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bungakertas) wrote2011-01-02 03:29 pm
bungakertas) wrote2011-01-02 03:29 pm
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The Trials of King Edmund - Chapter Eleven
The Trials of King Edmund - Chapter Eleven
Disclaimer and general Author's Notes are in the first entry, which is linked at the bottom.
They moved off, Lune telling Cor the story of how he had come to grow up as a servant to a fisherman.
Thunderhoof trotted up to join Edmund. “So my prophecy for that child is fulfilled.”
“To save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which it ever lay,” Edmund recalled. “A rather terrible destiny.”
“Your majesty, I think the Archenlanders who are free today would call it by another name,” Thunderhoof said mildly.
Edmund couldn’t think of any reply to that so he changed the subject. “Where is Lucy?”
“The queen has gone into Anvard, I believe,” Thunderhoof replied.
“Thank you,” Edmund nodded. He went into the castle and, after several misdirections, and one moment of being so hopelessly lost he was forced to ask directions, found Lucy directing a trunk into a state chamber.
“Oh, Ed!” she said, spying him. “I’m glad you’ve come. Your things are here, if you wish to wash and change.” She indicated the room and Edmund stared at her in shock. She was still wearing a mail tunic, and only the circlet of gold on her head kept her hair—which was a mass of tangles—from falling completely down. She had a streak of dirt across her face, sweat on her forehead, and blood staining her fingers and her trousers. And here she stood with Dilly by her feet, cool as you please.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, mystified.
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Dilly brought some things for us. She left after we did and has been traveling all day.”
Edmund looked down at himself. There was a slash in one of the sleeves of the tunic he wore over his mail shirt, and blood stains across his waist and on one of his shoulders. He knew his face was equally dirty and sweaty as Lucy’s, probably worse. “I hadn’t even had time to think about after…”
“Of course you hadn’t, Ed,” Lucy answered. “Neither had I. This was all Dilly’s doing.”
“If it please your majesties,” Dilly broke in, “several of your staff felt this would be prudent. We also have several more shipments in donations for the armies, and in foodstuffs for Anvard, since they are hosting more than usual at present, on the way as we speak. Unfortunately, the first of those will not be here until tomorrow.”
“Dilly, you’re a hero,” Edmund said.
“So I told her,” Lucy agreed.
Edmund turned to look at his sister. “May I speak to you?”
Lucy turned her head and then said, “All right, Ed.” The two of them walked into Lucy’s chamber and out to her balcony. From there, Edmund could see out over most of Archenland. He turned to his sister. “Rabadash is infuriating me. I…almost killed him after the battle was over.”
“Oh, Ed,” Lucy said.
“When I think of him… Do you realize that Cor fulfilled his prophecy today?” Edmund said.
“To save Archenland,” Lucy nodded. “Yes, of course he did.”
“I have been asking Aslan for the past month and more why it was that he saw fit to send us all this trouble,” Edmund said quietly.
“Perhaps Aslan was unkind to Cor, do you mean?” Lucy asked, looking at him curiously.
“No! Don’t you see, it was nothing to do with Cor!” Edmund burst out. “I never once stopped to consider that there might be something else afoot!” He laughed without any humor. “I have been such a fool, Lucy. I thought Aslan had abandoned us entirely. I never bothered to think that maybe Narnia’s troubles weren’t the point of any of this. I can not credit how selfish I have been this whole time. I doubt I shall ever be able to face him again.”
“First off, stop being foolish,” Lucy told him. “Of course you will face him again. You are not the only person ever to doubt him, nor to learn that their doubts were foolish. He is, as we are so fond of pointing out, not a tame lion.”
Edmund frowned. “No. I simply forgot he is good.”
“Second,” Lucy returned, “Aslan has reminded you he is good, hasn’t he?”
“But none of this was to do with Narnia at all,” Edmund protested. “He did not do it to remind me of anything.”
“Of course it was,” Lucy said. “Susan is Narnian, after all. It was to do with all of us. Not only did Cor save Archenland, but you were rescued from Tashbaan. And Peter defended Narnia. And I kept it safe. And we were all there to do all these things, just as we needed to be. If Aslan has been clever enough to see to all of that, I don’t think it’s beyond his ability to remind either of us that he truly is clever enough to see to all of that, and good enough to do what we need even when we can’t see how.”
