The Once and Future King. T. H. White

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I was thinking.’

      ‘What were you thinking?’

      ‘Oh, it was not anything. I was thinking about Kay learning to be a knight.’

      ‘And well you may grieve,’ exclaimed Merlyn hotly. ‘A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of stick! It makes me tired. Why, I believe Sir Ector would have been gladder to get a by-our-lady tilting blue for your tutor, that swings himself along on his knuckles like an anthropoid ape, rather than a magician of known probity and international reputation with first-class honours from every European university. The trouble with the Norman Aristocracy is that they are games-mad, that is what it is, games-mad.’

      He broke off indignantly and deliberately made the sergeant’s ears flap slowly twice, in unison.

      ‘I was not thinking quite about that,’ said the Wart. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking how nice it would be to be a knight, like Kay.’

      ‘Well, you will be one soon enough, won’t you?’ asked the old man, impatiently.

      Wart did not answer.

      ‘Won’t you?’

      Merlyn turned round and looked closely at the boy through his spectacles.

      ‘What is the matter now?’ he enquired nastily. His inspection had shown him that his pupil was trying not to cry, and if he spoke in a kind voice he would break down and do it.

      ‘I shall not be a knight,’ replied the Wart coldly. Merlyn’s trick had worked and he no longer wanted to weep: he wanted to kick Merlyn. ‘I shall not be a knight because I am not a proper son of Sir Ector’s. They will knight Kay, and I shall be his squire.’

      Merlyn’s back was turned again, but his eyes were bright behind his spectacles. ‘Too bad,’ he said without commiseration.

      The Wart burst out with all his thoughts aloud. ‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘but I should have liked to be born with a proper father and mother, so that I could be a knight errant.’

      ‘What would you have done?’

      ‘I should have had a splendid suit of armour and dozens of spears and a black horse standing eighteen hands, and I should have called myself The Black Knight. And I should have hoved at a well or a ford or something and made all true knights that came that way to joust with me for the honour of their ladies, and I should have spared them all after I had given them a great fall. And I should live out of doors all the year round in a pavilion, and never do anything but joust and go on quests and bear away the prize at tournaments, and I should not ever tell anybody my name.’

      ‘Your wife will scarcely enjoy the life.’

      ‘Oh, I am not going to have a wife. I think they are stupid.

      ‘I shall have to have a lady-love, though,’ added the future knight uncomfortably, ‘so that I can wear her favour in my helm, and do deeds in her honour.’

      A humblebee came zooming between them, under the grandstand and out into the sunlight.

      ‘Would you like to see some real knights errant?’ asked the magician slowly. ‘Now, for the sake of your education?’

      ‘Oh, I would! We have never even had a tournament since I was here.’

      ‘I suppose it could be managed.’

      ‘Oh, please do. You could take me to some like you did to the fish.’

      ‘I suppose it is educational, in a way.’

      ‘It is very educational,’ said the Wart. ‘I can’t think of anything more educational than to see some real knights fighting. Oh, won’t you please do it?’

      ‘Do you prefer any particular knight?’

      ‘King Pellinore,’ he said immediately. He had a weakness for this gentleman since their strange encounter in the Forest.

      Merlyn said, ‘That will do very well. Put your hands to your sides and relax your muscles. Cabricias arci thurum, catalamus, singulariter, nominativa, haec musa. Shut your eyes and keep them shut. Bonus, Bona, Bonum. Here we go. Deus Sanctus, est-ne aratio Latinas? Etiam, oui, quare? Pourquoi? Quai substantivo et adjectivum concordat in generi, numerum et casus. Here we are.’

      While this incantation was going on, the patient felt some queer sensations. First he could hear the sergeant calling out to Kay, ‘Nah, then, nah then, keep the ’eels dahn and swing the body from the ’ips.’ Then the words got smaller and smaller, as if he were looking at his feet through the wrong end of a telescope, and began to swirl round in a cone, as if they were at the pointed bottom end of a whirlpool which was sucking him into the air. Then there was nothing but a loud rotating roaring and hissing noise which rose to such a tornado that he felt that he could not stand it any more. Finally there was utter silence and Merlyn saying, ‘Here we are.’ All this happened in about the time that it would take a sixpenny rocket to start off with its fiery swish, bend down from its climax and disperse itself in thunder and coloured stars. He opened his eyes just at the moment when one would have heard the invisible stick hitting the ground.

      They were lying under a beech tree in the Forest Sauvage.

      ‘Here we are,’ said Merlyn. ‘Get up and dust your clothes.

      ‘And there, I think,’ continued the magician, in a tone of satisfaction because his spells had worked for once without a hitch, ‘is your friend, King Pellinore, pricking toward us o’er the plain.’

      ‘Hallo, hallo,’ cried King Pellinore, popping his visor up and down. ‘It’s the young boy with the feather bed, isn’t it, I say, what?’

      ‘Yes, it is,’ said the Wart. ‘And I am very glad to see you. Did you manage to catch the Beast?’

      ‘No,’ said King Pellinore. ‘Didn’t catch the beast. Oh, do come here, you brachet, and leave that bush alone. Tcha! Tcha! Naughty, naughty! She runs riot, you know, what. Very keen on rabbits. I tell you there’s nothing in it, you beastly dog. Tcha! Tcha! Leave it, leave it! Oh, do come to heel, like I tell you.

      ‘She never does come to heel,’ he added.

      At this the dog put a cock pheasant out of the bush, which rocketed off with a tremendous clatter, and the dog became so excited that it ran round its master three or four times at the end of its rope, panting hoarsely as if it had asthma. King Pellinore’s horse stood patiently while the rope was wound round its legs, and Merlyn and the Wart had to catch the brachet and unwind it before the conversation could go on.

      ‘I say,’ said King Pellinore. ‘Thank you very much. I must say. Won’t you introduce me to your friend, what?’

      This is my tutor Merlyn, a great magician.’

      ‘How-de-do,’ said the King. ‘Always like to meet magicians. In fact I always like to meet anybody. It passes the time away, what, on a quest.’

      ‘Hail,’ said Merlyn, in his most mysterious manner.

      ‘Hail,’ replied the King, anxious to make a good СКАЧАТЬ