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bedlamsbardTitle: Long Forgotten Wars
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse
Rating: PG
Summary: "They didn't call it the golden age when I was king."
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia belong to C.S. Lewis. Situations from the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie belong to Walden Media. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Burnt Norton.
Author's Notes: Takes place during the Prince Caspian movie, after the White Witch and before the war meeting.
Peter wakes up screaming.
Shaking, his throat aching, he sits up and bends over to get his head in the vicinity of his knees, clutching the rough blanket between his fingers. His ragged breath breaks the stillness of the room – cave, really; the How is one big warren. He’d said he would share with Edmund, over and over again, but the badger who’s been arranging rooming for everyone had given him a look like Peter had begun carving up the minotaurs (which he’s been tempted to do; every time he looks at them he remembers fifteen years of war and can’t keep his hand from straying to his sword) and ignored him. While Lucy and Susan are sharing a room, the badger – Blackpaw – has put Edmund in with Caspian, which neither of them are particularly happy about. Peter is the High King, and the least that New-Old Narnia in exile can give him is his own room. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He’s fairly certain he doesn’t want anyone else here to see this.
Still shaking, Peter gets up and goes over to the crockery basin and jug sitting in the corner of the room, splashing cold water on his face and neck. The shock of it – it’s icy cold – doesn’t do anything for his nerves, especially given the…circumstances…of his dream. Peter wipes his hands dry on his trousers and braces himself on the wall, listening to the faint sound of singing down below in the big main room of the How. He can’t make out the words through the layers of stone and earth.
His throat is raw, the kind of raw that comes from screaming or cold. He vaguely thinks that he’d like something warm, and for that he’ll have to go downstairs. Aching like he’s just run a marathon, Peter pulls on his surcoat and hesitates for a moment before taking his dagger rather than his sword. Even though they’re at a state of war (which sums up his entire reign neatly), he’s not leaving the How, and he can do nearly as much damage with a dagger as with a sword, if he doesn’t have the time to run back up for the rest of his weapons.
The door – one of the few in the How – is made of thick, heavy wood and Peter pushes it open without trouble. Something moves in the corridor, and Peter’s hand is on the dagger before Caspian says, “High King –”
Caspian doesn’t know how close he came to being gutted in his own (however temporary) castle. Peter lets his hand drop away from the dagger. “Prince Caspian,” he returns, aware of the stiffness in his voice and trying to force it away.
“I heard you cry out,” Caspian says. “Is everything well?”
“A bad dream,” Peter says.
“Is it because of something I did?”
Not because of something Caspian did. Because of something Peter didn’t do. “No.”
Caspian is looking at Peter like he doesn’t believe him and Peter has one shining moment where he almost goes for his dagger again, because he feels trapped, and all his family knows better than to crowd him. But Caspian isn’t his family and he doesn’t know Peter well enough to know about the caves of Angrisla, about seventy-two hours alone in pitch-darkness with monsters tracking his steps and his people dead and dying around him. Peter swallows hard against the panic – it doesn’t help that he’s underground.
“I wanted –” Caspian begins. “I did something wrong.”
“Yes,” Peter says, because that’s true.
The boy looks a little surprised – Peter has to stop thinking of him as “the boy”, because Caspian is years older than him, although technically speaking Peter is more than a thousand years older – but rallies and says, “I wouldn’t have really done it.”
“Yes, you would have,” Peter corrects, because that’s true too. “You would have done it because you thought – you still think – that it would be the best thing for Narnia, because the White Witch may have held her in check for a hundred years, but at least during those hundred years no one invaded. You think that if four children,” and he’s aware of the irony in his voice, “could defeat the White Witch, you could as well.”
Caspian frowns at him, struck by surprise, and points out, “You were afraid of her.”
This is not a conversation Peter wants to have in a hallway. Granted, this is not a conversation Peter wants to have anytime, but he’d rather not have it here. He starts to turn away from Caspian, but the prince catches his arm.
“You were afraid of her,” he repeats, more certain now, and Peter thinks almost hysterically that not a week ago he hit a boy his own age for bumping him in the train station. Hitting Caspian would just result in Susan yelling at him again, though, and he’s not in the mood for that now.
“Let go of me,” Peter says, but Caspian keeps holding on.
“You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her?” He frowns again. “Is that what you were screaming about?”
“Take your hands off me,” Peter says, and any Narnian would have been halfway down the hallway and away from the High King by now, but Caspian isn’t like any Narnian Peter’s ever known. He doesn’t take his hands away. Instead he pushes closer, up in Peter’s space. He has enough height on him that he looms over Peter and doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “You killed her centuries ago. What kind of power does she have over you that you’re still afraid of her?”
Peter has his hand on his dagger now, and the fact that Caspian doesn’t seem to notice speaks ill of him. “I didn’t kill the White Witch,” he says finally, clenching his fist hard on the pommel, feeling the little lion’s head dig into his skin. “Aslan did. She nearly killed me. Something to learn, your highness, the things that scare you don’t vanish when they die. They live on in you.”
He can see that Caspian doesn’t understand, not yet, but he will someday, if he lives long enough. Instead, Caspian stares at him and seems to make up his mind about something that Peter’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to hear.
“Is it true,” Caspian begins, “is it true that your brother was a traitor before he became a king?”
“That’s Edmund’s question to answer,” Peter says, and swallows down the panic to add with every bit of dignity he has, “If you don’t mind, I’d like some air to breathe.”
For a moment, Caspian looks confused, then he seems to realize what he’s doing and steps back. Peter takes a deep breath, then another, and forces his hand away from the dagger. He sees Caspian’s eyes fix on that, startled. He’s getting used to seeing that expression; Caspian never seems to know how to react when confronted with him. Half the time he sees the High King; half the time he sees a boy three-quarters his age. This is the problem with working with humans.
“If he’d betrayed you – when he was king,” Caspian continues after a pause, “what would you have done?”
“I would have taken his head off in Cair Paravel for all of Narnia to see,” Peter says without pause. He would have. Edmund knows that. All of Narnia had known that after the first time less than a month after his coronation.
“You would have?” Caspian bursts out. “Your own brother?”
“Brother or no, king or no, treason is treason,” Peter says flatly. He’d never had to try and convict one of his own siblings, but there were other traitors in Narnia, people he’d trusted once, people who’d turned on him on the battlefield, people who’d tried to kill him and his family as they slept in their beds. Cair Paravel has seen more blood shed in its halls than any other battleground Peter has fought on, even the Telmarine castle where his Narnians fought and died less than a day ago.
“What would you have done then?”
