The Captain's Bride
(Lucy)
"Today is the perfect day for a wedding," I murmured, looking out over the water. The waves were a clear ultramarine blue and the sunlight was dancing over them. Graceful, romantic clouds skated across the sky, but the breeze was gentle. I inhaled the familiar salt air and said it aloud again. "Today is the perfect day for a wedding."
"Your Highness? It's time to get dressed," Sillan said softly. I love the way she talks. She has an old voice, but it is quiet and whispery, and every time I hear her I think of her willow tree beside a still pond in a meadow.
I turned away from the balcony. "Yes, of course."
All of my ladies in waiting were assembled in the chamber ready to pay a thousand little attentions to my dress. It was all a little much, but I didn't have the heart to tell them; they all looked so eager. I came inside and slipped off my robe so they could lace me into my dress. I examined it in the mirror as the ladies worked. "I can't believe they were able to recreate this dress," I said, smoothing the sides. "It's so perfect, even down to the embroidery. And this one was my favorite."
Sillan flounced the skirt of the overdress, showing the gold and blue embroidery of the underlay. "I remember when I was still a sapling and they took me to the palace to watch you dress all those years ago, and you made sure to put some flowers behind my ear. I never forgot that. I thought you were so beautiful, the queen with the golden hair."
People so rarely called me beautiful I didn't know how to accept the compliment. "Oh, but the real event was watching Susan dress. I love to see that, the way they would comb her long dark hair and robe her in the most delicate silks. She was truly beautiful," I demurred.
They finished with the dress, and I sat down so they could do my hair. The new Narnian styles were very complicated, and when I tried one it didn't look good on me at all. I wore my hair in the old way, simply and dressed with flowers. I didn't look a bit stylish, but I wasn't about to go around making a prat of myself. Edmund also reminded me that we never cared about being stylish when we were kings and queens before and we shouldn't start now. I agreed, and I watched now as Sillan herself made the little plaits starting at my temples with her long stiff fingers.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror. It seemed that any second Susan would come up behind me to correct the hairdressers and assure me that I looked very pretty and suggest I rub flower petals under my ears to get the scent on my skin. Those moments when we used to get ready together were my favorites. Susan was so happy and so easy to talk to then, and we used to gossip about the lords who were courting her or laugh about Peter and Edmund. She was never so free and easy any other time, not even when it was just us four, and I liked knowing a Susan no one else did.
"It seems to me Lord Drinian will be very happy. Lady Dara is a lovely girl," Sillan said, pulling me from all the ghosts I was hoping to see.
"She is! And Drinian seems to love her so much. I'm so used to seeing him as a captain and a sailor it's almost funny to see him so tender, but he loves her so."
"You look as though you might like something similar for yourself," she said with a knowing smile.
"Maybe someday," I said evasively. After all, I was still only sixteen. This was hardly the time to think about getting married.
Edmund had been waiting outside my door. He looked so noble and so handsome in his state clothes that I was quite proud of him. "You look wonderful, Ed," I told him.
He coughed, which is his way of saying he's flattered but doesn't want to show it. "I came to see if you were ready to go down," he said.
He was being so proper for some reason I wanted to giggle, but I kept it in and shook my head. "I want to see how Dara's doing first."
"Shall I wait for you?" he asked gravely.
Now I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing. "If you like."
We stared at each other, and he looked so uncomfortably formal that finally I asked "What on earth's up?"
He cleared his throat. "Nothing. Just—you look very well in that dress."
I wondered why my looking nice seemed to trouble him so much, but in truth I was too flattered to really pay attention. Edmund hardly ever complimented me, so I know that he really meant what he said.
I smiled. "Thank you." I twirled a little for him. "It's like one I used to have long ago. Do you remember?"
He nodded. "I do."
All the old feasts came rushing back to me, and I seized his hands. "Oh, Edmund, this is so exciting!"
Now he laughed. "You act as though you've never been to a feast before."
