Book
Sword at Sunset
First published 1963
Post-Roman Britain. Artos, the illegitimate son of Uther and nephew of Ambrosius, is trained as a cavalry commander in the long struggle to contain Saxon expansion. He gathers a mobile brotherhood of Companions and attempts to preserve the order, law and military knowledge inherited from Rome while working among rival British kingdoms.
Victory cannot resolve the tensions within Artos’s household or the political fragility of the alliance he leads. His marriage to Guenhumara, bond with Bedwyr and conflict with Medraut drive the story towards civil division and Camlann. Sutcliff strips away much of Camelot’s later splendour to imagine the historical conditions from which Arthurian legend might have grown, presenting Artos as a commander whose achievement is real but temporary.
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