FIC: With the garments of her gladness (part two)
Title: With the Garments of Her Gladness
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian (book)
Author: Ineptshieldmaid
Pairing: Susan/Caspian
Rating: M (PG-13 if you're in the States)
Dedication: I didn't write xxlucyferxx a birthday fic, but I made a Solemn Promise to write Suspian. It's been nearly half a year in the making, but here it is. For Lucy, with much love.
Credit Where Credit Is Due: Plot and characters, as well as some direct dialogue, are drawn from C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian. Some ideas, up to and including the Susan/Caspian pairing, belong to and originate from the Disney and Walden Media movie of the same name. In addition, I owe a conceptual debt to lassiterfics and her fic And Do Not Learn from/Experience for its influence on my characterisation of Susan, here and elsewhere. The digression on female dwarfs is riffing off the genius of Terry Pratchett. The title, for my own obscure reasons, is taken from the Book of Judith 10.3, Douay-Rheims translation, and the poetry Caspian recites is lifted from Chaucer's Book of the Duchess.
Notes: 1) This fic contains so many strange and unexpected bits. I take no responsibility for any of the Strangeness: I blame relocation stress. (For any passing medievalists or religious iconographers, the enclosed garden wrote itself in there without my orders, but I did know what I'd done and was suitably disturbed. And then exploited it.)
2) You might consider this part of my ongoing arc, Of Heroes and Queens.
3) Love and adoration to
tea_fiend, agenttrojie and anachronisma for lengthy beta work.
Go hither for part one
On the third day, King Caspian rode out from the castle of his fathers to inspect the royal domain. He went at the head of a motley sort of cavalcade, with Aslan on his right and his aunt Prunaprismia on his left. Immediately behind them rode the four Kings and Queens of Old, with Lucy on the right and Edmund on the left, and Susan and Peter between them, as their thrones had once been arranged in Cair Paravel. They rode first through the town, Susan fidgeting in the big Telmarine side-saddle and wishing that, for once, she'd followed Lucy's lead and donned trousers. The town was not particularly large: the town at Beruna had been larger, but not by much.
Instead of following the wide road from the castle to the old town gates, they turned and rode through the market district. They went slowly here, for a crowd had turned out: adults and children in even numbers, some there to cheer the new king, some to gawp at the Great Lion, some to see for themselves the creatures of legend who had come out of the woods, and a surprising number of them there to jeer and mock at their own nobility. Lady Prunaprismia was not well loved, Susan realised at once, as the crowd derided her.
'Hark,' Edmund said, nudging his horse nearer hers. Susan frowned a moment, and then her ears made sense of the jeers on either side: there were cries of 'Miraz' bitch!', which was encouraging, since it suggested that Caspian's uncle had been no better liked than his aunt. More interestingly, the townsfolk were shouting 'Archen whore!', and they could only mean Prunaprismia.
'Prunaprismia's not an Archen name,' Susan said.
Edmund shrugged. 'Perhaps she took a new name on her marriage?' Susan merely frowned, and Edmund directed his gaze back at the crowd.
At the steps of the town hall, they dismounted: Peter and Lucy went with Caspian, and a heavy detail of guards, saying they wished to talk with the stall-holders. Caspian, his eyes hopeful, urged Susan to join them - she would see the finest cloths in Narnia, the best-blown glass, and many other wonders. Susan declined, saying she was too hot to walk about, and tried not to think about how the disappointment in his eyes warmed her.
She stood in the shade, with Edmund close beside her. Sprawled on the steps of the town hall, Aslan had Prunaprismia by his forepaw as always, and an assortment of Narnians perched about him, but the two Pevensies kept to one side.
'What don't you see here?' Edmund asked her.
'Sensible summer clothes?' Susan rolled her eyes. It was hot, her dress was warm enough for winter, and even the town women were dressed in chemises and heavy surcoats over their blouses. Besides, that was easier than the answers which bubbled to the surface: she didn't see beavers, there were no beavers in Narnia anymore. She didn't see the Lion banner above the town hall, didn't see the crush of Beasts which used to greet them at every turn. She didn't see the dwarfs selling the fine jewellery she had loved - and she had no money or barter goods anyway.
Edmund ignored her. 'Traders,' he said. 'There are no foreigners here.'
'It's a small town.'
'It's Miraz' - Caspian's - capital. Beruna was the same. Some Archenlanders, but nothing more. No Calormenes, no Galmans, no Terebinthians, not even any Telmarines.'
Susan turned to stare at him. 'These are Telmarines, Ed.'
'No they're not,' he answered. 'They used to be. They don't even speak Telmarine.' Susan hadn't thought of that. She'd once spoken fluent Telmarine, and certainly Caspian's court were not speaking that language now. More worringly, she could not remember so much as a word of Telmarine herself. It had only been a year - and yet the entire language was gone, as if she had never learnt it.
'Hie, Caspian,' Edmund called, as the others turned back towards the horses. 'When was Old Telmarine last spoken in Narnia?'
Caspian shrugged. 'A few months? We use it on ceremonial occasions.'
'You'll want to be changing that, then,' Peter said. 'Here, Ed, look at the metalwork on this.' He tossed a dagger - unsheathed - to his brother, who caught it neatly around the handle.
'Show-off,' Edmund said, with a little shake of his head. 'Looks Calormene to me.'
'I bought it from the local smith.'
'With what money?' Susan asked, a little snippily. 'We're guests here, Peter.' Guests, drifters, encumbrances: nothing to give and nothing to bargain.
'Won it off the Captain of the Guard,' Peter answered her, turning to take the reins of his horse again.
'Wait -' Caspian stopped, looking from one of them to the other. 'What was that about Old Telmarine?'
'You can't expect the Narnians to sit quiet while you conduct court in the Conqueror's tongue,' Peter said, swinging into the saddle as he did.
'Oh,' said Caspian, looking lost. 'But I don't speak Old Narnian very well. Trufflehunter tried to teach me, but...' His voice trailed off, and he tugged nervously at his blond curls.
'What's wrong with the tongue we're using now?' Edmund asked. 'I'll wager more than half the Beasts speak this common tongue more easily than Old Narnian anyway.'
'Wait - Ed...' Susan put out her hand, but Edmund had already turned to mount, and gave no sign of hearing her. Old Narnian? The idea turned her cold - what else had been ripped away in just a year? She opened her mouth and found no words but those she had always spoken: plain and simple English, and nothing peculiar to Narnia at all.
Caspian touched her shoulder. 'My Lady?'
Susan leant involuntarily into the touch. 'Caspian?' He smiled when she spoke his name. 'What are we speaking, if not Old Narnian or Telmarine?'
Caspian shrugged. 'Just Narnian, my Lady.' He managed a nervous smile, and Susan knew he was wondering the same thing as she: if she had spoken Old Narnian as Queen, what was she speaking now and how was it that he understood it? None of her siblings seemed disturbed at all. Was she the only one who had not noticed that her very words had changed? And yet she would have sworn that they had not.
