". . . And don't forget to say your prayers," said the dwarf with a fatherly tone. "You may be King of Narnia, but you are still flesh and blood."
"Don't worry, Trumpkin," said the young king as he sat at the edge of his bed and tightened the cord of his robe. "The days of Narnia are growing brighter, but I need the Lion as desperately as anyone. Even more, by my reckoning."
"And don't you forget that either," said the dwarf. "The whole of Narnia has been slow to wake because we have forgotten what matters, and I am ashamed that I was the worst of us all. But now that Your Highness is in charge, maybe this land will be a nation once again." He gave a smile and a bow of finality, and he reached for the door handle, but then—
"How do I know, Trumpkin?" said the king. "You know...whether he's answered me?"
Trumpkin turned around, his face looking solemn in the candle light. "Son of Adam, you already know what he's asked of you. What does it matter whether you hear him or not?"
"It means everything to me," said Caspian. "I am but a man with a man's heart. I feel, I ache, I think, I worship, I plot, I deceive. I am a wonderful treacherous mess of flesh and blood. I'm in desperate need of Lion strength, and in desperate effort to be rid of him. How will I know when I've heard him?"
"Alas, Son of Adam," said the dwarf with a solemn sigh, "you speak because he listens, not because he answers. Many a request is granted in the silence, and many more are fulfilled long after we're dead and gone. You don't pray to hear; you pray to speak. You pray to remember where your strength comes from, and to remember who you are. Whatever becomes of your prayers is his business...not yours."
He bowed once more and pulled the door shut, and the bedchamber was silent once again. Caspian sat for a while, staring out the window, hearing the lullabies of the crickets and the songbirds and the thick emptiness of the castle below.
And with a sigh of trepidation, he slid off the bed and sank to his knees. He had so many things he wanted to say, so many words he felt he needed to say. The burden of being a king was a worse thing than winning a contest; it was politics and speeches and duties that he never felt ready for, and the constant temptation to cut corners and do things on his own terms. But Aslan had laid the crown on his head, and told him to be just and merciful and brave; well, by the Lion, he would be worthy of it, and he would be the leader who led Narnia rightly.
Besides, if he said too little, he would sound rude. More was better.
But then he remembered something the old dwarf had said: "You speak because he listens." And Aslan wasn't the type of lion you could trot off a vain and mellifluous speech to. He was the kind of lion who wanted to hear words from the heart, not a speech from the head.
And as the King of Narnia bowed his head over his folded hands, he said the thing he really wanted to say, the thing he needed to say:
"Help me, Aslan."
