Dialogues separated by colors as follows
Caspian
Gen Glozelle
Writer's POV
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Prince and General in Woods
It is the order from Lord Protector Miraz -- a part of woods about thirty miles west needed to be surveyed, the very fringe of it, a routine control for any signs of threat. As always, those signs remained nameless, imprecise, unspoken, but well named in the minds of all who concerned themselves with them.
The savage beasts of Old Times.
A bunch of superstitious old women, Glozelle thought with a flurry of anger running through him at the sight of the miniature regiment he himself assigned for the task. Scared of the woods in broad daylight!
The General sank his sword into the scabbard with a sharp, smooth slide, hilt hitting and locking on the metal rim of the sheath. One glance was enough to check his trusted weapon, left hand resting on the ornamental yet somehow ominous swirls caging the coarse handle. He was free from nervousness that seemed to beset one of the fourteen men standing before him ' the soldier was clearly inexperienced, though not in his first youth, checking his sword several times, fiddling with the buckle of the belt running across his chest.
Woods never breathed dread into him. He crossed the border into them without a touch of fear, but always with a tingle of reverence that came from some depths within himself that he did not yet identify during his life. There was life among the roots and branches, hidden and different from his own, and perhaps harboring a secret feared so by all the Telmarines.
The rest of his men seemed a tad on edge as well, clearly wishing they weren't the ones assigned to the mission, but he dismissed their fretting. Lord Miraz's orders were clear .
Glozelle exhaled a quiet, personal sigh of disapproval as he regarded the soldier. Nerves weren't an ally when exposed and allowed control over one's body. They could only be coined into aid when held by the reins and used to sharpen the instincts to deliver any signs of alert from the surroundings. Nerves had to be enslaved, otherwise they made the man their slave and led him into doubled danger.
"Ready, men,"
he more commanded than asked, the soldiers straightening before him with appearances of confidence that convinced him only halfway through. But he needn't concern himself with their fears ' the fear of Lord Miraz's wrath for disobedience was even greater than the fear of woods, great enough to goad them into the darkest parts of the uncharted forests.
He gestured towards the line of horses gathered near the exit from the courtyard, giving the silent command to mount and ready, stopping on the way towards his own mount to pull on his leather gauntlets.
The dark heavy double door of the castle opened, a tall, slender and armoured figure emerging, pulling on his own gauntlets, sword chinking by his side as the guards bowed low from the waist as he passed them on his lively but firm descent down the stone steps, onto the sandstone floor of the courtyard.
Prince Caspian approached without a trace of hesitation or doubt in his steps, yet somehow preserving the gentleness of stance that his dearly departed mother seemed to have passed onto him. While the steps of the future King were soundless due to his stealth and soft leather boots, matching his pace sounded a knock of horse hooves coming from behind, and Glozelle did not need to turn to see the Prince's magnificent stallion being led towards the gathered group.
"Your Majesty"!!
Glozelle bowed in curtsey to Crown Prince
"I'm coming with you,"
the Prince announced with slight node, slinging a leather bag over his shoulder in an almost nonchalant gesture.
"We are riding for the woods, My Prince,"
Glozelle said without the slightest intention of discouraging him. Had he had such intentions, he'd need to choose different wording to persuade him.
"I know,"
Prince Caspian replied, flashing a small smile while his dark eyes, so utterly and completely unalike to his uncle's, shone and flickered with sparks of overpowering intensity that was just as strong as unidentified in meaning.
"Do not think I'd miss an occasion to ride out of the castle,"
he smiled, his voice soft with sense of humor, yet beneath it taut with anticipation of change and adventure.
"Are you ready?"
There was a specific way in his addressing him. Glozelle often felt his words were informal, and the lack of his title as General, along with the tone in which the Prince usually spoke to him, suggested the 'you' in his speech was informal, addressing his name, and not dragging a figurative, merely omitted 'sir' behind it.
"What does Lord Miraz say?"
he only asked, hiding a smile in his short beard, turning to face the retreating Prince's back.
"Nothing that should worry you,"
Prince Caspian replied, looping his horse's reins over the animal's neck and nodding at the stable boy.
"He wasn't very against it."
Preferring not to wonder whether this meant the Prince managed to convince his uncle or came to conclusion his anger wouldn't be too great and sneaked out, Glozelle mounted his horse and watched Prince Caspian skillfully mount his own steed, a magnificent present on the occasion of his fifteenth birthday, though hardly a surprise as the horse was chosen for him as a foal and the Prince spent much time with it before first saddling it.
It seemed to him that the pats the Prince gave his horse on the neck were more affectionate than assuring, and for a moment he had an impression he leaned in and murmured something softly into the black, flicking ear. The Prince always was very caring of his horse and tending to it more than any royal to his horse (and rightly so, as any man would jump around such a splendid animal), yet talking to one's horse or any sort of animal was not well received among the Telmarines.
Within short moments, their party was on their way, exiting the courtyard and entering the long stone bridge in pairs, Glozelle riding beside the Prince. The wood of the drawbridge pounded and thudded deeply below the horse hooves before the clacking of stone followed, and soon they hurried along the road curving round the city, bypassing it and leading westwards into the open. There the horses were prodded into a faster pace between canter and gallop, for to provide quickness without overly large strain, thus resulting in durability of keeping the pace.
The Prince was a magnificent horseman, not only due to the training he received from the very best in the Telmarine army, but also thanks to innate skill he seemed to possess, just as he did with any sort of combat, be he equipped in any array of weapons or left with only his bare hands and reflexes to grant him victory.
It seemed with those values he'd make the perfect Telmarine Prince and King in future. Yet there was something about him that forbade to grant him that title, a certain kind of gentleness. Or perhaps, in reverse, lack of absolute ruthlessness that a Telmarine ruler needed to possess, an attribute as vital for survival as the cunning. The latter, by all means, the Prince possessed almost in excess. Yet he seemed too keen on mercy for his own good, and avoided cruelty which so often was a tool used to enforce submission among the subjects and some eager predators hunting for the throne.
It was not a judgment passed by Glozelle's morality but by his concern. The Prince seemed too kind, almost nave at moments, and yet a mind so cunning that impregnable at others. Such mixture, while surprising and confusing a potential enemy, could also prove lethal for the Prince. While his generosity with mercy and kindness was unsafe in the rocking, treacherous swamp of courtly politics, Glozelle personally found himself appreciating it after initial years of confusion and brief period of doubting the Prince's mental capability.
The concept of mercy was banished to such forgotten realms by the Kings of thirteen centuries of Telmarine reign over Narnia, that it seemed abstract and dangerously close to lunacy. And yet the subtle way in which the Prince operated with it, powered by his cunning and strong instinct that made him judge people with surprising accuracy of their character, slowly brought Glozelle to reconsider it's value.
They were making a good pace, riding along the dark line of arcane woods rising by their right side, intimidating even in the munificent light of the day. When they stopped for meal, it was in the afternoon and with the castle left out of the sight's range, only the grayish silhouettes of mountains climbing up in the distance marking it's location.
