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bedlamsbardHad they deceived us
Or deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders,
Bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit?
The serenity only a deliberate hebetude,
The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets
Useless in the darkness into which they peered
Or from which they turned their eyes.
– T.S. Eliot, “Four Quartets: East Coker”
The thing about being a soldier for fifteen years, Edmund finds, is that you can fall asleep anywhere and at any time. He isn’t a soldier the way Peter is, in his blood and bones, graven so deep on his heart that he’ll never free himself, but some things burn themselves in your mind. This is one of them. It doesn’t matter what things he’s seen this day, what horrors – his people dead and dying and slaughtered, the White Witch stretching out her hand and Peter hesitating – he needs the rest, and he may not be able to have it later.
Unfortunately, Caspian doesn’t share this skill. It is, of course, one of those gifts given only to soldiers that have been in the field; Edmund doesn’t even have to ask to know that this is the first time Caspian has ever been out of his own castle.
“King Edmund,” he says; the words are enough to bring Edmund out of a sound sleep and say grumpily, “What?”
“If he wasn’t your brother,” Caspian asks, “would you still follow him?”
There’s a sullen, angry note in his voice that’s not unfamiliar, even though Edmund hasn’t heard it from Caspian before. Fairly certain he knows where this is going – and it’s probably going to take a while too, unless he can head Caspian off early on – he sighs and rolls onto his back. “If he wasn’t my brother, I wouldn’t be here.” He’d either still be in England or he’d be dead; there aren’t any other options.
“But if you were.”
“Yes,” Edmund says without hesitation.
“Why?” There’s – animosity in Caspian’s voice, and plenty of it, but there’s curiosity as well.
“Because he’s my king.”
“But if he wasn’t,” Caspian continues.
Edmund rubs a hand over his eyes. What he really wants to do right now is go back to sleep, not play this old game with Caspian, who really has no idea what he’ll get himself into if he keeps up this line of questioning. “You mean,” he says, “if he wasn’t my brother and he wasn’t my king and if I’d been miraculously born in Narnia and hadn’t been killed by the White Witch for being human, would I still follow him? In a heartbeat.”
He turns his head in time to see Caspian’s startled expression in the dim light cast by the dark-lantern. “But why?”
“Because he’s a good king,” Edmund says, “and a great general, and the best fighter I’ve ever met.”
“Not that you can tell,” Caspian mutters.
Edmund has It helps if you don’t bollocks everything up on the tip of his tongue, but whatever diplomatic instincts he’s regained rein it in. “Don’t say it,” he tells him instead.
“Say what?”
This is a really fascinating conversation. Edmund is beginning to wish he’d followed Peter’s example and taken a wineskin to bed tonight. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “Don’t do it, don’t say it, don’t even think about it. Peter doesn’t suffer usurpers lightly. Or at all.”
“It’s not his throne,” Caspian says, still sullen, without the edge of wariness Edmund is trying to impress on him.
He doesn’t hold his tongue this time. “Only because your people destroyed it and everything in the area,” Edmund points out flatly. “He’s the High King of Narnia. I really wouldn’t try using that excuse on him.”
“What’s he going to do,” the boy grumbles, “kill me?”
This is why Peter keeps looking at Caspian like he wants to beat his skull in with the hilt of his sword. “Very publicly and very permanently. He’s taken heads for less than what you’ve just said. In your case,” Edmund adds a little viciously, “he’d probably enjoy it. I would.” On second thought, perhaps he hasn’t regained any diplomatic instincts. Oh, well. It doesn’t seem likely he’s going to need them anyway, if Peter keeps up his usual trend of destroying everything in his path.
Caspian falls silent.
This achieved, Edmund rolls back over onto his side, back to Caspian, and goes back to sleep.
The thing about soldiers is that they don’t sleep deeply – or rather, they can sleep through normal disturbances; Edmund has a theory that part of a soldier’s brain never really shuts down and stays awake instead, categorizing every sound, every movement, as either a danger or not. When Edmund finds himself awake, already reaching for the hilt of his sword beside his bedroll, he doesn’t know why. He does know there’s a reason for it, and it’s probably not even Caspian’s fault this time, because the Telmarine prince is still asleep.
Edmund draws his sword with a slither of steel and kicks his blankets aside, leaning over to put his free hand over Caspian’s mouth. Caspian’s eyes snap open instantly. “Shh,” Edmund says, taking his hand away, and turns toward the door. That means he’s standing when it opens. It means the arrow misses him and thuds into his bedroll instead.
That gets Caspian’s attention, but Edmund’s already tuned him out. Two-handed, he swings as the door opens further, but he’s miscalculated; it’s not the archer that’s first through the door, but the sleek, familiar body of a tiger. Edmund’s blow is too high and the tiger springs at him in his moment of hesitation, knocking him down as Edmund’s grip on his sword loosens and sends the weapon spinning away.
“FUCK!” Edmund yells, hands flying up to keep the tiger’s jaws off his face. He knows this, he knows this, but he hadn’t done this in years even before their return to England. It just hadn’t been needed, and he isn’t Peter, he doesn’t practice everything because it might be needed sometime. God, he misses Vartouhi and Saben. The royal guard wouldn’t let this happen.
The thing is that tigers are a lot stronger than people, and Edmund isn’t as strong or as big as he used to be, and the tiger’s teeth are coming closer and closer to his face. He kicks hard, trying to throw the tiger, but he’s not wearing boots and all he manages to do is impact on hard muscle.
Oh, how lovely. I’m going to die an ignominious death because I hesitated attacking something that looked like one of my old bodyguards. Charming. Good on you, King Edmund.
With a strangled shout of pain, the tiger’s head comes up, fast, and hits Edmund in the face. Attention distracted, it springs over his head – presumably at Caspian, Edmund is assuming, although he doesn’t bother looking. He grabs for his sword and comes up on his knees and this time he doesn’t hesitate. The tiger dies without another sound and Caspian staggers back, tunic torn but otherwise unhurt.
