"But my case is beside the point, considering the fact that my power of wisdom—call it magic, if you like—is greater than that of any known or recorded wizard or witch, and I doubt that I would have suffered more than a slight and temporary emotional disturbance even if I had ever fallen into the clutches of Lilith herself, under whatever guise or name. But your case, friend Torrice, is different; and I must confess that your respectable mentality—I say respectable for want of a more precise term—surprises me somewhat, after all your years of errantry. I am sure it has been by good fortune rather than by good management that you have escaped the attentions of one or more of those mischievous ladies."
'Tm not so sure of that," said the King, unstoppering the third flask and replenishing both cups. "In my quest of Beauty, which I have followed devotedly, save for occasional domestic interludes, ever since winning my spurs, I have had many contacts with ladies, many of whom were mischievous; and I am not at all sure that some of them were not witches. I have never consciously avoided that sort of thing, but in the interests of my high quest have sought it, and even now I would not avoid the most disastrous of them all."
"Stout fellow!" exclaimed Merlin merrily, but on a note of derision.
He laughed, but briefly. He leaned toward his companion in sudden gravity and wagged a finger at him.
"Have a care, my friend," he cautioned. "Don't be too cock-a-hoop about your powers of resistance and survival. You've been lucky, that's all. I admit that your luck has held a long time, but I warn you that it will not last forever. That you have encountered many enchantresses in your long and comprehensive quest I´ll not deny, but I tell you— and I´ll stake my reputation on it—that every one of them has been entirely human. There wasn't a witch in the lot. Just daughters of Eve, all of them; and even they have caused numerous deviations from your quest, and not a few considerable delays.
"Don't think I don't know what I am talking about, old friend, for I have followed your extraordinary course with interest ever since chance first brought you to my attention, though you have been blissfully ignorant of my surveillance most of the time. And I´ll tell you now when that was. It was a great day with you, poor Torrice—young Torrice, then—the day an old woman in a red cloak gave you a little crystal vial containing two ounces of what she claimed to be the Elixir of Life. You have not forgotten it, I see."
"Certainly not!" cried the King. "Why should I forget it?" he demanded, with a defiant gesture in the course of which he drained and refilled his cup. "I drank it, didn't I? And it was a long, long time ago, wasn't it? And here I am!"
"True, my friend, here you are, and a marvel of spirit and physical fitness for a man of your age. Ay, or for one of a quarter your age. But what you swallowed that day was not the real thing—not the magical liquor you believed it to be. It was but an experimental step in the development of the true, the pure, the perfected elixir. But even so, it was not without merit, as you have proved. It has served you well so far, my friend: but it is my duty to warn you that the virtue of the stuff you drank on that May morning of the first year of your—ah, if youll forgive the expression, your delightfully latitudinous quest—cannot be depended upon indefinitely."
"It was the Elixir of Life! And I am as good as I ever was!"
"Nay, not quite."
"Not quite? What do you mean by that?"
"Calm yourself, old friend. I speak for your own comfort and guidance. I mean that the old woman in the red cloak gave you a liquor that was not the perfected article, and that you are showing signs of—"
"Not so! I´ll prove it on your person with spear or sword, horsed or afoot, if you promise to keep your unholy magic out of it! And what the devil do you know of my traffic with that old hag?"
"I abstain from all armed encounters, for the very reason that I could not keep my advantage of magic out of them even if I would: and my answer to your question is: I was that old woman"
Sobered as if by a bucketful of cold water, Torrice hung his head in silence. Merlin was also in no mood for further speech at the moment, but refilled his cup and sipped with a contemplative and compassionate air.
The King was the first to resume the conversation.
"But what of you? You have drunk of it."
"Yes, when I had perfected it, I drank it," said Merlin.
"Then I may still drink of it," said Torrice hopefully.
"Nay, old friend, or you would live forever," Merlin replied gently.
"Why not? You will live forever. Then why not both of us?"
