Read Online The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis - Free Book Online Page B

looked and felt a good deal better this morning. Jewel, being a Unicorn and therefore one of the noblest and most delicate of beasts, had been very kind to him, talking to him about things of the sort they could both understand like grass and sugar and the careof one’s hoofs. When Jill and Eustace came out of the Tower yawning and rubbing their eyes at almost half past ten, the Dwarf showed them where they could gather plenty of a Narnian weed called Wild Fresney, which looks rather like our wood-sorrel but tastes a good deal nicer when cooked. (It needs a little butter and pepper to make it perfect, but they hadn’t these.) So that what with one thing and another, they had the makings of a capital stew for their breakfast or dinner, whichever you choose to call it. Tirian went a little further off into the wood with an axe and brought back some branches for fuel. While the meal was cooking—which seemed a very long time, especially as it smelled nicer and nicer the nearer it came to being done—the King found a complete Dwarfish outfit for Poggin: mail shirt, helmet, shield, sword, belt, and dagger. Then he inspected Eustace’s sword and found that Eustace had put it back in the sheath all messy from killing the Calormene. He was scolded for that and made to clean and polish it.
    All this while Jill went to and fro, sometimes stirring the pot and sometimes looking out enviously at the Donkey and the Unicorn who were contentedly grazing. How many times that morning she wished she could eat grass!
    But when the meal came everyone felt it had been worth waiting for, and there were secondhelpings all round. When everyone had eaten as much as he could, the three humans and the Dwarf came and sat on the doorstep, the four-footed ones lay down facing them, the Dwarf (with permission both from Jill and from Tirian) lit his pipe, and the King said:
    “Now, friend Poggin, you have more news of the enemy, belike, than we. Tell us all you know. And first, what tale do they tell of my escape?”
    “As cunning a tale, Sire, as ever was devised,” said Poggin. “It was the Cat, Ginger, who told it, and most likely made it up too. This Ginger, Sire—oh, he’s a slyboots if ever a cat was—said he was walking past the tree to which those villains bound your Majesty. And he said (saving your reverence) that you were howling and swearing and cursing Aslan: ‘language I wouldn’t like to repeat’ were the words he used, looking ever so prim and proper—you know the way a Cat can when it pleases. And then, says Ginger, Aslan himself suddenly appeared in a flash of lightning and swallowed your Majesty up at one mouthful. All the Beasts trembled at this story and some fainted right away. And of course the Ape followed it up. There, he says, see what Aslan does to those who don’t respect him. Let that be a warning to you all. And the poor creatures wailed and whined and said, it will, it will. So that in the upshot your Majesty’s escape has not set them thinkingwhether you still have loyal friends to aid you, but only made them more afraid and more obedient to the Ape.”
    “What devilish policy!” said Tirian. “This Ginger, then, is close in the Ape’s counsels.”
    “It’s more a question by now, Sire, if the Ape is in his counsels,” replied the Dwarf. “The Ape has taken to drinking, you see. My belief is that the plot is now mostly carried on by Ginger or Rishda—that’s the Calormene captain. And I think some words that Ginger has scattered among the Dwarfs are chiefly to blame for the scurvy return they made you. And I’ll tell you why. One of those dreadful midnight meetings had just broken up the night before last and I’d gone a bit of the way home when I found I’d left my pipe behind. It was a real good ’un, an old favorite, so I went back to look for it. But before I got to the place where I’d been sitting (it was black as pitch there) I heard a cat’s voice say Mew and a Calormene voice say