It would take too long to go into all the interesting details of proper tilting which the boys had to learn, for in those days you had to be a master of your craft from the bottom upward. You had to know what wood was best for spears, and why, and even how to turn them so that they would not splinter or warp. There were a thousand disputed questions about arms and armour, all of which had to be understood.
Just outside Sir Ector’s castle there was a jousting field for tournaments, although there had been no tournaments in it since Kay was born. It was a green meadow, kept short, with a broad grassy bank raised round it on which pavilions could be erected. There was an old wooden grandstand at one side, lifted on stilts for the ladies. At present the field was only used as a practice-ground for tilting, so a quintain had been erected at one end and a ring at the other. The quintain was a wooden Saracen on a pole. He was painted with a bright blue face and red beard and glaring eyes. He had a shield in his left hand and a flat wooden sword in his right. If you hit him in the middle of his forehead all was well, but if your lance struck him on the shield or on any part to left or right of the middle line, then he spun round with great rapidity, and usually caught you a wallop with his sword as you galloped by, ducking. His paint was somewhat scratched and the wood picked up over his right eye. The ring was just an ordinary iron ring tied to a kind of gallows by a thread. If you managed to put your point through the ring, the thread broke, and you could canter off proudly with the ring round your spear.
The day was cooler than it had been for some time, for the autumn was almost within sight, and the two boys were in the tilting yard with the master armourer and Merlyn. The master armourer, or sergeant-at-arms, was a stiff, pale, bouncy gentleman with waxed moustaches. He always marched about with his chest stuck out like a pouter pigeon, and he called out ‘On the word One –’ on every possible occasion. He took great pains to keep his stomach in, and often tripped over his feet because he could not see them over his chest. He was generally making his muscles ripple, which annoyed Merlyn.
Wart lay beside Merlyn in the shade of the grandstand and scratched himself for harvest bugs. The saw-like sickles had only lately been put away, and the wheat stood in stooks of eight among the tall stubble of those times. The Wart still itched. He was also sore about the shoulders and had a burning ear, from making bosh shots at the quintain – for, of course, practice tilting was done without armour. Wart was pleased that it was Kay’s turn to go through it now and he lay drowsily in the shade, snoozing, scratching, twitching like a dog and partly attending to the fun.
Merlyn, sitting with his back to all the athleticism, was practising a spell which he had forgotten. It was a spell to make the sergeant’s moustaches uncurl, but at present it only uncurled one of them, and the sergeant had not noticed it. He absent-mindedly curled it up again every time Merlyn did the spell, and Merlyn said, ‘Drat it!’ and began again. Once he made the sergeant’s ears flap by mistake, and the latter gave a startled look at the sky.
From far off at the other side of the tilting ground the sergeant’s voice came floating on the still air.
‘Nah, Nah, Master Kay, that ain’t it at all. Has you were. Has you were. The spear should be ’eld between the thumb and forefinger of the right ’and, with the shield in line with the seam of the trahser leg …’
The Wart rubbed his sore ear and sighed.
‘What are you grieving about?’
‘I was not grieving; I was thinking.’
‘What were you thinking?’
‘Oh, it was not anything. I was thinking about Kay learning to be a knight.’
‘And well you may grieve,’ exclaimed Merlyn hotly. ‘A lot of brainless unicorns swaggering about and calling themselves educated just because they can push each other off a horse with a bit of stick! It makes me tired. Why, I believe Sir Ector would have been gladder to get a by-our-lady tilting blue for your tutor, that swings himself along on his knuckles like an anthropoid ape, rather than a magician of known probity and international reputation with first-class honours from every European university. The trouble with the Norman Aristocracy is that they are games-mad, that is what it is, games-mad.’
He broke off indignantly and deliberately made the sergeant’s ears flap slowly twice, in unison.
‘I was not thinking quite about that,’ said the Wart. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking how nice it would be to be a knight, like Kay.’
‘Well, you will be one soon enough, won’t you?’ asked the old man, impatiently.
Wart did not answer.
‘Won’t you?’
Merlyn turned round and looked closely at the boy through his spectacles.
‘What is the matter now?’ he enquired nastily. His inspection had shown him that his pupil was trying not to cry, and if he spoke in a kind voice he would break down and do it.
‘I shall not be a knight,’ replied the Wart coldly. Merlyn’s trick had worked and he no longer wanted to weep: he wanted to kick Merlyn. ‘I shall not be a knight because I am not a proper son of Sir Ector’s. They will knight Kay, and I shall be his squire.’
Merlyn’s back was turned again, but his eyes were bright behind his spectacles. ‘Too bad,’ he said without commiseration.
The Wart burst out with all his thoughts aloud. ‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘but I should have liked to be born with a proper father and mother, so that I could be a knight errant.’
‘What would you have done?’
‘I should have had a splendid suit of armour and dozens of spears and a black horse standing eighteen hands, and I should have called myself The Black Knight. And I should have hoved at a well or a ford or something and made all true knights that came that way to joust with me for the honour of their ladies, and I should have spared them all after I had given them a great fall. And I should live out of doors all the year round in a pavilion, and never do anything but joust and go on quests and bear away the prize at tournaments, and I should not ever tell anybody my name.’
‘Your wife will scarcely enjoy the life.’
‘Oh, I am not going to have a wife. I think they are stupid.
‘I shall have to have a lady-love, though,’ added the future knight uncomfortably, ‘so that I can wear her favour in my helm, and do deeds in her honour.’
A humblebee came zooming between them, under the grandstand and out into the sunlight.
‘Would you like to see some real knights errant?’ asked the magician slowly. ‘Now, for the sake of your education?’
‘Oh, I would! We have never even had a tournament since I was here.’
‘I suppose it could be managed.’
‘Oh, please do. You could take me to some like you did to the fish.’
‘I suppose it is educational, in a way.’
‘It is very educational,’ said the Wart. ‘I can’t think of anything more educational than to see some real knights fighting. Oh, won’t you please do it?’
‘Do you prefer any particular knight?’
‘King Pellinore,’ he said immediately. He had a weakness for this gentleman since their strange encounter in the Forest.
Merlyn said, ‘That will do very well. Put your hands to your sides and relax your muscles. Cabricias arci thurum, catalamus, singulariter, nominativa, haec musa. Shut your eyes and keep them shut. Bonus, Bona, Bonum. Here we go. Deus Sanctus, est-ne aratio Latinas? Etiam, oui, quare? Pourquoi? Quai substantivo et adjectivum concordat in generi, numerum et casus. Here