Dear Mr. Cornwell,
I had a question regarding the use of a tactic in one of your Arthur books. When Arthur was leading an attack against the Saxons, Merlin once had an idea to burn the food, which they did not have that much of in the first place, to bring on the attack (much more complex than that, and the plan did not actually cause them to attack). I was recently reading about the Arab siege of Constantinople, and there was mention of something similar. The story goes that the emperor tricked the besieger to burn all of his food freshly arrived from the Egyptian grain ships as a show that they would be attacking soon (that way the emperor could convince his population it was time to surrender). Obviously that probably never happened, but it was recorded as such by the Byzantines. I was wondering if this played any role in your idea? Or if it was just one of many things that happen to come to the minds of different people at different times.
Best regards,
Camden