Where the Heart is 1/4
Title: Where The Heart Is
Authors: aella_irene and bedlamsbard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest. Death. Discussion of miscarriages
Summary: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." Pauli Pevensie comes home for a funeral.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title by Robert Frost.
"I can't believe you!" Meklet snarls, and knocks Pauli over like a skittle.
Tjorven, entirely unaccustomed to seeing leopards roaming around free -- or at all; she's from Adalradr, the barren lands of Anskettell, where the only great cats about are the deadly catamounts the size of a pony -- shrieks and starts to draw her sword, but Lucien stays her wrist.
Pauli's laughing, a little disbelieving, half-hugging the leopard as Meklet does his best to lick the skin off his face, shouting, "You idiot!" between swipes of his rough tongue. "I'm going to break your neck!"
"I could do it for you," says a cold voice from further up the hallway, and Meklet freezes, then jumps off, and Pauli scrambles to his feet.
"Hello 'Setta," he says, "You look well." She does. She is dressed in pure black, with skirts that fall in layers, and a tight bodice, and her black hair confined beneath a snood embroidered with silver. Her face is thinner, and he can see the bones, standing out beneath the leaf-thin skin of her face.
She doesn't quite curtsy to him, a dip of shoulder and knee that makes her skirts rustle, and he returns the courtesy. Under traditional form, siblings needn't bow, need only exchange kisses of greeting, but he wouldn't put it past Cosetta to be wearing poisoned lip rouge.
"Cosetta --" Lucien begins warily, releasing Tjorven's wrist and starting forward, obviously intending to be a barrier between Pauli and Cosetta.
"Get out of the way, Lucien," Cosetta says firmly, striding forward, and Pauli fights down the urge to step back, and back, and back again.
"Cosetta!" Elianor exclaims.
"Don't be discourteous, Cosetta," a brisk voice says from behind Cosetta, then warms as the speaker says, "Hello, Pauli. It's been a long time."
"Aunt -- Queen Victoria," he says, and bows.
She raises him up, pressing a kiss to each cheek, and smiles at him. Her face is thinner than it had been the last time he'd seen her, at Helen's funeral, and there are shadows under her eyes that her paint can't conceal, but the smile is genuine. "It's very good to see you, Pauli."
"May I present my wife, Tjorven Karisdottir?" he says, and Tjorven steps forward, and curtsies. Victoria raises her as well, and hugs her, swift and firm.
"My dear," she says, "I only wish we could have met at a better time."
"Well," says someone from the top of the stairs, "that's impossible, unless someone's been hiding the instructions to the Kadreddin mirror."
Alambil sweeps down the stairs, head high, and Pauli bows again, hiding his shock. Standing by Cosetta you can see the resemblance, in bone structure, and in how thin they both are. Alambil's bodice is moulded to her, in the prevailing style, and he can see her collarbones, jutting out in stark relief. When she hugs him, she feels like a bag of bones.
"Thank you for coming," she says, and embraces Tjorven, "Welcome back, darlings. Has anyone told you what happened?"
"Uncle Jack --" Cathel begins.
Victoria presses her lips together and nods, looking tired and old. With a start of shock, Pauli realizes that there's gray in her dark hair.
"Jack is dead," she says very quietly. "You have that news. I meant to send other news, but --" She shakes her head, and Alambil says quietly, "No one blames you, Aunt Tori."
"Cressida died two months ago," Victoria says.
"It was a heart attack," says Cosetta, and looks Pauli up and down, "You're in the Will."
"I don't give a damn about the Will," Pauli snaps, and he half wants to strangle her, she's always bloody fighting, she would fight with a stone.
"You should," she says, "You'll be able to afford better clothes."
Alambil raises her hand, as if she's about to slap her, and Cosetta turns on her heel and leaves in a flurry of skirts.
"She wasn't always like that," Pauli says to Tjorven- he doesn't know why.
"Oh no," says Alambil, "She was a very sweet baby. But when she learnt to talk it all went downhill."
"Ala," Victoria says tiredly, and Alambil goes over to her.
"You might as well know, Papa Jack probably killed himself."
For a moment, Pauli can't think or move or even breathe, and then he says faintly, "Tethys protect us," and Elianor catches his elbow and helps him over to a bench in one of the alcoves off the hall.
"We don't know that," Victoria says faintly, but Alambil raises an eyebrow and Victoria, looking too tired to argue, subsides.
Pauli puts his head in his hands and Meklet presses up against his legs, reassuring and familiar. Over his head, he hears Alambil introducing herself to Tjorven, who's probably overwhelmed by all this. It's overwhelming at the best of times and this -- this isn't the best of times.
There are footsteps, at least three people, and Pauli raises his head to see Uncle Richard, and Eddard, and Marcellus, Susanna clinging to Marcellus.
"We would be far more comfortable in one of the drawing rooms," Richard says, and that is when a man enters from the outside door, and says, "Darling."
Susanna runs down the stairs and throws herself at him, and Pauli realises that this is Aymeri Vuillard, the Duke of Glasswater.
There are more introductions, Tjorven looking even more overwhelmed and as if she's seriously considering fleeing back to the ship and locking herself away, and a maid flits in and out with a tray of drinks.
Marcellus nods to Pauli, short and distracted, as if they've seen each other every day, and Richard says, "I'm glad to see you back, Pauli."
"Uncle," he says, and looks at Richard's boots, good leather, seaman's boots. After a moment of hesitation, Richard hugs him. He smells of the sea, and of the herbs that go in clothes chests, and the olive soap leavened with citrus that he has always washed with.
"I'm sorry," he mutters into Richard's shoulder, and Richard does him the courtesy of not responding, just turns to Victoria and asks her something about candles.
Alambil spurns the offers of tea and coffee, and takes a full glass of brandy, drains it, and has another. Susanna is sitting on a sofa with her husband, the two of them curled into each other, and Pauli is waiting to see who will be the first to protest.
"I'll send someone to put up your flag, Pauli," Eddard says, and when Pauli's opening his mouth to protest -- the last thing he wants is for the entirety of Narnia to know he's here -- he adds, "We've more than enough towers; don't argue with me."
It's nothing to do with the towers, of course, and Pauli stifles his protest. Tjorven raises an eyebrow at him, and then Elianor, after some hasty conversation with Victoria and Marcellus, gets up and comes over to them. "Why don't I show you around the castle, Tjorven?" she says warmly, and even Pauli can tell that it's code for, This is family business, and you aren't properly family.
"I'll come as well," says Glasswater, and they leave, the door thudding shut behind them. Alambil gets up and locks it, then sits down on the sofa next to Susanna, who has pulled her knees up to her chest, as if she were a child. Eddard hands her another glass of brandy without even thinking about it.
"I'm sorry it took so long for us to return," Pauli says at last, for lack of anything else to say. "Morningstar --" the Narnian Navy ship that had brought Susanna and the triplets to Anskettell "-- is following, but Seven Sisters is faster."
"The Ansketts build fast ships," Richard says, a little nonsensically, and Victoria touches his elbow, all her attention on her brother for a moment.
"You'll stay, of course," Eddard says, and the way he says it there's not even a hint of a question in the words. He speaks like Richard and Victoria are dead and he's king already, and the thought of it makes Pauli a little sick.
"He'll stay or I'll chain him in the dungeons," Marcellus says warningly.
"No one's chaining anyone up," Victoria says tiredly.
"I won't stay," Pauli says, "I'm here for the funeral and that's it."
"Are you sure?" asks Marcellus.
"Yes," they both say, and Marcellus scowls.
"Why can't you stay?" Richard asks, and he just sounds so damn tired that Pauli wants to say 'Yes'. But he can't.
"I don't belong here anymore," he says.
"You're afraid, you mean," Marcellus says dismissively.
"Yes," Pauli admits, "but I left for a reason, and that reason still stands, and there are other matters now."
"We'll talk to Cosetta," says Susanna, leaning forward, "She won't bother you."
"That's not what I meant," Pauli says, "I don't belong here anymore. And it doesn't matter what any of us say or do, I still won't belong here. I'm a pirate."
"Gods of sea and sky, Pauli, do you think we care?" Marcellus snaps. "Three-quarters of the First Fleet were pirates. Osumare Seaworth was a pirate. Fiorenza Paolucci was a deserter. Caron of Oldhill was condemned to death for treason against the Crown of Archenland."
"That was seventy years ago," Pauli says. "Things are different now. Narnia is different now."
"Pauli-
"No one will trade with you," Pauli says, "The Shifting Market will close. There might very well be wars. I can't stay."
"You fucking coward," says Susanna, and stalks over to the door, unlocks it, storms out, and shuts it hard enough to make the doorknob fall off.
"The castle is in mourning," Victoria says, as if that's some kind of explanation, and Pauli stares at the doorknob. It doesn't fix itself.
"Things could be arranged," Victoria says.
"Why should we have to arrange anything?" Eddard demands. "This is Narnia. He is, by the grace of Aslan, a peer of Narnia, the blood of the High King Peter. Let the Market close. Let Archenland and Calormen and Masongnong protest, I could damn well use a war --"
"Well the rest of us couldn't!" snaps Alambil, "You've never run a war in your life."
"Ala-" sighs Victoria.
"And this is why I'm leaving," Pauli says.
"Pauli!" Marcellus protests.
"What?"
"Don't," Marcellus says, "do this. Please."
"I'm going," Pauli says, "And maybe you can stop me, but you won't keep me willingly."
Marcellus is a few months younger than him. They've known each other all their lives. He can't remember a time when Marcellus hadn't been there, scrambling to catch up with the others.
"I'm going," he says again, and stands up, and walks out.
He doesn't expect Marcellus to follow him, but follow him Marcellus does, catching his elbow and pulling him into an alcove.
"Marcellus, I already told you --"
"Just stay, damn you," Marcellus snaps. "Stay for a week, if that's all you can justify to yourself. But don't you fucking dare run away again, you bastard, don't you fucking dare --"
"I'll stay for the funeral," Pauli says, "And a few days after. But no more than that."
Marcellus nods, jerkily, and then begins to cry.
Pauli stares at him for a moment, horrified, and then his brain kicks in and he pulls Marcellus into a hug.
Marcellus sobs, helplessly, into his shoulder, and there is nothing Pauli can do but hold him, and whisper reassurances into his hair.
Cosetta does not appear at dinner, and Pauli is wretchedly relieved for that. The rest of the cousins are there, though, descending on him with, variously, shrieks of delight, gentlemanly or ladylike restraint, and -- though in few cases less than Pauli had thought -- expressions of dubious disdain, as if they're not sure whether or not they can associate with him.
"Tethys protect us," he says to Saida, hoisting her youngest twins up onto each hip. "What are you trying to do, start your own country?"
She bats her eyelashes at him, reaching out with one hand to snag the collar of someone who may or may not actually be her child as the boy tries to rush past. "Are you volunteering, coz?"
"I don't know," Pauli tells her seriously. "You'll have to ask Tjorven if she's willing to share."
He knows better than to ask if Saida's children have fathers or not; he hadn't been introduced to a husband and she doesn't appear to have changed at all in the past few years. More children, though, and if he's not mistaken she's pregnant again.
