UFO: Narnia fic: "Old Timber to New Fires"

[bedlamsbard]

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a U(nfinished) F(ic) O(bject)! For the purposes of this exercise, I am borrowing knitting parlance, because why the hell not.

Timber and Tuesday ended up tying in the poll, but I had one vote for Timber over on LJ which edged it out, so Timber it is! Some notes to start, first, and then a few more at the end.

"Old Timber to New Fires" is one of the older WIPs in my Narnia folder; it dates back to the summer of 2008 and in some ways it shows, as it lacks some of the things I might have put in had I written it later. (A lot of the strays, for one -- although chronologically it postdates Fiorenza Paolucci's arrival in Narnia, it was written before she or some of the other well-known strays were conceived of, and so they're not mentioned, when otherwise they would be.) It has a number of references to events that come up fairly often in my Pevensie stuff, but which I've never written out specifically -- Edmund time-traveling back to the Great Autumn, and most significantly the time Peter lost his memory and spent a year with the mercenary company the Red Company, which is probably the most emotionally significant bit in here, in some ways, aside from Caspian's trauma.

I like it because there are some really lovely moments in here -- I was in full-on angst "lo how has Narnia fallen" mode when I wrote this, and that shows through Caspian's eyes. We also see a lot more of the smaller western countries than we do probably anywhere else, and get a taste for how much Narnia is really embroiled in war during the Golden Age. But it ended up getting stalled out because I didn't really know where I wanted to go with it.



Caspian rolls to his feet in near-complete darkness, drawing his sword as he does so, looking wildly around to try and figure out where he is. Where he should be is in the ruins in the west. What he sees around him are the faint shadows of trees, bigger and taller than any he’s seen in Narnia. Looking up, the sky is dark, a cloudy, starless night with no moon. He doesn’t know where he is.

An owl hoots in the distance, and then another, closer. Caspian clenches his fingers around the hilt of his sword and tries not to panic. He could be anywhere. Not far away, a stick cracks and Caspian spins on his heel, squinting to try and force his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The first thing he’s aware of is the gleam of dozens of eyes. The second is the hand over his mouth and the dagger against his throat.

“Drop your sword,” the man holding him whispers against his ear, and Caspian does, hearing the steel falling to the forest floor. One of the gleaming pairs of eyes comes forward, the shape resolving itself into a huge leopard that bares its fangs at him.

“Kill him,” it – she; the voice is definitely female – suggests. “We’re a mile over the border and the only others out here are the Belgarines; no one here is a friend of ours.”

“I know,” says the man behind him while Caspian is still trying to place Belgarine, “but we’re still beyond their patrols, and that’s no Belgarine sword. Who are you?”

“Majesty…” the leopard says, sounding frustrated. “We don’t have time.”

“There shouldn’t be anyone here. I want to know who he is and who sent him. Feel like obliging me, or should I just cut your throat?”

“I am King Caspian of Narnia,” Caspian says, trying to project all his dignity into the words, even though his position makes it awkward.

A ripple of laughter runs through the huddle of creatures – just beginning to resolve into the recognizable shapes of fauns, centaurs, talking beasts, and other Narnians – and someone says, “A madman,” sounding amused. “Put him out of his misery, sire,” someone else adds.

“No, I don’t think so,” the man returns calmly, the dagger leaving Caspian’s throat. Not a heartbeat later the world goes black.

-
-

Consciousness returns with an accompanying splitting headache; Caspian bites his tongue on the automatic moan and opens his eyes. For a moment it seems like the world has gone scarlet, then he blinks and realizes that it only seems so because he’s in a tent made of red fabric than turns the light filtering through it the same color. The sight is so unexpected that it simply doesn’t process; he shouldn’t be here and it doesn’t make any sense.

“The sleeper wakes,” someone says, and Caspian remembers – the mirror in the ruins of the long-abandoned border fort, the dark forest, the stranger who’d put a knife to his throat.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, awkward with the realization his hands are cuffed behind him, and then manages to get up on his knees, looking around to try and place himself. The tent is a rich one, better than anything he’s ever seen – at the size of his bedroom, the fabric alone must cost a lord’s ransom. It’s adorned with carved wooden furniture that seems at home amidst the splendor, cut in half by a fall of red fabric that promises equal space behind. There’s an armor stand in one corner; it bears gold-washed chainmail, two helms trimmed with gold, and a surcoat with a familiar golden lion on a scarlet field. Beside it is an arms rack that carries five separate kinds of polearms, of which only the lance and the common spear are recognizable (though common can hardly describe the engraved wood and shining point; Caspian has never seen its like); a pair of axes capped with gold – no mere woodsman’s tools, these; the heads are weirdly though beautifully shaped – a longbow and a shorter recurve bow, two quivers of arrows, knives of varying shapes and sizes, and a familiar shield. Twisting his head, he sees a shelf racked with leather map carrying cases and leather folders.

Caspian turns back to the center of the room, where there is a table with two men leaning against it. One is dark and one is fair; the fair one has streaks of charcoal blackening his hair and his cheeks. The dark one is seemingly the younger; the fair one looks to be Caspian’s own age. Both wear leather surcoats without insignia; both bear swords.

Caspian knows them. Knows them younger, knows them harder, knows them as something other than what they are here. Seeing them is a sick shock to the pit of his stomach, because they shouldn’t be here.

“You know who I am?” the fair man asks.

Caspian nods, mouth gone dry and stale with fear. “High King Peter,” he says. Broader in the shoulders, a little more muscular, another inch or so in height, but the same hands, the same face, the same eyes. Utterly cold, or so it had always seemed to him, and without a single drop of human kindness in them. He can’t think of anyone more likely to execute him out of hand.

Peter nods, a short, sharp motion with no wasted energy. There’s a thin scar stretching horizontally across his forehead, another spattering of them around across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, a faint, old one by the corner of his right eye. None of them are familiar. “Then you know that I don’t suffer fools lightly. I kept you alive against the better judgment of a number of people whom I like and whose opinions I value highly. Tell me why I did such an ill-advised thing.”

They don’t know him, that much is clear, and Caspian is sick to his stomach with the knowledge of it. He can’t think of anything to say that would convince the High King of Narnia that he is who he says he is, and from his time with Peter, he knows that Peter won’t hesitate to kill him if he thinks Caspian poses a danger to Narnia. And this is a Peter who doesn’t know him at all; the other Peter hadn’t known him well, but he had known him.

“Your reputation precedes you, Pete,” King Edmund says softly. “He’s scared spitless.”

Caspian would protest if it wasn’t absolutely true. As it is, he licks his lips and tries to think of a way to try and explain how he’s ended up here, in the Golden Age – because this must be the Golden Age, somehow, impossibly – when he doesn’t know himself.

“Would you like me to begin?” Edmund continues. Like the High King, he’s taller and more muscled, features even sharper than before, his dark hair long now and pulled back from his face. A sapphire glints in one ear. “You were found in a place where no reasonable or innocent soul would be, just over the border from the country you claim is yours, between two warring nations. You claim to be king of a country that is – clearly – otherwise ruled. You speak with an odd accent. Your sword is Telmarine-styled; we are some three hundred leagues north of the Telmarine border. Your dress and armor are ill-suited for the climate here. Your face and name are Telmarine; as I have already said, we are far from the Telmarine border, and moreover, Telmar is at war with Narnia even as Belgarion is. We searched you; you bore this.” He holds up a golden ring between two fingers. “The signet ring of Narnia; it’s supposed to be with my sister in Cair Paravel. To make a fake is high treason, punishable by death, exile, or – if you happen to be particularly lucky – galley service or quarry work. It goes without saying that to steal it carries a similar sentence. Other than that, there is nothing at all distinguishing about you. Would you care to enlighten us otherwise?”

“I didn’t steal it,” Caspian says, which is the only thing that he can think of; he’s not sure how he would possibly explain Peter himself giving him the ring. “Or make a fake.”

“Oh, I know it’s not a fake,” Edmund says, but doesn’t elaborate. “Is there any reason you can give us not to have you killed out of hand for trespassing in a country at war?”

“Well,” Caspian begins uncertainly. “You did say you didn’t find me in Narnia.”

Peter lets out a sharp bark of laughter and says, grinning, “He does have you there, Ed.” The grin is gone from his face in the blink of an eye as he turns his considerable attention back on Caspian. “You were not in Narnia then,” he says. “You are in Narnia now; consider that before you speak.”

Caspian licks his lips and hesitates briefly before he says, “I don’t know how I came to be here, and I don’t think you’d believe anything I could say, even if it is the truth.”

“Let us be the judge of that,” Peter says.

“Even,” Caspian says carefully, “if I were to say that I am…not in my own time?”

Peter and Edmund glance at each other, and Edmund sighs. “Unfortunately,” he says, “or maybe fortunately for you, the answer to that question is ‘yes’, although how much we believe you depends on the specifics of your argument.”

Caspian blinks in surprise, but he’s seen equally strange things in his own time – for one, the High King himself out of the distant past – so it’s not so much of a stretch for some similar event to have occurred during the Golden Age, he supposes. “We – my men and I and my old professor – were investigating a great ruin found on the western border of Narnia, in the western wild,” he says. “It seemed to have once been a castle of great stature. Not here, but farther south. Some of the structure was still intact, including a treasury beneath the earth. Some of the surviving records from the Dying Times say that certain treasures of Narnia were removed from Cair Paravel and taken to a fortress called Arn Abedin in the west, and we were seeking them. There was a collection of artifacts in the treasury – some gold, some silver and gems, but mostly things that seemed to have no earthly purpose to have been preserved. One was a mirror –”

“A mirror?” Peter interrupts.

Edmund groans. “About so big?” he asks, shaping it with his hands. “Glossy black surface, usually reflected back a background that wasn’t necessarily there? Witchwood frame carved with vines and about a million eyes all staring out at you? Little etching on the back that says, ‘To Peter Bittersteel, go to hell, Love and Kisses, Drystan Kadreddin,’ in Old Resan?”

