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published 1980; hardback 1980; paperback 1982, Bantam
Firelord is probably the most historically accurate of all the King Arthur fantasies I've read, yet it's no less a compelling fantasy for its air of realism. If there was such a person as Arthur, he was most certainly not a king, but a sixth-century war leader who carried the Roman title dux bellorum, "duke of battle." After the Romans deserted Britain, the Celtic tribes were beset by a new group of invaders, the Saxons. Arthur was revered through the centuries and made into a legend because he was able for a time to get the Celtic tribes, which if left to their own devices warred against each other, to band together against the Saxons.
Arthur doesn't become king by pulling a magical sword out of a stone; he becomes king by slaughtering the Saxons living in the midlands of Britain and driving them back to the fringes of the island. This deed, more of an extermination than a military campaign, is summed up by Godwin's Arthur in a searing image: "half a baby in a ditch." Firelord is not without its romantic moments, but none of them involve war.
Arthur himself is the product of a extramarital affair between Uther Pendragon, a chieftain of the Dobunni tribe, and Ygerna, niece of Ambrosius Aurelianus, successor to the responsibilities of the departed Roman overlords. Since he was a teenager, Arthur has been haunted by the figure of Merlin, a flashy spirit who shows him the future:
"See!" Merlin commanded.The two great loves of Arthur's life are as diametrically opposed as the two halves of his own mixed heritage. The queenly Guenevere, daughter of patrician Prince Cador, has been schooled in the ways of princes all her life. She is cool, calculating, and Arthur's match both in leadership and passion. Morgana, his first and deepest love, is a member of an ancient tribe of nomads who have been pushed off the best land by more recently arrived tribes that have the secrets of using iron and growing crops. Fierce Morgana is determined for her tribe, the Prydn, to survive at all costs.
Down the valley rode a golden-haired king on a great war-horse. Beside him the dragon standard swayed in the grasp of another man maddeningly familiar as the king himself, and behind them surged the shining hundreds. Not Vortigern, that king, but a young man whose gilded breastplate caught the sun and hurled it back at the sky while the valley and hills and my poor head rocked the the name they hailed.
My aching eyes bulged. "What -- what is it?"
Idly, Merlin produced three colored balls, red, white and green, tossing them aloft like a skilled juggler. "Only bright tomorrows you carved out of wishes and painted with dreams. See the horses, each a hand higher than the cavalry's ever known. See the men, how they ride. Such men ride for love, not Roman pay."
Guenevere and Morgana, together with other familiar legendary figures such as Bedivere, Lancelot, Trystan, Modred, and Gawain, form a splendid cast of larger-than-life characters. The central character, and the one who tells the story, is of course Arthur, who is rendered convincingly as a man who will do whatever is necessary to protect his people, even at the expense of his own morals, happiness, and loved ones. The reader gets to know this man, following him through all his adventures breathlessly until the inevitably tragic end, sympathizing with his losses and exulting in his triumphs. It's a bold, gritty, unforgettable tale.
Review by Sara Lipowitz
Reviewed February 2, 1997
ISBN 0-380-77551-4
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