LOCKSLEY IS COMING TO AN END...

And is it goes behind the PAYWALL, I tell you what I have in store for the future, and where it is going.

This is the TABLE OF CONTENTS for my serial Novel THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY.

The reason I’m putting this up here is so that you can read it for yourself and see where the story is going. I have TWO posts remaining, and then PART ONE will be finished. After that, the story goes up behind the PAYWALL. There will be no little pieces to tease readers into signing up. You’ve either read it and want to continue, at the dirt cheap, rock bottom price of $6 for the year, or a couple of bucks a month, or you haven’t. If you haven’t signed up yet, the price will be going back up to its regularly posted price of $30 for the year, or $10 per month.

What is the story about?

I’m glad you asked. It’s the story of a young Knight during the “end years” of Camelot. Locksley, Prince of Ivanore, Knight of the Field, Knight of Inverness Beyond-the-Wall, is on his way to Camelot, hoping to participate in the Tournament of Youth — his first — since taking part in the final battle of The War Of The Twelve Kings, where he saves King’s Pellinore’s life and is Knighted as a result. (Before this he served as Sir Gurmmer’s Squire.) The truth of that battle will come out, and the results of that story will influence the rest of the tale.

On the way to Camelot with his uncle, Sir Grummer, as well the his two Men-at-Arms, Geoffrey and Godfrey, together known as The Boys, they come across Ector deMaris — the half-brother of Sir Lancelot — camped out in a field. Together, the three Knights make their way South, toward Camelot, when they stop in at the Inn of The Red Lion. It is here, at The Red Lion, that LOCKSLEY takes on Brennis as his Squire, and Grummer and Ector deMaris are attacked by the Orkney Knights and taken hostage for some unknown reason. (Locksley, at the time, being the new kid on the block, has been given first choice with the whores and is upstairs in a room as the Orkneys attack.) Grummer sneaks up the stairs and locks Locksley in the room. The two Knights are taken to Turquin’s Keep — Turquin being a Knight known to trap other Knights and sell them off to the Gaelic Celts coming over from Gaul, who then sell them to Arab slave dealers.

Locksley, Brennis, and The Boys, come across Lamorak deGales who makes a point of traveling with them. As they travel, they discover the Queen is on the trail in search of Lancelot who has left Court and is roaming about the countryside. With the Queen are also Sir Tristan, who is escorting his uncle’s new wife, Isoude, back to Cornwall, and King Pellinore, Lamorak’s father.

Are you with me so far?

Pellinore (the man our hero Locksley saved during the final Battle of The War of The Twelve Kings — and the man who made him a Knight), is traveling with his daughter, and his niece (Miriam and Gwenellyn) to Camelot in order to find suitable husbands for them; along with them, Tristan and Isoude, are with the Queen as she searches for Lancelot.

Locksley, and Lamorak are setting out to rescue Ector deMaris and Grummer. They come across Palomides, a Saracen Knight who rides a camel, as well as his Squire who also has a camel. Locksley, upon hearing the Queen has riders with her, approaches and hopes to get help. Unfortunately, Pellinore has suffered from a stroke, so everything is somewhat disrupted and chaotic. The Queen tells him he’s on his own. Pellinore’s daughter, Miriam, dubs him as The Beggar’s Knave, as Grummer has long been known as The Beggar Knight.

Locksley leaves, and the next day they run into Lancelot. He’s looking for his nephew, Lionel, when he discovers that Grummer, and his half-brother Ector deMaris, have been taken captive. He promises to help.

That almost sets us up for the big showdown and the end of part one. But first, with Pellinore now unable to issue commands, Miriam takes over and they pack up camp to follow the Queen. As the camp is being taken down, Miriam goes into the woods where there is a hot spring and the camp is attacked by Gaelic Celts under the command of Accolon…who just happens to be one of the lovers of the Queen, Moragna LeFey. Her other lover also happens to be Sir Turquin.

