Edmund, Morgan and Two Hearts Day
Narrowhaven at the turn of the year was a very cold and dreary place. He pulled the woolen scarf up around his neck and flexed his stiffening hands in the fingerless gloves.
“The third column adds to 342 per share,” Lady Willa said from her seat on the table.
Only a Narnian would not be perturbed that a Talking Rat was so adept at maths.
“Thank you, Friend,” Edmund told her. He looked up to the rafter where Sallowpad roosted. “What say you, Chief?’ he asked the Raven who had been watching the unfolding calculations all day into evening for weeks. “Am I right that the Buildings and Works Society in Zalindreh is paying too much out to cover the costs of that supposed river project?”
“You are, my King,” Sallowpad replied. “The money is going for something else.”
“Invasion planning, most likely,” Willa said, cleaning a toe. While the Head of the Mischief was biased in favor of bloodthirsty action, in this, Edmund agreed with her. He had already concluded that the Building and Works Society was, as Morgan would say, as crooked as a Dog’s hind leg. It was good to see the confirmation here on the page that it was really one of the many fronts that were raising money for a Calormene faction making lots of noise about Northern conquests.
Jina, Lady Hound, lifted her head. “Vice Director Alan comes.” She paused. “Carrying many, many flowers.”
The mild censure in Jina’s voice was reflected in the grumbling of Willa and beak snapping of Sallowpad above them. Edmund did not quite understand why the Narnians wintering with him in Morgan’s House of Linch so disliked Alan of Meryl House. Granted, the long flowing blonde hair and teeth so white they appeared painted made for a blinding spectacle, but the man was pleasant enough. Dim, but unobjectionable, and so transparently good-natured it was impossible to dislike him.
With the sounds of grunting struggle in the hall, Edmund rose from his clerk’s table to open the door into the anteroom.
Jina had, with characteristic understatement, managed to not convey the full of what was meant by many, many flowers. Alan was struggling under the weight of, and completely obscured by, the height and breadth of an enormous pot of hothouse lilies and roses. This was no small accomplishment as Alan was himself built on something of the same model as Mount Pire.
“Vice Director! Allow me to assist you,” Edmund said, duly slipping into his undercover role as clerk to Associate Director Morgan of the House of Linch banking syndicate.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Willa scurrying into her hiding place in a bookcase adjacent to his secretary’s desk. Sallowpad would move into the darker shadow of the rafters and Jina would pretend to be a dumb dog.
“Thank you, Harold,” Alan said from the shrubbery. If you wouldn’t mind getting the door to Morgan’s office?
“Certainly, Sir.”
As Alan passed, Jina curled her lip in distaste. He heard another irritable snap from the ceiling.
“Did you hear something, Harold?” Alan asked, carefully balancing the flowers. Really, to have acquired an arrangement like that in the dead of winter in Narrowhaven would have required a lot of advanced planning and even more money. This was very extravagant.
“Probably just the wind, Sir,” Edmund replied, with a quiet down signal to his Narnians in hiding. “AD Morgan is still meeting with the Director.”
Edmund pushed open the door to her office and Alan stumbled in, nearly upending flowers, water, greens, and pot on to Morgan’s carpet.
“I know,” Alan replied, heaving the arrangement on to a table. Edmund swiftly moved in to rescue her precious ledger of the Galman wine guilds before Alan spilled all over them.
“I wanted to surprise her for Two Hearts Day,” Alan said. “You think she’ll like them? My mother thought Morgan would rather have fifty shares in the Terebinthia Carpenters’ Guild, but I thought these were so pretty.”
Alan’s mother, and Director of the House of Meryl, probably knew better than her son what her future daughter would wish. Why would a woman want cut flowers? All they did was die. More to the point…
“Two Hearts Day?” Edmund asked.
Alan was busy arranging the flowers to their maximum advantage. Edmund found his nose itching and took a few steps back, seeming to admire the garden now blossoming in Morgan’s office.
“Don’t they have that where you are from in Archenland, Harold?” Alan removed a large, creamy sheet of parchment from his gold embroidered vest pocket and set it next to the flowers.
“No, I cannot say I am in familiar with it.’
“It’s a day for sweethearts, betrothed, lovers, and spouses. You exchange gifts, flowers, poetry, sweets and tell the other person how special she is.”
“Sounds dreadful,” Edmund said feelingly, but it might just be that his eyes were beginning to water.
“I wrote Morgan a poem. Would you like to hear it?”
Edmund took another step toward the door. “That seems something more appropriate for her ears alone, surely.”
