Arthur, High King of Britain

A twelve-year-old boy living on Bryher, one of the Scilly Isles off the southwest coast of England, sets out on a secret solo expedition to walk across the exposed sea-bed to the Eastern Isles during an exceptionally low spring tide. He reaches Great Ganilly by noon but falls asleep on the rocks. He wakes in thick fog to find the rising tide has submerged his path home. Stranded and terrified, he hears a bell through the fog, follows it into the water, and the current drags him under.

He wakes warm and alive in a vast underground hall, where a great bed sits beside a roaring fire and a huge round table ringed by roughly a hundred chairs dominates the room. An old man introduces himself as Arthur Pendragon, High King of Britain, kept for close to fourteen hundred years in a cave beneath the sea in Lyonesse, a hidden resting place beyond the reach of time. Arthur's deerhound, Bercelet, heard the boy's cries, and Arthur pulled him from the sea. Arthur has been waiting centuries for a messenger to signal his return, but this boy is not that messenger. Eager for a listener, Arthur begins his story.

Arthur grows up in Wales as the foster son of a knight named Egbert. When Arthur is twelve, his foster mother dies, and he learns he was brought to Egbert as a newborn by Merlin, a powerful druid and soothsayer. Devastated, Arthur flees into the forest and lies down in a valley of bluebells, resolved to die. A beggarman with a deerhound named Bercelet finds him, describes Britain's ruined state since the death of High King Utha, and tells Arthur he sees greatness in him. Arthur recovers his will to live and returns home.

At fifteen, Arthur travels to London when the Archbishop of Britain summons every knight to choose a High King. On Christmas Day, rushing on an errand, he spots a sword embedded in a granite stone in an Abbey churchyard, a robin perched on its hilt, and pulls it free effortlessly. The inscription reads: Whoever pulls the sword from this stone is the rightful High King of Britain. Merlin appears, revealed as the beggarman, and announces Arthur's true parentage: His father was King Utha Pendragon and his mother the Lady Igraine. After three months during which every other claimant fails, Arthur is crowned.

With Merlin as his adviser, Arthur wages a three-year campaign to free Britain from Saxon, Pict, and Irish invaders. He defeats rebel kings, then rides to aid King Leodegraunce of Camelaird, where he sees Leodegraunce's daughter Guinevere and falls instantly in love. Merlin warns that marrying her will bring ruin, but Arthur refuses to listen.

While Merlin is absent, a mysterious woman arrives at Arthur's castle at Caerleon. Bercelet growls in warning, but Arthur ignores the dog and sleeps with the stranger. He nearly dies soon after in single combat with King Pelinore, a rival king, and is saved only by Merlin's intervention. Merlin then leads Arthur to a great lake where the Lady Nemue, the Lady of the Lake, gives him a scabbard that will prevent him from ever losing blood. An arm in a white silk sleeve rises from the water holding a magnificent sword called Excalibur, which Arthur takes.

Guinevere comes to Camelot, Arthur's hilltop castle and seat of power, for the wedding. Arthur's three half-sisters arrive: Elaine, Margawse, and Morgana Le Fey, the youngest and most dangerous. Merlin reveals that Margawse's small child, Mordred, is Arthur's own son, conceived at Caerleon. Margawse is Arthur's half-sister, and Morgana orchestrated the seduction to create a weapon against him. Merlin warns that Morgana will stop at nothing to destroy Arthur. At the feast, Leodegraunce presents the Round Table, with seats bearing knights' names and one marked "Perilous" that will kill any who sit in it except one destined knight. The Lady Nemue appears, and Merlin departs with her to his long rest, leaving Bercelet behind as his eyes and ears.

Morgana Le Fey strikes repeatedly. Through enchantment, she tricks Arthur into fighting his own friend Acalon, who dies wielding stolen Excalibur. While Arthur recovers, Morgana steals the protective scabbard and vanishes. The scabbard is lost forever.

Years pass. Arthur and Guinevere have no children, and Mordred grows cruel. Then Lancelot arrives, the son of King Ban of Benwick, brought by the Lady Nemue as Merlin's chosen knight. He proves himself the greatest warrior at Camelot and becomes Arthur's closest friend. Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot grow inseparable, but Lancelot vanishes without explanation. He returns years later, confessing he left because he is in love with Guinevere. During his wanderings, he witnessed the Holy Grail, the olive-wood cup from the Last Supper, at Corbenic and fathered a son, Galahad, with King Pelles' daughter Elaine. Arthur nearly kills him in jealousy but restrains himself, recognizing that both men have fathered sons through comparable sins.

Arthur pauses to tell the boy three knights' tales: Gawain and the Green Knight, a story of courage tested through a beheading bargain and a seduction game; Tristram and Iseult, a tragedy of forbidden love ending in twin deaths; and Percivale, a young man raised in isolation who earns his knighthood and renounces vengeance.

When Arthur discovers that Guinevere and Lancelot have become lovers, he confronts Lancelot and ends their friendship. At Pentecost, the Holy Grail appears at Camelot in a halo of blinding light. Galahad, who sits unharmed in the "Perilous" seat, announces he must quest for the Grail. Arthur sends Lancelot along, knowing this may rid him of Lancelot forever. Bors, one of Lancelot's kinsmen, Percivale, Gawain, Arthur's closest knight, and dozens more join them. Seventy-two knights ride out. Fewer than twenty return. Galahad alone drinks from the Grail and dies at the altar, his soul ascending with it.

Guinevere wastes away without Lancelot. Arthur promises to find him, and she recovers. But Mordred and Agravaine, King Lot's son, reveal that Guinevere has been meeting Lancelot in secret. Arthur orders her death by burning. At dawn she is tied to the stake, but Lancelot gallops in and rescues her, inadvertently killing Gawain's unarmed brothers Gareth and Gaheris in the chaos. Gawain, one of Arthur's most loyal knights of the Round Table, swears revenge. Many knights desert Arthur for Lancelot.

Arthur besieges Lancelot's castle in Wales. After Lancelot returns Guinevere and exiles himself to France, Arthur pursues him across the sea. Lancelot warns that leaving Mordred in charge of Britain is catastrophic. The warning proves true: Mordred declares Arthur dead and seizes the throne. Arthur sails home. Gawain dies at Dover from a reopened wound, begging Arthur to seek Lancelot's forgiveness and aid. Gawain's ghost later warns Arthur to wait for Lancelot, but Arthur presses on.

In the valley of Camlan, Arthur and Mordred agree to terms, but Bercelet flushes a snake from the brush. Mordred draws his sword to kill it, and Arthur's army sees the flash of the blade and charges. A catastrophic battle follows. Arthur disarms Mordred but cannot kill his own son. He reveals Mordred's true parentage and tells him to leave. Mordred calls him "Father," then stabs Arthur in the back. Bercelet leaps on Mordred and kills him.

Bedevere, one of Arthur's surviving knights, finds the dying king and, at Arthur's command, throws Excalibur into a nearby lake after twice failing to part with it. A hand and arm in a white silk sleeve catch the sword and draw it beneath the surface. Arthur wakes on a boat with the Lady Nemue, who tells him the tree has withered, but he is the acorn, and his time will come again.

Arthur finishes his story and gives the boy an acorn from a great oak Merlin once grew at Camelot, telling him to plant it and remember. A boat carries the boy through the fog back to Bryher, where his family is calmly eating supper. According to his digital clock, he has been gone only a few hours. That evening he plants the acorn. The next morning, a robin sings outside his window, recalling the robin that perched on the sword in the stone when Arthur first drew it.