His head hurts. He doesn’t want to answer this, and he doesn’t want to think about it, but Caspian will be king of Narnia someday and he will have to know this. Peter eyes Caspian thoughtfully for a long time before he says slowly, “I would have gone into the field until I thought my sisters were less than likely to put a dagger in my skull while I was sleeping.”
The boy – not a boy, decidedly not, even if he seems so much younger than Peter was when he was his age – stares at him. “You would have started a war?”
Now Peter understands why Professor Kirke spent so much time complaining about England’s education system. He’s half of a mind to start complaining about Narnia’s, because what are they teaching children now? It’s a false statement, of course; he’s had the circumstances explained to him several times now, but when Caspian’s been living with Narnians for as long as he has, he ought to know this.
“I never had to start a war,” he says with elaborate patience. “I can count on one hand the number of times Narnia made the first move and still have fingers left over. Narnia was at war every year I was High King, fighting off giants from the North and Calormenes from the South. The White Witch might have been defeated, but her army scattered all over Narnia and no few of them tried to take her place. I had to reconquer Terebinthia and the Lone Islands. I was only at Cair Paravel two months out of every twelve during the best of it.”
Caspian looks beyond confused. “But – there has never been peace in Narnia like there was during the Golden Age.”
“Possibly because I spent most of your golden age at war to make sure there was something to be peaceful,” Peter says. “They didn’t call it the golden age when I was king.” They called it the Great Summer, and called him the King of Summer. He’s heard a few people whisper the title as he’s walked past. “What do you want, Caspian?” If it was just the question about Edmund – never a secret, but not something that was spoken of, and he’s surprised the knowledge has survived down the centuries.
Caspian hesitates, and then he says, “The Telmarines have legends of High King Peter too.”
“Really?” Peter says, surprised. He’d thought that of all the peoples in Narnia, the Telmarines would try the hardest to destroy his history.
“They’re…different,” Caspian allows. “Most of the stories are about the High King – you – cleansing Narnia of…creatures. And Queen Susan was your wife.”
“She’s not,” Peter points out dryly. He’s heard those stories too. Most of them are confused about whether Susan (or occasionally Lucy) is his sister or his wife. Edmund is usually relegated to background noise if he’s there at all. He’s always found it funny how these things work.
Caspian flushes. “I’ve noticed that,” he says.
He’s noticed more than that, but Peter realized a long time ago that Susan could take of herself as far as her paramours went. He waits patiently.
“My professor taught me Narnian history,” Caspian continues. “And he said that some of the stories are all true, and some of them are partially true, and some of them aren’t true at all. And I’ve heard some of them here.”
For a moment Peter doesn’t answer, waiting for Caspian to finish his thought, and while they’re both quiet a snatch of music drifts up from below, accompanied by Edmund’s sudden laugh. Some trick of the tunnels makes the words clear.
Now Peter was a noble king, brave and strong and fair,
Lucy was a healer, with her sword as light as air
And Edmund was the second son, the High King’s voice and arm
Queen Susan was called gentle, but she also would do harm!
“That survived?” Edmund shouts, and Peter resists the urge to beat his head into the tunnel wall. He concurs with his brother. It’s not the worst of them, by far – Narnia tends toward good music, but not everything that they think is good really is good – but even though he’s had fifteen years to get used to hearing his name and his deeds made common entertainment, most of it still makes him blush.
“That one’s true,” Peter confides to Caspian, because Caspian looks like the question is on the tip of his tongue. “More or less. More rather than less, actually, at least in my day.” He’s tempted to go down and listen to see how much of it has changed, but he’s really not in the mood. He isn’t surprised that Edmund is, though; after a battle, Peter broods and Edmund finds a distraction.
Caspian’s evidently heard the song before, because he brightens at this and says, “Everything I’ve ever heard says you’re the greatest warrior Narnia has ever seen.”
Peter almost answers this, and then he stops. “Wait here a moment,” he says to Caspian, and goes back inside his room to get his sword and shield, strapping on his swordbelt while Caspian watches, surprised and a little confused. “Do you think you’re a good swordsman?”
Caspian stares at him blankly. “I had the best tutors in Narnia,” he says. “And I crossed swords with you.”
“Not for long,” Peter points out. “Come on.”
He leads the way down to the lower level of the How, briefly poking his head into the wide room where several fires are flickering and a number of people, including Edmund but not Susan or Lucy, are sitting, listening to a faun sing That Damned Song.
Now inside Cair Paravel another castle hid
And only High King Peter knew where its secrets led.
Into this second castle he went with sword in hand
And one by one he slew the traitor’s savage band.
Peter winces and says, “Ed, if you’re not enjoying yourself too much –”
Edmund glances over and grins as he gets up. “For you, o fair and noble king? Never.”
“Sometimes I think Aslan should have left you to the White Witch,” Peter grumbles and ignores Caspian’s surprised expression. Edmund has long since got over this.
“Someone has to keep you humble, High King,” Edmund says. “Or your head will get too big for your helmet.” He looks curiously at the sword at Peter’s side and then at Caspian, who’s still wearing his sword and dagger. “What’s up? He can’t have annoyed you so much already that you want witnesses now.”
“Not for that,” Peter says easily.
“Oh, that,” Edmund says, pulling a face. “When will you learn that you can’t solve everything by fighting it?”
“It’s been working out well for me so far,” Peter points out, starting through the tunnels again.
Edmund keeps pace with him, Caspian just behind. “That’s because you never had to deal with the dwarves when they got it into their heads to argue over their place in court. Or the fauns taking more than their share of the harvest. Or –”
They fall easily into their old bickering, familiar and comfortable. As usual, Edmund finishes it off with, “If you weren’t at war all the time –”
“If I wasn’t at war,” Peter says, like he has a thousand times at before, “you’d have much bigger things to worry about than whether or not the beavers or the wood-nymphs are in the right when it comes to the trees. And in war everything can be solved by strategic application of a sword to the head.”
“And people wonder why I’m the diplomat in the family,” Edmund confides to Caspian. “He doesn’t have the patience, and Susan’s a little too open-minded. Lucy’s all right, though. Sometimes too nice.”
“And sometimes things need a sword to the head,” Peter points out.
“And the last time he tried diplomacy he nearly started another war,” Edmund announces, making his point neatly.
“I wasn’t the one who brought two hundred Calormenes across the desert into Archenland,” Peter protests.
“I wasn’t the one who gave the heir to Calormen the idea that Susan was available!”
“Neither was I!” Peter shoots back. “She was doing that fine on her own!”