Accolon attacks Pellinore’s camp, but they remaining soldiers and Huntsmn as able to fend them off. They cannot, however, prevent the abduction of Gwenellyn. She, along with several of the camp Followers (read Whores, here) ar brought to Turquin’s Keep, where the Queen Moragna Le Fey is with her lover, Sir Turquin.

Turquin kills Accolon, the Gaul, as well as his mercenaries in what can only be considered a ruthless double-cross.

Gwenellyn, as a witness to this crime, is now cast into the dungeons with other women, waiting to be sold into slavery.

Locksley and Brennis break into the Keep as Lamorak and Lancelot attack the Keep and face Turquin and his own Mercenaries. Locksley is captured and cast into the cell just as he opens the door to Gwenellyn’s cell. Turquin is killed by Lancelot. Lamorak sets into battle against the failing mercenaries as Morgana sets the Keep on fire in order to make her escape.

Locksley uses his sword to break down the door, but breaks his sword as he does. He manages to rescue (the Princess) Gwenellyn, and comes across Brennis who has rescued all of the other captive women, as well as the Knights locked up with Grummer and Ector deMaris.

They are all reunited and set of for Camelot. Locksley, however, is smitten with the young princess (Lamorak’s Cousin), and swears to wed the girl as soon as possible.

That is the gist of it. It is an endless rollicking adventure — oh yeah, did I tell you that the Orkney Knights attack the camp and The Boys are sorely wounded? No? Well, the Orkney Knights attack the Camp and The Boys, (Godfrey and Geoffrey), are sorely wounded.

And that, in a nutshell, is PART ONE.

All of that is up for you to read, for FREE. It will stay up as FREE, while I put up PART TWO, which will NOT be free. PART TWO is going up behind the PAYWALL. Part two is The Tournament of Youth.

And what makes my King Arthur story different from all the rest?

I’ve gone back to the source for my story. I am using Sir Thomas Mallory’s LE MORTE D’ARTHUR as my only reference book. I’m using CHAP GPT for my research. Let me explain CHAP GPT to you. It’s AI, sure, I get that, but it’s what you want as a research tool. I’ll give you an example. I wanted to know what they used as windows back in the 5th Century, so wrote the question: What did they use in place of glass for windows? It gave me three answers. One was leather hide. and the one that struck me as the coolest, was HORN. They took the horn of cattle, or oxen, soaked them, and when they became soft, cut them down the middle and opened them up. Then they soaked them again, and laid them out to flatten them. Then they shaved them so that they became thin, and almost translucent. You couldn’t see through them, but the light was able to penetrate. It’s worlds away from Googling a question. Instead of being sent to a web sight, it simply tells you the answer you’re looking for. Do you want to know the names of the different parts of armour they wore? They didn’t wear armour. They wore chain mail. You see?

I don’t use it for plotting, or editing, or writing. It’s the greatest research tool I’ve ever seen. I love it.

How many parts are there for the story, if this is only PART ONE?

PART TWO, is THE TOURNAMENT OF YOUTH. Locksley has to gather up his ‘armour’, as it was all lost during the rescue of Gwenellyn from Turquin’s Keep. His horse has been crippled and has to be put down because one of the Orkney Knights did something dastardly. (Can’t tell ya, that would spoil it.)

PART THREE is THE BOOK OF LAMORAK DeGALES, which follows our hero on a quest and includes a single chapter broken into ten parts, each subtitled. It’s so cool, and comes in at about forty pages.

PART FOUR is THE PAPAL DECREE wherein the Pope declares war on the fledgling Camelot.

PART FIVE is Locksley’s Quest…

And that brings about the end of the story.

How long is this going to be?

That’s the interesting part, isn’t it? I don’t have a plot, and I don’t think too much about that. I have a Table Of Contents that I use, and while the titles of the chapters guide me through the story, a lot of what the titles tell us, don’t give a lot away. I have page numbers. The numbers in Italics are guesses as to how long the chapters are going to be, and I try to stick to it. Chapters range anywhere from 7-10 pages. Some are longer.

