The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

Lancelot tells the knights his story. He is the son of the Frankish King Ban. After his parents died, the lady of the nearby lake took in 10-year-old Lancelot, teaching him sword fighting. It is from her that he derives his last name, “du Lac.” When Lancelot was 17, the lady asked him for a favor, which was that she wanted to have sex with him. Lancelot refused and killed the lady in a fight. After Lancelot became a Round Table knight, he participated in many adventures. It was when he was able to physically heal Sir Meliot with a bloody cloth from the Chapel Perilous that Lancelot’s whole life made sense to him. This is why his parents had died and the lady had propositioned him: to bring him to this moment of wholeness, feeling God’s power flow through him.

On the fateful evening when everything went wrong for Lancelot, he received an anonymous message that Queen Guinevere had called for him in her chambers. Since Lancelot loved Guinevere, he rushed to her room in hope. As it turned out, the queen had not sent for him, nor did she return his love. Mordred had sent the message so that he could surprise Lancelot in Guinevere’s chambers and spread the false rumor of their adultery. Lancelot escaped that night, killing 12 knights.

To atone for his sins, he has been sheltering at the abbey at Hoxmead, where they are right now. A dream told him to prepare for the coming of the Round Table knights. He knows that Constantine wants him to be king, but Lancelot is not pure enough. It is not just the murders: Lancelot will always be guilty of having sin for Guinevere in his heart.

The narrative flashes back to a conversation between Arthur and Guinevere after the quest for the Holy Grail has been languishing. In the eight months since Galahad left Camelot, Arthur has grown withdrawn. His faith in God is shaken, and he is unsure about the future of Britain. No worthy successor seems to be in sight, and each day, news arrives of a knight having perished in the quest.

As Guinevere comforts Arthur, Mordred, Arthur’s son with Morgause, arrives in the hall to inscribe the name of another lost knight. Guinevere notes that Arthur dotes on Mordred, ignoring the young man’s many flaws, perhaps to compensate for Arthur’s own abandonment by Uther.

After Mordred leaves, Arthur wonders why God has forsaken Britain. Guinevere asks Arthur if he would rather pray to Jupiter and Sol Invictus, and Arthur replies in the negative. He tells Guinevere that maybe the time to look to gods for help is gone. He says that perhaps they have to learn to live in a wasteland or a land without grace or find a new way to bring the wasteland back to life. One such way is that of the old stories, where the king sacrifices himself so that the land can live on.

Throughout their quest, the knights have been espying groups of Saxons from Germanic lands. One morning, a Saxon hunting party attacks them. Collum and the others manage to beat the Saxons back. The group travels on.

Bedivere and Nimue surprise Collum by asking him if he is Arthur’s successor. Collum’s backstory of an obscure childhood in the north mirrors that of Arthur, and the marvels have returned since he appeared at the Round Table. Collum vehemently denies the suggestion.

After a few days, they reach a low hill wreathed in the smell of sulfur. Nimue can tell that this is the place where she buried Merlin. As if on cue, Merlin’s deep voice calls her name from under the hill. Merlin asks Nimue to let him out, promising to help the group in their quest if he is released. Collum asks Merlin for a gesture of good faith so that they can trust him. Merlin tells them a spell to reveal their destination. Having tricked Merlin into revealing an important spell, the group walks away. An angry Merlin curses them.

The narrative recounts Nimue’s backstory. Years before, Nimue is a parentless, 15-year-old laundry maid in the household of Lord Castic of Rutupiae, struggling to make ends meet and feed herself and her eight-year-old sister, Mary.

One day, hunger drives her to sneak into a feast being thrown in honor of a famous visitor, the sorcerer Merlin. Merlin’s present to Lord Castic, a splendid static model of the universe, is on display at the feast. Nimue accidentally touches the model, and the spheres begin to move. Merlin thus finds the apprentice for whom the model was a secret test. Merlin begins to train Nimue at his tower. Mary is sent away to be cared for by a cousin.

Merlin teaches Nimue how to summon the smaller gods, such as the local gods of hills and streams, but reserves trading with the larger gods, like the thunder god Taranis, for himself. Ignoring Merlin’s secrecy, Nimue builds relationships with the smaller spirits and gods, treating them as equals.

One day, Merlin summons Nimue to his library and attempts to rape her. Nimue stabs Merlin and flees outside. Merlin chases her, invoking the power of the great gods. Nimue counters with her own spells, calling upon the small gods and spirits, who help her transform into a swift to fly away from Merlin. Merlin turns himself into a dragon and follows her, and Nimue thinks all is over.

