The Book of Merlyn Read online

  “It would help. The difficulty would lie in persuading the leading classes to agree to such a convention in the first place. Also, I am afraid that you will find there is always a type of maniac, anxious for notoriety at any price, or even for martyrdom, who would accept the pomp of leadership with even greater alacrity because it was enhanced by melodramatic penalties. The kings of Irish mythology were compelled by their station to march in the forefront of the battle, which occasioned a frightful mortality among them, yet there never seems to have been a lack of kings or battles in the history of the Green Isle.”

  “What about this new-fangled Law,” asked the goat suddenly, “which our king has been inventing? If individuals can be deterred from murder by fear of a death penalty, why cannot there be an international law, under which nations can be deterred from war by similar means? An aggressive nation might be kept at peace by the knowledge that, if it began a war, some international police force would sentence it to dispersal, by mass transportation to other countries for instance.”

  “There are two objections to that. First, you would be trying to cure the disease, not to prevent it. Second, we know from experience that the existence of a death penalty does not in fact abolish murder. It might, however, prove to be a temporary step in the right direction.”

  The old man folded his hands in his sleeves, like a Chinaman, and looked round the council table, doggedly, waiting for further questions. His eyes had begun to discharge their watch.

  “He has been writing a book called the Libellus Merlini, the Prophecies of Merlyn,” continued Archimedes wickedly, when he saw that this subject had been concluded, “which he had intended to read aloud to Your Majesty, as soon as you arrived.”

  “We will hear a reading.”

  Merlyn wrung his hands.

  “Sir,” he said.” It is mere fortune-telling, only gypsy tricks. It had to be written because there was a good deal of fuss about it in the twelfth century, after which we are to lose sight of it until the twentieth. But, oh Sir, it is merely a parlour game—not worth Your Majesty’s attention at present.”

  “Read me some part of it, none the less.”

  So the humiliated scientist, all of whose quips and quiddities had been knocked out of him in the last hour, fetched the burnt manuscript from the fender and handed round a collection of such slips as were still legible, as if it had been a parlour game in earnest. The animals read them out in turn, like mottos from crackers, and this is what they said:

  “God will provide, the Dodo will remark.”

  “The Bear will cure his headache by cutting off his head—but it will leave him with a sore behind.”

  “The Lion will lie down with the Eagle, saying, At last all the animals are united! But the Devil will see the joke.”

  “The Stars which taught the Sun to rise must agree with him at noon—or vanish.”

  “A child standing in Broadway will cry, Look mother, there is a man!”

  “How long it takes to build Jerusalem, the spider will say, pausing exhausted at his web on the ground floor of the Empire State Building.”

  “Living-space leads to space for the coffin, observed the Beetle.”

  “Force makes force.”

  “Wars of community, county, country, creed, continent, colour. After that the hand of God, if not before.”

  “Imitation (μίμησɩς) before action will save mankind.”

  “The Elk died because it grew its horns too big.”

  “No collision with the moon was required to exterminate the Mammoth.”

  “The destiny of all species is extinction as such, fortunately for them.”

  There was a pause after the last motto, while the listeners thought them over.

  “What is the meaning of the one with the Greek word?”

  “Sir, a part of its meaning, but only a small part, is that the one hope for our human race must lie in education without coercion. Confucius has it that:

  In order to propagate virtue to the world, one must first rule one’s country.

  In order to rule one’s country, one must first rule one’s family.

  In order to rule one’s family, one must first regulate one’s body by moral training.

  In order to regulate one’s body, one must first regulate one’s mind.

  In order to regulate the mind, one must first be sincere in one’s intentions.

  In order to be sincere in one’s intentions, one must first increase one’s knowledge.”

  “I see.”

  “Have the rest any relevant meaning?” added the king.

  “None whatever.”

  “One further question before we rise. You have said that politics are out of order, but they seem so closely tied to the question of warfare that they must be faced to some extent. At an earlier stage you claimed to be a capitalist. Are you sure of these views?”

  “If I said so, Your Majesty, I did not mean it. Badger was talking at me like a communist of the nineteen-twenties, which made me talk like a capitalist in self-defence. I am an anarchist, like any other sensible person. In point of fact the race will find that capitalists and communists modify themselves so much during the ages that they end by being indistinguishable as democrats: and so will the fascists modify themselves, for that matter. But whatever may be the contortions adopted by these three brands of collectivism, and however many the centuries during which they butcher each other out of childish ill-temper, the fact remains that all forms of collectivism are mistaken, according to the human skull. The destiny of man is an individualistic destiny, and it is in that sense that I may have implied a qualified approval of capitalism, if I did imply it. The despised Victorian capitalist, who did at least allow a good deal of play to the individual, was probably more truly futuristic in his politics than all the New Orders shrieked for in the twentieth century. He was of the future, because individualism lies in the future of the human brain. He was not so old-fashioned as the fascists and communists. But of course he was considerably old-fashioned for all that, and that is why I prefer myself to be an anarchist: that is, to be a little up-to-date. The geese are anarchists, you remember. They realise that the moral sense must come from inside, not from outside.”

