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bedlamsbardMore sex in this one. And spymistress Susan. *hearts her* (Oh, the vagaries of the genderfuck AU.)
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
*
Peta drags him around the rest of the day, and Caspian manages to see the work on repairing the damaged parts of the How, Edmund and Lucy shouting at the Narnians they’re trying to put through basic weapons training – Caspian is suddenly very glad that he knows most of this, but when he mentions it, Peta gives him a thoughtful look and says, “Good, you can join them. This is ridiculous, and we need every piece of help we can get, even if it is coming from a Telmarine. They’ll listen to you if I give the order,” which Caspian isn’t entirely sure about, but he’s not going to argue with Peta – and half a dozen caverns within the How that he hasn’t seen before. Then it’s lunch with some of the Narnian captains – officially, Peta explains to him absently, they hold no formal position, but they’re leaders in their communities, and she wants to see if they can transfer that to the battlefield as well, because Narnia has to have officers if it’s going to succeed on the battlefield; nothing else will work. Otherwise there’s just too little order, and they’ll fall apart. “Especially,” she adds bitterly, “since we’re training everyone on the fly.”
“Why do I have to know this?” Caspian asks later that evening, drooping over their supper.
Peta regards him over the top of her winecup. “Because you’re here,” she says. “And because I’m afraid –” She stops abruptly.
“What are you afraid of?” Caspian asks, curious.
She shakes her head. “It’s not important. Nothing. Just paranoia, that’s all.”
But she’s silent for the rest of the meal, and afterwards she leaves Caspian alone for the first time that day and goes into the table chamber. Caspian catches Edmund and Lucy watching the door silently, seeming to weigh something, then Edmund refills his winecup from the skin he and his sister have been sharing and comes over to Caspian, taking Peta’s empty seat.
Caspian eyes him with alarm.
“I am not,” King Edmund says, “going to ask you your intentions regarding my sister, since I don’t particularly want to know and I don’t think you know –”
“I swear I mean no disrespect,” Caspian begins, wary, “and if you feel that I took advantage of your sister, then –”
Edmund laughs, a little, blanching around the edges of it, and says, “Peta can take care of who’s in her bed very well herself; I certainly don’t get a vote about it so long as I’m not there sharing it with her. Trust me, Caspian, the last thing I’m going to do is take offense at whatever my sister’s gotten herself into this time. I’m also,” he adds, cutting Caspian off before he can do more than open his mouth, “not going to threaten you with bodily harm if you hurt her; if you hurt her, she can kill you herself, and all I’m going to do is sit back and watch the show. Maybe make popcorn and run bets, although I doubt anyone betting against my sister is going to make much money. Lose rather a lot, I’m sure, but not make any.”
“Er,” Caspian says, then manages to collect his thoughts and say, “I swear to you, I will treat the High Queen with all due honor –”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” Edmund interrupts. “Just don’t insult her while you’re doing that; I won’t bail you out. I don’t know how much Telmarine customs have changed in the past thirteen hundred years, but I will warn you about this: she is the High Queen of Narnia. Treat her otherwise, try and put yourself above her in any way, fail to obey her orders, do anything you wouldn’t do just because you’re sleeping with her – if she decides to take you to bed again – and you’ll find yourself regretting that you ever thought you could do something along those lines very, very quickly.” He grins, but there’s no real humor or amusement in it, and Caspian looks away.
“I will not treat her otherwise,” he says softly. “She has made the matter more than clear to me.”
“Good,” Edmund says, and leans forward to knock his winecup against Caspian’s. “I’m glad that we’ve got that settled. Tell me about the Telmarine army. Oh, I know you’ve already told Peta, but tell me too.”
Caspian tells him – there isn’t much to tell, because he doesn’t know all that much; his studies have never included the composition of the army or how it is outfitted, fed, watered, nursed, none of that. There is some of what he’s picked up in his history books, and a little he remembers from what Glozelle had let slip from time to time, but there truly isn’t much that he thinks will help the Narnians at all, and he apologize for this to Edmund.
Edmund waves it off. “A little is better than none, and Su will get back to us on the rest,” he says.
Caspian hesitates, and then he asks, “Where has Queen Susan gone?”
“Into Telmarine Narnia,” Edmund says, like Peta had this morning, and then he adds, “She’s good at what she does. She won’t be hurt or found out, and she’ll get back with knowledge that we need to win this war.”
“But –” Caspian begins, and then falls silent as Edmund raises an eyebrow.
“We’ve done this before,” he says, and it’s probably meant to be soothing, but it’s not at all. Before is all well and good, but this is now, and this is a war that he started; Caspian can’t help but feel responsible should something happen to Queen Susan because of what he doesn’t know, what he couldn’t tell Peta and Edmund because he hadn’t listened in his classes, or asked Miraz or Glozelle the right questions, or –
“Don’t dwell on it,” Edmund says. “Peta and I are doing that enough for all of us. And how’s your day been?” This last is addressed to Peta, who’s appeared at his shoulder, glaring down at him.
“You’re in my seat,” she says, and Edmund glances around, sounding mock-indignant when he says, “Well, you’re not sitting in it, which I think means that it’s my seat at the moment.”
“Ha,” Peta says, mouth twisting a little in amusement, and then she says, “Budge up a bit, Caspian,” and a moment later, Caspian finds himself with a lapful of warm, amused High Queen and nearly drops his winecup.
“Oh, as the gods are good,” Edmund hisses, rolling his eyes. “Peta, we’re in public.”
“Not really,” she says, squirming a little, and Caspian bites down on the inside of his cheek to stop his gasp. “Almost everyone’s wandered off already. We practically have the whole cavern to ourselves.”
Edmund glances around, distracted, and Peta takes advantage of that to murmur against Caspian’s ear, “You can touch me, you know; I don’t bite,” and rather than try and explain anything – mostly because he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he might say, or what he could say – he puts an arm carefully around her waist, palm flat against her stomach, and Peta leans back companionably against his shoulder.
“Where’s Lu gone?” Edmund asks sharply.
“There’s some singing in one of the other caves,” Peta says. “I think she’s gone to listen. Some of the singers here are actually quite good.”
“I haven’t been listening,” Edmund says, “possibly because I’m a little busy trying to win a war here.”
“You are not,” Peta says, “of course, the only one.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” he says, and stands up, “I’ll leave you two alone to – whatever it is you’re planning to get up to; I certainly don’t want to know.”
“Why, Edmund,” Peta says, laughing, and he doesn’t reply as he leaves the cavern, just throws up his good hand in frustration.
Peta laughs a little and turns her head to capture Caspian’s mouth with hers, one hand coming up to tangle in his hair. He kisses her back as she shifts around to straddle him, grinding down on him. He feels her smile against his mouth as he groans softly, her free hand guiding his palm to her breast.
“Peta,” he says breathlessly. “Maybe we should –”
“Take our clothes off?” she suggests, kissing him again.
“I,” Caspian says, “I mean –”
She teases apart the laces on his shirt, then lets her hand fall to the front of his breeches, squeezing a little. “What do you mean, Caspian?” she asks, amiably enough, and he hears the inarticulate sound he makes before he continues.
“I mean,” he says, and has to stop to kiss Peta again, tasting the wine on her tongue, “maybe we should go somewhere –”
“Yes?” she says, sounding politely interested.
“Somewhere more –” He gasps, and then manages to recollect the remainder of his thoughts, “– more private.”
“Mmm,” Peta says, and moves her mouth down to his neck.
Caspian draws in a sharp breath. “And – comfortable?” he offers, his voice shaky.
“Hmm,” Peta murmurs, and he shuts his eyes.
A moment later, Peta’s gone from his lap, and he opens his eyes as she closes her hands around his wrists, pulling him to his feet. “There is that,” she says, and then she drags him out of the cavern.
She pins him up against the wall in her room, fingers making quick work of his shirt and breeches, and Caspian drags her shirt off over her heads, cupping her breasts in his hands. He works one bared leg in between her wool-clad thighs, and Peta makes a faint sound in her throat as she rubs herself off against his leg, shameless as a dog in heat.
“Your clothes,” Caspian says, his voice harsh and unfamiliar in his ears. “Take them off, I want –”
Peta curves a hand over the back of his head and pulls him down to kiss her, teeth sharp and messy. “I give the orders around here,” she says into his ear, but Caspian manages to maneuver them around until he has Peta back against the wall, hands braced on either side of her shoulders as he kisses his way from his mouth down the curve of her neck, over the slope of her breasts, stopping to take a nipple into his mouth, which makes Peta gasp and clutch at his hair, his lips fluttering butterfly quick down the smooth skin of her stomach until he touches the fabric of her trousers.
“Let me,” he says, and Peta says breathlessly, “Yes, God, yes, you can –” and almost knees him in the face as she kicks her boots off.
He undoes the buttons on her trousers and pulls them down, taking the opportunity to cup her buttocks in his hands before he has her naked in front of him, and then he kisses her again: the corner of her hip bone, the inside of one thigh, then the other, working his way around until he finally has his mouth on her clit.
Peta makes a sharp, desperate sound as Caspian swirls his tongue over her clit, one hand sliding up the back of her thigh to push one finger, then two inside of her, moving them slowly in and out until she’s gasping, bucking against him as she says, “Yes, yes, gods, yes –”
When she comes, she goes limp as good silk, and almost as soft in his hands as Caspian works his way back up her body to kiss her, the taste of her still sharp on his tongue. “Mmm,” Peta says, her fingers pressing into his dark hair. “God, you’re beautiful,” she adds, her voice dark with desire, and walks him backwards, pushing him onto her bedroll. She straddles him, rolling her arse against his cock as Caspian groans, and then leans down to keep kissing him.
He runs his hands up her back, the smooth length of it, slick with sweat, and then shifts his weight to roll them over.
Peta grins up at him, her hair a damp, wild tangle around her face, her lips red and swollen from kissing. She wraps her legs around his waist as he pushes into her in one smooth stroke, and Caspian puts his forehead down against her shoulder, breathing hard.
“Move,” she says into his hair. “Herdsman’s balls, you Telmarine bastard, fucking move.”
“So bossy,” Caspian mumbles, tasting the sweat on her skin when he licks it. “Are you always like this?”
Peta digs her heel sharply into the small of his back. Her breasts are very soft against his chest. “If you don’t move,” she says warningly, “you may never find out.”
Caspian leans up to kiss her again, fast and messy and graceless, their teeth clicking together and their tongues tangling up, and then he begins to thrust. Peta makes a rough, inarticulate sound in the back of her throat and arches up into him, moving fiercely against him, with him, slick and hot and so tight around him.
He’s trying to be gentle, because she may be tall for a woman but she’s not big, and she’d been a virgin when he took her to bed last night, but Peta keeps urging him on, pushing him faster and harder until her hips have to come off the ground to keep up with him, her gasps half words and half-not. She claws stripes down his back, and Caspian has his hands wrapped so tightly around her hips that he’s certain she’ll bruise in the morning. He rather likes the notion of it; he wants some mark of him on her, on her skin, wants her to smell like him and taste like him, wants Caspian was here written across her body in teethmarks and bruises, the desperate markings that can’t have been left by anyone else here. He wants everyone in the How to know whose bed he was in the night before, the musky scent of Peta-and-Caspian that the sharper noses of the talking beasts here won’t be able to deny.
Peta puts her head back and gasps, clenching around him as she comes. He tastes the sweat pooled at the base of her throat, sucking kisses there in time to his thrusts, ragged and fast now, his rhythm gone as he feels the edges of his control unraveling.
