TCN04 - Prince Caspian, Part 04 of 08

Doug Gresham: Last time on Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia.
Prince Caspian: What are you?
Trumpkin: I beg your pardon. You're not a man. You're a badger.
Guest (Male): Well, if he is against Miraz, we'll have him for king.
Guest (Male): I and my sons are ready for war.
Prince Caspian: Do you mean a real war to drive Miraz out of Narnia?
Guest (Male): What else?
Doctor Cornelius: If your majesty is ever to use the magic horn, I think the time has now come.
Prince Caspian: Then in the name of Aslan, we will blow Queen Susan's horn.
Doug Gresham: The most beloved children's series...
Lucy Pevensie: And what wonderful adventures we shall have.
Edmund Pevensie: I do wish we knew the story that's behind all this.
Doug Gresham: ...brought to glorious life.
Lucy Pevensie: It's the army! It's Rabadash and he's coming this way!
Peter Pevensie: Quick! We must get to Anvard before them.
Prince Caspian: Tomorrow I will begin the conquest of the world.
Doug Gresham: And coming to an imagination near you.
Edmund Pevensie: There's not much point in finding a magic ring that lets you into other worlds if you're afraid to look at them when you've got there.
Doug Gresham: C.S. Lewis's classic Narnia series, available for you to cherish in your own home. Produced by Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre. Stories like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader now can be yours. Call our toll-free number at 1-800-A-FAMILY or visit our website at radiotheatre.org. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: Set sail for adventure.
Guest (Male): ChatGPT and AI can offer you ideas and attempt to give you answers, but it can't listen with compassion, pray with you, or offer biblical wisdom. Real connection is what brings true hope. Focus on the Family offers a free, confidential consultation with a Christian counselor to guide you and help you find hope with whatever you're facing. Go to focusonthefamily.com/gethelp or call 1-800-A-FAMILY. That's 1-800, the letter A, the word family.
Trumpkin: And so I put a crust or two in my pocket, left behind all weapons but my dagger, and took to the woods in the gray morning. I'd been plugging away for many hours when there came a sound that I never heard the like of in my born days. Hey, I won't forget that. The whole air was full of it. Loud as thunder but far longer, cool and sweet as music over water but strong enough to shake the woods. And I said to myself, "If that's not the horn, call me a rabbit." And a moment later, I wondered why he hadn't blown it sooner.
Susan Pevensie: What time was it?
Trumpkin: Between nine and ten of the clock.
Lucy Pevensie: Just when we were at the railway station!
Edmund Pevensie: Yes, of course! Oh, please go on.
Trumpkin: Well, as I was saying, I wondered, but I went on as hard as I could pelt. I kept on all night and then when it was half-light this morning, as if I'd no more sense than a giant, I risked a shortcut across open country to cut off a big loop of the river and was caught. Not by the army but by a pompous old fool who has charge of a little castle, which is Miraz's last stronghold towards the coast. I needn't tell you that they got no true tale out of me. I was a dwarf and that was enough. But lobsters and lollipops, it is a good thing the steward was a pompous fool. Anyone else would have run me through then and there, but nothing would do for him short of a grand execution, sending me down to the ghosts in the full ceremonial way. And then this young lady does her bit of archery, and it was pretty shooting, let me tell you. And here we are, and without my armor, for of course they took that.
Edmund Pevensie: So it was your horn, sir, that dragged us all off that seat on the platform yesterday. I can hardly believe it. Yet it all fits in.
Peter Pevensie: Yes, it does.
Trumpkin: I don't know why you shouldn't believe it if you believe in magic at all.
Edmund Pevensie: I suppose what makes one feel so queer is that in the stories, it's always someone in our world who does the calling. Golly, it's a bit uncomfortable to know that we can be whistled for just like that. It's worse than what father says about living at the mercy of the telephone.
Susan Pevensie: But we want to be here, don't we? If Aslan wants us.
Trumpkin: Meanwhile, what are we to do? I suppose I'd better go back to King Caspian and tell him no help has come.
Lucy Pevensie: No help? But it has worked, and here we are.
Trumpkin: Yes, to be sure. I see that.
Lucy Pevensie: What's wrong? Don't you understand who we are?
Trumpkin: I suppose you are the four children out of the old stories, and I'm very glad to meet you, of course. But, no offense.
Edmund Pevensie: Oh, don't get on and say whatever you're going to say.