“It does not say that,” Peter hisses at him. “Exactly.”

“How did you –” Caspian begins, because that’s exactly it. Although he didn’t have a chance to turn the mirror around and look at the back.

“I hate that thing,” Edmund says flatly. “I told you we should have destroyed it, Pete. I told you we shouldn’t accept gifts from the angry families of your jilted fiancées.”

“I think you were the one who told me that not accepting them was unwise politically,” Peter says, voice dry. “And we had a griffin drop it from five hundred feet up and it didn’t so much as dent. We even tried dragon fire on it and all it did was char a little around the edges.”

“You know what’s even more unwise politically?” Edmund demands. “Vanishing for seventeen months.”

Peter arches one eyebrow. “You do remember who you’re talking to here, don’t you? And I think we’re getting a little off-topic.” He turns his attention back to Caspian, saying, “I suppose that answers that question.”

“It does?” Caspian says, bewildered.

“We have prior experience with that mirror,” Peter exclaims.

“Unfortunately,” Edmund adds, bitter. “Before you touched the mirror, what did you see?”

Caspian frowns, trying to remember, and says at last, “A white castle on a hill over the sea. There were ships in the harbor, and all the banners were red –”

“Cair Paravel,” Peter and Edmund say together, and then Edmund grumbles, “Although why someone would move that damned thing to Arn Abedin, of all places –”

“Cair Paravel is a ruin in my time –” Caspian begins, and Peter holds up his hand.

“Don’t say it,” he says. “It will damage the timeline, which is hardly what we need on top of all the rest of our problems right now.”

“He mentioned we were at war on two fronts, didn’t he?” Edmund says pointedly. “Pete, he may be from the future, but there’s no way to tell if he’s actually who he says he is, and without that knowledge I think we should just –”

“If he’s a king of Narnia, there’s one sure way to tell,” Peter says.

“There is?” Caspian says.

“There is?” Edmund echoes.

Peter pushes himself off the side of the table and steps toward the door of the tent, pushing the flap aside and disappearing outside for a moment before he comes back carrying a handful of earth in his palm.

“Are you out of your mind?” Edmund demands, taking a hasty step away from him, even though Peter shows no sign of going towards him. Instead, the High King kneels down in front of Caspian, drawing a curved hunting knife from the back of his belt. Caspian knows that knife – unfortunately, the last time he saw it this close, it was less than an inch from his skull.

“It’s not as if you have anything to worry about,” Peter says, sounding amused as he glances over his shoulder at his brother.

Edmund takes another step back. “Nevertheless, my previous dealings with your girlfriend the talking country have been less than enjoyable, let me just say,” he says firmly.

“Now that just hurts,” Peter drawls, although there’s a sudden flash of something unreadable in his eyes. “And I think that’s my wife the talking country you’re maligning there.” He turns back to Caspian, touching the knife briefly to the skin of his forearm to test its sharpness.

“What are you doing?” Caspian asks nervously as Peter wipes the blade clean on his sleeve.

“Narnia knows her kings,” he just says mysteriously, reaching out to draw the tip of the knife down Caspian’s cheek. Caspian flinches – and then Peter takes the knife away, touching it to the handful of earth he’s holding. Blood trickles down his cheek where Peter’s cut him.

For a heartbeat, nothing happens, and Peter’s patient expression turns ugly. Then, without any warning whatsoever, his eyes roll back in his head and he falls backwards. Pain hits hard behind Caspian’s eyes, multiplying his headache by a factor of twelve. He doubles over, hissing a breath of pain out between his teeth, and has a sudden vague impression of confusion and worry and surprise briefly before the alien presence in his skull fades away to nothing and leaves him gasping on the floor.

“Little gods,” he whispers, but the murmur in his head is gone now, taking his headache with it. Caspian opens his eyes to find himself nose to nose with a leopard and can’t stop himself from shouting to surprise.

“Oh, do be quiet,” the leopard says, shoving off her teeth. “Majesty, are you certain you want him in one piece?”

“Just watch him for now, Kaikura,” Edmund says, a note of strain in his voice. With the leopard – Kaikura – in his face, Caspian can’t see Edmund or Peter at all.

“Pete?” he continues. “What the hell was that?”

Peter swears, the words liquid and unfamiliar, and then he says in Narnian, “Oh, Trickster’s fucking balls, my head. Shut up, darling.”

“You need to stop swearing like a westron,” Edmund says faintly, and louder, “You all right there?”

“No,” Peter says shortly. “Sweetheart, I love you an enormous amount, please shut up, you’re giving me a headache.”

“Have I mentioned lately that that’s really creepy?”

“Try being me. Oh, Aslan. Sweetheart, if it’s not too much trouble – thank you.”

“Majesty?” Kaikura says, although she doesn’t look away from Caspian. “Are you well?”

“Not particularly, but I’ll do,” Peter says. “He’s cuffed, Kaikura. He’s not going anywhere.”

The leopard doesn’t move.

“Of course, I forgot that I’m only the High King and I obviously don’t give the orders around here,” Peter adds dryly.

“Finally he learns that it’s the royal guard who’s the real power behind the throne,” Edmund mutters. “He fought off the last six assassins without a scratch; I think he can deal with one tied up human.”

“Not without a scratch,” Peter corrects. He still sounds a little dazed. “Give us a minute, Kaikura.”

Kaikura’s tail lashes angrily from side to side, but she steps back and noses aside the tent flap to get out. Caspian looks up to see Peter sitting cross-legged on the floor, his head in his hands and his brother bent over him. Finally, Peter raises his head and looks at Caspian.

“I’m going to take the blinding headache as a yes,” he says. “Warrior. She’s never hit me like this before. Go ahead and cut him free.”

“He’s cuffed,” Edmund points out, straightening to grab the key off the table. He comes over to Caspian and uncuffs him, then goes back to his brother.

“What just happened?” Caspian asks, rubbing the feeling back into his wrists as he straightens. “That was in my head –”

“However bad it was for you,” Edmund says firmly, “I can guarantee you it was worse for him, considering the fact that I got the spillover. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Sorry,” Peter says, and to Caspian’s surprise, he actually sounds it.

Edmund rubs a hand over his face. “Don’t be,” he says, and adds wryly, “I only blame you every other time Narnia wakes me up in the middle of the night because you’ve fallen down a well.”

“I have never fallen down a well,” Peter says firmly. “And the thing you’re thinking about? Doesn’t count, because that was not a well.” He pulls himself up with the table as a brace, leaning on it heavily; Edmund watches him with all his muscles tensed, like he’s preparing himself to leap for his brother if he has to.

“Lion’s mane, my head hurts,” he murmurs, then adds, louder, “Lucky you, Caspian. Narnia’s checked you out as being who you say you are, which means we don’t kill you for trespassing on no man’s land.”

“What does that mean for me?” Caspian asks warily.

“Besides not dying?” Edmund says, raising his eyebrows. “What, that’s not enough?”

“It means we keep you here because I can’t spare an escort to take you to Cair Paravel,” Peter says. “Sorry about the war.”

“You all right?” Edmund asks under his breath as Peter straightens.

“Yeah,” Peter replies heavily.

“You didn’t get much sleep.”

“Thus the night attack,” Peter points out. He steps over to the front of the tent and pulls the flap back. “Kaikura, take Caspian over to Oreius. Remind him what the Kadreddins sent me after Princess Meriel left Narnia.” He glances back at Caspian and adds, “Assign him a guard. I don’t want him anywhere in this camp alone.”

-
-

A long time ago, when his mother had still been alive, Caspian had used to watch her spread her jewels out on a roll of thick green velvet for him to play with. He hasn’t thought of it in years, but his first impression, when he steps out into the sunlight, is of those jewels and green velvet. He blinks hard, trying to clear his vision, and gradually the landscape resolves itself into a wide, flat plain covered in rows of tents, all brilliantly colored. The High King’s campaign tent is on a little rise just high enough to afford a slight view, and Caspian turns his head to see the camp spread out around him in a circle with the High King’s tent dead-center. Amidst the camp, life bustles – dwarves working at smithies, a group of centaurs jousting in a practice field at the far edge of the ring, fauns and satyrs hurrying to and fro, dogs and great cats lounging in the sunlight. There are more Narnians here than he has ever seen at one time before, at least twice as many as gathered at Aslan’s How. There may be more Old Narnians here than there are in all of Telmarine Narnia.

“What, human?” a tiger asks, yawning lazily. “Haven’t you ever seen an army before?”

Caspian looks down hastily. Around the front of the High King’s tent are a number of great cats – leopards and tigers and panthers, a sleek, slim jaguar and two bristling wildcats. The Royal Guard, he realizes; King Edmund had spoken of them once or twice when he’d been in Narnia, usually with tones of regret in his voice.

“Not like this, noble tiger,” he admits.

“Oh, noble tiger, is it?” the tiger says, clambering to his feet. “What are you, human, some Natarene peddler or Lascar lordling lost in the woods, that the High King must shepherd in order to placate his allies, even though Narnia is at war on two fronts and there are rumblings of a third at sea if Calormen decides to strike at the Lone Islands?”

“Leave off, Abhean,” Kaikura orders, pushing out of the High King’s tent where Peter has pulled her aside. “It doesn’t matter who he is; he’s under the High King’s protection. Although if you’re so fond of him, you and Orlenda can stand by him as long as he’s here. High King’s orders.”

Abhean glowers as another leopard rises – Orlenda, Caspian assumes – and moves toward him. One of the lounging panthers stands to take the position she’s just left.

“Narain, you have the High King,” Kaikura says to a second tiger. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the tiger says, looking curiously at Caspian.

“Well, come on then,” Kaikura adds, looking at Caspian. “It’s early yet.”

