Beautiful Serpent

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"When I look in your face I can't help believing all you say: but then that's just what might happen with a witch too. How are we to know you're a friend?"

"You can't know," said the girl. "You can only believe or not."

—Voyage of the Dawn Treader

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I died on a lovely day, at the hand of a beautiful lady. There are not many Queens who can say the same; but then, I have never been like other Queens, nor have I tried to be.

I have been, if you will pardon my boasting, much better than many, and I have been, to my shame, far worse than most. My husband boasts of his love for me, and my son's eyes shine at the sight of my face, but these riches are both my glory and my failing. These, more than any care for my kingdom, are the greatest joys in my life; in their love I claim a greater treasure than Kings can covet, and in my love for them I claim a greater weakness than the foulest villain dare confess. There, gentle Reader, you will find my failing; I have been, to my dying breath, a Queen second, and a wife and mother first.

But there, you see, I get ahead of myself. You will not linger long if I go on in this manner; your pardon, if it pleases you, and I will return to my early days, that you might better understand the import of my last.

I will assume, with your forgiveness, that you have not been privileged to see the home of my childhood, and will presume upon your desire to hear of it. I was born on an island of soft hills and green grass, where a table was cleared each morning and set anew every night, and weary travellers found a place where they could eat in state. Though you may not have called that place lively, even a liar could not call it aught but lovely. I lived with my father at the outermost edge of the world, where the water dances and starsong still echoes over the waves, and we were happy.

There, before I was born, my father came to wed my mother, who had been cast onto the shores of the island and found herself without friend or comfort. Her good heart broken, my mother despaired of leaving that place and became resolved in her mind to end her suffering. Yet even as she stood on the shore at sundown, readying herself to take the burden of her own life, a strange and wonderous sight appeared. A man, older than any she had ever seen, walked out of the waves at great cost to his aged body and stumbled onto the shore, where he made as if to collapse. My mother, compelled by she knew not what goodness, ran to him and caught him as he fell, whereupon she fetched him back to the rough shelter that was her only home. There she devoted herself to tending and nursing him, being ever resolved in her heart that when he was well again, she would quit this world forever.

Yet it came to pass that as she nursed the man, and he grew well, he had many strange and wonderful things to tell her, and she, enchanted by all he said, forgot her despair and rejoiced in his company. They grew close in heart and alike in mind, and as the woman who was to be my mother grew older, the ancient who was to become my father grew younger. For you see, he was a star who had become so old that he had descended from the skies to spend his retirement on that island, where he would every day eat of the fruit that would cause him to grow young in much the manner that mortals age, and then return to the skies to dance once more.

It came to pass that these two people, the one aging and the other growing younger by the day, were married (though their engagement was a long one, as it was seven years before a traveller able to perform the ceremony happened upon the island— he was, I understand, a sea Captain, and kindly stayed to drink to their health and happiness before he set sail back home once more) and became parents to one daughter; your humble servant, dear Reader.

My girlhood was spent in a seclusion I presume to call glorious. My mother died when I was an infant still, and my father, solemn and gentle, was the only parent I ever knew. He loved me and raised me, and taught me the songs that are sung by the stars. You have never heard such music, and never will, until you are very old and quit this world for your final journey. You will find, I think, that it was well worth the wait. Travellers did come to our island, but they were few and far between. More often than men, we saw Aslan, the great Lion who made the world with song; it was He who taught my father to sing on that First Day, so many stories ago. My father told me many times of the beauties of that day, and the tragedies that came after, and Aslan told me of much that had befallen the world since my father no longer looked down on it, but as lovely and terrible as everything seemed I had no desire to leave my pretty home to see any of it . . . until the strangers came.

I would like to say that I knew on first sight of them that they were come to take me from there; that my heart leaped at the sight of them, seated at the table and looking oh! as funny a little party as I had yet seen, Lords and Lady and even a Mouse. But I felt no knowledge of them, I am afraid, that came on me like lightning. I only left our cosy home under the hill as I did every morning before dawn, and carried with me my candle. I approached the table as I always did, and there, as was often the case, I met travellers. These, though, were not travellers as had ever been before; these were Kings and Queen and great warriors, and they had sat all night and stared at food they feared to eat. I told them the story of the three men who slept there, and watched the Mouse drink to my health (and a more gallant little warrior I have not yet known than he). Then I consented to break bread in their company.

