He panted for silence as others do for air.

"Marvin trudged on down the corridor, still moaning. "...and then of course I've got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side..."
"No?" said Arthur grimly as he walked along beside him. "Really?"
"Oh yes," said Marvin, "I mean I've asked for them to be replaced but no one ever listens."
"I can imagine.

"How do you feel?" he asked him.
"Like a military academy," said Arthur. "Bits of me keep on passing out."

Arthur is no fit king. Uther's bastard, Merlin's pawn, he is lowborn and a fool. He is wanton and petty and cruel. A glutton and a drunkard, he lacks all civilized graces. In short, he is a sullen, ignorant brute.
All these things and more men say of Arthur. Let them. When all the words are spoken and the arguements fall exhausted into silence, this single fact remains: we would follow Arthur to the very gates of Hell and beyond if he asked it. And that is the solitary truth.
Show me another who can claim such loyalty.

The moan of the wind grew loud, and it filled him with dread. For the rest of his life it would be for him the particular sound of anguish.

Arthur!' I cried, but my voice was lost in the battle roar. The seething waters of the enemy host closed over the place where he had been.

And so he mourned as he moved about the world, deserted and alone, lamenting his unhappiness day and night, until death's flood brimmed up in his heart.

Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.

No trembling harp, no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk swerving through the hall, no swift horse pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter have emptied the earth of entire peoples. And so he mourned as he moved about the world, deserted and alone, lamenting his unhappiness day and night, until death's flood brimmed up in his heart.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.

I sit, and moan,
Like one who once had wings.

And then he felt the misery of his life.

Richard II’s famous lament: “I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, / How can you say to me, I am a king?”18

And then, just as I begin to raise my sword to cleave a path to Arthur's side, there comes a sound like a tempest wind - the blast of a mighty sea gale. Men fall back, suddenly afraid. They cover their heads with their arms and peer into the darkness above. What is it? Is the roof falling? The sky?
The strange sound subsides and they glance at one another in fear and awe. Merlin is there. The Emrys is standing calmly beside Arthur. His hands are empty and upraised, his face stern in the unnatural silence he has created . . .