She leads the way down the hill into the body of the camp. Caspian can’t keep himself from looking around as Narnians stop their work to stare at his little cavalcade – with Kaikura in front and Abhean and Orlenda just behind, Caspian feels like he’s being led to prison – and is quietly shocked at what he’s seen. Some are armored, some are not, but every piece of armor he sees is fine quality, better than anything Telmarine Narnia can produce. Most of it is boiled leather dyed scarlet; he sees mail hauberks and coifs, though these seem somewhat less common. Everyone looks well-fed and content, but there’s a certain hunger to their casts, something stark and a little cruel, wild and primitive, like nothing he’s seen in his Narnia. They look at him as if they’re not sure if he’s friend or foe, moving automatically to be closer to their weapons. Above their heads, pennants hang limply from their tent poles; there is no breeze, and the air lies hot and heavy around them.

Kaikura stops at a big green tent after a few minutes’ walk; Caspian stares curiously at the three pennants on the tent pole. One is the lion of Narnia; it hangs highest. Below it are two symbols he doesn’t recognize.

Kaikura leaps up on her hind legs to bat at a cluster of bells hanging near the tent flap. “Oreius, adjutant general of the army, it is Kaikura of the royal guard,” she calls, “bringing orders from the High King and a welcome and honored guest.”

“Enter and be welcome,” is the response – a deep voice, with a faint accent that Caspian can’t place.

It seems shockingly dark inside the tent after the brightness of outside, and Caspian blinks to let his eyes adjust. Once they do, he finds himself being regarded by a dark centaur whose hair and flanks are just beginning to gray.

“Oreius, I present you Caspian, who the High King bids you make welcome in this camp for so long as he shall reside here,” Kaikura says formally. “He also bids me remind you of what the Kaddredins of Resi sent him after he expelled Princess Meriel Kadreddin from Narnia six years ago. He adds as well that Caspian should not wander the camp alone, and to that end I have assigned Abhean and Orlenda, both trusted members of the royal guard.”

“I thank you for bringing me this news, Kaikura,” replies the centaur. “Your duty is done. Return to the High King.”

“With all speed, Oreius,” Kaikura says, and then adds, dryly, “He’s the one that interrupted the night attack.”

“Oh?” Oreius says with mild curiosity. “That story’s already made the rounds, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sure it made the rounds even before the ‘Skinners had been back in camp an hour,” Kaikura says. “The way gossip in this army travels? Probably as soon as they’d been back five minutes. Try not to let him die,” she adds to Abhean and Orlenda, then leaves.

“So,” Oreius says, turning his attention to Caspian, “you are the mysterious stranger whom the High King found wandering the no man’s land between Belgarion and Narnia, and whom he decided, for reasons that no other understands, to bring back rather than kill as an enemy.”

“That would be me,” Caspian says.

“Brought here by the Kadreddin mirror, it seems, hmm?” he adds. “Do you know what that is?”

“Not a mirror?” Caspian ventures.

“Indeed,” Oreius says calmly. “Resi is a land far to the south and west of here – a rich country, and large, though not so rich as Narnia is now, and I think we shall surpass it in size soon enough. In exchange for a much-needed alliance, Queen Susan brokered a marriage agreement between the High King and Princess Meriel Kadreddin of Resi, who came to Narnia and resided in Cair Paravel for some time. Yet the High King did not find her pleasing to him, and shortly before the wedding was scheduled to take place, he expelled her from Narnia, fearing that if he were to wed her, then he would find himself fighting to keep Narnia under his power, rather than let it fall to her and the Kadreddins of Resi. Sometime after this, Drystane Kadreddin of Resi, Princess Meriel’s father and third in line to the throne of that country, sent the High King the gift of a mirror, very large and very fair, pleasing to the eye. Yet when it arrived in Cair Paravel, the High King was in the south defending our border, so it fell to King Edmund to receive it. And when he looked upon its surface, he vanished. He was missing for seven days and seven nights, but when he returned, he said that he had spent some several months in a Narnia far in the distant past, when the White Witch still ruled this land and kept Narnia imprisoned beneath eternal winter. The High King ordered the Kadreddin mirror stored away, out of sight and out of mind. And it seems that you have found it in your own time.”

“So it seems,” Caspian says. “Though I did not know what it was – many records of Narnia’s past have been lost since –”

Oreius held up one hand. “Peace, Caspian. Do not speak of the future, for the wheel turns as it will and to try and turn from the herdsman’s path will cause the world to shatter and break. It is best to exist solely in the present, lest we be distracted from the path by things we cannot change. I would ask you only if you have ever seen the army of Narnia in full array.”

His army, yes, but his army is a pale shadow compared to this vibrant, living thing. “Never like this,” Caspian says.

“Good!” Oreius exclaims. “It will do you no harm, then, to see what there is to see; the army of Narnia is the greatest in the known world, and a wonder to behold in the field.”

“I can see that,” Caspian says fervently. “But, ah, of your courtesy, may I ask –”

“Ah, I have forgotten,” Oreius says. “I am Oreius of the Cian clan, a centaur of the Southern Marches, and adjutant general of the army of Narnia. I have fought with the High King since before he was crowned, and in many wars since. And you are Caspian, which is a Telmarine name.”

“I am and it is,” Caspian admits, hoping it won’t get him strung up the way it might have – might still, unfortunately – in his Narnia.

“A poor chance that you should find yourself in Narnia now, when the Wolfswood in the west finds itself under attack by Telmarine bandits –”

“Telmarine soldiers,” Abhean mutters under his breath.

“Telmarine bandits,” Oreius repeats firmly, “but you cannot help your name, and there are enough men of Telmarine blood living in Narnia now that it will go unremarked. Come, join me outside, and you may see the army of Narnia.”

-
-

Oreius takes him through the concentric rings of the camp, explaining the lay-out, although Caspian has the distinct impression he’s leaving most of what he could say out. There’s so much of the army that it’s simply overwhelming; he doesn’t think even Miraz’s army was ever this large, and at his question, Oreius tells him calmly that this is only half of Narnia’s active army.

“Another quarter of the army is with Queen Lucy at Arn Abedin, on the Telmarine border,” he says. “The rest is divided between the border guard and the palace guard at Cair Paravel. The High King means to end this war with Belgarion and end it quickly.”

Caspian can’t imagine it. And this is the standing army; the civilian population of Narnia has to be even larger. When the High King had told him, back in the How, that his Narnia was twice the size of Caspian’s, he hadn’t quite believed him. He believes him now.

The camp is a riot of color – Narnian crimson is most prominent, but nearly every other color Caspian can imagine is represented as well. Caspian can only stare speechlessly, trying to marshal his thoughts beyond by the thousand little gods, what did we do to this country? because this is why it’s called the Golden Age of Narnia, the Great Summer, the Flowering. It’s so far beyond his Narnia that thinking of what must have happened to Narnia to decimate it so badly, down to the shards of the country he holds, is painful.

Oreius finally drops him off at a mess tent filled with curious Narnians. Caspian gets a tray and a plate full of food, meaning to eat quickly and – he doesn’t know what he’ll do afterwards. He’s barely begun when King Edmund comes in, a pair of jaguars trailing his steps. He calls greetings and takes his food, then comes over and sits down next to Caspian.

“Where’s the High King, your majesty?” a faun asks politely.

“Sleeping, thank Aslan, God, Tash, the Seven, the thousand little gods, and anyone else who’s listening,” Edmund says, voice frank and harsh, “considering he didn’t get any last night. And if he doesn’t eat afterwards, I’ll shovel food down his throat myself.” He turns his attention to Caspian, regards him for a minute while eating, and says, “I know another man named Caspian.” His voice is matter-of-fact.

Caspian stares at him. “Oh?” he says uncertainly.

“A nice fellow,” Edmund continues. “Not very fond of Narnia, but according to him we’re the lesser evil compared to Marroquin of Telmar. Relative of yours?”

“Perhaps,” Caspian says, a little wary, because it sounds like Edmund’s saying this other Caspian is a traitor. He can trace his bloodline back to Telmar; he’s not sure precisely which Caspian it is Edmund’s speaking of, but he’s almost positive it’s one of his ancestors.

Edmund must read the expression on his face, because he laughs and says, “Oh, don’t worry, Caspian; he’s a Telmarine patriot through and through. I met him when I was in Olayo trying to explain to Obregon why his youngest son was dead.”

He has no idea who Obregon is and says so. Edmund quirks an eyebrow at him and says, “Obregon was the king of Telmar before he died a few years ago and his brother Marroquin took over. Peter negotiated a marriage alliance between my sister Lucy and his oldest son Pelagian; unfortunately, Pelagian decided that he wanted Narnia and poisoned Peter at the wedding. Obregon was actually fairly understanding, considering Lu killed Pelagian at the altar.”

“As I remember it, highness,” one of the jaguars says, cracking a bone between her teeth, “Obregon was glad Pelagian was dead, since there were some questions about his parentage and his intentions toward the throne.”

“That sounds like Telmarine politics,” Caspian says feelingly, and Edmund laughs.

“To tell the truth,” he says, “I’m surprised Telmar hasn’t self-destructed by now, although I suppose having Shoushan waiting on the border to pounce is a good bit of motivation to keep up a strong front.”

“Marroquin puts up a strong front by attacking Narnia,” a satyr growls. “He thinks that Shoushan will leave him alone if he’s fighting a war somewhere else. Baiting us makes him think he looks strong.”

Edmund doesn’t answer that, but his expression is faintly pained. “It’s not regulars on the Telmarine border,” he says at last. “And I know you’ve got family there, Marsal, but your concern should be Belgarines, not the Telmarines.”

“Of course, your highness,” Marsal says, scowling around the words. “Strongheart has the situation well in hand, I’m sure.”

“That she does,” Edmund agrees. “Finished, Caspian? Get up. I want to show you something.”

Caspian scrambles up from his seat, and goes with Edmund to dispose of his tray and his dishes, their bodyguards following behind and muttering to each other.

