Faith
Seven-year-old Caspian, sobbing into his pillow, knew he had made a dreadful mistake. He hadn't thought that he was doing anything wrong when he mentioned to Uncle Miraz all those wonderful stories about Aslan, fauns, spirits of the water and woods, and talking animals. He had thought tales of those ancient miracles would make Uncle Miraz's stony mouth smooth into a smile for once and his flint eyes chip away some of their hardness.
He had hoped that hearing about the miracles of the past would make Uncle Miraz love him as he loved Nurse, but instead Uncle Miraz had shouted at him and shaken his shoulders until his brains seemed to rattle in his skull. Uncle Miraz appeared to hate the old stories more than he disliked Caspian, and, this time, Caspian hadn't just gotten himself in trouble.
He had gotten Nurse in trouble, too. He had heard Uncle Miraz bark at the guard who had taken him back to his chambers to have Nurse brought to Miraz at once. The harsh emphasis Uncle Miraz had placed on the last phrase had somehow made it clear to Caspian that Nurse was not just going to be sent to bed early without any supper.
Abruptly, his door was jerked open, the oak banging against the stone walls, and then slammed shut again. Starting, Caspian craned his neck to see who the intruder was, and, when he realized the man striding through the doorway, midnight blue robes billowing imperiously, was his uncle, buried his face more deeply into his pillow and sobbed with even greater intensity.
"Stop that idiotic crying before I give you something real to wail about," snapped Uncle Miraz, landing a sharp swat on the backs of each of Caspian's thighs.
Humiliation and fury warred for dominance inside the young prince as his uncle continued icily, "You're a boy, not a fountain. Try to keep that in mind before you put on waterworks displays. Now—" Two more hard slaps rained down on Caspian's thighs, his breeches providing little protection from his uncle's strong, punishing palm—"sit up and look at me."
Swallowing his sobs, stifling a whimper, and mopping his tears away with his fists, Caspian obeyed his uncle. In order to prevent his lower lip from trembling, he clenched his jaw in a manner that, he saw in the mirror over his dresser, made him bear an uncanny resemblance to his boulder-faced uncle. Drawing a strange kind of courage from this similarity in features, he demanded, "What have you done with Nurse, Uncle?"
"I've sent her away from court," answered Uncle Miraz, his tone colder than marble in midwinter. "She was filling your head with nonsense stories, Caspian, and you are, whether you notice it or not, too big for nonsense stories. You won't be seeing her again, because you don't need her anymore."
"But I didn't even get to say goodbye." The firm set of Caspian's jaw crumbled, and his lower lip began to tremble, as his eyes filled with tears. "I can't remember a night when she didn't say good night to me, and now I won't even get to say goodbye to her. I want to see her again, Uncle."
"Don't be sentimental," chided his uncle. "Your nurse was only ever your servant. She had value only as long as she could be of service to you. Now that she can no longer be of use to you, you certainly don't need to say goodbye to her—and you can't, because I've already sent her on her way."
"Nurse wasn't just a servant." Stubbornly, Caspian shook his head. "She was like a mother to me, since I can't really remember my own. She tucked me in at night. She kissed me good night. She told me bedtime stories. She played games with me. She taught me my letters and basic arithmetic. She taught me to not talk with my mouth full and not to put my elbows on the table. She taught me to say 'please and 'thank you.' I should have gotten a chance to say 'thank you' to her."
"Rubbish." His uncle waved a dismissive hand. "Nephew, she was only doing her job. There is no need to thank someone for doing what they are paid to do. Money is thanks enough."
"Nurse would have wanted me to say 'thank you,'" persisted Caspian, folding his arms across his chest. "I don't care if she only did what you paid her to do, Uncle. She still did a good job, and she should get thanked for it."
"Your beloved nurse also wanted you to believe in claptrap like talking lions and four rulers in one kingdom." His uncle's mouth twisted into the beginnings of a derisive smirk. "I suggest that you take every bit of advice she gave you with a lot of salt."