Caspian comes with the sharp taste of Peta’s skin on his tongue, her hands on his back, guiding him back to himself as his head blurs restlessly. He slides free of her and she pulls him up to kiss him, her fingers strong against his jaw as she turns his head towards her. “Caspian,” she says last of all, murmuring deep in the back of her throat, and throws her leg across his, pressing them together as sweat dries on their skin.
He kisses her soft and slow now, each brush of her tongue against his velvet-rough. He smoothes his thumb over the curve of her hip bone, palms her ribs and the fresh scar there.
“Isn’t that pretty,” she breathes against his mouth, and then twists to pull the blanket out from beneath them. The wool is rough against their bared skin, oversensitive after their lovemaking, and Caspian presses himself against Peta, trying to warm her with his own body. He slides his hand down over her back to the curve of her arse and feels her smile against his mouth, pressing back against him a little.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “You’re –”
Her laugh is throaty; he hears it vibrate in her chest where they’re still pressed together. “So I’ve been told,” she says. “But it’s always nice to hear it again.” She puts her head down against his chest, her breath slowing as she drops abruptly from waking to sleeping, and Caspian strokes a hand over her damp hair and smiles into empty air.
-
-
It doesn’t take him long to realize he’s more or less moved out of the cave he was sharing with Edmund and into the cave that Peta has to herself. Once he figures it out, he stumbles over an apology to Peta, or maybe an explanation, and she shuts him up by kissing him and pulling him against her; they fuck up against the walls of her cave, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms hooked across his neck, his hands bruising her hips as he braces himself on every thrust.
On the fourth day, he wakes to Peta’s light touch on his shoulder, raising his head to see Queen Susan sitting tailor-fashion next to their shared bedroll.
“Get the lantern, Caspian,” Peta orders, and he scrambles out of bed as she wraps an arm around her sister’s shoulders. Susan puts her head down tiredly on Peta’s shoulder.
Caspian opens up the lantern; the light illuminates the shadows beneath Susan’s eyes, the bruise faint on her jaw, and the lines of the Telmarine style dress she’s wearing.
“Well,” she says after a moment, “that went well.”
Peta strokes her hair. “Did it really?” she asks.
Susan yawns, covering her mouth with one hand. Caspian blinks to see the bruising on her knuckles, half the nail on her third finger ripped away. He sees Peta’s eyes fall to it, then flicker away. She doesn’t say anything.
“Not really,” Susan says. “Although, for the record, I’m not actually dead, so I suppose that part went well, at least.” She yawns again, then says, “I’ve got information. Get me some paper; I don’t want to forget anything.”
“Caspian,” Peta orders, and he leaves the lantern at her side and reaches for his breeches.
“Get Ed and Lu too, will you?” she adds, shifting so she can wrap both her arms around Susan as Caspian hesitates at the door.
“Of course, your majesty,” he says, and slips out into the dark, quiet hallway. This late – he’s not sure the time, but the How is quiet, sleeping, so it must be late – there’s only one torch lit, shadowing the corners that always seem to be hiding something, and Caspian finds himself looking over his shoulder nervously as he raps his knuckles against Edmund’s door.
“Yeah,” Edmund calls from the other sound, sounding groggy, and a moment later he opens the door with a naked blade in his hand.
Caspian blinks at it.
“I’ve had some bad experiences in the past,” Edmund says, lowering his sword. He doesn’t apologize. “What is it?”
“Queen Susan has returned,” Caspian says, eyeing the sword. “The High Queen wants you and Queen Lucy in her chambers –”
Edmund nods, the sleep clearing from his eyes. His gaze sharpens, more alert now, and he says, “Don’t worry about Lu; I’ll get her. She likes to sleep in the nude, and I don’t want to have to deal with you having seen two of my sisters in the altogether.”
“What?” Caspian says, faintly astonished.
Edmund shakes his head. “Just don’t ask. Really, it’s probably better not to know,” he says, then shuts the door in Caspian’s face.
Caspian blinks again, then goes to retrieve paper, quill, and ink. They’re all to be found downstairs, and while he’s there, thinking of the exhaustion on Susan’s face, he fills a pot of tea with hot water from the kettle kept constantly boiling over the fire in the chamber they’re using as a kitchen, then finds a wooden tray so he can add a mug of beef broth. It seems like the least he can do.
Lucy gets the door when he bangs his shoulder against it awkwardly, and he’s relieved to see her in a nightgown. “Oh, good!” she says brightly, seeing him. “Tea.”
Edmund’s eyebrows go up when he sees the tray Caspian’s holding, but Peta just smiles a little bit and motions Lucy over to make room for Caspian between them.
“Thank you,” Susan says to him, holding the mug of beef broth between her hands, and her smile is a little heartbreaking. Caspian finds himself smiling back, and Peta’s fingers curl briefly against his before she pulls away.
“He’s learning,” Edmund notes, and while there’s no little bemusement in it, there’s also no malice.
“He does do that from time to time,” Peta notes. “Try not to be too dreadfully shocked, Ed.”
“I’m trying to restrain myself,” Edmund assures her.
“That will be a first, I’m sure,” Susan says, leaning into his shoulder. After a moment she straightens, sips at her broth, and says, “Miraz means to wipe out Narnia once and for all; he’s calling in all his levies. As many as twenty thousand men, maybe.”
Peta closes her eyes briefly. “What percentage of the population is that?” she asks.
“That’s all the men of fighting age,” Caspian says quietly, his head spinning. Dear gods. “There has not been an army like that called up in – years. Generations. The last time – we were still a seagoing power, my great-great-grandfather, Caspian the Sixth, Caspian the Burner, needed oarsmen on the ships. It was Calormen.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Lucy says archly. “It’s always Calormen, isn’t it?”
“Hardly always,” Edmund says. “It’s certainly not this time.”
“Do we know how long it’s going to take all those men to get here?” Peta asks. “We can’t fight that. We don’t have the manpower to overwhelm them, we don’t have the training or the discipline to outfight them – we may, and I say may, have the ability to make their lives hell, but that’s only if we leave the How. If we don’t – if we’re trapped here –”
Edmund looks grim. “That’s not what I’m really looking at as a good option,” he says. “Whose bright idea was it to come to the How in the first place? It wasn’t yours, was it?” he asks, looking across the circle at Caspian suspiciously.
Caspian shakes his head. “I did not know the How was more than legend until Glenstorm spoke of it,” he says.
“Superstition,” Edmund sighs.
“I’m sure his plan didn’t include getting trapped here by a Telmarine army,” Susan says reasonably. “Peta –”
“Go on,” Peta says, her voice gentling.
“Without a king on the throne,” Susan continues, “they can’t raise the entirety of the army without a unanimous vote of the Council. Miraz is still regent, but he’s pushing for Caspian to be declared dead so that he can take the throne in his own name, which he can’t now. Right now, we have the advantage in that the Council isn’t unanimous in calling up the levies.”
“Well, that’s good –” Lucy begins.
“Except,” Susan continues, “that Miraz is calling them up anyway, with or without the approval of the Council. By the time they finish their bickering, he’ll have all of Telmarine Narnia raised and very, very angry. There’s some rather interesting propaganda coming out of the capital right now. He wants the country folk too scared to venture outside their fields; he also wants them angry. I wouldn’t be surprised if he produces a dead body that’s conveniently too badly damaged for a positive identification to be made, and then goes around claiming that Prince Caspian’s been kidnapped and murdered by wild Narnians.”
“Oh,” Peta says. “Because that was exactly what we needed. Su, Ed – what if we presented Caspian before Miraz has a chance –”
“Well, for one thing we’ll probably be extremely dead,” Edmund says. “I’m sure he’d like nothing better than to lure us all out of hiding and slaughter us, then parade our dead bodies through the streets. Or our live bodies, then publicly execute us – all of us – for whatever trumped up charges he can come up with.”
“That’s the other interesting thing,” Susan says. “They don’t know who’s in command here. They know that there are humans here besides Caspian, but they don’t know if they’re Telmarine traitors, they don’t know if we’re Archenlanders who’d like a piece of Narnia –”
“Oh, like that’s new,” Peta mutters under her breath.
“– or even if we’re Calormenes, westrons, islanders. All they know is that there are at least a handful of humans here.”
“They’re not even pushing it to human-form Narnians?” Lucy inquires curiously. “Because that –”
“That’s the only suggestion I didn’t hear,” Susan says. “I think Miraz may suspect who we are, but none of the others. I don’t quite –”
“If I may?” Caspian offers, and Peta nods.
“My uncle,” he continues, “has ever been fond of the legends of Narnia of old, of the High Queen and her siblings. He has called the fall of the High Queen a great tragedy ever since I have known him, and if there is anything he holds dear to his heart, it is those legends, those stories. He knows them better than anyone else in Telmar except for my tutor, Professor Cornelius. If you left some sign behind of yourselves, some symbol of your power, then I think he would recognize it and guess who you are.”
“Oh, bugger,” Edmund says.
Peta puts her head curiously to one side. “Feel free to elaborate any time now,” she offers.
Edmund sighs. “When we broke in – using your professor’s window like you said, Caspian – there was no one in the room, but there were books open all over his desk, and they were history books. History books about us. And one of your arrows was stuck through a book, Su. If I had to guess, I’d say the soldier we caught trying to drown Trumpkin brought it back to the castle when he reported to General Glozelle and Miraz. But the color of your arrows – that’s so obscure, how could anyone –”
“My uncle would know,” Caspian says again.
Edmund shakes his head. “All that from an arrow and the garbled story of a terrified soldier. May Aslan help us; the man’s no idiot. Or he knows his history, at least.”
“Well, then,” Peta says. “That just means there’s nothing to stop us from opening up a line of communication.”
“What?” Edmund says. “Are you out of your mind? I don’t think Lord Miraz is going to listen to a sixteen-year-old girl, even if she is calling herself the High Queen of Narnia – who’s been dead for thirteen hundred years, let me remind you –”
“I want to see him face to face,” Peta says. “Make the arrangements.”
“I do not think this is wise,” Caspian begins dubiously.
“Nobody asked your opinion,” Edmund snaps.
“I don’t think it’s very wise either,” Susan says. “Legends and superstition are all well and good, but none of that’s going to matter once he actually gets a look at you, Peta.”
Peta scowls. “If I can beat it into Lune of Archenland’s head that I’m not some silly chit playing at knights, then anyone else is a pushover.”
Lucy says, “I don’t think King Lune ever actually figured that out.”
Peta’s scowl deepens. “Make the arrangements,” she says again.
-
-
“I have seen Glenstorm fight,” Caspian says. “He is a fell warrior.”
“So’s Peta,” Edmund says without hesitation. “Better than him, I’m sure. You should know; aren’t you sparring with her every day? Aren’t you sparring with her several times a day every day?”
Caspian shrugs. “There are far better fighters than me here in the How,” he allows.
“Like Peta?” Edmund says, his voice very dry.
“The High Queen is an excellent fighter,” Caspian says. “But I think that perhaps –”
Edmund snorts. “You think that she’s about to get her arse kicked by a centaur that’s never actually seen a battlefield?” he suggests. “My big sister has been training for battle since she was fifteen – since she was fifteen the first time, I mean, not since last year. That’s the past sixteen years, Prince Caspian, and she’s been fighting for most of it. In actual battles, not just in tournaments or in a practice ring. Can you say as much?”
“No,” Caspian says. “But I think that fighting a centaur is perhaps different than fighting a human.”
“You’re right,” Edmund says. “That I remember. Who the hell do you think taught us how to fight? There weren’t exactly any other humans hanging around Narnia in our day. We were more or less the only ones in the entire country for the better part of two years. Oh, here they come.”