Edmund looked sharply at Lucy. “Us?”
“I had my own worries,” Lucy said quietly. “I kept railing against the unfairness of it all. And it is unfair that Cor should’ve had to grow up a slave when he is a prince. But how could I say that it would’ve been fair for Rabadash to attack Archenland as he did? And if Cor hadn’t brought that message…”
She sighed. “In any case, it’s obviously not fair to blame Aslan. Bar was an embezzler and that was his fault. Rabadash is a coward and traitor and that was his. That those two events are connected is because Aslan intervened so that Rabadash’s attack would be unsuccessful and Cor would be saved into the bargain.” She looked at Edmund. “I never spoke about my doubts because I was ashamed.”
Edmund shook his head. “And here I am plaguing you with mine. But we have both learned better now. And I think you must be right. I am certain Aslan would forgive your doubts, in which case he would forgive me mine. He should hardly have troubled to teach us better otherwise, I think.”
She smiled. “You’re right. I am simply melancholy after the battle, and distracted because I am still angry at Corin. A very creative punishment, by the way.”
“How did you know?” Edmund asked.
“Everyone is talking about it,” she said. “If it weren’t for Rabadash and his rather ridiculous jumping fiasco, Corin would be the butt of every joke made here for weeks.”
Edmund nodded. “And well he would deserve it, too.”
“Agreed,” Lucy said. “Perhaps this lesson will sink in.”
Edmund shook his head. “Corin may never grow up.”
“Fortunately for him,” Lucy laughed. “Now get out so I can bathe. Aside from wanting to get out of my own clothes, you smell terrible.”
Edmund grinned and strode out, headed into his room, and found—to his very great pleasure—that some enterprising person had already drawn him a bath. He cheerfully stripped off his clothes and washed off the dirt and grime of the battle before putting on a set of clean clothes.
Over dinner, Prince Cor—who had apparently been called Shasta all his life—told them about his adventures escaping north. How he had met Bree the horse and then Aravis the tarkheena and Hwin the other horse, and their trip through Tashbaan, which Edmund couldn’t help but find funny now. Then how Aravis had overheard Rabadash’s plot and their flight across the desert and meeting the Hermit. And then how Cor was sent on to find King Lune and warn him just in time, before getting lost in the fog and accidentally wandering into Narnia during the night.
Lune broke in at this point and said, “You were uncommonly fortunate there, child, that you did not fall off the mountain.”
But, much to Edmund’s surprise as he knew that Cor had seen that pass during the day, Cor said, “I was never in any danger, sir—Father. There was an enormous lion who walked alongside me all night. He said that he’d been looking after me my whole life. And, do you know? I think he had.”
Tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes and she began blinking quite hard indeed. Edmund, who was sitting beside her, reached over and took her hand, his own eyes a bit more watery than usual.
“If you have been in Aslan’s care,” Lune said slowly, laying his hand over Cor’s, “then I shall settle my mind about your traipsing into Narnia over night. He will not always lead you in safe ways, my son, but he will lead you in the best ways there are.”
Edmund looked out the window and tried not to be so surprised as he was. How could this possibly be exactly what he had needed to hear? Because if Cor could be at peace with his own life, then Edmund was hardly in a position to complain about a month or so of negotiations. He looked back at Cor with a fond smile. How very like Aslan to use someone who had met him the night before last to give lessons in trusting him to Edmund, who had known him for years.
Cor nodded and took up his tale again. How he’d met the dwarves in Narnia, who had fed him breakfast. And then fallen in with the army and come straight back the next day.
“And that, your majesties, father, and everyone, is my story,” he finished. “I just hate to have left the others with the Hermit.”
“No doubt the Hermit is quite ready to have done with his guests, as well,” Lucy put in with a mischievous smile.
Most everyone laughed, although Cor looked a bit confused. Edmund took pity on him and said in an undertone across the table, “Well, he is a hermit, after all.”
Cor did grin at that, and Lune’s face looked like it had lit up from the inside.
“No fear of that, then,” Lune told Cor. “Tomorrow, you shall go and fetch them here. This friend of yours, the Lady Aravis?” He paused, and Cor nodded at the name. “You must ask her if she will like to live here. It has been some time since we have had a woman in the court, and clearly the Lady Aravis is both courageous and wise.”
