Narnia fic: "Dust in the Air" (26)
Dec. 24th, 2011 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: Dust in the Air (26)
Author:bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG
Content Notes: language
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: Dust in the Air uses Warsverse backstory as a general rule of thumb. All chapters of Dust are posted on both LJ and DW. Dust in the Air does not use material from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).
Jill could get used to this fast – long, lazy mornings in a bed, a real bed, a feather bed even, with warm wool blankets and fluffy pillows, and curtains she can use to shut out the rest of the world or let it in. There’s a door that locks. She’d forgotten how much she missed that. She hasn’t had a door, let alone one with a lock, in years.
Five years ago she probably wouldn’t have called it luxury, just the convenience of ordinary living. But five years ago is a long time past and Jill can barely remember ordinary anymore; England is a fading memory that Jill holds onto because she doesn’t know what she’d do without the hope of someday going back. Luxury and convenience mean different things now. The first few days had been lovely, a vacation from the nightmare of living life constantly on the run, always looking over her shoulder for an arrow or a spear aimed for her heart. But by the end of the first week Jill has started to chafe at the inactivity, which she has to admit she’d never expected. It’s not the danger Jill misses – Eustace is the danger junkie, not her – but it’s the feeling of doing something meaningful. That’s been all that’s kept her going these past few years, while the snow piles up outside their shelters or the Calormenes chase them through burning woods or riots send Narnia reeling in shock. She’s doing something. She’s meant to be here. She’s had her moments of doubt over the past five years, but Aslan brought her and Eustace here and Aslan brought Eustace’s cousins here and didn’t send them home in the meantime, so there has to be a reason why they’re here. Jill had hoped, quietly and furiously and secretly, those first few mad days after the Pevensies had arrived that that meant they were going to take over and she and Eustace would be allowed to slink back to England in disgrace and failure, but they’re still here. That has to mean something. She doesn’t know what, but it has to mean something, even if right now she feels like she’d be more use in England.
Jill shoves that thought aside, because she’s been down that path before and it only leads to self-recrimination and spending days under the threadbare blankets in whatever shelter they’ve managed to throw together before winter hits Narnia in deadly earnest, Eustace looking equal parts tender and terrifying as he brandishes spoons of porridge like swords. If Tirian can survive being a king without a throne, then she can survive being a girl without a mission. And that’s not even true: Jill has a mission. She just hasn’t fulfilled it yet.
Because Aslan found someone better, a tiny voice of self-doubt whispers in the back of her brain. Why do you think Susan Pevensie is here if not to do what you couldn’t?
Jill clenches her fist on the three layers of thick wool blankets and shoves them aside, twitching back the curtains around the bed to let the light in as she swings her legs over the side, fitting her feet into the bed-slippers that had appeared with the room and the nightgown she’s wearing. It’s far colder in Archenland than it usually is in Narnia this time of year; hard to believe that Winter’s End in the camps has come and gone already. She wishes that she hadn’t missed it.
It’s early yet, she finds when she looks at the clock on the mantel. It’s plain compared to most of the ones in Anvard, but it surprises her every morning when she wakes up and finds that she can actually tell the time, the same way she would in England. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen a clock in Narnia, though one of the refugees at Haven had had a pocket watch. He’d been killed during an ambush and the watch had been broken, the pieces of it trampled into the blood-soaked earth along with his body.
Archenland doesn’t look like it’s ever experienced that kind of devastation. Jill is sure that it has sometime in its long history – longer than modern Narnia, apparently – but it’s hard to see it. Anvard is kept spotless by an army of servants, while the city below the castle might be any village in England, with gutters and cobbled streets and signs pointing the way to Market Square and the Courts of Justice and all the other conveniences of modern living. It’s civilized. Jill has spent a long time thinking that there isn’t anything of the sort in this world.
She finds her dressing gown and wraps it around herself, tying the cord around her waist. A maid had come in the night before to bank the fire, so Jill crouches down before it to build it back up, using kindling from the basket by the fireplace. She could wait for the maid to come back – the girl usually brings Jill hot chocolate and scones on a silver tray for breakfast, or more if Jill asks for it and doesn’t want to go down to Hall for the communal breakfast later in the morning – but it will be a few hours yet, and Jill’s not some spoiled Archenlander lady, incapable of taking care of herself. She builds a little pyramid of kindling and split small logs around the coals left from last night, blowing gently on them until they burst into flame, and sits back on her heels to bask in it for a moment, pleased by her accomplishment. It’s nothing, really – she’s done it a thousand times in Narnia – but she’s done so little in Archenland that even this small thing feels like climbing a mountain.
The sun is just starting to rise when Jill twitches back the heavy curtains from the bay window, painting the twin snow-covered peaks of Mount Pire pink. Archenland seems to be all mountains, leading up from the port by the Great Eastern Ocean and ascending into infinity in the west. Anvard is nested comfortably in their midst, on the side of a mountain and not in one of the sudden valleys that they’d passed through on their way in from Narnia. It’s a very charming country. Jill has absolutely no idea why the Calormenes would want anything to do with it.
Despite the early hour, the castle has already started stirring to life. Looking down at the courtyard beneath her window, Jill can see the man that the castle buys its milk from waiting impatiently at the gate, while the housekeeper hurries towards them with a purse in her fist and two maids in tow. She exchanges money for milk and she and the dairyman go their separate ways, the maids with their yokes and the carefully balanced buckets trailing in her wake. She’s seen the routine before; it happens every morning. Not long after the dairyman has gone a new figure appears in the open gate, tipping his lance so that he can pass beneath the lintel without difficulty. He’s a very young knight, younger than Jill is now, wearing a greatcoat that looks battered even from Jill’s distant view. Presumably his armor is packed up in his saddlebags.
His sort has been arriving even before Jill and Susan had come to Anvard. A tournament is going to be held for Prince Gareth’s birthday, with a fairly impressive purse of a thousand gold cols – as far as Jill can tell, Archenlander coinage has been debased over the past five years, so that a col is only worth around a third of a crescent, even though they’d been nearly equal a decade earlier. It’s still quite a bit of money these days; there isn’t a lot of money to spare in Archenland, which is on the edge of bankruptcy. There’s even a rumor that King Eian has pawned the crown jewels, so that the ones in his crown are only painted glass. Jill doesn’t know enough about gemstones to tell.
Someone comes to take the knight’s horse and equipment, one of the senior servants noting his name and giving him an assigned room. The boy listens very seriously, nodding occasionally as he strips his gloves off and tucks them in his belt. When the servant has gone, he looks nervously around the courtyard with wide eyes, making Jill think that this must be his first time at court, and then, somewhat alarmingly, up the tower before his gaze settles on her window. She waves at him.
He raises a hand and waves back. Jill’s sister Clara would have blown him a kiss, but Jill resists the urge and just smiles, waves again, and lets the curtain fall. She crosses the room to drop into the heavily cushioned armchair by the fire, pulling her legs up and basking in the heat. The festivities for the prince’s birthday officially start tomorrow and go on for the next week, culminating in the tournament and the birthday feast. Susan says that they will stay at least until then, because it would be rude to leave before and she still has a few tricks up her sleeve yet. Jill doesn’t know what they are, can’t even quite bring herself to care because she still doesn’t know why they’re here in Archenland. All she has to do is look around to know that Archenland can’t provide money, supplies, or troops to Narnia, because they’re lacking in all three. Archenland can’t even help itself.
She can only bear sitting still for a few minutes more. There’s a book she’s been slowly working her way through, but books remind her of Tirian and Jill finds herself wondering if she can pack up a few to take back to him. She’s always liked books, but now sitting still makes her feel restless, like there’s an unsheathed sword hanging over her head that might drop at any moment. Jill is always waiting for something to happen, someone to happen, so that every time the floor creaks or the wind blows she finds herself reaching for her dagger, because in Narnia it would be someone coming to either kill her or tell her someone’s coming to kill her.
Jill gets up and dresses, the carpet soft beneath her bare feet as she pulls on trousers and a man’s white shirt, buttoning a dark green waistcoat over it. She discards the cravat as a useless vanity and puts on wool socks and tall leather boots instead. All her clothes are new, because nothing she’d worn in Narnia is fit to be seen in respectable company and she’d refused Susan’s and Lucy’s offers of clothes from their wardrobes in Arn Abedin, except for the very plainest shirt and breeches that Lucy had finally dug out of the bottom of a chest otherwise filled with silks and brocades. Once in Archenland, Susan had made it her first order of business to find a tailor. Jill had been prepared to resent it, but the truth is that getting new clothes is the most exciting thing that’s happened to her since that time she came down with the plague. Well, that doesn’t involve the Calormenes, anyway.
The castle kitchen is bustling when she gets down there; a castle isn’t a quiet place even if you aren’t a noble. Jill finds all the life alternately heartening and claustrophobic after years of living in the camps. She’s not used to being on her own, but she’s not used to being around this many people in such an enclosed space, either. It makes the back of her neck itch.
She wheedles one of the assistant cooks into giving her a tray with rolls stuffed with ham and a pot of hot tea and takes both of them outside, perching on one of the mounting blocks near the stable where the castle men-at-arms keep their horses as she eats. It’s cold, but Jill doesn’t mind; even the promise of snow in the air feels more reassuring than oppressive. By now it’s probably well into spring in Narnia, but Archenland is a different story. It’s quieter here. Up in the mountains, with the country spread out beneath her down into the Great Eastern Ocean, Jill feels like she’s on top of the world.
If she didn’t feel so guilty about even thinking it, she could probably stay here forever. Except that the Calormenes are here too, and even if they haven’t made it official, everyone in Archenland knows that the Tisroc has King Eian’s balls in his fist and he’s just waiting for an opportunity to squeeze. Even if Aslan hadn’t sent her to Narnia, not Archenland, she can’t go through this again. She just can’t.
When she’s finished, she takes the tray back inside and goes through two small courtyards to the knights’ practice salle, wiping crumbs off on her trousers and tying her hair back quickly. She nods hello to the master-of-arms, who’s a complete bastard but appreciates someone who actually knows what to do with weaponry, not the useless fancy work some of the Archenlander nobles confine themselves too.
Archenland tends towards longbows, which aren’t as common in Narnia; Jill takes one and a quiver of arrows and goes out to the range, stringing the bow and strapping on a leather bracer to protect her forearm from the recoil. Most of the first quiver goes wide while she gets used to the bow; she retrieves the arrows and tries again, scrunching her face up in concentration until they start hitting the target, though they’re still nowhere near the bull’s eye. Jill scowls, shaking her sore wrists out as she goes to collect her arrows. When she turns around, there’s someone watching her.
It’s the young knight she’d seen arriving from her window, his greatcoat discarded to reveal a leather jerkin with the crest of a wildcat on the breast. He has the narrow, slightly inbred features and soft red curls that are more or less universal among the Archenlander nobility; Jill doesn’t put his age at any more than sixteen, if that.
