AN: So here it is, the next chapter. Sorry my updates are taking a bit longer than before. I'm back at work so have less time to write. I hope you like this chapter. I've borrowed heavily from the original text for this one, but changed the language and added some commentary and context.
Susan, Edmund and the other Narnians made their way to another reception room to continue their plans. Walking into the room, they stopped short. There, standing in front of them was the last person that they expected to see …
"Aslan" Susan breathed out, barely able to speak with the shock of seeing Aslan, in Tashbaan of all places. As for Edmund he was speechless – a rarity for the Just King who was noted the world over for his eloquence.
Aslan chuckled at their stunned expressions, and at that, it was as if some sort of spell was broken. Susan and Edmund rushed forward into his welcoming embrace, while the other Narnians, not as familiar with Aslan as to risk such intimacy, bowed deeply to him.
When Edmund and Susan had composed themselves, Aslan released them from his embrace and stood up.
"You have been busy, my children" he said with what could be considered a look of amusement in his golden eyes. "You have lost a Prince, found a second Prince and intend to lose a third."
Susan and Edmund smiled ruefully at Aslan, but also looked nervously at the walls, uneasy at what the ever-present spies might overhear, even though Aslan's words had been cryptic.
"Do not fear being overheard" Aslan reassured them. "No more shall the spies of the Tisroc eavesdrop on the words of my children while they are on Calormene soil. You may talk freely and make your plans without fear of being overheard."
"Thank you, Aslan" said Edmund, truly relieved, as it was tiring to carry on two conversations at once. "We indeed have many plans to make, we did not anticipate having an extra Prince, a Tarkeena and two Horses to accommodate into our plans."
"You need concern yourselves only with your own party, my son" Aslan told Edmund. "The Prince and The Tarkeena and the horses must make their own way to the North. I have plans for them."
"What plans Aslan?" asked Susan curiously, she was thinking of the prophecy and wondered if it was about to come into fruition.
Aslan smiled at her. "Daughter" he said gently. "Have I never told you before that I tell no one any story but his own?" He turned to include all of the Narnians and continued. "You need not worry about the children. They are safely in my paws and I will guide them home. But I will need a little help from one of you." At this he turned to Sallowpad, who, although seasoned bird and spy that he was, nearly fell off his perch at the windowsill with delight and shock.
"Me Aslan?" he squawked in surprise.
"Yes Sallowpad." Answered Aslan an amused glint in his eyes. "I need you to tell the Prince the way home."
Re-entering the room where Prince Cor was finishing his dinner, the Narnians prepared themselves to carry out Aslan's instructions. They were to let the Prince know that they were leaving and why, and tell him the secret way over the desert so that he and his friends could make it to Archenland.
Edmund started the conversation.
"Now, Susan, what do you think? We have been in this city a few days. Have you decided if you will marry Prince Rabadash?"
Susan shook her head. "No, brother," she said, "not for all the jewels in Tashbaan."
"Truly, sister," said the King, "I am glad you are not. I wondered that you could find it in your heart to show him so much favour."
"That was my folly, Edmund," said Queen Susan, "Yet when he was with us in Narnia, truly this Prince bore himself in another fashion than he does now in Tashbaan. But here, in his own city, he has shown another face."
"Ah!" croaked the Raven. "It is an old saying: see the bear in his own den before you judge of his conditions."
"That's very true, Sallowpad," said Brocket. "And another is, Come, live with me and you'll know me."
"Yes," said Edmund. "We have now seen him for what he is: that is, a most proud, bloody, luxurious, cruel and self-pleasing tyrant."
"Then in the name of Aslan," said Susan, "let us leave Tashbaan this very day."
"There's the rub, sister," said Edmund. "I do not think we shall find it easy to leave Tashbaan. While the Prince had hope that you would take him, we were honoured guests. But by the Lion's Mane, I think that as soon as he has your flat denial, we shall be no better than prisoners."
