IT was nearly noon on the following day when Shasta was wakened by something warm and soft moving over his face. He opened his eyes and found himself staring into the long face of a horse; its nose and lips were almost touching his. He remembered the exciting events of the previous night and sat up. But as he did so he groaned.
“Ow, Bree, ” he gasped. “I'm so sore. All over. I can hardly move.”
“Good morning, small one, ” said Bree. “I was afraid you might feel a bit stiff. It can't be the falls. You didn't have more than a dozen or so, and it was all lovely, soft springy turf that must have been almost a pleasure to fall on. And the only one that might have been nasty was broken by that gorse bush. No: it's the riding itself that comes hard at first. What about breakfast? I've had mine.”
“Oh bother breakfast. Bother everything, ” said Shasta. “I tell you I can't move.” But the horse nuzzled at him with its nose and pawed him gently with a hoof till he had to get up. And then he looked about him and saw where they were. Behind them lay a little copse. Before them the turf, dotted with white flowers, sloped down to the brow of a cliff. Far below them, so that the sound of the breaking waves was very faint, lay the sea. Shasta had never seen it from such a height and never seen so much of it before, nor dreamed how many colors it had. On either hand the coast stretched away, headland after headland, and at the points you could see the white foam running up the rocks but making no noise because it was so far off. There were gulls flying overhead and the heat shivered on the ground; it was a blazing day. But what Shasta chiefly noticed was the air. He couldn't think what was missing, until at last he realized that there was no smell of fish in it. For of course, neither in the cottage nor among the nets, had he ever been away from that smell in his life. And this new air was so delicious, and all his old life seemed so far away, that he forgot for a moment about his bruises and his aching muscles and said:
“I say, Bree, didn't you say something about breakfast? ”
“Yes, I did, ” answered Bree. “I think you'll find something in the saddle-bags. They're over there on that tree where you hung them up last night—or early this morning, rather.”
They investigated the saddle-bags and the results were cheering—a meat pasty, only slightly stale, a lump of dried figs and another lump of green cheese, a little flask of wine, and some money; about forty crescents in all, which was more than Shasta had ever seen.
While Shasta sat down—painfully and cautiously—with his back against a tree and started on the pasty, Bree had a few more mouthfuls of grass to keep him company.
“Won't it be stealing to use the money? ” asked Shasta.
“Oh, ” said the Horse, looking up with its mouth full of grass, “I never thought of that. A free horse and a talking horse mustn't steal, of course. But I think it's all right. We're prisoners and captives in enemy country. That money is booty, spoil. Besides, how are we to get any food for you without it? I suppose, like all humans, you won't eat natural food like grass and oats.”
“I can't.”
“Ever tried? ”
“Yes, I have. I can't get it down at all. You couldn't either if you were me.”
“You're rum little creatures, you humans, ” remarked Bree.
When Shasta had finished his breakfast (which was by far the nicest he had ever eaten), Bree said, “I think I'll have a nice roll before we put on that saddle again.” And he proceeded to do so. “That's good. That's very good, ” he said, rubbing his back on the turf and waving all four legs in the air. “You ought to have one too, Shasta, ” he snorted. “It's most refreshing.”
But Shasta burst out laughing and said, “You do look funny when you're on your back! ”
“I look nothing of the sort, ” said Bree. But then suddenly he rolled round on his side, raised his head and looked hard at Shasta, blowing a little.
“Does it really look funny? ” he asked in an anxious voice.
“Yes, it does, ” replied Shasta. “But what does it matter? ”
“You don't think, do you, ” said Bree, “that it might be a thing talking horses never do—a silly, clownish trick I've learned from the dumb ones? It would be dreadful to find, when I get back to Narnia, that I've picked up a lot of low, bad habits. What do you think, Shasta? Honestly, now. Don't spare my feelings. Should you think the real, free horses—the talking kind—do roll? ”
“How should I know? Anyway I don't think I should bother about it if I were you. We've got to get there first. Do you know the way? ”
“I know my way to Tashbaan. After that comes the desert. Oh, we'll manage the desert somehow, never fear. Why, we'll be in sight of the Northern mountains then. Think of it! To Narnia and the North! Nothing will stop us then. But I'd be glad to be past Tashbaan. You and I are safer away from cities.”