“Let me guess,” he says as she stalks back towards him, the soles of her boots crunching slightly in the snow, “you’re not here to compete in the archery tournament.”
“I’m an excellent archer, thanks,” she says. “With a real bow.”
“So you’re not from around here,” he says, pleased by the revelation. He bows a little to her. “I’m Niles of Dashwood. Sir Niles Waverley of Dashwood. My uncle is the King’s minister of the treasury.”
“How lovely for you,” Jill says, grounding the tip of the bow in the snow by her right foot and leaning on it. “Did you want something?”
“I was hoping for your name,” he says, smiling at her. “I saw you when I arrived. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jill rolls her eyes. “I’m Jill Pole.”
“Lady Jill? Or Sir Jill?” he adds, looking intrigued by the idea of meeting a rare female knight.
“Just Jill. I’m with the Narnian embassy.”
He looks interested. “I’m here for Prince Gareth’s tournament,” he tells her, like she cares or it’s not obvious. “My uncle’s going to present me at court.”
“That’s wonderful,” Jill says. “Really.” She turns away from him, fitting an arrow to the string. She thinks she might have the hang of it now.
“Your stance is wrong,” Dashwood says helpfully. “You should turn a little more, and spread your legs a little wider –”
Jill really hopes he doesn’t go around telling women that as she releases. The arrow doesn’t hit the black, but it’s close. She has another arrow on the string even before that one has hit home. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”
“Should I?”
“I can’t decide if it’s refreshing or just pathetic,” Jill says, and empties her quiver as Dashwood gapes at her, indignant. She tosses the bow and the empty quiver at him; he catches them, looking extremely startled. “You can take those in to the master-at-arms when you’re done.”
She feels a twinge of guilt as she goes back inside, unbuckling her bracer, because she’s been taught to take care of her own weapons, but it will be good for Dashwood. Character-building. He doesn’t strike her as the kind of chap with much character.
By now Anvard’s many guests are beginning to filter into the Great Hall. Jill joins some of the other Narnians at a table next to six guardsmen in unfamiliar colors, sliding onto a bench next to Suatrius and pouring herself a cup of herbal tea, spooning honey in until it’s sweet enough to cat the back of her tongue. She’s not terribly hungry after her early breakfast, but she eats anyway out of long habit of not knowing when her next meal will be. Erelieva tosses an apple at her.
Jill catches it easily and starts cutting slices off with the knife she keeps her sleeve, arranging them on her plate next to a thick slice of brown bread that she spreads with more honey. “Are we really going to stay through this farce?” she asks. “If even half these bloody Archies wanted to help, we might actually be able to do something, but all they want is gold and glory.”
“The whole bloody thing,” says Cleph, spreading butter on his toast with extreme prejudice. “Gods alone know what Her Majesty’s thinking.”
“Think that’s sort of the idea, love,” Erelieva says, laughing. “We might get some help; I’ve been putting out feelers to see if any of these fine and noble knights want to lend a neighbor a hand. Most of them aren’t any happier about the Callies than we are.”
“Not that you can tell,” Suatrius mutters under his breath.
“Yes, but have you gotten any replies that aren’t all talk? Because it’s fine and fair to bitch and moan about the Callies and talk it up about freeing Narnia, but it’s another thing entirely to bring your sword into the fight –”
“Speak of the devil,” Jill interrupts, jerking her head towards the doorway by the high table, where Ilderim Tarkaan and his children have just come in with their bodyguards. The conversation in the hall dips for a moment with their entrance, the newcomers whispering to each other, before returning to its previous level. The Calormenes ignore it, waiting for the servants to pull out their chairs before sitting down. Spoiled, the whole lot of them; the tarkaan and his two brats.
“I hate that bastard,” Cleph says. “Hate him. I don’t even know him and I hate him.”
“You hate all Calormenes,” Suatrius says.
“I hate him especially. Right alongside Bahadur and the Tisroc. You know who else I hate? Everyone in this fucking country, for just letting him come in and walk all over them.” He rips a piece of bread in half, glaring at the nearby Archenlanders.
Erelieva puts a hand on his knee. “You shouldn’t talk like that unless you want to get into a fight.”
Cleph bares his flat teeth in a snarl. “Maybe I do.”
“Then keep talking,” says one of the Archenlander guardsmen, starting to rise before his comrade tugs him down.
Graynor, newly arrived, leaps up onto the bench next to Jill and bares his teeth. “Well, come on then, you Archie coward. Give me something to sink my teeth into.”
“The King!” Jill interrupts hastily, grabbing a handful of his fur to stop him as he leans forward.
“No, not him, he seems like he’d be a bit stringy –”
“I mean he’s here, you idiot!” Jill says, standing with everyone else in the hall as King Eian comes in, followed by the Crown Prince and his other three children, along with his ward. They don’t resume their seats until the King and the princes and princesses have taken theirs.
Tirian never makes us do that, Jill thinks rather spitefully, even though that’s not really fair. Tirian hasn’t had a proper court in all the time Jill has known him. Maybe it would be different if she’d met him when he’d still been a real king. Not that he isn’t a real king, but – well, he’s not a king like Eian of Archenland is a king.
The arrival of the King sobers the Archenlanders’ taste for a brawl. Graynor settles back on the bench, an odd sight at a table as Jill ladles up some porridge for him at his request, drizzling honey and dried cranberries over it.
“Where’s Susan?” Jill asks, dropping the spoon back in the bowl. The spot that she’s been taking at the High Table is empty.
Suatrius shrugs. “Hell if I know. Maybe she woke up this morning and decided she didn’t want to deal with Ilderim’s bullshit at breakfast. King of Summer knows that I considered it.”
That’s fine with Jill. She chews over a piece of apple and a notion she’s been playing with for a few days now before making up her mind. She swallows the apple and turns towards Graynor. “Are you doing anything later today? Or maybe tomorrow?”
“My social calendar is free except for this fiasco,” Graynor says, his voice slightly muffled as he laps at the bowl. “Why?”
“I want to go down to the city and I don’t want to go by myself,” Jill says delicately, which makes some of the others look at her curiously, their interest piqued by her reticence.
Graynor isn’t one of them. “Fine,” he says, most of his attention on his breakfast. “Come find me when you want to go. Pass the bacon?”
Breakfast ends without any bloodshed and Jill goes back up to her room, running over her idea in her head. It’s a bit mad, but really, her whole life is a bit mad, and since she still doesn’t know what Susan’s grand idea is, this will have to do. It’s better than sitting around in Anvard, eating the King’s food and doing nothing.
To her surprise, she runs into Susan on her way down the hall. “Oh, Jill,” she says, with a lilt to her voice like she’s been looking for Jill for hours and has only just found her. “I’ve just gotten a bird from my brother. There’s a letter for you too.”
She holds it out to Jill and makes a motion to move on, stopping when Jill grabs her wrist. “Is – is it bad news?” Jill asks, hearing her voice catch in the middle of the sentence.
Susan’s mouth softens a little in understanding. “No, it’s good news. Or at least that’s what Peter wrote, Eustace might have written something different. You know how he is.”
“Oh,” Jill says. “Well – thanks.” She lets go of Susan’s wrist and stands back, the paper cold and crinkly beneath her fingers. Eustace’s handwriting had started out decent and steadily disintegrated over the past few years to a barely legible chicken scratch; she’s seldom been so glad to see it as she is now, her name scrawled on the front of the folded page.
“You’re welcome,” Susan says politely, sounding like every governess Jill ever had growing up.
“You weren’t at breakfast this morning,” Jill says suddenly, just as Susan is turning to go again.
“I ate in my room,” Susan says, raising the letter in her hand a little, like that’s the reason why. “Did something happen?”
“Cleph and Graynor almost started a riot, but no –”
“All right,” Susan says with a faintly puzzled undertone. “Oh – I’ve made an appointment for you with the seamstress for this afternoon, for the tournament. You need a riding suit for the hunt and at least two more gowns.”
“Why?” Jill says, bewildered. “I’ve already gotten new clothes!”
“Because you’re representing Narnia,” Susan says. “She’s coming by your rooms at one. Try not to be late.” She turns to go again.
This time she gets a few steps away before Jill says to her back, “Susan, why are we here?”
Susan makes one of her rare uncalculated gestures, pushing the heavy fall of her dark hair back from her face with her free hand. “Because Aslan brought us here to save Narnia,” she says.
There are a lot of things that Jill could say to that. One of them is me, he brought me and Eustace, not you, and another one is I’m starting to think that’s not true and the third is I don’t care. Instead she just says, “I meant in Archenland. King Eian’s never going to give us troops and they don’t have any money to fund us, so I don’t understand why we’re still here. It can’t be so we can spend money on getting me new clothing instead of on food or weapons.”
For a moment Jill thinks that Susan is going to fob her off with another mysterious platitude or some misdirection, then Susan sighs a little and says, “Let’s go into my room. I don’t want to talk about this where anyone can hear.”
Jill nods once, tucking the letter into the pocket of her waistcoat and following Susan down the hallway. She can’t think what Susan’s answer is going to be; none of this makes sense to her. They’d be more use back home – back in Narnia.
She hasn’t been in Susan’s room for a few days, but it comes as something of a surprise to find that Susan is apparently the kind of person who makes her space lived in, by which Jill means it’s a bit of a mess, with clothes strewn everywhere and the remains of this morning’s breakfast still waiting on a silver tray on a low table in front of the fireplace. Susan tips her head at the armchair next to it and Jill sits down, moving a purple cloak aside. Her eyes go immediately to Susan’s bedchamber, seeing the dull sheen of her ivory horn on her bedside table, next to an empty wineglass. The jaws of the lion at the wide end of it gape at her and Jill averts her gaze hastily, disquieted by it. She wishes Susan had pulled the curtain that blocks off the bedroom from the solar.
Susan puts her shoulder against the mantelpiece above the banked fire, looking down at Jill solemnly. Jill resists the urge to stand up again immediately to put them on equal footing, but it wouldn’t do any good – Susan is taller than her anyway.
“We knew that Archenland wouldn’t be able to contribute troops or money,” Susan says. “Tirian and Vespasian have been trying to get them to do so for years.”
“Then why are we here?” Jill demands. “If we can’t do anything –”
“Archenland has rather a lot of land lying fallow because of the plague,” Susan says. “I’m trying to get Eian to agree to let us evacuate Narnian civilians to Archenland in return for cultivating that land.”
“What?”
“It’s not the most elegant solution, but it will get them out of harm’s way. Being in a civilian during a civil war isn’t a pretty thing,” Susan says, and sighs a little, like she’s seen it a hundred times before.
“I know,” Jill snaps. “I’ve been here for five years now. Does Tirian know about this?”
