AN: And here is the final part of my three-part series on Susan, in which we discover the identity of that mysterious "Prince Something-or-Other" from "Winter Passed" and more of the story is elaborated on. And questions are answered, for various people. Many, many thanks to Laura Andrews, my loyal fan and proofreader, and to WillowDryad, who also helped me with this piece, and who is writing a most nail-biting story called "The Rings," about Peter and Edmund, the morning of the train crash, and an unfortunate accident. Go and read it! But only after you've read this story. :-) And left a review, if you are so inclined.
ETA: Thank you also to Dovewings of Narnia, with whom I brainstormed some of this piece's plot points and who inspired my age-symbolism, and to Calyn, who I'm sure listened to some babbling about this story. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Though others officially own all rights on Susan, I believe I am perfectly within my rights, now that she is gone, to tell her story as she told it to my grandmother, and as my grandmother told it to me, that others may know the answer to the ever-asked question, "And Then What Happened?"

"If 'twere done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here."
~ Macbeth

"If I were free to speak my mind
I'd tell a tale to all mankind
Of how the flowers bloom and fade
Of how we fought and how we prayed."
~ Peter, Paul, and Mary, "If I Were Free"

"Whence comest thou?"
"From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."
~ The LORD and the Accuser, Job 1:7

Many years ago, on a little-known island in what was once called the South Sea, there lived a boy. Though he had islander blood in him, his people were not originally from the island, and though he had spent nearly his entire life there, his mother told him of a time when things had been different.

"I was Queen," she would say of her—his?—mysterious homeland, a land in another world, and though the bitterness faded over the years, her eyes never failed to well up with tears. "Your father was King, as you would have been after him. Even if he wasn't the best of men, he was still your father and our King.

The boy sometimes heard others speak of that land. When he was very young, the adults around him spoke quite often of it. As the years passed, they spoke of such past things less and less often, and generally only in lowered voices. Children have shorter memories than adults, and none of those with whom the boy ran remembered anything of the other land, and the older children had but shadowy memories of their earliest years. What the boy heard from the other children was made up in nearly all its entirety of rumour and hearsay, but one of the young women of the island, a dark-haired girl perhaps ten or fifteen years older than the boy, would sometimes tell them strange, sad stories of knights and ladies, true love, and a lost homeland. The children whispered among themselves that Miss Tasia had been just a girl when the islanders left the other land, but that, for obscure reasons, she had been forced to leave the boy she loved behind, and that is why she had not wed and never would.

The boy's mother never spoke of such things, but she did make sure that two pieces of his past were impressed firmly in his mind: That his father had been killed by a mysterious man who called himself "High King" Peter, and that this King Peter was of the same world as the island on which they lived—presumably somewhere . . . out there. And she would gesture vaguely, somewhat futilely, at the ocean. All the adults feared the water, for reasons none of the children ever knew. Some of the children learned this fear, others saw nothing to fear in the sparkling waves, and a few seemed as at home in the water as on land. The boy was one of these, and when he was still just a boy, he decided that someday, he would find the "King Peter" who had killed his father and driven his mother and him from their—her—homeland.

The boy grew up. When he was a very young man, a rare ship put in at the island. It was his chance, and he knew it. He spoke to his mother, and she smiled on his plans. She was getting old, and would never be able to do anything, but this son could, and if fortune went with him, his father might finally be avenged, perhaps very soon. So the decision was made.

But the night before the boy-man was to leave the island, their chief asked to speak with him alone. This man had led the exiled people to their island home the day after their king had been killed—barely a month after the boy himself had been born—and had ever after been their leader. He and the boy now walked in silence to a high point above the beach, where they sat and looked out over the sand and waves.

"So," the man finally said. "You sail tomorrow with the Jupiter."

"Yes, Uncle," said the youth.

"This world is a large one, much larger than the island."

"Yes."

"What is your purpose, son?"

"I would sail the seas, as did my ancient ancestors in this world. I would find the man who killed my father and drove my mother and my mother's people from her homeland."

