Peter leaned forward, put his arms round the beast and kissed the furry head: it wasn't a girlish thing for him to do, because he was the High King.
"Best of badgers," he said. "You never doubted us all through."
"No credit to me, your Majesty," said Trufflehunter. "1'm a beast and we don't change. I'm a badger, what's more, and we hold on."
"I am sorry for Nikabrik," said Caspian, "though he hated me from the first moment he saw me. He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating. If we had won quickly he might have become a good Dwarf in the days of peace. I don't know which of us killed him. I'm glad of that."
"You're bleeding," said Peter.
"Yes, I'm bitten," said Caspian. "It was that - that wolf thing." Cleaning and bandaging the wound took a long time, and when it was done Trumpkin said, "Now. Before everything else we want some breakfast."
"But not here," said Peter.
"No," said Caspian with a shudder. "And we must send someone to take away the bodies."
"Let the vermin be flung into a pit," said Peter. "But the Dwarf we will give to his people to be buried in their own fashion."
They breakfasted at last in another of the dark cellars of Aslan's How. It was not such a breakfast as they would have chosen, for Caspian and Cornelius were thinking of venison pasties, and Peter and Edmund of buttered eggs and hot coffee, but what everyone got was a little bit of cold bear-meat (out of the boys' pockets), a lump of hard cheese, an onion, and a mug of water. But, from the way they fell to, anyone would have supposed it was delicious.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HIGH KING IN COMMAND
"Now," said Peter, as they finished their meal, "Aslan and the girls (that's Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, Caspian) are somewhere close. We don't know when he will act. In his time, no doubt, not ours. In the meantime he would like us to do what we can on our own. You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle?"
"I'm afraid not, High King," said Caspian. He was liking Peter very much, but was rather tongue-tied. It was much stranger for him to meet the great Kings out of the old stories than it was for them to meet him.
"Very well, then," said Peter, "I'll send him a challenge to single combat." No one had thought of this before.
"Please," said Caspian, "could it not be me? I want to avenge my father."
"You're wounded," said Peter. "And anyway, wouldn't he just laugh at a challenge from you? I mean, we have seen that you are a king and a warrior but he thinks of you as a kid."
"But, Sire," said the Badger, who sat very close to Peter and never took his eyes off him. "Will he accept a . challenge even from you? He knows he has the stronger . army."
"Very likely he won't," said Peter, "but there's always the chance. And even if he doesn't, we shall spend the best part of the day sending heralds to and fro and all that. By then Aslan may have done something. And at least I can inspect the army and strengthen the position. I will send the challenge. In fact I will write it at once. Have you pen and ink, Master Doctor?"
"A scholar is never without them, your Majesty," answered Doctor Cornelius.
"Very well, I will dictate," said Peter. And while the Doctor spread out a parchment and opened his ink-horn and sharpened his pen, Peter leant back with half-closed eyes and recalled to his mind the language in which he had written such things long ago in Narnia's golden age.
"Right," he said at last. "And now, if you are ready, Doctor?"
Doctor Cornelius dipped his pen and waited. Peter dictated as follows:
"Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, to Miraz, Son of Caspian the Eighth, sometime Lord Protector of Narnia and now styling himself King of Narnia, Greeting. Have you got that?"
"Narnia, comma, greeting," muttered the Doctor. "Yes, Sire."
"Then begin a new paragraph," said Peter. "For to prevent the effusion of blood, and for the avoiding all other inconveniences likely to grow from the wars now levied in our realm of Narnia, it is our pleasure to adventure our royal person on behalf of our trusty and well-beloved Caspian in clean wager of battle to prove upon your Lordship's body that the said Caspian is lawful King under us in Narnia both by our gift and by the laws of the Telmarines, and your Lordship twice guilty of treachery both in withholding the dominion of Narnia from the said Caspian and in the most abhominable, - don't forget to spell it with an H, Doctor - bloody, and unnatural murder of your kindly lord and brother King Caspian Ninth of that name. Wherefore we most heartily provoke, challenge, and defy your Lordship to the said combat and monomachy, and have sent these letters by the hand of our well beloved and royal brother Edmund, sometime King under us in Narnia, Duke of Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March, Knight of the Noble Order of the Table, to whom we have given full power of determining with your Lordship all the conditions of the said battle. Given at our lodging in Aslan's How this XII day of the month Greenroof in the first year of Caspian Tenth of Narnia.
"That ought to do," said Peter, drawing a deep breath.
"And now we must send two others with King Edmund. I think the Giant ought to be one."
"He's - he's not very clever, you know," said Caspian.
"Of course not," said Peter. "But any giant looks impressive if only he will keep quiet. And it will cheer him up. But who for the other?"
"Upon my word," said Trumpkin, "if you want someone who can kill with looks, Reepicheep would be the best."
"He would indeed, from all I hear," said Peter with a laugh. "If only he wasn't so small. They wouldn't even see him till he was close!"
"Send Glenstorm, Sire," said Trufflehunter. "No one ever laughed at a Centaur."
