The Once and Future King

Chapter VII

Tilting and horsemanship had two afternoons a week, because they were the most important branches of a gentleman’s education in those days. Merlyn grumbled about athletics, saying that nowadays people seemed to think that you were an educated man if you could knock another man off a horse and that the craze for games was the ruin of scholarship – nobody got scholarships like they used to do when he was a boy, and all the public schools had been forced to lower their standards – but Sir Ector, who was an old tilting blue, said that the battle of Crécy had been won upon the playing fields of Camelot. This made Merlyn so furious that he gave Sir Ector rheumatism two nights running before he relented. Tilting was a great art and needed practice. When two knights jousted they held their lances in their right hands, but they directed their horses at one another so that each man had his opponent on his near side. The base of the lance, in fact, was held on the opposite side of the body to the side at which the enemy was charging. This seems rather inside out to anybody who is in the habit, say, of opening gates with a hunting crop, but it had its reasons. For one thing, it meant that the shield was on the left arm, so that the opponents charged shield to shield, fully covered. It also meant that a man could be unhorsed with the side or edge of the lance, in a kind of horizontal swipe, if you did not feel sure of hitting him with your point. This was the humblest or least skilful blow in jousting.

A good jouster, like Lancelot or Tristram, always used the blow of the point, because, although it was liable to miss in unskilful hands, it made contact sooner. If one knight charged with his lance held rigidly sideways to sweep his opponent out of the saddle, the other knight with his lance held directly forward would knock him down a lance length before the sweep came into effect.

Then there was how to hold the lance for the point stroke. It was no good crouching in the saddle and clutching it in a rigid grip preparatory to the great shock, for if you held it inflexibly like this its point bucked up and down to every movement of your thundering mount and you were practically certain to miss the aim. On the contrary, you had to sit loosely in the saddle with the lance easy and balanced against the horse’s motion. It was not until the actual moment of striking that you clamped your knees into the horse’s sides, threw your weight forward in your seat, clutched the lance with the whole hand instead of with the finger and thumb, and hugged your right elbow to your side to support the butt.

There was the size of the spear. Obviously a man with a spear one hundred yards long would strike down an opponent with a spear of ten or twelve feet before the latter came anywhere near him. But it would have been impossible to make a spear one hundred yards long and, if made, impossible to carry it. The jouster had to find out the greatest length which he could manage with the greatest speed, and he had to stick to that. Sir Lancelot, who came some time after this part of the story, had several sizes of spear and would call for his Great Spear or his Lesser Spear as occasion demanded.

There were the places on which the enemy should be hit. In the armoury of The Castle of the Forest Sauvage there was a big picture of a knight in armour with circles round his vulnerable points. These varied with the style of armour, so that you had to study your opponent before the charge and select a point. The good armourers – the best lived in Warrington, and still live near there – were careful to make all the forward or entering sides of their suits convex, so that the spear point glanced off them. Curiously enough, the shields of Gothic suits were more inclined to be concave. It was better that a spear point should stay on the shield, rather than glance off upward or downward, and perhaps hit a more vulnerable point of the body armour. The best place of all for hitting people was on the very crest of the tilting helm, that is, if the person in question were vain enough to have a large metal crest in whose folds and ornaments the point would find a ready lodging. Many were vain enough to have these armorial crests with bears and dragons or even ships or castles on them, but Sir Lancelot always contented himself with a bare helmet, or a bunch of feathers which would not hold spears, or, on one occasion, a soft lady’s sleeve.

It would take too long to go into all the interesting details of proper tilting which the boys had to learn, for in those days you had to be a master of your craft from the bottom upward. You had to know what wood was best for spears, and why, and even how to turn them so that they would not splinter or warp. There were a thousand disputed questions about arms and armour, all of which had to be understood.

Just outside Sir Ector’s castle there was a jousting field for tournaments, although there had been no tournaments in it since Kay was born. It was a green meadow, kept short, with a broad grassy bank raised round it on which pavilions could be erected. There was an old wooden grandstand at one side, lifted on stilts for the ladies. At present the field was only used as a practice-ground for tilting, so a quintain had been erected at one end and a ring at the other. The quintain was a wooden Saracen on a pole. He was painted with a bright blue face and red beard and glaring eyes. He had a shield in his left hand and a flat wooden sword in his right. If you hit him in the middle of his forehead all was well, but if your lance struck him on the shield or on any part to left or right of the middle line, then he spun round with great rapidity, and usually caught you a wallop with his sword as you galloped by, ducking. His paint was somewhat scratched and the wood picked up over his right eye. The ring was just an ordinary iron ring tied to a kind of gallows by a thread. If you managed to put your point through the ring, the thread broke, and you could canter off proudly with the ring round your spear.