Nerissa's children are among those who pointedly avoid him, though he sees Elianor arguing with Sebastien, and trying to tug him over. Tjorven, upon arriving with Aymeri, comes over and stands next to him, obviously swamped. The Ansketts have large families, yes, but they're far more disconnected than the Pevensies are. Pauli was almost a man grown before he quite understood that most people did not consider their second cousins as close as their siblings.
Nerissa, arriving late, hand wrapped around a cane, step halting, obviously takes pity on her, and keeps up a whispered commentary while Pauli greets his cousins, and then dinner is announced, and they trail into the dining room.
Tjorven is seated next to him, and he's grateful for that. She has Aymeri on her other side, and he has Tahmoh on the other. She regards him hotly, and then turns away to talk to Locke, who some evil genius has put on her other side, and who is looking at Pauli as if he'd like to string him from the battlements.
Valentine, though, is sitting across from him, with a gold ring in one ear like slightly more than half of Pauli's crew; the Ansketts like to keep their wealth mobile. Pauli hasn't yet given in to that particular fashion, but Tjorven has gold up and down both ears.
"How are you, Pauli?" he asks.
"As well as can be expected," Pauli says neutrally, and Valentine wiggles his eyebrows.
"Oh, really?"
"Val," Tahmoh sighs, "Can you please stop insinuating things at the dinner table? You put everyone else off their food."
"My cousin Valentine," Pauli introduces to Tjorven, because he doesn't remember them meeting, and Valentine had come in late. "He's named after my father. Valentine, this is my wife Tjorven."
"A pleasure," Valentine says to Tjorven, smiling at her. "And here I was thinking Pauli is wasted on women, but I see I'm mistaken."
Tjorven smiles back, a little stiff.
"Val," Tahmoh says, and taps her fan in warning, "Behave."
"You're no fun," Val says, "The younger children are meant to be the wild ones."
"I am sorry," Tjorven says hesitatingly, "You are- the youngest?"
"I am now," Tahmoh says flatly.
"You heard about my cousin Iulius," Pauli says awkwardly to Tjorven.
She shrugs in puzzlement; what had happened in landlocked Lasci had been of little interest to the sea-going Ansketts.
"The massacre of Lasci," Tahmoh snaps. "Surely even a --"
Valentine clicks his tongue warningly, and Tahmoh stiffens, sighs, and continues, "I thought the entire continent had heard of it."
"The death of the prince of Narnia?" Tjorven says, hesitating again. "That was your --" She stops, stares at Tahmoh, and adds, "You are a princess?"
"It's all very complicated," Val drawls.
"No, it’s not," Tahmoh says, frowning at him, "I'm the youngest of Queen Helen's daughters, in order of age, there's Alambil, Cottia, Susanna, Lucinde (she's married to the Tisroc, she hasn't arrived yet), then me. For the men, there's Eddard, Piotr, Marcellus and Valentine. We're all Princes and Princesses. The cousins are all Lords and Ladies."
Tjorven looks like someone has dumped her in a forest, given her a foreign map, and disappeared.
"There's a chart," Aymeri says reassuringly, "I'll show you after dinner."
"Are you --" Tjorven begins hesitantly at last, looking at Pauli, and he glances down at his plate.
"My errant cousin is, by the grace of Aslan and the pity of Calla Macha, a peer of Narnia, yes," says Guery Paolucci, on Valentine's other side. "I suppose you didn't know you married into royalty, did you?"
Tahmoh points her fan at him. "Don't be mistaken. He's nothing of the sort, but he's family on Pauli and Cos's side, so we tolerate him at official functions."
"I'm very ornamental," Guery grins.
"Oh," Val says huskily, "You're more than that."
"Not at the table!" squeaks Tahmoh, and Richard, at the head of the table with Victoria, raises his head and says, "Valentine."
"Sorry, Papa," Val says quickly, looking stricken.
"I'm a very minor peer," Pauli protests, and Tahmoh raises an eyebrow.
"Only compared to the rest of us, dear. And you're still ahead of the triplets, Locke, Sebastien and Isidor in the funeral procession."
She looks Tjorven up and down.
"And, Aymeri, you can't take her to see the Wall after dinner, because we need to get a seamstress up here as soon as possible."
"Are you," Tjorven asks uncertainly, "in line for the throne?"
"No!" Pauli exclaims, horrified. "By no means, at all, definitely not."
"Only if about twenty other people die first," Tahmoh says. "Pauli's not the High King's get, but he is related to both Queen Lucy and King Edmund --"
"Which doesn't mean anything, considering that you two are far closer to the throne than I am," Pauli says. "I'm not going to inherit anything."
"His mother was a princess and his father was a prince," Tahmoh says happily.
"And considering the number of princes and princesses there are, that doesn't mean much," Pauli protests. "Stop plotting your own death, Tahmoh."
"Oh, I'm not going to inherit," Tahmoh says. "Ala is, and Ned and Piotr and Marcellus, but not for a long time yet, praise Aslan."
There is a tense silence. Pauli isn't sure what it’s about, but he noticed that Alambil and Valentine didn't participate in the pre-dinner prayers to Aslan. He's not sure how many others didn't, but Val and Ala are almost opposite him.
Then Aymeri asks Val something about military tactics, and Locke starts talking about trade with Masongnong, and the noise rises up again. Tjorven presses herself against Pauli's side, insofar as she can, considering the regiment of cutlery that's between them.
Pauli offers something up about Masongnong's trade routes, and Locke eyes him dubiously across Tahmoh's plate, then says, "Well, I suppose you should know," and Pauli's back in the conversation, as if nothing's changed at all.
Aymeri draws Tjorven into the conversation, and Pauli warms to him- not that anyone is good enough for Susanna, of course, but he might be nearly there.
Alambil is draining her glass quickly, and refilling it almost immediately. She's always been a hard drinker, but there's something off about it, about the careless way she knocks it back, and the way Eddard is looking at her.
It would take a blind man not to see that the Guard is stationed all around the room, general Guard as well as those that are specifically assigned to various people; it takes Pauli a moment to realize that their presence is much heavier and much more obvious than it had been when he'd left.
Piotr sees him looking and says, "I'll have Dendera -- she's Commander now -- put together a guard for you. Meklet will probably head it."
"That's not necessary," Pauli begins.
"It is," Tahmoh says tightly, and pulls back her flowing sleeve to show a knife wound running up her arm. The stitching is neat, and tight, but somehow nothing like Uncle Jack's, Pauli realises with a pang.
"There are far too many Lascars still around," Piotr says grimly.
"Even I've got a Guard," Guery says quietly, "Because of Father."
Pauli doesn't know what Cal did, and isn't sure he wants to.
"And Papa Jack could have been murdered," Valentine says after a moment. "Poisoned."
Alambil had said he'd killed himself. Pauli won't repeat that, but he raises an eyebrow, trying to ask how Uncle Jack died without saying the words out loud.
"Papa Richard found him in the infirmary," Tahmoh whispers, "With a bottle of brandy. And half a bottle of sleep-drops were missing."
And that, he supposes, could go either way.
"So you're getting a Guard," Piotr says firmly.
"And Aunt Cressy," Valentine adds needlessly. "She wanted to see you, Pauli. She took the Winter's Bane out as soon as Cos and Susanna started arguing."
"She had the heart attack a week out," Tahmoh says, "It was a heart attack. Papa Jack checked."
The plates are being cleared- this is not, thank Aslan, a dinner in state, this is a family dinner, with a mere three courses. The main course is beef casserole, and Pauli looks at it, and all he can think is that this was his Aunt Helen's favourite, the one they had the night after she came back from campaign, every single time, with dumplings, and mashed potatoes.
He is not going to tear up over some food.
Very hesitantly, Tjorven says, "What -- is the relation?"
"Cressida was Pauli's mother's twin sister," Guery says. "She raised Pauli and Cos after Tahmoh -- not you, darling -- died; Valentine -- not you either -- was already dead by then. That's Pauli and Cos's father, of course. Cressida and Tahmoh were Queen Lucy's oldest twins, that's the High King Peter's, King Richard's and Queen Victoria's father's, youngest sister, and Valentine was King Edmund's -- the High King's brother -- son by my grandmother, Fiorenza Paolucci. My grandfather, however, wasn't Edmund." He pauses, pursing his lips together. "He could have been Peter, though. Not this Peter," he adds, pointing his fork at Piotr, whose name sounds the same. "The High King."
"You," Piotr says fondly, "are only confusing her more.”
"We'll show you the chart," Aymeri repeats.
"After she's been fitted for a funeral dress," Tahmoh says, and turns to gesture at the wall. One of the leopards, not one Pauli recognises, pads over, and Tahmoh says, "Please send a runner down to Liliyah's. Tell her one of my cousins needs a dress for the funeral."
"Yes, Princess," says the leopard, and Tahmoh thanks her, and turns back to the table.
"Oh, that's not necessary," Tjorven begins.
Valentine grins at her. "Oh, believe me, it's necessary," he says. "You're about to be on display to the entire population of Narnia, every peer in the country, and every ambassador and diplomatic delegation from Archenland to Marinel to Anskettell. You'll want a new dress."
"And the Treasury's paying," adds Tahmoh, cutting a dumpling into quarters and taking up some gravy, "So you needn't worry about that."
She eyes Tjorven. "You can borrow some of my jewelry."
Tjorven makes a faint sound of protest.
"Look on the bright side," Pauli says. "At least you don't have to wear a tiara."
"It's really more of a circlet," Valentine says. "And you always did look good in it. The sapphires match your eyes."
"I'm going to break your neck," Pauli says, sighing.
"They're very small sapphires," Tahmoh says. "Not like what we have to wear."
"And the crowns regnant are even worse," says Piotr, "Mama used to say hers gave her neck ache."
"You might get a jeweled snood, though," Tahmoh says thoughtfully, "Like Cosetta- have you seen 'Setta yet? was wearing, only slightly more elaborate."
"She gets a tiara," says Val, "Where is she, anyway?"
"She said she wasn't feeling well," says Locke, "She's having soup in her rooms."
"She looked all right when I saw her earlier," Val says, blinking curiously.
"If she's not here she can't kill me," Pauli points out.
"She's not going to try and kill you!" Tahmoh protests.
"I didn't say try."
"She's not going to kill you," Piotr says, "Aunt Victoria would be very cross."
"And that would be a great comfort to my cooling corpse."
Tahmoh gives him a wounded look. Tjorven is looking increasingly worried.
"There will be no murders at the dinner table," Alambil says, "The proper time for murders is just before dawn."
"Ala!"
"Or at the witching hour," she continues. "Under a dark moon. Or an eclipse."
"I thought Uncle Neris told you to stop reading those trashy mystery novels," Eddard says.
"He did, but then Saida tried to get me to read her collection of pornography," Alambil says. "He decided that the mysteries were better."
"Erotica!" Saida exclaims from further down the table.
"Saida!" Victoria says.
"Sorry," says Saida, not looking at all sorry, and Victoria frowns at them all.
"No one is killing anyone. At the dinner table, or dawn, or at any other time. Am I understood?"
There is a collective mutter of "Yes, Aunt Victoria." Pauli can't help but notice that Richard hasn't said anything.
"Of course," Guery mutters under his breath, "Cosetta isn't here right now."
"Just 'aunt'?" Tjorven asks, seizing on something that seems fairly neutral. "She has no children of her own?"
"None," says Tahmoh, "But she helped raise all of us."
"Grandfather Peter used to say that it takes a village to raise a child," Piotr says, "And our family's just about a village."