Outside, the light is a little less bright now, the sun starting to dip low in the west as evening draws on. Edmund weaves adroitly through the crowds, calling greetings and stopping occasionally to speak to people seemingly at random. Here, Caspian can see the form behind what was only his shadow in the How: he’s startlingly graceful, without the gawkiness that continually tripped him up when Caspian knew him. He’s quick and easy in himself, moving with confidence; he doesn’t spare a moment to see if Caspian’s keeping up with him. It takes Caspian a few minutes to realize that the reason for this is that Edmund’s trusting Caspian to his bodyguards, to Abhean and Orlenda and the two unnamed jaguars.

They make their way through the rings of the camp, heading outwards – or so Caspian thinks; he tries to map his path but loses the thread of it when Edmund makes another detour to speak to a pair of dwarves bent over a miniature forge – until they reach a patch of flat open ground, circles within circles marked in paints that begin as scarlet and grow paler as they widen; the greatest is a soft gold. Within the circles, a centaur and a human boy are fighting, while the High King leans against an archery butt and eats an apple, watching them with hooded eyes. His bodyguards sprawl on the glass behind him, seemingly asleep.

“So much for sleeping,” Edmund says as he approaches, but he doesn’t sound particularly surprised.

Peter glances towards him. “I just got up,” he protests.

“And of course you immediately headed out towards the practice circles,” Edmund says.

Peter grins at him briefly. “I have my priorities,” he says, and then, “Irian, you strike too high; you don’t have the reach of arm for it. Use your disadvantages to your advantage, not the other way around.”

“But, majesty –” the human protests, half-turning, and the centaur’s longsword strikes him between the shoulderblades, sending him sprawling.

“And now you’re dead,” Peter adds without pity. “Pay no notice to the man outside the circle, at least not just yet. Here, Irian, get up and watch this.” He draws the sword at his hip and draws a practice sheath out of a basket of them, fitting it over his blade, then approaches the circle. Edmund takes his place against the archery butt.

“Isenial, again, of your courtesy,” he says, and the centaur bows from the waist.

“My sword is yours, majesty,” he says.

Irian, who’s a little darker skinned than Peter and Edmund, his hair as black as Caspian’s, retreats from the circle as Peter and Isenial move into ready positions. Caspian watches curiously, because he’s seen Peter fight – he’s fought Peter, and he knows just how good and just how fast the boy is. If everything else he’s seen here holds true, then the man will be just as good, just as fast, if not more so, although he can’t imagine how the High King could improve any further.

“Quarter-speed,” Peter says to Isenial, and Caspian relaxes, a little disappointed. “This is what you did, Irian.”

The bout isn’t anything special, nothing fancy, and it ends exactly as Irian’s did, with Edmund providing criticism – his a little more biting than Peter’s – at the appropriate moment.

“Here,” Peter says, getting up from his knees, “is what you should have done. Quarter-speed again.”

This time, if the bout had been real, Peter would have split Isenial’s ribcage and spilled his guts across the ground.

“All right, majesty,” Irian says after a moment when his face is screwed up in concentration. “What would you have done, majesty?”

“What would I have done?” Peter echoes. “Full-speed, Isenial, and from the beginning.”

Fighting at full-speed, Isenial is good – but Peter is better. Peter is fast, shockingly so; Caspian half-expects him to blur when he moves. The lion’s head on Rhindon’s hilt glitters in the sunlight as Peter mock-cuts the legs out from beneath the centaur and puts his sword against the curve of Isenial’s neck.

“That’s what I would have done,” he says, standing back and offering Isenial a hand up as the centaur gets back to his feet gracefully. “Now, Irian, if you can do that, then I’ll take you into battle with me.”

“I can’t even do that,” Edmund grumbles. “Don’t move, Pete, I’m coming in there. I’m going to come out back and blue, but I’m coming in there.” He finds a practice sheath of his own and draws his sword, entering the outer ring of the circle as Isenial bows to Peter, then to him, before joining Caspian and Irian outside of the circle.

“Hang on, I want my axes,” Peter says casually as he steps out of the ring. He slides the practice sheath off his blade and tosses it into the basket before sheathing Rhindon, then takes the sword out of the loops on his swordbelt and hands it to Isenial, drawing the pair of axes Caspian saw earlier from the back of his belt. He flips them around gracefully in his hands as Edmund scowls and takes the practice sheath off his blade.

“What, the upcoming battle isn’t enough?” he gripes.

“I’m out of practice,” Peter says blithely.

“You couldn’t be out of practice if you didn’t touch a blade for three months, oh, wait, you’ve done that,” Edmund says, grinning good-naturedly. “Full-speed?”

“What’s the point of practicing at halves?” Peter says, and attacks.

Before today, Caspian would have been hard-pressed to think of any weapon so unlikely for Peter to use as the hatchets in his hands, but these seem natural on him, no more awkward than the sword he uses like an extension of his body. Rather than one blur of shining steel, it’s two; Peter is really gods-damned fast. So is Edmund, his single blade gleaming between Peter’s two axes.

“Yellow,” Peter says, and when previously they’ve used the entirety of the largest ring, now they confine themselves to the next-largest.

Caspian is aware he’s staring, because they’re both better than he ever dreamed any mortal man could be. The High King Peter and King Edmund he knew weren’t this good, but this – this is the High King and his brother at the peak of their reign; this is the Great Summer and the Kings of Summer in the Flowering of Narnia. This isn’t his faint shadow of a Narnia that’s long-broken and overshadowed.

“Orange,” Edmund says a few minutes later, panting the syllables, and they’re in the next circle.

Neither Peter nor Edmund has yet scored a killing blow, but Edmund’s strikes are a little weaker, Peter’s a little more wild, sweat shining on both their foreheads.

Edmund catches Peter’s axes on the blade of his sword, just barely managing to protect his face, and heaves forwards with a great exhalation of breath. Peter twists, and Caspian’s seen him do this before with Miraz, only the weapons are different this time. He comes up beneath Edmund’s arm as steel on steel screeches horribly and slams the back of his hatchet into his brother’s cheek. He flips the blade backwards to do it, a deliberate pull. Edmund doesn’t have the breath to swear as he manages to block the next blow, blood starting to bead up at the corner of his mouth. Peter disengages, pulls back.

Caspian has a good look at his eyes as Peter says calmly, “Auburn.” There’s polite interest written on his face, a little bit of a fierce grin warring with screwed-up concentration, but his eyes are shockingly bright, utterly cold, without the anger boiling over that Caspian remembers.

“Bloody fucking hell, Pete,” Edmund wheezes, stepping forward into the smaller ring. “Can I trade you in for a brother that’s not –” He barely blocks Peter’s next blow, feints right and strikes left and low so that Peter takes the cut on the outside of his thigh with the flat of the blade. “– completely insane?”

Peter drops to his knees to compensate for what would have been a crippling strike, but his left hand is already spinning in a wide circle. This low, he takes out Edmund’s ankle, sending his brother reeling to the ground beside him. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asks.

Edmund’s gone dead-white. “Lion’s mane, Pete, it’s not like Lu’s here to fix anything you accidentally destroy. Bone bruises hurt, and upcoming battle.”

“I’ll put you on a horse,” Peter says, still abnormally calm, and gets his axes up crosswise over his face as Edmund strikes straight at him.

Edmund twists his blade, sending one of the axes spinning away, and Peter grunts in exertion. He goes to one knee – on his injured leg – teeth gritted in pain, and uses his good leg to kick Edmund’s knees out from under him before he throws himself forward at his brother, knocking the sword from his hand. Edmund grabs the wrist with the remaining axe in it, but Peter snatches Edmund’s dagger from his belt. The blade’s at Edmund’s throat before Caspian can blink.

“Out of practice my arse,” Edmund pants as Peter sits back on his heels, still straddling his brother. “I think you broke something. I need my bones in one piece, genius. Get off me.”

Peter scrambles backwards, a faint flush on his fair features that might be exertion or might be something else, and flips the dagger around to hand it to Edmund. “Didn’t make it to scarlet,” he says.

“I’m bleeding, aren’t I?” Edmund mutters, holding out a hand for Peter to help him up. Peter heaves him up one-handed, holding on for a heartbeat longer than Caspian would think necessary as they both go to collect their fallen weapons, Edmund’s limp more pronounced than Peter’s, although Caspian can’t tell if he’s putting it on or not.

“Just a little bit,” Peter concedes, polishing the ball on the back of one hatchet with the bottom of his shirt. He slides both axes into the loops at the back of his belt.

“Lion’s mane,” Edmund hisses, sheathing his sword. He limps out of the circle, and Peter approaches him with concern written all over his face.

“Are you all right?”

“Bone. Bruise,” Edmund says tightly, sitting down heavily on the grass beside Caspian and reaching down to unlace his boot. “If you didn’t break something. Next time we’re going to talk about a little thing called control, Pete, because sometimes pulling your blows isn’t the same thing as hitting with the flat instead of the edge.”

“Stop whining,” Peter orders, sitting down on the ground beside him. He doesn’t spare a moment for Isenial, Irian, or Caspian, the first two of whom are looking concerned. Irian’s balancing on the balls of his feet, saying, “Should I go for a healer, majesty?”

Edmund lets Peter tug the boot off and fuss over his ankle and says over his shoulder, “No, don’t bother. If it’s that bad, his royal majesty the High King can carry me slung over his shoulder like a fainting maid. Although I’m not entirely certain whether I’m talking about the King of Summer or Breakneck the mercenary here.”

“Shut up,” Peter says absently. “Look, it’s just bruised. It looks and feels worse than it is.”

“I hate you,” Edmund grumbles, although he doesn’t move to swat Peter’s hands away. “Go beat up Caspian instead; I want to see how he fights.”

Caspian gives Edmund an alarmed look, because he’s fought with Peter exactly twice, and the first time Peter was trying to kill him and the second time he was trying to prove a point, but both times he was fighting a very different High King than the one he sees here.

