Excalibur Read Online Free PDF

throw myself off onto the sharp rocks below that the vampires may come and devour my worthless remains.’
    â€˜Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Arthur. ‘This is not the Dark Ages. These are the Days of Yore – no one throws themselves off high towers any more. They simply take poison.’
    â€˜Very well, sire. I shall take me to the chemist this very hour.’
    â€˜Only joking,’ said the King. ‘You will do such thing. I may be only a child, but I’m pretty sure my sister is pretty keen on you too.’
    â€˜I cannot believe that, my lord,’ said Sir Lancelot, who was used to women falling at his feet wherever he went, but still couldn’t believe the wonderful Morgan le Fey could care for him.
    â€˜Believe it or not,’ said King Arthur, ‘I totallyforbid you to kill yourself in any way at all and if you do, you will be punished.’
    â€˜But sire, if I am dead, how could I be punished more?’
    â€˜You will be brought back to life and killed in a really messy and painful way,’ said the King. ‘Now forget about all that and help me get ready, please.’
    â€˜Indeed, sire,’ said Sir Lancelot without the slightest hint of sarcasm. ‘I am your majesty’s most devoted servant.’
    He really did mean it. He could sense greatness in this slight young boy standing before him. When he had first met Arthur, he had thought him so shy and uneducated that he would probably not survive long enough to make his coronation. There were any number of potential assassins in the world and the boy seemed like a sitting duck – not just a duck that was sitting there looking around at the world, but a duck that was sitting there fast asleep in a big ovenproof dish – but now there was a new air of kingliness about him.
    Arthur could sense this kingliness creeping into his soul. The timid child he had always been was being replaced by a new, stronger personality thatwould eventually make him the greatest ruler who had ever lived, and he had Sir Lancelot to thank for the transformation. A few months earlier, the boy would have slipped into the shadows and kept silent, but now, by ordering the greatest knight in the world to not kill himself and having the greatest knight in the world obeying him, he realised he had true power, not just the power of being the King, but a great power that had been asleep inside him since he had been born.
    When he had first been told he was the true King, Arthur hadn’t really believed it. Sure, he had the Mark of the King on his back to prove it, but part of him had wondered if it wasn’t just a coincidence, maybe a bruise or something. But now he knew in his heart that he really was the one true King of Avalon, even if he didn’t like purple tights, and he felt as if he had suddenly grown two feet taller. 8
    The boy and the knight felt a strong bond unite them. It was an unspoken bond because men don’t talk about that sort of thing, but it was there and they bothknew it. Now he was ready for his coronation.
    As Sir Lancelot led the young King out into the vast courtyard in the centre of Camelot, Merlin saw instantly the change that had come over the boy. Even in his three-armed disaster of a shirt, he walked with a regal air he had not had a few hours earlier. It had been Merlin who had appointed Sir Lancelot to take the boy under his wing and the old wizard knew he had made the right choice.
    The Days of Yore would go down in history as the Days of Yore and be remembered as the time when Avalon achieved a greatness it had only dreamt of until now.
    All will be well in the world , Merlin thought. Though of course, having achieved its ultimate greatness, where is there to go but down ?
    But Merlin was like that. He always saw the worst-case scenario. In his eyes the glass was less than half full and there were dirty brown things floating in it.
    â€˜I am not a pessimist,’ he would say