Why the King set sail
It happened quite suddenly, at a council meeting. One moment, Lord Berne, the youngest brother of the Duke of the Lone Islands, was reading out a report on domestic trade and everyone was listening to him. The next moment, the King had put his head in both hands, his long white beard trailing onto the council table.
"I am old! Old!" he half-shouted, looking back up at them all. "This- this-" he waved one shaking hand impatiently at Lord Berne and his report. "I am too old! Trade and finance and little columns of endless figures! Take it away! They may buy and sell, if they are fair, and if they do not know what is fair, you do! And if you do not know what is fair, after all this time, we are all undone!" He rose. "Undone, undone! It is for young men now – go!" A wave of the royal hand signalled their dismissal and the King turned and went out of the room, still shaking his head. "Undone, undone! No-one to come after me! Undone, undone...!"
And the council of Narnia sat still around the table, staring blankly at each other, and at the seat where the old King had been.
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On the corridor that joined the council hall to the King's chamber, just past the library, there was a bay window. King Caspian the sea-farer, tenth of his name, looked up from staring out onto the central lawn of Cair Paravel as a set of slow footsteps came towards him. "Ah, Drinian!" The King smiled, a little ruefully. "So they have called you from your rest to come and calm me after my sudden outburst at the council meeting?"
Lord Drinian of the Dawn Treader, even older and whiter-haired than the King, though sturdier, bowed his head briefly in greeting. "It was my wish to come and speak to your Majesty today, anyway," he protested.
"But...?" the King prompted, his blue eyes finally sparkling. "Nay, nay, my friend," he added, as Drinian seemed to stutter for words. "I grew a little weary of finance, that was all. Young Lord Berne is an estimable young man, but rather-"
"Over-enthusiastic?" Drinian suggested, with the air of one who had suffered from this himself.
"An excellent advisor," said the King, while inclining his head in agreement. "But not for an old man who begins to feel he cannot add two and two." He looked back out to the lawn. "I am old, Drinian," he said suddenly, as he had at the council. "It came to me, in an instant, as I listened to that report. I am old, younger than you, yes; but old. And other men rule your navy now, and you have but to sit, and hear their tales, and come to me when it seems you cannot bear to see another poorly coiled rope or ill-washed deck; and I scold those younger men, and they re-coil your ropes and re-scrub your decks. But I-?"
The King lifted his hands in a brief gesture of despair. "I am old, and there is no-one to rule after me." He sighed. "No-one to sit beside me, and check the columns that waver in an old man's sight. No-one to take my place in hearing the long tale of the dwarf who dug under his neighbour's duck pond and wishes to have compensation for the flooding, while his neighbour wants his ducks back."
Caspian looked round as Drinian spluttered. "Aye, I felt like that too."
"Your majesty-" Drinian hesitated, even as he smiled at the ducks. "Your people ask too much of you, at your age-"
"I am the King," Caspian cut in, almost harshly. "Once a King of Narnia, always a King of Narnia. Who else have they to ask? Nay! Do not blame yourself!" he added, fiercely, as the older man winced. "There was naught you could have done, and I will not lose my friend – how many times must I remind you?!"
He put out one wrinkled, ring-heavy hand and set it on Drinian's shoulder. "You remember them, Drinian. Their Majesties. And Eustace." The King shook his head, slowly. "They left their thrones, once, not knowing who would take them. But to them it was given to come back, in that queer world of theirs. I wonder if they are old, now? Is Edmund slow, and creaky? Is Lucy's hair grey? Is Queen Susan the Gentle an old lady of frail, parched skin and peering eyesight? And the High King? Does it weigh down his footsteps that I have no-one to leave his country too?"
Caspian was silent for a long minute. Then he straightened sharply. "There was a report, recently. Of Aslan, seen somewhere in the realm. Where?"
Drinian blinked, as startled as the council of Narnia had been an hour earlier. "Y-your majesty?"
Caspian waved one hand impatiently. "I know, I know, the Lion will hear His servants from anywhere! But where was He last seen?"
"It was a rumour that came on a Galmian trading ship," Drinian said, rather doubtfully. "They said there were reports Aslan had been seen somewhere in Terebinthia."
"Terebinthia..." His old friend's tone may have been sceptical, but the King echoed the word with nothing but pure and contented nostalgia. "Terebinthia … and the tournament on Galma … and the days when the world was young … Or at least I was," he added, coming sharply back to the present with a smile at Drinian. "Fear not, my friend, my mind is not wandering. Maybe my soul, a little. But anyway, Aslan. Somewhere in Terebinthia." Caspian nodded. "Perhaps this is it. I am old. But I must try, anyway."
"Try … what?" Drinian queried.
"To find out who should reign after me," said Caspian matter-of-factly.
There was a long silence in the bay window. For a moment, Drinian made as if to raise his hand and set it on the king's shoulder, then dropped it back again. "Will – will your majesty have an embassy selected to send to Terebinthia, then?" he asked in the end.
"An embassy?" Caspian had been staring out of the window again, as if he saw far, far beyond it. He looked up as if puzzled by the question. "Embassy? Embassy? Oh! No..."
The King smiled, an old man's smile of courage and faith despite long heartache. "I have lost too many man by sending them to go for me. This time, I will go myself."
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