“Yes, we’ve discussed it with him,” Susan tells her patiently.
“Nobody’s going to agree to go,” Jill says, even though she knows that’s not true. Everyone who wants to and who can leave Narnia already has; the Calormenes are too much of a terror for people to want to stay if there’s another option. Not that Archenland seems like a much better choice right now, with Ilderim Tarkaan and his retainers squatting in Anvard. Terebinthia, Galma, or the Seven Isles would be a better choice, but they’re harder to get to with the Calormene Fleet patrolling the Bight. Jill doesn’t like the idea of abandoning Narnia. She repeats fiercely, “No one,” like if she says it enough then it will be true.
“Maybe,” Susan says, her expression troubled.
Jill stares at her, frowning, and finally says, “You’re lying.”
“Excuse me?”
“That doesn’t make any sense, so you have to be lying,” Jill says. “Is it really what you said to the King when we first arrived, that you wanted to drive the Calormenes out of Archenland? Because if it is, I think you should concentrate on Narnia first.”
Susan sighs. “Why is so hard for you to believe that I might actually be doing what I said I was?”
“Because you’re a liar. You lie.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Susan says. “And you’ve been listening to Lucy.”
“I know you’re still meeting with that naiad,” Jill challenges, standing up. “And I know you went down to tea with the Narnian butcher in the town. You never did tell me what he wanted.”
Susan had come to fetch Jill to go with her, but she’d begged off at the last minute in a fit of outrage and hatred, because how dare that Narnian coward, the one who’d deserted Narnia rather than stand and fight, how dare he think that he had any claim at all on their attention when they had more important things to deal with? She’d spent the afternoon roaming through the castle in fury instead, walking and walking until Anvard drew her in, turned her attention elsewhere and let her calm down enough that she felt capable of confronting other people again. She’s still furious about it when she lets herself think it, because Susan Pevensie might be a liar and a coward and a fraud, but she’s Narnia’s, and any Narnian in Archenland is one who’s turned their back on their real home.
“Glabius wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help,” Susan says. Her voice is very mild; she eyes Jill with curiosity, the way she might look at a strange bug she’s found on her windowsill. “He’s been sending money back to Narnia, but it’s been getting harder for him to smuggle things through with Calormene patrols on the border increasing. There were several other Narnians at tea, immigrants – refugees, if you like – who are prominent in the town and they wanted to know if there was anything that they could do. One or two of them volunteered to go back; I think there might be more if we did a little digging.”
“Butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers?” Jill demands, sneering. “No thanks. We need real fighters – or someone with real money, at least, so that we can hire fighters. I suppose none of those knights that fled Narnia were there either.”
“King Eian sent them away so that they might not offend Ilderim Tarkaan,” Susan says. “Except for Lord Vespasian, for his rank. And for the record,” she adds, her head tipped down towards Jill, “Corycia is an old friend. She’s been looking into a few things for me, things I can’t find out in Narnia because of what the Calormenes have done.”
“Like what?”
“They bound the god of the Great River to his riverbed,” Susan says. “And we don’t know how. Corycia has connections I don’t – she can speak to her mother Cybele, to the Archenlander naiads, and they can pass the question on until it reaches the Calormene naiads, and then perhaps we shall finally get some answers. And, Aslan willing, some solutions. I woke Achelous from his slumber, but we don’t think he has his full power back, and the rest of the river gods are sleeping. Most of the trees, as well.”
“They’re afraid of the Calormenes,” Jill says softly. “Bahadur cut and burned half the forests of Narnia, until the rest retreated back to the Western Waste where they were safe and then shrouded themselves in slumber. Tirian spoke to one of them once. He said that the trees told him that they were going to sleep until the Calormenes had gone again, because trees live longer than men or talking beasts or any of the creatures of Narnia, and they had seen invaders come and go many times before, just as the Calormenes would this time.” She raises her head to look at Susan defiantly. “I don’t think even you can wake them.”
“We’ll see about that,” Susan says. “We’re going to need them.”
Jill shakes her head. “Why come to Archenland? Can’t you get those answers in Narnia?”
“None of the great gods in Narnia are answering our calls,” Susan says wryly. “I might have tried the sea gods, but we had business in Archenland anyway. I wasn’t lying, you know. If we offer Narnian civilians a way out and a place to go, I think they’ll take it. Archenland needs the people, and we – we do need Archenland on our southern border. Eian might hate the idea of being Narnia’s shield, but it’s always been true. We can’t have the Calormenes attacking from both the south and the east, not to mention the troops already in the country. It would be the worst possible scenario. As long as Archenland can hold out, we have that protection.”
“Tirian thinks that the advance troops were smuggled in through Archenland before the invasion,” Jill challenges.
“That was five years ago,” Susan says. “Things are different now.”
“Because you and Peter and the others are here and you’re going to make it all better?”
“I wouldn’t put it in quite so many words, but yes,” Susan says. “We’re going to do our best. We’re going to get it done.”
Jill stares at her. It makes sense, she supposes, aside from the parts that are just mad – she doesn’t want to hear about gods, river gods or great gods or anything of the sort – but still. “I don’t like you,” she says suddenly.
Susan raises an eyebrow. “I’ve noticed. I suppose you don’t really have any reason too, after everything.”
“Because you’re a bitch,” Jill says. “You think you’re better than everyone else. In England, you just walked away from Narnia like it didn’t mean anything to you; you couldn’t even do what the others did and talk about once a month, for God’s sake, and then you think you can come back like nothing’s happened, like you’re still a queen, and everyone in Narnia falls over themselves to do what you want. I understand why Lucy hates you.”
“No, you don’t,” Susan snaps. “Hate me if you want, but don’t presume to tell me how my sister feels; she’s quite capable of doing that herself and has, much to my brother’s dismay. You can go now.”
Jill moves towards the door, scowling. “I’m leaving because I can’t bear to talk to you a minute more, not because you told me to,” she says, before she realizes how immature it sounds and hates herself for saying anything at all. She can’t decide if it would have been better to have stayed silent or not.
Susan looks at her coolly. “Leave for whatever reason you like, Pole. Just don’t be late for your fitting at one. And don’t slam the door!”
Jill slams the door.
For a moment she stands in the carpeted hallway outside Susan’s room, clenching her scarred fists at her sides. Five years ago they had been smooth and unmarked; since then they’ve turned into weapons, to hurt or to kill. That little girl who had come to Narnia five years ago would never recognize her now.
She makes an abortive motion of frustration, not sure where to go and unable to remember why she’d come upstairs in the first place. The movement makes the folded paper in her waistcoat crinkle and Jill puts her hand over her pocket, feeling Eustace’s letter beneath the thick fabric. That’s something to do, at least, she thinks, and turns to go down the hallway to her room, drawing the heavy key out of her pocket.
The maid had left the usual tray of scones and hot chocolate covered on a side table beside the fire. Jill folds herself into the chair and removes the cover, setting on the floor out of the way. The pot is still hot when she pours herself a cup of chocolate.
She pulls the letter out of her pocket and breaks the seal with the edge of one fingernail. Eustace’s chicken scratch takes up most of the page, with a few paragraphs in Tirian’s neat copperplate at the bottom.
Pole,
Captured the diamond mine the other day. Don’t worry, I’m all right, I just had a bit of a scratch, but we ran into the most bizarre thing while we were there. Remember those separatists that live up in the High Reaches and don’t have anything to do with either Narnia or the Calormenes? Well, they turned up. Not to help, obviously; that’s not the sort of thing they do. I suppose they were just here to kill whoever got in their way, Narnian or Calormene, and take prisoners if they could, since they’re short on food and rumor is they’re cannibals. L. set up a meeting between them and P., though I can’t imagine why we’d want to have anything to do with them. At least we know they won’t team up with the Calormenes. M.’s a decent sort, even if he is a criminal and I can’t help thinking he’d make a lovely rug.
We got back in time for Winter’s End. The L.T. sent supplies, so it was a proper feast this time, which might have been nicer if someone hadn’t tried to kill T. with one of S.’s arrows. T. thinks it might be some kind of religious thing. You know how some of the Narnians are about the Ps, so maybe he’s right, but it was pretty creepy. P., E., and L. didn’t seem to care much. I don’t think S. would have had anything to do with it, but they did try to use her arrow, so I think it’s one of those Narnian things no one ever talks about. A. swears it wasn’t his people, which means that he was probably thinking about it at some point. No surprise there. E. did his thing and came back. Apparently there’s a Calormene army on the way, so you’re lucky you’re not here.
Eustace
Dear Jill, Tirian has written beneath that, in his beautiful flowing script,
I hope that you are well and that King Eian is treating you kindly. I have had occasion to visit Anvard three times and I have always admired the castle; there are some wonderful rare books in the palace libraries. You may enjoy Geoffrey of Westholme’s History of the Kings of Archenland if you have opportunity to do so. Give my best wishes to King Eian and my belated sympathies on the loss of Queen Lynnet; she was a lovely woman and her loss is a blow to Archenland. If I had anything worth giving, I would enclose a gift for Prince Gareth, as I know that his nameday is soon. If you have occasion to speak to him personally, I beg of you to give him my congratulations.
We are all well here in Arn Abedin. I suspect that Eustace has told you about the incident during Winter’s End, but I assure you that it is nothing to trouble yourself about. There may be some excitement in the next few days, but I hope you will not trouble yourself over Eustace’s dire predictions. We shall persevere, as we always do.
Best wishes,
Tirian
There are a few lines beneath that, in the same script but signed with Jewel’s name. Jill has just begun to read it when her door opens. She drops the letter and grabs for the dagger on her belt, letting her hand fall aside when she sees the little girl standing in the doorway.
“Oh!” the child says. “I’m sorry, I thought there wasn’t anyone here and that’s why the door was open.”
“That’s all right?” Jill says, faintly bewildered. She doesn’t mean it to come out as a question, but it does anyway, she’s so puzzled. “Were you looking for something?”
“A place to hide,” the girl says, standing on one foot. There’s something familiar about her, but Jill can’t put her finger on it, and can’t think of an occasion in Anvard where she might have opportunity to meet a child who’s clearly noble-born. “I’m playing hide-and-seek with my siblings. My brother’s the one seeking,” she adds helpfully. “Gareth, not Kail or Oren. Not that Oren’s my real brother, but Papa says that foster-brothers count.”
Jill blinks at her, bemused. “Well, you can hide here if you want,” she offers. “I don’t mind.”
The girl closes the door behind her, looking at Jill solemnly. “I’m Bronwin,” she volunteers. “Everyone calls me Bronny.”
“I’m Jill. It’s very nice to meet you.”
“You talk funny,” Bronny observes, perching on the window seat.
“Well, I’m not from around here,” Jill says. “I’m with the Narnian embassy, but I’m not from Narnia.”
“Where are you from?”
