Big Bang Fic: circa regna tonat, part 2
Title: circa regna tonat
Author:deathsblood
Rating: PG-13?
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Angst, AU, Major character death <--Highlight to view
Author's Notes:Thank you so very much to sophiap for the wonderful art, and to cofax7 for the brilliant beta.
Title comes from Thomas Wyatt's poem of the same name.
Summary: Following Edmund's assassination, the Pevensies fall apart. In desperation, Susan gets Aslan to bring him back. More trouble ensues.
Part 2
When Susan opened her eyes again, there was a freshly scrubbed bowl on her lap, still partially wet, and a crowd of blurry people in the room.
She blinked very hard until their contours became more distinguishable, and she realised that of course, most of them were not people at all.
Susan opened her mouth to speak, but the sounds which came out were garbled and nonsensical, and did not resemble any language she had ever heard.
“You must rest, Queen Susan,” said the doctor, a learned fox with fur the colour of dried mud. Once a fervent revolutionary, he had been captured by the Witch’s forces and kept as an army doctor for several painful years, and now seemed to both despise and cling to the profession.
“I cannot,” she protested. “I have far too much to do.”
“For some things, Your Highness, rest is the only cure,” replied Doctor Leese, shoving his thick wire spectacles back up his nose. He had gained weight since the thaw, but his fur never quite regained the paleness it had once possessed, not even in the cold winter months.
“Possibly,” Susan agreed. “But not for this.”
She pushed back the bedcovers, and pulled herself out of bed, though it took far more effort than she was used to wasting on such a simple action.
“Where are my handmaidens?” she asked politely, ignoring the medical assistant’s indignant frown.
“The High King has had them confined to be questioned, I believe.”
“Why?”
“Your Majesty was poisoned two days ago.” said the doctor. “For a time, we feared the fever would not break, and we would need to use Queen Lucy’s cordial.”
Susan threw open a random chest, and pulled out the first few garments, which consisted of a simple shirt, jerkin and leggings, more appropriate for long rides than court, but the elaborate twists and ribbons of her fine gowns seemed too much to bother with alone.
“Who poisoned me?” she asked, lacing up the shirt. One of the drawbacks of being royalty was the way the needlewomen insisted on adding decorative ruffles or special lacings to form up a pattern on clothes.
“It has not yet become common knowledge,” Doctor Leese answered, the courtier’s version of ‘I don’t know’.
Considering the speed at which gossip travelled through Cair Paravel, Susan surmised that the culprit had not yet been revealed.
“I really must find my siblings,” she said, and slipped her feet into some relatively comfortable shoes.
“I really must recommend - ” started the doctor, but Susan ignored his protests.
&
She did not bother to knock when she entered Lucy’s room, a brightly coloured chamber with many windows but no mirrors.
“Who gave you the potion?” Lucy asked, not even bothering to look up. There was a myriad of papers scattered across her desk in seemingly no order, though Susan knew that her sister would be able to locate any specific document almost instantaneously.
Susan frowned, and tried to cast her mind back. Her memories seemed fuzzy, and only half-formed, as peculiar as those of a home before Narnia.
“Kreysa,” she said finally, prompting Lucy to look up.
“That’s not possible. Kreysa isn’t due back for another week.”
“She’s the only ash dryad currently in my service.” Susan retorted, eyeing the knives lying haphazardly across Lucy’s desk. She seemed to be using them as paperweights. Susan just hoped her sister would not lose her temper with any particularly obsequious messenger.
“But she’s not here!”
“I remember her!”
“She’s at the Telmarine border, Susan, accompanying Princess Jamille after her companions mysteriously vanished or attempted to assassinate her.”
“Are they still blaming us?” Susan asked, momentarily diverted.
“Don’t you know that we’re to blame for everything bad that happens on the whole continent?” Lucy laughed scornfully. “Even the things that happen to us are somehow our fault.”
“I’m sure it was Kreysa.”
“But it can’t have been.” Lucy had all of Peter’s obstinacy. Once she was persuaded of a fact, it was near impossible to change her mind.
“Do you not trust me?” Susan enquired, though she knew it was a low blow.
Lucy glared. “I’ll trust you until I die. This isn’t about trusting you.”
“It’s precisely about trusting me. I was there, remember? It happened to me, not you.”
“And then you were unconscious for two whole days. Who’s to say you remember it right?”
“It was her,” Susan insisted. “I remember her.”
“I remember her going away,” Lucy answered. “But not even the fastest rider would have made it back yet, not with the Telmarine processions on every religious festival. And you know how many of them there are!”
“I remember her,” Susan repeated, but it sounded like a weak argument even to her own ears.
&
“Kreysa hasn’t returned yet,” confirmed Peter later. “I sent Lord Peridan to check.”
“But can we trust him?” Susan said archly, sipping her tea. It felt wonderfully hot in her throat, and even the reminder of her recent poisoning couldn’t detract from the taste.
“We can’t do all the work ourselves.” Lucy commented, shading in a rough drawing in the margins of her doubtlessly important paper.
“Not so long ago you were suspecting everyone,” Susan reminded Peter. He had the courtesy to look mildly abashed.
“Not our subjects,” he pointed out.
“One of them poisoned Susan,” Edmund stated, as if any of them could have forgotten.
“It could have been a foreigner,” Peter suggested weakly.
“No,” Edmund insisted. “One of her attendants gave it to her. At least one of them had to be in on the plot.”
“She might not have known,” said Lucy. “One of Doctor Leese’s attendants could have tampered with it.”
“It came from my chest of drawers,” Susan explained. “It was just my usual hangover brew.”
“It could have been planted there,” Peter suggested, with all the confidence of someone for whom assassins invariably sharpened their steel.
“Do you think us so careless, brother dear?” Lucy questioned, laying her equipment aside. Her voice was dangerously low.
At any other time, Susan would have found it funny to watch Peter swallow nervously. Irritating Lucy tended to lead to a knife-throwing challenge, a discipline at which Lucy was by far the best. Any of them could hit roughly the bullsye, but Lucy always hit the middle of it.
“Hardly,” he replied hastily.
But we used to be, was what he didn’t say.
“Maybe we still aren’t careful enough,” Susan murmured, but if the others heard her, they did not choose to acknowledge the fact.
&
There was a series of hard knocks on the door.
Susan rolled over, and waited for the guards to restrain the applicant and leave them in the cells overnight as a warning not to attempt it again.
The knocking did not cease.
She pulled herself up, and slid off the bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand, using the other to frantically brush down her hair before opening the door.
It was Peter, still clad in that day’s clothes, and clutching a stack of thick, worn books.
“I think I’ve mostly narrowed it down,” he said as Susan stepped aside to let him in.
“Peter,” she answered, with a quick glance at the grand clock ticking merrily against the wall. “It’s four in the morning.”
“Don’t you want to know who tried to kill you?” he asked.
“Right now, I want to sleep,” she answered blankly. “It’s the first time I’ve been able to sleep properly in ages.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Alright,” Susan said tiredly. “What did you find?”
“I thought you wanted me to go away?” Peter replied, grinning. “You know, I could come back.”
“You’ve already woken me up,” she reminded him, and sat down on the bed to reiterate the point. “I might at least get something out of it.”
“Besides the sheer pleasure of my company?” he laughed, coming over to sit by her. “There are a couple of options.”
Susan just looked at him.
“Well, first of all, it could be just an independent rebellion by your handmaid, or some other monarch,” Peter began, “but that wouldn’t explain why you were seeing someone who is supposed to be in a different country.”
