The Once and Future King (6 page)

The Wart returned to his tutor in a series of zig—zags and remarked, ‘I do not seem to keep quite straight.’

‘The trouble with you is that you do not swim from the shoulder. You swim as if you were a boy, bending at the hips. Try doing your jack—knives right from the neck downward, and move your body exactly the same amount to the right as you are going to move it to the left. Put your back into it.’

Wart gave two terrific kicks and vanished altogether in a clump of mare’s tail several yards away.

‘That’s better,’ said the tench, now out of sight in the murky olive water, and the Wart backed himself out of his tangle with infinite trouble, by wriggling his arm fins. He undulated back toward the voice in one terrific shove, to show off.

‘Good,’ said the tench, as they collided end to end. ‘But direction is the better part of valour.

‘Try if you can do this one,’ it added.

Without apparent exertion of any kind it swam off backward under a water—lily. Without apparent exertion – but the Wart, who was an enterprising learner, had been watching the slightest movement of his fins. He moved his own fins anti—clockwise, gave the tip of his tail a cunning flick, and was lying alongside the tench.

‘Splendid,’ said Merlyn. ‘Let us go for a little swim.’

The Wart was on an even keel now, and reasonably able to move about. He had leisure to look at the extraordinary universe into which the tattooed gentleman’s trident had plunged him. It was different from the universe to which he had been accustomed. For one thing, the heaven or sky above him was now a perfect circle. The horizon had closed to this. In order to imagine yourself into the Wart’s position, you would have to picture a round horizon, a few inches about your head, instead of the flat horizon which you usually see. Under this horizon of air you would have to imagine another horizon of under water, spherical and practically upside down – for the surface of the water acted partly as a mirror to what was below it. It is difficult to imagine. What makes it a great deal more difficult to imagine is that everything which human beings would consider
to be above the water level was fringed with all the colours of the spectrum. For instance, if you had happened to be fishing for the Wart, he would have seen you, at the rim of the tea saucer which was the upper air to him, not as one person waving a fishing—rod, but as seven people, whose outlines were red, orange, yellow green, blue, indigo and violet, all waving the same rod whose colours were as varied. In fact, you would have been a rainbow man to him, a beacon of flashing and radiating colours, which ran into one another and had rays all about. You would have burned upon the water like Cleopatra in the poem.

The next most lovely thing was that the Wart had no weight. He was not earth—bound any more and did not have to plod along on a flat surface, pressed down by gravity and the weight of the atmosphere. He could do what men have always wanted to do, that is, fly. There is practically no difference between flying in the water and flying in the air. The best of it was that he did not have to fly in a machine, by pulling levers and sitting still, but could do it with his own body. It was like the dreams people have.

Just as they were going to swim off on their tour of inspection, a timid young roach appeared from between two waving bottle bushes of mare’s tail and hung about, looking pale with agitation. It looked at them with big, apprehensive eyes and evidently wanted something, but could not make up its mind.

‘Approach,’ said Merlyn gravely.

At this the roach rushed up like a hen, burst into tears, and began stammering its message.

‘If you p—p—p—please, doctor,’ stammered the poor creature, gabbling so that they could scarcely understand what it said, ‘we have such a d—dretful case of s—s—s—something or other in our family, and we w—w—w—wondered if you could s—s—s—spare the time? It’s our d—d—d—dear Mamma, who w—w—w—will swim a—a—all the time upside d—d—d—down, and d—d—d—does look so horrible and s—s—s—speaks so strange, that we r—r—r—really thought she ought to have a d—d—d—doctor, if it w—w—w—wouldn’t be too much?
C—C—C—Clara says to say so, sir, if you s—s—s—see w—w—w—what I m—m—m—mean?’

Here the poor roach began fizzing so much, what with its stammer and its tearful disposition, that it became quite inarticulate and could only stare at Merlyn with mournful eyes.

‘Never mind, my little man,’ said Merlyn. ‘There, there, lead me to your dear Mamma, and we shall see what we can do.’

They all three swam off into the murk under the drawbridge, upon their errand of mercy.