The King who led their little band was, on my first sight of him, as much like one boy as is any other. He laughed as well as any, and ate far better than most. He spoke with perfect courtesy, as did the others who were in his company, but there was something in his voice that acted upon me like nothing I had ever known. It was as he spoke that I felt something stir in my heart, as if I had until then only been enjoying the pleasantest of sleeps and heard the voice of one I knew better than myself calling out to me, urging me to wake.

The feeling grew steadily within me, even as my father joined us and we sang, as we always did, to greet the dawn. The table was cleared, as it always was, by the birds that Aslan sent, and my father told our guests the story of how he came to be upon the island, although, as was always the case with those who were not our family, he did not speak of my mother. Even as they made their plans, and were joined by other men, I could not escape the urging in my heart that told me I was about to wake, and see that life around me —life when I was awake as I had never been before— would be lovelier and more frightening than I had ever dreamed. Things that had always been, things I had always known, would soon never be again.

I cannot express to you, dear Reader, how frightened and all at once delighted I was to think this; I knew only that I had within my grasp the chance to awake to a world I had yet to know existed. I knew too that I had no idea how this was to be accomplished. As the King had said to me, in other worlds it is written that a man may kiss a lady and break spells cast on her; in the world to which I was born, a Prince cannot think of kissing until the magic has been broken. I am no Prince and I had no magic, so I trust you will understand the torment that I suffered.

Plans were made, and men were chosen and readied for a great and perilous journey, but I, small and somewhat selfish, thought of my heart, and how it would in all likelihood break the way my mother's did when she was first left on the shores of our island, were I to find I could not learn those words that would break the sleep upon me, and cause me to wake. Imagine, then, if you will, the surprise that was mine when the King turned to me, on the verge of his departure, and smiled in such a way that would cause even the solemnest of hearts to sing.

"Lady," he said, and the words that he spoke next were as familiar to me as starsong, though I would swear I had never heard them spoken before, "I hope to speak with you again when I have broken the enchantments."

I could not speak. But I smiled, and I trusted he would know what it meant.

He was, as he had been since his boyhood (though that I would not learn of until later) as good as his word, and when he returned, as his heart had sworn he would, he found me waiting. My father welcomed him as one would a son, although to him I had made no mention of what my heart already knew was so; perhaps my father's heart, too, knew what was to come.

The King who desired me for his Queen behaved with perfect courtesy, and I cannot recall ever having spoken so much at one point in all my life. We talked of my childhood, of my father and what little I knew of the woman who had been my mother. He, in turn, told me of his home and the people he led and loved, and I found that I loved them too. We walked in all my favourite spots on the island, and although it was never said between us, we knew I was showing him the home he would take me from. I was showing him all that his love would make me leave.

I will tell you, Reader, what I have never told another soul; that even though I knew my heart was made to cleave to his, there was a time, during those first days, that I almost wished it was not so. I knew nothing but my island and my father and the strange travellers who found us there, and as full of promise as my new King was, I was scared, too. I had almost made it up in my mind that I would not go with him, even if he asked me. I had almost become resolved that even if he asked it of me (and as dearly as I hoped he would) I would tell him I could not possibly comply.

Yet he did not ask as I had expected him too, with pomp and ceremony and much paperwork, the way Kings must propose all things, even marriage. Instead, he turned to me one evening as we were returning home, the lords who attended us still some distance behind, and out of earshot. He did not drop to his knee, as lords do in courtly stories; he did not even recite any poetry. He simply bowed his head a little, and looked into my face, and said he felt he loved me; that perhaps he had loved me all his life and not known it, although he did not see how such a thing could be. And I, who am truthful even when I am afraid, said it was not in me to mock him, for I felt that it was so with me as well.

"Then, Lady," he said, and though he did not take my hand in his I saw in his face that he was thinking about it, "I ask that you look on me now not as a King, or even a seafarer, knight or warrior, but a man who loves you, and is frightened by it."