"Not a wedding feast," I reminded him. "Don't you think it odd that in all the years we were kings and queens we never had one wedding at Cair Paravel?"
He rubbed his chin. "I rather think it lucky." I thought he was talking about Susan, but he was looking at me very sharply.
At that moment Caspian appeared as if from nowhere. "Drinian's a nervous wreck," he grinned, clapping Edmund on the back. "Sweating and stammering all over the place. How's Dara?" He turned to me.
When he fixed his eyes on me I started to blush. I don't know why—Edmund's look was much more scrutinizing. Caspian only had an innocent question in his eyes. "I don't know. I just finished dressing—I'm about to go to her." I felt an urge to run down the hall and hide my red face. I started past them both, but Caspian took my hand. His hand was very warm. I half turned back to him.
"Lucy," he said with a soft smile, "You look lovely."
Now I was blushing furiously, and I barely noticed the pointed look Edmund gave him before I hurried down the hall to where Dara was getting ready.
She turned from the mirror when she saw me behind her. "Goodness, your Majesty! You look as if you've seen a fright! What's happened?"
"Nothing," I answered. Even if it were the time for a talk, I don't know what I would have told her. I took some flowers from an attending dryad and started putting them in her hair. "Caspian just saw Drinian," I offered.
Dara beamed at the thought of him. "How is he?"
I smiled but kept at my work with the flowers. "Nervous."
"He's ridiculous sometimes," she said with a little laugh. I liked that she knew him so well, and that she was so comfortable with him. Susan was always fussing about her beaus, but Dara was sure.
"You're not nervous then."
"No! Just happy. This is going to be so lovely. When we get to Terebinthia I'll show my father how happy I am. Then perhaps he will relent."
"He doesn't approve?" I asked.
"He's a hard man to please." While I listened to her I noticed what an extraordinary color her hair was. Like fire, or the sun setting on the ocean. It was unusual, but so familiar. "When I told him I was leaving to marry a lord of Narnia, he said 'What, you couldn't get the King?' And then of course he had to start in on our family history, that we are a noble and most ancient house, and friends of Narnia since the Golden Age…"
I stopped with a flower midway to her hair. Suddenly I remembered exactly where I had seen hair like that before. "Go on," I whispered.
She covered her face with her hands. "I can't. It's too embarrassing. Especially to say to you, a Queen of the Golden Age. My father's too ridiculous sometimes."
"No, Dara," I reassured her. "If we are really to be friends you can't go on thinking of me that way. I'm just a girl. Tell me."
"Okay, but don't think any worse of me. The family legend is that one of our ancestors—Rhiannon—was a courtier of the High King. Ridiculous and impossible, I know."
I spun her around in her chair. "Not so!" I cried. "She was!"
Dara looked puzzled.
"Peter loved her. I think he would have married her had we not stumbled back into our own world. He thinks of her sometimes still. And Dara, your hair! It reminds me exactly of hers. I've never seen red hair like that anywhere else. Are you of her line?" I thought of Rhiannon, so long gone now, and my heart broke for Peter's sake. I couldn't imagine what it must be like to be torn away from someone you love. I shivered at the thought of my narrow escape at the end of the world. I had been so sure Aslan would send us home, and when I thought of the look on Caspian's face, I almost cried for myself.
Dara shook her head. "Our family history says she never married. We are descended from Darby's line."
"Her sister," I murmured. "I remember." So Rhiannon was here in mourning while Peter was pining in England. I tried not to think that those times where Peter stopped whatever he was doing and gazed with a far-off look in his eyes had become less and less frequent. I hated for Peter to pine, but I didn't want him to give up on that love. Yet what was he to do if she was dead a thousand years?
I shook these thoughts from my mind. Today was Dara's wedding day, and she deserved nothing but happiness. "Well, whatever your father may say, know that I think this is a happy marriage."
She laughed and pulled a face. "Can you come to Terebinthia and tell my father that?"
