In this epic novel, Allan Massie cleverly uses the key points of the Arthurian legend - Arthur himself, his wife Guinevere, his lover Morgan le Fay, Merlin, the sword Excalibur, and the Knights of the Round Table - but readers would need to be exceptionally well versed in Arthurian lore to tell where Massie has added his own inventive twists to the tale. From the moment when callow young Arthur succeeds in drawing the sword Excalibur from the stone, thus becoming King, the story unfolds. We see how, with the aid of Merlin and the knights, Arthur welded England into a single nation, and became involved in the wars of a wider Europe, until at his death England fragmented once again. We may think we know the story of Arthur and of Camelot, but in Massie's hands it comes across as newly minted.