Author's Note: This story was written for priscipixie for this year's Narnia Fanfiction Exchange (NFE) on Livejournal. She gifted me with a fantastic prompt and requested a focus on The Horse and His Boy, so I hope I did it justice! I humbly suggest that everyone head over to the LJ site, as the Masterlist of fic is now posted and there are some truly wonderful entries. Feel free to PM me for a link!
"As soon as he saw he was certain to be overhauled, Bar had given me to one of his knights and sent us both away in the ship's boat. And that boat was never seen again. But of course that was the same boat that Aslan (he seems to be at the center of all stories) pushed ashore at the right place for Arsheesh to pick me up. I wish I knew that knight's name, for he must have kept me alive and starved himself to do it." - Prince Cor, The Horse and His Boy
"It's never too late to be what you might have been." – George Eliot
He could swear he hears a hiss as the final sliver of blazing, red-orange sun disappears into the darkness of the waters at the world's end.
He spends his daylight hours longing for nightfall, but its coming is always bittersweet. His skin, scorched and blistered and painful, relishes the cool kiss of evening even as he starts to shiver. Darkness begins to obscure the horizon, eliminating until the next morning the chance to catch sight of the land he has been praying for with increasing desperation for almost a fortnight. The night creeps closer and closer, eating away at leagues and leagues of ocean until the world is reduced to the boat and its occupants and the waves that lap ceaselessly against the wooden hull.
He wonders if he will see the sun rise again.
The moon is rising, no more than a tiny crescent now where that first night it had been so bright and full that he could see almost as clearly as day. Like himself, it seems weak now, like it's nearing the end of its journey. No doubt the next evening will boast only stars to light the way.
His throat burns, and he catches himself staring longingly at the little moonlight-capped waves around him.
The water is gone.
He'd rationed it as long as he could, and even drank seawater once just to have something to wet his mouth. He had known that he shouldn't, but he had never been a man of great self-control even in the best of times. If he had been…
He had a weakness for that fiery red sort of hair, and he'd never seen eyes of such a piercing green as those that stared back at him in the dim light of the tavern. The moment their hands had brushed when she passed him that tankard of ale, the instant that mischievous half-smirk turned the corner of her red lips, he knew he was done for.
The sea is calm tonight; for that, at least, he is grateful. He is nauseated enough without having to endure dark hours of bobbing like a cork again. He is a knight, not a sailor, and the seasickness that had plagued the first few days of their voyage – escape, really – has been exacerbated now that he has traded a sturdy ship for a rickety rowboat.
She made him feel alive, like the strongest and most important man in all of Archenland rather than the second son of an impoverished noble house. He even found himself, as he lay exhausted in her bed, thanking whatever gods were listening that he was the second son, and therefore called up with Lord Bar's bannermen to accompany him to Anvard while his older brother Dal stayed home as steward of the family and estate. He drank toasts to green-eyed girls and endured the ribbing of his fellows-in-arms, walking about the city like a fool in a love-drunk daze and praying for nightfall when he could find her in his arms again.
The oars had snapped off during the squall, the one on the night of the second day, the one that had nearly capsized the boat more times than his terrified mind could register. Most of the scarce provisions had been lost that night, and without the oars he has been at the mercy of the currents. It was of little consequence, however, as even if he had had oars he still wouldn't have had the slightest idea in which direction to row them.
Then, it had all come crashing down.
It has been two days since the food ran out, and five since the last time he ate anything. His attempts at fishing were useless and the leather of his boots had done little to placate his screaming stomach. The dull and ever-present ache of hunger fights now with the nausea of dehydration and seasickness, waging war in the pit of his belly amidst cramps that pain his entire body.
He had heard it as a rumor first, a warning from a fellow knight and regular patron of the Ram's Head. The word hit him like an armored fist, knocking the wind out of him and causing his stomach to heave so that he tasted bile in the back of his throat.
The days are so hot, hotter than anything he has experienced even in the warmest days of midsummer. Archenland is a mountainous land, and the heat of day is always tempered by a cool breeze off the northern glaciers or the sweet kiss of the gathering evening. Here, there is rarely a cloud to block the blazing sun, which reflects off the surface of the water to sting his eyes until his face is sore from squinting. The air is thick with humidity, so that in the first few days – before the water ran low – the sweat that poured from his body clung to his clothing until he wondered if he would ever be properly dry again.
He avoided her for days, staying close to the little garrison of the Lord Chancellor's men. He volunteered for extra watches and duties. His throat was dry for want of ale, but he dared not visit any of their usual taverns and especially not the Ram's Head. She had come looking for him at the Black Gryphon, they said, and the old woman at the Iron Cloud had asked after him on her behalf.
And then there are the nights. For all that he prays for a cool breeze during the long hours of heat and haze, the nights are worse. At night the wind picks up, and the air turns cold. He sits shivering, his teeth chattering during the worst hours, rubbing his goosefleshed skin through a thin and tattered jerkin. The stars are strange here, he'd noticed in all of his hours spent studying them during these sleepless nights. He wonders what their stories are, or if they are so far from land that no one had ever seen them or taken the time to think up their stories. While at first they were a comfort to him, pinpricks of light to pierce the wide and lonely darkness, he hates them now. What he wouldn't give for them to be obscured by some dark cloud! The thought of rainwater splattering on his upturned face, falling into his open mouth, is nearly enough to drive him mad.
In the end, though, she came to him at the garrison, screaming his name through the gates when her polite inquiries were unanswered. Her fiery red hair was a mess, and her cheeks pale and hollow from weeks of sickness. The men called him a coward, and in the end he was dragged out by the arm like a naughty schoolboy to face her.
