The King Arthur Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

received his knighthood of the Archbishop. And that same day the Archbishop set the crown upon his head.
    The royal circlet pressed down upon his forehead, with all the weight of the fear and bewilderment that had been with him ever since he had first drawn the sword from the stone; so that it was all he could do to holdhis head high as he turned to confront the knights and nobles who crowded the body of the great church. And then he became aware that as the Archbishop Dubricius stood beside him on his right, somebody else was with him on his left – a tall man in a dark mantle, with hair on his head like black ruffled feathers. Arthur did not know who he was; but it was clear that the Archbishop knew, and Sir Ector his foster father standing close by, and many others in the church, and that even those who did not know felt the power that flowed from him like light from a torch or the spreading quiver in the air from a lightly tapped drum.
    There was faint stirring and shifting among the crowd, and a whisper began to go round, ‘Merlin! It is Merlin!’ ‘He was with Utha and Ambrosius; often I saw him!’ ‘It is Merlin, the magician!’
    And one of the great lords, leader of many fighting men, who had had high hopes of his own claim to the crown, shouted, ‘It is Merlin and not God who has chosen for us this beardless boy to be our new king!’
    And another joined him, as hound bays after hound, ‘Aye, it is nought but Merlin’s dream-weaving, this magic of a sword in a stone!’
    Standing so still that save for his back-falling sleeve, not a fold of his dark mantle stirred, Merlin raised his arm, and silence flowed out from him the length and breadth of the church. Only a faint murmur seemed tohang between the pillars and in the emptiness under the high arched roof like the echo of the sea in a shell. And into the silence, Merlin lifted up his voice and spoke.
    ‘Listen now, oh people of Britain, and you shall know the truth. Truth that has been hidden from you many years until the time should come for you to hear it. Here stands your High King, true and rightful son of Utha Pendragon and his Queen Igraine; born to be the greatest king that Britain has ever known, born to drive back the enemies of the realm further even than the Pendragon drove them in his day. Born to bring that brightness between the Dark and the Dark that men shall remember beyond the mists of time and call the Kingdom of Logres. He was God’s choice, not mine, but it was given to me to know him, before he was born, before even his kingstar hung in the sky, and to do what must be done to bring him safely to this day!’
    And standing still with his hand raised, he told the whole story of the dragon in the sky, and of Arthur’s birth, and how he had taken the child and given him to Sir Ector’s fosterage to be brought up in safety from the troubles that followed his father’s death, until the time came for him to take the crown and the sword.
    When he had done, he lowered his hand, and, as though it was a signal, the uproar broke out again, but now it swelled into a roar of acclamation; and men were shouting, ‘Utha’s son! Utha’s son!’
    And in the midst of the shouting the tall man in the dark cloak turned his head and looked at the boy beside him; and Arthur found himself looking back, into strange golden eyes that were not like the eyes of any mortal man that he had met before. And yet as he looked into them he seemed to remember for a moment a beggar by the inn doorway that Candlemas morning that now seemed a lifetime ago, and a stray harper playing by the fire in the hall of his old home, and a travelling tinker, and a wounded soldier making his way home from the wars. The rags of memory were gone before he could lay hold of them. But with them, all the fear and bewilderment went from his mind. The sorrow for the loss of his old life remained, but it no longer mattered. Suddenly his head was clear and his heart strong within him;