Biblical Allusion
The story takes place during a time when Christianity was the world. Or, at least, the world of those in the western hemisphere. As such, allusions to Biblical imagery is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the times:
She was sitting under an apple tree. The tree was full of fruit, baby green aples crowding so round and glossy, among leaves and branches so symmetrically pruned, that it looked like a tree in an illuminated missal—the Tree itself, before it ripened to the Fall.
Morgan’s Pet
Alexander becomes Morgan Le Fay’s little pet and it suits him just fine. In fact, at one point he is moved to consider the highlight of his life:
At Queen Morgan’s side all day, lying with her at night, seeing himself preferred above all the others of her small court, the days and nights passed like a dream of pleasure, so that reality, when it broke was of swimming senses and headaches…
Just Think It
Often in books like these—fantasy stories set in a time of magic and wonder—things seem to happen just by hoping they would. It is a fantasy, of course, and a romantic one at that, but the message sometimes seems to suggest that those two things are inextricably related. Which does little good for those of us existing in the real world:
And at that moment, as if her thought had been a wish, a boy came running up through the pasture from the river bank…
Animal Imagery
The author turns to imagery to create a metaphor describing the emotional tension at work in a character during a moment endowed with anticipation and anxiety. It is an example of how to create a metaphor from one image and link it to another to create imagery from the juxtaposition:
But Alice, receiving the ritual kiss and watching Madoc greet Alexander, felt a tiny thread of fear crawl up her spine, as if the hairs had brushed up like the fur on a wary cat.
Two People, One Moment, Two Metaphors
A distinction is drawn between Alexander and Alice in a moment shared by both which is expressed through metaphor of thought. The same reaction to the same event, but seen differently through the perspective of figurative imagery:
To Alexander it was like coming out of the mist into the sunlight, out of the dark water into the fresh and glittering air…For Alice, the moment was the one where the anxious mariner sees the lights of the harbor.
