THE SHIELD OF LOCKSLEY

CHAPTER 26 This is THE REVENGE OF SIR AGRAVAIN. He's not exactly the nicest guy you want to meet, because he holds a grudge

John Cleese

I’m just going to warn you right out of the gate, that this is paywalled…

(as if you didn’t already know that.)

I finished writing the actual novel, about two, maybe three weeks ago. I wasn’t planning to finish it that soon; I wanted to drag it out. But I wanted to drag it out because I was enjoying the story as well. It might sound strange, me saying that, but I didn’t have a plot for the story, and didn’t know where it was going. I wrote things I wasn’t expecting to, and they surprised me when I did. I knew from the very first page (spoiler alert if you don’t know anything about the Arthurian Legend) that is: Sir Lamorak was going to die. It’s sort of the whole point of the story.

It’s in the Book by Mallory!

It’s not a big shock. The things that are a shock were just as much a shock to me, as they will be to the reader. And we’ll leave it at that, because I don’t want to give it all away. But there are major characters in the story who die. The only reason it could be considered a spoiler is because you haven’t read the story and think that this story is a fair interpretation of it. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that; it isn’t.

I can tell you who lives though…

Sir Bedivere is the first made Knight and last, according to Tennyson. So, I guess it’s safe to assume I have to let him live. And Sir Grummer has to live because I wrote a story about him already. It’s in the Archives: IN DAYS OF VAST DARING, in which I explained WHY he survived that last big BATTLE. It’s a no-brainer, he wasn’t there. Pretty simple, right? You can’t die if you’re not there. But that leaves Locksley. I don’t know if he lives or dies yet. I’ll have to write another book to sort that out, won’t I?

I’m already thinking about it, and I’m thinking that it should be about Sir Tristan, because he dies in Mallory’s story as well. And if there’s a third, it will have to end with the death of Sir Gawain. Three of the greatest knights of Arthurian legend, all die in one of the greatest stories about that mythical time. It’s all right there in black and white. You can find it all on line. The secret is to write a story around the other story. Like, the fact that Palomides and Tristan are enemies, at first. What would cause that? Something I have to dive into, and happily.

And what about all those other little stories? The Holy Grail for instance? Not too little, I know, but it has Galahad and Percival (Lamorak’s brother), and Bors as well, which can also reintroduce Luicus, (called Lucy,) the brother of Bedivere, and suffering from Dementia. I’m thinking that will all have to be tied up with Tristan’s story in the Second volume. As for a title, I’m playing with ideas. Since this is The SHIELD of Locksley, the next one might be The SWORD of Tristan, or something like that? It’s still up in the air; I still have to think out the story.

This story ended up at 253, 500 words. Which works out to be 746 pages at 340 words per page. It’ll probably end up longer, because I’m trying to edit it for continuity, and I seem to be adding a word here and there, rather than taking them out. I’m not too worried about word count though, because if I publish this, it’ll probably have to be self-published. No publisher is going to take a chance on a book of this size, by an unknown writer. No agent would take me on hoping to sell it as one book. And do you know what? I don’t have a problem with that. I’m hoping that Substack will become my publisher of choice, in whatever way they come up with. Putting this up as a serial novel and having the freedom to write it the way I feel it should be, is more freedom than I could have hoped for when I first came up with the idea 50 years ago.

Yes. I thought of this story when I was a teenager. I found the notebook I had it in, and fifty pages of hand-written story at the time. I didn’t keep those pages, but I kept the Table of Contents and used it as my “story/guide.” Plot points I guess you’d call them. Whatever the title of the Chapter was, I followed it, not knowing where it would lead me. I discovered the sectioned chapters and wondered how those were going to work for me. I think it worked out pretty good, in that it broke up a long chapter into sizeable chunks. But not knowing where the story’s going is a great way to write a story. They call it “writing by the seat of your pants.” The writer doesn’t know where the story’s going, and just tries to hold on and follow the characters and wherever they lead him. It reminds me of when I was a kid and used to make up stories to tell my brother when we had to go to bed. There was a short period of time when our bedtimes overlapped and we had to go to bed at the same time. It didn’t last long, but I’ve been telling myself stories ever since.

But the thing I enjoyed writing into the story, was the political machinations. The dealing with a Church fighting for a place in “Barbarian Briton” by resorting to subterfuge and treason, fits right into a story like this. It’s a violent time, and the Papal See trying to carve out a piece of the pie now that the Romans have left, isn’t that hard to believe. Knights were often sworn to God. Percival and Galahad are such men. So is Bors. It’s something I’ll want to follow up with. Modred will use all of this time to form his army of Pagans from Beyond-the-Wall. Arthur will have to mount an attack on Lancelot to free the Queen. Because we all know that’s what happens. It’s not a spoiler if I tell you that there’s a major war at the end of the story and that’s where everyone dies. Gawain, Arthur, and Modred; Percival and Galahad. I mean, talk about your Greek Tragedy.

The question I have is the time frame. A part of me wants it documented over a period of months, while another is thinking one week. Don’t see how that would work, but it does sound interesting, as much as it does challenging.

Okay. Enough now. It’s time to get to the story. If you want to read it, Up-grade.