"And if he killed we should have won this war.”
The two lords looked at one another and chuckled quietly.
"Please, your Majesty," said the Bear.
An hour later two great lords in the army of Miraz, the Lord Glozelle and the LordSopespian, 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.
"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.”
"So Im to be a dotard with one foot in the grave,as well as a dastard," roared Miraz. "Ill tell you what it is, my Lords. With your womanish counsels (ever shying from the true point, which is one of policy) you have done the very opposite of your intent. I had meant to refuse it. But Ill accept it. Do you hear, accept it! Ill not be shamed because some witchcraft or treason has frozen both your bloods.”
"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 knights face.”
"No indeed," said Sopespian. "This is a fell warrior, I warrant you, wherever the rebels have got him from. He is (in your Lordships private ear) a kinglier man than ever Miraz was. And what mail he wears! None of our smiths can make the like.”
"He might be brought to it," said Glozelle in a much lower voice.
"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Miraz, jumping to his feet. "Are you also bewitched today?
Perhaps if it were your pleasure that I should be a marshal of the lists, it would content them.”
"Youre wounded," said Peter. "And anyway, wouldnt 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.”
The Bear whipped his paw out of his mouth and pretended he hadnt heard.
"Say no more," answered Sopespian. "But look - herd comes one to fetch us to the Kings tent." ` When they reached Mirazs 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two companions seated outside it and being entertained with cakes and wine, having already delivered the challenge, and withdrawn while the King was considering it.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.
"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.”
"King Edmund, pah!" said Miraz. "Does your Lordship believe those old wives fables about Peter and Edmund and the rest?”
"Well, this is to no purpose," said Miraz, "but as touching the challenge, I suppose there is only one opinion between us?”
"Narnia, comma, greeting," muttered the Doctor. "Yes, Sire.”
Two Telmarines were to stand at two of the corners, and one in the middle of one side, as marshals of the lists. Three marshals for the other two corners and the other side were to be furnished by the High King. Peter was just explaining to Caspian that he could not be one, because his right to the throne was what they were fighting about, when suddenly a thick, sleepy voice said, "Your Majesty, please." Peter turned and there stood the eldest of the Bulgy Bears.
"Very likely he wont," said Peter, "but theres always the chance. And even if he doesnt, 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?”
"Very well, then," said Peter, "Ill send him a challenge to single combat." No one had thought of this before.
You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle?”
"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.”
Glozelles 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?
"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?”
"I knew hed do it if he were properly chafed," said Glozelle. "But Ill not forget he called me coward. It shall be paid for.”
"If the King undertook wager of battle," whispered Glozelle, "why, either he would kill or be killed.”
"Your Majesty may say your pleasure," said Glozelle sulkily.
And it will cheer him up. But who for the other?”
"A parley, rather," said Sopespian. "See, they carry green branches. They are coming to surrender most likely.”
"A scholar is never without them, your Majesty," answered Doctor Cornelius.
"Sire," said Reepicheep. "My life is ever at your command, but my honour is my own.
"Please," said Caspian, "could it not be me? I want to avenge my father.”
"No man of your Majestys 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.”
"Hes - hes not very clever, you know," said Caspian.
"I suppose so, indeed, Sire," said Glozelle.
"Of course not," said Peter. "But any giant looks impressive if only he will keep quiet.
Have I taken your Lordships meaning aright?”
"Sire!" came a shrill voice from near the ground.
"If you please, your Majesty," he said, "Im a bear, I am.”
"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.”
"You talk like an old woman, Glozelle," said the King. "What say you, my Lord Sopespian?”
"And it is your meaning, my Lord, that you and I could hold this land quite as conveniently without a King as with one?”
Sire, I have among my people the only trumpeter in your Majestys army. I had thought,
What gratitude has he shown us?”
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?”
"He would indeed, from all I hear," said Peter with a laugh. "If only he wasnt so small.
"That ought to do," said Peter, drawing a deep breath.
"Of course not," said the Bear in a very shocked voice.
"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 Narnias golden age.