“I’ll do that,” Cor nodded.
The next morning, Edmund and Lucy were sat down to sitting down to breakfast with Lune in the brilliantly sunny breakfast chamber and chatting about the festivities planned for a few days hence when Corin dragged himself in, bleary-eyed and cranky and acknowledged no one as he piled his plate with toast.
When he did look up, Edmund skewered him with a glance. “The next time you disobey my orders, I’ll considerably less merciful. This is the last warning you shall receive.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he said. He looked around. “Where’s Cor?”
“Gone to fetch his friends back from the Hermit’s home,” Lune told his son.
“Oh, Aravis and the horses?” Corin asked, brightening.
“He told you yesterday during the ride, I suppose,” Edmund said suppressingly.
“Ah…yes, sir,” Corin answered, in a much more meek tone than he usually adopted.
“Then he will not need to repeat himself,” Lune interjected, forcing the two sparring partners to look at him politely. “They should be back before lunchtime,” he added, facing Corin.
“Excellent. I should very much like to meet this Lady Aravis,” Lucy said with a grin.
Edmund smiled at that. “Naturally. She sounds very like you, Lu.”
“Cor couldn’t say enough good things about any of them,” Corin added. “I can’t wait to see them all.”
It was a few hours later when Edmund saw Lucy leading a Calormene girl about Corin’s age to a set of rooms near those of the royal family. He bowed to the girl and said, “My Lady Aravis, I must presume?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Lucy grinned. “Aravis Tarkheena, allow me to present my brother, Edmund of Narnia.”
Aravis nodded at that and then offered Edmund a grand curtsey in the Calormene style. “Your majesty,” she said quietly.
“I know you must have heard this a great deal already,” Edmund said, “but I must thank you, my lady, for your aid of Prince Cor and of Archenland and of Narnia. We are all deeply in your debt.”
“Your majesty is very kind, but to attack your nations unprovoked for the purpose of kidnapping a woman and forcing her into marriage is a despicable action. I would have no honor at all if I had not done all I could to oppose Rabadash,” she answered.
Lucy nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Aravis.”
“Before I leave you,” Edmund said, “I think it might be wise for me to speak to those two horses you traveled with. Where are they?”
“I saw them last in the courtyard, but I think Cor may have been showing them the stables,” Aravis said.
“He can’t be thinking to put talking horses in the stables with the dumb ones?” Lucy said, sounding outraged.
“I think he was trying to talk them out of it, your majesty,” Aravis told her, “but they have lived with dumb horses all their lives.”
Edmund nodded. “And he is their friend, in any case. He won’t be offering them offense. I’ll speak to them.”
Edmund left and made his way to the castle stables where he heard Prince Cor’s voice arguing with someone as he entered.
“Bree, you can’t stay here! Father would have my head. There are plenty of Narnian horses here from the battle yesterday. Why don’t you let me introduce you to them?” Cor asked. The voices were all the way down at the far end of the stables, near the opposite door, so Edmund began striding toward them.
“Must we?” the someone asked, sounding very reluctant indeed.
“Is this more of that Do-Talking-Horses-Roll? nonsense?” asked another someone, this person sounding quite put out. “Bree, how many times must we tell you—”
“I’ll thank you, madam, not to make assumptions for which you have no basis,” Bree snapped.
“No basis, indeed,” the second someone snorted, and a very horsish snort it was too.
Edmund’s charger put his head over his stall and snorted at him, causing the other two horses to go silent. Edmund reached over and rubbed Aylmar’s nose before continuing on.
The horse named Bree looked like a very great warhorse indeed, and next to him was a palfrey who immediately dipped her head as she saw Edmund.
“Bree, Hwin,” said Prince Cor, “this is King Edmund of Narnia.”
“I was told there were two Narnian horses who had come with you, and I felt I should come and meet you both,” Edmund said, offering them a smile. “And Prince Cor is quite right, Bree. You are a talking horse. It would be thoroughly inappropriate for you to stay here.”
The warhorse hung his head miserably. Hwin looked just a tiny bit smug, but all she said was, “Where are the Narnian horses staying, your majesty?”
“In the other stable, of course,” Edmund told her.
“Other stable?” Bree asked, misery quite forgotten.
