Narnia/LotR fic: "Ere Yet We Loose the Legions"
Title: Ere Yet We Loose the Legions
Author: bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia/Lord of the Rings (movieverse)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “These lands,” he said, “are the lands of Narnia, which I rule over as High King. You will leave these lands, or as Aslan witness it, there will be blood spilled here today by my hand. I will suffer no evil to be done in this country so long as I sit at Cair Paravel. Take your feud elsewhere.” Eomer/Susan.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings and their characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media and New Line Cinema. Title and cut-text are from Rudyard Kipling's poem Hymn Before Action.
Author's Note: This story takes place during The Two Towers, in that missing interim where Eomer and his riders have ridden "north", and during the Golden Age of Narnia. It also assumes that Narnia is part of Middle-Earth and that this map of Narnia and this map of Middle-Earth butt up against each other at the eastern-western ends.
They had taken the horses far and fast - too far and too fast, Eomer feared, for although the great horses of Rohan were legend throughout all of Middle-Earth, they were no more than mortal steeds, and subject to all the flaws of mortality. Fleeing the wrath of Grima Wormtongue and the orcs of Isengard, Eomer led his eored over the great mountains of the northeast, hoping to lose their pursuers amid the deep ravines and snow-covered peaks. But the white hand of Saruman had followed them even here, into this verdant green land on the other side of the mountains. This country was strange and beautiful, with unfamiliar trees and grass that the horses seemed to find so sweet that Eomer himself was more than half-tempted to get down on his knees and taste it as well. For orcs to be here seemed obscene. They marred the hills with their grey skins, fouled the forests with their putrid stink, and soon would spill their blood on this land.
The mountain crossing had taken a great toll on Eomer’s folk, but an even greater one on their horses. The orcs behind them were not nearly so strained, and even as he urged his men forward, to the little rise above that would give them some advantage, he knew that they wouldn’t make it there before the orcs were upon them.
They met in a great clash of bodies and metal as horses screamed and orcs died. Eomer lost his spear sometime in those first few frantic moments and drew his sword instead, plunging into the fray as his horse lashed out with metalshod hooves, smashing in the face of the nearest orc. Too many, too many. All the Rohirrim could do was fight to take as many orcs as they could with them into the abyss. Eomer screamed his rage.
The horns - deep and steady, pounding into his bones - seemed more like to be illusion rather than truth, so he disregarded them as irrelevant, choosing instead to concentrate on the swing of his sword and the shield on his left arm, turning his horse nimbly from one side to the other with light touches of his knees. The illusion lasted until an arrow struck the orc before him - an unfamiliar arrow, longer than those carried by the horse-archers of Rohan, made of red wood and fletched with strange feathers.
“HOLD!” he heard someone shout - a man’s voice, with such a ring of command in it that even the orcs hesitated.
Eomer turned his horse about to see the speaker, and saw, on the hill the Rohirrim had been riding hard for, what appeared to be a hunting party. Their banners were scarlet and gold, unfamiliar to him - he had not known that any civilized folk lived in these wild lands. And such folk! The majority were not Men at all, but horses going unencumbered, and sleek wild cats like the great hunters of the Mark, and dwarfs, and creatures the like of which Eomer had never seen before, half Man and half beast. The four humans were just as exotic, clad in finery that seemed unsuited for riding - certainly not for fighting. Three were dark, the other light. It was this last that rode forward a pace further.
“These lands,” he said, “are the lands of Narnia, which I rule over as High King. You will leave these lands, or as Aslan witness it, there will be blood spilled here today by my hand. I will suffer no evil to be done in this country so long as I sit at Cair Paravel. Take your feud elsewhere.”
“My folk,” Eomer called, “did not begin this. If we can ask for it -” and here he had to pause and swallow down his pride, feeling the curious glare of the High King burning into his skin, “- then we ask for sanctuary.”
The High King had no chance to answer. The orc captain let out a harsh laugh. “Let them go?” he spat. “Why let them go when we can take them, and you, and bring this land under the rule of our master Saruman? This green land, fresh and unspoiled.” He raised his ugly sword. “Take them all!”
Sunlight reflected off the bright sword that the High King drew. “Narnia!” he cried. “Narnia and Aslan!” And the Narnian hunting party came charging down the hill in a river of scarlet.
Eomer saw no more as he found himself once more engaged in battle. So lightly armored as the Narnians were - by which he meant not at all - he had not expected them to turn the tide, but slowly - so slowly - they drove back the orcs. He soon found himself side by side with the High King, who fought as well as any man of Rohan, even unarmored. It was he who struck the final blow of the battle, taking the orc captain’s head off with a single swing of his sword.
Afterwards, as Eomer was seeing to his wounded and his dead, it was the High King who approached him. “Do you have anyone badly wounded?” he asked.
When Eomer looked up, it was to see that the High King was shockingly young - little more than a boy, he seemed, although his face was as solemn as any man’s. “Yes,” Eomer said.
“If you’ll allow our help,” the High King said, “we can do something about that.”
Looking at his face, Eomer saw nothing except genuine concern. “Any help you can offer is appreciated, your majesty,” he said.
He nodded and turned, calling over his shoulder. One of the women came over to him, wiping her hands on her skirt. She was even younger than the High King. “Queen Lucy,” she introduced herself. “Peter’s sister.”
Peter, Eomer assumed, was the High King. He looked at him for confirmation and the High King said, “My sister’s an excellent healer.”
“Of course, your majesty,” Eomer said.
“As for yourself,” the High King added, “I would speak to you. Starting with your name.”
A little surprised - what sort of king couldn't recognize his neighbors’ own family? - Eomer said, “I am Eomer of Rohan, of the House of Eorl.”
“High King Peter of Narnia,” the High King said; that was friendly enough. Then his expression went cold. “What are you doing in my land?”
“My eored has traveled off our maps,” Eomer said, choosing his words carefully. “I did not know this land was occupied. We fled trouble in our own land, which is beset from danger on all sides - even our own king has turned against those loyal to him and cast them out of Rohan.”
“Without cause?” a stranger said from behind Eomer.
Hiding his surprise - he hadn’t heard the approach - Eomer turned slowly on his heel.
The speaker was a young man with sharp features and dark hair, his carefully blank gaze fixed on Eomer. “Pete,” he said, addressing the High King, “if I didn’t already know that you didn’t read any of my foreign affairs reports, I’d be hurt.”
“I did read this one, actually,” the High King said, with a hint of back off in his voice.
The stranger nodded - adviser? Heir? Brother? - and fell silent, scrubbing at a streak of blood on his cheek with the side of his thumb.
“Your country,” the High King continued, “is at war, open or not. Whether your exile was at the will of your king or of his handler -” and here there was a little sneer that he didn't quite control, “- you still left your country open to attack, without protection. Knowing that - yes, I do know that; Narnia’s intelligence is very good - I need a very good reason to allow you refuge in my country, especially given the likelihood that more of these will come after you. Narnia cannot easily afford to get embroiled in someone else’s war; we have enough trouble of our own.”
Good, Eomer thought; he didn’t have the trick of reading strangers that other men did - that Theodred had had - but he thought he might understand this young king. He’s very good. Once again, he chose his words carefully. “We don’t ask for allies,” he said, after a slight pause he could only hope that the High King hadn’t noticed, though he doubted that must went past this boy king, “we simply ask for a resting spot, if that is all you’re content to offer us. Or we will move onwards.”
“I’m tempted to tell you to do so,” the High King said smoothly, and Eomer blinked for a moment in surprise at the blandness of the statement. “But for the moment, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you again: why would you abandon Rohan when your country needs you more than she ever has?”
“There is no good answer for that,” Eomer allowed. “First I thought simply to take those men loyal to Rohan south over the mountain passes and into Gondor to aid in the war against Mordor, but Saruman had other plans. He set these creatures to tormenting my people in order to lure my eored to him, and when we attacked, we found their number more than half again ours. When we retreated, they pursued us, and to stop them turning back to Rohan, we allowed them. We have traveled for many days.”
“Killing them,” the unnamed young stranger - he’d moved to the High King’s side by now - said, “is generally a slightly more permanent option. And doing so before you crossed the mountains would have had the twin benefits of your men and horses not being so tired, and not bringing your feuds onto Narnian soil.”
Eomer glanced at the High King to see if he sanctioned this, but the boy’s face was still carefully blank. “Isengard and Mordor want no less than all of Middle-Earth,” he said. “Even if the White Hand hadn’t followed us here, they would be here within the year nonetheless. You think Narnia is safe? Saruman or Sauron will stretch out their hand for your country as well. I did not bring this fight to you: it is coming nonetheless.”