"Sir," I said, and was glad he had not taken my hands for they were trembling in a way my voice was not, "I will do as you ask."

"Then, Lady," he said, and his voice trembled though his hands, as far as I could see, were quite steady, "I offer you my hand, and ask you to be my wife. I have pledged myself to no woman but you, and I would give you all it is within me to give, if you would consent to marry me. I ask," he rushed on, as if expecting me to refuse him outright, as I will confess it was in my mind to do, "that you not consider this the proposal of a King, but of only a man as humble as any other."

I reminded him then that I had pledged myself to honour him in this, and he agreed that it was so.

"I don't want," he said, still stumbling over the words, "a— a perfect wife, or even a pretty one. I am sorry," he flushed bright red, and I laughed outright, "that sounded rude. I only mean, I don't want a wife as some men do, to lock up and . . . just keep. I won't ask you to make things pretty, or to run them well, or anything like that. I'm not any sort of person who could presume to ask perfection of anyone I love." And he looked ashamed, and I knew he was remembering the moment of weakness he had described to me on his return; when he had almost thought to break his resolve to return to me, and go on instead, forsaking the people who trusted him to lead.

"Sir," I said, "I would not presume demand perfection in any person any more than I would presume to claim I could offer it."

These words cheered him as I would not have thought possible, and even encouraged him to continue with his proposal— and such a proposal, you may be certain, had never been heard before that day, nor to I imagine will ever be heard again. He talked, dear Reader, for an hour or more. He spoke of his home, and the people he loved, and the great men whose example he sought to follow. He swore that his heart —the heart he offered me— would be mine to do with as I wished, and that he asked nothing of me in return but my acceptance of him simply as he was at that moment. He recited no poetry, and yet every word he spoke was as a poem to me.

"I ask," he finished, as the sun sank toward the horizon and our chaperones —dear, tactful men all of them— remained well behind us, "that you consider my suit not out of a sense of duty, such as you may or may not feel you owe me, or out of pride, if you will forgive me for connecting you with such a trait. I only ask," and here he did take my hand, and found it was trembling, "that you take me if you believe the man you look on now is one by whom you could stand . . . no matter what."

I did not ask what the "what" might be; the horrors he imagined might keep me from his side, worse than obligation, pride or anything of their horrid ilk, remain to this day a secret, for he would not disclose them to any but me and I did not ask him what it was he imagined. Perhaps I might have done better to have asked, but even to my dying day, I cannot think that, knowing the worst that was to come, I would have chosen otherwise.

The man I saw was not a king cloaked in robes of gold or armour of silver mail; he wore no crown on his head, and his voice shook as badly as my hands. He had a scrape on his third knuckle that I can even now envision as clearly as if I saw it before me then. He was not a leader, or a knight, or a King. He was just a man. And still, I found, I loved him.

And so we were married.

Our betrothal was not the seven years that it was for my father and mother, but rather the shortest seven days you have ever known. A solemn lord from the King's crew performed the ceremony, and at dawn the next day I kissed my father good bye, and left for the kingdom and people that were to be my own.

I wish I could say, in the manner of the best and most ordinary fairy tales, that we lived long and happily, had a bouncing baby boy and grew old and content together, sharing our dotage with that sort of prickly comfort that seems to sustain all the best couples through their years. Yet although much of this is true, it is not nearly the truth.

We did indeed have a good marriage; my King was the best man I knew, a bold and reckless warrior at most times but at others as uncertain and wracked with self-doubt as the humblest and most fearful person you have ever known. When he was in one of his bolder tempers, laughing, light hearted and full of daring, I did my best to hold him back. The ladies of the court tittered behind their hands, and seemed to think me insubordinate when I would caution him against certain actions, but every time I spoke my King weighed my words with a care he did not show even his wisest councillors, and I felt it my place as it was the place of no other to keep him from harm.