Alan shrugged with such amiability, it was impossible to be irritable with him. It was also impossible to take him seriously.
Edmund shut the door to the office, locking the flowers within where they would at least not trouble him until Morgan returned.
“And if Morgan merited those flowers on Two Hearts Day, what of Constance? A veritable greenhouse for your lady?” Edmund asked.
Alan absently dusted loose greenery from his fine cape; the blue of the cape matched his eyes. The man’s grin was winsome as he spoke of fair Constance. “I have brought a cook to make her favorite dinner, paired with a nice Galman wine, and I hired some players for dancing. Just the two of us.”
It had taken weeks for Edmund to understand the arrangements. Morgan and Alan were destined to form a “joint venture” under a letter of intent negotiated between the directors of their respective houses. Alan’s mother, rightly seeing that her immense hard work to re-build the House of Meryl would collapse within a year under her son’s kindly but incompetent leadership, had secured the future of her House by undertaking the joint venture with Linch. She thus had assured through Morgan, and the issue that would follow, the business acumen to sustain Meryl. The Linch Director had seen it as an opportunity to shore up their client development side - Alan excelled at the meet and greet, rubber chicken dinner circuit and Meryl had a substantial client base in management of individual wealth - lacking in the Linch portfolio.
The joint venture would also increase the size of Linch, allowing it to compete more aggressively against the House of Stanleh, who had bitterly opposed the proposed agreement in principle. Why Stanleh even had a say in a private joint venture between Linch and Meryl had not been explained to Edmund’s satisfaction other than that Stanleh had a say in everything, wanted Meryl for itself, and opposed anything of Linch on principle.
Edmund had, at first, intended to be offended or concerned, or, well, something. Not that he was looking for a “joint venture” with the House of Linch, but it was a little odd to not even been considered adequate real estate in comparison to Alan of Meryl. Instead, the Director of Linch deemed the Throne of Narnia as akin to a depreciated asset or a start-up company of uncertain and dubious prospects.
Edmund had also worried that Alan might be proprietary and his whole cover as the bright but dull Harold, Clerk in Training of Archenland, would dissolve if King Edmund the Just had to be revealed - which, secretly he admitted, would be good fun. However, his worrying came to nothing because Morgan and Alan’s proposed joint venture was non-exclusive, so long at the non-compete terms were followed. The parties were free to pursue any private relations if they did not impact the Linch-Meryl joint venture.
And Edmund had thought Calormene succession politics were complex…
“Have a pleasant evening, Sir. I shall tell Morgan you came by,” Edmund said, escorting the foppish man out.
He lit the oil lamps and sat back at his desk, determined to finish the last year’s supposed income statements for the Zalindreh Building and Works. It was late, certainly well beyond the end of a normal workday in Narnia or anywhere else, but the Linch Director kept very long hours, and expected the same of his daughter.
There were sounds of footsteps in the hall and doors opening.
Jina confirmed what he suspected given the hour. “Food was just delivered to Banker Morgan’s private rooms.” That meant Morgan would likely be returning soon.
Unasked, the Hound rose, pushed open the door, and went to investigate. If there were any off smell or suspicious person, Jina would know it and alert him. Within Linch, however, Edmund felt safer even than Cair Paravel. Jina, Sallowpad, Willa, and the other Rats, Teddy and Keme, roamed the house freely and knew its every nook, occupant, and visitor. Everyone within the House was of Linch and sworn to it; as he was their under their auspices and Morgan’s sponsorship, he too was Linch and that meant more on the Lone Islands than being their sovereign of Narnia.
It also meant that whoever was an enemy of Linch, and there were a great many of them, was also an enemy of his.
He heard voices in the hall and Jina returned, with Morgan following behind her. He rose quickly to help Morgan out of her heavy, green banker’s robe before she tripped over it, tore it, or caught it on something and then tore it and tripped over it.
“Thank you, Harold.” She put the ledgers from her meetings on his desk - whether they sorted through them now or tomorrow would depend on any number of things.
“All is well, King Edmund,” Jina said quietly. “And in answer to your question, yes, Banker Morgan, today is fine, and the next three days at least by my judge.”
“Thank you, Jina.” Morgan looked up and held out her arm. With the invitation, Sallowpad launched down and landed. “Keme and Teddy went straight to the kitchens after the meeting with the Director. You all can join them there, if you like.”
Willa scrambled out from the bookcase at the prospect of food. The Narnians all looked to him, but Edmund nodded. Rat and Hound trotted out for their evening meal; Raven winging after them.
Edmund shut the door as Morgan crossed over to look at his day’s accounting spread out on the secretary’s desk.