'My lady?' Caspian said, again, and she smiled back, allowing him to help her into the saddle. His hands lingered, settling her skirts about her: a surprising attention to detail, for a young man. Susan put a hand out to him, grazed her fingers along his knuckles, and was rewarded with the shy skittering of his gaze, from her fingers to her face and back again.
The hours before a feast were Susan's solace, when she could get them. When she had good servants and seneschals, when the days were not taken up entirely with meetings and dispatches and balancing accounts: then she could afford these hours, time to bathe and dress and be alone with herself.
If you could call it alone, when you had two Telmarine maids, wide-eyed and wary, following your every move.
'I can do that myself,' Susan snapped, plucking the sponge from the hands of her timid maid. The girls both shrunk back, but did not take their eyes off her at all. It was all rather disconcerting. She'd had maids, ladies in waiting, before: there had been a dryad, at one point, and a badgeress, and later on a couple of girls, daughters of merchants who'd settled in Paravel town. Had they all stared so? She couldn't remember.
The maids towelled her dry with hesitant hands: Susan stood stock still and felt foolish, and then snatched the towel into her own hands as the maids reached her thighs, patting down and nudging her legs apart as if this were a perfectly usual undertaking. Susan turned her back to them and finished drying herself off, working the towel carefully between each of her toes, acutely aware that she was the only one embarrassed.
When she turned around, they were still staring, waiting for her to give some kind of cue. The one took the towels out of her hands, and the other began laying out her garments: big, coarse bloomers, split right through the crotch so that one did not have to undress to use the necessary (or anything else, Susan had thought, but then Telmarine gowns and petticoats were so cumbersome, you could hardly hike them up about your hips or even remove them without a small army of servants).
In the open wardrobe, she caught sight of a familiar rich purple: her own clothes had been laundered and returned to her. Slipping the grasp of the maid with the bloomers, she went to run her hands over the familiar cloth. It was a long, simple gown: it had been many years since she'd worn it - she'd long since outgrown it. Perhaps she had worn it that first midsummer? It was really too good to be traipsing about the woods in, but she supposed she hadn't stored away her simple gowns, her riding skirts and hunting gear.
It looked rather foolish, hanging there next to Caspian's elaborate tunics and cloaks, with her school uniform folded up below them all.
Ordering the maids away, she dressed herself: plain English knickers, feeling snug and somehow comforting, like home and rules she knew well. Plain stockings and suspenders, too, and no petticoat: had she had stockings in Narnia? Petticoats? If she had, no one had stored them away. She laced on the riding boots she'd worn that day, and pulled her dress on over her head. When they'd dressed on Paravel Island, only days ago, she'd thought it was cumbersome, like pulling on a tent. Now, it felt light and easy, and she went down to the feast with a smile on her face.
Gathered on the dais to open the feast, they found that more of Caspian's Telmarine subjects had vacated the court, but number of native Narnians was swelling. The hall was jammed with Men and Beasts and forest folk, all jumbled in together, and none of them looking quite comfortable with the venue or the company.
'Where are they all coming from?' Caspian asked. 'There's more here than were at the How with us.'
'Out of bolt-holes and hiding places, I expect,' Edmund answered him. 'Aslan is here. Word gets around.'
We're here, Susan thought, but perhaps that didn't count for anything any more.
'From the hills of Archenland,' Prunaprismia put in, coming up behind Peter, who made way for her with a showy bow.
'You knew,' Caspian said, not even turning to look at his aunt.
Prunaprismia shrugged, a dainty little lift of the shoulders. 'Shepherd's tales, stories to while away the hours on the high reaches,' she answered. There was a flicker of a smile on her face. 'Like you, cousin, I have seen stories come true.'
'Narnians!' Peter cried, his voice carrying over their conversation and through the hall. 'Tomorrow we ride for Beruna, and the following day - five days after the battle was won - we will bid farewell to those who do not wish to live in a free Narnia!' Shouts went up from the Narnians - shouts of joy and vengeance and victory, while the Telmarine noblemen stood back against the walls and watched. Peter held up his hand again for silence.
'Men of Telmar,' he began. 'Men of Narnia. You have served your kingdom well and faithfully; your families have lived and made their homes here; your ancestors have served true and noble kings.' Now the Beasts were stirring, as Peter held out his hand to Caspian. Caspian took it, let himself be ledto the centre of the dais. Susan caught a glimpse of his face - he had no better idea of what was happening than did Glenstorm, down there in the crowd.
'Many of your comrades,' Peter went on, 'will not stay here: for many of your comrades, the changes Narnia faces are too great.' Every eye in the room was on him - there must have been something magic in it, that way he had of commanding attention, and he had not lost it, not in all the ages since they'd left. 'It is a shame -' Peter's lowered voice still carried right through the room - 'that so many of those who remember Caspian IX will not stay to see his son begin a new page in Narnia's history.' Peter raised Caspian's hand high in the air, the clasped hands of the old king and the new held up for all to see. 'Those of you here tonight: those of you who are willing, and proud, and courageous enough to stay, those who love your country well enough to remain faithful in a time of change - and you Old Narnians, you Beasts and Dwarfs and forest folk, you who will put aside your fear of Men and the past which lies between you, you who will work to make Narnia stronger and bolder and more free - you will all of you write your names at the head of that page. When your children and grandchildren, and their grandchildren after them, come to read that history, the history of the new Narnia, they will remember that it was you who made her great!."
The assembly was silent for a moment. Susan could tell: none of them quite knew what to do. No one ever did, the first time they heard Peter give one of his speeches. A cheer was about to build, they had about thirty seconds before the whole crowd caught on - but then Caspian did something rather unexpected, and let go of Peter's hand, taking a step forward himself. The cheer did happen, but died out raggedly, the crowd now unsure as to who they were cheering for.
'Friends,' Caspian began, and then had to stop as his voice cracked. 'Friends,' he tried again, this time carrying out across the room. 'Tonight we feast, and tomorrow we ride to Beruna. We will feast again tomorrow night, in the woods, as is the Old Narnian custom. Men of Narnia: I ask that you come with us: come with us, and bid farewell to those who have served your country well. And you Old Narnians: I ask that you make them welcome, for these Men will be your countrymen henceforth.'
It was a short speech: Caspian's voice cracked without warning; he lacked all Peter's fire, and his knack for making difficult situations look like heroes' work. Yet the crowd cheered. Susan could see the uneasiness on all their faces, but they cheered anyway, and when Peter looped his arm around Caspian's shoulders, they cheered all the harder.
The feast was long and the hall cleared for dancing afterwards. Susan danced a few of the complicated Telmarine square dances: once with Peter, once with Edmund, and the final dance with a bored-looking nobleman who proclaimed himself to be Caspian's third-cousin-once-removed. At the end of the set, the nobles retired to ornament the walls, while the hall floor was taken up by a trio consisting of a dwarf with a fiddle, a faun with a long reed pipe, and a dryad with a hand-drum. With a start, Susan recognised the tunes: the Fauns and Maenads had always danced more-or-less without fixed steps, but they'd had court dances in their day, jigs and reels and polkas. The steps had changed, the tunes were not quite the same, but the rhythms were all familiar.
