Perilous Times

‘I’m not a hero. I’m not like Kay.’ ‘I reckon that might be where we went wrong the first time,’ says the child, ‘creating heroes. Reckon we should have trusted normal people to guard the gate in the first place. Reckon that’s what we should do now.’

Kay crawls up from under his hill, up through the claggy earth.

‘But it’s crazy,’ she says. ‘I’m not from Wales. I don’t speak Welsh. I don’t even like leeks!’ ‘But you have slain a dragon,’ says Gethin. ‘Look, this whole business of restoring the Welsh monarchy, it was all Dai’s idea. Twenty years ago, people would have laughed, if you told them there ought to be a King of Wales. But then Dai came along, and h

I trusted you because it was easy. And I trusted Regan because it was easy. I gave her the sword because it was easy. It meant I didn’t have to do anything. I could just trust somebody else to fix the problem. But I think I’ve figured out now that I can’t keep doing that. I can’t keep hoping that somebody else will come along and magically make eve

‘There’s people in the realm, Herne,’ says Kay. ‘People suffering. And I reckon they’d suffer even more if we brought Arthur back.’ ‘They’ve only brought it on themselves,’ says Herne. ‘As far as I see it, people could do with a bit of suffering. Remind them to respect the earth they live on. Remind them to fear it!’

‘I don’t mean shagging him. That’s very on brand if you don’t mind my saying so. But I mean . . . you’re trying to save the planet, and your big idea was to try and get some bloke to fix everything?’ ‘He’s Arthur Pendragon, he’s not just “some bloke”.’ ‘Now you listen to me,’ says Nimue. ‘Arthur Pendragon is the definition of Just Some Bloke.

Riding through the old forests, you could never shake the feeling that there was a quest around the corner, put there by some greater power, whether that power was the Christ King or the Saxon gods or some older goddess of the trees. Arthur never seemed to notice. It seemed natural to him that things of import should occur in his proximity. If anyo

‘If we put anyone on trial for ecocide,’ says Regan, ‘it will be the oil barons and politicians and corporate warlords. Not our own sisters.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Bronte. ‘But like, I still think maybe there should be some consequences for Mariam, here? She can’t just cause an ecological disaster and then rejoin the movement as if nothing happened.’

Lancelot smiles. The trick with killing dragons is to find a chink in the armour. A loose scale to work your sword under. Get some leverage and prize it up. Colonel Nashorn has plenty of loose scales.