The day was cooler than it had been for some time, for the autumn was almost within sight, and the two boys were in the tilting yard with the master armourer and Merlyn. The master armourer, or sergeant-at-arms, was a stiff, pale, bouncy gentleman with waxed moustaches. He always marched about with his chest stuck out like a pouter pigeon, and he called out ‘On the word One –’ on every possible occasion. He took great pains to keep his stomach in, and often tripped over his feet because he could not see them over his chest. He was generally making his muscles ripple, which annoyed Merlyn.

Wart lay beside Merlyn in the shade of the grandstand and scratched himself for harvest bugs. The saw-like sickles had only lately been put away, and the wheat stood in stooks of eight among the tall stubble of those times. The Wart still itched. He was also sore about the shoulders and had a burning ear, from making bosh shots at the quintain – for, of course, practice tilting was done without armour. Wart was pleased that it was Kay’s turn to go through it now and he lay drowsily in the shade, snoozing, scratching, twitching like a dog and partly attending to the fun.

Merlyn, sitting with his back to all the athleticism, was practising a spell which he had forgotten. It was a spell to make the sergeant’s moustaches uncurl, but at present it only uncurled one of them, and the sergeant had not noticed it. He absent-mindedly curled it up again every time Merlyn did the spell, and Merlyn said, ‘Drat it!’ and began again. Once he made the sergeant’s ears flap by mistake, and the latter gave a startled look at the sky.

From far off at the other side of the tilting ground the sergeant’s voice came floating on the still air.

‘Nah, Nah, Master Kay, that ain’t it at all. Has you were. Has you were. The spear should be ’eld between the thumb and forefinger of the right ’and, with the shield in line with the seam of the trahser leg …’

The Wart rubbed his sore ear and sighed.

‘What are you grieving about?’

‘I was not grieving; I was thinking.’

‘What were you thinking?’

‘Oh, it was not anything. I was thinking about Kay learning to be a knight.’

‘And well you may grieve,’ exclaimed Merlyn hotly. ‘A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of stick! It makes me tired. Why, I believe Sir Ector would have been gladder to get a by-our-lady tilting blue for your tutor, that swings himself along on his knuckles like an anthropoid ape, rather than a magician of known probity and international reputation with first-class honours from every European university. The trouble with the Norman Aristocracy is that they are games-mad, that is what it is, games-mad.’

He broke off indignantly and deliberately made the sergeant’s ears flap slowly twice, in unison.

‘I was not thinking quite about that,’ said the Wart. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking how nice it would be to be a knight, like Kay.’

‘Well, you will be one soon enough, won’t you?’ asked the old man, impatiently.

Wart did not answer.

‘Won’t you?’

Merlyn turned round and looked closely at the boy through his spectacles.

‘What is the matter now?’ he enquired nastily. His inspection had shown him that his pupil was trying not to cry, and if he spoke in a kind voice he would break down and do it.

‘I shall not be a knight,’ replied the Wart coldly. Merlyn’s trick had worked and he no longer wanted to weep: he wanted to kick Merlyn. ‘I shall not be a knight because I am not a proper son of Sir Ector’s. They will knight Kay, and I shall be his squire.’

Merlyn’s back was turned again, but his eyes were bright behind his spectacles. ‘Too bad,’ he said without commiseration.

The Wart burst out with all his thoughts aloud. ‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘but I should have liked to be born with a proper father and mother, so that I could be a knight errant.’

‘What would you have done?’

‘I should have had a splendid suit of armour and dozens of spears and a black horse standing eighteen hands, and I should have called myself The Black Knight. And I should have hoved at a well or a ford or something and made all true knights that came that way to joust with me for the honour of their ladies, and I should have spared them all after I had given them a great fall. And I should live out of doors all the year round in a pavilion, and never do anything but joust and go on quests and bear away the prize at tournaments, and I should not ever tell anybody my name.’

‘Your wife will scarcely enjoy the life.’

‘Oh, I am not going to have a wife. I think they are stupid.