"Ah," said the man, and there was a silence for a time. Then, "What has your mother told you?"

"My father, whose name I bear, was King of all the land, and he died in single combat with a strange man who called himself 'High King' Peter and came from this world. This has my mother taught me."

"What have you learned from others?"

"When I was but a young boy, the older children spoke in whispers of wild beasts, and of a ferocious Lion who overran the land we came from. From stories I learned that with the man Peter came three others to our land from a place beyond the ocean, beyond the world's end. Their names were Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, they were his sisters and brother, and they all called themselves kings and queens of the once-fabled Pevensie line. This have I learned of the man who killed my father."

"Would you learn a little more before you sail?"

"What would you tell me, Uncle?"

"Neither your mother nor any of the other women were present at the duel in which your father died. I was, and unlike most of the army, I had a position from which I could see clearly. I have always doubted what is said to have happened that day."

The youth turned to look at the man he called "Uncle." "I have been told that the man Peter struck my father treacherously when he had fallen. Is that not so?"

The man sighed. "So it is told, so it is told. The one called the High King was said to have fewer years even than you, son, but wherever he came from, in truth, he was a fell warrior and mighty beyond his years. Your father had his weight and height to his advantage, and although the bout was closely matched your father seemed to be winning. I remember watching and thinking of Peter that though he was quite young, he was, indeed, worthy of honor. An air of . . . greatness, of kingliness, hung about him." He raised his hand, anticipating the boy's protest. "I say nothing against your father, the king—although there were rumours, long before you were born, that your father had a hand in the sudden death of your uncle, the previous king, whose son was heir to the throne until you were born. It was barely two weeks after your birth when the conquered peoples of the land rose up out of the trees, having somehow gathered the wild creatures to themselves, and revolted. Your cousin, sadly, forsook his glorious heritage and joined them. How he called up the mysterious kings and queens from this world, we may never know." The man lapsed into silence.

"What of the duel?"

"Are you sure you wish to know? My story may differ from what you have been taught."

"I wish to know the truth, Uncle." And the youth's words were more prophetic than he knew.

The man sighed again. "Your father looked to be winning, and Peter was on the defensive, when suddenly your father seemed to trip and fall forward. As I said, I had one of the better positions from which to see, and truly, it seemed to me that your father's opponent steppedback, as if to wait for him to rise. But then I thought I must have been mistaken, for the lords who were marshals of the lists leaped into the green to attack Peter, crying, 'Treachery! The traitor has stabbed him in the back while he lay helpless! To arms!'

"But as we ran forward to engage the enemy, I thought I saw one of the lords stoop over our fallen king, as if to stab him in the back, before attacking the man Peter."

The youth had grown restless during the account and now rose quickly. "Thank you, uncle," he said, rather coolly. "You will see me off tomorrow?"

The man rose also, and laid his hand on the boy's arm. "I tell only what I saw."

The boy pulled away. "You slander my father and his lords, accusing my father of usurpery his throne and speaking more highly of a foreign boy than of he who was your king." He stared out into the night, listening to the waves on the shore. "I will avenge my father on the foreign upstart."

He turned away quickly, but the older man called after him, "Beware, my son. Beware of blinding yourself to the truth."

The boy strode away into the night.

So he left the island and, finding positions on ships, sailed over the world. He learned that it was, indeed, a much larger place than the island from which he came, and he saw more of it than many. At first he stuck out, with his odd mannerisms, strange accent, and secluded past, but he soon learned to fit in, though he spent much of his spare time studying the world's royalty and searching through lists of kings—rather an unusual pastime among those he knew, but he thought that the man would have some importance in the world he came from, something to justify the grand title, "Peter the Magnificent, High King Over All Kings," but it seemed not. He found no traces, either, of a Queen Susan "the Gentle" or a Queen Lucy "the Valiant." After some digging, he found a "King Edmund the Just" but he had lived over a thousand years ago in this world, and presumably, had been dead for centuries. Even a search for the name Pevensie yielded only a few circles on a map of England. Slowly, his quest for a legendary king petered out.

