CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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RABADASH THE RIDICULOUSTHE urn of the road- brought them out from among the trees and there, across green lawns, sheltered from the north wind by the high wooded ridge at its back, they saw the castle of Anvard. It was very old and built of a warm, reddish-brown stone.
Before they had reached the gate King Lune came out to meet them, not looking at all like Araviss idea of a king and wearing the oldest of old clothes; for he had just e from making a round of the kennels with his Huntsman and had only stopped for a moment to wash his doggy hands. But the bow with which he greeted Aravis as he took her hand would have been stately enough for an Emperor.
"Little lady," he said, "we bid you very heartily wele. If my dear wife were still alive we could make you better cheer but could not do it with a better will. And I am sorry that you have had misfortunes and been driven from your fathers house, which ot but be a grief to you. My son Cor has told me about your adveogether and all your valour.”
"It was he who did all that, Sir," said Aravis. "Why, he rushed at a lion to save me.”
"Eh, whats that?" said King Lune, his face brightening. "I havent heard that part of the story.”
Then Aravis told it. And Cor, who had very much wahe story to be known, though he felt he couldnt tell it himself, didnt enjoy it so much as he had expected, and indeed felt rather foolish. But his father e very mudeed and in the course of the few weeks told it to so many people that Cor wished it had never happened.
Then the King turo Hwin and Bree and was just as polite to them as to Aravis, and asked them a lot of questions about their families and where they had lived in Narnia before they had been captured. The Horses were rather toied for they were used to being talked to as equals by Humans grown-up Humans, that is. They didnt mind Aravis and Cor.
Presently Queen Lucy came out from the castle and joihem and King Lune said to Aravis, "My dear, here is a loving friend of our house, and she has been seeing that your apartments are put thts for you better than I could have do.”
"Youd like to e ahem, wouldnt you?" said Lucy, kissing Aravis. They liked each other at ond soo away together to talk about Araviss bedroom and Araviss boudoir and about getting clothes for her, and all the sort of things girls do talk about on su occasion.
After lunch, which they had oerrace (it was cold birds and cold game pie and wine and bread and cheese), King Lune ruffled up his brow and heaved a sigh and said, "Heigh-ho! We have still that sorry creature Rabadash on our hands, my friends, and must needs resolve what to do with him.”
Lucy was sitting on the Kings right and Aravis on his left. King Edmund sat at one end of the table and the Lord Darrin faced him at the other. Dar and Peridan and Cor and were on the same side as the King.
"Your Majesty would have a perfect right to strike off his head," said Peridan. "Su assault as he made puts him on a level with assassins.”
"It is very true," said Edmund. "But even a traitor may mend. I have known ohat did.”
And he looked very thoughtful.
"To kill this Rabadash would go o raising war with the Tisroc," said Darrin.
"A fig for the Tisroc," said King Lune. "His strength is in numbers and numbers will never cross the desert. But I have no stomach for killing men (even traitors) in cold blood. To have cut his throat itle would have eased my heart mightily, but this is a different thing.”
"By my sel," said Lucy, "your Majesty shall give him arial. Let him go free on strait promise of fair dealing iure. It may be that he will keep his word.”
"Maybe Apes will grow ho, Sister," said Edmund. "But, by the Lion, if he breaks it again, may it be in such time and place that any of us could s off his head in battle.”
"It shall be tried," said the King: and then to one of the attendants, "Send for the prisoner, friend.”
Rabadash was brought before them in s. To look at him anyone would have supposed that he had passed the night in a noisome dungeon without food or water; but iy he had been shut up in quite a fortabl.99lｉｂ.e room and provided with an excellent supper. But as he was sulking far too furiously to touch the supper and had spent the whole night stamping and r and cursing, he naturally did not now look his best.
"Your royal Highness needs not to be told," said King Lune, "that by the law of nations as well as by all reasons of prudent policy, we have as ght to your head as ever one mortal man had against another. heless, in sideration of your youth and the ill nurture, devoid of all gentilesse and courtesy, which you have doubtless had in the land of slaves and tyrants, we are disposed to set you free, unharmed, on these ditions: first, that-”
"Curse you for a barbarian dog!" spluttered Rabadash. "Do you think I will even hear your ditions? Faugh! You talk very largely of nurture and I know not what. Its easy, to a man in s, ha! Take off these vile bonds, give me a sword, a any of you who dares thee with me.”
Nearly all the lords sprang to their feet, and shouted:
"Father! I box him? Please.”
"Peace! Your Majesties! My Lords!" said King Lune. "Have we nravity among us than to be so chafed by the taunt of a pajock? Sit down, , or shaft leave the table.
I ask yhness again, to hear our ditions.”