Just then the door opens, and a herald announces, "Lucinde of Calormen, First Wife of Calormen, Honored Wife of the Tisroc, princess of Narnia!"
"Sorry I'm late," Lucinde says, dashing her furs to the side and going to hug Uncle Richard when he gets up. "The seas were rough. Oh!"
She stares unthinkingly at Pauli for a moment, then her face lights up. "Pauli! You're here!"
"Hullo, Cin," he says, and kisses her soft cheek when she presents it to him. Cin was seven when he left, all long plaits and scabby knees, and he can barely see that child in the self assured woman who is hugging Tjorven in greeting, and having everyone move so she can sit with them.
"I'm so glad you came!" she exclaims, hugging him again. "I was starting to think I'd never see you again."
"Another cousin?" Tjorven mutters despairingly in Ansketts.
"Another cousin," Marcellus tells her cheerfully in the same language.
"Our sister Lucinde," Val adds. The servants have been making a place between Aymeri and Tjorven - and the table has grown to accommodate it - and Lucinde deposits herself in the seat, and attacks her food with gusto
"Seasick," she explains in the brief pause between two bites, "H'v'n't eaten since we left Tashbaan."
"She takes after Mama," Tahmoh says, staring at her sister fondly. "She couldn't even look at a ship without getting queasy. Quite a problem when you live by the ocean."
"Not something Pauli has had to worry about," Tjorven says, and it takes Pauli a moment to realize that she's just offered up something that isn't a question.
“I don’t take after Mama that much," Lucinde says. "I just hate sailing on xebecs; it always seems ten times worse there than it ever did on the Navy ships.”
Once dinner is over, Tjorven is pulled off by Tahmoh, and everyone else goes about their evening business.
"Come up and have a drink," Valentine suggests, in a tone which says quite clearly that he's not going to take no for an answer.
Pauli expects to be taken up to some other private family conference, doubtless where various of his relatives will either convince him to stay or try and throw him out of Narnia, but instead the only people in sight, besides a quartet of the Royal Guard, are Valentine himself and Marcellus, who wanders into Val's sitting room and throws himself down on the couch with a sigh. The four great cats sprawl out in front of the fire, heads on each other's flanks, yawning and seemingly unconcerned by the rest of the world, though Pauli has seen the Guard in action before and knows that they can change from sleeping to killing in the blink of an eye.
"Sit down, Pauli," Valentine says, going to the liquor cabinet in a corner of the room. "What would you like? Wine, brandy, rum, something mixed?"
Pauli takes rum, and sits. Val and Marcellus take brandy- best Glasswater.
"Every time I drink this," Val says, holding it up to the light, "I give thanks that Susanna had the good taste to marry a Vuillard of Glasswater."
"I doubt she was thinking of the chances for her family to get free brandy when she did it," Marcellus says dryly.
"I suppose he does have a certain something," Val admits.
"She seems happy," Pauli offers.
"Oh, she is," Marcellus says. "Granted, you broke her heart by running off the way you did --"
"Marcellus," Valentine warns.
"-- but if you'd run off any later she probably would have brought the full force of the Royal Navy down on your head, so perhaps it's all for the better."
Pauli was thirteen when he left, too young to feel even vague stirrings of interest in any of his cousins, but he can see that he would have, in a year or two, would have looked differently at the curve of Susanna's waist, or the way Alambil looked when she came home in the morning, shirt unbuttoned, mouth swollen.
But all of that is fraught with danger, and with Susanna- no one's ever said that she's his father's daughter. But no one's ever said she's not.
Marcellus puts his head back over the arm of the couch and dangles his hand over the side, the glass loose between his fingers. "Gods, it's good to see you again, Pauli," he says. "You've no idea how welcome it is for something to happen that's actually good rather than terrible."
"It's good to see you too," Pauli agrees, and Val nods.
"I missed you," he says, and takes a sip of brandy.
They sit like that for a while, in comfortable silence, Pauli gathering up his courage. 'Setta hates him, he knows that, but she's his sister, and just because she wants him dead doesn't mean he can't worry about her.
"How's Setta been?"
Val and Marcellus share a look. "Aunt Vic is talking about making her governor of one of the islands," Marcellus says at last.
"Because she'd be good at it, or because she's being a nuisance and they want her out of the way?"
"Well, she is very good at ordering people around," Marcellus says.
Val snorts. "You would know."
Pauli isn't even going to ask.
"Is she happy?"
He hopes so. He is, and he wants her to be too, well, as long as it isn't happy because he's dead.
Valentine grins. "She's happiest when she has Marcellus tied up in bed with --"
"Val!" Marcellus protests.
"Hurt her," Pauli says carefully, "and I'll kill you."
There is a pause.
"Does that include the kind of bruises you get from being tied to the bedpost?" Marcellus asks tentatively, "Or fucked up against a wall, because-"
"I thought you didn't want people talking about it?"
"I don't want you talking about it."
Pauli covers his ears. "I can't be hearing this," he says. "I just can't."
"Then make sure you aren't next door to either of them," Val says darkly, "'Setta's loud."
"As if Guery's any quieter!"
"I don’t think I'm old enough to hear this and I'm older than both of you!"
"We'd talk about you too," Val says, "Except you've not had sex in the castle yet. Don't worry, tomorrow morning, you too can join in the Breakfast Shaming."
"Alambil's in the lead," Marcellus confides.
"Gods of Salt and Storm," Pauli says faintly.
"Changed your mind about missing us yet?"
"Yes," Pauli says, and starts to get up. "I'm putting out immediately."
Marcellus grins and reaches up with one hand to catch his sleeve, pulling him back down. "Sit down, coz, it's not as if anything's changed in the past decade or so."
"A decade ago, I'm fairly sure you weren't having violent sex with my sister!"
"Well, no, but our parents were having violent sex with each other."
Pauli moans. "I knew there was a reason I left."
Marcellus puts his glass down, and the cheerful atmosphere goes like clouds before a wind.
"What was it, then?"
"Fuck," Pauli says, and leans forward, lacing his fingers over the back of his neck. "I just -- I just left. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And when it stopped being a good idea," Val says, setting his jaw, "Why didn't you come back then?"
"There was Tjorven," Pauli says slowly, "and Kari -- Captain Haakonssen. And I liked the Seven Sisters. No one cared who my parents were or -- or what my surname was."
"No one cared here," says Marcellus, but he's lying, and they all know it.
"Besides," Pauli says lightly, trying to make a joke out of it, "you know I was never much for naval discipline."
"None of us are," Val says, "We are great disappointments to Papa Richard."
"Papa Richard says I remind him of the High King," Marcellus says, "but I'm not sure whether that's supposed to be a compliment or not."
"'S easier to make it a compliment," Val says, "Mama used to say the same thing to me."
Pauli frowns warily. "How is being compared to the High King of Narnia not supposed to be a compliment?"
"You really haven't been around for a while, have you?" Marcellus says. "Or didn't pay attention to your history while you were here."
"Apparently not, because I don't know what you mean."
Val sighs.
"According to some people --"
"Aunt Saiet," Marcellus interrupts.
"-- High King Peter was at best mildly psychopathic and rebellious --"
"He was the High King, who was he supposed to be rebelling against?"
"-- and at worst a raving lunatic who killed people for kicks."
"Yes, but Aunt Helen adored him," Pauli points out, "She'd think it a compliment. And Aunt Saiet, much as we all love her, is hardly the most reliable woman in Narnia."
"Rabadash," Marcellus says. "Archenland. Lasci. Terebinthia. Ettinsmoor, for the love of the gods, he started a war because he and Grandmama were fighting. The eastern islands. The Red Company."
"To make Narnia strong," Pauli protests, "Rabadash tried to rape Aunt Susan! And we had a good relationship with the Red Company, before-"
"I agree on the Rabadash thing," Valentine says. "I don't see how his being an ass for a year was any kind of adequate punishment."
"He cut out Rabadash's heart --" Marcellus says.
"That's just a rumor!"
"Who else could it have been!"
Valentine sulks. "Rabadash could have just -- died. Of stress. Of being turned back into a human."
"Two months after Grandpapa and Grandmama were married? Yes, I'm sure." Marcellus points at him. "He managed to convince the Red Company to break its contract. With the King of Natare. On the strength of having served as a Company grunt for a year and a half and probably meeting the Lord Commander face to face all of once."
"That's not a bad thing! Just because Narnia's friendship with the company went to hell when my father died-"
"And it’s recovered," Val says, "Or hadn't you noticed that Cosima Fisichella's been sleeping with Locke these past three months?"
"Who?" Pauli says blankly.
"The Lord Commander of the Red Company," Marcellus supplies. "Val, I repeat, started a war because he was having a fight with his sister."
"Once! In more than forty years!"
"Locke's sleeping with the Lord Commander of the Red Company? Isn't he about twelve?"
"Considering the circumstances that surrounded some of the wars, I would not be so quick as to say that," Marcellus says archly. "Terebinthia. Argue that one for me. Terebinthia, which was supposed to be impossible to take. No one has been able to get within a mile of shore for three thousand years! It was a suicide mission. He was supposed to get the entire Royal Navy and the Army and the Aerial Corps killed! And Locke is seventeen."
"But he succeeded!" Pauli protests, and the door creaks open.
"Will you please stop shouting!" says Cosetta, "Some people in this tower are trying to sleep!"
Pauli pushes himself up and sees Cosetta's expression darken.
"How's your headache, Cos?" Marcellus asks.
"Still splitting," she snaps, "And not helped by certain people shouting. You realise that everyone can hear you? I'll not give a star for your chances if Aunt Vic finds out."
"We are discussing history," Valentine says archly. "And usually the palace is better about such things."
"It's in mourning," she says, and leans against the doorframe, carefully not looking at Pauli, "And this is not the time."
"Hypocrite," Val says, "As if you didn't try and kick the Ansketts out of the Shifting Market-"
"Val," Marcellus pleads.
"No!" Val exclaims. "This is ridiculous, this has been ridiculous for the past nine years."
"'Setta," Pauli says, half desperate, "'Setta, I'm your brother."
"My brother is dead," Cosetta says coldly, "I'm having an early night, Marcellus, don't bother coming round."
And she turns on her heel, and leaves.
"Cosetta!" Marcellus calls after her. "Cosetta!"
Pauli puts his head in his hands. "I shouldn't have come back," he says.
"'Setta's been an unredeemable bitch these last eight years," Val says, "Don't blame yourself."
"I'm going-" Marcellus says, and gets to his feet, heading after her.
"We could follow," says Val, "I'm in need of some entertainment."
Pauli shakes his head. "I'm going --" he says, and doesn't even have time to finish the sentence before Valentine grabs his arm and throws him up against the wall.
"Don't even think about leaving," he says.
"I meant to say, 'going to bed.'"
"All right then," he says, and steps back, "But don't think you can scarper in the night- there'll be a guard on your door."
"Oh, lovely," Pauli says. "Tjorven should love that."
"Try seeing how quiet you can be," Val says, and wiggles his eyebrows, "Night!"
"Night," says Pauli, and heads for the Guest Wing.
It is his bad luck that the route takes him straight past Cosetta's bedroom.
"Cosetta!" he hears Marcellus protest, and then something smashes.
"I told you to out!"
The door flies open, to reveal them both shiloutted against the window, Cosetta with something in her hand.
