Michael Morpurgo - Arthur High King of Britain

The boy sat up suddenly. He looked at his watch. The face was misted over. He listened to it, but it had stopped. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘You slept half a day and a whole night.’

‘But I must get back,’ said the boy. ‘They’ll think I’m dead.’

‘No, they won’t,’ he said. ‘We’ll get you back home soon enough, once your clothes are dry. The ladies wanted to send you back straight away, all cold and wet; but I wouldn’t have it. “We’ll send him back warm and dry,” I told them. And so I will, I promise you; and this king does not break his promises, not any more.’

‘A king? You are a king?’

‘I told you. I am Arthur Pendragon, High King of Britain, hibernating these past centuries here in Lyonesse.’

The boy had to smile a little despite himself. The old man nodded knowingly, and went on. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Well, why should you? But believe I took you from the sea. Believe I carried you in here. Believe those are your clothes drying by the fire. Believe you are lying in my bed. Here, feel my hand. Flesh and blood like yours.’ The hand that touched the boy’s face was warm and rough, rough like his father’s fisherman’s hands. ‘See?’

‘But King Arthur – it’s all just stories, a myth.’

‘A myth, you say! A myth! Do you hear that, Bercelet? Your master’s a myth.’ He turned to the boy again. ‘You have heard of me then?’

‘Yes,’ said the boy. ‘A little. The sword, in the lake.’

‘Excalibur. Is that all you know? Well, whilst we’re waiting for your clothes to dry, you shall hear the rest. It’s a long story, a story of great love, of great tragedy, of magic and mystery, of hope, of triumph and of disaster. It is my story, but not only my story. In those empty chairs you see about the Round Table, there once sat a company of knights, the finest, bravest men this world has ever seen. And they were my friends too. I’ll tell you about them, I’ll tell you about me. Lie back now and rest.’

He patted the bed beside him, and Bercelet jumped up and stretched out beside the boy. He sighed deeply and licked his paw. ‘I know, Bercelet, you’ve heard it all before, haven’t you? And besides, you were there – for most of it anyway.’ The dog closed his eyes and sighed again. ‘Well, the boy hasn’t heard it, so you’ll just have to put up with it. I’ll begin at the beginning, when I was a boy and not much older than you are now.’

Arthur Pendragon sat down by the fire, stared into it for a moment, and then began.

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