“It’s very like this one, but there are no doors on the stalls, for example. You can’t stay here because you wouldn’t be free to move about as you pleased. You are guests, after all, not prisoners.”
“Oh. That’s quite…logical,” Bree finally said. Hwin looked as though she were suppressing a desire to kick the creature, but Cor turned a grateful look onto Edmund.
“Shall I show them there, your majesty?” Cor offered.
“Why don’t we all go?” Edmund said. They started away from the stable and Edmund turned to Cor and said, “When we were in Tashbaan, Tumnus offered for you to come and stay in Narnia over the summer festival, thinking you were Corin. I thought you should know, the invitation is extended to you. You may wish to stay closer to home, of course, but if you are interested, you’re welcome.”
“It sounded interesting,” Cor replied. “What is it?”
“Oh, it’s an excellent time. All of Narnia spends a week in celebration and dancing,” Edmund said. “With all that’s happened, we’ll be working non-stop at Cair Paravel to be ready in time, but when the solstice comes, we all leave the castle and go to Aslan’s How. And the rest of the week is nearly non-stop bonfires and dancing and feasts. As long as you’re careful not to let the fauns and dryads dance you off somewhere unexpected while you aren’t paying attention, of course.”
“Oh?” Cor asked, sounding amused.
“Is it dangerous?” Hwin asked, sounding alarmed.
“Not a bit of it,” Edmund replied. “Just slightly embarrassing. Happened to Lucy last year. She somehow ended up north of Beaver’s Dam and turned up three days later claiming to have no knowledge of how she got there.” They shared a laugh as they turned to the other side of the castle keep and started coming up on the other stable.
Edmund turned to the two horses. “Now, you two are obviously free to go into Narnia any time you like, but you needn’t go alone, if you should prefer traveling with us. The Narnians here, that is. And whenever you go back, come to Cair Paravel and we will give you a map of Narnia, so that you can decide where it is that you think you’d like to live.”
“But how do Narnian horses live?” Bree wondered aloud.
“On that score,” Edmund replied as they entered the stables where the talking horses were staying, “I suggest you ask the Narnian horses.”
As Edmund had said, these stables were slightly different from those for the dumb horses. For one, there were three unicorns who were here as well. The centaurs had gone off to the nearby forest, of course, and only turned up at the castle for duty shifts or meals, but would not think of living together with actual horses, talking or no. There were a great many stalls, of course, all large enough for two horses to turn around in, and each one had a wide, open space rather than a door. With so many horses in residence, they were a bit squeezed for space, though. Some were doubled up. Edmund knocked on the side of the doorway for one particular stall and a bay stallion poked his head out curiously. “Your majesty?”
“Hello, Lar,” Edmund said cheerfully. “I was wondering if I might ask you to help these two horses. Bree and Hwin are both Narnians, you see, but were kidnapped away from us very young. They’ll be needing somewhere to sleep for this evening, if there’s still room.” Edmund looked around. “If not, I’ll set some men to building temporary stabling.”
“I think we might squeeze two more in, sire,” Lar replied. “You two are perfectly welcome to bed down with us for the moment. And may I say, welcome home to you both?”
Bree and Hwin both made very polite responses, so Edmund and Cor took their leave and began to go off. As they left, Edmund heard Lar say, “King Edmund is, of course, a wonderful human, but he has just as useless a tongue as the rest of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve. My proper name is Larrey-orrey-heurney-hinney-heh. I can only imagine that Bree and Hwin are the best humans can do with your proper names?”
Cor glanced at Edmund, clearly amused. Edmund shrugged in good humor, long used to such ribbing from the various non-human Narnians. “I suppose I do my best.”
Cor laughed at that.
*~*~*
Author’s Notes: Whoo-hoo! A chapter with no book credits to be made!
Next week, we’ll be wrapping it up, folks. One more to go.
Chapter One - A Proposal is Made to Queen Susan
Chapter Two - Prince Rabadash Arrives in Narnia
Chapter Three - Harfang Sends an Envoy
Chapter Four - The Narnians Hold a Tournament
Chapter Five - A Voyage to Tashbaan
Chapter Six - In the Court of the Tisroc
Chapter Seven - Prince Corin Goes Missing
Chapter Eight - The Plan of Mr. Tumnus
Chapter Nine - Escape to Narnia and the North
Chapter Ten - The Battle of Anvard
Chapter Twelve - The Return To Cair Paravel
Disclaimer and general Author's Notes are in the first entry, which is linked at the bottom.