“England,” Jill says, wondering if that means anything to her.
“So am I!” says Bronny, and when Jill blinks at her, frowning, amends, “A long, long time ago, way back before King Col founded Archenland. The first kings of Narnia were from England and we’re descended from them. But that was thousands of years ago. Are you the same Jill that Aslan sent to rescue Prince Rilian?”
“That was a very long time ago,” Jill says, a little shocked to hear it. They don’t like talking about Rilian the Disenchanted in Narnia. “But yes, I am.”
“Wicked,” Bronny says happily. “Was he awful? Everyone says he was awful, but Genny says he must have been very sad. But she says things like that because she’s always got her nose stuck in books and she read all his diaries last year, the ones from before he disappeared. Kail says he must have been mad from the start and Gareth says it’s not important, things like that don’t happen in Archenland so we shouldn’t worry about it, only there was King Cor, and that was sort of like it, except he wasn’t kidnapped by a witch and he was only a baby.”
Jill has only the faintest idea who Cor is – some long dead king of Archenland, she suspects – and none of the names Bronny is throwing around mean anything to her, so she concentrates on what she knows instead. “He wasn’t awful when I knew him. He was a little haunted, but he’d been a prisoner for a very long time then. He only wanted what was best for Narnia. I thought he was nice, but I suppose he changed after he became king.” She remembers something Tirian had said once. “Everyone wanted him to be someone he wasn’t.”
Bronny ponders this for a minute. “That’s sad,” she decides finally.
“It is,” Jill agrees, looking down. She’d liked Rilian. It seems awful what happened to him after he left; Eustace says it was inevitable, citing some book he’d read in England, but Jill doesn’t think anything is inevitable. Rilian hadn’t deserved that, not after everything.
There’s a step outside the door. “Bronny, where are you?” a boy calls, sing-song. “One of the Guard saw you run up here. You know getting help is off-limits.”
Jill raises an eyebrow at Bronny, who shrugs, unrepentant.
“Don’t make me try every door!” the boy says. “It’s rude –”
“Who are you talking to?” a girl’s voice interrupts, sounding interested. Jill goes still at the accent – Calormene. Bronny sits up straight, her eyes narrowing. Neither of them moves to speak.
The boy’s tone changes. “I’m playing hide and seek with my sister,” he says. “You’re welcome to go elsewhere.”
“We could go somewhere else together,” the girl suggests. “I’m sure she’ll get bored eventually, she’s very young –”
“No thanks,” says the boy stiffly. “What are you even doing here, Aaliz? You know the Narnians and the borderers if they knew you were sneaking around their rooms.”
“I’m not sneaking around anything,” she snaps. “I live here, remember? I’ve got just as much right to be here as you.”
“You really don’t. I live here; you’re just a visitor. An unwelcome one. And I want you to go away. Preferably back to Tashbaan, but if you can’t manage that, I’ll settle for you leaving my sight.”
“That’s not very nice,” says the girl. Jill hates to have anything like sympathy for a Calormene, even a young one, but she thinks that the girl sounds hurt.
“Well, I’m not feeling very nice. Go. Shoo. Go weave something.”
There’s a crack as the girl slaps him, then Jill hears her footsteps retreating quickly down the hallway. Bronny leaps off the window seat and goes to fling open the door. Jill gets up and follows her.
“Bronny, you know you aren’t supposed to hide in people’s rooms,” her brother sighs. “Or get help,” he adds when he sees Jill. “I’m sorry, my lady. My sister is old enough to know better.”
“It’s all right,” Jill says, realizing belatedly where she’s seen Bronny before. This morning, at breakfast. She’s King Eian’s youngest daughter. “She didn’t know I was there when she came in.”
Prince Gareth of Archenland smiles wanly at her, reaching for his sister’s hand. There’s a reddening mark on his cheek where the Calormene girl slapped him. “It’s Lady Jill, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“No, um, your highness,” Jill says, wondering if she should curtsey. “I mean – yes, I’m Jill. No, we haven’t been introduced. But I know who you are.”
“Everyone does,” the Crown Prince says wryly. “Bronny, apologize, or I’ll tell Genny you were cheating.”
“It’s all right, really,” Jill says. “I didn’t mind. And she apologized already, anyway.”
“I did,” Bronny assures her brother. “And she knew King Rilian!”
“Oh?” the Crown Prince says, with polite disinterest. “You and Genny should talk – I think she’s still sweet on him from reading his diaries.”
That must be the Princess Gennifer. Jill has seen her from a distance – tall for her age, nearly the same height as her older brother, with long red hair in braids of various configurations. She can’t believe that she didn’t realize who Bronny – Princess Bronwin, really – was before, especially she’d named all three of her siblings as well as her foster-brother, the King’s ward.
“Thank you for looking after Bronny,” Prince Gareth goes on. “I hope you didn’t hear, um –”
“You and Aaliz fighting?” Bronny says helpfully.
“Oh.”
That must have been Ilderim Tarkaan’s daughter, the one who’s supposedly been brought here to seduce Prince Gareth into marrying her. From what Jill heard, she doesn’t think Aaliz Tarkheena is going to get anywhere anytime soon, at least as long as Prince Gareth has a voice in the matter.
“Let’s go find the others before someone decides we ought to be in lessons,” the Crown Prince tells his sister. “Or they’ll all think they’ve won, and then we’ll never hear the end of it. You know how Oren never shuts up.”
Bronny shakes her head, grinning. She turns quickly back to Jill. “It was nice to meet you, Jill,” she says. “Can I come and talk to you again?”
“Any time you like,” Jill promises, smiling at her. “You can bring your siblings too, if you want.”
“I’ll think about it,” Bronny says solemnly. She smiles brilliantly at Jill; Prince Gareth gives Jill a sheepish smile and a shrug as he drags his sister away. Jill watches them go, then shuts the door and locks it this time. It’s funny: this is the first time she’s ever really thought that Archenland might be fighting the Calormenes too, in their own way.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG
Content Notes: language
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: Dust in the Air uses Warsverse backstory as a general rule of thumb. All chapters of Dust are posted on both LJ and DW. Dust in the Air does not use material from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010).
Jill could get used to this fast – long, lazy mornings in a bed, a real bed, a feather bed even, with warm wool blankets and fluffy pillows, and curtains she can use to shut out the rest of the world or let it in. There’s a door that locks. She’d forgotten how much she missed that. She hasn’t had a door, let alone one with a lock, in years.
Five years ago she probably wouldn’t have called it luxury, just the convenience of ordinary living. But five years ago is a long time past and Jill can barely remember ordinary anymore; England is a fading memory that Jill holds onto because she doesn’t know what she’d do without the hope of someday going back. Luxury and convenience mean different things now. The first few days had been lovely, a vacation from the nightmare of living life constantly on the run, always looking over her shoulder for an arrow or a spear aimed for her heart. But by the end of the first week Jill has started to chafe at the inactivity, which she has to admit she’d never expected. It’s not the danger Jill misses – Eustace is the danger junkie, not her – but it’s the feeling of doing something meaningful. That’s been all that’s kept her going these past few years, while the snow piles up outside their shelters or the Calormenes chase them through burning woods or riots send Narnia reeling in shock. She’s doing something. She’s meant to be here. She’s had her moments of doubt over the past five years, but Aslan brought her and Eustace here and Aslan brought Eustace’s cousins here and didn’t send them home in the meantime, so there has to be a reason why they’re here. Jill had hoped, quietly and furiously and secretly, those first few mad days after the Pevensies had arrived that that meant they were going to take over and she and Eustace would be allowed to slink back to England in disgrace and failure, but they’re still here. That has to mean something. She doesn’t know what, but it has to mean something, even if right now she feels like she’d be more use in England.
Jill shoves that thought aside, because she’s been down that path before and it only leads to self-recrimination and spending days under the threadbare blankets in whatever shelter they’ve managed to throw together before winter hits Narnia in deadly earnest, Eustace looking equal parts tender and terrifying as he brandishes spoons of porridge like swords. If Tirian can survive being a king without a throne, then she can survive being a girl without a mission. And that’s not even true: Jill has a mission. She just hasn’t fulfilled it yet.
Because Aslan found someone better, a tiny voice of self-doubt whispers in the back of her brain. Why do you think Susan Pevensie is here if not to do what you couldn’t?
Jill clenches her fist on the three layers of thick wool blankets and shoves them aside, twitching back the curtains around the bed to let the light in as she swings her legs over the side, fitting her feet into the bed-slippers that had appeared with the room and the nightgown she’s wearing. It’s far colder in Archenland than it usually is in Narnia this time of year; hard to believe that Winter’s End in the camps has come and gone already. She wishes that she hadn’t missed it.
It’s early yet, she finds when she looks at the clock on the mantel. It’s plain compared to most of the ones in Anvard, but it surprises her every morning when she wakes up and finds that she can actually tell the time, the same way she would in England. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen a clock in Narnia, though one of the refugees at Haven had had a pocket watch. He’d been killed during an ambush and the watch had been broken, the pieces of it trampled into the blood-soaked earth along with his body.
Archenland doesn’t look like it’s ever experienced that kind of devastation. Jill is sure that it has sometime in its long history – longer than modern Narnia, apparently – but it’s hard to see it. Anvard is kept spotless by an army of servants, while the city below the castle might be any village in England, with gutters and cobbled streets and signs pointing the way to Market Square and the Courts of Justice and all the other conveniences of modern living. It’s civilized. Jill has spent a long time thinking that there isn’t anything of the sort in this world.
She finds her dressing gown and wraps it around herself, tying the cord around her waist. A maid had come in the night before to bank the fire, so Jill crouches down before it to build it back up, using kindling from the basket by the fireplace. She could wait for the maid to come back – the girl usually brings Jill hot chocolate and scones on a silver tray for breakfast, or more if Jill asks for it and doesn’t want to go down to Hall for the communal breakfast later in the morning – but it will be a few hours yet, and Jill’s not some spoiled Archenlander lady, incapable of taking care of herself. She builds a little pyramid of kindling and split small logs around the coals left from last night, blowing gently on them until they burst into flame, and sits back on her heels to bask in it for a moment, pleased by her accomplishment. It’s nothing, really – she’s done it a thousand times in Narnia – but she’s done so little in Archenland that even this small thing feels like climbing a mountain.
The sun is just starting to rise when Jill twitches back the heavy curtains from the bay window, painting the twin snow-covered peaks of Mount Pire pink. Archenland seems to be all mountains, leading up from the port by the Great Eastern Ocean and ascending into infinity in the west. Anvard is nested comfortably in their midst, on the side of a mountain and not in one of the sudden valleys that they’d passed through on their way in from Narnia. It’s a very charming country. Jill has absolutely no idea why the Calormenes would want anything to do with it.