An hour later two great lords in the army of Miraz, the Lord Glozelle and the Lord Sopespian, strolling along their lines and picking their teeth after breakfast, looked up and saw coming down to them from the wood the Centaur and Giant Wimbleweather, whom they had seen before in battle, and between them a figure they could not recognize. Nor indeed would the other boys at Edmund's school have recognized him if they could have seen him at that moment. For Aslan had breathed on him at their meeting and a kind of greatness hung about him.
"What's to do?" said the Lord Glozelle. "An attack?"
"A parley, rather," said Sopespian. "See, they carry green branches. They are coming to surrender most likely."
"He that is walking between the Centaur and the Giant has no look of surrender in his face," said Glozelle. "Who can he be? It is not the boy Caspian."
"No indeed," said Sopespian. "This is a fell warrior, I warrant you, wherever the rebels have got him from. He is (in your Lordship's private ear) a kinglier man than ever Miraz was. And what mail he wears! None of our smiths can make the like."
"I'll wager my dappled Pomely he brings a challenge, not a surrender," said Glozelle.
"How then?" said Sopespian. "We hold the enemy in our fist here. Miraz would never be so hair-brained as to throw away his advantage on a combat."
"He might be brought to it," said Glozelle in a much lower voice.
"Softly," said Sopespian. "Step a little aside here out of earshot of those sentries. Now. Have I taken your Lordship's meaning aright?"
"If the King undertook wager of battle," whispered Glozelle, "why, either he would kill or be killed."
"So," said Sopespian, nodding his head.
"And if he killed we should have won this war."
"Certainly. And if not?"
"Why, if not, we should be as able to win it without the King's grace as with him. For I need not tell your Lordship that Miraz is no very great captain. And after that, we should be both victorious and kingless."
"And it is your meaning, my Lord, that you and I could hold this land quite as conveniently without a King as with one?"
Glozelle's face grew ugly. "Not forgetting," said he, "that it
was we who first put him on the throne. And in all the years that he has enjoyed it, what fruits have come our way? What gratitude has he shown us?"
"Say no more," answered Sopespian. "But look - herd comes one to fetch us to the King's tent." `
When they reached Miraz's tent they saw Edmund and his two companions seated outside it and being entertained with cakes and wine, having already delivered the challenge, and withdrawn while the King was considering it. When they saw them thus at close quarters the two Telmarine lords thought all three of them very alarming.
Inside, they found Miraz, unarmed and finishing his breakfast. His face was flushed and there was a scowl on his brow.
"There!" he growled, flinging the parchment across the table to them. "See what a pack of nursery tales our jackanapes of a nephew has sent us."
"By your leave, Sire," said Glozelle. "If the young warrior whom we have just seen outside is the King Edmund mentioned in the writing, then I would not call him a nursery tale but a very dangerous knight."
"King Edmund, pah!" said Miraz. "Does your Lordship believe those old wives' fables about Peter and Edmund and the rest?"
"I believe my eyes, your Majesty," said Glozelle.
"Well, this is to no purpose," said Miraz, "but as touching the challenge, I suppose there is only one opinion between us?"
"I suppose so, indeed, Sire," said Glozelle.
"And what is that?" asked the King.
"Most infallibly to refuse it," said Glozelle. "For though I have never been called a coward, I must plainly say that to meet that young man in battle is more than my heart would serve me for. And if (as is likely) his brother, the High King, is more dangerous than he why, on your life, my Lord King, have nothing to do with him."
"Plague on you!" cried Miraz. "It was not that sort of council I wanted. Do you think I am asking you if I should be afraid to meet this Peter (if there is such a man)? Do you think I fear him? I wanted your counsel on the policy of the matter; whether we, having the advantage, should hazard it on a wager of battle."
"To which I can only answer, your Majesty," said Glozelle, "that for all reasons the challenge should be refused. There is death in the strange knight's face."
"There you are again!" said Miraz, now thoroughly angry. "Are you trying, to make it appear that I am as great a coward as your Lordship?"
"Your Majesty may say your pleasure," said Glozelle sulkily.
"You talk like an old woman, Glozelle," said the King. "What say you, my Lord Sopespian?"
"Do not touch it, Sire," was the reply. "And what your Majesty says of the policy of the thing comes in very happily. It gives your Majesty excellent grounds for a refusal without any cause for questioning your Majesty's honour or courage."
"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Miraz, jumping to his feet. "Are you also bewitched today? Do you think I am looking for grounds to refuse it? You might as well call me coward to my face."
The conversation was going exactly as the two lords wished, so they said nothing.
"I see what it is," said Miraz, after staring at them as if his eyes would start out of his head, "you are as lilylivered as hares yourselves and have the effrontery to imagine my heart after the likeness of yours! Grounds for a refusal, indeed! Excuses for not fighting! Are you soldiers? Are you Telmarines? Are you men? And if I dog refuse it (as ail good reasons of captaincy and martial policy urge me to do) you will think, and teach others tan think, I was afraid. Is it not so?"
"No man of your Majesty's age," said Glozelle, "would be called coward by any wise soldier for refusing the combat with a great warrior in the flower of his youth."