They moved off, Lune telling Cor the story of how he had come to grow up as a servant to a fisherman.
Thunderhoof trotted up to join Edmund. “So my prophecy for that child is fulfilled.”
“To save Archenland from the deadliest danger in which it ever lay,” Edmund recalled. “A rather terrible destiny.”
“Your majesty, I think the Archenlanders who are free today would call it by another name,” Thunderhoof said mildly.
Edmund couldn’t think of any reply to that so he changed the subject. “Where is Lucy?”
“The queen has gone into Anvard, I believe,” Thunderhoof replied.
“Thank you,” Edmund nodded. He went into the castle and, after several misdirections, and one moment of being so hopelessly lost he was forced to ask directions, found Lucy directing a trunk into a state chamber.
“Oh, Ed!” she said, spying him. “I’m glad you’ve come. Your things are here, if you wish to wash and change.” She indicated the room and Edmund stared at her in shock. She was still wearing a mail tunic, and only the circlet of gold on her head kept her hair—which was a mass of tangles—from falling completely down. She had a streak of dirt across her face, sweat on her forehead, and blood staining her fingers and her trousers. And here she stood with Dilly by her feet, cool as you please.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, mystified.
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Dilly brought some things for us. She left after we did and has been traveling all day.”
Edmund looked down at himself. There was a slash in one of the sleeves of the tunic he wore over his mail shirt, and blood stains across his waist and on one of his shoulders. He knew his face was equally dirty and sweaty as Lucy’s, probably worse. “I hadn’t even had time to think about after…”
“Of course you hadn’t, Ed,” Lucy answered. “Neither had I. This was all Dilly’s doing.”
“If it please your majesties,” Dilly broke in, “several of your staff felt this would be prudent. We also have several more shipments in donations for the armies, and in foodstuffs for Anvard, since they are hosting more than usual at present, on the way as we speak. Unfortunately, the first of those will not be here until tomorrow.”
“Dilly, you’re a hero,” Edmund said.
“So I told her,” Lucy agreed.
Edmund turned to look at his sister. “May I speak to you?”
Lucy turned her head and then said, “All right, Ed.” The two of them walked into Lucy’s chamber and out to her balcony. From there, Edmund could see out over most of Archenland. He turned to his sister. “Rabadash is infuriating me. I…almost killed him after the battle was over.”
“Oh, Ed,” Lucy said.
“When I think of him… Do you realize that Cor fulfilled his prophecy today?” Edmund said.
“To save Archenland,” Lucy nodded. “Yes, of course he did.”
“I have been asking Aslan for the past month and more why it was that he saw fit to send us all this trouble,” Edmund said quietly.
“Perhaps Aslan was unkind to Cor, do you mean?” Lucy asked, looking at him curiously.
“No! Don’t you see, it was nothing to do with Cor!” Edmund burst out. “I never once stopped to consider that there might be something else afoot!” He laughed without any humor. “I have been such a fool, Lucy. I thought Aslan had abandoned us entirely. I never bothered to think that maybe Narnia’s troubles weren’t the point of any of this. I can not credit how selfish I have been this whole time. I doubt I shall ever be able to face him again.”
“First off, stop being foolish,” Lucy told him. “Of course you will face him again. You are not the only person ever to doubt him, nor to learn that their doubts were foolish. He is, as we are so fond of pointing out, not a tame lion.”
Edmund frowned. “No. I simply forgot he is good.”
“Second,” Lucy returned, “Aslan has reminded you he is good, hasn’t he?”
“But none of this was to do with Narnia at all,” Edmund protested. “He did not do it to remind me of anything.”
“Of course it was,” Lucy said. “Susan is Narnian, after all. It was to do with all of us. Not only did Cor save Archenland, but you were rescued from Tashbaan. And Peter defended Narnia. And I kept it safe. And we were all there to do all these things, just as we needed to be. If Aslan has been clever enough to see to all of that, I don’t think it’s beyond his ability to remind either of us that he truly is clever enough to see to all of that, and good enough to do what we need even when we can’t see how.”
Edmund looked sharply at Lucy. “Us?”