Brocket gave a low whistle. "I warned your Majesties, I warned you," said Sallowpad. "Easily in but not easily out, as the lobster said in the lobster pot!"
"Do you mean he would make me his wife by force?" exclaimed Susan.
"That's my fear, Susan," said Edmund. "Wife: or slave, which is worse."
"But how can he? Does the Tisroc think our brother the High King would suffer such an outrage?"
"Sire," said Peridan to the King. "They would not be so mad. Do they think there are no swords and spears in Narnia?"
"Alas," said Edmund. "My guess is that the Tisroc has very small fear of Narnia. We are a little land. And little lands on the borders of a great empire were always hateful to the lords of the great empire. He longs to blot them out, gobble them up. When first he suffered the Prince to come to Cair Paravel as your lover, sister, it may be that he was only seeking an occasion against us. Most likely he hopes to make one mouthful of Narnia and Archenland both."
Edmund moved his fingers casually as he spoke. 'Right, the Prince knows that we need to escape Tashbaan and why, now we need some pretext to discuss the way across the desert!'
'I have an idea, Your Majesty' Brocket signed and at this he began to speak.
"Let him try," said the Dwarf. "At sea we are as big as he is. And if he assaults us by land, he has the desert to cross."
"True, friend," said Edmund looking at the dwarf gratefully, this was perfect, it led seamlessly to him asking Sallowpad about the desert. "But is the desert a sure defence?" he continued. "What does Sallowpad say?"
"I know that desert well," said the Raven, beginning his part with relish. "For I have flown above it far and wide in my younger days. (they could nearly see the young Prince's ears prick up at this) And this is certain; that if the Tisroc goes by the great oasis he can never lead a great army across it into Archenland. For though they could reach the oasis by the end of their first day's march, yet the springs there would be too little for the thirst of all those soldiers and their beasts. But there is another way." Pausing, Sallowpad looked at the Young Prince to make sure that he was paying attention.
"He that would find that way," said the Raven, "must start from the Tombs of the Ancient Kings and ride north-west so that the double peak of Mount Pire is always straight ahead of him. And so, in a day's riding or a little more, he shall come to the head of a stony valley, which is so narrow that a man might be within a furlong of it a thousand times and never know that it was there. And looking down this valley he will see neither grass nor water nor anything else good. But if he rides on down it, he will come to a river and can ride by that water all the way into Archenland."
"And do the Calormenes know of this western way?" asked Queen Susan, while she signed to the others. 'Well done Sallowpad, now we need to let him know how and when we are leaving.'
"Friends, friends," said Edmund, "We are not asking whether Narnia or Calormen would win if war arose between them. We are asking how to save the honour of the Queen and our own lives out of this devilish city. For though my brother, Peter the High King, defeated the Tisroc a dozen times over, yet long before that day our throats would be cut and the Queen's grace would be the wife, or more likely, the slave, of this prince."
"We have our weapons, King," said the Brocket. "And this is a reasonably defensible house."
"As to that," said the King, "I do not doubt that every one of us would sell our lives dearly in the gate and they would not come at the Queen but over our dead bodies. Yet we should be merely rats fighting in a trap when all's said."
"Very true," croaked the Raven. "These last stands in a house make good stories, but nothing ever came of them. After their first few repulses the enemy always set the house on fire."
"I am the cause of all this," said Susan, bursting into tears to draw everyone's attention to her.
Her hands were busy as she sobbed. 'Gentlemen this is all very interesting' she signed. 'But if you are all finished flexing your collective muscles, we are supposed to be telling the Prince of our escape plan.'
"Oh," she sobbed to give them time to think of a way to introduce it, "if only I had never left Cair Paravel. Our last happy day was before those ambassadors came from Calormen. The Moles were planting an orchard for us... oh... oh." And she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
The hands covering her face flickered almost imperceptibly. "If any one of you mentions the way I am behaving like a helpless victim outside of this room, you shall find yourselves at the point of one of my arrows!'
