The Light Beyond the Forest

This retelling of Arthurian legend centers on the Quest for the Holy Grail, the cup from which Christ drank at the Last Supper, brought to Britain centuries earlier by Joseph of Arimathea.

On the eve of Pentecost, a maiden summons Sir Lancelot, the greatest knight of King Arthur's Round Table, to a nunnery, where an abbess asks him to knight a young man named Galahad. Father and son share the same wide grey eyes: Lancelot recalls how Elaine, daughter of King Pelles the Grail Keeper, tricked him into one night with her long ago, though he has loved Queen Guenever all his life. Galahad was born of that union.

Returning to Camelot, Lancelot and his kinsmen Sir Bors and Sir Lional discover new lettering on the Seat Perilous, the Round Table's empty chair that dooms any unworthy occupant. A sword appears in red marble floating in the river. Sir Gawain, the King's nephew, and Sir Percival of Wales, another Round Table knight, both fail to draw it. At dinner, an old man arrives with Galahad, declaring him of the line of Joseph of Arimathea, destined to heal King Pelles and restore his land. Galahad sits in the Seat Perilous unharmed and draws the sword effortlessly.

That evening, thunder shakes the hall. The Holy Grail enters veiled in white samite, a rich silk cloth, floating unsupported and providing miraculous food before vanishing. Gawain swears to ride on the Quest to free the Waste Land, the blighted realm surrounding Pelles' castle of Corbenic. Every knight follows his oath. Arthur weeps, knowing many will never return. Guenever begs Lancelot not to go but gives her leave. The knights ride out, each entering the forest alone, trusting fate to bring them to the Grail.

Galahad's early adventures confirm his destiny. He claims a white shield with a blood-red cross once belonging to King Mordrain of the city of Sarras, then defeats seven evil knights at the Castle of Maidens and frees their captives.

Lancelot's quest proves far more painful. Riding with Percival, both encounter the knight with the red-cross shield, who unhorses both men and rides away. Devastated by his first defeat, Lancelot realizes he cannot hold both his love for the Queen and his supremacy as a knight. At a ruined chapel, he watches the Grail heal a sick knight yet feels nothing. The healed knight's squire takes Lancelot's horse, helm, and sword Joyeux. In confession, Lancelot swears to renounce Guenever, though he doubts his strength. A monk gives him a hair shirt, a rough garment worn against the skin as penance, charging him never to remove it.

Percival endures his own trials. At an abbey, he sees King Mordrain, blind and covered in wounds that have not healed in 400 years, sustained by communion bread while awaiting Galahad. Demons then tempt Percival with a supernatural horse and a beautiful maiden, but each illusion vanishes when he makes the sign of the cross. A voice tells him he will meet Galahad and Bors again, for they are the chosen three.

Bors champions a dispossessed lady against Priadan the Black, the tyrannical champion of her scheming elder sister. He then faces an impossible choice: His brother Lional is being beaten on one path while a maiden is abducted on the other. He rescues the maiden, trusting God to protect Lional. Demons torment him with illusions of Lional's death and a lady who threatens suicide, but the visions vanish when he crosses himself. He finds Lional alive but so enraged that Lional kills a hermit and Sir Colgrevance, a fellow Round Table knight, who try to protect Bors. Only divine fire prevents the brothers from fighting. A voice sends Bors to the sea, where he boards a ship and finds Percival aboard.

Gawain and Sir Ector of the Marsh, Lancelot's brother, wander fruitlessly for months. A chapel vision reveals they lack charity, self-control, and truth. Gawain accidentally kills a fellow knight but refuses to abandon the Quest.

Galahad visits the abbey where Mordrain lies. At Mass, an iron grille barring the altar opens for Galahad, and Mordrain's sight and wounds are healed before the old king dies in his arms. Anchoret, Percival's sister, leads Galahad to the coast to join Bors and Percival. On a rocky island, they find a sword that Anchoret identifies as the weapon that maimed Pelles and blighted his land. She fits it with a belt woven of gold, silk, gems, and her own hair, and Galahad takes the sword.

Sailing north, they reach a castle that demands a noble maiden's blood to heal their lady of leprosy. Anchoret offers herself, knowing this is why the ship brought them. She dies as the bowl fills, and the lady is healed. The companions carry Anchoret's body to the white-sailed ship and part to meet again at Corbenic.

Lancelot recovers his horse and sword Joyeux but endures further trials, including a tournament where his blows prove ineffective and a black knight who kills his horse. He lies by a river until a voice directs him to a ship, where he finds Anchoret's body and Percival's letter. For over a month he sails alone. One night, a knight with the red-cross shield emerges from a forest; when the helm comes off, father and son recognize each other. They share the ship for the winter, their only time together. In spring, Galahad tells Lancelot they will not meet again in this world, and rides away.

Lancelot prays to see the Grail once more. The ship carries him to Corbenic, where he walks through the silent castle to a closed door. Behind it, unearthly music praises God. The door opens to reveal a chamber blazing like a golden rose, with the Grail at its heart. A voice warns he may see but not enter. Forgetting the prohibition, Lancelot steps across the threshold, and a blast of wind and flame flings him into darkness.

He lies unconscious for 24 days. On waking, he insists on keeping his hair shirt for the rest of his life. He rides errant for nearly a year before turning homeward. One night, he dreams the final ceremony: Galahad touches King Pelles' wound with a bleeding spear, and a voice declares the Waste Land shall bear wheat again. Lancelot wakes to birdsong and a stream running swift and deep, and turns toward Camelot.

At Corbenic, all happens as Lancelot dreamed. The companions sail to the holy city of Sarras bearing the Grail on its silver table. At the city gate, Galahad calls a beggar unable to walk to carry the fourth corner, and the man rises healed. After imprisonment by the city's ruler, the people choose Galahad as king. The next morning, Galahad goes bareheaded to the church, where a figure in bishop's vestments invites him to look into the uncovered Cup. Galahad sees the heart of all things and asks to be taken from this life, for no mortal may look into the ultimate mystery and live. A hand descends from Heaven and takes the Grail.

Percival becomes a hermit and dies one year after Galahad, buried beside his friend and sister. Bors sails west to Camelot, where half the Round Table seats stand empty. He delivers Galahad's message of love to Lancelot, who still wears his hair shirt and speaks haltingly of why he could not join them, something not his alone to renounce, as his eyes follow the Queen in the garden. The King's clerks record Bors's account and send it to the abbey at Salisbury so the story may not be lost.