The Horse And His Boy recap

Shasta, a boy raised by a Calormene fisherman, learns in one night that he was found as a baby adrift in a boat and that a visiting lord's war horse, Bree, is a talking horse of Narnia stolen as a foal. They run away north together and fall in with a second pair of runaways, the young noblewoman Aravis and her mare Hwin. Crossing the capital, Tashbaan, they are separated: Shasta is mistaken for a missing Archenland prince and taken up by a Narnian embassy, while Aravis, hidden by a friend, overhears the Tisroc and his son Rabadash planning a surprise attack on Archenland and then Narnia. The four cross the desert in a desperate ride to carry the warning, harried at the last by a lion. Shasta runs on alone and reaches Narnia in time; Rabadash is defeated and captured at Anvard. Aslan reveals that he was the lion at every turn of the journey, and Shasta turns out to be Cor, the lost elder son of King Lune of Archenland. Rabadash is punished by being turned temporarily into a donkey, and Cor and Aravis eventually marry and rule Archenland.

Narnia lies far to the north, beyond a desert and beyond the smaller kingdom of Archenland. In an earlier book, four children from England, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, came into Narnia, helped the Lion Aslan break the White Witch's spell of endless winter, and were crowned kings and queens at Cair Paravel. This story takes place while they are still grown and reigning there, during a long peaceful stretch of Narnian history. Aslan himself is rarely seen but is understood to stand behind the country's fortunes. To the south, the Calormene empire is a very different place: hot, formal, elaborately courteous, built on slavery and ruled absolutely by the Tisroc from the great city of Tashbaan, where the god Tash is worshipped. Calormenes speak of northerners as barbarians, and Narnians regard Calormen with wary politeness. Talking Horses, along with the other Talking Beasts, belong to Narnia; a Narnian horse taken south has to hide what it is.

Shasta, a boy raised in a fisherman's hut on the southern coast of Calormen, learns two things in a single night. The fisherman Arsheesh is not his father but found him as a baby adrift in a boat, and is now bargaining to sell him to a passing Tarkaan. And the Tarkaan's war horse can speak: he is Bree, a Talking Horse of Narnia stolen as a foal, who has been hiding it for years. Bree proposes that they escape north together. On the road they are driven by lions into the company of a second pair of runaways, the young noblewoman Aravis and her mare Hwin, another Narnian Talking Horse. Aravis is fleeing a forced marriage to the elderly Grand Vizier, Ahoshta; she drugged her maid to get away, and Hwin spoke to her to stop her taking her own life. The four agree to travel together, and decide that the safest way past the capital is straight through it in disguise. If they are separated in the crowds, they will meet at the ancient Tombs beyond the city, at the edge of the desert.

The plan collapses in Tashbaan. A Narnian party in the street takes Shasta for Prince Corin of Archenland, who has slipped away from his lodgings, and marches him off to their house. There Shasta hears more than he should: Queen Susan came south to consider marrying the Tisroc's son, Prince Rabadash, has decided against him, and now fears she will not be allowed to leave, so King Edmund is arranging for the whole embassy to escape by ship. The real Corin climbs in through a window with a black eye; Shasta explains himself and gets away over the garden wall before the mistake is discovered. He crosses the city, finds the Tombs at the desert's edge and waits there through a long and frightening night, kept company by a large cat that arrives out of the dark and lies beside him.

Aravis, separated from the others, is recognised in the street by an old friend, the fashionable Lasaraleen, who hides her and is appalled by her plans. Trying to slip out of the city through the Tisroc's palace by night, the two are trapped behind a couch and forced to listen to a council between the Tisroc, Prince Rabadash and the Vizier Ahoshta. Rabadash, humiliated by the Narnians' escape, wants to ride at once with two hundred horse, take the Archenland castle of Anvard by surprise, and go on to seize Narnia and Susan by force. The Tisroc gives permission in terms carefully chosen so that he can disown the raid if it fails. Aravis gets out of the city with Hwin, finds Shasta and Bree waiting at the Tombs, and the four set off across the desert carrying a warning that has to reach Archenland before the army does.

The four cross the desert in a punishing night-and-day ride and come down at last into a green valley on the far side, spent and stumbling. A lion chases them over the final stretch, driving the exhausted horses to a speed they did not have in them, and rakes Aravis's back with its claws before turning away at the gate of a Hermit's enclosure. The Hermit takes in the wounded girl and the broken-down horses and sends Shasta running on alone, on foot, to carry the warning. He meets King Lune of Archenland out hunting, delivers his news and is again mistaken for Corin; the king's party rides hard for Anvard. Shasta, mounted on a slow horse and lost in mist, misses the turning and finds himself crossing the mountain pass alone at night. Miserable and sorry for himself, he tells his troubles to something enormous walking beside him in the dark. It is Aslan, who tells him he has been the lion at every point of the journey: the one who forced him into Aravis's company, the one who drove the horses to speed, the one who wounded Aravis, and the one who pushed a small boat carrying an abandoned baby to shore years before.

Morning finds Shasta over the pass and in Narnia, where he warns the beasts and the dwarfs at the head of the valley and is swept up by a Narnian force riding south under King Edmund. They reach Anvard to find Rabadash's men already battering the gate. In the fighting the Calormenes are broken and Rabadash himself is taken prisoner, caught up on a hook in the castle wall as he jumps down. Afterwards King Lune looks from Shasta to his own son Corin and understands what has been staring at everyone: Shasta is Cor, Corin's elder twin, stolen as an infant by a treacherous lord who set him adrift in a boat, and so the heir to Archenland. Corin, who has no wish to be king, is delighted for both of them.

At the Hermit's house Bree, who has spent the journey sure of his own dignity, is ashamed of having run from the lion and doubts he can show his face in Narnia. Aslan comes over the wall to him, lets him and Hwin touch him to see that he is real, and tells Aravis that the wounds she took were the exact equal of the beating her drugged servant received for letting her escape. The three are brought to Anvard for the celebrations. Rabadash refuses every honourable term offered him and abuses his captors, and Aslan turns him into a donkey: he will become a man again at the temple of Tash in Tashbaan at the autumn festival, and will be a donkey for good if he ever travels more than ten miles from it. Unable to lead an army, he reigns as the most peaceable Tisroc in Calormen's history and is remembered as Rabadash the Ridiculous. Cor remains in Archenland as King Lune's heir, Aravis stays as well, and in time the two marry and rule after him.

Shasta reaches Narnia in time, and a Narnian force rides south with him to Anvard, where Rabadash's two hundred horse are already attacking the castle. The Calormenes are broken in the fighting at the gate and Rabadash himself is taken prisoner, caught on a hook in the wall as he leaps down to fight. Afterwards King Lune sees Shasta standing beside his own son Corin and recognises what everyone else has been half noticing all along: Shasta is Cor, Corin's elder twin, stolen as a baby by a treacherous lord and set adrift, and therefore the heir to Archenland. Corin, who never wanted to be king, is delighted. At the Hermit's house Aslan comes to Bree and Hwin, letting them touch him and curing Bree of his anxiety about his own dignity, and tells Aravis that the wounds he gave her matched exactly the beating her drugged servant suffered on her account. Rabadash refuses every honourable term offered him, and Aslan turns him into a donkey, to be made a man again at the temple of Tash and to stay a man only so long as he never travels more than ten miles from it. He therefore reigns as a peaceable king who cannot lead an army, and is remembered as Rabadash the Ridiculous. Cor stays in Archenland as heir; Aravis stays too, and in time they marry and rule after King Lune.