“It is as we expected,” he told her. “You were right. Now that I know what to look for, it is very a straightforward Stanleh scheme. The Zalindreh Building and Works Society is a front, pushing monies to that armsmakers’ guild.”
“Who is arming Ardeesh’s faction,” Morgan said, a statement rather than question.
“So it seems, yes.” The rumors Peter had heard over the previous summer in Tashbaan were one thing, but here it was, all spelled out in black ink and parchment. Ardeesh, or a group controlling him, was making a play to be named the Tisroc’s heir. The faction was no friend of the North, but it was not yet clear if they would turn their sights on Narnia and Archenland to curry favor, or if they would make an attempt against the Calormene cavalry, which was the part of the vast Army loyal to Rabadash. Not that Rabadash was necessarily any better - but Ardeesh was plainly much worse and his pressure on Rabadash might turn the current heir more aggressive as well.
“Have I said how much I really hate Stanleh?” Morgan picked up the writing charcoal on the desk out of habit, preparing to correct his errant sums and analyses. Edmund knew, however, she would find no fault, even if she never would say so. Morgan was a demanding teacher and very sparse in her praise, which explained why she was so unpopular among the junior clerks and apprentices within Linch.
“You have mentioned your dislike, yes. I have certainly come to be suspicious of them as well.” The Narnians all shared Morgan’s distaste for Stanleh. Fooh, Peter’s Cheetah guard, had said his fur could not lie flat with Stanleh bankers about; Jina and the Rats had reported the same feeling.
Satisfied with his work, Morgan tossed the charcoal back on to the desk and walked toward her office. Edmund had the sense to stand well away as she opened the door.
She was silent for a moment. Then, “In the name of Zardeenah’s three …” Morgan could not finish the shouted oath learned from the Narnian Dwarfs for she exploded with a powerful sneeze.
She slammed the door and spun around. “Harold! WHAT in Tash’s Hell!”
More swearing, courtesy of Narnian Dwarfs, probably learned during the beetle racing.
“Vice Director Alan delivered the garden to your office while you were out,” Edmund inserted before she directed her anger at his poor, and wholly blameless, person. Granted, he could have removed them, but the flowers were a gift. Now, if the Vice Director’s gift had been something she might have truly wanted, like fifty shares in the Terebinthia Carpenters’ Guild, he might have done something about it. Or not. Really, better not to dwell on that.
The ire went out of Morgan like a puff of pollen in the breeze. “Alan?” she said weakly.
“There is a note with poetry as well, though I do not recommend going in to retrieve it unless you first hold your breath.” Edmund brandished her Galman wine guild ledger by way of explanation of Alan’s well-meaning, but very focused, and hazardous, manner. “I did not see it my place as your lowly clerk trainee to correct a Vice Director of Meryl.”
“A poem?”
“I declined his offer to have it read to me.”
Morgan fell back heavily against the door to her office with a weary nod. “He reminds me of your brother, actually.”
“Is it the teeth?” Edmund asked. “Or the hair?”
Morgan scrubbed her eyes and shuddered. “The… everything.”
Peter was far sharper than Alan, but Edmund kept that observation to himself. The important point was that in Morgan’s considered and intelligent estimation, he (naturally) bore up well in the comparison. That was all that mattered.
Edmund reached for a parchment scrap and wrote a note for the crew who would come in to clean in the morning. “I shall just tell housekeeping to share the flowers amongst the staff, with your good wishes.”
She snorted. “They’ll know who is behind that, Harold.”
“Probably,” he admitted. “But, at least your office shall be clear of pollen when you return tomorrow morning and we both earn a modicum of good will.”
Morgan pushed everyone about her as hard as she pushed herself and as hard as her father pushed her. She was not especially popular as a consequence. Edmund found he garnered tremendous sympathy from those who found Morgan difficult - he personally did not find her drive distressing and in fact enjoyed its consequences in personal contexts. The advantage to training under Sir Leszi also meant that anyone else was kind, gentle, and effacing by comparison.
She pulled herself up from her slump against the office door with a sigh and returned to stare at the day’s work on his desk.
“I was wondering…”
“Yes?” Edmund set the note on the bookcase.
Morgan fiddled with the charcoal again and absently organized the financials into reverse chronological order. Finally, as if it were a pronouncement of great portent, she muttered, “Dinner?” ending the query on an odd and hopeful note that seemed rather misplaced given their arrangement. With whom else would he dine except Morgan or going to the kitchens and joining the Narnians?