"'Setta," Marcellus tries, and then Cosetta catches sight of Pauli and turns on him.
"Go away!" she shrieks, "Just go the fuck away and stop fucking up my life."
Pauli goes, and hears something thud against the wall behind him as he does.
Tjorven is sitting in their rooms when he gets there, doing fancy needlework and eyeing the paintings on the walls thoughtfully.
"Hi," Pauli says, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
She turns, so that he hits her lips instead.
"Your cousins are very kind," she says as they separate, "Why did you not tell me?"
Pauli doesn't even try to dissemble.
"I liked not being Lord Pauli Pevensie," he says, "son of Princess-Captain Tahmoh Pevensie, tragically killed at sea by the Red Fleet, and Prince Valentine Pevensie, Lieutenant of the Red Company, who died fighting for Narnia. I liked just being Pauli. I didn't want to lose that."
"You wouldn't have," she says, "It’s not as if I would have told anyone. I would just have liked to know."
"But I didn't know that," Pauli says. He comes around the side of the couch and sits down next to her. "I'm sorry."
"I forgive you," she says, and kisses him again, "Who's that on the wall?"
Pauli glances up. "High King Peter accepting the surrender of the Prince of Terebinthia after the Conquest."
"Your Great-Uncle," Tjorven says thoughtfully, "You don't look like him."
"I'm only half a Pevensie, really, even though both my parents were Pevensies," Pauli says. "My father was half-Shoushani, and my mother was half...well, half something. My grandmother, Queen Lucy, never said who her children's parents were." He pauses. "Did Glasswater show you the chart?"
"Yes. It's complicated. And he said that it only shows legal parents, not necessarily actual ones." She gets up, starts unbuttoning her shirt.
"A number of children have been born out of wedlock," Pauli says. "I was. There are -- legal issues, regarding inheritance."
Tjorven walks backward, shedding her shirt and reaching for one boot at a time. "There's a bed in there," she says. "A very nice one, it looks like."
He pulls off his own clothes, and goes to join her.
*
Breakfast the next morning is...subdued.
There are roughly the same number of people present, but the bodies have changed up, and Pauli finds himself subjected to the rather intense scrutiny of a number of his cousins from the other side of the family, the Seaworth and Paolucci cousins.
Guery sits down next to him, and pours him some coffee, raising his eyebrow at his sister Carelia, who sighs, and moves around to join them, flanking Pauli.
Daneel sweeps in a few minutes later, looking rakish, and swoops down on Pauli as if he's never left at all, crowing his name triumphantly. "Pauli, darling, how are you? Your own ship, really? I'm still just a lieutenant on the Sunrise King, it's a first-rate ship-of-the-line, seventy-six scorpions and thirty-two flamethrowers - Terebinthian fire, you know. Admiral Ettore, of course, you'll like her, you'll have to come see her, she'll be happy to meet you."
"Hullo, Dani," Pauli says, and she laughs and hangs on his neck, kissing his cheek.
"Has anyone bothered to tell you yet? Tombol's got his own ship now, the new aerial carrier, the Queen of Spring! We knew he'd get his own ship, after he took three xebecs during the Battle of the Spearhead, but no one thought it would be the Queen!"
"Congratulations," he calls to Tombol, who is forking ham onto a plate, and flushes.
"Congratulations yourself!" he calls back, and comes down to sit with them, "When do we get to meet your wife? Guery informs us that she is far too good for you."
Pauli looks around for Tjorven, who's hovering in a corner of the room, talking tentatively with a Guard jaguar who has that peculiar trick some of the Guard has, of making themselves look no more harmful than an unusually large pussycat. The jaguar sees his gaze and nudges Tjorven over, padding quietly beside her.
"My cousins," he says, "Daneel and Tombol de la Courcel. And you've met Guery- this is his sister Carelia."
Daneel squeals on a pitch only heard by Dogs, (one of which drops to the ground and casts her a wounded glance) and hugs Tjorven tightly, which Tjorven accepts with good grace.
"Tombol's captain of the Queen of Spring, and Daneel's a lieutenant on the Sunrise King."
"Where are you docked?" Daneel demands. "I'd love to see your ship, Pauli! We used to have longships in the Navy, but that was years and years ago, back during the First Fleet, and they retired the last of them, oh, twenty years before I was born. It's a pity, though, I'd love to handle one, they seem so fast!"
"Compared to aerial carriers," says Tombol.
Pauli quirks an eyebrow at him.
"Oh, don't get me wrong," he says hurriedly, "I love the Queen, and it's an honor to command a carrier. It's just I was hoping for a ship of the line when they promoted me. And there's Luka!"
Luka looks over, and then pointedly ignores all of them, going to get some bread and coffee, and then sitting down in a corner. Daneel deflates.
"I'm sorry," Guery says, "Luka's Coast Guard."
"We're sorry too," Carelia says, with a gleam in her eye. "It's a disgrace to the whole family, really it is. It's almost as bad as having a brother in the Army, but at least Kaspar has the good common sense not to even bother going to sea."
"Where is Kaspar?" Pauli asks, hesitantly; the disappointment each time he's ignored is starting to weigh on him.
"Arn Abedin," Tombol says. "With the garrison there; he just made captain last year."
"They're the children of our Aunt Natascha," says Carelia to Tjorven quietly, "She died in Lasci."
"I think this is almost all of us, actually," says Guery, "Aunt Rakisa didn't have any children, and Aunt Ousama's married to the Prince of Terebinthia, and they've only got one, Chiteme, who I don't think is here yet, though they say the skies are clear, so he ought to get here soon."
"How many cousins do you have?" Tjorven hisses urgently at Pauli.
He tries to count in his head, gives up when he realizes he doesn't know the exact relationships with some of the people he'd grown up with, and tells her the truth. "I've no idea."
She blinks at him. Tombol laughs.
"There's a department of clerks whose sole job is keeping up the family trees of the Royal Family and the Nobility, and their respective successions," he says.
"This particular branch is slightly easier to explain than most of Pauli's family, though," Carelia goes on. "We're cousins on Pauli's father's side; Prince Valentine was our father's half-brother and Tombol and Daneel's mother's half-brother. Luka's father was another half-brother. Our grandmother was Fiorenza Paolucci, she was a general in the Army back when the High King ruled, and our grandfather was Osumare Seaworth, Admiral of the First Fleet. But Pauli's grandfather was --"
"King Edmund, yes," Tjorven says. "I've heard that one." She offers a shy smile.
"And our grandfather was probably not the High King Peter," says Carelia, smiling back, "Oh, and you need to meet with the lawyers sometime, if you're not coming back to stay, then you need to decide what to do with your inheritance."
Pauli can't help the face he pulls. "Lawyers," he says distastefully.
"I suppose that's the good thing about being a pirate," Daneel says cheerfully. "You don't have to deal with the lawyers when it comes to who gets which part of a prize. Tethys, Njord, and Neptune protect us, you've no idea how many times I've wanted to throw them into the sea to stay."
"And that time Advocate Marin tripped over and fell into the harbour," says Tombol, "Complete accident!"
"Of course," Tjorven agrees solemnly.
"The sea spat him back out," Guery confides to Pauli. "Even the harbor wouldn't take a lawyer."
"I don't blame it," says Pauli, and then a voice behind him says, "Good morning, my dears."
Pauli jumps to his feet and bows. "Aunt Rakisa!"
"My dear," she says, and kisses his cheek, "You may as well know now that, due to the, ah, eccentricities of the architecture, every word of your argument last night was audible in Queen Victoria's study. You may have noticed that Valentine and Marcellus aren't here."
"Argument?" Daneel asks. "What kind of argument?"
"History, apparently," Rakisa says. "Finish your breakfast, child; I thought Eleeza had taught you not to ignore your food?"
Daneel cuts a piece of ham, and eats it, and Rakisa turns to Tjorven, and tells her what a pleasure it is to meet her.
"How is Aunt Eleeza?" Pauli asks the gathering at large, "And Uncle Cal?"
"Admiral Ettore lost a hand in the Battle of the Spearhead, but she has a hook now," Daneel says proudly. "And she says it doesn't do her any inconvenience at all, not a bit."
"Cal is Governor of the Lone Islands, and on his way back for the funeral," Rakisa says.
The reminder of the reason they're all there solemnizes the group for a few moments. Pauli still can't quite believe it, any of it, he half expects Aunt Helen to come striding in and make for the breakfast table, Uncle Jack to stumble out of his infirmary having been up all night delivering a baby, Uncle Richard to offer to take him out and ask to have a look at Seven Sisters.
After a few minutes mostly spent decimating her food, Daneel declares, "You haven't seen the Shield Marina in years, Pauli, you must come see it, and your wife, too."
"I don't know," drawls Luka, "Do you really think it’s a good idea to show pirates our defences?"
Daneel drops her fork, and Rakisa sits up even straighter.
"Luka Seaworth," she says, voice dark with menace, "How dare you suggest such a thing."
"Everyone's thinking it," he says.
"Everyone's thinking that you're a dirty-minded pedant with bad breath but no one's saying it," snaps Carelia.
"Carelia," Pauli says quietly, putting his hand on her elbow as she makes to stand up, probably to slap Luka across the face with the gloves tucked into her belt.
"No!" she says, and jerks her arm away, "I won't have-"
"Later, Carelia," Rakisa says gently, "After the funeral, you may challenge him to as many duels as you like. And as for you, young man, I will tell your father of this."
Luka mutters something, and storms out.
"I am charged with messages from the Konungr," Tjorven says, "To express our most sincere sympathy. He was well respected among our people."
"Thank you," says Victoria from the doorway, and she sweeps in, followed by Val and Marcellus, both looking slightly shamefaced.
At the sight of Tjorven and Pauli, though, Val manages up a leer and says, "Good night?"
"Valentine, darling, don't think you're too old not to be rapped over the knuckles with my fan," Victoria says calmly.
Valentine tries to look innocent but it doesn't become him, and he just sits down next to Guery and steals his coffee. Guery doesn't seem to mind, just taking it back when he puts the mug down, and Pauli's stomach twists. This is just another sign that he's been gone too long, missed too many things.
Victoria sits down opposite and asks Tjorven whether the rooms were comfortable ("Yes") and if anyone had taken her down to the crypt ("Um, no.")
"They should," Victoria says, and frowns, "You'll be going down there tomorrow, in the procession, and its best to know where you'll be walking."
"I'll take them," Marcellus volunteers. There's a shadow of a bruise on his cheekbone; it wasn't there yesterday, and Pauli wonders idly where it's from.
Victoria raises an eyebrow at him, and nods. "Take Lucinde with you, once she deigns to haul herself out of bed."
Marcellus arches an eyebrow. "I think I can wake her up more than adequately on my own," he says, sounding far too happy about that fact.
"Don't," says Victoria, "Unlike you, she was up talking to her siblings- not spreading distasteful rumours and having violent, and, I must say, overly loud sex."
"I was talking to my siblings!" Marcellus protests. "And they're not rumors if they're true..."
"Marcellus!" Victoria snaps, "And don't think everyone in the wing doesn't know precisely what you and Cosetta were doing last night."
"If you were having sex with my sister, I don't want to know," Pauli says firmly.
"Lucky you," mutters Val, "The rest of us can't avoid it."
