Anna
"What a very odd creature!" exclaimed Eustace as, with the lady's shrill cries fading away, they continued their ambling way toward home. "Who ever is she, Drinian?"
"Alicia Casker, she was born; daughter to a prosperous merchant of Glasswater village. After the murder of the her father Daniela was confined with her mother, almost a prisoner in her own province. The daughters of honest folk like the Caskers were her only company."
"How horrible for her!" said Edmund, with more truth than tact. Lucy tutted.
"Honestly, Edmund, I'm sure she's a dear!" she protested. Eustace sniggered into his hand.
"While we were sailing east, she married a gentleman of Beaversdam province," Drinian went on, retrieving his cloak from Caspian and tossing its carelessly over his shoulders. "Daniela declares the acquisition of a title - albeit a minor one - has quite turned the lady's head. She'll not be pleased that by our interference, an invitation she cannot politely refuse has been offered."
"Blame it on me, Drinian," Caspian volunteered at once.
"Begging Your Majesty's pardon, but I was already intending to! We ought to make haste; we're expected in the council chamber this afternoon."
"Eh?" Caspian frowned. "Hang it, of course! Those tedious ambassadors from Galma."
"Had Your Majesty not affronted their Duke…"
"By not marrying his squinting daughter!" Eustace continued.
"And then bringing the future Queen of Narnia to his banqueting hall on the way home," added Edmund.
"Our relations with that pestilential island might have been less strained of late," Drinian finished. Throwing up his hands, Caspian conceded defeat.
"Very well, very well, the presence of those two pompous monstrosities is all my fault! Now, no more of this dawdling, lest by arriving late in our own council chamber we contrive to offend the Galmians further!"
"I don't know what on Earth you wanted that filthy, crumpled scrap for," Eustace informed his cousin as he flopped onto Lucy's bed in the grand Lion guest chamber, high in one of the fairytale towers of Caspian's island castle, Cair Paravel. "It even smells nasty!"
"If you'd been stuck in a secret drawer for hundreds of years, you'd not exactly smell of lilies yourself!"
"Oh, honestly!" cried Lucy, who was squeezed onto the foot of the bed while he sprawled. "Boys! Is there anything written on it, Ed?"
Her brother lifted the faded parchment to the window, letting light stream through its brittle extent. "There are lines, I think," said Eustace. "But - well - if there are letters, I can't see 'em!"
""What's that?" With the tip of a finger, Edmund grazed the faintest sign of ancient ink, better felt than seen after so many years.
"It looks like - well, it's a squiggle!" exclaimed Eustace.
"Could it be a map?" suggested Lucy, squinting as badly as the Duke of Galma's unfortunate daughter ever had. "Ugh! It's horribly dusty, too!"
Edmund perched himself uncomfortably on the narrow window ledge, turning his prize this way and that. "By Jove, Lu, I think you're right!" he cried, delighted. "See? That turning line might just be a coastline. I wonder if we could compare it with some of Drinian's charts, see if we can't identify…"
"Hi! I think there might be a few remnants of letters, in the top right corner." Eustace launched himself off the bed. "See? Just there!"
Three tousled heads bent over the ancient document. "You're blocking the light," Edmund objected. Neither of his companions moved.
"That's an A," Lucy announced confidently, frightened to breathe on the paper, much less touch it.
"In that case, so's that." Eustace was less delicate, and with a huff Edmund snatched his prize from the grasping hand. "Looks like it might be the end of a word; that's a pretty fancy scribble at the bottom of it!"
"The two in the middle look similar," Edmund commented, twisting his neck painfully to look closer. "The tops of M's, perhaps?"
"Amma? What kind of word's that?" Eustace scoffed. "Anyway, they look more like N's to me!"
"Anna, then?" Lucy's forehead furrowed. Eustace whistled softly.
"You don't think…" he stammered. "I mean, it couldn't be…"
Edmund's mouth flapped. His shoulders heaved.
"Couldn't be what?" Lucy squealed, looking worried. "Stop being so mysterious!"
"Anna. A Map. Think, Lu!" Edmund seemed undecided whether he should leap about like a mad thing or fall into a heap. "Don't you remember the story Drinian told us, that night on Dragon island?"
"The Fair Maid of Terebinthia and - oh!" Lucy sat down with a heavy thump on the floor. "There was supposed to have been a map made, wasn't there?" she finished weakly.
"A map that's not been seen in centuries," Eustace continued. "Made by the last man to know where Anna's treasure was hidden . Just imagine - suppose we have it now!"
"Nonsense!" said Edmund, with less conviction than he had intended. "I mean - it's impossible! The treasure story's just an ancient legend."
"Lots of ancient legends have some kind of truth behind them," Lucy argued reasonably. "When Caspian's nurse was telling him bedtime stories about the Four Sovereigns and the White Witch, he thought we were just characters in an ancient legend, didn't he?"
"And if this is the map… golly, Lu, it's almost as old as we are!"
Three bright faces were split with identical bedazzled grins. "We've got to tell Caspian and Drinian," said Lucy.
