way.
‘Have I told you this before?’
‘No, we only met about half an hour ago.’
‘So little time to pass?’ said Merlyn, and a big tear ran down to the end of his nose. He wiped it off with his pyjamas and added anxiously, ‘Am I going to tell it you again?’
‘I do not know,’ said the Wart, ‘unless you have not finished telling me yet.’
‘You see, one gets confused with Time, when it is like that. All one’s tenses get muddled, for one thing. If you know what is going to happen to people, and not what has happened to them, it makes it difficult to prevent it happening, if you don’t want it to have happened, if you see what I mean? Like drawing in a mirror.’
The Wart did not quite see, but was just going to say that he was sorry for Merlyn if these things made him unhappy, when he felt a curious sensation at his ear. ‘Don’t jump,’ said the old man, just as he was going to do so, and the Wart sat still. Archimedes, who had been standing forgotten on his shoulder all this time, was gently touching himself against him. His beak was right against the lobe of the ear, which its bristles made to tickle, and suddenly a soft hoarse voice whispered, ‘How d’you do,’ so that it sounded right inside his head.
‘Oh, owl!’ cried the Wart, forgetting about Merlyn’s troubles instantly, ‘Look, he has decided to talk to me!’
The Wart gently leaned his head against the smooth feathers, and the tawny owl, taking the rim of his ear in its beak, quickly nibbled right round it with the smallest nibbles.
‘I shall call him Archie!’
‘I trust you will do nothing of the sort,’ exclaimed Merlyn instantly, in a stern and angry voice, and the owl withdrew to the farthest corner of his shoulder.
‘Is it wrong?’
‘You might as well call me Wol, or Olly,’ said the owl sourly, ‘and have done with it.
‘Or Bubbles,’ it muttered in a bitter voice.
Merlyn took the Wart’s hand and said kindly, ‘You are young, and do not understand these things. But you will learn that owls are the most courteous, single-hearted and faithful creatures living. You must never be familiar, rude or vulgar with them, or make them look ridiculous. Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise. No owl can possibly be called Archie.’
‘I am sorry, owl,’ said the Wart.
‘And I am sorry, boy,’ said the owl. ‘I can see that you spoke in ignorance, and I bitterly regret that I should have been so petty as to take offence where none was intended.’
The owl really did regret it, and looked so remorseful that Merlyn had to put on a cheerful manner and change the conversation.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘now that we have finished breakfast, I think it is high time that we should all three find our way back to Sir Ector.
‘Excuse me a moment,’ he added as an afterthought, and, turning round to the breakfast things, he pointed a knobbly finger at them and said in a stern voice, ‘Wash up.’
At this all the china and cutlery scrambled down off the table, the cloth emptied the crumbs out of the window, and the napkins folded themselves up. All ran off down the ladder, to where Merlyn had left the bucket, and there was such a noise and yelling as if a lot of children had been let out of school. Merlyn went to the door and shouted, ‘Mind, nobody is to get broken.’ But his voice was entirely drowned in shrill squeals, splashes, and cries of ‘My, it is cold,’ ‘I shan’t stay in long,’ ‘Look out, you’ll break me,’ or ‘Come on, let’s duck the teapot.’
‘Are you really coming all the way home with me?’ asked the Wart, who could hardly believe the good news.
‘Why not? How else can I be your tutor?’
At this the Wart’s eyes grew rounder and rounder, until they were about as big as the owl’s who was sitting on his shoulder, and his face got redder and redder, and a breath seemed to gather itself beneath his heart.
‘My!’ exclaimed the Wart, while his eyes sparkled with excitement at the discovery. ‘I must have been on a Quest!’
The Wart started talking before he was half-way over the drawbridge. ‘Look who I have brought,’ he said. ‘Look! I have been on a Quest! I was shot at with three arrows. They had black and yellow stripes. The owl is called Archimedes. I saw King Pellinore. This is my tutor, Merlyn. I went on a Quest for him. He was after the Questing Beast. I mean King Pellinore. It was terrible in the forest. Merlyn made the plates wash up. Hallo, Hob. Look, we have got Cully.’
Hob just looked at the Wart, but so proudly that the Wart went quite red. It was such a pleasure to be back home again with all his friends, and everything achieved.
Hob said gruffly, ‘Ah, Master, us shall make an austringer of ’ee yet.’
He came for Cully, as if he could not keep his hands off him longer, but he patted the Wart too, fondling them both because he was not sure which he was gladder to see back. He took Cully on his own fist, reassuming him like a lame man putting on his accustomed wooden leg, after it had been lost.
‘Merlyn caught him,’ said the Wart. ‘He sent Archimedes to look for him on the way home. Then Archimedes told us that he had been and killed a pigeon and was eating it. We went and frightened him off. After that, Merlyn stuck six of the tail feathers round the pigeon in a circle, and made a loop in a long piece of string to go round the feathers. He tied one end to a stick in the ground, and we went away behind a bush with the other end. He said he would not use magic. He said you could not use magic in Great Arts, just as it would be unfair to make a great statue by magic. You have to cut it out with a chisel, you see. Then Cully came down to finish the pigeon, and we pulled the string, and the loop slipped over the feathers and caught him round the legs. He was angry! But we gave him the pigeon.’
Hob made a duty to Merlyn, who returned it courteously. They looked upon one another with grave affection, knowing each other to be masters of the same trade. When they could be alone together they would talk about falconry, although Hob was naturally a silent man. Meanwhile they must wait their time.
‘Oh, Kay,’ cried the Wart, as the latter appeared with their nurse and other delighted welcomers. ‘Look, I have got a magician for our tutor. He has a mustard-pot that walks.’
‘I am glad you are back,’ said Kay.
‘Alas, where did you sleep, Master Art?’ exclaimed the nurse. ‘Look at your clean jerkin all muddied and torn. Such a turn as you gave us. I really don’t know. But look at your poor hair with all them twigs in it. Oh, my own random, wicked little lamb.’
Sir Ector came bustling out with his greaves on back to front, and kissed the Wart on both cheeks. ‘Well, well, well,’ he exclaimed moistly. ‘Here we are again, hey? What the devil have we been doin’, hey? Settin’ the whole household upside down.’
But inside himself he was proud
