CHAPTER TWO
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THE RASHNESS OF THE KING About three weeks later the last of the Kings of Narnia sat uhe great oak which grew beside the door of his little hunting lodge, where he often stayed for ten days or so in the pleasant spriher. It was a low, thatched building not far from the Eastern end of Lantern Waste and some way above the meeting of the two rivers. He loved to live there simply and at ease, away from the state and pomp of Cair Paravel, the royal city.His name was King Tirian, and he was betweey and twenty-five years old; his shoulders were already broad and strong and his limbs full of hard muscle, but his beard was still sty. He had blue eyes and a fearless, ho face.
There was no oh him that spring m except his dearest friend, Jewel the Uni. They loved each other like brothers and each had saved the others life in the wars. The lordly beast stood close beside the Kings chair, with its neck bent round polishing its blue hainst the creamy whiteness of its flank.
"I ot set myself to any work or sport today, Jewel," said the King. "I think of nothing but this wonderful news. Think you we shall hear any more of it today?”
"They are the most wonderful tidings ever heard in our days or our fathers or randfathers days, Sire," said Jewel, "if they are true.”
"How they choose but be true?" said the King. "It is more than a week ago that the first birds came flying over us saying, Aslan is here, Aslan has e to Narnia again.
And after that it was the squirrels. They had not seen him, but they said it was certain he was in the woods. Then came the Stag. He said he had seen him with his own eyes, a great way off, by moonlight, in Lantern Waste. Then came that dark Man with the beard, the mert from en. The enes care nothing for Aslan as we do; but the man spoke of it as a thing beyond doubt. And there was the Badger last night; he too had seen Aslan.”
"Indeed, Sire," answered Jewel, "I believe it all. If I seem not to, it is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself. It is almost too beautiful to believe.”
"Yes," said the King with a great sigh, almost a shiver, of delight. "It is beyond all that I ever hoped for in all my l.ife.”
"Listen!" said Jewel, putting his head on one side and cog his ears forward.
"What is it?" asked the King.
"Hoofs, Sire," said Jewel. "A galloping horse. A very heavy horse. It must be one of the taurs. And look, there he is.”
A great, golden bearded taur, with mans sweat on his forehead and horses sweat on his chestnut flanks, dashed up to the King, stopped, and bowed low. "Hail, King," it cried in a voice as deep as a bulls.
"Ho, there!" said the King, looking over his shoulder towards the door of the hunting lodge. "A bowl of wine for the noble taur. Wele, Roonwit. When you have found your breath you shall tell us your errand.”
A page came out of the house carrying a great wooden bowl, curiously carved, and ha to the taur. The taur raised the bowl and said, "I drink first to Aslan and truth, Sire, and sedly to your Majesty.”
He fihe wine (enough for six strong men) at one draught and hahe empty bowl back to the page.
"Now, Roonwit," said the King. "Do y us more news of Aslan?”
Roonwit looked very grave, frowning a little.
"Sire," he said. "You know how long I have lived and studied the stars; for we taurs live lohan you Men, and even lohan your kind, Uni. Never in all my days have I seen such terrible things written in the skies as there have been nightly sihis year began. The stars say nothing of the ing of Aslan, nor of peace, nor of joy. I know by my art that there have not been such disastrous juns of the plas for five hundred years. It was already in my mind to e and warn your Majesty that some great evil hangs over Narnia. But last night the rumour reached me that Aslan is abroad in Narnia. Sire, do not believe this tale. It ot be. The stars never lie, but Men as do. If Aslan were really ing to Narnia the sky would have foretold it. If he were really e, all the most gracious stars would be assembled in his honour. It is all a lie.”
"A lie!" said the King fiercely. "What creature in Narnia or all the world would dare to lie on such a matter?" And, without knowing it, he laid his hand on his sword hilt.
"That I know not, Lord King," said the taur. "But I know there are liars oh; there are none among the stars.”
"I wonder," said Jewel, "whether Aslan might not e though all the stars foretold otherwise. He is not the slave of the stars but their Maker. Is it not said in all the old stories that He is not a tame lion.”
"Well said, well said, Jewel," cried the King. "Those are the very words: not a tame lion.
It es in many tales.”
Roonwit had just raised his hand and was leaning forward to say something very early to the King when all three of them turheir heads to listen to a wailing sound that was quickly drawing he wood was so thick to the West of them that they could not see the newer yet. But they could soohe words.
"Woe, woe, woe!" called the voice. "Woe for my brothers and sisters! Woe for the holy trees! The woods are laid waste. The axe is loosed against us. We are being felled. Great trees are falling, falling, falling.”
With the last "falling" the speaker came in sight. She was like a woman but so tall that her head was on a level with the taurs yet she was like a tree too. It is hard to explain if you have never seen a Dryad but quite unmistakable once you have - something different in the colour, the voice, and the hair. King Tirian and the two Beasts k ohat she was the ny<dfn>藏书网</dfn>mph of a beech tree.
"Justice, Lord King!" she cried. "e to our aid. Protect your people. They are felling us in Lantern Waste.
Freat trunks of my brothers and sisters are already on the ground.”
"What, Lady! Felling Lantern Waste? Murdering the talking trees?" cried the King, leaping to his feet and drawing his sword. "How dare they? And who dares it? Now by the Mane of Aslan-”
"A-a-a-h," gabbr></abbr>sped the Dryad shuddering as if in pain - shuddering time after time as if under repeated blows. Then all at once she fell sideways as suddenly as if both her feet had been cut from under her. For a sed they saw her lying dead on the grass and then she vahey knew what had happened. Her tree, miles away, had been cut down.
For a moment the Kings grief and anger were so great that he could not speak. Then he said: "e, friends. We must go up river and find the villains who have dohis, with all the speed we may. I will leave not one of them alive.”