‘I shall have to have a lady-love, though,’ added the future knight uncomfortably, ‘so that I can wear her favour in my helm, and do deeds in her honour.’

A humblebee came zooming between them, under the grandstand and out into the sunlight.

‘Would you like to see some real knights errant?’ asked the magician slowly. ‘Now, for the sake of your education?’

‘Oh, I would! We have never even had a tournament since I was here.’

‘I suppose it could be managed.’

‘Oh, please do. You could take me to some like you did to the fish.’

‘I suppose it is educational, in a way.’

‘It is very educational,’ said the Wart. ‘I can’t think of anything more educational than to see some real knights fighting. Oh, won’t you please do it?’

‘Do you prefer any particular knight?’

‘King Pellinore,’ he said immediately. He had a weakness for this gentleman since their strange encounter in the Forest.

Merlyn said, ‘That will do very well. Put your hands to your sides and relax your muscles. Cabricias arci thurum, catalamus, singulariter, nominativa, haec musa. Shut your eyes and keep them shut. Bonus, Bona, Bonum. Here we go. Deus Sanctus, est-ne aratio Latinas? Etiam, oui, quare? Pourquoi? Quai substantivo et adjectivum concordat in generi, numerum et casus. Here we are.’

While this incantation was going on, the patient felt some queer sensations. First he could hear the sergeant calling out to Kay, ‘Nah, then, nah then, keep the ’eels dahn and swing the body from the ’ips.’ Then the words got smaller and smaller, as if he were looking at his feet through the wrong end of a telescope, and began to swirl round in a cone, as if they were at the pointed bottom end of a whirlpool which was sucking him into the air. Then there was nothing but a loud rotating roaring and hissing noise which rose to such a tornado that he felt that he could not stand it any more. Finally there was utter silence and Merlyn saying, ‘Here we are.’ All this happened in about the time that it would take a sixpenny rocket to start off with its fiery swish, bend down from its climax and disperse itself in thunder and coloured stars. He opened his eyes just at the moment when one would have heard the invisible stick hitting the ground.

They were lying under a beech tree in the Forest Sauvage.

‘Here we are,’ said Merlyn. ‘Get up and dust your clothes.

‘And there, I think,’ continued the magician, in a tone of satisfaction because his spells had worked for once without a hitch, ‘is your friend, King Pellinore, pricking toward us o’er the plain.’

‘Hallo, hallo,’ cried King Pellinore, popping his visor up and down. ‘It’s the young boy with the feather bed, isn’t it, I say, what?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said the Wart. ‘And I am very glad to see you. Did you manage to catch the Beast?’

‘No,’ said King Pellinore. ‘Didn’t catch the beast. Oh, do come here, you brachet, and leave that bush alone. Tcha! Tcha! Naughty, naughty! She runs riot, you know, what. Very keen on rabbits. I tell you there’s nothing in it, you beastly dog. Tcha! Tcha! Leave it, leave it! Oh, do come to heel, like I tell you.

‘She never does come to heel,’ he added.

At this the dog put a cock pheasant out of the bush, which rocketed off with a tremendous clatter, and the dog became so excited that it ran round its master three or four times at the end of its rope, panting hoarsely as if it had asthma. King Pellinore’s horse stood patiently while the rope was wound round its legs, and Merlyn and the Wart had to catch the brachet and unwind it before the conversation could go on.

‘I say,’ said King Pellinore. ‘Thank you very much. I must say. Won’t you introduce me to your friend, what?’

This is my tutor Merlyn, a great magician.’

‘How-de-do,’ said the King. ‘Always like to meet magicians. In fact I always like to meet anybody. It passes the time away, what, on a quest.’

‘Hail,’ said Merlyn, in his most mysterious manner.

‘Hail,’ replied the King, anxious to make a good impression.

They shook hands.

‘Did you say Hail?’ inquired the King, looking about him nervously. ‘I thought it was going to be fine, myself.’

‘He meant How-do-you-do,’ explained the Wart.

‘Ah, yes, How-de-do?’

They shook hands again.

‘Good afternoon’ said King Pellinore. ‘What do you think the weather looks like now?’

‘I think it looks like an anti-cyclone.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said the King. ‘An anti-cyclone. Well, I suppose I ought to be getting along.’

At this the King trembled very much, opened and shut his visor several times, coughed, wove his reins into a knot, exclaimed, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and showed signs of cantering away.

