if cold is brought, air changeth again into water.”
“This,” said King Arthur, “is alchemy, Merlin, and beyond my province. I must deal with men. Already I have learned that they come in all variations. To do perfect justice to them they must be dealt with individually. But a king hath not sufficient time to treat fully with every idiosyncrasy of each of his subjects, not to mention those persons who come from abroad to invade his realm, like Ryons, whose spirit I nonetheless admired.”
“But only,” said Merlin, “after you killed him.”
“Perhaps unjustly,” said Arthur, “with an invincible sword.”
“Without it you had been a boy of seventeen, and he seven feet high,” Merlin told his king. “But would you not nevertheless have faced him?”
“Certes,” said King Arthur, as if in wonderment at the question. “Doth a king have such a choice?”
“Well, some might,” said Merlin, “but you do never. Therefore you must not refuse the help of my magic, which at its most powerful could not misrepresent your character.”
And so did Arthur acquire a luxuriant golden beard, on loan so to speak from Nature until it was natural for him to grow his own. And having this, and Excalibur, he yet needed for his rule a Round Table, knights with which to furnish it, and the most beautiful woman in the world for his queen.
BOOK III
How King Arthur had converse with a lady, and who she was.
T HEN ELEVEN KINGS FROM THE north came into Britain for to attack King Arthur, and he fought the third war of his reign, the which lasted for three years.
Now during a respite between battles, his enemies having been repulsed in Wales and gone to the neighboring kingdom of Cameliard for to besiege King Leodegrance, a loyal ally of Britain by reason of his old friendship with Uther Pendragon, a beautiful lady came to Caerleon to seek asylum there. And little did King Arthur know that she was the wife of King Lot of the Orkneys, for she represented herself only as a woman in distress, though her secret purpose was to do harm.
Now Merlin’s powers were defied by women (unless they had already, as with Arthur’s mother the fair Ygraine, determined independently of him to follow a course that happened to serve his wishes), and therefore he could be of no service to King Arthur in this case. And King Arthur believed this lady’s account of how her castle had been overwhelmed by the hosts from the north, her husband its lord and all his men killed, and all resident females but herself ravished most foully, she alone escaping through a hidden postern in the wall.
And King Arthur was now twenty years of age, but he as yet had had no experience of females, and though when dealing with men he had put aside the pomposity that had been noted by Ryons just prior to that king’s losing his head, he returned to its use now, for this lady had long chestnut-colored hair of high gloss and an ivory neck that was bared to the division of her thrusting bosom, and her robe of pale-green velvet was as a second skin on a body of luxuriant health, which would not suggest that her castle had been so long under siege that she did suffer famine.
And she knelt rather more closely to the throne than even courtesy would require in a subject, and Arthur found that this proximity disturbed him strangely.
“We grant thy petition for asylum,” said he.
“And my castle, Sire?” asked the lady. “Shall I ever see it again?” Now the tears did well from her comely eyes green as emeralds, her snowy breast heaved in anguish, and she seemed to offer to swoon, so that Arthur rose and taking her hands brought her to her feet.
“Lady,” said he, “we are engaged in a war of some magnitude, and we have only just repulsed the enemy host. Soon we must needs meet them again, and though our cause is righteous and they are condemned by God to eventual defeat, the strife will first be violent. We can not therefore promise thee in meticulous
“This,” said King Arthur, “is alchemy, Merlin, and beyond my province. I must deal with men. Already I have learned that they come in all variations. To do perfect justice to them they must be dealt with individually. But a king hath not sufficient time to treat fully with every idiosyncrasy of each of his subjects, not to mention those persons who come from abroad to invade his realm, like Ryons, whose spirit I nonetheless admired.”
“But only,” said Merlin, “after you killed him.”
“Perhaps unjustly,” said Arthur, “with an invincible sword.”
“Without it you had been a boy of seventeen, and he seven feet high,” Merlin told his king. “But would you not nevertheless have faced him?”
“Certes,” said King Arthur, as if in wonderment at the question. “Doth a king have such a choice?”
“Well, some might,” said Merlin, “but you do never. Therefore you must not refuse the help of my magic, which at its most powerful could not misrepresent your character.”
And so did Arthur acquire a luxuriant golden beard, on loan so to speak from Nature until it was natural for him to grow his own. And having this, and Excalibur, he yet needed for his rule a Round Table, knights with which to furnish it, and the most beautiful woman in the world for his queen.
BOOK III
How King Arthur had converse with a lady, and who she was.
T HEN ELEVEN KINGS FROM THE north came into Britain for to attack King Arthur, and he fought the third war of his reign, the which lasted for three years.
Now during a respite between battles, his enemies having been repulsed in Wales and gone to the neighboring kingdom of Cameliard for to besiege King Leodegrance, a loyal ally of Britain by reason of his old friendship with Uther Pendragon, a beautiful lady came to Caerleon to seek asylum there. And little did King Arthur know that she was the wife of King Lot of the Orkneys, for she represented herself only as a woman in distress, though her secret purpose was to do harm.
Now Merlin’s powers were defied by women (unless they had already, as with Arthur’s mother the fair Ygraine, determined independently of him to follow a course that happened to serve his wishes), and therefore he could be of no service to King Arthur in this case. And King Arthur believed this lady’s account of how her castle had been overwhelmed by the hosts from the north, her husband its lord and all his men killed, and all resident females but herself ravished most foully, she alone escaping through a hidden postern in the wall.
And King Arthur was now twenty years of age, but he as yet had had no experience of females, and though when dealing with men he had put aside the pomposity that had been noted by Ryons just prior to that king’s losing his head, he returned to its use now, for this lady had long chestnut-colored hair of high gloss and an ivory neck that was bared to the division of her thrusting bosom, and her robe of pale-green velvet was as a second skin on a body of luxuriant health, which would not suggest that her castle had been so long under siege that she did suffer famine.
And she knelt rather more closely to the throne than even courtesy would require in a subject, and Arthur found that this proximity disturbed him strangely.
“We grant thy petition for asylum,” said he.
“And my castle, Sire?” asked the lady. “Shall I ever see it again?” Now the tears did well from her comely eyes green as emeralds, her snowy breast heaved in anguish, and she seemed to offer to swoon, so that Arthur rose and taking her hands brought her to her feet.
“Lady,” said he, “we are engaged in a war of some magnitude, and we have only just repulsed the enemy host. Soon we must needs meet them again, and though our cause is righteous and they are condemned by God to eventual defeat, the strife will first be violent. We can not therefore promise thee in meticulous
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