Chapter 10

He walked with brisk, wide strides, following instinct rather than will. Underneath an elm tree he found a straight branch, and he picked it up and swung it as he walked. He didn't realize that his fingers were remembering old sword parries - not the rapier thrusts he had studied in fencing at university, but the old battle swings from his careers in Narnia.

He came at last to the fence that separated the Professor's small property from the wide acreage of the neighboring farm. There in the field the farmer's sons were breaking in a stallion. It was a fine horse, a strong palomino with rippling muscles and a waving tail. One was holding the horse by the reins and the other carried the saddle in his arms and both were calling "Whoa" as the horse incessantly stamped and snorted.

All at once the horse reared up, tossing its front hooves in the air. As it came down, the boys scattered, and Peter looked into the eyes of the horse. He expected to see the wild look of a wild horse, and he was surprised when he saw that the horse was much more intelligent than that—not wild, but angry. He had seen the eyes of angry horses so many times in Narnia, understood the way they gnashed their teeth and the sound of their whinnys, that he understood this horse.

Of course he wasn't foolish enough to believe that this horse could talk, but he sympathized with it nonetheless. He could see at once that the horse wasn't bred for farm work. Really it was a war charger, but that life was closed to it; they didn't use cavalry in war any longer. Peter was so moved by the horse fighting against the life it had to live that he called out to the young men "That is a fine horse you have there, sirs."

He did not realize he used the word "sirs," it merely seemed the natural way for him to speak. The young men took no notice of it either.

"Fine, but wild," one of them agreed. "We've been trying to break him for a week."

"I could help," Peter offered.

The bigger one looked him over. "You don't look like you have much experience with horses, friend."

The other cut him short. "It doesn't matter. It's an extra pair of hands, and we can tell him what to do."

The first one nodded once, and Peter leapt over the fence with an athletic agility that impressed the farmer boys. They were hardy, but neither could ever be called graceful. Peter murmured to the horse in low, deep tones, and it stopped trying to rear up and merely pawed the ground. He moved forward at a slow, steady pace until he could reach out and touch the horse's neck. The horse tossed its head, but Peter's movements were sure as he stroked its neck.

"I know it," he murmured. "I know."

The next thing everyone knew, the horse was nudging Peter with his nose and nickering softly. "Quick," Peter whispered as he took the reins, "the saddle."

The younger of the two rushed forward with the saddle and quickly, though with many quiet assurances from Peter, they secured it around the horse. The older brother stood back and watched and when he saw the success of the operation whistled and said "Well, I'll be blowed."

Peter turned to him with shining eyes. "May I ride him?"

"Ride him? If you can get this horse to take a rider in one afternoon I'll…" here he apparently didn't know quite what he would do, for he finished lamely "Go on, have a go."

The thing that surprised these boys more than anything was seeing Peter swing up into the saddle. They thought that if he knew anything about riding at all it would be the kind one does on Rotten Row in Hyde Park; all walking and very refined, where the grooms always do all the hard work. This strange young man, though he had the look of a city boy softened and paled by university, swung into the saddle with a natural ease. "Glory be," said one to the other, "he has the truest seat of a horseman I've seen."

The other, who had read the right kind of books, declared "He sits like a knight."

Peter heard these comments but pretended he hadn't. He stroked the horse's mane and then leaned over so he could whisper in its ear "And now we shall do what you have been dying to do. We shall go for a gallop, in a straight shot across the fields, swifter and straighter than my sister the Queen Susan shoots an arrow." Then he sat up straight and gave a cry and kicked the horse in its sides (but not too hard, just enough to get it going).

The horse took off, and they went streaking across the land. The land was a green blur and the sky a maze of blue, and they were going so fast that finally all of Peter's old thoughts and worries fell away from him as he felt the rush of a full gallop. He didn't even give a second thought to what he had said to the horse before they took off.

They galloped for a long while, but eventually the horse got tired and Peter directed him towards a brook he could see some ways away. When he slowed enough to take notice of things again, he saw that the sky was an opalescent white and the air was stickier than ever. Gray clouds were slung low in the sky here and there, and they were beautiful in a lonely sort of way. Rain was coming.

The shower washed over everything with a soft pattering sound. Peter tied the horse to a tree and stood under the water for a moment, lifting up his hands and his face to the sky. The water was cool and he was hot from riding.

After he had cooled a bit, he went to sit under the tree with the horse and waited for the rain to end. As he sat watching from between the low hanging willow branches, he thought of Lucy who would wander through the dripping gardens and forests around Cair Paravel until she came down with more than her share of colds. When she came back, though, her face was always shining. Peter thought she must have been thinking of, or even talking to, Aslan. He dared to send out a little prayer himself.

"Aslan, please. I need Narnia. Or I need You. I'm lost, and I don't know the way."

He waited for a sign that his prayer had been heard, but all that happened was presently the rain stopped and the sun glowed a little behind the clouds, making them white again. None of this was quite significant enough for Peter, but he mounted his horse feeling refreshed and enjoyed the long canter back to the farm.

"Now there's something like," Polly said when Peter walked in sometime later, his clothes looking rather bedraggled but his eyes fresh and restful.

Peter smiled at her honestly this time. "Lady," he said, "You have abused me far more than is my wont. And I thank you for it."

Polly's eyes twinkled. "It's what you needed."