"You don't need me. If you love Drinian, he will be pleased to see you happy. And your father will be better pleased when he learns of Drinian's place of honor in the Narnian court," I teased.
Dara was wonderful because she knew how to laugh. "I know, but when I could have had Caspian or Edmund! Ah well, I suppose I'll have to make do with my captain." And her mouth was so full of merriment and her eyes were so full of love that I laughed brightly.
"Yes," I agreed, "I suppose you will." And we both started laughing.
Soon I was finished with the flowers, and I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Congratulations," I told her, and I left to go downstairs.
Edmund was still waiting, and now Eustace had joined him. Whenever I saw Eustace dressed up in Narnian clothes I wanted to hug him. He looked so cute and uncertain, but I knew he wanted very much to be taken seriously as Edmund and Caspian are, so I stopped myself. Edmund raised his eyebrows in query to me.
"She's so happy," I reported. "This is going to be a wonderful wedding."
Eustace smiled. "Maybe we'll all get to be this lucky."
"Yes, well, not right now at any rate. Let's go—Caspian's already downstairs and they're waiting with the pennants," Edmund said rather shortly. He led the way to the Great Hall, and Eustace and I exchanged a glance before following.
Caspian was talking to Drinian outside the hall doors when we approached. Drinian was nodding and wiping his hands on his tunic. I trotted forward to him. "Drinian you mustn't be so nervous," I told him. "I've just been with Dara; you are going to make each other so happy."
"She's not worried about her parents?" he asked.
"I don't think she's worried about anything right now. She's too happy. And you should be also."
"Exactly what I was saying!" Caspian cried. "You see, Drinian? How can you refuse your King and a Lady?"
Drinian smiled, even if he still looked a little pale. "I cannot."
"Good! Then go in there and get married!" Caspian gave Drinian a playful push through the doors, and as he walked in we could hear the crowd applauding.
Now the standard bearers approached and we assembled ourselves. Caspian would lead as king, coming behind his coat of arms, then Edmund and I would follow together, and Eustace would come last of all. Eustace did not have a pennant, and he didn't wear a gold circlet like Edmund and I, and he didn't sit on one of the thrones. I often wondered if he didn't feel bad. Edmund said though that not everyone could be king, and we can't make people leaders of a nation just because we feel bad for them. He was right, I suppose, but I still couldn't help feeling sorry that Eustace was so left out.
Edmund was admiring the standards. "How they remembered all of this for so long, I don't know," he said.
Dara arrived, and I gave her a wave, which she returned after peeking out from behind her veil. Some of the ladies attending her looked scandalized at such informality, but I only grinned.
Then the doors opened and we followed Caspian into the Great Hall. They hadn't just remembered our old arms, they rebuilt every detail of Cair Paravel to exactly what it was before. Caspian showed it to us with pride the very first night we returned to Narnia, and Edmund and I marveled at it. You would never know we had a camp-out in the ruins of that very room three years before. In that moment, with the trumpets blaring and the crowd cheering, I remembered the moment we realized we were back at the castle, and I found myself missing Peter.
"He would have loved this," Edmund said quietly beside me, and I knew he was thinking of Peter too.
The wedding was beautiful. Drinian looked almost shy, but Dara smiled the whole time and her vows rang clearly throughout the hall. While she was talking, Caspian caught my eye and I smiled at him. If we hadn't been separated by the bride and groom, I would have taken his hand.
After the ceremony was the feast, and then the satyrs and the fauns came out and we all began to dance. I danced with Edmund, as I always did from back in the days before. I loved to dance with him because we knew each other's timing so perfectly, and because he didn't try to control my every step. Some of the other Narnian lords, the ones everyone said were such good dancers, twisted and turned me so much I didn't know where my own feet are anymore. I would have rather danced with Edmund, who knew when to set me free to twirl across the floor.
