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When they were dragging themselves upstairs to bed, yawning their heads off, Jill said, “I bet we sleep well, tonight”; for it had been a full day. Which just shows how little anyone knows what is going to happen to them next.
Chapter Four A Parliament of Owls
It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed; especially if you are lucky enough to have a fire in your room. Jill felt she couldn’t even start undressing unless she sat down in front of the fire for a bit first. And once she had sat down, she didn’t want to get up again. She had already said to herself about five times, “I must go to bed”, when she was startled by a tap on the window.
She got up, pulled the curtain, and at first saw nothing but darkness. Then she jumped and started backwards, for something very large had dashed itself against the window, giving a sharp tap on the glass as it did so. A very unpleasant idea came into her head – “Suppose they have giant moths in this country! Ugh!” But then the thing came back, and this time she was almost sure she saw a beak, and that the beak had made the tapping noise. “It’s some huge bird,” thought Jill. “Could it be an eagle?” She didn’t very much want a visit even from an eagle, but she opened the window and looked out. Instantly, with a great whirring noise, the creature alighted on the window-sill and stood there filling up the whole window, so that Jill had to step back to make room for it. It was the Owl.
“Hush, hush! Tu-whoo, tu-whoo,” said the Owl. “Don’t make a noise. Now, are you two really in earnest about what you’ve got to do?”
“About the lost Prince, you mean?” said Jill. “Yes, we’ve got to be.” For now she remembered the Lion’s voice and face, which she had nearly forgotten during the feasting and storytelling in the hall.
“Good!” said the Owl. “Then there’s no time to waste. You must get away from here at once. I’ll go and wake the other human. Then I’ll come back for you. You’d better change those court clothes and put on something you can travel in. I’ll be back in two twos. Tu-whoo!” And without waiting for an answer, he was gone.
If Jill had been more used to adventures, she might have doubted the Owl’s word, but this never occurred to her: and in the exciting idea of a midnight escape she forgot her sleepiness. She changed back into sweater and shorts – there was a guide’s knife on the belt of the shorts which might come in useful – and added a few of the things that had been left in the room for her by the girl with the willowy hair. She chose a short cloak that came down to her knees and had a hood (“just the thing, if it rains,” she thought), a few handkerchiefs and a comb. Then she sat down and waited.
She was getting sleepy again when the Owl returned.
“Now we’re ready,” it said.
“You’d better lead the way,” said Jill. “I don’t know all these passages yet.”
“Tu-whoo!” said the Owl. “We’re not going through the castle. That would never do. You must ride on me. We shall fly.”
“Oh!” said Jill, and stood with her mouth open, not much liking the idea. “Shan’t I be far too heavy for you?”
“Tu-whoo, tu-whoo! Don’t you be a fool. I’ve already carried the other one. Now. But we’ll put out that lamp first.”
As soon as the lamp was out, the bit of the night which you saw through the window looked less dark – no longer black, but grey. The Owl stood on the window-sill with his back to the room and raised his wings. Jill had to climb on to his short fat body and get her knees under the wings and grip tight. The feathers felt beautifully warm and soft but there was nothing to hold on by. “I wonder how Scrubb liked his ride!” thought Jill. And just as she was thinking this, with a horrid plunge they had left the window-sill, and the wings were making a flurry round her ears, and the night air, rather cool and damp, was flying in her face.
It was much lighter than she expected, and though the sky was overcast, one patch of watery silver showed where the moon was hiding above the clouds. The fields beneath her looked grey, and the trees black. There was a certain amount of wind – a hushing, ruffling sort of wind which meant that rain was coming soon.
The Owl wheeled round so that the castle was now ahead of them. Very few of the windows showed lights. They flew right over it, northwards, crossing the river: the air grew colder, and Jill thought she could see the white reflection of the Owl in the water beneath her. But soon they were on the north bank of the river, flying above wooded country.
The Owl snapped at something which Jill couldn’t see.
“Oh, don’t, please!” said Jill. “Don’t jerk like that. You nearly threw me off.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Owl. “I was just nabbing a bat. There’s nothing so sustaining, in a small way, as a nice plump little bat. Shall I catch you one?”
“No, thanks,” said Jill with a shudder.
He was flying a little lower now and a large, black-looking object was looming up towards them. Jill had just time to see that it was a tower – a partly ruinous tower, with a lot of ivy on it, she thought – when she found herself ducking to avoid the archway of a window, as the Owl squeezed with her through the ivied and cobwebby opening, out of the fresh, grey night into a dark place inside the top of the tower.
It was rather fusty inside and, the moment she slipped off the Owl’s back, she knew (as one usually does somehow) that it was quite crowded. And when voices began saying out of the darkness from every direction “Tu-whoo! Tu-whoo!” she knew it was crowded with owls. She was rather relieved when a very different voice said: “Is that you, Pole?”
“Is that you, Scrubb?” said Jill.
“Now,” said Glimfeather, “I think we’re all here. Let us hold a parliament of owls.”
“Tu-whoo, tu-whoo. True for you. That’s the right thing to do,” said several voices.
“Half a moment,” said Scrubb’s voice. “There’s something I want to say first.”
“Do, do, do,” said the owls; and Jill said, “Fire ahead.”
“I suppose all you chaps – owls, I mean,” said Scrubb, “I suppose you all know that King Caspian the Tenth, in his young days, sailed to the eastern end of the world. Well, I was with him on that journey; with him and Reepicheep the Mouse, and the Lord Drinian and all of them. I know it sounds hard to believe, but people don’t grow older in our world at the same speed as they do in yours. And what I want to say is this, that I’m the King’s man; and if this parliament of owls is any sort of plot against the King, I’m having nothing to do with it.”
“Tu-whoo, tu-whoo, we’re all the King’s owls too,” said the owls.
“What’s it all about then?” said Scrubb.
“It’s only this,” said Glimfeather. “That if the Lord Regent, the Dwarf Trumpkin, hears you are going to look for the lost Prince, he won’t let you start. He’d keep you under lock and key sooner.”
“Great Scott!” said Scrubb. “You don’t mean that Trumpkin is a traitor? I used to hear a lot about him in the old days, at sea. Caspian – the King, I mean – trusted him absolutely.”
“Oh, no,” said a voice. “Trumpkin’s no traitor. But more than thirty champions (knights, centaurs, good giants, and all sorts) have at one time or another set out to look for the lost Prince, and none of them have ever come back. And at last the King said he was not going to have all the bravest Narnians destroyed in the search for his son. And now nobody is allowed to go.”
“But surely he’d let us go,” said Scrubb. “When