The Once and Future King (13 page)

They were close to the castle at last, and it was time for the outlaws to halt. Their captain touched hands silently with Kay and Wart, and the two went forward through the thinning forest, towards a faint glow which gleamed behind the trees.

They found themselves in a wide clearing or plain. They stood stock still with surprise at what they saw. It was a castle made entirely out of food, except that on the highest tower of all a carrion crow was sitting, with an arrow in its beak.

The Oldest Ones of All were gluttons. Probably it was because they seldom had enough to eat. You can read even nowadays a poem written by one of them, which is known as the Vision of Mac Conglinne. In this Vision there is a description of a castle made out of different kinds of food. The English for part of the poem goes like this:

A lake of new milk I beheld

In the midst of a fair plain.

I saw a well—appointed house

Thatched with butter.

Its two soft door—posts of custard,

Its dais of curds and butter,

Beds of glorious lard,

Many shields of thin pressed cheese.

Under the straps of those shields

Were men of soft sweet smooth cheese,

Men who knew not to wound a Gael,

Spears of old butter had each of them.

A huge cauldron full of meat

(Methought I’d try to tackle it),

Boiled, leafy kale, browny—white,

A brimming vessel full of milk.

A bacon house of two—score ribs,

A wattling of tripe – support of clans –

Of every food pleasant to man,

Meseemed the whole was gathered there.

Of chitterlings of pigs were made

Its beautiful rafters,

Splendid the beams and the pillars

Of marvellous pork.

The boys stood there in wonder and nausea, before just such a stronghold. It rose from its lake of milk in a mystic light of its own – in a greasy, buttery glow. It was the fairy aspect of Castle Chariot, which the Oldest Ones – sensing the hidden knife blades after all – had thought would be tempting to the children. It was to tempt them to eat.

The place smelt like a grocer’s, a butcher’s, a dairy and a fishmonger’s, rolled into one. It was horrible beyond belief – sweet, sickly and pungent – so that they did not feel the least
wish to swallow a particle of it. The real temptation was, to run away.

However, there were prisoners to rescue.

They plodded over the filthy drawbridge – a butter one, with cow hairs still in it – sinking to their ankles. They shuddered at the tripe and the chitterlings. They pointed their iron knives at the soldiers made of soft, sweet, smooth cheese, and the latter shrank away.

In the end they came to the inner chamber, where Morgan le Fay herself lay stretched upon her bed of glorious lard.

She was a fat, dowdy, middle—aged woman with black hair and a slight moustache, but she was made of human flesh. When she saw the knives, she kept her eyes shut – as if she were in a trance. Perhaps, when she was outside this very strange castle, or when she was not doing that kind of magic to tempt the appetite, she was able to assume more beautiful forms.

The prisoners were tied to pillars of marvellous pork.

‘I am sorry if this iron is hurting you,’ said Kay, ‘but we have come to rescue our friends.’

Queen Morgan shuddered.

‘Will you tell your cheesy men to undo them?’

She would not.

‘It is magic,’ said the Wart. ‘Do you think we ought to go up and kiss her, or something frightful like that?’

‘Perhaps if we went and touched her with the iron?’

‘You do it.’

‘No, you.’

‘We’ll go together.’

So they joined hands to approach the Queen. She began to writhe in her lard like a slug. She was in agony from the metal.

At last, and just before they reached her, there was a sloshing rumble or mumble – and the whole fairy appearance of Castle Chariot melted together in collapse, leaving the five humans and one dog standing together in the forest clearing – which still smelt faintly of dirty milk.

‘Gor—blimey!’ said Friar Tuck. ‘Gor blimey and coo! Dash my vig if I didn’t think we was done for!’

‘Master!’ said Dog Boy.

Cavall contented himself with barking wildly, biting their toes, lying on his back, trying to wag his tail in that position, and generally behaving like an idiot. Old Wat touched his forelock.

‘Now then,’ said Kay, ‘this is my adventure, and we must get home quick.’

But Morgan le Fay, although in her fairy shape she could not stand iron, still had the griffin. She had cast it loose from its golden chain, by a spell, the moment her castle disappeared.

The outlaws were pleased with their success, and less careful than they should have been. They decided to take a detour round the place where they had seen the monster tied up, and marched away through the darksome trees without a thought of danger.

