The year is 1199, the place the Welsh Marches. Young Arthur de Caldicot is given a shining stone in which his legendary namesake is revealed. In 100 short chapters that brilliantly evoke life in a medieval manor, stories of the boy King Arthur begin to echo and anticipate the secrets and mysteries that emerge in his own life. " as bright and as vivid as the pictures in a Book of Hours. Deep scholarship, high imagination, and great gifts of storytelling have gone into this; I was spellbound.' Philip Pullman, The Guardian 'instantly evokes T H White's The Once and Future King in blending the pastoral idyll of a medieval manor with the myths of King Arthur. There the similarity ends ' this is truly a crossover book, settling in the interesting space between children's and adult fiction.' The Times