Meanwhile, the years were passing and the boy (whom I perhaps should not call the boy any longer) was growing older. He made many acquaintances, and whenever he met an especially pretty girl, he would think of perhaps giving up the quest for good, marrying, and settling down. A few girls he got to know better, and there were several he liked quite well, but things invariably became strained when she asked him to tell her more about his parents and his past. He was smart enough to know it wasn't a commonplace tale, and he tried (after the first or second time) to hold his tongue, but she always managed to get the whole story out of him, and then she was never sure what to do with it. The last girl laughed rather nervously when he told her the tale of his family, his childhood, his mother's homeland, and his quest.

"Why, Raz," she said, "you're such a good storyteller. You sounded as if you almost believed it all yourself." And that was the end of it.

After that, the young man managed to get back to the island (it was complicated, for ships almost never called there) for a visit. He found everyone more than a bit older (though, strangely enough, they thought he was the one who was older, for people are like that sometimes). They told him his mother had died, and showed him her grave. He knelt there a few moments, sad that she was gone but glad to think her finally at peace and perhaps even reunited with the husband she thought so much of. When he walked through the village, he found many of his old playmates married—though Miss Tasia was still Miss Tasia, telling her strange, sad tales to a new flock of wide-eyed children—and the children running the streets were unfamiliar to him. Somehow, under the differences, it was still the same island, and the world traveler was welcomed home heartily by all.

"Have you found what you sought?" asked the chief that night of the young man that night, after the welcome-dinner was over.

The young man shook his head. "The world is a large place, Uncle."

"So it is."

So the young man left the island again and made his way through the world, sailing the oceans, reading the phone books, meeting all sorts of people and knowing next to none. At times he thought of his uncle's words and of his quest. He was older now, in his mid-twenties, and perhaps a wiser man than he had been when he grew so suddenly angry at the chief. Now he wondered. What if the man Peter had not, after all, killed his father? What if it had been a fair fight? What if it truly had been one of his father's lords who had stabbed him in the back? What if (and he shook his head as if to dislodge this distasteful thought) his father had in fact stolen the throne? You and I know the answers to these questions, but the sailor in my story did not, unfortunately. If he had, I probably would never have heard this story and I would not be telling it to you.

When sitting in a pub, thinking such thoughts, he often would turn his mind to women to escape the questions. For all that had been same when he returned to the island, it had been a different place—or perhaps he was a different man. He had talked to a few of the girls he remembered, a tiny thought in his mind that perhaps he could stay there, with those who remembered him and understood his past, but he no longer belonged there, either. These girls had never left the island. All they knew was the village, and the sand and the trees and the sound of the sea, but he had sailed the ocean over and walked the streets of London, New York, Shanghai. And when the chief asked if he had found what he sought, he had shaken his head, for he had not. But whether he realized it or not, somewhere along the way his goal had changed. He no longer sought revenge, but his place in this world, and if he still wished to find the man Peter, it was because only Peter could tell him what truly had happened that day. Perhaps Peter could tell him who his father had been, and thus who he was.

And sometimes, when he had been sitting in a pub just a little too long, thinking of women and of his father and of Peter Pevensie, he would remember that with Peter had come his two sisters as well, and he would remember hearing, when he was very small, the older girls singing rhymes while they worked about the beautiful Queens of old who never wed. After a few more drinks, he sometimes thought that if he could only find them, he could solve all his problems by marrying one of Peter Pevensie's sisters. They, at least, would believe the tale of his past—indeed, probably knew more of it than he himself did—and if he was no Crown Prince in this world, it seemed that neither were they Kings and Queens. It was at such times that he entirely forgot his one-time ambition to hunt down and kill the man Peter.