“I know,” the High King said. He paused, and then said, “It is three days’ ride to Cair Paravel. You and your men are welcome to join my court at Arn Abedin, my brother’s hunting lodge, for the immediate future.”
“Thank you,” Eomer said. “We would be honored.”
“Our hunt has been halted somewhat,” he added with a grin that softened the starkness on his face and made him seem more the boy he looked, “but I assure you, the Arn Abedin chefs will still have something impressive. Now I must see to my own people, but I leave you in the care of my sisters Queen Susan and Queen Lucy. I will speak to you again at Arn Abedin.” He went away without another word, the stranger falling into step beside him.
The girl-queen, Lucy, came up to him. She was younger than Eowyn, he noted even as he turned to face her. “Is Peter being Peter again?” she said, laughing a little. “Your men seem very nice. Those that I treated will be all right, but the rest had better see a real healer at Arn Abedin - we are going there, I assume? I heard Peter say so. And this is my sister Susan!” She reached out to catch the arm of the woman approaching them.
“Get off, Lu,” she said, tugging her arm free. Like her sister, she was dark of hair and fair of skin; she had a bow and quiver strapped across her back. With a slight start, Eomer recognized the arrows as those that had fallen like rain during the short battle, identical to the one that had slain the first orc. She was also very beautiful. She turned to Eomer, smiling warmly, and said, “Eomer of Rohan, of the House of Eorl, I assume?”
“That’s correct, my lady,” Eomer said, bowing his head.
She dipped a slight curtsy in reply, but when she straightened, it was to look at Eomer eye to eye, head cocked in a way that he might have said was challenging. Or merely interested. He liked her immediately. “I’m Queen Susan of Narnia, the High King’s other sister.” She flicked her gaze quickly over him and then looked up, the movement swift and natural. He saw the sharp interest on her face; she saw him looking and smiled - or rather, the smile she already wore changed, to something less warmly neutral and more warmly amused.
“The High King,” she continued, “has put you into my keeping, at least for the immediate time being. Best we not waste that, hmm?”
“Best not, my lady,” Eomer said. Her dress clung to the curves of breast and hip, the colors shades of green and gold, stained now with the black blood of orcs and the copper stains of human blood. Although Eowyn didn’t particularly care for dresses, having a sister meant that Eomer could pick out the differences between Susan’s dress and the equivalent Rohirric one. This one was lower cut.
He glanced up as soon as he realized he was looking and saw the amused twist of Susan’s mouth. “You may find Narnia quite different from Rohan,” was all she said before she called for her horse.
The mare came trotting up, cocked her head at Eomer, and said, “So these are the great horselords of the southeast, are they? They don’t look like much.”
Eomer gaped. Lucy laughed, a delighted peal of it that managed not to be ill-natured at all. Susan grinned at them both as she swung into the saddle, astride like a man or a woman of Rohan. “Get your men up, Eomer of Rohan,” she said. “The High King doesn’t want to linger here longer than he must.”
-
-
“And you say I much up diplomatic negotiations, Ed,” the High King of Narnia said. He didn’t even turn around.
Edmund dropped into a chair. “I have got to stop trying to sneak up on you,” he said. “It’s not doing much for my self-esteem at all.” Experimentally, he put his feet up on Peter’s desk.
“Off, Ed, that’s imported handcarved rosewood from Galma,” Peter said. He finally turned around, digging out a pair of glasses from his desk to pour the wine he was drinking straight from the bottle.
“But how do you know?” Edmund asked, taking the glass Peter offered him.
“I have lived with you for twenty years, you know,” Peter pointed out dryly. He dropped into the seat across from Edmund, turning his glass around in his hand so that the flickering candlelight illuminated the deep red wine - the wine a gift from the king of Archenland, the glasses brought back by Lucy during her last visit to the Lone Islands.
Down below, the great hall had devolved from dinner into a revel, and they could hear it even two floors up, where the windows in Peter’s study gave him a view of the outlying woods around Arn Abedin. Peter had fled the great hall as soon as he could, and Edmund had followed when he’d been assured that Susan and Lucy had things well in hand. Lucy was better at controlling dubious situations than any of them, and Susan -
“You can’t really blame me, you know,” Edmund said. “I’ve spent the past twenty years thinking you don’t listen to anything I say. And who knew you read any reports at all, let alone the ones that don’t even have anything to do with Narnia? Wait,” he corrected, and Peter raised his eyebrows, grinning in amusement, “reverse that. I thought you only read reports that have anything at all to do with someone who might try and attack Narnia. I didn’t think you’d consider Rohan a threat.”
“I don’t,” Peter said. “They have too many of their own problems, and they’re too far away - as far as I can tell from Eomer’s accounts, they must have passed into Dagorlad and across the plains of Rhûn before cutting across the lower corner of Telmar and crossing the mountains at the pass of Nercar. If they’d kept on going east, they would have ended up at Anvard instead of in Narnia.”
Edmund, frowning at the map on Peter’s desk, let out a low whistle of respect. “That must be two month’s ride - I only got the news five days ago, and my spies fly. How long did he say it took him?”
“Three weeks, riding hard. Our Talking Horses say that these horses of Rohan are magnificent for ordinary horses. I may have to ask Eomer if he’ll let a few of his stallions cover our mares.”
“Make sure you specify you’re talking about horses,” Edmund said, pouring himself another glass of wine.
Peter gave him a sharp look. “Why?”
“Or the next thing you’ll be negotiating, Aslan help us, will be a marriage contract. Have you seen the way he and Su are looking at each other? They’re practically ripping off each other’s clothes with their eyes. It’s disgusting.”
Peter frowned. “I don’t want Su getting involved with him when I haven’t made a decision yet.”
“What’s it going to hurt?” Edmund asked. “She’s still crushed from that mess with the wizard in Archenland - you know the one I mean.”
“I should hope so, seeing as I was the one who killed the bastard,” Peter said.
“Exactly why I thought you’d know who I meant. Anyway, this is the first time she’s smiled since before the whole swan business. If she wants to have a little fun, who are you to stop her?”
“The High King of Narnia,” Peter pointed out, voice very dry again. “And her older brother, but I don't particularly care who she’s sleeping with as long as it doesn’t threaten Narnia. And I haven’t decided whether Eomer of Rohan does or not.”
Edmund tilted the glass of wine at him. “I,” he said, “am not helping you explain to Susan that she can’t get laid because it might be a national security hazard.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Peter replied, smiling around his glass. “Susan can yell at me all she wants. It’s been a while. She’s probably out of practice.”
“Then you,” Edmund said, “are going to go find her and tell her while I get out of range. Getting yelled at by Susan is not an experience I want to voluntarily repeat. I think I’ll go make sure Lu’s not getting herself engaged or some such rubbish. It’s not like we know Rohirric customs.”
Peter drained the last of his glass, stoppered the bottle of wine, and stood up. “Best we get it over with quickly, then.”
“Who’s this ‘we’, human?” Edmund said, grinning and following.
They managed to slip into the great hall relatively unseen - something more difficult than it seemed, since the rest of them could usually pass by ignored, but the High King was something else entirely. This time they were unusually lucky, since most of the Narnians’ attention was focused on the Rohirrim. Lucy was at the far end of the hall, doing shots with a few of the Rohirrim and a faun while a pair of leopards looked on - Peter still favored the great cats for the royal guard - but Susan and Eomer were nowhere in sight.
“Bother,” Peter said, and sighed.
-
-
She hadn’t bothered drawing the curtains last night - she liked the moonlight, and it was nearly full - and woke to the warmth of sunlight on her skin. For a few minutes Susan simply lay in her bed with her eyes closed, enjoying the feel of it, then with a little sigh, she opened her eyes. Knowing Peter, he’d want to have words with all of them as early as he could, before he had to make another decision. Not that he wouldn’t make decisions without them - as she well knew, he was more than capable of doing so, and sometimes they were shockingly good and sometimes they were shockingly bad - but in regards to something that was potentially as big as this was, he’d want all of them. The full council wasn’t at Arn Abedin, but he didn’t need the full council for this.
Next to her, Eomer stirred and opened his eyes.
“Good morning,” Susan said, leaning down to kiss him. It was a very nice kiss, and she’d kissed enough men (and a few women) to know. Afterwards, she got up and went naked to her closet, running a hand across the soft fabric of her dresses before deciding on the golden brown with the embroidery going up the sleeves and the lion’s claws picked out in gold like a belt.
