The Sword in the Stone

Part One · The Boy and the Wizard

When King Uther Pendragon died without naming an heir, the kingdom of England fell into a long and furious argument. Every powerful lord was absolutely certain that the crown belonged on his own head, preferably the day before yesterday. Armies gathered along the borders, quarrels turned into skirmishes, and ordinary farmers learned to dread the sound of horses approaching their villages. Only the old wizard Merlin understood what the country truly needed. Years earlier, he had carried Uther's baby son away in secret and handed him to a good knight, and he intended to reveal the boy at precisely the right moment, when the realm was weary enough to listen. Merlin lived backward through time, so he was never quite sure whether the right moment had already happened.

The boy was called Arthur, and he had no suspicion that his life was anything other than ordinary. He grew up in the manor of Sir Ector, a gruff but generous knight who treated him as a second son, alongside his own boy, Kay. Kay was tall, confident, and recently knighted, and he never let anyone forget it. Arthur was a squire, which meant that he polished armor, groomed horses, and carried whatever his master required, and he did it all with a cheerfulness that irritated absolutely everyone. He honestly believed that serving his brother was the finest job a person could possibly have. Most days he also tripped over the armor he was polishing.

One cold December, messengers galloped through every county with astonishing news. Merlin had arranged a great tournament in London on Christmas morning, and every knight in the land was commanded to attend, so that the lords could witness a marvel in the churchyard of the cathedral. Sir Ector began packing at once, and within a few days the household had loaded its wagons and set off along the frozen roads. Kay talked endlessly about the jousting he intended to win, including the speech he planned to give afterward. Arthur rode beside him, nodding politely, and slowly stopped listening. Then a dark shape detached itself from a tree and swooped silently over the wagons, and a very old owl looked down at him with a very human smile.

Part Two · The Stone

London was crowded with colorful banners, restless horses, and merchants who bellowed about their pies and ribbons above the clatter of the streets. In the center of the churchyard, a huge block of marble stood with a heavy anvil resting on top, and a grand sword was buried deep in the iron. Golden letters carved on the stone declared that whoever could draw out the blade was the rightful king of England. Arthur studied it for a moment with polite curiosity. Then he walked away without a second thought, convinced that such a riddle belonged to important people, and he was merely a squire with errands to complete.

On the morning of the tournament, the greatest lords in the kingdom took turns attempting the impossible. Some pulled gently, as though the sword might respond to good manners, while others planted their boots against the marble and heaved until their faces turned the color of beets. Lord Bartram tied a rope around the hilt and attached it to his warhorse, which promptly reared up, backed away, and sat down in the fountain. Not one of them could move the blade even the width of a hair, and each failure was followed by a long, painful silence. Merlin watched from the edge of the crowd with his hands folded inside his sleeves and a faint, patient smile hidden in his silver beard.

Meanwhile Arthur hurried through the narrow lanes behind the inn, because Kay had demanded his sword for the opening joust, and Arthur suddenly remembered that he had left it at the lodging across town. He searched his belt and his pockets. He searched his boots. He searched Kay's other boots, which Kay would not have enjoyed. The weapon was nowhere to be found, and every shop in town was closed for the holiday. Returning empty-handed would humiliate his brother in front of the gathered knights. Arthur stopped to think. Then he remembered the churchyard and the huge sword resting in the stone, which, to his knowledge, nobody was currently guarding.

The churchyard was almost empty, since the entire city had gone to watch the jousting. Arthur approached the marble block, glanced around to make sure that no one was watching, and reasoned that nobody would object if he borrowed the sword for a single afternoon and returned it directly afterward. "Excuse me," he whispered to the stone, because it seemed polite. He climbed up, closed his fingers around the hilt, and gave it a modest tug. To his complete surprise, the blade slid out as smoothly as a knife leaving butter. The whole churchyard seemed to glow. A deep, bell-like hum shivered through the winter air, and every candle in the cathedral window flickered at once. Somewhere above him, an owl hooted, very much like a person clearing his throat.

Arthur jumped down, clutching the sword with both hands, and raced to the tents where Kay was waiting impatiently. He had no idea what he had accomplished. Kay, however, recognized the weapon at once, and his scowl dissolved into a stunned and pale expression. He was an ambitious young man, and for a long moment he allowed himself to imagine the crown resting on his own head. Without a word of explanation, he snatched the sword from his brother and hurried to find Sir Ector. Arthur followed, puzzled, and a little worried about why Kay had suddenly become so quiet. Kay was never quiet.

