Kevin Crossley-Holland's award-winning Arthur trilogy comes to its triumphant and moving close -- now in paperback!Arthur de Caldicot waits eagerly in Venice for the start of the Fourth Crusade. But it's now, when Arthur's future should be clearest, that he feels the most doubt. Jealousies and greed threaten the Crusade, leading him to question its true mission. Back in England, his engagement to Winnie remains uncertain, as his search for his birth mother is stymied by his vicious father. And his seeing stone shows him the last days of King Arthur's court -- a great dream destroyed, but also a glorious legend rising from the ruins. Likewise in this book, Arthur becomes a man worthy of his kingly name.

Explores the policy of pacification after the accession of James I to the throne of England and his utilization of the largely co-operative Borders elite.