“Are you going?” Eomer asked as Susan pulled the dress out of the closet and dumped it unceremoniously across the back of a chair, then slipped into a shift and began to brush her hair. She’d put it up today, she thought. Here, as at Cair Paravel, she could have wrung for someone to come in and dress her, but she rather liked doing it herself when she had the chance.
“Yes,” she said, twisting her hair up and securing it with the hairpins she’d left scattered across her dresser last night. She added a hairnet of golden wire, studded with citrines - it would match the dress - and inspected the effect in her mirror before beginning to dress properly. She let Eomer see the long dagger on her hip, but not the small, flat ones strapped to her legs in specially designed quick-release sheathes. (Really, it didn’t say much about their court that all her clothes were designed with the intent to look good with any number of weapons attached. The only thing that would really interfere was a sword - certainly not a bow - and that was because Susan was wretched with a sword.)
“My brother will want to have a family meeting,” she added. “He’s an early riser, and it’s best if I head him off before he sends someone in here to get me - or comes in himself.”
“Is that likely?” Eomer asked, raising himself up on an elbow.
“Well, he’s done it before, so I’d rather not push my luck. Or worse, Lucy will come in here, and trust me, you don’t want to have to deal with that.” This early she wasn’t going to deal with anything except the most basic of makeup - a little color for her lips and just a hint of kohl for her eyes. Susan pursed her lips at the mirror and nodded to herself. “I’ll see you at breakfast, if Peter doesn’t keep us too long.”
“And after that?” He’d gotten up and was starting to dress slowly. There was a red mark on his neck, Susan noted. And scratches down his back. As for herself, Susan felt pleasantly sated - it had been a long time, since before that incident in Archenland that Peter was ignoring and Edmund was treating her like glass about.
“Well,” Susan said, laughing a little, “that depends on what my brother says, doesn’t it?” She kissed him on the cheek on her way out of the room.
Peter wasn’t in his study when she got there, but Edmund and Lucy were, Edmund with a mug of steaming coffee and Lucy with a covered plate, carrying what Susan assumed was tea (Lucy hated coffee) in the other hand.
“Tell me,” Edmund said, scowling into his coffee, “is Pete getting predictable or are we just getting really good at anticipating his every whim?”
“Peter’s not actually here yet,” Lucy pointed out, munching on a croissant. She was entirely too cheerful this early in the morning. “He could still be asleep, or down at breakfast.”
“Do you really want to put money on that?” Edmund asked. He turned to Susan. “He’s going to be furious at you, sis. He was looking everywhere for you last night.”
“Clearly not everywhere,” Susan said, and Edmund made a face.
“There are some things I really don’t need to know about my sisters,” he muttered. “You look like the cat that ate the canary, Su.”
“Well, I had a very good night,” she said, just to see him squirm. “And you?”
“Miserable,” he said dryly. “I was up at all hours waiting for us to be stabbed to death in our beds.” He gave her a wry look over his coffee cup to let her know he was joking.
“Doesn’t anyone want to know how my night went?” Lucy asked plaintively. “Because I had an excellent -”
“No,” Edmund said loudly.
Peter gave him an odd look as he came in. “No what?” he asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Edmund said quickly before Lucy had a chance to tell him, probably in great detail and with gestures.
“I didn’t even send for you this time,” Peter noted, sitting behind his desk and snagging a piece of bacon off Lucy’s plate. “Which means you think I’m getting predictable, or you all want something from me that can’t wait till later.” He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“The first one,” Susan assured him. “Are we right?”
“Well, since we’re all here, we might as well have a conversation about our guests. Without,” he added darkly, since Peter knew them as well as Edmund did, “any intimate personal details.”
Lucy pouted. “But where’s the fun in that?” she asked, mostly just to see Edmund wince and Peter get up to take the kettle off the fire. As for herself, Susan stared at the ceiling until Peter put a cup of coffee in front of her, refilled Edmund’s mug, and took a muffin off Lucy’s plate, ignoring her halfhearted snatch at it, before sitting down again with his own cup.
“Now,” Peter said, “shall we talk about the Rohirrim?”
“Yes, let’s,” Edmund said. “I’m hungry.”
Peter rolled his eyes, but continued anyway. “The question is whether or not to offer the sanctuary they requested. On humanitarian terms, the answer is of course yes - those beasts tracking them are foul creatures indeed. On political terms, the question turns to whether or not allowing these Rohirrim sanctuary in our lands will bring down consequences upon Narnia. These are political refugees we’re speaking of. Rohan’s far enough away that war is unlikely, but possible, especially since King Theoden is being controlled by outside forces.”
“I doubt Rohan will come after them,” Edmund said. “They were exiled; chasing them once they’ve already left seems to go against the point. If he - or Wormtongue, I guess - wanted them dead that badly, execution would have been a much easier way to go about it.”
“I agree,” Susan said, “but Saruman’s orcs did chase them all the way out here, so I don’t think it’s Rohan we should be worried about.”
“And Saruman’s the sort who’d love to conquer everything in his path, too,” Edmund added. “Granted, Narnia’s three countries away from Isengard, and Rhûn will put up a fight if he tries for it, and it’s big enough to slow him down -”
“Not that they did all that much when Eomer’s men tore through there,” Lucy interjected, curling her legs up beneath her and cupping her mug in her hands. “With two hundred orcs chasing them.”
“I’d rather not trust Rhûn to protect Narnia,” Peter said. “The Grass Sea is hardly adequate protection.”
“And they’re still mad at us for, uh, that thing,” Edmund added. “That we don’t talk about. Ever. Uh, pretend I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t worry, we will,” Susan assured him. She sipped her coffee and said thoughtfully, “It seems like Saruman is more concerned with Rohan itself right now than with its one errant son. If he wanted to destroy the royal line, he could have done so back in Rohan - as Ed said, execution is a much more permanent solution than exile. Narnia’s far enough away from Rohan that I doubt they’ll pay us much mind, especially since we don’t have much of an influence in the west.”
“Because of that thing we don’t talk about,” Edmund clarified.
“Now that we’ve recapped the utter humiliation that was supposed to be my wedding -” Peter said.
“Supposed-to-be-wedding number three,” Lucy muttered, and gave Peter her most innocent look when he glared at her.
“- can we get back to the matter at hand?” he finished. “I’d rather not make any more enemies if I can help it.”
“You can’t,” Edmund said. “At this point, it’s not Rohan or Saruman I’m concerned about: it’s Mordor.”
“Mordor’s even farther away than Rohan,” Peter said warily.
“Which doesn’t really stop them from wanting to take over the world,” Edmund pointed out. “Which last I heard, we are part of.”
“Of course,” Lucy said brightly, “if Mordor wants to take over the world, then they’re hardly going to be really angry at Narnia for harboring Eomer and his men. I’m just saying.”
“Still, I’d rather not press them,” Peter said conservatively. “Especially Mordor’s allies are allied with Calormen, or may actually be Calormen -” He looked at Edmund, who shrugged.
“As far as I can figure, which isn’t very far, the Easterlings are cousins of the Calormenes. Or possibly they are Calormenes. You know, Pete, I’m sorry, but all my sources have failed me on this one. I really have no idea. I know they’re connected with the Tisroc’s people somehow, but I just don’t know how.”
“What that means,” Susan pointed out, drinking the last of her coffee and setting the mug aside, “is that the western war’s already reached the east. If Calormen’s involved, it won’t be long before we are too - we’re the biggest power on this coast besides Calormen. You know what a world war’s like, Pete - no one gets to play the neutrality card for long.”
Peter nodded, but he was still frowning. “I’m leaning towards granting the Rohirrim sanctuary, then. Anybody else want to weigh in on the subject?”
Susan and Lucy shook their heads, and Edmund added, “If this war reaches us, Pete, I doubt it’ll be because of Eomer’s people.”
“All right,” Peter said. “Go ahead and go down to breakfast. I’ll see you there in a few minutes. Su, can you hang on for a moment?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, as Lucy and Edmund left, Edmund trying to cover his ears while Lucy told him about her night.
Peter stayed sitting, suddenly looking tired when he hadn’t before. He rubbed his fingers into his brows and sighed.
“Are you all right?” Susan asked, going around the side of his desk to touch his shoulder lightly.
“I’d like a break before the next crisis, but Aslan knows that’s not going to happen,” Peter said, looking up at her. “I was looking for you last night.”
