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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HIGH KING IN COMMAND
"Now," said Peter, as they finished their irls (that&039;s Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, Caspian) are somewhere close We don&039;t knohen he will act In his time, no doubt, not ours In the meantime he would like us to do e can on our own You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle?"
"I&039; Peter very er for his out of the old stories than it was for them to meet him
"Very well, then," said Peter, "I&039;ll send hiht of this before
"Please," said Caspian, "could it not be e my father"
"You&039;re wounded," said Peter "And anyouldn&039;t he just laugh at a challenge fro 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 hie even froerarmy"
"Very likely he won&039;t," said Peter, "but there&039;s always the chance And even if he doesn&039;t, we shall spend the best part of the day sending heralds to and fro and all that By then AslanAnd at least I can inspect the are In fact I rite it at once Have you pen and ink, Master Doctor?"
"A scholar is never without them, your Majesty," answered Doctor Cornelius
"Very well, I will dictate," said Peter And while the Doctor spread out a parchment and opened his ink-horn and sharpened his pen, Peter leant back with half-closed eyes and recalled to his o in Narnia&039;s golden age
"Right," he said at last "And now, if you are ready, Doctor?"
Doctor Cornelius dipped his pen and waited Peter dictated as follows:
"Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Eht of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, to Miraz, Son of Caspian the Eighth, so of Narnia, Greeting Have you got that?"
"Narnia, co," in a new paragraph," said Peter "For to prevent the effusion of blood, and for the avoiding all other inconveniences likely to grow from the wars now levied in our realm of Narnia, it is our pleasure to adventure our royal person on behalf of our trusty and well-beloved Caspian in clean wager of battle to prove upon your Lordship&039;s body that the said Caspian is lawful King under us in Narnia both by our gift and by the laws of the Teluilty of treachery both in withholding the dominion of Narnia from the said Caspian and in the et to spell it with an H, Doctor - bloody, and unnaturalCaspian Ninth of that nae, and defy your Lordship to the said combat and monomachy, and have sent these letters by the hand of our well beloved and royal brother Ed under us in Narnia, Duke of Lantern Waste and Count of the Western March, Knight of the Noble Order of the Table, to e have given full power of deter with your Lordship all the conditions of the said battle Given at our lodging in Aslan&039;s How this XII day of the month Greenroof in the first year of Caspian Tenth of Narnia
"That ought to do," said Peter, drawing a deep breath
"And noe ht to be one"
"He&039;s - he&039;s not very clever, you know," said Caspian
"Of course not," said Peter "But any giant looks impressive if only he will keep quiet And it will cheer him up But who for the other?"
"Upon my word," said Trumpkin, "if you want someone who can kill with looks, Reepicheep would be the best"
"He would indeed, froh "If only he wasn&039;t so small They wouldn&039;t even see him till he was close!"
"Send Glenstorhed at a Centaur"
An hour later two great lords in the army of Miraz, the Lord Glozelle and the Lord Sopespian, strolling along their lines and picking their teeth after breakfast, looked up and saw co down to them from the wood the Centaur and Giant Wimbleweather, whoure they could not recognize Nor indeed would the other boys at Ednized him if they could have seen him at thatand a kind of greatness hung about him
"What&039;s to do?" said the Lord Glozelle "An attack?"
"A parley, rather," said Sopespian "See, they carry green branches They are co to surrenderbetween the Centaur and the Giant has no look of surrender in his face," said Glozelle "Who can he be? It is not the boy Caspian"
"No indeed," said Sopespian "This is a fell warrior, I warrant you, wherever the rebels have got hilier man than ever Miraz was And what mail he wears! None of our ser e, not a surrender," said Glozelle
"How then?" said Sopespian "We hold the enemy in our fist here Miraz would never be so hair-brained as to throay his advantage on a coht to it," said Glozelle in a much lower voice
"Softly," said Sopespian "Step a little aside here out of earshot of those sentries Now Have I taken your Lordship&039;s er of battle," whispered Glozelle, "why, either he would kill or be killed"
"So," said Sopespian, nodding his head
"And if he killed we should have won this war"
"Certainly And if not?"
"Why, if not, we should be as able to win it without the King&039;s grace as with hireat captain And after that, we should be both victorious and kingless"
"And it is your , my Lord, that you and I could hold this land quite as conveniently without a King as with one?"
Glozelle&039;s face grew ugly "Not forgetting," said he, "that it ho first put him on the throne And in all the years that he has enjoyed it, what fruits have coratitude has he shown us?"
"Say no more," answered Sopespian "But look - herd co&039;s tent"
When they reached Miraz&039;s tent they saw Ed entertained with cakes and wine, having already delivered the challenge, and withdrahile the King was considering it When they saw theht all three of the
Inside, they found Miraz, unar his breakfast His face was flushed and there was a scowl on his brow
"There!" he growled, flinging the parchment across the table to them "See what a pack of nursery tales our jackanapes of a nephew has sent us"