When he doubted himself, as he was wont to do at times, I would hear his concerns and tell him only what I thought, and nothing more. I was not raised, as so many people seem to be, to bolster confidence with false promises and empty flattery; even more importantly, those were not the terms of our betrothal; nor were they the terms of our marriage. I told my King only the perfect truth, that he was the only man whose opinion I would trust above mine, and that I was honoured to be the only one whose decision he valued above his own. My words were not clever or witty, as I managed to be at other times, and yet they were somehow exactly what he needed to hear.

I am afraid I was precious little use to him when his greatest worry set in. He had never, he told me, seen something that delighted him so much nor terrified him so horribly as did the sight of me, great with our child, struggling to get up from whatever chair it was into which I had fallen. Two additional ladies were appointed to my service with the sole intent that they should be on hand to help me rise, for when a babe is on the way you may be surprised at how difficult even the simplest of tasks become, but we may as well have not bothered. For the last months of my confinement my King was not three steps from my side, and if I indicated a wish to rise, the hand that helped me do so was his and his alone. So too were the hands that first held our son the hands of my husband and my King, and the smile that warmed me as my child was placed in my arms was that of the man who had asked me to be his, a lifetime and an Eastern Sea ago.

"Rilian," said my husband.

"Absolutely," said I, and kissed my son, and slept.

Rilian, the Reader may be as disillusioned as was his mother to learn, was not the sort of infant that is so boastfully called "easy." Indeed, he was an even more difficult infant once born than he had been before he made his appearance and restricted himself to confining me to chairs where I did not necessarily wish to be kept. Once he had made a personal appearance, my son proved to be in possession of the finest set of lungs you could ever imagine, and he delighted himself in testing them at all hours of the day— and night.

His Nurse lost sleep for sake of her Prince, and I was at her side each night, losing sleep for love of my son. I fear I cannot hold with these women who lecture that a baby will become wilful and indulged if his whimpers do not go unheeded, and I cast more than one such from my presence during Rilian's infancy. Insults to my person I will stand until I am buried beneath them, but it soon came to pass that counselling a Queen to neglect her child was the greatest folly a Narnian could commit. For that, I do not apologise.

Rilian, fortunately, grew out of his tantrums as naturally and easily as winter passes to spring; when he learned to speak, his cries became less frequent, and he communicated his needs in a charming, imperious little fashion that his father indulged to a degree even I should blush to admit. Yet for all that my husband spoiled our son, he taught him, too; scarcely a day would pass that I did not come upon the pair of them, my King strolling the corridors of the castle, his hands locked behind him, his head bent in thought, our son trotting after him in a posture that mimicked exactly that of his sire. Not a week would go by that I did not open a door and find them closeted in the room behind it, two golden, tousled heads bent over a book, map or some other delight from which no amount of pleas or reason could tear them away . . . unless these pleas were made by me.

For, Reader, if our son was indulged, then I was spoiled beyond mortal comprehension. As my husband delighted in the sight of my smile, so too did Rilian grow to do. When my King was wearied from the task of running the kingdom, my son and I would sit up late, sharing games and stories that none save us would ever hear. When his father would closet himself with councillors and attend to matters of state, my little Prince would appoint himself my protector and champion and reach up as high as he could to offer his dimpled hand for me to clasp.

"I shall escort you, Mama," he would promise, when his father was too busy to join in whatever merriment we had planned for the day. "You shall have me by your side until Papa can be here."

"Even longer, I hope," I would tease him, and continued to tease him even as he grew.

All mothers may think their sons handsome; I cannot speak for them. All mothers may even think their sons bold and clever and fearlessly brave; I could not say. I have not asked them. I only know that if any mother's son deserved the title of her boldest champion, then surely (and the Reader will forgive my bias) mine is that son.

The Reader may then be unsurprised to learn that I could not venture out of the castle without King or Prince or both walking proudly at my side, and I could not ride my horse through the King's Forest without at least one of the two persons I loved above all others riding in accompaniment. The Reader may then, too, find it no great shock to know that, because of the love of my son, I was not alone when I died.

We had journeyed to our modest property in the North in mid-spring, that my husband might better see to some disputes that had built up over the winter, when travel was not possible. As my husband spent the next two weeks settling matters to everyone's satisfaction (or, more accurately, nobody's, for such is usually the case in matters like this) my son stayed by my side, and there he was until the very last.

