The Once and Future King by T. H. White Page B

you to be a hawk – for one thing Hob is still in the mews feeding them – so you may as well sit down for the moment and learn to be a human being.’
    ‘Very well,’ said the Wart, ‘if that’s a go.’ And he sat down.
    After several minutes he said, ‘Is one allowed to speak as a human being, or does the thing about being seen and not heard have to apply?’
    ‘Everybody can speak.’
    ‘That’s good, because I wanted to mention that you have been knitting your beard into the night—cap for three rows now.’
    ‘Well, I’ll be…’
    ‘I should think the best thing would be to cut off the end of your beard. Shall I fetch some scissors?’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
    ‘I wanted to see what would happen.’
    ‘You run a grave risk, my boy,’ said the magician, ‘of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted.’
    With this he slowly began to unpick his beard, muttering to himself meanwhile and taking the greatest precaution not to drop a stitch.
    ‘Will it be as difficult to fly,’ asked the Wart when he thought his tutor had calmed down, ‘as it was to swim?’
    ‘You will not need to fly. I don’t mean to turn you into a loose hawk, but only to set you in the mews for the night, so that you can talk to the others. That is the way to learn, by listening to the experts.’
    ‘Will they talk?’
    ‘They talk every night, deep into the darkness. They say about how they were taken, about what they can remember of their homes: about their lineage and the great deeds of their ancestors, about their training and what they have learned and will learn. It is military conversation really, like you might have in the mess of a crack cavalry regiment: tactics, small arms, maintenance, betting, famous hunts, wine, women and song.
    ‘Another subject they have,’ he continued, ‘is food. It is a depressing thought, but of course they are mainly trained by hunger. They are a hungry lot, poor chaps, thinking of the best restaurants where they used to go, and how they had champagne and caviare and gypsy music. Of course, they all come of noble blood.’
    ‘What a shame that they should be kept prisoners and be hungry.’
    ‘Well, they do not really understand that they are prisoners, any more than the cavalry officers do. They look on themselves as being dedicated to their profession, like an order of knighthood or something of that sort. You see, the membership of the mews is, after all, restricted to the raptors – and that does help a lot. They know that none of the lower classes can get in. Their screen perches don’t carry blackbirds or such trash as that. And then, as to the hungry part, they are far from starving or that kind of hunger. They are in training, you know, and like everybody in strict training, they think about food.’
    ‘How soon can I begin?’
    ‘You can begin now, if you want to. My insight tells me that Hob has this minute finished for the night. But first of all you must choose what kind of hawk you would prefer to be.’
    ‘I should like to be a merlin,’ said the Wart politely.
    This answer flattered the magician. ‘A very good choice,’ be said, ‘and if you please we will proceed at once.’
    The Wart got up from his stool and stood in front of his tutor. Merlyn put down his knitting.
    ‘First you go small,’ said he, pressing him on the top of his head, until he was a bit smaller than a pigeon. ‘Then you stand on the ball of your toes, bend at the knees, hold your elbows to your sides, lift your hands to the level of your shoulders, and press your first and second fingers together, as also your third and fourth. Look, it is like this.’
    With these words the ancient nigromant stood upon tiptoe and did as he had explained.
    The Wart copied him carefully and wondered what would happen next. What did happen was that Merlyn, who had been saying the final spells under his breath, suddenly turned himself into a condor, leaving the Wart standing on tiptoe