Arthur was the golden boy. He was the one
who had everything, got everything, not
his elder half-sister Morgan le Fay.
She said the trick of pulling a sword from a stone
was a gimmick, a setup—and he gets to be king?
She wanted what he had. She wanted him dead.
If Merlin had been around, he might have advised,
perhaps an overcorrection? But he was nowhere
to be found. He was under a rock, literally—
his fault. He’d been chasing a lady of the lake
for days, doting on her sinuous charm, dumb
to her independence. He wouldn’t leave her alone.
She used his attentions to draw out secrets
of his wizardry. And when she couldn’t take any more
of his offense, she conjured a way to prison him
in what he called a wondrous chamber under a stone,
where he was luring her. She left him there.
In truth, the lady had a soft spot for Arthur.
Sister Morgan had also learned from Merlin.
She executed her plan against her kid brother
by stealing Excalibur—his sword—and his scabbard.
Both had a magical force. The brilliant blade
could bite through steel, and the sheath made the bearer impervious,
never bleeding in battle. Their power was complete.
Morgan contrived counterfeit arms and switched
the fakes with Arthur’s. She gave the true weapons
to a knight who loved her and ordered him to battle
an unnamed knight to the death the next day.
She named the sword she’d given him, however,
Excalibur, lending authority to her command.
The anonymous knight, of course, was Arthur,
and neither he nor his foe understood
the loops of sorcery and deceit that bound them.
As the two knights traded blows, Arthur
saw he was the weaker, bloodied one
and knew he must be fighting his own arms.
The lady of the lake had caught on too.
She witnessed the first cuts of Arthur’s undoing
and vowed to give his resistance a chance.
At the stroke of her hand, Excalibur clashed off Arthur
and tumbled to the ground, where he grabbed it.
Then he stripped the scabbard from his foe’s waist.
Arthur had the upper hand. He fought the knight,
his sister’s fool, to defenselessness and a full admission
of her deadly scheme. It broke his heart.
Morgan wasn’t done. She tried again
to steal Excalibur but only got the scabbard.
She threw it to the bottom of a lake, where it stayed.
Now Arthur could bleed. He bled so grievously
in a later battle, he had to be carried away.
At daybreak, he was laid in a wide boat
among women in black. Morgan was one.
She took his head in her lap and asked why
he had tarried so long apart from her.
He was too weak to answer that.
He looked up. Where are we going, he asked.
She touched the bandage around his head. To Avalon,
my brother, the Isle of Apples. You need to heal.
We had everything, didn’t we? he said.
She looked over the water. You did.
I did? He knew the scabbard was gone,
and the sword was gone, thrown into the lake
after he fell in battle. Camelot was gone.
Waste and loss. We had everything, he said.
Noticing the light of dawn in his eyes, she said,
We did, and we will again.
Copyright © 2025 by Sam S. Dodd