The Lion of Camelot: Camelot Chronicles Volume 2

By Robert Murray

There is a newly crowned King of Camelot: grandson of Arthur, son of Mordred. Now that peace is possible, the dynasty must prove it can deliver the promise of ideal justice associated with the name of Camelot. Can the new king’s rule withstand the weight of his origin, and will his nascent reign be accepted as legitimate? Can Guinevere transition from the life of monarch to a role on the periphery?

Sequel to The Aftermath of the King and written in high verse just the same, venture into the vortex in pursuit of the fabled Excalibur, possession of all rightful Pendragon Kings. The culmination of all civilization has arrived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662456596

Book preview

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The Lion of Camelot

Camelot Chronicles Volume 2

Robert Murray

Copyright © 2022 Robert Murray

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-5658-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-5659-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

About the Author

Introduction

…And His disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must come first?"

And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Elias, truly shall first come and restore all things.

But I say unto you, That Elias is come already,"

—Matthew 17:10–11

I read the above lines and my imagination independently created a king; the need to reveal him was irresistible. I was immediately inspired to write the sequel. I became even further and more unshakably certain that the divine’s hand, or at least a mighty finger, was involved in the project. I did not know Elias was a biblical name when I chose it in part one, just as I did not know when I set out on The Brothers Karamazov aiding the redeemed Queen Guinevere on some epic quest, that the taciturn, cardboard cutout of a Christian knight would end up being the heir apparent. Once I fully appreciated the importance of who we choose to present to our children as heroes, I saw the necessity of telling this king’s tale. I had been pep talking myself that I was Hal turned Henry V, no more with the idiotic Jack Falstaff in his ear all day, and fully actualized as a great man and worthy leader. This is what I try to capture for Elias turned king in Part II. Our heroes need a god, not flawed and petty like our current perception of the Greek gods atop Olympus, but utterly perfect so that our practitioners may strive to improve themselves into that image.

I’m six years older than I was when I penned Part I, literally penned. I now write immediately on a computer, for I believe it would have saved me at least a year on production time, working only part-time on the project as a warehouse worker. I also practice (like a Platonic guardian) music and gymnastics, balancing the forces within myself, not becoming frail nor uncouth. To avoid confusion with what gymnastics are, I could use a categorization from Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf, where the narrator divides his being into two parts: man and wolf. Everything that is refined or cultivated he subscribes to the man, and everything instinctive he calls wolf. Studying music means working on the man, whereas practicing gymnastics means feeding the wolf. In this way, reading Jane Austen novels can be considered studying music, and I must credit her with remaining capable of presenting myself as a civilized Homo sapien. Gymnastics certainly includes physical exercise but is not necessarily limited to working out.

Hermann Hesse could be likened by a scathing critic to a Victor Frankenstein, piecing together his chimeras. True, an animal never existed with the head of a lion, the legs of a goat, and the tail of a snake, but each of those parts exists in nature, no element was created. Hesse did have great taste, could tell a love story, and employ a great many settings in terms of time and space. He figured out how to synthesize that amorous pathos Goethe first distilled for the masses, though in such a formulaic fashion. At least Hesse’s protagonists don’t end in suicide, and I’m indebted to him for leading me to great artists, including the oft mentioned Dostoevsky. Here he is mentioned for his intelligible division of humanity’s psychological sectors that separate love and strife to use the words of Empedocles, or war and peace to use those of Tolstoy.

Seeking examples of men who balance the forces within themselves, I often turn to English gentlemen: men capable of winning a war and making a just peace, to echo Winston Churchill. Men who can fence, joust, dance and write poetry—these are the historical figures I most admire. To exceed them one must turn to the religious figures to whom in comparison, no mere man is great.

My life turned around when I began identifying with the English, as opposed to the Scottish portion of my genetic anomaly. I have since learned to see the conflict merely as a transitory civil war between family members, since in 2021, with Queen Elizabeth II still on the throne, there is no schism. When I wrote the introduction to the first installment of Camelot Chronicles, Aftermath of the King, I never imagined the book would see the light of day while the longest reign in British history yet persisted, but I am delighted on both accounts that it has achieved more of an audience already than I expected to reach so soon, and that Elizabeth II still rides a pony last I’ve heard. Long live the queen. I happened upon the third and final volume of a biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm, in Spring City, Pennsylvania. I never identified so much with a group of people in a given moment than Britain during the outbreak of World War II, alone facing impossible odds against a merciless and scientifically advanced enemy. The Nazis sent one thousand planes a night to terrorize the island with no regard for civilian life. I saw my enemies in much the same light. Reading this book was a eureka moment and led to an immersion in British culture that spawned a Camelot universe for Robert Murray to finally have creative control. Strangely much is accidental.

