"T. H. White - The Once and Future King" - читать интересную книгу автора (White T.H)

"It may not alter it for you," said Agravaine, "but it alters it for other people. It is such a muddle that
nobody cares. You can't expect ordinary people to remember about grandfathers and half-sisters and
things of that sort. In any case human beings don't go to war for private quarrels nowadays. You need a
national grievanceтАФsomething to do with politics which is waiting to burst out. You need to use the
tools which are ready to hand. This man John Ball, for instance, who believes in communism: he has
thousands of followers who would be ready to help in a disturbance, for their own purposes. Or there are
the Saxons. We could say we were in favour of a national movement. For that matter, we could join
them together and call it national communism. But it has to be something broad and popular, which
everybody can feel. It must be against large numbers of people, like the Jews or the Normans or the
Saxons, so that everybody can be angry. Either we must be the leaders of the Old Ones, who seek for
justice against the Saxon: or of the Saxon against the Norman; or of the serf against society. We want a
banner, yes, and a badge too. You could use the Fylfot. Communism, Nationalism, something like that.
But as for a private grudge against the old man, it's useless. Anyway it would take you half an hour to
explain it, even if you did begin to shout it from the roof tops."
"I could shout that my mother was his sister, and that he tried to drown me because of that."
"If you wanted to," said Agravaine.
They had been talking, before the eagle-owl woke up, about the earlier wrongs of their familyтАФabout
their grandmother, Igraine, who had been wronged by Arthur's father тАФabout all the long-gone feud of
Gael and Gall, which had been taught them by their dam in old Dunlothian. It was these wrongs which
Agravaine's colder blood could recognize as far too distant and confused to serve as weapons against the


file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Incipit%20Liber%20Quartus.html (3 of 114)14-10-2007 15:44:46
 file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Incipit%20Liber%20Quartus.html


King. Now they had reached the more recent grievanceтАФthe sin of Arthur with his half-sister which had
ended in an attempt to murder the bastard who resulted. These might certainly be stronger weapons, but
the trouble was that Mordred was himself the bastard. The elder brother's cowardice told him, in his
craftier head, that a son could hardly raise his illegitimacy as a banner under which to overthrow his
father. Besides, the business had been hushed up long before, by Arthur. It seemed bad policy that
Mordred should be the one to bring it up.
They sat in silence, looking at the floor. Agravaine was out of condition, with pouches under his eyes.
Mordred was as slim as ever, a neat figure in the height of fashion. The exaggeration of his dress made a
good camouflage for him, under which you hardly noticed his crooked shoulder.
He said: "I am not proud."
He looked bitterly at his half-brother, putting more meaning into the look than the other could be
expected to catch. He was saying with his eyes: "Look at my hump, then. I have no reason to be proud of
my birth."
Agravaine got up impatiently.
"I must have a drink in any case," he said, clapping his hands for the page. Then he passed his trembling
fingers over his eyelids and stood wearily, looking at the owl with distaste. Mordred, while they were
waiting for the drink, watched him with contempt.
"If you rake the old muck," said Agravaine, revived by the hippocras, "you will get yourself in the muck.
We are not in Lothian, you must remember. We are in Arthur's England, and his English love him.
Either they will refuse to believe you, or, if they do believe you, they will blame you, and not him,
because it was you who brought the matter up. It is certain that not a single man would follow a
rebellion of that sort."
Mordred looked at him. He was hating him, like the owlтАФcondemning him as a coward. He could not
bear to be thwarted in his day-dream of revenge, so he was wreaking his spite on Agravaine in his