Part Three · The Secret

Kay held the blade in front of his father and announced that he had become the king of England. Sir Ector was a wise and honest man, and he did not believe it for an instant. He studied his son's face and asked him to describe, in complete detail, exactly how the sword had come into his hand. Kay shifted his feet, stared at the ground, and finally confessed that Arthur had brought it to him. The knight said nothing more. He took both boys by the shoulders and marched them back toward the churchyard, walking quickly and thinking hard.

At the marble block, Ector instructed Arthur to put the sword back into the anvil, and the boy obeyed, a little puzzled by the grave mood. The blade slid into the iron as easily as it had come out. Ector then asked Kay to draw it again, and Kay tugged and strained until he gasped for breath. The sword would not budge. Next, Ector tried it himself, with the same unhappy result. Finally the old knight turned toward Arthur and quietly asked him to try once more, and the boy lifted the blade out as though it were a feather, while behind him the stone gave a long, satisfied hum.

Sir Ector knelt down in the frozen grass, and the sudden gesture alarmed Arthur more than the sword had done. Ector explained that he was not truly the boy's father, and that Merlin had delivered him as a baby, wrapped in a rich cloak, with a grave instruction to keep him safe and silent. Arthur listened, and the world seemed to tilt beneath his feet. He had spent his entire childhood believing that he belonged to a simple family, and now he learned that he might be the long-lost son of a king. "Does this mean," he asked in a small voice, "that I do not have to polish Kay's armor anymore?" Ector, who was crying, started to laugh.

Word of the miracle spread rapidly through the city, and the lords who had failed the test were far from happy. They muttered that a squire with muddy boots could never be a king, and that the sword must have been enchanted to deceive them. Several of them insisted that the trial be repeated, and a few of them whispered about what happens to a boy who becomes inconvenient. Arthur stood in the middle of their cold stares, feeling small and rather frightened, until a very old man in a star-spangled robe appeared at his shoulder and murmured that courage was not the absence of fear but the decision to continue in spite of it. It was the owl's voice.

Part Four · The King

The lords arranged a second trial at Easter and a third at Pentecost, certain that the stone would refuse a boy sooner or later. They greased the anvil. They hired a blacksmith with arms like tree trunks. One lord even tried bribing the stone with a sack of gold, which was not accepted. Each time the sword stayed fixed against the efforts of every mighty knight, and each time it slid free for Arthur with the same easy ease. At last the common people, who had gathered by the thousands to watch, began to cheer, for they were weary of war and ready for a ruler who had earned his throne honestly. Their voices rose like thunder across the churchyard, and slowly even the proudest lords bowed their heads.

Merlin finally explained the entire secret before the gathered crowd. He told them about the old king's baby son, about the years of hidden safety in Ector's manor, and about the wise magic that had guarded the sword until the rightful heir arrived. Arthur listened with his hands trembling, because the story made sense of a hundred small mysteries from his childhood. Yet he was frightened of such a duty, and he confessed that he did not feel at all prepared to govern a kingdom. Merlin smiled warmly and answered that no truly good ruler ever believed himself ready, and that he, Merlin, had a very good memory for how all of this turned out.

The crowning took place in the great cathedral, with candles burning along every wall and bells ringing across the rooftops of London. Priests lifted a golden circlet and set it carefully on Arthur's head, and the people who filled the nave knelt, one row after another. Arthur looked first at Sir Ector, who was weeping openly, and then at Kay, who bowed deeply and whispered that he was proud to serve his brother. Arthur promised to rule with fairness and mercy, and to protect the weak against the powerful, and he spoke the words in a clear and steady voice. Not a single person made a sound, except the owl, which sneezed.

Years afterward, people would tell marvelous stories about the court of King Arthur, about his round table, his noble knights, and his shining castle. Yet the old storytellers always began with the small churchyard in London and the quiet boy who had pulled a sword from a stone because his brother needed it. Merlin used to say that this was exactly why it had worked. The sword had never been waiting for the strongest or the proudest person in the kingdom. It had been waiting for someone who would say excuse me first. Arthur, for the record, never again forgot where he had left his sword, and Kay never again left the house without checking twice.