The Secret Places of the Sun
Years later, in a different world entirely, Edmund finds that he cannot recall her name.
Morning here is nothing like that one from so long ago, anyway.
-
"We've been invited to Calormen," Peter says idly, roll of parchment held loosely in his fingers.
Lucy snatches it up, all wide-eyed eagerness, and Susan skims the words of the missive with her chin perched on her younger sister's shoulder.
But in the first year of their reign, the royal siblings are busy with rebuilding a kingdom and making it their own, and in the end it turns out that only Edmund can take on the journey.
"I trust you'll make a good impression," Peter says with a grin, and "I hear they put on quite a magnificent show."
Susan pouts, and Lucy sticks her tongue out at her dark-haired brother, who is lazing about in front of the fire smoking the intricately-carved pipe that Tumnus has given him.
-
The travel is long, and all Edmund really remembers is the way the chuckling streams of Narnia eventually transform themselves into the silent crags of Archenland, and then the endless expanse of the desert that sits at the feet of Calormen.
It is enticing, the way the heat of the desert shimmers before his eyes, beckoning him forward.
The Calormenes send camels and envoys to welcome Edmund and his men. The boy-king stands there at the border as they approach, his back to Narnia and his face to their towering acropolis. In the light of the dying day, he is all slim lines and dark shadows.
-
Edmund wants to laugh at the way the Calormene creatures pick their way over the sandy dunes, thick bodies undulating at an irregular tempo even as their slender legs step surely.
But he thinks that to do so would be to insult their owners, and so he holds his tongue.
Still, he can't help but smile when the camel he sits astride spits suddenly, looking for all the world like someone's ancient grandfather.
-
Edmund notices the way the Calormene royals travel the length of their city in litters with colourful, gauzy curtains drawn shut, as though to protect themselves from the grime of the lower-level streets. The men who bear the heavy burdens possess bodies that gleam with the sweat of their exertion in the sun, golden cuffs strapped to their wrists.
"The bracelets," Edmund's guide tells him when he notices the way the king's eyes follow the flash, "mark them as servants of the Calormene nobility."
Skinny children draped in rags scatter across the dusty, narrow streets as Edmund draws near. He also notices the way the eyes of their elders, peering out of darkened doorways, are shadowed with hunger and fear and something else he's yet to see – and hopes never to see - in Narnia.
-
Edmund climbs higher and higher, past the loud, bustling markets, along white walls that enclose green groves whose fruits peek over at him, looking like organic jewels larger than the size of his fist.
-
She is the youngest daughter of the Tisroc, and she greets him with bright eyes shining mischievously and hands outstretched. Her fingers are slim, but the tensile strength of them surprises Edmund when she grips his upper arms and rises up on her satin-slippered toes to brush a chaste kiss on each of his cheeks, the musk of her perfume tickling his nose in a way that's not entirely unpleasant.
The Calormenes, Edmund finds, are fond of greeting each other with kisses.
-
In a great hall, a group of solemn-faced men dance around each other on light feet as they wield scimitars, silver blades winking in and out of the flickering firelight. Peter is true to his word, Edmund realises – they really do put on quite a magnificent show.
-
The Calormenes are also fond of words – in their everyday speech, in the lengthy stories they tell over the supper that they take at low tables while sitting on plush cushions.
But Edmund is particularly pleased to find that the Calormenes have a penchant for smoking in ways that are new to him.
"Do you have these in Narnia?" she asks. Edmund eyes the exquisite fragility of the glasswork, the length of the hose that she toys with using her nimble fingers. He shakes his head, and she grins in a way that makes him think of his brother.
"Good," she says, and "would you like to see a trick?" And she puts her mouth to the hookah, inhaling deeply, and then curls her blood-red lips into a perfect O. It's not so much seductive as it is fascinating.
It takes Edmund the better part of an hour to learn.
-
Edmund awakens and it takes his eyes a moment to adjust in the still darkness, only to find her standing over him, one cool palm on his mouth and a finger pressed against her lips. She keeps an eyebrow finely arched until he slips the small dagger back underneath his pillow.
-
Edmund's eyes take in the way her raven-coloured hair tumbles over her shoulders and down her slim, silk-clad back, the way she noiselessly pads over to his balcony in her bare feet, ankles gleaming with fine, gold chains, the way the multi-coloured bracelets encircling her thin wrists ring out as she flings open the lattice doors.
-
Edmund's quarters overlook a large courtyard, and his sharp eyes take in the trees that line the square, the people that currently fill it. He toured those trees when he first arrived, knows that they bear grapefruits larger than his fist and that the fruit glow ruby-red when sliced open.
He also takes in the group of men, women, and children kneeling on the grass, all garbed in white linen. All are motionless, facing towards the easternmost wall. He turns his head, glances at his companion, but the question dies on his lips when she gives him a small, enigmatic smile and nods once.
And then, a horn sounds in the distance.
-
As one, the group below him shifts their upper bodies forward until they are prostrate, necks bent and arms outstretched, fingertips grazing the ground. The horn sounds again, sweet, clear, and strong, and a sea of voices rises towards Edmund, murmuring the smooth, rolling words of their native tongue in unison.
It goes on and on and on, and then –
The blaze of the sun surfaces above the far-off horizon, blinding and glorious, and the murmurs swell, flowing and ebbing as the sun continues its ascent into the sky. The rays of light bounce off of the whites of their backs, off of the morning dew that rests and glistens upon the leaves and the fruit and the grass.
-
"We are a people of the dawn," she says simply, much later when it is finished. Her eyes are dark and lined in kohl, fathoms deep, and Edmund is taken in by the allure of her accented English, the way her syllables pour forth like liquefied sweets.
"Teach me," he says, and she smiles.
-
The memory of her name slips quietly from his mind amidst the onward press of the years, but Edmund finds that he could never forget that fine morning from so long ago.
Fin.