“Yes, I know. Edmund said. Pete,” Susan said, meeting his worried eyes, “you know I wouldn’t do anything to endanger Narnia.”
“I know you wouldn’t on purpose,” Peter said, sounding like he was picking his words carefully.
Susan smiled. “Looking out for my welfare, big brother, or for Narnia’s?”
“I just want you to be happy,” Peter said.
She leaned down to kiss his cheek, and Peter surprised her by getting up and wrapping his arms around her, chin resting on the top of her head. He was just barely tall enough for it to work, although she felt him stretch up a little to make it. “I’m happy,” Susan assured him. “It’s just been a long year. And don’t worry: I didn’t spill any state secrets, just had a very good time -”
“Now you sound like Lucy,” he muttered.
“- that I needed,” she finished, pulling away. “Maybe,” she added brightly, “I’m not the only one who really, really needs to get -”
“Now,” Peter said, rolling his eyes, “you sound like Edmund. Maybe I should marry the lot of you off and run this country myself.”
“You’d be begging for us back before the week was out,” Susan said. “Coming down to breakfast, or were you planning to sit up here and plot contingency plans in case of sudden invasion from the east and south?”
“Oh, I have those in triplicate,” Peter said.
“Of course you do,” Susan said. She turned as Lucy burst through the door.
“Pete, you’d better come downstairs,” she said, wide-eyed.
Peter gave them both an alarmed look and snatched his sheathed sword from where it hung over the fireplace. Susan suddenly wished for her bow, but she’d left it in the armory after they’d arrived yesterday. Lucy didn’t contradict Peter’s arming himself, just turned away and hurried down the hall.
Susan half-expected an invading army to have set up in the great hall, but all she saw when they got there was Eomer standing and talking to a tall man in a gray cloak while Edmund tried to get words in edgewise but was mostly being ignored. All the royal guard was standing up, stiff legged and bristling - Susan hadn’t seen the great cats this alarmed since the White Witch had come to Aslan’s camp and asked for Edmund’s head all those years ago.
“Who in blazes are you?” Peter demanded, advancing with sheathe in one hand and naked blade in the other.
The stranger turned and gave him a sharp look. “Put your sword away, boy. And I could ask you the same question.”
“I’m not a boy,” Peter said. “I’m the High King of Narnia. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“Gandalf is a great friend to Rohan,” Eomer put in hurriedly.
“The wizard?” Edmund interjected sharply, and Susan took a few steps back. Lucy caught her elbow. “Peter -”
“I know who he is, Ed,” Peter said. “What do you want in my country, wizard? Narnia is no friend of your kind.”
“Peter Pevensie of Narnia,” the wizard - Gandalf - said disdainfully. “A lapdog, if you pardon the expression, of Aslan’s. Useless.”
“I am no one’s lapdog,” Peter spat. “Not even Aslan’s. Wizard, watch your tongue while you set foot on my ground -”
“I want nothing of you or yours, High King,” Gandalf told him stiffly. “I come for Eomer and his Rohirrim. They are summoned back to Rohan by King Theoden, who has broken free of the spell cast on him by Saruman of Isengard.”
“Eomer has asked for and received sanctuary in Narnia if he wishes it,” Peter said, voice flat. He didn’t sheathe his sword.
“Sanctuary?” the wizard said. “Do even you think there is anywhere in Middle-Earth that is safe? Should Rohan fall, the west will follow -”
“Lucky we’re in the east, then,” Edmund said, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t wearing a sword, Susan noticed, but he had a hunting knife slung at the back of his belt, and his eyes kept flickering to the pole-arms on the wall.
“Sauron wants no less than all of Middle-Earth, even this piece of it - this sanctuary. And should he and your Aslan come face to face, the Enemy shall prevail. Even now, Mordor stretches out its hand for Narnia and all your ilk. First he will have his allies in Calormen strike, and when you are suitably weakened, then the orcs of Mordor shall march out and take all these lands. This country,” the wizard said, “will fall once more into darkness and be overshadowed.”
“The White Witch is dead,” Peter said, but Susan had seen his face twist at the words “once more.” Threats to his family he could handle - he knew they could take care of themselves - but the easiest way to get at Peter was to threaten Narnia, and this wizard of the west had done so.
“Dead? No. Such evil does not die, but is merely cast out. Sauron will bring her back, and he will return this country to her. He may even reward her by giving her you - or your siblings, should any of you survive the taking of Narnia. If you are content to let such ends pass without protest, Peter of Narnia, then so be it: I will leave you and your kin to the fate of all Middle-Earth.” The wizard’s face was calm and still and so utterly unlike and yet like Ogral’s that Susan felt her stomach twist and had to turn away.
Eomer, seeing her expression, came over and caught at her arms. “Susan,” he began, and Lucy pushed him away.
“Don’t!” she said fiercely. “Haven’t you made enough trouble? Narnia’s about to go to war because of what you’ve brought here, and we’ve barely recovered from the last crisis.”
Eomer looked startled; Susan couldn’t blame him. Small and pixie-like as she was, Lucy just didn’t look like she had it in her. “I’m all right,” Susan said, taking shaky breaths and curling and uncurling her fists. Fingers - she had fingers, not wings, and she was in her own castle, in her own country, with her sister beside her and her brothers not ten paces away. “Just - wizards. They all seem the same.”
“Gandalf -” Eomer began, and Lucy turned to glare at him.
“I’ll set the guard on him, if you want,” she told Susan. “They’ll do it if I ask. I can tell Peter they saw a mouse and just couldn’t help themselves. They are cats.”
Susan let out a choked laugh and said, “I can just see the look on Peter’s face when Narain tries to tell him that.” She squeezed Lucy’s hand and turned back to Peter and the wizard. Peter at least had Edmund at his shoulder; Edmund would hopefully keep him from doing something very stupid. Peter was more or less on his own when it came to things that would only embarrass him and not all of Narnia.
He’d sheathed his sword and slid it into the loops on his belt. “What do you want from me?” he asked; Susan had missed whatever else Gandalf had said.
“This war is coming no matter what Narnia does,” Gandalf said. “If you do nothing, it will certainly come; it will probably be at your gates within a year. But Rohan fights it now, alone and without allies. If you were to offer aid, Theoden of Rohan would be grateful - and you would delay the Enemy’s attention.”
“Or draw it here,” Edmund snapped. “Narnia doesn’t have so few allies that we have to spend our blood to get new ones from a warzone.”
“Well, that depends on what your brother’s been up to lately,” Gandalf said, and maybe there was a hint of humor there, or maybe there wasn’t; all Susan knew was that she wanted him out of Arn Abedin and over Narnia’s border as soon as possible.
“Let me get this clear,” Peter said, tilting his head up. “You think it would be a brilliant idea to march an army over most of three countries in order to help someone who isn’t even an ally and that probably can’t get Narnia anything it needs? How stupid do you think I am?”
Gandalf raised one bushy eyebrow.
“This is ridiculous,” Peter said, even though his faint blush made him look about seventeen again. “Get off my land, wizard, or I’ll have the guard run you off. Even magic can’t outrun leopards.”
“Do you want us to, majesty?” Narain asked, grinning and showing off very white, very sharp teeth. His tail lashed the air behind him.
“High King Peter!” Eomer said.
Peter turned towards him slowly. “And what do you want?” he demanded.
“I beg of you,” Eomer said, “Gandalf has told me that my uncle Theoden has taken all our people to the great stronghold of Helm’s Deep, which has never yet been breached. We are badly outnumbered by Saruman’s orcs, and I fear Helm’s Deep will not hold. I am taking my eored back to Rohan to join my forces with my uncle’s, and I beg Narnia’s aid.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Lucy murmured. “Now he’s appealing to Peter’s honor, and everyone in four countries knows that Peter can’t resist a plea like that.”
Sure enough, Peter hesitated, and then he said sharply, “Ed, I need you to call up the First Levy; I’ll take them south with Eomer. I want the rest of the levies ready to march if need be, but you and Susan are staying here at Cair Paravel.”
Susan saw Eomer close his eyes briefly in relief and then start to thank Peter, but Peter cut him off with an irritated motion of his hand. “Su, find some way to explain this so that it actually makes sense, because Aslan knows it doesn’t. Try not to use the words ‘planning to take over the world’ because no one ever believes that.”
“What about me?” Lucy asked plaintively.
Peter gave her his first smile of the morning. “Get out your armor, little sister,” he said. “You’re coming to war with me.”
