Narnia fic: "Dust in the Air" (30)
Dec. 24th, 2012 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: Dust in the Air (30)
Author:bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: violence, language
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding. Lev's name is a nod to Scott Lynch's short story "In the Stacks."
Author's Notes: Dust in the Air uses Warsverse backstory as a general rule of thumb. All chapters of Dust are posted on both LJ and DW. Dust in the Air does not use material from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). Thanks tosnacky and aella_irene for beta and handholding!
It’s funny, Susan thinks, how a land can be invaded in soul but not in body and still manage to carry on as if nothing untoward as happened. Probably Archenland doesn’t even realize that the invasion has begun – well, the land is aware of it, she’s certain of that, and the little gods that dwell in Archenland, but not the people. Not even the king. Susan hadn’t been willing to bring up Tash’s incursion into Archenland to King Eian once she was certain that he hadn’t noticed it, because his options are believing her and not believing her, and neither one ends well. What she hopes is that it doesn’t mean anything: that Tash is merely testing the borders, that the Tisroc is content to sit in Tashbaan, keeping his armies in his own lands, and let his ambassador do the slow work of bringing Archenland to its knees. What she suspects is that the Tisroc is growing impatient.
“I wager you know,” Susan mutters to the statue of Queen Carolanne, tapping her gloved fingers on the statue’s base. “Between one queen and another, Cara, love, what do you think? The Tisroc’s not happy with the lion in the hand, but that he has to try for the one in the bush as well?”
She isn’t expecting a reply and she doesn’t get one, thank Aslan, but for half a second Susan swears that she sees the statue glance down at her and roll her eyes. She doesn’t jump back, which is a good thing; the cobblestones beneath her feet might have been cleared of snow but they’re still slick with ice. Any sudden movements would undoubtedly land Susan on her arse.
“That’s what I thought,” she sighs, and gives the statue half a smile. She hadn’t known Queen Carolanne, who had predated her by about a century, but everything she’s ever heard about the woman has endeared her to Susan. Carolanne had been regent to her young nephew when the White Witch had first appeared in Narnia, and she’d successfully defended her land both against the onslaught of winter from the north and Calormenes from the south. Fitting that she’s here now, since winter and Calormenes seem to once again be the two enemies that Archenland is facing. Susan just hopes that this winter isn’t the providence of the White Witch.
She gives the base of the statue one last familiar pat and turns away, letting her gaze skate over the square for any sign – anything at all – that Tash had been here. There’s the Lion’s Paw, there’s Glabius’s butcher shop, there’s Frakokk’s guesthouse, and there’s – that’s interesting. Susan doesn’t remember seeing that before.
She tucks her gloved hands into her muff and makes the dangerous trek across the slippery square. What she had seen turns out to be the glint of a whale-oil lamp in a small shrine, the smell covered up by several slowly-burning sticks of incense. Susan had seen similar shrines in Cair Paravel, usually at street corners or tucked away in private homes or businesses. This one is much like the others – four small bronze figurines on a shelf, with the lamp and incense on a step below them, and just beneath that offerings of grain, liquor, dried fruit, and a few glass beads. Susan starts to reach out, then thinks better of it and starts to pull her hand back. Even as she does, she hears faint whispers of sound, voices overlapping each other.
– Queen of Morning, grant me a child –
– that my brother and his family might be safe yet in Narnia –
– King of Summer, death and destruction to the Tisroc, may he die in torment –
Prayers, Susan thinks, and jerks her hand back, stumbling away from the shrine. She slips on the icy cobblestones and ends up sitting on her arse, cold already starting to penetrate her fur-lined cloak and the thick layers of her wool skirts and petticoats. At least she hadn’t heard her bow snap.
“That is not a flattering position,” Jill says from behind her.
“Oh, it’s you,” Susan sighs, running a gloved hand over her face. Her hood had fallen back when she fell, making her shiver chill wind on her skin. She tugs it back up – not that she’s particularly afraid of being recognized, just that she’s bloody cold.
Jill comes around to her front and offers her a hand. Susan takes it, feeling the strength behind the grip as Jill pulls her to her feet. She’s hardly the girl that Susan had last met in London several years ago, before she’d broken with her family, but Susan had known that already. Narnia changes people. Every time they’re here, it changes them a little more, until they’re practically unrecognizable from the person they’d been before.
“Thanks,” Susan says once she’s back on her feet, dusting herself off. She bends down to pick up her fallen muff.
Jill crosses her arms across her chest. She’s in a long coat and knee-high boots, with a scarf wrapped several times around her neck and a hat pulled low over her face. Susan can tell just by looking at her stance that she’s wearing a sword. “What are you doing out here? I didn’t think this was your kind of neighborhood.”
“Really,” Susan says. “What do you think is my kind of neighborhood, might I ask?”
“Up there.” She jerks her chin in the direction of the castle. “With the rest of the nobles.”
“So sorry to disabuse you of that notion,” Susan says. “But since you’re here, you can help me. Where exactly were you standing when you saw Tash?”
Jill frowns at her. “Graynor and I were in the butcher’s shop. I was standing in the doorway –”
“And Tash?”
She’s visibly uncomfortable at the name, one hand twitching towards her sword hilt beneath her coat. “He came – that way. From the south.” Her mouth curls. “From Calormen.”
Susan tips her head in agreement; the gods are bound by geography as well as mortals are. “I know you told me before, but tell me again.”
Jill rubs her gloved hands together. “He was here, but he wasn’t – here, do you know what I mean? When he walked, his feet didn’t touch the ground, but they left marks behind anyway. You could smell him, but you could see right through him. And I thought he was talking, but – it was like he was –” She taps her fingers against the side of her head. “Here. Why does it matter?”
“I’m not sure,” Susan says, “but I’m afraid he’s up to something. Are the marks he left still here?”
Jill shrugs, but she walks across the square anyway, frowning down at the ground. Susan follows her, glancing around at the tall buildings on either side of her. There aren’t many other people in the square; it’s too cold to linger out of doors, and most Narnians even today are put off by unseasonable wintery weather. Susan can’t blame them.
“Here,” Jill says eventually, “and here. It looks like the rest are all gone.” She gestures at the cobblestones in front of her, and Susan leans forward for a better view.
No ice here, even though it has been several days since Tash came to Anvard. The cobblestones are clear and apparently dry, with slight scorched marks in the vague shape of what appear to be giant footprints. Susan pulls one hand out of her muff, then uses her teeth to draw her glove off before crouching down and placing her bare hand on the cobbles. It should be icy cold – as cold as the air on her skin, as the snow piled up in the alleys, as the ice in the fountains. Instead it’s as warm as desert sand at high noon.
With the weather the way it is, it should feel good. And the heat does, but not the sick knowledge of it – the shadow of Tash in Archenland. “Feel this,” Susan says.
Jill gives her a strange look, but she tugs off one glove and crouches down next to Susan, splaying her hand out against the cobbles. “It’s hot!” she exclaims, jerking her hand back. She rubs it fiercely against her coat, as if to wipe away any residue. “How is this possible?”
Susan runs her tongue over her teeth, straightening up and pulling her glove back on. “He left something of himself here.”
“Here?” She stares down at the warm, dry cobbles.
“Probably not right here,” Susan says. She looks around the square again, trying to remember that awful feeling she had had just before she’d fainted, as if the sun had been blotted out and the seas had risen to consume the land.
Jill scrubs her hand against her side again. “There has to be a reason he came here,” she says. “This is the Narnian Quarter. If it’s Archenland that the Tisroc wants, then wouldn’t he have gone up to the castle? King Eian doesn’t even know that anything has happened.”
“There is one reason,” Susan says slowly, “that he would come here, of all the places in Archenland.”
“What’s that?”
“Narnians are already afraid of him.”
The leather of Jill’s gloves creaks as she clenches her fists. Susan looks away, her gaze falling back on the shrine. The flame of the tiny oil lamp burns steadily, and even though they’re too far away to smell it, she half-fancies that the scent of the incense reaches her. She straightens her back, taking strength from it.
“You never did tell me what you were doing out here,” Susan says. “It’s a bit cold for a pleasure stroll, don’t you think?”
“I’ve had worse,” Jill says.
“And that’s quite lovely for you, but that’s not what I asked.”
Jill shrugs. “Technically you didn’t ask me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, setting her jaw stubbornly.
Susan runs through a mental list of the last few minutes. “I suppose I didn’t,” she allows. “But do be so kind as to enlighten me. And, Jill – do try to remember that we are on the same side.”
Jill rolls her eyes, then glances aside and admits, “I came out to meet a contact of Lord Vespasian’s at the Lion’s Paw. She might have a lead on some lord who fled to Archenland with his family and his household knights.”
That would explain a few of the rumors that Susan has been hearing over the past few days. “I see,” she says. “Well, let’s not keep her waiting.” She tips her head towards the pub, whose paned glass windows are lit from within.
“‘Us’?” Jill repeats, looking at her disbelievingly. “I don’t think it’s your kind of place. If you even care.”
“My dear girl,” Susan says, and sees Jill’s shoulders go up at her tone. Now isn’t really the time for this. “Whether or not I care is hardly any of your concern. And given that you’ve been using my name to fund your private vendetta against the Calormenes –”
“My private vendetta –” Jill sputters.
Susan raises an eyebrow. “Given that you and Adelchis and Graynor have all been throwing my name around, but none of you have actually condescended to mention it to me, I think have quite enough right to meet this contact of yours. And who knows? It might actually help.”
“Might not,” Jill mutters. Louder: “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“No,” Susan says. She forebears to mention that she’s actually here to meet a contact of her own, but Corycia is at this point extremely late – late enough that Susan is starting to fear that she won’t come at all. Hopefully it’s just because of the weather and not because something has gone horribly wrong. Naiads don’t particularly like winter, especially a winter that has returned after the seasons had already started to turn.
Jill sighs, rubbing her hands together. “Fine,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ll probably be bored.”
“I have spent the past nine years being extremely bored ninety-five percent of the time,” Susan says. “I think I’ll manage.”
Jill rolls her eyes. “You’ll probably scare him off. Even without that pretty ivory quiver of yours, your bow’s pretty distinctive.”
“I’ll risk it,” Susan says, though Jill has a point. She’d switched quivers to something less conspicuous, but she hadn’t wanted to change bows. She’ll pass as an ordinary archer – aside from her fine clothes, at least – without closer inspection. She gestures towards the pub again. “Shall we? It will get us out of the cold.”