"I hear no ditions from barbarians and sorcerers," said Rabadash. "Not one of you dare touch a hair of my head. Every insult you have heaped on me shall be paid with os of Narnian and Arlandish blood. Terrible shall the vengeance of the Tisroc be: even now. But kill me, and the burnings and ts in these northern lands shall bee a tale thten the world a thousand years hence. Beware! Beware! Beware!
The bolt of Tash falls from above!”
"Does it ever get caught on a hook half-way?" asked .
"Shame, ," said the King. "aunt a man save when he is strohan you: then, as you please.”
"Oh you foolish Rabadash," sighed Lucy.
moment Cor wondered why everyo the table had risen and was standing perfectly still. Of course he did the same himself. And then he saw the reason. Aslan was among them though no one had seen him ing. Rabadash started as the immense shape of the Lion paced softly iween him and his accusers.
"Rabadash," said Aslan. "Take heed. Your doom is very near, but you may still avoid it.
Fet your pride (what have you to be proud of?) and yer (who has done y?) and accept the mercy of these good kings.”
Then Rabadash rolled his eyes and spread out his mouth into a horrible, long mirthless grin like a shark, and wagged his ears up and down (anyone learn how to do this if they take the trouble). He had always found this very effective in en. The bravest had trembled when he made these faces, and ordinary people had fallen to the floor, aive people had often fainted. But what Rabadash hadnt realized is that it is very easy thten people who know you have them boiled alive the moment you give the word. The grimaces didnt look at all alarming in Arland; indeed Luly thought Rabadash was going to be sick.
"Demon! Demon! Demon!" shrieked the Prince. "I know you. You are the foul fiend of Narnia. You are the enemy of the gods. Learn who I am, horrible phantasm. I am desded from Tash, the inexorable, the irresistible. the curse of Tash is upon you.
Lightning in the shape of scorpions shall be rained on you. The mountains of Narnia shall be ground into dust. The-”
"Have a care, Rabadash," said Aslan quietly. "The doom is nearer now: it is at the door: it has lifted the latch.”
"Let the skies fall," shrieked Rabadash. "Let the earth gape! Let blood and fire obliterate the world! But be sure I will never desist till I have dragged to my palace by her hair the barbarian queen, the daughter of dogs, the -”
"The hour has struck," said Aslan: and Rabadash saw, to his supreme horror, that everyone had begun to laugh.
They couldnt help it. Rabadash had been wagging his ears all the time and as soon as Aslan said, "The hour has struck!" the ears began to ge. They grew longer and more pointed and soon were covered with grey hair. And while everyone was w where they had seen ears like that before, Rabadashs face began to ge too. It grew longer, and thicker at the top and larger eyed, and the nose sank bato the face (or else the face swelled out and became all nose) and there was hair all over it. And his arms grew longer and came down in front of him till his hands were resting on the ground: only they werent hands, now, they were hoofs. And he was standing on all fours, and his clothes disappeared, and everyone laughed louder and louder (because they couldnt help it) for now what had been Rabadash was, simply and unmistakably, a dohe terrible thing was that his human speech lasted just a moment lohan his human shape, so that when he realized the ge that was ing over him, he screamed out: "Oh, not a Donkey! Mercy! If it were even a horse - een - a hor - eeh - auh, eeh-auh.”
And so the words died away into a donkeys bray.
"Now hear me, Rabadash," said Aslan. "Justice shall be mixed with mercy. You shall not always be an Ass.”
At this of course the Dowitched its ears forward and that also was so funny that everybody laughed all the more. They tried not to, but they tried in vain.
"You have appealed to Tash," said Aslan. "And iemple of Tash you shall be healed.
You must stand before the altar of Tash in Tashbaan at the great Autum this year and there, in the sight of all Tashbaan, your asss shape will fall from you and all men will know you for Prince Rabadash. But as long as you live, if ever you go more than ten miles away from the great temple in Tashbaan you shall instantly bee again as you now are. And from that sed ge there will be urn.”
There was a short silend then they all stirred and looked at one another as if they were waking from sleep. Aslan was gone. But there was a brightness in the air and on the grass, and a joy in their hearts, which assured them that he had been no dream: and anyway, there was the donkey in front of them.
King Lune was the ki-hearted of men and on seeing his enemy in this regrettable dition he fot all his anger.
"Your royal Highness," he said. "I am most truly sorry that things have e to this extremity. Yhness will bear withat it was none of our doing. And of course we shall be delighted to provide yhness with shipping back to Tashbaan for the - er - treatment which Aslan has prescribed. You shall have every fort which yhnesss situation allows: the best of the cattleboats - the freshest carrots and thistles -”
But a deafening bray from the Donkey and a well-aimed kick at one of the guards made it clear that these kindly offers were ungratefully received.