His thoughts are foggy, like he drank too much ale or received an especially heavy blow in a tournament sparring ring, and he wonders when he last slept. Sometimes he is able to drift off, drowsy from the heat or exhausted at the end of a day, but for the most part any real and refreshing rest has eluded him.
There were accusations, pleas, and tears, and all in all the most horrible conversation he had ever had in his life. She slapped him hard when he threw up his hands and told her that he didn't know what she expected him to do, and harder still when he suggested one way they might get rid of the problem. In the end the men tired of the spectacle. She screamed curses at him as they carried her away. It would be the last time he saw her.
He had screamed his own curses in those first few days, crying out to the waves and the stars and anything that might listen. He had raged until he was hoarse, broken down and wept, and once had even spent the better part of the morning tying and untying a slipknot and wondering if he could ever muster the strength to pull so hard that it all would end. Each time he finally felt that he had gotten up at least half the courage required, though, an infant's cry would pierce the silence and his resolve would falter.
Months later, the Iron Cloud crone told him that the baby had come too early and there was nothing anyone could do, especially for a girl with no money to pay a midwife. The hatred in her eyes, which had always been so kind, pierced him almost as sharply as the dagger of guilt that suddenly dug at his core.
He turns now from the gathering darkness toward the bow of the ship, where the baby lies tucked inside the open mouth of a small firkin. It is almost time to wrap him up for the night. There is only one blanket, but the little prince needs it more than the knight does. Swaddled tightly against the cold, the infant might possibly stay sleeping for enough time to allow him to rest as well.
He hadn't known the reason for the sea voyage, only that he and some of his fellow men-at-arms had been given orders to go. To the annoyance of the crew, the knights had spent the first evening drinking toasts to exotic women waiting in foreign ports and the acts of bravery they would all perform in the event of a pirate attack. The songs grew bawdier as the night went on and the grog flowed more and more freely. Lord Bar and three or four of his closest companions were late in joining them, but that only served to heighten the festive atmosphere onboard.
He stopped eating five days ago, to save the remaining food for the prince. He had given the baby the last of it yesterday, mashing it up as best as he could so that the child could gum it down. The little thing only has a couple of teeth, and doesn't quite know how to use them yet. There was one horrifying moment when he thought the child was choking and went into a panic, but the morsel was coughed out in the end. Today, however, the child had wailed in hunger.
The next thing he remembered was waking up with the sun in his eyes and the hard wooden of the deck below his pounding head. At first he thought that the heaving in his stomach was due to his alcoholic overindulgence, but after he found the strength and will to hoist himself up he was shocked to find that that rolling feeling was a result of the waves through which the ship was crashing. They had pulled away from the harbor in the night, and land was nowhere in sight.
The water was the most difficult sacrifice. He was keenly aware of the sandiness in his own mouth as he poured the last of the precious drops through the baby's lips. There were moments when he seriously contemplated taking the final swallows himself, but a pair of green eyes flashed before him and something twisted in the pit of his stomach. And so the child drank the last of the fresh water.
They seemed to be in an awful hurry, but he didn't understand why until the sixth day, when the other ship appeared. When the lookout recognized the king's banner, the truth came out. Lord Bar produced the baby prince, who had been kept hidden away and drugged to remain silent. There was very nearly a revolt right there from those who had been in the dark as to the true purpose of the voyage, but the sound of a cannon bellowing a warning stayed the blades of crew and knights alike. There was little chance of any of them receiving clemency; regardless of actual guilt, they would all be found complicit in aiding in the kidnapping of the Crown Prince of Archenland and sentenced to hang… or worse. The only chance for their lives was to turn traitor and do battle against their own king.
A shaft of weak moonlight falls across the boat, alighting on the baby's face.
The rising sun found the Anvard Steel almost within range, but as the other men scurried to prepare their battle positions he found himself being pulled aside by the Lord Chancellor. The baby was roughly shoved into his arms, orders barked, and before he knew it he was being lowered in a scantly provisioned boat and rowing like a madman in the opposite direction of the royal ship as the sounds of battle faded slowly behind him.
The night has not yet grown cold, and he prays that the warmth would remain as long as possible before the chill sets in. Every muscle, every fiber in his body, is completely and utterly spent, and his eyes are so heavy.
Then, suddenly, as soft as the wind, he hears his name.
His tired eyes shoot open. There is a moment of silence, and then he hears it again. The voice is deep, as if from the depths of the sea itself. He wants to respond, to ask who is there, but his tongue is so thick and dry in his mouth. He soon becomes aware of a soft light, more warm and golden than that of the moon, like the first rays of dawn in the meadows back home.
He hears his name again and turns his head over his shoulder toward the golden light. It is growing stronger, and he raises a blistered hand to block the glare from his eyes. He licks his lips, sandpaper on dry dirt, and croaks out,
"Who's there?"
As his eyes adjust, he sees a Lion, huge and majestic like the stories Nanny used to read to him a lifetime ago. The Beast is standing on the water, the waves lapping at his enormous paws as if he was merely pausing along the seashore. It considers him for a moment, its eyes deep and knowing, before it opens its great mouth and speaks.
"You have done well, my son. The child will owe you his life."
Through his confusion, an image pushes through, a red-haired girl and her child who never had the chance to live. A sob suddenly rises from the pit of his stomach and shakes his frail, exhausted body.
The Lion's eyes are kind as he steps closer, his footsteps steady upon the waves. Soon, or maybe after hours, he is close enough that the knight can feel his warm breath on his face as he speaks again.
"Sleep now. I will finish the journey for you."
Slowly, a peace spreads within him more soothing than evenfall after a long, scorching day. His heavy eyes drift closed as he sees the Lion sink into the water at the boat's edge. He feels a little nudge, and the boat begins to move.