Glenstorm and Peta approach from opposite ends of the cavern, one of Glenstorm’s sons – Ironhoof, Caspian thinks it is – beside Glenstorm and Queen Susan beside Peta, carrying one of the quarterstaffs Caspian and Peta have been training with in one hand; Ironhoof is carrying one as well. Peta is in her leather surcoat, now with the addition of leather vambraces on her wrists, her blonde hair braided tightly at the back of her head.
Peta takes her staff from Susan, Glenstorm from Ironhoof, and then the two noncombatants retreat to the edge of the watching crowd. Susan slides into place next to Caspian. Her face is still bruised – the damage is clearer in the better light of the cavern – but otherwise she appears unaffected.
“Su,” Edmund says, leaning behind Caspian to speak. “How is she?”
“She wants to fight,” Susan says.
“And your point would be?”
“Try trusting in your sister from time to time,” Susan says. “She has it under control.”
“She’s not about to –”
“Edmund,” Susan says strictly. “She’s the High Queen of Narnia. If she says she has everything under control, I’m rather inclined to believe her. Anyway, aren’t you the one who keeps walking in on her sparring sessions?”
“I’d be more inclined to trust my bruised body than my eyes,” Edmund grumbles, “but seeing as this flesh wound is keeping me out of the ring –”
“I’m sure Peta will be more than happy to spar with you one-handed,” Susan says. “She’ll probably even let you tie her good arm behind her back. You know. Just to make things fair.”
“Oh, shut up.” Edmund leans back.
Peta spins her staff in the air in front of her once, experimentally, then approaches Glenstorm and bows from the waist. He returns the bow and steps back a pace.
For a moment neither one of them moves, and then Peta strikes, staff spinning between her hands. Glenstorm’s staff meets it with a terrible crack of wood on wood and then they’re both moving, circling around each other. They’re fast, unbelievably fast, and good. It doesn’t take Caspian long to see that Peta’s faster and better, though Glenstorm has the advantage of height and longer arms.
“It’s dangerous to do this with a centaur,” Susan murmurs in Caspian’s ear. “If she takes him down and he falls wrong, he can break a leg, and you know how bad that can be for a horse. It’s no easier for a centaur. But we have Lu here, if the worst happens, and Peta knows what to avoid. In practice, at least; in the field, that’s the first thing she’ll try for.”
In the center of the circle before them, Peta’s staff darts out, faster than anything Caspian’s ever seen before, and there’s a sharp crack. Glenstorm’s staff falls from his hand and Peta swings her staff low, knocking the centaur to his knees. The foot of her staff is at the base of his neck as soon as he hits the floor.
“Do you yield?” she asks.
Glenstorm raises empty hands. “Your majesty, I yield,” he says, and Peta takes her staff away and steps back as he rises effortlessly to his feet.
There’s a smattering of applause as Peta picks up Glenstorm’s staff; Caspian hears one badger whisper triumphantly to a deer, “And that’s what we’ll be giving the Telmarines when we meet them on the battlefield!”
Edmund cuts his eyes over in their direction, but neither animal seems to notice, too caught up in their own success. “Fools,” he hisses.
“Do you think they are incorrect?” Caspian asks curiously.
“Not if we had a thousand soldiers with Peta’s experience,” Edmund says. “But we have is a handful of refugees, most of whom have never picked up a sword in their lives. They should be a little more concerned about keeping themselves alive and a little less concerned about beating the Telmarines.”
“Isn’t the point of war to kill the enemy even at the cost of your own life?” Caspian inquires.
“At this point, Prince Caspian,” Edmund says, “it’s not going to be a battle we’ll be getting ourselves embroiled in. It’ll be a massacre.”
“Stop it, Edmund,” Susan says sharply. “People can hear you.”
“It’s the damned truth.”
“That doesn’t mean they need to hear it. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to still have an army after this evening, and Peta’s showing off is going to help. Stories spread, you know, and if their queen can fight, then they’ll believe that they can fight too.” She tilts her head up, raising her eyebrows. “You and I both know that you’d be out there with her if it wasn’t for your arm.”
“Why don’t you get out there, then?” Edmund retorts.
Susan blinks at him for a moment. “All right,” she says, and steps forward into the circle.
Peta turns to grin at her. “You’re not in practice,” she notes.
“Let’s see what I remember,” Susan says, and holds up her hand.
Peta tosses Glenstorm’s staff to her. She dips briefly in a bow, and Susan bows back, disregarding the fact she’s wearing skirts.
For a moment they circle each other in silence, then Peta moves, striking low at Susan’s skirt-encumbered legs. Susan blocks the blow, swinging the other end of the staff up towards Peta’s shoulders, and Peta blocks that. They’re fast, shockingly so, and the crack of wood on wood seems even more obscenely loud than it had when Peta was fighting Glenstorm. Susan doesn’t seem at all inconvenienced by her skirts, and Caspian marvels at that; he can’t imagine fighting with such an encumbrance loose around his legs. She and Peta are mirrors of each other, dark and light, both their faces contorted in concentration.
A thousand times Caspian thinks that Peta has Susan, but Susan always manages to slip away. By the time Peta finally strikes Susan’s staff from her hand, sending it spinning away across the floor to come to a stop at Caspian’s face, they’re both panting from exhaustion, their faces shining with sweat. It’s over now – it must be over. Except that Susan keeps stepping lightly away, and Peta stops following, standing very still and watching her sister, occasionally turning her head and then her body to keep her in view.
“That’s not very nice, Su,” Peta says.
“I’m sorry,” Susan says. “Was I supposed to be being nice?”
“Well, I am used to it.”
“We’ve clearly been in England too long,” Susan notes, and then she moves. She manages to get her hands around Peta’s staff before Peta stamps her foot down hard on Susan’s instep, knocking her head forward into Susan’s. Caspian winces at the crack, but all Susan does is blink a little bit and elbow her sister in the ribs. Peta’s grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go of the staff, just snarls a little and twists. Susan twists back, in the opposite direction, and then lets go. A centaur goes prancing back as the staff goes spinning away through the air, and then Peta punches Susan in the face and Susan gets a hand in her braided hair and shoves her sideways, bringing her knee up into the edge of Peta’s cheek.
Caspian’s mouth is very dry.
There’s a sharp, ugly crack as Peta finally gets a good enough grip on Susan’s left arm to twist it behind her back, and Susan hisses in pain but stamps down on Peta’s foot anyway. Peta kicks her legs out from beneath her and sends her down to the dirt floor, kneeling on her back and pressing her forearm across her sister’s throat as she bends her head close to Susan’s. Her hair is falling out of its braid, hanging loose in wild golden tangles around her face.
“Do you yield?” she asks softly.
“You should really lose some weight, Peta,” Susan says genially.
“Susan.”
“Only if you’ll put my shoulder back into joint.”
Peta climbs off her and gets to her feet, helping Susan up. “I can only have one of my siblings out of the fight at a time,” she says, laughing a little bit.
Her lip is split, her left eye is blackened, there’s a bruise spreading over her cheekbone where it collided with Susan’s knee, and she’s limping slightly. Susan looks considerably worse, handling her arm gingerly as Edmund puts an arm around her waist to brace her.
“You remember how this goes?” Peta asks her.
“Do you?” Susan returns, and then nods sharply, digging her teeth into her lower lip. She lets out a sharp gasp in conjunction with the pop of Peta putting her shoulder back into joint, and Caspian winces.
“You all right?” Edmund asks.
“Oh, yes,” Susan says. “Never better.” She swipes a hand across her eyes and frowns at the streak of blood left behind.
Peta grins at her. “Not bad, little sister,” she says, ignoring the muttering from the Narnians that are still gathered around. “I mean, I think you used to last longer, but –”
“Go boil your head, Peta,” Susan says brightly. “But before you do that, come here.”
Peta steps toward her obediently, and Susan reaches up with her good hand to wipe the blood away from Peta’s lip, her fingers seeming to linger a moment. Or maybe Caspian’s seeing things.
When Susan steps away, Peta runs her tongue thoughtfully over her lip and then looks at Caspian. Her mouth quirks briefly in a smile. “Caspian,” she says.
“Your majesty?” Caspian offers.
She nods at the staff that’s still lying by his feet. “You’re up.”
Caspian looks at the staff, then at Peta again. “Oh,” he hears himself say, and she laughs a little.
“That wasn’t,” she says softly, “actually a request.” She hooks the staff with the toe of her boot and tosses it up into the air, catching it with one hand. She holds it out to him.
“Oh,” Caspian says again, and then reaches out to take it. Their fingers brush briefly before Peta lets go and strides away, taking her staff when Ironhoof hands it to her.
She smiles over the wood, her eyes glinting in bemusement. “Well, come on then,” she says, and Caspian steps into the ring.
-
-
They stumble into Peta’s bedroom with Peta’s legs already wrapped around Caspian’s waist, kissing desperately, her hands pulling at his hair as the split on her lip breaks open. The taste of blood doesn’t stop their kisses; Peta makes a sharp sound in the back of her throat and tightens her legs around him, and Caspian more or less trips and sends them sprawling to the bedroll, reaching for the laces on Peta’s shirt, stiff with sweat and dirt from the fighting.
He has to take his hands away so that Peta can drag his shirt off over his head, then he gets the laces on hers undone and pushes it up to her shoulder, lowering his head to run his tongue over a nipple, kissing and sucking and scraping lightly with his teeth as Peta gasps, jerking up against him. She drags a hand through his hair and pulls him up to kiss her, then wriggles until she’s got her shirt off and they’re both bared to the waist.
There are bruises scattered across her torso, fresh and ugly, and Caspian’s a little too desperate to pay attention to those, not with the noises Peta’s making as she presses her fingers against the back of his neck, the curve of his skull. He transfers his attentions to her other breast, cupping it in his hand as he sucks at it, running his tongue over the nubbled flesh.
“Trousers,” Peta pants. “God, I want –”
He kisses his way down between her breasts, across her stomach, and presses his mouth briefly to the ridge of her hipbone before he scrambles downward to wrap his hands around her boots and draw them off one by one. Her ankles are surprisingly delicate between his big hands and he lets them rest there for a moment, looking up at Peta.
Her cheeks are flushed scarlet, her hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her mouth red and swollen from kissing. There’s an ugly bruise darkening on her cheek where Susan kneed her. Caspian’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his life, and says as much.
“You’re very sweet, Caspian,” Peta says. “But if you don’t get your hands on me properly right this instant, I’m going to gut you.”
Caspian runs a hand up her leg until he can press his fingers between her thighs. He can feel the heat of her through the fabric of her breeches, hot as a furnace, hot as wildfire, as dragon fire, and Peta hisses a little and arches up against his hand as he flicks his fingers against her.
“If you gut me,” he says softly, “then who’s going to do this?” He presses his fingers against her again and Peta makes a sound like a whine in the back of her throat, pushing against him. She reaches for him, but he catches her wrist in his other hand.
Her eyes are very bright. “I’m sure,” she says, sounding breathless, “that I can make other arrangements.”
“Oh, I think not,” Caspian says. He kisses the tips of her fingers, then her knuckles, trailing his tongue against the back of her palm. She tastes like dust and wood, blood mixed in with it where she’s scraped up her knuckles, and Caspian takes two of her fingers into his mouth and runs his tongue against them the same way he would her clit, sucking a little.
“Oh,” Peta says, and puts her head back. “Herdsman’s path, Caspian, I want –”
He lets her finger slip free from her mouth, and she curves her hand over the back of his neck, breathing hard. “What do you want?” he asks.
She closes her eyes, then opens them again. “You,” she says. “In me. Now.”
She snaps the words, the voice of a woman used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question, and Caspian gets up to kick off his boots and push his breeches down, tossing them aside as Peta wriggles out of her own. He covers her body with his, their feet tangling together, and gets a hand into her hair to tilt her face up and kiss her.
