The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Stories, #2)

by Bernard Cornwell

“Arthur,” she said in a whisper. “He was the greatest king who ever lived. He had a magic sword.” She told me tales of Arthur, how he had pulled his sword from a stone, and how he had led the greatest warriors to battle, and I thought that his enemies had been us, the English Saxons, yet Avalon was now in England, and I wondered if, in a few years, the Saxons would recall their lost kings and claim they were great and all the while the Danes would rule us.

“Words are like breath,” she said. “You say them and they’re gone. But writing traps them. You could write down stories, poems.”

“If you had an army of angels, lord,” Pyrlig went on, “then a rousing speech about God and Saint Augustine would doubtless fire their ardor, but you have to fight with mere men, and there’s nothing quite like greed, revenge, and selfishness to inspire mortals.”