Edmund turns his head in time to see the expression on Caspian’s face. “And go easy on him, because it’s hard to tell anything in about two seconds.”

“One of us,” Peter says, “is the High King here, and it’s not you, although one really can’t tell by the way you act.”

“It’s a common misconception,” Edmund says, looking away as Peter gets to his feet, staring down at his brother with concern.

“Irian,” Peter says, “our visitor’s sword is in my tent. You’ll know it; it’s the only Telmarine style blade in there. Go and get it.”

Irian nearly falls over himself scrambling to bow, saying hastily, “Of course, your majesty,” before racing off.

“I was just going to offer him my sword,” Edmund says to Peter.

“People generally fight better with their own weapons,” Peter says mildly. He glances at Caspian, dismisses him as his gaze turns away, and says to Isenial, “Of your courtesy, Isenial, it would be good to know how Irian son of Absalian progresses in his studies with a blade.”

“It is my pleasure to inform you that he does well for his age,” Isenial returns. “Of course, it is also my duty to inform you that I would not, in good conscience, put him in combat at this level of his studies. You will remember that my captain Ziazan spoke against bringing him on this campaign.”

“I spoke against bringing him on this campaign,” Peter points out. “But I was reliably informed that denying his father’s request would be very bad politics, although I’m not entirely sure why.”

“Because Absalian still has contacts on the Telmarine side of the border,” Edmund says, with the air of someone who’s said the same thing a dozen times. “And those contacts are the ones helping to keep us from open war. He’s still in high standing for an exile.”

“I thought he was a refugee,” Peter says, frowning.

“Since Marroquin would string him up for high treason if he ever returned to Telmar, it amounts to the same thing,” Edmund says. “I would have sent Irian with Lucy, only Absalian wanted him with you. Going to war with the High King has a little more prestige that fighting off bandits with the Queen of Morning, and he’s not particularly fond of Lu anyway.”

“Bastard,” Peter mutters, then, louder, “Bringing him to the war’s not going to be enough for Absalian, though. I actually have to put Irian into combat. Have I mentioned how much I hate being manipulated?”

“I would be a little more alarmed at putting children in the line of fire, myself,” Edmund says, and Peter raises his eyebrows.

“All right, point taken,” Edmund concedes. “But he’s not me, and he’s definitely not you. Is there a little tiny conflict you can put him in that won’t get him hurt, but will still cover him in glory?”

“No,” Peter says. “Since you said I couldn’t send him to the Telmarine border. If he gets himself killed in the battle, it’ll be his own damn fault for asking to be sent out here. And speak of the devil.”

He falls silent as Irian comes running up with Caspian’s sheathed sword clenched in his fist. Looking at him now, Caspian can see he’s not more than fourteen, and his features are as familiar as Caspian’s own, characteristically Telmarine. Some things don’t change, Caspian supposes.

“Your majesty,” Irian says, holding out the sword, and Peter nods towards Caspian. Irian turns towards him, eyes widening a little in curiosity.

“You are a man of Telmar, my lord?” he asks.

“Not exactly,” Caspian compromises, because he thinks of himself as Telmarine, and he is by his time’s definition of the word, but he’s fairly certain that he’s not by this Narnia’s. “I was born in Narnia,” he says finally, reaching out to curl his fingers around the hilt and draw the blade.

It’s not the same one he fought with two years ago; General Glozelle, who taught him to fight, always said it was a poor swordsman who relied on a single blade, because eventually the sword would become more important than the fight itself. But it’s the same type of sword, thinner and lighter than a Narnian broadsword like Rhindon, basket-hilted in silver with just a hint of gold filigree for his rank. He’s more confident than he’s been since he woke up this morning with his sword in hand.

Edmund frowns. “I don’t think we have a practice sheath for that, not in this basket,” he says.

“That’s all right,” Peter says, unhooking his axes from his belt and passing them to Edmund. “I’m sure we’re both good enough swordsmen to pull our blows when they need to be pulled.”

Since Caspian’s just seen a very good example of this Peter pulling his blows – and the Peter he’d known had been better at it – hearing this isn’t reassuring at all.

Peter smirks at him and steps back into the ring, raising Rhindon in salute. Caspian swallows down the memory of the High King swatting down Lord Sepaspian like a fly and follows him, saluting in turn. Peter doesn’t even give him a heartbeat before he attacks.

From the beginning, Caspian is on his guard, doing his best to hold Peter off, even though Peter’s driving him around the edge of the circle like a cat playing with a mouse. It’s all he can do to keep Peter from doing more than just playing with him, his arms aching and his heels beginning to burn. Always step forward when you block, Glozelle had told him once, but Peter doesn’t give him any opportunity to do so.

“Pete,” Edmund says a few minutes in, sounding deeply disapproving.

“He fights like a Telmarine,” Peter replies sharply, then he moves faster than Caspian has ever thought possible and knocks Caspian’s sword from his hand, striking in a backhanded butterfly blow that would cut him open if Peter wasn’t holding back. Even as it is, Caspian gasps in shock and stumbles back, sitting down heavily on the trampled grass and pressing his palm to his chest where the flat of Peter’s sword has struck him.

Peter offers him a hand up. “You’re not bad,” he says, pulling Caspian to his feet. “Ed?”

Edmund shrugs from where he’s sitting. “A little bit of Telmarine, a little bit of Shoushani, a little bit of some other style I’ve never seen before.” He gives Caspian a calculating look, but doesn’t comment further.

Peter picks up Caspian’s word and hands it to him hilt first. “Again?” he asks, then looks away before Caspian can answer when Kaikura rouses herself from her sprawl on the grass and says, “Majesty.”

Caspian looks over as well, where he sees a pair of black bears leading a lightly armored horseman forwards toward them. The banner he carries is unfamiliar.

The horseman draws to a stop, looking from Edmund, sitting on the ground with one boot tossed aside, to Caspian, in decidedly non-Narnian attire, to Irian’s young face, to Peter, whose face still has smears of charcoal on it and who has grass in his hair. His Narnian is crisp but accented when he says, “I am looking for High King Peter.”

“You’ve found him,” Peter says, voice cool. “I’m Peter of Narnia.”

The young horseman – twenty, maybe, with dark hair and pale green eyes – does a double-take and Edmund snorts softly. He rallies quickly and says, “I have a message for you from Prince Belden Alazais, heir to the kingdom of Belgarion.”

“Oh?” Peter says, sounding bored. He turns his head towards Irian and says shortly, “Get him out of here.”

The Belgarine looks shocked, but Irian steps up to Caspian’s shoulder and catches his elbow. “Lord Caspian,” he murmurs. “If you would.”

Caspian glances at Peter, but his attention is on the Belgarine horseman, not on Caspian. Isenial’s tail twitches slightly, but Edmund doesn’t look at him either.

Caspian follows Irian out of earshot, his bodyguards trailing them. The boy keeps sneaking curious looks at him, and at last says, “Where are you really from, my lord?”

“Narnia,” Caspian says. “Born and raised. And you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Irian stops in front of an open field where lightly armored centaurs are skirmishing. Caspian glances out at them, curious, because he’s never seen anything like this before. His centaurs are certainly not currently capable of this kind of intricate combat. Maybe someday soon, but not now.

“I was born in Telmar, but I have lived in Narnia for nearly all of my life,” Irian says. “My father was Lord Absalian of Pracatan, a powerful province in Telmar. When King Marroquin sought to eliminate those lords most loyal to his murdered brother and the true heir, my father took his family and his followers and fled over the border into Narnia, where the High King offered him a place in the court at Cair Paravel. There are many such Telmarines in Narnia. I assumed you were one such until you said otherwise.”

Caspian considers his words carefully before he answers. “My blood is Telmarine,” he says, “but none of my folk have seen the land in living memory. I have never before left Narnia.”

Irian gives him an odd look. “My lord, you are still in Narnia.”

“Mmm,” Caspian says, and looks away. It doesn’t feel like Narnia, not the way he’s used to Narnia feeling, a sullen murmur in the back of his skull that he can usually ignore. Instead, that sullen murmur has faded to nothing at all, how he imagines his mind used to be before the earth-binding. Instead, all of Narnia’s considerable attention is fixed elsewhere. If he concentrates – and he doesn’t want to – he can sense her, focused on Peter and not on him, something he’s more than grateful for. He can’t imagine how Peter can stand it, because he certainly can’t.

“This war,” he says suddenly, turning back to Irian. “What is it about?”

“Belden of Belgarion being a greedy bastard,” Abhean grumbles, chin on his paws as he watches the centaurs. “What else? It’s always the same thing. Belgarion, Archenland, Natare, Calormen – they all want the same thing.”

Irian makes an apologetic face. “That is the truth of it, my lord. Prince Belden Alazais seeks to add Narnia to his father’s kingdom, which will one day pass to him –”

“He’d prefer sooner rather than later,” Abhean adds.

“– and so the High King must needs ride into battle to prevent his doing so,” the boy finishes. “But Belden is here without his father’s blessing, so if he wants Narnia, he must win it quickly. It will end soon. Narnia’s army is greater than his, and we have the better general.”

Caspian doesn’t miss the look Abhean and Orlenda share. “Well,” Orlenda says, “we have the better general. The High King’s never fought a war he couldn’t win.”

“Even when he shouldn’t be able to,” Abhean mutters. “No one should be so lucky.”

Orlenda gives him a sharp look. “Better the High King than Lune of Archenland, or Marroquin of Telmar, or the Tisroc of Calormen,” she says severely. “Choose your words carefully, tiger, or your whispers may reach the ears of the King of Evening, and he will not treat them lightly.”

“Spying now, are you?” Abhean says, but he falls silent, and Caspian regards him curiously as the sound of shouting reaches them from the field.

-
-

He spends the night shuffled off into the corner of a tent occupied by six snoring fauns, none of whom wake at his intrusion. He’s only just barely still awake when another great cat pushes aside the doorflap and pads among the sleeping forms to stop in front of Caspian.