Still, he had become adept at filling in the gaps in Morgan’s speech. To give her the benefit of the doubt, he had to assume that “Dinner?” would have, for a normal, conversational person, been prefaced by, “After so long a day, I thought you might be hungry. Would you care to join me for dinner?”
“Certainly.”
For all that she extended the invitation, Morgan seemed reluctant to make the trip across the hall to her rooms. He usually found her lip biting very provocative. This evening, however, it seemed nervous preoccupation. If Jina had been about, the Hound would have been able to explain to them both what Morgan was trying to communicate and could not. Without that advice, he would just have to muddle through it and hope he picked up the right cues without any flung pottery.
He held the door to her rooms open for her, but Morgan awkwardly hesitated and hung back in the entry. Edmund had to precede her in. Looking about, he saw that the small table had been already set for the two of them.
It was the food itself that both brought him up short and the reason for Morgan’s peculiar behavior became clear. She had arranged for very plain foods - bread and butter, radishes, a little cold, cured meat, and cheese. The simplicity contrasted starkly with the lavish meal that Vice Director Alan intended for fair, sweet Constance. Alan had also procured a greenhouse worth of flowers for Morgan. For their very modest meal, Morgan had managed to find three misshapen, greenish, out of season strawberries - probably from the same hothouse. The bottle of wine was Narnian, not Calormene or Galman, and near impossible to find in the Lone Islands at all. Morgan did not even drink wine.
He now recalled the afternoon in the stable yard with Peter, barefoot and trying to avoid Susan’s murderous mare, the Hell Bitch, as his sister had relayed the tale. A Puppy, the son of Jina and Ibiza, had snuck into the kitchens and stolen the roast intended for the evening banquet.
"And Cook?" Edmund had managed to ask through his laughter.
"Quite overcome. I have sent her to bed with a willow bark pain reliever and strict orders not to boil a single potato. We will not see her until tomorrow noon."
"So, a Narnian occasion then?" Peter had asked.
“We shall eat on the lawn, whatever is leftover from today, no utensils, with each person to wash his or her own plate and glass. If we all drink enough wine and ale, we shan't miss the meat at all, and no one shall even hear the twenty Dwarfs snoring in the tilting field.”
Morgan had tried to recreate the simple meal of that Narnian spring occasion in the dead of the Lone Islands’ winter gale. Their first night together had followed.
Edmund pulled out a chair from the table. “If it please you?”
Gracelessly, Morgan fell into the seat.
“If I may?” He knelt next to her and gesturing to her feet. Morgan nodded, still chewing nervously on her lip. Edmund removed her slippers. “Surely, you recall that we do not wear shoes at a Narnian occasion such as this fine one that you have so thoughtfully arranged?”
“You like it then?” Morgan asked, sounding very small and uncertain. Edmund again wished Jina were there to interpret.
“I do, very much. And your part in bringing it about, that much more. Plainly, I must reciprocate.”
Pushing up her skirt, he peeled off her stockings, set a kiss on the inside of her knee, and let his hands linger on her firm legs.
She leaned forward with a relieved, happy sigh and wrapped her hands around his neck. “What about number nine?” Morgan’s suggestion referred to her very well worn book of Calormene illustrated erotica. Having thoroughly investigated volume one over the last few months, they had been trying in vain to locate volume two.
“Nine requires fruit, and more than those precious strawberries on the table you managed to procure. Where are going to find fruit now?”
“Maybe a root vegetable instead?”
Edmund’s imagination considered this, and decided it was willing to give it a go. His intellect, however, was not at all fond of winter squash and did not like the implications for radishes.
“I thought we agreed to swear off foodstuffs after the problems with the sweet cream and honey?”
“True,”’ Morgan conceded. “What about twelve?” Her hands began searching and her cool fingertips finally met his warming skin, under the collar, beneath the hem, at the tie and the cuff.
“Have we yet determined which end is up for that one?” With illustration twelve, his intellect had calculated the time it would take to construct the necessary apparatus and deemed it prohibitive. His imagination had been lobbying for consideration of a substitute that might be found in the carriage house. Or, in a company of traveling tumblers.
“Perhaps some other time.” His intellect and imagination tussled and compromised. “Might I propose eighteen?”
“Oh,” Morgan whispered in a small, breathy way that blasted into his ears and plummeted straight down.
“Quite,” Edmund managed. “If you will pardon me, but I need to be properly Narnian about this as well.” He twisted about on the floor to remove his own boots. Her roving hands continued their provocative explorations and going Narnian was fast becoming an imperative.
“No shoes, and no corsets,” Morgan reminded him.