Edmund gets to his feet, and shoves his way out into the hall, shouting for his brother. He steps over a body without really seeing it – good for Caspian, because it certainly wasn’t Edmund who killed the archer – and sees Peter come tearing into the hall, shirt bloody and Rhindon shining in his hand.
“Ed –” he says, alarmed, and it’s only then that Edmund realizes his nose is bleeding.
“Little bastard hit me in the face, I’m all right,” he says matter-of-factly. “Your arm –”
Then Lucy screams. Lucy never screams; Edmund spins on his heel and sees the centaur staggering backwards out of their room, two of Susan’s telltale red arrows in him. The second centaur – Strongback, Edmund recognizes him; one of Glenstorm’s troop – shoulders it aside and goes tearing down the hall, Peter on his heels before he’s even finished shouting orders to Edmund over his shoulder. The words aren’t clear, but they don’t have to be; Edmund has been going to war with Peter for fifteen years now and he knows exactly what Peter means.
He throws himself into Lucy and Susan’s room, heart stopping in his throat as he sees Susan sprawled out on her bedroll, half her face seeming cut away, blood and bits of bone and what looks terrifyingly like brain matter around her. Lucy is scrambling her cordial out from beneath her pillow, hands shaking badly until she gets them still enough to let a single drop of cordial fall into Susan’s mouth. Edmund drops to his knees beside her, vaguely aware of Caspian behind him, and holds his breath. He’s seen this – at least a hundred times, though never on Susan before. Usually Pete, sometimes Lucy herself, sometimes other members of the army – but it’s terrifying every time, because he always wonders what if it doesn’t work?
Susan’s face – blurs. There’s no other way to put it, as skin and bone and muscle knit themselves back together; it turns Edmund’s stomach to watch, but this time he can’t bear to look away just in case.
Susan opens her eyes and Edmund sends up a silent prayer of thanks to Father Christmas, wherever he may be. Lucy sits back on her heels and manages to cork her cordial before she starts shaking again.
“What happened?” Susan asks, pushing herself up on her elbows. “Why –”
Caspian says, shocked and startled and sounding like he’s just seen the dead rise, “You – you were just –”
“Hit on the head, yes, now she’s better,” Edmund snaps; this is old news and they don’t have time to babysit a sheltered princeling at the moment. They’ve got more important things to do, things that neither Edmund nor Lucy can handle. “Su, you’d better go, Peter’s going to want you. He can’t outrun a centaur, and Strongback’s going to be out of range by the time he gets someone to put an axe in his hand.” He pulls her to her feet and hands her the quiver still lying on the floor – her bow is already in her hand – and Susan nods sharply in thanks before following Peter out the door.
“All right, Lu?” Edmund says briefly, straightening and wiping the blood absently from his nose with the back of his left wrist. His sword is still in his hand; he approaches the hallway with it raised, ready to strike, although he’s pretty certain that the centaur – Sileas, he thinks; he’s almost certain the centaur’s name is Sileas, which is a Cian clan name, although he hasn’t yet figured out if New Narnia follows the old conventions – is too wounded to move.
He is. Edmund looks down at Sileas, who’s bleeding freely from Susan’s two arrows. Caspian is just behind his shoulder and he says, voice full of hurt shock, “What did we do to you, Sileas?”
The centaur spits a curse and reaches up to try and tug free the arrows, but his hands are too slippery with blood to get a grip. Edmund still doesn’t know what it was Peter ordered before he ran out, but he’s damn sure it was likely something along the lines of, “Keep him alive so I can execute him for high treason,” because that’s what it always is in this situation. He steps forward for a better look, rapidly estimating the extent of Sileas’s wounds. He needs to keep him alive for Peter; the question is whether he can just break off the arrows and bandage him or if he has to have Lucy give him a drop of cordial.
Unfortunately, it’s the latter, and for a moment Edmund is tempted to just let him bleed out here and tell Peter that he couldn’t save him, but given Pete’s temper even before this latest assassination attempt…not something he really wants to deal with. Besides, he’ll die anyway.
He turns to Caspian, who’s the only other person besides Lucy in the hallway right now. “Go find me someone big enough to hold down a centaur,” he says. “Preferably a griffin, although I suppose a minotaur would work too. Or another centaur.”
“Why?” Caspian asks, sounding suspicious.
“Because the High King said to keep him alive,” Edmund says flatly, trusting that this is, in fact, what Peter said. He’s positive it is. “Of course, if you really feel like defying Peter, you can do nothing, and I’ll tell him you just let Sileas die here, never mind disobeyed a king of Narnia.”
He isn’t looking at Caspian, but he hears the boy’s quick, indignant intake of breath before he steps away and goes down the stairs.
“I think we should just kill him,” Lucy says.
Edmund turns so he can keep one eye on Sileas and one eye on Lucy, wiping the blood off his face again. He’s trying just to use his left hand; he doesn’t want his sword hand to get slippery if he has to fight again. This day is just a disaster in every way possible; the only good news is that Susan’s not dead. They really need to stop coming to Narnia in the middle of various crises; this isn’t nearly as bad as the White Witch, but few things are.
If this was their Narnia, the hall would be swarming with members of the royal guard and half the army. Instead it’s just him and Lucy, waiting for a Telmarine princeling to fetch someone who should already be here. Briefly, Edmund wonders if this assassination plot – relatively well-plotted out; a tri-fold hit isn’t that easy to arrange, especially with so many people – isn’t the work of the army itself, Glenstorm or Trufflehunter or Trumpkin, someone who’s decided that they aren’t doing a good enough job and need to die in order to get out of the way. No: this miniature army is large enough that even the four of them could be overrun, especially in this hallway where there’s no retreat. Besides, they went after Caspian too, although that doesn’t mean much.
He turns his head at the rustle of wings and the click of claws on the stairs. Caspian has brought Cirocco, whose eyes are red with anger. “Majesty, I am yours to command,” she says to Edmund, great head dipping in respect. She transfers her attention to Sileas and inquires, “Do you want me to rip him apart?”
“Not at the moment,” Edmund says. “Hold him down, will you? I have to take the arrows out.”
