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IN THE WITCH'S HOUSE:
AND now of course you want to know what had happened to Edmund. He had eaten
his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because he was thinking
all the time about Turkish Delight - and there's nothing that spoils the taste
of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food. And he had
heard the conversation, and hadn't enjoyed it much either, because he kept on
thinking that the others were taking no notice of him and trying to give him the
cold shoulder. They weren't, but he imagined it. And then he had listened until
Mr Beaver told them about Aslan and until he had heard the whole arrangement for
meeting Aslan at the Stone Table. It was then that he began very quietly to edge
himself under the curtain which hung over the door. For the mention of Aslan
gave him a mysterious and horrible feeling just as it gave the others a
mysterious and lovely feeling.
Just as Mr Beaver had been repeating the rhyme about Adam's flesh and Adam's
bone Edmund had been very quietly turning the doorhandle; and just before Mr
Beaver had begun telling them that the White Witch wasn't really human at all
but half a Jinn and half a giantess, Edmund had got outside into the snow and
cautiously closed the door behind him.
You mustn't think that even now Edmund was quite so bad that he actually wanted
his brother and sisters to be turned into stone. He did want Turkish Delight and
to be a Prince (and later a King) and to pay Peter out for calling him a beast.
As for what the Witch would do with the others, he didn't want her to be
particularly nice to them - certainly not to put them on the same level as
himself; but he managed to believe, or to pretend he believed, that she wouldn't
do anything very bad to them, "Because," he said to himself, "all these people
who say nasty things about her are her enemies and probably half of it isn't
true. She was jolly nice to me, anyway, much nicer than they are. I expect she
is the rightful Queen really. Anyway, she'll be better than that awful Aslan!"
At least, that was the excuse he made in his own mind for what he was doing. It
wasn't a very good excuse, however, for deep down inside him he really knew that
the White Witch was bad and cruel.
The first thing he realized when he got outside and found the snow falling all
round him, was that he had left his coat behind in the Beavers' house. And of
course there was no chance of going back to get it now. The next thing he
realized was that the daylight was almost gone, for it had been nearly three
o'clock when they sat down to dinner and the winter days were short. He hadn't
reckoned on this; but he had to make the best of it. So he turned up his collar
and shuffled across the top of the dam (luckily it wasn't so slippery since the
snow had fallen) to the far side of the river.
It was pretty bad when he reached the far side. It was growing darker every
minute and what with that and the snowflakes swirling all round him he could
hardly see three feet ahead. And then too there was no road. He kept slipping
into deep drifts of snow, and skidding on frozen puddles, and tripping over
fallen tree-trunks, and sliding down steep banks, and barking his shins against
rocks, till he was wet and cold and bruised all over. The silence and the
loneliness were dreadful. In fact I really think he might have given up the
whole plan and gone back and owned up and made friends with the others, if he
hadn't happened to say to himself, "When I'm King of Narnia the first thing I
shall do will be to make some decent roads." And of course that set him off
thinking about being a King and all the other things he would do and this
cheered him up a good deal. He had just settled in his mind what sort of palace
he would have and how many cars and all about his private cinema and where the
principal railways would run and what laws he would make against beavers and
dams and was putting the finishing touches to some schemes for keeping Peter in
his place, when the weather changed. First the snow stopped. Then a wind sprang
up and it became freezing cold. Finally, the clouds rolled away and the moon
came out. It was a full moon and, shining on all that snow, it made everything
almost as bright as day - only the shadows were rather confusing.
He would never have found his way if the moon hadn't come out by the time he got
to the other river you remember he had seen (when they first arrived at the
Beavers') a smaller river flowing into the great one lower down. He now reached
this and turned to follow it up. But the little valley down which it came was
much steeper and rockier than the one he had just left and much overgrown with
bushes, so that he could not have managed it at all in the dark. Even as it was,
he got wet through for he had to stoop under branches and great loads of snow
came sliding off on to his back. And every time this happened he thought more
and more how he hated Peter - just as if all this had been Peter's fault.
But at last he came to a part where it was more level and the valley opened out.
And there, on the other side of the river, quite close to him, in the middle of
a little plain between two hills, he saw what must be the White Witch's House.
And the moon was shining brighter than ever. The House was really a small
castle. It seemed to be all towers; little towers with long pointed spires on
them, sharp as needles. They looked like huge dunce's caps or sorcerer's caps.
And they shone in the moonlight and their long shadows looked strange on the
snow. Edmund began to be afraid of the House.
But it was too late to think of turning back now.
He crossed the river on the ice and walked up to the House. There was nothing
stirring; not the slightest sound anywhere. Even his own feet made no noise on
the deep newly fallen snow. He walked on and on, past corner after corner of the
House, and past turret after turret to find the door. He had to go right round
to the far side before he found it. It was a huge arch but the great iron gates
stood wide open.
Edmund crept up to the arch and looked inside into the courtyard, and there he
saw a sight that nearly made his heart stop beating. Just inside the gate, with
the moonlight shining on it, stood an enormous lion crouched as if it was ready
to spring. And Edmund stood in the shadow of the arch, afraid to go on and
afraid to go back, with his knees knocking together. He stood there so long that
his teeth would have been chattering with cold even if they had not been
chattering with fear. How long this really lasted I don't know, but it seemed to
Edmund to last for hours.