"I have my wisdom to support me—magic, to you, but the greatest in the world, by any name—to strengthen and console me. You have none of it."
"I could learn it."
"Nay, good Torrice of Har, not in a century. Nor in a millennium, for that matter. You lack the necessary—ah!— you are not the type for that sort of thing, dear old friend."
"Never mind the magic, then, but give me the elixir."
"No, I don't want to be the object of your curses throughout the ages. You have discovered a grandson and companion-at-arms. Do you want to outlive him? Consider that prospect, my friend."
The King considered it, sighed deeply, and shook his head. He stared and sat blinking at the red embers of the fire.
"How long have I left to go?" he whispered.
"Long enough," said Merlin cheerfully. "I can't be more exact than that," he added; and the lie was cheerful too.
"And the end?" whispered the King anxiously.
Before replying to that, the magician pressed a hand to his brow as if in an extraordinary effort of foresight.
"I see it. Hah! Well done! Nobly done! . . . Ah, old friend, I envy you."
"Gramercy! And the lad? What of his—How fares he— at the last?"
"Nay, I cannot see so far."
Chapter Two
The Smith Is Gone But They Hear of a Pilgrim
The squire named Peter was the first of that company to awake to the new day. The sun was still behind the eastward wall of the forest when he opened his eyes. Having lain out all night, he was damp with dew from head to foot. He sat up and blinked at slumbering Gervis, at four overturned flasks of rare outlandish glass on the dew-gemmed sward, and at the black and gray of the fallen fire. The events of the previous evening flashed in his mind, confusedly yet vividly, and painfully, for his brain felt tender and his eyes too big and hot for their sockets.
"Honest ale will be good enough for me from now on," he muttered.
He made his stumbling way to a brook which skirted the glade, knelt there, and immersed arms and head in the cool water. Vastly refreshed, he went back and stirred Gervis and the grooms to action; and all four, without a word but as if by spoken agreement, began rounding up the horses and examining their hooves.
"So it wasn't a dream!" cried Gervis; and he called all the saints whose names he could remember to bear witness that the episode of the forge had been sober fact. "I never thought to have that old warlock shoe a horse for me," he added.
"When you have served good old Torrice as long as I have, nothing will surprise you," Peter answered with a superior air.
"A search of the smithy now might be worth our while," suggested Gervis. "The secret of that trick would be useful, and it might even win a battle under certain circumstances."
So the two squires left the glade by the way they had come into it less than twelve hours before, in the hope of wresting a hint at least of Merlin's formula for horseshoeing from the deserted smithy while the magician continued to sleep off his potations in the pavilion. They had not far to go; and the backtracking of the passage of six horses and seven men over fat moss and through lush fern was a simple matter. And there they were. There was the great oak, anyway—the identical old forest patriarch bearing scars of thunderbolts, a heron's nest and three bushes of mistletoe, and doubtless, a hamadryad in its wide and soaring world of greenery. The squires stood and stared. They moved their lips but no sound came forth. Gervis' tongue was t
he first to thaw.
"Not here," he whispered. "Not the same tree. This isn't the place."
But he knew better. This was a unique tree. And here were the two ancient thorns that had crowded one end of the smithy, and the hollies that had crowded the other end of it. This was the place, certainly. A fool would recognize it. Everything was here, just as it had been—except the smithy.
Peter shivered and found his tongue and said: "Well go back and take another look at the horses' feet."
They returned to the glade and inspected all twenty-four hooves again. The new shoes were still in their places.
"I feared they had flown away after the smithy, forge, anvil, and bellows," muttered Gervis.
"They may yet," said Peter grimly.
"But he seems to be a merry old gentleman and a true friend to King Torrice," said Gervis.