Author: bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia/Lord of the Rings (movieverse)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “These lands,” he said, “are the lands of Narnia, which I rule over as High King. You will leave these lands, or as Aslan witness it, there will be blood spilled here today by my hand. I will suffer no evil to be done in this country so long as I sit at Cair Paravel. Take your feud elsewhere.” Eomer/Susan.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings and their characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, respectively. Some characters, settings, situations, etc., belong to Walden Media and New Line Cinema. Title and cut-text are from Rudyard Kipling's poem Hymn Before Action.
Author's Note: This story takes place during The Two Towers, in that missing interim where Eomer and his riders have ridden "north", and during the Golden Age of Narnia. It also assumes that Narnia is part of Middle-Earth and that this map of Narnia and this map of Middle-Earth butt up against each other at the eastern-western ends.
They had taken the horses far and fast - too far and too fast, Eomer feared, for although the great horses of Rohan were legend throughout all of Middle-Earth, they were no more than mortal steeds, and subject to all the flaws of mortality. Fleeing the wrath of Grima Wormtongue and the orcs of Isengard, Eomer led his eored over the great mountains of the northeast, hoping to lose their pursuers amid the deep ravines and snow-covered peaks. But the white hand of Saruman had followed them even here, into this verdant green land on the other side of the mountains. This country was strange and beautiful, with unfamiliar trees and grass that the horses seemed to find so sweet that Eomer himself was more than half-tempted to get down on his knees and taste it as well. For orcs to be here seemed obscene. They marred the hills with their grey skins, fouled the forests with their putrid stink, and soon would spill their blood on this land.
The mountain crossing had taken a great toll on Eomer’s folk, but an even greater one on their horses. The orcs behind them were not nearly so strained, and even as he urged his men forward, to the little rise above that would give them some advantage, he knew that they wouldn’t make it there before the orcs were upon them.
They met in a great clash of bodies and metal as horses screamed and orcs died. Eomer lost his spear sometime in those first few frantic moments and drew his sword instead, plunging into the fray as his horse lashed out with metalshod hooves, smashing in the face of the nearest orc. Too many, too many. All the Rohirrim could do was fight to take as many orcs as they could with them into the abyss. Eomer screamed his rage.
The horns - deep and steady, pounding into his bones - seemed more like to be illusion rather than truth, so he disregarded them as irrelevant, choosing instead to concentrate on the swing of his sword and the shield on his left arm, turning his horse nimbly from one side to the other with light touches of his knees. The illusion lasted until an arrow struck the orc before him - an unfamiliar arrow, longer than those carried by the horse-archers of Rohan, made of red wood and fletched with strange feathers.
“HOLD!” he heard someone shout - a man’s voice, with such a ring of command in it that even the orcs hesitated.
Eomer turned his horse about to see the speaker, and saw, on the hill the Rohirrim had been riding hard for, what appeared to be a hunting party. Their banners were scarlet and gold, unfamiliar to him - he had not known that any civilized folk lived in these wild lands. And such folk! The majority were not Men at all, but horses going unencumbered, and sleek wild cats like the great hunters of the Mark, and dwarfs, and creatures the like of which Eomer had never seen before, half Man and half beast. The four humans were just as exotic, clad in finery that seemed unsuited for riding - certainly not for fighting. Three were dark, the other light. It was this last that rode forward a pace further.
“These lands,” he said, “are the lands of Narnia, which I rule over as High King. You will leave these lands, or as Aslan witness it, there will be blood spilled here today by my hand. I will suffer no evil to be done in this country so long as I sit at Cair Paravel. Take your feud elsewhere.”
“My folk,” Eomer called, “did not begin this. If we can ask for it -” and here he had to pause and swallow down his pride, feeling the curious glare of the High King burning into his skin, “- then we ask for sanctuary.”
The High King had no chance to answer. The orc captain let out a harsh laugh. “Let them go?” he spat. “Why let them go when we can take them, and you, and bring this land under the rule of our master Saruman? This green land, fresh and unspoiled.” He raised his ugly sword. “Take them all!”
Sunlight reflected off the bright sword that the High King drew. “Narnia!” he cried. “Narnia and Aslan!” And the Narnian hunting party came charging down the hill in a river of scarlet.
Eomer saw no more as he found himself once more engaged in battle. So lightly armored as the Narnians were - by which he meant not at all - he had not expected them to turn the tide, but slowly - so slowly - they drove back the orcs. He soon found himself side by side with the High King, who fought as well as any man of Rohan, even unarmored. It was he who struck the final blow of the battle, taking the orc captain’s head off with a single swing of his sword.
Afterwards, as Eomer was seeing to his wounded and his dead, it was the High King who approached him. “Do you have anyone badly wounded?” he asked.
When Eomer looked up, it was to see that the High King was shockingly young - little more than a boy, he seemed, although his face was as solemn as any man’s. “Yes,” Eomer said.
“If you’ll allow our help,” the High King said, “we can do something about that.”
Looking at his face, Eomer saw nothing except genuine concern. “Any help you can offer is appreciated, your majesty,” he said.
He nodded and turned, calling over his shoulder. One of the women came over to him, wiping her hands on her skirt. She was even younger than the High King. “Queen Lucy,” she introduced herself. “Peter’s sister.”
Peter, Eomer assumed, was the High King. He looked at him for confirmation and the High King said, “My sister’s an excellent healer.”
“Of course, your majesty,” Eomer said.
“As for yourself,” the High King added, “I would speak to you. Starting with your name.”
A little surprised - what sort of king couldn't recognize his neighbors’ own family? - Eomer said, “I am Eomer of Rohan, of the House of Eorl.”
“High King Peter of Narnia,” the High King said; that was friendly enough. Then his expression went cold. “What are you doing in my land?”
“My eored has traveled off our maps,” Eomer said, choosing his words carefully. “I did not know this land was occupied. We fled trouble in our own land, which is beset from danger on all sides - even our own king has turned against those loyal to him and cast them out of Rohan.”
“Without cause?” a stranger said from behind Eomer.
Hiding his surprise - he hadn’t heard the approach - Eomer turned slowly on his heel.
The speaker was a young man with sharp features and dark hair, his carefully blank gaze fixed on Eomer. “Pete,” he said, addressing the High King, “if I didn’t already know that you didn’t read any of my foreign affairs reports, I’d be hurt.”
“I did read this one, actually,” the High King said, with a hint of back off in his voice.
The stranger nodded - adviser? Heir? Brother? - and fell silent, scrubbing at a streak of blood on his cheek with the side of his thumb.
“Your country,” the High King continued, “is at war, open or not. Whether your exile was at the will of your king or of his handler -” and here there was a little sneer that he didn't quite control, “- you still left your country open to attack, without protection. Knowing that - yes, I do know that; Narnia’s intelligence is very good - I need a very good reason to allow you refuge in my country, especially given the likelihood that more of these will come after you. Narnia cannot easily afford to get embroiled in someone else’s war; we have enough trouble of our own.”
Good, Eomer thought; he didn’t have the trick of reading strangers that other men did - that Theodred had had - but he thought he might understand this young king. He’s very good. Once again, he chose his words carefully. “We don’t ask for allies,” he said, after a slight pause he could only hope that the High King hadn’t noticed, though he doubted that must went past this boy king, “we simply ask for a resting spot, if that is all you’re content to offer us. Or we will move onwards.”
“I’m tempted to tell you to do so,” the High King said smoothly, and Eomer blinked for a moment in surprise at the blandness of the statement. “But for the moment, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you again: why would you abandon Rohan when your country needs you more than she ever has?”
“There is no good answer for that,” Eomer allowed. “First I thought simply to take those men loyal to Rohan south over the mountain passes and into Gondor to aid in the war against Mordor, but Saruman had other plans. He set these creatures to tormenting my people in order to lure my eored to him, and when we attacked, we found their number more than half again ours. When we retreated, they pursued us, and to stop them turning back to Rohan, we allowed them. We have traveled for many days.”
“Killing them,” the unnamed young stranger - he’d moved to the High King’s side by now - said, “is generally a slightly more permanent option. And doing so before you crossed the mountains would have had the twin benefits of your men and horses not being so tired, and not bringing your feuds onto Narnian soil.”
Eomer glanced at the High King to see if he sanctioned this, but the boy’s face was still carefully blank. “Isengard and Mordor want no less than all of Middle-Earth,” he said. “Even if the White Hand hadn’t followed us here, they would be here within the year nonetheless. You think Narnia is safe? Saruman or Sauron will stretch out their hand for your country as well. I did not bring this fight to you: it is coming nonetheless.”