Unbeknownst to our sailor, the man he sought had died years before—the same year he left the island, in fact, and the only one of the family left was she who had once been called Queen Susan. She had married and moved to a tiny, out-of-the-way town in America, effectively vanishing from the world. There she lived quietly, working at the small library, keeping house, reading stories to and making cookies for the children who lived nearby. Her heart, which had been so badly chilled just before her twenty-first birthday, had slowly warmed again, and though an important part of it remained asleep, at the right time it might awaken like a sleeping princess kissed by her prince.

Six years after her family had died, Susan returned to England for a visit. She stayed there for perhaps a month, and returned home in time for her twenty-eighth birthday. Her husband took her out to a nice restaurant in the city for dinner and they celebrated her birthday. A month later they celebrated their fifth anniversary. Then they passed a quiet winter in their little town, just like the other winters they had together, and if something in her heart had stirred that fall, she hadn't noticed it.

Nothing which is pertinent to my story happened until the following March. One evening, late in the month, Susan was opening the mail, and let out a surprised, "Oh!"

"What is it, dear?" asked her husband.

"Nothing, really, but take a look! I haven't seen Anne in years."

He took the invitation she held out. One of the few girls from England with whom Susan had kept in touch (although barely) had moved to New York, and was now having a grand dinner party late in April to announce her arrival in that distinctive and renowned city. She was probably inviting everyone she knew within five hundred miles, but she had enclosed a personal note to Susan. Part of it ran, "Do come, Susan dearest. It's been so long since I've seen your face, darling, and it would really be such a relief to have an old friend from London there."

"I suppose I'll send her my regrets," Susan reached for the stationary, but—

"I think we should go," said Nat, looking up.

"Pardon?"

"I think we should go," he repeated. "We haven't seen any of the old crowd in years, and it sounds enjoyable."

She never had explained her reasons for suddenly wanting to leave the country, and she didn't bring it up now. She only hoped—momentarily, before putting it out of her mind—that Anne's friends weren't the sort to read children's fairy tales.

I return now to my previous tale, that of the man from the island who was looking for Peter Pevensie. As it so happened, by the workings of Providence or Fate, Susan's old friend Anne had gotten to know Raz rather well while on board a ship. I do not remember what sort of ship it was—private yaht or cruise ship or some other sort—but apparently they had spent enough time together for Anne to invite him to her grand soirée. And as the hand of Providence ordained, the man from the island, who was searching for his past, was seated next to the woman from London, who was hiding from hers.

He looked at his conversation partner as the dinner began, and thought she was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was tall, with fair skin and dark red lipstick. Her black hair was twisted elegantly up for the evening, and her eyes seemed as if they could see far, far away. He had promised himself he would not get involved with any more women, but if he had not noticed the ring on her left hand, he probably would have tried. As it was, he looked forward to conversation with her.

Susan had not been to a formal dinner party in a long time, but her friends had not called her the Queen of Parties for nothing, and she was in her element. She told me, later, that when she looked over at her dinner partner, he looked somehow familiar, though she couldn't remember meeting him before, and so she smiled and asked, "How do you know our hostess?"

"We sailed together last year," he said. "And you?"

"She and I knew each other years ago in London." Then she said, "I can't quite place your accent, but I know I've heard it before. Where are you from?"

"I grew up on a small island in the South Sea," he said. "It's on very few maps, and I've never met anyone who's heard of it, but it was beautiful."

"Really?" she said, sipping her soup. "Then are you Polynesian?"

"I think there is some Polynesian in my line, way back, but my family isn't originally from the islands."

She was truly intrigued now. "Where are they from, do you know?"

"Not really. Sailing goes pretty far back in the family, and the story is that a pirate ship wrecked on the island long ago, and they married the island women and settled down."

"Pirates?"

He nodded. "They rather lost their interest in the sea after that. I'm the first sea-farer in several generations." (That, my dear readers, is what is called an understatement.)

"It reminds one of Tennyson's Lotus-Eaters," she said.

He drank a spoonful of soup. "What's your life story?"

