The sword in the stone (33 page)

"Well," said Sir Ector, "what about the giant?" Merlyn looked up from his knitting, and the Wart opened a startled mouth to speak, but the question had been addressed to the vicar. Reverend Sidebottom closed his book about Pallas, the son of Evander, rolled his eyeballs wildly, clutched his thin beard, gasped for breath, shut his eyes, and exclaimed hurriedly, "My beloved, the giant is Adam, who was formed free from all corruption. The wound from which he died is transgression of the divine command."

Then he blew out his cheeks, let go of his beard and glanced triumphantly at Merlyn.

"Very good," said Merlyn. "Especially that bit about remaining uncorrupted. But what about the candle and the needle?"

The vicar closed his eyes again, as if in pain, and all waited in silence for the explanation.

After they had waited for several minutes, Wart said, "If I were a knight in armor, and met a giant, I should smite off both his legs by the knees, saying, 'Now art thou better of a size to deal with than thou were,'

and after that I should swish off his head."

"Hush," said Sir Ector. "Never mind about that."

"The candle," said the vicar wanly, "is eternal punishment, extinguished by means of a needle — that is by the passion of Christ."

"Very good indeed," said Merlyn, patting him on the back. The fire burned merrily, as if it were a bonfire which some slaves were dancing round, and one of the gaze-hounds next to the Wart now went "Hourouff, hourouff " in its sleep, so that it sounded like a pack of thirty couple of hounds questing in the distance, very far away beyond the night-lit woods.

CHAPTER TWENTY

IT WAS haymaking again, and Merlyn had been with them a year. The wind had been, and the snow, and the rain, and the sun once more. The boys looked longer in the leg, but otherwise everything was the same. Six other years passed by.

Sometimes Sir Grummore came on a visit: sometimes King Pellinore could be descried galloping over the purlieus after the Beast, or with the Beast after him if they happened to have got muddled up. Cully lost the vertical stripes of his first year's plumage and became grayer, grimmer, madder, and distinguished by smart horizontal bars where the long stripes had been. The merlins were released every winter and new ones caught again next year. Hob's hair went white. The sergeant-at-arms developed a pot-belly and nearly died of shame, but continued to cry out One-Two, in a huskier voice, upon every possible occasion. Nobody else seemed to change at all, except the boys.

These grew longer. They ran like wild colts as before, and visited Robin when they had a mind to, and had innumerable adventures too lengthy to be recorded.

Merlyn's extra tuition went on just the same: for in those days even the grown-ups were so childish that they saw nothing uninteresting in being turned into snakes or owls, or in going invisibly to visit giants. The only difference was that now, in their fencing lessons, Kay and the Wart were an easy match for the pot-bellied sergeant, and paid him back accidentally for many of the buffets which he had once given them. They had more and more proper weapons given to them, when they had reached their 'teens, until in the end they had full suits of armor and bows nearly six feet long, which would fire the real clothyard shaft. You were not supposed to use a bow longer than your own height, for it was considered that by doing so you were expending unnecessary energy, rather like using an elephant-gun, to shoot an ovis ammon with. At any rate, modest men were careful not to over-bow themselves. It was a form of boasting.

As the years went by, Kay became more difficult. He always used a bow too big for him, and did not shoot very accurately with it either. He lost his temper and challenged nearly everybody to have a fight, and in those few cases where he did actually have the fight, he was invariably beaten. Also he became sarcastic. He made the sergeant miserable by nagging about his stomach, and went on at the Wart about his father and mother when Sir Ector was not about. He did not seem to want to do this. It was as if he disliked it, but could not help it.

The Wart continued to be stupid, fond of Kay, and interested in birds.

Merlyn looked younger every year; which was only natural, because he was younger.

Archimedes got married, and brought up several handsome families of quilly youngsters in the tower room.

Sir Ector got sciatica; three trees were struck by lightning; Master Twyti came every Christmas without altering a hair; Goat lost all his teeth and could eat nothing but slops, but miraculously lived on; Master Passelewe remembered a new verse about King Cole.

The years passed regularly and the old English snow lay as it was expected to lie — sometimes with a Robin Red breast in one corner of the picture, a church bell or lighted window in the other — and in the end it was nearly time for Kay's initiation as a full-blown knight. Proportionately as the day became nearer, the two boys drifted apart: for Kay did not care to associate with the Wart any longer on the same terms, because he would need to be more dignified as a knight, and could not afford to have his squire on intimate terms with him. The Wart, who would have to be the squire, followed him about disconsolately as long as he was allowed to do so, and then went off full miserably to amuse himself alone, as best he might.

He went to the kitchen.

"Well, I am a Cinderella now," he said to himself. "Even if I have had the best of it for some mysterious reason, up to the present time, in our education, now I must pay for my past pleasures and for seeing all those delightful dragons, witches, unicorns, camelopards and such like, by being a mere second-rate squire and holding Kay's extra spears for him, while he hoves by some well or other and jousts with all comers. Never mind, I have had a good time while it lasted, and it is not such bad fun being a Cinderella, when you can do it in a kitchen which has a fireplace big enough to roast an ox."