Jill visibly considers saying something – probably about winters in Narnia spent out-of-doors freezing various useful extremities off – then restrains herself and stalks off towards the Lion’s Paw. Susan follows, glancing around at the square again. The only other creature stirring is a stray dog, nosing around the doorstep of the guesthouse. Something about this feels wrong somehow, and Susan’s fingers itch for her bow, slung on her back beneath a cloak split for quick access. She lets her gaze dart around the square, up at the windows of the buildings and the snow-covered balconies, searching for movement.
“Come on,” Jill says, irritated, and Susan realizes with a start that she’s holding the door open for her. She murmurs an apology and steps into the light and warmth, taking her hands out of the muff to throw her hood back.
Their arrival doesn’t seem to garner much attention. Susan looks around with interest as Jill leads them across the floor, taking in everything – the balcony up above, the floor tables lining the walls, the display kitchen at the back of the room. The huldra behind the counter actually takes a step back when Jill approaches her, taking her hat off.
“Lion have mercy, it’s you,” she says, holding her hands up. “We don’t want any trouble –”
Susan raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment.
“I don’t want any trouble either,” Jill says, looking faintly – and understandably – irritated. “I’m here to meet someone – a woman called Pale Adri. Do you know if she’s here?”
The huldra looks at her cautiously. She’s standing well back from the counter, one hand resting on the underside of the liquor shelf behind her, and her cow’s tail is flicking with her anxiety. Susan smiles her most reassuring smile, and sees the huldra unbend a little. She takes her hand away from the shelf, at least; she probably has a weapon of some sort hidden there. A small crossbow, maybe.
“Pale Adri’s upstairs,” she said, looking disapproving. “I’d stay away from the likes of her if I were you; her type’s not usually welcome here.”
“Why not?” says Susan, scanning the drink offerings. “Pole, would you like anything? I’ll pay.”
“Milady, this is a respectable public house, Narnian or not,” says the huldra stiffly. “It’s not as if a fair share of business doesn’t go on here, but we’re not so hard up yet that it’s that sort.” She says this with a sniff of disdain, giving them an indignant look. The minoboar cook has stopped whatever it is he’s doing and is watching them, still holding the knife he’d been using to mince garlic.
“What sort?” Jill persists, pointing to something on the chalkboard menu. “I’ll have that. And a cocoa.”
Susan can still feel the icy chill of the unseasonable winter outside the pub’s sturdy door curling around her bones. “I’ll have a cup of the lamb stew and a pot of tea,” she says. “Put some brandy in it.” She pays the huldra, not bothering to pass over the gold sun since it’s obvious that Jill’s already done that work for them.
“I’ll have it brought up to your table,” the huldra says, handing Susan her change. “That woman’s no good. I wouldn’t have let her in here if it wasn’t for who she came in with.”
Jill, who has already started towards the spiral staircase, turns back. “Who did she come in with?”
“The advocate’s son,” says the huldra, but her mouth tightens as she says the words. There’s something else to this story, for sure, Susan observes with interest.
“Who’s –”
“He’ll keep Pale Adri from starting trouble, at least,” says the huldra, sounding disapproving. “Don’t you start any trouble either!”
Jill opens her mouth to retort, and Susan swoops in quickly to stop her from saying anything they’ll both regret. “We’ll be quiet as mice,” she says, smiling as she takes Jill’s arm. “Quieter, actually, considering some of the mice I’ve met.”
Jill gives her a look as if it’s the most insipid thing Susan has ever said, but at least she doesn’t talk back, and at least it seems to reassure the huldra. Susan drops her arm as soon as she’s able, much to Jill’s evident relief.
Even on a night as cold as this one the pub is crowded, somewhat rowdier upstairs than it is downstairs. Susan spies a dartboard and what appears to be a billiard table near the back of the balcony, and innumerable games of cards and dice. She looks around for Pale Adri and the advocate’s son, her gaze settling on a small table near the balcony rail. It’s easy to understand how Pale Adri had gotten her nickname; the woman has a fall of white hair that goes straight down her back to her hips, braided back from her face. From what Susan can see of her skin, her back to them as it is, it’s pale as well, and she’s accentuated her whiteness by wearing all black. No wonder respectable Narnians shun her; albinos are believed to be touched by the White Witch.
The man with her is clearly of Telmarine extraction, with curly black hair and olive-colored skin. He turns in his chair as they approach, a smile touching his lips. He has nice eyes, Susan thinks.
“One of you must be Lady Jill,” he says.
“I am,” Jill says immediately. “And this is –” She glances at Susan and hesitates a beat, clearly unwilling to introduce the Queen of Spring.
“Susan.”
He frowns. Pale Adri has turned around in her chair to frown at them, her red eyes narrowed. “The Susan?”
“Just Susan,” she smiles.
Only three chairs at the table, one empty. The advocate’s son, apparently a gentleman, gets up to borrow one from another table and bring it over. Susan and Jill slide into the empty seats, Susan careful not to sit back with her bow and quiver in the way. She takes her cloak off, throwing it over the back of her chair. The leather quiver she’s wearing doesn’t have the distinctive burgundy strap with the golden lion’s head, even if it does have her horn hanging from it.
“You must be Pale Adri,” she says to the albino woman, and then to her companion, “but I don’t believe I know your name.”
The Telmarine man smiles. “I’m Percy Treanor. My father is a legal advocate for half the Narnians in Archenland.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Susan says, holding out her hand to him. He brushes his lips over the tips of her fingers, every inch the gentleman. Some lord who fled to Archenland, Jill had said earlier, but Susan is virtually certain that whatever Percy Treanor is, he isn’t a lord, nor is his father, though Treanor Pater might well be a legal advocate.
“As it is you,” he said graciously, taking Jill’s hand when she offers it. He’s apparently a good enough judge of character that he doesn’t bother trying to kiss her hand the way he had Susan’s, just gives her a firm handshake. Jill looks slightly relieved.
Pale Adri doesn’t bother giving Jill or Susan her hand, and Susan doesn’t offer hers. Glancing at her scarred fingertips, the missing little finger on her left hand, Susan thinks she might be able to guess why: alchemist. She hadn’t run into any in Cair Paravel (though she’s certain they’re there), but she’d heard rumor that there were a few in Anvard. Healers, poisoners, and potion-makers; they’d been a Calormene exoticism in her own time, but now they seem to be considerably more widespread.
“Can I get you anything?” Treanor asks. “They do a very nice mulled wine here, if you like.”
“We’ve already ordered, thank you,” Susan says. “I hope you don’t mind if we eat.”
He makes a dismissive gesture. “Of course not.”
Susan glances at Jill, nodding a little. It’s her show; Susan’s not going to take over. Jill straightens in her seat. “We’re –” she hesitates briefly over the word, “¬– associates of Lord Vespasian of Glasswater. I was told that you might have word of some Narnian refugees with a not insignificant power basis. I don’t suppose that’s you?” she adds uncertainly to Treanor.
“It’s unlikely that Lord Vespasian would have referred to me, though he might have meant my father,” Treanor says kindly. “Adri?”
“I know a few people,” she says. “Did Lord Vespasian happen to say whether he meant merchants or nobles?”
“I’ll take either,” Jill says. “Both, if you have them.”
Pale Adri runs the tip of her tongue over her teeth. “I suppose this is for the same business you and your friends were in here shouting about a few days ago. The Queen of Spring and the King of Summer and the glory that was Narnia and all that.”
“The glory that was Narnia,” Jill repeats, with a sardonic quirk of her mouth. “Yes. That.”
Pale Adri glances at Treanor. He shrugs.
“Might I ask what your interest in the matter is?” Susan inquires, sitting back a little from the table as a waitress arrives with their food. They all go quiet as she and Jill are served, while the other two have their drinks topped up.
Treanor doesn’t speak until after the satyress has gone. “My father is a legal advocate for Narnian émigrés in Archenland, it’s true,” he says. “But my interest is more, er – professional.”
“How so?” Jill asks, looking cautious.
His mouth quirks up slightly in something that might be a smile. “My employer also employs a number of Narnians.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jill says. “You can put us in touch with them. I’m sure that I’m not reaching the entire Narnian community in Archenland just by coming in here and declaiming –”
Pale Adri snorts, taking a deep draught of her mulled wine. “I doubt it. This is Archenland, sweetheart. The Narnians who didn’t want to fight came here. The ones who did stayed behind. And died, mostly.”
“They did not!” Jill exclaims, sitting up very straight. “They’re still there, still fighting – and if you –”
“I’m from Archenland, sweetheart. I don’t give a shit.”
“Pole,” Susan says quietly, laying one hand on the other girl’s knee to get her attention, since she has the distinct impression that Jill is about to blow up at Pale Adri. The question of who stayed in and who left Narnia is something of a sore point for her.
Jill tenses, and for a moment Susan is afraid that she’s going to yell after all, but instead she blows out her cheeks and takes out her rage on the flatbread she’d ordered, cutting it viciously into several dozen bite-size pieces. Susan gives Pale Adri and Treanor her sweetest smile and picks up her spoon.
“Dare I ask what you do?”
Below them on the floor, the door opens again, letting in a blast of cold air that makes those near it grumble. Sitting by the balcony as they are, Susan sees the two men and the woman who come in, heading straight for the bar. Like everyone else, they’re wearing heavy coats, swathed in wool and leather against the cold.
“I’m in a variety of fields,” Treanor says after a moment. “Property acquisition, market speculation, waste disposal –”
“Waste disposal?” Jill demands, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Among other things.”
The men who’d just come in are asking the huldra something. She points up at the balcony and they swing away from her, headed towards the stairs. Susan can’t see any of their hands – all hidden beneath their cloaks and coats. She kicks Jill in the ankle, pushing herself back from the table to give herself a little space.
Jill’s head comes up. “What?”
“Below us. Coming up the stairs.”
Jill glances over the side of the balcony, as do Treanor and Pale Adri. Both their hands disappear beneath the table, presumably for weapons.
“Friends of yours?” Treanor says.
“I don’t know them. Do you?”
“No.”
Susan watches them coming up the stairs. It could be nothing, but her instincts say that it’s far from nothing and her fingers are itching for her bow, which will take a precious second to draw and put an arrow on the string. The three of them come towards their table, hands disappearing inside their coats. Susan swipes her tongue over her teeth, leaning forwards a little. It could be nothing. It could very well be nothing –
It isn’t nothing.
