TCN04 - Prince Caspian, Part 08 of 08

Narrator: Last time, on Prince Caspian, The Return to Narnia.
Trumpkin: Your majesty. I mean no disrespect, but that is to say, you can beat him.
Peter: That's what I'm fighting him to find out.
Trumpkin: I do wish Aslan had turned up before it came to this.
Cornelius: So do I. But look behind you.
Trumpkin: The what? Oh! Crowds and crockery! What are they? They're huge. Beautiful, like gods and goddesses.
Cornelius: It's the Dryads and Hamadryads and Sylvans. Aslan has waked them.
Trumpkin: But there are so many. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of them.
Cornelius: They'll be useful if the enemy try any treachery.
Trumpkin: But it won't help the High King very much if Miraz proves handier with his sword.
Cornelius: Hush! King Peter and Miraz are entering the arena. There's the signal for the fight to begin.
Narrator: The two swords flashed in the sunlight.
Lucy: Well done, Peter. Oh, well done. Now follow it up, quick! He must be hurt in the left arm.
Susan: Oh, you've seen more battles than I. Is there any chance now?
Lucy: Precious little. I suppose he might just do it.
Peter: Give my love to to everyone at home, Ed. If he gets me.
Lucy: Peter.
Narrator: Lord Glozelle and Lord Sopespian had their own plans ready.
Cornelius: Treason! Treachery!
Trumpkin: The Narnian traitor has stabbed our king in the back while he lay helpless.
Narnians: To arms! To arms! To arms! Narnia! Narnia! To Aslan!
Trumpkin: Narnia! Narnia! To Aslan!
Narrator: The looking warriors turned white, gazing in terror behind them, and then flung down their weapons, shrieking.
Telmarines: A ghost! A ghost! The end of the world!
Aslan: We will make a holiday.
Lucy: A holiday?
Edmund: Splendid.
Aslan: Children.
Lucy: Yes, Aslan?
Aslan: Come. Ride on my back again today.
Narrator: The classic adventure series loved by children of all ages, now brought to glorious life.
Lucy: It's a magic wardrobe. There's a wood inside it, and it's snowing, and it's called Narnia. Look.
Narrator: Step through the wardrobe and into a world filled with Marsh-wiggles, unicorns, and animals that talk. Best of all, you'll meet the most incredible lion in literature, Aslan.
Aslan: Oh, children!
Narrator: C. S. Lewis's classic Narnia series, available for you to cherish from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to The Last Battle. This complete set, produced by Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre, can now be yours. For more information, the number is 1-800-A-Family or visit our website at radiotheater.org. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. Get ready for adventure.
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Caspian: Aslan, this is Caspian, sir.
Aslan: Welcome, Prince. Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the kingship of Narnia?
Caspian: Well, I I don't think I do, sir. I'm only a kid.
Aslan: Good. If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been approved that you were not. Therefore, under us and under the High King, you shall be King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands, you and your heirs, while your race lasts.
Caspian: Oh.
Aslan: And your coronation?
Dwarfs: Make way! Make way, please.
Aslan: But what have we here?
Trumpkin: That's it. Set him down. Oh.
Narrator: At that moment a curious little procession was approaching. Eleven mice, six of whom carried between them something on a litter made of branches, but the litter was no bigger than a large book. No one has ever seen mice more woe-begone than these. They were plastered with mud, some with blood too. And their whiskers drooped and their tails dragged in the grass. On the litter lay what seemed little better than a damp heap of fur. All that was left of Reepicheep. He was still breathing, but more dead than alive, gashed with innumerable wounds, one paw crushed, and where his tail had been, a bandaged stump.
Aslan: Lucy, your cordial.
Lucy: Yes, Aslan.
Narrator: Lucy had her diamond bottle out in a moment. Though only a drop was needed on each of Reepicheep's wounds, the wounds were so many that there was a long and anxious silence before she finished, and the Master Mouse sprang from the litter.
Reepicheep: Oh, oh. Hail, Aslan! I have the honor of Oh. Oh. Oh, my tail. I am confounded. I must crave your indulgence for appearing in this unseemly fashion.
Aslan: It becomes you very well, small one.
Reepicheep: All the same, if anything could be done, perhaps her majesty could use her cordial.
Aslan: But what do you want with a tail?
Reepicheep: Sir, I can eat and sleep and die for my king without one. But a tail is the honor and glory of a mouse.