"And this is not really a suitable conversation for the breakfast table," says Victoria, and brings her cup to her lips, effectively ending the conversation.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Authors: aella_irene and bedlamsbard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Incest. Death. Discussion of miscarriages
Summary: "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." Pauli Pevensie comes home for a funeral.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title by Robert Frost.
"I can't believe you!" Meklet snarls, and knocks Pauli over like a skittle.
Tjorven, entirely unaccustomed to seeing leopards roaming around free -- or at all; she's from Adalradr, the barren lands of Anskettell, where the only great cats about are the deadly catamounts the size of a pony -- shrieks and starts to draw her sword, but Lucien stays her wrist.
Pauli's laughing, a little disbelieving, half-hugging the leopard as Meklet does his best to lick the skin off his face, shouting, "You idiot!" between swipes of his rough tongue. "I'm going to break your neck!"
"I could do it for you," says a cold voice from further up the hallway, and Meklet freezes, then jumps off, and Pauli scrambles to his feet.
"Hello 'Setta," he says, "You look well." She does. She is dressed in pure black, with skirts that fall in layers, and a tight bodice, and her black hair confined beneath a snood embroidered with silver. Her face is thinner, and he can see the bones, standing out beneath the leaf-thin skin of her face.
She doesn't quite curtsy to him, a dip of shoulder and knee that makes her skirts rustle, and he returns the courtesy. Under traditional form, siblings needn't bow, need only exchange kisses of greeting, but he wouldn't put it past Cosetta to be wearing poisoned lip rouge.
"Cosetta --" Lucien begins warily, releasing Tjorven's wrist and starting forward, obviously intending to be a barrier between Pauli and Cosetta.
"Get out of the way, Lucien," Cosetta says firmly, striding forward, and Pauli fights down the urge to step back, and back, and back again.
"Cosetta!" Elianor exclaims.
"Don't be discourteous, Cosetta," a brisk voice says from behind Cosetta, then warms as the speaker says, "Hello, Pauli. It's been a long time."
"Aunt -- Queen Victoria," he says, and bows.
She raises him up, pressing a kiss to each cheek, and smiles at him. Her face is thinner than it had been the last time he'd seen her, at Helen's funeral, and there are shadows under her eyes that her paint can't conceal, but the smile is genuine. "It's very good to see you, Pauli."
"May I present my wife, Tjorven Karisdottir?" he says, and Tjorven steps forward, and curtsies. Victoria raises her as well, and hugs her, swift and firm.
"My dear," she says, "I only wish we could have met at a better time."
"Well," says someone from the top of the stairs, "that's impossible, unless someone's been hiding the instructions to the Kadreddin mirror."
Alambil sweeps down the stairs, head high, and Pauli bows again, hiding his shock. Standing by Cosetta you can see the resemblance, in bone structure, and in how thin they both are. Alambil's bodice is moulded to her, in the prevailing style, and he can see her collarbones, jutting out in stark relief. When she hugs him, she feels like a bag of bones.
"Thank you for coming," she says, and embraces Tjorven, "Welcome back, darlings. Has anyone told you what happened?"
"Uncle Jack --" Cathel begins.
Victoria presses her lips together and nods, looking tired and old. With a start of shock, Pauli realizes that there's gray in her dark hair.
"Jack is dead," she says very quietly. "You have that news. I meant to send other news, but --" She shakes her head, and Alambil says quietly, "No one blames you, Aunt Tori."
"Cressida died two months ago," Victoria says.
"It was a heart attack," says Cosetta, and looks Pauli up and down, "You're in the Will."
"I don't give a damn about the Will," Pauli snaps, and he half wants to strangle her, she's always bloody fighting, she would fight with a stone.
"You should," she says, "You'll be able to afford better clothes."
Alambil raises her hand, as if she's about to slap her, and Cosetta turns on her heel and leaves in a flurry of skirts.
"She wasn't always like that," Pauli says to Tjorven- he doesn't know why.
"Oh no," says Alambil, "She was a very sweet baby. But when she learnt to talk it all went downhill."
"Ala," Victoria says tiredly, and Alambil goes over to her.
"You might as well know, Papa Jack probably killed himself."
For a moment, Pauli can't think or move or even breathe, and then he says faintly, "Tethys protect us," and Elianor catches his elbow and helps him over to a bench in one of the alcoves off the hall.
"We don't know that," Victoria says faintly, but Alambil raises an eyebrow and Victoria, looking too tired to argue, subsides.
Pauli puts his head in his hands and Meklet presses up against his legs, reassuring and familiar. Over his head, he hears Alambil introducing herself to Tjorven, who's probably overwhelmed by all this. It's overwhelming at the best of times and this -- this isn't the best of times.
There are footsteps, at least three people, and Pauli raises his head to see Uncle Richard, and Eddard, and Marcellus, Susanna clinging to Marcellus.
"We would be far more comfortable in one of the drawing rooms," Richard says, and that is when a man enters from the outside door, and says, "Darling."
Susanna runs down the stairs and throws herself at him, and Pauli realises that this is Aymeri Vuillard, the Duke of Glasswater.
There are more introductions, Tjorven looking even more overwhelmed and as if she's seriously considering fleeing back to the ship and locking herself away, and a maid flits in and out with a tray of drinks.
Marcellus nods to Pauli, short and distracted, as if they've seen each other every day, and Richard says, "I'm glad to see you back, Pauli."
"Uncle," he says, and looks at Richard's boots, good leather, seaman's boots. After a moment of hesitation, Richard hugs him. He smells of the sea, and of the herbs that go in clothes chests, and the olive soap leavened with citrus that he has always washed with.
"I'm sorry," he mutters into Richard's shoulder, and Richard does him the courtesy of not responding, just turns to Victoria and asks her something about candles.
Alambil spurns the offers of tea and coffee, and takes a full glass of brandy, drains it, and has another. Susanna is sitting on a sofa with her husband, the two of them curled into each other, and Pauli is waiting to see who will be the first to protest.
"I'll send someone to put up your flag, Pauli," Eddard says, and when Pauli's opening his mouth to protest -- the last thing he wants is for the entirety of Narnia to know he's here -- he adds, "We've more than enough towers; don't argue with me."
It's nothing to do with the towers, of course, and Pauli stifles his protest. Tjorven raises an eyebrow at him, and then Elianor, after some hasty conversation with Victoria and Marcellus, gets up and comes over to them. "Why don't I show you around the castle, Tjorven?" she says warmly, and even Pauli can tell that it's code for, This is family business, and you aren't properly family.
"I'll come as well," says Glasswater, and they leave, the door thudding shut behind them. Alambil gets up and locks it, then sits down on the sofa next to Susanna, who has pulled her knees up to her chest, as if she were a child. Eddard hands her another glass of brandy without even thinking about it.
"I'm sorry it took so long for us to return," Pauli says at last, for lack of anything else to say. "Morningstar --" the Narnian Navy ship that had brought Susanna and the triplets to Anskettell "-- is following, but Seven Sisters is faster."
"The Ansketts build fast ships," Richard says, a little nonsensically, and Victoria touches his elbow, all her attention on her brother for a moment.
"You'll stay, of course," Eddard says, and the way he says it there's not even a hint of a question in the words. He speaks like Richard and Victoria are dead and he's king already, and the thought of it makes Pauli a little sick.
"He'll stay or I'll chain him in the dungeons," Marcellus says warningly.
"No one's chaining anyone up," Victoria says tiredly.
"I won't stay," Pauli says, "I'm here for the funeral and that's it."
"Are you sure?" asks Marcellus.
"Yes," they both say, and Marcellus scowls.
"Why can't you stay?" Richard asks, and he just sounds so damn tired that Pauli wants to say 'Yes'. But he can't.
"I don't belong here anymore," he says.
"You're afraid, you mean," Marcellus says dismissively.
"Yes," Pauli admits, "but I left for a reason, and that reason still stands, and there are other matters now."
"We'll talk to Cosetta," says Susanna, leaning forward, "She won't bother you."
"That's not what I meant," Pauli says, "I don't belong here anymore. And it doesn't matter what any of us say or do, I still won't belong here. I'm a pirate."
"Gods of sea and sky, Pauli, do you think we care?" Marcellus snaps. "Three-quarters of the First Fleet were pirates. Osumare Seaworth was a pirate. Fiorenza Paolucci was a deserter. Caron of Oldhill was condemned to death for treason against the Crown of Archenland."
"That was seventy years ago," Pauli says. "Things are different now. Narnia is different now."
"Pauli-
"No one will trade with you," Pauli says, "The Shifting Market will close. There might very well be wars. I can't stay."
"You fucking coward," says Susanna, and stalks over to the door, unlocks it, storms out, and shuts it hard enough to make the doorknob fall off.
"The castle is in mourning," Victoria says, as if that's some kind of explanation, and Pauli stares at the doorknob. It doesn't fix itself.
"Things could be arranged," Victoria says.
"Why should we have to arrange anything?" Eddard demands. "This is Narnia. He is, by the grace of Aslan, a peer of Narnia, the blood of the High King Peter. Let the Market close. Let Archenland and Calormen and Masongnong protest, I could damn well use a war --"
"Well the rest of us couldn't!" snaps Alambil, "You've never run a war in your life."
"Ala-" sighs Victoria.
"And this is why I'm leaving," Pauli says.
"Pauli!" Marcellus protests.
"What?"
"Don't," Marcellus says, "do this. Please."
"I'm going," Pauli says, "And maybe you can stop me, but you won't keep me willingly."
Marcellus is a few months younger than him. They've known each other all their lives. He can't remember a time when Marcellus hadn't been there, scrambling to catch up with the others.
"I'm going," he says again, and stands up, and walks out.
He doesn't expect Marcellus to follow him, but follow him Marcellus does, catching his elbow and pulling him into an alcove.
"Marcellus, I already told you --"
"Just stay, damn you," Marcellus snaps. "Stay for a week, if that's all you can justify to yourself. But don't you fucking dare run away again, you bastard, don't you fucking dare --"
"I'll stay for the funeral," Pauli says, "And a few days after. But no more than that."
Marcellus nods, jerkily, and then begins to cry.
Pauli stares at him for a moment, horrified, and then his brain kicks in and he pulls Marcellus into a hug.
Marcellus sobs, helplessly, into his shoulder, and there is nothing Pauli can do but hold him, and whisper reassurances into his hair.
Cosetta does not appear at dinner, and Pauli is wretchedly relieved for that. The rest of the cousins are there, though, descending on him with, variously, shrieks of delight, gentlemanly or ladylike restraint, and -- though in few cases less than Pauli had thought -- expressions of dubious disdain, as if they're not sure whether or not they can associate with him.
"Tethys protect us," he says to Saida, hoisting her youngest twins up onto each hip. "What are you trying to do, start your own country?"
She bats her eyelashes at him, reaching out with one hand to snag the collar of someone who may or may not actually be her child as the boy tries to rush past. "Are you volunteering, coz?"
"I don't know," Pauli tells her seriously. "You'll have to ask Tjorven if she's willing to share."
He knows better than to ask if Saida's children have fathers or not; he hadn't been introduced to a husband and she doesn't appear to have changed at all in the past few years. More children, though, and if he's not mistaken she's pregnant again.
Nerissa's children are among those who pointedly avoid him, though he sees Elianor arguing with Sebastien, and trying to tug him over. Tjorven, upon arriving with Aymeri, comes over and stands next to him, obviously swamped. The Ansketts have large families, yes, but they're far more disconnected than the Pevensies are. Pauli was almost a man grown before he quite understood that most people did not consider their second cousins as close as their siblings.