Just then, Durelas, the god of doorways, speaks to Nimue. Though a great god, Durelas helps Nimue because she has been kind to Durelas’s children. She has brought Nimue and Merlin to the in-between realm of dreams. While Merlin is asleep, Nimue is waking. She must take advantage of the fact. Durelas disappears. Nimue lets Merlin dream on, and with the help of a falling comet, she drives Merlin deep under the ground.

In the present timeline, Merlin’s spell reveals that they must travel to Bryneich in the distant north. As the group heads north, Constantine opts out of the quest. He is confident that the object of their quest is not the Lance but Lancelot. Constantine will head back and join the Frankish knight and help him become the rightful king. He asks Dagonet to accompany him, but Dagonet politely declines.

The company encounters the Wild Hunt: the supernatural hunt of the fairies that usually happens in the Otherworld. Morgan appears to the knights in a half-deer form, telling the knights that she knows they quest for Longinus’s spear but that she will never let them have it. Moreover, since the knights have seen the hunt, the rules of magic demand that one soul from their party join her. Palomides is the knight Morgan chooses. Mounting Glatisant, Palomides bids goodbye to the knights, revealing his real name, Uthman, as well as the fact that there is no place called Sarras: He is a prince of Baghdad.

Soon, the group rides on and finds themselves in a fake Mull, where a fake Lord Alasdair greets Collum. Collum feels helpless at the sight of his former tormentor, so Nimue takes him outside and reminds him that he is no longer the child whom Alasdair abused, just as she is not the vulnerable young woman whom Merlin assaulted. As the fiend disguised as Alasdair shows its true form, the group flees.

Collum leads them to a secret trapdoor at the back of a kitchen, which opens into a ladder leading into the sky. Scipio stays at the foot of the ladder to fend off the fiend as the others climb. He wants Collum to be safe, believing that Collum is Arthur’s heir.

The ladder leads the group to a small, wooden chapel on a plateau, where they find the Holy Lance, its tip leaking blood, on an altar. Saint Longinus picks up the spear and offers it to the knights, saying that it will soon reveal a God-ordained ruler and usher in a renewed, holy age. Just then, the chapel’s ceiling cracks open, and Ysbadden the giant, who had fished Collum out from the Otherworld stream, peers in. Morgan also appears in the chapel. She tells Longinus that it is time for him to head back to Rome: The days of the Christian God are over.

At Longinus’s cry for help, enormous angels descend from heaven into the chapel. Soon, the chapel is streaming with fairies and fabulous creatures like griffins and dragons. Collum blinds Ysbadden and kills him. An angel nearly kills Palomides—who, bewitched, has joined the fairies. Dagonet saves Palomides by stabbing the angel’s calf, and she beats Dagonet to death.

A beautiful being in a woman’s form descends from heaven, radiating light, and proclaims that everyone there is magical and holy. Before she can deliver her message of peace, Morgan grabs the spear and breaks it. The battle ends. An angel proclaims that everything is finished; the spear can never be mended. Everything that will happen from now on is empty time.

The narrative shifts to Sir Scipio’s backstory. Sir Scipio’s tale reveals how he got his unusual blue tattoos, usually the hallmark of the Pictish people.

Sir Scipio is a soldier of Rome stationed at Aesica, a fort on Hadrian’s Wall, marking the northernmost hold of the Roman empire. Hadrian’s Wall is meant to protect conquered Britannia from the incoming Saxons, as well as the local wild Pictish people. Though the Picts—so called because of the pictures they engrave on their body—do not know how to read, write, or bathe, they refuse to be civilized by Rome.

One day, Scipio wanders off to a mound—the traditional dwelling of the Picts. Inside the mound is a lady with red hair and pupil-free white eyes. Although Scipio wants to take her captive, he finds himself doing her bidding, cleaning her home with a broom and drawing water from the nearby well. When Scipio tells the lady that he wants to take her back to Rome, she replies that she cannot be moved from this place, as she is this place. She uses a hot blade to carve tattoos all over Scipio’s body and face, telling him that making Hadrian’s Wall was a mistake. An empire that builds a wall cannot grow. She releases him, and Scipio runs back to Aesica.

Aesica is nothing but ruins; the Romans were called back long ago since their cities were invaded. Scipio realizes that he has been with the lady for 100 years and that everyone he knows is long dead. Scipio finds himself in Arthur’s age. He lands up in Camelot and becomes a warrior, though never a knight, maybe because he has lost faith in kingdoms and empires.