Her wings mantle briefly, raising dust from the hall, and she snarls, “But why not just kill him now?”
“Because the High King gave orders to the contrary,” Edmund says.
Cirocco strides over to Sileas and clambers onto his back, clamping all four sets of talons into his sides. Griffins, Edmund knows, like cats, have the ability to make themselves seem heavier than they really are. They’re ideal for this sort of thing, and that’s not even counting the wings.
“Ed, no, you’re bleeding,” Lucy says as he starts to approach, pushing past him. “I do still remember how to do this, you know.”
Edmund lets her go without protest, taking the opportunity to pull the bottom of his shirt up to his face to try and staunch the bleeding. The white fabric, already spattered with droplets of blood, quickly turns red. It will only slow him down by a few seconds, and anyway, Caspian and Cirocco are here. Unless someone else comes up the stairs with death in their hearts, or Peter has left someone alive but unconscious in his room – unlikely; his sword unbloodied, Peter must have been fighting with bare hands, and leaving enemies alive in battle is careless and messy and unlike him. Unless of course he’s in a horrible mood like he is currently, and on second thought, Edmund should probably be watching Peter’s room as well. Peter likes leaving would-be assassins alive to kill very publicly and messily later.
Viewed through the veil of England, there is a possibility that his brother is a little bit of a sociopath.
Quickly and expertly, Lucy pulls the arrows out and holds them out behind her; Edmund takes them with the same hand that has his sword in it, juggling them awkwardly for a moment before he has everything well in hand. Her hands thusly freed, Lucy produces her cordial – Edmund has no idea where she’s been keeping it – and says sternly, “You’re going to die in five minutes if you don’t drink this. Drink it,” and puts a drop in Sileas’s mouth as he’s opening it – presumably to protest, Edmund suspects.
“Good,” Peter says from the stairwell, and Edmund barely keeps himself from jumping. He hadn’t heard Peter; may Aslan damn the man for being so quiet even when he doesn’t mean it. “Trumpkin and Reepicheep are securing the prisoners,” he adds, striding forward; Edmund can see that Susan is behind him now. “Make sure he joins them.”
“Yes, but why do you want them alive?” Cirocco demands again, staring at him.
Peter looks at her with a cool, calm gaze and says flatly, “So I can kill them later.” He glances at Edmund, nods, and then turns his attention elsewhere, “Lu, are you all right?”
Susan edges past him and comes over to Edmund. With the light better in the hall, he has his first good look at her: blood all down her right side, starting at her hairline and spread in a messy pool on her shift. Tonight has been a bad night for clothes all ‘round; Lucy is giving Peter a drop of her cordial for his injured arm.
“Su, you look horrible,” Edmund says, because she really, really does.
“Why, thank you, Ed,” Susan replies, smiling a little wryly. “You look quite wretched yourself. How bad was it?” She raises one hand to touch the scar on her face.
Edmund can’t answer immediately, because Lucy turns her attention on him and says, “Ed, you too, you’re hurt –”
“No, I’m fine; look, it’s already stopped bleeding,” Edmund says, pulling his shirt away from his face. It goes with a wet, sticky sound and he holds his breath, but he’s right this time: his nose really has stopped bleeding. “That’s the worst of it.” He’s not even bitten, he realizes belatedly; the tiger’s teeth had never broken what skin they touched.
He turns his attention back to Susan, who’s waiting patiently. “Su, your head was completely split open. You might want these.” He holds out her arrows, still pressed against the hilt of his sword; Susan smiles at him and takes the arrows, murmuring a quiet thank you.
“Pete,” he says finally, even though this last is unnecessary. Expected, of course, but unnecessary. “Did you get them?”
Peter comes over, pulling the sticky fabric of his bloodsoaked sleeve away from his shoulder. “With Su’s help,” he says, voice sharp and a little distracted.
At last, at last, Trufflehunter and a pair of minotaurs come up the stairs. It’s about time reinforcements show up, after all the action, of course. Edmund really isn’t sure what to think of this new Narnia, except to wish fervently for the old one. Never mind his bodyguards; he’d kill for Roden and Oreius and, God, Hadassar.
Not that Hadassar would fit inside the How, but there’s no better ally for an army than a dragon.
“There are another three in my room,” Peter snaps at Trufflehunter as one of the minotaurs hauls Sileas up, Cirocco slipping off his back and pacing along behind, tail lashing furiously. “One of them might still be alive.”
Translation from Peter to English: One of them I saved to kill later.
“Three just for you?” Edmund says, trying to distract his brother. “Now that hurts.”
Peter’s not listening. Susan turns from her conversation with Caspian and says politely, “Get the body out of my room first, please. I’d like to change.”
“There were two for both of us,” Edmund tries again. “I think I’m insulted.” Still no reaction from Peter, and he sighs and adds, “I need to change too. I don’t particularly care about the bodies, I just want a new shirt.”
Predictably, neither Peter nor Caspian notices when he goes down the hall to his own room. The archer’s body – faun, unfamiliar; Edmund doesn’t feel the expected stab of anger that a member of the race that has traditionally been their allies just tried to kill him, mostly because it’s happened before, the allies thing be damned – is still in the doorway. The tiger’s a little further into the room. Edmund stares at them both, sword hanging limply from his hand, and thinks, What in the name of Aslan did we do this time?
He has to step over the big bulk of the tiger’s body to get at his bag and cleans his sword mostly by touch; there isn’t much light coming in from the hallway. He doesn’t turn around when Caspian comes in and starts lighting the torches, nor when Trufflehunter’s minotaurs haul out the bodies. He only looks up once he’s changed his clothes and buckled on his swordbelt, and then he finds Caspian looking at him intently.
“What?”
“You don’t seem very…concerned,” Caspian says hesitantly.
“Oh, I’m concerned all right,” Edmund mutters. “Been there, done that, lost the thrill,” he says for Caspian’s ears. “It’s happened before. We’re – unfortunately – used to this. Come on.”