Despite the early hour, the castle has already started stirring to life. Looking down at the courtyard beneath her window, Jill can see the man that the castle buys its milk from waiting impatiently at the gate, while the housekeeper hurries towards them with a purse in her fist and two maids in tow. She exchanges money for milk and she and the dairyman go their separate ways, the maids with their yokes and the carefully balanced buckets trailing in her wake. She’s seen the routine before; it happens every morning. Not long after the dairyman has gone a new figure appears in the open gate, tipping his lance so that he can pass beneath the lintel without difficulty. He’s a very young knight, younger than Jill is now, wearing a greatcoat that looks battered even from Jill’s distant view. Presumably his armor is packed up in his saddlebags.
His sort has been arriving even before Jill and Susan had come to Anvard. A tournament is going to be held for Prince Gareth’s birthday, with a fairly impressive purse of a thousand gold cols – as far as Jill can tell, Archenlander coinage has been debased over the past five years, so that a col is only worth around a third of a crescent, even though they’d been nearly equal a decade earlier. It’s still quite a bit of money these days; there isn’t a lot of money to spare in Archenland, which is on the edge of bankruptcy. There’s even a rumor that King Eian has pawned the crown jewels, so that the ones in his crown are only painted glass. Jill doesn’t know enough about gemstones to tell.
Someone comes to take the knight’s horse and equipment, one of the senior servants noting his name and giving him an assigned room. The boy listens very seriously, nodding occasionally as he strips his gloves off and tucks them in his belt. When the servant has gone, he looks nervously around the courtyard with wide eyes, making Jill think that this must be his first time at court, and then, somewhat alarmingly, up the tower before his gaze settles on her window. She waves at him.
He raises a hand and waves back. Jill’s sister Clara would have blown him a kiss, but Jill resists the urge and just smiles, waves again, and lets the curtain fall. She crosses the room to drop into the heavily cushioned armchair by the fire, pulling her legs up and basking in the heat. The festivities for the prince’s birthday officially start tomorrow and go on for the next week, culminating in the tournament and the birthday feast. Susan says that they will stay at least until then, because it would be rude to leave before and she still has a few tricks up her sleeve yet. Jill doesn’t know what they are, can’t even quite bring herself to care because she still doesn’t know why they’re here in Archenland. All she has to do is look around to know that Archenland can’t provide money, supplies, or troops to Narnia, because they’re lacking in all three. Archenland can’t even help itself.
She can only bear sitting still for a few minutes more. There’s a book she’s been slowly working her way through, but books remind her of Tirian and Jill finds herself wondering if she can pack up a few to take back to him. She’s always liked books, but now sitting still makes her feel restless, like there’s an unsheathed sword hanging over her head that might drop at any moment. Jill is always waiting for something to happen, someone to happen, so that every time the floor creaks or the wind blows she finds herself reaching for her dagger, because in Narnia it would be someone coming to either kill her or tell her someone’s coming to kill her.
Jill gets up and dresses, the carpet soft beneath her bare feet as she pulls on trousers and a man’s white shirt, buttoning a dark green waistcoat over it. She discards the cravat as a useless vanity and puts on wool socks and tall leather boots instead. All her clothes are new, because nothing she’d worn in Narnia is fit to be seen in respectable company and she’d refused Susan’s and Lucy’s offers of clothes from their wardrobes in Arn Abedin, except for the very plainest shirt and breeches that Lucy had finally dug out of the bottom of a chest otherwise filled with silks and brocades. Once in Archenland, Susan had made it her first order of business to find a tailor. Jill had been prepared to resent it, but the truth is that getting new clothes is the most exciting thing that’s happened to her since that time she came down with the plague. Well, that doesn’t involve the Calormenes, anyway.
The castle kitchen is bustling when she gets down there; a castle isn’t a quiet place even if you aren’t a noble. Jill finds all the life alternately heartening and claustrophobic after years of living in the camps. She’s not used to being on her own, but she’s not used to being around this many people in such an enclosed space, either. It makes the back of her neck itch.
She wheedles one of the assistant cooks into giving her a tray with rolls stuffed with ham and a pot of hot tea and takes both of them outside, perching on one of the mounting blocks near the stable where the castle men-at-arms keep their horses as she eats. It’s cold, but Jill doesn’t mind; even the promise of snow in the air feels more reassuring than oppressive. By now it’s probably well into spring in Narnia, but Archenland is a different story. It’s quieter here. Up in the mountains, with the country spread out beneath her down into the Great Eastern Ocean, Jill feels like she’s on top of the world.
If she didn’t feel so guilty about even thinking it, she could probably stay here forever. Except that the Calormenes are here too, and even if they haven’t made it official, everyone in Archenland knows that the Tisroc has King Eian’s balls in his fist and he’s just waiting for an opportunity to squeeze. Even if Aslan hadn’t sent her to Narnia, not Archenland, she can’t go through this again. She just can’t.
When she’s finished, she takes the tray back inside and goes through two small courtyards to the knights’ practice salle, wiping crumbs off on her trousers and tying her hair back quickly. She nods hello to the master-of-arms, who’s a complete bastard but appreciates someone who actually knows what to do with weaponry, not the useless fancy work some of the Archenlander nobles confine themselves too.
Archenland tends towards longbows, which aren’t as common in Narnia; Jill takes one and a quiver of arrows and goes out to the range, stringing the bow and strapping on a leather bracer to protect her forearm from the recoil. Most of the first quiver goes wide while she gets used to the bow; she retrieves the arrows and tries again, scrunching her face up in concentration until they start hitting the target, though they’re still nowhere near the bull’s eye. Jill scowls, shaking her sore wrists out as she goes to collect her arrows. When she turns around, there’s someone watching her.
It’s the young knight she’d seen arriving from her window, his greatcoat discarded to reveal a leather jerkin with the crest of a wildcat on the breast. He has the narrow, slightly inbred features and soft red curls that are more or less universal among the Archenlander nobility; Jill doesn’t put his age at any more than sixteen, if that.
“Let me guess,” he says as she stalks back towards him, the soles of her boots crunching slightly in the snow, “you’re not here to compete in the archery tournament.”
“I’m an excellent archer, thanks,” she says. “With a real bow.”
“So you’re not from around here,” he says, pleased by the revelation. He bows a little to her. “I’m Niles of Dashwood. Sir Niles Waverley of Dashwood. My uncle is the King’s minister of the treasury.”
“How lovely for you,” Jill says, grounding the tip of the bow in the snow by her right foot and leaning on it. “Did you want something?”
“I was hoping for your name,” he says, smiling at her. “I saw you when I arrived. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Jill rolls her eyes. “I’m Jill Pole.”
“Lady Jill? Or Sir Jill?” he adds, looking intrigued by the idea of meeting a rare female knight.
“Just Jill. I’m with the Narnian embassy.”
He looks interested. “I’m here for Prince Gareth’s tournament,” he tells her, like she cares or it’s not obvious. “My uncle’s going to present me at court.”
“That’s wonderful,” Jill says. “Really.” She turns away from him, fitting an arrow to the string. She thinks she might have the hang of it now.
“Your stance is wrong,” Dashwood says helpfully. “You should turn a little more, and spread your legs a little wider –”
Jill really hopes he doesn’t go around telling women that as she releases. The arrow doesn’t hit the black, but it’s close. She has another arrow on the string even before that one has hit home. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”
“Should I?”
“I can’t decide if it’s refreshing or just pathetic,” Jill says, and empties her quiver as Dashwood gapes at her, indignant. She tosses the bow and the empty quiver at him; he catches them, looking extremely startled. “You can take those in to the master-at-arms when you’re done.”
She feels a twinge of guilt as she goes back inside, unbuckling her bracer, because she’s been taught to take care of her own weapons, but it will be good for Dashwood. Character-building. He doesn’t strike her as the kind of chap with much character.
By now Anvard’s many guests are beginning to filter into the Great Hall. Jill joins some of the other Narnians at a table next to six guardsmen in unfamiliar colors, sliding onto a bench next to Suatrius and pouring herself a cup of herbal tea, spooning honey in until it’s sweet enough to cat the back of her tongue. She’s not terribly hungry after her early breakfast, but she eats anyway out of long habit of not knowing when her next meal will be. Erelieva tosses an apple at her.
Jill catches it easily and starts cutting slices off with the knife she keeps her sleeve, arranging them on her plate next to a thick slice of brown bread that she spreads with more honey. “Are we really going to stay through this farce?” she asks. “If even half these bloody Archies wanted to help, we might actually be able to do something, but all they want is gold and glory.”
“The whole bloody thing,” says Cleph, spreading butter on his toast with extreme prejudice. “Gods alone know what Her Majesty’s thinking.”
“Think that’s sort of the idea, love,” Erelieva says, laughing. “We might get some help; I’ve been putting out feelers to see if any of these fine and noble knights want to lend a neighbor a hand. Most of them aren’t any happier about the Callies than we are.”
“Not that you can tell,” Suatrius mutters under his breath.
“Yes, but have you gotten any replies that aren’t all talk? Because it’s fine and fair to bitch and moan about the Callies and talk it up about freeing Narnia, but it’s another thing entirely to bring your sword into the fight –”
“Speak of the devil,” Jill interrupts, jerking her head towards the doorway by the high table, where Ilderim Tarkaan and his children have just come in with their bodyguards. The conversation in the hall dips for a moment with their entrance, the newcomers whispering to each other, before returning to its previous level. The Calormenes ignore it, waiting for the servants to pull out their chairs before sitting down. Spoiled, the whole lot of them; the tarkaan and his two brats.
“I hate that bastard,” Cleph says. “Hate him. I don’t even know him and I hate him.”
“You hate all Calormenes,” Suatrius says.
“I hate him especially. Right alongside Bahadur and the Tisroc. You know who else I hate? Everyone in this fucking country, for just letting him come in and walk all over them.” He rips a piece of bread in half, glaring at the nearby Archenlanders.
Erelieva puts a hand on his knee. “You shouldn’t talk like that unless you want to get into a fight.”
Cleph bares his flat teeth in a snarl. “Maybe I do.”
“Then keep talking,” says one of the Archenlander guardsmen, starting to rise before his comrade tugs him down.
Graynor, newly arrived, leaps up onto the bench next to Jill and bares his teeth. “Well, come on then, you Archie coward. Give me something to sink my teeth into.”
“The King!” Jill interrupts hastily, grabbing a handful of his fur to stop him as he leans forward.
“No, not him, he seems like he’d be a bit stringy –”
“I mean he’s here, you idiot!” Jill says, standing with everyone else in the hall as King Eian comes in, followed by the Crown Prince and his other three children, along with his ward. They don’t resume their seats until the King and the princes and princesses have taken theirs.
Tirian never makes us do that, Jill thinks rather spitefully, even though that’s not really fair. Tirian hasn’t had a proper court in all the time Jill has known him. Maybe it would be different if she’d met him when he’d still been a real king. Not that he isn’t a real king, but – well, he’s not a king like Eian of Archenland is a king.