Susan sees the gleam of lamplight off sharpened metal even before the crossbow has properly cleared the edge of the first man’s coat and is on her feet in an instant, kicking her chair out of the way as she draws her bow. The weight of the bow is a familiar stretch as she pulls the string back to her ear, the fletching on the arrow brushing feather-soft against her cheek before she looses, reaching back for her shoulder for a second arrow. The first punches through the man’s throat and out the other side; his finger flexes on the crossbow’s trigger and sends the bolt flying upwards as he falls back, hitting a ceiling beam and sticking. Jill, on Susan’s left side, is moving forward, her sword in her hand. She doesn’t bother with anything fancy; the second man gets the bolt off, but it goes wild as he tries to dodge Jill’s blow and ends up staring at his severed hand in the instant before Jill slashes downward, blood spattering across her, the floor, and the patrons skittering backwards from her. Susan has really underestimated Jill’s strength-of-arm, some part of her catalogues even as she releases her second arrow. The blow had nearly severed his arm from his body and had chopped through bone and muscle.
Susan gathers her skirts up in her free hand to avoid the blood as she walks over to the place where the woman has fallen, knocking over a table whose patrons stand gingerly aside, their hands on their weapons. She kicks the fallen crossbow away from her hand and puts her foot on the woman’s stomach to brace herself as she pulls her arrow free. The woman screams, scrabbling at her leg, where Susan’s arrow had missed the artery by bare millimeters.
“I really wouldn’t move if I were you,” Susan says, fitting the bloodied arrow back onto her bowstring. She draws – not much, but at this range she doesn’t have to – and aims directly between the woman’s eyes. “Who hired you?”
The woman’s breath hisses out in pain as she clutches at the wound on her leg, the heel of one hand pressed hard against it. Blood wells up dark against her pale skin, staining the gray wool of her trousers. “It was – a job –” she pants; Susan can feel her chest heaving beneath her boot. “We didn’t – didn’t ask no names – Aslan, p-please –”
Susan sees a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye, then Percy Treanor is kneeling beside the woman, a small, sharp-looking dagger in one hand. “It wasn’t just a job,” he says softly, cutting away the strings that hold the woman’s stiff leather collar in place. He pulls it aside, laying the edge of the knife against her now-bare neck. “This place is off-limits to our kind. Everyone in Anvard knows it – and I don’t know you, which means you’re poaching. I would know if you’d come to the court to pay your dues before starting work. So I would advise that you answer the lady honestly.”
“Not – Archenlander business –”
“This is Archenland,” Treanor says. “Anything that happens here is Archenlander business. Even for us Narnians.”
The woman’s breathing is harsh in the silent pub. Susan can feel her chest moving beneath her boot as she digs the heel of her hand against her wound. “P-please –”
Jill leans over her. Her sword is red to the hilt, dripping blood onto the floor; there’s more splashed across her waistcoat and face. She wipes some of it from her chin with her free hand. “You can live with that wound, if you get to a doctor in time. Do you want to live?”
“Y-yes –” the woman manages, hissing out the word through clenched teeth.
“We can get you to a doctor,” Jill says, “or we can find somewhere for you to die. Slow, painful – I mean, maybe not with that wound alone, but in this weather –”
“People are freezing to death all over the city,” Treanor puts in helpfully. His knife doesn’t move from her neck. “Nobody would notice one more body in the streets.”
“Just – a job,” the woman gasps. “C-came in with m’ man and his b-brother for the prince’s tour – for the prince’s tourney.” She has to force the words out, her face creased in pain. “Fellow in a p-pub offered sixty dars to off some woman. Said it was the Lion’s b-business –”
“What woman?” Susan asks. “Me? Her?” She tips her head towards Jill.
The woman’s mouth works silently as she tries to answer. To her astonishment, Susan sees blood foaming at the corners of her mouth. She scrabbles hands and heels at the floor, blood spurting up from the wound in her leg as she releases it, catching Susan across the face and making Treanor flinch back. Susan is no stranger to blood, but she jerks back in surprise – the more so as she sees the woman’s body arch up off the floor. She clutches her hands to her throat, coughing out blood as she tries to speak, her heels knocking desperately at the floor.
Somewhere in the pub someone is praying, the words knocking at Susan’s ears like they’re rattling around in her skull. O great Queen, swift in justice and in mercy, wise in council and strong in battle, bless us now and in the hour of our need – hear, O Queen, our call and grant your strength, and we will sing glory to your name now and unto the ending of the world –
The bloodied arrow falls from her bowstring with a clatter no one seems to hear, they’re so fixated on the assassin’s death throes. Susan presses the heel of her hand to her forehead, slick with the woman’s blood. She isn’t generally a woman of delicate constitution; she’s seen worse deaths in her life, but not like this. Not without any cause.
Not with a voice in her head.
Am I doing this? Susan thinks, with a second of heart-stopping panic, and doesn’t know the answer.
It’s Jill who grabs Susan’s elbow and pulls her back as the woman coughs out her last few bloody breaths before she goes limp on the floor. For a few seconds everyone in the pub is silent, staring at the dead woman, then someone – Susan can’t tell who – spits out, “Bloody Calormenes!” and the tension ratchets down a notch.
“Adri, get some people over here to take care of this,” Percy Treanor says, with an edge of strain in his voice but otherwise surprisingly calm. “Find out what happened to her. The mess and this – inconvenience – will be taken care of,” he adds to the huldra. She’s standing on the stairs with a small crossbow nestled in the curve of her arm.
“Aren’t you going to send for the police?” Jill asks. Her fingers are digging into Susan’s arm.
“Narnian business in the Narnian Quarter,” says Treanor. “What good will the Watch do, even if the vigils bother to show up? We can take care of our own.”
“You’ll have her here next,” the huldra says belligerently. “And she’s not Narnian!”
“I’ll handle it,” Treanor says again, which makes the huldra snort but not, Susan notes curiously, disagree. Treanor smiles gallantly at her, sheathing the small knife he’d been holding, and wipes his blood-spattered hands clean on a handkerchief pulled with a flourish from his waistcoat pocket.
Jill says what Susan has been thinking. “What just happened?”
“That,” Treanor says slowly, turning towards them as he folds the handkerchief carefully back up, “is, I suspect, what we’re all wondering. I think that you had better both come with me.”
Susan rests one end of her bow on the floor, folding her hands over the ivory tip at the top. The headache is gone now, the lingering remnants of the voice whispering prayers in her head nothing but memory; she tosses her hair and says, “Oh? And why is that?”
“Well,” Treanor says, “for one, I thought you might want a change of clothes. For another – I think that you might like to meet my employer.”
“And who exactly is your employer?” Susan asks.
Twenty minutes later they finish wending their way through the back alleys of Anvard town in front of the intricately-carved double doors of a pub Susan hasn’t seen before. The design on the doors – river creatures, flowing streams, and water plants – is mirrored on the sign hanging above their head, which features an otter crowned with water lilies and, somewhat ominously, holding a dagger. Beneath it, the words “The Queen of Rivers” are picked up in bright paint.
They had left the Narnian quarter almost immediately, pausing just long enough to scrub the blood off as best they could before going out the back door of the Lion’s Paw and sticking to the narrow winding alleys. Percy Treanor had led the way unerringly, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to make sure that Jill and Susan were still following him. He’d seemed disinclined to continue their earlier conversation; neither Susan nor Jill had pressed the matter, though Susan had noticed that Jill hadn’t taken her hand off her sword hilt the entire time they’d been walking. Susan sympathizes; she had left her bow strung and her hands ungloved inside her muff, letting her fingers rest against the hilts of the thin daggers concealed there. One assassination attempt a day is enough, as far as she’s concerned.
Treanor goes straight up to the doors, stamping his boots on the step to remove the snow. He pushes one door open, letting out a blast of warmth and sound – laughter, music, voices, everything that had been present in the Lion’s Paw when they’d first arrived. Susan follows him inside, Jill on her heels.
Treanor leads the way straight across the open floor of the pub to the big staircase near the back, which has bannisters carved like flowing rivers, with otters chasing leaping fish going down on one side and up on the other. They’re made so finely that Susan can make out every hair on the otters’ backs. Treanor mounts the steps two at a time, boots clattering. Up on the balcony, which covers three sides of the main room, there are more tables and a second bar. The patrons eye them cautiously as they pass, hands stilling on dice and cards. Like everywhere else in Archenland, it’s almost an even split between humans and nonhumans – perhaps a few more of the latter.
They go to another set of double doors at the opposite end of the balcony. There are a few people – two women, a faun, and a leopard – hovering around these doors, dicing and sharing a jug of spiced wine. They look up as Treanor approaches.
“Who’s this?” the leopard says, scrambling to his feet. His tail lashes as he looks Susan and Jill up and down.
“Susan the Gentle and Jill Pole of Narnia,” Treanor says, pulling a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. “There’s been an inconvenience down at the Lion’s Paw. Send someone to take care of it.”
“What kind of inconvenience?” asks one of the women. She has short red hair and daggers tattooed across her knuckles.
“The messy kind.” He pushes the doors open and goes in, motioning Susan and Jill after him. They find themselves in a wide corridor, well-lit by oil lamps hung on the wall. Their steps are almost soundless on the lush Calormene carpet.
“I never told him my surname,” Jill hisses at Susan.
“I suspect that Mister Treanor knows a bit more than he’s been letting on,” Susan says.
“Not particularly,” Treanor says over his shoulder. “Just a few different things than you.” He stops in front of a door, his hand on the latch, and says, “Wait here,” before ducking inside.
Susan and Jill look at each other. “I don’t like this,” Jill says flatly, rubbing her thumb over the pommel of her sword.
“Neither do I,” Susan says. She has the beginnings of a suspicion, but it’s just that, nothing more, and suspicion does no one any good. She reaches up and pushes her hood back from her face, letting her fingers press comfortingly against the tip of her bow as she does so. The ivory, cold from the winter air, is a familiar weight against her hand.
Jill scowls, grasping her sword hilt as the door opens again. Treanor comes out, followed by a young dwarf with just the beginnings of a beard. He eyes them both with interest, grinning flirtatiously, and says, “Ladies.”
“This is Inappropriate Levity Ironstone,” Treanor introduces.
“Lev, please, gods,” the dwarf says, mouth quirking in distaste. “My parents were Circle.”
That’s Mayor’s sect of Narnian religion, if Susan remembers correctly. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says politely, “but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand –”
“You’ll have to leave your weapons with him for the time being, I’m afraid,” Treanor says quickly.
“Why?” Jill says immediately, her gaze sharpening.
“My employer doesn’t permit strangers to carry weapons in front of her.” He glances at Susan. “You’ll understand her rationale, I’m sure.”
“You still haven’t told us who your employer is,” Susan remarks.
“You haven’t?” says Lev, grinning slightly. Treanor raises an eyebrow at him and Lev looks aside, laughing a little to himself. “Don’t worry, ma’am, I won’t be further away than the next room and I’ll probably be in the hall.”