There was a noise like a railway train letting off its whistle, and, answering to it – riding on it like the voice of the Arabian Bird – Robin Wood’s horn of silver began to blow.

‘Tone, ton, tavon, tontavon, tantontavon, tontantontavon,’ went the horn. ‘Moot, troot, trourourout, troutourourout. Trout, trout. Tran, tran, tran, tran.’

Robin was blowing his hunting music and the ambushed archers swung round as the griffin charged. They set forward their left feet in the same movement and let fly such a shower of arrows as it had been snow.

The Wart saw the creature stagger in its tracks, a clothyard shaft sprouting from between the shoulder—blades. He saw his own arrow fly wide, and eagerly bent to snatch another from his belt. He saw the rank of his companion archers sway as if by a preconcerted signal, when each man stooped for a second shaft. He heard the bow—strings twang again, the purr of the feathers in the air. He saw the phalanx of arrows gleam like an
eyeflick in the moonlight. All his life up to then he had been shooting into straw targets which made a noise like Phutt! He had often longed to hear the noise that these clean and deadly missiles would make in solid flesh. He heard it.

But the griffin’s plates were as thick as a crocodile’s and all but the best placed arrows glanced off. It still came on. It squealed as it came. Men began to fall, swept to the left or right by the lashing tail.

The Wart was fitting an arrow to his bow. The cock feather would not go right. Everything was in slow motion.

He saw the huge body coming blackly through the moonglare. He felt the claw which took him in the chest. He felt himself turning somersaults slowly, with a cruel weight on top of him. He saw Kay’s face somewhere in the cartwheel of the universe, flushed with starlit excitement, and Maid Marian’s on the other side with its mouth open, shouting. He thought, before he slid into blackness, that it was shouting at him.

They dragged him from under the dead griffin and found Kay’s arrow sticking in its eye. It had died in its leap.

Then there was a time which made him feel sick – while Robin set his collar bone and made him a sling from the green cloth of his hood – and after that the whole band lay down to sleep, dog—tired, beside the body. It was too late to return to Sir Ector’s castle, or even to get back to the outlaw’s camp by the big tree. The dangers of the expedition were over and all that could be done that night was to make fires, post sentries, and sleep where they were.

Wart did not sleep much. He sat propped against a tree, watching the red sentries passing to and fro in the firelight, hearing their quiet passwords and thinking about the excitements of the day. These went round and round in his head, sometimes losing their proper order and happening backwards or by bits. He saw the leaping griffin, heard Marian shouting, ‘Good shot!’, listened to the humming of the bees muddled up with the stridulation of the grasshoppers, and shot and shot, hundreds and thousands of times, at popinjays which turned into griffins. Kay and the liberated Dog Boy slept twitching
beside him, looking alien and incomprehensible as people do when they are asleep, and Cavall, lying at his good shoulder, occasionally licked his hot cheeks. The dawn came slowly, so slowly and pausingly that it was impossible to determine when it really had dawned, as it does during the summer months.

‘Well,’ said Robin, when they had wakened and eaten the breakfast of bread and cold venison which they had brought with them, ‘you will have to love us and leave us, Kay. Otherwise I shall have Sir Ector fitting out an expedition against me to fetch you back. Thank you for your help. Can I give you any little present as a reward?’

‘It has been lovely,’ said Kay. ‘Absolutely lovely. May I have the griffin I shot?’

‘He will be too heavy to carry. Why not take his head?’

‘That would do,’ said Kay, ‘if somebody would not mind cutting it off. It was my griffin.’

‘What are you going to do about old Wat?’ asked the Wart.

‘It depends on what he wants to do. Perhaps he will like to run off by himself and eat acorns, as he used to, or if he likes to join our band we shall be glad to have him. He ran away from your village in the first place, so I don’t suppose he will care to go back there. What do you think?’

‘If you are going to give me a present,’ said the Wart, slowly, ‘I would like to have him. Do you think that would be right?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Robin, ‘I don’t. I don’t think you can very well give people as presents: they might not like it. That is what we Saxons feel, at any rate. What did you intend to do with him?’

‘I don’t want to keep him or anything like that. You see, we have a tutor who is a magician and I thought he might be able to restore him to his wits.’

‘Good boy,’ said Robin. ‘Have him by all means. I am sorry I made a mistake. At least, we will ask him if he would like to go.’