“And then you had to go off to fight giants –”
“Because they were invading!”
“– leaving me to make sure that Calormen didn’t use Archenland as a stepping stone to Narnia –”
“I knew you could handle it!”
“My lords?” Caspian interrupts as they pass into a cavern with no other exits. He looks a little shell-shocked, Peter notices as he glances over.
“Of course I could handle it,” Edmund finishes triumphantly. “One of us has to be better at more than one thing. A word of advice, Caspian – when we get to the point where we’re negotiating peace treaties with the Telmarines, don’t let Peter do it. His idea of peace negotiations include the words, ‘Absolute unconditional surrender or I destroy you, your land, and everything you hold dear.’”
“I only said that once,” Peter says, aware that his smile is taking on a fixed quality.
Edmund, who’s always been good at noticing his moods, grins slightly in apology and changes the subject. “What exactly were you planning to do to Caspian, Pete?”
“Make a point,” Peter says. They’re in the wide, empty cavern that they’ve been using for weapons practice and Peter steps back, drawing his sword. “Caspian.”
“I would have been content to take your word on it,” Caspian says, moving to the other side of the cavern and drawing his own sword. He doesn’t have a shield, so Peter discards his.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Peter says, moving to a ready position.
Edmund sighs and leans against a wall, pulling an apple out of a pocket and biting into it. “You don’t want to use practice sheathes? Live steel is dangerous.”
“And we both know what we’re doing,” Peter points out and moves before Caspian even knows what’s happening. The Telmarine prince gets his sword up in time – barely. Peter is sliding away before the clash of metal has finished reaching his ears, slashing across Caspian’s chest with the flat of his blade. If he’d used the edge, he would have spilled Caspian’s guts across the floor. The next blow would take out Caspian’s legs, cutting them out from beneath him, and the next his head. Peter slows down a little to let Caspian stagger backwards, sword in front of him and just barely managing to parry Peter’s blows. Peter disengages and slams the pommel of his sword into Caspian’s face, stopping with the metal millimeters away from Caspian’s left eye, then pivots and kicks Caspian’s legs out from beneath him, ending with his sword resting on the back of Caspian’s neck. He steps back and offers Caspian a hand up, and as Caspian straightens and lets go of his hand, Peter attacks again. Killing strike. Killing strike. Parry, riposte, feint, killing strike. Killing strike. Maiming strike. Killing strike. Caspian gets in a few good blows – he’s right, he is good, but he fights like he learned in practice bouts and not a battlefield, and he can’t pull his blows the way Peter can, so by the time he steps back, holding up both hands – Peter has knocked his sword across the cavern – Peter’s the one bleeding where Caspian has cut shallowly across his cheek.
“I concede the point,” he says. “You’re a better swordsman that I am.”
I could have told you that, Peter doesn’t say, but he resheathes his sword and wipes the blood off his cheek. “Is that what you wanted to know?” he asks.
“I didn’t really need that…literal…of a demonstration,” Caspian points out, panting. His face is flushed and sweaty and he fumbles his sword a little as he picks it up and gets it back in its sheathe; Peter is certain his hands are cramped.
Edmund tosses the apple he’s been eating away and strides forward. “We are talking about my brother here,” he says. “Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. Practice sheathes,” he adds. “I know better than to fight with you and not have any protection. I like my head attached to my neck, thanks.”
“Around you, I’m a little more worried about my head,” Peter says, looking around for the practice sheathes. He’s sparred with Trumpkin, Reepicheep, and Glenstorm, but not Edmund, not since they’d left Narnia the last time.
Caspian straightens and goes around to the worn wooden chest in the back of the room to dig them out. Peter fits one over his blade and tosses the other to Edmund.
“Because I didn’t have enough bruises already,” Edmund grumbles and strikes, a whirling overhead blow that Peter parries, driving Edmund back across the floor. Edmund’s a little out of practice; Peter feints right and slashes shallowly down Edmund’s side, across his heart. Edmund lets out a grunt at the pressure and manages to deflect Peter’s next blow, but he doesn’t get his sword up in time to stop Peter as he swings, stopping with the leather-covered blade just touching Edmund’s neck.
“I forgot how ungodly fast you are,” Edmund grumbles, pushing the blade away with his hand and prodding his side. “That’ll bruise.”
“Probably,” Peter agrees and attacks before Edmund has a chance to regroup. They go back and forth at each other across the rough cave floor, ducking around the columns and Caspian, who’s sitting on the floor against a wall and watching with wide eyes. At one point some four or five rounds in, Edmund knocks his sword out of his hand and Peter grabs Edmund’s wrist with both hands and slams the pommel of his sword into his face. Edmund kicks him in the ankle, but without any effect, and Peter hits him in the face again, then twists until Edmund drops the sword.
“Ow!” he exclaims, stepping backwards and clutching his face as Peter picks up both their swords. He takes his hands away to look at them and winces. “I’m bleeding! I need my face!”
Peter goes over to check the damage. There’s a dark bruise blooming across Edmund’s cheek, spread up over his left eye, and the skin is split on a ridge of cheekbone, a little bubble of blood welling up. “Well, it can’t make you look worse,” he offers, and Edmund hits him half-heartedly with an open fist.
“Next time I’m hitting you in your pretty face, High King, and we’ll see how you like that.”
“You’ve already done that a dozen times,” Peter points out. He has a split lip from colliding with Edmund’s padded sword, but that’s the worst of his visible injuries. The rest of his bruises are hidden under his clothes.
Edmund scowls at him. “Are you even tired, Pete?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Peter says, even though he is. He’s out of practice, is what he is, and just being in Narnia helps with getting his old skill back, but not his endurance. That he has to work at. It takes less time than it might back in England, but he still has to work at it. “That might give you an unfair advantage.”
“Entirely fair,” Edmund assures him. “Trust me, entirely fair. Maybe even not fair enough.” He stretches out his wrists, wincing a little bit.
Peter echoes the motion. He’s stiff from fighting yesterday, and he hadn’t warmed up before fighting Caspian. One of these days, he will actually learn – probably when he’s doing archery with Susan – but today is obviously not that day. “Is there anything you feel might even the odds?” he asks dryly.
“Amputation,” Edmund says promptly. “But barring that – you think we can still do that old trick?”
“What – you mean that trick?”
Edmund grins and nods. “I’ll still get my arse kicked, but you need the practice.”
“And you don’t?” Peter asks matter-of-factly, digging in his pocket and coming up with his tie. “Come over here and tie this for me, Ed,” he says, “otherwise you’ll decide it’s not tight enough.”