“I’m not crazy,” she snapped, causing Peter to lift his hands up in mock surrender.
“I didn’t say you were!” he protested. “Or, it could be a shape-shifter of some sort, probably linked to the first option.”
“Shape-shifters don’t exist,” Susan said.
“Animals don’t talk, and people don’t return from the dead,” Peter reminded her. “I don’t think we can claim that anything is impossible in Narnia anymore.”
“But we don’t have shape-shifters as subjects, and if we don’t, then surely none of the others do.”
“Maybe they live in the wild lands past Ettinsmoor, or so far east they’re close to Aslan’s country. Some land of even more magic than Narnia.”
“But why Kreysa? Why not one of you three? I’d trust you far more than any of them.”
“Maybe they’re limited to what forms they can take. I don’t know, I only found out about them an hour or so ago, but apparently there’s been some research into whether they can join the ‘living’ world in some way, mostly through some sort of sacrifice.”
“But why would they want to harm us? What have we ever done to them?”
“They could be spirits of plants, almost like dryads. Maybe they used to reside in some of the trees we’ve cut down, and we never realised it.” Peter suggested, staring behind her. When Susan followed his gaze, she found it rested on one of her chests of drawers, made from fine, supple wood.
“Those trees were just trees, Peter,” she murmured, but her voice lacked conviction. “Like the ones anywhere else.”
“That’s what we thought,” he said softly, and stood up, resting a hand gently on her shoulder. “My greatest apologies for disturbing your gentle sleep, sister.”
“Think not on it, brother,” Susan answered, and stood up to walk with him to the door. “Thank you.”
He smiled slightly, gave a brisk nod to the guards outside her chambers, and walked off down the corridor, blending in with the shadows.
Susan closed the door, and lay down again, but no matter how hard she tried, she found she could neither sleep nor indeed rest at all.
Just trees, she thought, but the notion no longer reassured her.
&
“That’s horrible,” Lucy gasped after Peter had explained it again.
“Then they should have come to us,” Edmund protested. “We could import wood, after all.”
Susan frowned, “Imagine a dryad going to the Calormenes, they certainly wouldn’t care. Maybe they don’t trust us.”
“I meant if we have been killing them,” Lucy snapped. “Not that they might be targeting us.”
“Well, obviously, that’s awful too, but rather harder to change.”
“Anyone may have tried to kill you,” Lucy said, “Aslan knows we’ve all wanted to.”
“You too,” Edmund muttered, and shifted the book on his lap.
“But are they suspects for killing Edmund too?”
“Everyone’s still a suspect,” Susan answered.
“Everyone?” Edmund repeated, fingers tapping slightly against the worn cover.
“Everyone,” Peter confirmed, then sighed. “Some supporter of the Witch, some rabid nationalist, or a particularly paranoid foreigner, not to mention our dear neighbours who feel they do not possess enough living space.”
“Rabid nationalist?” Edmund questioned.
“The sun never,” Peter started before bursting out laughing. “Okay, the sun does set on the Narnian Empire, but someday it won’t.”
“The sun might not set on the Nazis’ empire anymore either,” Susan reminded him. “There’s no way to know - everyone we knew might be dead by now.”
Peter swallowed hard. “I think we have to concentrate on this world now.”
“Who are you talking about?” Lucy asked, glancing blankly between them.
“Just some people back home,” Susan answered.
“This is home,” Lucy said quietly, her eyes wide in surprise.
“It wasn’t always,” Susan replied, then stood up, brushing her dress down. “I think it’s time for breakfast, don’t you?”
“I already ate,” Edmund answered, grinning sheepishly. “Rienzi brought me some scones to the library.”
“They never let me eat anything in the library,” Lucy grumbled.
“You’re never even in the library,” he protested, and for a minute it felt like nothing had changed.
&
“The question is,” said Lucy, buttering her toast, “how do we find them?”
Peter glanced at Edmund. “Anything more in your precious library?” he teased.
Edmund shrugged, vaguely uncomfortable. “If so, I haven’t managed to find it yet. Not that we know what to do once we have.”
“Well, obviously we - we must bring them to justice,” Peter declared.
“We can’t prove it was them. By Jove, we can’t even prove that they exist.”
“Peter’s book said so,” Lucy commented.
“Yes, but it was a very old book,” Edmund replied. “It might not be correct. It’s probably not.”
Susan had never heard him sound so cautious about anything he had read. Usually, he adored books, no matter their age or author, claiming that they always had some kind of profound message, however subtle.
Then again, this was particularly serious.
&
“You seem to be remembering a lot more these days.” Susan said, walking with Edmund along the corridors.
“I know enough to pretend I remember everything.” He answered, gazing around as if trying to memorise everyone in the passage.
Susan nodded, and tried to seem comfortable with the situation. “Trying to figure it out?” she ventured.
“What else?” he replied, but never met her eyes. “Do you think they’re Jadis sympathisers?”
“Not everything evil comes from the Witch,” Susan reminded him, though it was the natural conclusion most Narnians immediately jumped to.
“I know,” he sighed. “But a lot of it does.”
“Not so much, nowadays,” she assured him. Thankfully, it seemed that the Witch had utilised the majority of her forces at the Battle of Beruna, and so there were only a few followers who had remained to plot against them, and the last attack had been more than a year ago.
It was so easy to forget.
They had reached a staircase by then, and Susan leaned over the banister, squinting down in an attempt to make out individual figures from the crowd downstairs.
“Is that Mister Beaver?” she asked, spotting a beaver with a rather misshapen woolly hat, resembling the one their friend had taken to wearing after discovering his first grey hairs, of which he was very ashamed.
Edmund looked down too. “Yes,” he said finally. “I suppose it is.”
He stayed there, deep in thought, as Susan walked down to welcome the beaver.
&
“Rained terribly, Your Majesty,” said Mr Beaver, “but we got an agreement in the end.”
“How much did we compromise?” asked Susan, who had learned quickly that the goals of foreign rulers rarely coincided with their own.
“They accept the necessity of us having guards near the border, but insist on having their own.”
“It’s a sensible step,” she acknowledged reluctantly.
“Furthermore, they refuse any stipulations to the terms,” he continued.
“They’ll aim to outnumber us, and we cannot spare as many troops as Lune might be able to.”
“If we ordered recently conquered territories to supply troops, perhaps,” Mr Beaver suggested, leaning back in his armrest. As a concession to his friendship and early loyalty, Susan had taken him to their private sitting room rather than to the formal audience chamber.
“Then we could not be sure of them,” she answered. “There are many who would wish a return to their old governments.”
“Prince Reginald was a corrupt scoundrel,” protested the beaver.
“Yes,” she agreed, although the prince had been most cordial every time they had met, “but some will always look back fondly towards their past.”
“Your Majesties will soon win them over,” he assured her, smiling genially.
Privately, Susan was not so sure. There had been many instances in their old world when the opposite had happened, although she could no longer remember the specifics.
Nonetheless, she smiled brightly and concurred.
&
Following her brother’s example, Susan went to the library.
Although Edmund had appointed a librarian not long after their coronation, the room seemed to have an almost permanent coating of fine dust over its shelves, though thankfully it managed to elude the books themselves, the quantity of which was increasing almost weekly.