"Oh, nothing so interesting as pirates or island beauties in my background." She laughed delicately and took a sip of wine. "I grew up in London. We were evacuated way out in the countryside during the Blitz, like everyone else, but that was a lifetime ago. I married rather young and moved to America, and I've been here ever since."

They continued talking—unimportant, small-talk, dinner-chatter. When she said she worked in a library, his ears perked up and he said, "Then are you a librarian?"

"Of a sort, perhaps. Why?"

"I'm doing some research and I'm always pleased to meet a librarian."

"Oh? What are you researching?"

He brushed it off. "Family history and business matters. But I'd rather not talk about work now," and their conversation continued with safer matters. They didn't talk all the way through dinner, of course, for that would not be manners. In fact, they spent as much time talking to their other dinner partners as they did with each other. But afterwards, when they were rising from the table, he turned to her and said, "Could I perhaps call you at work about my research?" and she shrugged and gave him her office telephone number. And when he had written it down, he said, "I have enjoying talking with you this evening, Miss—I'm afraid I missed your name."

She laughed, and by some chance (or Providential) slip of the tongue, she said, "Susan Pevensie—Wright."

He dropped his pen, formalities dying on his lips. "You wouldn't be related to a Peter Pevensie by any chance, would you?" he asked, very slowly.

Her smile stiffened. "Peter was my brother," she said in a low voice. "Did you know him?"

He shook his head. "No. I never met him, but I've been looking for him all my life. Do you have any other siblings?"

"Not any more," she said, her smile gone now. But she answered his question. "My younger brother—my younger brother was named Edmund, and my sister was Lucy. But they all died, years ago. Why do you stare at me?"

"Forgive me, Your Majesty," he said slowly, with the air of a man stunned. "I had thought you would be older. The songs spoke truth when they called you beautiful."

"What do you mean?" she asked, pale once more.

He bowed low, and if it was not a Narnian bow in the least, and if was a bow that looked as if it hadn't been used in a good long time, it was the first bow she had been accorded in fifteen years. "You are the Queen Susan." The old rhymes flashed through his mind and he added, hesitantly, "The one they called 'The Gentle'."

Susan picked up her handbag and clutched it in front of her. "I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else, Mr.—"

He bowed again. "They call me Raz Telmar, formerly known ao Crown Prince Miraz of Telmar and Narnia, the son of His Majesty King Miraz of Telmar and Narnia, at your service, Your Majesty."

She inclined her head. "A pleasure to meet you. Perhaps it would be better if you did not telephone me." And she had not forgotten how to sweep grandly away when a conversation was over, for she did it just then. He did not see her again for the rest of the evening.

Susan went back to her home in Upper New York State. Perhaps she would not have accorded the "Crown Prince" another thought (thankfully, he had been smart enough to keep his voice low, and no one else had heard his words), except for a rather disconcerting experience she had a few days later, involving a crayoned flag, a rainy day, and a green mountain, which you may read about in another story. I will not tell it all again here, but it will suffice to say that Susan's heart was fully reawakened, and she was left quite changed. Indeed, for story hour that week at the library she chose Sleeping Beauty (much to the surprise of the other librarians, for she had formerly refused to read any fairy tales), and when it was time for the children to go home, she told them that if they came to the park on Saturday after lunch, she would tell them another story she knew—one about an evil witch and an enchanted land, and four children who defeated her and became kings and queens and ruled for years and years—

"Did they fight dragons?" asked one little blond boy, and she nodded.

"Giants?"

"There were some giants, yes," she said.

"And dancing," said a little girl. "There must be lots and lots of dancing."

Susan smiled. "There was a great deal of dancing. But I shan't tell any more until Saturday."

Meanwhile, the man who was called Raz had been searching far too long to give up so easily. The day after Susan's revelatory story hour, he called the number she had given him.

She answered, but when he told her who it was, there was a long silence, and he wondered if she had hung up. "Miss Pevensie?"

"Mrs. Wright, actually." She sighed. "Yes, I am here. I suppose you wish me to talk about Peter?"

"I have been searching for him all my life."

