Sword of the Rightful King-A Novel of King Arthur

201 Pages·2011·0.7 MB·English

by  Yolen Jane

Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
A King’s Test
Dedication
Epigraph
QUEEN’S ANGER/MAGE’S DREAM
Summons
Bloodlines
Queen’s Entrance
Travel from Orkney
Message Delivered
Castle Mage
Dream
May Queen
Talking to Trees
MAGE’S DREAM/KING’S HOPE
Under the Oaks
Visitor to Cadbury
Fledgling
Dungeon
Hard Work
KING’S HOPE/PRINCE’S DANGER
Riding South
Hard Hands
Brothers
Prince’s Choler
Off on the Hunt
Aftermath
The Price of Honor
PRINCE’S DANGER/KING’S HAND
The Marvel
Sword in the Stone
Courtyard
Helping a Mage
Round Table
Doves
Hand to the Sword
KING’S HAND/QUEEN’S MAGIC
May Queens All
At the Gate
Queen/King/Mage
The Great Dinner
Curses
Confessions
Changes
QUEEN’S MAGIC/KING’S SWORD
Reading the Air
Out to the Stone
Trying the Sword
Sword of the Rightful King
Weddings
Epilogue
Chatting with Jane Yolen
The Whole of the Sword Poem
About the Author
Copyright © 2003 by Jane Yolen

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First Magic Carpet Books edition 2004

Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc., registered in the United
States of America and/or other jurisdictions.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Yolen, Jane.
Sword of the rightful king: a novel of King Arthur/Jane Yolen.
p. cm.
Summary: Merlinnus the magician devises a way for King Arthur to prove
himself the rightful king of England—pulling a sword from a stone—but trouble
arises when someone else removes the sword first.
1. Arthur, King—Juvenile fiction. [1. Arthur, King—Fiction. 2. Knights and
knighthood—Fiction. 3. Middle Ages—Fiction. 4. Great Britain—History—To
1066—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.Y78Sw 2003
[Fic]—dc21 2002152622
ISBN 0-15-202527-8
ISBN 0-15-202533-2 pb

eISBN 978-0-544-27189-0
v1.0613
A King’s Test
Merlinnus led them right up to the stone. On its white marble face was a legend
lettered in gold:
WHOSO PULLETH OUTE THIS SWERD OF THIS STONE
IS RIGHTWYS KYNGE BORNE OF
ALL BRYTAYGNE

