The Fourth King: The action-packed retelling of the Christian legend of the Three Kings by Edward JF Parry
On an ancient Island a powerful but lonely old king grieves his beloved wife.
Meanwhile, his likeable teenage grandson is on a journey of self
discovery as he approaches manhood.
But something is wrong.
The truth will shatter his world
Then the King is called to make a journey of his own, a task he cannot refuse. His grandson follows secretly to a destination that will change both their lives – and the history of the world.
BOOK EXCERPT
Chapter One Cormac, Son of Artur
My father died before I was born. I didn’t know how. There was a
strange silence around it.
My mother died when I was eleven. So that made me an orphan, but I was
spared the usual fate of living on the street and begging for food
because my grandfather was the king.
I carried on living at the palace where Aunt Orla was put in charge of
me. She was much stricter than Mum, who had always been gentle and
easygoing. But Orla let me run wild that summer, probably because
there’d been a lot of sadness in the family by then.
Grandpa gave me a fantastic new horse which I rode for miles every
day. I decided to name him Acorns because even though he had a pure
white coat, there were three small brown spots on his right fetlock –
that’s his ankle, in case you don’t know horses.
Grandpa agreed it was a good name. A smile crinkled the old battle
scar that ran from the corner of his eye down to his mouth, like it
used to when I was small. He kept smiling as he watched me ride Acorns
round the paddock. I noticed that as I galloped past him because
Grandpa hardly ever smiled anymore.
Acorns was my first proper horse. I didn’t count Ogre, the wide,
short-legged pony I’d had before, who would try to bite me when I
approached him with a saddle. As I got bigger, I had learnt how to win
him round with treats, but we were never that close. To be honest, he
was hard to like.
I spent all of that long, hot summer riding Acorns out to my favourite places.
First, we’d usually go to the Smaller River, where we’d rest in the
shade. There was great birdwatching there.
Next stop was near the top of Crag Hill where I’d found a secret cave
the year before. It was deep. My shouts rolled away and disappeared
down inside it. The echo that returned eventually was small and
distant. I’d only ever been inside it a little way. I told myself I’d
go in further when I was older. Maybe.
Acorns didn’t like going inside it at all. His whinnying and shying
away from the entrance made me even more nervous so now we’d only
pause a short distance away and study its black mouth, before moving
on quietly.
From there we’d follow my secret forest path that led to the ancient
oak. This was so huge it had created its own large clearing in the
forest. And it was so old some of its branches had collapsed onto the
ground and spread out like the giant fingers of an upturned hand.
I stopped climbing the old oak that summer because one afternoon I was
so high up I could see all the way over the top of the forest. I stood
on a wide branch and shouted triumphantly to the distant valley below,
“Cormac and Acorns; best team in the kingdom! Cormac and Acorns
forever!” As I raised my clenched fist and gave a little jump for
effect, I slipped. I only just saved myself by grabbing on.
It was a close call and it really scared me. Even though I was only
eleven I knew if I had fallen I would have been in serious trouble,
lying injured in the middle of the forest on my own. (I only found out
later that two or three of the young cadet-captains were always
following me. Secret tracking was part of their training. A prince had
to be watched and protected. Even a different one like me.)