Jill, somewhat to Susan’s surprise, glances at her. She nods a little, reaching back over her shoulder to pull bow and quiver off. By the time she and Jill finish divesting themselves of the majority of their weapons – Susan keeps a few daggers back, and she’s sure Jill does the same – Lev’s arms are bristling with weaponry. He looks mildly impressed, though not as much as he had when he’d seen Susan’s horn hanging on her hip. She doesn’t remove that.
Treanor nods in a satisfied sort of manner. “Follow me,” he says, opening the door again.
Inside is a very different kind of room than Susan was expecting. Instead of something staid and masculine, this one is all comfort – squashy armchairs before a blazing hearth, slightly worn rugs covering the wooden floor, tapestries on the walls not concealed by well-stocked bookshelves or the small round windows whose glass panes are rimmed with frost. A small table by the hearth has a chess set halted mid-game upon it, while there are children’s toys abandoned on the floor.
“Darling,” Treanor says, shutting the door behind them, “I’ve brought Susan and Jill of Narnia to see you.”
The words are addressed at one of the two women seated in the armchairs, a small, pretty woman with seal-dark hair and melting brown eyes, a gleam of sharp teeth when she smiles at them. Selkie, Susan thinks, and suddenly the pub’s décor makes sense. Presumably a river selkie rather than an ocean one, given Anvard’s landlocked location. Her companion is a tall, Calormene-dark woman with masses of black braids bound back from her face, showing off the shark’s teeth dangling from her ears. She doesn’t smile.
“So,” says the selkie, “you’re the women who have been stirring up so much trouble in the Narnian Quarter.”
“I wouldn’t really spread the credit around,” Jill says. “Susan didn’t have anything to do with it. And who are you, anyway?”
The Calormene woman’s eyebrows go up. “You haven’t told her?” she says to Treanor.
“It never really seemed to be the opportune moment,” he says, stepping around Susan and Jill and going over to kiss each of them in turn. He settles into a position behind the selkie woman, resting his hands on the back of her chair. “Queen Susan, Lady Jill, may I make known to you Minou Belltongue, the Queen of Anvard, and Zulieka Sharktooth. My wives,” he adds as an afterthought.
Susan raises an eyebrow, but Jill speaks before she can. “I thought King Eian’s wife was dead.”
“Eian has his throne in Anvard castle and I have mine in Anvard town,” says Minou Belltongue. “We don’t mix.”
“Nor would we want to,” says Zulieka Sharktooth.
“You’re like Elizar Confesor or Bencivenni Maresti in Cair Paravel, aren’t you?” Susan says slowly.
Minou sits back in her chair, a smile lingering around her mouth. “You could say that. Narnia has the Long Table, but Archenland is a bit more modest and bit more efficient. They just have me.”
“You’re a –” Jill bursts out, then bites her tongue on the last word. Susan guesses that it wasn’t flattering.
“Yes,” Minou says, and grins at them, “I’m the Queen of Thieves.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Susan offers politely. “From one queen to another.”
Her gaze sharpens. “So you are that one. There’s been quite a lot of talk about you in the Narnian Quarter, you know – about both of you. Though I hadn’t heard about you having much interest in the lower city, Queen Susan.”
“I am always interested in the plight of Narnians everywhere,” Susan says, keeping her tone light. She has the suspicion that it’s much harder to be a criminal mastermind in Anvard than it is in Archenland, and Minou gives the impression of being no fool. “And your interest?”
Minou leans back in her armchair, picking up her teacup. “This is my city as much as it is King Eian’s. More; Eian wouldn’t be caught dead in some of Anvard’s neighborhoods, and he has a whole country to care for. Besides that, I have a number of Narnians in my employ.” She turns her head slightly to smile up at Percy Treanor, who smiles back.
“They couldn’t find anything legal to do?” Jill glowers.
Minou raises one perfect eyebrow. “No.” She takes a sip of tea, then sets cup and saucer aside. “But I’ve forgotten my manners. Have a seat, Queen Susan, and your – kinswoman?”
“Friend,” Jill corrects, somewhat to Susan’s surprise. She hadn’t thought that Jill considered them friends. Comrades, at most.
“Your friend,” Minou says. “Percy, darling, be a dear and get us another pot of tea, won’t you? Or would you prefer something stronger?”
“Tea is fine,” Susan says, seating herself in an armchair. Jill follows suit, sitting down as gingerly as if she expects to find a nest of vipers hidden in the cushions.
Minou leans back in her seat, glancing at Zulieka as Treanor slips out of the room. “I hear there was an incident in the Lion’s Paw today,” the other woman says. Her voice is deeper than Minou’s, with a distinct accent. When she reaches for her own teacup, her sleeve slides back, revealing the distinctive scars that come from being manacled for a very long time.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Jill says, tossing her hair.
Minou taps her fingers on her armrest. “I discourage assassins in my city,” she says. “It’s bad for business. Anyone who wants to ply that trade here has to come to me to pay their dues and ask my permission. Of course, between the Prince’s tournament and the Narnian refugees, not to mention all these Calormenes, there are a great deal of strangers in my city who don’t know the law.”
“The law,” Jill repeats. She seems to be on a roll, so Susan doesn’t question her. “That doesn’t seem very legal.”
“My law,” Minou says. “Not Eian’s. Though I doubt that he would approve either.”
“Presumably not,” Susan allows. “Do you know anything about the – shall I be politic as well? – the incident at the Lion’s Paw?”
“Regrettably, it is as much a surprise to me as it is to you, I imagine,” says Minou. “Oh, good,” she adds as Treanor comes back in with a tea tray.
They’re silent for a few minutes as the tea is poured and cream and sugar offered. Treanor remains standing, his hip set against his wife’s armchair as he stirs his tea, spoon clinking slightly against the china.
“Allow me to be blunt,” Susan says eventually, after she’s watched Minou take the first sip of the tea. “What is it that you want from me, Lady Minou? I’m not sure that I have any more answers than you do.”
Minou glances aside. “I dislike the Calormene occupation of Narnia,” she says, apropos of nothing. “In some ways it’s been very profitable –”
“Is that all you care about, you –” Jill snaps, starting to rise before Susan lays a hand on her elbow to stop her.
“– but mostly it’s been nothing but trouble,” Minou continues, ignoring her. She makes an expression of distaste. “The smuggling trade is more profitable than it used to be, but it’s far more difficult to get past the Calormene patrols on the border and in the Bight. All these Narnian refugees in my city start fights and break the peace – both mine and Eian’s, if you insist on making the distinction. I’d rather that they were all safely home in Narnia. And these Calormenes –” She shakes her head. “I have no stomach for what they did in Narnia, and even less for what they’d like to do to Archenland.” At this she glances at Zulieka, who gazes steadily back and puts out her hand to touch the tips of her fingers to Minou’s, just for a moment. “I have some experience with Calormenes, you see.”
Even Jill has nothing to say to this.
“What would you have me do?” Susan says. “I am a queen of Narnia, not of Archenland.”
“You are more than that, if the stories are true,” Minou says. “I hear that you and your brother the High King managed to get the Long Table to agree to help you.”
Susan inclines her head.
“The Long Table can’t even agree on the color of the sky,” Zulieka remarks. “There’s a point in your favor.”
“I have no power in Archenland,” Susan says again.
“Really,” says Minou. “That isn’t what you told King Eian, if the stories are true. And so dramatically! Don’t worry, Queen Susan,” she adds, “I don’t want your help, and I certainly don’t need a foreigner to tell me how to run my city. It’s just that recently you and your friend have been privy to several things which I dislike immensely and I have no desire to see them continued.”
“I hardly had anything to do with today’s incident,” Susan says, not liking the turn that the conversation has taken.
“You’re a target,” Minou says. “That’s hardly your fault, of course, but it does tend to lead to a great number of indiscretions in this city. Between your arrival and the Prince’s tournament, I’ve never seen the Narnian Quarter such a pit of vipers.”
“Hardly my fault.”
“Oh, I doubt it’s deliberate,” Minou says. “On your part, at least. As far as I can tell, your primary interest has been in the castle, not the city. But your friend, here –”
Jill straightens up. “All I want is for Narnians to leave your precious Archenland and come home!”
“Certainly,” Minou says. “In the meantime, they start bar brawls and engage in back alley muggings. Today’s little incident is the least of it.” She glances at Susan. “You may be out of my reach,” she says, “but if your friends keep stirring up trouble in my city I can’t speak for their safety.”
“Is that a threat?” Susan says softly. The fire flickers as she speaks, the flames seeming to shrink as the room darkens.
To her credit, Minou doesn’t even look shaken. “Only if you want it to be.” She holds Susan’s gaze; neither of them looks away as Minou says, “Percy, darling, show them out.”
Treanor puts his teacup down and straightens up.
“Thank you for the tea,” Susan says, standing. The fire roars back up, the room warming again, and Zulieka Sharktooth takes her hand off her dagger. “This experience has certainly been…enlightening.”
“I’m so glad,” Minou says.
“Jill?” Susan goes on when the girl doesn’t move. She glares at Minou, then stands up in one swift motion.
“I don’t appreciate being threatened,” she says.
“Then don’t take it as a threat,” says Minou, “just a warning.” She nods at Treanor, who opens the door for them.
Lev and another young dwarf with a strong family resemblance are sitting in the hallway, Susan’s and Jill’s weapons piled beside them as they deal out cards. They scramble to their feet as Treanor pulls the door shut.
“That didn’t really go as expected,” Treanor says apologetically as Susan and Jill begin to rearm themselves. “I’m sorry ¬–”
“Don’t be,” Susan says, settling her quiver into place across her shoulders. “It was quite interesting. Don’t you think, Jill?”
“It was something, all right,” Jill grumbles. “Stuck up bitch.”
“Hey,” Treanor says mildly. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”
Jill shrugs. “Then I’m sorry for you. How did that even happen?”
“It’s a long story,” he says, smiling a little and shrugging. “Lev and Merry can show you back to the castle.” He nods at the two dwarves.
“Don’t bother,” Jill says. “We know the way. Come on, Susan,” she adds, stomping down the hallway.
“Queen Susan,” Treanor says as she turns to follow. Susan looks back, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll see you around.”
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Content Notes: violence, language
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding. Lev's name is a nod to Scott Lynch's short story "In the Stacks."