When somebody had gone off to fetch Wat, Robin said, ‘You had better talk to him yourself.’

They brought the poor old man, smiling, confused, hideous and very dirty, and stood him before Robin.

‘Go on,’ said Robin.

The Wart did not know quite how to put it, but he said, ‘I say, Wat, would you like to come home with me, please, just for a little?’

‘AhnaNanaWarraBaaBaa,’ said Wat, pulling his forelock, smiling, bowing and gently waving his arms in various directions.

‘Come with me?’

‘WanaNanaWanawana.’

‘Dinner?’ asked the Wart in desperation.

‘R!’ cried the poor creature affirmatively, and his eyes glowed with pleasure at the prospect of being given something to eat.

‘That way,’ said the Wart, pointing in the direction which he knew by the sun to be that of his guardian’s castle. ‘Dinner. Come with. I take.’

‘Measter,’ said Wat, suddenly remembering one word, the word which he had always been accustomed to offer to the great people who made him a present of food, his only livelihood. It was decided.

‘Well,’ said Robin, ‘it has been a good adventure and I am sorry you are going. I hope I shall see you again.’

‘Come any time,’ said Marian, ‘if you are feeling bored. You only have to follow the glades. And you, Wart, be careful of that collar bone for a few days.’

‘I will send some men with you to the edge of the chase,’ said Robin. ‘After that you must go by yourselves. I expect the Dog Boy can carry the griffin’s head.’

‘Good—bye,’ said Kay.

‘Good—bye,’ said Robin.

‘Good—bye,’ said Wart.

‘Good—bye,’ said Marian, smiling.

‘Good—bye,’ cried all the outlaws, waving their bows.

And Kay and the Wart and the Dog Boy and Wat and Cavall and their escort set off on the long track home.

They had an immense reception. The return on the previous day of all the hounds, except Cavall and the Dog Boy, and in the evening the failure to return of Kay and Wart, had set the household in an uproar. Their nurse had gone into hysterics. Hob had stayed out till midnight scouring the purlieus of the forest – the cooks had burned the joint for dinner – and the sergeant—at—arms had polished all the armour twice and sharpened all the swords and axes to a razor blade in case of invasion. At last somebody had thought of consulting Merlyn, whom they had found in the middle of his third nap. The magician, for the sake of peace and quietness to go on with his rest, had used his insight to tell Sir Ector exactly what the boys were doing, where they were, and when they might be expected back. He had prophesied their return to the minute.

So, when the small procession of returning warriors came within sight of the drawbridge, they were greeted by the whole household. Sir Ector was standing in the middle with a thick walking—stick with which he proposed to whack them for going out of bounds and causing so much trouble; the nurse had insisted on bringing out a banner which used to be put up when Sir Ector came home for the holidays, as a small boy, and this said Welcome Home; Hob had forgotten about his beloved hawks and was standing on one side, shading his eagle eyes to get the first view; the cooks and all the kitchen staff were banging pots and pans, singing ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’ or some such music, out of tune; the kitchen cat was yowling; the hounds had escaped from the kennel because there was nobody to look after them, and were preparing to chase the kitchen cat; the sergeant—at—arms was blowing out his chest with pleasure so far that he looked as if he might burst at any moment, and was commanding everybody in an important voice to get ready to cheer when he said, ‘One, Two!’

‘One, Two!’ cried the sergeant.

‘Huzza!’ cried everybody obediently, including Sir Ector.

‘Look what I have got,’ shouted Kay. ‘I have shot a griffin and the Wart has been wounded.’

‘Yow—yow—yow!’ barked all the hounds, and poured over the
Dog Boy, licking his face, scratching his chest, sniffing him all over to see what he had been up to, and looking hopefully at the griffin’s head which the Dog Boy held high in the air so that they could not eat it.

‘Bless my soul!’ exclaimed Sir Ector.

‘Alas, the poor Phillip Sparrow,’ cried the nurse, dropping her banner. ‘Pity his poor arm all to—brast in a green sling, God bless us!’

‘It is all right,’ said the Wart. ‘Ah, don’t catch hold of me. It hurts.’

‘May I have it stuffed?’ asked Kay.

‘Well, I be dommed,’ said Hob. ‘Be’nt thick wold chappie our Wat, that erst run lunatical?’

