world of legend, where White and Malory stand farewelling at the end of the long journey that began by lamplight in the gamekeeper's cottage at Stowe Ridings.
We now find King Arthur of England, sitting in his campaign tent on the eve of battle. Tomorrow, he will face his bastard son Mordred and that youth's army of Nazi-like Thrashers on the battlefield.
His reign has been painfully long for Arthur, and he is bent with age and sadness and defeat. After a happy youth at Sir Ector's castle in the Forest Sauvage, where Merlyn the magician introduced him to the political ideologies found in the animal kingdom by temporarily transforming him into various beasts, Arthur was placed on the throne by destiny, compelled by his sense of justice and harmony to create the "civilized world" and the famous Round Table, to stimulate the Quest for the Holy Grail in an effort to keep man from killing man.
But a darker fate also dictated his ignorant siring of an illegitimate son by his own half sister and forced his wife Guenever and his best knight Lancelot into each other's arms, thus causing rivalry, deceit, and jealousy among the knights.
These last proved to be the old king's downfall. Forgotten were his achievements for the Might of Right and for peace on earth. Forgotten too was his own anguish at having tried his best and failed. The Quest had led nowhere, the Round Table was dispersed. Now Guenever was besieged by Mordred and his Thrashers in the Tower of London and Lancelot was exiled in France, both victims of Mordred's obsession to gain Arthur's throne.
So now Arthur is alone, fulfilling his royal duties by absentmindedly going through the day's paperwork, feeling his losses and his pain. He looks up at a movement at his tent door.
He thought a tittle and said:
"I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many of my patients. I should prescribe for Mr. Pontifex a course of the larger mammals. Don't let him think he is taking them medicinally...."
IT WAS NOT the Bishop of Rochester.
The king turned his head away from the newcomer, incurious as to his identity. The tears, running down his loose cheeks with their slow plods, made him feel ashamed to be seen: yet he was too vanquished to check them. He turned stubbornly from the light, unable to do more. He had reached the stage at which it was not worthwhile to hide an old man's misery.
Merlyn sat down beside him and took the worn hand, which made the tears flow faster. The magician patted the hand, holding it quietly with a thumb on its blue veins, waiting for life to revive.
"Merlyn?" asked the king.
He did not seem to be surprised.
"Are you a dream?" he asked. "Last night I dreamed that Gawaine came to me, with a troupe of fair ladies. He said they were allowed to come with him, because he had rescued them in his lifetime, and they had come to warn us that we should all be killed tomorrow. Then I had another dream, that I was sitting on a throne strapped to the top of a wheel, and the wheel turned over, and I was thrown into a pit of snakes."
"The wheel is come full circle: I am here."
"Are you a bad dream?" he asked. "If you are, do not torment me."
Merlyn still held the hand. He stroked along the veins, trying to make them sink into the flesh. He soothed the flaky skin and poured life into it with mysterious concentration, encouraging it to resilience. He tried to make the body flexible under his finger-tips, helping the blood to course, putting a bloom and smoothness on the swollen joints, but not speaking.
"You are a good dream," said the king. "I hope you will go on dreaming."
"I am not a dream at all. I am the man whom you remembered."
"Oh, Merlyn, it has been so miserable since you left! Everything which you helped to do was wrong. All your teaching was deception. Nothing was worth doing. You and I will be forgotten, like people who never were."
"Forgotten?" asked the magician. He smiled in the candle light, looking round the tent as if to assure
We now find King Arthur of England, sitting in his campaign tent on the eve of battle. Tomorrow, he will face his bastard son Mordred and that youth's army of Nazi-like Thrashers on the battlefield.
His reign has been painfully long for Arthur, and he is bent with age and sadness and defeat. After a happy youth at Sir Ector's castle in the Forest Sauvage, where Merlyn the magician introduced him to the political ideologies found in the animal kingdom by temporarily transforming him into various beasts, Arthur was placed on the throne by destiny, compelled by his sense of justice and harmony to create the "civilized world" and the famous Round Table, to stimulate the Quest for the Holy Grail in an effort to keep man from killing man.
But a darker fate also dictated his ignorant siring of an illegitimate son by his own half sister and forced his wife Guenever and his best knight Lancelot into each other's arms, thus causing rivalry, deceit, and jealousy among the knights.
These last proved to be the old king's downfall. Forgotten were his achievements for the Might of Right and for peace on earth. Forgotten too was his own anguish at having tried his best and failed. The Quest had led nowhere, the Round Table was dispersed. Now Guenever was besieged by Mordred and his Thrashers in the Tower of London and Lancelot was exiled in France, both victims of Mordred's obsession to gain Arthur's throne.
So now Arthur is alone, fulfilling his royal duties by absentmindedly going through the day's paperwork, feeling his losses and his pain. He looks up at a movement at his tent door.
He thought a tittle and said:
"I have found the Zoological Gardens of service to many of my patients. I should prescribe for Mr. Pontifex a course of the larger mammals. Don't let him think he is taking them medicinally...."
IT WAS NOT the Bishop of Rochester.
The king turned his head away from the newcomer, incurious as to his identity. The tears, running down his loose cheeks with their slow plods, made him feel ashamed to be seen: yet he was too vanquished to check them. He turned stubbornly from the light, unable to do more. He had reached the stage at which it was not worthwhile to hide an old man's misery.
Merlyn sat down beside him and took the worn hand, which made the tears flow faster. The magician patted the hand, holding it quietly with a thumb on its blue veins, waiting for life to revive.
"Merlyn?" asked the king.
He did not seem to be surprised.
"Are you a dream?" he asked. "Last night I dreamed that Gawaine came to me, with a troupe of fair ladies. He said they were allowed to come with him, because he had rescued them in his lifetime, and they had come to warn us that we should all be killed tomorrow. Then I had another dream, that I was sitting on a throne strapped to the top of a wheel, and the wheel turned over, and I was thrown into a pit of snakes."
"The wheel is come full circle: I am here."
"Are you a bad dream?" he asked. "If you are, do not torment me."
Merlyn still held the hand. He stroked along the veins, trying to make them sink into the flesh. He soothed the flaky skin and poured life into it with mysterious concentration, encouraging it to resilience. He tried to make the body flexible under his finger-tips, helping the blood to course, putting a bloom and smoothness on the swollen joints, but not speaking.
"You are a good dream," said the king. "I hope you will go on dreaming."
"I am not a dream at all. I am the man whom you remembered."
"Oh, Merlyn, it has been so miserable since you left! Everything which you helped to do was wrong. All your teaching was deception. Nothing was worth doing. You and I will be forgotten, like people who never were."
"Forgotten?" asked the magician. He smiled in the candle light, looking round the tent as if to assure
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