"Let's go!" Eustace was halfway to the door.
"We can't," said Edmund sharply. "They're in the Council Chamber."
"They might have finished with the ambassadors by now!" Eustace argued.
"Or we can wait outside in Caspian's Receiving Room." cried Lucy.
"You've convinced me." Three long strides had Edmund through the door before they could block his way. "Bother!" he added. "They're right at the other side of the castle."
"Then we'd better run for it!" yelled Eustace, bolting past. On yelps of exuberant outrage, his cousins chased him, almost knocking the pretty servant coming up the main stair back down again.
"Sorry!" yelled Lucy politely. "Ed, wait for me!"
Down the Great Stair and through the Entrance Hall, into the First Reception Hall with its gilded Lion on the ceiling and its murals depicting Aslan's visits bright on the walls. Through huge double doors into the Throne Room (where the Four Thrones of the Ancient Sovereigns still stood) without pause to admire the glorious vistas of the green Narnian mainland through giant west-facing windows. Beyond the small set of doors behind the thrones and into a smaller, cosier chamber with comfortable chairs and tapestries on the walls.
"Aslan's Mane! Your Majesties!" cried the dainty, brown-haired lady who started up from one high-backed seat near the windows. "Is the Cair afire?"
"Daniela, we've found a treasure map!"
The Mistress of Etinsmere's calmness was but one of the qualities admired by her Lord. "Indeed, Eustace?" was all she said, as golden, graceful Queen Celesta, the Star's Daughter, goggled.
"It says Anna on it," Lucy affirmed. What had seemed impossible in her bedroom now appeared absolutely inescapable fact
"Anna?" The Queen rose elegantly, her quizzical gaze fixed on her Narnian friend. "I hardly see what connection… Daniela, why do you stare?"
"Impossible!" the other exclaimed. Edmund shrugged.
"That's exactly what we've tried telling ourselves! Are they still rabbitting at the Galmians?"
"Doctor Cornelius has escorted the ambassadors to their apartments," said the Queen, hiding her confusion at the term (the Narnians would have called it squirreling, Edmund reflected) admirably. "What ever is the urgency? Daniela, I do not understand!"
"Caspian! Drinian! You've got to come out at once!" Lucy hollered, banging on the locked door of the Council Chamber. It was dragged inward, and there, quite level with hers, were a pair of bushy fox-coloured eyebrows drawn tightly together. Trumpkin, Caspian's first Dwarf ally, Regent of the Kingdom during his master's long absence on the eastern quest, rocked back on his heels, not unnaturally startled to find a Queen of Narnia yelling in his face.
"Where's the fire, Your Majesty?" he hollered. Behind him, Lucy could see the remainder of the Inner Cabinet - Trufflehunter, the aged Badger, Drinian and the King himself, half out of their seats in poses of the greatest anxiety. "Kingfishers and kettledrums, are we under attack? King Edmund, why must you wave that filthy bit o' rubbish about?"
"It's a treasure map!" Eustace yelled, as if it ought to be obvious. The Dwarf's lower jaw almost hit the carpet. "Ed got it from that batty Kipperbone woman!"
"Alicia Herringbone," Daniela translated, for the benefit of the Queen. Celesta nodded her understanding.
"I shall never look at her again without thinking of that, Eustace," she sighed. "But please can somebody tell me what this is about?"
"Look!" Edmund held the parchment high, letting the light streaming through the large windows pour through its delicate creases. "Look in the top right corner and see what it says - it's a name!"
"I can't see anything," said Caspian irritably. "And what if it does have a name on it?"
"Honestly, Caspian, how dense are you?" cried Eustace, red in the face with exasperated excitement. "Anna's treasure!"
"What - oh!" The King of Narnia blinked, then stared, like a man suddenly roused from the deepest sleep. "Drinian…"
"Sounds unlikely to me, Sire. A few letters on a torn parchment…"
"But it's not impossible!" He couldn't say that, Lucy told herself desperately.
"If there ever was a map," Drinian said thoughtfully, scratching his nose, "there might be thought a strong chance of its being Archenlandish in origin. The sailors of the treasure fleet, and the majority of the largest pirate fleet, were Archenlanders."
Straining to make out the few faint scrawls on the parchment, he jabbed a long finger. "See, Caspian!" he said absently, oblivious to the horrified snorts of Trufflehunter and Trumpkin loitering forgotten at the Council Chamber door, to whom the small informality was scandalous. "They are right about its being a chart - that must be a headland - see!"
"Can someone not tell me who Anna is, and what her treasure might be?" wailed Celesta helplessly. Caspian turned an absent-minded smile her way.
"My Lord Drinian can tell the tale best of those present," he said. "Aye, be about your business, Trumpkin - my thanks for your wise counsel, Trufflehunter. Now, sit down, everyone - careful of that, Edmund, if it should be a treasure map, 'tis a thing not lightly to be tossed about! At your leisure, Drinian, we shall have the tale of the Fair Maid of Terebinthia and the lost treasure of King Ram."