Edmund wraps the soft material around his face and Peter’s vision goes black. He shifts his position automatically, drawing his sword. Caspian moves against the wall and Edmund takes a few steps away; Peter hears the rasp of steel as he draws his sword. There are footsteps behind him, but Peter disregards that after a moment when they don’t advance any farther.
Neither he nor Edmund says anything. The rough floor is good for this; Peter can hear Edmund move forward. He parries, and the sound of muted steel on muted steel is almost startling. For the first few minutes, he’s reacting rather than acting, trying to get back into the habit of this, and then he slides his sword away from Edmund’s and strikes. This time he’s on the offensive, driving Edmund back, and Edmund doesn’t have a chance to parry before Peter’s sword is against his chest. He’s not willing to try for the neck just now, not until he’s more sure of his current ability to not accidentally kill his brother.
“You!” Edmund half-wails as Peter shoves the blindfold up over his eyes, blinking at the sudden light. He slides the practice sheathe off and sheathes his sword, grinning and shaking his head. “Were you practicing in England, Pete?”
“Who would I do that with?” Peter asks philosophically. “It’s not like there were exactly a lot of options.” He sheathes his sword and turns around, surprised to see Glenstorm, Reepicheep, and Susan watching. Susan just shakes her head when he catches her eyes.
“You are just as skilled with a blade as the legends say,” Glenstorm tells him solemnly.
“Thanks,” Peter says. He looks around for Caspian, but the prince has slipped out sometime when Peter had the blindfold on and is nowhere in sight.
“This is ridiculous,” Edmund grumbles. “Before a week ago, you hadn’t touched a sword in a year. Nobody’s that good.”
“I did do the fencing club in school,” Peter points out. “For a while.”
“Yes, and then you got kicked out for being too violent,” Susan says.
“Narnian fencing is very different from English fencing,” he protests.
Susan shakes her head again. “Only you, Peter,” she says. “Only you. It’s not like I joined the archery club.”
Peter sighs and collects his shield from the floor. Edmund prods his face again. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now,” he announces. “After fifteen years –”
“You’ve done me pretty well a few times too,” Peter reminds him.
“Yes, but the other nine times out of ten –” Edmund says. “You could have broken my nose!”
“I haven’t done that in years!” Peter says indignantly. “Except for that one time in England,” he adds. “And that wasn’t on purpose.”
“We go to war together for fifteen years and he breaks my nose by slamming a door in my face in Finchley a week after we left the Professor’s,” Edmund says to no one in particular. “Mum was furious. She thought we’d been fighting.”
Peter claps him on the shoulder. “You might want to ice that, if we have any,” he recommends. “I’m going to bed.”
“Ha,” Edmund says bitterly. “At least I can make treaties without starting wars.”
“That’s never actually happened,” Susan says practically. “Although we did come very close a few times.”
“You mean Peter came very close,” Edmund corrects. “I was the one fixing his problems.”
Susan frowns at him. “I think Lu and I helped a bit.”
“There is a reason there are four of us,” Peter says, smiling. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He starts away, nodding at Reepicheep’s comments – something about his grip and his swing – and then stops and turns around, remembering why he’d asked Edmund to come with him and Caspian. “Ed, do you have a minute?”
Edmund raises his eyebrows, but comes along anyway. “So why were you going after Caspian like he’d just tried to invade Narnia?”
Peter shakes his head. “He asked a question – that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that, then?”
For a moment, Peter is silent, searching for the right words, then he says slowly, “Yesterday, when Nikabrik called the White Witch – you didn’t hesitate at all.”
Edmund gives him a thoughtful look. “You did,” he observes. “Why?”
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. You were afraid of her, Caspian had said. You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her? “I was just – frozen.” Given the subject, a bad choice of words, but true enough.
“I got over the White Witch a long time ago,” Edmund says slowly. “I had to, if I wanted to make it as a king of Narnia. But you – you never had to do that.” He stares at the lion on Peter’s shield. “I heard – later – that even Aslan couldn’t destroy the Witch entirely, because she’d come into Narnia at the very beginning of time, the same as him. She was – diminished in power, but not powerless. And she could be raised with the proper offering.”
“That,” Peter says meaningfully, “somehow, I guessed.”
“I think she always wanted you more than she wanted me,” Edmund continues. “I mean, you’re the oldest, and if you fell, then the rest of us would fall apart – at least at the beginning. I was just there – convenient. It was never personal with me, but you, you brought Aslan back into Narnia, or at least she always thought you did. And you took her throne. I think it annoyed her a little bit.”
“I never told you about my nightmares,” Peter says abruptly.
Edmund blinks. “What nightmares?”
Peter hesitates, and then he says, “About a year after we came to Narnia, I started having nightmares about the White Witch. I had them for years, up until a year ago, when they stopped.”
“When we left Narnia,” Edmund says.
He nods. “I had another one not two hours ago, for the first time since. And I failed, Ed. I lost you, and the girls, and Aslan, and Narnia – I saw my country covered in snow that never melted, children shivering out in the cold, the dead lying out for evil things to take. Statues, Ed, I saw statues, my people frozen and dying and dead by her hand –” He hears the harsh, ragged sound in his voice, like he’s panting for air, and has to stop.
Edmund grabs him and his hands are so warm they might as well be burning. “Come back to me, Pete,” he orders. “High King, come back. None of that happened. Narnia is free, and ours, and in the midst of summer, and the White Witch is long dead. High King Peter, come back.”
Peter draws one ragged breath, then another, fixing his gaze on the lion head on the pommel of Edmund’s sword. The eyes are miniature chips of sapphire (blue was always Edmund’s color) and they seem to glow as he stares at him. For a moment he feels the warmth of a lion’s breath on his face, and then that, too, is gone.
“Pete?” Edmund says, and Peter is aware, now, that his brother is holding him up. “Are you back with me?” On the tip of his tongue are the words High King; he doesn’t need to say them again just yet. Peter remembers.
“I’m all right,” he assures him, pulling himself together.
Edmund lets go of him. “She’s gone, you know,” he says. “Centuries ago. Aslan barred her from coming back to Narnia without –”
“Without a sacrifice,” Peter finishes. “She won’t get one.”
Almost, almost, so many times, so close to falling and failing – and he’d saved his sisters, and his brother, and himself. So many of her people and his had wanted to bring her back from whatever unholy grave Aslan had sent her to. He can’t fail now, not after so long.
Edmund touches his bare wrist, and the light touch of his fingers could be a burning brand. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. “That war is over. We have a new one now.”
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse
Rating: PG
Summary: "They didn't call it the golden age when I was king."
