Narnia 5 - The Horse and His Boy (16 page)

“Killed?” asked three voices breathlessly.

“How can I tell?” said the Hermit. “The Cats have done their work. All the riderless horses are dead or escaped now: no retreat for the Calormenes on them. Now the Cats are turning back into the main battle. They’re leaping on the rams-men. The ram is down. Oh, good! good! The gates are opening from the inside: there’s going to be a sortie. The first three are out. It’s King Lune in the middle: the brothers Dar and Darrin on each side of him. Behind them are Tran and Shar and Cole with his brother Colin. There are ten - twenty - nearly thirty of them out by now. The Calormen line is being forced back upon them. King Edmund is dealing marvellous strokes. He’s just slashed Corradin’s head off. Lots of Calormenes have thrown down their arms and are running for the woods. Those that remain are hard pressed. The Giants are closing in on the right - Cats on the left - King Lune from their rear. The Calormenes are a little knot now, fighting back to back. Your Tarkaan’s down, Bree. Lune and Azrooh are fighting hand to hand; the King looks like winning - the King is keeping it up well - the King has won. Azrooh’s down. King Edmund’s down - no, he’s up again: he’s at it with Rabadash. They’re fighting in the very gate of the castle. Several Calormenes have surrendered. Darrin has killed Ilgamuth. I can’t see what’s happened to Rabadash. I think he’s dead, leaning against the castle wall, but I don’t know. Chlamash and King Edmund are still fighting but the battle is over everywhere else. Chlamash has surrendered. The battle is over. The Calormenes are utterly defeated.”

When Shasta fell off his horse he gave himself up for lost. But horses, even in battle, tread on human beings very much less than you would suppose. After a very horrible ten minutes or so Shasta realized suddenly that there were no longer any horses stamping about in the immediate neighbourhood and that the noise (for there were still a good many noises going on) was no longer that of a battle. He sat up and stared about him. Even he, little as he knew of battles, could soon see that the Archenlanders and Narnians had won. The only living Calormenes he could see were prisoners, the castle gates were wide open, and King Lune and King Edmund were shaking hands across the battering ram. From the circle of lords and warriors around them there arose a sound of breathless and excited, but obviously cheerful conversation. And then, suddenly, it all united and swelled into a great roar of laughter.

Shasta. picked himself up, feeling uncommonly stiff, and ran towards the sound to see what the joke was. A very curious sight met his eyes. The unfortunate Rabadash appeared to be suspended from the castle walls. His feet, which were about two feet from the ground, were kicking wildly. His chain-shirt was somehow hitched up so that it was horribly tight under the arms and came half way over his face. In fact he looked just as a man looks if you catch him in the very act of getting into a stiff shirt that is a little too small for him. As far as could be made out afterwards (and you may be sure the story was well talked over for many a day) what happened was something like this. Early in the battle one of the Giants had made an unsuccessful stamp at Rabadash with his spiked boot: unsuccessful because it didn’t crush Rabadash, which was what the Giant had intended, but not quite useless because one of the spikes tore the chain mail, just as you or I might tear an ordinary shirt. So Rabadash, by the time he encountered Edmund at the gate, had a hole in the back of his hauberk. And when Edmund pressed him back nearer and nearer to the wall, he jumped up on a mounting block and stood there raining down blows on Edmund from above. But then, finding that this position, by raising him above the heads of everyone else, made him a mark for every arrow from the Narnian bows, he decided to jump down again. And he meant to look and sound - no doubt for a moment he did look and sound - very grand and very dreadful as he jumped, crying, “The bolt of Tash falls from above.” But he had to jump sideways because the crowd in front of him left him no landing place in that direction. And then, in the neatest way you could wish, the tear in the back of his hauberk caught on a hook in the wall. (Ages ago this hook had had a ring in it for tying horses to.) And there he found himself, like a piece of washing hung up to dry, with everyone laughing at him.

“Let me down, Edmund,” howled Rabadash. “Let me down and fight me like a king and a man; or if you are too great a coward to do that, kill me at once.”

“Certainly,” began King Edmund, but King Lune interrupted.