“I had my own worries,” Lucy said quietly. “I kept railing against the unfairness of it all. And it is unfair that Cor should’ve had to grow up a slave when he is a prince. But how could I say that it would’ve been fair for Rabadash to attack Archenland as he did? And if Cor hadn’t brought that message…”
She sighed. “In any case, it’s obviously not fair to blame Aslan. Bar was an embezzler and that was his fault. Rabadash is a coward and traitor and that was his. That those two events are connected is because Aslan intervened so that Rabadash’s attack would be unsuccessful and Cor would be saved into the bargain.” She looked at Edmund. “I never spoke about my doubts because I was ashamed.”
Edmund shook his head. “And here I am plaguing you with mine. But we have both learned better now. And I think you must be right. I am certain Aslan would forgive your doubts, in which case he would forgive me mine. He should hardly have troubled to teach us better otherwise, I think.”
She smiled. “You’re right. I am simply melancholy after the battle, and distracted because I am still angry at Corin. A very creative punishment, by the way.”
“How did you know?” Edmund asked.
“Everyone is talking about it,” she said. “If it weren’t for Rabadash and his rather ridiculous jumping fiasco, Corin would be the butt of every joke made here for weeks.”
Edmund nodded. “And well he would deserve it, too.”
“Agreed,” Lucy said. “Perhaps this lesson will sink in.”
Edmund shook his head. “Corin may never grow up.”
“Fortunately for him,” Lucy laughed. “Now get out so I can bathe. Aside from wanting to get out of my own clothes, you smell terrible.”
Edmund grinned and strode out, headed into his room, and found—to his very great pleasure—that some enterprising person had already drawn him a bath. He cheerfully stripped off his clothes and washed off the dirt and grime of the battle before putting on a set of clean clothes.
Over dinner, Prince Cor—who had apparently been called Shasta all his life—told them about his adventures escaping north. How he had met Bree the horse and then Aravis the tarkheena and Hwin the other horse, and their trip through Tashbaan, which Edmund couldn’t help but find funny now. Then how Aravis had overheard Rabadash’s plot and their flight across the desert and meeting the Hermit. And then how Cor was sent on to find King Lune and warn him just in time, before getting lost in the fog and accidentally wandering into Narnia during the night.
Lune broke in at this point and said, “You were uncommonly fortunate there, child, that you did not fall off the mountain.”
But, much to Edmund’s surprise as he knew that Cor had seen that pass during the day, Cor said, “I was never in any danger, sir—Father. There was an enormous lion who walked alongside me all night. He said that he’d been looking after me my whole life. And, do you know? I think he had.”
Tears sprang to Lucy’s eyes and she began blinking quite hard indeed. Edmund, who was sitting beside her, reached over and took her hand, his own eyes a bit more watery than usual.
“If you have been in Aslan’s care,” Lune said slowly, laying his hand over Cor’s, “then I shall settle my mind about your traipsing into Narnia over night. He will not always lead you in safe ways, my son, but he will lead you in the best ways there are.”
Edmund looked out the window and tried not to be so surprised as he was. How could this possibly be exactly what he had needed to hear? Because if Cor could be at peace with his own life, then Edmund was hardly in a position to complain about a month or so of negotiations. He looked back at Cor with a fond smile. How very like Aslan to use someone who had met him the night before last to give lessons in trusting him to Edmund, who had known him for years.
Cor nodded and took up his tale again. How he’d met the dwarves in Narnia, who had fed him breakfast. And then fallen in with the army and come straight back the next day.
“And that, your majesties, father, and everyone, is my story,” he finished. “I just hate to have left the others with the Hermit.”
“No doubt the Hermit is quite ready to have done with his guests, as well,” Lucy put in with a mischievous smile.
Most everyone laughed, although Cor looked a bit confused. Edmund took pity on him and said in an undertone across the table, “Well, he is a hermit, after all.”
Cor did grin at that, and Lune’s face looked like it had lit up from the inside.
“No fear of that, then,” Lune told Cor. “Tomorrow, you shall go and fetch them here. This friend of yours, the Lady Aravis?” He paused, and Cor nodded at the name. “You must ask her if she will like to live here. It has been some time since we have had a woman in the court, and clearly the Lady Aravis is both courageous and wise.”
“I’ll do that,” Cor nodded.