The arrival of the King sobers the Archenlanders’ taste for a brawl. Graynor settles back on the bench, an odd sight at a table as Jill ladles up some porridge for him at his request, drizzling honey and dried cranberries over it.
“Where’s Susan?” Jill asks, dropping the spoon back in the bowl. The spot that she’s been taking at the High Table is empty.
Suatrius shrugs. “Hell if I know. Maybe she woke up this morning and decided she didn’t want to deal with Ilderim’s bullshit at breakfast. King of Summer knows that I considered it.”
That’s fine with Jill. She chews over a piece of apple and a notion she’s been playing with for a few days now before making up her mind. She swallows the apple and turns towards Graynor. “Are you doing anything later today? Or maybe tomorrow?”
“My social calendar is free except for this fiasco,” Graynor says, his voice slightly muffled as he laps at the bowl. “Why?”
“I want to go down to the city and I don’t want to go by myself,” Jill says delicately, which makes some of the others look at her curiously, their interest piqued by her reticence.
Graynor isn’t one of them. “Fine,” he says, most of his attention on his breakfast. “Come find me when you want to go. Pass the bacon?”
Breakfast ends without any bloodshed and Jill goes back up to her room, running over her idea in her head. It’s a bit mad, but really, her whole life is a bit mad, and since she still doesn’t know what Susan’s grand idea is, this will have to do. It’s better than sitting around in Anvard, eating the King’s food and doing nothing.
To her surprise, she runs into Susan on her way down the hall. “Oh, Jill,” she says, with a lilt to her voice like she’s been looking for Jill for hours and has only just found her. “I’ve just gotten a bird from my brother. There’s a letter for you too.”
She holds it out to Jill and makes a motion to move on, stopping when Jill grabs her wrist. “Is – is it bad news?” Jill asks, hearing her voice catch in the middle of the sentence.
Susan’s mouth softens a little in understanding. “No, it’s good news. Or at least that’s what Peter wrote, Eustace might have written something different. You know how he is.”
“Oh,” Jill says. “Well – thanks.” She lets go of Susan’s wrist and stands back, the paper cold and crinkly beneath her fingers. Eustace’s handwriting had started out decent and steadily disintegrated over the past few years to a barely legible chicken scratch; she’s seldom been so glad to see it as she is now, her name scrawled on the front of the folded page.
“You’re welcome,” Susan says politely, sounding like every governess Jill ever had growing up.
“You weren’t at breakfast this morning,” Jill says suddenly, just as Susan is turning to go again.
“I ate in my room,” Susan says, raising the letter in her hand a little, like that’s the reason why. “Did something happen?”
“Cleph and Graynor almost started a riot, but no –”
“All right,” Susan says with a faintly puzzled undertone. “Oh – I’ve made an appointment for you with the seamstress for this afternoon, for the tournament. You need a riding suit for the hunt and at least two more gowns.”
“Why?” Jill says, bewildered. “I’ve already gotten new clothes!”
“Because you’re representing Narnia,” Susan says. “She’s coming by your rooms at one. Try not to be late.” She turns to go again.
This time she gets a few steps away before Jill says to her back, “Susan, why are we here?”
Susan makes one of her rare uncalculated gestures, pushing the heavy fall of her dark hair back from her face with her free hand. “Because Aslan brought us here to save Narnia,” she says.
There are a lot of things that Jill could say to that. One of them is me, he brought me and Eustace, not you, and another one is I’m starting to think that’s not true and the third is I don’t care. Instead she just says, “I meant in Archenland. King Eian’s never going to give us troops and they don’t have any money to fund us, so I don’t understand why we’re still here. It can’t be so we can spend money on getting me new clothing instead of on food or weapons.”
For a moment Jill thinks that Susan is going to fob her off with another mysterious platitude or some misdirection, then Susan sighs a little and says, “Let’s go into my room. I don’t want to talk about this where anyone can hear.”
Jill nods once, tucking the letter into the pocket of her waistcoat and following Susan down the hallway. She can’t think what Susan’s answer is going to be; none of this makes sense to her. They’d be more use back home – back in Narnia.
She hasn’t been in Susan’s room for a few days, but it comes as something of a surprise to find that Susan is apparently the kind of person who makes her space lived in, by which Jill means it’s a bit of a mess, with clothes strewn everywhere and the remains of this morning’s breakfast still waiting on a silver tray on a low table in front of the fireplace. Susan tips her head at the armchair next to it and Jill sits down, moving a purple cloak aside. Her eyes go immediately to Susan’s bedchamber, seeing the dull sheen of her ivory horn on her bedside table, next to an empty wineglass. The jaws of the lion at the wide end of it gape at her and Jill averts her gaze hastily, disquieted by it. She wishes Susan had pulled the curtain that blocks off the bedroom from the solar.
Susan puts her shoulder against the mantelpiece above the banked fire, looking down at Jill solemnly. Jill resists the urge to stand up again immediately to put them on equal footing, but it wouldn’t do any good – Susan is taller than her anyway.
“We knew that Archenland wouldn’t be able to contribute troops or money,” Susan says. “Tirian and Vespasian have been trying to get them to do so for years.”
“Then why are we here?” Jill demands. “If we can’t do anything –”
“Archenland has rather a lot of land lying fallow because of the plague,” Susan says. “I’m trying to get Eian to agree to let us evacuate Narnian civilians to Archenland in return for cultivating that land.”
“What?”
“It’s not the most elegant solution, but it will get them out of harm’s way. Being in a civilian during a civil war isn’t a pretty thing,” Susan says, and sighs a little, like she’s seen it a hundred times before.
“I know,” Jill snaps. “I’ve been here for five years now. Does Tirian know about this?”
“Yes, we’ve discussed it with him,” Susan tells her patiently.
“Nobody’s going to agree to go,” Jill says, even though she knows that’s not true. Everyone who wants to and who can leave Narnia already has; the Calormenes are too much of a terror for people to want to stay if there’s another option. Not that Archenland seems like a much better choice right now, with Ilderim Tarkaan and his retainers squatting in Anvard. Terebinthia, Galma, or the Seven Isles would be a better choice, but they’re harder to get to with the Calormene Fleet patrolling the Bight. Jill doesn’t like the idea of abandoning Narnia. She repeats fiercely, “No one,” like if she says it enough then it will be true.
“Maybe,” Susan says, her expression troubled.
Jill stares at her, frowning, and finally says, “You’re lying.”
“Excuse me?”
“That doesn’t make any sense, so you have to be lying,” Jill says. “Is it really what you said to the King when we first arrived, that you wanted to drive the Calormenes out of Archenland? Because if it is, I think you should concentrate on Narnia first.”
Susan sighs. “Why is so hard for you to believe that I might actually be doing what I said I was?”
“Because you’re a liar. You lie.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” Susan says. “And you’ve been listening to Lucy.”
“I know you’re still meeting with that naiad,” Jill challenges, standing up. “And I know you went down to tea with the Narnian butcher in the town. You never did tell me what he wanted.”
Susan had come to fetch Jill to go with her, but she’d begged off at the last minute in a fit of outrage and hatred, because how dare that Narnian coward, the one who’d deserted Narnia rather than stand and fight, how dare he think that he had any claim at all on their attention when they had more important things to deal with? She’d spent the afternoon roaming through the castle in fury instead, walking and walking until Anvard drew her in, turned her attention elsewhere and let her calm down enough that she felt capable of confronting other people again. She’s still furious about it when she lets herself think it, because Susan Pevensie might be a liar and a coward and a fraud, but she’s Narnia’s, and any Narnian in Archenland is one who’s turned their back on their real home.
“Glabius wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help,” Susan says. Her voice is very mild; she eyes Jill with curiosity, the way she might look at a strange bug she’s found on her windowsill. “He’s been sending money back to Narnia, but it’s been getting harder for him to smuggle things through with Calormene patrols on the border increasing. There were several other Narnians at tea, immigrants – refugees, if you like – who are prominent in the town and they wanted to know if there was anything that they could do. One or two of them volunteered to go back; I think there might be more if we did a little digging.”
“Butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers?” Jill demands, sneering. “No thanks. We need real fighters – or someone with real money, at least, so that we can hire fighters. I suppose none of those knights that fled Narnia were there either.”
“King Eian sent them away so that they might not offend Ilderim Tarkaan,” Susan says. “Except for Lord Vespasian, for his rank. And for the record,” she adds, her head tipped down towards Jill, “Corycia is an old friend. She’s been looking into a few things for me, things I can’t find out in Narnia because of what the Calormenes have done.”
“Like what?”
“They bound the god of the Great River to his riverbed,” Susan says. “And we don’t know how. Corycia has connections I don’t – she can speak to her mother Cybele, to the Archenlander naiads, and they can pass the question on until it reaches the Calormene naiads, and then perhaps we shall finally get some answers. And, Aslan willing, some solutions. I woke Achelous from his slumber, but we don’t think he has his full power back, and the rest of the river gods are sleeping. Most of the trees, as well.”
“They’re afraid of the Calormenes,” Jill says softly. “Bahadur cut and burned half the forests of Narnia, until the rest retreated back to the Western Waste where they were safe and then shrouded themselves in slumber. Tirian spoke to one of them once. He said that the trees told him that they were going to sleep until the Calormenes had gone again, because trees live longer than men or talking beasts or any of the creatures of Narnia, and they had seen invaders come and go many times before, just as the Calormenes would this time.” She raises her head to look at Susan defiantly. “I don’t think even you can wake them.”
“We’ll see about that,” Susan says. “We’re going to need them.”
Jill shakes her head. “Why come to Archenland? Can’t you get those answers in Narnia?”
“None of the great gods in Narnia are answering our calls,” Susan says wryly. “I might have tried the sea gods, but we had business in Archenland anyway. I wasn’t lying, you know. If we offer Narnian civilians a way out and a place to go, I think they’ll take it. Archenland needs the people, and we – we do need Archenland on our southern border. Eian might hate the idea of being Narnia’s shield, but it’s always been true. We can’t have the Calormenes attacking from both the south and the east, not to mention the troops already in the country. It would be the worst possible scenario. As long as Archenland can hold out, we have that protection.”
“Tirian thinks that the advance troops were smuggled in through Archenland before the invasion,” Jill challenges.
“That was five years ago,” Susan says. “Things are different now.”
“Because you and Peter and the others are here and you’re going to make it all better?”
“I wouldn’t put it in quite so many words, but yes,” Susan says. “We’re going to do our best. We’re going to get it done.”
Jill stares at her. It makes sense, she supposes, aside from the parts that are just mad – she doesn’t want to hear about gods, river gods or great gods or anything of the sort – but still. “I don’t like you,” she says suddenly.