Trumpkin: Well then, you know, the king and Trufflehunter and Doctor Cornelius are expecting, well if you see what I mean, help. To put it another way, I think they'd been imagining you as great warriors. As it is, we're awfully fond of children and all that, but just at the moment, in the middle of a war... but I'm sure you understand.
Edmund Pevensie: Do you mean you think we're no good?
Trumpkin: Now pray don't be offended, I assure you, my dear little friends.
Edmund Pevensie: "Little" from you is really a bit too much. I suppose you don't believe we've won the Battle of Beruna. Well, you can say what you want about me because I know...
Peter Pevensie: Wait. Wait. There's no good losing our tempers. Let's fit him out with fresh armor and fit ourselves out from the treasure chamber.
Edmund Pevensie: I don't quite see the point.
Peter Pevensie: The point is to show our dear little friend that there's more to us than meets the eye.
Trumpkin: I'll say this, more to you than meets the eye! A copper helmet, gold on the hilt of a sword! I've never seen, much less worn, such wealth in all my life. Oh, it would never do to let Nikabrik see this, never!
Peter Pevensie: You're comfortable then? The mail, helmet, and sword suit you?
Trumpkin: Oh, I should say so.
Peter Pevensie: How about you, Ed? Are you satisfied with your sword and shield?
Edmund Pevensie: Yes, Peter.
Peter Pevensie: I'm still happy to be the one to...
Edmund Pevensie: No, Peter. I'll do it.
Trumpkin: Do what? What are you two talking about?
Edmund Pevensie: Well, kids like us don't often have a chance of meeting a great warrior like you. Would you have a fencing match with me?
Trumpkin: What?
Edmund Pevensie: It would be frightfully decent.
Trumpkin: But lad, these swords are sharp.
Edmund Pevensie: I know, but I'll never get anywhere near you, and you'll be quite clever enough to disarm me without doing me any damage.
Trumpkin: It's a dangerous game. But since you make such a point of it, I'll try a pass or two. Alright. Begin!
Doug Gresham: Both swords were out in a moment, and the three others jumped off the dais and stood watching. It was well worth it. It was not like the silly fighting you see with broadswords on the stage. It was not even like the rapier fighting which you sometimes see rather better done. This was real broadsword fighting. I don't think Edmund would have had a chance against Trumpkin if he'd fought twenty-four hours earlier. But the air of Narnia had been working upon him ever since they arrived on the island, and all his old battles came back to him and his arms and fingers remembered their old skill. He was King Edmund once more. And then, so quickly that no one could quite see how it happened, Edmund flashed his sword around with a peculiar twist. The dwarf's sword flew out of his grip, and Trumpkin cried out.
Trumpkin: Oh, kettles and cobblestones!
Edmund Pevensie: Not hurt, I hope?
Trumpkin: Oh, I see the point. You know a trick I never learned.
Edmund Pevensie: That's true. The best swordsman in the world may be disarmed by a trick that's new to him.
Peter Pevensie: I think it's only fair to give Trumpkin a chance at something else. Will you have a shooting match with my sister?
Trumpkin: A what? There are no tricks in archery, you know.
Peter Pevensie: Yeah, you jokers you are. I begin to see. As if I didn't know how she could shoot after what happened this morning. All the same, I'll have a try.
Peter Pevensie: What's to be the target, Sues?
Susan Pevensie: Hmm, I think that apple.
Peter Pevensie: Where?
Susan Pevensie: Hanging over the wall on the branch.
Peter Pevensie: You mean the yellow one near the middle of the arch?
Susan Pevensie: No, not that. The red one up above. Over the battlement.
Trumpkin: What? It looks more like a cherry than an apple. Well, but we'll have a go. You first.
Susan Pevensie: No, after you. I insist.
Trumpkin: Oh, well, you ought to be warned. I'm a famous bowman among my people. An excellent shot! I missed the apple.
Peter Pevensie: Only by a fraction, I'm sure. The apple shook as the arrow passed by. Sues?
Susan Pevensie: Alright, Peter. Here goes. Hooray!
Peter Pevensie: Well done, Susan.
Edmund Pevensie: Well done, Sue!
Trumpkin: Quite a shot.
Susan Pevensie: Oh, it wasn't really any better than yours. I think there was a tiny breath of wind as you shot.
Trumpkin: No, there wasn't. Don't tell me, I know when I'm fairly beaten. I won't even say that the scar of my last wound catches me a bit when I get my arm well back.
Lucy Pevensie: Are you wounded? Do let me look.
Trumpkin: It is not a sight for little girls.