“By your Majesty’s good leave,” said King Lune to Edmund. “Not so.” Then turning to Rabadash he said, “Your royal Highness, if you had given that challenge a week ago, I’ll answer for it there was no one in King Edmund’s dominion, from the High King down to the smallest Talking Mouse, who would have refused it. But by attacking our castle of Anvard in time of peace without defiance sent, you have proved yourself no knight, but a traitor, and one rather to be whipped by the hangman than to be suffered to cross swords with any person of honour. Take him down, bind him, and carry him within till our pleasure is further known.”

Strong hands wrenched Rabadash’s sword from him and he was carried away into the castle, shouting, threatening, cursing, and even crying. For though he could have faced torture he couldn’t bear being made ridiculous. In Tashbaan everyone had always taken him seriously.

At that moment Corin ran up to Shasta, seized his hand and started dragging him towards King Lune. “Here he is, Father, here he is,” cried Corin.

“Aye, and here thou art, at last,” said the King in a very gruff voice. “And bast been in the battle, clean contrary to your obedience. A boy to break a father’s heart! At your age a rod to your breech were fitter than a sword in your fist, ha!” But everyone, including Corin, could see that the King was very proud of him.

“Chide him no more, Sire, if it please you,” said Lord Darrin. “His Highness would not be your son if he did not inherit your conditions. It would grieve your Majesty more if he had to be reproved for the opposite fault.”

“Well, well,” grumbled the King. “We’ll pass it over for this time. And now -” ‘

What came next surprised Shasta as much as anything that had ever happened to him in his life. He found himself suddenly embraced inn bear-like hug by King Lune and kissed on both cheeks. Then the King set him down again and said, “Stand here together, boys, and let all the court see you. Hold up your heads. Now, gentlemen, look on them both. Has any man any doubts?”

And still Shasta could not understand why everyone stared at him and at Corin nor what all the cheering was about.

HOW BREE BECAME A WISER HORSE

WE must now return to Aravis and the Horses. The Hermit, watching his pool, was able to tell them that Shasta was not killed or even seriously wounded, for he saw him get up and saw how affectionately he was greeted by King Lune. But as he could only see, not hear, he did not know what anyone was saying and, once the fighting had stopped and the talking had begun, it was not worth while looking in the pool any longer.

Next morning, while the Hermit was indoors, the three of them discussed what they should do next.

“I’ve had enough of this,” said Hwin. “The Hermit has been very good to us and I’m very much obliged to him I’m sure. But I’m getting as fat as a pet pony, eating all day and getting no exercise. Let’s go on to Narnia.”

“Oh not today, Ma’am,” said Bree. “I wouldn’t hurry things. Some other day, don’t you think?”

“We must see Shasta first and say good-bye to him - and - and apologize,” said Aravis.

“Exactly!” said Bree with great enthusiasm. “Just what I was going to say.”

“Oh, of course,” said Hwin. “I expect he is in Anvard. Naturally we’d look in on him and say good-bye. But that’s on our way. And why shouldn’t we start at once? After all, I thought it was Narnia we all wanted to get to?”

“I suppose so,” said Aravis. She was beginning to wonder what exactly she would do when she got there and was feeling a little lonely.

“Of course, of course,” said Bree hastily. “But there’s no need to rush things, if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean,” said Hwin. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“M-m-m, broo-hoo,” muttered Bree. “Well, don’t you see, Ma’am - it’s an important occasion - returning to one’s country - entering society - the best society - it is so essential to make a good impression - not perhaps looking quite ourselves, yet, eh?”

Hwin broke out into a horse-laugh. “It’s your tail, Bree! I see it all now. You want to wait till your tail’s grown again! And we don’t even know if tails are worn long in Narnia. Really, Bree, you’re as vain as that Tarkheena in Tashbaan!”

“You are silly, Bree,” said Aravis.

“By the Lion’s Mane, Tarkheena, I’m nothing of the sort,” said Bree indignantly. “I have a proper respect for myself and for my fellow horses, that’s all.”

“Bree,” said Aravis, who was not very interested in the cut of his tail, “I’ve been wanting to ask you something for a long time. Why do you keep on swearing By the Lion and By the Lion’s Mane? I thought you hated lions.”

“So I do,” answered Bree. “But when I speak of the Lion of course I mean Aslan, the great deliverer of Narnia who drove away the Witch and the Winter. All Narnians swear by him.”