Caspian slides into her with a low groan that sounds obscene even to his ears and Peta makes a sharp sound, arching up against him as he stays still for a moment before starting to thrust. “Yes,” she says. “Like that, Lion, yes – harder, Caspian, gods –”
His fingers press bruises into her hips; her nails scrape down his back. He captures her mouth with his and Peta gasps into his mouth, teeth cutting into his lip. He breaks open the split on her lip again and tastes blood.
Peta shouts when she comes, her hands on Caspian’s back pressing hard enough to bruise. He muffles his own gasp on her cheek, turning his head to avoid her mouth, and feels her hiss at the aftershocks of his orgasm. She gets a hand into his hair and turns his head to kiss him as he slides free, rolling them over onto their sides.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” she breathes. She throws her leg over his hip and puts her head against his shoulder, asleep in seconds.
Caspian drags a blanket over them and presses his lips to her forehead before he closes his eyes.
-
-
Caspian is dragging a group of would-be archers through crossbow drills – although Peta and her siblings know how to use crossbows, most of their experience is with longbows, and since all the distance weapons they’d brought back from the camp and Beruna had been crossbows and Caspian was the only one with significant experience using a crossbow, he’d been conscripted into this – when Peta comes up behind him.
They’re outside, and Trufflehunter is bracing up a mock-Telmarine soldier while the assorted group of Narnians does their damnedest to shoot holes in it. Most of them are missing by a mile, since the only Narnians who have experience with bow or crossbow are with Queen Susan on the other side of the How. The experience is giving Caspian more sympathy for Glozelle, Cornelius, and all his other tutors and weapons instructors back at Castle Telmar; although he’d like to think he was a better student, he knows all too well that he most certainly was’nt, and beating anything into his head must have been a task fit for the gods themselves. No wonder Miraz and Prunaprisma had washed their hands of him within the month of his father’s death.
“No!” he shouts. “Hold your crossbows like so, your position is throwing you off and you are –”
A quarrel whistles as it passes his shoulder, nearly kissing distance, and thunks securely into the space on the armor where the soldier’s heart would be.
Caspian looks around. “Who shot that?” he demands, but all the Narnians are looking at him.
“That would be me,” Peta drawls from behind him, and Caspian turns to see her. She taps the crossbow against her leg, smiling at him, and he finds himself smiling back.
“How may I be of service to you, your highness?” he asks, and Peta’s smile turns into a smirk.
There are still bruises on her face, but the shadow on her neck isn’t from the sparring yesterday but from what came after, and Caspian finds himself blushing at the expression on her face.
She runs lightly and deliberately over her teeth. “I’m sure I can think of something,” she demurs, and a faun makes a gagging noise somewhere behind Caspian’s shoulder.
“Oh, do be quiet,” Peta says to him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you all are like – or used to be like, anyway. Revels in Narnia could be something,” she adds to Caspian, and steps forward to hook two fingers in his swordbelt, pulling him close enough to kiss if she wants.
Caspian dips his head down towards her, hearing his breath rasp in his throat, rough and a little fast, and Peta’s smirk grows before she says, “Nothing nearly so pleasant, I’m afraid. Our outfliers have spotted the Telmarine army advancing on us from Castle Telmar, and work has begun again on the bridge at Beruna.”
“But my uncle could not have possibly gotten the entirety of the army so quickly,” Caspian protests, forcing the feel of Peta’s narrow fingers through his brigandine from his mind. “At most, a few thousand men – his own personal troops –”
Peta’s eyes narrow. “Caspian,” she says patiently, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a few thousand men is more than enough to rival us.” She tips her head slightly at the Narnians behind him, all of whom are watching them – some of whom are whispering, and Caspian isn’t entirely certain he wants to know what it is they’re saying – and Caspian suddenly gets her meaning. She doesn’t want to say, they outnumber us, in front of the Narnians.
“Oh,” Caspian says. “Are you certain –”
“Besides,” Peta adds, “they aren’t all carrying your uncle’s banners. I don’t know the insignia, and neither do Ed or Su, can you –”
“Of course,” Caspian says immediately. “Ah –” he adds, turning his head back towards the would-be crossbowmen, and Peta says, “It won’t take you all that long, I’m sure. Surely they’ll still be here in a few minutes.”
“Of course,” he says again, and then turns back to the crossbowmen, Peta’s hand slipping lightly along his side before it falls away. “Please continue with your practice,” he says. “I will return shortly.”
“Not that shortly,” a satyr mutters to the dwarf beside him, and they both laugh.
Caspian feels the flush heat his cheeks and opens his mouth to defend Peta’s honor, because her subjects should not be saying anything like that about her, they shouldn’t be thinking anything like that about her, but Peta’s laugh cuts off anything he’s about to say.
“Of course not,” she says. “I need a little more time than I’m giving him now,” she says, and the way she says the words is so incredibly filthy that Caspian’s flush has to be seen from Beruna, from the bloody castle.
Peta reaches for him, running her hand up the front of his brigandine to catch his collar between her fingers as she pulls him down for a kiss, messy and open-mouthed. Caspian gets a hand on her waist to brace himself as he kisses her back. Peta catches his lower lip briefly between her teeth before she pulls away. “On account,” she says, and her mouth is red and swollen. She winks at Caspian. “I’ll collect tonight,” she says.
Someone whistles, and Peta turns her grin on the Narnians. “Back to work now,” she says brightly. “Saving Narnia isn’t all fun and virgins, you know. You can have your instructor back soon enough.”
Caspian chokes, but Peta has her fingers wrapped around his wrist as she pulls him off through the tall grass. After a moment she lets go of him, and Caspian gets enough of his thoughts together to say uncertainly, “Virgins?”
“Depending on whose definition you go by,” Peta allows. “Technically, I suppose.” She shrugs.
“I don’t think I exactly saved Narnia,” Caspian points out.
“Well,” Peta says, “you did summon us here, which is a good first step.” She grins at him, briefly visible before they enter the How, and then Caspian blinks abruptly at the change in lighting.
Her siblings are in the table room, Edmund sketching rapidly one-handed while an eagle perches on the edge of the broken stone and describes the banners. They all look up as Peta and Caspian come in.
“Good,” Edmund says shortly, and motions Caspian over. “Are these familiar? Who is it?”
Caspian picks up the pieces of paper and brings them over to the nearest torch, frowning. The lines are clean and clear; Edmund is a good artist. “This is Lord Sepaspian’s sigil,” he says. “And this – Lord Donnon’s, and Lord Scythley’s. They are both lords from the far north, country lords – and well aware of the danger posed by any wild Narnians that remain. The north is dangerous; there have always been giants there, and strange things in the marshes –”
“Country lords?” Susan asks delicately.
“They hold lands in the far north,” Caspian explains, “and they are among the few that actually inhabit them, rather than hold lands in name alone with no inhabitants. Most such lords reside at the castle, but both Donnon and Scythley live at their estates. They have been at the castle recently for the council session, and while they do not always support my uncle, they are among the few who have first-hand experience of Narnians. Many Telmarines do not.”
“How many men can they call up?” Peta asks, crossing her arms over chest as she leans against a column. Her eyes are very blue, calm and direct.
Caspian shakes their head. “Not many,” he says. “They will need to keep at least a bare garrison of men on their estates to guard against attack from the north or the marshes, and there are fewer men on those lands anyway, since living on the borders is far more dangerous than living closer to Castle Telmar.”
“I counted five thousand men from the air,” the eagle declares, raising its wings for balance as it shifts its position. “They are all coming from the castle, and they will be at Beruna from tonight.”
Peta frowns. “Will they ford it, do you think?” she asks Caspian. “Or will they wait for the bridge to be completed?”
Caspian hesitates briefly, thinking. “If there are horsemen –” he begins, and looks at Edmund.
The king nods, the motion short and abrupt. “There are,” he says.
Caspian licks his lips. “If there are horsemen, I think my uncle will have them ford the river, but the foot soldiers will no doubt wait for the bridge to be completed.”
“Su, where are the figures on how many –”
“Here,” Susan says, pulling a piece of paper out of the pile between her and Edmund.
Peta takes it from her and holds it up. “Sixteen hundred horse,” she says, and presses her lips together tightly. “Damnation. That we’ll have to take care of quickly; most of what we have here won’t be any good against cavalry. We need more great cats. Satyrs, fauns, and dwarves will just be trampled, so will most of the talking animals, which leaves us with minotaurs, centaurs, what we have left of the great cats and the dog and wolf packs – about a quarter of the How, then.”
“If we trap them in the woods,” Edmund suggests, dragging out a map. Peta goes over to frown at it. “Put archers and crossbowmen in the trees here, funnel them into this spot, it used to be –”
“It’s not now; we passed it on the way up,” Susan points out.
Edmund swears. “You’re right, I’ve forgotten. What about –”
“That might work,” Peta says. “Lu, can you make sure three horses get saddled? I want to ride out and see it for myself.”
“All right,” Lucy says, turning her head sideways to look at the map. “D’you think they’ll actually cross at Beruna? I mean, won’t they have to stop the construction to get the horses over? I think we would, even with talking horses –”
Peta frowns. “I’m getting the impression that Miraz isn’t going to stop that construction for anything,” she says. “Where else can they cross?”
Edmund winces. “They know about the gorge,” he says. “It’s out of the way for them, and it’s damn hard work getting horses up and down it, but if he’s angry enough –”
“What about the gorge as an ambush spot?” Susan suggests. “If they’re fording there they’ll be trapped –”
“Not enough of them will be trapped,” Peta points out. “We can look at it again, but he won’t be able to send them across in groups larger than twenty, if that, and any horse that goes down there is going to have a damn good chance of breaking a leg; I don’t know if he’s likely to chance that for an open attack. But I want sentries there anyway; I wouldn’t put it past him to try and sneak men through because he’ll think we won’t expect it.”
“All right,” Edmund says. “Maybe he’ll try and ford them at night; they’re not running construction then, I think, they don’t have the lighting for it –”
“If my uncle is so desperate to have the bridge completed, I do not think he will let a little thing like night-time stop him,” Caspian says quietly.
Edmund glances up. “Oh, you’re still here,” he says.
Peta, bent over the map, turns her head to look at him. She doesn’t smile when she says, “Caspian, you can go back to your crossbowmen now. You’d better make sure none of them are putting bolts in each other instead of the target.”
“They are not putting bolts in the target anyway,” Caspian points out, but takes the dismissal for what it is, ignoring the little frisson of hurt that runs through his veins briefly – doesn’t Peta trust him enough to remain, or at least assume that he knows more about the Telmarines than they do? – as he bows and leaves.
Outside, only one dwarf has succeeded in putting a crossbow bolt in the target, and nowhere fatal. Caspian stares at it as the rest of the Narnians laugh. “Well,” he says, “he won’t be dead, but I think he will be rather annoyed at you, and perhaps inconvenienced for the rest of the fight.”
“If the Telmarines have balls at all,” a faun chortles, since that’s where the bolt has gone, and Caspian sighs and retrieves his own crossbow.
“Let’s try again,” he says. “Remember your stance – no, Brownfoot, put your feet farther apart – Camheorn, I didn’t say to put nock your quarrel yet! –”
Not long afterwards, he sees three horses emerge from the How – Peta, Susan, and Edmund. They don’t look towards the crossbowmen at all, and Caspian watches them until they disappear into the treeline, and then Trufflehunter screams in fury as one of the Narnians’ bolts somehow manages to go behind the target and nick him, and Caspian has to go sort things out.
