To the Heart

Smashed to the heart
under the ribs
with a terrible love
- from Joy by Carl Sandburg



Sir Peter Wolfsbane and his brother Edmund were trained by a centaur, who showed them what it was to be Knights. He showed them how to hold their bodies so that their energy was at their cores, where they pivoted around it and knew how to point themselves in a strike. He showed them how to sit and empty their minds, and then how to open it to the world surrounding.

"I will teach you to be Knights, but you must also become Kings."

Edmund learned to listen to the quietest of sounds, learned to make his face blank while reading the faces of others. He already knew how to love the hearts of others; knighthood taught him to divine them.

Peter saw the world and did not flinch away. Every part of it was Narnia; every part of it deserved consideration. Every part was his responsibility, and the longer he watched the more the honor he felt grew.

"As Knights you will learn to do what must be done. As Kings you must do what should be done." He did not say then, but the brothers heard the heaviness in his voice and knew that the two would not always be reconcilable.



Peter was trained by a centaur who showed him one day the glowing bright sword that was light as a feather, with a blade that cut hot and clean and could melt steel.

"Where is this from? How was it made? Is it electric? I've never seen anything like it, not here, or..."

The centaur looked to the stars and said, "It is from another Knighthood, in another country." Peter knew enough about centaurs to know that was all the answer he could expect.



Each day they were reminded of their subservience to a higher power in the universe. Peter and Edmund already knew it; they lived every day in reverence and thanks to Aslan.

"It is not enough to remember him; you must realize that in each action you are meant to serve him, and forget your own desires, no matter what they are. You are responsible to Aslan and the High Magic. You must live by the rules of the Deep Magic."

Peter knew he could never forget that he didn't deserve his crown. Narnia, his home and the home of everything he had, was a gift freely given and he knew it in every breath. But even his humility was flawed. He held in his heart a fear of losing the gifts he was born to: his brother and sisters. His co-rulers were his siblings, his closest loves; he knew he was too weak to rule without them.

"Love and want cause fear, suffering. Know that you must live without desire; only then can you see clearly and serve purely."

In time he forgot that he was not born to Narnia, and so clung to that as well.



Peter was trained by a centaur who showed him that the world around him was to be known, and felt, and loved and understood, but that in the end one must not be tied to it.

"In your other country..." Peter was afraid to speak. "In your other country, you renounced all ties?"

The centaur was silent.

"How can a knight renounce his ties to his country? To the land?"

The centaur was silent. Peter waited. He needed to know.

Peter doesn't remember anymore what his answer was. It might have been that the centaur had no home, for all the lands he protected. It might have been a question of the nature of his love for the land. It might have been that the only loves to be renounced were selfish ones. Or maybe it was just another silence, another reminder of his irreconcilable duties.



Peter failed his lesson in forsaking all attachments. How could he? A King and Knight had nothing but the whole of their country, were nothing without it. This weakness followed him and tumbling out of the wardrobe it was his first thought – did I love Narnia too much? Did I cling when it wasn't mine to keep? Did I forget the Old Magic?

His second sin: living in fear of forgetting. Holding on too tightly to what was gone. He remembered his adult body, wielding his sword; he snuck out at nights and practiced with Edmund until they returned to Finchley and school, until Edmund was too tired and didn't want to, and Peter joined and quit the fencing team because everything was all wrong. He remembered the Narnian lullabies and sang them with Lucy at bedtime. He remembered the dances, but when he took Susan's hand and asked Queen Susan, may I? she drew it back laughing at the great joke, and said she had forgotten.



Did I do wrong?

His eyes were closed in sleep but he saw them heavenly blue and glowing through his lids: his teachers, the centaur and the Lion.

Tell me, did I do wrong?

And he knew then in great sadness that there was nothing he could have done to change it. He loved, and it was right that he loved. His loves were the responsibility of the King, and the downfall of the Knight.



Peter knew Narnia and found upon his return that his beautiful country was still beautiful, her face was the same smiling sky and her woods still smelled as fragrant. The sea was still like returning to the womb, and the mountains were more glorious than memory. But her body, her body had changed. Cair Paravel still glowed in the sun, but as a ruin. The tracks of rivers wore down the surface of the earth, creating chasms and faults in his memory. The maps he knew like the back of his hand were outdated. It wasn't enough to be torn from his Narnia and from his old grown body, every muscle and scar earned; now he was returned, but still young. Returned, but he no longer knew his beloved, his beloved country.



This Caspian was not a knight; he was a prince. He may have been a swordsman, keeping his shoulders broad and arms strong, but Peter could see his softness, in many places. He wasn't disciplined but neither was Peter, not anymore. They quarreled. They were afraid to see themselves in the other.

Peter resented Caspian's naivetee, his foreignness, and most of all that he professed a love for Narnia without knowing it. Caspian could never know Narnia the way Peter did.

Edmund, who could still divine hearts and knew his brother's better than his own, didn't talk much, but when he did Peter listened. "He isn't as old as you are, he didn't live here as long, but that means you should know better than to expect so much from him. We didn't earn our crowns; we can't expect him to. Narnia chooses its Kings and there's nothing anyone can do about it."

Peter felt ashamed at his bitterness, but couldn't extinguish it.



Peter knew that to be a King was not to be a Knight. He wanted so much to be both, to return home, to be wholly himself again. But too much was changed.