That gave her an idea, and as the first dance finished, she made her way across the floor. She was stopped a few feet away from the musicians by Lucy, who caught her around the waist and grinned up at her.
'Dance with me, Su?'
Susan shook her head and shrugged out of Lucy's embrace. 'The fiddle player.' Susan cocked her head in his direction. 'Do you think he still knows any waltzes?'
'I'm sure she does,' Lucy answered, frowning. 'Susan...' Of course, now she remembered: you could tell a dwarf and his wife apart by the beards, which dwarf-wives didn't grow until they were past childbearing age. There was reproach in Lucy's eyes, and Susan turned away.
Caspian found her tucked into a wide window-seat. The stars were bright that night, even by Narnian standards, and Susan had pushed the shutters wide so that she could see the river gleaming and speeding away far below.
When Caspian appeared beside her, she curled her legs up closer to her body, leaving just enough space for him to slide into the window seat with her. Her folded knees were tucked into his side, and Susan allowed Caspian to shift about awkwardly for a moment before reaching out and wrapping her fingers around his wrist.
'In our day,' she said, leaning her cheek against the stone, 'windows like this were a liability.'
Caspian's Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke, and Susan found herself trying not to stare at it, or at the delicate dip of his collarbones beneath. 'Narnia is a peaceful country, now,' he said. 'My ancestors made it so.'
Edmund, Susan knew, would have used this opportunity to grill Caspian about the lack of foreign traders in Telmarine Narnia. Just now, though, Susan wanted to hold onto Caspian's Narnia, to shut herself into his small world with its rich fabrics and ornate gardens. She could stay here, where the greatest war in living memory was a stand-off between a troop of ornamental soldiers and a rag-tag collection of animals from the woods. Perhaps, if she stayed here long enough, she might forget her own wars: forget conquering the Lone Islands, forget the long Calormene war, forget that bombs were falling on London in another life.
Caspian was fretting with the billowing cuffs of his sleeves, and his gaze would not seem to settle on her face.
'Susan - ' he began, and had to stop because her name came out high and cracked. 'Your Majesty,' he went on, as if formality would atone for his wayward vocal chords. 'How long will Aslan remain with us? How long will you remain with us? And your royal siblings, of course.' He was looking at her, but his back was to the torches, and Susan decided she did not want to see, did not want to know if his face showed weakness or resentment. Rather than answer, she reached over and touched her fingers to his cheek. She ran her thumb under his lip, and by Ice and Stone, it should not be this hard to begin that which she had already made up her mind to do.
They both moved at once, and instead of a kiss there was an awkward fumble of noses and hands, and somehow she had to get her legs unfolded before she kneed Caspian in the side a second time. Caspian rested his hands on her shoulders, his fingers fluttering against her neck as if he did not quite dare touch her. Endearing, Susan thought, and tangled her hand in his curls, pulling him close in to her. He resisted, for a moment, and then he had his hand in her hair and his arm around her waist, and Susan arched into him, humming satisfaction against his lips.
He really wasn't very good at this, she thought, in that part of herself which stood aloof and passed judgement. And neither am I, she added. But it was good, it was awkward and foolish and excellent, and she was overwhelmingly glad that this was all Caspian would know of her: Susan who accidentally licked his teeth and who quivered in his arms when his fingers worked beneath the laces of her gown. She cradled the back of his head in her hand and tried everything she could still remember, all the fragmented remains of Queen Susan who broke hearts and played men like the string on her bow. Caspian was a gratifying subject and a quick mimic, giving as good as he took, until Susan's breath shuddered over both their lips and the river breeze blew shockingly cold against the flush on her cheeks.
It was important to have the upper hand. Of that much she was certain: it would not matter if she no longer knew what she was doing; it would not matter if she could not remember if it had always been like this; it would not matter if she was sure that Queen Susan had brought kings trembling to release and been herself unshaken, an artist of other people's weakness - none of that would matter, so long as she had the advantage over Caspian. She first nuzzled at his neck, breathing gently and watching for his tremor in response; then she took to kissing, grazing her lips against the skin, and oh, but Caspian learnt fast. There was nothing for it but to lick and bite, and there, too, he followed her.
They were both breathing in gasps, uneven and raw, and it came into her head that if she could just elicit one proper moan, one real utterance, then she could say she had won. Of course Caspian had no way of knowing that - but he was such a close mimic, kissing like he danced, perfectly in time with her, that how could he not know? He had given up on the attempt to slide his fingers beneath the laces of her gown, and was using his hand instead to pull her hair back from her neck. She ought to feel safe in that, Susan recalled: to be clothed was to be in command. And yet Caspian left hot trails across her neck and she had to bury her face in his shoulder to keep from doing or saying something even more foolish. Revise your assessment of the situation of the situation, Susan: when you limit your own exposure, that which is left becomes your all.
When she could not take any more, Susan dragged Caspian's head up and kissed him, hard and bruising. With her other hand she dragged her skirt up above her knees so that she could face him properly, straddle his knees and push him back into the wall and kiss him again. Caspian's eyes went wide and for a moment she thought she had him - but in the next he had shaken off her hands and straightened up. His arm was around her waist again, and he pulled her down against him, and with the hand in her hair he held her back from his kiss, brushing his lips against hers all too gently and holding her back from seeking them out. She did the only thing she could, and drove her weight against his legs, pushing forward, demanding more contact, that last chance to drag her name from his lips.
A few more strained gasps, and then his hand on her waist was pushing her back. She tried to pull him close again, but young though he was he was by far the stronger.
'Susan,' he managed, getting his breath together. 'Stop. I'm sorry, we shouldn't... I'm sorry, I...'
'Caspian?' She tilted her head just that little bit closer, and felt his hands relax in her hair and against her waist. 'Shut up.'
When they rode out the next morning, Susan knew it would be for the last time. They left Prunaprismia in charge of her nephew's castle, and perhaps that, too, was for the last time. She embraced them all as they left, with that open, impersonal embrace which royalty know so well. But she kissed Susan, once on each cheek, and then softy on the mouth.
'I should have liked to know you better, my dear,' Prunaprismia said softly. 'I believe you were a great woman once.'
Susan swallowed, hard, against all the useless words - once a king or queen - and offered her hand to the woman who had been Queen.
'All I ask,' she said, 'is that you love this country well.'
Prunaprismia offered neither promise nor refusal. When Susan looked back, she stood in the gateway with her babe in her arms, flanked by the castle guards.
In the glade where they had first celebrated their victory, they let loose their horses (the talking Beasts gave word that the saddle horses would not wander away, but the Telmarine nobles hobbled their mounts regardless), and spread out in no particular order. Susan set her back against a tree, and kept the nearest gaggle of Telmarine nobility at the edge of her vision.
'They're here to see what sort of devilry we get up to in the woods, no doubt,' Glenstorm said, coming up beside her.