Author's Notes: Dust in the Air uses Warsverse backstory as a general rule of thumb. All chapters of Dust are posted on both LJ and DW. Dust in the Air does not use material from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010). Thanks to
snacky and aella_irene for beta and handholding!It’s funny, Susan thinks, how a land can be invaded in soul but not in body and still manage to carry on as if nothing untoward as happened. Probably Archenland doesn’t even realize that the invasion has begun – well, the land is aware of it, she’s certain of that, and the little gods that dwell in Archenland, but not the people. Not even the king. Susan hadn’t been willing to bring up Tash’s incursion into Archenland to King Eian once she was certain that he hadn’t noticed it, because his options are believing her and not believing her, and neither one ends well. What she hopes is that it doesn’t mean anything: that Tash is merely testing the borders, that the Tisroc is content to sit in Tashbaan, keeping his armies in his own lands, and let his ambassador do the slow work of bringing Archenland to its knees. What she suspects is that the Tisroc is growing impatient.
“I wager you know,” Susan mutters to the statue of Queen Carolanne, tapping her gloved fingers on the statue’s base. “Between one queen and another, Cara, love, what do you think? The Tisroc’s not happy with the lion in the hand, but that he has to try for the one in the bush as well?”
She isn’t expecting a reply and she doesn’t get one, thank Aslan, but for half a second Susan swears that she sees the statue glance down at her and roll her eyes. She doesn’t jump back, which is a good thing; the cobblestones beneath her feet might have been cleared of snow but they’re still slick with ice. Any sudden movements would undoubtedly land Susan on her arse.
“That’s what I thought,” she sighs, and gives the statue half a smile. She hadn’t known Queen Carolanne, who had predated her by about a century, but everything she’s ever heard about the woman has endeared her to Susan. Carolanne had been regent to her young nephew when the White Witch had first appeared in Narnia, and she’d successfully defended her land both against the onslaught of winter from the north and Calormenes from the south. Fitting that she’s here now, since winter and Calormenes seem to once again be the two enemies that Archenland is facing. Susan just hopes that this winter isn’t the providence of the White Witch.
She gives the base of the statue one last familiar pat and turns away, letting her gaze skate over the square for any sign – anything at all – that Tash had been here. There’s the Lion’s Paw, there’s Glabius’s butcher shop, there’s Frakokk’s guesthouse, and there’s – that’s interesting. Susan doesn’t remember seeing that before.
She tucks her gloved hands into her muff and makes the dangerous trek across the slippery square. What she had seen turns out to be the glint of a whale-oil lamp in a small shrine, the smell covered up by several slowly-burning sticks of incense. Susan had seen similar shrines in Cair Paravel, usually at street corners or tucked away in private homes or businesses. This one is much like the others – four small bronze figurines on a shelf, with the lamp and incense on a step below them, and just beneath that offerings of grain, liquor, dried fruit, and a few glass beads. Susan starts to reach out, then thinks better of it and starts to pull her hand back. Even as she does, she hears faint whispers of sound, voices overlapping each other.
– Queen of Morning, grant me a child –
– that my brother and his family might be safe yet in Narnia –
– King of Summer, death and destruction to the Tisroc, may he die in torment –
Prayers, Susan thinks, and jerks her hand back, stumbling away from the shrine. She slips on the icy cobblestones and ends up sitting on her arse, cold already starting to penetrate her fur-lined cloak and the thick layers of her wool skirts and petticoats. At least she hadn’t heard her bow snap.
“That is not a flattering position,” Jill says from behind her.
“Oh, it’s you,” Susan sighs, running a gloved hand over her face. Her hood had fallen back when she fell, making her shiver chill wind on her skin. She tugs it back up – not that she’s particularly afraid of being recognized, just that she’s bloody cold.
Jill comes around to her front and offers her a hand. Susan takes it, feeling the strength behind the grip as Jill pulls her to her feet. She’s hardly the girl that Susan had last met in London several years ago, before she’d broken with her family, but Susan had known that already. Narnia changes people. Every time they’re here, it changes them a little more, until they’re practically unrecognizable from the person they’d been before.
“Thanks,” Susan says once she’s back on her feet, dusting herself off. She bends down to pick up her fallen muff.
Jill crosses her arms across her chest. She’s in a long coat and knee-high boots, with a scarf wrapped several times around her neck and a hat pulled low over her face. Susan can tell just by looking at her stance that she’s wearing a sword. “What are you doing out here? I didn’t think this was your kind of neighborhood.”
“Really,” Susan says. “What do you think is my kind of neighborhood, might I ask?”
“Up there.” She jerks her chin in the direction of the castle. “With the rest of the nobles.”
“So sorry to disabuse you of that notion,” Susan says. “But since you’re here, you can help me. Where exactly were you standing when you saw Tash?”
Jill frowns at her. “Graynor and I were in the butcher’s shop. I was standing in the doorway –”
“And Tash?”
She’s visibly uncomfortable at the name, one hand twitching towards her sword hilt beneath her coat. “He came – that way. From the south.” Her mouth curls. “From Calormen.”
Susan tips her head in agreement; the gods are bound by geography as well as mortals are. “I know you told me before, but tell me again.”
Jill rubs her gloved hands together. “He was here, but he wasn’t – here, do you know what I mean? When he walked, his feet didn’t touch the ground, but they left marks behind anyway. You could smell him, but you could see right through him. And I thought he was talking, but – it was like he was –” She taps her fingers against the side of her head. “Here. Why does it matter?”
“I’m not sure,” Susan says, “but I’m afraid he’s up to something. Are the marks he left still here?”
Jill shrugs, but she walks across the square anyway, frowning down at the ground. Susan follows her, glancing around at the tall buildings on either side of her. There aren’t many other people in the square; it’s too cold to linger out of doors, and most Narnians even today are put off by unseasonable wintery weather. Susan can’t blame them.
“Here,” Jill says eventually, “and here. It looks like the rest are all gone.” She gestures at the cobblestones in front of her, and Susan leans forward for a better view.
No ice here, even though it has been several days since Tash came to Anvard. The cobblestones are clear and apparently dry, with slight scorched marks in the vague shape of what appear to be giant footprints. Susan pulls one hand out of her muff, then uses her teeth to draw her glove off before crouching down and placing her bare hand on the cobbles. It should be icy cold – as cold as the air on her skin, as the snow piled up in the alleys, as the ice in the fountains. Instead it’s as warm as desert sand at high noon.
With the weather the way it is, it should feel good. And the heat does, but not the sick knowledge of it – the shadow of Tash in Archenland. “Feel this,” Susan says.
Jill gives her a strange look, but she tugs off one glove and crouches down next to Susan, splaying her hand out against the cobbles. “It’s hot!” she exclaims, jerking her hand back. She rubs it fiercely against her coat, as if to wipe away any residue. “How is this possible?”
Susan runs her tongue over her teeth, straightening up and pulling her glove back on. “He left something of himself here.”
“Here?” She stares down at the warm, dry cobbles.
“Probably not right here,” Susan says. She looks around the square again, trying to remember that awful feeling she had had just before she’d fainted, as if the sun had been blotted out and the seas had risen to consume the land.
Jill scrubs her hand against her side again. “There has to be a reason he came here,” she says. “This is the Narnian Quarter. If it’s Archenland that the Tisroc wants, then wouldn’t he have gone up to the castle? King Eian doesn’t even know that anything has happened.”
“There is one reason,” Susan says slowly, “that he would come here, of all the places in Archenland.”
“What’s that?”
“Narnians are already afraid of him.”
The leather of Jill’s gloves creaks as she clenches her fists. Susan looks away, her gaze falling back on the shrine. The flame of the tiny oil lamp burns steadily, and even though they’re too far away to smell it, she half-fancies that the scent of the incense reaches her. She straightens her back, taking strength from it.
“You never did tell me what you were doing out here,” Susan says. “It’s a bit cold for a pleasure stroll, don’t you think?”
“I’ve had worse,” Jill says.
“And that’s quite lovely for you, but that’s not what I asked.”
Jill shrugs. “Technically you didn’t ask me.” She crosses her arms over her chest, setting her jaw stubbornly.
Susan runs through a mental list of the last few minutes. “I suppose I didn’t,” she allows. “But do be so kind as to enlighten me. And, Jill – do try to remember that we are on the same side.”
Jill rolls her eyes, then glances aside and admits, “I came out to meet a contact of Lord Vespasian’s at the Lion’s Paw. She might have a lead on some lord who fled to Archenland with his family and his household knights.”
That would explain a few of the rumors that Susan has been hearing over the past few days. “I see,” she says. “Well, let’s not keep her waiting.” She tips her head towards the pub, whose paned glass windows are lit from within.
“‘Us’?” Jill repeats, looking at her disbelievingly. “I don’t think it’s your kind of place. If you even care.”
“My dear girl,” Susan says, and sees Jill’s shoulders go up at her tone. Now isn’t really the time for this. “Whether or not I care is hardly any of your concern. And given that you’ve been using my name to fund your private vendetta against the Calormenes –”
“My private vendetta –” Jill sputters.
Susan raises an eyebrow. “Given that you and Adelchis and Graynor have all been throwing my name around, but none of you have actually condescended to mention it to me, I think have quite enough right to meet this contact of yours. And who knows? It might actually help.”
“Might not,” Jill mutters. Louder: “You’re not leaving, are you?”
“No,” Susan says. She forebears to mention that she’s actually here to meet a contact of her own, but Corycia is at this point extremely late – late enough that Susan is starting to fear that she won’t come at all. Hopefully it’s just because of the weather and not because something has gone horribly wrong. Naiads don’t particularly like winter, especially a winter that has returned after the seasons had already started to turn.
Jill sighs, rubbing her hands together. “Fine,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ll probably be bored.”
“I have spent the past nine years being extremely bored ninety-five percent of the time,” Susan says. “I think I’ll manage.”
Jill rolls her eyes. “You’ll probably scare him off. Even without that pretty ivory quiver of yours, your bow’s pretty distinctive.”
“I’ll risk it,” Susan says, though Jill has a point. She’d switched quivers to something less conspicuous, but she hadn’t wanted to change bows. She’ll pass as an ordinary archer – aside from her fine clothes, at least – without closer inspection. She gestures towards the pub again. “Shall we? It will get us out of the cold.”
Jill visibly considers saying something – probably about winters in Narnia spent out-of-doors freezing various useful extremities off – then restrains herself and stalks off towards the Lion’s Paw. Susan follows, glancing around at the square again. The only other creature stirring is a stray dog, nosing around the doorstep of the guesthouse. Something about this feels wrong somehow, and Susan’s fingers itch for her bow, slung on her back beneath a cloak split for quick access. She lets her gaze dart around the square, up at the windows of the buildings and the snow-covered balconies, searching for movement.
“Come on,” Jill says, irritated, and Susan realizes with a start that she’s holding the door open for her. She murmurs an apology and steps into the light and warmth, taking her hands out of the muff to throw her hood back.
