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CASPIAN'S ADVENTURE IN THE MOUNTAINS:
AFTER this, Caspian and his Tutor had many more secret conversations on the
top of the Great Tower, and at each conversation Caspian learned more about Old
Narnia, so that thinking and dreaming about the old days, and longing that they
might come back, filled nearly all his spare hours. But of course he had not
many hours to spare, for now his education was beginning in earnest. He learned
sword-fighting and riding, swimming and diving, how to shoot with the bow and
play on the recorder and the theorbo, how to hunt the stag and cut him up when
he was dead, besides Cosmography, Rhetoric, Heraldry, Versification, and of
course History, with a little Law, Physic, Alchemy, and Astronomy. Of Magic he
learned only the theory, for Doctor Cornelius said the practical part was not
proper study for princes. "And I myself," he added, "am only a very imperfect
magician and can do only the smallest experiments." Of Navigation ("Which is a
noble and heroical art," said the Doctor) he was taught nothing, because King
Miraz disapproved of ships and the sea.
He also learned a great deal by using his own eyes and ears. As a little boy he
had often wondered why he disliked his aunt, Queen Prunaprismia; he now saw that
it was because she disliked him. He also began to see that Narnia was an unhappy
country. The taxes were high and the laws were stern and Miraz was a cruel man.
After some years there came a time when the Queen seemed to be ill and there was
a great deal of bustle and pother about her in the castle and doctors came and
the courtiers whispered. This was in early summertime. And one night, while all
this fuss was going on, Caspian was unexpectedly wakened by Doctor Cornelius
after he had been only a few hours in bed.
"Are we going to do a little Astronomy, Doctor?" said Caspian.
"Hush!" said the Doctor. "Trust me and do exactly as I tell you. Put on all your
clothes; you have a long journey before you."
Caspian was very surprised, but he had learned to have confidence in his Tutor
and he began doing what he was told at once. When he was dressed the Doctor
said, "I have a wallet for you. We must go into the next room and fill it with
victuals from your Highness's supper table."
"My gentlemen-in-waiting will be there," said Caspian.
"They are fast asleep and will not wake," said the Doctor. "I am a very minor
magician but I can at least contrive a charmed sleep."
They went into the antechamber and there, sure enough, the two
gentlemen-in-waiting were, sprawling on chairs and snoring hard. Doctor
Cornelius quickly cut up the remains of a cold chicken and some slices of
venison and put them, with bread and an apple or so and a little flask of good
wine, into the wallet which he then gave to Caspian. It fitted on by a strap
over Caspian's shoulder, like a satchel you would use for taking books to
school.
"Have you your sword?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes," said Caspian.
"Then put this mantle over all to hide the sword and the wallet. That's right.
And now we must go to the Great Tower and talk."
When they had reached the top of the Tower (it was a cloudy night, not at all
like the night when they had seen the conjunction of Tarva and Alambil) Doctor
Cornelius said,
"Dear Prince, you must leave this castle at once and go to seek your fortune in
the wide world. Your life is in danger here."
"Why?" asked Caspian.
"Because you are the true King of Narnia: Caspian the Tenth, the true son and
heir of Caspian the Ninth. Long life to your Majesty' - and suddenly, to
Caspian's great surprise, the little man dropped down on one knee and kissed his
hand.
"What does it all mean? I don't understand," said Caspian.
"I wonder you have never asked me before," said the Doctor, "why, being the son
of King Caspian, you are not King Caspian yourself. Everyone except your Majesty
knows that Miraz is a usurper. When he first began to rule he did not even
pretend to be the King: he called himself Lord Protector. But then your royal
mother died, the good Queen and the only Telmarine who was ever kind to me. And
then, one by one, all the great lords, who had known your father, died or
disappeared. Not by accident, either. Miraz weeded them out. Belisar and Uvilas
were shot with arrows on a hunting party: by chance, it was pretended. All the
great house of the Passarids he sent to fight giants on the northern frontier
till one by one they fell. Arlian and Erimon and a dozen more he executed for
treason on a false charge. The two brothers of Beaversdam he shut up as madmen.