Dwarfs: Yes, yes.
Aslan: I have sometimes wondered, friend, whether you do not think too much about your honor.
Reepicheep: Highest of all High Kings, permit me to remind you that a very small size has been bestowed on us mice. And if we did not guard our dignity, some would allow themselves very unsuitable pleasantries at our expense.
Dwarfs: Yes, yes.
Reepicheep: That is why I have been at some pains to make it known that no one who does not wish to feel this sword as near his heart as I can reach, shall talk in my presence about mousetraps or cheese. Not, sir, not the tallest fool in Narnia.
Dwarfs: Yes, that's right. Exactly.
Aslan: Why have your followers all drawn their swords, may I ask?
Reepicheep: Um, may it please your high majesty, my name is Reepicheep, and we are all waiting to cut off our own tails if our chief must go without his. We will not bear the shame of wearing an honor which is denied to the High Mouse.
Aslan: Ah. You have conquered me. You have great hearts. Not for the sake of your dignity, Reepicheep, but for the love that is between you and your people, and still more for the kindness your people showed me long ago when you ate away the cords that bound me on the Stone Table. You shall have your tail again.
Reepicheep: Oh! Oh! Oh! Thank you, Aslan.
Narrator: Then, at Aslan's command, Peter bestowed the knighthood of the Order of the Lion on Caspian, and Caspian, as soon as he was knighted, himself bestowed it on Trufflehunter and Trumpkin and Reepicheep, and made Doctor Cornelius his Lord Chancellor, and confirmed the Balgi Bear in his hereditary office as official of all contests.
Narnians: Yay!
Narrator: After this, the Telmarine soldiers were put under lock and key in the town of Beruna. They complained about wading in the river, for they all hated and feared running water, just as much as they hated and feared woods and animals. In the end, the nuisance was over, and then the nicest parts of that long day began. The trees provided dry sticks for a giant bonfire. Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance which contained not only fun and beauty, but the magic of plenty, which brought into existence a feast of the most delicious meats, fruits, and drink. Aslan feasted the Narnians till long after sunset had died away, and the stars had come out, and the great fire shone like a beacon in the dark woods. The best thing of all about this feast was that there was no breaking up or going away, but as the talk grew quieter and slower, one after another would begin to nod and finally drop off to sleep with feet towards the fire and good friends on either side. But Aslan and the moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.
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Telmarine Soldier 1: Well, Lord Glozelle, we're all here.
Telmarine Soldier 2: Even the captured soldiers of Beruna.
Telmarine Soldier 3: They're coming now.
Telmarine General: So, what do we make of this? You've all read the proclamation which that pretender to the throne, Caspian, and the Lion sent out yesterday.
Telmarine Soldier 1: We did.
Telmarine Soldier 2: We wouldn't be here otherwise.
Telmarine General: Caspian is now proclaimed king, and we Telmarines are to give allegiance to him.
Telmarine Soldier 4: And we are to give all of Narnia back to the talking beasts and the dwarfs and dryads and fauns and all those other pests.
Telmarine Soldier 5: Well, you can do that if you want, but I'm not living here with a lot of blooming performing animals.
Telmarine Soldier 4: And ghosts too, that's what those Dryads really are.
Telmarine Soldier 6: It's not right.
Telmarine Soldier 5: I don't trust them, any of them. That's why I'm here. The proclamation said that any of us who don't want to stay should meet at the Ford of Beruna today. That's what I'm doing.
Telmarine Soldier 7: Well, I'm here, but I don't like it.
Telmarine General: The Lion said he would find us another home.
Telmarine Soldier 8: Oh, I'm telling you he won't keep his claws off us long. You'll see. He'll take us off to his den and eat us one by one most likely.
Telmarine General: But you've come, haven't you? We all have. I presume because we have realized the same thing. We have no choice.
Telmarine Soldier 5: Well, what do you suppose that contraption is?
Telmarine Soldier 9: What contraption?
Telmarine Soldier 5: There, at the end of the glade.
Telmarine Soldier 10: You don't think it's a scaffold, do you?
Telmarine Soldier 5: Looks like a scaffold to me. That crossbeam at the top will hold a rope.
Telmarine Soldier 10: Looks more like a doorway to me.
Telmarine Soldier 5: In the middle of a glade, a doorway that leads nowhere.
