The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

“You are not who you think you are, and Britain is not what you think it is. I return you now to Camelot. Your disaster is already in progress.”

“I hope he survives the battle,” Collum said, “so we can hang him as a traitor.” “He’ll do the same to us,” Scipio said. “The losers are always the traitors.”

He thanked the man, checked the grip, knocked it against the bottom of his foot a couple of times, edge and flat. Bit short, bit stiff, bit heavy in the hilt, but if you hit somebody with it hard enough, they would die.

The oncoming line looked like one long breaking wave bearing down on a beach. Nobody could stop this now. Not out of fear but from some even deeper animal instinct, he pissed himself.

From the lofty height of battle rage he looked down on his everyday self and saw it for what it was, a miasma of doubt and inward-falling confusion, a queasy nightmare from which he had at last awoken.

Do you see, Morgan, from your glass castle? But how then could he feel so empty? A hollow armor defending a hollow fortress, and Arthur’s empty bed.

Having a girl’s body means you’re a girl.” “How do you know what bodies mean?” Orwen asked. “We’re just going to throw them away anyway when we die, like orange peels, and then at the Last Judgment we’ll be given our perfect bodies, so what does this body even mean?”

could breathe, really breathe, for the first time since he got to Camelot. Had it fixed him after all, like he’d hoped? It was a start.

“People have come in with a lot worse sins on their hands,” Dinadan said. “If God can forgive, shouldn’t we?” “Big if,” Dagonet said.

“It’s not us who decides anyway, it’s Camelot. But in my experience the question isn’t so much about whether you’re lying to us, it’s whether you’re lying to yourself.”

Sooner hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

“We need a sign from God,” Constantine said. “We cannot tell God what to do,” Palomides said. “I have tried. He seems to have a problem with authority.”

Arthur’s mind demanded answers from itself, and when answers were not forthcoming it put itself to the question, applying the hot irons and the pliers.

I can’t be the first person to observe, she thought, how often those best placed to take care of a child have the least idea what it needs.

If there was a third party in their marriage it wasn’t Lancelot, it was God.

All boys need a father’s love, and they’ll do anything to get it, and Arthur had tried being good, and it hadn’t worked, so that left only greatness. Perfection. If only, if only Arthur had had a father there to say, it’s all right, this is good enough. You can stop now, I will love you whatever happens, whatever you do, whoever you are. But there was no one there to say it. God would never say stop. And so Arthur never would.

“And does God even care? I trusted Him for so long, Guinevere. So long. But now He’s asked too much, we’ll never bring home the Grail, and even if we did I wonder if it would be enough. I don’t think it would. His discipline has always been harsh, but I thought His harshness was love, it was how badly He wanted to us to be good. But it’s become something else. “Maybe he’s simply inhuman, like a storm, or a fire.” Arthur stared up at the nothingness of the sky, shaking his head. “I don’t know what it all means, and I suppose I never will, but I won’t beg anymore. I can’t. He was my father’s God, Uther’s God, but He is not mine. We’ll find our own way. Or maybe we’ll go to war with Him, like you said.”

Guinevere’s marriage to Arthur had come with many surprises, but the biggest surprise of all was that they loved each other, as much as any man and wife, as much as any lovers in any story. She loved him more than he loved himself. And was that not the point of a marriage, to love a person more than they can love themselves?

They were like sleepy children who begged for the story to keep going, but there was no more story.

They all wanted a piece, so I suppose it’s no wonder he was torn to pieces in the end.

I can remember the very first day that he sat at the Round Table and called for a marvel, and it appeared—it was a bird that spoke. A wagtail. Do you remember, Bedivere? Everyone was in transports of wonder, and I suppose I was, too, but some part of me also thought, well, that’s it then. I’m just a woman, how the hell do I compete with a talking bird?”