There are only 26 PAID subscribers, and I have a question for you…

Do you care as to how long the chapters are? Do you want the chapters broken into sections? That would make it three or sometimes four weeks to read a chapter. Once this goes up, it will be returning to the once a week format of Wednesday postings. I can put a chapter up for every week, which is not an inconvenience for me at all. If I break the chapters up, it will just take longer to read the whole story. As of this moment, I am writing CHAPTER 25. That’s the second chapter of PART THREE. It doesn’t look like I’m going to have a lot of readers here. No one wants to take me up on the Sizzling Summer Sale (well, a few did, but not as many as I thought would.) They say no one wants to pay for fiction and that pretty well proved it, didn’t it? People are willing to read my stuff for free, but draw the line when it comes time to pay for it…even at $30 for the year…which is about 8¢ a day, or $6 for the year, which is ridiculous!

Well, it is what it is, right? In the meantime, I’m writing this and LOVIN’ it! I mean, everything is moving along swimmingly. I’m looking to make this either three, or five books. I have Modred — he’s the BAD guy so there’s no spoiler there if you know your Arthurian history (everyone knows that, right?) — and you’ll be able to see him as he conspires against the King.

Hopefully, we’ll get more readers here. Hopefully, when I finish this, I’ll have enough PAID readers that I can self-publish/print this up and send everyone a copy. There are so many printers out there that it really is simple. I just need the money to get that done, and that comes from PAID Subscribers.

So after tomorrow’s chapter, we’ll have one more left. That’s when the Sizzlin’ Summer Sale ends, (85% off) and the price of $6/year, goes back up to the regular $30 for the year, and $10/month instead of the $2.75 ‘ish.

And I’m going to post the TABLE OF CONTENTS, so you can see how it’s progressing.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

    i

      IN THE BEGINNING page     8

          ii 

      SOME YEARS AFTER page     14

          PART ONE

THE BEGGAR’S KNAVE

  CHAPTER ONE page   21

ON THE ROAD TO CAMELOT

CHAPTER TWO page   30     

AT THE INN OF THE RED LION

CHAPTER THREE page 37

THE ORKNEY KNIGHTS

CHAPTER FOUR 

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT page   42

i   THE LADY GWENELLYN page 44

ii  IN THE CAMP OF THE QUEEN page   48

iii THE QUEEN’S BREAKFAST page   52

iv KING PELLINORE’S TALE page 57

v THE BEGGAR’S KNAVE page 61

CHAPTER FIVE page 65

OF PLOTS DEVIZED AND DEEDS

DONE IN THE DARK

CHAPTER SIX page 74

THE MORNING OF THE NEXT DAY

CHAPTER SEVEN page 80

THE BRIDGE AT HOLLYBOURNE

CHAPTER EIGHT page 87

PALOMIDES, THE PAGAN KNIGHT

CHAPTER NINE page 95

THE KNIGHT’S SQUIRE

CHAPTER TEN page 102

THE CASTLE IS A KEEP

CHAPTER ELEVEN page 113

CAPTIVES

CHAPTER TWELVE page 124

THE QUEEN MORGANA LeFAY

CHAPTER THIRTEEN page 131

THE LADY GWENELLYN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN page 143

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

    PART TWO

      THE TOURNAMENT OF YOUTH

CHAPTER FIFTEEN page 155

CAMELOT-A-MAYING; OR THE FLAG OF

THE FLAGONNED ALE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN page   165

IN THE QUEEN’S BEDCHAMBER

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN page   175

OF THE TABLE ROUND AND

SIR BEDIVERE’S PLOY

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN page    184

A  LADY IN SEARCH OF A HERO

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A KNIGHT’S QUEST FOR ARMOUR page   196

i HIS HORSE page      201

ii HIS DOUBLET page   203

        iii HIS SHIELD page   206

        iv HIS SWORD page      209

CHAPTER TWENTY page      213

THE KNIGHT OF THE ROSE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE page     220