"There's more to that old warlock than meets the eye," Peter answered. "As for his friendship—well, from all I've heard, I'd liefer have him with me than against me, but it would suit me best to be entirely free of his attentions. He has a queer sense of humor, and a devilish odd idea of a joke, by old wives' tales I've heard here and there. Take King Arthur Pendragon's birth, for instance: you know about that, of course! Well, was that a decent trick to play on a lady? For all his high blood—he was born a duke, no doubt of that—the mighty wizard Merlin is no gentleman. He doesn't think like one—not like our Torrice, nor like our Lorn, nor like you who can boast an honorable knight for a father, nor even like me, stable-born and stable-bred. Ay, though my gentility be scarce a year old, I'm a better gentleman than Duke Merlin, by my halidom!"
"I agree with you, my Peter—but not so loud, for here they come from the pavilion," warned Gervis.
King Torrice, in a kingly long robe of red silk, issued from the pavilion and looked to his front and right and left with an inquiring air. Sir Lorn, in an equally fine robe, appeared and stood beside his grandfather, yawning and blinking. And that was all. The guest, the great Merlin, did not come forth. The squires ran and halted and uncapped before their knights.
"How are the horses' feet?" asked the King.
"We have inspected them twice this morning, sir, and found all in order and every shoe in its place," Peter replied, and after a moment's hesitation, added: "But the smithy is gone, sir."
King Torrice nodded. He looked thoughtful, but not surprised.
"So is the smith," he said. "Let us hope and pray that his handiwork does not follow him."
"Every iron is tight and true, sir," Gervis assured him. Peter spoke hesitantly.
"Sir, may I suggest that it might happen? His handiwork might follow him—the twenty-four iron shoes—even on the hooves of Your Honor's horses—if all I've heard of that old warlock's magic be true."
The venerable quester blinked and asked: "How so, lad? D'ye suggest that their potency could, and might, pull the hoofs off the horses? And why not, come to think of it? It smacks of the Merlin touch, by Judas!"
"Yes, sir—but I did not mean it just in that way. I meant to suggest that he might, if in a tricky mood, bid the twenty-four shoes to follow him—horses and all."
"Hah!" the King exclaimed; and he swore by half a dozen saints. "That's his game, depend upon it! And I was simple enough to think he had done us a good turn out of pure good will! The master touch, indeed! But what does he want of us? What devilment is he up to now? 'A horn of ale will settle my score,' said he. And he leaves an empty cask, empty bottles, and four empty flasks of Araby. But he is welcome to all that, and would be welcome to a hundred silver crowns besides if I knew that the score was settled. But forewarned is forearmed; and well see to it that our horses go our way, not to Wizard Merlin's, even if we have to unshoe them and lead them afoot again."
* * *
Breakfast was eaten; pack-horses were loaded; the squires harnessed the knights and then each the other; and all four mounted into their high saddles. It was in all their minds that the march would be resumed in the same direction from which it had been diverted by the discovery of the smithy; so when all the horses wheeled to the right and plunged from the track as if by a common and irresistible impulse, King Torrice cried "Halt!" and pulled mightily on his reins. The squires pulled too, and the grooms pushed manfully against the thrusting heads of the pack-horses; but Sir Lorn, up on mighty Bahram and with his thoughts elsewhere—probably in Fairyland—neither drew rein nor cried halt, but crashed onward through fern and underbrush. The pulling and pushing and protesting of the others was of no avail. Where Lorn's great white warhorse led, the King's old charger, the squires' hackneys, and the stubborn beasts of burden would follow.
"Sir, this is what I meant!" cried Peter, coming up on the King's left.
"Gramercy!" gasped Torrice, who seldom forgot his manners, especially to his inferiors in rank.
Now they were beneath great oaks, with fallow deer bounding before them through netted sunshine and shadow, and tawny wild swine scattering right and left. Now charger and hackneys and ponies took their own heads for it, and ran as if possessed by devils. At the same moment Lorn drew rein and turned his head and waved a hand. The King and squires were soon up with him. He pointed through a screen of saplings.
"A good track," he said. "A wide and beaten track."
They all looked. There below them lay a better track than they had seen in a sennight, sure enough.