"Why?" Her tone was curious, not demanding.

It could be a very awkward question to answer. "When I was a boy," he said, choosing his words carefully, "my mother told me of the land of my birth and of my father, who (as I'm sure you know) was killed shortly after I was born. When I was older, I heard other stories about my father and his—interactions with a man called Peter Pevensie. I have sought Peter all my life in the," he paused, "in the hopes that he might be able to tell me what truly happened all those years ago, and perhaps—something of who my father was." He fell silent.

Susan, too, was quiet a moment. She took a deep breath before answering. "Prince . . . Miraz. I have not spoken of my family in some years. Yet—" she paused. "I shall be telling one of their stories on Saturday, about one o'clock." She gave him directions to the park, and said, "If you are interested, you are welcome to come then, or if you'd prefer, perhaps I can tell you some of what you wish to know after I have finished with the children. But you must dispense with the royal styles."

"I would like that, Mrs. Wright," he said, "very much."

He was the first one at the park that Saturday, and it gave Susan a queer feeling to see him and know that it was this boy's—man's—birth that had forced the Prince Caspian she had met so long before (had it really been fifteen years?) to flee and which had set in motion the events which led to her last week in Narnia.

But the children from next door, Margaret and her brothers, arrived before Susan and Raz had a chance to speak, and soon about a dozen children had gathered 'round Miss Susan. She took her seat and raised her eyes heavenward for a moment. Great Lion, she prayed, behold, I carry out thy command. Grant me strength, O Lord. She glanced over at where her husband was sitting, smiling encouragement at her. He had not understood her sudden desire to tell fairy tales in the park, but when she said, "I need to do this, Nat, to honor my family's memory," he had nodded and told her to do it.

"Today," she began, and the chatter ceased. "I will tell you a very old story, one that no one alive—" she raised an eyebrow at Raz, in the back, and he shook his head, "—has ever heard. Do any of you know of the four Sovereigns of Narnia of the olden days?"

They did not, although Raz smiled to himself.

She raised her hand for quiet. "Very few have, for the name of Narnia is almost entirely died out in the world, and even the best libraries have lost or discarded even their histories of Calormen. But long, long ago, there were four children—not much older than some of you—whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. . . ."

The children leaned in. They gasped and sighed at all the right moments. Susan had never studied storytelling in the Calormene schools, and Lucy had always been the storyteller of the family, but she told the age-old story quite well, and it enthralled her audience. She stopped breathless, after the coronation, with the words of Mr. Beaver regarding the Great Lion Aslan: "'He'll be coming and going,' Mr. Beaver had told them. 'One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like being tied down—and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.'"

The shadows were long across the park and the wind was chilly.

"Is that the end?" cried a small voice.

She shook her head. "Come back next week and I'll tell you more. There are too many stories for one day."

With a chorus of thank-yous, the children scattered, chattering excitedly about Mrs. Wright's new story. Raz came up, and she introduced him to Mr. Wright.

"Nat, this is Raz Telmar, the man I told you about. We met a long time ago, when we were children." Which was true. She had held him on her lap once, fifteen years ago for her and twenty-five years ago for him, when she had been the thirteen-year-old ancient Queen and he the dispossessed infant Prince. It was the usual muddle about times, of course, but it would not do to try to explain it. "Raz, this is my husband, Nat."

The men shook hands and then all of them turned for home, the little girl Margaret holding Susan's hand and asking questions the whole way, Margaret's brothers trailing behind. Susan answered the questions patiently, and bid the children goodbye at their door, saying to Margaret, "Your mother will be looking for you, dear. Mr. Telmar and I have a few things to discuss, but I'll see you tomorrow."

Just inside the Wright door, she turned to her husband. "My family knew Mr. Telmar's father, who died shortly after Raz was born, and he tracked me down recently in the hopes that I might know the answers to some questions of his." She had explained this to him on Wednesday, ("Dear, an old acquaintance of mine telephoned this afternoon, and I agreed to let him call Saturday afternoon,) but she repeated it, and her husband nodded. He had some work he'd brought home, which he had put off all afternoon for her stories, and he would work on it now.