‘He is a white magician,’ said the Wart. ‘You need not be afraid of him. He is my best friend, your majesty, and in any case he generally gets his spells muddled up.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said King Pellinore. ‘A white magician, what? How small the world is, is it not? How-de-do?’

‘Hail’ said Merlyn.

‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore.

They shook hands for the third time.

‘I should not go away,’ said the wizard, ‘if I were you. Sir Grummore Grummursum is on the way to challenge you to a joust.’

‘No, you don’t say? Sir What-you-may-call-it coming here to challenge me to a joust?’

‘Assuredly.’

‘Good handicap man?’

‘I should think it would be an even match.’

‘Well, I must say,’ exclaimed the King, ‘it never hails but it pours.’

‘Hail,’ said Merlyn.

‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore.

‘Hail,’ said the Wart.

‘Now I really won’t shake hands with anybody else,’ announced the monarch. ‘We must assume that we have all met before.’

‘Is Sir Grummore really coming,’ inquired the Wart, hastily changing the subject, ‘to challenge King Pellinore to a battle?’

‘Look yonder,’ said Merlyn, and both of them looked in the direction of his outstretched finger.

Sir Grummore Grummursum was cantering up the clearing in full panoply of war. Instead of his ordinary helmet with a visor he was wearing the proper tilting-helm, which looked like a large coal-scuttle, and as he cantered he clanged.

He was singing his old school song:

             We’ll tilt together.

             Steady from crupper to poll,

             And nothin’ in life shall sever

             Our love for the dear old coll.

             Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up, follow-up,

             Till the shield ring again and again

             With the clanks of the clanky true men.

‘Goodness,’ exclaimed King Pellinore. ‘It’s about two months since I had a proper tilt, and last winter they put me up to eighteen. That was when they had the new handicaps.’

Sir Grummore had arrived while he was speaking, and had recognized the Wart.

‘Mornin’,’ said Sir Grummore. ‘You’re Sir Ector’s boy, ain’t you? And who’s that chap in the comic hat?’

‘That is my tutor,’ said the Wart hurriedly. ‘Merlyn, the magician.’

Sir Grummore looked at Merlyn – magicians were considered rather middle-class by the true jousting set in those days – and said distantly, ‘Ah, a magician. How-de-do?’

‘And this is King Pellinore,’ said the Wart. ‘Sir Grummore Grummursum – King Pellinore.’

‘How-de-do?’ inquired Sir Grummore.

‘Hail,’ said King Pellinore. ‘No, I mean it won’t hail, will it?’

‘Nice day,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘Yes, it is nice, isn’t it, what?’

‘Been questin’ today?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. Always am questing, you know. After the Questing Beast.’

‘Interestin’ job, that, very.’

‘Yes, it is interesting. Would you like to see some fewmets?’

‘By Jove, yes. Like to see some fewmets.’

‘I have some better ones at home, but these are quite good, really.’

‘Bless my soul. So these are her fewmets.’

‘Yes, these are her fewmets.’

‘Interestin’ fewmets.’

‘Yes, they are interesting, aren’t they? Only you get tired of them,’ added King Pellinore.

‘Well, well. It’s a fine day, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is rather fine.’

‘Suppose we’d better have a joust, eh, what?’

‘Yes, I suppose we had better,’ said King Pellinore, ‘really.’

‘What shall we have it for?’

‘Oh, the usual, I suppose. Would one of you kindly help me on with my helm?’

They all three had to help him on eventually, for, what with the unscrewing of screws and the easing of nuts and bolts which the King had clumsily set on the wrong thread when getting up in a hurry that morning, it was quite a feat of engineering to get him out of his helmet and into his helm. The helm was an enormous thing like an oil drum, padded inside with two thicknesses of leather and three inches of straw.

As soon as they were ready, the two knights stationed themselves at each end of the clearing and then advanced to meet in the middle.

‘Fair knight,’ said King Pellinore, ‘I pray thee tell me thy name.’

‘That me regards,’ replied Sir Grummore, using the proper formula.

‘That is uncourteously said,’ said King Pellinore, ‘what? For no knight ne dreadeth for to speak his name openly, but for some reason of shame,’

‘Be that as it may, I choose that thou shalt not know my name as at this time, for no askin’.’

‘Then you must stay and joust with me, false knight.’

‘Haven’t you got that wrong, Pellinore?’ inquired Sir Grummore. ‘I believe it ought to be “thou shalt”.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sir Grummore. Yes, so it should, of course. Then thou shalt stay and joust with me, false knight.’