“I know,” the High King said. He paused, and then said, “It is three days’ ride to Cair Paravel. You and your men are welcome to join my court at Arn Abedin, my brother’s hunting lodge, for the immediate future.”
“Thank you,” Eomer said. “We would be honored.”
“Our hunt has been halted somewhat,” he added with a grin that softened the starkness on his face and made him seem more the boy he looked, “but I assure you, the Arn Abedin chefs will still have something impressive. Now I must see to my own people, but I leave you in the care of my sisters Queen Susan and Queen Lucy. I will speak to you again at Arn Abedin.” He went away without another word, the stranger falling into step beside him.
The girl-queen, Lucy, came up to him. She was younger than Eowyn, he noted even as he turned to face her. “Is Peter being Peter again?” she said, laughing a little. “Your men seem very nice. Those that I treated will be all right, but the rest had better see a real healer at Arn Abedin - we are going there, I assume? I heard Peter say so. And this is my sister Susan!” She reached out to catch the arm of the woman approaching them.
“Get off, Lu,” she said, tugging her arm free. Like her sister, she was dark of hair and fair of skin; she had a bow and quiver strapped across her back. With a slight start, Eomer recognized the arrows as those that had fallen like rain during the short battle, identical to the one that had slain the first orc. She was also very beautiful. She turned to Eomer, smiling warmly, and said, “Eomer of Rohan, of the House of Eorl, I assume?”
“That’s correct, my lady,” Eomer said, bowing his head.
She dipped a slight curtsy in reply, but when she straightened, it was to look at Eomer eye to eye, head cocked in a way that he might have said was challenging. Or merely interested. He liked her immediately. “I’m Queen Susan of Narnia, the High King’s other sister.” She flicked her gaze quickly over him and then looked up, the movement swift and natural. He saw the sharp interest on her face; she saw him looking and smiled - or rather, the smile she already wore changed, to something less warmly neutral and more warmly amused.
“The High King,” she continued, “has put you into my keeping, at least for the immediate time being. Best we not waste that, hmm?”
“Best not, my lady,” Eomer said. Her dress clung to the curves of breast and hip, the colors shades of green and gold, stained now with the black blood of orcs and the copper stains of human blood. Although Eowyn didn’t particularly care for dresses, having a sister meant that Eomer could pick out the differences between Susan’s dress and the equivalent Rohirric one. This one was lower cut.
He glanced up as soon as he realized he was looking and saw the amused twist of Susan’s mouth. “You may find Narnia quite different from Rohan,” was all she said before she called for her horse.
The mare came trotting up, cocked her head at Eomer, and said, “So these are the great horselords of the southeast, are they? They don’t look like much.”
Eomer gaped. Lucy laughed, a delighted peal of it that managed not to be ill-natured at all. Susan grinned at them both as she swung into the saddle, astride like a man or a woman of Rohan. “Get your men up, Eomer of Rohan,” she said. “The High King doesn’t want to linger here longer than he must.”
-
-
“And you say I much up diplomatic negotiations, Ed,” the High King of Narnia said. He didn’t even turn around.
Edmund dropped into a chair. “I have got to stop trying to sneak up on you,” he said. “It’s not doing much for my self-esteem at all.” Experimentally, he put his feet up on Peter’s desk.
“Off, Ed, that’s imported handcarved rosewood from Galma,” Peter said. He finally turned around, digging out a pair of glasses from his desk to pour the wine he was drinking straight from the bottle.
“But how do you know?” Edmund asked, taking the glass Peter offered him.
“I have lived with you for twenty years, you know,” Peter pointed out dryly. He dropped into the seat across from Edmund, turning his glass around in his hand so that the flickering candlelight illuminated the deep red wine - the wine a gift from the king of Archenland, the glasses brought back by Lucy during her last visit to the Lone Islands.
Down below, the great hall had devolved from dinner into a revel, and they could hear it even two floors up, where the windows in Peter’s study gave him a view of the outlying woods around Arn Abedin. Peter had fled the great hall as soon as he could, and Edmund had followed when he’d been assured that Susan and Lucy had things well in hand. Lucy was better at controlling dubious situations than any of them, and Susan -
“You can’t really blame me, you know,” Edmund said. “I’ve spent the past twenty years thinking you don’t listen to anything I say. And who knew you read any reports at all, let alone the ones that don’t even have anything to do with Narnia? Wait,” he corrected, and Peter raised his eyebrows, grinning in amusement, “reverse that. I thought you only read reports that have anything at all to do with someone who might try and attack Narnia. I didn’t think you’d consider Rohan a threat.”
“I don’t,” Peter said. “They have too many of their own problems, and they’re too far away - as far as I can tell from Eomer’s accounts, they must have passed into Dagorlad and across the plains of Rhûn before cutting across the lower corner of Telmar and crossing the mountains at the pass of Nercar. If they’d kept on going east, they would have ended up at Anvard instead of in Narnia.”
Edmund, frowning at the map on Peter’s desk, let out a low whistle of respect. “That must be two month’s ride - I only got the news five days ago, and my spies fly. How long did he say it took him?”
“Three weeks, riding hard. Our Talking Horses say that these horses of Rohan are magnificent for ordinary horses. I may have to ask Eomer if he’ll let a few of his stallions cover our mares.”
“Make sure you specify you’re talking about horses,” Edmund said, pouring himself another glass of wine.
Peter gave him a sharp look. “Why?”
“Or the next thing you’ll be negotiating, Aslan help us, will be a marriage contract. Have you seen the way he and Su are looking at each other? They’re practically ripping off each other’s clothes with their eyes. It’s disgusting.”
Peter frowned. “I don’t want Su getting involved with him when I haven’t made a decision yet.”
“What’s it going to hurt?” Edmund asked. “She’s still crushed from that mess with the wizard in Archenland - you know the one I mean.”
“I should hope so, seeing as I was the one who killed the bastard,” Peter said.
“Exactly why I thought you’d know who I meant. Anyway, this is the first time she’s smiled since before the whole swan business. If she wants to have a little fun, who are you to stop her?”
“The High King of Narnia,” Peter pointed out, voice very dry again. “And her older brother, but I don't particularly care who she’s sleeping with as long as it doesn’t threaten Narnia. And I haven’t decided whether Eomer of Rohan does or not.”
Edmund tilted the glass of wine at him. “I,” he said, “am not helping you explain to Susan that she can’t get laid because it might be a national security hazard.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Peter replied, smiling around his glass. “Susan can yell at me all she wants. It’s been a while. She’s probably out of practice.”
“Then you,” Edmund said, “are going to go find her and tell her while I get out of range. Getting yelled at by Susan is not an experience I want to voluntarily repeat. I think I’ll go make sure Lu’s not getting herself engaged or some such rubbish. It’s not like we know Rohirric customs.”
Peter drained the last of his glass, stoppered the bottle of wine, and stood up. “Best we get it over with quickly, then.”
“Who’s this ‘we’, human?” Edmund said, grinning and following.
They managed to slip into the great hall relatively unseen - something more difficult than it seemed, since the rest of them could usually pass by ignored, but the High King was something else entirely. This time they were unusually lucky, since most of the Narnians’ attention was focused on the Rohirrim. Lucy was at the far end of the hall, doing shots with a few of the Rohirrim and a faun while a pair of leopards looked on - Peter still favored the great cats for the royal guard - but Susan and Eomer were nowhere in sight.
“Bother,” Peter said, and sighed.
-
-
She hadn’t bothered drawing the curtains last night - she liked the moonlight, and it was nearly full - and woke to the warmth of sunlight on her skin. For a few minutes Susan simply lay in her bed with her eyes closed, enjoying the feel of it, then with a little sigh, she opened her eyes. Knowing Peter, he’d want to have words with all of them as early as he could, before he had to make another decision. Not that he wouldn’t make decisions without them - as she well knew, he was more than capable of doing so, and sometimes they were shockingly good and sometimes they were shockingly bad - but in regards to something that was potentially as big as this was, he’d want all of them. The full council wasn’t at Arn Abedin, but he didn’t need the full council for this.
Next to her, Eomer stirred and opened his eyes.
“Good morning,” Susan said, leaning down to kiss him. It was a very nice kiss, and she’d kissed enough men (and a few women) to know. Afterwards, she got up and went naked to her closet, running a hand across the soft fabric of her dresses before deciding on the golden brown with the embroidery going up the sleeves and the lion’s claws picked out in gold like a belt.
