Prince Caspian Page 5

  "Oh, I do wish we hadn't," said Caspian. "And I am glad it was all true, even if it is all over."

  "Many of your race wish that in secret," said Doctor Cornelius.

  "But, Doctor," said Caspian, "why do you say my race? After all, I suppose you're a Telmarine too."

  "Am I?" said the Doctor.

  "Well, you're a Man anyway," said Caspian.

  "Am I?" repeated the Doctor in a deeper voice, at the same moment throwing back his hood so that Caspian could see his face clearly in the moonlight.

  All at once Caspian realized the truth and felt that he ought to have realized it long before. Doctor Cornelius was so small, and so fat, and had such a very long beard. Two thoughts came into his head at the same moment. One was a thought of terror - "He's not a real man, not a man at all, he's a Dwarf, and he's brought me up here to kill me." The other was sheer delight - "There are real Dwarfs still, and I've seen one at last."

  "So you've guessed it in the end," said Doctor Cornelius. "Or guessed it nearly right. I'm not a pure Dwarf. I have human blood in me too. Many Dwarfs escaped in the great battles and lived on, shaving their beards and wearing highheeled shoes and pretending to be men. They have mixed with your Telmarines. I am one of those, only a halfDwarf, and if any of my kindred, the true Dwarfs, are still alive anywhere in the world, doubtless they would despise me and call me a traitor. But never in all these years have we forgotten our own people and all the other happy creatures of Narnia, and the long-lost days of freedom."

  "I'm - I'm sorry, Doctor," said Caspian. "It wasn't my fault, you know."

  "I am not saying these things in blame of you, dear Prince," answered the Doctor. "You may well ask why I say them at all. But I have two reasons. Firstly, because my old heart has carried these secret memories so long that it aches with them and would burst if I did not whisper them to you. But secondly, for this: that when you become King you may help us, for I know that you also, Telmarine though you are, love the Old Things."

  "I do, I do," said Caspian. "But how can I help?"

  "You can be kind to the poor remnants of the Dwarf people, like myself. You can gather learned magicians and try to find a way of awaking the trees once more. You can search through all the nooks and wild places of the land to see if any Fauns or Talking Beasts or Dwarfs are perhaps still alive in hiding."

  "Do you think there are any?" asked Caspian eagerly.

  "I don't know - I don't know," said the Doctor with a deep sigh. "Sometimes I am afraid there can't be. I have been looking for traces of them all my life. Sometimes I have thought I heard a Dwarf-drum in the mountains. Sometimes at night, in the woods, I thought I had caught a glimpse of Fauns and Satyrs dancing a long way off; but when I came to the place, there was never anything there. I have often despaired; but something always happens to start me hoping again. I don't know. But at least you can try to be a King like the High King Peter of old, and not like your uncle."

  "Then it's true about the Kings and Queens too, and about the White Witch?" said Caspian.

  "Certainly it is true," said Cornelius. "Their reign was the Golden Age in Narnia and the land has never forgotten them."

  "Did they live in this castle, Doctor?"

  "Nay, my dear," said the old man. "This castle is a thing of yesterday. Your great-great-grandfather built it. But when the two sons of Adam and the two daughters of Eve were made Kings and Queens of Narnia by Aslan himself, they lived in the castle of Cair Paravel. No man alive has seen that blessed place and perhaps even the ruins of it have now vanished. But we believe it was far from here, down at the mouth of the Great River, on the very shore of the sea."

  "Ugh!" said Caspian with a shudder. "Do you mean in the Black Woods? Where all the - the - you know, the ghosts live?"

  "Your Highness speaks as you have been taught," said the Doctor. "But it is all lies. There are no ghosts there. That is a story invented by the Telmarines. Your Kings are in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories Aslan comes from over the sea. They don't want to go near it and they don't want anyone else to go near it. So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast. But because they have quarrelled with the trees they are afraid of the woods. And because they are afraid of the woods they imagine that they are full of ghosts. And the Kings and great men, hating both the sea and the wood, partly believe these stories, and partly encourage them. They feel safer if no one in Narnia dares to go down to the coast and look out to sea towards Aslan's land and the morning and the eastern end of the world."

  There was a deep silence between them for a few minutes. Then Doctor Cornelius said, "Come. We have been here long enough. It is time to go down and to bed."

  "Must we?" said Caspian. "I'd like to go on talking about these things for hours and hours and hours."

  "Someone might begin looking for us, if we did that," said Doctor Cornelius.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  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