“He wouldn’t send them if it weren’t.”
A few minutes later the Witch herself walked out on to the top of the hill and came straight across and stood before Aslan.
The three children who had not seen her before felt shudders running down their backs at the sight of her face; and there were low growls among all the animals present.
Though it was bright sunshine everyone felt suddenly cold.
The only two people present who seemed to be quite at their ease were Aslan and the Witch herself.
It was the oddest thing to see those two faces—the golden face and the dead-white face—so close together.
Not that the Witch looked Aslan exactly in his eyes; Mrs. Beaver particularly noticed this.
“You have a traitor there, Aslan,” said the Witch.
Of course everyone present knew that she meant Edmund.
But Edmund had got past thinking about himself after all he’d been through and after the talk he’d had that morning.
He just went on looking at Aslan. It didn’t seem to matter what the Witch said.
“Well,” said Aslan.
“His offense was not against you.”
“Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?” asked the Witch.
“Let us say I have forgotten it,” answered Aslan gravely.
“Tell us of this Deep Magic.”
“Tell you?” said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller.
“Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us?
Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill?
Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea?
You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.
You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Beaver. “So that’s how you came to imagine yourself a queen—because you were the Emperor’s hangman. I see.”
“Peace, Beaver,” said Aslan, with a very low growl.
“And so,” continued the Witch, “that human creature is mine.
His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property.”
“Come and take it then,” said the Bull with the man’s head in a great bellowing voice.
“Fool,” said the Witch with a savage smile that was almost a snarl, “do you really think your master can rob me of my rights by mere force?
He knows the Deep Magic better than that.
He knows that unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water.”
“It is very true,” said Aslan,
“I do not deny it.”
“Oh, Aslan!” whispered Susan in the Lion’s ear, “can’t we—I mean, you won’t, will you?
Can’t we do something about the Deep Magic?
Isn’t there something you can work against it?”
“Work against the Emperor’s Magic?” said Aslan, turning to her with something like a frown on his face.
And nobody ever made that suggestion to him again.
Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan’s face.
He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say something; but a moment later he felt that he was not expected to do anything except to wait, and do what he was told.
“Fall back, all of you,” said Aslan, “and I will talk to the Witch alone.”
They all obeyed.
It was a terrible time this—waiting and wondering while the Lion and the Witch talked earnestly together in low voices.
Lucy said, “Oh, Edmund!” and began to cry.
Peter stood with his back to the others looking out at the distant sea.
The Beavers stood holding each other’s paws with their heads bowed.
The centaurs stamped uneasily with their hoofs.
But everyone became perfectly still in the end, so that you noticed even small sounds like a bumble-bee flying past, or the birds in the forest down below them, or the wind rustling the leaves.
And still the talk between Aslan and the White Witch went on.
At last they heard Aslan’s voice,
“You can all come back,” he said.