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

eyes slid sideways to meet his tutor's.
The stone knocked Merlyn's hat off as clean as a whistle, and the old gentleman chased him featly down
the stairs, waving his wand of lignum vitae.
Arthur was happy. Like the man in Eden before the fall, he was enjoying his innocence and fortune.
Instead of being a poor squire, he was a king. Instead of being an orphan, he was loved by nearly
everybody except the Gaels, and he loved everybody in return.
So far as he was concerned, as yet, there might never have been such a thing as a single particle of

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sorrow on the gay, sweet surface of the dew-glittering world.


3
Sir Kay had heard stories about the Queen of Orkney, and he was inquisitive about her.
"Who is Queen Morgause?" he asked one day. "I was told that she is beautiful. What did these Old Ones
want to fight us about? And what is her husband like, King Lot? What is his proper name? I heard
somebody calling him the King of the Out Isles, and then there are others who call him the King of
Lothian and Orkney. Where is Lothian? Is it near Hy Brazil? I can't understand what the revolt was
about. Everybody knows that the King of England is their feudal overlord. I heard that she has four sons.
Is it true that she doesn't get on with her husband?"
They were riding back from a day on the mountain, where they had been hunting grouse with the
peregrines, and Merlyn had gone with them for the sake of the ride. He had become a vegetarian latelyтАФ
an opponent of blood-sports on principleтАФalthough he had gone through most of them during his
thoughtless youthтАФand even now he secretly adored to watch the falcons for thelmselves. Their
masterly circles, as they waited onтАФmere specks in the skyтАФand the bur-r-r with which they scythed on
the grouse, and the way in which the wretched quarry, killed instantaneously, went end-over-tip into the
heatherтАФthese were a temptation to which he yielded in the uncomfortable knowledge that it was sin.
He consoled himself by saying that the grouse were for the pot. But it was a shallow excuse, for he did
not believe in eating meat either.
Arthur, who was riding watchfully like a sensible young monarch, withdrew his eye from a clump of
whins which might have held an ambush in those early days of anarchy, and cocked one eyebrow at his
tutor. He was wondering with half his mind which of Kay's questions the magician would choose to
answer, but the other half was still upon the martial possibilities of the landscape. He knew how far the
falconers were behind themтАФthe cadger carrying the hooded hawks on a square framework slung from
his shoulders, with a man-at-arms on either sideтАФand how far in front was the next likely place for a
William Rufus arrow. Merlyn chose the second question. "Wars are never fought for one reason," he
said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle. It is the same with revolts."
"But there must have been a main reason," said Kay. "Not necessarily."
Arthur observed: "We might have a trot now. It is clear going for two miles since those whins, and we
can have a canter back again, to keep with the men. It would breathe the horses."
Merlyn's hat blew off. They had to stop to pick it up. Afterwards they walked their horses sedately in a

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row.