And here, to get him out of the way, Id better finish off the story of Rabadash. He (or it)
was duly sent back by boat to Tashbaan and brought into the temple of Tash at the great Autumival, and then he became a man again. But of course four or five thousand people had seeransformation and the affair could not possibly be hushed up. And after the old Tisrocs death when Rabadash became Tisro his place he turned out the most peaceable Tisroc en had ever known. This was because, not daring to go more than ten miles from Tashbaan, he could never go on a war himself: and he didnt want his Tarkaans to win fame in the wars at his expense, for that is the way Tisrocs get overthrown. But though his reasons were selfish, it made things much more fortable for all the smaller tries round en. His own people never fot that he had been a donkey. During his reign, and to his face, he was called Rabadash the Peacemaker, but after his death and behind his back he was called Rabadash the Ridiculous, and if you look him up in a good History of en (try the local library) you will find him uhat name. And to this day in ene schools, if you do anything unusually stupid, you are very likely to be called "a sed Rabadash".
Meanwhile at Anvard everyone was very glad that he had been disposed of before the real fun began, which was a gra held that evening on the lawn before the castle, with dozens of lanterns to help the moonlight. And the wine flowed and tales were told and jokes were cracked, and then silence was made and the Kings poet with two fiddlers stepped out into the middle of the circle. Aravis and Cor prepared themselves to be bored, for the only poetry they knew was the ene kind, and you knohat that was like. But at the very first scrape of the fiddles a rocket seemed to go up iheir heads, and the poet sang the great old lay of Fair Olvin and how he fought the Giant Pire and turned him into stone (and that is the in of Mount Pire - it was a two -headed Giant)
and won the Lady Liln for his bride; and when it was over they wished it was going to begin again. And though Bree couldnt siold the story of the fight at Zalindreh.
And Lucy told again (they had all, except Aravis and Cor, heard it many times but they all wa again) the tale of the Wardrobe and how she and King Edmund and Queen Susan aer the High King had first e into Narnia.
And presently, as was certain to happen sooner or later, King Lune said if was time for young people to be in bed. "And tomorrow, Cor," he added, "shalt e over all the castle with me藏书网 ahe estres and mark all its strength and weakness: for it will be thio guard when Im gone.”
"But will be the King then, Father," said Cor.
"Nay, lad," said King Lune, "thou art my heir. The es to thee.”
"But I dont want it," said Cor. "Id far rather-”
"Tis no question what thou wa, Cor, nor I either. Tis in the course of law.”
"But if were twins we must be the same age.”
"Nay," said the King with a laugh. "One must e first. Art s elder by full twenty minutes. And his better too, lets hope, th<bdi>?９9lｉb.</bdi>ough thats no great mastery." And he looked at with a twinkle in his eyes.
"But, Father, couldnt you make whichever you like to be the King?”
"No. The kings uhe law, for its the law makes him a king. Hast no more power to start away from thy than ary from his post.”
"Oh dear," said Cor. "I dont want to at all. And - I am most dreadfully sorry. I never dreamed my turning up was going to chisel you out of your kingdom.”
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" said . "I shant have to be King. I shant have to be King. Ill always be a pris princes have all the fun.”
"And thats truer than thy brother knows, Cor," said King Lune. "For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attad last in every desperate retreat, and when theres hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a stier meal than any man in your land.”
Whewo boys were going upstairs to bed Cain asked if nothing could be done about it. And said: "If you say another word ab<cite>.9９ｌib.</cite>out it, Ill - Ill knock you down.”
It would be o end the story by saying that after that the two brothers never disagreed about anything again, but I am afraid it would not be true. Iy they quarrelled and fought just about as often as any other two boys would, and all their fights ended (if they didnt begin) with Cetting knocked down. For though, when they had both grown up and bee swordsmen, Cor was the more dangerous man in battle, her he nor anyone else in the North tries could ever equal as a boxer. That was how he got his name of Thunder-Fist; and how he performed his great exploit against the Lapsed Bear of Stormness, which was really a Talking Bear but had gone back to Wild Bear habits. climbed up to its lair on the Narnian side of Stormness one winter day when the snow was on the hills and boxed it without a time-keeper for thirty-three rounds. And at the end it couldnt see out of its eyes and became a reformed character.
Aravis also had many quarrels (and, Im afraid, even fights) with Cor, but they always made it up again: so that years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more vely. And after King Lunes death they made a good King and Queen of Arland and Ram the Great, the most famous of all the kings of Arland, was their son. Bree and Hwin lived happily to a great age in Narnia and both got married but not to one another. And there werent many months in whie or both of them didnt e trotting over the pass to visit their friends at Anvard.
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