"It must go to some fine town, sir!" Gervis cried.
"I don't like it," said the King. "'Tis not of our own choosing."
"'Twill lead us out of the wilderness, sir, wherever to," Peter said; and in his eagerness to see a market and a tavern again, and houses with ladies and damosels looking down from windows, his distrust of Merlin was almost forgotten.
"Still, I don't like it!" Torrice muttered. "Nor what brought us to it against our wills. I have gone my own way since first donning gold spurs. I'm a knight-errant, and a baron and king. I acknowledge no human overlord save Arthur Pendragon—and I might defy even him at a pinch, as I have defied his father King Uther upon occasion. And now am I to jink this way and that at the whim of a tricky old magic-monger and the itch of bedeviled horses? Nay, by my halidom!"
Just then the white stallion and Sir Lorn went through the saplings and down the short bank, turned left on the track and trotted purposefully; and the King's charger and the King followed, willy-nilly; and the hackneys and the squires; and the grooms and their charges, clanking and running and eating dust.
"Hold! Hold!" King Torrice bawled, worked up by now to a fury of defiance that was foreign to his naturally placid though restless spirit—but all he got for it was a bitten tongue.
But that flurry of advance took the little cavalcade no father than around the next curve in the track. There Lorn pulled up, and all the others at his stirrups and his tail. Then all saw that which he had seen first. It was a dwarf standing fairly in the middle of the way and louting low.
"What now, my good manikin?" asked Torrice suspiciously: and he looked searchingly at the little fellow, looking for Merlin in yet another disguise.
Clearly and briefly the dwarf revealed his business. His mistress, Dame Clara, a defenseless widow, begged their lordships' protection from a cruel oppressor who had confined her within her manor house, beaten her stewards, driven off a full half of her flocks and herds, and was even now collecting her rents into his own pouch and demanding her hand in marriage.
"A widow," said the King reflectively, stroking his beard and wagging his head. "A beautiful widow, I presume—and as virtuous as beautiful, of course."
"The most beautiful lady in the land, Sir King!" cried the dwarf.
"Sir King?" queried Torrice. "Hah! So you know me, my friend! We have met before, is that it?"
"Nay, Your Kingship, but a poor old palmer home from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem visited us but a few hours since, and informed my mistress of the approach of the great King Torrice of Har and his noble Irish grandson Sir Lorn, and assured her that now her trou
bles were ended," replied the manikin.
Torrice looked at Lorn in consternation. He placed a shaking hand on the other's mailed thigh.
"You hear that, dear lad? Merlin—-just as I expected! But hell not make monkeys of us—to pluck his chestnuts out of fires. I´ll wrench off those cursed shoes with my bare hands first! Well turn now, and ride hard the other way."
The young knight said, "Yes sir," but immediately acted contrarily. Instead of wheeling Bahram, he stooped from his saddle and extended a hand downward to the dwarf, who seized it and was up behind him quick as a wink; and next moment all six horses were trotting forward again, with the great white stallion leading, with the King's tall gray—despite the King's protests—pressing him close.
The forest fell back on either hand, and they rode between ditches and hedges, green meadows and fields of young wheat and barley.
"Not so fast, young lord," cautioned the messenger. "Your great horse may need all his wind in a little while."
Lorn slowed the stallion's pace to a walk, and the rest slowed as well.
"I fear well pay dearly yet for our new shoes," said the King.
"But this is in the true spirit of our quest, sir—to succor distressed ladies and damosels," Lorn answered, with unusual animation in voice and eye. "How better can we discover what we are questing for, dear sir—whatever that is?"
"The Soul of Beauty," said his grandfather. "In her true and imperishable shape! But at that time I believed myself to be imperishable too. But never mind that now. You are right, dear lad—the quest is the thing; and the higher and harder it is, the more honor to the quester, win or lose. But I'd feel happier about this if Merlin hadn't a finger in it."
The Merriest Knight Page 36