I have done a great amount of reading; biography and women’s novels are two genres I wish I had become immersed in at an earlier age. I should have known more history by my late teens. I did get to read many splendid novels, but characters from the Napoleonic age should not have been so mysterious to me for so long. I wish I had read Jane Austen instead of Herman Hesse before college, I would have been a better man earlier in life. She teaches the essence of a gentleman in her male heroes, but more important is her moral instruction; Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women comes to mind on that front as well. Through the character of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Jane Austen presents the solution to resentful feelings of disappointed love. She prays for the happiness of Edmund, even though he is pursuing a woman she knows to be careless, if not wicked. This is the secret to setting yourself free and is among the most valuable things I have learned from a book. Perhaps the most important sentence I happened upon as if by divination. It stated that to attain arcane and mystical power, one must turn to God with pure intentions. This did not sound like witchcraft to me, but rather the business of performing miracles as a child of God.

Karl Marx would not agree that our children should be taught Christian religion, he would deprive us of what he called our opiate. In his mind, a religious believer would never struggle with all their might for the sake of this world because Christians especially believe they will get all they desire in heaven. There is an old saying that there are no atheists in fox holes, and that is more likely to be because they have all run away, rather than converted to immediate religious belief in the presence of approaching death. Atheists believe only in this world, and therefore will accept life no matter how oppressed and wretched, rather than risking what they perceive as their only existence. There is an old saying, Yeah, and Communism works in theory. Well, a similar attitude should be applied to Karl Marx’s mode of thought on religion.

If we wish our society to endure beyond ourselves, we must ensure that the youth is inspired by the proper tales, otherwise they will confuse virtue with vice. Monogamy, true love between two equally enamored partners, must be prized over cavalier dalliances, or children will grow up already set on a course of dissolution, risk, and emotional dissatisfaction. If we preach pure pacifism and convince our children to allow themselves and their fellows to be violated rather than violently defy, they will not be able to survive a severe external threat.

Related to our future guardians’ need for monotheism is the necessity of a certainty that there is the eternal ecstasy of heaven waiting for them after death, so long as they do their duty, for this will spur them on to refuse surrender and servitude. They will fight until they can fight no more in the event that battle is necessary; meaning they face an enemy who cannot be reasoned with. The freedom of choice their God provides lets the heroes cherish their liberty, making them vehemently deny any rule from without. Our characters serve the monarch of Camelot, for that sovereign is righteous God’s emissary on earth, endowed with all the same responsibilities. Spirituality is immediate to these true believers, they experience it every time they pray, calling on God to shield them from anxiety.

I stayed with the same rhyme scheme; Domino Rhyme from John Keats discussed in volume one (ABC-ABC). It must always be mentioned that I seek to practice poly rhyme—writing lines that also contain interior repetitions of like sounds. The work does not begin in Domino Rhyme, nor should it, for those looking for the music of poetry would disregard the work by the end of the third line if there was not a rhyme yet to be had. The form of The Lion of Camelot is much like the first volume, except eventually arises a new sense of meter. That is one part of the puzzle that yet eludes me. I am what John Milton would have considered a jingler of syllables, and actually quite anti-poetic, for it is meter, not rhyme, that denotes verse. I originally rhymed over beats; in music, the meter is often dictated by the rhythmic structure. Like Socrates I must refer you to Damon for a better explanation, for I have but an intuitive understanding. There can be natural breaks in your vocal delivery in music and a new instrumental can vary your speech pattern and, of course, tempo. People said I could ride a beat. I am proud of my mixtapes, lyrically, I will put them on a level with any LP in the aughts as I laugh at my detractors. I still find my budget comical as compared to industry acts. A kid from Klecknersville, Pennsylvania, got that production and figured out that many tricks of the craft. I’m inspired by what I did in my twenties. In music, I was offered a distribution deal but turned it down because I thought it would be an endless expenditure, and it would have been, but I should have realized that the industry, like life, is a war of attrition. I should have put my mixtape in stores and made another one and just pushed forever. You can’t expect to be ordained a genius overnight and have riches bestowed upon you. I reviewed my life experiences and decided to commit to projects that require no one but myself.

I told myself right before I got my first publishing deal that now