“Are you going?” Eomer asked as Susan pulled the dress out of the closet and dumped it unceremoniously across the back of a chair, then slipped into a shift and began to brush her hair. She’d put it up today, she thought. Here, as at Cair Paravel, she could have wrung for someone to come in and dress her, but she rather liked doing it herself when she had the chance.
“Yes,” she said, twisting her hair up and securing it with the hairpins she’d left scattered across her dresser last night. She added a hairnet of golden wire, studded with citrines - it would match the dress - and inspected the effect in her mirror before beginning to dress properly. She let Eomer see the long dagger on her hip, but not the small, flat ones strapped to her legs in specially designed quick-release sheathes. (Really, it didn’t say much about their court that all her clothes were designed with the intent to look good with any number of weapons attached. The only thing that would really interfere was a sword - certainly not a bow - and that was because Susan was wretched with a sword.)
“My brother will want to have a family meeting,” she added. “He’s an early riser, and it’s best if I head him off before he sends someone in here to get me - or comes in himself.”
“Is that likely?” Eomer asked, raising himself up on an elbow.
“Well, he’s done it before, so I’d rather not push my luck. Or worse, Lucy will come in here, and trust me, you don’t want to have to deal with that.” This early she wasn’t going to deal with anything except the most basic of makeup - a little color for her lips and just a hint of kohl for her eyes. Susan pursed her lips at the mirror and nodded to herself. “I’ll see you at breakfast, if Peter doesn’t keep us too long.”
“And after that?” He’d gotten up and was starting to dress slowly. There was a red mark on his neck, Susan noted. And scratches down his back. As for herself, Susan felt pleasantly sated - it had been a long time, since before that incident in Archenland that Peter was ignoring and Edmund was treating her like glass about.
“Well,” Susan said, laughing a little, “that depends on what my brother says, doesn’t it?” She kissed him on the cheek on her way out of the room.
Peter wasn’t in his study when she got there, but Edmund and Lucy were, Edmund with a mug of steaming coffee and Lucy with a covered plate, carrying what Susan assumed was tea (Lucy hated coffee) in the other hand.
“Tell me,” Edmund said, scowling into his coffee, “is Pete getting predictable or are we just getting really good at anticipating his every whim?”
“Peter’s not actually here yet,” Lucy pointed out, munching on a croissant. She was entirely too cheerful this early in the morning. “He could still be asleep, or down at breakfast.”
“Do you really want to put money on that?” Edmund asked. He turned to Susan. “He’s going to be furious at you, sis. He was looking everywhere for you last night.”
“Clearly not everywhere,” Susan said, and Edmund made a face.
“There are some things I really don’t need to know about my sisters,” he muttered. “You look like the cat that ate the canary, Su.”
“Well, I had a very good night,” she said, just to see him squirm. “And you?”
“Miserable,” he said dryly. “I was up at all hours waiting for us to be stabbed to death in our beds.” He gave her a wry look over his coffee cup to let her know he was joking.
“Doesn’t anyone want to know how my night went?” Lucy asked plaintively. “Because I had an excellent -”
“No,” Edmund said loudly.
Peter gave him an odd look as he came in. “No what?” he asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Edmund said quickly before Lucy had a chance to tell him, probably in great detail and with gestures.
“I didn’t even send for you this time,” Peter noted, sitting behind his desk and snagging a piece of bacon off Lucy’s plate. “Which means you think I’m getting predictable, or you all want something from me that can’t wait till later.” He raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
“The first one,” Susan assured him. “Are we right?”
“Well, since we’re all here, we might as well have a conversation about our guests. Without,” he added darkly, since Peter knew them as well as Edmund did, “any intimate personal details.”
Lucy pouted. “But where’s the fun in that?” she asked, mostly just to see Edmund wince and Peter get up to take the kettle off the fire. As for herself, Susan stared at the ceiling until Peter put a cup of coffee in front of her, refilled Edmund’s mug, and took a muffin off Lucy’s plate, ignoring her halfhearted snatch at it, before sitting down again with his own cup.
“Now,” Peter said, “shall we talk about the Rohirrim?”
“Yes, let’s,” Edmund said. “I’m hungry.”
Peter rolled his eyes, but continued anyway. “The question is whether or not to offer the sanctuary they requested. On humanitarian terms, the answer is of course yes - those beasts tracking them are foul creatures indeed. On political terms, the question turns to whether or not allowing these Rohirrim sanctuary in our lands will bring down consequences upon Narnia. These are political refugees we’re speaking of. Rohan’s far enough away that war is unlikely, but possible, especially since King Theoden is being controlled by outside forces.”
“I doubt Rohan will come after them,” Edmund said. “They were exiled; chasing them once they’ve already left seems to go against the point. If he - or Wormtongue, I guess - wanted them dead that badly, execution would have been a much easier way to go about it.”
“I agree,” Susan said, “but Saruman’s orcs did chase them all the way out here, so I don’t think it’s Rohan we should be worried about.”
“And Saruman’s the sort who’d love to conquer everything in his path, too,” Edmund added. “Granted, Narnia’s three countries away from Isengard, and Rhûn will put up a fight if he tries for it, and it’s big enough to slow him down -”
“Not that they did all that much when Eomer’s men tore through there,” Lucy interjected, curling her legs up beneath her and cupping her mug in her hands. “With two hundred orcs chasing them.”
“I’d rather not trust Rhûn to protect Narnia,” Peter said. “The Grass Sea is hardly adequate protection.”
“And they’re still mad at us for, uh, that thing,” Edmund added. “That we don’t talk about. Ever. Uh, pretend I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t worry, we will,” Susan assured him. She sipped her coffee and said thoughtfully, “It seems like Saruman is more concerned with Rohan itself right now than with its one errant son. If he wanted to destroy the royal line, he could have done so back in Rohan - as Ed said, execution is a much more permanent solution than exile. Narnia’s far enough away from Rohan that I doubt they’ll pay us much mind, especially since we don’t have much of an influence in the west.”
“Because of that thing we don’t talk about,” Edmund clarified.
“Now that we’ve recapped the utter humiliation that was supposed to be my wedding -” Peter said.
“Supposed-to-be-wedding number three,” Lucy muttered, and gave Peter her most innocent look when he glared at her.
“- can we get back to the matter at hand?” he finished. “I’d rather not make any more enemies if I can help it.”
“You can’t,” Edmund said. “At this point, it’s not Rohan or Saruman I’m concerned about: it’s Mordor.”
“Mordor’s even farther away than Rohan,” Peter said warily.
“Which doesn’t really stop them from wanting to take over the world,” Edmund pointed out. “Which last I heard, we are part of.”
“Of course,” Lucy said brightly, “if Mordor wants to take over the world, then they’re hardly going to be really angry at Narnia for harboring Eomer and his men. I’m just saying.”
“Still, I’d rather not press them,” Peter said conservatively. “Especially Mordor’s allies are allied with Calormen, or may actually be Calormen -” He looked at Edmund, who shrugged.
“As far as I can figure, which isn’t very far, the Easterlings are cousins of the Calormenes. Or possibly they are Calormenes. You know, Pete, I’m sorry, but all my sources have failed me on this one. I really have no idea. I know they’re connected with the Tisroc’s people somehow, but I just don’t know how.”
“What that means,” Susan pointed out, drinking the last of her coffee and setting the mug aside, “is that the western war’s already reached the east. If Calormen’s involved, it won’t be long before we are too - we’re the biggest power on this coast besides Calormen. You know what a world war’s like, Pete - no one gets to play the neutrality card for long.”
Peter nodded, but he was still frowning. “I’m leaning towards granting the Rohirrim sanctuary, then. Anybody else want to weigh in on the subject?”
Susan and Lucy shook their heads, and Edmund added, “If this war reaches us, Pete, I doubt it’ll be because of Eomer’s people.”
“All right,” Peter said. “Go ahead and go down to breakfast. I’ll see you there in a few minutes. Su, can you hang on for a moment?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, as Lucy and Edmund left, Edmund trying to cover his ears while Lucy told him about her night.
Peter stayed sitting, suddenly looking tired when he hadn’t before. He rubbed his fingers into his brows and sighed.
“Are you all right?” Susan asked, going around the side of his desk to touch his shoulder lightly.
“I’d like a break before the next crisis, but Aslan knows that’s not going to happen,” Peter said, looking up at her. “I was looking for you last night.”