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia belong to C.S. Lewis. Situations from the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie belong to Walden Media. The title comes from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Burnt Norton.
Author's Notes: Takes place during the Prince Caspian movie, after the White Witch and before the war meeting.
Peter wakes up screaming.
Shaking, his throat aching, he sits up and bends over to get his head in the vicinity of his knees, clutching the rough blanket between his fingers. His ragged breath breaks the stillness of the room – cave, really; the How is one big warren. He’d said he would share with Edmund, over and over again, but the badger who’s been arranging rooming for everyone had given him a look like Peter had begun carving up the minotaurs (which he’s been tempted to do; every time he looks at them he remembers fifteen years of war and can’t keep his hand from straying to his sword) and ignored him. While Lucy and Susan are sharing a room, the badger – Blackpaw – has put Edmund in with Caspian, which neither of them are particularly happy about. Peter is the High King, and the least that New-Old Narnia in exile can give him is his own room. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He’s fairly certain he doesn’t want anyone else here to see this.
Still shaking, Peter gets up and goes over to the crockery basin and jug sitting in the corner of the room, splashing cold water on his face and neck. The shock of it – it’s icy cold – doesn’t do anything for his nerves, especially given the…circumstances…of his dream. Peter wipes his hands dry on his trousers and braces himself on the wall, listening to the faint sound of singing down below in the big main room of the How. He can’t make out the words through the layers of stone and earth.
His throat is raw, the kind of raw that comes from screaming or cold. He vaguely thinks that he’d like something warm, and for that he’ll have to go downstairs. Aching like he’s just run a marathon, Peter pulls on his surcoat and hesitates for a moment before taking his dagger rather than his sword. Even though they’re at a state of war (which sums up his entire reign neatly), he’s not leaving the How, and he can do nearly as much damage with a dagger as with a sword, if he doesn’t have the time to run back up for the rest of his weapons.
The door – one of the few in the How – is made of thick, heavy wood and Peter pushes it open without trouble. Something moves in the corridor, and Peter’s hand is on the dagger before Caspian says, “High King –”
Caspian doesn’t know how close he came to being gutted in his own (however temporary) castle. Peter lets his hand drop away from the dagger. “Prince Caspian,” he returns, aware of the stiffness in his voice and trying to force it away.
“I heard you cry out,” Caspian says. “Is everything well?”
“A bad dream,” Peter says.
“Is it because of something I did?”
Not because of something Caspian did. Because of something Peter didn’t do. “No.”
Caspian is looking at Peter like he doesn’t believe him and Peter has one shining moment where he almost goes for his dagger again, because he feels trapped, and all his family knows better than to crowd him. But Caspian isn’t his family and he doesn’t know Peter well enough to know about the caves of Angrisla, about seventy-two hours alone in pitch-darkness with monsters tracking his steps and his people dead and dying around him. Peter swallows hard against the panic – it doesn’t help that he’s underground.
“I wanted –” Caspian begins. “I did something wrong.”
“Yes,” Peter says, because that’s true.
The boy looks a little surprised – Peter has to stop thinking of him as “the boy”, because Caspian is years older than him, although technically speaking Peter is more than a thousand years older – but rallies and says, “I wouldn’t have really done it.”
“Yes, you would have,” Peter corrects, because that’s true too. “You would have done it because you thought – you still think – that it would be the best thing for Narnia, because the White Witch may have held her in check for a hundred years, but at least during those hundred years no one invaded. You think that if four children,” and he’s aware of the irony in his voice, “could defeat the White Witch, you could as well.”
Caspian frowns at him, struck by surprise, and points out, “You were afraid of her.”
This is not a conversation Peter wants to have in a hallway. Granted, this is not a conversation Peter wants to have anytime, but he’d rather not have it here. He starts to turn away from Caspian, but the prince catches his arm.
“You were afraid of her,” he repeats, more certain now, and Peter thinks almost hysterically that not a week ago he hit a boy his own age for bumping him in the train station. Hitting Caspian would just result in Susan yelling at him again, though, and he’s not in the mood for that now.
“Let go of me,” Peter says, but Caspian keeps holding on.
“You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her?” He frowns again. “Is that what you were screaming about?”
“Take your hands off me,” Peter says, and any Narnian would have been halfway down the hallway and away from the High King by now, but Caspian isn’t like any Narnian Peter’s ever known. He doesn’t take his hands away. Instead he pushes closer, up in Peter’s space. He has enough height on him that he looms over Peter and doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it.
“I don’t understand,” he says. “You killed her centuries ago. What kind of power does she have over you that you’re still afraid of her?”
Peter has his hand on his dagger now, and the fact that Caspian doesn’t seem to notice speaks ill of him. “I didn’t kill the White Witch,” he says finally, clenching his fist hard on the pommel, feeling the little lion’s head dig into his skin. “Aslan did. She nearly killed me. Something to learn, your highness, the things that scare you don’t vanish when they die. They live on in you.”
He can see that Caspian doesn’t understand, not yet, but he will someday, if he lives long enough. Instead, Caspian stares at him and seems to make up his mind about something that Peter’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to hear.
“Is it true,” Caspian begins, “is it true that your brother was a traitor before he became a king?”
“That’s Edmund’s question to answer,” Peter says, and swallows down the panic to add with every bit of dignity he has, “If you don’t mind, I’d like some air to breathe.”
For a moment, Caspian looks confused, then he seems to realize what he’s doing and steps back. Peter takes a deep breath, then another, and forces his hand away from the dagger. He sees Caspian’s eyes fix on that, startled. He’s getting used to seeing that expression; Caspian never seems to know how to react when confronted with him. Half the time he sees the High King; half the time he sees a boy three-quarters his age. This is the problem with working with humans.
“If he’d betrayed you – when he was king,” Caspian continues after a pause, “what would you have done?”
“I would have taken his head off in Cair Paravel for all of Narnia to see,” Peter says without pause. He would have. Edmund knows that. All of Narnia had known that after the first time less than a month after his coronation.
“You would have?” Caspian bursts out. “Your own brother?”
“Brother or no, king or no, treason is treason,” Peter says flatly. He’d never had to try and convict one of his own siblings, but there were other traitors in Narnia, people he’d trusted once, people who’d turned on him on the battlefield, people who’d tried to kill him and his family as they slept in their beds. Cair Paravel has seen more blood shed in its halls than any other battleground Peter has fought on, even the Telmarine castle where his Narnians fought and died less than a day ago.
“What would you have done then?”