The next morning, Edmund and Lucy were sat down to sitting down to breakfast with Lune in the brilliantly sunny breakfast chamber and chatting about the festivities planned for a few days hence when Corin dragged himself in, bleary-eyed and cranky and acknowledged no one as he piled his plate with toast.
When he did look up, Edmund skewered him with a glance. “The next time you disobey my orders, I’ll considerably less merciful. This is the last warning you shall receive.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he said. He looked around. “Where’s Cor?”
“Gone to fetch his friends back from the Hermit’s home,” Lune told his son.
“Oh, Aravis and the horses?” Corin asked, brightening.
“He told you yesterday during the ride, I suppose,” Edmund said suppressingly.
“Ah…yes, sir,” Corin answered, in a much more meek tone than he usually adopted.
“Then he will not need to repeat himself,” Lune interjected, forcing the two sparring partners to look at him politely. “They should be back before lunchtime,” he added, facing Corin.
“Excellent. I should very much like to meet this Lady Aravis,” Lucy said with a grin.
Edmund smiled at that. “Naturally. She sounds very like you, Lu.”
“Cor couldn’t say enough good things about any of them,” Corin added. “I can’t wait to see them all.”
It was a few hours later when Edmund saw Lucy leading a Calormene girl about Corin’s age to a set of rooms near those of the royal family. He bowed to the girl and said, “My Lady Aravis, I must presume?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Lucy grinned. “Aravis Tarkheena, allow me to present my brother, Edmund of Narnia.”
Aravis nodded at that and then offered Edmund a grand curtsey in the Calormene style. “Your majesty,” she said quietly.
“I know you must have heard this a great deal already,” Edmund said, “but I must thank you, my lady, for your aid of Prince Cor and of Archenland and of Narnia. We are all deeply in your debt.”
“Your majesty is very kind, but to attack your nations unprovoked for the purpose of kidnapping a woman and forcing her into marriage is a despicable action. I would have no honor at all if I had not done all I could to oppose Rabadash,” she answered.
Lucy nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Aravis.”
“Before I leave you,” Edmund said, “I think it might be wise for me to speak to those two horses you traveled with. Where are they?”
“I saw them last in the courtyard, but I think Cor may have been showing them the stables,” Aravis said.
“He can’t be thinking to put talking horses in the stables with the dumb ones?” Lucy said, sounding outraged.
“I think he was trying to talk them out of it, your majesty,” Aravis told her, “but they have lived with dumb horses all their lives.”
Edmund nodded. “And he is their friend, in any case. He won’t be offering them offense. I’ll speak to them.”
Edmund left and made his way to the castle stables where he heard Prince Cor’s voice arguing with someone as he entered.
“Bree, you can’t stay here! Father would have my head. There are plenty of Narnian horses here from the battle yesterday. Why don’t you let me introduce you to them?” Cor asked. The voices were all the way down at the far end of the stables, near the opposite door, so Edmund began striding toward them.
“Must we?” the someone asked, sounding very reluctant indeed.
“Is this more of that Do-Talking-Horses-Roll? nonsense?” asked another someone, this person sounding quite put out. “Bree, how many times must we tell you—”
“I’ll thank you, madam, not to make assumptions for which you have no basis,” Bree snapped.
“No basis, indeed,” the second someone snorted, and a very horsish snort it was too.
Edmund’s charger put his head over his stall and snorted at him, causing the other two horses to go silent. Edmund reached over and rubbed Aylmar’s nose before continuing on.
The horse named Bree looked like a very great warhorse indeed, and next to him was a palfrey who immediately dipped her head as she saw Edmund.
“Bree, Hwin,” said Prince Cor, “this is King Edmund of Narnia.”
“I was told there were two Narnian horses who had come with you, and I felt I should come and meet you both,” Edmund said, offering them a smile. “And Prince Cor is quite right, Bree. You are a talking horse. It would be thoroughly inappropriate for you to stay here.”
The warhorse hung his head miserably. Hwin looked just a tiny bit smug, but all she said was, “Where are the Narnian horses staying, your majesty?”
“In the other stable, of course,” Edmund told her.
“Other stable?” Bree asked, misery quite forgotten.
“It’s very like this one, but there are no doors on the stalls, for example. You can’t stay here because you wouldn’t be free to move about as you pleased. You are guests, after all, not prisoners.”
