches' pocket and tossed a silver coin on the snowy grass at Giles' feet.
      "Thou saw nothing, fellow, d'you understand? Your silence is all-important. I could ensure it easily enough..." He reached his right hand across to the hilt of his sword. "But I won't stain my good blade with the blood of a fellow Saxon. B'gad, give me thy word to keep the secret and that's good enough for me." He held out his hand, pulling it free of its gauntlet..
      This was crazy, thought Giles. The actor was getting too carried away with his part. Still, better to humour him, he thought. After all, the man might turn nasty. He had a dangerously realistic sword, and he'd already threatened to use it.
      "You have my word," said Giles, gripping the other's hand. Come to think of it, he'd never noticed the camera and director anywhere. Had this whole thing simply been a private fantasy being enacted by this madman?
      "Aye, you look like a man who can be trusted," said the stranger. "A man of his word... So, in that case, I'll say farewell, and may God go with thee." And so saying, he leapt back onto the cart, gave the reins a quick jerk, shouted an encouragement to the horses, and drove away.

      Giles looked about him. There was no-one around to have witnessed this bizarre incident. They'd finished filming for the day, packed up and gone home, so it seemed. There wasn't even any of his local extras in medieval costume wandering around.
      He stood up and turned to go. Pulling his collar closer around him, he looked at his wristwatch. Was it really as late as that? This peculiar incident at the lake had so absorbed his attention that he'd been oblivious of the passage of time.
      As he turned to go, something near to where he'd been sitting caught his eye. It was small, round and shiny, half hidden in the snowy grass. He bent to pick it up. It was an ancient coin bearing the crowned profile of the ghostly knight, his supposed madman. Around the serrated edge was the legend:

A-R-T-H-U-R + B-R-I-T-A-N-N-I-A + R-E-X

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