A lot of the Narnian ladies looked down on this, especially the ones who hoped Edmund would dance with their daughters. They didn't think it was a bit the thing to dance with your brother because dances were supposed to be all about courtship. Of course that is very New Narnia, and Caspian tried his hardest to rid the country of those sentiments which echo Miraz. But he'd only been king six years, and there were many traditions that came with the Telmarines and have been around for generations. They cannot all be erased at once.
I was having too much fun dancing to think much about all this, though. As Edmund whirled me around the dance floor in time to an ancient air, I smiled at him slyly. "The girls are all watching you."
He blushed. "Nonsense. They're watching Caspian."
I shrugged. "If you say so." I looked out over the dance floor and saw that lots of people were smiling at the king, but a fair few eyes were fixed on Edmund as well. I knew it was true: the girls thought Edmund handsome, and I was proud of him for this. I also saw that a couple of the younger girls had their hair done up like mine, and that made me smile.
I danced with Eustace, who was a terrible dancer and always trod on my feet, and then with Trumpkin. Then, while Caspian danced with Dara, Drinian bowed before me. "If the King honors my bride with a dance, would the Queen deign to honor me?"
"Of course!" I cried warmly, and I let him lead me into the dance of four and we talked of the End of the World and the beginning of his married life.
I was enjoying the conversation and the dance so much that I quite forgot that halfway through the steps called for us to switch partners, and I found myself in front of Caspian. Suddenly I felt quite breathless and I fell out of step. Caspian didn't miss a beat, though, and in a second his hand was on my waist and he was guiding me through the dance.
I didn't know what to say to him, and I thought that was very odd considering all the secrets we had told each other and all the things we had shared. I did notice that his eyes were a very clear blue and that the King of Narnia had a very handsome smile. I could feel the fabric of his silk cloak under my fingertips, and he held my hand fast.
The dance ended, and I think he was about to ask for another one, but Edmund came up and asked to dance with me again. I couldn't tell my brother no, so I let him whirl me away. It was probably for the best anyway; that dance with Caspian had been oddly disconcerting. Still, I couldn't help but notice that Caspian looked rather disappointed.
When the sun was almost at the horizon, the whole wedding party walked down to the harbor mouth where the honeymoon ship was waiting. Caspian was busy talking with Drinian, and I spoke to Dara. "Are you happy?" I asked.
"So very! The luckiest day of my life was when Drinian's ship put into harbor near my home. This has all been such a lovely dream. Thank you, your Majesty, for all your kindness."
"Dara," I said, slipping my arm through hers, "we were lucky too when you came to us. Say we shall be friends, and call me Lucy."
"Alright…Then Lucy, I hope that you have the chance to be as happy as I am right now." She smiled and nodded towards Drinian and Caspian. I found that for a moment I was admiring Caspian's broad shoulders and his free and easy gait, and I wondered why I should start to notice such a thing.
As Dara and Drinian boarded the ship, I found myself standing next to Caspian. At the top of the gangplank, they stopped and kissed each other. He pulled her close and she rested her hand lightly on his arm. I could tell for that second they felt like they were the only two people in the world.
The ship pulled away, and everyone on the deck cheered. As it glided across the water, glowing now with the reflection of the sunset behind us, I waved and waved until I couldn't see their faces anymore. Slowly the crowd began to filter away, but Caspian stayed by my side and waved farewell with me even when it was just us two in the end. The sun was on our shoulders, and the ship was pushing its way into the twilight. I thought it was a very romantic way to begin a new life, sliding into a soft purple dusk.
"When I get married, I'm going to sail away just like that, only it will be on the Dawn Treader," Caspian murmured.
"I think that would be lovely," I replied. I noticed now that his arm was around my waist. He had probably been holding me like that for some time, but I hadn't realized. Even though I couldn't think of another time when his hand rested on the curve of my hip, it felt natural. I moved a little closer to him and rested my cheek on his shoulder. The pile of the velvet was the wrong way and it scratched a little bit, but pleasantly. All the uneasiness and nervousness I had felt around him during the day started to slip away, and it was like we were stargazing on the deck of the Dawn Treader all over again.