And the Wart looked round the busy kitchen, which was colored by the flames till it looked much like hell, with sorrowful affection. The education of any civilized gentleman in those days used to go through three stages, page, squire, knight, and at any rate the Wart had been through the first two of these. It was rather like being the son of a modern gentleman who has made his money out of trade, for your father started you on the bottom rung even then, in your education of manners. As a page, Wart had learned to lay the tables with three cloths and a carpet, and to bring meat from the kitchen, and to serve Sir Ector or his guests on bended knee, with one clean towel over his shoulder, one for each visitor, and one to wipe out the basins. He had been taught all the noble arts of servility, and, from the earliest time that he could remember, there had lain pleasantly in the end of his nose the various scents of mint

— used to freshen the water in the ewers — or of basil, camomile, fennel, hysop and lavender — which he had been taught to strew upon the rushy floors — or of the angelica, saffron, aniseed, and tarragon, which were used to spice the savories which he had to carry. So he was accustomed to the kitchen, quite apart from the fact that everybody who lived in the castle was a friend of his, who might be visited on any occasion. Wart sat in the enormous firelight and looked about him with pleasure. He looked upon the long spits which he had often turned when he was smaller, sitting behind an old straw target soaked in water, so that he might not be roasted himself, and upon the ladles and spoons whose handles could be measured in yards, with which he had been accustomed to baste the meat. He watched with water in his mouth the arrangements for the evening meal — a boar's head with a lemon in its jaws, and split almond whiskers, which would be served with a fanfare of trumpets; a kind of pork pie with sour apple juice, peppered custard, and several birds'

legs, or spiced leaves, sticking out of the top to show what was in it; and a most luscious-looking frumenty. He said to himself with a sigh, "It is not so bad being a servant after all."

"Still sighing?" asked Merlyn, who had turned up from somewhere,

"like you was that day we went to watch King Pellinore's joust? "

"Oh, no," said the Wart. "Or rather, oh yes, and for the same reason. But I don't really mind. I am sure I shall make a better squire than old Kay would. Look at the saffron going into that frumenty: it just matches the firelight on the hams in the chimney."

"It is lovely", said Merlyn. "Only fools want to be great."

"Kay won't tell me," said the Wart, "what happens when you are made into a knight. He says it is too sacred. What does happen?"

"Oh, just a lot of fuss. You will have to undress him and put him into a bath hung with rich hangings, and then two experienced knights will turn up — probably Sir Ector will get hold of old Grummore and King Pellinore and they will both sit on the edge of the bath and give him a long lecture about the ideals of chivalry. When they have done, they will pour some of the bath water over him and sign him with the cross, and then you will have to conduct him into a clean bed to get dry. Then you dress him up as a hermit and take him off to the chapel, and there he stays awake all night, watching his armor and saying prayers. People say it's lonely and terrible for him in this vigil, but it isn't at all really, because the vicar and the man who sees to the candles and an armed guard, and probably you as well, as his esquire, will have to sit up with him at the same time. In the morning you lead him off to bed to have a good sleep, as soon as he has confessed and heard mass and offered a candle with a piece of money stuck into it as near the lighted end as possible, and then, when all are rested, you dress him up again in his very best clothes for dinner. Before dinner you lead him into the hall, with his spurs and sword all ready, and King Pellinore puts on the first spur, and Sir Grummore puts on the second, and then Sir Ector girds on the sword and kisses him and smacks him on the shoulder and says, 'Be thou a good knight.'"

"Is that all?"

"No. You go to the chapel again then, and Kay offers his sword to the vicar, and the vicar gives it back to him, and after that our good cook over there meets him at the door and claims his spurs as a reward, and says, 'I shall keep these spurs for you, and if at any time you don't behave like a true knight should do, why, I shall pop them in the soup.'"

"That is the end?"

"Yes, except for the dinner."

"If I were to be made a knight," said the Wart, staring dreamily into the fire, "I should insist upon my doing my vigil all by myself, as Hob does with his hawks, and I should pray to God to let me encounter all the evil in the world in my own person, so that if I conquered there should be none left, while if I were defeated, it would be I who would suffer for it."

"That would be extremely presumptuous of you," said Merlyn, "and you would be conquered, and you would suffer for it."

"I shouldn't mind."

"Wouldn't you? Wait till it happens and see."

"Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?"

"Oh, dear," said Merlyn. "You are making me feel confused. Suppose you wait till you are grown up and know the reason?"

"I don't think that is an answer at all," replied the Wart, pretty justly. Merlyn wrung his hands.

"Well, anyway," he said. "Suppose they didn't let you stand against all the evil in the world?"

"I could ask," said the Wart.

"You could ask," repeated Merlyn.

He thrust the end of his beard into his mouth, stared tragically in the fire, and began to munch it fiercely.

THE DAY for the great ceremony drew near, the invitations to King Pellinore and Sir Grummore were sent out, and the Wart withdrew himself more and more into the kitchen.

"Come on, Wart, old boy," said Sir Ector ruefully. "I didn't think you would take it so bad. It doesn't become you to do this sulkin'."

"I am not sulking," said the Wart. "I don't mind a bit and I am very glad that Kay is going to be a knight. Please don't think I am sulking."

"You are a good boy," said Sir Ector. "I know you're not sulkin' really, but do cheer up. Kay isn't such a bad stick, you know, in his way."

"Kay is a splendid chap," said the Wart. "Only I was not happy because he did not seem to want to go hawking, or anything, with me, any more."

"It's his youthfulness," said Sir Ector. "It will all clear up."

"I am sure it will," said the Wart. "It is only that he doesn't want me to go with him, just at the moment. And so, of course, I don't go."

"But I will go," added the Wart. "As soon as he commands me, I will do exactly what he says. Honestly, I think Kay is a good person, and I was not sulking a bit."

"You have a glass of this canary," said Sir Ector, "and go and see if old Merlyn can't start cheerin' you up."