Furthermore, the books were not arranged in any particular order; the librarian, a thin Marshwiggle named Murkglook, insisted that he could find any individual book quickly enough, and grumbled under his breath in an even more miserable tone than when anyone did ask him, so after several depressing conversations, Edmund had given up, and settled for walking through the aisles until something caught his eye.
Susan, however, did not have the patience, and so resolved herself to the prospect of a bad mood, and walked up to Murkglook to enquire about books on spirits.
“Alas, King Edmund has removed all of them,” said the librarian in a particularly dejected tone.
“All of them?” Susan asked, though she doubted there could have been that many on the subject to begin with.
“I doubt Your Majesty could find any mention of them in the few encyclopaedias remaining,” he answered. “Dryads perhaps, though they are also rarely written about.”
“Do you have anything about getting rid of spirits?” she asked, glancing around the room as if the book would volunteer, and jump from the shelves into her hand. Here, it wasn’t as ridiculous a notion as it might have been anywhere else. Cair Paravel liked to help her inhabitants.
“Nothing about spirits,” continued the Marsh-wiggle sadly. “No books about anything, it seems sometimes.”
“We have books,” Susan protested, though it lacked conviction. Although they had rescued what books could be salvaged from the cellars and hidden cupboards of Cair Paravel, apparently placed there prior to the Witch’s rule, and had received many as gifts from visiting dignitaries, their collection seemed very sparse, and more than a little mediocre, especially when compared to the great scrolls in the great library at Tashbaan, which very much deserved the Tisroc’s constant boasting.
“None about anything of value,” Murkglook maintained. “All obsolete theories, like the world being potato-shaped, or exorcisms, or the prospect of peace with the giants.”
“We have peace with the giants,” Susan said.
“They eat marsh-wiggles, you know,” said the librarian, “life itself is a struggle for us up there. Life is a struggle anywhere, but it is even worse near the giants.”
Susan sighed, knowing from past experience never to attempt to debate anything with a Marsh-wiggle. “You have books on exorcisms, then?”
“Probably not,” he answered. “We don’t really have books about anything.”
“You just said you had books on them!”
“Somewhere, there may be books on them,” he said. “Unfortunately, no books ever seem to be here.”
Susan sighed. “You just said they were. Obsolete theories, remember?”
“Exorcisms never actually work,” continued the Marsh-wiggle. “They tried a few years into the Witch’s reign, and look what happened.”
“Maybe they did it wrong,” Susan suggested. “Besides, she was a witch, not some sort of spirit, wasn’t she?”
“Everyone always does everything wrong,” said Murkglook grimly.
“I need those books,” she said, starting to feel more than a little irritated.
He bowed slightly, then walked out from behind his desk, stumbling slightly, and moved through the library somewhat reluctantly. Every couple of aisles, he would stop and select a seemingly random book, and carry on.
When he finally stopped, Murkglook had five tomes in his arms, and was barely balancing them in his arms. Reaching his desk again, he wrote the titles of four of them in a small green book, and handed them over.
“What about that one?” Susan asked.
“I’m going to see if it’s any less hopeless than the rest of the books in here,” he answered.
Her eyebrows delicately raised, Susan lifted up the four remaining books. They were heavier than they looked.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” said the Marsh-wiggle with a sigh. “They won’t help you in the least.”
He was still gazing sadly at his own selected book when Susan left the room.
&
Susan was lying on her stomach in a meadow near Cair Paravel, propped up on one arm so that the sunlight would fall straight onto the pages. Nonetheless, the print was small and faded; something Edmund was far more used to reading than Susan, who had to squint at the pages for a few minutes before she could make any sense of them.
It should have been easy enough; all four of them were used to decoding triple coded or translated messages, but the tomes had been written sometime nearer to Frank than to Jadis, and it showed. It read rather like the silly, flimsy books she could remember from a lifetime ago, full of ancient stories Narnians told through song.
“Want some help with those?” Lucy asked, slipping down carelessly onto the ground by Susan, who gestured with her free arm towards the pile of remaining books.
“Help yourself,” she answered, and smiled at Lucy’s grimace. “They’re not quite that bad.”
“And yet I haven’t seen you turn the page yet,” her sister replied, reaching out for the top tome. “Slow going, is it?”
“I am taking in the maximum amount of information,” Susan informed her, turning back towards the page, and stubbornly turning it. She doubted there was anything particularly important on the second half of that side, anyway.
“Of course,” Lucy agreed, stretching out, and flicking through her own book. “Riveting read, I’m sure.”
“That’s not the point.”
“They should at least try to make it interesting.”
“That’s not the point,” Susan repeated, laughing. “They’re helpful.” And then, when Lucy continued turning the pages, she added, “you won’t find any pictures in there, you know.”
“I’m not a child!” Lucy snapped, but she did settle for opening the book properly and running her eyes along the text for a minute before turning the page again.
Susan turned back to her own book with a sign, reading along in hopes of something useful jumping out at her.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have dismissed Murkglook’s opinions so hastily.
&
“Find anything?” Susan asked later, rubbing her eyes. The sun would be setting soon, but the daylight had already grown significantly dimmer.
“Not really,” Lucy replied, stretching out. “How about you?”
“They can shape shift,” Susan offered, but they had already known that. “Maybe Ed will have found something.”
“Well, he does have the rest of the books,” Lucy agreed, standing up and brushing her dress down, book still in one hand. She stretched the other one down to Susan, who took it gratefully and let her sister pull her up.
Lucy’s hands were surprisingly cold, but the slight calluses were reassuringly familiar.
&
They talked of the reported discontent in Terebinthia, of secret meetings between the royal family, still nominally in control, and the hardened generals who had not expected the Narnian conquest.
Susan couldn’t entirely blame them; after all, they had gained control through some dodgy economic means only Edmund fully understood.
“Princess Elluera,” Lucy suggested “from the letter.”
“There’s no such person,” Susan said, ducking under a low branch, its leaves rustling as they grazed against her hair.
“Maybe they’ve hidden her somewhere, or we just overlooked her.”
“It is a large family,” Susan acknowledged, but it did not seem right to her, for the memory of scrolls of elongated titles and numerous names was not so old.
“Ask the court genealogist,” Lucy suggested.
“We have a court genealogist?” The problem with ruling jointly was that they could never be quite sure what the others had ordered.
“No, but we should get one,” Lucy said, skipping over a puddle. “Maybe Mr Tumnus. He knows a lot about such things.”
“There must be someone else we could appoint.”
“They already accuse us of nepotism. But it’s even worse if we simply ignore our friends’ abilities.”
&
Edmund hadn’t found anything by the time Susan saw him again.
“But you have all the books!” she protested, though apparently he hadn’t been as thorough as he’d thought.
“You have some too,” he replied. “It takes time.”
“We may not have time.”
“Then we hardly have time to fight,” Edmund said briskly, already walking away. She caught up with him, stepping easily into the empty place by his side.
“You never spend any time with us anymore,” she said, reaching for his arm.
He twisted away. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“Even so.”
They continued walking until a thought struck Susan. “How did you know I took some books, anyway?”
“No one bothers me when I read in the library. Even Murkglook’s complaints seem far away after a while.”
“So how did you know?”
Edmund shrugged, oddly quiet. “There was a boring bit.”
It sounded perfectly plausible, but her brother found lying as natural as breathing. I was just playing along, the taste of Turkish Delight still lingering in his mouth.
“Fair enough,” she said, pasting on a smile, and they walked on in silence.
&
Upon learning that they hadn’t found anything despite leaving him saddled with significantly more work, Peter had sighed and reluctantly offered his own tired services.
