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

formally in the high chair with the book beside her, and one of her waiting women, sitting on the steps
of the bed, was sewing too.


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Guenever stitched away with the half-blank mind of a needlewoman, the other half of her brain moving
idly among her troubles. She wished she was not at Carlisle. It was too near the northтАФwhich was
Mordred's countyтАФ too far away from the securities of civilization. For instance, she would have liked
to be at LondonтАФin the Tower perhaps. She would have liked, instead of this dreary expanse of snow, to
be looking out from the Tower windows at the fun and bustle of the metropolis: at London Bridge, with
the staggering houses all over it, which were constantly tumbling off into the river. She remembered it as
a bridge of great personality, what with the houses and the heads of rebels on spikes and the place where
Sir David had fought a full-dress joust with the Lord Welles. The cellars of the houses were in the piers
of the bridge, and it had a chapel of its own, and a tower to defend it. It was a perfect toy-town of a
place, with housewives popping thek heads out of windows, or letting down buckets into the river on
long ropes, or throwing out slops, or hanging the washing, or screaming to their children when the
drawbridge was going to be pulled up.
For that matter, it would have been nice merely to be in the Tower itself. Here, in Carlisle, everything
was as still as death. But there, in the Conqueror's tower, a constant ebb and flow of cockneys would be
livening the frost. Even Arthur's menagerie, which he now kept in the Tower, would be giving a
comfortable background of noise and smell. The latest addition was a full-sized elephant, presented by
the King of France, and specially drawn for the record by the indefatigable news-hawk, Matthew Paris.
When Guenever got to the elephant, she put down the sewing and began to rub her fingers. They were
numb. They did not thaw so quickly as they used to.
"Have you put the crumbs out for the birds, Agnes?"
"Yes, madam. The robin was perky today. He sang quite a trill against one of the blackbkds who was
greedy."
"Poor creatures. Still, I suppose they will all be singing in a few weeks."
"It seems a long time since everybody went away," said Agnes.
"The court is like the birds now, it is so silent and heartless."
"They will come back, no doubt."

"Yes, madam."
The Queen took up her needle again, and pushed it carefully through.
"They say Sir Lancelot has been brave."
"Sir Lancelot always was a brave gentleman, madam."


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;
"In the last letter it says that Gawaine had a duel with him. He must have been miserable, to fight him."
Agnes said emphatically: "I can't think why the King will go with that there Sir Gawaine against his best
friend. Anybody can see that it is only out of blind temper. And then to lay waste the land of France, just
to spite Sir Lancelot, and to do these terrible killings, and to say such things as them Thrashers do. It
won't do nobody no good, to carry on like that. Why can't they let bygones be bygones, is what I ask?"