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Incipit Liber Quartus


THE

CANDLE

IN THE WIND
"He thought a little and said: I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many of my patients. I
should prescribe Mr. Pontifex a course of the larger mammals. Don't let him think he is taking them
medicinally....'"
The addition of years had not been kind to Agravaine. Even when he was forty he had looked his present
age, which was fifty-five. He was seldom sober.
Mordred, the cold wisp of a man, did not seem to have any age. His years, like the depths of his blue
eyes and the inflexions of his musical voice, were non-committal.
The two were standing in the cloisters of the Orkney palace at Camelot, looking out at the hawks who
sat beneath the sun, on their blocks in the green courtyard. The cloisters had the new-fashioned
flamboyant arches, in whose graceful frames the hawks stood out with noble indifferenceтАФ a jerfalcon,
a goshawk, a falcon and her tiercel, and four little merlins who had been kept all winter, yet had
survived. The blocks were cleanтАФfor the sportsmen of those days considered that, if you went in for
blood sports, it was your duty to conceal the beastliness with scrupulous care. All were lovingly
ornamented with Spanish leather in scarlet, and with gold tooling. The leashes of the hawks were plaited
out of white horse leather. The jer had a snow-white leash and jesses cut from guaranteed unicorn skin,
as a tribute to her station in life. She had been brought all the way from Iceland, and that was the least
they could do for her.
Mordred said pleasantly: "For God his sake let's get out of this. The place stinks."
When he spoke the hawks moved slightly, so that their bells gave a whisper of sound. The bells had been
brought from the Indies, regardless of expense, and the pair worn by the jer were made of silver. An
enormous eagle-owl who was sometimes used as a decoy, but who was at present standing on a perch in
the shade of the cloister, opened his eyes when the bells rang. Before he had opened them, he might
have been a stuffed owl, a dowdy bundle of feathers. The moment they had dawned, he was a creature


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