'You think so?' She shook her head and turned her face up to him. 'They're... more curious than hostile, I think. These folk, at least. The suspicious will be back in the castle, brewing rumours and panic.'
Glenstorm harrumphed. 'You are wise beyond your years, my lady.'
Susan did not bother asking which years he meant.
'You're not gettting out of it this time.' Lucy snagged Susan's arm as she tried to slip away from the group she had been talking to, which had suddenly and without warning turned into a dance. Susan resisted for a moment, and then gave in with good grace, squaring up in line with a dryad on her left and a Telmarine nobleman's daughter on her right. The noble girl had obviously taken a shine to Lucy - she'd had her maids take apart one of her gowns and try to fashion it after the simple dresses Lucy had been wearing. The end result was less than elegant, but the girl was holding up admirably, especially in the face of the fact that Lucy tonight had abandoned the kitchen-maid's gown for what looked like more of Caspian's old clothes. Susan tripped gaily through the first round of the dance, and made a special point of spinning her sister around a half-turn too far at the end, taking her place between an elderly faun and the young fop who was dancing with Lucy's admirer.
'Where were you going?' Lucy huffed, as the dance ended, Susan sweeping a deep bow and receiving a haphazard curtsey in return. Susan shrugged - she'd been going to look for Caspian, but she was hardly going to tell Lucy that. Lucy narrowed her eyes at her, and there was probably no need to tell Lucy anyway.
'Did you still want a waltz?' Lucy asked. 'I asked Eanfleda: she knows the tunes, although they don't actually waltz to them any more.'
'Ean- who?' Susan frowned.
'Eanfleda,' Lucy said. 'The fiddler.'
'Oh. Yes - I...' Susan cast her eye around the clearing, and found only Peter, ducking and dodging his way through the crowd towards them.
'He's over there.' Lucy nodded at an impromptu thicket which had gathered on the far side of the fire. 'With Edmund, and the Maenads.' She smirked a moment, and then added, 'Go and rescue him, then.'
Susan wasn't entirely sure that rescuing Caspian from Bacchus and his womenfolk was a good idea - there was a fair chance he wouldn't want rescuing, and she didn't think she wanted to be there if he didn't. Fortunately, Caspian found her first. She had walked right past him, and he caught her around the waist just before she was out of reach. She thought he might pull her about and kiss her, right there in the middle of everyone (and likely no one would have cared), but he let her go and blushed red to the ears instead.
'Come,' she said, and took his hand. 'I promised to teach you to waltz.'
They danced carefully, Caspian's hand gentle on her hip and the other holding hers carefully between them. Susan rested her other hand on his shoulder and kept her distance: the men and Beasts had cleared a wide space around them, she and Caspian and Peter and Lucy, and they were the focus of everyone's attention.
Caspian watched her their feet for a minute or two, before he was confident that he had the basic steps under control. Susan thought about giving him more complicated directions - reverse turns or spin turns, perhaps - but decided against it. Instead, she let herself sink into the simple slow pattern of it, and tucked herself closer in to Caspian's body. He hummed awkwardly at that, and tried to ease her back with the hand on her hip.
'My lady,' he murmured, low enough that only she could hear. 'By Narnian - that is, by Telmarine standards... well. This is very forward, compared to our dances.'
Susan smiled, and stroked his palm with her fingers. 'We, ah, never worried about that much.' It was at about that point that Caspian caught sight, over her shoulder, of Peter and Lucy: Lucy tucked firmly into her brother's arms and with her head resting on his chest as they waltzed slowly around in a circle. Susan wished the firelight were brighter: Caspian's blush would have been something worth seeing.
The moon rose high over the forest, and soon enough Lucy was sleeping, curled up between Aslan's forepaws. The great Lion was not asleep: he lay wakeful and watching, and for a moment Susan thought she wanted to join them, to curl up against his warm side and sleep safelyone last time.
She followed Caspian down to the river's edge, and they lay side-by-side with the great Narnian sky above them. Caspian wove his fingers in between Susan's, and she held tightly to him.
'How well do you speak Old Narnian?' she asked, and hoped her voice did not betray the nervous flutter in her stomach.
'Badly,' Caspian answered. 'I wouldn't... perhaps you could teach me?'
Susan shook her head. I don't know what it is, she wanted to say, but it must be her own tongue: how could she be a stranger to it now?
'Please,' she said, and her voice wobbled a little. 'Say something for me.'
Caspian, may Aslan reward him, asked no questions. 'Trumpkin taught me some poetry,' he said. 'It's about a great hunt:
The mayster-hunt annon, fot-hot,
With a gret horn blew thre mot
At the uncouplingge of hys houndes.
Withynne a while the hert yfounde ys,
Yhalowed, and rechased faste
Longe tyme; and so at the laste
This hert rused and staal away
Fro alle the houndes a privy way.
The houndes had overshote hym alle
And were on a defaute yfalle.
Therewyth the hunte wonder faste
Blew a forloyn at the last.
His accent was bad, she knew at once, and the emphasis all wrong. But for all that... meaning hovered just out of her reach, like a conversation overheard through a wall. Close enough that she ought to know it, familiar as her own flesh and bone, and yet so far removed.
She bit back a sigh, and said thank you and let him pull her into his arms, her hands in his hair and his leg between hers. This time, though, it was she who pulled away, who breathed 'enough,' although it wasn't, it really wasn't, it was fifteen years of not enough.
Caspian ran his hand through his rumpled hair, and apologised. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'We shouldn't,' just as he had said the day before.
'No,' she corrected. 'I shouldn't.' She kissed him again, close-mouthed and hard, and got up and left, before any more questions could be asked, or explanations offered.
Dawn was fuzzy on the horizon, and in the clearing where they had feasted, only Aslan was awake. He saw Susan and nodded, his great eyes like lamps in the half-light. She was gathering her courage to go up to him, to lie down between his paws if even for one last hour, when Peter materialised at her side. He looked weary, and solemn, and each of them knew at once that the other, too, had realised they were leaving.
Susan wrapped her arms around her brother, and these were the things she noticed at once: that he was taller than her, and he had grown stronger and more sturdy in the days they had spent here.
Peter rested his hand against the back of her head and promised her, 'It won't be forever. Just like last time. Once a King or Queen...' He said it like a vow, and she heard it like a sentence.
You know already, before Aslan speaks: 'My children, you will never return to Narnia.'
Peter looks as if he has been kicked in the gut. You realise he had not expected this, this finality, the ultimate deposition. You take his hand and wish you could repeat the Professor's promise back to him, wish you could say always and mean it.
'You have learned all you can here,' Aslan continues. 'It is time to find your place in your own world.' When he breathes on Peter, you can see the change at once: your brother stands taller, squares his shoulders, and you wonder if you will ever look at him and not see the High King.
When Aslan breathes upon you, you feel the same regardless. No courage and no fear, only your own knowledge: it is over. You wrap your arms around the Lion's neck, and vow that you will always think of him. It helps to make that promise, to stand against the dread that you might not.