He goes out into the hall and leans against the wall, waiting for Peter. For lack of anything else to do with his hands, he unsheathes his dagger and begins sharpening it, listening to the whisk sound of the metal.
“I don’t understand,” Caspian says, following him. “Why would Sileas and the others do this? I thought they considered you their rightful rulers.”
“Apparently not,” Edmund says. “Maybe they like ruling themselves. Maybe they’re working for your uncle Miraz. Maybe they just don’t like humans. There are any number of reasons someone would try to assassinate us; I’ve heard most of them at some point or another.”
He glances up to see Caspian’s surprised expression. “But…the Golden Age was the most peaceful era Narnia has ever seen.”
Edmund nearly drops his dagger and whetstone and only manages not to burst out laughing by biting his lip so hard it hurts. “No,” he says finally when he has control of himself, “not by a long shot. I don’t know what you’ve heard – although from what the Narnians have said, at this point I don’t want to know – but Narnia didn’t have more than a month of peace when we reigned. Well, maybe more than a month of peace if you don’t count bandit attacks as actual wars, but between everyone on every border and a lot of people who weren’t on our borders trying to invade and the country doing its damned to rip itself apart from the inside, I’m surprised we had that much. And everyone sent assassins. Peter’s probably taken more heads for high treason than there are people in this entire army.”
Caspian, unsurprisingly, gapes in surprise. Edmund is saved from taking a leaf out of Peter’s book and beating him to death with the flat of his sword by the entry of Susan and Lucy into the hallway.
“All right, sis?” Edmund asks brightly as he sheathes his dagger and replaces his whetstone. Susan is still too pale for comfort. That was a lot of blood loss, and the cordial doesn’t replace everything.
“A little tired,” Susan replies, smiling at him, “but that might just be from the fact that I wasn’t actually asleep before the assassination attempts began.”
“Nah,” Edmund says from the vantage point of having been healed more times than he wants to admit and watching Peter get put back together even more often. “That’s from Lu’s cordial. The energy has to come from somewhere. Have you – no, you haven’t actually, have you,” he corrects himself. Susan never has been healed; she’s never been hurt badly enough to need it to survive, and any other time they might have used it on her Lucy was out of reach of even their fastest couriers – in their day, griffins, which he remembers vividly sending for the first time after Peter got himself chopped to pieces in the caves of Angrisla. All things considered, not a pleasant memory, even aside from the blinding terror of being attacked in almost pitch-darkness while trying to find Peter and the remains of his army.
Susan’s likely thinking of something similar, because she says, smile turning into a frown, “Peter –”
“Peter doesn’t have the common sense Aslan gave a squirrel, and you may have possibly noticed that he fights battles, gets healed, fights some more, and then falls over and sleeps for three days,” Edmund says bluntly; unfortunately, it’s the truth. It’s been the truth more than once; Peter has bad habits. “Which, granted,” he allows, “is sometimes necessary, but most of the time it’s just stupid. Although in retrospect, it might just be because Lucy’s healed him so often he’s started to – he started to,” he corrects himself, because if they’re physically younger and have lost all their scars – Peter has a chunk of his finger back that he hasn’t had for fourteen years; Edmund can no longer wear an earring – then they may well have lost other things too, “work up an immunity, so his own body had to do more and more of the work. The cordial just…got the ball rolling.” He’d noticed it himself; it took longer and longer for the cordial to heal his body, and afterward he’d be exhausted for anywhere from a few hours to more than a day, depending on the extent of his injuries. But he didn’t get himself hurt as often as Peter did. Peter makes nearly dying in battle a habit.
He looks toward the stairs at the sound of feet on stone – four of them, and light, so he’s not surprised to see a mouse appear. It’s Peepiceek, Reepicheep’s second-in-command, and he sweeps a bow as he sees them. Edmund bites his tongue on the reminder that such courtesies are for court, not an army camp, but Peter hasn’t commented on it yet, so he won’t.
“Your majesties, my captain bids me tell you that the prisoners are confined in the red cave, to be questioned at your leisure,” the mouse says.
The red cave is on the ground level, with a solid door and no second exit. They’d been keeping weapons there; presumably they’ve been moved somewhere else for interim. Well, if Peter has his way, there will weapons in there again before dusk tonight. It’s a good choice.
“We’ll probably be down in a few minutes as soon as Peter finishes primping,” Edmund says, phrasing his words to dismiss Peepiceek and hoping the mouse gets the message. It’s informal, but Narnia’s always been informal unless Peter’s in a really bad mood. And even then it depends on how bad his mood actually is: sometimes he goes High Court, sometimes Low, and sometimes he transcends formality and goes straight for yelling and violence.
“Su, did you want to join us?” he adds, even though Susan doesn’t like interrogations and won’t go unless she has an extremely necessary reason to. Attempted assassination isn’t, at this point in their lives, a necessary reason. He glances at Lucy, too, who tends to find interrogations boring, and isn’t surprised when she shakes her head.
Susan favors him with a smile and says wryly, “I’m going to go wash my hair.”
Edmund gives her a long look, gaze sweeping up from toe to head, and fixes his eyes on the blood caked in her hair. “Yeah, sis,” he says, “you may want to do that. You haven’t been such a mess since that time in the swamps, you know, with the giants. You fell in, and –”
“Oh, I remember that,” Lucy says giggling. Susan doesn’t actually look quite as bad, but the hair situation almost rivals it. There had been frogs and pond scum. It had been a highlight in a horrible year, although he’s sure Susan didn’t think so at the time.
“So do I,” Susan says archly, “and I hardly need a reminder. Now, if you’ll excuse me –”
Army in the field be damned, Edmund makes a courtly leg as she sweeps past him, grinning at Susan’s amused snort. He gets himself back up as Peter slams out of his room, shaking his head and sending water flying everywhere. Edmund knows Peter: water bucket for quick sobriety. How much had he drunk before the assassination attempts even began?
It doesn’t matter. Peter is still the High King, and his word is law, even if his judgment’s shot.
“Interrogation?” he asks unnecessarily.