And finally he persuaded the seven noble lords, who alone among all the
Telmarines did not fear the sea, to sail away and look for new lands beyond the
Eastern Ocean, and, as he intended, they never came back. And when there was no
one left who could speak a word for you, then his flatterers (as he had
instructed them) begged him to become King. And of course he did."
"Do you mean he now wants to kill me too?" said Caspian.
"That is almost certain," said Doctor Cornelius.
"But why now?" said Caspian. "I mean, why didn't he do it long ago if he wanted
to? And what harm have I done him?"
"He has changed his mind about you because of something that happened only two
hours ago. The Queen has had a son."
"I don't see what that's got to do with it," said Caspian.
"Don't see!" exclaimed the Doctor. "Have all my lessons in History and Politics
taught you no more than that? Listen. As long as he had no children of his own,
he was willing enough that you should be King after he died. He may not have
cared much about you, but he would rather you should have the throne than a
stranger. Now that he has a son of his own he will want his own son to be the
next King. You are in the way. He'll clear you out of the way."
"Is he really as bad as that?" said Caspian. "Would he really murder me?"
"He murdered your Father," said Doctor Cornelius.
Caspian felt very queer and said nothing.
"I can tell you the whole story," said the Doctor. "But not now. There is no
time. You must fly at once."
"You'll come with me?" said Caspian.
"I dare not," said the Doctor. "It would make your danger greater. Two are more
easily tracked than one. Dear Prince, dear King Caspian, you must be very brave.
You must go alone and at once. Try to get across the southern border to the
court of King Nain of Archenland. He will be good to you."
"Shall I never see you again?" said Caspian in a quavering voice.
"I hope so, dear King," said the Doctor. "What friend have I in the wide world
except your Majesty? And I have a little magic. But in the meantime, speed is
everything. Here are two gifts before you go. This is a little purse of gold
alas, all the treasure in this castle should be your own by rights. And here is
something far better."
He put in Caspian's hands something which he could hardly see but which he knew
by the feel to be a horn.
"That," said Doctor Cornelius, "is the greatest and most sacred treasure of
Narnia. Many terrors I endured, many spells did I utter, to find it, when I was
still young. It is the magic horn of Queen Susan herself which she left behind
her when she vanished from Narnia at the end of the Golden Age. It is said that
whoever blows it shall have strange help - no one can say how strange. It may
have the power to call Queen Lucy and King Edmund and Queen Susan and High King
Peter back from the past, and they will set all to rights. It may be that it
will call up Asian himself. Take it, King Caspian: but do not use it except at
your greatest need. And now, haste, haste, haste. The little door at the very
bottom of the Tower, the door into the garden, is unlocked. There we must part."
"Can I get my horse Destrier?" said Caspian.
"He is already saddled and waiting for you just at the corner of the orchard."
During the long climb down the winding staircase Cornelius whispered many more
words of direction and advice. Caspian's heart was sinking, but he tried to take
it all in. Then came the fresh air in the garden, a fervent handclasp with the
Doctor, a run across the lawn, a welcoming whinny from Destrier, and so King
Caspian the Tenth left the castle of his fathers. Looking back, he saw fireworks
going up to celebrate the birth of the new prince.
All night he rode southward, choosing by-ways and bridle paths through woods as
long as he was in country that he knew; but afterwards he kept to the high road.
Destrier was as excited as his master at this unusual journey, and Caspian,
though tears had come into his eyes at saying good-bye to Doctor Cornelius, felt
brave and, in a way, happy, to think that he was King Caspian riding to seek
adventures, with his sword on his left hip and Queen Susan's magic horn on his
right. But when day came, with a sprinkle of rain, and he looked about him and
saw on every side unknown woods, wild heaths, and blue mountains, he thought how
large and strange the world was and felt frightened and small.
As soon as it was full daylight he left the road and found an open grassy place
amid a wood where he could rest. He took off Destrier's bridle and let him
graze, ate some cold chicken and drank a little wine, and presently fell asleep.
