The Once and Future King by T. H. White Read Free Book Online Page A

settling on the battlements. An inch of snow had fallen before they could speak, and all were trembling with the wintry blast. Sir Ector’s nose was blue, and had an icicle hanging from the end of it, while all except Merlyn had a ledge of snow upon their shoulders. Merlyn stood in the middle, holding his umbrella high because of the owl.
    ‘It’s done by hypnotism,’ said Sir Ector, with chattering teeth. ‘Like those wallahs from the Indies.
    ‘But that’ll do,’ he added hastily, ‘that’ll do very well. I’m sure you’ll make an excellent tutor for teachin’ these boys.’
    The snow stopped immediately and the sun came out – ‘Enough to give a body a pewmonia,’ said the nurse, ‘or to frighten the elastic commissioners’ – while Merlyn folded up his umbrella and handed it back to the air, which received it.
    ‘Imagine the boy doin’ a quest like that by himself,’ exclaimed Sir Ector. ‘Well, well, well! Wonders never cease.’
    ‘I do not think much of it as a quest,’ said Kay. ‘He only went after the hawk, after all.’
    ‘And got the hawk, Master Kay,’ said Hob reprovingly.
    ‘Oh, well,’ said Kay, ‘I bet the old man caught it for him.’
    ‘Kay,’ said Merlyn, suddenly terrible, ‘thou wast ever a proud and ill—tongued speaker, and a misfortunate one. Thy sorrow will come from thine own mouth.’
    At this everybody felt uncomfortable, and Kay, instead of flying into his usual passion, hung his head. He was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it. Merlyn repented of his rudeness at once. He made a little silver hunting knife come out of the air, which he gave him to put things right. The knob of the handle was made of the skull of a stoat, oiled and polished like ivory, and Kay loved it.

Chapter V
    Sir Ector’s home was called The Castle of the Forest Sauvage. It was more like a town or a village than any one man’s home, and indeed it was the village during times of danger: for this part of the story is one which deals with troubled times. Whenever there was a raid or an invasion by some neighbouring tyrant, everybody on the estate hurried into the castle, driving the beasts before them into the courts, and there they remained until the danger was over. The wattle and daub cottages nearly always got burned, and had to be rebuilt afterwards with much profanity. For this reason it was not worth while to have a village church, as it would constantly be having to be replaced. The villagers went to church in the chapel of the castle. They wore their best clothes and trooped up the street with their most respectable gait on Sundays, looking with vague and dignified looks in all directions, as if reluctant to disclose their destination, and on week—days they came to Mass and vespers in their ordinary clothes, walking much more cheerfully. Everybody went to church in those days, and liked it.
    The Castle of the Forest Sauvage is still standing, and you can see its lovely ruined walls with ivy on them, standing broached to the sun and wind. Some lizards live there now, and the starving sparrows keep warm on winter nights in the ivy, and a barn owl drives it methodically, hovering outside the frightened congregations and beating the ivy with its wings, to make them fly out. Most of the curtain wall is down, though you can trace the foundations of the twelve round towers which guarded it. They were round, and stuck out from the walls into the moat, so that the archers could shoot in all directions and command every part of the wall. Inside the towers there are circular stairs. These go round and round a central column, and this column is pierced with holes for shooting arrows. Even if the enemy had got inside the curtain wall and fought their wayinto the bottom of the towers, the