It’s so long since I’ve seen one.
Wolf’s head and man’s body.
That means he was just turning from man into wolf at the moment he was killed.
And you, I suppose, are King Caspian?”
“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.