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King Arthur’s Knights had been the first book Arthur had read late at night under the covers with a torch, long after he was supposed to have been asleep. It was the first book that took him completely out of himself, of his room, of his home and his hometown to a place that seemed both mythical and real, a place where magic was ordinary and heroes were plenteous. It was, he supposed, thinking back on it, the first book that showed him what reading was really all about.
At first Arthur had been drawn to the adventure in the stories—knights battling other knights, the king holding tournaments at Camelot. Then in his teenage years, the love stories began to be favorites—the great Sir Lancelot’s tragic love for Queen Guinevere, Tristram and Isoude drinking a love potion even while he was supposed to be wooing her on behalf of another. But the Grail stories had been a constant source of fascination. In the version of Malory Arthur read as a boy, the story of the Grail was wonderfully vague, never explicitly stating what the Grail was or why Arthur and his knights were so determined to find it. It was unclear who possessed the Grail or why or what they did with it or even whether it was real or just a vision. Arthur had grown to love the mysterious nature of the Grail, but as a child it had fascinated and frustrated him in equal parts.

“What is the Grail?” Arthur had asked his grandfather the night after his first visit to the cathedral library as his grandfather read to him from an abridged version of Malory.

The popular legend of the Grail, his grandfather told him, was simple—the cup from which Christ served the wine at the Last Supper was taken by Joseph of Arimathea to the island of Britain. Arriving near what is now Glastonbury, Joseph pushed his staff into the ground and it flowered into a bush known as the Glastonbury Thorn. Joseph later buried the Grail under a nearby hill—the Glastonbury Tor—and a torrent of clean, fresh water sprang forth and flows from the spot to this very day. Centuries later, knights of King Arthur’s Round Table sought the Grail—a symbol of purity and perfection. In some versions of the tale, the Glastonbury Tor is also the Isle of Avalon, Arthur’s mysterious final resting place. In the late twelfth century, monks of Glastonbury claimed to have found the graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, but no one ever found the Grail. Arthur might have thought the story of the Grail no more than a mysterious legend of a magical cup with healing powers— as fascinating, and as fictional, as Tolkien’s One Ring. But the first time his grandfather read him the Grail story from Malory, he laid the book aside and looked Arthur in the eyes.

“King Arthur, and Merlin, and Lancelot, and all the rest—in all likelihood they are only stories. But the Grail, Arthur—the Grail was real. The Grail is real. And I’m going to tell you a secret—a secret you must promise to share with no one.”

“I promise,” said Arthur breathlessly.

“I believe that the Grail is right here in Barchester.”

Arthur loved no one in the world more than his grandfather, and that kindly man rarely spoke as seriously as he did now.

“I’m getting too old for adventures,” said his grandfather, “but you have your whole life ahead of you. You must be the one to find the Grail. And you must keep it secret.”

“But why does it have to be a secret?” said Arthur.

“Do you trust me?” said his grandfather.

“Yes,” said the boy.

“Then you must believe. Someday you will understand. You will understand what the Grail is and where it is and why it must be kept a secret, but for now all you have to do is believe in it. Do you, Arthur? Do you believe in the Grail?”

And Arthur’s response had been absolutely instinctual. Staring into the deep blue of his grandfather’s eyes he had spoken without the slightest shadow of doubt.

“I do.”