His head hurts. He doesn’t want to answer this, and he doesn’t want to think about it, but Caspian will be king of Narnia someday and he will have to know this. Peter eyes Caspian thoughtfully for a long time before he says slowly, “I would have gone into the field until I thought my sisters were less than likely to put a dagger in my skull while I was sleeping.”
The boy – not a boy, decidedly not, even if he seems so much younger than Peter was when he was his age – stares at him. “You would have started a war?”
Now Peter understands why Professor Kirke spent so much time complaining about England’s education system. He’s half of a mind to start complaining about Narnia’s, because what are they teaching children now? It’s a false statement, of course; he’s had the circumstances explained to him several times now, but when Caspian’s been living with Narnians for as long as he has, he ought to know this.
“I never had to start a war,” he says with elaborate patience. “I can count on one hand the number of times Narnia made the first move and still have fingers left over. Narnia was at war every year I was High King, fighting off giants from the North and Calormenes from the South. The White Witch might have been defeated, but her army scattered all over Narnia and no few of them tried to take her place. I had to reconquer Terebinthia and the Lone Islands. I was only at Cair Paravel two months out of every twelve during the best of it.”
Caspian looks beyond confused. “But – there has never been peace in Narnia like there was during the Golden Age.”
“Possibly because I spent most of your golden age at war to make sure there was something to be peaceful,” Peter says. “They didn’t call it the golden age when I was king.” They called it the Great Summer, and called him the King of Summer. He’s heard a few people whisper the title as he’s walked past. “What do you want, Caspian?” If it was just the question about Edmund – never a secret, but not something that was spoken of, and he’s surprised the knowledge has survived down the centuries.
Caspian hesitates, and then he says, “The Telmarines have legends of High King Peter too.”
“Really?” Peter says, surprised. He’d thought that of all the peoples in Narnia, the Telmarines would try the hardest to destroy his history.
“They’re…different,” Caspian allows. “Most of the stories are about the High King – you – cleansing Narnia of…creatures. And Queen Susan was your wife.”
“She’s not,” Peter points out dryly. He’s heard those stories too. Most of them are confused about whether Susan (or occasionally Lucy) is his sister or his wife. Edmund is usually relegated to background noise if he’s there at all. He’s always found it funny how these things work.
Caspian flushes. “I’ve noticed that,” he says.
He’s noticed more than that, but Peter realized a long time ago that Susan could take of herself as far as her paramours went. He waits patiently.
“My professor taught me Narnian history,” Caspian continues. “And he said that some of the stories are all true, and some of them are partially true, and some of them aren’t true at all. And I’ve heard some of them here.”
For a moment Peter doesn’t answer, waiting for Caspian to finish his thought, and while they’re both quiet a snatch of music drifts up from below, accompanied by Edmund’s sudden laugh. Some trick of the tunnels makes the words clear.
Now Peter was a noble king, brave and strong and fair,
Lucy was a healer, with her sword as light as air
And Edmund was the second son, the High King’s voice and arm
Queen Susan was called gentle, but she also would do harm!
“That survived?” Edmund shouts, and Peter resists the urge to beat his head into the tunnel wall. He concurs with his brother. It’s not the worst of them, by far – Narnia tends toward good music, but not everything that they think is good really is good – but even though he’s had fifteen years to get used to hearing his name and his deeds made common entertainment, most of it still makes him blush.
“That one’s true,” Peter confides to Caspian, because Caspian looks like the question is on the tip of his tongue. “More or less. More rather than less, actually, at least in my day.” He’s tempted to go down and listen to see how much of it has changed, but he’s really not in the mood. He isn’t surprised that Edmund is, though; after a battle, Peter broods and Edmund finds a distraction.
Caspian’s evidently heard the song before, because he brightens at this and says, “Everything I’ve ever heard says you’re the greatest warrior Narnia has ever seen.”
Peter almost answers this, and then he stops. “Wait here a moment,” he says to Caspian, and goes back inside his room to get his sword and shield, strapping on his swordbelt while Caspian watches, surprised and a little confused. “Do you think you’re a good swordsman?”
Caspian stares at him blankly. “I had the best tutors in Narnia,” he says. “And I crossed swords with you.”
“Not for long,” Peter points out. “Come on.”
He leads the way down to the lower level of the How, briefly poking his head into the wide room where several fires are flickering and a number of people, including Edmund but not Susan or Lucy, are sitting, listening to a faun sing That Damned Song.
Now inside Cair Paravel another castle hid
And only High King Peter knew where its secrets led.
Into this second castle he went with sword in hand
And one by one he slew the traitor’s savage band.
Peter winces and says, “Ed, if you’re not enjoying yourself too much –”
Edmund glances over and grins as he gets up. “For you, o fair and noble king? Never.”
“Sometimes I think Aslan should have left you to the White Witch,” Peter grumbles and ignores Caspian’s surprised expression. Edmund has long since got over this.
“Someone has to keep you humble, High King,” Edmund says. “Or your head will get too big for your helmet.” He looks curiously at the sword at Peter’s side and then at Caspian, who’s still wearing his sword and dagger. “What’s up? He can’t have annoyed you so much already that you want witnesses now.”
“Not for that,” Peter says easily.
“Oh, that,” Edmund says, pulling a face. “When will you learn that you can’t solve everything by fighting it?”
“It’s been working out well for me so far,” Peter points out, starting through the tunnels again.
Edmund keeps pace with him, Caspian just behind. “That’s because you never had to deal with the dwarves when they got it into their heads to argue over their place in court. Or the fauns taking more than their share of the harvest. Or –”
They fall easily into their old bickering, familiar and comfortable. As usual, Edmund finishes it off with, “If you weren’t at war all the time –”
“If I wasn’t at war,” Peter says, like he has a thousand times at before, “you’d have much bigger things to worry about than whether or not the beavers or the wood-nymphs are in the right when it comes to the trees. And in war everything can be solved by strategic application of a sword to the head.”
“And people wonder why I’m the diplomat in the family,” Edmund confides to Caspian. “He doesn’t have the patience, and Susan’s a little too open-minded. Lucy’s all right, though. Sometimes too nice.”
“And sometimes things need a sword to the head,” Peter points out.
“And the last time he tried diplomacy he nearly started another war,” Edmund announces, making his point neatly.
“I wasn’t the one who brought two hundred Calormenes across the desert into Archenland,” Peter protests.
“I wasn’t the one who gave the heir to Calormen the idea that Susan was available!”
“Neither was I!” Peter shoots back. “She was doing that fine on her own!”
“And then you had to go off to fight giants –”
“Because they were invading!”