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs to Abhean and Orlenda, a soft undertone that Caspian has to strain to hear. “Sidonie hasn’t forgotten your trials and tribulations. Go to sleep.”

“Ha,” Abhean says bitterly, but puts his muzzle down on his paws.

“I’m not going to eat you,” the new arrival says to Caspian. “Unless the High King tells me to. Go to sleep.”

“Not reassuring, Hazhir,” Orlenda mutters, her voice thick and sleepy.

“What? You’d do it too.”

Caspian can’t tell what she is, not in the dark, but she sits down with her attention fixed on the door. He falls asleep to the soft sound of the sleeping cats and the snoring fauns.

Hours later, he wakes up to the sound of chinking armor and muffled voices, sounds made familiar by his time in Aslan’s How. Caspian pushes himself up on his elbows, blinking, and sees Orlenda rouse herself. Abhean and an unfamiliar leopard are sitting up, looking out the open tentflap. The fauns are gone.

“What’s going on?” Caspian asks, swinging his legs over the side of the cot.

“Belden’s decided to act,” Abhean says. “The High King’s heading him off as soon as he crosses Narnian borders.”

“‘As soon as’?” Caspian echoes. He pulls on his boots and goes outside, the three great cats following him.

The leopard – he’s assuming she’s the Hazhir of last night – shrugs. “Something about politics,” she says. “I don’t really understand.”

The air is crisp in the early morning, and all around Caspian, the camp is moving with deadly earnestness, quiet, solemn, and certain. Soldiers strap on weapons and armor, murmuring to each other as if speaking too loudly would jar the fabric of the universe.

“Where’s the High King?” Caspian asks softly.

“His tent,” Hazhir says. “But he has slightly more important things on his mind just now than one lost Telmarine.”

“I need to see him,” Caspian insists, and she shrugs again as Abhean and Orlenda both look at her.

“Oh, good,” Abhean says. “Watching the High King throw him out will be so very amusing, and since it seems less than likely I’ll have a place in this fight, I need something to laugh at.”

Caspian ignores him and does his best to retrace his steps to Peter’s tent. It’s not hard – all he has to do is keep moving uphill until he sees Peter’s scarlet tent, a pair of horses standing saddled in front of it with the sleek bodies of the Royal Guard flowing around them.

“For a human with no standing in Narnia,” Kaikura says as he approaches, “you are very cocky.”

“So I’ve been informed,” Caspian says, stepping forward as the Guard parts to let him through. He thrusts the tent flap aside to find Edmund and Peter both in full armor, the last pieces of Peter’s still being put on him by Irian and another teenage boy. They turn to stare at him.

“Out,” Edmund snaps. “There’s a war going on, if you haven’t noticed.”

Caspian ignores him. “I’ll fight for you,” he says to Peter.

The High King’s gaze is cool and blue, utterly disinterested. Caspian has seen him like this before, he realizes. He hadn’t paid any attention to Caspian then, either.

“I don’t trust you enough to take you into battle with me,” Peter says flatly. “And you certainly don’t have the time to convince me. Get out; I have a war to win.”

And like that, his attention is off Caspian; he goes back to talking to Edmund as if Caspian’s not even in the tent with him, holding out his arms so Irian can slip his gauntlets on. For a moment Caspian gapes, because no one, no one, has ever treated him so cavalierly, then Orlenda presses against his legs, backing him out of the tent.

“Told you,” Abhean says smugly, and Caspian glances down at him, scowling. Once, Peter would never have spoken to him so. But once – once hasn’t happened yet.

He looks away at the harsh, familiar cry of a griffin, and a heartbeat later the creature hits the ground in front of the tent as Caspian jerks out of the way automatically. It – he can’t tell whether it’s male or female – shoves aside the tent flap with one claw, talons covered in gleaming, sharpened metal, and goes inside. Caspian hears it say, “Majesty, they near the border.”

“Put First Wing in the air,” Peter orders. “Second and Third on standby, to launch at my command.” He comes out with all his armor on now, Rhindon sheathed at his side and his axes at his hip, shield on his arm and a halberd in his armored fist. Edmund and the griffin follow.

“Majesty!” the griffin exclaims. “I hear and obey.” It gathers its haunches under itself and launches into the sky, wings spreading to catch the air currents. Its fierce screech echoes through the air, and Caspian stares as two dozen more griffins take to the sky, spiraling up out of the camp below.

Peter grunts in satisfaction and tosses his halberd to Edmund as he pulls himself into the saddle of the white mare. Her armor is red and gold-washed steel; when she shakes her head, tiny rubies in her chanfron catch the sunlight and make her sparkle. Peter slaps her armored neck with his armored hand and reaches to take the halberd back from Edmund, who mounts the black stallion, more conservatively armored in plain steel and blue barding.

“Sound ‘call to arms’,” Peter says shortly to Edmund, resting the halberd across his saddlebow to put on his helmet.

“Call to arms!” Edmund orders, and a centaur standing at the bottom of the hill raises a horn to her lips and blows a series of low, resonating notes that Caspian can feel in his bones.

The camp begins to boil.

Or so it seems. Watching from above, Caspian can see the soldiers that appear seemingly out of nowhere, ducking out from beneath tents or separating from their friends, forming into units and formations among the lines of tents beneath the hill. It’s not an ideal place for an army, but he they seem to take it in stride.

“Narnians!” Peter calls. “This is your land. You have frozen for it, fought for it, bled for it, died for it, and Belden of Belgarion thinks he can take it from you for nothing more than a song and a prayer. This land is yours. Will you let Belgarion take it from you?”

“NO!” The shout echoes from the trees of the bordering forest, the tall mountains to the west and the hills to the north. Caspian shudders.

“Then fight for it!” Peter bellows. “Show Belgarion that Narnia is not so easily cowed! We defeated the White Witch, we defeated Masongnong, we defeated Archenland, we defeated Natare, and we shall defeat Belgarion as well! Before this day ends, we shall triumph, or these forests will run red with Belgarine blood. This land is yours, Narnians – hold it as closely as you would hold your wives! For Narnia!”

A great cheer goes up. “Bittersteel!” someone shouts. “The King of Summer and the King of Evening! Bittersteel!”

Peter holds up a clenched fist. Silence falls abruptly. “This is for Narnia,” he says. “I want Belgarion to know that they can never bare steel on this land again. Will we end it today, Narnia?”

“YES!”

“Then end it!” he cries, and rips Rhindon from its scabbard, the sword shining in the sunlight. “For Narnia!”

How? Caspian thinks over the pounding in his head as the army cheers and Peter spurs his horse down the hill, Edmund following behind and the Royal Guard streaming after, scarlet and gold banners flying in the air. The army parts to let them through and then follows, suddenly arranged into columns that move like flowing water, smooth and liquid, easy in themselves and their places. How was this land ever conquered?

He has no answer.

-
-

They cannot hear the sounds of fighting from the camp. At last, Caspian goes down to present himself to the healers, or rather, a limping hound big enough to come up to his shoulder appears abruptly in front of him and growls, “You’re not doing anything. We have wounded, and we need every pair of hands we can get.”

Caspian goes. There aren’t many wounded yet, but the healers are preparing for the worst, and when he looks up, he can’t make any sense of the shapes in the sky. Then the first one gets close enough that he can see a pair of griffins carrying a basket, which makes no sense at all until they land and Caspian sees the wounded crowded inside it.

“Help, you stupid human!” a faun barks, barging out of the healers’ tents, and Caspian doesn’t have time to think for the next few hours. He’s too busy carrying wounded into the healers’ tents, tying off bandages, and doing anything else he’s told.

“Caspian,” a grizzled centaur says at last, laying a hand on his shoulder. “We have no further need of you. Go and clean up.”

His head swimming, Caspian stumbles into the sunlight, blinking at the blood coating his hands and forearms. There’s a stream running behind the healers’ tents, and he kneels down beside it, the water shocking cold on his bare skin as he watches the blood swirl away. Beside him, upstream, Hazhir bends her head to lap delicately at the water.

“You’ve done well,” she murmurs. “Silvertongue will be surprised.”

“Who?” Caspian asks, splashing water on his face. There’s still blood caked beneath his fingernails, but he’s starting to revive. He hadn’t had to do this after the battle before the How; the concept would have been – is still; he’s a king of Narnia; he shouldn’t have to do this kind of work – unthinkable. And it’s hardly like the High King and King Edmund are here doing this work. Because they’re fighting, a low murmur says in the back of his skull; Caspian shoves it aside. Peter had trusted him once; he should have done so again.

The leopard gives him an odd look. “King Edmund Silvertongue,” she says slowly. “He didn’t think you’d answer to a call from us.” There’s a slight, deliberate emphasis on the last word. Caspian blinks in surprise until he gets the meaning. He’s human. The Narnians are not. There must be trouble in Narnia even here, then, some kind of tension between humans and Narnians.

Until he’d come here, he hadn’t thought there were humans in Peter’s Narnia, not aside from the kings and queens themselves. Who, then? All refugees, like Irian and his family?

“The King of Whispers,” Caspian says; it’s what his people have always called Edmund. “He knew about…this?” He can’t think of a word to describe what he’s been doing for the Narnians; “help” doesn’t entirely seem like the right term.

“You’re a braver one than I, if you call Silvertongue that to his face,” Hazhir says, but doesn’t answer Caspian’s question.

They both look up at the sound of horncalls, and Hazhir nods to herself. “The battle’s over,” she says to Caspian. “Or the better part of it, at least. Silvertongue’s returned. Come on!”

Caspian follows her around to the front of the tent, blinking a little to see Peter emerge from it. The High King has shed most of his armor; he’s still wearing his surcoat, but he’s shed his mail for boiled leather. His shield is swung over his back, Rhindon sheathed at his side, his two axes tucked into the back of his belt. There’s an ugly wound running down the side of his face and he limps a little, but otherwise Peter appears unhurt. He nods to Caspian when he sees him, then stands still, arms crossed over his chest.