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian (book)
Author: Ineptshieldmaid
Pairing: Susan/Caspian
Rating: M (PG-13 if you're in the States)
Dedication: I didn't write xxlucyferxx a birthday fic, but I made a Solemn Promise to write Suspian. It's been nearly half a year in the making, but here it is. For Lucy, with much love.
Credit Where Credit Is Due: Plot and characters, as well as some direct dialogue, are drawn from C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian. Some ideas, up to and including the Susan/Caspian pairing, belong to and originate from the Disney and Walden Media movie of the same name. In addition, I owe a conceptual debt to lassiterfics and her fic And Do Not Learn from/Experience for its influence on my characterisation of Susan, here and elsewhere. The digression on female dwarfs is riffing off the genius of Terry Pratchett. The title, for my own obscure reasons, is taken from the Book of Judith 10.3, Douay-Rheims translation, and the poetry Caspian recites is lifted from Chaucer's Book of the Duchess.
Notes: 1) This fic contains so many strange and unexpected bits. I take no responsibility for any of the Strangeness: I blame relocation stress. (For any passing medievalists or religious iconographers, the enclosed garden wrote itself in there without my orders, but I did know what I'd done and was suitably disturbed. And then exploited it.)
2) You might consider this part of my ongoing arc, Of Heroes and Queens.
3) Love and adoration to
tea_fiend, agenttrojie and anachronisma for lengthy beta work.
Go hither for part one
On the third day, King Caspian rode out from the castle of his fathers to inspect the royal domain. He went at the head of a motley sort of cavalcade, with Aslan on his right and his aunt Prunaprismia on his left. Immediately behind them rode the four Kings and Queens of Old, with Lucy on the right and Edmund on the left, and Susan and Peter between them, as their thrones had once been arranged in Cair Paravel. They rode first through the town, Susan fidgeting in the big Telmarine side-saddle and wishing that, for once, she'd followed Lucy's lead and donned trousers. The town was not particularly large: the town at Beruna had been larger, but not by much.
Instead of following the wide road from the castle to the old town gates, they turned and rode through the market district. They went slowly here, for a crowd had turned out: adults and children in even numbers, some there to cheer the new king, some to gawp at the Great Lion, some to see for themselves the creatures of legend who had come out of the woods, and a surprising number of them there to jeer and mock at their own nobility. Lady Prunaprismia was not well loved, Susan realised at once, as the crowd derided her.
'Hark,' Edmund said, nudging his horse nearer hers. Susan frowned a moment, and then her ears made sense of the jeers on either side: there were cries of 'Miraz' bitch!', which was encouraging, since it suggested that Caspian's uncle had been no better liked than his aunt. More interestingly, the townsfolk were shouting 'Archen whore!', and they could only mean Prunaprismia.
'Prunaprismia's not an Archen name,' Susan said.
Edmund shrugged. 'Perhaps she took a new name on her marriage?' Susan merely frowned, and Edmund directed his gaze back at the crowd.
At the steps of the town hall, they dismounted: Peter and Lucy went with Caspian, and a heavy detail of guards, saying they wished to talk with the stall-holders. Caspian, his eyes hopeful, urged Susan to join them - she would see the finest cloths in Narnia, the best-blown glass, and many other wonders. Susan declined, saying she was too hot to walk about, and tried not to think about how the disappointment in his eyes warmed her.
She stood in the shade, with Edmund close beside her. Sprawled on the steps of the town hall, Aslan had Prunaprismia by his forepaw as always, and an assortment of Narnians perched about him, but the two Pevensies kept to one side.
'What don't you see here?' Edmund asked her.
'Sensible summer clothes?' Susan rolled her eyes. It was hot, her dress was warm enough for winter, and even the town women were dressed in chemises and heavy surcoats over their blouses. Besides, that was easier than the answers which bubbled to the surface: she didn't see beavers, there were no beavers in Narnia anymore. She didn't see the Lion banner above the town hall, didn't see the crush of Beasts which used to greet them at every turn. She didn't see the dwarfs selling the fine jewellery she had loved - and she had no money or barter goods anyway.
Edmund ignored her. 'Traders,' he said. 'There are no foreigners here.'
'It's a small town.'
'It's Miraz' - Caspian's - capital. Beruna was the same. Some Archenlanders, but nothing more. No Calormenes, no Galmans, no Terebinthians, not even any Telmarines.'
Susan turned to stare at him. 'These are Telmarines, Ed.'
'No they're not,' he answered. 'They used to be. They don't even speak Telmarine.' Susan hadn't thought of that. She'd once spoken fluent Telmarine, and certainly Caspian's court were not speaking that language now. More worringly, she could not remember so much as a word of Telmarine herself. It had only been a year - and yet the entire language was gone, as if she had never learnt it.
'Hie, Caspian,' Edmund called, as the others turned back towards the horses. 'When was Old Telmarine last spoken in Narnia?'
Caspian shrugged. 'A few months? We use it on ceremonial occasions.'
'You'll want to be changing that, then,' Peter said. 'Here, Ed, look at the metalwork on this.' He tossed a dagger - unsheathed - to his brother, who caught it neatly around the handle.
'Show-off,' Edmund said, with a little shake of his head. 'Looks Calormene to me.'
'I bought it from the local smith.'
'With what money?' Susan asked, a little snippily. 'We're guests here, Peter.' Guests, drifters, encumbrances: nothing to give and nothing to bargain.
'Won it off the Captain of the Guard,' Peter answered her, turning to take the reins of his horse again.
'Wait -' Caspian stopped, looking from one of them to the other. 'What was that about Old Telmarine?'
'You can't expect the Narnians to sit quiet while you conduct court in the Conqueror's tongue,' Peter said, swinging into the saddle as he did.
'Oh,' said Caspian, looking lost. 'But I don't speak Old Narnian very well. Trufflehunter tried to teach me, but...' His voice trailed off, and he tugged nervously at his blond curls.
'What's wrong with the tongue we're using now?' Edmund asked. 'I'll wager more than half the Beasts speak this common tongue more easily than Old Narnian anyway.'
'Wait - Ed...' Susan put out her hand, but Edmund had already turned to mount, and gave no sign of hearing her. Old Narnian? The idea turned her cold - what else had been ripped away in just a year? She opened her mouth and found no words but those she had always spoken: plain and simple English, and nothing peculiar to Narnia at all.
Caspian touched her shoulder. 'My Lady?'
Susan leant involuntarily into the touch. 'Caspian?' He smiled when she spoke his name. 'What are we speaking, if not Old Narnian or Telmarine?'
Caspian shrugged. 'Just Narnian, my Lady.' He managed a nervous smile, and Susan knew he was wondering the same thing as she: if she had spoken Old Narnian as Queen, what was she speaking now and how was it that he understood it? None of her siblings seemed disturbed at all. Was she the only one who had not noticed that her very words had changed? And yet she would have sworn that they had not.