The last impediments of his to going Narnian removed, Edmund shifted back towards her and closed the distance for a thorough tactile examination. It was a good thing dinner was uncooked, temperate, and would await their leisure and completion of illustration eighteen.
“I shall have to confirm the corset’s absence to assure continuing compliance with the terms of our contract.”
“And if I am violating its terms?”
“Punitive measures,” Edmund told her, pretending more calm than he actually felt. He was easing her bodice down to undertake the necessary confirmation, when Morgan cruelly interrupted his plans.
She leaned back in her chair, now impossibly out of reach. Edmund did not necessarily mind his position on the floor, as it was a prerequisite to performance of illustration seven. It was Morgan’s tone that was concerning.
“Punitive measures?” she scoffed. “And just what punitive action could you possibly take against the supposed breaching party that would not also irrevocably damage pursuit of your interests?”
“Apart from performance of number eighteen?”
“You have already agreed to that, Harold. Remedies for my possible breach are independent of that obligation.”
He knew just how to erase the arch tone of hers. “I shall read the contract to you so that you might learn it better.”
Her eyes widened with shock and awe. Morgan’s “Really?” came out as an excited and very satisfying squeak. “Truly? All of it?”
“Every single proviso and warranty. And, I shall do so prior to executing upon number eighteen.”
He was prepared to be magnanimous on the point. He doubted Morgan would be able to withstand an oral recitation beyond Section IV and her enthusiasm thereafter would be all the more heightened. He could probably leverage her compromised judgment to finagle performance of illustration thirteen without any further compensation. Proving the point, Morgan shot out of the chair and tripped over him in her haste to reach the contract they kept at the bedside table. With a flailing of arms and legs, Morgan fell into the bed, precious parchment clutched in her hands.
Edmund climbed to his feet, rubbing his arm absently where she had struck. He would probably have a bruise tomorrow.
He stood at the end of the bed, watching as Morgan attempted seduction without doing damage to person, her clothing, or objects in her vicinity. She hitched her skirts up and a sleeve and her hair were already coming down. She had even manufactured a contractual breach by wearing a corset that now peeped through her gaping bodice. All negotiations aside, she knew its presence and removal would merit his special attention. Illustration four was warranted, after the reading of the contract and prior to eighteen.
Edmund very much wished to continue this progressive dishevelment to its appropriate conclusion. She was always very precise and controlled as a Banker and he took secret pleasure in watching her unravel and come apart with his coaxing.
Still, if anything, these seductive efforts, coupled with the table set for a Narnian occasion, made him pause. To be sure, wine, stale bread, removal of a corset, and achievement of illustration eighteen were all excellent ways to celebrate a day in Narnian style - with added verisimilitude if there was animal hair in the butter. This, however, was the Lone Islands and different customs and expectations applied.
“I did not know today was a holiday,” he said, feeling awkward and uncomfortable about it all. “If you would rather, we might go somewhere?” As his imagination selfishly whinged, he added, “Later, perhaps? To the inn? Or the club?” Edmund concluded doubtfully.
Morgan did not even look up for she was already engrossed in her blunt, abject admiration of the product of his contracting draftsmanship. “It’s all too crowded tonight,” she said with a shrug, turning a page. “We wouldn’t be able to get in anywhere.”
This made it worse. Missing a day like this wasn’t something Susan would have forgotten, or Peter. “I had never heard of the Two Hearts Day until Alan delivered the flowers for you,” Edmund admitted.
“It’s a silly day,” Morgan said dismissively. “For romantics. Not people like us.”
Edmund wondered what Jina would say if she had heard Morgan speak so. He further wondered what Jina would have said upon sensing his own unexpectedly confused and yes maybe even disappointed reaction to Morgan’s offhand comment that still did not seem entirely credible given those three hothouse strawberries on the plate and the hard- to-find Narnian wine. He wondered if he had just caught her in a rare lie.
Morgan made it easier to shove such inconvenient and disturbing thoughts aside as not relevant. She lunged forward and grabbed his shirt front so hard, he felt the ties and button strain. “Read it to me, Harold. Now.”
“You would not prefer poetry? I understand it is more appropriate for today.”
Her look of horror answered that question, to his relief.
“Harold, your reading of courtship contracts and tax codes is poetry to me.”
Edmund pushed the misgivings aside and allowed Morgan to draw him into the bed they shared. He plucked the parchment from her hands before there were paper cuts, and pulled her close. Morgan settled against him with a lusty, contented sigh. She twined her foot around his ankle and her hand eased between tangles of cloth, searching for and finding the bare skin of his hip.
He began, “Section One, General Statement of Purpose. On this sixth day in the month of…”