“But is he a lion?”

“No, no, of course not,” said Bree in a rather shocked voice.

“All the stories about him in Tashbaan say he is,” replied Aravis. “And if he isn’t a lion why do you call him a lion?”

“Well, you’d hardly understand that at your age,” said Bree. “And I was only a little foal when I left so I don’t quite fully understand it myself.”

(Bree was standing with his back to the green wall while he said this, and the other two were facing him. He was talking in rather a superior tone with his eyes half shut; that was why he didn’t see the changed expression in the faces of Hwin and Aravis. They had good reason to have open mouths and staring eyes; because while Bree spoke they saw an enormous lion leap up from outside and balance itself on the top of the green wall; only it was a brighter yellow and it was bigger and more beautiful and more alarming than any lion they had ever seen. And at once it jumped down inside the wall and began approaching Bree from behind. It made no noise at all. And Hwin and Aravis couldn’t make any noise themselves, no more than if they were frozen.)

“No doubt,” continued Bree, “when they speak of him as a Lion they only mean he’s as strong as a lion or (to our enemies, of course) as fierce as a lion. Or something of that kind. Even a little girl like you, Aravis, must see that it would be quite absurd to suppose he is a real lion. Indeed it would be disrespectful. If he was a lion he’d have to be a Beast just like the rest of us. Why!” (and here Bree began to laugh) “If he was a lion he’d have four paws, and a tail, and Whiskers! . . . Aie, ooh, hoo-hoo! Help!”

For just as he said the word Whiskers one of Aslan’s had actually tickled his ear. Bree shot away like an arrow to the other side of the enclosure and there turned; the wall was too high for him to jump and he could fly no farther. Aravis and Hwin both started back. There was about a second of intense silence.

Then Hwin, though shaking all over, gave a strange little neigh, and trotted across to the Lion.

“Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”

“Dearest daughter,” said Aslan, planting a lion’s kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, “I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours.”

Then he lifted his head and spoke in a louder voice.

“Now, Bree,” he said, “you poor, proud frightened Horse, draw near. Nearer still, my son. Do not dare not to dare. Touch me. Smell me. Here are my paws, here is my tail, these are my whiskers. I am a true Beast.”

“Aslan,” said Bree in a shaken voice, “I’m afraid I must be rather a fool.”

“Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the Human either. Draw near, Aravis my daughter. See! My paws are velveted. You will not be torn this time.”

“This time, sir?” said Aravis.

“It was I who wounded you,” said Aslan. “I am the only lion you met in all your journeyings. Do you know why I tore you?”

“No, sir.”

“The scratches on your back, tear for tear, throb for throb, blood for blood, were equal to the stripes laid on the back of your stepmother’s slave because of the drugged sleep you cast upon her. You needed to know what it felt like.”

“Yes, sir. Please-“

“Ask on, my dear,” said Aslan.

“Will any more harm come to her by what I did?”

“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.” Then he shook his head and spoke in a lighter voice.

“Be merry, little ones,” he said. “We shall meet soon again. But before that you will have another visitor.” Then in one bound he reached the top of the wall and vanished from their sight.

Strange to say, they felt no inclination to talk to one another about him after he had gone. They all moved slowly away to different parts of the quiet grass and there paced to and fro, each alone, thinking.

About half an hour later the two Horses were summoned to the back of the house to eat something nice that the Hermit had got ready for them and Aravis, still walking and thinking, was startled by the harsh sound of a trumpet outside the gate.

“Who is there?” asked Aravis.

“His Royal Highness Prince Cor of Archenland,” said a voice from outside.

Aravis undid the door and opened it, drawing back a little way to let the strangers in.

Two soldiers with halberds came first and took their stand at each side of the entry. Then followed a herald, and the trumpeter.

“His Royal Highness Prince Cor of Archenland desires an audience of the Lady Aravis,” said the Herald. Then he and the trumpeter drew aside and bowed and the soldiers saluted and the Prince himself came in. All his attendants withdrew and closed the gate behind them.

The Prince bowed, and a very clumsy bow for a Prince it was. Aravis curtsied in the Calormene style (which is not at all like ours) and did it very well because, of course, she had been taught how. Then she looked up and saw what sort of person this Prince was.