Smothering his laughter Edmund placed his hand on his sister's shoulder
"Courage, Su, courage," said Edmund. "Remember — but what is the matter with you, Master Tumnus?" For the Faun was holding both his horns with his hands as if he were trying to keep his head on by them and writhing to and fro, his fingers signed a quick message.
'I'll do it, I haven't really any muscles to flex, so since those who are flexing their muscles seem incapable of using their brains, (Your Majesties excluded of course) I'll use mine instead' he signed cheekily.
"Don't speak to me, don't speak to me," said Tumnus. "I'm thinking. I'm thinking so that I can hardly breathe. Wait, wait, do wait." and then the Faun looked up, drew a long breath, mopped its forehead and said: "The only difficulty is how to get down to our ship — with some stores, too — without being seen and stopped."
Edmund rolled his eyes to Peridan. Fauns were dramatic creatures and tended to overact as was very much in evidence in Tumnus's case.
"Yes," said Brocket drily, still smarting at the Tumnus' remark about muscles and brains. "Just as the beggar's only difficulty about riding is that he has no horse."
"Wait, wait," said Mr. Tumnus impatiently. "All we need is some pretext for going down to our ship to-day and taking stuff on board."
"Yes," said Edmund pretending to be doubtfully.
"Well, then," said the Faun, "how would it be if your Majesties bade the Prince to a great banquet to be held on board our own galleon, the Splendour Hyaline, to-morrow night? And let the message be worded as graciously as the Queen can contrive without pledging her honour: so as to give the Prince a hope that she is weakening."
'I don't like that' signed Susan. 'It sounds as if I intend to lead Rabadash on …'
But the others were too excited by enacting (or overacting) their plan to heed her words.
"This is very good counsel, Sire," croaked Sallowpad as he had before.
"And then," continued Tumnus excitedly, pleased to be able to tell everyone his clever plan once again "everyone will expect us to be going down to the ship all day, making preparations for our guests. And let some of us go to the bazaars and spend every minim we have at the fruiterers and the sweetmeat sellers and the wine merchants, just as we would if we were really giving a feast. And let us order magicians and jugglers and dancing girls and flute players, all to be on board to-morrow night."
"I see, I see," said King Edmund, rubbing his hands, pretending to comprehend the plan for the first time.
"And then," said Tumnus, "we'll all be on board to-night. And as soon as it is quite dark — "
"Up sails and out oars — !" said Edmund. 'What?' he signed ruefully at Susan's half amused, half exasperated expression. 'This overacting is catching.'
"And so to sea," cried Tumnus, leaping up and beginning to dance.
"And our nose northward," said the Bricket who had said nothing thus far, being content to listen and watch, especially since the fawn was annoying his brother, who he loved to see riled. "Running for home!" he continued with overdone excitement to the disgust of his brother.
"Hurrah for Narnia and the North!" said Brocket. 'If you can't beat them – join them' he signed with a grin.
"And the Prince waking next morning and finding his birds flown!" said Peridan, clapping his hands.
'You too Peridan?' signed Susan exasperatedly. 'Oh well, I suppose Brocket is right …'
"Oh Master Tumnus, dear Master Tumnus," she said, catching his hands and swinging with him as he danced. "You have saved us all."
"The Prince will chase us," said Peridan.
"That's the least of my fears," said Edmund. "I have seen all the shipping in the river and there's no tall ship of war nor swift galley there. I wish he may chase us! For the Splendour Hyaline could sink anything he has to send after her — if we were overtaken at all."
'Oh' signed Susan mischievously, we're back to flexing our muscles again!'
"Sire," said the Raven. "You shall hear no better plot than the Faun's though we sat in council for seven days. And now, as we birds say, nests before eggs. Which is as much as to say, let us all take our food and then at once be about our business."
At this everyone rose and left the room. As they left Tumnus turned to the Prince and said,
"Lie there, your Highness. There is no need for you to move until we are all ready to embark." As they left, they saw the Prince had laid his head down again on the pillows and they left him alone in the room. According to Aslan, Corin would soon be back and Cor would be on his way.