Cinna Cassia, Queen of the Britons
Post-Roman Britain’s documented history is enhanced in this fictional novel. Written history ended when Rome left Britain. Fables of unknown provenance survived or were produced to fill that space when same-sex partnerships were viewed differently than now due to religious powers interpreting religious teachings.
While organizing materials in Canterbury, England's archives in 1494, a monk found an obscure handwritten collection of Latin manuscripts, including a mislabeled version of Historia Regum Britanniae with a mislabeled velum-bound cover that chronicled Cinna Cassia, Queen of the Britons, during Britain's post-Roman era. The monk spent all his time reading texts, documents, and folk ballads about Cassia after being impressed by what he found. The monk visited archives in France, England, Scotland, and Italy to further appreciate her.
The monk found references that Cassia married Lily, who created an education system for anyone who wanted it, and the first schools opened in Londinium to educate children, adults, and soldiers, including her son Arthur, about whom history had recorded some events.
In 1518, the monk produced a book about her, but scholars and historians were uninterested in an early English woman. However, the king was interested, and the monk was prosecuted because a book supporting a same-sex relationship violated all religious doctrine. He was burned at the stake in front of three thousand people, a common Reformation punishment, or entertainment. King ordered destruction of all copies.
A Parisian librarian found a moldy, water-stained copy behind a stack of books in 1909. After the librarian put the book back, it was forgotten until a modern scholar found it and penned her account in these pages.
