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

"You had to make the rescue."
"Yes, but I could have fought the armed knights only. Instead of which, I laid about me against the half-
armed foot-soldiers, who had no chance. I was cap-├а-pied, and they were in cuir-bouill├й, just leather and

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pikes. But I cut at them and God punished us. It was because I had forgotten my knighthood that God
made me kill poor Gareth, and Gaheris too."
"Lance!" she said sharply.
"Now we are in this hellish misery," he went on, refusing to listen. "Now I have got to fight against my
own King, who knighted me and taught me all I know. How can I fight him? How can I fight Gawaine,
even? I have killed three of his brothers. How can I add to that? But Gawaine will never let me off. He
will never forgive now. I don't blame him. Arthur would forgive us, but Gawaine won't let him. I have
got to be besieged in this hole like a coward, when nobody wants to fight except Gawaine, and then they
come outside with their fanfares and sing:
Traitor knight
Come out to fight
Yah! Yah! Yah!
"It doesn't matter what they sing. It doesn't make you a coward because they sing it."
"And my own men are beginning to think so too. Bors, Blamore, Bleoberis, LionelтАФthey are always
asking me to go out and fight. And when I do go out, what happens?"
"So far as I can learn," she said, "what happens is that you beat them, and then you let them off and beg
them to go home. Everybody respects your kindness."
He hid his head in the crook of his elbow.
"Do you know what happened in the last battle? Bors had a tilt with the King himself, and knocked him
down. He jumped off his horse and stood over Arthur with his sword drawn. I saw it happen, and
galloped like mad. Bors said: Shall I make an end of this war? Not so hardy, I shouted, on pain of thy
head. So we got Arthur back on his horse and I begged him, begged him on my knees, to go away.
Arthur began to cry. His eyes filled with tears, and he stared at me and said nothing. He looks much
older. He doesn't want to fight us, but it is Gawaine. Gawaine was once on our side, but I slew his
brothers in my wickedness."
"Forget your wickedness. It is Gawaine's black temper and Mordred's cunning."
"If it were just Gawaine," he lamented, "there would still be a hope of peace. He is decent inside himself.
He is a good man. But Mordred is always there, hinting to him and making him miserable. And there is
the whole hatred of Gael and Gall, and this New Order of Mordred's. I can't see the end,"
The Queen suggested for the hundredth time: "Would it be any use if I were to go back to Arthur, and
put myself on his mercy?"

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"We have offered it, and they have refused. It is no use going in the face of that. They would probably
burn you after all,"
She left the fireplace and drifted over to the great embrasure of the window. Outside, the siege works
were spread below. Some tiny soldiers in the enemy camp were merrily playing Fox-and-Geese on a
frozen pond. Their clear laughter came up, separated by distance from the tumbles which gave it rise.