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

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On the battlements of their castle at Camelot, during an interval of peace between the two Gaelic Wars,
the young king of England was standing with his tutor, looking across the purple wastes of evening. A
soft light flooded the land below them, and the slow river wound between venerable abbey and stately
castle, while the flaming water of sunset reflected spires and turrets and pennoncells hanging motionless
in the calm air.
The world was laid out before the two watchers like a toy, for they were on a high keep which
dominated the town. At their feet they could see the grass of the outer baileyтАФit was horrible looking
down on itтАФand a small foreshortened man, with two buckets on a yoke, making his way across to the
menagerie. They could see, further off at the gatehouse, which was not so horrible to look at because it
was not vertically below, the night guard taking over from the sergeant. They were clicking their heels
and saluting and presenting pikes and exchanging passwords as merrily as a marriage bellтАФbut it was
done in silence for the two, because it was so far below. They looked like lead soldiers, the little gallow-
glasses, and their footsteps could not sound upon the luscious sheep-nibbled green. Then, outside the
curtain wall, there was the distant noise of old wives bargaining, and brats bawling, and corporals
quaffing, and a few goats mixed with it, and two or three lepers in white hoods ringing bells as they
walked, and the swishing robes of nuns who were kindly visiting the poor, two by two, and a fight going
on between some gentlemen who were interested in horses. On the other side of the river, which ran
directly beneath the castle wall, there was a man ploughing in the fields, with his plough tied to the
horse's tail. The wooden plough squeaked. There was a silent person near him, fishing for salmon with
wormsтАФthe rivers were not polluted in those daysтАФand further off, there was a donkey giving his
musical concert to the coming night. All these noises came up to the two on the tower smally, as though
they were listening through the wrong end of a megaphone. Arthur was a young man, just on the
threshold of life. He had fair hair and a stupid face, or at any rate there was a lack of cunning in it It was
an open face, with kind eyes and a reliable or faithful expression, as though he were a good learner who
enjoyed being alive and did not believe in original sin. He had never been unjustly treated, for one thing,
so he was kind to other people.

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The King was dressed in a robe of velvet which had belonged to Uther the Conqueror, his father,
trimmed with the beards of fourteen kings who had been vanquished in the olden days. Unfortunately
some of these kings had had red hair, some black, some pepper-and-salt, while their growth of beard had
been uneven. The trimming looked like a feather boa. The moustaches were stuck on round the buttons.
Merlyn had a white beard which reached to his middle, horn-rimmed spectacles, and a conical hat. He
wore it in compliment to the Saxon serfs of the country, whose national headgear was either a kind of
diving-cap, or the Phrygian cap, or else this cone of straw.
The two of them were speaking sometimes, as the words came to them, between spells of listening to the
evening:
"Well," said Arthur, "I must say it is nice to be a king. It was a splendid battle."
"Do you think so?"
"Of course it was splendid. Look at the way Lot of Orkney ran, after I had begun to use Excalibur."
"He got you down first."
"That was nothing. It was because I was not using Excalibur. As soon as I drew my trusty sword they
ran like rabbits."
"They will come again," said the magician, "all six. The Kings of Orkney, Garloth, Gore, Scotland, The
Tower, and the Hundred Knights have started alreadyтАФin fact, the Gaelic Confederation. You must