She saw a mere boy. He was bare.headed and his fair hair was encircled with a very thin band of gold, hardly thicker than a wire. His upper tunic was of white cambric, as fine as a handkerchief, so that the bright red tunic beneath it showed through. His left hand, which rested on his enamelled sword hilt, was bandaged.
Aravis looked twice at his face before she gasped and said, “Why! It‘s Shasta!”
Shasta all at once turned very red and began speaking very quickly. “Look here, Aravis,” he said, “I do hope you won’t think I‘m got up like this (and the trumpeter and all) to try to impress you or make out that I’m different or any rot of that sort. Because I‘d far rather have come in my old clothes, but they’re burnt now, and my father said.”
“Your father?” said Aravis.
“Apparently King Lune is my father,” said Shasta. “I might really have guessed it. Corin being so like me. We were twins, you see. Oh, and my name isn‘t Shasta, it’s Cor.”
“Cor is a nicer name than Shasta,” said Aravis.
“Brothers‘ names run like that in Archenland,” said Shasta (or Prince Cor as we must now call him). “Like Dar and Darrin, Cole and Colin and so on.”