Nerissa, arriving late, hand wrapped around a cane, step halting, obviously takes pity on her, and keeps up a whispered commentary while Pauli greets his cousins, and then dinner is announced, and they trail into the dining room.
Tjorven is seated next to him, and he's grateful for that. She has Aymeri on her other side, and he has Tahmoh on the other. She regards him hotly, and then turns away to talk to Locke, who some evil genius has put on her other side, and who is looking at Pauli as if he'd like to string him from the battlements.
Valentine, though, is sitting across from him, with a gold ring in one ear like slightly more than half of Pauli's crew; the Ansketts like to keep their wealth mobile. Pauli hasn't yet given in to that particular fashion, but Tjorven has gold up and down both ears.
"How are you, Pauli?" he asks.
"As well as can be expected," Pauli says neutrally, and Valentine wiggles his eyebrows.
"Oh, really?"
"Val," Tahmoh sighs, "Can you please stop insinuating things at the dinner table? You put everyone else off their food."
"My cousin Valentine," Pauli introduces to Tjorven, because he doesn't remember them meeting, and Valentine had come in late. "He's named after my father. Valentine, this is my wife Tjorven."
"A pleasure," Valentine says to Tjorven, smiling at her. "And here I was thinking Pauli is wasted on women, but I see I'm mistaken."
Tjorven smiles back, a little stiff.
"Val," Tahmoh says, and taps her fan in warning, "Behave."
"You're no fun," Val says, "The younger children are meant to be the wild ones."
"I am sorry," Tjorven says hesitatingly, "You are- the youngest?"
"I am now," Tahmoh says flatly.
"You heard about my cousin Iulius," Pauli says awkwardly to Tjorven.
She shrugs in puzzlement; what had happened in landlocked Lasci had been of little interest to the sea-going Ansketts.
"The massacre of Lasci," Tahmoh snaps. "Surely even a --"
Valentine clicks his tongue warningly, and Tahmoh stiffens, sighs, and continues, "I thought the entire continent had heard of it."
"The death of the prince of Narnia?" Tjorven says, hesitating again. "That was your --" She stops, stares at Tahmoh, and adds, "You are a princess?"
"It's all very complicated," Val drawls.
"No, it’s not," Tahmoh says, frowning at him, "I'm the youngest of Queen Helen's daughters, in order of age, there's Alambil, Cottia, Susanna, Lucinde (she's married to the Tisroc, she hasn't arrived yet), then me. For the men, there's Eddard, Piotr, Marcellus and Valentine. We're all Princes and Princesses. The cousins are all Lords and Ladies."
Tjorven looks like someone has dumped her in a forest, given her a foreign map, and disappeared.
"There's a chart," Aymeri says reassuringly, "I'll show you after dinner."
"Are you --" Tjorven begins hesitantly at last, looking at Pauli, and he glances down at his plate.
"My errant cousin is, by the grace of Aslan and the pity of Calla Macha, a peer of Narnia, yes," says Guery Paolucci, on Valentine's other side. "I suppose you didn't know you married into royalty, did you?"
Tahmoh points her fan at him. "Don't be mistaken. He's nothing of the sort, but he's family on Pauli and Cos's side, so we tolerate him at official functions."
"I'm very ornamental," Guery grins.
"Oh," Val says huskily, "You're more than that."
"Not at the table!" squeaks Tahmoh, and Richard, at the head of the table with Victoria, raises his head and says, "Valentine."
"Sorry, Papa," Val says quickly, looking stricken.
"I'm a very minor peer," Pauli protests, and Tahmoh raises an eyebrow.
"Only compared to the rest of us, dear. And you're still ahead of the triplets, Locke, Sebastien and Isidor in the funeral procession."
She looks Tjorven up and down.
"And, Aymeri, you can't take her to see the Wall after dinner, because we need to get a seamstress up here as soon as possible."
"Are you," Tjorven asks uncertainly, "in line for the throne?"
"No!" Pauli exclaims, horrified. "By no means, at all, definitely not."
"Only if about twenty other people die first," Tahmoh says. "Pauli's not the High King's get, but he is related to both Queen Lucy and King Edmund --"
"Which doesn't mean anything, considering that you two are far closer to the throne than I am," Pauli says. "I'm not going to inherit anything."
"His mother was a princess and his father was a prince," Tahmoh says happily.
"And considering the number of princes and princesses there are, that doesn't mean much," Pauli protests. "Stop plotting your own death, Tahmoh."
"Oh, I'm not going to inherit," Tahmoh says. "Ala is, and Ned and Piotr and Marcellus, but not for a long time yet, praise Aslan."
There is a tense silence. Pauli isn't sure what it’s about, but he noticed that Alambil and Valentine didn't participate in the pre-dinner prayers to Aslan. He's not sure how many others didn't, but Val and Ala are almost opposite him.
Then Aymeri asks Val something about military tactics, and Locke starts talking about trade with Masongnong, and the noise rises up again. Tjorven presses herself against Pauli's side, insofar as she can, considering the regiment of cutlery that's between them.
Pauli offers something up about Masongnong's trade routes, and Locke eyes him dubiously across Tahmoh's plate, then says, "Well, I suppose you should know," and Pauli's back in the conversation, as if nothing's changed at all.
Aymeri draws Tjorven into the conversation, and Pauli warms to him- not that anyone is good enough for Susanna, of course, but he might be nearly there.
Alambil is draining her glass quickly, and refilling it almost immediately. She's always been a hard drinker, but there's something off about it, about the careless way she knocks it back, and the way Eddard is looking at her.
It would take a blind man not to see that the Guard is stationed all around the room, general Guard as well as those that are specifically assigned to various people; it takes Pauli a moment to realize that their presence is much heavier and much more obvious than it had been when he'd left.
Piotr sees him looking and says, "I'll have Dendera -- she's Commander now -- put together a guard for you. Meklet will probably head it."
"That's not necessary," Pauli begins.
"It is," Tahmoh says tightly, and pulls back her flowing sleeve to show a knife wound running up her arm. The stitching is neat, and tight, but somehow nothing like Uncle Jack's, Pauli realises with a pang.
"There are far too many Lascars still around," Piotr says grimly.
"Even I've got a Guard," Guery says quietly, "Because of Father."
Pauli doesn't know what Cal did, and isn't sure he wants to.
"And Papa Jack could have been murdered," Valentine says after a moment. "Poisoned."
Alambil had said he'd killed himself. Pauli won't repeat that, but he raises an eyebrow, trying to ask how Uncle Jack died without saying the words out loud.
"Papa Richard found him in the infirmary," Tahmoh whispers, "With a bottle of brandy. And half a bottle of sleep-drops were missing."
And that, he supposes, could go either way.
"So you're getting a Guard," Piotr says firmly.
"And Aunt Cressy," Valentine adds needlessly. "She wanted to see you, Pauli. She took the Winter's Bane out as soon as Cos and Susanna started arguing."
"She had the heart attack a week out," Tahmoh says, "It was a heart attack. Papa Jack checked."
The plates are being cleared- this is not, thank Aslan, a dinner in state, this is a family dinner, with a mere three courses. The main course is beef casserole, and Pauli looks at it, and all he can think is that this was his Aunt Helen's favourite, the one they had the night after she came back from campaign, every single time, with dumplings, and mashed potatoes.
He is not going to tear up over some food.
Very hesitantly, Tjorven says, "What -- is the relation?"
"Cressida was Pauli's mother's twin sister," Guery says. "She raised Pauli and Cos after Tahmoh -- not you, darling -- died; Valentine -- not you either -- was already dead by then. That's Pauli and Cos's father, of course. Cressida and Tahmoh were Queen Lucy's oldest twins, that's the High King Peter's, King Richard's and Queen Victoria's father's, youngest sister, and Valentine was King Edmund's -- the High King's brother -- son by my grandmother, Fiorenza Paolucci. My grandfather, however, wasn't Edmund." He pauses, pursing his lips together. "He could have been Peter, though. Not this Peter," he adds, pointing his fork at Piotr, whose name sounds the same. "The High King."
"You," Piotr says fondly, "are only confusing her more.”
"We'll show you the chart," Aymeri repeats.
"After she's been fitted for a funeral dress," Tahmoh says, and turns to gesture at the wall. One of the leopards, not one Pauli recognises, pads over, and Tahmoh says, "Please send a runner down to Liliyah's. Tell her one of my cousins needs a dress for the funeral."
"Yes, Princess," says the leopard, and Tahmoh thanks her, and turns back to the table.
"Oh, that's not necessary," Tjorven begins.
Valentine grins at her. "Oh, believe me, it's necessary," he says. "You're about to be on display to the entire population of Narnia, every peer in the country, and every ambassador and diplomatic delegation from Archenland to Marinel to Anskettell. You'll want a new dress."
"And the Treasury's paying," adds Tahmoh, cutting a dumpling into quarters and taking up some gravy, "So you needn't worry about that."
She eyes Tjorven. "You can borrow some of my jewelry."
Tjorven makes a faint sound of protest.
"Look on the bright side," Pauli says. "At least you don't have to wear a tiara."
"It's really more of a circlet," Valentine says. "And you always did look good in it. The sapphires match your eyes."
"I'm going to break your neck," Pauli says, sighing.
"They're very small sapphires," Tahmoh says. "Not like what we have to wear."
"And the crowns regnant are even worse," says Piotr, "Mama used to say hers gave her neck ache."
"You might get a jeweled snood, though," Tahmoh says thoughtfully, "Like Cosetta- have you seen 'Setta yet? was wearing, only slightly more elaborate."
"She gets a tiara," says Val, "Where is she, anyway?"
"She said she wasn't feeling well," says Locke, "She's having soup in her rooms."
"She looked all right when I saw her earlier," Val says, blinking curiously.
"If she's not here she can't kill me," Pauli points out.
"She's not going to try and kill you!" Tahmoh protests.
"I didn't say try."
"She's not going to kill you," Piotr says, "Aunt Victoria would be very cross."
"And that would be a great comfort to my cooling corpse."
Tahmoh gives him a wounded look. Tjorven is looking increasingly worried.
"There will be no murders at the dinner table," Alambil says, "The proper time for murders is just before dawn."
"Ala!"
"Or at the witching hour," she continues. "Under a dark moon. Or an eclipse."
"I thought Uncle Neris told you to stop reading those trashy mystery novels," Eddard says.
"He did, but then Saida tried to get me to read her collection of pornography," Alambil says. "He decided that the mysteries were better."
"Erotica!" Saida exclaims from further down the table.
"Saida!" Victoria says.
"Sorry," says Saida, not looking at all sorry, and Victoria frowns at them all.
"No one is killing anyone. At the dinner table, or dawn, or at any other time. Am I understood?"
There is a collective mutter of "Yes, Aunt Victoria." Pauli can't help but notice that Richard hasn't said anything.
"Of course," Guery mutters under his breath, "Cosetta isn't here right now."
"Just 'aunt'?" Tjorven asks, seizing on something that seems fairly neutral. "She has no children of her own?"
"None," says Tahmoh, "But she helped raise all of us."
"Grandfather Peter used to say that it takes a village to raise a child," Piotr says, "And our family's just about a village."