“You have to ask?” Peter says, fingercombing his hair as he starts toward the stairs.
Edmund paces him. “Peepiceek – Reepicheep’s second-in-command – came up to tell us they’re holding the prisoners in the red cave.” He glances back as Caspian follows them and raises his eyebrows.
“I want to hear this,” the Telmarine prince announces.
Peter turns a slow, icy glare on him. Caspian flinches. Edmund sighs.
“They tried to kill me too,” Caspian adds, like that’s a valid argument against Peter’s wrath.
“He does have a point, Pete,” Edmund says. Well, he does.
Peter doesn’t say anything, but gestures sharply – toward his sword, Edmund notices, although Peter probably doesn’t even realize it – and Caspian takes that as the acceptance it is, unless of course Peter later decides otherwise.
They go down to the red cave in silence. The guard’s larger than is really necessary, but they are amateurs, after all; Edmund supposes they can’t be expected to know when too much is too much.
“How many are still alive?” Peter asks.
“Three, your majesty,” Peepiceek tells him. “Sileas the centaur, Deiree the faun, and Strongback the centaur. There are seven dead.”
Ten is a lot for a conspiracy, Edmund thinks, and says so. “No one knew about this?” he adds, suspicious, because the more people are in on a secret, the harder it is to hide, and something like killing five people in the midst of an army is pretty hard to arrange and hide – and he hadn’t heard anything at all.
Not, he reminds himself bitterly, that his sources are what they used to be.
There’s a possibility that he’s not in a particularly good mood. Assassination attempts tend to do that to him.
“We’ll see,” Peter says shortly. “I want to interrogate them individually; I need another room.”
“Trumpkin cleared out the little cave for you,” Peepiceek says.
“Good. Send Sileas over.”
The little cave is on the opposite side of the hallway, a little ways deeper into the How; it’s a small cave with torches set in the walls. Edmund manages to light one, but Peter gets all the rest. Of course, he thinks; Peter is terrified of the dark and it has to be weighing on him heavily now, less than twenty-four hours after Caspian almost brought back the White Witch. He’s never managed to recover completely after the Angrisla disaster.
“Don’t say anything,” Peter snaps at Caspian once the room is nearly as bright as day. “Leave this to me and Edmund.”
Edmund turns to watch the door as Caspian protests, “But –”
“It’s a very simple instruction,” Peter says, voice wrought tight with tension and anger. “Just don’t talk.”
“We have this down to an art,” Edmund says quietly to Caspian. “And you don’t want to get in Peter’s way; it never ends well.” He steps away as a pair of minotaurs bring in Sileas, edging around the cave walls towards Peter. Peter goes to one side of the centaur, Edmund to the other; he’ll have to turn his head to see either one of them clearly. He motions Caspian behind and the prince goes obediently, eyes narrowed.
“Who hired you?” Peter asks roughly once the minotaurs have gone.
“Hired?” Sileas says indignantly, like it’s an insult. Truth be told, Edmund prefers an honest assassin-for-hire to a fanatic; the former are easier to take down because all they want is to get paid. “I assure you, human, we acted only out of good will for all Narnia. We were not paid.”
“I’m sorry,” Edmund says like he has a hundred times before. This isn’t actually new. “Killing your king is a sign of good will now? By the Lion, Pete, things have changed in Narnia. Clearly we should turn around and go back to England. I can try out for the football team.”
Peter ignores him, like he always does. “Miraz, then. You want the Telmarines to have Narnia?”
“No,” Sileas says flatly, giving him a look of pure hate. “Telmarines, Lascar, Natarenes, Archenlanders – you’re all the same. What I want is for the damned humans to leave Narnia. Your lot have never done us any good.”
What do Lasci, Natare, and Archenland have to do with anything? Telmar’s obvious, but no one’s mentioned the others, and it seems like the sort of thing that would have come up if they’d been any kind of relevant to the current turn of events. “Except for defeating the White Witch that one time,” Edmund says, waiting for Peter to ask the obvious question. “And – oh yes, defending Narnia from Archenland, and Calormene, and Lasci, and the giants, and pirates, and – am I forgetting anyone, Pete? Everyone on Narnia’s western border.”
“No better than the White Witch,” Sileas dismisses. “At least under the White Witch we weren’t dying for Men.”
“No, under the White Witch you were just dying,” Peter snaps. “Clearly the history books forgot to mention that part; I like to think I remember it better than you do. Were you around then?”
“Narnia should be ruled by Narnians,” the centaur snarls. “Last night only showed why! All of you are too free with our lives – you always have been. You are a cancer that needs to be cut from this land.”
“A cancer?” Edmund says indignantly, because honestly, don’t these people remember anything about their own damn history? “I’m sorry, but your strategy needs improving, if your idea of taking Narnia back from the Telmarines and restoring it to true Narnians is to kill the most experienced general in the country. Not to mention the High King appointed by Aslan himself.”
“Aslan,” Sileas says, with the air of one with an indisputable point, “is a myth created by the kings and queens of old to legitimize their conquest.”
“Who else was part of this conspiracy?” Peter demands.
Edmund doesn’t have to hear Sileas’s, “The rest of your so-called army is too bewitched to see the truth behind your lies,” to know that he’s not going to name anyone else.
“Sure about that?” Peter says, voice rough, and Edmund thinks, oh, fuck, there goes his judgment.
“Even after your massacre they still believe you are who you claim to be. What do you think?”
“I think you’re an idiot,” Peter says, voice utterly cold. “But you’re not the first of those I’ve talked to.”
“Deluded fools,” Sileas says; Edmund doesn’t know who he’s referring to. The rest of the army, maybe.
Peter’s eyes are over-bright and angry and when he’s like this, Edmund’s never figured out how to reach him, because it happens so rarely. “I have always served Narnia above all else,” he swears, hand going to his swordhilt. “If this vendetta of yours is about our leaving –”
“Your leaving was the best thing that could have happened to Narnia!” Sileas proclaims with the fervor of the fanatic. “Save that you weakened us so that we could not even defend ourselves when Men came pouring over our borders. Too much trust placed in humans – we killed each other rather than join and force out the invaders. It was you who brought the Dying Times upon Narnia, and you must pay for it. Only when your blood has been spilled can we cleanse Narnia again.”