FOR A LONG TIME none of them spoke. Then Arthur read the thing aloud, his
fingers tracing the letters in the stone. When he finished, he looked up. “But I am
king of all Britain.”
“Then pull the sword, sire,” said Merlinnus.
Arthur smiled and shrugged. He knew he was a strong man. Except for
Lancelot, possibly the strongest man in the kingdom. It was one of the reasons
Merlinnus had chosen him to be king. He handed the torch to Gawen, who held
on to it with both hands.
Then Arthur put his hand to the hilt of the sword, tightened his fingers around
it till his knuckles were white, and pulled.
The sword remained in the stone.
To editor Michael Stearns, who knows how to wait,
and to my husband, David, rightful king of my heart
There was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four
square, life unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of
steel afoot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and
letters there were written in gold about the sword that saiden thus:—WHOSO
PULLETH OUT THIS SWORD OF THIS STONE AND ANVIL, IS RIGHTWISE KING BORN OF
ALL ENGLAND.
—Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur
I
QUEEN’S ANGER/MAGE’S DREAM
Midnight by the bell. The churchyard was deserted and in darkness. By the front
door, which was but a black rectangle in a blacker mass, a large square was
marked off on the ground. In the square’s center stood an enormous stone,
which—if the moon had been shining—would have reminded any onlooker of a
sleeping bear. A dead bear, obviously. For in the bear’s back was thrust a great
sword, its haft pointing slantwise toward the night sky.
1
Summons
PRINCE GAWAINE took the stone steps two at a time, trying to guess why his
mother, the queen, had sent for him. She only did that when she was angry with
him, or wanted something from him, which usually came to the same thing.
Either that or she was going to recite his stupid bloodlines again.
“I’ve half a mind,” he said, puffing a bit as the steps were steep and many and
he hadn’t climbed them in a while, “half a mind to tell her what I’ve decided.”
He stopped on the landing and took a deep breath. “That I don’t want to be king
of Orkney. Not now. Not when I turn eighteen. Not ever.”
He smiled faintly, having spoken aloud what he had been thinking secretly for
over a year. Though of course he hadn’t said it aloud to his mother, just aloud to
the stone walls.
Let Agravaine have the throne, he thought fiercely. Or the twins. He took a
deep breath. Or that brat Medraut. He started up the stairs again, still taking
them on the double and thinking crankily about his mother and the throne. He
knew that even if they were given the throne in his place, none of his brothers
would have a chance to rule, anyway. Morgause would keep the power close to
her own breast, with her spiderweb intrigues, with her spiteful magicks, with her
absolute conviction that he or one of his brothers should not only be king of the
Orkneys but High King of all Britain. And she the ruling queen.
A blast of wind through one of the arrow slits scoured his corn-colored hair. It
blew sense into him at the same time. He slowed down.
No sense running, he thought. She might think I’m eager to see her.
When he made the last turning, he came face-to-face with her chamber door.
No matter how often he came to it, the door was always a surprise, a trick of
space and time, another of her plots. Made of a single panel of oak carved into
squares, the door looked like a game board and was painted black.
Gawaine smoothed down his grey linen tunic and knocked on the one blank
square. The rest of the squares were warded with arcane signs, spells that only
she could read. The blank square was well-worn. No one, not any of her servants
or his brothers—or even his father, when he was alive—ever dared knock on any
other section of the door.
There was no answer.
Grinding his teeth—something he seemed to do only when he was home, in
Orkney—Gawaine knocked again.
Still no answer.
Still no answer.
“Damn her!” he whispered.
How she loved to play these games. Her servant Hwyll had said, specifically,
she wanted to see Gawaine at once. He’d emphasized the two words: at... once.
Poor Hwyll, a nice enough man, always kind and thoughtful, but he had no
backbone. She had chosen him exactly because he had none. He was a
conciliator, a peacemaker, the perfect servant.
“A pus pot,” Gawaine said aloud, not knowing if he meant Hwyll, his mother,
or the situation he found himself in.
Once again.
He banged on the door with his fist, and cried out, “Mother!” His voice rose to
a whine. Hardly fitting, he thought angrily, for a Companion of the High King.

MORGAUSE COULD hear her son’s angry cry as she came down the stairs from the
tower, clutching a handful of bitter vetch. She smiled.
It’s good to let him stew, she thought. A stew long boiled makes easier eating.
She never tried to make things simple for her boys. Princes needed to be
tested even more than peasants.
And my sons most of all.
Stopping on the stairs, she flung open one of the corbelled windows and
glanced out.
The late-spring seas around the Orkneys were troubled. Ninety islands and
islets, and all of them buffeted by extraordinary waves. “High wind and waves
build character,” she told herself. Her sons were in want of character.
Agravaine she was certain of, though he still needed a bit more tempering.
And the twins—they dangled together, like rough-polished gems on a chain.
Medraut was so like her, she knew his mind without working at it. But
Gawaine...
Gawaine had gotten away from her. It had been three years or more since
she’d understood him. It was all she could do to keep control. Of him. Of herself
when she was with him. He made her angry when anger did not serve. He made
her furious to the point of becoming speechless. Still, she needed him more than
he needed her, and so she had to bring him close again. To heel. Like a hound.
Speaking a word of binding, she flung three leaves of the vetch through the
window. The wind brought them back to her and she closed her hand around
them, stuffing them into her leather pocket. She smiled again, willing herself to
calm. Gawaine would be hers as he once was, the adoring and adorable
towheaded first child. All of Lot’s sons were susceptible to spells of binding, as
had been their father. It was just a matter of patience and time. She had plenty of