He seemed to be regretting it, if the frequent sighs were any indication. “This is absolutely useless.”
“What did you expect?” Edmund looked up, one eyebrow raised in a fashion only he could manage. “’How to perform an exorcism’, all clear and detailed?”
“Would be nice,” Peter said, turning the page. “And I thought the reports were bad!”
“I find the reports quite interesting, actually,” Lucy piped up. “They give an indication of what the people actually think.”
“Do you not know that from your travels, sister?” Edmund asked, not unjustly. Other countries had advisors and censorship in order to maintain popularity amongst their people. They simply had Lucy, whose easy smiles produced many more.
“Many of them only see a Queen,” Lucy said, stirring her hot chocolate sadly. “Especially those who didn’t meet us at the beginning.”
“We haven’t been here all that long,” Susan objected.
“It feels like a lifetime.”
“It hasn’t been,” said Edmund shortly, looking back down at his book. After a few seconds, Susan followed his example.
She had skimmed past an exceptionally long history, focusing primarily on summoning spirits rather than removing them, and particularly the reasons various cultures had had for doing so. Unfortunately, while it seemed interesting, it could hardly be described as relevant.
Susan turned the page, sliding her eyes carelessly down it, before looking aside to reach for her own drink, tea specially imported from Calormen. She took a sip and grimaced; someone had added too much sugar again, and she had let it turn nearly lukewarm besides.
Nonetheless, Susan forced herself to drain the cup before turning back to her text. There was too much being wasted without her contribution, and someone a very long time ago had been so strict about it that Lucy had cried.
She couldn’t remember who it had been anymore. One of the survivors of the Witch, perhaps Mrs Beaver with her hordes of ancient jam and crumpled pages with their scribbled recipes, or a well-wisher who had once been stone and needed no food at all.
&
The clocks had just struck nine when Lucy made a small sound of surprise.
“I’ve found something,” she said happily, twisting in her seat with a laugh. “It’s not quite a how-to manual, but it seems useful. Oh!” She was forced to add as the book slid neatly off her lap to fall onto the floor with a loud thud.
Lucy poked it with her foot. Sometimes objects in Cair Paravel seemed almost as magical as its inhabitants, but the great tome remained stubbornly closed.
She looked up at them a little helplessly. “I did have something,” she repeated.
“You’ll find it again,” Peter assured her.
Lucy did not smile back, but she did reach out for the book, and then, leaning back in her chair, began to flip though it anxiously, the pages flickering across like leaves in the wind.
It could hardly be good for them, yet Edmund hadn’t even looked up to protest.
“Lucy,” Susan said, when it became apparent that their brother was not paying the slightest attention, “you’ll never find it that way.”
“I know where it was on the page.”
“There’s no way you will even see the page,” Susan pointed out with a sigh. “If you give it to me -”
“I can do it myself!” Lucy insisted, and then, when Susan’s mouth pursed with disapproval the way someone else’s had once, looked away. “You wouldn’t find it as easily, anyway,” she added, far more calmly.
Peter was looking at them carefully, as if wondering whether to interfere, but Edmund hadn’t once looked up.
&
Some time later, Lucy still hadn’t rediscovered her apparently useful passage, and was clearly becoming increasingly more agitated about it by the minute.
“Look,” Peter said finally, “let’s just go to bed and find it tomorrow, Lu.”
But Lucy only shook her head, “I read this section not that long ago,” she insisted. “I’ll find it soon.”
Edmund didn’t bother to stifle his yawn. “We can do this just as well tomorrow. I’m for bed.”
“No, wait, I’ll find it!” Lucy said. “It won’t take that long.”
“Circumstances seem to have proved you wrong, Lu,” Edmund said, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek, before leaving the room.
“I’ll find it,” Lucy called after him, and carried on flicking through, albeit in a more composed manner. Susan rubbed her eyes, and gave a bleary smile at the naiad who came in to collect their dishes, and seemed to find it necessary to spend her whole time in the room giving Peter suggestive smiles, her head slightly bowed so as to look through her eyelashes.
Susan cleared her throat, and the naiad seemed to jerk forward, nearly brushing by Peter to get his cup, before reluctantly stepping away. She turned and walked towards the door, at which point she seemed to swoop down in a fluid motion only aquatic nymphs ever managed, and departed.
“I’ve found it,” said Lucy, running her fingers down the page.
Peter leant forward, “What is it?”
Lucy shrugged. “Some sort of ritual to get rid of the spirits.”
“Exorcism,” Susan corrected.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” Lucy protested. “It only matters whether it works.”
“If so, you can call it by its correct name.”
“What does it require?” Peter interrupted, before their discussion could grow into a proper argument.
Lucy looked down again. “Chalk, salt, wine,” she listed, then looked up again, staring straight at Peter. “And blood.”
“Whose?” was all he asked.
“It doesn’t say.” Lucy answered, “but I doubt we can get the spirit’s, if they even have any at all.”
“I can do it,” said Peter briskly, and then, when they both stared at him, added, “someone has to.”
“That someone doesn’t necessarily have to be you,” Susan pointed out.
“They’ve had enough of your blood already.”
&
“Lucy found it again,” she said to Edmund the next morning.
He gave a small nod in acknowledgement, and continued annotating the document in front of him. “I assumed so. Is it useful?”
“More than I would have expected,” Susan said, measuring out two precise spoons of sugar for her morning coffee.
“When are we doing it?” Edmund asked, not looking up.
“Soon, I’d expect. It’s not particularly complicated,” she replied. “Why?”
“I thought I’d go for a ride this morning,” he said.
“It’s too dangerous,” Susan protested, reaching out for bread. “We’ve lost you once already.”
“I think I’m at more risk here than out there. It did happen within the castle walls.”
“I suppose it would be nice to get some air.” Susan said, wistfully. “I’ve got to draw up a proposal for a treaty with Doorn.”
“Well, I don’t envy you,” he commented with a faint smile. “Do you really think it will work?”
“We can’t know, I suppose,” she answered. “No reason for it not to, really.”
“I’ve never even heard of exorcisms before,” Edmund said.
“So that’s what’s bothering you.” Susan teased. "There'll always be things you don't know.
“If they tried it on her,” Edmund started, ignoring her, then broke off, looking down at his lap. “It didn’t work,” he said in a very tiny voice.
“She probably wasn’t one of them,” Susan said. “It only works on spirits.”
“In that case, wouldn’t it also work against the peaceful ones?” he asked. “The dryads, and naiads, and everyone?”
“It claims to be against evil spirits.”
“Most of those books don’t even have consistent spelling.” Edmund pointed out. “I wouldn’t be so sure about trusting them.”
“Just because they use archaic spelling -”
“They don’t even stick with it!” he protested.
“ - doesn’t mean they don’t have anything useful to say,” Susan said. “You seem very against this.”
“I’m not,” Edmund insisted. “I just - it seems like something she would do, okay?”
“Oh, Ed,” she said, reaching for his hand. It was clammy in hers, and very warm. “She’s gone.”
“But everyone remembers, and if this backfires -”
“It’s going to be fine,” she assured him. “It might not even work.”
“It seems like a peculiarly easy way out.”
Susan smiled, but it came out far less sure than she’d intended. “We’ll have to ask whether they think it’ll have any negative effects, but other than that,” she shrugged. “We won’t know unless we try.”
Edmund looked at her for a long time. “All actions have consequences,” he said. “What if the price is too high?”