Susan Pevensie: Be still for a moment.
Trumpkin: Oh, I suppose you're as likely to be a great surgeon as your brother was to be a great swordsman or your sister to be a great archer. Ow!
Susan Pevensie: Oh, poor Trumpkin. It is a horrid cut.
Trumpkin: Oh, honestly, it's not so bad. A mere scrape from one of the battles against King Miraz.
Lucy Pevensie: Allow me to put just a drop of this cordial on.
Trumpkin: The what?
Lucy Pevensie: There. Is that better? Hello? Hey? What have you done? Giants and junipers, it's cured! It's as good as new! Oh, well, I've made as big a fool of myself as ever a dwarf did. No offense, I hope.
Susan Pevensie: None taken.
Trumpkin: My humble duty to your majesties all, humble duty. And thanks for my life, my cure, my breakfast, and my lesson.
Peter Pevensie: It's quite alright. And now, if you've really decided to believe in us...
Trumpkin: Oh, I have.
Peter Pevensie: It's clear what we have to do. We must join King Caspian at once.
Trumpkin: The sooner the better. My being such a fool has already wasted about an hour.
Peter Pevensie: Right. It's about two days' journey the way you came to the hill of the stone table. What you call Aslan's House.
Doug Gresham: And so the four children and Trumpkin the dwarf discussed the best way to get back to Prince Caspian. They decided not to retrace the dwarf's path but to follow the river south to the sea, then go around the coast to Glasswater Creek, then row up to the hill of the stone table. This they estimated would get them to Prince Caspian by the following day. Using one of their raincoats as a kind of bag, they filled it with apples. They then went down to the boat. The children were sorry to leave Cair Paravel, which even in ruins had begun to feel like home again. Soon the green, wooded coast of the island was falling away behind them, and the boat was rising and falling in the gentle swell. The sun grew hot. The oars were too big for Lucy to manage, but the rest took turns rowing for a while. Susan and the two boys grew bitterly tired. Lucy's head ached from the long hours of the sun and the glare on the water. Even Trumpkin longed for the voyage to be over. And as they grew more tired, their spirits fell. Up till now the children had only been thinking of how to get to Caspian. Now they wondered what they would do when they found him and how a handful of dwarfs and woodland creatures could defeat an army of grown-up Telmarines. Hey, this is Dr. Greg Smalley from Focus on the Family. If you're married, you know it takes work for two lives to become one. In your wins and losses are often tied to who you are and how you work together. The Focus on the Family Marriage Assessment provides a combined report that considers your individual strengths and areas of growth and how unique people like you can better come together. To get started, visit focusonthefamily.com/marriageassessment. That's focusonthefamily.com/marriageassessment. The seasons of your life are always moving forward. Singlehood, marriage, parenting, aging well. And through it all, Focus on the Family is alongside you with encouragement from a biblical perspective. And now, we have a tool that gathers our trusted guidance and support together in one place: the enhanced Focus on the Family app. With it, you can listen to the Focus on the Family broadcast, engage our social media, find a counselor, or make a donation. All on the Focus on the Family app. Download it today from the App Store or Google Play. Parenting is a work in progress. Every day comes with a new problem and opportunity. That's why I listen to Practice Makes Parent, a podcast from Focus on the Family. It has the practical help I need right now. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre is made possible through the generous donations of listeners like you. For more information, visit radiotheatre.org or contact Focus on the Family at 1-800-A-FAMILY.
Doug Gresham: Twilight was coming as they rowed slowly up the windings of Glasswater Creek. They went ashore at last, far too tired to attempt lighting a fire, and even a supper of apples seemed better than trying to catch or shoot anything. After a little silent munching, they all huddled together between four large beech trees. Everyone except Lucy went to sleep at once. Lucy, being far less tired, found it hard to get comfortable. Also, she'd forgotten till now that all dwarfs snore. Through a gap in the branches, she could just see a patch of water in the creek and the sky above it. Then with a thrill of memory, she saw again, after all those years, the bright Narnian stars. Three of the summer constellations: the ship, the hammer, and the leopard. Instead of getting drowsy, she was getting more awake with an odd nighttime dreamish kind of wakefulness. Hardly knowing why she did it, she got up quickly and walked a little distance away from the camp.