There’s a little cavalcade coming up the wide path between the tents, led by the banner carriers and a figure in mail and scarlet surcoat. King Edmund. Caspian blinks at the banners, because the one just beneath the lion of Narnia is unfamiliar – what looks like a broken stick over a lidless eye, both in silver on scarlet.

They reign up to a stop in front of the tent, and Edmund dismounts, taking his helmet off and tucking it beneath his arm as he drops to one knee in front of Peter.

Peter inclines his head slightly, and Edmund rises. “Your majesty,” he says, gesturing behind him, “for Narnian blood shed on Narnian soil and the song of swords in sunlight, I bring you Belden Alazais, prince of Belgarion.”

He steps aside to let a pair of satyrs come forward, a slight red-haired man in mail held between them. They throw him down on the ground in front of Peter and melt back into the crowd.

“Belden Alazais,” Peter says softly and grimly, moving forward. “You have made me a very great deal of trouble.”

There’s quiet threat in his voice, and Caspian shivers. He’s afraid of Peter – there’s no use lying to himself about it. He’s seen the High King kill men in cold blood, and he didn’t look at them so very differently than he’s looking at Belden of Belgarion now.

“Bittersteel,” Belden says, his voice quivering slightly. He’s older than Peter by about five years, Caspian sees. He can also see that Belden is terrified of Peter.

Belden draws himself up, staying on his knees, and looks Peter in the eye. His hands are shaking slightly. “You,” he says, “you invaded Belgarine land –”

Peter laughs. It’s a soft, certain sound and Caspian stiffens again. “I, invade Belgarine land?” he says. “No, Prince Belden. Unlike you, it would seem, I know Narnia’s borders. Perhaps you would do well to learn Belgarion’s as well.”

“This land is rightfully Belgarion’s –”

The crowd of watching Narnians makes a low, angry sound like a growl and Belden lapses silent, looking around him with fear flickering across his face.

“This is Narnian land,” Peter says. “This is my land, and you drew steel here, spilled blood here. If I had done the same in Belgarion, what punishment would your father Easal Alazais inflict?”

“None,” someone mutters. “Because that wouldn’t be Belgarine land anymore.”

A ripple of laughter follows this statement; Edmund grins, though Peter doesn’t seem to notice.

“Foolish boy,” Peter continues when Belden doesn’t answer. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you where you stand. It would be a righteous death – payment for the lives of my people lost in battle against you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Kill me, then,” Belden says, swallowing and thrusting his chin out. “My father –”

“You’re not here with his blessing,” Peter says. “These are your personal troops, not the Belgarine army. If I kill you, all I’m doing is executing a bandit who terrorized my people on my land. Don’t you agree?”

Belden is silent for a minute. “What will you do with me, then?” he asks at last.

“Ransom you as befits your rank,” Peter says, dragging out the words. From the look on his face – and Caspian’s seen that expression before, pointed at him more times than he cares to admit – he’d rather kill Belden. “My brother and I leave for Cair Paravel in a few days. If Easal or Ingeld doesn’t ransom you before then, you will come with us, and enjoy the comforts of a Narnian cell until such time as King Easal or Prince Ingeld comes to Cair Paravel to negotiate directly with us and offer us what little recompense there is for the losses we have suffered. And I warn you, Prince Belden, Belgarion’s payment will be grave indeed. I still have to put up with my sister’s ire for being late to an event I should probably not be late for.”

Edmund’s eyes go wide and he swears softly under his breath. Caspian can’t hear the words, but he sees Edmund’s lips move.

“Take him away,” Peter orders. “Let him enjoy Narnia’s comfort in chains.”

He steps forward as the satyrs haul Belden away again and the crowd that’s gathered dissipates. Caspian stays still, watching Peter catch Edmund’s chin in one hand and tilt his head up, looking at his brother’s face with worry dark in his eyes. Edmund doesn’t make any move to push him away, just says tiredly, “I’m all right, Pete. Better than you; Aslan’s mane, what happened to your face?”

“Belgarine lancer,” Peter says absently. “And I need a new helmet.”

“Not another one,” Edmund sighs. He’s holding himself very still.

Peter lets go and rubs his hand over his face, wincing a little as he jars the fresh wound, and Edmund relaxes. “Casualties?”

“How should I know?” Edmund says. “I just got back from the battlefield. How long have you been here?”

Peter glances up at the sun. “An hour, maybe,” he says. “I’ve been helping the healers.”

“Of course you have,” Edmund says patiently. “At least you have opposable thumbs, and the healers don’t tend to be impressed with you being the High King and all when they’re trying to keep someone’s tail from falling off.”

“It’s nice,” Peter says stiffly, then shakes his head. “Casualties are – not as bad as they could be. I’ve seen worse.”

“Better or worse than Masongnong?” Edmund asks. “Are we talking White Witch levels or –”

“High Reaches,” Peter says, which evidently means something, because Edmund winces a little and says, “Oh. Well – it could have been worse.”

“That’s just wounded, though,” Peter continues. He looks deathly tired – looks younger, really, much more like the boy Caspian knows. He’s been thinking of this Peter as older, which he is, but now it’s painfully clear that there’s little difference between the two. “Mine and Oreius’, at least; yours haven’t come in yet. I think dead is significantly less than we had at the High Reaches.”

“I should hope so,” Edmund says fervently. He shifts his shoulders and Peter reaches out to clap him on the arm.

“Go get your armor off,” he says. “I want to sit down Belden in private and scare the piss out of him, and I want you there.”

“To curb your tongue or just –”

Peter shrugs, an edge of a grin on his face. “We’ll see.”

“Get your face seen to,” Edmund says. “You look like you went three rounds with a bear.”

“I’ve done that.”

“And you looked pretty bad afterwards,” he points out. “Which would be my point.”

Peter runs a hand through his hair. “Just go,” he says wryly, and Edmund starts shedding his gauntlets as he heads up the hill towards his tent.

“Meet you in half an hour?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Peter replies, knuckling his forehead.

“Caspian,” Hazhir hisses, but her voice gets Peter’s attention. He glances at Caspian and nods to him once, short and cursory, then goes back into the healers’ tents.

“We shouldn’t have seen that,” she whispers. “That’s the High King’s own business.”

“No,” Caspian agrees. His mouth is dry, because he’s never, never seen Peter look at any living person the way he looked at his brother, and he shouldn’t have seen that. He really shouldn’t have.

Hazhir nudges his leg with her shoulder. “Go and eat,” she suggests. “Before the rest of the army makes it back. You need the energy.”

Thinking about eating makes his gorge rise slightly, but his stomach rumbles, so Caspian nods and follows Hazhir to the nearest mess tent, already packed full of worn, bloody soldiers inhaling food like air. None of them look at him, and Caspian collects a tray and passes Hazhir half a chicken when he sees her eyeing it.

He’s halfway through eating when Abhean and Orlenda come in, and Hazhir nods to Caspian and rises, yawning. “Sleep,” she says fervently as she ducks out of the tent, and Caspian suddenly agrees with her very much. He puts his tray away and goes outside. When had the sun gotten so low in the sky? It seems like – and must have been – hours since he’d woken to the sound of the army preparing to depart.

He glances up as he finds his way to his own borrowed tent. The scarlet campaign tent at the top of the hill is still lit up from inside, shadows moving within. Peter, and the second one must be Edmund.

“You’ve done well,” Orlenda says as Caspian crawls into his cot. The fauns haven’t returned yet. “The High King will be pleased.”

“Really?” Caspian mutters just before he drops into sleep. “I can’t tell.”

-
-

The next day, the army is more subdued than Caspian has seen it yet. Though still wary, most are easy enough with him now that he quickly finds out why – casualties were worse than expected, and there’s a rumor that Belden might have been joined in the past few days by his younger half-brother Oswyn, who will have brought a fairly significant army of his own if he really is on the other side of the border.

Caspian goes to the healers’ tents, but after the frantic battle-time triaging yesterday, they have things well in hand. Left with nothing else to do – and no one’s sparring today for him to watch – he presents himself instead to the ostlers, who are more than happy to take him. He’s never done this kind of work before in bulk, but it’s easy enough, and the dumb animals the army carries with them for food are soothing, whuffling at his clothes and hands as he scatters feed across the ground for them. A dwarf shows him how to milk the goats and then vanishes, leaving Caspian with a pile of empty pails that he regards in alarm for a few minutes before the plaintive bleating gets to him and he approaches the goats warily.

After he’s filled two of the pails, the dwarf comes back and takes them away. Caspian only gets kicked twice, and accidentally knocks over a nearly-full pail once.

He pays no attention to the heavy tread on grass behind him, assuming it’s just the nameless dwarf again, or one of the other livestock handlers, then King Edmund says, “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Caspian rises and turns around slowly, wiping his hands on his trousers. “Majesty,” he says, bowing his head slightly.

Edmund strolls past him and scratches the nanny on the head, presenting her with a carrot he seems to conjure out of thin air. “When you’re done here,” he says, “Peter wants to see you.”

“When I’m done?” Caspian says uncertainly, because it doesn’t seem likely that the High King of Narnia would want to wait on finishing the goats’ milking.

“When you’re done,” Edmund repeats. “It’s not like he’s eagerly waiting on your arrival; Narnia doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”

“I didn’t say it did,” Caspian mutters.

Edmund moves to leave, and Caspian says suddenly, “Majesty –”

The king turns back to him. “What?”

“When it was you thrown out of your own time,” Caspian says, remembering Oreius’ words, “how did you get back?”

For a moment Edmund’s face is grim with memory. “Luck,” he says at last. “Pure luck. There’s a river – the Great River –”

“I know it,” Caspian says.