She set the kettle on for tea and then she and her "old acquaintance" sat in the kitchen, her husband in the next room. There was a silence for a time before she said, "So. What is it you wish to know?"

He didn't answer right away. "You told that story very well. It must have been hard for you."

She looked away. "Yes. But the tales need to be told."

"The Telmarines never cared much about history," he said. "I know very little of my people's past."

She looked back at him. "Ah."

"Perhaps you could tell me something?" he asked.

She rose and took the kettle off the stove to make the tea. "It has been years since I thought of these things, and longer still since my lessons in Narnian history. But I am willing to try. Were do you wish me to begin?"

"Perhaps the begnning?"

She nodded and sat down, closing her eyes for a moment to remember. "In the beginning, Aslan created Narnia and crowned Frank the first king," she began, hesitantly. "His descendants populated and ruled over Narnia and Archenland to the south. In the year . . . 204, outlaws from Archenland, joined, I believe, and perhaps incited by others from beyond that world, moved south across the desert and established the empire of Calormen, which grew in might and power. Within a hundred years, the empire had grown large enough that colonists were sent to settle the lands to the west and south of Narnia, the lands which were later to be known as Telmar. But the Calormene colonists behaved very wickedly. Aslan warned them to turn from their evil ways, and when they would not repent, he changed them into dumb beasts. The land lay waste for over a century, until your ancestors, the Telmarines, entered and settled there. Do you know that tale?"

"Yes. It's strange to think my ancestors have centuries of history in Telmar, yet the island only lay empty for perhaps fifty years."

"The time changes always were strange." (Later, they would realize that though they left Narnia at nearly the same moment, they arrived ten years apart in the earthly timeline. How that happened, neither of them were able to explain to me.) Susan went on. "When I was Queen, we ruled for just over fifteen years, but when we returned to England, only a moment had passed."

Her guest looked thoughtful. "Did you return to your family as adults?"

She smiled. "No. We were returned to childhood, and we kept only our memories of our time as kings and queens."

"Was Telmar a nation during your rule?"

Her smile looked very far away. "Yes. It was small, but it was growing. I had a Telmarine suitor once . . . " She trailed off. "But it was not Aslan's will. That was at least a thousand years before your time."

"Did you have a great many suitors?"

She laughed. "Yes, I did. Sometimes they said I was the most beautiful woman in the world."

A voice from the next room called, "What was that, dear?"

"I had a number of suitors for my hand, wouldn't you say?"

Her husband entered the kitchen now, poured himself a cup of tea, and kissed her. "Quite a few, I'd say. You were the prettiest girl in the country, and dozens of men would have traveled from distant lands for a sight of your face."

A shadow flitted across her face and Raz wondered of what past story she was thinking.

"You're being poetic again, dear," she finally said, lightly.

"It's true," said he.

"Well, you were the only one who stuck around long enough to marry me," she replied with a smile for her husband.

Their Telmarine-Narnian-islander guest leaned back in his chair and watched the young, black-haired woman. There was a peace about here that had been lacking the first time they met. Perhaps she, too, had been searching for something, something which she had finally found. He rested his chin on his hands and gazed out the window at the sunset. He had finally found what he had been so long seeking, and though it was different than he had thought, he, too, felt a hint of peace. There would be no showdown with the renowned warrior, nor any romance with the fabled beauty, for the former had gone to his reward and the latter was peacefully married. But the answers he had so long yearned after, they seemed within reach. He glanced back at the Queen of Old, laughing and drinking tea with her untitled soldier-businessman husband, and he wondered what secrets she carried and pondered in her heart when alone. He wondered what his mother's—his—land had been like in days gone by. He wondered at the way she had spoken of "Aslan" that evening. He wondered, as he had for years, but he had confidence that questions, old and new, would all be answered, each in its time.

~ finis pars tertius ~