Without further words, the gentlemen retreated to the opposite ends of the clearing, fewtered their spears, and prepared to hurtle together in the preliminary charge.

‘I think we had better climb this tree,’ said Merlyn. ‘You never know what will happen in a joust like this.’

They climbed up the big beech, which had easy branches sticking out in all directions, and the Wart stationed himself toward the end of a smooth bough about fifteen feet up, where he could get a good view. Nothing is so comfortable to sit in as a beech.

To be able to picture the terrible battle which now took place, there is one thing which ought to be known. A knight in his full armour of those days, or at any rate during the heaviest days of armour, was generally carrying as much or more than his own weight in metal. He often weighed no less than twenty-two stone, and sometimes as much as twenty-five. This meant that his horse had to be a slow and enormous weight-carrier, like the farm horse of today, and that his own movements were so hampered by his burden of iron and padding that they were toned down into slow motion, as on the cinema.

‘They’re off!’ cried the Wart, holding his breath with excitement.

Slowly and majestically, the ponderous horses lumbered into a walk. The spears, which had been pointing in the air, bowed to a horizontal line and pointed at each other. King Pellinore and Sir Grummore could be seen to be thumping their horses’ sides with their heels for all they were worth, and in a few minutes the splendid animals had shambled into an earthshaking imitation of a trot. Clank, rumble, thump-thump went the horses, and now the two knights were flapping their elbows and legs in unison, showing a good deal of daylight at their seats. There was a change in tempo, and Sir Grummore’s horse could be definitely seen to be cantering. In another minute King Pellinore’s was doing so too. It was a terrible spectacle.

‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed the Wart, feeling ashamed that his blood-thirstiness had been responsible for making these two knights joust before him. ‘Do you think they will kill each other?’

‘Dangerous sport,’ said Merlyn, shaking his head.

‘Now!’ cried the Wart.

With a blood-curdling beat of iron hoofs the mighty equestrians came together. Their spears wavered for a moment within a few inches of each other’s helms – each had chosen the difficult point-stroke – and then they were galloping off in opposite directions. Sir Grummore drove his spear deep into the beech tree where they were sitting, and stopped dead. King Pellinore, who had been run away with, vanished altogether behind his back.

‘Is it safe to look?’ inquired the Wart, who had shut his eyes at the critical moment.

‘Quite safe,’ said Merlyn. ‘It will take them some time to get back in position.’

‘Whoa, whoa, I say!’ cried King Pellinore in muffled and distant tones, far away among the gorse bushes.

‘Hi, Pellinore, hi!’ shouted Sir Grummore. ‘Come back, my dear fellah, I’m over here.’

There was a long pause, while the complicated stations of the two knights readjusted themselves, and then King Pellinore was at the opposite end from that at which he had started, while Sir Grummore faced him from his original position.

‘Traitor knight!’ cried Sir Grummore.

‘Yield, recreant, what?’ cried King Pellinore.

They fewtered their spears again, and thundered into the charge.

‘Oh,’ said the Wart, ‘I hope they don’t hurt themselves.’

But the two mounts were patiently blundering together, and the two knights had simultaneously decided on the sweeping stroke. Each held his spear at right angles toward the left, and, before the Wart could say anything further, there was a terrific yet melodious thump. Clang! went the armour, like a motor omnibus in collision with a smithy, and the jousters were sitting side by side on the green sward, while their horses cantered off in opposite directions.

‘A splendid fall,’ said Merlyn.

The two horses pulled themselves up, their duty done, and began resignedly to eat the sward. King Pellinore and Sir Grummore sat looking straight before them, each with the other’s spear clasped hopefully under his arm.

‘Well!’ said the Wart. ‘What a bump! They both seem to be all right, so far.’

Sir Grummore and King Pellinore laboriously got up.

‘Defend thee,’ cried King Pellinore.

‘God save thee,’ cried Sir Grummore.

With this they drew their swords and rushed together with such ferocity that each, after dealing the other a dent on the helm, sat down suddenly backwards.

‘Bah!’ cried King Pellinore.

‘Booh!’ cried Sir Grummore, also sitting down.

‘Mercy,’ exclaimed the Wart. ‘What a combat!’