Just then the door opens, and a herald announces, "Lucinde of Calormen, First Wife of Calormen, Honored Wife of the Tisroc, princess of Narnia!"
"Sorry I'm late," Lucinde says, dashing her furs to the side and going to hug Uncle Richard when he gets up. "The seas were rough. Oh!"
She stares unthinkingly at Pauli for a moment, then her face lights up. "Pauli! You're here!"
"Hullo, Cin," he says, and kisses her soft cheek when she presents it to him. Cin was seven when he left, all long plaits and scabby knees, and he can barely see that child in the self assured woman who is hugging Tjorven in greeting, and having everyone move so she can sit with them.
"I'm so glad you came!" she exclaims, hugging him again. "I was starting to think I'd never see you again."
"Another cousin?" Tjorven mutters despairingly in Ansketts.
"Another cousin," Marcellus tells her cheerfully in the same language.
"Our sister Lucinde," Val adds. The servants have been making a place between Aymeri and Tjorven - and the table has grown to accommodate it - and Lucinde deposits herself in the seat, and attacks her food with gusto
"Seasick," she explains in the brief pause between two bites, "H'v'n't eaten since we left Tashbaan."
"She takes after Mama," Tahmoh says, staring at her sister fondly. "She couldn't even look at a ship without getting queasy. Quite a problem when you live by the ocean."
"Not something Pauli has had to worry about," Tjorven says, and it takes Pauli a moment to realize that she's just offered up something that isn't a question.
“I don’t take after Mama that much," Lucinde says. "I just hate sailing on xebecs; it always seems ten times worse there than it ever did on the Navy ships.”
Once dinner is over, Tjorven is pulled off by Tahmoh, and everyone else goes about their evening business.
"Come up and have a drink," Valentine suggests, in a tone which says quite clearly that he's not going to take no for an answer.
Pauli expects to be taken up to some other private family conference, doubtless where various of his relatives will either convince him to stay or try and throw him out of Narnia, but instead the only people in sight, besides a quartet of the Royal Guard, are Valentine himself and Marcellus, who wanders into Val's sitting room and throws himself down on the couch with a sigh. The four great cats sprawl out in front of the fire, heads on each other's flanks, yawning and seemingly unconcerned by the rest of the world, though Pauli has seen the Guard in action before and knows that they can change from sleeping to killing in the blink of an eye.
"Sit down, Pauli," Valentine says, going to the liquor cabinet in a corner of the room. "What would you like? Wine, brandy, rum, something mixed?"
Pauli takes rum, and sits. Val and Marcellus take brandy- best Glasswater.
"Every time I drink this," Val says, holding it up to the light, "I give thanks that Susanna had the good taste to marry a Vuillard of Glasswater."
"I doubt she was thinking of the chances for her family to get free brandy when she did it," Marcellus says dryly.
"I suppose he does have a certain something," Val admits.
"She seems happy," Pauli offers.
"Oh, she is," Marcellus says. "Granted, you broke her heart by running off the way you did --"
"Marcellus," Valentine warns.
"-- but if you'd run off any later she probably would have brought the full force of the Royal Navy down on your head, so perhaps it's all for the better."
Pauli was thirteen when he left, too young to feel even vague stirrings of interest in any of his cousins, but he can see that he would have, in a year or two, would have looked differently at the curve of Susanna's waist, or the way Alambil looked when she came home in the morning, shirt unbuttoned, mouth swollen.
But all of that is fraught with danger, and with Susanna- no one's ever said that she's his father's daughter. But no one's ever said she's not.
Marcellus puts his head back over the arm of the couch and dangles his hand over the side, the glass loose between his fingers. "Gods, it's good to see you again, Pauli," he says. "You've no idea how welcome it is for something to happen that's actually good rather than terrible."
"It's good to see you too," Pauli agrees, and Val nods.
"I missed you," he says, and takes a sip of brandy.
They sit like that for a while, in comfortable silence, Pauli gathering up his courage. 'Setta hates him, he knows that, but she's his sister, and just because she wants him dead doesn't mean he can't worry about her.
"How's Setta been?"
Val and Marcellus share a look. "Aunt Vic is talking about making her governor of one of the islands," Marcellus says at last.
"Because she'd be good at it, or because she's being a nuisance and they want her out of the way?"
"Well, she is very good at ordering people around," Marcellus says.
Val snorts. "You would know."
Pauli isn't even going to ask.
"Is she happy?"
He hopes so. He is, and he wants her to be too, well, as long as it isn't happy because he's dead.
Valentine grins. "She's happiest when she has Marcellus tied up in bed with --"
"Val!" Marcellus protests.
"Hurt her," Pauli says carefully, "and I'll kill you."
There is a pause.
"Does that include the kind of bruises you get from being tied to the bedpost?" Marcellus asks tentatively, "Or fucked up against a wall, because-"
"I thought you didn't want people talking about it?"
"I don't want you talking about it."
Pauli covers his ears. "I can't be hearing this," he says. "I just can't."
"Then make sure you aren't next door to either of them," Val says darkly, "'Setta's loud."
"As if Guery's any quieter!"
"I don’t think I'm old enough to hear this and I'm older than both of you!"
"We'd talk about you too," Val says, "Except you've not had sex in the castle yet. Don't worry, tomorrow morning, you too can join in the Breakfast Shaming."
"Alambil's in the lead," Marcellus confides.
"Gods of Salt and Storm," Pauli says faintly.
"Changed your mind about missing us yet?"
"Yes," Pauli says, and starts to get up. "I'm putting out immediately."
Marcellus grins and reaches up with one hand to catch his sleeve, pulling him back down. "Sit down, coz, it's not as if anything's changed in the past decade or so."
"A decade ago, I'm fairly sure you weren't having violent sex with my sister!"
"Well, no, but our parents were having violent sex with each other."
Pauli moans. "I knew there was a reason I left."
Marcellus puts his glass down, and the cheerful atmosphere goes like clouds before a wind.
"What was it, then?"
"Fuck," Pauli says, and leans forward, lacing his fingers over the back of his neck. "I just -- I just left. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And when it stopped being a good idea," Val says, setting his jaw, "Why didn't you come back then?"
"There was Tjorven," Pauli says slowly, "and Kari -- Captain Haakonssen. And I liked the Seven Sisters. No one cared who my parents were or -- or what my surname was."
"No one cared here," says Marcellus, but he's lying, and they all know it.
"Besides," Pauli says lightly, trying to make a joke out of it, "you know I was never much for naval discipline."
"None of us are," Val says, "We are great disappointments to Papa Richard."
"Papa Richard says I remind him of the High King," Marcellus says, "but I'm not sure whether that's supposed to be a compliment or not."
"'S easier to make it a compliment," Val says, "Mama used to say the same thing to me."
Pauli frowns warily. "How is being compared to the High King of Narnia not supposed to be a compliment?"
"You really haven't been around for a while, have you?" Marcellus says. "Or didn't pay attention to your history while you were here."
"Apparently not, because I don't know what you mean."
Val sighs.
"According to some people --"
"Aunt Saiet," Marcellus interrupts.
"-- High King Peter was at best mildly psychopathic and rebellious --"
"He was the High King, who was he supposed to be rebelling against?"
"-- and at worst a raving lunatic who killed people for kicks."
"Yes, but Aunt Helen adored him," Pauli points out, "She'd think it a compliment. And Aunt Saiet, much as we all love her, is hardly the most reliable woman in Narnia."
"Rabadash," Marcellus says. "Archenland. Lasci. Terebinthia. Ettinsmoor, for the love of the gods, he started a war because he and Grandmama were fighting. The eastern islands. The Red Company."
"To make Narnia strong," Pauli protests, "Rabadash tried to rape Aunt Susan! And we had a good relationship with the Red Company, before-"
"I agree on the Rabadash thing," Valentine says. "I don't see how his being an ass for a year was any kind of adequate punishment."
"He cut out Rabadash's heart --" Marcellus says.
"That's just a rumor!"
"Who else could it have been!"
Valentine sulks. "Rabadash could have just -- died. Of stress. Of being turned back into a human."
"Two months after Grandpapa and Grandmama were married? Yes, I'm sure." Marcellus points at him. "He managed to convince the Red Company to break its contract. With the King of Natare. On the strength of having served as a Company grunt for a year and a half and probably meeting the Lord Commander face to face all of once."
"That's not a bad thing! Just because Narnia's friendship with the company went to hell when my father died-"
"And it’s recovered," Val says, "Or hadn't you noticed that Cosima Fisichella's been sleeping with Locke these past three months?"
"Who?" Pauli says blankly.
"The Lord Commander of the Red Company," Marcellus supplies. "Val, I repeat, started a war because he was having a fight with his sister."
"Once! In more than forty years!"
"Locke's sleeping with the Lord Commander of the Red Company? Isn't he about twelve?"
"Considering the circumstances that surrounded some of the wars, I would not be so quick as to say that," Marcellus says archly. "Terebinthia. Argue that one for me. Terebinthia, which was supposed to be impossible to take. No one has been able to get within a mile of shore for three thousand years! It was a suicide mission. He was supposed to get the entire Royal Navy and the Army and the Aerial Corps killed! And Locke is seventeen."
"But he succeeded!" Pauli protests, and the door creaks open.
"Will you please stop shouting!" says Cosetta, "Some people in this tower are trying to sleep!"
Pauli pushes himself up and sees Cosetta's expression darken.
"How's your headache, Cos?" Marcellus asks.
"Still splitting," she snaps, "And not helped by certain people shouting. You realise that everyone can hear you? I'll not give a star for your chances if Aunt Vic finds out."
"We are discussing history," Valentine says archly. "And usually the palace is better about such things."
"It's in mourning," she says, and leans against the doorframe, carefully not looking at Pauli, "And this is not the time."
"Hypocrite," Val says, "As if you didn't try and kick the Ansketts out of the Shifting Market-"
"Val," Marcellus pleads.
"No!" Val exclaims. "This is ridiculous, this has been ridiculous for the past nine years."
"'Setta," Pauli says, half desperate, "'Setta, I'm your brother."
"My brother is dead," Cosetta says coldly, "I'm having an early night, Marcellus, don't bother coming round."
And she turns on her heel, and leaves.
"Cosetta!" Marcellus calls after her. "Cosetta!"
Pauli puts his head in his hands. "I shouldn't have come back," he says.
"'Setta's been an unredeemable bitch these last eight years," Val says, "Don't blame yourself."
"I'm going-" Marcellus says, and gets to his feet, heading after her.
"We could follow," says Val, "I'm in need of some entertainment."
Pauli shakes his head. "I'm going --" he says, and doesn't even have time to finish the sentence before Valentine grabs his arm and throws him up against the wall.
"Don't even think about leaving," he says.
"I meant to say, 'going to bed.'"
"All right then," he says, and steps back, "But don't think you can scarper in the night- there'll be a guard on your door."
"Oh, lovely," Pauli says. "Tjorven should love that."
"Try seeing how quiet you can be," Val says, and wiggles his eyebrows, "Night!"
"Night," says Pauli, and heads for the Guest Wing.
It is his bad luck that the route takes him straight past Cosetta's bedroom.
"Cosetta!" he hears Marcellus protest, and then something smashes.
"I told you to out!"
The door flies open, to reveal them both shiloutted against the window, Cosetta with something in her hand.
"'Setta," Marcellus tries, and then Cosetta catches sight of Pauli and turns on him.