The attack went badly, it went horribly, and as much as he wanted to blame Caspian he knew that Miraz's treachery would have been discovered eventually, and would have wreaked so much havoc whatever the time.

Even the atmosphere and playing field of battle was changed. He had never lead such a bitter and injured army, one driven more by revenge than hope for a new world. He had never lead an army to infiltrate a castle: all his battles as High King were fought under the wide daylight, where both sides were equal but for Aslan's will. This business of sneaking, a small force into a well-armed fortress, it was all wrong. This land was rightfully theirs; they should not have to sneak. This land was rightfully theirs and Aslan knew it. The last time, Aslan had come to aid them, when their chances were so slim against such a strong enemy.

Peter wanted to be the High King again, who could lead his people unified, who could carry the memory of Aslan with him where he went to conjure it in their minds, give his people hope and his enemies fear. But to Narnia Aslan was a fainter memory, and for Narnians he was a matter of faith and not fact. The High King of old was not for this Narnia, but the High King of old was dead and he knew it. Peter was changed, felt the weakness in his body and saw his shows of certainty for what they were: shows. He had lost the beginning of the story that made him King. Narnia had lost it and he had lost it and now he was floundering with only a memory of the lifetime he was Magnificent.

Peter wanted to be a Knight again. He wanted to plan the battle, to head the charge, to be ruthless for the greater good. He wanted to open his eyes and very being to the service of Narnia. In the battle he was the knight; when he fled and knew the faces of those he left behind he was a knight. But when he turned back to look at them, when he would have stayed for his people and for death, when his love for his family and for Narnia made him turn again and leap the drawbridge, he could not be a Knight.



Caspian tells him he did wrong, and Peter will not hear it. Neither Knights nor Kings lash out, and not for the first time does Peter feel hatred for himself, for who he has become out of Narnia. Peter will not hear censure from Caspian, a foreign Prince who knows nothing of Narnia, a stubborn thing that reminds him of his sisters, or worse, the girls back in England who would act as though they could lay some claim on him, as though he was some wayward thing that needed correction.

There is no one whose judgment Peter will hear but those he loves: Aslan, his old teacher the centaur, his family. But they are silent on the matter. It is his own mind that tortures him at night, asking the questions and responding too, now. You did wrong, you did wrong, you did wrong.

What should I have done?

And to this, yet another silence.



Turning to look into the White Witch's face, Peter realized that he was no stronger than Caspian after all.



"What should I have done?"

Caspian blinked in surprise and looked away. He wasn't wearing armor, leather or mail, and Peter realized that this was the first time he had seen him so. True, he had been avoiding the boy, but something in him saw now the effort he had made to make himself a part of the Narnian war.

"Tell me, Caspian, if you know." Peter dropped to a crouch, looking the Prince in the eye, letting his face reveal a shade of his fathoms of doubt and fear. Caspian could not look away. In his light woven shirt and the weak sunlight, he seemed even softer and sadder, as though he had never harbored thoughts of death or vengeance. He had a gentle face, a beautiful one, and if Peter had not seen gentle faces grow hard, full lips grow small and lined with worry, fair skin marred by battle, he would have thought it impossible for Caspian to seem a man, battle-hardened and worn by time.

It was not as simple as that, though. King Peter the Great lives in eternal youth. Only as a Knight did his body feel every day go by, as the aches accumulated and the scars kept each battle's tally. A year, or 1300, later, those battles did not show.

"You should have left me to Miraz and my death, and escaped with your Narnians."

Peter was stricken. There was no bitterness in Caspian's voice, only deep sadness.

"Caspian," and he looked away. "Caspian."

Peter reached out a firm but gentle hand to grasp the Prince's shoulder, knowing that he mourned his father's death anew. He could not touch this unhardened boy with any harshness. Caspian sat defenseless in his sorrow.

"They are your Narnians, too. You claimed them when you agreed to give them back their country. I," he paused. "While there is a Narnia, I have vowed to defend it. For your part, you can do what I cannot; you can claim the Narnians, and claim the Telmarine throne legitimately. You can restore Narnia in peace." Peter saw in Caspian's eyes the weight he had just laid on his shoulders.

They both knew the lies that would have been so easy to believe. That Caspian would be better off without Narnia and Narnia better without Caspian, that Peter failed in his vow to protect 

Narnia when he turned his back to the castle, that High King Peter and his siblings were all Narnia needed. Because it was not the same Narnia, and they were not the same Kings and Queens.



On the morning of the coronation, Caspian knelt before Peter. Peter knelt to face him and held his dark head between his palms to kiss the Prince's brow.

On the night of the coronation, Peter knelt before King Caspian and Caspian pulled him to his feet, Peter blinking back tears of gratitude.



When Aslan took them aside after the war had ended, Peter was so unsurprised it was almost relief. He knew this moment would come; he had been living it in his mind since the beginning. The moment they found Cair Paravel, knew they were truly in the same Narnia but one changed from the one he had dreamed of for years (many more years than his age), Peter knew it wasn't meant to be forever. Aslan was right; these things never happen the same way twice. He might have returned to his youth but the past could never be repeated. He would only be disappointed. Desire leads only to suffering.

But for those first minutes running in the surf his mind was flooded with joy, free of all sadness and worry. It was his homecoming. Narnia was all he ever wanted.



For a second time, Peter slipped and forsook detachment. He never could have been a true Knight; he was thoroughly King of Narnia, possessive and crushed to the heart with love for it. And once a King in Narnia, always. He could wait a lifetime.