“Can't we avoid it? ”
“Not without going along way inland, and that would take us into cultivated land and main roads; and I wouldn't know the way. No, we'll just have to creep along the coast. Up here on the downs we'll meet nothing but sheep and rabbits and gulls and a few shepherds. And by the way, what about starting? ”
Shasta's legs ached terribly as he saddled Bree and climbed into the saddle, but the Horse was kindly to him and went at a soft pace all afternoon. When evening twilight came they dropped by steep tracks into a valley and found a village. Before they got into it Shasta dismounted and entered it on foot to buy a loaf and some onions and radishes. The Horse trotted round by the fields in the dusk and met Shasta at the far side. This became their regular plan every second night.
These were great days for Shasta, and every day better than the last as his muscles hardened and he fell less often. Even at the end of his training Bree still said he sat like a bag of flour in the saddle. “And even if it was safe, young 'un, I'd be ashamed to be seen with you on the main road.” But in spite of his rude words Bree was a patient teacher. No one can teach riding so well as a horse. Shasta learned to trot, to canter, to jump, and to keep his seat even when Bree pulled up suddenly or swung unexpectedly to the left or the right—which, as Bree told him, was a thing you might have to do at any moment in a battle. And then of course Shasta begged to be told of the battles and wars in which Bree had carried the Tarkaan. And Bree would tell of forced marches and the fording of swift rivers, of charges and of fierce fights between cavalry and cavalry when the war horses fought as well as the men, being all fierce stallions, trained to bite and kick, and to rear at the right moment so that the horse's weight as well as the rider's would come down on a enemy's crest in the stroke of sword or battle-axe. But Bree did not want to talk about the wars as often as Shasta wanted to hear about them. “Don't speak of them, youngster, ” he would say. “They were only the Tisroc's wars and I fought in them as a slave and a dumb beast. Give me the Narnian wars where I shall fight as a free Horse among my own people! Those will be wars worth talking about. Narnia and the North! Bra-ha-ha! Broo hoo! ”
Shasta soon learned, when he heard Bree talking like that, to prepare for a gallop.
After they had travelled on for weeks and weeks past more bays and headlands and rivers and villages than Shasta could remember, there came a moonlit night when they started their journey at evening, having slept during the day. They had left the downs behind them and were crossing a wide plain with a forest about half a mile away on their left. The sea, hidden by low sandhills, was about the same distance on their right. They had jogged along for about an hour, sometimes trotting and sometimes walking, when Bree suddenly stopped.
“What's up? ” said Shasta.
“S-s-ssh! ” said Bree, craning his neck round and twitching his ears.“Did you hear something? Listen.”
“It sounds like another horse—between us and the wood, ” said Shasta after he had listened for about a minute.
“It is another horse, ” said Bree. “And that's what I don't like.”
“Isn't it probably just a farmer riding home late? ” said Shasta with a yawn.
“Don't tell me! ” said Bree. “That's not a farmer's riding. Nor a farmer's horse either. Can't you tell by the sound? That's quality, that horse is. And it's being ridden by a real horseman. I tell you what it is, Shasta. There's a Tarkaan under the edge of that wood. Not on his war horse—it's too light for that. On a fine blood mare, I should say.”
“Well, it's stopped now, whatever it is, ” said Shasta.
“You're right, ” said Bree. “And why should he stop just when we do? Shasta, my boy, I do believe there's someone shadowing us at last.”
“What shall we do? ” said Shasta in a lower whisper than before. “Do you think he can see us as well as hear us? ”
“Not in this light so long as we stay quite still, ” answered Bree. “But look! There's a cloud coming up. I'll wait till that gets over the moon. Then we'll get off to our right as quietly as we can, down to the shore. We can hide among the sandhills if the worst comes to the worst.”
They waited till the cloud covered the moon and then, first at a walking pace and afterward at a gentle trot, made for the shore.
The cloud was bigger and thicker than it had looked at first and soon the night grew very dark. Just as Shasta was saying to himself,“We must be nearly at those sandhills by now, ” his heart leaped into his mouth because an appalling noise had suddenly risen up out of the darkness ahead; a long snarling roar, melancholy and utterly savage. Instantly Bree swerved round and began galloping inland again as fast as he could gallop.
“What is it? ” gasped Shasta.