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Author:deathsblood
Rating: PG-13?
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Angst, AU, Major character death <--Highlight to view
Author's Notes:Thank you so very much to sophiap for the wonderful art, and to cofax7 for the brilliant beta.
Title comes from Thomas Wyatt's poem of the same name.
Summary: Following Edmund's assassination, the Pevensies fall apart. In desperation, Susan gets Aslan to bring him back. More trouble ensues.
Part 2
When Susan opened her eyes again, there was a freshly scrubbed bowl on her lap, still partially wet, and a crowd of blurry people in the room.
She blinked very hard until their contours became more distinguishable, and she realised that of course, most of them were not people at all.
Susan opened her mouth to speak, but the sounds which came out were garbled and nonsensical, and did not resemble any language she had ever heard.
“You must rest, Queen Susan,” said the doctor, a learned fox with fur the colour of dried mud. Once a fervent revolutionary, he had been captured by the Witch’s forces and kept as an army doctor for several painful years, and now seemed to both despise and cling to the profession.
“I cannot,” she protested. “I have far too much to do.”
“For some things, Your Highness, rest is the only cure,” replied Doctor Leese, shoving his thick wire spectacles back up his nose. He had gained weight since the thaw, but his fur never quite regained the paleness it had once possessed, not even in the cold winter months.
“Possibly,” Susan agreed. “But not for this.”
She pushed back the bedcovers, and pulled herself out of bed, though it took far more effort than she was used to wasting on such a simple action.
“Where are my handmaidens?” she asked politely, ignoring the medical assistant’s indignant frown.
“The High King has had them confined to be questioned, I believe.”
“Why?”
“Your Majesty was poisoned two days ago.” said the doctor. “For a time, we feared the fever would not break, and we would need to use Queen Lucy’s cordial.”
Susan threw open a random chest, and pulled out the first few garments, which consisted of a simple shirt, jerkin and leggings, more appropriate for long rides than court, but the elaborate twists and ribbons of her fine gowns seemed too much to bother with alone.
“Who poisoned me?” she asked, lacing up the shirt. One of the drawbacks of being royalty was the way the needlewomen insisted on adding decorative ruffles or special lacings to form up a pattern on clothes.
“It has not yet become common knowledge,” Doctor Leese answered, the courtier’s version of ‘I don’t know’.
Considering the speed at which gossip travelled through Cair Paravel, Susan surmised that the culprit had not yet been revealed.
“I really must find my siblings,” she said, and slipped her feet into some relatively comfortable shoes.
“I really must recommend - ” started the doctor, but Susan ignored his protests.
&
She did not bother to knock when she entered Lucy’s room, a brightly coloured chamber with many windows but no mirrors.
“Who gave you the potion?” Lucy asked, not even bothering to look up. There was a myriad of papers scattered across her desk in seemingly no order, though Susan knew that her sister would be able to locate any specific document almost instantaneously.
Susan frowned, and tried to cast her mind back. Her memories seemed fuzzy, and only half-formed, as peculiar as those of a home before Narnia.
“Kreysa,” she said finally, prompting Lucy to look up.
“That’s not possible. Kreysa isn’t due back for another week.”
“She’s the only ash dryad currently in my service.” Susan retorted, eyeing the knives lying haphazardly across Lucy’s desk. She seemed to be using them as paperweights. Susan just hoped her sister would not lose her temper with any particularly obsequious messenger.
“But she’s not here!”
“I remember her!”
“She’s at the Telmarine border, Susan, accompanying Princess Jamille after her companions mysteriously vanished or attempted to assassinate her.”
“Are they still blaming us?” Susan asked, momentarily diverted.
“Don’t you know that we’re to blame for everything bad that happens on the whole continent?” Lucy laughed scornfully. “Even the things that happen to us are somehow our fault.”
“I’m sure it was Kreysa.”
“But it can’t have been.” Lucy had all of Peter’s obstinacy. Once she was persuaded of a fact, it was near impossible to change her mind.
“Do you not trust me?” Susan enquired, though she knew it was a low blow.
Lucy glared. “I’ll trust you until I die. This isn’t about trusting you.”
“It’s precisely about trusting me. I was there, remember? It happened to me, not you.”
“And then you were unconscious for two whole days. Who’s to say you remember it right?”
“It was her,” Susan insisted. “I remember her.”
“I remember her going away,” Lucy answered. “But not even the fastest rider would have made it back yet, not with the Telmarine processions on every religious festival. And you know how many of them there are!”
“I remember her,” Susan repeated, but it sounded like a weak argument even to her own ears.
&
“Kreysa hasn’t returned yet,” confirmed Peter later. “I sent Lord Peridan to check.”
“But can we trust him?” Susan said archly, sipping her tea. It felt wonderfully hot in her throat, and even the reminder of her recent poisoning couldn’t detract from the taste.
“We can’t do all the work ourselves.” Lucy commented, shading in a rough drawing in the margins of her doubtlessly important paper.
“Not so long ago you were suspecting everyone,” Susan reminded Peter. He had the courtesy to look mildly abashed.
“Not our subjects,” he pointed out.
“One of them poisoned Susan,” Edmund stated, as if any of them could have forgotten.
“It could have been a foreigner,” Peter suggested weakly.
“No,” Edmund insisted. “One of her attendants gave it to her. At least one of them had to be in on the plot.”
“She might not have known,” said Lucy. “One of Doctor Leese’s attendants could have tampered with it.”
“It came from my chest of drawers,” Susan explained. “It was just my usual hangover brew.”
“It could have been planted there,” Peter suggested, with all the confidence of someone for whom assassins invariably sharpened their steel.
“Do you think us so careless, brother dear?” Lucy questioned, laying her equipment aside. Her voice was dangerously low.
At any other time, Susan would have found it funny to watch Peter swallow nervously. Irritating Lucy tended to lead to a knife-throwing challenge, a discipline at which Lucy was by far the best. Any of them could hit roughly the bullsye, but Lucy always hit the middle of it.
“Hardly,” he replied hastily.
But we used to be, was what he didn’t say.
“Maybe we still aren’t careful enough,” Susan murmured, but if the others heard her, they did not choose to acknowledge the fact.
&
There was a series of hard knocks on the door.
Susan rolled over, and waited for the guards to restrain the applicant and leave them in the cells overnight as a warning not to attempt it again.
The knocking did not cease.
She pulled herself up, and slid off the bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand, using the other to frantically brush down her hair before opening the door.
It was Peter, still clad in that day’s clothes, and clutching a stack of thick, worn books.
“I think I’ve mostly narrowed it down,” he said as Susan stepped aside to let him in.
“Peter,” she answered, with a quick glance at the grand clock ticking merrily against the wall. “It’s four in the morning.”
“Don’t you want to know who tried to kill you?” he asked.
“Right now, I want to sleep,” she answered blankly. “It’s the first time I’ve been able to sleep properly in ages.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Alright,” Susan said tiredly. “What did you find?”
“I thought you wanted me to go away?” Peter replied, grinning. “You know, I could come back.”
“You’ve already woken me up,” she reminded him, and sat down on the bed to reiterate the point. “I might at least get something out of it.”
“Besides the sheer pleasure of my company?” he laughed, coming over to sit by her. “There are a couple of options.”
Susan just looked at him.
“Well, first of all, it could be just an independent rebellion by your handmaid, or some other monarch,” Peter began, “but that wouldn’t explain why you were seeing someone who is supposed to be in a different country.”