  “I thought,” said the badger plaintively, “that communism was supposed to be a step towards anarchy. I thought that when communism had been properly achieved the state would wither away.”

  “People have told me so, but I doubt it. I cannot see how you may emancipate an individual by first creating an omnipotent state. There are no states in nature, except among monstrosities like the ants. It seems to me that people who go creating states, as Mordred is trying to do with his Thrashers, must tend to become involved in them, and so unable to escape. But perhaps what you say is true. I hope it is. In any case let us leave these dubious questions of politics to the dingy tyrants who look after them. Ten thousand years from now it may be time for the educated to concern themselves with such things, but meanwhile they must wait for the race to grow up. We for our part have offered a solution this evening to the special problem of force as an arbiter: the obvious platitude that war is due to national property, with the rider that it is stimulated by certain glands. Let us leave it at that for the present, in God’s name.”

  The old magician swept his notes away with a trembling hand. He had been deeply wounded by the hedgehog’s earlier criticisms, because, in the secrecy of his heart, he loved his student dearly. He knew now, since the royal hero had returned victorious in his choice, that his own wisdom was not the end. He knew that he had finished his tutorship. Once he had told the king that he would never be the Wart again: but it had been an encouraging thing to say: he had not meant it. Now he did mean it, now knew that he himself had yielded place, had stepped down from the authority to lead or to direct. The abdication had cost him his gaiety. He would not be able to rant any more, or to twinkle and mystify with the flashing folds of his magic cloak. The condescension of learning was pricked in him.
He was feeling ancient and ashamed.

  The old king, whose childhood had vanished also, toyed with a slip left on the table. He was at his trick of watching his hands, when in abstraction. He folded the paper this way, that way, carefully, and unfolded it. It was one of Merlyn’s notes for the card-index, which badger had muddled with the Prophecies: a quotation from a historian called Friar Clynn, who had died in 1348. This friar, employed as the annalist of his abbey to keep the historical records, had seen the Black Death coming to fetch him—possibly to fetch the whole world, for it had killed a third of the population of Europe already. Carefully leaving some pieces of blank parchment with the book in which he was to write no longer, he had concluded with the following message, which had once awakened Merlyn’s strange respect. “Seeing these many ills,” he had written in Latin, “and as it were the whole world thrust into malignancy, waiting among the dead for death to come to me, I have put into writing what I have truthfully heard and examined. And, lest the writing should perish with the writer or the work fail with the workman, I am now leaving some paper for the continuation of it—in case by any chance a man may remain alive in the future, or any person of the race of Adam may escape this pestilence, to carry on the labour once begun by me.”

  The king folded it neatly, measured it on the table. They watched him, knowing he was about to rise and ready to follow his example.

  “Very good,” he said. “We understand the puzzle.”

  He tapped the table with the paper, then got to his feet.

  “We must return before the morning.”

  The animals were rising too. They were conducting him to the door, crowding round him to kiss his hand and bid farewell. His now retired tutor, who must conduct him home, was holding the door for him to pass. Whether he was a dream or not, he had begun to flicker, as had they all. They were saying “Good success to Your Majesty, a speedy and successful issue.”

  He smiled gravely, saying: “We hope it will be speedy.”

  But he was referring to his death, as one of them knew.

  “It is only for this time, Majesty,” said T. natrix. “You remember the story of St. George, and Homo sapiens is like that still. You will fail because it is the nature of man to slay, in ignorance if not in wrath. But failure builds success and nature changes. A good man’s example always does instruct the ignorant and lessens their rage, little by little through the ages, until the spirit of the waters is content: and so, strong courage to Your Majesty, and a tranquil heart.”

  He inclined his head to the one who knew, and turned to go.

  At the last moment a hand was tugging at his sleeve, reminding him of the friend he had forgotten. He lifted the hedgehog with both hands under its armpits, and held it at arm’s length, face to face.

  “Ah, tiggy,” he said. “Us have thee to thank for royalty. Farewell, tiggy, and a merry life to thee and thy sweet songs.”

  But the hedgehog paddled its feet as if it were bicycling, because it wanted to be put down. It tugged the sleeve again, when it was safe upon the floor, and the old man lowered his ear to hear the whisper.

  “Nay, nay,” it mentioned hoarsely, clutching his hand, looking earnestly in his face. “Say not Farewell.”

  It tugged again, dropping its voice to the brink of silence.

  “Orryvoyer,” whispered the urchin. “Orryvoyer.”

  20

  WELL, WE HAVE REACHED IT AT LAST, the end of our winding story.

  Arthur of England went back to the world, to do his duty as well as he could. He called a truce with Mordred, having made up his mind that he must offer half his kingdom for the sake of peace. To tell the truth, he was prepared to yield it all if necessary. As a possession it had long ceased to be of value to him, and he had come to know for sure that peace was more important than a kingdom. But he felt it was his duty to retain a half if he could, and it was for this reason: that if he had even half a world to work on, he might be able still to introduce, in it, the germs of that good sense which he had learned from geese and animals.