Lucy Pevensie: This is lovely. It's so cool and fresh. And what are those delicious smells? Oh, hello nightingale. Are we the only ones awake in the whole forest? Ah, the trees. I often spoke to you in the night, didn't I? I remember how each of you would talk. If only you were awake. The soft, shadowy voice of the silver birch, the wizened voice of the oak, the gracious goddess, the smooth and stately beech. You're the lady of the wood. Oh trees, trees, trees! Wake! Won't you? Wake! Wake! Don't you remember it? Don't you remember me? Dryads and hamadryads! Come out! Come out to me! Oh, what happened? Did I miss something? Did I speak a second too soon? Or a second too late? Did I say something wrong? Oh, perhaps not. I may be more tired than I thought. Time to go back to bed.
Peter Pevensie: Oh, now. What shall we have for breakfast? Oh, apples. I suppose your majesties know the way alright.
Susan Pevensie: I've never seen these woods in my life before.
Peter Pevensie: Oh, they're so thick with trees I can hardly see in any particular direction.
Susan Pevensie: I thought all along that we ought to have gone by the river.
Peter Pevensie: You might have said so at the time.
Edmund Pevensie: Oh, don't take any notice of her. She's always a wet blanket. You've got that pocket compass of yours, haven't you, Peter?
Peter Pevensie: Here it is.
Edmund Pevensie: Well then, we're as right as rain. We've only got to keep on going northwest across that little river, the what do you call it? The Rush.
Peter Pevensie: I know, the one that joins the great river at the Fords of Beruna.
Edmund Pevensie: Or Beruna's Bridge, as Trumpkin calls it. We can cross and strike uphill. We'll be at the stone table, Aslan's Howe I mean, by eight or nine o'clock.
Susan Pevensie: I hope you're right. I can't remember all that at all.
Edmund Pevensie: That's the worst of girls. They never carry a map in their heads.
Susan Pevensie: That's because our heads have something inside them, unlike some.
Peter Pevensie: Right. We're off then. Stop.
Trumpkin: What's the matter?
Peter Pevensie: There's something following us. Or rather something keeping up with us, over there on the left.
Trumpkin: I don't see anything. All the same, your majesty, you and I better each have an arrow on the string.
Peter Pevensie: Good idea. Right, ready. Let's move on. But keep a sharp lookout. Yes.
Susan Pevensie: Lucy! Are you alright?
Lucy Pevensie: Yes. What was it?
Peter Pevensie: Look.
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, a bear! Trumpkin beat you in that shooting match, Sue.
Susan Pevensie: I left it too late. I was so afraid it might be, you know, one of our kind of bears. A talking bear.
Trumpkin: Ah, that's the trouble of it when most of the beasts have gone enemy and gone dumb. But there are still some of the other kind left. You never know when you dare wait to see.
Lucy Pevensie: Poor old bear. You don't think he was?
Trumpkin: Not he. I saw the face and I heard the snarl. He only wanted little girl for his breakfast. And talking of breakfast, there's good eating on a bear. I dare say you two kings know how to skin a bear?
Peter Pevensie: Yes.
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, Susan, let's go and sit down a fair way off. I know what a horrid and messy business this will be.
Susan Pevensie: Good idea.
Doug Gresham: The boys and the dwarf cut off as much of the best meat as they could carry. Raw meat is not a nice thing to fill one's pockets with, but they folded it up in fresh leaves and made the best of it. They were all experienced enough to know that they'd feel quite differently about these squashy and unpleasant parcels when they'd walked long enough to be really hungry. On they trudged again. The sun grew warmer and they took their helmets off and carried them. Everybody's spirits rose. About an hour later, Edmund said:
Edmund Pevensie: I suppose we are going the right way.
Peter Pevensie: I don't see how we can go wrong as long as we don't bear too much to the left. If we bear too much to the right, the worst that can happen is wasting a little time by striking the great river too soon and not cutting off the corner.
Doug Gresham: And again, they trudged on with no sound except the thud of their feet and the jingle of their chain shirts. A good deal later, Edmund said:
Edmund Pevensie: Where's this bally Rush got to?
Peter Pevensie: I certainly thought we'd have struck it by now. But there's nothing to do but keep on.
Doug Gresham: And still they trudged on, and their mail shirts began to feel very hot and heavy.
Lucy Pevensie: What on earth! Oh!
Doug Gresham: They had come, without seeing it, almost to the edge of a small precipice from which they looked down into a gorge with a river at the bottom. On the far side, the cliffs rose much higher. None of the party, except Edmund and perhaps Trumpkin, was a rock climber.
Peter Pevensie: I'm sorry. It's my fault for coming this way. We're lost. I've never seen this place before.