“I’m not crazy,” she snapped, causing Peter to lift his hands up in mock surrender.
“I didn’t say you were!” he protested. “Or, it could be a shape-shifter of some sort, probably linked to the first option.”
“Shape-shifters don’t exist,” Susan said.
“Animals don’t talk, and people don’t return from the dead,” Peter reminded her. “I don’t think we can claim that anything is impossible in Narnia anymore.”
“But we don’t have shape-shifters as subjects, and if we don’t, then surely none of the others do.”
“Maybe they live in the wild lands past Ettinsmoor, or so far east they’re close to Aslan’s country. Some land of even more magic than Narnia.”
“But why Kreysa? Why not one of you three? I’d trust you far more than any of them.”
“Maybe they’re limited to what forms they can take. I don’t know, I only found out about them an hour or so ago, but apparently there’s been some research into whether they can join the ‘living’ world in some way, mostly through some sort of sacrifice.”
“But why would they want to harm us? What have we ever done to them?”
“They could be spirits of plants, almost like dryads. Maybe they used to reside in some of the trees we’ve cut down, and we never realised it.” Peter suggested, staring behind her. When Susan followed his gaze, she found it rested on one of her chests of drawers, made from fine, supple wood.
“Those trees were just trees, Peter,” she murmured, but her voice lacked conviction. “Like the ones anywhere else.”
“That’s what we thought,” he said softly, and stood up, resting a hand gently on her shoulder. “My greatest apologies for disturbing your gentle sleep, sister.”
“Think not on it, brother,” Susan answered, and stood up to walk with him to the door. “Thank you.”
He smiled slightly, gave a brisk nod to the guards outside her chambers, and walked off down the corridor, blending in with the shadows.
Susan closed the door, and lay down again, but no matter how hard she tried, she found she could neither sleep nor indeed rest at all.
Just trees, she thought, but the notion no longer reassured her.
&
“That’s horrible,” Lucy gasped after Peter had explained it again.
“Then they should have come to us,” Edmund protested. “We could import wood, after all.”
Susan frowned, “Imagine a dryad going to the Calormenes, they certainly wouldn’t care. Maybe they don’t trust us.”
“I meant if we have been killing them,” Lucy snapped. “Not that they might be targeting us.”
“Well, obviously, that’s awful too, but rather harder to change.”
“Anyone may have tried to kill you,” Lucy said, “Aslan knows we’ve all wanted to.”
“You too,” Edmund muttered, and shifted the book on his lap.
“But are they suspects for killing Edmund too?”
“Everyone’s still a suspect,” Susan answered.
“Everyone?” Edmund repeated, fingers tapping slightly against the worn cover.
“Everyone,” Peter confirmed, then sighed. “Some supporter of the Witch, some rabid nationalist, or a particularly paranoid foreigner, not to mention our dear neighbours who feel they do not possess enough living space.”
“Rabid nationalist?” Edmund questioned.
“The sun never,” Peter started before bursting out laughing. “Okay, the sun does set on the Narnian Empire, but someday it won’t.”
“The sun might not set on the Nazis’ empire anymore either,” Susan reminded him. “There’s no way to know - everyone we knew might be dead by now.”
Peter swallowed hard. “I think we have to concentrate on this world now.”
“Who are you talking about?” Lucy asked, glancing blankly between them.
“Just some people back home,” Susan answered.
“This is home,” Lucy said quietly, her eyes wide in surprise.
“It wasn’t always,” Susan replied, then stood up, brushing her dress down. “I think it’s time for breakfast, don’t you?”
“I already ate,” Edmund answered, grinning sheepishly. “Rienzi brought me some scones to the library.”
“They never let me eat anything in the library,” Lucy grumbled.
“You’re never even in the library,” he protested, and for a minute it felt like nothing had changed.
&
“The question is,” said Lucy, buttering her toast, “how do we find them?”
Peter glanced at Edmund. “Anything more in your precious library?” he teased.
Edmund shrugged, vaguely uncomfortable. “If so, I haven’t managed to find it yet. Not that we know what to do once we have.”
“Well, obviously we - we must bring them to justice,” Peter declared.
“We can’t prove it was them. By Jove, we can’t even prove that they exist.”
“Peter’s book said so,” Lucy commented.
“Yes, but it was a very old book,” Edmund replied. “It might not be correct. It’s probably not.”
Susan had never heard him sound so cautious about anything he had read. Usually, he adored books, no matter their age or author, claiming that they always had some kind of profound message, however subtle.
Then again, this was particularly serious.
&
“You seem to be remembering a lot more these days.” Susan said, walking with Edmund along the corridors.
“I know enough to pretend I remember everything.” He answered, gazing around as if trying to memorise everyone in the passage.
Susan nodded, and tried to seem comfortable with the situation. “Trying to figure it out?” she ventured.
“What else?” he replied, but never met her eyes. “Do you think they’re Jadis sympathisers?”
“Not everything evil comes from the Witch,” Susan reminded him, though it was the natural conclusion most Narnians immediately jumped to.
“I know,” he sighed. “But a lot of it does.”
“Not so much, nowadays,” she assured him. Thankfully, it seemed that the Witch had utilised the majority of her forces at the Battle of Beruna, and so there were only a few followers who had remained to plot against them, and the last attack had been more than a year ago.
It was so easy to forget.
They had reached a staircase by then, and Susan leaned over the banister, squinting down in an attempt to make out individual figures from the crowd downstairs.
“Is that Mister Beaver?” she asked, spotting a beaver with a rather misshapen woolly hat, resembling the one their friend had taken to wearing after discovering his first grey hairs, of which he was very ashamed.
Edmund looked down too. “Yes,” he said finally. “I suppose it is.”
He stayed there, deep in thought, as Susan walked down to welcome the beaver.
&
“Rained terribly, Your Majesty,” said Mr Beaver, “but we got an agreement in the end.”
“How much did we compromise?” asked Susan, who had learned quickly that the goals of foreign rulers rarely coincided with their own.
“They accept the necessity of us having guards near the border, but insist on having their own.”
“It’s a sensible step,” she acknowledged reluctantly.
“Furthermore, they refuse any stipulations to the terms,” he continued.
“They’ll aim to outnumber us, and we cannot spare as many troops as Lune might be able to.”
“If we ordered recently conquered territories to supply troops, perhaps,” Mr Beaver suggested, leaning back in his armrest. As a concession to his friendship and early loyalty, Susan had taken him to their private sitting room rather than to the formal audience chamber.
“Then we could not be sure of them,” she answered. “There are many who would wish a return to their old governments.”
“Prince Reginald was a corrupt scoundrel,” protested the beaver.
“Yes,” she agreed, although the prince had been most cordial every time they had met, “but some will always look back fondly towards their past.”
“Your Majesties will soon win them over,” he assured her, smiling genially.
Privately, Susan was not so sure. There had been many instances in their old world when the opposite had happened, although she could no longer remember the specifics.
Nonetheless, she smiled brightly and concurred.
&
Following her brother’s example, Susan went to the library.
Although Edmund had appointed a librarian not long after their coronation, the room seemed to have an almost permanent coating of fine dust over its shelves, though thankfully it managed to elude the books themselves, the quantity of which was increasing almost weekly.
Furthermore, the books were not arranged in any particular order; the librarian, a thin Marshwiggle named Murkglook, insisted that he could find any individual book quickly enough, and grumbled under his breath in an even more miserable tone than when anyone did ask him, so after several depressing conversations, Edmund had given up, and settled for walking through the aisles until something caught his eye.