‘My dear, dear boys,’ said Sir Ector. ‘I am so glad to see you back.’

‘Wold chuckle—head,’ exclaimed the nurse triumphantly. ‘Where be the girt cudgel now?’

‘Hem!’ said Sir Ector. ‘How dare you go out of bounds and put us all to this anxiety?’

‘It is a real griffin,’ said Kay, who knew there was nothing to be afraid of. ‘I shot dozens of them. Wart broke his collar bone. We rescued the Dog Boy and Wat.’

‘That comes of teaching the young Hidea ‘ow to shoot,’ said the sergeant proudly.

Sir Ector kissed both boys and commanded the griffin to be displayed before him.

‘Well!’ he exclaimed. ‘What a monster! We’ll have him stuffed in the dinin’ hall. What did you say his measurements were?’

‘Eighty—two inches from ear to ear. Robin said it might be a record.’

‘We shall have to get it chronicled.’

‘It is rather a good one, isn’t it?’ remarked Kay with studied calm.

‘I shall have it set up by Sir Rowland Ward,’ Sir Ector went on in high delight, ‘with a little ivory card with
KAY’S FIRST GRIFFIN
on it in black letters, and the date.’

‘Arrah, leave thy childishness,’ exclaimed the nurse. ‘Now, Master Art, my innocence, be off with thee to thy bed upon the instant. And thou, Sir Ector, let thee think shame to be playing with monsters’ heads like a godwit when the poor child stays upon the point of death. Now, sergeant, leave puffing of thy chest. Stir, man, and take horse to Cardoyle for the chirurgeon.’

She waved her apron at the sergeant, who collapsed his chest and retreated like a shoo’d chicken.

‘It is all right,’ said the Wart, ‘I tell you. It is only a broken collar bone, and Robin set it for me last night. It does not hurt a bit.’

‘Leave the boy, nurse,’ commanded Sir Ector, taking sides with the men against the women, anxious to re—establish his superiority after the matter of the cudgel. ‘Merlyn will see to him if he needs it, no doubt. Who is this Robin?’

‘Robin Wood,’ cried the boys together.

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You call him Robin Hood,’ explained Kay in a superior tone. ‘But it is Wood really, like the Wood that he is the spirit of.’

‘Well, well, well, so you’ve been foragin’ with that rascal! Come in to breakfast, boys, and tell me all about him.’

‘We have had breakfast,’ said the Wart, ‘hours ago. May I please take Wat with me to see Merlyn?’

‘Why, it’s the old man who went wild and started rootin’ in the forest. Wherever did you get hold of him?’

‘The Good People had captured him with the Dog Boy and Cavall.’

‘But we shot the griffin,’ Kay put in. ‘I shot it myself.’

‘So now I want to see if Merlyn can restore him to his wits.’

‘Master Art,’ said the nurse sternly. She had been breathless up to now on account of Sir Ector’s rebuke. ‘Master Art, thy room and thy bed is where thou art tending to, and that this instant. Wold fools may be wold fools, whether by yea or by nay, but I ha’n’t served the Family for fifty year without a—learning of my duty. A flibberty—gibbeting about wi’ a lot of want—wits, when thy own arm may be dropping to the floor!

‘Yes, thou wold turkey—cock,’ she added, turning fiercely upon Sir Ector, ‘and thou canst keep thy magician away from the poor mite’s room till he be rested, that thou canst!

‘A wantoning wi’ monsters and lunaticals,’ continued the victor as she led her helpless captive from the stricken field. ‘I never heard the like.’

‘Please, someone tell Merlyn to look after Wat,’ cried the victim over his shoulder, in diminishing tones.

He woke up in his cool bed, feeling better. The old fire—eater who looked after him had covered the windows with a curtain, so that the room was dark and comfortable, and he could tell by the one ray of golden sunlight which shot across the floor that it was late afternoon. He not only felt better. He felt very well, so well that it was not possible to stay in bed. He moved quickly to throw back the sheet, but stopped with a hiss at the creak or scratch of his shoulder, which he had forgotten in his sleep. Then he got out more carefully by sliding down the bed and pushing himself upright with one hand, shoved his bare feet into a pair of slippers, and managed to wrap a dressing—gown round him more or less. He padded off through the stone passages up the worn circular stairs to find Merlyn.