"Aslan, King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy aren't claptrap." Defiantly, Caspian lifted his chin and glared into Uncle Miraz's eyes. "Aslan was the Great Lion, whose breath alone was powerful enough to make creatures frozen into statues for a century come to life again. King Peter defeated giants with his sword alone. King Edmund could outsmart anyone and always knew how to reach a just decision in council. Queen Susan could aim at something a league away and still not miss with her bow and arrow. Queen Lucy could heal the injured with one drop from her magic potion. Their miracles and adventures aren't claptrap, Uncle."
"Be quiet, Caspian," Miraz snapped, the words rumbling in his throat, and he raised a warning hand. "If you don't stop insisting these lies are true, you'll feel the back of my hand."
Caspian's eyes narrowed. He thought that he could hear a tinge of fear behind the wrath in his uncle's tone, and, when he looked back on the fateful conversation on the ramparts, he recognized that he had heard the same undercurrent of terror in Miraz's voice then. That was interesting. After all, in Caspian's admittedly limited experience, people only feared what they believed to be real.
"You know you're wrong about Aslan and the old kings and queens being rubbish," shouted Caspian, not caring how much he enraged his uncle, because maybe if he got hit hard enough, he would land wherever Nurse was. "That's why you're so scared, and I won't lie. You have good reason to be scared. You were mean to Nurse, and mean people always get in big trouble at the end of all good stories."
"Don't ever talk to me like that, Nephew," snarled Uncle Miraz, striking first Caspian's right and then his left cheek. The horrible sound of callused skin making vicious contact with tender flesh echoed throughout the chamber. Caspian's neck jolted backward with each smack, and the metallic taste of blood flooded his mouth.
He supposed that the shock of the blows—his uncle had slapped his backside and thighs, but never his face before and certainly not with enough force to knock over a stallion—had caused him to bite his lip, his tongue, or the inside of his mouth. The shrieking, throbbing pain in each cheek made it impossible for him to detect the lesser agony of a bleeding lip, tongue, or side of mouth, which meant he might never know where the blood he was choking down his throat now had come from.
"If you ever speak to me like that again," whispered Uncle Miraz, leaning so close to Caspian that his lips brushed menacingly against the prince's ear, and clenching Caspian's shoulder tightly enough that there would be a line would be a line of bruises as evidence of his firm grip tomorrow morning, "the pain you feel now will seem like butterfly kisses. It is you, boy, who have cause to fear me—not I have who have cause to fear the phantoms of your senile nurse's crazy imagination. As for me being wrong, I'm never wrong, and that's a fact you would do well to remember whenever you speak."
Here, Miraz abruptly drew away from his nephew, who sighed in relief. However, the sigh of relief quickly turned into an anguished gasp when Miraz boxed his ears. When his uncle's palms smacked against his ears, the force of the blows reverberated down his ears, shattering their drums, and into his skull. As his brain rattled with pain and his ears drowned in endless echoes of an unexpected assault he had been defenseless against, Caspian clung to his blankets, telling himself that he would never allow his uncle the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Only people he loved and trusted—like Nurse—deserved the honor of seeing him in tears.
"In this case, Caspian, it is you who are wrong to address me so rudely and to believe nonsense tales whispered to you by an old lady before bed," his uncle finished, the words resounding oddly in Caspian's ears, giving the prince's shoulders a firm shake. "I regret that it seems it will require many beatings to knock out the nonsense your nurse has planted in your head, and it grieves me that I will not have the time to do so myself. I shall have to leave that sad but important task to your new tutor, Doctor Cornelius. Be warned that he has my permission to hit you wherever, whenever, and with whatever he deems necessary. It's time you learned how to be a man, not a fountain, boy."