"Sire, with a good will," said Jewel.
But Roonwit said, "Sire, be wary in your just wrath. There are strange doings on foot. If there should be rebels in arms further up the valley, we three are too few to meet them. If it would please you to wait while -”
"I will not wait the tenth part of a sed," said the King. "But while Jewel <mark>.</mark>and I go forward, do you gallop as hard as you may to Cair Paravel. Here is my ring for your toke me a score of men-at-arms, all well mounted, and a score of Talking Dogs, and ten Dwarfs (let them all be fell archers), and a Leopard or so, and Sto the Giant. Bring all these after us as quickly as may be.”
"With a good will, Sire," said Roonwit. And at once he turned and galloped Eastward down the valley.
The King strode on at a great pace, sometimes muttering to himself and sometimes g his fists. Jewel walked beside him, saying nothing; so there was no souween them but the faint jingle of a rich gold that hung round the Unis ned the noise of two feet and four hoofs.
They soon reached the River and turned up it where there was a grassy road: they had the water on their left and the forest on their right. Soon after that they came to the place where the ground grew rougher and thick wood came down to the waters edge. The road, what there was of it, now ran on the Southern bank and they had to ford the River to reach it. It to Tirians arm-pits, but Jewel (who had fs and was therefore steadier) kept on his right so as to break the force of the current, and Tirian put his strong arm round the Unis strong ned they both got safely over. The King was still so angry that he hardly noticed the cold of the water. But of course he dried his sword very carefully on the shoulder of his cloak, which was the only dry part of him, as soon as they came to shore.
They were now goiward with the River on their right and Lantern Waste straight ahead of them. They had not gone more than a mile when they both stopped and both spoke at the same moment. The King said "What have we here?" and Jewel said "Look!”
"It is a raft," said King Tirian.
And so it was. Half a dozen splendid tree-trunks, all newly cut and newly lopped of their branches, had been lashed together to make a raft, and were gliding swiftly down the river. On the front of the raft there was a water rat with a pole to steer it.
"Hey! Water-Rat! What are you about?" cried the King.
"Taking logs down to sell to the enes, Sire," said the Rat, toug his ear as he might have touched his cap if he had had one.
"enes!" thuirian. "What do you mean? Who gave order for these trees to be felled?”
The River flows so swiftly at that time of the year that the raft had already glided past the King and Jewel. But the Water-Rat looked back over its shoulder and shouted out: "The Lions orders, Sire. Aslan himself." He added something more but they couldnt hear..
The King and the Uni stared at one another and both looked more frightehan they had ever been in any battle.
"Aslan," said the King at last, in a very low voice. "Aslan. Could it be true? Could he be felling the holy trees and murdering the Dryads?”
"Uhe Dryads have all done something dreadfully wrong-" murmured Jewel.
"But selling them to enes!" said the King. "Is it possible?”
"I dont know," said Jewel miserably. "Hes not a tame lion.”
"Well," said the King at last, "we must go on and take the advehat es to us.”
"It is the only thi for us to do, Sire," said the Uni. He did not see at the moment how foolish it was for two of them to go on alone; nor did the King. They were too angry to think clearly. But much evil came of their rashness in the end.
Suddenly the King leaned hard on his friends ned bowed his head.
"Jewel," he said, "what lies before us? Horrible thoughts arise in my heart. If we had died before today we should have been happy.”
"Yes," said Jewel. "We have lived too long. The worst thing in the world has e upon us." They stood like that for a minute or two and the on.
Before long they could hear the hack-hack-hack of axes falling on timber, though they could see nothi because there was a rise of the ground in front of them. When they had reached the top of it they could see right into Lantern Waste itself. And the Kings face turned white when he saw it.
Right through the middle of that a forest - that forest where the trees of gold and of silver had once grown and where a child from our world had once plahe Tree of Prote - a broad lane had already been opened. It was a hideous lane like a raw gash in the land, full of muddy ruts where felled trees had been dragged down to the river.
There was a great crowd of people at work, and a crag of whips, and horses tugging and straining as they dragged at the logs. The first thing that struck the King and the Uni was that about half the people in the crowd were not Talkis but Men.
The hing was that these men were not the fair-haired men of Narnia: they were dark, bearded men from en, that great and cruel try that lies beyond Arland across the desert to the south. There was no reason, of course, why one should not meet a ene or two in Narnia - a mert or an ambassador - for there eace between Narnia and en in those days. But Tirian could not uand why there were so many of them: nor why they were cutting down a Narnian forest. He grasped his sword tighter and rolled his cloak round his left arm. They came quickly down among the men.
Two enes were driving a horse which was haro a log. Just as the King reached them the log had got stu a bad muddy place.
"Get on, son of sloth! Pull, you lazy pig!" cried the enes, crag their whips.
The horse was already straining himself as hard as he could; his eyes were red and he was covered with foam.
"Work, lazy brute," shouted one of the enes: and as he spoke he struck the horse savagely with his whip. It was then that the really dreadful thing happened.
Up till now Tirian had taken it frahat the horses which the enes were driviheir own horses; dumb, witless animals like the horses of our own world.
And though he hated to see even a dumb horse overdriven, he was of course thinking more about the murder of the Trees. It had never crossed his mind that anyone would dare to harness one of the free Talking Horses of Narnia, much less to use a whip on it.
But as that savage blow fell the horse reared up and said, half screaming: "Fool and tyrant! Do you not see I am doing all I ?”
When Tiriahat the Horse was one of his own Narnians, there came over him and over Jewel such a rage that they did not know what they were doing. The Kings sword went up, the Unis hor down. They rushed forward together. moment both the enes lay dead, the one beheaded by Tirians sword and the ored through the heart by Jewels horn.
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