It was my own decision to go maying that day, which pleases me; had it been the thought of another, blame might have been cast, but being as it was by my own will that my horse was readied and our party prepared, I can say with some confidence that none I left behind could be held accountable for my death. Instead I determined that it was my wish to ride out, and many consented to serve as my company. We were a foolish bunch indeed, as people usually are when the last of the thaws have passed and the mud has begun to dry and grow firm. We had stripped young leaves from friendly trees, and made garlands of them to wear in our hair. My son, long since past his first boyhood and beginning to broaden at his shoulders so that he almost resembled his father as I had first known him, cast off any pretence at solemn adulthood and joined in the fun purely, I believe, to delight me.

I was, the Reader may be pleased to hear, delighted indeed, as any woman might be to share such company. My ladies were by that point of the sort I most preferred to keep around me, the best-hearted and most frank of women, who would brook no falsehood but delighted in merriment when the situation allowed. The squires who attended us were true men, trusted by my husband and beloved of my son. My son himself, a Prince who would make as good or better a King than the man who had married me, rode at my side and told me stories he knew I would love, then listened in turn as I returned the favour. Had I known what would befall me that day, I would not have chosen for my company aught but those who rode with me then.

It was indeed the loveliest of days.

As is often the case when one has been riding for a great deal of time we presently tired, and came upon a pleasant glade perfect for the refreshment of our party and our horses. Watching those around me laugh and delight themselves in what we had found, I grew sleepy under the heat of the sun, and Rilian, at seeing this, at once removed his cloak and offered it to me as a resting place, should I choose to rest my head. The other squires straightaway followed the example of their Prince, so that I found myself cushioned richly by grass and heather and the softest silks and velvets our kingdom had to offer.

I do not know how long I slept. It may have been an hour, it may not even have been a minute; I know only that when I woke, my party was out of sight and very nearly out of earshot, and that I was in the company of a stranger.

I nearly did not see her at first, so perfectly did the green gown and cloak she wore blend with the richness of the glade around us. Then she moved, in a sinewy, winding way that is often attempted but never achieved by women the world over, and held out her hand to me as she approached.

"Oh, look," cried she, and laughed a soft, musical laugh, "the little Queen stirs. How is it with you, my dear?"

"It is well," said I, with the caution that must be native to all Queens if they are to be any good at their jobs, "and would be better, had I but my lords and ladies by my side."

"You shall have them, presently," said she, and I cannot hope to make the Reader understand how the way she said it made her seem so dangerous. Perhaps if my husband had seen her, he might have known her for what she was, but I did not; I had spent my childhood on a distant island, in the company of a good man and a great Lion, and I had lived as a woman in a castle with people who were, at their very worst, a little cruel and very foolish. I had not until that moment been in the presence of evil.

"Indeed, fair stranger," I replied, "it is good of you to say so, but in truth I have no need of any but my son."

"Ah," said the woman, and a strange new note touched her lovely voice, "your son. I would wager he will come faster than any other; I believe he would be here even now, if he knew what was about to befall you."

Her words, the Reader may be surprised to learn, did not frighten me, or even shock. In truth I had seen my end in her eyes the moment she appeared, and I think what shocked me most was that I did not fear it. I did not even stand; a Queen needn't, you know, unless she is in the presence of one greater than she. I saw none such in that glade.

The strange lady in green had in her hand a delicate silver dagger, a device with the handle of a knife but two thin, pronged tines of steel in place of a single blade. They looked almost like the fangs of a small animal, and I was riveted by the sparkle of the little weapon as she came ever-closer until she stood over me, and was so near I might have caught her loathsome green skirts in my hand, had I wished.

"Your son," she breathed, "will be mine. Your husband will age, despair and die, and I will take your kingdom for my own, as it should have been when all first began."

The mention of the beginning of everything made me think as I had not done in years, of my father, and how he had told me the stories— Aslan, making all that was good, and the evil of the Witch, who desired to bring everything to ruin. Was this, then, she? I stared up at her with interest; she was lovelier than any I had ever seen. My father had not mentioned that; it was not my father's way.