“– leaving me to make sure that Calormen didn’t use Archenland as a stepping stone to Narnia –”
“I knew you could handle it!”
“My lords?” Caspian interrupts as they pass into a cavern with no other exits. He looks a little shell-shocked, Peter notices as he glances over.
“Of course I could handle it,” Edmund finishes triumphantly. “One of us has to be better at more than one thing. A word of advice, Caspian – when we get to the point where we’re negotiating peace treaties with the Telmarines, don’t let Peter do it. His idea of peace negotiations include the words, ‘Absolute unconditional surrender or I destroy you, your land, and everything you hold dear.’”
“I only said that once,” Peter says, aware that his smile is taking on a fixed quality.
Edmund, who’s always been good at noticing his moods, grins slightly in apology and changes the subject. “What exactly were you planning to do to Caspian, Pete?”
“Make a point,” Peter says. They’re in the wide, empty cavern that they’ve been using for weapons practice and Peter steps back, drawing his sword. “Caspian.”
“I would have been content to take your word on it,” Caspian says, moving to the other side of the cavern and drawing his own sword. He doesn’t have a shield, so Peter discards his.
“No, you wouldn’t have,” Peter says, moving to a ready position.
Edmund sighs and leans against a wall, pulling an apple out of a pocket and biting into it. “You don’t want to use practice sheathes? Live steel is dangerous.”
“And we both know what we’re doing,” Peter points out and moves before Caspian even knows what’s happening. The Telmarine prince gets his sword up in time – barely. Peter is sliding away before the clash of metal has finished reaching his ears, slashing across Caspian’s chest with the flat of his blade. If he’d used the edge, he would have spilled Caspian’s guts across the floor. The next blow would take out Caspian’s legs, cutting them out from beneath him, and the next his head. Peter slows down a little to let Caspian stagger backwards, sword in front of him and just barely managing to parry Peter’s blows. Peter disengages and slams the pommel of his sword into Caspian’s face, stopping with the metal millimeters away from Caspian’s left eye, then pivots and kicks Caspian’s legs out from beneath him, ending with his sword resting on the back of Caspian’s neck. He steps back and offers Caspian a hand up, and as Caspian straightens and lets go of his hand, Peter attacks again. Killing strike. Killing strike. Parry, riposte, feint, killing strike. Killing strike. Maiming strike. Killing strike. Caspian gets in a few good blows – he’s right, he is good, but he fights like he learned in practice bouts and not a battlefield, and he can’t pull his blows the way Peter can, so by the time he steps back, holding up both hands – Peter has knocked his sword across the cavern – Peter’s the one bleeding where Caspian has cut shallowly across his cheek.
“I concede the point,” he says. “You’re a better swordsman that I am.”
I could have told you that, Peter doesn’t say, but he resheathes his sword and wipes the blood off his cheek. “Is that what you wanted to know?” he asks.
“I didn’t really need that…literal…of a demonstration,” Caspian points out, panting. His face is flushed and sweaty and he fumbles his sword a little as he picks it up and gets it back in its sheathe; Peter is certain his hands are cramped.
Edmund tosses the apple he’s been eating away and strides forward. “We are talking about my brother here,” he says. “Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. Practice sheathes,” he adds. “I know better than to fight with you and not have any protection. I like my head attached to my neck, thanks.”
“Around you, I’m a little more worried about my head,” Peter says, looking around for the practice sheathes. He’s sparred with Trumpkin, Reepicheep, and Glenstorm, but not Edmund, not since they’d left Narnia the last time.
Caspian straightens and goes around to the worn wooden chest in the back of the room to dig them out. Peter fits one over his blade and tosses the other to Edmund.
“Because I didn’t have enough bruises already,” Edmund grumbles and strikes, a whirling overhead blow that Peter parries, driving Edmund back across the floor. Edmund’s a little out of practice; Peter feints right and slashes shallowly down Edmund’s side, across his heart. Edmund lets out a grunt at the pressure and manages to deflect Peter’s next blow, but he doesn’t get his sword up in time to stop Peter as he swings, stopping with the leather-covered blade just touching Edmund’s neck.
“I forgot how ungodly fast you are,” Edmund grumbles, pushing the blade away with his hand and prodding his side. “That’ll bruise.”
“Probably,” Peter agrees and attacks before Edmund has a chance to regroup. They go back and forth at each other across the rough cave floor, ducking around the columns and Caspian, who’s sitting on the floor against a wall and watching with wide eyes. At one point some four or five rounds in, Edmund knocks his sword out of his hand and Peter grabs Edmund’s wrist with both hands and slams the pommel of his sword into his face. Edmund kicks him in the ankle, but without any effect, and Peter hits him in the face again, then twists until Edmund drops the sword.
“Ow!” he exclaims, stepping backwards and clutching his face as Peter picks up both their swords. He takes his hands away to look at them and winces. “I’m bleeding! I need my face!”
Peter goes over to check the damage. There’s a dark bruise blooming across Edmund’s cheek, spread up over his left eye, and the skin is split on a ridge of cheekbone, a little bubble of blood welling up. “Well, it can’t make you look worse,” he offers, and Edmund hits him half-heartedly with an open fist.
“Next time I’m hitting you in your pretty face, High King, and we’ll see how you like that.”
“You’ve already done that a dozen times,” Peter points out. He has a split lip from colliding with Edmund’s padded sword, but that’s the worst of his visible injuries. The rest of his bruises are hidden under his clothes.
Edmund scowls at him. “Are you even tired, Pete?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” Peter says, even though he is. He’s out of practice, is what he is, and just being in Narnia helps with getting his old skill back, but not his endurance. That he has to work at. It takes less time than it might back in England, but he still has to work at it. “That might give you an unfair advantage.”
“Entirely fair,” Edmund assures him. “Trust me, entirely fair. Maybe even not fair enough.” He stretches out his wrists, wincing a little bit.
Peter echoes the motion. He’s stiff from fighting yesterday, and he hadn’t warmed up before fighting Caspian. One of these days, he will actually learn – probably when he’s doing archery with Susan – but today is obviously not that day. “Is there anything you feel might even the odds?” he asks dryly.
“Amputation,” Edmund says promptly. “But barring that – you think we can still do that old trick?”
“What – you mean that trick?”
Edmund grins and nods. “I’ll still get my arse kicked, but you need the practice.”
“And you don’t?” Peter asks matter-of-factly, digging in his pocket and coming up with his tie. “Come over here and tie this for me, Ed,” he says, “otherwise you’ll decide it’s not tight enough.”