The knights had now lost their tempers and the battle was joined in earnest. It did not matter much, however, for they were so encased in metal that they could not do each other much damage. It took them so long to get up, and the dealing of a blow when you weighed the eighth part of a ton was such a cumbrous business, that every stage of the contest could be marked and pondered.

In the first stage King Pellinore and Sir Grummore stood opposite each other for about half an hour, and walloped each other on the helm. There was only opportunity for one blow at a time, so they more or less took it in turns, King Pellinore striking while Sir Grummore was recovering, and vice versa. At first, if either of them dropped his sword or got it stuck in the ground, the other put in two or three extra blows while he was patiently fumbling for it or trying to tug it out. Later, they fell into the rhythm of the thing more perfectly, like the toy mechanical people who saw wood on Christmas trees. Eventually the exercise and the monotony restored their good humour and they began to get bored.

The second stage was introduced as a change, by common consent. Sir Grummore stumped off to one end of the clearing, while King Pellinore plodded off to the other. Then they turned round and swayed backward and forward once or twice, in order to get their weight on their toes. When they leaned forward they had to run forward, to keep up with their weight, and if they leaned too far backward they fell down. So even walking was complicated. When they had got their weight properly distributed in front of them, so that they were just off their balance, each broke into a trot to keep up with himself. They hurtled together as it had been two boars.

They met in the middle, breast to breast, with a noise of shipwreck and great bells tolling, and both, bouncing off, fell breathless on their backs. They lay thus for a few minutes, panting. Then they slowly began to heave themselves to their feet, and it was obvious that they had lost their tempers once again.

King Pellinore had not only lost his temper but he seemed to have been a bit astonished by the impact. He got up facing the wrong way, and could not find Sir Grummore. There was some excuse for this, since he had only a slit to peep through – and that was three inches away from his eye owing to the padding of straw – but he looked muddled as well. Perhaps he had broken his spectacles. Sir Grummore was quick to seize advantage.

‘Take that!’ cried Sir Grummore, giving the unfortunate monarch a two-handed swipe on the nob as he was slowly turning his head from side to side, peering in the opposite direction.

King Pellinore turned round morosely, but his opponent had been too quick for him. He had ambled round so that he was still behind the King, and now gave him another terrific blow in the same place.

‘Where are you?’ asked King Pellinore.

‘Here,’ cried Sir Grummore, giving him another.

‘The poor King turned himself round as nimbly as possible, but Sir Grummore had given him the slip again.

‘Tally-ho back!’ shouted Sir Grummore, with another wallop.

‘I think you’re a cad,’ said the King.

‘Wallop!’ replied Sir Grummore, doing it.

What with the preliminary crash, the repeated blows on the back of his head, and the puzzling nature of his opponent, King Pellinore could now be seen to be visibly troubled in his brains. He swayed backward and forward under the hail of blows which were administered, and feebly wagged his arms.

‘Poor King,’ said the Wart. ‘I wish he would not hit him so.’

As if in answer to his wish, Sir Grummore paused in his labours.

‘Do you want Pax?’ asked Sir Grummore.

King Pellinore made no answer.

Sir Grummore favoured him with another whack and said, ‘If you don’t say Pax, I shall cut your head off.’

‘I won’t,’ said the King.

Whang! went the sword on top of his head.

Whang! it went again.

Whang! for the third time.

‘Pax,’ said King Pellinore, mumbling rather.

Then, just as Sir Grummore was relaxing with the fruits of victory, he swung round upon him, shouted, ‘Non!’ at the top of his voice, and gave him a good push in the middle of the chest.

Sir Grummore fell over backwards.

‘Well!’ exclaimed the Wart. ‘What a cheat! I would not have thought it of him.’

King Pellinore hurriedly sat on his victim’s chest, thus increasing the weight upon him to a quarter of a ton and making it quite impossible for him to move, and began to undo Sir Grummore’s helm.

‘You said Pax!’

‘I said Pax Non under my breath.’

‘It’s a swindle.’

‘It’s not.’

‘You’re a cad.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I said Pax Non.’

‘You said Pax.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did.’

By this time Sir Grummore’s helm was unlaced and they could see his bare head glaring at King Pellinore, quite purple in the face.

‘Yield thee, recreant,’ said the King.

‘Shan’t,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘You have got to yield, or I shall cut off your head.’

‘Cut it off then.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said the King. ‘You know you have to yield when your helm is off.’

‘Feign I,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘Well, I shall just cut your head off.’

‘I don’t care.’

