Arthur High King of Britain. Michael Morpurgo
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up at the robin. ‘Don’t tell,’ I said, and I grasped the hilt and pulled it. It came free of the stone easily enough, much more easily than I had expected. It was a fine sword, heavy but well balanced. It fitted my grasp as if it had been made for me. Sword in hand, I said goodbye to the robin and left.
As I approached the tournament field for the second time, I saw Kay and his friends waiting for me, and stiffened myself to endure their barbs. I handed the sword to Kay who snatched it out of my hands. ‘About time,’ he snapped. He never even looked at it. He turned his back on me and strode off towards the field.
I tied up my horse and followed some distance behind. It was my first tournament and I walked around it in a daze of wonder. Flags of every colour flew everywhere, lions, unicorns, lilies, castles, all dancing in the wind. Tents, gold and white in the sun, covered the field. And ladies – such ladies. Every one of them looked to me like a princess. I moved amongst them, my heart pounding with excitement. They looked at me as though I were not there, but I did not mind. I gazed on their long white necks, their shimmering dresses, their glittering jewels, and I was in love with all of them instantly.
The noise of the crowd drew me away to the tournament itself. I stood for some time on my own and watched. There were thirty or forty knights busy in mock battles, hacking and thrusting fiercely at each other. The crowd roared them on, laughing and whistling whenever a knight retired hurt and limped from the field. Then I saw Kay being helped away, cursing as he came, his shield in two, his fingers dripping blood.
I found him sitting on the ground spitting blood from a cut lip. Father was there too. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he was saying. Kay threw down his sword in a fit of temper. ‘Lousy sword,’ he said. ‘Blunt as a staff.’ Then he saw me. ‘You didn’t sharpen it, did you?’ I said nothing. Father had retrieved the sword and was turning it over in his hands.
‘This sword, Kay,’ he said, ‘this is the sword from the stone in the Abbey churchyard. I am sure of it.’ There was a sudden hush and people began to gather around. Kay got to his feet. He glanced at me, a puzzled frown on him, and then his face lit with a sudden smile. ‘Of course it is, Father,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d surprise you, that’s all. I couldn’t get a proper grip on it. So I went back later, on my own, and I tried again. It came out, just like that, with no trouble at all.’
Father was looking at him hard. ‘You took the sword from the stone?’
‘And why not?’ Kay was offended. ‘Why should it not be me? Am I not good enough?’ All this time I said nothing. I could not understand what all the bother was about, nor why it was that Kay was claiming that he had taken the sword from the stone. Why should he be confessing to such a thing, boasting about it even? Thieving was bad enough, but thieving from a churchyard! If Kay wanted to brag about it, let him. I’d keep quiet.
‘There is only one way to settle this, Kay,’ said Father. ‘We will go back to the Abbey churchyard, replace the sword in the stone and then see if you can draw it out again. Agreed?’
As we rode back across the bridge I felt Kay’s eyes always on me, and Father too kept twisting in his saddle to look back at me. Somehow he already knew Kay had been lying, that it was I who had pulled the sword from the stone. I looked down to avoid the accusation in his eyes. How could I explain to him that I had just borrowed it, that I was going to put it back? He wouldn’t believe me, and neither would anyone else.
Once in the churchyard again we gathered round the stone in silence, our several steaming breaths misting the frosty air around us. Father took the sword and thrust it deep into the stone. A bird sang suddenly and shrill above my head. I looked up. It was my robin again, his red breast fluffed up against the cold.
‘Well, Kay,’ said Father, standing back, ‘go on then. Pull it out.’
Kay stepped up. I could see he did not want to go through with it, but he had no choice. He grasped the hilt with both hands, took a deep breath, and pulled with all his might. The sword stayed firm in the stone. He heaved at it. Red in the face now, he shook it. He wrenched at it. It would not move.
‘That’s enough Kay,’ said Father quietly. ‘You lied. You have always lied. You have shamed me yet again, and this time in front of the world. Step down.’ And he turned at once to me. ‘It is your turn, Arthur. Everyone else has already tried.’
I looked around me. The churchyard was packed now, everyone pushing, jostling, craning to see.
‘Don’t bother,’ cried someone. ‘He’s only a boy.’
‘And a bastard boy at that,’ cried another.
Father took my hand and helped me up on to the stone. ‘Go on Arthur,’ he said. ‘Take no notice.’
The robin sang out again as I took the sword in my hand. I drew it out as I had done before, without effort, smoothly, like a knife from cheese. Sunlight caught the blade, and the crowd fell suddenly silent. Some crossed themselves, others fell at once to their knees. And then I saw Father kneeling too, his head bowed. ‘Father, don’t!’ I cried. ‘What are you doing? Why are you kneeling to me?’
He looked up at me, his eyes filled with tears. ‘I know now,’ he said. ‘It was for this that you were brought to me by Merlin all those years ago.’
‘But for what?’ I said. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Kay,’ said Father. ‘Tell Arthur what is written on the stone. Read it aloud for him, so that Arthur may know who he is.’
Kay did not have to read it. As he spoke, his eyes never left my face. ‘It says,’ he began hesitantly, reluctantly, ‘it says, “Whoever pulls the sword from this stone is the rightful High King of Britain”.’
‘Quite so,’ came a voice beside me. The man I found at my side was a head taller than I was. When he put back the hood of his dark cloak I saw his face was parchment-white and etched with age. His hair was long to his shoulders and shone silver in the sun. He put his hand on my arm. ‘You remember me? You remember Bercelet?’ he said.
I knew then it was the voice of the beggarman from the bluebell wood, and beside him was Bercelet, the shaggy deerhound I had once thought was a wolf.
‘Merlin!’ the crowd whispered. ‘It is Merlin.’
‘Then the sword in the stone is nothing but a trick,’ said one of Kay’s friends. ‘Just one of his magician’s tricks, and not a sign from God, as the Archbishop said it would be.’
‘Not true.’ It was the Archbishop himself, speaking as he came through the crowd. ‘It is from God that Merlin has his great powers. It was God alone who set this stone in the graveyard, and it was God alone who put the sword in it. And the words written round it are written by God Himself. I tell you it is God Almighty who had chosen this boy for our king.’
‘He can’t be,’ someone shouted. ‘He’s Kay’s bastard brother. Everyone knows it. Besides, he’s just a boy.’ And furious arguments broke out all around the churchyard.
Merlin held up his hands to calm them. ‘Hear me.’ He spoke softly, but everyone seemed to hear him. ‘This boy you see before you is Arthur Pendragon, and he is the rightful High King of Britain. His father – and he himself does not yet know it – his father was King Utha Pendragon, and his mother the Lady Igraine. He is born to greatness, born to save this realm, and chosen by God himself. When he was just a babe in arms I took him from his mother and father. I took him for safety’s sake, for I knew the king had enemy spies all around him, who would murder both the king and his heir, if they could. And I was right, was I not? Was not King Utha poisoned? This boy, this prince, this king I saved. And I saved him for you, and for all Britain. He was brought up in deepest Wales as Sir Egbert’s son, and as Sir Kay’s brother, but he is neither. He is your true born High King. This stone and this sword are the proof of it. But so that no man should ever afterwards challenge him, we will leave the sword in the stone until Pentecost. Anyone who wants may try to draw it out. I tell you now, though, that no one but Arthur Pendragon, King Arthur himself, ever shall.’ And