*
tbc
go on to part five
Part One | Part Two | Part Three
*
Peta drags him around the rest of the day, and Caspian manages to see the work on repairing the damaged parts of the How, Edmund and Lucy shouting at the Narnians they’re trying to put through basic weapons training – Caspian is suddenly very glad that he knows most of this, but when he mentions it, Peta gives him a thoughtful look and says, “Good, you can join them. This is ridiculous, and we need every piece of help we can get, even if it is coming from a Telmarine. They’ll listen to you if I give the order,” which Caspian isn’t entirely sure about, but he’s not going to argue with Peta – and half a dozen caverns within the How that he hasn’t seen before. Then it’s lunch with some of the Narnian captains – officially, Peta explains to him absently, they hold no formal position, but they’re leaders in their communities, and she wants to see if they can transfer that to the battlefield as well, because Narnia has to have officers if it’s going to succeed on the battlefield; nothing else will work. Otherwise there’s just too little order, and they’ll fall apart. “Especially,” she adds bitterly, “since we’re training everyone on the fly.”
“Why do I have to know this?” Caspian asks later that evening, drooping over their supper.
Peta regards him over the top of her winecup. “Because you’re here,” she says. “And because I’m afraid –” She stops abruptly.
“What are you afraid of?” Caspian asks, curious.
She shakes her head. “It’s not important. Nothing. Just paranoia, that’s all.”
But she’s silent for the rest of the meal, and afterwards she leaves Caspian alone for the first time that day and goes into the table chamber. Caspian catches Edmund and Lucy watching the door silently, seeming to weigh something, then Edmund refills his winecup from the skin he and his sister have been sharing and comes over to Caspian, taking Peta’s empty seat.
Caspian eyes him with alarm.
“I am not,” King Edmund says, “going to ask you your intentions regarding my sister, since I don’t particularly want to know and I don’t think you know –”
“I swear I mean no disrespect,” Caspian begins, wary, “and if you feel that I took advantage of your sister, then –”
Edmund laughs, a little, blanching around the edges of it, and says, “Peta can take care of who’s in her bed very well herself; I certainly don’t get a vote about it so long as I’m not there sharing it with her. Trust me, Caspian, the last thing I’m going to do is take offense at whatever my sister’s gotten herself into this time. I’m also,” he adds, cutting Caspian off before he can do more than open his mouth, “not going to threaten you with bodily harm if you hurt her; if you hurt her, she can kill you herself, and all I’m going to do is sit back and watch the show. Maybe make popcorn and run bets, although I doubt anyone betting against my sister is going to make much money. Lose rather a lot, I’m sure, but not make any.”
“Er,” Caspian says, then manages to collect his thoughts and say, “I swear to you, I will treat the High Queen with all due honor –”
“Yes, I’m sure of that,” Edmund interrupts. “Just don’t insult her while you’re doing that; I won’t bail you out. I don’t know how much Telmarine customs have changed in the past thirteen hundred years, but I will warn you about this: she is the High Queen of Narnia. Treat her otherwise, try and put yourself above her in any way, fail to obey her orders, do anything you wouldn’t do just because you’re sleeping with her – if she decides to take you to bed again – and you’ll find yourself regretting that you ever thought you could do something along those lines very, very quickly.” He grins, but there’s no real humor or amusement in it, and Caspian looks away.
“I will not treat her otherwise,” he says softly. “She has made the matter more than clear to me.”
“Good,” Edmund says, and leans forward to knock his winecup against Caspian’s. “I’m glad that we’ve got that settled. Tell me about the Telmarine army. Oh, I know you’ve already told Peta, but tell me too.”
Caspian tells him – there isn’t much to tell, because he doesn’t know all that much; his studies have never included the composition of the army or how it is outfitted, fed, watered, nursed, none of that. There is some of what he’s picked up in his history books, and a little he remembers from what Glozelle had let slip from time to time, but there truly isn’t much that he thinks will help the Narnians at all, and he apologize for this to Edmund.
Edmund waves it off. “A little is better than none, and Su will get back to us on the rest,” he says.
Caspian hesitates, and then he asks, “Where has Queen Susan gone?”
“Into Telmarine Narnia,” Edmund says, like Peta had this morning, and then he adds, “She’s good at what she does. She won’t be hurt or found out, and she’ll get back with knowledge that we need to win this war.”
“But –” Caspian begins, and then falls silent as Edmund raises an eyebrow.
“We’ve done this before,” he says, and it’s probably meant to be soothing, but it’s not at all. Before is all well and good, but this is now, and this is a war that he started; Caspian can’t help but feel responsible should something happen to Queen Susan because of what he doesn’t know, what he couldn’t tell Peta and Edmund because he hadn’t listened in his classes, or asked Miraz or Glozelle the right questions, or –
“Don’t dwell on it,” Edmund says. “Peta and I are doing that enough for all of us. And how’s your day been?” This last is addressed to Peta, who’s appeared at his shoulder, glaring down at him.
“You’re in my seat,” she says, and Edmund glances around, sounding mock-indignant when he says, “Well, you’re not sitting in it, which I think means that it’s my seat at the moment.”
“Ha,” Peta says, mouth twisting a little in amusement, and then she says, “Budge up a bit, Caspian,” and a moment later, Caspian finds himself with a lapful of warm, amused High Queen and nearly drops his winecup.
“Oh, as the gods are good,” Edmund hisses, rolling his eyes. “Peta, we’re in public.”
“Not really,” she says, squirming a little, and Caspian bites down on the inside of his cheek to stop his gasp. “Almost everyone’s wandered off already. We practically have the whole cavern to ourselves.”
Edmund glances around, distracted, and Peta takes advantage of that to murmur against Caspian’s ear, “You can touch me, you know; I don’t bite,” and rather than try and explain anything – mostly because he doesn’t have the faintest idea what he might say, or what he could say – he puts an arm carefully around her waist, palm flat against her stomach, and Peta leans back companionably against his shoulder.
“Where’s Lu gone?” Edmund asks sharply.
“There’s some singing in one of the other caves,” Peta says. “I think she’s gone to listen. Some of the singers here are actually quite good.”
“I haven’t been listening,” Edmund says, “possibly because I’m a little busy trying to win a war here.”
“You are not,” Peta says, “of course, the only one.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” he says, and stands up, “I’ll leave you two alone to – whatever it is you’re planning to get up to; I certainly don’t want to know.”
“Why, Edmund,” Peta says, laughing, and he doesn’t reply as he leaves the cavern, just throws up his good hand in frustration.
Peta laughs a little and turns her head to capture Caspian’s mouth with hers, one hand coming up to tangle in his hair. He kisses her back as she shifts around to straddle him, grinding down on him. He feels her smile against his mouth as he groans softly, her free hand guiding his palm to her breast.
“Peta,” he says breathlessly. “Maybe we should –”
“Take our clothes off?” she suggests, kissing him again.
“I,” Caspian says, “I mean –”
She teases apart the laces on his shirt, then lets her hand fall to the front of his breeches, squeezing a little. “What do you mean, Caspian?” she asks, amiably enough, and he hears the inarticulate sound he makes before he continues.
“I mean,” he says, and has to stop to kiss Peta again, tasting the wine on her tongue, “maybe we should go somewhere –”
“Yes?” she says, sounding politely interested.
“Somewhere more –” He gasps, and then manages to recollect the remainder of his thoughts, “– more private.”
“Mmm,” Peta says, and moves her mouth down to his neck.
Caspian draws in a sharp breath. “And – comfortable?” he offers, his voice shaky.
“Hmm,” Peta murmurs, and he shuts his eyes.
A moment later, Peta’s gone from his lap, and he opens his eyes as she closes her hands around his wrists, pulling him to his feet. “There is that,” she says, and then she drags him out of the cavern.
She pins him up against the wall in her room, fingers making quick work of his shirt and breeches, and Caspian drags her shirt off over her heads, cupping her breasts in his hands. He works one bared leg in between her wool-clad thighs, and Peta makes a faint sound in her throat as she rubs herself off against his leg, shameless as a dog in heat.
“Your clothes,” Caspian says, his voice harsh and unfamiliar in his ears. “Take them off, I want –”
Peta curves a hand over the back of his head and pulls him down to kiss her, teeth sharp and messy. “I give the orders around here,” she says into his ear, but Caspian manages to maneuver them around until he has Peta back against the wall, hands braced on either side of her shoulders as he kisses his way from his mouth down the curve of her neck, over the slope of her breasts, stopping to take a nipple into his mouth, which makes Peta gasp and clutch at his hair, his lips fluttering butterfly quick down the smooth skin of her stomach until he touches the fabric of her trousers.
“Let me,” he says, and Peta says breathlessly, “Yes, God, yes, you can –” and almost knees him in the face as she kicks her boots off.
He undoes the buttons on her trousers and pulls them down, taking the opportunity to cup her buttocks in his hands before he has her naked in front of him, and then he kisses her again: the corner of her hip bone, the inside of one thigh, then the other, working his way around until he finally has his mouth on her clit.
Peta makes a sharp, desperate sound as Caspian swirls his tongue over her clit, one hand sliding up the back of her thigh to push one finger, then two inside of her, moving them slowly in and out until she’s gasping, bucking against him as she says, “Yes, yes, gods, yes –”
When she comes, she goes limp as good silk, and almost as soft in his hands as Caspian works his way back up her body to kiss her, the taste of her still sharp on his tongue. “Mmm,” Peta says, her fingers pressing into his dark hair. “God, you’re beautiful,” she adds, her voice dark with desire, and walks him backwards, pushing him onto her bedroll. She straddles him, rolling her arse against his cock as Caspian groans, and then leans down to keep kissing him.
He runs his hands up her back, the smooth length of it, slick with sweat, and then shifts his weight to roll them over.
Peta grins up at him, her hair a damp, wild tangle around her face, her lips red and swollen from kissing. She wraps her legs around his waist as he pushes into her in one smooth stroke, and Caspian puts his forehead down against her shoulder, breathing hard.
“Move,” she says into his hair. “Herdsman’s balls, you Telmarine bastard, fucking move.”
“So bossy,” Caspian mumbles, tasting the sweat on her skin when he licks it. “Are you always like this?”
Peta digs her heel sharply into the small of his back. Her breasts are very soft against his chest. “If you don’t move,” she says warningly, “you may never find out.”
Caspian leans up to kiss her again, fast and messy and graceless, their teeth clicking together and their tongues tangling up, and then he begins to thrust. Peta makes a rough, inarticulate sound in the back of her throat and arches up into him, moving fiercely against him, with him, slick and hot and so tight around him.
He’s trying to be gentle, because she may be tall for a woman but she’s not big, and she’d been a virgin when he took her to bed last night, but Peta keeps urging him on, pushing him faster and harder until her hips have to come off the ground to keep up with him, her gasps half words and half-not. She claws stripes down his back, and Caspian has his hands wrapped so tightly around her hips that he’s certain she’ll bruise in the morning. He rather likes the notion of it; he wants some mark of him on her, on her skin, wants her to smell like him and taste like him, wants Caspian was here written across her body in teethmarks and bruises, the desperate markings that can’t have been left by anyone else here. He wants everyone in the How to know whose bed he was in the night before, the musky scent of Peta-and-Caspian that the sharper noses of the talking beasts here won’t be able to deny.
Peta puts her head back and gasps, clenching around him as she comes. He tastes the sweat pooled at the base of her throat, sucking kisses there in time to his thrusts, ragged and fast now, his rhythm gone as he feels the edges of his control unraveling.