Susan Pevensie: Oh, do let's go back and go the other way. I knew all along we'd get lost in these woods.
Lucy Pevensie: Susan, don't nag at Peter like that. It's so rotten and he's doing all he can.
Susan Pevensie: And don't you snap at Sue like that either. I think she's right.
Trumpkin: Oh, cubs and tortoiseshells! If we've got lost coming, what chance have we of finding our way back again? And if we're to go back to the island and begin all over again, even supposing we could, we might as well give the whole thing up. Miraz will have finished with Caspian before we get there, at any rate.
Edmund Pevensie: You think we ought to go on?
Trumpkin: I'm not sure the high king is lost.
Peter Pevensie: What?
Trumpkin: What's to hinder this river being the Rush?
Peter Pevensie: Because the Rush is not in a gorge.
Trumpkin: Ah, your majesty says it is, but oughtn't it to say was? You knew this country hundreds, maybe a thousand years ago. Mayn't it have changed?
Peter Pevensie: I hadn't thought of that.
Trumpkin: Yeah. And anyway, even if this is not the Rush, it's flowing roughly north, and so if we go downstream to our right, we'll hit the great river. Perhaps not so high as we'd hoped, but at least we'll be no worse off than if you'd come my way.
Peter Pevensie: Trumpkin, you're a brick. Come on then, down this side of the gorge. Right. Be careful! Look! What? Look! What? The lion! Aslan himself! Didn't you see him?
Peter Pevensie: Do you really mean?
Susan Pevensie: Where do you think you saw him?
Lucy Pevensie: Don't talk like a grown-up. I didn't think I saw him. I saw him.
Peter Pevensie: Where, Lu?
Lucy Pevensie: Right up there, between those mountain ashes. No, this side of the gorge. And up, not down.
Susan Pevensie: Where?
Lucy Pevensie: Just the opposite of the way you want to go. And he wanted us to go where he was. Up there.
Peter Pevensie: How do you know that was what he wanted?
Lucy Pevensie: He... I... I just know by his face.
Trumpkin: Her majesty may well have seen a lion. There are lions in these woods, I've been told. But it needn't have been a friendly and talking lion anymore than the bear was a friendly and talking bear.
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, don't be silly. Do you think I don't know Aslan when I see him?
Trumpkin: He'd be a pretty elderly lion by now if he's the one you knew when you were here before. And if it could be the same one, what's to prevent him having gone wild and witless like so many of them?
Lucy Pevensie: Wild and witless! If you had any idea of Aslan, then you would know...
Peter Pevensie: Lucy. Trumpkin doesn't understand. How could he? Now, the only question is whether Aslan was really there.
Lucy Pevensie: But I know he was!
Peter Pevensie: Yes, Lucy. We don't, you see. There's nothing for it but a vote. Alright. You're the eldest, Trumpkin. What do you vote for? Up or down?
Trumpkin: Down. I know nothing about Aslan, but I do know that if we turn left and follow the gorge up, it might lead us all day before we found a place where we could cross it, whereas if we turn right and go down, we're bound to reach the great river in about a couple of hours.
Peter Pevensie: What do you say, Susan?
Susan Pevensie: Well, don't be angry, Lucy, but I do think we should go down. Do let's get out of this wretched wood into the open as quick as we can. And none of us except you saw anything.
Peter Pevensie: Edmund?
Edmund Pevensie: Well, there's just this: When we first discovered Narnia a year ago, or a thousand years ago, whichever it is, it was Lucy who discovered it first, and none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believe her this time?
Lucy Pevensie: Edmund!
Edmund Pevensie: I vote for going up.
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, Edmund!
Edmund Pevensie: And now it's your turn, Peter. And I do hope that you vote...
Peter Pevensie: Oh, be quiet and let a chap think. I'd much rather not have to vote.
Trumpkin: You are the High King.
Peter Pevensie: I say down. I know Lucy may be right after all, but I can't help it. We must do one or the other.
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, Peter.
Trumpkin: Then let's go down. Come on!
Doug Gresham: Next time on Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia.
Susan Pevensie: Oh! What was that?
Peter Pevensie: Down! Get down! Someone is shooting arrows at us! Quick, get back!
Lucy Pevensie: Oh, they're moving! The trees really are moving!
Trumpkin: I have no use for magic lions which are talking lions and don't talk.
Lucy Pevensie: Aslan! Oh, Aslan! Dear Aslan, at last!
Doug Gresham: Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia, from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, is a production of Focus on the Family. I'm Doug Gresham. Thanks for listening.