'My lady?' Caspian said, again, and she smiled back, allowing him to help her into the saddle. His hands lingered, settling her skirts about her: a surprising attention to detail, for a young man. Susan put a hand out to him, grazed her fingers along his knuckles, and was rewarded with the shy skittering of his gaze, from her fingers to her face and back again.
The hours before a feast were Susan's solace, when she could get them. When she had good servants and seneschals, when the days were not taken up entirely with meetings and dispatches and balancing accounts: then she could afford these hours, time to bathe and dress and be alone with herself.
If you could call it alone, when you had two Telmarine maids, wide-eyed and wary, following your every move.
'I can do that myself,' Susan snapped, plucking the sponge from the hands of her timid maid. The girls both shrunk back, but did not take their eyes off her at all. It was all rather disconcerting. She'd had maids, ladies in waiting, before: there had been a dryad, at one point, and a badgeress, and later on a couple of girls, daughters of merchants who'd settled in Paravel town. Had they all stared so? She couldn't remember.
The maids towelled her dry with hesitant hands: Susan stood stock still and felt foolish, and then snatched the towel into her own hands as the maids reached her thighs, patting down and nudging her legs apart as if this were a perfectly usual undertaking. Susan turned her back to them and finished drying herself off, working the towel carefully between each of her toes, acutely aware that she was the only one embarrassed.
When she turned around, they were still staring, waiting for her to give some kind of cue. The one took the towels out of her hands, and the other began laying out her garments: big, coarse bloomers, split right through the crotch so that one did not have to undress to use the necessary (or anything else, Susan had thought, but then Telmarine gowns and petticoats were so cumbersome, you could hardly hike them up about your hips or even remove them without a small army of servants).
In the open wardrobe, she caught sight of a familiar rich purple: her own clothes had been laundered and returned to her. Slipping the grasp of the maid with the bloomers, she went to run her hands over the familiar cloth. It was a long, simple gown: it had been many years since she'd worn it - she'd long since outgrown it. Perhaps she had worn it that first midsummer? It was really too good to be traipsing about the woods in, but she supposed she hadn't stored away her simple gowns, her riding skirts and hunting gear.
It looked rather foolish, hanging there next to Caspian's elaborate tunics and cloaks, with her school uniform folded up below them all.
Ordering the maids away, she dressed herself: plain English knickers, feeling snug and somehow comforting, like home and rules she knew well. Plain stockings and suspenders, too, and no petticoat: had she had stockings in Narnia? Petticoats? If she had, no one had stored them away. She laced on the riding boots she'd worn that day, and pulled her dress on over her head. When they'd dressed on Paravel Island, only days ago, she'd thought it was cumbersome, like pulling on a tent. Now, it felt light and easy, and she went down to the feast with a smile on her face.
Gathered on the dais to open the feast, they found that more of Caspian's Telmarine subjects had vacated the court, but number of native Narnians was swelling. The hall was jammed with Men and Beasts and forest folk, all jumbled in together, and none of them looking quite comfortable with the venue or the company.
'Where are they all coming from?' Caspian asked. 'There's more here than were at the How with us.'
'Out of bolt-holes and hiding places, I expect,' Edmund answered him. 'Aslan is here. Word gets around.'
We're here, Susan thought, but perhaps that didn't count for anything any more.
'From the hills of Archenland,' Prunaprismia put in, coming up behind Peter, who made way for her with a showy bow.
'You knew,' Caspian said, not even turning to look at his aunt.
Prunaprismia shrugged, a dainty little lift of the shoulders. 'Shepherd's tales, stories to while away the hours on the high reaches,' she answered. There was a flicker of a smile on her face. 'Like you, cousin, I have seen stories come true.'
'Narnians!' Peter cried, his voice carrying over their conversation and through the hall. 'Tomorrow we ride for Beruna, and the following day - five days after the battle was won - we will bid farewell to those who do not wish to live in a free Narnia!' Shouts went up from the Narnians - shouts of joy and vengeance and victory, while the Telmarine noblemen stood back against the walls and watched. Peter held up his hand again for silence.
'Men of Telmar,' he began. 'Men of Narnia. You have served your kingdom well and faithfully; your families have lived and made their homes here; your ancestors have served true and noble kings.' Now the Beasts were stirring, as Peter held out his hand to Caspian. Caspian took it, let himself be ledto the centre of the dais. Susan caught a glimpse of his face - he had no better idea of what was happening than did Glenstorm, down there in the crowd.
'Many of your comrades,' Peter went on, 'will not stay here: for many of your comrades, the changes Narnia faces are too great.' Every eye in the room was on him - there must have been something magic in it, that way he had of commanding attention, and he had not lost it, not in all the ages since they'd left. 'It is a shame -' Peter's lowered voice still carried right through the room - 'that so many of those who remember Caspian IX will not stay to see his son begin a new page in Narnia's history.' Peter raised Caspian's hand high in the air, the clasped hands of the old king and the new held up for all to see. 'Those of you here tonight: those of you who are willing, and proud, and courageous enough to stay, those who love your country well enough to remain faithful in a time of change - and you Old Narnians, you Beasts and Dwarfs and forest folk, you who will put aside your fear of Men and the past which lies between you, you who will work to make Narnia stronger and bolder and more free - you will all of you write your names at the head of that page. When your children and grandchildren, and their grandchildren after them, come to read that history, the history of the new Narnia, they will remember that it was you who made her great!."
The assembly was silent for a moment. Susan could tell: none of them quite knew what to do. No one ever did, the first time they heard Peter give one of his speeches. A cheer was about to build, they had about thirty seconds before the whole crowd caught on - but then Caspian did something rather unexpected, and let go of Peter's hand, taking a step forward himself. The cheer did happen, but died out raggedly, the crowd now unsure as to who they were cheering for.
'Friends,' Caspian began, and then had to stop as his voice cracked. 'Friends,' he tried again, this time carrying out across the room. 'Tonight we feast, and tomorrow we ride to Beruna. We will feast again tomorrow night, in the woods, as is the Old Narnian custom. Men of Narnia: I ask that you come with us: come with us, and bid farewell to those who have served your country well. And you Old Narnians: I ask that you make them welcome, for these Men will be your countrymen henceforth.'
It was a short speech: Caspian's voice cracked without warning; he lacked all Peter's fire, and his knack for making difficult situations look like heroes' work. Yet the crowd cheered. Susan could see the uneasiness on all their faces, but they cheered anyway, and when Peter looped his arm around Caspian's shoulders, they cheered all the harder.
The feast was long and the hall cleared for dancing afterwards. Susan danced a few of the complicated Telmarine square dances: once with Peter, once with Edmund, and the final dance with a bored-looking nobleman who proclaimed himself to be Caspian's third-cousin-once-removed. At the end of the set, the nobles retired to ornament the walls, while the hall floor was taken up by a trio consisting of a dwarf with a fiddle, a faun with a long reed pipe, and a dryad with a hand-drum. With a start, Susan recognised the tunes: the Fauns and Maenads had always danced more-or-less without fixed steps, but they'd had court dances in their day, jigs and reels and polkas. The steps had changed, the tunes were not quite the same, but the rhythms were all familiar.
