Prologue

Aravis Tarkheena

Aravis Tarkheena was born in the summer of 998, second child and only daughter of Kidrash Tarkaan. She liked swimming and archery and swordsmanship and storytelling, and nice things as long as she didn't have to think too much about them. She had one brother, and loved him better than the sun and the stars and all the gods.

Her father was a rather important person, even for a Tarkaan, so Aravis and all her relatives went to the very best parties and met most everyone who mattered.

One of these was a Vizier in her father's pay, who slipped her sweets when no one else was looking, and he had a daughter of Aravis' age. This girl was a flighty, selfish, indolent creature named Lasaraleen, as different from Aravis as any person could be, and under normal conditions they would probably have disliked one another heartily. However, since they were constantly together and all the other girls were daughters or sisters or nieces of their fathers' enemies, there was nothing to do but be friendly. So they were, even though each thought the other very foolish.

When Aravis was seven, her mother gave birth to a son and died. She was very sorry about this and sorrier still when her father remarried almost immediately.

It must be understood that Kidrash Tarkaan was neither cruel nor hardhearted. He had loved his wife and continued to love his children, but he was companionable by nature, and did not bear solitude well. He was also highly suggestible.

His new wife, however, was both cruel and hardhearted, and all that can be said in her defence is that Aravis' hard, proud ways would not have endeared her to a much kinder woman. Even that is not much, however, for Aravis' stepmother chiefly resented her girlish good looks and the love of the Tarkaan. (The latter greatly increased with the death of his elder son, which grieved father and daughter beyond the power of all the poets to describe.) Therefore she persuaded him to arrange a particularly unpleasant, if advantageous, marriage between Aravis and Ahoshta Tarkaan.

Ahoshta was a low-born, deformed person of Aravis' late grandfather's age. He had won the Tisroc's favour, however, and was soon to be Grand Vizier, the most powerful man outside of the royal family. The two were betrothed — the wedding set — and Aravis herself was thrown into despair. She prepared to end her life, and certainly would have, were it not for the interference of her horse.

This creature, of course, was no ordinary horse, but Hwin, a Talking Horse of Narnia. She persuaded Aravis to search for a different kind of freedom, explaining that in her own homeland, maidens were never forced to marry against their will. Mount and mistress determined to make their way North, and Aravis planned their escape. (I say Aravis, because although Hwin was quite sensible and worthy of the highest regard, she had no gift for elaborate plots, while Aravis could and did scheme with the best of them.)

After lying as if she had been born to it, and drugging her maid (a spy of her stepmother's, as she knew perfectly well), and writing counterfeit letters, and then disguising herself in her brother's old armour, Aravis escaped the land of her childhood.

However, even the most cunning plans are as shards of glass beneath a firm shoe, and although Hwin eventually settled in Narnia, Aravis never did.

The ultimate cause of this was a lion — a lion who, quite early in their journey, chased them into the lives of another pair of fugitives. One was a Talking Horse named Bree, and the other, a fair awkward boy not much older than herself. She got on very well with the former, and not at all with the latter, who she thought vulgar and quarrelsome since he often contradicted her and did nothing without being persuaded into it. This would have been bad enough from another Tarkaan or Tarkheena, but he was a foundling who didn't even know his true name or age or parentage.

As it happened, this boy was actually Prince Cor of Archenland, the elder of King Lune's twin sons, but nobody knew that then. He had been kidnapped as an infant, brought up in a fisherman's hut, and was presently fleeing a life of slavery.

Aravis, Bree, Cor, and Hwin had many adventures on their way North, but you can read about these elsewhere. The really important thing is that they saved Archenland, and ultimately Narnia, from utter subjugation.

I say they, because all had their part in it. The Horses carried them many miles, and Aravis overheard Prince Rabadash's perfidious plan in the first place; yet, in the end, Cor alone was sent to find and warn King Lune. This he did, and when he wandered into Narnia, he warned them too.

Over the course of all these exploits, Aravis and Cor became friends, of sorts, though they didn't realise it. She looked down her nose at him and he picked fights with her, but in fact they liked one another very much, and each would have defended the other against any danger. Indeed, that is what happened, for when a lion attacked Aravis, Cor sprang off Bree and ran back to help her.

It was then that she realised how very mistaken she had been about him. No king in his castle had ever looked nobler than Cor really was at that moment, and Aravis determined to apologise at the first opportunity.

This she did, and since his true identity had been unveiled by then, he explained everything: the prince he had been mistaken for in Tashbaan, Corin, was really his twin brother, and his father was King Lune, and a treacherous lord had kidnapped him when he was just a baby. Now, of course, he was to live at Anvard as a royal prince, and the King had invited Aravis to come, too. There hadn't been any ladies at court since the Queen's death.

"Of course I'll come," said Aravis, so they gathered up the horses and Cor's retainers, and began the short journey North.