What, Edmund thinks furiously, are the Dying Times? But that’s swept aside in a heartbeat; he doesn’t hear Peter’s next question, but he sees Peter’s face, and Peter’s gone completely. He goes for Peter before Peter kills Sileas.
“Pete –”
Peter shoves him aside. “No, damn you, what happened?”
“Peter!” Edmund shouts, grabbing for him with God, he can’t kill Sileas now, that won’t look good at all no matter what he says foremost in his mind.
Peter ignores him, face white as Sileas throws his head back in insane laughter and says, “Human blood for Narnian blood. You, and then the Telmarines. It will only be a start at repayment for all the dead of the Dying Times.”
“I didn’t know –”
“Peter!” Edmund yells, but Peter pulls away from him and throws the door open. Edmund follows, snapping orders to the guard to keep Sileas under guard, and tries to grab Peter before he gets into the red cave.
Peter slams the door in his face.
“FUCK!” Edmund yells, slamming his fist against the door, because he’s not quite back to being King Edmund Silvertongue the Just yet. “PETER!”
No answer, of course.
“God damn it,” he swears fervently, and turns to find Peepiceek, Caspian, and everyone else in the hall staring at him. He gives them a thin smile and crosses his arms over his chest, his attention back on the door.
He’s aware of Caspian and one of the minotaurs whispering anxiously, and another murmur running through the assortment of creatures in the hall. He misses the guard more than ever, because they know better than to talk about the High King and because this is going to be all over the army in five minutes. Narnians talk.
When Peter comes out a few minutes later, he looks like he’s been punched in the face.
“Pete,” Edmund says carefully, “what –”
Peter pulls the knife on his belt in one smooth movement and hurls it down the hall. It’s still quivering when Caspian and the minotaur pull away from it, staring at Peter.
“Sorry,” Peter drawls, not sounding it.
“What the hell?” Edmund snaps. “What –”
“I want every member of the army in front of the How by sunrise,” Peter orders, voice short and clipped. “Everyone. Even the wounded. No excuses. Including those three.” He storms off and Edmund shoves aside the urge to beat his head into the wall. This is so like Peter.
“You heard the High King,” he says. “Secure the prisoners and have them in front of the How at sunrise.” He turns away, because he has to let the rest of the army know Peter’s orders and it won’t get there fast enough by gossip alone. It’s only an hour to sunrise.
“King Edmund!” Caspian exclaims, hurrying after him.
“Prince Caspian,” Edmund says, glancing at him, “go find Queen Susan and Queen Lucy and give them the High King’s orders. They’ll know what you mean.” He continues down the hallway, leaving Caspian to find his own way down to the lowest level of the How.
The thing to do is to tell the captains, because they can pass it on to their lieutenants, who can in turn tell the rest of their troops. The problem here is that there aren’t really troops; the Narnian army isn’t properly an army at all. What it is is a collection of rebels, like the foreign groups Edmund quietly nurtured to fruition back in his reign. At least there are established captains, even if they aren’t official, and there are seed-troops – Glenstorm’s and Reepicheep’s, for one, and Trumpkin’s as good as any other to speak for the dwarves. There is a minotaur captain; they seem to be more organized than – he can’t call them civilized Narnians anymore, because there’s only a vague resemblance to what Edmund knows as civilized. Shacher is his name. As for the rest – well, Edmund might as well send a squirrel, if he wants it to spread quickly. As for reliably – a wolf or a dog, or a great cat. Not for the first time – not even the first time tonight, he thinks wryly – Edmund misses the royal guard so much it hurts.
Reepicheep is easily found, still exclaiming over the arrogance of anyone that would dare attack the High King. Glenstorm is outside the How, presiding over the disposition of the bodies. They aren’t certain what to do with them – Edmund knows that traditionally, Narnian dead are laid out on special fields to return to the earth. Not buried as English dead are, because that would shut them away from the skies, but simply laid out.
“Leave them for now,” Edmund says when Glenstorm politely inquires his opinion. They either burn traitors or send the bodies home to their families; he’ll wait for Peter’s orders in regards to this.
He’s talking to Shacher and the closest things to pack leaders the great cats, dogs, and wolves have – they’ve loosely elected war leaders, which is more organization than Edmund can extend to the rest of the army – when Caspian finds him.
“I spoke to Trahern –” a faun, “– and Trufflehunter,” he says when Edmund finishes, “and gave Pattertwig the message.”
“Good,” Edmund says. “Hopefully the word will get around in time, then.”
Caspian hesitates, then asks, “What does the High King mean to do?”
“Well,” Edmund says, “he hasn’t actually said it yet, but I’m fairly certain he means to execute them for high treason. And that,” he adds, remembering a fairly important part of execution trials, “means I’m going to have to tell you a few things.”
“What?” Caspian says, looking relatively alarmed.
Edmund chivvies him outside, since the sky is starting to lighten slightly. Not sunrise yet, and no one but the guards are outside, but it’s quiet.
“This is ritual and tradition,” he says, sitting cross-legged on one of the broken stone slabs that litter the ruins. It’s high enough to put him at eye-level with Caspian, which is a nice change. “Peter will ask a question, and you’ll be expected to answer. It goes in order of rank, so you’ll have Susan’s and my and Lucy’s examples before you have to speak. Keep the form, except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“We’ll swear by Aslan,” Edmund says. “I’m assuming you won’t be doing so.”
“Should I?” Caspian asks hesitantly.
“Swear by your gods,” Edmund advises, “because if you don’t, nobody will believe your oath.” He turns his head up to the stars, breathing in the sweet, heavy Narnian air. It’s so familiar.
It isn’t long before the army starts filing out, and after that, the prisoners.
They kneel one by one on the stone in front of Edmund, hands bound behind their backs, and Edmund dismisses the guards to stand with the rest of the army. He glances up as the sun breaks over the How; when he looks down again, he sees Peter and the girls emerge from the How. Lucy is carrying Peter’s sword; this will go as expected.