‘Neurotic, these roach,’ whispered Merlyn, behind his fin. ‘It is probably a case of nervous hysteria, a matter for the psychologist rather than the physician.’

The roach’s Mamma was lying on her back as he had described. She was squinting, had folded her fins on her chest, and every now and then she blew a bubble. All her children were gathered round her in a circle, and every time she blew they nudged each other and gasped. She had a seraphic smile on her face.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Merlyn, putting on his best bedside manner, ‘and how is Mrs Roach today?’

He patted the young roaches on the head and advanced with stately motions towards his patient. It should perhaps be mentioned that Merlyn was a ponderous, deep—beamed fish of about five pounds, leather—coloured, with small scales, adipose in his fins, rather slimy, and having a bright marigold eye – a respectable figure.

Mrs Roach held out a languid fin, sighed emphatically and said, ‘Ah, doctor, so you’ve come at last?’

‘Hum,’ said the physician, in his deepest tone.

Then he told everybody to close their eyes – the Wart peeped – and began to swim round the invalid in a slow and stately dance. As he danced he sang. His song was this:

Therapeutic,

Elephantic,

Diagnosis,

Boom!

Pancreatic,

Microstatic,

Anti—toxic,

Doom!

With a normal catabolism,

Gabbleism and babbleism,

Snip, Snap, Snorum,

Cut out his abdonorum.

Dyspepsia,

Anaemia,

Toxaemia.

One, two, three,

And out goes He,

With a fol—de—rol—derido for the Five Guinea Fee.

At the end of the song he was swimming round his patient so close that he actually touched her, stroking his brown smooth—scaled flanks against her more rattly pale ones. Perhaps he was healing her with his slime – for all the fishes are said to go to the Tench for medicine – or perhaps it was by touch or massage or hypnotism. In any case, Mrs Roach suddenly stopped squinting, turned the right way up, and said, ‘Oh, doctor, dear doctor, I feel I could eat a little lob—worm now.’

‘No lob—worm,’ said Merlyn, ‘not for two days. I shall give you a prescription for a strong broth of algae every two hours. Mrs Roach. We must build up your strength, you know. After all, Rome was not built in a day.’

Then he patted all the little roaches once more, told them to grow up into brave little fish, and swam off with an air of importance into the gloom. As he swam, he puffed his mouth in and out.

‘What did you mean by that about Rome?’ asked the Wart, when they were out of earshot.

‘Heaven knows’.

They swam along, Merlyn occasionally advising him to put his back into it when he forgot, and the strange underwater world began to dawn about them, deliciously cool after the heat
of the upper air. The great forests of weed were delicately traced, and in them there hung motionless many schools of sticklebacks learning to do their physical exercises in strict unison. On the word One they all lay still; at Two they faced about; at Three they all shot together into a cone, whose apex was a bit of something to eat. Water snails slowly ambled about on the stems of the lilies or under their leaves, while fresh—water mussels lay on the bottom doing nothing in particular. Their flesh was salmon pink, like a very good strawberry cream ice. The small congregation of perch – it was a strange thing, but all the bigger fish seemed to have hidden themselves – had delicate circulations, so that they blushed or grew pale as easily as a lady in a Victorian novel. Only their blush was a deep olive colour, and it was the blush of rage. Whenever Merlyn and his companion swam past them, they raised their spiky dorsal fins in menace, and only lowered them when they saw that Merlyn was a tench. The black bars on their sides made them look as if they had been grilled, and these also could become darker or lighter. Once the two travellers passed under a swan. The white creature floated above like a Zeppelin, all indistinct except what was under the water. The latter part was quite clear and showed that the swan was floating slightly on one side with one leg cocked over its back.

‘Look,’ said the Wart, ‘it is the poor swan with the deformed leg. It can only paddle with one leg, and the other side of it is hunched.’

‘Nonsense,’ said the swan snappily, putting its head into the water and giving them a frown with its black nares. ‘Swans like to rest in this position, and you can keep your fishy sympathy to yourself, so there.’ It continued to glare at them from above, like a white snake suddenly let down through the ceiling, until they were out of sight.