Telmarine Soldier 11: Quiet, you fools. Here comes the Lion and those kings and queens.
Telmarine Soldier 12: That's it. We're at their mercy now.
Telmarine Soldier 11: It's every Telmarine for himself.
Aslan: Men of Telmar, you who seek a new land, hear my words. I will send you all to your own country, which I know and you do not.
Telmarine Soldier 1: We don't remember Telmar.
Telmarine Soldier 2: We don't know where it is.
Telmarine Soldier 7: That's right, we don't know what it's like.
Aslan: You came into Narnia out of Telmar, but you came into Telmar from another place. You do not belong to this world at all. You came hither, certain generations ago, out of that same world to which the High King Peter belongs.
Telmarine Soldier 1: There you are, told you, sir, he's going to kill us all, send us right out of the world.
Telmarine Soldier 14: Oh, shut up. I might have guessed we didn't belong to this place. We're of royal blood, you see.
Aslan: Peace.
Aslan: You, Sir Caspian, might have known that you could be no true King of Narnia unless, like the kings of old, you were a son of Adam and came from the world of Adam's sons. And so you are. Many years ago in that world, in a deep sea of that world, which is called the South Sea, a shipload of pirates were driven by a storm on an island. There they did as pirates would, killed the natives, sometimes killed one another. And in one of those frays, six were put to flight by the rest and fled with their women into the center of the island and up a mountain, and went, as they thought, into a cave to hide. But it was one of the magical places of that world. One of the chinks and chasms between that world and this. Oh, there were many chinks and chasms between worlds in old times, but they have grown rarer. This was one of the last. I do not say the last.
Aslan: And so they fell, or rose, or blundered, or dropped, right through, and found themselves in this world, in the land of Telmar, which was then unpeopled. But why it was unpeopled is a long story. I will not tell it now. And in Telmar their descendants lived and became a fierce and proud people. And after many generations, there was a famine in Telmar, and they invaded Narnia, which was then in some disorder. They conquered it and ruled it. Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?
Caspian: Oh, I do indeed, sir. I was wishing that I came of a more honorable lineage.
Aslan: You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve. And that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on Earth. Be content.
Caspian: Yes, sir.
Aslan: And now, you men and women of Telmar, will you go back to that island in the world of men from which your fathers first came? It is no bad place. The race of those pirates who first found it has died out and it is without inhabitants. Oh, there are good wells of fresh water and fruitful soil and timber for building and fish in the lagoons. And the other men of that world have not yet discovered it. The chasm is open for your return. But this I must warn you, once you have gone through, it will close behind you forever. There will be no more commerce between the worlds by that door.
Telmarine Soldier 1: I told you it was a doorway.
Telmarine Soldier 11: Quiet.
Telmarine Soldier 9: Well, I'll take the offer.
Telmarine Soldier 10: Oh, well.
Aslan: It is well chosen. And because you have spoken first, strong magic is upon you. Your future in that world shall be good. Come forth.
Telmarine Soldier 9: What do you want me to do?
Aslan: Go through the doorway, my son.
Telmarine Soldier 9: Right.
Telmarine Soldier 12: Did you see that?
Telmarine Soldier 11: That's the problem. I didn't see anything. The three pieces of wood are there. I see the trees and the grass and the sky beyond, but he simply vanished.
Telmarine Soldier 12: It's a trick. He's sending us to our deaths.
Telmarine Soldier 13: I'm not going.
Telmarine Soldier 14: Quiet, all of you. Lion, I don't see any world through those sticks of wood. If you want us to believe in it, why isn't one of you go, or your own friends are keeping well away from that so-called doorpost?
Reepicheep: If my example can be of any service, Aslan, I will take 11 nights through that arch at your bidding without a moment's delay.
Aslan: Nay, little one. They would do dreadful things to you in that world. It is others who must lead.
Peter: Peter?
Peter: Yes. Come on, Edmund.
Lucy: Oh.
Peter: Lucy.
Lucy: What?
Peter: Our time's up.
Lucy: What do you mean?
Susan: This way. Back into the trees. We've got to change.
Edmund: Change what?
Susan: Our clothes, of course. No one else would look on the platform of an English station in these.
Lucy: Station? But our things are at Caspian's castle.
Peter: No, they're not. They're all over here. They were brought down in bundles this morning. It's all arranged.