"We beseech your Majesty -" said Glozelle, but Miraz had flung out of the tent and they could hear him bawling out his acceptance to Edmund.
"I say," said Edmund as they walked away, "I suppose it is all right. I mean, I suppose you can beat him?”
"Right," he said at last. "And now, if you are ready, Doctor?”
"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.”
An awful silence followed this remark, which was broken by Peter saying, "Giant Wimbleweather and the Bear and the Centaur Glenstorm shall be our marshals. The combat will be at two hours after noon. Dinner at noon precisely.”
"Send Glenstorm, Sire," said Trufflehunter. "No one ever laughed at a Centaur.”
The conversation was going exactly as the two lords wished, so they said nothing.
"Yes," said the Bear. "But it was always a right of the, bears to supply one marshal of the lists.”
Do you think I am looking for grounds to refuse it? You might as well call me coward to my face.”
"Why, youre doing it this minute!" bellowed Trumpkin.
"Im 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.
"Upon my word," said Trumpkin, "if you want someone who can kill with looks, Reepicheep would be the best.”
"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 Majestys honour or courage.”
"Ah - Reepicheep!" said Peter after looking up and down and round as people usually did when addressed by the Mouse.
"Dont let him," whispered Trumpkin to Peter. "Hes a good creature, but hell shame us all. Hell go to sleep and he will suck his paws. In front of the enemy too.”
A noise not unlike thunder broke out from somewhere overhead at this point, as Giant Wimbleweather burst into one of those not very intelligent laughs to which the nicer sorts of Giant are so liable. He checked himself at once and looked as grave as a turnip by the time Reepicheep discovered where the noise came from.
"And what is that?" asked the King.
"But, Sire," said the Badger, who sat very close to Peter and never took his eyes off him.
"I am afraid it would not do," said Peter very gravely. "Some humans are afraid of mice -“
"Why, if not, we should be as able to win it without the Kings 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.”
"Thats what Im fighting him to find out," said Peter.
"Ill wager my dappled Pomely he brings a challenge, not a surrender," said Glozelle.
Nor indeed would the other boys at Edmunds 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.
There was a great stirring at Aslans How when the news came back and was communicated to the various creatures. Edmund, with one of Mirazs captains, had already marked out the place for the combat, and ropes and stakes had been put round it.
"Softly," said Sopespian. "Step a little aside here out of earshot of those sentries. Now.
"I cant help that," said Peter. "Because hes quite right. The Bears had that privilege. I cant imagine how it has been remembered all these years, when so many other things have been forgotten.”
"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!
"So," said Sopespian, nodding his head.
"And it would not be quite fair to Miraz," Peter continued, "to have in sight anything that might abate the edge of his courage.”
"And now we must send two others with King Edmund. I think the Giant ought to be one.”
"I had observed it, Sire," said Reepicheep.
"Will he accept a . challenge even from you? He knows he has the stronger . army.”
THE HIGH KING IN COMMAND "Now," said Peter, as they finished their meal, "Aslan and the girls (thats Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, Caspian) are somewhere close. We dont 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.
"And on this matter we have but a single mind... I thought I heard someone laughing just now. If anyone present wishes to make me the subject of his wit, I am very much at his service - with my sword - whenever he has leisure.”
"Certainly. And if not?”
"It is your right," said Peter. "And you shall be one of the marshals. But you must remember not to suck your paws.”
"Whats to do?" said the Lord Glozelle. "An attack?”
"Your Majesty is the mirror of honour," said the Mouse with one of his admirable bows.
"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 Lordships 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, - dont 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 Aslans How this XII day of the month Greenroof in the first year of Caspian Tenth of Narnia.
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?”
perhaps, we might have been sent with the challenge. Sire, my people are grieved.
"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.”
They wouldnt even see him till he was close!”
Inside, they found Miraz, unarmed and finishing his breakfast. His face was flushed and there was a scowl on his brow.
"I believe my eyes, your Majesty," said Glozelle.
"To be sure, so you are, and a good bear too, I dont doubt," said Peter.