‘You swim along,’ said the tench, ‘as if there was nothing to be afraid of in the world. Don’t you see that this place is exactly like the forest which you had to come through to find me?’

‘Is it?’

The Wart looked, and at first saw nothing. Then he saw a
small translucent shape hanging motionless near the surface. It was just outside the shadow of a water—lily and was evidently enjoying the sun. It was a baby pike, absolutely rigid and probably asleep, and it looked like a pipe stem or a seahorse stretched out flat. It would be a brigand when it grew up.

‘I am taking you to see one of those,’ said the tench,’ the Emperor of these purlieus. As a doctor I have immunity, and I dare say he will respect you as my companion as well – but you had better keep your tail bent in case he is feeling tyrannical.’

‘Is he the King of the Moat?’

‘He is. Old Jack they call him, and some call him Black Peter, but for the most part they do not mention him by name at all. They just call him Mr P. You will see what it is to be a king.’

The Wart began to hang behind his conductor a little, and perhaps it was as well that he did, for they were almost on top of their destination before he noticed it. When he did see the old despot he started back in horror, for Mr P. was four feet long, his weight incalculable. The great body, shadowy and almost invisible among the stems, ended in a face which had been ravaged by all the passions of an absolute monarch – by cruelty, sorrow, age, pride, selfishness, loneliness and thoughts too strong for individual brains. There he hung or hoved, his vast ironic mouth permanently drawn downward in a kind of melancholy, his lean clean—shaven chops giving him an American expression, like that of Uncle Sam. He was remorseless, disillusioned, logical, predatory, fierce, pitiless – but his great jewel of an eye was that of a stricken deer, large, fearful, sensitive and full of griefs. He made no movement, but looked upon them with his bitter eye.

The Wart thought to himself that he did not care for Mr P.

‘Lord,’ said Merlyn, not paying attention to his nervousness, ‘I have brought a young professor who would learn to profess.’

‘To profess what?’ asked the King of the Moat slowly, hardly opening his jaws and speaking through his nose.

‘Power,’ said the tench.

‘Let him speak for himself.’

‘Please,’ said the Wart, ‘I don’t know what I ought to ask.’

‘There is nothing,’ said the monarch, ‘except the power which you pretend to seek: power to grind and power to digest, power to seek and power to find, power to await and power to claim, all power and pitilessness springing from the nape of the neck.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Love is a trick played on us by the forces of evolution. Pleasure is the bait laid down by the same. There is only power. Power is of the individual mind, but the mind’s power is not enough. Power of the body decides everything in the end, and only Might is Right.

‘Now I think it is time that you should go away, young master, for I find this conversation uninteresting and exhausting. I think you ought to go away really almost at once, in case my disillusioned mouth should suddenly determine to introduce you to my great gills, which have teeth in them also. Yes, I really think you might be wise to go away this moment. Indeed, I think you ought to put your back into it. And so, a long farewell to all my greatness.’

The Wart had found himself almost hypnotized by the big words, and hardly noticed that the tight mouth was coming closer and closer to him. It came imperceptibly, as the lecture distracted his attention, and suddenly it was looming within an inch of his nose. On the last sentence it opened, horrible and vast, the skin stretching ravenously from bone to bone and tooth to tooth. Inside there seemed to be nothing but teeth, sharp teeth like thorns in rows and ridges everywhere, like the nails in labourers’ boots, and it was only at the last second that he was able to regain his own will, to pull himself together, to recollect his instructions and to escape. All those teeth clashed behind him at the tip of his tail, as he gave the heartiest jack—knife he had ever given.

In a second he was on dry land once again, standing beside Merlyn on the piping drawbridge, panting in his stuffy clothes.

One Thursday afternoon the boys were doing their archery as usual. There were two straw targets fifty yards apart, and when they had shot their arrows at one, they had only to go to it, collect them, and shoot back at the other, after facing about. It was still the loveliest summer weather, and there had been chicken for dinner, so that Merlyn had gone off to the edge of their shooting—ground and sat down under a tree. What with the warmth and the chicken and the cream he had poured over his pudding and the continual repassing of the boys and the tock of the arrows in the targets – which was as sleepy to listen to as the noise of a lawn—mower or of a village cricket match – and what with the dance of the egg—shaped sun—spots between the leaves of his tree, the aged man was soon fast asleep.