Caspian comes with the sharp taste of Peta’s skin on his tongue, her hands on his back, guiding him back to himself as his head blurs restlessly. He slides free of her and she pulls him up to kiss him, her fingers strong against his jaw as she turns his head towards her. “Caspian,” she says last of all, murmuring deep in the back of her throat, and throws her leg across his, pressing them together as sweat dries on their skin.
He kisses her soft and slow now, each brush of her tongue against his velvet-rough. He smoothes his thumb over the curve of her hip bone, palms her ribs and the fresh scar there.
“Isn’t that pretty,” she breathes against his mouth, and then twists to pull the blanket out from beneath them. The wool is rough against their bared skin, oversensitive after their lovemaking, and Caspian presses himself against Peta, trying to warm her with his own body. He slides his hand down over her back to the curve of her arse and feels her smile against his mouth, pressing back against him a little.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “You’re –”
Her laugh is throaty; he hears it vibrate in her chest where they’re still pressed together. “So I’ve been told,” she says. “But it’s always nice to hear it again.” She puts her head down against his chest, her breath slowing as she drops abruptly from waking to sleeping, and Caspian strokes a hand over her damp hair and smiles into empty air.
-
-
It doesn’t take him long to realize he’s more or less moved out of the cave he was sharing with Edmund and into the cave that Peta has to herself. Once he figures it out, he stumbles over an apology to Peta, or maybe an explanation, and she shuts him up by kissing him and pulling him against her; they fuck up against the walls of her cave, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms hooked across his neck, his hands bruising her hips as he braces himself on every thrust.
On the fourth day, he wakes to Peta’s light touch on his shoulder, raising his head to see Queen Susan sitting tailor-fashion next to their shared bedroll.
“Get the lantern, Caspian,” Peta orders, and he scrambles out of bed as she wraps an arm around her sister’s shoulders. Susan puts her head down tiredly on Peta’s shoulder.
Caspian opens up the lantern; the light illuminates the shadows beneath Susan’s eyes, the bruise faint on her jaw, and the lines of the Telmarine style dress she’s wearing.
“Well,” she says after a moment, “that went well.”
Peta strokes her hair. “Did it really?” she asks.
Susan yawns, covering her mouth with one hand. Caspian blinks to see the bruising on her knuckles, half the nail on her third finger ripped away. He sees Peta’s eyes fall to it, then flicker away. She doesn’t say anything.
“Not really,” Susan says. “Although, for the record, I’m not actually dead, so I suppose that part went well, at least.” She yawns again, then says, “I’ve got information. Get me some paper; I don’t want to forget anything.”
“Caspian,” Peta orders, and he leaves the lantern at her side and reaches for his breeches.
“Get Ed and Lu too, will you?” she adds, shifting so she can wrap both her arms around Susan as Caspian hesitates at the door.
“Of course, your majesty,” he says, and slips out into the dark, quiet hallway. This late – he’s not sure the time, but the How is quiet, sleeping, so it must be late – there’s only one torch lit, shadowing the corners that always seem to be hiding something, and Caspian finds himself looking over his shoulder nervously as he raps his knuckles against Edmund’s door.
“Yeah,” Edmund calls from the other sound, sounding groggy, and a moment later he opens the door with a naked blade in his hand.
Caspian blinks at it.
“I’ve had some bad experiences in the past,” Edmund says, lowering his sword. He doesn’t apologize. “What is it?”
“Queen Susan has returned,” Caspian says, eyeing the sword. “The High Queen wants you and Queen Lucy in her chambers –”
Edmund nods, the sleep clearing from his eyes. His gaze sharpens, more alert now, and he says, “Don’t worry about Lu; I’ll get her. She likes to sleep in the nude, and I don’t want to have to deal with you having seen two of my sisters in the altogether.”
“What?” Caspian says, faintly astonished.
Edmund shakes his head. “Just don’t ask. Really, it’s probably better not to know,” he says, then shuts the door in Caspian’s face.
Caspian blinks again, then goes to retrieve paper, quill, and ink. They’re all to be found downstairs, and while he’s there, thinking of the exhaustion on Susan’s face, he fills a pot of tea with hot water from the kettle kept constantly boiling over the fire in the chamber they’re using as a kitchen, then finds a wooden tray so he can add a mug of beef broth. It seems like the least he can do.
Lucy gets the door when he bangs his shoulder against it awkwardly, and he’s relieved to see her in a nightgown. “Oh, good!” she says brightly, seeing him. “Tea.”
Edmund’s eyebrows go up when he sees the tray Caspian’s holding, but Peta just smiles a little bit and motions Lucy over to make room for Caspian between them.
“Thank you,” Susan says to him, holding the mug of beef broth between her hands, and her smile is a little heartbreaking. Caspian finds himself smiling back, and Peta’s fingers curl briefly against his before she pulls away.
“He’s learning,” Edmund notes, and while there’s no little bemusement in it, there’s also no malice.
“He does do that from time to time,” Peta notes. “Try not to be too dreadfully shocked, Ed.”
“I’m trying to restrain myself,” Edmund assures her.
“That will be a first, I’m sure,” Susan says, leaning into his shoulder. After a moment she straightens, sips at her broth, and says, “Miraz means to wipe out Narnia once and for all; he’s calling in all his levies. As many as twenty thousand men, maybe.”
Peta closes her eyes briefly. “What percentage of the population is that?” she asks.
“That’s all the men of fighting age,” Caspian says quietly, his head spinning. Dear gods. “There has not been an army like that called up in – years. Generations. The last time – we were still a seagoing power, my great-great-grandfather, Caspian the Sixth, Caspian the Burner, needed oarsmen on the ships. It was Calormen.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Lucy says archly. “It’s always Calormen, isn’t it?”
“Hardly always,” Edmund says. “It’s certainly not this time.”
“Do we know how long it’s going to take all those men to get here?” Peta asks. “We can’t fight that. We don’t have the manpower to overwhelm them, we don’t have the training or the discipline to outfight them – we may, and I say may, have the ability to make their lives hell, but that’s only if we leave the How. If we don’t – if we’re trapped here –”
Edmund looks grim. “That’s not what I’m really looking at as a good option,” he says. “Whose bright idea was it to come to the How in the first place? It wasn’t yours, was it?” he asks, looking across the circle at Caspian suspiciously.
Caspian shakes his head. “I did not know the How was more than legend until Glenstorm spoke of it,” he says.
“Superstition,” Edmund sighs.
“I’m sure his plan didn’t include getting trapped here by a Telmarine army,” Susan says reasonably. “Peta –”
“Go on,” Peta says, her voice gentling.
“Without a king on the throne,” Susan continues, “they can’t raise the entirety of the army without a unanimous vote of the Council. Miraz is still regent, but he’s pushing for Caspian to be declared dead so that he can take the throne in his own name, which he can’t now. Right now, we have the advantage in that the Council isn’t unanimous in calling up the levies.”
“Well, that’s good –” Lucy begins.
“Except,” Susan continues, “that Miraz is calling them up anyway, with or without the approval of the Council. By the time they finish their bickering, he’ll have all of Telmarine Narnia raised and very, very angry. There’s some rather interesting propaganda coming out of the capital right now. He wants the country folk too scared to venture outside their fields; he also wants them angry. I wouldn’t be surprised if he produces a dead body that’s conveniently too badly damaged for a positive identification to be made, and then goes around claiming that Prince Caspian’s been kidnapped and murdered by wild Narnians.”
“Oh,” Peta says. “Because that was exactly what we needed. Su, Ed – what if we presented Caspian before Miraz has a chance –”
“Well, for one thing we’ll probably be extremely dead,” Edmund says. “I’m sure he’d like nothing better than to lure us all out of hiding and slaughter us, then parade our dead bodies through the streets. Or our live bodies, then publicly execute us – all of us – for whatever trumped up charges he can come up with.”
“That’s the other interesting thing,” Susan says. “They don’t know who’s in command here. They know that there are humans here besides Caspian, but they don’t know if they’re Telmarine traitors, they don’t know if we’re Archenlanders who’d like a piece of Narnia –”
“Oh, like that’s new,” Peta mutters under her breath.
“– or even if we’re Calormenes, westrons, islanders. All they know is that there are at least a handful of humans here.”
“They’re not even pushing it to human-form Narnians?” Lucy inquires curiously. “Because that –”
“That’s the only suggestion I didn’t hear,” Susan says. “I think Miraz may suspect who we are, but none of the others. I don’t quite –”
“If I may?” Caspian offers, and Peta nods.
“My uncle,” he continues, “has ever been fond of the legends of Narnia of old, of the High Queen and her siblings. He has called the fall of the High Queen a great tragedy ever since I have known him, and if there is anything he holds dear to his heart, it is those legends, those stories. He knows them better than anyone else in Telmar except for my tutor, Professor Cornelius. If you left some sign behind of yourselves, some symbol of your power, then I think he would recognize it and guess who you are.”
“Oh, bugger,” Edmund says.
Peta puts her head curiously to one side. “Feel free to elaborate any time now,” she offers.
Edmund sighs. “When we broke in – using your professor’s window like you said, Caspian – there was no one in the room, but there were books open all over his desk, and they were history books. History books about us. And one of your arrows was stuck through a book, Su. If I had to guess, I’d say the soldier we caught trying to drown Trumpkin brought it back to the castle when he reported to General Glozelle and Miraz. But the color of your arrows – that’s so obscure, how could anyone –”
“My uncle would know,” Caspian says again.
Edmund shakes his head. “All that from an arrow and the garbled story of a terrified soldier. May Aslan help us; the man’s no idiot. Or he knows his history, at least.”
“Well, then,” Peta says. “That just means there’s nothing to stop us from opening up a line of communication.”
“What?” Edmund says. “Are you out of your mind? I don’t think Lord Miraz is going to listen to a sixteen-year-old girl, even if she is calling herself the High Queen of Narnia – who’s been dead for thirteen hundred years, let me remind you –”
“I want to see him face to face,” Peta says. “Make the arrangements.”
“I do not think this is wise,” Caspian begins dubiously.
“Nobody asked your opinion,” Edmund snaps.
“I don’t think it’s very wise either,” Susan says. “Legends and superstition are all well and good, but none of that’s going to matter once he actually gets a look at you, Peta.”
Peta scowls. “If I can beat it into Lune of Archenland’s head that I’m not some silly chit playing at knights, then anyone else is a pushover.”
Lucy says, “I don’t think King Lune ever actually figured that out.”
Peta’s scowl deepens. “Make the arrangements,” she says again.
-
-
“I have seen Glenstorm fight,” Caspian says. “He is a fell warrior.”
“So’s Peta,” Edmund says without hesitation. “Better than him, I’m sure. You should know; aren’t you sparring with her every day? Aren’t you sparring with her several times a day every day?”
Caspian shrugs. “There are far better fighters than me here in the How,” he allows.
“Like Peta?” Edmund says, his voice very dry.
“The High Queen is an excellent fighter,” Caspian says. “But I think that perhaps –”
Edmund snorts. “You think that she’s about to get her arse kicked by a centaur that’s never actually seen a battlefield?” he suggests. “My big sister has been training for battle since she was fifteen – since she was fifteen the first time, I mean, not since last year. That’s the past sixteen years, Prince Caspian, and she’s been fighting for most of it. In actual battles, not just in tournaments or in a practice ring. Can you say as much?”
“No,” Caspian says. “But I think that fighting a centaur is perhaps different than fighting a human.”
“You’re right,” Edmund says. “That I remember. Who the hell do you think taught us how to fight? There weren’t exactly any other humans hanging around Narnia in our day. We were more or less the only ones in the entire country for the better part of two years. Oh, here they come.”
