What I did over my summer vacation, Part 2
That afternoon it was hot and stuffy in the castle and the code’s provisions regarding tax exempt status for certain accounts and commercial associations even more impenetrable than usual. Edmund could see why certain entities might as a matter of policy, enjoy such status but found the exceptions themselves frustratingly arbitrary and Morgan could provide no illumination. "I only deal with profit-making entities, Harold," she had said with an irritatingly superior sniff. "Just memorize the exceptions and if you want to understand the whys, consult with an expert."
Rather than arguing with her, they left for the beach. At Morgan’s suggestion, they picked their way to the end of the quay. It had not been an easy walk for her for they had to scramble over the spray soaked rocks. Edmund suspected she had selected the place deliberately, for neither Jina nor Jalur liked the wet, rocky, narrow quay and would satisfy their duty by waiting at the end of the jetty, at a distance likely out of even Jina’s earshot.
Finally reaching the quay’s end, Morgan had wordlessly settled on a sturdy outcropping. Edmund joined her and together they dangled their feet in the tidal pools. She had turned a deep brown from the summer sun. His imagination had taken the opportunity to connect ever freckle that had bloomed on her skin. His intellect had determined that the constellation spreading from her shoulder to back was very like the Narnia Leopard.
The Gulls were fighting over fish. After an especially raucous exchange and some salty words, Edmund had had enough and bellowed at the Birds, “Friends! Please take your argument away from your King!” With squawks of apologies, the Gulls flew further down the quay.
“I am sorry,” Edmund said, bumping against her shoulder. “They are sometimes as bad as Crows, really.”
She shrugged. “They did leave. The Otters would have argued with you until Jalur chased them away.”
With a deepening frown, Morgan watched the Birds fighting over bits of bloodied fish.
“Am I as bad as that?” she suddenly blurted.
Edmund’s imagination, which had been visualizing the freckles that had blossomed on her breast in the summer sun, yelped and slunk away, concluding that this could only lead to some sort of disagreeable and frightening personal discussion.
His intellect, Edmund knew from painful experience, was not well-suited to a conversation begun thus either, but was willing to give it a go. At least if she stormed off in an emotional huff, Morgan would not be able to go very far or fast without falling into the harbour.
“As bad as what?” he began tentatively.
“I’ve heard it said that I have the manners of a Crow.” Morgan tilted her head in the direction of the Gulls. “And you said the Gulls are almost as bad as they are. So, am I as bad as they are?”
His imagination crawled deeper into its hole.
“Well no,” Edmund began, wishing the rest of him could follow his imagination into the burrow.
“No?”
“You do not swear as the Gulls do.”
She snorted. “Now who is Crow like?”
Edmund put his hands, palms up, conceding the point. “In some contexts, I admit to not being especially adroit.”
“Such as a discussion like this one?”
He nodded. “I do very poorly at it and avoid it at all costs.” Morgan had not shown herself to be the delicate and sensitive type. It was one reason why they had… Here, his intellect and imagination both froze up, for it really was beyond his ken to describe what they had both been enjoying other than that it had been characterized by the refreshing absence of this uncomfortable personal talk and the whole of him wished it to continue.
“Because she ends up invariably calling you Ass or Brute? Or lazy arse, brother, father, or Peter?”
He felt a little abashed recalling that first, very cavalier conversation of theirs in the Tower Library. “Yes. There is also usually yelling. Objects thrown at my head. And elaborate apologies Susan holds me to making at arrow point.”
“And Jalur criticizes?”
“Oddly, not typically. I do not think he has liked my past lovers over much.”
“Yet, he is tolerating a Crow now?”
“Well, he has to, being a Guard to his Monarch.”
Belatedly, Edmund realized this was just the sort of blunt statement that always resulted in the crying, yelling, and thrown pottery.
Yet, the expected eruption did not come. Morgan just shook her head. “Harold, I may be a Crow, but you have your moments of similarity, too.”
He laughed. He could not help it. And with a stab of clarity, Edmund tried to articulate the inspiration.
“And these are reasons why I like Crows. They are clever, and I respect them and their courage to challenge even their Monarch.”
“And all this admiration in spite of their bad manners?”
Edmund almost said yes, and a moment later, congratulated himself for managing to stay his tongue. “It is what they are, Morgan, and I value them perhaps in spite of, but also because of, their ways.”
It might have been a trick of the light, and it happened so quickly, it might not have been there at all. Morgan shrugged again, and rubbed her cheek on her shoulder. Edmund put a hand over her hers and pretended to not see it.
She stared again out over the water, eyes wandering to the Gulls flapping about on the shore. “You remember what I have said before? How I’m here unofficially? Otherwise my managing partner would have never let me come.”
“Yes.” While most of the business of her House remained mysterious, for Morgan was very tight-lipped about it, some had become clearer. The contract covering her stay and the careful revisions she had made to the document made more sense as his understanding of the Lone Islands banking syndicates had evolved. All had been designed to delineate and clarify the separation between Narnia and Morgan, and so by assumption and extension, her House.