THE SPEAR AND SHIELD

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO page       227

THE SWORD

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE page       234

THE GARTER OF PEARLS; OR, THE KING’S BOON

PART THREE

THE BOOK OF LAMORAK DeGALES

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR page     242

THE QUEST OF LAMORAK DeGALES

i THE LADY OF THE ROCK page       246

ii THE MANY LOVES OF SIR     GRUMMER GRUMMORSON page       249

iii DECEPTION AND ESCAPE page       253

iv THE HUNTSMAN page       258

v  THE RECLUSE page     262

vi THE KNIGHTS AT THE TAVERN page     266

  vii THE QUEEN’S LONG SHADOW page     269

  viii THE KNIGHT AT THE STREAM page     273

ix A SECOND CHANCE page     276

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE page     281

THE KNIGHT AT INNMAN’S TAVERN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX page     284

THE REVENGE OF SIR AGRAVIANNE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN page     292

THE AMBASSADOR OF ROME

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT page     300

THE FORTNIGHT’S END

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE page     312

A KNIGHT OF THE ROUND TABLE

CHAPTER THIRTY page     321

THE QUEEN’S RIDE

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE page     332

THE KNIGHTS OF BATH

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO page     341

THE YOUNG KNIGHT PLAYS HIS ROLE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE page     353

IN THE SHADOW OF MORGANNA LeFAY

PART  FOUR

      THE PAPAL DECREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE ROMAN WAR page     360

i A CALL TO ARMS page     364

ii THE BATTLE AT CANTERBURY page     367

iii THE BATTLE CONTINUES; THE SECOND DAY page     370

iv LOCKSLEY’S CAPTURE page     375

v HOW LAMORACK FARED, AND THE PROWESS

OF SIR GAWAIN page     379

vi LOCKSLEY’S ESCAPE page     382

vii PEACE page     386

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE page     390

TWO LOVERS REUNITED

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX page     401

THE SUMMER OF LOVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN page     411

SIR LANCELOT’S QUEST FOR ADVENTURE

CHAPTER THRITY-EIGHT page   421

THE RETURN OF SIR LAMORACK DeGALES

      PART FIVE

LOCKSLEY’S QUEST

CHAPTER THRITY-NINE page   432

THE SEARCH FOR SIR LANCELOT

CHAPTER FORTY page   443

QUEEN MORGANNA LeFAY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE page     453

THE ABDUCTION           

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO page     462

LOCKSLEY’S QUEST

I    BEAUMANIS page     465

II    THE CASTLE AND THE DAMSEL page     469

III   THE KNIGHT THAT CHALLENGED page     473

 IV   THE JOUST FOR THE LADY page     477

  V    BEAUMANIS RETURNS page     480

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE page     483

A KNIGHT WINS HIS VENGEANCE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR page     495

SIR LAMORACK FOLLOWS THE QUEEN 

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE page     503

THE KNIGHT AT THE BRIDGE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX page   512

THE KNIGHT ON THE PLAIN

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN page     523

AT THE CASTLE OF MORGANNA LeFAY

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT page     534

CAPTIVES         

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE page     545

SIR LAMORACK DeGALES IS FORCED TO ACT

CHAPTER FIFTY page     552

THE TELL-TALE HEART; OR THE KNIGHT

IN THE DUNGEON

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE page     567

TRAGEDY AND DEATH

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO page     576

THE UNHAPPY RETURN; OR

THE WINTER SOLSTICE

Afterword (This is part of the book, too.)

Hopefully, I’ll have all of this written by the end of this year. Then I can go back and make more edits, and maybe shop it around to publishers. Who knows, it might sell? I know a guy who had a book in his files and thought he’d send it off on a whim, and now he’s a best selling author with about eight or nine books out. (I won’t say his name because I try not to be a name dropper, but he’s a pretty big deal.)

So sign up if you haven’t already, or wait until the book comes out after I finish it, and buy it in the book store. Whatever works!