Their arrival doesn’t seem to garner much attention. Susan looks around with interest as Jill leads them across the floor, taking in everything – the balcony up above, the floor tables lining the walls, the display kitchen at the back of the room. The huldra behind the counter actually takes a step back when Jill approaches her, taking her hat off.
“Lion have mercy, it’s you,” she says, holding her hands up. “We don’t want any trouble –”
Susan raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment.
“I don’t want any trouble either,” Jill says, looking faintly – and understandably – irritated. “I’m here to meet someone – a woman called Pale Adri. Do you know if she’s here?”
The huldra looks at her cautiously. She’s standing well back from the counter, one hand resting on the underside of the liquor shelf behind her, and her cow’s tail is flicking with her anxiety. Susan smiles her most reassuring smile, and sees the huldra unbend a little. She takes her hand away from the shelf, at least; she probably has a weapon of some sort hidden there. A small crossbow, maybe.
“Pale Adri’s upstairs,” she said, looking disapproving. “I’d stay away from the likes of her if I were you; her type’s not usually welcome here.”
“Why not?” says Susan, scanning the drink offerings. “Pole, would you like anything? I’ll pay.”
“Milady, this is a respectable public house, Narnian or not,” says the huldra stiffly. “It’s not as if a fair share of business doesn’t go on here, but we’re not so hard up yet that it’s that sort.” She says this with a sniff of disdain, giving them an indignant look. The minoboar cook has stopped whatever it is he’s doing and is watching them, still holding the knife he’d been using to mince garlic.
“What sort?” Jill persists, pointing to something on the chalkboard menu. “I’ll have that. And a cocoa.”
Susan can still feel the icy chill of the unseasonable winter outside the pub’s sturdy door curling around her bones. “I’ll have a cup of the lamb stew and a pot of tea,” she says. “Put some brandy in it.” She pays the huldra, not bothering to pass over the gold sun since it’s obvious that Jill’s already done that work for them.
“I’ll have it brought up to your table,” the huldra says, handing Susan her change. “That woman’s no good. I wouldn’t have let her in here if it wasn’t for who she came in with.”
Jill, who has already started towards the spiral staircase, turns back. “Who did she come in with?”
“The advocate’s son,” says the huldra, but her mouth tightens as she says the words. There’s something else to this story, for sure, Susan observes with interest.
“Who’s –”
“He’ll keep Pale Adri from starting trouble, at least,” says the huldra, sounding disapproving. “Don’t you start any trouble either!”
Jill opens her mouth to retort, and Susan swoops in quickly to stop her from saying anything they’ll both regret. “We’ll be quiet as mice,” she says, smiling as she takes Jill’s arm. “Quieter, actually, considering some of the mice I’ve met.”
Jill gives her a look as if it’s the most insipid thing Susan has ever said, but at least she doesn’t talk back, and at least it seems to reassure the huldra. Susan drops her arm as soon as she’s able, much to Jill’s evident relief.
Even on a night as cold as this one the pub is crowded, somewhat rowdier upstairs than it is downstairs. Susan spies a dartboard and what appears to be a billiard table near the back of the balcony, and innumerable games of cards and dice. She looks around for Pale Adri and the advocate’s son, her gaze settling on a small table near the balcony rail. It’s easy to understand how Pale Adri had gotten her nickname; the woman has a fall of white hair that goes straight down her back to her hips, braided back from her face. From what Susan can see of her skin, her back to them as it is, it’s pale as well, and she’s accentuated her whiteness by wearing all black. No wonder respectable Narnians shun her; albinos are believed to be touched by the White Witch.
The man with her is clearly of Telmarine extraction, with curly black hair and olive-colored skin. He turns in his chair as they approach, a smile touching his lips. He has nice eyes, Susan thinks.
“One of you must be Lady Jill,” he says.
“I am,” Jill says immediately. “And this is –” She glances at Susan and hesitates a beat, clearly unwilling to introduce the Queen of Spring.
“Susan.”
He frowns. Pale Adri has turned around in her chair to frown at them, her red eyes narrowed. “The Susan?”
“Just Susan,” she smiles.
Only three chairs at the table, one empty. The advocate’s son, apparently a gentleman, gets up to borrow one from another table and bring it over. Susan and Jill slide into the empty seats, Susan careful not to sit back with her bow and quiver in the way. She takes her cloak off, throwing it over the back of her chair. The leather quiver she’s wearing doesn’t have the distinctive burgundy strap with the golden lion’s head, even if it does have her horn hanging from it.
“You must be Pale Adri,” she says to the albino woman, and then to her companion, “but I don’t believe I know your name.”
The Telmarine man smiles. “I’m Percy Treanor. My father is a legal advocate for half the Narnians in Archenland.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Susan says, holding out her hand to him. He brushes his lips over the tips of her fingers, every inch the gentleman. Some lord who fled to Archenland, Jill had said earlier, but Susan is virtually certain that whatever Percy Treanor is, he isn’t a lord, nor is his father, though Treanor Pater might well be a legal advocate.
“As it is you,” he said graciously, taking Jill’s hand when she offers it. He’s apparently a good enough judge of character that he doesn’t bother trying to kiss her hand the way he had Susan’s, just gives her a firm handshake. Jill looks slightly relieved.
Pale Adri doesn’t bother giving Jill or Susan her hand, and Susan doesn’t offer hers. Glancing at her scarred fingertips, the missing little finger on her left hand, Susan thinks she might be able to guess why: alchemist. She hadn’t run into any in Cair Paravel (though she’s certain they’re there), but she’d heard rumor that there were a few in Anvard. Healers, poisoners, and potion-makers; they’d been a Calormene exoticism in her own time, but now they seem to be considerably more widespread.
“Can I get you anything?” Treanor asks. “They do a very nice mulled wine here, if you like.”
“We’ve already ordered, thank you,” Susan says. “I hope you don’t mind if we eat.”
He makes a dismissive gesture. “Of course not.”
Susan glances at Jill, nodding a little. It’s her show; Susan’s not going to take over. Jill straightens in her seat. “We’re –” she hesitates briefly over the word, “¬– associates of Lord Vespasian of Glasswater. I was told that you might have word of some Narnian refugees with a not insignificant power basis. I don’t suppose that’s you?” she adds uncertainly to Treanor.
“It’s unlikely that Lord Vespasian would have referred to me, though he might have meant my father,” Treanor says kindly. “Adri?”
“I know a few people,” she says. “Did Lord Vespasian happen to say whether he meant merchants or nobles?”
“I’ll take either,” Jill says. “Both, if you have them.”
Pale Adri runs the tip of her tongue over her teeth. “I suppose this is for the same business you and your friends were in here shouting about a few days ago. The Queen of Spring and the King of Summer and the glory that was Narnia and all that.”
“The glory that was Narnia,” Jill repeats, with a sardonic quirk of her mouth. “Yes. That.”
Pale Adri glances at Treanor. He shrugs.
“Might I ask what your interest in the matter is?” Susan inquires, sitting back a little from the table as a waitress arrives with their food. They all go quiet as she and Jill are served, while the other two have their drinks topped up.
Treanor doesn’t speak until after the satyress has gone. “My father is a legal advocate for Narnian émigrés in Archenland, it’s true,” he says. “But my interest is more, er – professional.”
“How so?” Jill asks, looking cautious.
His mouth quirks up slightly in something that might be a smile. “My employer also employs a number of Narnians.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jill says. “You can put us in touch with them. I’m sure that I’m not reaching the entire Narnian community in Archenland just by coming in here and declaiming –”
Pale Adri snorts, taking a deep draught of her mulled wine. “I doubt it. This is Archenland, sweetheart. The Narnians who didn’t want to fight came here. The ones who did stayed behind. And died, mostly.”
“They did not!” Jill exclaims, sitting up very straight. “They’re still there, still fighting – and if you –”
“I’m from Archenland, sweetheart. I don’t give a shit.”
“Pole,” Susan says quietly, laying one hand on the other girl’s knee to get her attention, since she has the distinct impression that Jill is about to blow up at Pale Adri. The question of who stayed in and who left Narnia is something of a sore point for her.
Jill tenses, and for a moment Susan is afraid that she’s going to yell after all, but instead she blows out her cheeks and takes out her rage on the flatbread she’d ordered, cutting it viciously into several dozen bite-size pieces. Susan gives Pale Adri and Treanor her sweetest smile and picks up her spoon.
“Dare I ask what you do?”
Below them on the floor, the door opens again, letting in a blast of cold air that makes those near it grumble. Sitting by the balcony as they are, Susan sees the two men and the woman who come in, heading straight for the bar. Like everyone else, they’re wearing heavy coats, swathed in wool and leather against the cold.
“I’m in a variety of fields,” Treanor says after a moment. “Property acquisition, market speculation, waste disposal –”
“Waste disposal?” Jill demands, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“Among other things.”
The men who’d just come in are asking the huldra something. She points up at the balcony and they swing away from her, headed towards the stairs. Susan can’t see any of their hands – all hidden beneath their cloaks and coats. She kicks Jill in the ankle, pushing herself back from the table to give herself a little space.
Jill’s head comes up. “What?”
“Below us. Coming up the stairs.”
Jill glances over the side of the balcony, as do Treanor and Pale Adri. Both their hands disappear beneath the table, presumably for weapons.
“Friends of yours?” Treanor says.
“I don’t know them. Do you?”
“No.”
Susan watches them coming up the stairs. It could be nothing, but her instincts say that it’s far from nothing and her fingers are itching for her bow, which will take a precious second to draw and put an arrow on the string. The three of them come towards their table, hands disappearing inside their coats. Susan swipes her tongue over her teeth, leaning forwards a little. It could be nothing. It could very well be nothing –
It isn’t nothing.
Susan sees the gleam of lamplight off sharpened metal even before the crossbow has properly cleared the edge of the first man’s coat and is on her feet in an instant, kicking her chair out of the way as she draws her bow. The weight of the bow is a familiar stretch as she pulls the string back to her ear, the fletching on the arrow brushing feather-soft against her cheek before she looses, reaching back for her shoulder for a second arrow. The first punches through the man’s throat and out the other side; his finger flexes on the crossbow’s trigger and sends the bolt flying upwards as he falls back, hitting a ceiling beam and sticking. Jill, on Susan’s left side, is moving forward, her sword in her hand. She doesn’t bother with anything fancy; the second man gets the bolt off, but it goes wild as he tries to dodge Jill’s blow and ends up staring at his severed hand in the instant before Jill slashes downward, blood spattering across her, the floor, and the patrons skittering backwards from her. Susan has really underestimated Jill’s strength-of-arm, some part of her catalogues even as she releases her second arrow. The blow had nearly severed his arm from his body and had chopped through bone and muscle.