With a final glower at his nephew, Miraz pushed himself off the bed and strode out of the room, closing the door firmly in his wake. As soon as he was confident that his uncle was out of earshot, Caspian, studying the tapestries that depicted the victories of his ancestors, muttered, "What if you're right, Uncle? What if Aslan is just a nonsense nursery tale? What if believing in Him will really on make a fool of me like you say?"
There was a rustle of soft paws against floorboards. Dully, Caspian glanced down to see a ginger kitten approaching his bed. Purring, the kitten launched itself, with a scratch of claws against wood, onto the bed. It nestled its furry head against Caspian's knee, and, smiling slightly, the prince began to scratch the kitten gently behind its angular ears. Letting his mind work through every fret as his fingers stroked the kitten's fur, he murmured, unsure whether he was talking to his absent uncle or to himself now, "But what if you're wrong? What if there is more to life than you can see now? What if there's hope you never dreamed of hoping for? What if you jump like this kitten did? What if the arms that catch you catch you by surprise? What if He's more than enough?"
Desperately wanting proof that the old stories were true and that Aslan might really exist, after all, Caspian leaned forward to whisper in the kitten's ear, "What do you think? Do talking animals exist? Are you one of them? Does Aslan exist?"
Hissing, the kitten slashed at Caspian's nose with a clawed paw. Sputtering, the prince felt his nose and discovered a warm trickle of blood. As the kitten, eyeing Caspian with all the disdain of a vexed lion, leapt smoothly toward the far end of the bed and curled up at the bottom of the blankets, the prince grabbed a handkerchief from the bedside table.
While he wiped the blood off his nose, Caspian thought grimly, that, after his uncle's thrashing, a kitten abusing him was just what he needed. Feeling sorry for himself, he returned his handkerchief to the nightstand and collapsed against his pillows. Closing his eyes, he told himself that, as horrible as the future would likely be when his new tutor arrived to terrorize him with grammar and history and mathematics lessons, it at least couldn't be as appalling as today, he tried to fall asleep, because, in his dreams, Nurse could still dry his tears with a handkerchief.
When he shut his eyes, he was shocked when a quiet voice that rang with the power to make the stars tremble in the high heavens spoke to him in the darkness behind his eyelids: Do not be upset or afraid, Caspian. I am with you, I have been with you since you were born, and I will be with you until even time ends. I will come to you in the silence. I will lift you from all you fear. You will hear My voice. I claim you as My choice. Be still and know that I'm near. In the shadows of the night, I will be your light. Come and rest in Me.
But who are you? Caspian demanded mentally, and, before he could even think of converting the thoughts to words, the voice had spoken again.
I am, the voice answered with the hint of the sort of rumble that could create earthquakes. I am hope for all the despairing. I am healing for those who dwell in shame. I am eyes for the blind. I am freedom for captives. I am the peace the world cannot give. I am everything you could ever need Me to be.
I don't suppose that You could offer me some proof of that, Caspian thought grimly, thinking that he could use a positive sign to cheer him after losing his beloved nurse.
Because you asked for proof of Me, the kitten scratched your nose. The voice sounded sterner and more dangerous than Uncle Miraz ever had, but, there was still a sympathy, a love, and a mercy laced into the tone that never would have appeared in his uncle's statements. Don't make the same mistakes twice, Caspian. If hearing My voice isn't enough for you, nothing I do for you will ever be enough to satisfy you. If nothing I do will ever be enough to satisfy you, you will be forever miserable.
Forgive me, Caspian thought, reaching up to touch the raw streaks where the kitten had torn through his tender flesh.
This and much more will be forgiven you if you only believe in Me and the miracles I can do for you, the voice declared, and Caspian felt that warm breeze that had drifted across his cheeks the night he had first heard and spoken Aslan's name sweep over his cheeks again, soothing his face more effectively than any balm, so that he felt that the scratches and healing provided physical proof of Aslan's love and justice, after all. With that thought, he slid into a deep sleep filled with dancing Fauns, Naiads, and Dryads.
