No More Learning

For, as he had passed one of the islands the pirates had seen two cities
full of men in boats fighting for a woman on the sea; he had pushed up
his black boat in among the rest, lightly scattered every one of them
and brought her off with half his people killed with arrows. She was a
maiden so smooth, so white, so wonderful that a light seemed to come
from her as she walked. When the pirate came upon the shore of the
Eastern King's island the King asked him for the woman, but he would not
give her up. So the King imprisoned the pirate and made the woman his
queen.

"All the people adored her, the King's councilmen and all his soldiers,
the beasts themselves. The camels knelt down before her unbidden, and
the black slaves of the mountains rang her golden ankle bells just to
see her smile. So little wonder that the King grew very jealous. He had
his horns blown through all the hundred under-kingdoms which he ruled,
telling the people that he wanted a wizard who would teach him some
charm to work upon the queen and make her all his own. To the wizard who
could do this he promised a league of mountain land full of golden
mines, a province with a hundred miles of coast, a palace and a
princess. But all the wizards who failed should be killed and their
heads would be hung on the city gates until they mouldered away.

"So there were many, many wizards all through the hundred kingdoms who
tried to work the charm, but failed; many wizard heads bleached on the
walls, and for weeks a troupe of carrion crows hung like a cloud above
the towers of the city gateways. But at last the king's men found a
little glassy headed, hairless man who lived alone in a great wilderness
and ate nothing but grass. He read only one book, and by always reading
had got grated down, filed away and lean, with monstrous eyes and his
skin clinging to his bones. But since he never tasted wine or flesh--the
wall that separates people from spirits became crystal to him. He could
see through it, perceive the spirits as they walked and hear them
talking; so he learned their secrets.
Often he drew a cloud of rain
across a sunny sky, or when there was a wild storm and the pine woods
roared he made everything calm again.

"He was the man that was wanted. They dragged him to the king's court by
force, he didn't want to go. There he taught the king how to charm the
queen so that no one could see her again, and she could see no one
except the king as he passed about the palace. She lay as if quite dead
and lost to life. But when the king offered the magician his league of
golden mines, the province with a hundred miles of sea coast, the palace
and the princess, the old man turned away, went back to his wilderness
and lived on grass and vanished away. But his book came down to me. "

"You have the book! " cried Vivian smiling saucily. "The charm is written
in it. Good, take my advice and let me know the secret at once, for if
you should hide it away like a puzzle in a chest, if you should put
chest upon chest, and lock and padlock each chest thirty times and bury
them all away under some vast mound like the heaps of soldiers on the
battle-field, still I should hit upon some way of digging it out, of
picking it, of opening it and reading the charm. And _then_ if I tried
it on you who would blame me? "

"You read the book, my pretty Vivien? " cried Merlin. "Well, it's only
twenty pages long, but such pages! Every page has a square of text that
looks like a blot, the letters no longer than fleas' legs written in a
language that has long gone by, and all the borders and margins
scribbled, crossed and crammed with notes.