Then they recovered themselves and stood champing their bits and blowing.
In the frosty air the breath coming out of their nostrils looked like smoke.
“And what, pray, are you?” said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.
“I’m—I’m—my name’s Edmund,” said Edmund rather awkwardly.
He did not like the way she looked at him.
The Lady frowned.
“Is that how you address a Queen?” she asked, looking sterner than ever.
“I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn’t know,” said Edmund.
“Not know the Queen of Narnia?” cried she.
“Ha! You shall know us better hereafter.
But I repeat—what are you?”
“Please, your Majesty,” said Edmund, “I don’t know what you mean.
I’m at school—at least I was—it’s the holidays now.”
FOUR TURKISH DELIGHT
“BUT WHAT ARE YOU?” SAID THE QUEEN again.
“Are you a great overgrown dwarf that has cut off its beard?”
“No, your Majesty,” said Edmund,
“I never had a beard, I’m a boy.”
“A boy!” said she.
“Do you mean you are a Son of Adam?”
Edmund stood still, saying nothing.
He was too confused by this time to understand what the question meant.
“I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be,” said the Queen.
“Answer me, once and for all, or I shall lose my patience.
Are you human?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
“And how, pray, did you come to enter my dominions?”
“Please, your Majesty, I came in through a wardrobe.”
“A wardrobe?
What do you mean?”
“I—I opened a door and just found myself here, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
“Ha!” said the Queen, speaking more to herself than to him.
“A door.
A door from the world of men!
I have heard of such things.
This may wreck all.
But he is only one, and he is easily dealt with.”
As she spoke these words she rose from her seat and looked Edmund full in the face, her eyes flaming; at the same moment she raised her wand.
Edmund felt sure that she was going to do something dreadful but he seemed unable to move.
Then, just as he gave himself up for lost, she appeared to change her mind.
“My poor child,” she said in quite a different voice, “how cold you look!
Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle round you and we will talk.”
Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey; he stepped onto the sledge and sat at her feet, and she put a fold of her fur mantle round him and tucked it well in.
“Perhaps something hot to drink?” said the Queen. “Should you like that?”
“Yes please, your Majesty,” said Edmund, whose teeth were chattering.
The Queen took from somewhere among her wrappings a very small bottle which looked as if it were made of copper.
Then, holding out her arm, she let one drop fall from it onto the snow beside the sledge.
Edmund saw the drop for a second in mid-air, shining like a diamond.
But the moment it touched the snow there was a hissing sound and there stood a jeweled cup full of something that steamed.
The dwarf immediately took this and handed it to Edmund with a bow and a smile; not a very nice smile.