That gave her an idea, and as the first dance finished, she made her way across the floor. She was stopped a few feet away from the musicians by Lucy, who caught her around the waist and grinned up at her.
'Dance with me, Su?'
Susan shook her head and shrugged out of Lucy's embrace. 'The fiddle player.' Susan cocked her head in his direction. 'Do you think he still knows any waltzes?'
'I'm sure she does,' Lucy answered, frowning. 'Susan...' Of course, now she remembered: you could tell a dwarf and his wife apart by the beards, which dwarf-wives didn't grow until they were past childbearing age. There was reproach in Lucy's eyes, and Susan turned away.
Caspian found her tucked into a wide window-seat. The stars were bright that night, even by Narnian standards, and Susan had pushed the shutters wide so that she could see the river gleaming and speeding away far below.
When Caspian appeared beside her, she curled her legs up closer to her body, leaving just enough space for him to slide into the window seat with her. Her folded knees were tucked into his side, and Susan allowed Caspian to shift about awkwardly for a moment before reaching out and wrapping her fingers around his wrist.
'In our day,' she said, leaning her cheek against the stone, 'windows like this were a liability.'
Caspian's Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke, and Susan found herself trying not to stare at it, or at the delicate dip of his collarbones beneath. 'Narnia is a peaceful country, now,' he said. 'My ancestors made it so.'
Edmund, Susan knew, would have used this opportunity to grill Caspian about the lack of foreign traders in Telmarine Narnia. Just now, though, Susan wanted to hold onto Caspian's Narnia, to shut herself into his small world with its rich fabrics and ornate gardens. She could stay here, where the greatest war in living memory was a stand-off between a troop of ornamental soldiers and a rag-tag collection of animals from the woods. Perhaps, if she stayed here long enough, she might forget her own wars: forget conquering the Lone Islands, forget the long Calormene war, forget that bombs were falling on London in another life.
Caspian was fretting with the billowing cuffs of his sleeves, and his gaze would not seem to settle on her face.
'Susan - ' he began, and had to stop because her name came out high and cracked. 'Your Majesty,' he went on, as if formality would atone for his wayward vocal chords. 'How long will Aslan remain with us? How long will you remain with us? And your royal siblings, of course.' He was looking at her, but his back was to the torches, and Susan decided she did not want to see, did not want to know if his face showed weakness or resentment. Rather than answer, she reached over and touched her fingers to his cheek. She ran her thumb under his lip, and by Ice and Stone, it should not be this hard to begin that which she had already made up her mind to do.
They both moved at once, and instead of a kiss there was an awkward fumble of noses and hands, and somehow she had to get her legs unfolded before she kneed Caspian in the side a second time. Caspian rested his hands on her shoulders, his fingers fluttering against her neck as if he did not quite dare touch her. Endearing, Susan thought, and tangled her hand in his curls, pulling him close in to her. He resisted, for a moment, and then he had his hand in her hair and his arm around her waist, and Susan arched into him, humming satisfaction against his lips.
He really wasn't very good at this, she thought, in that part of herself which stood aloof and passed judgement. And neither am I, she added. But it was good, it was awkward and foolish and excellent, and she was overwhelmingly glad that this was all Caspian would know of her: Susan who accidentally licked his teeth and who quivered in his arms when his fingers worked beneath the laces of her gown. She cradled the back of his head in her hand and tried everything she could still remember, all the fragmented remains of Queen Susan who broke hearts and played men like the string on her bow. Caspian was a gratifying subject and a quick mimic, giving as good as he took, until Susan's breath shuddered over both their lips and the river breeze blew shockingly cold against the flush on her cheeks.
It was important to have the upper hand. Of that much she was certain: it would not matter if she no longer knew what she was doing; it would not matter if she could not remember if it had always been like this; it would not matter if she was sure that Queen Susan had brought kings trembling to release and been herself unshaken, an artist of other people's weakness - none of that would matter, so long as she had the advantage over Caspian. She first nuzzled at his neck, breathing gently and watching for his tremor in response; then she took to kissing, grazing her lips against the skin, and oh, but Caspian learnt fast. There was nothing for it but to lick and bite, and there, too, he followed her.
They were both breathing in gasps, uneven and raw, and it came into her head that if she could just elicit one proper moan, one real utterance, then she could say she had won. Of course Caspian had no way of knowing that - but he was such a close mimic, kissing like he danced, perfectly in time with her, that how could he not know? He had given up on the attempt to slide his fingers beneath the laces of her gown, and was using his hand instead to pull her hair back from her neck. She ought to feel safe in that, Susan recalled: to be clothed was to be in command. And yet Caspian left hot trails across her neck and she had to bury her face in his shoulder to keep from doing or saying something even more foolish. Revise your assessment of the situation of the situation, Susan: when you limit your own exposure, that which is left becomes your all.
When she could not take any more, Susan dragged Caspian's head up and kissed him, hard and bruising. With her other hand she dragged her skirt up above her knees so that she could face him properly, straddle his knees and push him back into the wall and kiss him again. Caspian's eyes went wide and for a moment she thought she had him - but in the next he had shaken off her hands and straightened up. His arm was around her waist again, and he pulled her down against him, and with the hand in her hair he held her back from his kiss, brushing his lips against hers all too gently and holding her back from seeking them out. She did the only thing she could, and drove her weight against his legs, pushing forward, demanding more contact, that last chance to drag her name from his lips.
A few more strained gasps, and then his hand on her waist was pushing her back. She tried to pull him close again, but young though he was he was by far the stronger.
'Susan,' he managed, getting his breath together. 'Stop. I'm sorry, we shouldn't... I'm sorry, I...'
'Caspian?' She tilted her head just that little bit closer, and felt his hands relax in her hair and against her waist. 'Shut up.'
When they rode out the next morning, Susan knew it would be for the last time. They left Prunaprismia in charge of her nephew's castle, and perhaps that, too, was for the last time. She embraced them all as they left, with that open, impersonal embrace which royalty know so well. But she kissed Susan, once on each cheek, and then softy on the mouth.
'I should have liked to know you better, my dear,' Prunaprismia said softly. 'I believe you were a great woman once.'
Susan swallowed, hard, against all the useless words - once a king or queen - and offered her hand to the woman who had been Queen.
'All I ask,' she said, 'is that you love this country well.'
Prunaprismia offered neither promise nor refusal. When Susan looked back, she stood in the gateway with her babe in her arms, flanked by the castle guards.
In the glade where they had first celebrated their victory, they let loose their horses (the talking Beasts gave word that the saddle horses would not wander away, but the Telmarine nobles hobbled their mounts regardless), and spread out in no particular order. Susan set her back against a tree, and kept the nearest gaggle of Telmarine nobility at the edge of her vision.
'They're here to see what sort of devilry we get up to in the woods, no doubt,' Glenstorm said, coming up beside her.
