"Yes," said the other boy. "But I've no idea who you are."
"It's the High King, King Peter," said Trumpkin.
"Your Majesty is very welcome," said Caspian.
"And so is your Majesty," said Peter. "I haven't come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it." ,
"Your Majesty," said another voice at Peter's elbow. He turned and found himself face to face with the Badger.
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."