“One of the letters that came on the ship was from my Manager. He wanted confirmation that, since he’d had no word, he could assume I had not been thrown out of Narnia yet or started a diplomatic error that he’d have to repair.”
“That sounds very harsh,” Edmund replied, feeling angry at the lack of tact, even if her past experiences warranted the concern. Really, if that sort of callous behavior was the norm of her House, it was little wonder Morgan was as she was.
Yet, that did not explain the whole of it. There was something off about how Morgan dealt with Humans. With so many Beasts and Near Humans, it was of little consequence in Narnia - but elsewhere, it would be a considerable handicap for her and she could easily be an embarrassment to her House. It was not a theoretical concern.
“I try, Harold. I really do," Morgan muttered miserably. "I know I’m rubbish at all this and the harder I try, the worse it is.”
“Perhaps you should not try so hard. It might come more easily if you were more at ease.” Edmund thought the lame statement might have sounded better if he had not ended it on so questioning a note.
She stuck her foot in a pool and flicked water away; even the gesture was mockingly petulant.
“If I had a Crescent or a Tree for every time I have heard that advice, I would own Terebinthia outright.”
“Oh.” He cast about, trying to find the right words, but was really more interested in just how much Morgan was worth and how one could go about buying an entire country. Irritated, he tossed a pebble into the bay with more force than was strictly needed.
“What?” Morgan asked. “Did I say something Crow-like?” Her again was unspoken.
“No,” he assured her hurriedly. “It is only that… well, have you ever met a Narnian Humingbird?”
“No,” Morgan replied, frowning at this digression.
“They are very much like Otters. And Gulls.”
“And Crows?” Morgan prompted, sounding angry again.
“No, I would put Crows in a separate category that I greatly admire.”
He realized after he said it that he had complimented her. Morgan smiled and put her cheek on his shoulder. For that, his imagination came back out of the hole and attempted to look down her gaping shirt front to admire her un-corseted freckles.
“I remember Susan once telling me of an argument she had with a visitor who insisted that we teach our Hummingbirds better manners. Susan told her that they might as well teach a Great Cat to eat grass and Lambert encouraged our visitor to raise her complaints of the shortcomings of the Beasts of Narnia with Aslan.”
“They are what they are because Aslan made them that way,” Morgan replied, sounding almost bitter.
“We are not all the same in Narnia,” Edmund corrected. “That is very much a good thing.”
The conversation, though, made him realize, as she had already reminded him, that his behavior could be lacking as well. “I have been remiss and ill-mannered myself. I should make you known to him.”
Her head snapped up, startled. As was her way, her eyes looked, not at his, but over his shoulder, just askance.
“Who?” she squeaked, sounding very like Teddy.
“Aslan. I should have presented you to him weeks ago.” The realization made him uncomfortable, and his first thoughts were scrambled and embarrassed. I apologize my Lord. Forgive me.
“He is real? Really real? Really a Lion?”
“Yes, yes, and yes. Aslan is real, really real, and really a Lion.”
Morgan shivered and a sort of silly, protective side of him, enjoyed sliding an arm around her. The sun was beginning to sink behind them and Edmund could sense, in tune with the rhythms of Narnia, that the days were beginning to shorten. Summer would be ending soon.
As if divining that thought, Morgan leaned into his arm and stared at the rocky pool at their feet. “My Manager also reminded me that the contract covering my stay is expiring soon.”
“Yes.” He found the words were sticking in his mouth, intellect and imagination clamoring to have a say; his reason struggling to articulate anything at all that could satisfy the raging uncertainty, save for one thing that he knew was immature and foolish, but he could not stop. He was not ready for these idyllic days and nights to end.
“Perhaps, in the alternative, we might add a rider to the contract and extend the expiry?”
Again she looked to him, eyes fixed some place other than his own.
“You would like me stay longer?”
“Yes, if you will.”
“That’s complicated,” she said quietly.
“Yes,” Edmund agreed as quietly, thinking of the complexities he could but imagine for her House. He suspected she was one of the senior heirs to the House of Linch fortune and for all her peculiar ways, unquestionably a valued part of their management. That Morgan had been gone for as long as she had bespoke the influence and respect she wielded, even in spite of her poor socialisation. Nor had he sorted out what this all meant for him. Or, other things, which he still balked at and was not ready to even name. But none of these issues would be resolved with her in the Lone Islands.
“I would like to extend the termination date of the contract, Harold.”
He brought fingers to her chin, and gently tilted her face closer to his own. “Could you indulge me, and say that again, but with my real name?”
For a wild, hopeful moment, he thought she might be able to focus on him. But, Morgan could not and her eyes slid by to some unseen some middle distance.
“I would like to extend to termination date of the contract. Edmund”