Susan raises an eyebrow. “I’ve noticed. I suppose you don’t really have any reason too, after everything.”
“Because you’re a bitch,” Jill says. “You think you’re better than everyone else. In England, you just walked away from Narnia like it didn’t mean anything to you; you couldn’t even do what the others did and talk about once a month, for God’s sake, and then you think you can come back like nothing’s happened, like you’re still a queen, and everyone in Narnia falls over themselves to do what you want. I understand why Lucy hates you.”
“No, you don’t,” Susan snaps. “Hate me if you want, but don’t presume to tell me how my sister feels; she’s quite capable of doing that herself and has, much to my brother’s dismay. You can go now.”
Jill moves towards the door, scowling. “I’m leaving because I can’t bear to talk to you a minute more, not because you told me to,” she says, before she realizes how immature it sounds and hates herself for saying anything at all. She can’t decide if it would have been better to have stayed silent or not.
Susan looks at her coolly. “Leave for whatever reason you like, Pole. Just don’t be late for your fitting at one. And don’t slam the door!”
Jill slams the door.
For a moment she stands in the carpeted hallway outside Susan’s room, clenching her scarred fists at her sides. Five years ago they had been smooth and unmarked; since then they’ve turned into weapons, to hurt or to kill. That little girl who had come to Narnia five years ago would never recognize her now.
She makes an abortive motion of frustration, not sure where to go and unable to remember why she’d come upstairs in the first place. The movement makes the folded paper in her waistcoat crinkle and Jill puts her hand over her pocket, feeling Eustace’s letter beneath the thick fabric. That’s something to do, at least, she thinks, and turns to go down the hallway to her room, drawing the heavy key out of her pocket.
The maid had left the usual tray of scones and hot chocolate covered on a side table beside the fire. Jill folds herself into the chair and removes the cover, setting on the floor out of the way. The pot is still hot when she pours herself a cup of chocolate.
She pulls the letter out of her pocket and breaks the seal with the edge of one fingernail. Eustace’s chicken scratch takes up most of the page, with a few paragraphs in Tirian’s neat copperplate at the bottom.
Pole,
Captured the diamond mine the other day. Don’t worry, I’m all right, I just had a bit of a scratch, but we ran into the most bizarre thing while we were there. Remember those separatists that live up in the High Reaches and don’t have anything to do with either Narnia or the Calormenes? Well, they turned up. Not to help, obviously; that’s not the sort of thing they do. I suppose they were just here to kill whoever got in their way, Narnian or Calormene, and take prisoners if they could, since they’re short on food and rumor is they’re cannibals. L. set up a meeting between them and P., though I can’t imagine why we’d want to have anything to do with them. At least we know they won’t team up with the Calormenes. M.’s a decent sort, even if he is a criminal and I can’t help thinking he’d make a lovely rug.
We got back in time for Winter’s End. The L.T. sent supplies, so it was a proper feast this time, which might have been nicer if someone hadn’t tried to kill T. with one of S.’s arrows. T. thinks it might be some kind of religious thing. You know how some of the Narnians are about the Ps, so maybe he’s right, but it was pretty creepy. P., E., and L. didn’t seem to care much. I don’t think S. would have had anything to do with it, but they did try to use her arrow, so I think it’s one of those Narnian things no one ever talks about. A. swears it wasn’t his people, which means that he was probably thinking about it at some point. No surprise there. E. did his thing and came back. Apparently there’s a Calormene army on the way, so you’re lucky you’re not here.
Eustace
Dear Jill, Tirian has written beneath that, in his beautiful flowing script,
I hope that you are well and that King Eian is treating you kindly. I have had occasion to visit Anvard three times and I have always admired the castle; there are some wonderful rare books in the palace libraries. You may enjoy Geoffrey of Westholme’s History of the Kings of Archenland if you have opportunity to do so. Give my best wishes to King Eian and my belated sympathies on the loss of Queen Lynnet; she was a lovely woman and her loss is a blow to Archenland. If I had anything worth giving, I would enclose a gift for Prince Gareth, as I know that his nameday is soon. If you have occasion to speak to him personally, I beg of you to give him my congratulations.
We are all well here in Arn Abedin. I suspect that Eustace has told you about the incident during Winter’s End, but I assure you that it is nothing to trouble yourself about. There may be some excitement in the next few days, but I hope you will not trouble yourself over Eustace’s dire predictions. We shall persevere, as we always do.
Best wishes,
Tirian
There are a few lines beneath that, in the same script but signed with Jewel’s name. Jill has just begun to read it when her door opens. She drops the letter and grabs for the dagger on her belt, letting her hand fall aside when she sees the little girl standing in the doorway.
“Oh!” the child says. “I’m sorry, I thought there wasn’t anyone here and that’s why the door was open.”
“That’s all right?” Jill says, faintly bewildered. She doesn’t mean it to come out as a question, but it does anyway, she’s so puzzled. “Were you looking for something?”
“A place to hide,” the girl says, standing on one foot. There’s something familiar about her, but Jill can’t put her finger on it, and can’t think of an occasion in Anvard where she might have opportunity to meet a child who’s clearly noble-born. “I’m playing hide-and-seek with my siblings. My brother’s the one seeking,” she adds helpfully. “Gareth, not Kail or Oren. Not that Oren’s my real brother, but Papa says that foster-brothers count.”
Jill blinks at her, bemused. “Well, you can hide here if you want,” she offers. “I don’t mind.”
The girl closes the door behind her, looking at Jill solemnly. “I’m Bronwin,” she volunteers. “Everyone calls me Bronny.”
“I’m Jill. It’s very nice to meet you.”
“You talk funny,” Bronny observes, perching on the window seat.
“Well, I’m not from around here,” Jill says. “I’m with the Narnian embassy, but I’m not from Narnia.”
“Where are you from?”
“England,” Jill says, wondering if that means anything to her.
“So am I!” says Bronny, and when Jill blinks at her, frowning, amends, “A long, long time ago, way back before King Col founded Archenland. The first kings of Narnia were from England and we’re descended from them. But that was thousands of years ago. Are you the same Jill that Aslan sent to rescue Prince Rilian?”
“That was a very long time ago,” Jill says, a little shocked to hear it. They don’t like talking about Rilian the Disenchanted in Narnia. “But yes, I am.”
“Wicked,” Bronny says happily. “Was he awful? Everyone says he was awful, but Genny says he must have been very sad. But she says things like that because she’s always got her nose stuck in books and she read all his diaries last year, the ones from before he disappeared. Kail says he must have been mad from the start and Gareth says it’s not important, things like that don’t happen in Archenland so we shouldn’t worry about it, only there was King Cor, and that was sort of like it, except he wasn’t kidnapped by a witch and he was only a baby.”
Jill has only the faintest idea who Cor is – some long dead king of Archenland, she suspects – and none of the names Bronny is throwing around mean anything to her, so she concentrates on what she knows instead. “He wasn’t awful when I knew him. He was a little haunted, but he’d been a prisoner for a very long time then. He only wanted what was best for Narnia. I thought he was nice, but I suppose he changed after he became king.” She remembers something Tirian had said once. “Everyone wanted him to be someone he wasn’t.”
Bronny ponders this for a minute. “That’s sad,” she decides finally.
“It is,” Jill agrees, looking down. She’d liked Rilian. It seems awful what happened to him after he left; Eustace says it was inevitable, citing some book he’d read in England, but Jill doesn’t think anything is inevitable. Rilian hadn’t deserved that, not after everything.
There’s a step outside the door. “Bronny, where are you?” a boy calls, sing-song. “One of the Guard saw you run up here. You know getting help is off-limits.”
Jill raises an eyebrow at Bronny, who shrugs, unrepentant.
“Don’t make me try every door!” the boy says. “It’s rude –”
“Who are you talking to?” a girl’s voice interrupts, sounding interested. Jill goes still at the accent – Calormene. Bronny sits up straight, her eyes narrowing. Neither of them moves to speak.
The boy’s tone changes. “I’m playing hide and seek with my sister,” he says. “You’re welcome to go elsewhere.”
“We could go somewhere else together,” the girl suggests. “I’m sure she’ll get bored eventually, she’s very young –”
“No thanks,” says the boy stiffly. “What are you even doing here, Aaliz? You know the Narnians and the borderers if they knew you were sneaking around their rooms.”
“I’m not sneaking around anything,” she snaps. “I live here, remember? I’ve got just as much right to be here as you.”
“You really don’t. I live here; you’re just a visitor. An unwelcome one. And I want you to go away. Preferably back to Tashbaan, but if you can’t manage that, I’ll settle for you leaving my sight.”
“That’s not very nice,” says the girl. Jill hates to have anything like sympathy for a Calormene, even a young one, but she thinks that the girl sounds hurt.
“Well, I’m not feeling very nice. Go. Shoo. Go weave something.”
There’s a crack as the girl slaps him, then Jill hears her footsteps retreating quickly down the hallway. Bronny leaps off the window seat and goes to fling open the door. Jill gets up and follows her.
“Bronny, you know you aren’t supposed to hide in people’s rooms,” her brother sighs. “Or get help,” he adds when he sees Jill. “I’m sorry, my lady. My sister is old enough to know better.”
“It’s all right,” Jill says, realizing belatedly where she’s seen Bronny before. This morning, at breakfast. She’s King Eian’s youngest daughter. “She didn’t know I was there when she came in.”
Prince Gareth of Archenland smiles wanly at her, reaching for his sister’s hand. There’s a reddening mark on his cheek where the Calormene girl slapped him. “It’s Lady Jill, isn’t it? I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
“No, um, your highness,” Jill says, wondering if she should curtsey. “I mean – yes, I’m Jill. No, we haven’t been introduced. But I know who you are.”
“Everyone does,” the Crown Prince says wryly. “Bronny, apologize, or I’ll tell Genny you were cheating.”
“It’s all right, really,” Jill says. “I didn’t mind. And she apologized already, anyway.”
“I did,” Bronny assures her brother. “And she knew King Rilian!”
“Oh?” the Crown Prince says, with polite disinterest. “You and Genny should talk – I think she’s still sweet on him from reading his diaries.”
That must be the Princess Gennifer. Jill has seen her from a distance – tall for her age, nearly the same height as her older brother, with long red hair in braids of various configurations. She can’t believe that she didn’t realize who Bronny – Princess Bronwin, really – was before, especially she’d named all three of her siblings as well as her foster-brother, the King’s ward.
“Thank you for looking after Bronny,” Prince Gareth goes on. “I hope you didn’t hear, um –”
“You and Aaliz fighting?” Bronny says helpfully.
“Oh.”
That must have been Ilderim Tarkaan’s daughter, the one who’s supposedly been brought here to seduce Prince Gareth into marrying her. From what Jill heard, she doesn’t think Aaliz Tarkheena is going to get anywhere anytime soon, at least as long as Prince Gareth has a voice in the matter.