Edmund nods. “The White Witch, may she rot in hell, was chasing me, and the ice on the river had just begun to harden. When I came to Narnia at the end of the Long Winter, before we were crowned, the river had been frozen solid for a hundred years, so I assumed that it was likewise then. I fell through the ice – and came up in the waters of the Strangers’ Marina at Cair Paravel. I don’t know how or why, and some things don’t happen twice.” He gives Caspian a thin-lipped but sympathetic smile. “Worrying for your own land, Caspian?”

“My Narnia is…troubled,” Caspian admits. ‘Troubled’ can sum up a multitude of sins that he doesn’t think the High King was anticipating when he left Narnia in Caspian’s hands, and while things had seemed to have reached some measure of peace when he’d been in the Western Waste – he wouldn’t have left Cair Paravel otherwise – two years ruling Narnia has taught him that problems can flare up at the slightest provocation. There are still Narnians attacking any Telmarine that dares set foot out of the densely populated Telmarine villages, and only three months ago a satyr was found hanged from a tree just outside the castle grounds, a crudely printed sign nailed to his chest. He’s well aware that Peter would probably kill him if he knew. He’s also fairly certain – and being in Peter’s Narnia has only cemented this belief – that Peter never had to deal with the sort of problems that plague his Narnia.

Edmund nods, face calm in understanding. “I’m sure I know the feeling,” he says, “though you might not agree.” He grins briefly at Caspian, and for a moment, Caspian sees the familiar boy beneath his features, though this Edmund is not so far from boyhood himself. He’s still years older than the Edmund he met two years ago.

“The High King –” Caspian begins suddenly, uncertain what he means to ask.

Edmund arches his eyebrows. “What about Peter?” he says.

Caspian licks his lips. “What does he mean to do with me?”

Edmund shrugs. “I’m assuming that’s what he wants to talk to you about.”

If he knows, he’s not speaking of it; Caspian frowns at him and Edmund meets his gaze calmly. His expression is unreadable.

Edmund gives the nanny one last scratch and then straightens. “I’ll see you around, Caspian,” he says lightly. “Don’t forget to see Peter.”

“As if I could,” Caspian mutters, and hesitates, uncertain whether to bow or not, but Edmund leaves before he can make up his mind.

It doesn’t take him much longer to finish milking the goats – a very human-looking Narnian comes in when he’s almost complete and takes over, thanking him with words that are just slightly sibilant around the edges – but afterwards his hands are cramped and aching, and he smells strongly of goat. He washes his hands in the stream behind the healers’ tents – the centaur healer nods to him, but doesn’t speak – and goes back to his tent to change his borrowed clothing.

He goes up the hill to the High King’s tent with a certain amount of expectation. Peter has defeated his enemy; there seems no further reason to stay here.

The guards outside the High King’s tent – a lioness and a leopard – are familiar with him by now. Caspian nods to them politely and reaches up to touch the bells outside the tent flap; they chime once before Peter calls, his voice faintly harried, “Come in.”

Caspian ducks under the tent flap. Peter’s sitting at the table in the center of the tent, brows knit as he frowns at the maps in front of him. The shapes of the lands are unfamiliar, and Caspian tries rather unsubtly to peer at them.

“Telmar,” Peter says shortly, catching Caspian’s gaze. “If things don’t calm down, I’ll be there as soon as I’m done at Cair Paravel. At this point I don’t care if they’re not carrying banners; they’re still coming over Marroquin’s border into Narnia and therefore it’s his damn fault as far I’m concerned.” He reaches out and picks up the map on top, rolling it into a cylinder and stuffing it inside the leather carrying case that’s been weighting down one edge. He drops it on the table and starts gathering up the other maps – there are layers upon layers; Caspian goggles, because he’s never seen so many maps in his life, and he has no idea what they’re for or why Peter needs them here. Peter doesn’t look at him as he stores them away in their own cases.

“For all intents and purposes,” he says, “this war is over with. Easal can’t afford to let Narnia keep his son for too long; Belgarion has appearances they need to keep up, and a number of the landbound western countries still think of Narnia as an upstart. I’m leaving troops on the border with one of my best commanders; Edmund and I can’t stay here. We are –” his lips quirk briefly “– otherwise engaged, I’m afraid, and I’m aware my sister will have my head when I do get to Cair Paravel, since this war took longer to blow over than I’d thought when I left a few months ago. As you heard yesterday, Belden is coming with us, since I’m hardly going to leave him here for Easal or Ingeld to retake.”

He pauses, and Caspian takes the opportunity to venture, “Oswyn of Belgarion –”

“Oswyn Redway,” Peter corrects, “is currently in Lasci with the Belgarine embassy. Camp tales are only camp tales, and not truth. But it’s good you’re listening.”

He snaps the last carrying case closed and sets it aside, turning towards Caspian. The wound on his face has been stitched up with neat stitches; it’s still ugly and red, but less so, now.

“You,” Peter says, “are returning to Cair Paravel with us. There’s no place for you here; even if we had one, I wouldn’t leave you alone. There’s no place for you in Cair Paravel either, but if you’re there, you’re under my eye.” He shrugs. “I don’t know why you’re here or if the Kadreddin mirror has a purpose behind its actions, but if it doesn’t, it’s at Cair Paravel, and maybe that will help you get –” His last words are drowned out by the sound of horns, and he grins suddenly, moving smoothly past Caspian and out of the tent. Caspian follows.

His first thought is that another centaur troop has arrived, then he blinks and the figures at the bottom of the hill resolve themselves into mounted horsemen. Men – more than he’s seen at any one time since he arrived in this Narnia. Very likely more men than were in the camp before today, at least two hundred of them.

“Captain!” Peter calls, striding down the hill. “You made good time; I didn’t expect you for another week. I only sent a messenger yesterday.”

One of the horsemen swings down from his gelding and removes his helmet, dropping briefly to one knee. “Your majesty,” he says, then rises. “Your messenger and I crossed paths last night; Queen Susan sent us out three days ago.”

Peter laughs, sounding a little bemused. “Su’s pushing the point a bit, isn’t she?” he says as Edmund comes striding up, fingercombing his wet hair, which is loose around his shoulders.

“She didn’t,” he says.

“Oh, but she did,” Peter says wryly, and Edmund shakes his head.

“I told her I’d get you back to the Cair on time, it’s not like I don’t have as much of a stake in the – thing,” he adds pointedly as Peter rolls his eyes, “as she does. As any of us do. As long as we’re all there.”

“We’ll leave tomorrow, then,” Peter says comfortably. “I’m taking the Zohar and Shermarke troops back with me as escorts, and all the Royal Guard, as well as our guest.”

“I’d heard you’d captured Prince Belden,” the captain says.

“Edmund captured him, actually,” Peter says, glancing at his brother. “Belden’s going back to Cair Paravel to enjoy a tower cell until Easal decides to ransom him. I’ll see you in my tent for dinner tonight, Captain.” It’s a dismissal, and the captain drops briefly to one knee before going back to his men. The troop of horsemen ride off, all but one, who dismounts, puts his helmet on his saddle, and heads toward Peter.

“Ossian –” Peter begins, grinning.

“Breakneck, you bastard, is this where you’ve been hiding yourself?” the horseman says, pulling Peter into a rough hug as the guard members on duty growl warningly.

“Here in the barren wildlands of the west,” Peter says, voice muffled by the stranger’s armor. He’s a big, dark-haired man with an accent Caspian can’t place; Caspian goggles, because even King Edmund doesn’t treat the High King so lightly.

“I hear you thrashed the Belgarines something terrible,” the horseman – Ossian, Caspian’s assuming – adds, releasing Peter.

“Well enough,” Peter says. “We won.”

“Wish I could have seen it,” Ossian says. “Watching you fight was better than wine. Well – Natarene wine, anyway; your Narnian grapes are damn good.”

“That they are,” Peter agrees, sounding pleased. “It was no great victory, if that’s what you’ve been hearing.”

“They never are, are they?” Ossian says, grinning. He claps Peter on the shoulder while Edmund glowers silently. “I’d best get to my men, Breakneck. It’s good to see you again.”

The corner of Peter’s mouth quirks up. “And you too, Ossian. Good luck here, if I don’t see you before we leave tomorrow.”

Edmund is silent until Ossian is out of earshot, then he turns on Peter. “Are you out of your mind?” he demands. “You’re the High King of Narnia. He’s just a common merc. And I thought you and Seaworth were bad.”

Peter’s expression harshens. “My behavior is none of your business,” he snaps. “And Ossian is a friend.”

“He’s a foreign mercenary,” Edmund snaps back. “For the love of Aslan, Peter –”

For a moment Caspian sees Peter’s eyes flare wide in panic. Edmund sees it too, because he grabs Peter’s arm and all but drags him into his tent. Peter goes with him without protest.

“What –” Caspian begins, trusting that some member of the Royal Guard will be here to answer. “Who –”

“Mathin Terblanche, the captain of the Red Company,” Hazhir supplies. “One of the oldest and most well-established mercenary companies in Natare. Or it was, at least, until they broke their contract with the king of Natare a year ago to side with Narnia in the war. The High King served with them for almost a year and a half.”



*

And some more notes: And after this it probably would have gone to Cair Paravel, where there would have been Susan and Lucy and a really lovely party, and then an assassination attempt, because that's how you throw a party in Golden Age Narnia. And then I have no idea where it would have gone. Presumably Caspian would have gone back to his own time, since for him, this pre-dates VotDT.

Also, you have no idea how freaking many italics I took out of this when I was formatting it to post. Two or three years ago Lass betaed something for me (Voices, actually), and she said something along the lines of, "You have so many italics, it's too much trouble to say de-italicize it, I'm just going to say 'de-it'." AND HALF OF ALL THE RED IN THE BETA SAID "DE-IT." I am so glad I'm not so crazy with the italics anymore, and there's still more in here than I'd write today.

*

Too big to crosspost, so if you like, you can comment on the LJ link-post here, though I'd prefer to keep everything on DW.