It took them a long time, for the swords were unhandy spades, and Marius and the others sought to make the hole a deep one. Then they pulled fresh reeds from the shore, and leaves, which, when crushed in their soil-grimed hands, gave forth clean smells. Artos found a bed of small flowers by the temple and jerked them up. From these they made the bed of him who was the last Caesar of Britain. Then, well wrapped in his war banner, Artos Pendragon, the High King, was laid in his hidden grave.

They worked long once more to fill in and cover the place. When they had done and were ready to go, Artos suddenly saw the King’s sword lying where his father had dropped it. That should have been buried, too, in the hand of its owner.

He held it out to his father in mute question. Marius took it with a sigh, ran his hand along the scarred, notched blade.

“It is too well known. So it must also disappear. For no man would believe that Caesar would willingly let it go from him.”

He went down to the river bank and whirled it above his head with all the force left in his tired arms, letting it fly out over the water and splash into the dark flood. So it was gone, the last tie they had with Artos Pendragon, Dux Bellorum, Caesar, High King of Britain. And the sun went down.

5

Shui Mien Lung—
Slumbering Dragon

Artie rubbed his eyes with one hand. They smarted with tears, his cheeks were also wet. But there was no river, no trees, no temple with three goddesses left to watch over a hidden grave. He blinked and blinked again. He was not Artos—but Artie, Artie Jones. And he was sitting in a chair beside a table. A beam of sun shone straight on the bright red dragon he had pieced together, joined with the silver and the blue ones. It was the dragon of the banner, the one in which they had wrapped him. Artie smeared his hand across his face again and sniffed hard.

He was crying! Like a little kid! But—the dream—it had been so real! He felt as if he were still on that shore ready to get into the boat, to go back to the camp of what was left of the army. What had happened afterward?

King Arthur—they had read about King Arthur in school. But those had been stories about knights, and the Round table, and—not like this Arthur at all! He wanted to know what did happen to Artos, Marius, the rest. Did anyone ever discover that the High King was dead? Or did they keep on fighting and hoping that he would come back to lead them? Something in Artie was firm in the belief that it had really happened, all of it—the treachery of Modred, the death of Pendragon, the secret burial.