  The truce was made, the armies drawn up in their battles, face to face. Each had a standard made from a ship’s mast set on wheels, at the top of which a small box held the consecrated Host, while, from the masts, there flew the banners of the Dragon and the Thistle. The knights of Mordred’s party were dressed in sable armour, their plumes were sable also, and, on their arms, the scarlet whip of Mordred’s badge glared with the sinister tint of blood. Perhaps they looked more terrible than they felt. It was explained to the waiting ranks that none of them must make a hostile demonstration, but all must keep their swords in sheath. Only, for fear of treachery, it was told that they might charge to rescue, if any sword was seen unharnessed at the parley.

  Arthur went forward to the space between the armies with his staff, and Mordred, with his own staff in their black accoutrements, came out to meet him. They encountered, and the old king saw his son’s face once again. It was taut and haggard. He too, poor man, had strayed beyond Sorrow and Solitude to the country of Kennaquhair; but he had gone without a guide and lost his way.

  The treaty was agreed on, to the surprise of all, more easily than had been hoped. The king was left with half his realm. For a moment joy and peace were in the balance.

  But, at that knife-edge of a moment, the old Adam reared itself in a different form. The feudal war, baronial oppression, individual might, even ideological rebellion: he had settled them all in one way or another, only to be beaten on the last lap now, by the epeisodic fact that man was a slayer by instinct.

  A grass-snake moved in the meadow near their feet, close to an officer of Mordred’s staff. This officer stepped back instinctively and swung his hand across his body, his armlet with the whip shewing for a second’s flash. The bright sword flamed into being, to destroy the so-called viper. The waiting armies, taking it for treachery, raised their shout of rage. The lances on both sides bowed to rest. And, as King Arthur ran towards his own array, an old man with white hair trying to stem the endless tide, holding out the knuckled hands in a gesture of pressing them back, struggling to the last against the flood of Might which had burst out all his life at a new place whenever he had dammed it, so the tumult rose, the war-yell sounded, and the meeting waters closed above his head.

  Lancelot arrived too late. He had made his best speed, but it had been in vain. All he could do was to pacify the country and give burial to the dead. Then, when a semblance of order had been restored, he hurried to Guenever. She was supposed to be in the Tower of London still, for Mordred’s siege had failed.

  But Guenever had gone.

  In those days the rules of convents were not so strict as they are now. Often they were more like hostelries for their wellborn patrons. Guenever had taken the veil at Amesbury.

  She felt that they had suffered enough, and had caused enough suffering to others. She refused to see her ancient lover or to talk it over. She said, which was patently untrue, that she wished to make her peace with God.

  Guenever never cared for God. She was a good theologian, but that was all. The truth was that she was old and wise: she knew that Lancelot did care for God most passionately, that it was essential he should turn in that direction. So, for his sake, to make it easier for him, the great queen now renounced what she had fought for all her life, now set the example, and stood to her choice. She had stepped out of the picture.

  Lancelot guessed a good deal of this, and, when she refused to see him, he climbed the convent wall with Gallic, ageing gallantry. He waylaid her to expostulate, but she was adamant and brave. Something about Mordred seems to have broken her lust for life. They parted, never to meet on earth.

  Guenever became a worldly abbess. She ruled her convent efficiently, royally, with a sort of grand contempt. The little pupils of the school were brought up in the great tradition of nobility. They saw her walking in the grounds, upright, rigid, her fingers flashing with hard rings, her linen clean and fine and scented against the rules of he
r order. The novices worshipped her unanimously, with schoolgirl passions, and whispered about her past. She became a Grand Old Lady. When she died at last, her Lancelot came for the body, with his snow-white hair and wrinkled cheeks, to carry it to her husband’s grave. There, in the reputed grave, she was buried: a calm and regal face, nailed down and hidden in the earth.

  As for Lancelot, he became a hermit in earnest. With seven of his own knights as companions he entered a monastery near Glastonbury, and devoted his life to worship. Arthur, Guenever and Elaine were gone, but his ghostly love remained. He prayed for all of them twice a day, with all his never-beaten might, and lived in glad austerities apart from man. He even learned to distinguish bird-songs in the woods, and to have time for all the things which had been denied to him by Uncle Dap. He became an excellent gardener, and a reputed saint.

  “Ipse,” says a mediaeval poem about another old crusader, a great lord like Lancelot in his day, and one who also retired from the world:

  Ipse post militiae cursum temporalis,

  Illustratus gratia doni spiritualis,

  Esse Christi cupiens miles specialis,

  In hac domo monachus factus est claustralis.

  He, after the bustle of temporal warfare,

  Enlightened with the grace of a spiritual gift,

  Covetous to be the special soldier of Christ,

  In this house was made a cloistered monk.

  More than usually placid, gentle and benign,

  As white as a swan on account of his old age,

  Bland and affable and lovable,

  He possessed in himself the grace of the Holy Spirit.

  For he often frequented Holy Church,

  Joyfully listened to the mysteries of the Mass,

  Proclaimed such praises as he was able,

  And mentally ruminated the heavenly glory.

  His gentle and jocose conversation,

  Highly commendable and religious,