When Peter steps onto the stone, Edmund says formally, “I turn these souls into your keeping, High King,” and steps back, jostling Caspian as he does so. He puts Caspian between him and Susan, because Caspian is heir to at least one half of Narnia, and there is – unfortunately – a good chance he’ll be king of Narnia in his own right at some point. Susan, catching this, glances at Edmund and raises her eyebrows. He shakes his head slightly.
When Peter speaks, Edmund doesn’t listen to the words – he knows the words; the relevant question is whether Peter will use High Court or Low Court and the answer is Low, damn it all, which means his mood hasn’t improved at all – but to the tone. He’s angry. Very angry. And he’s using the royal plural, which is never a good sign.
He asks his question. Susan answers. Then it’s Edmund’s turn. The phrases are ritual; only the specifications have changed, and not actually by all that much, all things considered.
“So swear I, High King,” he says. “I, Edmund of Narnia, King of this land and sometime King of Narnia under the High King Peter, swear by the name of Aslan that these two centaurs and this faun were among those that attacked myself and my family in the night. One is dead by my hand. I have heard the centaur Sileas speak of his guilt.”
Lucy answers much the same as she always does – “I have seen them, and I have fought them” – and Edmund listens a little anxiously for Caspian. The Telmarine prince’s voice is uncertain as he speaks, but he doesn’t hesitate.
Peter doesn’t pause at all before he says, “Sileas of Glasswater, Deiree of Lantern Waste, and Strongback of Coldwood: do you freely admit your guilt in the eyes of the gods and all civilized creatures?”
Deiree turns to look at him. “Do you mean,” he says in a low, silken voice, “that we came to kill you and all your kind? Yes, I speak for us all: we came to kill you, and we failed.”
“Traitor!” Reepicheep chirps, somewhere from the crowd.
Peter is so deep in himself that he either doesn’t hear this or ignores it utterly. “Is there any other who would speak for these?”
Another pause, ritual and silent, although Edmund doubts that the army remembers this, and then Peter continues, “So be it. Then, by the power granted to us as High King over all Kings in Narnia by the land of Narnia and by Aslan himself, we bid you take a moment to prepare yourselves: for the crime of high treason, to compass and imagine the deaths of our royal self, Sovereign of Narnia, and of our royal sisters and brother, who hold the offices of Queens and King of Narnia under us, and for the crime of attempted murder, to compass and imagine the death of our royal cousin Prince Caspian, we, High King Peter of Narnia, by the grace of Aslan, by the will and favor of Narnia, sentence you, Sileas of Glasswater, centaur; Deiree of Lantern Waste, faun, and Strongback of Coldwood, centaur, to death, to be executed immediately by our hand.”
Royal cousin, Edmund notes. And attempted murder for Caspian, not high treason. The first is a good sign, the second is a bad one; Peter isn’t feeling at all generous towards Caspian and if Caspian can puzzle out the insult in that, then this will go even more badly than last night did.
“He’s not,” Caspian whispers anxiously. “He can’t mean to – surely not himself.”
Or maybe Peter will just kill him and put them all out of his misery.
“Shut up,” Edmund says, barely a breath of sound.
Lucy puts Rhindon into Peter’s hand, like she has a hundred times before. Peter is speaking again, more ritual, more tradition, all of it echoing across Narnian soil for the first time in a thousand years. He’s not the only one speaking; Narnia has added her voice to his, and the sound of it thrums in Edmund’s veins. He wonders if the others can hear it or if he and Peter are the only ones.
“Don’t look away,” Susan says softly to Caspian. “Peter will know, and he won’t forget.”
Peter swings his sword.
It takes a lot of strength to behead someone; Edmund knows from experience. Whether or not Peter still has the strength of arm to do it now, after so long away, is something that won’t matter in the actual execution – the blow will kill instantly – but it will matter for Peter’s pride, and in the eyes of the army.
He has the strength. The first head, and then the second and the third, fall with little arcs of scarlet blood, and Peter turns his head and his sword up to the rising sun and speaks to Aslan.
“Narnia gives these souls into the keeping of Aslan,” he – they – say. “May he judge them fairly when they arrive in his country.”
And with that he’s done. He cleans his sword and sheathes it while the army holds its breath – for at least in this moment they understand that they must not move until the order for dismissal has been given; however disorderly and undisciplined they may be, however little they remember of their history, they recognize the Deep Magic when they see it – and then he turns to Edmund.
“Burn the bodies,” he says, voice hard and words short and clipped. “All of them.” His last orders given – army turned over to Edmund – he walks into the How, back stiffly straight with anger and his left hand resting lightly on his swordhilt.
If this was their Narnia, Edmund wouldn’t have to speak at all, but their Narnia is long dead and buried, and the horns and drums that signaled the armies have been forgotten for longer than anyone save them remembers. He speaks: brusque words with no hint of kindness, an aftertaste of necessity and duty, a fleeting impression of royal justice as it was in the days of old. A more savage place? No. Savagery for the sake of Narnia, not for its own sake. The army files away in near silence – Edmund isn’t even sure of what he’s said, just what he’s said beneath the words themselves – and he calls for Glenstorm and his troop.
“You heard the High King,” he says. “Burn the bodies. And if you touch one stick of living wood, I’ll kill you myself. If you have to,” because they’ve taken most of the deadfall in the forest already, “ask the damn tree and don’t even think of felling it, just take branches.”
A few of the younger centaurs mutter among themselves – no one remembers – but Glenstorm nods solemnly and says, “It shall be as you order, my king,” and turns to relay the orders.
Edmund turns back to his sisters and Caspian in time to see Lucy glare sharply at Caspian and snap, “I have killed men in battle. I’ve done the work of a sovereign ruler – death is no less my duty than it is my brothers’. And what have you done?”
Caspian looks a little like he’s been slapped across the face, which Edmund doesn’t exactly blame him for, because Lucy doesn’t look like the woman she used to be, and even then she was usually grievously underestimated. Uncertainly, Caspian says, “My uncle keeps executioners.”