It was late afternoon when he awoke. He ate a morsel and continued his journey,
still southward, by many unfrequented lanes. He was now in a land of hills,
going up and down, but always more up than down. From every ridge he could see
the mountains growing bigger and blacker ahead. As the evening closed in, he was
riding their lower slopes. The wind rose. Soon rain fell in torrents.
Destrier became uneasy; there was thunder in the air. And now they entered a
dark and seemingly endless pine forest, and all the stories Caspian had ever
heard of trees being unfriendly to Man crowded into his mind. He remembered that
he was, after all, a Telmarine, one of the race who cut down trees wherever they
could and were at war with all wild things; and though he himself might be
unlike other Telmarines, the trees could not be expected to know this.
Nor did they. The wind became a tempest, the woods roared and creaked all round
them. There came a crash. A tree fell right across the road just behind him.
"Quiet, Destrier, quiet!" said Caspian, patting his horse's neck; but he was
trembling himself and knew that he had escaped death by an inch. Lightning
flashed and a great crack of thunder seemed to break the sky in two just
overhead.
Destrier bolted in good earnest. Caspian was a good rider, but he had not the
strength to hold him back. He kept his seat, but he knew that his life hung by a
thread during the wild career that followed. Tree after tree rose up before them
in the dusk and was only just avoided. Then, almost too suddenly to hurt (and
yet it did hurt him too) something struck Caspian on the forehead and he knew no
more.
When he came to himself he was lying in a firelit place with bruised limbs and a
bad headache. Low voices were speaking close at hand.
"And now," said one, "before it wakes up we must decide what to do with it."
"Kill it," said another. "We can't let it live. It would betray us."
"We ought to have killed it at once, or else let it alone," said a third voice.
"We can't kill it now. Not after we've taken it in and bandaged its head and
all. It would be murdering a guest."
"Gentlemen," said Caspian in a feeble voice, "whatever you do to me, I hope you
will be kind to my poor horse."
"Your horse had taken flight long before we found you," said the first voice - a
curiously husky, earthy voice, as Caspian now noticed.
"Now don't let it talk you round with its pretty words," said the second voice.
"I still say-"
"Horns and halibuts!" exclaimed the third voice. "Of course we're not going to
murder it. For shame, Nikabrik. What do you say, Trufflehunter? What shall we do
with it?"
"I shall give it a drink," said the first voice, presumably Trufflehunter's. A
dark shape approached the bed. Caspian felt an arm slipped gently under his
shoulders - if it was exactly an arm. The shape somehow seemed wrong. The face
that bent towards him seemed wrong too. He got the impression that it was very
hairy and very long nosed, and there were odd white patches on each side of it.
"It's a mask of some sort," thought Caspian. "Or perhaps I'm in a fever and
imagining it all." A cupful of something sweet and hot was set to his lips and
he drank. At that moment one of the others poked the fire. A blaze sprang up and
Caspian almost screamed with the shock as the sudden light revealed the face
that was looking into his own. It was not a man's face but a badger's, though
larger and friendlier and more intelligent than the face of any badger he had
seen before. And it had certainly been talking. He saw, too, that he was on a
bed of heather, in a cave. By the fire sat two little bearded men, so much
wilder and shorter and hairier and thicker than Doctor Cornelius that he knew
them at once for real Dwarfs, ancient Dwarfs with not a drop of human blood in
their veins. And Caspian knew that he had found the Old Narnians at last. Then
his head began to swim again.
In the next few days he learned to know them by names. The Badger was called
Trufflehunter; he was the oldest and kindest of the three. The Dwarf who had
wanted to kill Caspian was a sour Black Dwarf (that is, his hair and beard were
black, and thick and hard like horsehair). His name was Nikabrik. The other
Dwarf was a Red Dwarf with hair rather like a Fox's and he was called Trumpkin.
"And now," said Nikabrik on the first evening when Caspian was well enough to
sit up and talk, "we still have to decide what to do with this Human. You two
think you've done it a great kindess by not letting me kill it. But I suppose
the upshot is that we have to keep it a prisoner for life. I'm certainly not
going to let it go alive - to go back to its own kind and betray us all."
"Bulbs and bolsters! Nikabrik," said Trumpkin. "Why need you talk so
unhandsomely? It isn't the creature's fault that it bashed its head against a
tree outside our hole. And I don't think it looks like a traitor."