'You think so?' She shook her head and turned her face up to him. 'They're... more curious than hostile, I think. These folk, at least. The suspicious will be back in the castle, brewing rumours and panic.'
Glenstorm harrumphed. 'You are wise beyond your years, my lady.'
Susan did not bother asking which years he meant.
'You're not gettting out of it this time.' Lucy snagged Susan's arm as she tried to slip away from the group she had been talking to, which had suddenly and without warning turned into a dance. Susan resisted for a moment, and then gave in with good grace, squaring up in line with a dryad on her left and a Telmarine nobleman's daughter on her right. The noble girl had obviously taken a shine to Lucy - she'd had her maids take apart one of her gowns and try to fashion it after the simple dresses Lucy had been wearing. The end result was less than elegant, but the girl was holding up admirably, especially in the face of the fact that Lucy tonight had abandoned the kitchen-maid's gown for what looked like more of Caspian's old clothes. Susan tripped gaily through the first round of the dance, and made a special point of spinning her sister around a half-turn too far at the end, taking her place between an elderly faun and the young fop who was dancing with Lucy's admirer.
'Where were you going?' Lucy huffed, as the dance ended, Susan sweeping a deep bow and receiving a haphazard curtsey in return. Susan shrugged - she'd been going to look for Caspian, but she was hardly going to tell Lucy that. Lucy narrowed her eyes at her, and there was probably no need to tell Lucy anyway.
'Did you still want a waltz?' Lucy asked. 'I asked Eanfleda: she knows the tunes, although they don't actually waltz to them any more.'
'Ean- who?' Susan frowned.
'Eanfleda,' Lucy said. 'The fiddler.'
'Oh. Yes - I...' Susan cast her eye around the clearing, and found only Peter, ducking and dodging his way through the crowd towards them.
'He's over there.' Lucy nodded at an impromptu thicket which had gathered on the far side of the fire. 'With Edmund, and the Maenads.' She smirked a moment, and then added, 'Go and rescue him, then.'
Susan wasn't entirely sure that rescuing Caspian from Bacchus and his womenfolk was a good idea - there was a fair chance he wouldn't want rescuing, and she didn't think she wanted to be there if he didn't. Fortunately, Caspian found her first. She had walked right past him, and he caught her around the waist just before she was out of reach. She thought he might pull her about and kiss her, right there in the middle of everyone (and likely no one would have cared), but he let her go and blushed red to the ears instead.
'Come,' she said, and took his hand. 'I promised to teach you to waltz.'
They danced carefully, Caspian's hand gentle on her hip and the other holding hers carefully between them. Susan rested her other hand on his shoulder and kept her distance: the men and Beasts had cleared a wide space around them, she and Caspian and Peter and Lucy, and they were the focus of everyone's attention.
Caspian watched her their feet for a minute or two, before he was confident that he had the basic steps under control. Susan thought about giving him more complicated directions - reverse turns or spin turns, perhaps - but decided against it. Instead, she let herself sink into the simple slow pattern of it, and tucked herself closer in to Caspian's body. He hummed awkwardly at that, and tried to ease her back with the hand on her hip.
'My lady,' he murmured, low enough that only she could hear. 'By Narnian - that is, by Telmarine standards... well. This is very forward, compared to our dances.'
Susan smiled, and stroked his palm with her fingers. 'We, ah, never worried about that much.' It was at about that point that Caspian caught sight, over her shoulder, of Peter and Lucy: Lucy tucked firmly into her brother's arms and with her head resting on his chest as they waltzed slowly around in a circle. Susan wished the firelight were brighter: Caspian's blush would have been something worth seeing.
The moon rose high over the forest, and soon enough Lucy was sleeping, curled up between Aslan's forepaws. The great Lion was not asleep: he lay wakeful and watching, and for a moment Susan thought she wanted to join them, to curl up against his warm side and sleep safelyone last time.
She followed Caspian down to the river's edge, and they lay side-by-side with the great Narnian sky above them. Caspian wove his fingers in between Susan's, and she held tightly to him.
'How well do you speak Old Narnian?' she asked, and hoped her voice did not betray the nervous flutter in her stomach.
'Badly,' Caspian answered. 'I wouldn't... perhaps you could teach me?'
Susan shook her head. I don't know what it is, she wanted to say, but it must be her own tongue: how could she be a stranger to it now?
'Please,' she said, and her voice wobbled a little. 'Say something for me.'
Caspian, may Aslan reward him, asked no questions. 'Trumpkin taught me some poetry,' he said. 'It's about a great hunt:
The mayster-hunt annon, fot-hot,
With a gret horn blew thre mot
At the uncouplingge of hys houndes.
Withynne a while the hert yfounde ys,
Yhalowed, and rechased faste
Longe tyme; and so at the laste
This hert rused and staal away
Fro alle the houndes a privy way.
The houndes had overshote hym alle
And were on a defaute yfalle.
Therewyth the hunte wonder faste
Blew a forloyn at the last.
His accent was bad, she knew at once, and the emphasis all wrong. But for all that... meaning hovered just out of her reach, like a conversation overheard through a wall. Close enough that she ought to know it, familiar as her own flesh and bone, and yet so far removed.
She bit back a sigh, and said thank you and let him pull her into his arms, her hands in his hair and his leg between hers. This time, though, it was she who pulled away, who breathed 'enough,' although it wasn't, it really wasn't, it was fifteen years of not enough.
Caspian ran his hand through his rumpled hair, and apologised. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'We shouldn't,' just as he had said the day before.
'No,' she corrected. 'I shouldn't.' She kissed him again, close-mouthed and hard, and got up and left, before any more questions could be asked, or explanations offered.
Dawn was fuzzy on the horizon, and in the clearing where they had feasted, only Aslan was awake. He saw Susan and nodded, his great eyes like lamps in the half-light. She was gathering her courage to go up to him, to lie down between his paws if even for one last hour, when Peter materialised at her side. He looked weary, and solemn, and each of them knew at once that the other, too, had realised they were leaving.
Susan wrapped her arms around her brother, and these were the things she noticed at once: that he was taller than her, and he had grown stronger and more sturdy in the days they had spent here.
Peter rested his hand against the back of her head and promised her, 'It won't be forever. Just like last time. Once a King or Queen...' He said it like a vow, and she heard it like a sentence.
You know already, before Aslan speaks: 'My children, you will never return to Narnia.'
Peter looks as if he has been kicked in the gut. You realise he had not expected this, this finality, the ultimate deposition. You take his hand and wish you could repeat the Professor's promise back to him, wish you could say always and mean it.
'You have learned all you can here,' Aslan continues. 'It is time to find your place in your own world.' When he breathes on Peter, you can see the change at once: your brother stands taller, squares his shoulders, and you wonder if you will ever look at him and not see the High King.
When Aslan breathes upon you, you feel the same regardless. No courage and no fear, only your own knowledge: it is over. You wrap your arms around the Lion's neck, and vow that you will always think of him. It helps to make that promise, to stand against the dread that you might not.