Susan, however, did not have the patience, and so resolved herself to the prospect of a bad mood, and walked up to Murkglook to enquire about books on spirits.
“Alas, King Edmund has removed all of them,” said the librarian in a particularly dejected tone.
“All of them?” Susan asked, though she doubted there could have been that many on the subject to begin with.
“I doubt Your Majesty could find any mention of them in the few encyclopaedias remaining,” he answered. “Dryads perhaps, though they are also rarely written about.”
“Do you have anything about getting rid of spirits?” she asked, glancing around the room as if the book would volunteer, and jump from the shelves into her hand. Here, it wasn’t as ridiculous a notion as it might have been anywhere else. Cair Paravel liked to help her inhabitants.
“Nothing about spirits,” continued the Marsh-wiggle sadly. “No books about anything, it seems sometimes.”
“We have books,” Susan protested, though it lacked conviction. Although they had rescued what books could be salvaged from the cellars and hidden cupboards of Cair Paravel, apparently placed there prior to the Witch’s rule, and had received many as gifts from visiting dignitaries, their collection seemed very sparse, and more than a little mediocre, especially when compared to the great scrolls in the great library at Tashbaan, which very much deserved the Tisroc’s constant boasting.
“None about anything of value,” Murkglook maintained. “All obsolete theories, like the world being potato-shaped, or exorcisms, or the prospect of peace with the giants.”
“We have peace with the giants,” Susan said.
“They eat marsh-wiggles, you know,” said the librarian, “life itself is a struggle for us up there. Life is a struggle anywhere, but it is even worse near the giants.”
Susan sighed, knowing from past experience never to attempt to debate anything with a Marsh-wiggle. “You have books on exorcisms, then?”
“Probably not,” he answered. “We don’t really have books about anything.”
“You just said you had books on them!”
“Somewhere, there may be books on them,” he said. “Unfortunately, no books ever seem to be here.”
Susan sighed. “You just said they were. Obsolete theories, remember?”
“Exorcisms never actually work,” continued the Marsh-wiggle. “They tried a few years into the Witch’s reign, and look what happened.”
“Maybe they did it wrong,” Susan suggested. “Besides, she was a witch, not some sort of spirit, wasn’t she?”
“Everyone always does everything wrong,” said Murkglook grimly.
“I need those books,” she said, starting to feel more than a little irritated.
He bowed slightly, then walked out from behind his desk, stumbling slightly, and moved through the library somewhat reluctantly. Every couple of aisles, he would stop and select a seemingly random book, and carry on.
When he finally stopped, Murkglook had five tomes in his arms, and was barely balancing them in his arms. Reaching his desk again, he wrote the titles of four of them in a small green book, and handed them over.
“What about that one?” Susan asked.
“I’m going to see if it’s any less hopeless than the rest of the books in here,” he answered.
Her eyebrows delicately raised, Susan lifted up the four remaining books. They were heavier than they looked.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” said the Marsh-wiggle with a sigh. “They won’t help you in the least.”
He was still gazing sadly at his own selected book when Susan left the room.
&
Susan was lying on her stomach in a meadow near Cair Paravel, propped up on one arm so that the sunlight would fall straight onto the pages. Nonetheless, the print was small and faded; something Edmund was far more used to reading than Susan, who had to squint at the pages for a few minutes before she could make any sense of them.
It should have been easy enough; all four of them were used to decoding triple coded or translated messages, but the tomes had been written sometime nearer to Frank than to Jadis, and it showed. It read rather like the silly, flimsy books she could remember from a lifetime ago, full of ancient stories Narnians told through song.
“Want some help with those?” Lucy asked, slipping down carelessly onto the ground by Susan, who gestured with her free arm towards the pile of remaining books.
“Help yourself,” she answered, and smiled at Lucy’s grimace. “They’re not quite that bad.”
“And yet I haven’t seen you turn the page yet,” her sister replied, reaching out for the top tome. “Slow going, is it?”
“I am taking in the maximum amount of information,” Susan informed her, turning back towards the page, and stubbornly turning it. She doubted there was anything particularly important on the second half of that side, anyway.
“Of course,” Lucy agreed, stretching out, and flicking through her own book. “Riveting read, I’m sure.”
“That’s not the point.”
“They should at least try to make it interesting.”
“That’s not the point,” Susan repeated, laughing. “They’re helpful.” And then, when Lucy continued turning the pages, she added, “you won’t find any pictures in there, you know.”
“I’m not a child!” Lucy snapped, but she did settle for opening the book properly and running her eyes along the text for a minute before turning the page again.
Susan turned back to her own book with a sign, reading along in hopes of something useful jumping out at her.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have dismissed Murkglook’s opinions so hastily.
&
“Find anything?” Susan asked later, rubbing her eyes. The sun would be setting soon, but the daylight had already grown significantly dimmer.
“Not really,” Lucy replied, stretching out. “How about you?”
“They can shape shift,” Susan offered, but they had already known that. “Maybe Ed will have found something.”
“Well, he does have the rest of the books,” Lucy agreed, standing up and brushing her dress down, book still in one hand. She stretched the other one down to Susan, who took it gratefully and let her sister pull her up.
Lucy’s hands were surprisingly cold, but the slight calluses were reassuringly familiar.
&
They talked of the reported discontent in Terebinthia, of secret meetings between the royal family, still nominally in control, and the hardened generals who had not expected the Narnian conquest.
Susan couldn’t entirely blame them; after all, they had gained control through some dodgy economic means only Edmund fully understood.
“Princess Elluera,” Lucy suggested “from the letter.”
“There’s no such person,” Susan said, ducking under a low branch, its leaves rustling as they grazed against her hair.
“Maybe they’ve hidden her somewhere, or we just overlooked her.”
“It is a large family,” Susan acknowledged, but it did not seem right to her, for the memory of scrolls of elongated titles and numerous names was not so old.
“Ask the court genealogist,” Lucy suggested.
“We have a court genealogist?” The problem with ruling jointly was that they could never be quite sure what the others had ordered.
“No, but we should get one,” Lucy said, skipping over a puddle. “Maybe Mr Tumnus. He knows a lot about such things.”
“There must be someone else we could appoint.”
“They already accuse us of nepotism. But it’s even worse if we simply ignore our friends’ abilities.”
&
Edmund hadn’t found anything by the time Susan saw him again.
“But you have all the books!” she protested, though apparently he hadn’t been as thorough as he’d thought.
“You have some too,” he replied. “It takes time.”
“We may not have time.”
“Then we hardly have time to fight,” Edmund said briskly, already walking away. She caught up with him, stepping easily into the empty place by his side.
“You never spend any time with us anymore,” she said, reaching for his arm.
He twisted away. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“Even so.”
They continued walking until a thought struck Susan. “How did you know I took some books, anyway?”
“No one bothers me when I read in the library. Even Murkglook’s complaints seem far away after a while.”
“So how did you know?”
Edmund shrugged, oddly quiet. “There was a boring bit.”
It sounded perfectly plausible, but her brother found lying as natural as breathing. I was just playing along, the taste of Turkish Delight still lingering in his mouth.
“Fair enough,” she said, pasting on a smile, and they walked on in silence.
&
Upon learning that they hadn’t found anything despite leaving him saddled with significantly more work, Peter had sighed and reluctantly offered his own tired services.
