The Once and Future King. T. H. White

said Marian patiently, ‘was this. The three of them came together to pass the time of day, and one of the hounds (I think it was the one called Cavall) began jumping up at poor Wat, to lick his face. This frightened the old man, and your Dog Boy called out, “Come here, Dog!” to make him stop. He did not point with his finger. You see, he ought to have pointed.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘Well, my man Scathelocke, or Scarlett, as they call him in the ballads, happened to be woodcutting a little way off, and he says that they vanished, just vanished, including the dog.’

      ‘My poor Cavall!’

      ‘So the fairies have got them.’

      ‘You mean the People of Peace.’

      ‘I am sorry.

      ‘But the point is, if Morgan is really the Queen of these creatures, and if we want to get them away before they are enchanted – one of their ancient Queens called Circe used to turn the ones she captured into hogs – we shall have to look for them in her castle.’

      ‘Then we must go there.’

Chapter XI

      Robin smiled at the elder boy and patted him on the back, while the Wart thought despairingly about his dog. Then the outlaw cleared his throat and began to speak again.

      ‘You are right about going there,’ he said, ‘but I ought to tell you the unpleasant part. Nobody can get into the Castle Chariot, except a boy or girl.’

      ‘Do you mean you can’t get in?’

      ‘You could get in.’

      ‘I suppose,’ explained the Wart, when he had thought this over, ‘it is like the thing about unicorns.’

      ‘Right. A unicorn is a magic animal, and only a maiden can catch it. Fairies are magic too, and only innocent people can enter their castles. That is why they take away people’s children out of cradles.’

      Kay and Wart sat in silence for a moment. Then Kay said. ‘Well, I am game. It is my adventure after all.’

      The Wart said: ‘I want to go too. I am fond of Cavall.’

      Robin looked at Marian.

      ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We won’t make a fuss about it, but we will talk about plans. I think it is good of you two to go, without really knowing what you are in for, but it will not be so bad as you think.’

      ‘We shall come with you,’ said Marian. ‘Our band will come with you to the castle. You will only have to do the going-in part at the end.’

      ‘Yes, and the band will probably be attacked by that griffin of hers afterwards.’

      ‘Is there a griffin?’

      ‘Indeed there is. The Castle Chariot is guarded by a fierce one, like a watch dog. We shall have to get past it on the way there, or it will give the alarm and you won’t be able to get in. It will be a terrific stalk.’

      ‘We shall have to wait till night.’

      The boys passed the morning pleasantly, getting accustomed to two of Maid Marian’s bows. Robin had insisted on this. He said that no man could shoot with another’s bow any more than he could cut with another’s scythe. For their midday meal they had cold venison patty, with mead, as did everybody else. The outlaws drifted in for the meal like a conjuring trick. At one moment there would be nobody at the edge of the clearing, at the next half a dozen right inside it – green or sunburned men who had silently appeared out of the bracken or the trees. In the end there were about a hundred of them, eating merrily and laughing. They were not outlaws because they were murderers, or for any reason like that. They were Saxons who had revolted against Uther Pendragon’s conquest, and who refused to accept a foreign king. The fens and wild woods of England were alive with them. They were like soldiers of the resistance in later occupations. Their food was dished out from a leafy bower, where Marian and her attendants cooked.

      The partisans usually posted a sentry to take the tree messages, and slept during the afternoon, partly because so much of their hunting had to be done in the times when most workmen sleep, and partly because the wild beasts take a nap in the afternoon and so should their hunters. This afternoon, however, Robin called the boys to a council.

      ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you had better know what we are going to do. My band of a hundred will march with you toward Queen Morgan’s castle, in four parties. You two will be in Marian’s party. When we get to an oak which was struck by lightning in the year of the great storm, we shall be within a mile of the griffin guard. We shall meet at a rendezvous there, and afterwards we shall have to move like shadows. We must get past the griffin without an alarm. If we do get past it and if all goes well, we shall halt at the castle at a distance of about four hundred yards. We can’t come nearer, because of the iron in our arrow-heads, and from that moment you will have to go alone.

      ‘Now, Kay and Wart, I must explain about iron. If our friends have really been captured by – by the Good People – and if Queen Morgan the Fay is really the queen of them, we have one advantage on our side. None of the Good People can bear the closeness of iron. The reason is that the Oldest Ones of All began in the days of flint, before iron was ever invented, and all their troubles have come from the new metal. The people who conquered them had steel swords (which is even better than iron) and that is how they succeeded in driving the Old Ones underground.

      ‘This is the reason why we must keep away tonight, for fear of giving them the uncomfortable feeling. But you two, with an iron knife-blade hidden close in your hands, will be safe from the Queen, so long as you do not let go of it. A couple of small knives will not give them the feeling without being shown. All you will have to do is to walk the last distance, keeping a good grip of your iron: enter the castle in safety: and make your way to the cell where the prisoners are. As soon as the prisoners are protected by your metal they will be able to walk out with you. Do you understand this, Kay and Wart?’

      ‘Yes, please,’ they said. ‘We understand this perfectly.’

      ‘There is one more thing. The most important is to hold your iron, but the next most important is not to eat. Anybody who eats in a you-know-what stronghold has to stay there for ever, so, for all sake’s sake, don’t eat anything whatever inside the castle, however tempting it may look. Will you remember?’

      ‘We will.’

      After the staff lecture, Robin went to give his orders to the men. He made them a long speech, explaining about the griffin and the stalk and what the boys were going to do.

      When he had finished his speech, which was listened to in perfect silence, an odd thing happened. He began it again at the beginning and spoke it from start to finish in the same words. On finishing it for the second time, he said, ‘Now, captains,’ and the hundred men split into groups of twenty which went to different parts of the clearing and stood round Marian, Little John, Much, Scarlett and Robin. From each of these groups a humming noise rose to the sky.

      ‘What on earth are they doing?’

      ‘Listen,’ said the Wart.

      They were repeating the speech, word for word. Probably none of them could read or write, but they had learned to listen and remember. This was the way in which Robin kept touch with his night raiders, by knowing that each man knew by heart all that the leader himself knew, and why he was able to trust them, when necessary, each man to move by himself.

      When the men had repeated their instructions, and everyone was word perfect in the speech, there was an issue of war arrows, a dozen to each. These arrows had bigger heads, ground to razor sharpness, and they were heavily feathered in a square cut. There was a bow inspection, and two or three men were issued with new strings. Then all fell silent.

      ‘Now then,’ cried Robin cheerfully.

      He waved