Archery was a serious occupation in those days. It had not yet been turned over to Indians and small boys. When you were shooting badly you got into a bad temper, just as the wealthy pheasant shooters do today. Kay was shooting badly. He was trying too hard and plucking on his loose, instead of leaving it to the bow.

‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘I am sick of these beastly targets. Let’s have a shot at the popinjay.’

They left the targets and had several shots at the popinjay – which was a large, bright—coloured artificial bird stuck on the top of a stick, like a parrot – and Kay missed these also. First he had the feeling of, ‘Well, I will hit the filthy thing, even if I have to go without my tea until I do it.’ Then he merely became bored.

The Wart said, ‘Let’s play Rovers then. We can come back in half an hour and wake Merlyn up.’

What they called Rovers, consisted in going for a walk with their bows and shooting one arrow each at any agreed mark which they came across. Sometimes it would be a molehill,
sometimes a clump of rushes, sometimes a big thistle almost at their feet. They varied the distance at which they chose these objects, sometimes picking a target as much as 120 yards away – which was about as far as these boys’ bows could carry – and sometimes having to aim actually below a close thistle because the arrow always leaps up a foot or two as it leaves the bow. They counted five for a hit, and one if the arrow was within a bow’s length, and they added up their scores at the end.

On this Thursday they chose their targets wisely. Besides, the grass of the big field had been lately cut, so that they never had to search for their arrows for long, which nearly always happens, as in golf, if you shoot ill—advisedly near hedges or in rough places. The result was that they strayed further than usual and found themselves near the edge of the savage forest where Cully had been lost.

‘I vote,’ said Kay, ‘that we go to those burrows in the chase, and see if we can get a rabbit. It would be more fun than shooting at these hummocks.’

They did this. They chose two trees about a hundred yards apart, and each boy stood under one of them waiting for the conies to come out again. They stood still, with their bows already raised and arrows fitted, so that they would make the least possible movement to disturb the creatures when they did appear. It was not difficult for either of them to stand thus, for the first test which they had had to pass in archery was standing with the bow at arm’s length for half an hour. They had six arrows each and would be able to fire and mark them all before they needed to frighten the rabbits back by walking about to collect. An arrow does not make enough noise to upset more than the particular rabbit that it is shot at.

At the fifth shot Kay was lucky. He allowed just the right amount for wind and distance, and his point took a young coney square in the head. It had been standing up on end to look at him, wondering what he was.

‘Oh, well shot!’ cried the Wart, as they ran to pick it up. It was the first rabbit they had ever hit, and luckily they had killed it dead.

When they had carefully gutted it with the hunting knife which Merlyn had given – to keep it fresh – and passed one of its hind legs through the other at the hock, for convenience in carrying, the two boys prepared to go home with their prize. But before they had unstrung their bows they used to observe a ceremony. Every Thursday afternoon, after the last serious arrow had been shot, they were allowed to fit one more nock to their strings and to shoot the arrow straight up into the air. It was partly a gesture of farewell, partly of triumph, and it was beautiful. They did it now as salute to their first prey.

The Wart watched his arrow go up. The sun was already westing toward evening, and the trees where they were had plunged them into a partial shade. So, as the arrow topped the trees and climbed into sunlight, it began to burn against the evening like the sun itself. Up and up it went, not weaving as it would have done with a snatching loose, but soaring, swimming, aspiring to heaven, steady, golden and superb. Just as it had spent its force, just as its ambition had been dimmed by destiny and it was preparing to faint, to turn over, to pour back into the bosom of its mother earth, a portent happened. A gore—crow came flapping wearily before the approaching night. It came, it did not waver, it took the arrow. It flew away, heavy and hoisting, with the arrow in its beak.

Kay was frightened by this, but the Wart was furious. He had loved his arrow’s movement, its burning ambition in the sunlight, and, besides, it was his best one. It was the only one which was perfectly balanced, sharp, tight—feathered, cleannocked, and neither warped nor scraped.

‘It was a witch,’ said Kay.