Glenstorm and Peta approach from opposite ends of the cavern, one of Glenstorm’s sons – Ironhoof, Caspian thinks it is – beside Glenstorm and Queen Susan beside Peta, carrying one of the quarterstaffs Caspian and Peta have been training with in one hand; Ironhoof is carrying one as well. Peta is in her leather surcoat, now with the addition of leather vambraces on her wrists, her blonde hair braided tightly at the back of her head.
Peta takes her staff from Susan, Glenstorm from Ironhoof, and then the two noncombatants retreat to the edge of the watching crowd. Susan slides into place next to Caspian. Her face is still bruised – the damage is clearer in the better light of the cavern – but otherwise she appears unaffected.
“Su,” Edmund says, leaning behind Caspian to speak. “How is she?”
“She wants to fight,” Susan says.
“And your point would be?”
“Try trusting in your sister from time to time,” Susan says. “She has it under control.”
“She’s not about to –”
“Edmund,” Susan says strictly. “She’s the High Queen of Narnia. If she says she has everything under control, I’m rather inclined to believe her. Anyway, aren’t you the one who keeps walking in on her sparring sessions?”
“I’d be more inclined to trust my bruised body than my eyes,” Edmund grumbles, “but seeing as this flesh wound is keeping me out of the ring –”
“I’m sure Peta will be more than happy to spar with you one-handed,” Susan says. “She’ll probably even let you tie her good arm behind her back. You know. Just to make things fair.”
“Oh, shut up.” Edmund leans back.
Peta spins her staff in the air in front of her once, experimentally, then approaches Glenstorm and bows from the waist. He returns the bow and steps back a pace.
For a moment neither one of them moves, and then Peta strikes, staff spinning between her hands. Glenstorm’s staff meets it with a terrible crack of wood on wood and then they’re both moving, circling around each other. They’re fast, unbelievably fast, and good. It doesn’t take Caspian long to see that Peta’s faster and better, though Glenstorm has the advantage of height and longer arms.
“It’s dangerous to do this with a centaur,” Susan murmurs in Caspian’s ear. “If she takes him down and he falls wrong, he can break a leg, and you know how bad that can be for a horse. It’s no easier for a centaur. But we have Lu here, if the worst happens, and Peta knows what to avoid. In practice, at least; in the field, that’s the first thing she’ll try for.”
In the center of the circle before them, Peta’s staff darts out, faster than anything Caspian’s ever seen before, and there’s a sharp crack. Glenstorm’s staff falls from his hand and Peta swings her staff low, knocking the centaur to his knees. The foot of her staff is at the base of his neck as soon as he hits the floor.
“Do you yield?” she asks.
Glenstorm raises empty hands. “Your majesty, I yield,” he says, and Peta takes her staff away and steps back as he rises effortlessly to his feet.
There’s a smattering of applause as Peta picks up Glenstorm’s staff; Caspian hears one badger whisper triumphantly to a deer, “And that’s what we’ll be giving the Telmarines when we meet them on the battlefield!”
Edmund cuts his eyes over in their direction, but neither animal seems to notice, too caught up in their own success. “Fools,” he hisses.
“Do you think they are incorrect?” Caspian asks curiously.
“Not if we had a thousand soldiers with Peta’s experience,” Edmund says. “But we have is a handful of refugees, most of whom have never picked up a sword in their lives. They should be a little more concerned about keeping themselves alive and a little less concerned about beating the Telmarines.”
“Isn’t the point of war to kill the enemy even at the cost of your own life?” Caspian inquires.
“At this point, Prince Caspian,” Edmund says, “it’s not going to be a battle we’ll be getting ourselves embroiled in. It’ll be a massacre.”
“Stop it, Edmund,” Susan says sharply. “People can hear you.”
“It’s the damned truth.”
“That doesn’t mean they need to hear it. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to still have an army after this evening, and Peta’s showing off is going to help. Stories spread, you know, and if their queen can fight, then they’ll believe that they can fight too.” She tilts her head up, raising her eyebrows. “You and I both know that you’d be out there with her if it wasn’t for your arm.”
“Why don’t you get out there, then?” Edmund retorts.
Susan blinks at him for a moment. “All right,” she says, and steps forward into the circle.
Peta turns to grin at her. “You’re not in practice,” she notes.
“Let’s see what I remember,” Susan says, and holds up her hand.
Peta tosses Glenstorm’s staff to her. She dips briefly in a bow, and Susan bows back, disregarding the fact she’s wearing skirts.
For a moment they circle each other in silence, then Peta moves, striking low at Susan’s skirt-encumbered legs. Susan blocks the blow, swinging the other end of the staff up towards Peta’s shoulders, and Peta blocks that. They’re fast, shockingly so, and the crack of wood on wood seems even more obscenely loud than it had when Peta was fighting Glenstorm. Susan doesn’t seem at all inconvenienced by her skirts, and Caspian marvels at that; he can’t imagine fighting with such an encumbrance loose around his legs. She and Peta are mirrors of each other, dark and light, both their faces contorted in concentration.
A thousand times Caspian thinks that Peta has Susan, but Susan always manages to slip away. By the time Peta finally strikes Susan’s staff from her hand, sending it spinning away across the floor to come to a stop at Caspian’s face, they’re both panting from exhaustion, their faces shining with sweat. It’s over now – it must be over. Except that Susan keeps stepping lightly away, and Peta stops following, standing very still and watching her sister, occasionally turning her head and then her body to keep her in view.
“That’s not very nice, Su,” Peta says.
“I’m sorry,” Susan says. “Was I supposed to be being nice?”
“Well, I am used to it.”
“We’ve clearly been in England too long,” Susan notes, and then she moves. She manages to get her hands around Peta’s staff before Peta stamps her foot down hard on Susan’s instep, knocking her head forward into Susan’s. Caspian winces at the crack, but all Susan does is blink a little bit and elbow her sister in the ribs. Peta’s grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go of the staff, just snarls a little and twists. Susan twists back, in the opposite direction, and then lets go. A centaur goes prancing back as the staff goes spinning away through the air, and then Peta punches Susan in the face and Susan gets a hand in her braided hair and shoves her sideways, bringing her knee up into the edge of Peta’s cheek.
Caspian’s mouth is very dry.
There’s a sharp, ugly crack as Peta finally gets a good enough grip on Susan’s left arm to twist it behind her back, and Susan hisses in pain but stamps down on Peta’s foot anyway. Peta kicks her legs out from beneath her and sends her down to the dirt floor, kneeling on her back and pressing her forearm across her sister’s throat as she bends her head close to Susan’s. Her hair is falling out of its braid, hanging loose in wild golden tangles around her face.
“Do you yield?” she asks softly.
“You should really lose some weight, Peta,” Susan says genially.
“Susan.”
“Only if you’ll put my shoulder back into joint.”
Peta climbs off her and gets to her feet, helping Susan up. “I can only have one of my siblings out of the fight at a time,” she says, laughing a little bit.
Her lip is split, her left eye is blackened, there’s a bruise spreading over her cheekbone where it collided with Susan’s knee, and she’s limping slightly. Susan looks considerably worse, handling her arm gingerly as Edmund puts an arm around her waist to brace her.
“You remember how this goes?” Peta asks her.
“Do you?” Susan returns, and then nods sharply, digging her teeth into her lower lip. She lets out a sharp gasp in conjunction with the pop of Peta putting her shoulder back into joint, and Caspian winces.
“You all right?” Edmund asks.
“Oh, yes,” Susan says. “Never better.” She swipes a hand across her eyes and frowns at the streak of blood left behind.
Peta grins at her. “Not bad, little sister,” she says, ignoring the muttering from the Narnians that are still gathered around. “I mean, I think you used to last longer, but –”
“Go boil your head, Peta,” Susan says brightly. “But before you do that, come here.”
Peta steps toward her obediently, and Susan reaches up with her good hand to wipe the blood away from Peta’s lip, her fingers seeming to linger a moment. Or maybe Caspian’s seeing things.
When Susan steps away, Peta runs her tongue thoughtfully over her lip and then looks at Caspian. Her mouth quirks briefly in a smile. “Caspian,” she says.
“Your majesty?” Caspian offers.
She nods at the staff that’s still lying by his feet. “You’re up.”
Caspian looks at the staff, then at Peta again. “Oh,” he hears himself say, and she laughs a little.
“That wasn’t,” she says softly, “actually a request.” She hooks the staff with the toe of her boot and tosses it up into the air, catching it with one hand. She holds it out to him.
“Oh,” Caspian says again, and then reaches out to take it. Their fingers brush briefly before Peta lets go and strides away, taking her staff when Ironhoof hands it to her.
She smiles over the wood, her eyes glinting in bemusement. “Well, come on then,” she says, and Caspian steps into the ring.
-
-
They stumble into Peta’s bedroom with Peta’s legs already wrapped around Caspian’s waist, kissing desperately, her hands pulling at his hair as the split on her lip breaks open. The taste of blood doesn’t stop their kisses; Peta makes a sharp sound in the back of her throat and tightens her legs around him, and Caspian more or less trips and sends them sprawling to the bedroll, reaching for the laces on Peta’s shirt, stiff with sweat and dirt from the fighting.
He has to take his hands away so that Peta can drag his shirt off over his head, then he gets the laces on hers undone and pushes it up to her shoulder, lowering his head to run his tongue over a nipple, kissing and sucking and scraping lightly with his teeth as Peta gasps, jerking up against him. She drags a hand through his hair and pulls him up to kiss her, then wriggles until she’s got her shirt off and they’re both bared to the waist.
There are bruises scattered across her torso, fresh and ugly, and Caspian’s a little too desperate to pay attention to those, not with the noises Peta’s making as she presses her fingers against the back of his neck, the curve of his skull. He transfers his attentions to her other breast, cupping it in his hand as he sucks at it, running his tongue over the nubbled flesh.
“Trousers,” Peta pants. “God, I want –”
He kisses his way down between her breasts, across her stomach, and presses his mouth briefly to the ridge of her hipbone before he scrambles downward to wrap his hands around her boots and draw them off one by one. Her ankles are surprisingly delicate between his big hands and he lets them rest there for a moment, looking up at Peta.
Her cheeks are flushed scarlet, her hair loose and wild around her shoulders, her mouth red and swollen from kissing. There’s an ugly bruise darkening on her cheek where Susan kneed her. Caspian’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his life, and says as much.
“You’re very sweet, Caspian,” Peta says. “But if you don’t get your hands on me properly right this instant, I’m going to gut you.”
Caspian runs a hand up her leg until he can press his fingers between her thighs. He can feel the heat of her through the fabric of her breeches, hot as a furnace, hot as wildfire, as dragon fire, and Peta hisses a little and arches up against his hand as he flicks his fingers against her.
“If you gut me,” he says softly, “then who’s going to do this?” He presses his fingers against her again and Peta makes a sound like a whine in the back of her throat, pushing against him. She reaches for him, but he catches her wrist in his other hand.
Her eyes are very bright. “I’m sure,” she says, sounding breathless, “that I can make other arrangements.”
“Oh, I think not,” Caspian says. He kisses the tips of her fingers, then her knuckles, trailing his tongue against the back of her palm. She tastes like dust and wood, blood mixed in with it where she’s scraped up her knuckles, and Caspian takes two of her fingers into his mouth and runs his tongue against them the same way he would her clit, sucking a little.
“Oh,” Peta says, and puts her head back. “Herdsman’s path, Caspian, I want –”
He lets her finger slip free from her mouth, and she curves her hand over the back of his neck, breathing hard. “What do you want?” he asks.
She closes her eyes, then opens them again. “You,” she says. “In me. Now.”
She snaps the words, the voice of a woman used to giving orders and having them obeyed without question, and Caspian gets up to kick off his boots and push his breeches down, tossing them aside as Peta wriggles out of her own. He covers her body with his, their feet tangling together, and gets a hand into her hair to tilt her face up and kiss her.
