War.

They grazed in silence, until his own words reminded him of something he had wanted to ask.

"The sentries," he asked. "Are we at war?"

She did not understand the word.

"War?"

"Are we fighting people?"

"Fighting?" she asked doubtfully. "The men fight sometimes about their wives and that. Of course there is no bloodshed - only scuffling, to find the better man. Is that what you mean?"

"No, I meant fighting against armies - against other geese, for instance."

She was amused.

"How ridiculous! You mean a lot of geese all scuffling at the same time. It would be fun to watch."

Her tone suprised him, for his heart was still a kind one, being a boy's.

"Fun to watch them kill each other?"

"To kill each other? An army of geese kill each other?"

She began to understand this idea slowly and doubtfully, an expression of distaste coming over her face. When it had sank in, she left him. She went away to another part of the field in silence. He followed, but she turned her back. Moving round to get a glimpse of her eyes, he was startled by their dislike - a look as if he had made some obscene suggestion.

He said lamely: "I am sorry. I don't understand."

"Leave talking about it."

"I am sorry."

Later he aded, with annoyance, "A person can ask, I suppose. It seems a natural question, with the sentries."
But she was thoroughly angry.

"Will you stop about it at once! What a horrible mind you must have! You have no right to sy such things. And of course there are sentries. There are the jar-falcons and the peregrines, aren't there: the foxes and the ermines and the humans with their nets? These are natural enemies. But what creature could be so low as to go about in bands, to murder others of its own blood?"

"Ants do," he said obstinately. "And i was only trying to learn."

She relented with an effort to be good-natured. She wanted to be broad-minded if she could, for she was rather a blue stocking.

"My name is Lyo-lyok. YOu had better call yourself Kee-kwa, and then the rest will think you came from Hungary."

"Do you all come here from different places?"

"Well, in parties of course. There are some here from Siberia, some from Lapland and i can see one or two from Iceland."

"But don't they fight each other for the pasture?"

"Dear me you are a silly," she said. "There are no boundaries among geese."

"What are boundaries please?"

"Imaginary lines on the earth I suppose. How can you have boundaries if you fly? These ants of yours - and the humans too - would have to stop fighting in the end, if they took to the air."

"I like fighting," said the Wart. "It is knightly."

"Because you're a baby."

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The Once and Future King, T.H. White