The King waved his sword menacingly in the air.

‘Go on,’ said Sir Grummore. ‘I dare you to.’

The King lowered his sword and said, ‘Oh, I say, do yield, please.’

‘You yield,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘But I can’t yield. I am on top of you after all, am I not, what?’

‘Well, I have feigned yieldin’.’

‘Oh, come on, Grummore. I do think you are a cad not to yield. You know very well I can’t cut your head off.’

‘I would not yield to a cheat who started fightin’ after he said Pax.’

‘I am not a cheat.’

‘You are a cheat,’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘Very well,’ said King Pellinore. ‘You can jolly well get up and put on your helm and we will have a fight. I won’t be called a cheat for anybody.’

‘Cheat!’ said Sir Grummore.

They stood up and fumbled together with the helm, hissing, ‘No, I’m not’ – ‘Yes, you are,’ until it was safely on. Then they retreated to opposite ends of the clearing, got their weight upon their toes, and came rumbling and thundering together like two runaway trams.

Unfortunately they were now so cross that they had both ceased to be vigilant, and in the fury of the moment they missed each other altogether. The momentum of their armour was too great for them to stop till they had passed each other handsomely, and then they manœuvred about in such a manner that neither happened to come within the other’s range of vision. It was funny watching them because King Pellinore, having already been caught from behind once, was continually spinning round to look behind him, and Sir Grummore, having used the stratagem himself, was doing the same thing. Thus they wandered for some five minutes, standing still, listening, clanking, crouching, creeping, peering, walking on tiptoe, and occasionally making a chance swipe behind their backs. Once they were standing within a few feet of each other, back to back, only to stalk off in opposite directions with infinite precaution, and once King Pellinore did hit Sir Grummore with one of his back strokes, but they both immediately spun round so often that they became giddy and mislaid each other afresh.

After five minutes Sir Grummore said, ‘All right, Pellinore. It is no use hidin’. I can see where you are.’

‘I am not hiding,’ exclaimed King Pellinore indignantly. ‘Where am I?’

They discovered each other and went up close together, face to face.

‘Cad,’ said Sir Grummore.

‘Yah,’ said King Pellinore.

They turned round and marched off to their corners, seething with indignation.

‘Swindler,’ shouted Sir Grummore.

‘Beastly bully,’ shouted King Pellinore.

With this they summoned all their energies together for one decisive encounter, leaned forward, lowered their heads like two billy-goats, and positively sprinted together for the final blow. Alas, their aim was poor. They missed each other by about five yards, passed at full steam doing at least eight knots, like ships that pass in the night but speak not to each other in passing, and hurtled onward to their doom. Both knights began waving their arms like windmills, anti-clockwise, in the vain effort to slow up. Both continued with undiminished speed. Then Sir Grummore rammed his head against the beech in which the Wart was sitting, and King Pellinore collided with a chestnut at the other side of the clearing. The trees shook, the forest rang. Blackbirds and squirrels cursed and wood-pigeons flew out of their leafy perches half a mile away. The two knights stood to attention while one could count three. Then, with a last unanimous melodious clang, they both fell prostrate on the fatal sward.

‘Stunned,’ said Merlyn, ‘I should think.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said the Wart. ‘Ought we to get down and help them?’

‘We could pour water on their heads,’ said Merlyn reflectively, ‘if there was any water. But I don’t suppose they would thank us for making their armour rusty. They will be all right. Besides, it is time that we were home.’

‘But they might be dead!’

‘They are not dead, I know. In a minute or two they will come round and go off home to dinner.’

‘Poor King Pellinore has not got a home.’

‘Then Sir Grummore will invite him to stay the night. They will be the best of friends when they come to. They always are.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘My dear boy, I know so. Shut your eyes and we will be off.’

The Wart gave in to Merlyn’s superior knowledge. ‘Do you think,’ he asked with his eyes shut, ‘that Sir Grummore has a feather bed?’

‘Probably.’

‘Good,’ said the Wart. ‘That will be nice for King Pellinore, even if he was stunned.’

The Latin words were spoken and the secret passes made. The funnel of whistling noise and space received them. In two seconds they were lying under the grandstand, and the sergeant’s voice was calling from the opposite side of the tilting ground, ‘Nah then, Master Art, nah then. You’ve been a-snoozing there long enough. Come aht into the sunlight ’ere with Master Kay, one-two, one-two, and see some real tilting.’