Kings of Albion

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Kings of Albion is a work of fiction that purports to be set in the fifteenth century. Readers bothered by anachronisms and inaccuracies are asked first of all to consider whether or not these may have been intentional. If they are still bothered then I must ask them to accept that the whole thing could have happened in an alternative solar system on the other side of the universe. Nevertheless, I did read around a bit.

Once the conceit of placing a small group of oriental characters in darkest England had occurred to me I had to decide where they might have come from. Originally I thought Burma. Seeking information about medieval Burma I got in touch with Richard Blurton of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum and told him my problem. 'Not Burma,' he said, 'Vijayanagara.'

Where?

In common, I imagine, with most people who will read this book, I had no idea where he was talking about. He told me, and directed me to the available sources. The Empire of Vijayanagara was the result of the unification of the states of southern India which took place in the late thirteenth century and survived as a unity until 1565. When it was finally conquered by a coalition of Bahmani sultans it was completely obliterated in an uncharacteristically thorough way: the libraries were destroyed, the massive buildings and cities stripped of almost all their ornaments bothsculpted and painted; the surviving population and its civilisation degraded to the status of peasant serfs. For centuries almost the only sources of knowledge about what had been lost were the chronicles and records of sixteenth-century Portuguese traders and explorers, particularly those who penetrated the empire after their annexation of Goa.

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