“THIS wasn't a garden,” said Susan presently. “It was a castle and this must have been the courtyard.”
“I see what you mean,” said Peter. “Yes. That is the remains of a tower. And there is what used to be a flight of steps going up to the top of the walls. And look at those other steps—the broad, shallow ones—going up to that doorway. It must have been the door into the great hall.”
“Ages ago, by the look of it,” said Edmund.
“Yes, ages ago,” said Peter. “I wish we could find out who the people were that lived in this castle; and how long ago.”
“It gives me a queer feeling,” said Lucy.
“Does it, Lu?” said Peter, turning and looking hard at her. “Because it does the same to me. It is the queerest thing that has happened this queer day. I wonder where we are and what it all means?”
While they were talking they had crossed the courtyard and gone through the other doorway into what had once been the hall. This was now very like the courtyard, for the roof had long since disappeared and it was merely another space of grass and daisies, except that it was shorter and narrower and the walls were higher. Across the far end there was a kind of terrace about three feet higher than the rest.
“I wonder, was it really the hall?” said Susan. “What is that terrace kind of thing?”
“Why, you silly,” said Peter (who had become strangely excited), “don't you see? That was the dais where the High Table was, where the King and the great lords sat. Anyone would think you had forgotten that we ourselves were once Kings and Queens and sat on a dais just like that, in our great hall.”
“In our castle of Cair Paravel,” continued Susan in a dreamy and rather singsong voice, “at the mouth of the great river of Narnia. How could I forget?”
“How it all comes back!” said Lucy. “We could pretend we were in Cair Paravel now. This hall must have been very like the great hall we feasted in.”