"I say," said Caspian, "you haven't yet found out whether I want to go back. I
don't. I want to stay with you - if you'll let me. I've been looking for people
like you all my life."
"That's a likely story," growled Nikabrik. "You're a Telmarine and a Human,
aren't you? Of course you want to go back to your own kind."
"Well, even if I did, I couldn't," said Caspian. "I was flying for my life when
I had my accident. The King wants to kill me. If you'd killed me, you'd have
done the very thing to please him."
"Well now," said Trufflehunter, "you don't say so!"
"Eh?" said Trumpkin. "What's that? What have you been doing, Human, to fall foul
of Miraz at your age?"
"He's my uncle," began Caspian, when Nikabrik jumped up with his hand on his
dagger.
"There you are!" he cried. "Not only a Telmarine but close kin and heir to our
greatest enemy. Are you still mad enough to let this creature live?" He would
have stabbed Caspian then and there, if the Badger and Trumpkin had not got in
the way and forced him back to his seat and held him down.
"Now, once and for all, Nikabrik," said Trumpkin. "Will you contain yourself, or
must Trufflehunter and I sit on your head?"
Nikabrik sulkily promised to behave, and the other two asked Caspian to tell his
whole story. When he had done so there was a moment's silence.
"This is the queerest thing I ever heard," said Trumpkin.
"I don't like it," said Nikabrik. "I didn't know there were stories about us
still told among the Humans. The less they know about us the better. That old
nurse, now. She'd better have held her tongue. And it's all mixed up with that
Tutor: a renegade Dwarf. I hate 'em. I hate 'em worse than the Humans. You mark
my words - no good will come of it.
"Don't you go talking about things you don't understand, Nikabrik," said
Trufflehunter. "You Dwarfs are as forgetful and changeable as the Humans
themselves. I'm a beast, I am, and a Badger what's more. We don't change. We
hold on. I say great good will come of it. This is the true King of Narnia we've
got here: a true King, coming back to true Narnia. And we beasts remember, even
if Dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was
King."
"Whistles and whirligigs! Trufflehunter," said Trumpkin. "You don't mean you
want to give the country to Humans?"
"I said nothing about that," answered the Badger. "It's not Men's country (who
should know that better than me?) but it's a country for a man to be King of. We
badgers have long enough memories to know that. Why, bless us all, wasn't the
High King Peter a Man?"
"Do you believe all those old stories?" asked Trumpkin.
"I tell you, we don't change, we beasts," said Trufflehunter. "We don't forget.
I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as
firmly as I believe in Aslan himself."
"As firmly as that, I dare say," said Trumpkin. "But who believes in Aslan
nowadays?"
"I do," said Caspian. "And if I hadn't believed in him before, I would now. Back
there among the Humans the people who laughed at Aslan would have laughed at
stories about Talking Beasts and Dwarfs. Sometimes I did wonder if there really
was such a person as Aslan: but then sometimes I wondered if there were really
people like you. Yet there you are."
"That's right," said Trufflehunter. "You're right, King Caspian. And as long as
you will be true to Old Narnia you shall be my King, whatever they say. Long
life to your Majesty."
"You make me sick, Badger," growled Nikabrik. "The High King Peter and the rest
may have been Men, but they were a different sort of Men. This is one of the
cursed Telmarines. He has hunted beasts for sport. Haven't you, now?" he added,
rounding suddenly on Caspian.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I have," said Caspian. "But they weren't Talking
Beasts."
"It's all the same thing," said Nikabrik.
"No, no, no," said Trufflehunter. "You know it isn't. You know very well that
the beasts in Narnia nowadays are different and are no more than the poor dumb,
witless creatures you'd find in Calormen or Telmar. They're smaller too. They're
far more different from us than the half-Dwarfs are from you."
There was a great deal more talk, but it all ended with the agreement that
Caspian should stay and even the promise that, as soon as he was able to go out,
he should be taken to see what Trumpkin called "the Others"; for apparently in
these wild parts all sorts of creatures from the Old Days of Narnia still lived
on in hiding.