Susan gathers her skirts up in her free hand to avoid the blood as she walks over to the place where the woman has fallen, knocking over a table whose patrons stand gingerly aside, their hands on their weapons. She kicks the fallen crossbow away from her hand and puts her foot on the woman’s stomach to brace herself as she pulls her arrow free. The woman screams, scrabbling at her leg, where Susan’s arrow had missed the artery by bare millimeters.
“I really wouldn’t move if I were you,” Susan says, fitting the bloodied arrow back onto her bowstring. She draws – not much, but at this range she doesn’t have to – and aims directly between the woman’s eyes. “Who hired you?”
The woman’s breath hisses out in pain as she clutches at the wound on her leg, the heel of one hand pressed hard against it. Blood wells up dark against her pale skin, staining the gray wool of her trousers. “It was – a job –” she pants; Susan can feel her chest heaving beneath her boot. “We didn’t – didn’t ask no names – Aslan, p-please –”
Susan sees a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye, then Percy Treanor is kneeling beside the woman, a small, sharp-looking dagger in one hand. “It wasn’t just a job,” he says softly, cutting away the strings that hold the woman’s stiff leather collar in place. He pulls it aside, laying the edge of the knife against her now-bare neck. “This place is off-limits to our kind. Everyone in Anvard knows it – and I don’t know you, which means you’re poaching. I would know if you’d come to the court to pay your dues before starting work. So I would advise that you answer the lady honestly.”
“Not – Archenlander business –”
“This is Archenland,” Treanor says. “Anything that happens here is Archenlander business. Even for us Narnians.”
The woman’s breathing is harsh in the silent pub. Susan can feel her chest moving beneath her boot as she digs the heel of her hand against her wound. “P-please –”
Jill leans over her. Her sword is red to the hilt, dripping blood onto the floor; there’s more splashed across her waistcoat and face. She wipes some of it from her chin with her free hand. “You can live with that wound, if you get to a doctor in time. Do you want to live?”
“Y-yes –” the woman manages, hissing out the word through clenched teeth.
“We can get you to a doctor,” Jill says, “or we can find somewhere for you to die. Slow, painful – I mean, maybe not with that wound alone, but in this weather –”
“People are freezing to death all over the city,” Treanor puts in helpfully. His knife doesn’t move from her neck. “Nobody would notice one more body in the streets.”
“Just – a job,” the woman gasps. “C-came in with m’ man and his b-brother for the prince’s tour – for the prince’s tourney.” She has to force the words out, her face creased in pain. “Fellow in a p-pub offered sixty dars to off some woman. Said it was the Lion’s b-business –”
“What woman?” Susan asks. “Me? Her?” She tips her head towards Jill.
The woman’s mouth works silently as she tries to answer. To her astonishment, Susan sees blood foaming at the corners of her mouth. She scrabbles hands and heels at the floor, blood spurting up from the wound in her leg as she releases it, catching Susan across the face and making Treanor flinch back. Susan is no stranger to blood, but she jerks back in surprise – the more so as she sees the woman’s body arch up off the floor. She clutches her hands to her throat, coughing out blood as she tries to speak, her heels knocking desperately at the floor.
Somewhere in the pub someone is praying, the words knocking at Susan’s ears like they’re rattling around in her skull. O great Queen, swift in justice and in mercy, wise in council and strong in battle, bless us now and in the hour of our need – hear, O Queen, our call and grant your strength, and we will sing glory to your name now and unto the ending of the world –
The bloodied arrow falls from her bowstring with a clatter no one seems to hear, they’re so fixated on the assassin’s death throes. Susan presses the heel of her hand to her forehead, slick with the woman’s blood. She isn’t generally a woman of delicate constitution; she’s seen worse deaths in her life, but not like this. Not without any cause.
Not with a voice in her head.
Am I doing this? Susan thinks, with a second of heart-stopping panic, and doesn’t know the answer.
It’s Jill who grabs Susan’s elbow and pulls her back as the woman coughs out her last few bloody breaths before she goes limp on the floor. For a few seconds everyone in the pub is silent, staring at the dead woman, then someone – Susan can’t tell who – spits out, “Bloody Calormenes!” and the tension ratchets down a notch.
“Adri, get some people over here to take care of this,” Percy Treanor says, with an edge of strain in his voice but otherwise surprisingly calm. “Find out what happened to her. The mess and this – inconvenience – will be taken care of,” he adds to the huldra. She’s standing on the stairs with a small crossbow nestled in the curve of her arm.
“Aren’t you going to send for the police?” Jill asks. Her fingers are digging into Susan’s arm.
“Narnian business in the Narnian Quarter,” says Treanor. “What good will the Watch do, even if the vigils bother to show up? We can take care of our own.”
“You’ll have her here next,” the huldra says belligerently. “And she’s not Narnian!”
“I’ll handle it,” Treanor says again, which makes the huldra snort but not, Susan notes curiously, disagree. Treanor smiles gallantly at her, sheathing the small knife he’d been holding, and wipes his blood-spattered hands clean on a handkerchief pulled with a flourish from his waistcoat pocket.
Jill says what Susan has been thinking. “What just happened?”
“That,” Treanor says slowly, turning towards them as he folds the handkerchief carefully back up, “is, I suspect, what we’re all wondering. I think that you had better both come with me.”
Susan rests one end of her bow on the floor, folding her hands over the ivory tip at the top. The headache is gone now, the lingering remnants of the voice whispering prayers in her head nothing but memory; she tosses her hair and says, “Oh? And why is that?”
“Well,” Treanor says, “for one, I thought you might want a change of clothes. For another – I think that you might like to meet my employer.”
“And who exactly is your employer?” Susan asks.
Twenty minutes later they finish wending their way through the back alleys of Anvard town in front of the intricately-carved double doors of a pub Susan hasn’t seen before. The design on the doors – river creatures, flowing streams, and water plants – is mirrored on the sign hanging above their head, which features an otter crowned with water lilies and, somewhat ominously, holding a dagger. Beneath it, the words “The Queen of Rivers” are picked up in bright paint.
They had left the Narnian quarter almost immediately, pausing just long enough to scrub the blood off as best they could before going out the back door of the Lion’s Paw and sticking to the narrow winding alleys. Percy Treanor had led the way unerringly, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to make sure that Jill and Susan were still following him. He’d seemed disinclined to continue their earlier conversation; neither Susan nor Jill had pressed the matter, though Susan had noticed that Jill hadn’t taken her hand off her sword hilt the entire time they’d been walking. Susan sympathizes; she had left her bow strung and her hands ungloved inside her muff, letting her fingers rest against the hilts of the thin daggers concealed there. One assassination attempt a day is enough, as far as she’s concerned.
Treanor goes straight up to the doors, stamping his boots on the step to remove the snow. He pushes one door open, letting out a blast of warmth and sound – laughter, music, voices, everything that had been present in the Lion’s Paw when they’d first arrived. Susan follows him inside, Jill on her heels.
Treanor leads the way straight across the open floor of the pub to the big staircase near the back, which has bannisters carved like flowing rivers, with otters chasing leaping fish going down on one side and up on the other. They’re made so finely that Susan can make out every hair on the otters’ backs. Treanor mounts the steps two at a time, boots clattering. Up on the balcony, which covers three sides of the main room, there are more tables and a second bar. The patrons eye them cautiously as they pass, hands stilling on dice and cards. Like everywhere else in Archenland, it’s almost an even split between humans and nonhumans – perhaps a few more of the latter.
They go to another set of double doors at the opposite end of the balcony. There are a few people – two women, a faun, and a leopard – hovering around these doors, dicing and sharing a jug of spiced wine. They look up as Treanor approaches.
“Who’s this?” the leopard says, scrambling to his feet. His tail lashes as he looks Susan and Jill up and down.
“Susan the Gentle and Jill Pole of Narnia,” Treanor says, pulling a key out of his pocket and unlocking the door. “There’s been an inconvenience down at the Lion’s Paw. Send someone to take care of it.”
“What kind of inconvenience?” asks one of the women. She has short red hair and daggers tattooed across her knuckles.
“The messy kind.” He pushes the doors open and goes in, motioning Susan and Jill after him. They find themselves in a wide corridor, well-lit by oil lamps hung on the wall. Their steps are almost soundless on the lush Calormene carpet.
“I never told him my surname,” Jill hisses at Susan.
“I suspect that Mister Treanor knows a bit more than he’s been letting on,” Susan says.
“Not particularly,” Treanor says over his shoulder. “Just a few different things than you.” He stops in front of a door, his hand on the latch, and says, “Wait here,” before ducking inside.
Susan and Jill look at each other. “I don’t like this,” Jill says flatly, rubbing her thumb over the pommel of her sword.
“Neither do I,” Susan says. She has the beginnings of a suspicion, but it’s just that, nothing more, and suspicion does no one any good. She reaches up and pushes her hood back from her face, letting her fingers press comfortingly against the tip of her bow as she does so. The ivory, cold from the winter air, is a familiar weight against her hand.
Jill scowls, grasping her sword hilt as the door opens again. Treanor comes out, followed by a young dwarf with just the beginnings of a beard. He eyes them both with interest, grinning flirtatiously, and says, “Ladies.”
“This is Inappropriate Levity Ironstone,” Treanor introduces.
“Lev, please, gods,” the dwarf says, mouth quirking in distaste. “My parents were Circle.”
That’s Mayor’s sect of Narnian religion, if Susan remembers correctly. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says politely, “but I’m afraid I don’t quite understand –”
“You’ll have to leave your weapons with him for the time being, I’m afraid,” Treanor says quickly.
“Why?” Jill says immediately, her gaze sharpening.
“My employer doesn’t permit strangers to carry weapons in front of her.” He glances at Susan. “You’ll understand her rationale, I’m sure.”
“You still haven’t told us who your employer is,” Susan remarks.
“You haven’t?” says Lev, grinning slightly. Treanor raises an eyebrow at him and Lev looks aside, laughing a little to himself. “Don’t worry, ma’am, I won’t be further away than the next room and I’ll probably be in the hall.”
Jill, somewhat to Susan’s surprise, glances at her. She nods a little, reaching back over her shoulder to pull bow and quiver off. By the time she and Jill finish divesting themselves of the majority of their weapons – Susan keeps a few daggers back, and she’s sure Jill does the same – Lev’s arms are bristling with weaponry. He looks mildly impressed, though not as much as he had when he’d seen Susan’s horn hanging on her hip. She doesn’t remove that.
Treanor nods in a satisfied sort of manner. “Follow me,” he says, opening the door again.