"Nothing," I said, "will be as it should not have been. If you were here when all began, then you must know this by now."

I did not mean to anger her, truly; I never dreamed that such simple words could have such a grim effect on any. You have never seen such loveliness before, nor have you seen it melt so fast and so fiercely into so grotesque an aspect that, at the sight of it, I actually cried out in horror. For the evil that had been in her since she first appeared was finally writ on her face, and I saw her for what she was— the opposite of all I had known and loved.

After my first cry I meant, I think, to call for my son, but I hadn't the chance. The dagger she carried struck me once, and true. I cannot think aught that it was poisoned, for she did not touch it to any vital part of my body— only my hand, which stung but a little. The real pain came with the knowledge that at least part, then, of what she had said was true, and that here was where I would meet my end.

The place where the dagger had wounded me was at first hot touch hot, like burning coals, but grew quickly cold. The chill spread through my body even as my lords and ladies, drawn by my cry, came running to my aid, but by the time they arrived my murderess had already departed and the cold had touched my throat, closing it to all speech.

"Mother," my son cried, and was at my side before any other. His eyes, searching the trees for my attacker, lit on something I could not see. "A serpent!" he cried. "See, on her hand, the place where it has bitten her!" He was off in a trice, leaving me to the tender mercies of my ladies, though I struggled to tell them that it was of no use; that this was the place where I was meant to die.

Rilian returned, presently, and I was glad of it; I should have hated to die alone. My ladies, dear to me as they were, did not count; I needed family.

"Mother," my poor boy said, and tears brightened his eyes, "I could not overtake it. I will find it, though, and make an end of it, you may be assured. I would know it again in a moment."

I could not imagine what serpent he meant; I was dead by the hand of a beautiful lady, not a worm that crept along on its belly. I laboured to tell him so, but the words would not come; my tongue, too, was now icy, and I felt the dull cold spreading slowly but surely throughout my body. When it covered me, I knew, I would be done.

"Mother . . ." my son touched my face with trembling hands. "Mother, you are so cold . . ."

I love you, I wanted to tell him. Don't cry; this is as it was supposed to be. Don't you see? It will be your time, soon; there is no room left for your father and me. We are old, now— though not as old as some I have known.

And I thought of my father, and wondered if I would see him soon.

"Mother," Rilian clutched my hand, I think; I could not feel it, but the way he angled his shoulders was one I knew quite well. A thousand sleepless nights, a thousand childhood ailments . . . always, he had held me thusly. He was scared, my poor boy; my sweet Prince. He was frightened as he had not been since he was a small child. "Mother, I'm so sorry."

Darling, I fastened my eyes on his. Oh, my dearest one. How can I love you so much?

Then, quietly, unforgivingly, the cold covered me. I was gone, and my son was left in the glade, weeping.

And so it was that I died, on a lovely day, at the hand of a beautiful lady. And yet it does not end there; my husband, you may be pleased to know, joined me soon after, and we rejoiced at meeting as we had first met; young, and strong, and full of a life we had forgotten we once knew. We wait now only for our son, and though he will be much longer in coming than was his father, we know he will join us in his own good time; then we will be together again, in a way that we have been assured will be better than any that we ever were before.

Until that time we wait together, and I can say, looking back on all choices I have made up until this point, that I would not change one of them for all the riches in all the kingdoms of all the worlds. Not many other Queens, I think, can claim the same; but then, I have never tried to be like other Queens. Nor, I think, should I want to, for I was not born to be.

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A.N.: I truly cannot understand where this came from, but it's one of those rare stories that I didn't actually want to destroy immediately on completion, so wherever it came from I'm glad it did! I've never spent much time thinking about Ramandu's daughter, but all of a sudden there she was, and I had to write her. I did, I suppose, have sort of an inkling of her listening to (surprise!) a lovely song by Heather Dale . . . it was the song that inspired Caspian's proposal. If you have the chance to listen to As I Am, maybe you'll see it too.

Do please also remember that, whatever liberties I've taken with Ramandu's daughter, CS Lewis created her and I have no claim to her; I just had an awful lot of fun writing her.