He seemed to be regretting it, if the frequent sighs were any indication. “This is absolutely useless.”
“What did you expect?” Edmund looked up, one eyebrow raised in a fashion only he could manage. “’How to perform an exorcism’, all clear and detailed?”
“Would be nice,” Peter said, turning the page. “And I thought the reports were bad!”
“I find the reports quite interesting, actually,” Lucy piped up. “They give an indication of what the people actually think.”
“Do you not know that from your travels, sister?” Edmund asked, not unjustly. Other countries had advisors and censorship in order to maintain popularity amongst their people. They simply had Lucy, whose easy smiles produced many more.
“Many of them only see a Queen,” Lucy said, stirring her hot chocolate sadly. “Especially those who didn’t meet us at the beginning.”
“We haven’t been here all that long,” Susan objected.
“It feels like a lifetime.”
“It hasn’t been,” said Edmund shortly, looking back down at his book. After a few seconds, Susan followed his example.
She had skimmed past an exceptionally long history, focusing primarily on summoning spirits rather than removing them, and particularly the reasons various cultures had had for doing so. Unfortunately, while it seemed interesting, it could hardly be described as relevant.
Susan turned the page, sliding her eyes carelessly down it, before looking aside to reach for her own drink, tea specially imported from Calormen. She took a sip and grimaced; someone had added too much sugar again, and she had let it turn nearly lukewarm besides.
Nonetheless, Susan forced herself to drain the cup before turning back to her text. There was too much being wasted without her contribution, and someone a very long time ago had been so strict about it that Lucy had cried.
She couldn’t remember who it had been anymore. One of the survivors of the Witch, perhaps Mrs Beaver with her hordes of ancient jam and crumpled pages with their scribbled recipes, or a well-wisher who had once been stone and needed no food at all.
&
The clocks had just struck nine when Lucy made a small sound of surprise.
“I’ve found something,” she said happily, twisting in her seat with a laugh. “It’s not quite a how-to manual, but it seems useful. Oh!” She was forced to add as the book slid neatly off her lap to fall onto the floor with a loud thud.
Lucy poked it with her foot. Sometimes objects in Cair Paravel seemed almost as magical as its inhabitants, but the great tome remained stubbornly closed.
She looked up at them a little helplessly. “I did have something,” she repeated.
“You’ll find it again,” Peter assured her.
Lucy did not smile back, but she did reach out for the book, and then, leaning back in her chair, began to flip though it anxiously, the pages flickering across like leaves in the wind.
It could hardly be good for them, yet Edmund hadn’t even looked up to protest.
“Lucy,” Susan said, when it became apparent that their brother was not paying the slightest attention, “you’ll never find it that way.”
“I know where it was on the page.”
“There’s no way you will even see the page,” Susan pointed out with a sigh. “If you give it to me -”
“I can do it myself!” Lucy insisted, and then, when Susan’s mouth pursed with disapproval the way someone else’s had once, looked away. “You wouldn’t find it as easily, anyway,” she added, far more calmly.
Peter was looking at them carefully, as if wondering whether to interfere, but Edmund hadn’t once looked up.
&
Some time later, Lucy still hadn’t rediscovered her apparently useful passage, and was clearly becoming increasingly more agitated about it by the minute.
“Look,” Peter said finally, “let’s just go to bed and find it tomorrow, Lu.”
But Lucy only shook her head, “I read this section not that long ago,” she insisted. “I’ll find it soon.”
Edmund didn’t bother to stifle his yawn. “We can do this just as well tomorrow. I’m for bed.”
“No, wait, I’ll find it!” Lucy said. “It won’t take that long.”
“Circumstances seem to have proved you wrong, Lu,” Edmund said, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek, before leaving the room.
“I’ll find it,” Lucy called after him, and carried on flicking through, albeit in a more composed manner. Susan rubbed her eyes, and gave a bleary smile at the naiad who came in to collect their dishes, and seemed to find it necessary to spend her whole time in the room giving Peter suggestive smiles, her head slightly bowed so as to look through her eyelashes.
Susan cleared her throat, and the naiad seemed to jerk forward, nearly brushing by Peter to get his cup, before reluctantly stepping away. She turned and walked towards the door, at which point she seemed to swoop down in a fluid motion only aquatic nymphs ever managed, and departed.
“I’ve found it,” said Lucy, running her fingers down the page.
Peter leant forward, “What is it?”
Lucy shrugged. “Some sort of ritual to get rid of the spirits.”
“Exorcism,” Susan corrected.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it,” Lucy protested. “It only matters whether it works.”
“If so, you can call it by its correct name.”
“What does it require?” Peter interrupted, before their discussion could grow into a proper argument.
Lucy looked down again. “Chalk, salt, wine,” she listed, then looked up again, staring straight at Peter. “And blood.”
“Whose?” was all he asked.
“It doesn’t say.” Lucy answered, “but I doubt we can get the spirit’s, if they even have any at all.”
“I can do it,” said Peter briskly, and then, when they both stared at him, added, “someone has to.”
“That someone doesn’t necessarily have to be you,” Susan pointed out.
“They’ve had enough of your blood already.”
&
“Lucy found it again,” she said to Edmund the next morning.
He gave a small nod in acknowledgement, and continued annotating the document in front of him. “I assumed so. Is it useful?”
“More than I would have expected,” Susan said, measuring out two precise spoons of sugar for her morning coffee.
“When are we doing it?” Edmund asked, not looking up.
“Soon, I’d expect. It’s not particularly complicated,” she replied. “Why?”
“I thought I’d go for a ride this morning,” he said.
“It’s too dangerous,” Susan protested, reaching out for bread. “We’ve lost you once already.”
“I think I’m at more risk here than out there. It did happen within the castle walls.”
“I suppose it would be nice to get some air.” Susan said, wistfully. “I’ve got to draw up a proposal for a treaty with Doorn.”
“Well, I don’t envy you,” he commented with a faint smile. “Do you really think it will work?”
“We can’t know, I suppose,” she answered. “No reason for it not to, really.”
“I’ve never even heard of exorcisms before,” Edmund said.
“So that’s what’s bothering you.” Susan teased. "There'll always be things you don't know.
“If they tried it on her,” Edmund started, ignoring her, then broke off, looking down at his lap. “It didn’t work,” he said in a very tiny voice.
“She probably wasn’t one of them,” Susan said. “It only works on spirits.”
“In that case, wouldn’t it also work against the peaceful ones?” he asked. “The dryads, and naiads, and everyone?”
“It claims to be against evil spirits.”
“Most of those books don’t even have consistent spelling.” Edmund pointed out. “I wouldn’t be so sure about trusting them.”
“Just because they use archaic spelling -”
“They don’t even stick with it!” he protested.
“ - doesn’t mean they don’t have anything useful to say,” Susan said. “You seem very against this.”
“I’m not,” Edmund insisted. “I just - it seems like something she would do, okay?”
“Oh, Ed,” she said, reaching for his hand. It was clammy in hers, and very warm. “She’s gone.”
“But everyone remembers, and if this backfires -”
“It’s going to be fine,” she assured him. “It might not even work.”
“It seems like a peculiarly easy way out.”
Susan smiled, but it came out far less sure than she’d intended. “We’ll have to ask whether they think it’ll have any negative effects, but other than that,” she shrugged. “We won’t know unless we try.”
Edmund looked at her for a long time. “All actions have consequences,” he said. “What if the price is too high?”
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3