"Go away!" she shrieks, "Just go the fuck away and stop fucking up my life."
Pauli goes, and hears something thud against the wall behind him as he does.
Tjorven is sitting in their rooms when he gets there, doing fancy needlework and eyeing the paintings on the walls thoughtfully.
"Hi," Pauli says, leaning over to kiss her cheek.
She turns, so that he hits her lips instead.
"Your cousins are very kind," she says as they separate, "Why did you not tell me?"
Pauli doesn't even try to dissemble.
"I liked not being Lord Pauli Pevensie," he says, "son of Princess-Captain Tahmoh Pevensie, tragically killed at sea by the Red Fleet, and Prince Valentine Pevensie, Lieutenant of the Red Company, who died fighting for Narnia. I liked just being Pauli. I didn't want to lose that."
"You wouldn't have," she says, "It’s not as if I would have told anyone. I would just have liked to know."
"But I didn't know that," Pauli says. He comes around the side of the couch and sits down next to her. "I'm sorry."
"I forgive you," she says, and kisses him again, "Who's that on the wall?"
Pauli glances up. "High King Peter accepting the surrender of the Prince of Terebinthia after the Conquest."
"Your Great-Uncle," Tjorven says thoughtfully, "You don't look like him."
"I'm only half a Pevensie, really, even though both my parents were Pevensies," Pauli says. "My father was half-Shoushani, and my mother was half...well, half something. My grandmother, Queen Lucy, never said who her children's parents were." He pauses. "Did Glasswater show you the chart?"
"Yes. It's complicated. And he said that it only shows legal parents, not necessarily actual ones." She gets up, starts unbuttoning her shirt.
"A number of children have been born out of wedlock," Pauli says. "I was. There are -- legal issues, regarding inheritance."
Tjorven walks backward, shedding her shirt and reaching for one boot at a time. "There's a bed in there," she says. "A very nice one, it looks like."
He pulls off his own clothes, and goes to join her.
*
Breakfast the next morning is...subdued.
There are roughly the same number of people present, but the bodies have changed up, and Pauli finds himself subjected to the rather intense scrutiny of a number of his cousins from the other side of the family, the Seaworth and Paolucci cousins.
Guery sits down next to him, and pours him some coffee, raising his eyebrow at his sister Carelia, who sighs, and moves around to join them, flanking Pauli.
Daneel sweeps in a few minutes later, looking rakish, and swoops down on Pauli as if he's never left at all, crowing his name triumphantly. "Pauli, darling, how are you? Your own ship, really? I'm still just a lieutenant on the Sunrise King, it's a first-rate ship-of-the-line, seventy-six scorpions and thirty-two flamethrowers - Terebinthian fire, you know. Admiral Ettore, of course, you'll like her, you'll have to come see her, she'll be happy to meet you."
"Hullo, Dani," Pauli says, and she laughs and hangs on his neck, kissing his cheek.
"Has anyone bothered to tell you yet? Tombol's got his own ship now, the new aerial carrier, the Queen of Spring! We knew he'd get his own ship, after he took three xebecs during the Battle of the Spearhead, but no one thought it would be the Queen!"
"Congratulations," he calls to Tombol, who is forking ham onto a plate, and flushes.
"Congratulations yourself!" he calls back, and comes down to sit with them, "When do we get to meet your wife? Guery informs us that she is far too good for you."
Pauli looks around for Tjorven, who's hovering in a corner of the room, talking tentatively with a Guard jaguar who has that peculiar trick some of the Guard has, of making themselves look no more harmful than an unusually large pussycat. The jaguar sees his gaze and nudges Tjorven over, padding quietly beside her.
"My cousins," he says, "Daneel and Tombol de la Courcel. And you've met Guery- this is his sister Carelia."
Daneel squeals on a pitch only heard by Dogs, (one of which drops to the ground and casts her a wounded glance) and hugs Tjorven tightly, which Tjorven accepts with good grace.
"Tombol's captain of the Queen of Spring, and Daneel's a lieutenant on the Sunrise King."
"Where are you docked?" Daneel demands. "I'd love to see your ship, Pauli! We used to have longships in the Navy, but that was years and years ago, back during the First Fleet, and they retired the last of them, oh, twenty years before I was born. It's a pity, though, I'd love to handle one, they seem so fast!"
"Compared to aerial carriers," says Tombol.
Pauli quirks an eyebrow at him.
"Oh, don't get me wrong," he says hurriedly, "I love the Queen, and it's an honor to command a carrier. It's just I was hoping for a ship of the line when they promoted me. And there's Luka!"
Luka looks over, and then pointedly ignores all of them, going to get some bread and coffee, and then sitting down in a corner. Daneel deflates.
"I'm sorry," Guery says, "Luka's Coast Guard."
"We're sorry too," Carelia says, with a gleam in her eye. "It's a disgrace to the whole family, really it is. It's almost as bad as having a brother in the Army, but at least Kaspar has the good common sense not to even bother going to sea."
"Where is Kaspar?" Pauli asks, hesitantly; the disappointment each time he's ignored is starting to weigh on him.
"Arn Abedin," Tombol says. "With the garrison there; he just made captain last year."
"They're the children of our Aunt Natascha," says Carelia to Tjorven quietly, "She died in Lasci."
"I think this is almost all of us, actually," says Guery, "Aunt Rakisa didn't have any children, and Aunt Ousama's married to the Prince of Terebinthia, and they've only got one, Chiteme, who I don't think is here yet, though they say the skies are clear, so he ought to get here soon."
"How many cousins do you have?" Tjorven hisses urgently at Pauli.
He tries to count in his head, gives up when he realizes he doesn't know the exact relationships with some of the people he'd grown up with, and tells her the truth. "I've no idea."
She blinks at him. Tombol laughs.
"There's a department of clerks whose sole job is keeping up the family trees of the Royal Family and the Nobility, and their respective successions," he says.
"This particular branch is slightly easier to explain than most of Pauli's family, though," Carelia goes on. "We're cousins on Pauli's father's side; Prince Valentine was our father's half-brother and Tombol and Daneel's mother's half-brother. Luka's father was another half-brother. Our grandmother was Fiorenza Paolucci, she was a general in the Army back when the High King ruled, and our grandfather was Osumare Seaworth, Admiral of the First Fleet. But Pauli's grandfather was --"
"King Edmund, yes," Tjorven says. "I've heard that one." She offers a shy smile.
"And our grandfather was probably not the High King Peter," says Carelia, smiling back, "Oh, and you need to meet with the lawyers sometime, if you're not coming back to stay, then you need to decide what to do with your inheritance."
Pauli can't help the face he pulls. "Lawyers," he says distastefully.
"I suppose that's the good thing about being a pirate," Daneel says cheerfully. "You don't have to deal with the lawyers when it comes to who gets which part of a prize. Tethys, Njord, and Neptune protect us, you've no idea how many times I've wanted to throw them into the sea to stay."
"And that time Advocate Marin tripped over and fell into the harbour," says Tombol, "Complete accident!"
"Of course," Tjorven agrees solemnly.
"The sea spat him back out," Guery confides to Pauli. "Even the harbor wouldn't take a lawyer."
"I don't blame it," says Pauli, and then a voice behind him says, "Good morning, my dears."
Pauli jumps to his feet and bows. "Aunt Rakisa!"
"My dear," she says, and kisses his cheek, "You may as well know now that, due to the, ah, eccentricities of the architecture, every word of your argument last night was audible in Queen Victoria's study. You may have noticed that Valentine and Marcellus aren't here."
"Argument?" Daneel asks. "What kind of argument?"
"History, apparently," Rakisa says. "Finish your breakfast, child; I thought Eleeza had taught you not to ignore your food?"
Daneel cuts a piece of ham, and eats it, and Rakisa turns to Tjorven, and tells her what a pleasure it is to meet her.
"How is Aunt Eleeza?" Pauli asks the gathering at large, "And Uncle Cal?"
"Admiral Ettore lost a hand in the Battle of the Spearhead, but she has a hook now," Daneel says proudly. "And she says it doesn't do her any inconvenience at all, not a bit."
"Cal is Governor of the Lone Islands, and on his way back for the funeral," Rakisa says.
The reminder of the reason they're all there solemnizes the group for a few moments. Pauli still can't quite believe it, any of it, he half expects Aunt Helen to come striding in and make for the breakfast table, Uncle Jack to stumble out of his infirmary having been up all night delivering a baby, Uncle Richard to offer to take him out and ask to have a look at Seven Sisters.
After a few minutes mostly spent decimating her food, Daneel declares, "You haven't seen the Shield Marina in years, Pauli, you must come see it, and your wife, too."
"I don't know," drawls Luka, "Do you really think it’s a good idea to show pirates our defences?"
Daneel drops her fork, and Rakisa sits up even straighter.
"Luka Seaworth," she says, voice dark with menace, "How dare you suggest such a thing."
"Everyone's thinking it," he says.
"Everyone's thinking that you're a dirty-minded pedant with bad breath but no one's saying it," snaps Carelia.
"Carelia," Pauli says quietly, putting his hand on her elbow as she makes to stand up, probably to slap Luka across the face with the gloves tucked into her belt.
"No!" she says, and jerks her arm away, "I won't have-"
"Later, Carelia," Rakisa says gently, "After the funeral, you may challenge him to as many duels as you like. And as for you, young man, I will tell your father of this."
Luka mutters something, and storms out.
"I am charged with messages from the Konungr," Tjorven says, "To express our most sincere sympathy. He was well respected among our people."
"Thank you," says Victoria from the doorway, and she sweeps in, followed by Val and Marcellus, both looking slightly shamefaced.
At the sight of Tjorven and Pauli, though, Val manages up a leer and says, "Good night?"
"Valentine, darling, don't think you're too old not to be rapped over the knuckles with my fan," Victoria says calmly.
Valentine tries to look innocent but it doesn't become him, and he just sits down next to Guery and steals his coffee. Guery doesn't seem to mind, just taking it back when he puts the mug down, and Pauli's stomach twists. This is just another sign that he's been gone too long, missed too many things.
Victoria sits down opposite and asks Tjorven whether the rooms were comfortable ("Yes") and if anyone had taken her down to the crypt ("Um, no.")
"They should," Victoria says, and frowns, "You'll be going down there tomorrow, in the procession, and its best to know where you'll be walking."
"I'll take them," Marcellus volunteers. There's a shadow of a bruise on his cheekbone; it wasn't there yesterday, and Pauli wonders idly where it's from.
Victoria raises an eyebrow at him, and nods. "Take Lucinde with you, once she deigns to haul herself out of bed."
Marcellus arches an eyebrow. "I think I can wake her up more than adequately on my own," he says, sounding far too happy about that fact.
"Don't," says Victoria, "Unlike you, she was up talking to her siblings- not spreading distasteful rumours and having violent, and, I must say, overly loud sex."
"I was talking to my siblings!" Marcellus protests. "And they're not rumors if they're true..."
"Marcellus!" Victoria snaps, "And don't think everyone in the wing doesn't know precisely what you and Cosetta were doing last night."
"If you were having sex with my sister, I don't want to know," Pauli says firmly.
"Lucky you," mutters Val, "The rest of us can't avoid it."
"And this is not really a suitable conversation for the breakfast table," says Victoria, and brings her cup to her lips, effectively ending the conversation.
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