“Yes, I know. Edmund said. Pete,” Susan said, meeting his worried eyes, “you know I wouldn’t do anything to endanger Narnia.”
“I know you wouldn’t on purpose,” Peter said, sounding like he was picking his words carefully.
Susan smiled. “Looking out for my welfare, big brother, or for Narnia’s?”
“I just want you to be happy,” Peter said.
She leaned down to kiss his cheek, and Peter surprised her by getting up and wrapping his arms around her, chin resting on the top of her head. He was just barely tall enough for it to work, although she felt him stretch up a little to make it. “I’m happy,” Susan assured him. “It’s just been a long year. And don’t worry: I didn’t spill any state secrets, just had a very good time -”
“Now you sound like Lucy,” he muttered.
“- that I needed,” she finished, pulling away. “Maybe,” she added brightly, “I’m not the only one who really, really needs to get -”
“Now,” Peter said, rolling his eyes, “you sound like Edmund. Maybe I should marry the lot of you off and run this country myself.”
“You’d be begging for us back before the week was out,” Susan said. “Coming down to breakfast, or were you planning to sit up here and plot contingency plans in case of sudden invasion from the east and south?”
“Oh, I have those in triplicate,” Peter said.
“Of course you do,” Susan said. She turned as Lucy burst through the door.
“Pete, you’d better come downstairs,” she said, wide-eyed.
Peter gave them both an alarmed look and snatched his sheathed sword from where it hung over the fireplace. Susan suddenly wished for her bow, but she’d left it in the armory after they’d arrived yesterday. Lucy didn’t contradict Peter’s arming himself, just turned away and hurried down the hall.
Susan half-expected an invading army to have set up in the great hall, but all she saw when they got there was Eomer standing and talking to a tall man in a gray cloak while Edmund tried to get words in edgewise but was mostly being ignored. All the royal guard was standing up, stiff legged and bristling - Susan hadn’t seen the great cats this alarmed since the White Witch had come to Aslan’s camp and asked for Edmund’s head all those years ago.
“Who in blazes are you?” Peter demanded, advancing with sheathe in one hand and naked blade in the other.
The stranger turned and gave him a sharp look. “Put your sword away, boy. And I could ask you the same question.”
“I’m not a boy,” Peter said. “I’m the High King of Narnia. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“Gandalf is a great friend to Rohan,” Eomer put in hurriedly.
“The wizard?” Edmund interjected sharply, and Susan took a few steps back. Lucy caught her elbow. “Peter -”
“I know who he is, Ed,” Peter said. “What do you want in my country, wizard? Narnia is no friend of your kind.”
“Peter Pevensie of Narnia,” the wizard - Gandalf - said disdainfully. “A lapdog, if you pardon the expression, of Aslan’s. Useless.”
“I am no one’s lapdog,” Peter spat. “Not even Aslan’s. Wizard, watch your tongue while you set foot on my ground -”
“I want nothing of you or yours, High King,” Gandalf told him stiffly. “I come for Eomer and his Rohirrim. They are summoned back to Rohan by King Theoden, who has broken free of the spell cast on him by Saruman of Isengard.”
“Eomer has asked for and received sanctuary in Narnia if he wishes it,” Peter said, voice flat. He didn’t sheathe his sword.
“Sanctuary?” the wizard said. “Do even you think there is anywhere in Middle-Earth that is safe? Should Rohan fall, the west will follow -”
“Lucky we’re in the east, then,” Edmund said, arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t wearing a sword, Susan noticed, but he had a hunting knife slung at the back of his belt, and his eyes kept flickering to the pole-arms on the wall.
“Sauron wants no less than all of Middle-Earth, even this piece of it - this sanctuary. And should he and your Aslan come face to face, the Enemy shall prevail. Even now, Mordor stretches out its hand for Narnia and all your ilk. First he will have his allies in Calormen strike, and when you are suitably weakened, then the orcs of Mordor shall march out and take all these lands. This country,” the wizard said, “will fall once more into darkness and be overshadowed.”
“The White Witch is dead,” Peter said, but Susan had seen his face twist at the words “once more.” Threats to his family he could handle - he knew they could take care of themselves - but the easiest way to get at Peter was to threaten Narnia, and this wizard of the west had done so.
“Dead? No. Such evil does not die, but is merely cast out. Sauron will bring her back, and he will return this country to her. He may even reward her by giving her you - or your siblings, should any of you survive the taking of Narnia. If you are content to let such ends pass without protest, Peter of Narnia, then so be it: I will leave you and your kin to the fate of all Middle-Earth.” The wizard’s face was calm and still and so utterly unlike and yet like Ogral’s that Susan felt her stomach twist and had to turn away.
Eomer, seeing her expression, came over and caught at her arms. “Susan,” he began, and Lucy pushed him away.
“Don’t!” she said fiercely. “Haven’t you made enough trouble? Narnia’s about to go to war because of what you’ve brought here, and we’ve barely recovered from the last crisis.”
Eomer looked startled; Susan couldn’t blame him. Small and pixie-like as she was, Lucy just didn’t look like she had it in her. “I’m all right,” Susan said, taking shaky breaths and curling and uncurling her fists. Fingers - she had fingers, not wings, and she was in her own castle, in her own country, with her sister beside her and her brothers not ten paces away. “Just - wizards. They all seem the same.”
“Gandalf -” Eomer began, and Lucy turned to glare at him.
“I’ll set the guard on him, if you want,” she told Susan. “They’ll do it if I ask. I can tell Peter they saw a mouse and just couldn’t help themselves. They are cats.”
Susan let out a choked laugh and said, “I can just see the look on Peter’s face when Narain tries to tell him that.” She squeezed Lucy’s hand and turned back to Peter and the wizard. Peter at least had Edmund at his shoulder; Edmund would hopefully keep him from doing something very stupid. Peter was more or less on his own when it came to things that would only embarrass him and not all of Narnia.
He’d sheathed his sword and slid it into the loops on his belt. “What do you want from me?” he asked; Susan had missed whatever else Gandalf had said.
“This war is coming no matter what Narnia does,” Gandalf said. “If you do nothing, it will certainly come; it will probably be at your gates within a year. But Rohan fights it now, alone and without allies. If you were to offer aid, Theoden of Rohan would be grateful - and you would delay the Enemy’s attention.”
“Or draw it here,” Edmund snapped. “Narnia doesn’t have so few allies that we have to spend our blood to get new ones from a warzone.”
“Well, that depends on what your brother’s been up to lately,” Gandalf said, and maybe there was a hint of humor there, or maybe there wasn’t; all Susan knew was that she wanted him out of Arn Abedin and over Narnia’s border as soon as possible.
“Let me get this clear,” Peter said, tilting his head up. “You think it would be a brilliant idea to march an army over most of three countries in order to help someone who isn’t even an ally and that probably can’t get Narnia anything it needs? How stupid do you think I am?”
Gandalf raised one bushy eyebrow.
“This is ridiculous,” Peter said, even though his faint blush made him look about seventeen again. “Get off my land, wizard, or I’ll have the guard run you off. Even magic can’t outrun leopards.”
“Do you want us to, majesty?” Narain asked, grinning and showing off very white, very sharp teeth. His tail lashed the air behind him.
“High King Peter!” Eomer said.
Peter turned towards him slowly. “And what do you want?” he demanded.
“I beg of you,” Eomer said, “Gandalf has told me that my uncle Theoden has taken all our people to the great stronghold of Helm’s Deep, which has never yet been breached. We are badly outnumbered by Saruman’s orcs, and I fear Helm’s Deep will not hold. I am taking my eored back to Rohan to join my forces with my uncle’s, and I beg Narnia’s aid.”
“Oh, wonderful,” Lucy murmured. “Now he’s appealing to Peter’s honor, and everyone in four countries knows that Peter can’t resist a plea like that.”
Sure enough, Peter hesitated, and then he said sharply, “Ed, I need you to call up the First Levy; I’ll take them south with Eomer. I want the rest of the levies ready to march if need be, but you and Susan are staying here at Cair Paravel.”
Susan saw Eomer close his eyes briefly in relief and then start to thank Peter, but Peter cut him off with an irritated motion of his hand. “Su, find some way to explain this so that it actually makes sense, because Aslan knows it doesn’t. Try not to use the words ‘planning to take over the world’ because no one ever believes that.”
“What about me?” Lucy asked plaintively.
Peter gave her his first smile of the morning. “Get out your armor, little sister,” he said. “You’re coming to war with me.”