Sword at Sunset

Set in post-Roman Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries, the novel reimagines the legend of King Arthur as the story of a historical war leader struggling to hold back the Saxon invasions after the collapse of Roman rule. The narrative is told in the first person by Artos the Bear, who lies mortally wounded in a monastery on the Island of Apples (Glastonbury), reflecting on 40 years of warfare, love, and betrayal.

Artos's memories begin on the night Ambrosius, his uncle and the High King, gives him a sword bearing the amethyst seal of their ancestor Magnus Maximus, a Roman general who became Emperor of the West. Though Artos carries royal blood, he is illegitimate, the son of Ambrosius's brother Utha. Artos proposes forming an independent mobile cavalry force of 300 men, free to ride wherever the Saxon threat is greatest. Ambrosius agrees, and Artos sets out to build his Brotherhood, planning to buy large war-horses from Gaul for cross-breeding with native British mares.

First, Artos visits the horse herds in Arfon (northwest Wales). Caught in mist, he shelters at an isolated farmstead ruled by a woman named Ygerna, who drugs and seduces him. At dawn, she reveals a dragon arm ring of the royal house: She is Utha's daughter, making her Artos's half-sister. The seduction was revenge for their father's abandonment of Ygerna's mother. If she bears a son, Ygerna says, she will name him Medraut and send him to Artos when he is grown. Artos flees, knowing he has committed incest and set a doom upon himself.

En route to Gaul, Artos stays with Prince Cador in Dumnonia, where the amethyst seal falls from his sword into the cradle of Cador's infant son Constantine. At the horse fairs in Narbo Martius, Artos meets Bedwyr, a young half-Armorican (Breton) harper and horseman who earns his place among the Companions by bringing a dangerously tempered stallion safely to Britain. With Cei, a bold warrior, and Gwalchmai, a novice with a clubfoot and exceptional surgical skill recruited from a monastery, Bedwyr forms the inner core of the Brotherhood.

Years of campaigning follow. From a base at Lindum (Lincoln), Artos fights the Saxons along the eastern coast, then confronts Hengest, the aged Jutish war lord, and his son Octa. Artos kills Hengest in battle near Deva (Chester) and slays Octa during the storming of Eburacum (York). In the captured city, he finds Cerdic, the 14-year-old son of Hengest's daughter and the British usurper Vortigern, standing guard over his dead mother. Despite Bedwyr's urging to have the boy killed as a political threat, Artos spares him.

Artos crosses Hadrian's Wall into the lost province of Valentia (lowland Scotland), captures the great fort of Trimontium through a daring night assault, and forges an alliance with the Little Dark People, the ancient pre-Celtic inhabitants of the hills, who serve as scouts and poisoned-arrow fighters in exchange for his protection. At the battle of Cit Coit Caledon, deep in the great forest, Artos destroys the combined war host of Picts, Scots, Saxons, and renegade British chieftains, securing the lowlands.

During a diplomatic visit to the chieftain Maglaunus, Artos is wounded fighting raiders and convalesces under the care of Guenhumara, Maglaunus's daughter. Maglaunus offers her in marriage with a dowry of 100 mounted warriors led by her brother Pharic. After initial resistance, Artos accepts at a Lammas harvest ceremony, swearing before Maglaunus in his ritual aspect as the sacred stag-king. The wedding night fails: The memory of Ygerna's hatred overwhelms Artos and destroys his ability to consummate the marriage. Guenhumara responds with compassion, and Artos confesses the story of Ygerna for the first time.

At Trimontium, the garrison nearly perishes when a winter fire destroys the main stores. A Companion named Levin sacrifices his life to reach a supply depot, and his message brings relief just in time. On the last night of near-starvation, Artos and Guenhumara achieve true union for the first and only time. Guenhumara gives birth prematurely to a frail girl named Hylin, sheltered among the Dark People after floods cut them off from the fort. Guenhumara, convinced the Dark People stole the child's life force, carries a deep anger toward Artos for leaving her in their care.

Artos returns south to find Ambrosius visibly dying of what his physician Ben Simeon calls the "Crab Sickness," or cancer. Because Artos's illegitimacy prevents a formal nomination, Ambrosius plans to die without naming an heir, allowing the war host to turn naturally to Artos. At a country hunting lodge, Ambrosius deliberately runs onto the antlers of a royal stag during a hunt, a willing sacrifice that Artos understands as the ritual death of the Sacred King.

Artos argues before the Council of Britain that a Saxon offensive makes this the worst time for a succession struggle. The Council agrees, leaving Artos as Rex Belliorum, the supreme war leader. Hylin grows sicker and dies while Artos is campaigning. He rides through the night but arrives too late, and Guenhumara withdraws from him in grief. That same night, Medraut appears: a young man nearly Artos's physical double but with his mother's unreadable blue eyes. Artos gives Medraut a sword and places him in Bedwyr's squadron. Guenhumara warns Artos to send Medraut away, but Artos refuses, believing he cannot escape the doom his son represents.

At Badon Hill, Artos faces the combined Saxon war host of some 8,000 men led by Aelle of the South Seax. With 5,000 troops deployed across a pass between two hill forts, Artos waits as Ambrosius's old royal bodyguard, led by the veteran Aquila, makes a suicidal charge to open the way for the cavalry. Artos leads the Companions in a rear charge that shatters the Saxon center. Aelle is killed, and that night the jubilant war host proclaims Artos as Caesar on the coronation stone within the chalk-cut White Horse figure.

In the aftermath, Artos negotiates a treaty allowing the Saxons to keep their coastal settlements in exchange for defending those shores. Cerdic, now grown, is banished. Medraut demands recognition as heir, but Artos refuses. Over the following years, Bedwyr recovers from an arrow wound at Badon that leaves his arm permanently impaired. Guenhumara tends Bedwyr during his convalescence, and a deep love grows between them. Artos notices a new warmth in Guenhumara but does not recognize its source.

Medraut, who has built a following among the younger Companions, engineers the discovery of Bedwyr and Guenhumara together. Artos banishes them both. Pharic and Guenhumara's dowry contingent withdraw in solidarity, weakening the Brotherhood. Years of border warfare against Cerdic, who returns from Gaul with reinforcements, drain the war host. While Artos campaigns in Arfon, Medraut raises the standard of revolt and joins Cerdic.

Artos rides south in desperate haste. On the eve of battle, Bedwyr reappears, having left Guenhumara at a nunnery, and they arm each other like brothers. In the final battle, Artos draws Medraut's cavalry away from the main fight with decoy banners, buying time for Constantine's approaching forces. At a stream ford, Artos and Medraut meet in single combat. Medraut stabs Artos through the groin; Artos strikes Medraut's throat, killing him, as the doom demanded that each be the death of the other.

Carried to the Island of Apples, Artos names Constantine as his successor and orders that his death be kept secret so men will fight on believing the Bear still lives. He instructs Bedwyr to throw his sword into a nearby lake as a signal that the High King is dead. In his final moments, with Bedwyr's wounded arm supporting his head, Artos finds his last measure of hope: not in victory, which was never possible, but in the time his life's work has gained for British and Saxon cultures to begin merging. "There will be more songs," he tells Bedwyr, "more songs tomorrow, though it is not we who shall sing them" (495).