He’s tired, and he’s been attacked, and he’s just seen his brother kill traitors. “A coward’s choice,” Edmund says. “The kings of Narnia kill our own criminals. I know,” he adds as Caspian gawps at him. “Horrible, isn’t it? Almost barbaric.” And he spits the words. A more savage place? Not by their standards, though he doesn’t think of it as savagery. “I suppose it’s much more civilized to turn your face away and let someone else spill the blood that’s rightfully yours. That way you can pretend your hands are clean.”
“I didn’t say –”
“To be king,” Edmund says, as Aslan said to him once, a long time ago, when he’d still been a boy, “is to take on the sins of land and people alike. To be king is to keep and hold, shepherd and protect. To be king is to be sole expiator of those sins, for the land is in your keeping alone, and should one of your people fail, then you have failed as well. Mercy is the provenance of lesser men: it is the nature of the king to do that which is unnatural. When you spill the blood of your people: you spill your own blood. You must be willing and able.”
Caspian’s face is – confused. Edmund shakes his head and turns toward the How. “I need a drink,” he says. A leaf out of Peter’s book, maybe, but one he’s more than willing to read at the moment.
“It’s six in the morning,” Susan says.
“Five o’clock back in England, then,” Edmund points out, and leaves the sun behind for the darkness of the How.
Introduction | On a Summer Midnight | Of Dead Secrets | Gone Under the Hill | In a Dark Wood | In Constellated Wars
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-01 06:43 am (UTC)OH BED. YOU AND YOUR CONSPIRACY THEORIES. i haven't read a fic that was purely adventure plot in, um, AGES.
bahahaha @ Edmund wearing an earring OH MY
and you snuck in "cousin"!
LINES:
“Aslan,” Sileas says, with the air of one with an indisputable point, “is a myth created by the kings and queens of old to legitimize their conquest.”
“Swear by your gods,” Edmund advises, “because if you don’t, nobody will believe your oath.”
And he’s using the royal plural, which is never a good sign.
<3
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-02 11:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-01 07:54 pm (UTC)Also... Teehee! For Peter calling Caspian his cousin... Even though you know, major insult because it was just an attempted murder and not a high treason. I do wonder if Caspian caught that one, because it was so subtle that if Edmund hadn't pointed it out, I totally would have missed it. It seems to me that Edmund doesn't miss anything, which makes him so awesome as the Spy!King you know.
And Hoozah! For using the royal plural, I always love it when that appears in fic.
The people who tried to assasinate the Pevensies and Caspian are really full of hatred and bitterness and actually, it's kind of understandable how they got that way. They've become bitter and angry because of the position they're in. History teaches them that humans have always tried to dominate them, except the kings and queens of the past. But if you've identified humans as the face of your tormentor and your executioner forever... then I can understand that it's impossible for you to believe that any good could come of them.
Also, I love the comparison that Edmund makes between Peter and a sociopath, because it's so true. Peter is crazy, but necessarily so in Narnia. In England, he'd just be a sociopath, a crazy schoolboy and nothing more.
The speech that Edmund gives at the end, about how to be a king and about executing the people who betray you themselves, is amazing. Somehow, to me, they seem more powerful now then they were in the previous chapter, maybe because now it's Edmund's POV. You mention that it was what Aslan told him long ago, but when did Aslan tell him? Because I'm gettin the impression that it's part of what Edmund and Aslan discussed together when Edmund was saved from the White Witch in LWW.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-02 11:52 pm (UTC)*nods* I really wanted the would-be assassins to have motives that were real, and made sense, and even to a extent were understandable. I mean, seriously, how bitter must people be after a thousand years of oppression and genocide and god-knows-what
To be honest, I never thought about where or when Edmund had heard that speech, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was it. *thoughtful*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-03 09:06 am (UTC)Exactly, I think that's something that really adds to the story. The people who commited high treason had a reason and one that was soooo understandable.
Well, the speech made me think about when Aslan could possibly have said it and since I don't think that Aslan showed up a lot during the Golden Age (except for maybe in Horse and his boy) that was one of the few times that Aslan could have talked to Edmund alone and in private, because it doesn't sound like something Aslan would have said with the whole of Narnia watching.
To me it sounded like something that Aslan would have used to inspire Edmund and make him aware of his responsibilities and those of his siblings. It would have been something he said in a long speech to Edmund when Edmund realized what an idiot he'd been.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-03 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-03 07:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-03 11:38 pm (UTC)EDMUND. OMG. Trying to keep a leash on Peter and giving up and always thinking of how to cope with peter since he knows exactly what he'll do, not to mention, 'Peter : level of 1-psychotic, where on the scale is he now?', plus always thinking and SQUEE. With added 'want to strangle the ignorant little shit of a princeling, want to strangle, you can't right this minute'
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-04 12:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 11:10 am (UTC)You're really damn good at this, obviously. But also kind of scary. All your characters are scary in their own way, but Edmund is reall freaking me out. I suspect that's Ed-in-my-head having a weird magnetic attraction/repulsion at your incarnation of him.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-09 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-10 12:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-13 01:25 am (UTC)Ahem. Trying for coherency here. I just love him, his mindset, his view of his brother - so pragmatic and clinical and not quite entirely respectful with his frank and caustic assessments of his brother's quirks and temperament and flaws and habits, but at the same time completely and utterly loyal. Some strange amalgam of managing Peter and fitting himself to the recesses of Peter's personality, and being so entirely thankful that Peter is there to do his job so that Edmund doesn't have to. What you've done here really does encompass everything I love and have wibbled about in the fraternal relationship in the movies, and develops and elevates it to the next level and ohGOD I love it. *G*
ETA: Forgot to say how much I love the line: This is a really fascinating conversation. All its levels of sarcasm and honesty and sharp observation and all the little, pointed shards that make up Edmund.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-13 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-13 02:46 am (UTC)Fuck yes, I love this. So much.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-13 03:18 am (UTC)