Edmund wraps the soft material around his face and Peter’s vision goes black. He shifts his position automatically, drawing his sword. Caspian moves against the wall and Edmund takes a few steps away; Peter hears the rasp of steel as he draws his sword. There are footsteps behind him, but Peter disregards that after a moment when they don’t advance any farther.
Neither he nor Edmund says anything. The rough floor is good for this; Peter can hear Edmund move forward. He parries, and the sound of muted steel on muted steel is almost startling. For the first few minutes, he’s reacting rather than acting, trying to get back into the habit of this, and then he slides his sword away from Edmund’s and strikes. This time he’s on the offensive, driving Edmund back, and Edmund doesn’t have a chance to parry before Peter’s sword is against his chest. He’s not willing to try for the neck just now, not until he’s more sure of his current ability to not accidentally kill his brother.
“You!” Edmund half-wails as Peter shoves the blindfold up over his eyes, blinking at the sudden light. He slides the practice sheathe off and sheathes his sword, grinning and shaking his head. “Were you practicing in England, Pete?”
“Who would I do that with?” Peter asks philosophically. “It’s not like there were exactly a lot of options.” He sheathes his sword and turns around, surprised to see Glenstorm, Reepicheep, and Susan watching. Susan just shakes her head when he catches her eyes.
“You are just as skilled with a blade as the legends say,” Glenstorm tells him solemnly.
“Thanks,” Peter says. He looks around for Caspian, but the prince has slipped out sometime when Peter had the blindfold on and is nowhere in sight.
“This is ridiculous,” Edmund grumbles. “Before a week ago, you hadn’t touched a sword in a year. Nobody’s that good.”
“I did do the fencing club in school,” Peter points out. “For a while.”
“Yes, and then you got kicked out for being too violent,” Susan says.
“Narnian fencing is very different from English fencing,” he protests.
Susan shakes her head again. “Only you, Peter,” she says. “Only you. It’s not like I joined the archery club.”
Peter sighs and collects his shield from the floor. Edmund prods his face again. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now,” he announces. “After fifteen years –”
“You’ve done me pretty well a few times too,” Peter reminds him.
“Yes, but the other nine times out of ten –” Edmund says. “You could have broken my nose!”
“I haven’t done that in years!” Peter says indignantly. “Except for that one time in England,” he adds. “And that wasn’t on purpose.”
“We go to war together for fifteen years and he breaks my nose by slamming a door in my face in Finchley a week after we left the Professor’s,” Edmund says to no one in particular. “Mum was furious. She thought we’d been fighting.”
Peter claps him on the shoulder. “You might want to ice that, if we have any,” he recommends. “I’m going to bed.”
“Ha,” Edmund says bitterly. “At least I can make treaties without starting wars.”
“That’s never actually happened,” Susan says practically. “Although we did come very close a few times.”
“You mean Peter came very close,” Edmund corrects. “I was the one fixing his problems.”
Susan frowns at him. “I think Lu and I helped a bit.”
“There is a reason there are four of us,” Peter says, smiling. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He starts away, nodding at Reepicheep’s comments – something about his grip and his swing – and then stops and turns around, remembering why he’d asked Edmund to come with him and Caspian. “Ed, do you have a minute?”
Edmund raises his eyebrows, but comes along anyway. “So why were you going after Caspian like he’d just tried to invade Narnia?”
Peter shakes his head. “He asked a question – that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What’s that, then?”
For a moment, Peter is silent, searching for the right words, then he says slowly, “Yesterday, when Nikabrik called the White Witch – you didn’t hesitate at all.”
Edmund gives him a thoughtful look. “You did,” he observes. “Why?”
Peter shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. You were afraid of her, Caspian had said. You destroyed her. Why were you afraid of her? “I was just – frozen.” Given the subject, a bad choice of words, but true enough.
“I got over the White Witch a long time ago,” Edmund says slowly. “I had to, if I wanted to make it as a king of Narnia. But you – you never had to do that.” He stares at the lion on Peter’s shield. “I heard – later – that even Aslan couldn’t destroy the Witch entirely, because she’d come into Narnia at the very beginning of time, the same as him. She was – diminished in power, but not powerless. And she could be raised with the proper offering.”
“That,” Peter says meaningfully, “somehow, I guessed.”
“I think she always wanted you more than she wanted me,” Edmund continues. “I mean, you’re the oldest, and if you fell, then the rest of us would fall apart – at least at the beginning. I was just there – convenient. It was never personal with me, but you, you brought Aslan back into Narnia, or at least she always thought you did. And you took her throne. I think it annoyed her a little bit.”
“I never told you about my nightmares,” Peter says abruptly.
Edmund blinks. “What nightmares?”
Peter hesitates, and then he says, “About a year after we came to Narnia, I started having nightmares about the White Witch. I had them for years, up until a year ago, when they stopped.”
“When we left Narnia,” Edmund says.
He nods. “I had another one not two hours ago, for the first time since. And I failed, Ed. I lost you, and the girls, and Aslan, and Narnia – I saw my country covered in snow that never melted, children shivering out in the cold, the dead lying out for evil things to take. Statues, Ed, I saw statues, my people frozen and dying and dead by her hand –” He hears the harsh, ragged sound in his voice, like he’s panting for air, and has to stop.
Edmund grabs him and his hands are so warm they might as well be burning. “Come back to me, Pete,” he orders. “High King, come back. None of that happened. Narnia is free, and ours, and in the midst of summer, and the White Witch is long dead. High King Peter, come back.”
Peter draws one ragged breath, then another, fixing his gaze on the lion head on the pommel of Edmund’s sword. The eyes are miniature chips of sapphire (blue was always Edmund’s color) and they seem to glow as he stares at him. For a moment he feels the warmth of a lion’s breath on his face, and then that, too, is gone.
“Pete?” Edmund says, and Peter is aware, now, that his brother is holding him up. “Are you back with me?” On the tip of his tongue are the words High King; he doesn’t need to say them again just yet. Peter remembers.
“I’m all right,” he assures him, pulling himself together.
Edmund lets go of him. “She’s gone, you know,” he says. “Centuries ago. Aslan barred her from coming back to Narnia without –”
“Without a sacrifice,” Peter finishes. “She won’t get one.”
Almost, almost, so many times, so close to falling and failing – and he’d saved his sisters, and his brother, and himself. So many of her people and his had wanted to bring her back from whatever unholy grave Aslan had sent her to. He can’t fail now, not after so long.
Edmund touches his bare wrist, and the light touch of his fingers could be a burning brand. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says. “That war is over. We have a new one now.”