Inside is a very different kind of room than Susan was expecting. Instead of something staid and masculine, this one is all comfort – squashy armchairs before a blazing hearth, slightly worn rugs covering the wooden floor, tapestries on the walls not concealed by well-stocked bookshelves or the small round windows whose glass panes are rimmed with frost. A small table by the hearth has a chess set halted mid-game upon it, while there are children’s toys abandoned on the floor.
“Darling,” Treanor says, shutting the door behind them, “I’ve brought Susan and Jill of Narnia to see you.”
The words are addressed at one of the two women seated in the armchairs, a small, pretty woman with seal-dark hair and melting brown eyes, a gleam of sharp teeth when she smiles at them. Selkie, Susan thinks, and suddenly the pub’s décor makes sense. Presumably a river selkie rather than an ocean one, given Anvard’s landlocked location. Her companion is a tall, Calormene-dark woman with masses of black braids bound back from her face, showing off the shark’s teeth dangling from her ears. She doesn’t smile.
“So,” says the selkie, “you’re the women who have been stirring up so much trouble in the Narnian Quarter.”
“I wouldn’t really spread the credit around,” Jill says. “Susan didn’t have anything to do with it. And who are you, anyway?”
The Calormene woman’s eyebrows go up. “You haven’t told her?” she says to Treanor.
“It never really seemed to be the opportune moment,” he says, stepping around Susan and Jill and going over to kiss each of them in turn. He settles into a position behind the selkie woman, resting his hands on the back of her chair. “Queen Susan, Lady Jill, may I make known to you Minou Belltongue, the Queen of Anvard, and Zulieka Sharktooth. My wives,” he adds as an afterthought.
Susan raises an eyebrow, but Jill speaks before she can. “I thought King Eian’s wife was dead.”
“Eian has his throne in Anvard castle and I have mine in Anvard town,” says Minou Belltongue. “We don’t mix.”
“Nor would we want to,” says Zulieka Sharktooth.
“You’re like Elizar Confesor or Bencivenni Maresti in Cair Paravel, aren’t you?” Susan says slowly.
Minou sits back in her chair, a smile lingering around her mouth. “You could say that. Narnia has the Long Table, but Archenland is a bit more modest and bit more efficient. They just have me.”
“You’re a –” Jill bursts out, then bites her tongue on the last word. Susan guesses that it wasn’t flattering.
“Yes,” Minou says, and grins at them, “I’m the Queen of Thieves.”
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Susan offers politely. “From one queen to another.”
Her gaze sharpens. “So you are that one. There’s been quite a lot of talk about you in the Narnian Quarter, you know – about both of you. Though I hadn’t heard about you having much interest in the lower city, Queen Susan.”
“I am always interested in the plight of Narnians everywhere,” Susan says, keeping her tone light. She has the suspicion that it’s much harder to be a criminal mastermind in Anvard than it is in Archenland, and Minou gives the impression of being no fool. “And your interest?”
Minou leans back in her armchair, picking up her teacup. “This is my city as much as it is King Eian’s. More; Eian wouldn’t be caught dead in some of Anvard’s neighborhoods, and he has a whole country to care for. Besides that, I have a number of Narnians in my employ.” She turns her head slightly to smile up at Percy Treanor, who smiles back.
“They couldn’t find anything legal to do?” Jill glowers.
Minou raises one perfect eyebrow. “No.” She takes a sip of tea, then sets cup and saucer aside. “But I’ve forgotten my manners. Have a seat, Queen Susan, and your – kinswoman?”
“Friend,” Jill corrects, somewhat to Susan’s surprise. She hadn’t thought that Jill considered them friends. Comrades, at most.
“Your friend,” Minou says. “Percy, darling, be a dear and get us another pot of tea, won’t you? Or would you prefer something stronger?”
“Tea is fine,” Susan says, seating herself in an armchair. Jill follows suit, sitting down as gingerly as if she expects to find a nest of vipers hidden in the cushions.
Minou leans back in her seat, glancing at Zulieka as Treanor slips out of the room. “I hear there was an incident in the Lion’s Paw today,” the other woman says. Her voice is deeper than Minou’s, with a distinct accent. When she reaches for her own teacup, her sleeve slides back, revealing the distinctive scars that come from being manacled for a very long time.
“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Jill says, tossing her hair.
Minou taps her fingers on her armrest. “I discourage assassins in my city,” she says. “It’s bad for business. Anyone who wants to ply that trade here has to come to me to pay their dues and ask my permission. Of course, between the Prince’s tournament and the Narnian refugees, not to mention all these Calormenes, there are a great deal of strangers in my city who don’t know the law.”
“The law,” Jill repeats. She seems to be on a roll, so Susan doesn’t question her. “That doesn’t seem very legal.”
“My law,” Minou says. “Not Eian’s. Though I doubt that he would approve either.”
“Presumably not,” Susan allows. “Do you know anything about the – shall I be politic as well? – the incident at the Lion’s Paw?”
“Regrettably, it is as much a surprise to me as it is to you, I imagine,” says Minou. “Oh, good,” she adds as Treanor comes back in with a tea tray.
They’re silent for a few minutes as the tea is poured and cream and sugar offered. Treanor remains standing, his hip set against his wife’s armchair as he stirs his tea, spoon clinking slightly against the china.
“Allow me to be blunt,” Susan says eventually, after she’s watched Minou take the first sip of the tea. “What is it that you want from me, Lady Minou? I’m not sure that I have any more answers than you do.”
Minou glances aside. “I dislike the Calormene occupation of Narnia,” she says, apropos of nothing. “In some ways it’s been very profitable –”
“Is that all you care about, you –” Jill snaps, starting to rise before Susan lays a hand on her elbow to stop her.
“– but mostly it’s been nothing but trouble,” Minou continues, ignoring her. She makes an expression of distaste. “The smuggling trade is more profitable than it used to be, but it’s far more difficult to get past the Calormene patrols on the border and in the Bight. All these Narnian refugees in my city start fights and break the peace – both mine and Eian’s, if you insist on making the distinction. I’d rather that they were all safely home in Narnia. And these Calormenes –” She shakes her head. “I have no stomach for what they did in Narnia, and even less for what they’d like to do to Archenland.” At this she glances at Zulieka, who gazes steadily back and puts out her hand to touch the tips of her fingers to Minou’s, just for a moment. “I have some experience with Calormenes, you see.”
Even Jill has nothing to say to this.
“What would you have me do?” Susan says. “I am a queen of Narnia, not of Archenland.”
“You are more than that, if the stories are true,” Minou says. “I hear that you and your brother the High King managed to get the Long Table to agree to help you.”
Susan inclines her head.
“The Long Table can’t even agree on the color of the sky,” Zulieka remarks. “There’s a point in your favor.”
“I have no power in Archenland,” Susan says again.
“Really,” says Minou. “That isn’t what you told King Eian, if the stories are true. And so dramatically! Don’t worry, Queen Susan,” she adds, “I don’t want your help, and I certainly don’t need a foreigner to tell me how to run my city. It’s just that recently you and your friend have been privy to several things which I dislike immensely and I have no desire to see them continued.”
“I hardly had anything to do with today’s incident,” Susan says, not liking the turn that the conversation has taken.
“You’re a target,” Minou says. “That’s hardly your fault, of course, but it does tend to lead to a great number of indiscretions in this city. Between your arrival and the Prince’s tournament, I’ve never seen the Narnian Quarter such a pit of vipers.”
“Hardly my fault.”
“Oh, I doubt it’s deliberate,” Minou says. “On your part, at least. As far as I can tell, your primary interest has been in the castle, not the city. But your friend, here –”
Jill straightens up. “All I want is for Narnians to leave your precious Archenland and come home!”
“Certainly,” Minou says. “In the meantime, they start bar brawls and engage in back alley muggings. Today’s little incident is the least of it.” She glances at Susan. “You may be out of my reach,” she says, “but if your friends keep stirring up trouble in my city I can’t speak for their safety.”
“Is that a threat?” Susan says softly. The fire flickers as she speaks, the flames seeming to shrink as the room darkens.
To her credit, Minou doesn’t even look shaken. “Only if you want it to be.” She holds Susan’s gaze; neither of them looks away as Minou says, “Percy, darling, show them out.”
Treanor puts his teacup down and straightens up.
“Thank you for the tea,” Susan says, standing. The fire roars back up, the room warming again, and Zulieka Sharktooth takes her hand off her dagger. “This experience has certainly been…enlightening.”
“I’m so glad,” Minou says.
“Jill?” Susan goes on when the girl doesn’t move. She glares at Minou, then stands up in one swift motion.
“I don’t appreciate being threatened,” she says.
“Then don’t take it as a threat,” says Minou, “just a warning.” She nods at Treanor, who opens the door for them.
Lev and another young dwarf with a strong family resemblance are sitting in the hallway, Susan’s and Jill’s weapons piled beside them as they deal out cards. They scramble to their feet as Treanor pulls the door shut.
“That didn’t really go as expected,” Treanor says apologetically as Susan and Jill begin to rearm themselves. “I’m sorry ¬–”
“Don’t be,” Susan says, settling her quiver into place across her shoulders. “It was quite interesting. Don’t you think, Jill?”
“It was something, all right,” Jill grumbles. “Stuck up bitch.”
“Hey,” Treanor says mildly. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”
Jill shrugs. “Then I’m sorry for you. How did that even happen?”
“It’s a long story,” he says, smiling a little and shrugging. “Lev and Merry can show you back to the castle.” He nods at the two dwarves.
“Don’t bother,” Jill says. “We know the way. Come on, Susan,” she adds, stomping down the hallway.
“Queen Susan,” Treanor says as she turns to follow. Susan looks back, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll see you around.”
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-25 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-25 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-25 02:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-25 02:38 am (UTC)Susan hearing the prayers of the Narnians is kinda awesome even if it's a bit creepy. Is she really turning into some kind of god (or that the gods are actually helping her here), and do her siblings have the same skill? I wonder if she could use that as an advantage in some way to aid their cause in getting rid of the Calormenes.
I kind of like Treanor and his wives; it's really interesting to see how the underworld functions in Anvard vs. in Cair Paravel. They really do operate so differently from the Long Table.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-26 07:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-26 07:59 pm (UTC)Belief and action can have unexpected consequences...
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-26 11:02 pm (UTC)When I decided that I wanted to have Anvard's sordid criminal underworld in Dust as well as Cair Paravel's, I decided I wanted it to be recognizable, but not the same as the Long Table. Minou probably does some business with the Long Table, but she doesn't like them: she finds them inefficient. Too much arguing and in-fighting! How they ever get anything done she can't imagine.