Category: Bride for Bedivere

Extracts from A Bride for Bedivere

All for nothing

The rain had gone, the dusk was calm, the sky glowing in the west, and I felt the need for fresh air after being cooped up all day in the house. And the need for...

A darker face

I would not deny what had happened to me under the Arthur tree, nor belittle it. His kiss had aroused a feeling in me I had never known or imagined. I could vouch for my...

I thought it was tin!

Long before Jane was pushed down a mine-shaft, before her fictional contemporary Alice fell down the rabbit-hole, even before King Arthur trod the bleak landscape, people had been coming to the west country for tin....

The second Lady Bedivere

From his pocket he took a small black velvet bag, tied with black cord. He undid the cord and opened it, tipping the contents into his free hand. Stones flashed in the lamplight. They were...

Like a rat in a drain

I had already noticed a small hill rising out of the rolling contour of the moor, and now saw a building huddled beside it, or the ruin of one. It was low-lying, with a shattered...

‘Scream, if you like’

He moved towards me without haste. For an instant I was paralysed, a rabbit in front of a stoat; before fear changed and spurred me to action. I managed to get to my feet as...

An interminable night

I could no longer see my hand before my face: I might as well have been blind. I thought of the miners, who had worked down here. At least they had had lanterns. But even...

Cornish pasties

Something touched my face. I was aware of light through my eyelids but would not open my eyes for fear of what I should see. A hand was lifting me. I could visualize it­ –...

Carmaliot will have an heir

The day-bed had been set up with its head against the wall, between the two high windows. Sir Donald lay with cushions propping him; beyond his bed on one side he could see his leather-topped desk, on the other a cheerful blaze in the hearth. On a chair at the foot of the bed sat Lady Bedivere. Of their two faces I saw the greater alteration in hers. The paralysis which had seized on Sir Donald had only graven more deeply the lines of immobile calm which had been his usual expression.

A land of perpetual sunshine

I had forgotten what good stories he told, as well: long and involved but so engrossing that I never wanted them to stop. This was one of my favourites, about a dog we had lost...