“Lions! ” said Bree, without checking his pace or turning his head.
After that there was nothing but sheer galloping for some time. At last they splashed across a wide, shallow stream and Bree came to a stop on the far side. Shasta noticed that he was trembling and sweating all over.
“That water may have thrown the brute off our scent, ” panted Bree when he had partly got his breath again. “We can walk for a bit now.”
As they walked Bree said, “Shasta, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm just as frightened as a common, dumb Calor mene horse. I am really. I don't feel like a Talking Horse at all. I don't mind swords and lances and arrows but I can't bear—those creatures. I think I'll trot for a bit.”
About a minute later, however, he broke into a gallop again, and no wonder. For the roar broke out again, this time on their left from the direction of the forest.
“Two of them, ” moaned Bree.
When they had galloped for several minutes without any further noise from the lions Shasta said, “I say! That other horse is galloping beside us now. Only a stone's throw away.”
“All the b-better, ” panted Bree. “Tarkaan on it—will have a sword—protect us all.”
“But, Bree! ” said Shasta. “We might just as well be killed by lions as caught. Or 1 might. They'll hang me for horsestealing.” He was feeling less frightened of lions than Bree because he had never met a lion; Bree had.
Bree only snorted in answer but he did sheer away to his right. Oddly enough the other horse seemed also to be sheering away to the left, so that in a few seconds the space between them had widened a good deal. But as soon as it did so there came two more lions' roars, immediately after one another, one on the right and the other on the left, the horses began drawing nearer together. So, apparently, did the lions. The roaring of the brutes on each side was horribly close and they seemed to be keeping up with the galloping horses quite easily. Then the cloud rolled away. The moonlight, astonishingly bright, showed up everything almost as if it were broad day. The two horses and two riders were galloping neck to neck and knee to knee just as if they were in a race. Indeed Bree said (afterward) that a finer race had never been seen in Calormen.
Shasta now gave himself up for lost and began to wonder whether lions killed you quickly or played with you as a cat plays with a mouse and how much it would hurt. At the same time (one sometimes does this at the most frightful moments) he noticed everything. He saw that the other rider was a very small, slender person, mail-clad (the moon shone on the mail) and riding magnificently. He had no beard.
Something flat and shining was spread out before them. Before Shasta had time even to guess what it was there was a great splash and he found his mouth half full of salt water. The shining thing had been a long inlet of the sea. Both horses were swimming and the water was up to Shasta's knees. There was an angry roaring behind them and looking back Shasta saw a great, shaggy, and terrible shape crouched on the water's edge; but only one. “We must have shaken off the other lion, ” he thought.
The lion apparently did not think its prey worth a wetting; at any rate it made no attempt to take the water in pursuit. The two horses, side by side, were now well out into the middle of the creek and the opposite shore could be clearly seen. The Tarkaan had not yet spoken a word. “But he will, ” thought Shasta. “As soon as we have landed. What am I to say? I must begin thinking out a story.”
Then, suddenly, two voices spoke at his side.
“Oh, I am so tired, ” said the one. “Hold your tongue, Hwin, and don't be a fool, ” said the other.
“I'm dreaming, ” thought Shasta. “I could have sworn that other horse spoke.”
Soon the horses were no longer swimming but walking and soon with a great sound of water running off their sides and tails and with a great crunching of pebbles under eight hoofs, they came out on the farther beach of the inlet. The Tarkaan, to Shasta's surprise, showed no wish to ask questions. He did not even look at Shasta but seemed anxious to urge his horse straight on. Bree, however, at once shouldered himself in the other horse's way.
“Broo-hoo-hah! ” he snorted. “Steady there! I heard you, I did. There's no good pretending, Ma'am. 1 heard you. You're a Talking Horse, a Narnian horse just like me.”
“What's it got to do with you if she is? ” said the strange rider fiercely, laying hand on sword-hilt. But the voice in which the words were spoken had already told Shasta something.
“Why, it's only a girl! ” he exclaimed.
“And what business is it of yours if I am only a girl? ” snapped the stranger. “You're probably only a boy: a rude, common little boy—a slave probably, who's stolen his master's horse.”
“That's all you know, ” said Shasta.