It was a very deep dusk when Drinian and Dara's ship finally reached the mouth of the harbor. As it glided away, a purple shadow sparkling with lanterns, I noticed that another ship passed alongside it, a great galleon, a ship of state. It was coming into the harbor.
"Who can that be?" Caspian wondered, peering at the shape as it came closer. Then we heard the trumpet signal across the water. "Galma!" he exclaimed. "What on earth do they want? They couldn't have come at a worse time—the castle's still a mess from the wedding feast. Blast it all, I shall have to go and get everything in order."
Before I could even reply he was running back towards the castle, his sword clattering at his side. The cheek that had been resting on his shoulder was cold, and I reached up to touch it. After a moment, I turned and started towards the castle myself.
It was now the very last moments of dusk, and everything was tinted purple. The shapes of the plants and trees as I picked my way through the lower gardens were black but very fragrant. Then all at once I stopped. I could feel it; I knew he was there. I closed my eyes and turned around, praying it might be true.
He was there when I opened my eyes, golden and glowing and huge. "Aslan!" I cried, running forward to bury my face in his mane. "I'm so glad to see you! Why are you here?"
"I have come to see you, my child," he said, and this made me even happier.
"I'm so glad," I repeated, because there was nothing else I could say to express how happy I was. "Do you bless Drinian and Dara on their wedding night?"
"I do. And so I will for you, my child, when you are wed."
"Oh, Aslan!" I laughed. "I'm just a girl! I'm not ready to get married at all."
He looked at me very seriously. "The time may be nearer at hand than you think, and you should prepare yourself for it. The man you marry will need a woman of great faith and courage to stand by his side."
"Do you mean you know who I'll marry?" I asked, and I found my heart was beating too fast.
He shook his head, and he almost looked merry. "Nay. That is as much as I know. Only you can decide who you shall spend your years with, so you must choose wisely."
My mouth was very dry. "Is that what you came to tell me?" I asked.
"Not only that. Lucy, Daughter of Eve, I have a mission for you."
I nodded. This I was ready for. It was far easier than talking about marriage to faceless men, because I know what to do when given a quest. I don't know anything about boys, except maybe Edmund and Eustace and Caspian. But they aren't boys in the ordinary sense. "Tell me, Aslan," I said.
"I see that you are readying yourself. That is good," he said, then began to walk the path up to the castle. I walked next to him. "My child, you are important to this land. You helped liberate it from the grasp of the White Witch, and for that reason the Narnians honor you. In this hour you must show great constancy, for Narnia is again under attack. Only this time the enemies are from without and within, and they are not so clearly evil as the White Witch. I charge you with protecting this land."
"But Aslan," I protested, "What am I to do? What tools do I have to protect Narnia?"
"You have your great faith, and you have your love for this land. These are weapons far more powerful than a sword and a shield. Learn to wield them," he answered.
"How, if I don't know who the enemies are? How shall I recognize them?" I asked, but I was talking to the empty night. Aslan had vanished again without a warning, leaving me, as always with a thousand questions. Still, I took comfort from his presence, and the memory of his mane under my fingertips gave me courage. I had reached the castle doors in my walk with Aslan. I pushed them open and went inside.
A/N: So here's the beginning. I already feel happier they stayed in Narnia, though I did grow to like Ramandu's Daughter alright. Also, the whole bit about Dara's family line and Rhiannon is taken from Domlando Blonaghan's absolutely fabulous story "Always and Never". If you haven't, read this story. I thought it was so good it was worth a shout-out in my alternate universe! So big props to her for being a great writer as well as being generally awesome. (Incidentally there are other shout-outs I'd like to make, but I figure I've got plenty of chapters in this epic to thank all the other cool people along the way.)