“Oh. That’s quite…logical,” Bree finally said. Hwin looked as though she were suppressing a desire to kick the creature, but Cor turned a grateful look onto Edmund.
“Shall I show them there, your majesty?” Cor offered.
“Why don’t we all go?” Edmund said. They started away from the stable and Edmund turned to Cor and said, “When we were in Tashbaan, Tumnus offered for you to come and stay in Narnia over the summer festival, thinking you were Corin. I thought you should know, the invitation is extended to you. You may wish to stay closer to home, of course, but if you are interested, you’re welcome.”
“It sounded interesting,” Cor replied. “What is it?”
“Oh, it’s an excellent time. All of Narnia spends a week in celebration and dancing,” Edmund said. “With all that’s happened, we’ll be working non-stop at Cair Paravel to be ready in time, but when the solstice comes, we all leave the castle and go to Aslan’s How. And the rest of the week is nearly non-stop bonfires and dancing and feasts. As long as you’re careful not to let the fauns and dryads dance you off somewhere unexpected while you aren’t paying attention, of course.”
“Oh?” Cor asked, sounding amused.
“Is it dangerous?” Hwin asked, sounding alarmed.
“Not a bit of it,” Edmund replied. “Just slightly embarrassing. Happened to Lucy last year. She somehow ended up north of Beaver’s Dam and turned up three days later claiming to have no knowledge of how she got there.” They shared a laugh as they turned to the other side of the castle keep and started coming up on the other stable.
Edmund turned to the two horses. “Now, you two are obviously free to go into Narnia any time you like, but you needn’t go alone, if you should prefer traveling with us. The Narnians here, that is. And whenever you go back, come to Cair Paravel and we will give you a map of Narnia, so that you can decide where it is that you think you’d like to live.”
“But how do Narnian horses live?” Bree wondered aloud.
“On that score,” Edmund replied as they entered the stables where the talking horses were staying, “I suggest you ask the Narnian horses.”
As Edmund had said, these stables were slightly different from those for the dumb horses. For one, there were three unicorns who were here as well. The centaurs had gone off to the nearby forest, of course, and only turned up at the castle for duty shifts or meals, but would not think of living together with actual horses, talking or no. There were a great many stalls, of course, all large enough for two horses to turn around in, and each one had a wide, open space rather than a door. With so many horses in residence, they were a bit squeezed for space, though. Some were doubled up. Edmund knocked on the side of the doorway for one particular stall and a bay stallion poked his head out curiously. “Your majesty?”
“Hello, Lar,” Edmund said cheerfully. “I was wondering if I might ask you to help these two horses. Bree and Hwin are both Narnians, you see, but were kidnapped away from us very young. They’ll be needing somewhere to sleep for this evening, if there’s still room.” Edmund looked around. “If not, I’ll set some men to building temporary stabling.”
“I think we might squeeze two more in, sire,” Lar replied. “You two are perfectly welcome to bed down with us for the moment. And may I say, welcome home to you both?”
Bree and Hwin both made very polite responses, so Edmund and Cor took their leave and began to go off. As they left, Edmund heard Lar say, “King Edmund is, of course, a wonderful human, but he has just as useless a tongue as the rest of the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve. My proper name is Larrey-orrey-heurney-hinney-heh. I can only imagine that Bree and Hwin are the best humans can do with your proper names?”
Cor glanced at Edmund, clearly amused. Edmund shrugged in good humor, long used to such ribbing from the various non-human Narnians. “I suppose I do my best.”
Cor laughed at that.
Author’s Notes: Whoo-hoo! A chapter with no book credits to be made!
Next week, we’ll be wrapping it up, folks. One more to go.
Chapter One - A Proposal is Made to Queen Susan
Chapter Two - Prince Rabadash Arrives in Narnia
Chapter Three - Harfang Sends an Envoy
Chapter Four - The Narnians Hold a Tournament
Chapter Five - A Voyage to Tashbaan
Chapter Six - In the Court of the Tisroc
Chapter Seven - Prince Corin Goes Missing
Chapter Eight - The Plan of Mr. Tumnus
Chapter Nine - Escape to Narnia and the North
Chapter Ten - The Battle of Anvard
Chapter Twelve - The Return To Cair Paravel