“He's not a thief, little Tarkheena, ” said Bree. “At least, if there's been any stealing, you might just as well say I stole him. And as for its not being my business, you wouldn't expect me to pass a lady of my own race in this strange country without speaking to her? It's only natural I should.”
“I think it's very natural too, ” said the mare.
“I wish you'd held your tongue, Hwin, ” said the girl. “Look at the trouble you've got us into.”
“I don't know about trouble, ” said Shasta. “You can clear off as soon as you like. We shan't keep you.”
“No, you shan't, ” said the girl.
“What quarrelsome creatures these humans are, ” said Bree to the mare. “They're as bad as mules. Let's try to talk a little sense. I take it, ma'am, your story is the same as mine? Captured in early youth—years of slavery among the Calormenes? ”
“Too true, sir, ” said the mare with a melancholy whinny.
“And now, perhaps—escape? ”
“Tell him to mind his own business, Hwin, ” said the girl.
“No, I won't, Aravis, ” said the mare putting her ears back. “This is my escape just as much as yours. And I'm sure a noble war-horse like this is not going to betray us. We are trying to escape, to get to Narnia.”
“And so, of course, are we, ” said Bree. “Of course you guessed that at once. A little boy in rags riding (or trying to ride) a war-horse at dead of night couldn't mean anything but an escape of some sort. And, if I may say so, a highborn Tarkheena riding alone at night—dressed up in her brother's armor—and very anxious for everyone to mind their own business and ask her no questions—well, if that's not fishy, call me a cob! ”
“All right then, ” said Aravis. “You've guessed it. Hwin and I are running away. We are trying to get to Narnia. And now, what about it? ”
“Why, in that case, what is to prevent us all going together? ”said Bree. “I trust, Madam Hwin, you will accept such assistance and protection as I may be able to give you on the journey? ”
“Why do you keep talking to my horse instead of to me? ” asked the girl.
“Excuse me, Tarkheena, ” said Bree (with just the slightest backward tilt of his ears), “but that's Calormene talk. We're free Narnians, Hwin and I, and I suppose, if you're running away to Narnia, you want to be one too. In that case Hwin isn't your horse any longer. One might just as well say you're her human.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak and then stopped. Obviously she had not quite seen it in that light before.
“Still, ” she said after a moment's pause, “I don't know that there's so much point in all going together. Aren't we more likely to be noticed? ”
“Less, ” said Bree; and the mare said, “Oh do let's. I should feel much more comfortable. We're not even certain of the way. I'm sure a great charger like this knows far more than we do.”
“Oh come on, Bree, ” said Shasta, “and let them go their own way. Can't you see they don't want us? ”
“We do, ” said Hwin.
“Look here, ” said the girl. “I don't mind going with you, Mr. War-Horse, but what about this boy? How do I know he's not a spy? ”
“Why don't you say at once that you think I'm not good enough for you? ” said Shasta.
“Be quiet, Shasta, ” said Bree. “The Tarkheena's question is quite reasonable. I'll vouch for the boy, Tarkheena. He's been true to me and a good friend. And he's certainly either a Narnian or an Archenlander.”
“All right, then. Let's go together.” But she didn't say anything to Shasta and it was obvious that she wanted Bree, not him.
“Splendid! ” said Bree. “And now that we've got the water between us and those dreadful animals, what about you two humans taking off our saddles and our all having a rest and hearing one another's stories.”
Both the children unsaddled their horses and the horses had a little grass and Aravis produced rather nice things to eat from her saddle-bag, But Shasta sulked and said No thanks, and that he wasn't hungry. And he tried to put on what he thought very grand and stiff manners, but as a fisherman's but is not usually a good place for learning grand manners, the result was dreadful. And he half knew that it wasn't a success and then became sulkier and more awkward than ever. Meanwhile the two horses were getting on splendidly. They remembered the very same places in Narnia—“the grasslands up above Beaversdam” and found that they were some sort of second cousins once removed. This made things more and more uncomfortable for the humans until at last Bree said, “And now, Tarkheena, tell us your story. And don't hurry it—I'm feeling comfortable now.”
Aravis immediately began, sitting quite still and using a rather different tone and style from her usual one. For in Calormen, story-telling (whether the stories are true or made up) is a thing you're taught, just as English boys and girls are taught essay-writing. The difference is that people want to hear the stories, whereas I never heard of anyone who wanted to read the essays.