Susan: Was that what Aslan was talking to you and Susan about this morning?
Peter: Yes, and other things. I can't tell it to you all. There were things he wanted to say to Sue and me because we were not coming back to Narnia.
Lucy: Never? That can't be.
Peter: Oh, you two are, at least from what he said. I'm pretty sure he means you to get back someday, but not Sue and me. He says we're getting too old.
Lucy: Oh, Peter, what awful bad luck. Can you bear it?
Peter: Well, I think I can. It's all rather different from what I thought. You'll understand when it comes to your last time. But quick, here are our things.
Narrator: It was odd and not very nice to take off their royal clothes and come back in their school things into that great assembly. One or two of the nastier Telmarines jeered, but the other creatures all cheered and rose up in honor of Peter the High King and Queen Susan of the Horn, and King Edmund and Queen Lucy. There were affectionate and tearful farewells with all their old friends, animal kisses and hugs from Balgi Bear, and hands wrung by Trumpkin, and a last tickly, whiskerish embrace with Trufflehunter. And of course, Caspian offered the horn back to Susan, and of course, Susan told him to keep it. And then, wonderfully and terribly, it was farewell to Aslan himself.
Peter: Goodbye, Aslan.
Susan: Goodbye, Aslan.
Narrator: And Peter took his place with Susan's hands on his shoulders, and Edmund's on hers, and Lucy's on his, and the first of the Telmarines on Lucy's. And so in a long line, they moved forward to the door. After that came a moment which is hard to describe. For the children seemed to be seen three things at once. One was the mouth of a cave, opening into the glaring green and blue of an island in the Pacific where all the Telmarines would find themselves the moment they were through the door. The second was a glade in Narnia, the faces of dwarfs and beasts, the deep eyes of Aslan, and the white patches on the badger's cheeks. But the third, which rapidly swallowed up the other two, was the gray, gravelly surface of a platform in a country station and a seat with luggage piled where they were all sitting as if they'd never moved from it. A little flat and weary for a moment after all they'd been through, but also unexpectedly nice in its own way. What with the familiar railway smell and the English sky and the school term before them.
Susan: Well, we have had a time, haven't we?
Lucy: We certainly have.
Edmund: Oh, bother. What's wrong, Edmund? I've left my new torch in Narnia.
Narrator: Because the seven Chronicles of Narnia were originally released one at a time over seven years, some people assume that Jack Lewis wrote only one a year during that period. The truth is, Jack had finished all seven stories in half that time. The writing came fast and furious for him with most of the books. Though, like most writers, he had one or two false starts.
Narrator: For example, before writing Prince Caspian, he began a story about a boy named Digory, who had special powers to communicate with trees and animals and had a very strange godmother called Mrs. La Faye, and a friend next door named Polly. But Digory loses his special powers when he cuts off the branch of a tree to help Polly build a raft. One can immediately see the jumble of ideas that would be rearranged to become the story we know as The Magician's Nephew.
Narrator: But we can also be certain that many of the stories weren't simply made up as Jack went along. It's clear that even as he was finishing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book written, he had ideas for the sequels. How else could he have turned an incidental fact like Susan's lost horn into such an important element in Prince Caspian? It's a testimony to the remarkable inspiration Jack obviously felt while he was in the land of Narnia.
Narrator: Prince Caspian, The Return to Narnia by C. S. Lewis, was dramatized and directed by Paul McCusker. Sound design by Todd Busteed. Music was composed and orchestrated by John Campbell. Our producer was Dave Arnold. Our cast included Paul Scofield as the storyteller, David Suchet as Aslan, Chris Emmett as Trumpkin, Freddie Finley as Peter, Catherine Suchet as Susan, Matthew White as Edmund, Elizabeth Eaton as Lucy, and Richard Suchet as Caspian.
Douglas Gresham: Our cast also included the multi-voiced talents of Robert Benfield, John Bluthal, Richard Bradfiff, Tenniel Evans, Katie Glasborough, Peter Goodright, David Grant, Dilys Hamlett, Frank Lazarus, Tom Mags, Theo Mags, Betty Marston, Robert Midwell, Peter Morton, David Oakley, Philip Sherlock, Christopher Snell, and Frank Topping. Focus on the Family Radio Theatre is a production of Focus on the Family, and I'm your host, Douglas Gresham. Thank you for listening.