“Let’s go find the others before someone decides we ought to be in lessons,” the Crown Prince tells his sister. “Or they’ll all think they’ve won, and then we’ll never hear the end of it. You know how Oren never shuts up.”
Bronny shakes her head, grinning. She turns quickly back to Jill. “It was nice to meet you, Jill,” she says. “Can I come and talk to you again?”
“Any time you like,” Jill promises, smiling at her. “You can bring your siblings too, if you want.”
“I’ll think about it,” Bronny says solemnly. She smiles brilliantly at Jill; Prince Gareth gives Jill a sheepish smile and a shrug as he drags his sister away. Jill watches them go, then shuts the door and locks it this time. It’s funny: this is the first time she’s ever really thought that Archenland might be fighting the Calormenes too, in their own way.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-25 02:35 am (UTC)I don't know whether to hate Jill or not right now. I do understand where she's coming from (in terms of saving Narnia) but I have to side with Susan here. Jill really doesn't know what's going on and while she may not believe what Susan says, I think Jill herself is partly to blame. After all, she could have visited with the butcher but she refused to go at the time. Even though she's been in Narnia for five years, she's been seeing things from the outsider point of view. Susan and the Pevensies have ruled and know Narnia and the politics involved in dealing with other countries and it's best to just follow along. Also, I do think there is a reason for Jill to be here even if she feels useless in Anvard; Susan wouldn't have brought her along otherwise.
More food descriptions, yay!
I love the different styles of the letters from Eustace and Tirian. :-)
Bronwin was kind of cute and she seems to be the medicine that Jill needs for now. Hearing and seeing what Eian's children think of the Calormenes here did more to open Jill's eyes to the political situation than hearing Susan trying to explain things to her.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-27 09:10 pm (UTC)Regarding Jill, I think it's important to remember that she has been in Narnia for the past five years and her opinions aren't necessarily that different from the other Narnian rebels that we've seen, including the ones in this chapter. And that her experience in Narnia has been very, very different from Susan's or the other Pevensies'.
It's not a Bedlam fic until you have either a food description or a fight scene! And I backed off the fight scenes here. :)
I am so glad for Eustace's diary excerpts in VotDT, since it gives a taste of his writing style. He's probably a terrible correspondent.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-25 05:30 am (UTC)And the above commenter is right - Jill's still very much an outsider, still VIEWS things as an outsider, like somebody who was here to play hero and try and save the world but not really understanding things about the world.
Much like the whole, 'white man knows better!" and jill's not that goood at politics or the ramifications of anything and why people would LEAVE a country to save their families. She doesn't know that, doesen't have that history but...
She is trying. It's just that she needs a slap somehow, but she IS trying.
(Sometimes just 'trying' isn't enough)
And I am so, so tired of everyone hating on Susan without even asking for why she did anything. The only people who understood was Peter, and now Edmund's coming around and Lucy. Is.
How can she consign her sister to being raped like she deserved it like a slut, I just.
*exhales*
*sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-27 09:27 pm (UTC)Regarding Jill, and hopefully not getting too deeply into authorial intent, I want to point out that Jill's experience in Narnia has been very, very different from the Pevensies and that her opinion about Archenland isn't unique -- in fact, it's the same one that's shared by most of the other Narnians at breakfast in this chapter. Not only has she been fighting a guerilla war for the past five years, but she's been living among people, including families, that chose to live in the wild rather than living under Calormene rule or (in the opinion of the rebels) deserting Narnia. Her opinion is a little (understandably, I hope) biased.
In regards to your comment about Susan and Lucy, I am a little confused? Susan's feud with her siblings goes back to something that happened in England that I don't think has ever been stated.
I hope this isn't coming off all AUTHORIAL INTENT ARRRH, but what you wrote is the exact opposite of what I was trying to get across in this chapter, so I've been trying to figure out what I did wrong.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-28 01:24 am (UTC)And I guess I get a lot of ... my own feelings in it? Outsider-saviour coming in and trying to live rough but basically being ineffective?
I guess it's hard to see what Jill and Edmund HAD accomplished (though it is realistic. They start out with nothing, comparatively, while the Pevensies have so much experience).
As to Susan and Lucy, if I am correct there was the part where she got kidnapped? I think? By the Calmorenes, with Jill, and Edward managed tosave Jill but Susan had long since been taken to the city? And then Lucy had expressed unconcern (or maybe it had been just before) about her sister (and I think that she HAD called Susan a slut - which i believe had something to do with susan's history in... flirting for information, maybe? and the fact that in London she had had a lot of boyfriends? But i'm not sure how much the other fics are to be used as a justification) and Lucy's words had been. quite strong and vicious.
I can see your intent, but I guess I'll have to read more? Or re-read the series to get more? On the other hand, I'll beglad to read MOAR JILL because she does need more screen time so I can get a feel for her. :)
Does that make sense?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-25 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-27 09:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-28 05:47 am (UTC)I really like seeing how much Jill considers herself a Narnian here - I know in earlier Jill POV chapters she was conflicted, wishing herself back in England, but so dedicated to Tirian and the Narnians she and Eustace have been fighting for for the past five years. I like how it takes leaving Narnia for her to realize just how native she's gone.
The conflict between her and Susan is great too, and I'm glad Jill's the one who brings it up. Yes, Jill doesn't know exactly what's going on, and that's an important point - the Pevensies aren't exactly forthcoming with their plans, especially to some of the people who need to know. It makes sense that Jill's frustrated and that Susan's going to be on the end of that frustration.
I loved the letters from Eustace and Tirian! Eustace's, especially, sounds just like him. "Just a scratch!" And oh god, Tirian with the books. You are such a nerd at heart, Tirian. <3
And more children! I like Bronny (and her brother)! I am interested in seeing all the children in Dust. A THEME!
Okay, I enjoyed it, just in case you can't tell. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 10:33 pm (UTC)I think in Narnia it's easier for Jill to separate herself from the Narnians, especially because you have so many different people with such diverse beliefs and backgrounds crammed into a small space, and it doesn't exactly help that you have the Pevensies right there. But Archenland's another story entirely.
I suspect that Susan is even more opaque than her siblings, when it comes to sharing information, because she's been on her own for so long. Lucy's a naturally sociable type, while Peter and Edmund are both in the military...
Gosh, I wish I knew what I was doing with the kids! It may just be a next generation/hope thing. If there are kids, then the world won't end. Or something! I mean, I still reserve the right to end the world.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-28 06:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 10:35 pm (UTC)It's not that easy to get out of Narnia, so I suspect there are still people who'd be willing to leave if they had (a) somewhere safe to go and (b) a lower than usual chance of dying on the way out.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-28 06:26 am (UTC)Her anger at the Archenlanders, the ease with which she fits into the Narnian party in those terms - there's a way in which Jill, at least - I'm not sure about Eustace, I'd have to go back and really look for it - is far more Narnian than the Pevensies. Or at least, far more this-Narnian. Five years in she's used to the four little gods and the Narnian hatreds and all that, and it's that middle ground between possible-savior-from-England and just-another-Narnian that makes her narration so compelling to me, I think.
And - I don't know if this is what you intended, but I really liked getting her view of Susan. I think that for those of us who dislike the way Jill and others talk about Susan in TLB, it's easy to turn that around and say, well, obviously Jill is silly herself, or Jill doesn't know Susan well enough, or Jill is superficially slut-shaming Susan, or what have you. But I don't see any of that here, despite the fact that Jill is indeed ripping into Susan for things Jill herself definitely doesn't understand. It goes back to that middle-ground place of hers, but on the England side this time - she's a Friend of Narnia but Not a Pevensie, never a queen, very much less in the crowd in some ways.
Basically, what I'm saying is I really like your Jill, and moar please :D
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 12:58 am (UTC)I've had trouble getting a hold of Jill's character before, but I think she switches back and forth between despair and anger. The despair leads to her refusing to leave her bed, and the anger leads to her confronting Susan and backtalking Archenlander knights, because as far as she's concerned she's done a lot, lost a lot, why isn't that good enough? And that can go either way.
I like that you said that about Jill being more Narnian than the Pevensies, because I think that it's worth remembering that the Pevensies may be Narnian down to their blood and bone, but this isn't their Narnia. Their Narnia died more than a thousand years ago, and Jill has been living this Narnia for five years now.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 04:04 am (UTC)Yes this! I wonder how your Jill and Lucy would connect in that regard, Lucy being the only of the Pevensies to emphatically say that they shouldn't be here - that as a sort of recognition of it not being their Narnia, or at least not their time. It's a cool and complex tension between the fact of Peter being High King over all kings etc etc, their definite ties to and devotion to Narnian, and the fact that, as you say, this isn't their Narnia anymore.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 06:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-28 04:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 01:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-29 03:40 pm (UTC)The whole contrast of the Narnnian ways with the Archenland was great.
I really enjoyed the little bit at the end -- Jill's dawning realization that maybe the Archenlanders are doing something, in their own way and there was great characterization in those few moments and exchanges.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 03:30 am (UTC)I love Susan, but Jill has a point - Susan's not exactly the most forthcoming person in the world, and she's probably less so now than she might have been five years ago. She's got other things on her mind than babying Jill, whom she didn't even want to come anyway. I suspect she and Jill both despise each other in equal parts. (Actually, Susan's emotions towards Jill are probably not even that strong. That would require her to give a damn about what Jill thinks.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-12-30 05:44 am (UTC)I can certainly understand Jill's frustration (which the on-edginess of being back in civilization and having to interact politely with Calormenes certainly isn't helping), and I liked getting her perspective on Susan. The Pevensies are distant, not only from themselves but also from their own people (Lucy being the real exception there), and of course it's impossible to know why they're there, and frustrating to not understand why they're there. Jill and Susan have both ostensibly been sent by Aslan, but their experiences are so different throughout, they might as well not both be Friends of Narnia--which the Rilian allusions make very clear.
In conclusion, I also enjoyed Jill realizing how Narnian she is after leaving Narnia, and the perspective on Archenland, and the small royals giving Jill perspective (and also her clothes, and her being sarcastic to that knight).
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 03:41 am (UTC)Susan's even more distant than her siblings, and she's doing it deliberately for various reasons. She doesn't treat Jill much better than she treats a lot of the other Narnians. Hmm, I suspect that she may actually be even be of the opinion that she and the other Pevensies were sent to Narnia to do what Jill and Eustace couldn't manage.
I am strangely fond of her being sarcastic to Dashwood, even though it was one of the scenes I hesitated over for characterization issues.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 04:35 am (UTC)Yeah: are the Pevensies here because Aslan willed it, or not? And how can the answer be known?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-02 06:20 am (UTC)I guess it'll take Aslan showing up and saying it one way or the other...