Then at last he began to wonder why the lion was standing so still - for it
hadn't moved one inch since he first set eyes on it. Edmund now ventured a
little nearer, still keeping in the shadow of the arch as much as he could. He
now saw from the way the lion was standing that it couldn't have been looking at
him at all. ("But supposing it turns its head?" thought Edmund.) In fact it was
staring at something else namely a little: dwarf who stood with his back to it
about four feet away. "Aha!" thought Edmund. "When it springs at the dwarf then
will be my chance to escape." But still the lion never moved, nor did the dwarf.
And now at last Edmund remembered what the others had said about the White Witch
turning people into stone. Perhaps this was only a stone lion. And as soon as he
had thought of that he noticed that the lion's back and the top of its head were
covered with snow. Of course it must be only a statue! No living animal would
have let itself get covered with snow. Then very slowly and with his heart
beating as if it would burst, Edmund ventured to go up to the lion. Even now he
hardly dared to touch it, but at last he put out his hand, very quickly, and
did. It was cold stone. He had been frightened of a mere statue!
The relief which Edmund felt was so great that in spite of the cold he suddenly
got warm all over right down to his toes, and at the same time there came into
his head what seemed a perfectly lovely idea. "Probably," he thought, "this is
the great Lion Aslan that they were all talking about. She's caught him already
and turned him into stone. So that's the end of all their fine ideas about him!
Pooh! Who's afraid of Aslan?"
And he stood there gloating over the stone lion, and presently he did something
very silly and childish. He took a stump of lead pencil out of his pocket and
scribbled a moustache on the lion's upper lip and then a pair of spectacles on
its eyes. Then he said, "Yah! Silly old Aslan! How do you like being a stone?
You thought yourself mighty fine, didn't you?" But in spite of the scribbles on
it the face of the great stone beast still looked so terrible, and sad, and
noble, staring up in the moonlight, that Edmund didn't really get any fun out of
jeering at it. He turned away and began to cross the courtyard.
As he got into the middle of it he saw that there were dozens of statues all
about - standing here and there rather as the pieces stand on a chess-board when
it is half-way through the game. There were stone satyrs, and stone wolves, and
bears and foxes and cat-amountains of stone. There were lovely stone shapes that
looked like women but who were really the spirits of trees. There was the great
shape of a centaur and a winged horse and a long lithe creature that Edmund took
to be a dragon. They all looked so strange standing there perfectly life-like
and also perfectly still, in the bright cold moonlight, that it was eerie work
crossing the courtyard. Right in the very middle stood a huge shape like a man,
but as tall as a tree, with a fierce face and a shaggy beard and a great club in
its right hand. Even though he knew that it was only a stone giant and not a
live one, Edmund did not like going past it.
He now saw that there was a dim light showing from a doorway on the far side of
the courtyard. He went to it; there was a flight of stone steps going up to an
open door. Edmund went up them. Across the threshold lay a great wolf.
"It's all right, it's all right," he kept saying to himself; "it's only a stone
wolf. It can't hurt me", and he raised his leg to step over it. Instantly the
huge creature rose, with all the hair bristling along its back, opened a great,
red mouth and said in a growling voice:
"Who's there? Who's there? Stand still, stranger, and tell me who you are."
"If you please, sir," said Edmund, trembling so that he could hardly speak, "my
name is Edmund, and I'm the Son of Adam that Her Majesty met in the wood the
other day and I've come to bring her the news that my brother and sisters are
now in Narnia - quite close, in the Beavers' house. She - she wanted to see
them."
"I will tell Her Majesty," said the Wolf. "Meanwhile, stand still on the
threshold, as you value your life." Then it vanished into the house.
Edmund stood and waited, his fingers aching with cold and his heart pounding in
his chest, and presently the grey wolf, Maugrim, the Chief of the Witch's Secret
Police, came bounding back and said, "Come in! Come in! Fortunate favourite of
the Queen - or else not so fortunate."
And Edmund went in, taking great care not to tread on the Wolf's paws.
He found himself in a long gloomy hall with many pillars, full, as the courtyard
had been, of statues. The one nearest the door was a little faun with a very sad
expression on its face, and Edmund couldn't help wondering if this might be
Lucy's friend. The only light came from a single lamp and close beside this sat
the White Witch.
"I'm come, your Majesty," said Edmund, rushing eagerly forward.
"How dare you come alone?" said the Witch in a terrible voice. "Did I not tell
you to bring the others with you?"
"Please, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I've done the best I can. I've brought
them quite close. They're in the little house on top of the dam just up the
riverwith Mr and Mrs Beaver."
A slow cruel smile came over the Witch's face.
"Is this all your news?" she asked.
"No, your Majesty," said Edmund, and proceeded to tell her all he had heard
before leaving the Beavers' house.
"What! Aslan?" cried the Queen, "Aslan! Is this true? If I find you have lied to
me -"
"Please, I'm only repeating what they said," stammered Edmund.
But the Queen, who was no longer attending to him, clapped her hands. Instantly
the same dwarf whom Edmund had seen with her before appeared.
"Make ready our sledge," ordered the Witch, "and use the harness without bells."