Caspian slides into her with a low groan that sounds obscene even to his ears and Peta makes a sharp sound, arching up against him as he stays still for a moment before starting to thrust. “Yes,” she says. “Like that, Lion, yes – harder, Caspian, gods –”
His fingers press bruises into her hips; her nails scrape down his back. He captures her mouth with his and Peta gasps into his mouth, teeth cutting into his lip. He breaks open the split on her lip again and tastes blood.
Peta shouts when she comes, her hands on Caspian’s back pressing hard enough to bruise. He muffles his own gasp on her cheek, turning his head to avoid her mouth, and feels her hiss at the aftershocks of his orgasm. She gets a hand into his hair and turns his head to kiss him as he slides free, rolling them over onto their sides.
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” she breathes. She throws her leg over his hip and puts her head against his shoulder, asleep in seconds.
Caspian drags a blanket over them and presses his lips to her forehead before he closes his eyes.
-
-
Caspian is dragging a group of would-be archers through crossbow drills – although Peta and her siblings know how to use crossbows, most of their experience is with longbows, and since all the distance weapons they’d brought back from the camp and Beruna had been crossbows and Caspian was the only one with significant experience using a crossbow, he’d been conscripted into this – when Peta comes up behind him.
They’re outside, and Trufflehunter is bracing up a mock-Telmarine soldier while the assorted group of Narnians does their damnedest to shoot holes in it. Most of them are missing by a mile, since the only Narnians who have experience with bow or crossbow are with Queen Susan on the other side of the How. The experience is giving Caspian more sympathy for Glozelle, Cornelius, and all his other tutors and weapons instructors back at Castle Telmar; although he’d like to think he was a better student, he knows all too well that he most certainly was’nt, and beating anything into his head must have been a task fit for the gods themselves. No wonder Miraz and Prunaprisma had washed their hands of him within the month of his father’s death.
“No!” he shouts. “Hold your crossbows like so, your position is throwing you off and you are –”
A quarrel whistles as it passes his shoulder, nearly kissing distance, and thunks securely into the space on the armor where the soldier’s heart would be.
Caspian looks around. “Who shot that?” he demands, but all the Narnians are looking at him.
“That would be me,” Peta drawls from behind him, and Caspian turns to see her. She taps the crossbow against her leg, smiling at him, and he finds himself smiling back.
“How may I be of service to you, your highness?” he asks, and Peta’s smile turns into a smirk.
There are still bruises on her face, but the shadow on her neck isn’t from the sparring yesterday but from what came after, and Caspian finds himself blushing at the expression on her face.
She runs lightly and deliberately over her teeth. “I’m sure I can think of something,” she demurs, and a faun makes a gagging noise somewhere behind Caspian’s shoulder.
“Oh, do be quiet,” Peta says to him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you all are like – or used to be like, anyway. Revels in Narnia could be something,” she adds to Caspian, and steps forward to hook two fingers in his swordbelt, pulling him close enough to kiss if she wants.
Caspian dips his head down towards her, hearing his breath rasp in his throat, rough and a little fast, and Peta’s smirk grows before she says, “Nothing nearly so pleasant, I’m afraid. Our outfliers have spotted the Telmarine army advancing on us from Castle Telmar, and work has begun again on the bridge at Beruna.”
“But my uncle could not have possibly gotten the entirety of the army so quickly,” Caspian protests, forcing the feel of Peta’s narrow fingers through his brigandine from his mind. “At most, a few thousand men – his own personal troops –”
Peta’s eyes narrow. “Caspian,” she says patiently, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but a few thousand men is more than enough to rival us.” She tips her head slightly at the Narnians behind him, all of whom are watching them – some of whom are whispering, and Caspian isn’t entirely certain he wants to know what it is they’re saying – and Caspian suddenly gets her meaning. She doesn’t want to say, they outnumber us, in front of the Narnians.
“Oh,” Caspian says. “Are you certain –”
“Besides,” Peta adds, “they aren’t all carrying your uncle’s banners. I don’t know the insignia, and neither do Ed or Su, can you –”
“Of course,” Caspian says immediately. “Ah –” he adds, turning his head back towards the would-be crossbowmen, and Peta says, “It won’t take you all that long, I’m sure. Surely they’ll still be here in a few minutes.”
“Of course,” he says again, and then turns back to the crossbowmen, Peta’s hand slipping lightly along his side before it falls away. “Please continue with your practice,” he says. “I will return shortly.”
“Not that shortly,” a satyr mutters to the dwarf beside him, and they both laugh.
Caspian feels the flush heat his cheeks and opens his mouth to defend Peta’s honor, because her subjects should not be saying anything like that about her, they shouldn’t be thinking anything like that about her, but Peta’s laugh cuts off anything he’s about to say.
“Of course not,” she says. “I need a little more time than I’m giving him now,” she says, and the way she says the words is so incredibly filthy that Caspian’s flush has to be seen from Beruna, from the bloody castle.
Peta reaches for him, running her hand up the front of his brigandine to catch his collar between her fingers as she pulls him down for a kiss, messy and open-mouthed. Caspian gets a hand on her waist to brace himself as he kisses her back. Peta catches his lower lip briefly between her teeth before she pulls away. “On account,” she says, and her mouth is red and swollen. She winks at Caspian. “I’ll collect tonight,” she says.
Someone whistles, and Peta turns her grin on the Narnians. “Back to work now,” she says brightly. “Saving Narnia isn’t all fun and virgins, you know. You can have your instructor back soon enough.”
Caspian chokes, but Peta has her fingers wrapped around his wrist as she pulls him off through the tall grass. After a moment she lets go of him, and Caspian gets enough of his thoughts together to say uncertainly, “Virgins?”
“Depending on whose definition you go by,” Peta allows. “Technically, I suppose.” She shrugs.
“I don’t think I exactly saved Narnia,” Caspian points out.
“Well,” Peta says, “you did summon us here, which is a good first step.” She grins at him, briefly visible before they enter the How, and then Caspian blinks abruptly at the change in lighting.
Her siblings are in the table room, Edmund sketching rapidly one-handed while an eagle perches on the edge of the broken stone and describes the banners. They all look up as Peta and Caspian come in.
“Good,” Edmund says shortly, and motions Caspian over. “Are these familiar? Who is it?”
Caspian picks up the pieces of paper and brings them over to the nearest torch, frowning. The lines are clean and clear; Edmund is a good artist. “This is Lord Sepaspian’s sigil,” he says. “And this – Lord Donnon’s, and Lord Scythley’s. They are both lords from the far north, country lords – and well aware of the danger posed by any wild Narnians that remain. The north is dangerous; there have always been giants there, and strange things in the marshes –”
“Country lords?” Susan asks delicately.
“They hold lands in the far north,” Caspian explains, “and they are among the few that actually inhabit them, rather than hold lands in name alone with no inhabitants. Most such lords reside at the castle, but both Donnon and Scythley live at their estates. They have been at the castle recently for the council session, and while they do not always support my uncle, they are among the few who have first-hand experience of Narnians. Many Telmarines do not.”
“How many men can they call up?” Peta asks, crossing her arms over chest as she leans against a column. Her eyes are very blue, calm and direct.
Caspian shakes their head. “Not many,” he says. “They will need to keep at least a bare garrison of men on their estates to guard against attack from the north or the marshes, and there are fewer men on those lands anyway, since living on the borders is far more dangerous than living closer to Castle Telmar.”
“I counted five thousand men from the air,” the eagle declares, raising its wings for balance as it shifts its position. “They are all coming from the castle, and they will be at Beruna from tonight.”
Peta frowns. “Will they ford it, do you think?” she asks Caspian. “Or will they wait for the bridge to be completed?”
Caspian hesitates briefly, thinking. “If there are horsemen –” he begins, and looks at Edmund.
The king nods, the motion short and abrupt. “There are,” he says.
Caspian licks his lips. “If there are horsemen, I think my uncle will have them ford the river, but the foot soldiers will no doubt wait for the bridge to be completed.”
“Su, where are the figures on how many –”
“Here,” Susan says, pulling a piece of paper out of the pile between her and Edmund.
Peta takes it from her and holds it up. “Sixteen hundred horse,” she says, and presses her lips together tightly. “Damnation. That we’ll have to take care of quickly; most of what we have here won’t be any good against cavalry. We need more great cats. Satyrs, fauns, and dwarves will just be trampled, so will most of the talking animals, which leaves us with minotaurs, centaurs, what we have left of the great cats and the dog and wolf packs – about a quarter of the How, then.”
“If we trap them in the woods,” Edmund suggests, dragging out a map. Peta goes over to frown at it. “Put archers and crossbowmen in the trees here, funnel them into this spot, it used to be –”
“It’s not now; we passed it on the way up,” Susan points out.
Edmund swears. “You’re right, I’ve forgotten. What about –”
“That might work,” Peta says. “Lu, can you make sure three horses get saddled? I want to ride out and see it for myself.”
“All right,” Lucy says, turning her head sideways to look at the map. “D’you think they’ll actually cross at Beruna? I mean, won’t they have to stop the construction to get the horses over? I think we would, even with talking horses –”
Peta frowns. “I’m getting the impression that Miraz isn’t going to stop that construction for anything,” she says. “Where else can they cross?”
Edmund winces. “They know about the gorge,” he says. “It’s out of the way for them, and it’s damn hard work getting horses up and down it, but if he’s angry enough –”
“What about the gorge as an ambush spot?” Susan suggests. “If they’re fording there they’ll be trapped –”
“Not enough of them will be trapped,” Peta points out. “We can look at it again, but he won’t be able to send them across in groups larger than twenty, if that, and any horse that goes down there is going to have a damn good chance of breaking a leg; I don’t know if he’s likely to chance that for an open attack. But I want sentries there anyway; I wouldn’t put it past him to try and sneak men through because he’ll think we won’t expect it.”
“All right,” Edmund says. “Maybe he’ll try and ford them at night; they’re not running construction then, I think, they don’t have the lighting for it –”
“If my uncle is so desperate to have the bridge completed, I do not think he will let a little thing like night-time stop him,” Caspian says quietly.
Edmund glances up. “Oh, you’re still here,” he says.
Peta, bent over the map, turns her head to look at him. She doesn’t smile when she says, “Caspian, you can go back to your crossbowmen now. You’d better make sure none of them are putting bolts in each other instead of the target.”
“They are not putting bolts in the target anyway,” Caspian points out, but takes the dismissal for what it is, ignoring the little frisson of hurt that runs through his veins briefly – doesn’t Peta trust him enough to remain, or at least assume that he knows more about the Telmarines than they do? – as he bows and leaves.
Outside, only one dwarf has succeeded in putting a crossbow bolt in the target, and nowhere fatal. Caspian stares at it as the rest of the Narnians laugh. “Well,” he says, “he won’t be dead, but I think he will be rather annoyed at you, and perhaps inconvenienced for the rest of the fight.”
“If the Telmarines have balls at all,” a faun chortles, since that’s where the bolt has gone, and Caspian sighs and retrieves his own crossbow.
“Let’s try again,” he says. “Remember your stance – no, Brownfoot, put your feet farther apart – Camheorn, I didn’t say to put nock your quarrel yet! –”
Not long afterwards, he sees three horses emerge from the How – Peta, Susan, and Edmund. They don’t look towards the crossbowmen at all, and Caspian watches them until they disappear into the treeline, and then Trufflehunter screams in fury as one of the Narnians’ bolts somehow manages to go behind the target and nick him, and Caspian has to go sort things out.
*
tbc
go on to part five