“Did they live in this castle, Doctor?”
“Nay, my dear,” said the old man. “This castle is a thing of yesterday.
Your great-great-grandfather built it.
But when the two sons of Adam and the two daughters of Eve were made Kings and Queens of Narnia by Aslan himself, they lived in the castle of Cair Paravel.
No man alive has seen that blessed place and perhaps even the ruins of it have now vanished.
But we believe it was far from here, down at the mouth of the Great River, on the very shore of the sea.”
“Ugh!” said Caspian with a shudder. “Do you mean in the Black Woods?
Where all the—the—you know, the ghosts live?”
“Your Highness speaks as you have been taught,” said the Doctor.
“But it is all lies. There are no ghosts there. That is a story invented by the Telmarines.
Your Kings are in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories Aslan comes from over the sea.
They don’t want to go near it and they don’t want anyone else to go near it.
So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast.
But because they have quarrelled with the trees they are afraid of the woods.
And because they are afraid of the woods they imagine that they are full of ghosts.
And the Kings and great men, hating both the sea and the wood, partly believe these stories, and partly encourage them.
They feel safer if no one in Narnia dares to go down to the coast and look out to sea towards Aslan’s land and the morning and the eastern end of the world.”
There was a deep silence between them for a few minutes.
Then Doctor Cornelius said,
“Come.
We have been here long enough.
It is time to go down and to bed.”
“Must we?” said Caspian. “I’d like to go on talking about these things for hours and hours and hours.”
“Someone might begin looking for us, if we did that,” said Doctor Cornelius.
CHAPTER FIVE. CASPIAN’S ADVENTURE IN THE MOUNTAINS
AFTER this, Caspian and his Tutor had many more secret conversations on the top of the Great Tower, and at each conversation Caspian learned more about Old Narnia, so that thinking and dreaming about the old days, and longing that they might come back, filled nearly all his spare hours.
But of course he had not many hours to spare, for now his education was beginning in earnest.
He learned sword-fighting and riding, swimming and diving, how to shoot with the bow and play on the recorder and the theorbo, how to hunt the stag and cut him up when he was dead, besides Cosmography, Rhetoric, Heraldry, Versification, and of course History, with a little Law, Physic, Alchemy, and Astronomy.
Of Magic he learned only the theory, for Doctor Cornelius said the practical part was not proper study for princes.
“And I myself,” he added, “am only a very imperfect magician and can do only the smallest experiments.”
Of Navigation (“Which is a noble and heroical art,” said the Doctor) he was taught nothing, because King Miraz disapproved of ships and the sea.
He also learned a great deal by using his own eyes and ears.
As a little boy he had often wondered why he disliked his aunt, Queen Prunaprismia; he now saw that it was because she disliked him.
He also began to see that Narnia was an unhappy country.
The taxes were high and the laws were stern and Miraz was a cruel man.
After some years there came a time when the Queen seemed to be ill and there was a great deal of bustle and pother about her in the castle and doctors came and the courtiers whispered.
This was in early summertime.
And one night, while all this fuss was going on, Caspian was unexpectedly wakened by Doctor Cornelius after he had been only a few hours in bed.
“Are we going to do a little Astronomy, Doctor?” said Caspian.
“Hush!” said the Doctor. “Trust me and do exactly as I tell you.
Put on all your clothes; you have a long journey before you.”
Caspian was very surprised, but he had learned to have confidence in his Tutor and he began doing what he was told at once.
When he was dressed the Doctor said,
“I have a wallet for you. We must go into the next room and fill it with victuals from your Highness’s supper table.”
“My gentlemen-in-waiting will be there,” said Caspian.
“They are fast asleep and will not wake,” said the Doctor. “I am a very minor magician but I can at least contrive a charmed sleep.”
They went into the antechamber and there, sure enough, the two gentlemen-in-waiting were, sprawling on chairs and snoring hard.
Doctor Cornelius quickly cut up the remains of a cold chicken and some slices of venison and put them, with bread and an apple or so and a little flask of good wine, into the wallet which he then gave to Caspian.
It fitted on by a strap over Caspian’s shoulder, like a satchel you would use for taking books to school.
“Have you your sword?” asked the Doctor.