The Will of Man


Each man is the architect of his own fate.

~ Appius Claudius


The next morning, they departed from their hosts after saying farewell.

"A braw lammas day tae ye, too." The farmer added just before they were out of earshot. Peter waved.

"Lammas day?" Edmund asked, glancing at Peter.

"The last day of Greenroof," Peter said. "We're well into summer, aren't we?"

"I suppose we are," Edmund said, then laughed. "I think very well of our host, but he can keep his parritch. The more talkative he got the less I understood him; I was beginning to wonder whether he was speaking the same language at all."

"We'll have to learn, I think," Peter said. "But doon't worry, me braw, wee brother, we'll figure it out somehow."

"Aw, put a cork in it," Edmund muttered.

"Right-o, baby brother," Peter said.

"Well, we're off to find Alisdair Mor," Edmund said, then paused. "That begs the question; what does 'Mor' mean?"

"It means 'great'," Peter said. "If they tacked that on the end of his name he must be a near giant."

"I hope he's a friendly one."

If Ettinsmoor could have been rolled out flat and all the mountains taken out, it would have been larger than Calormen. As the horses reached the crest of one ribbed hill, there were only more ahead. Lochs glittered blue under the sky, deep in the valleys between the braes that seemed to plummet down beneath the waves. Even the clouds couldn't rise above the jagged hills. They hung like mist above the lochs and beyond them, the hills were silhouetted, their wild shapes both strange and beautiful, rusty sided with the rampant heather.

The place was beautiful, more beautiful than anything, yet it was frightening as well. There was fear streaming through the empty silence, as if there was a secret held in her palm.

The horses were skidding down a brae, through the bracken, snorting with indignation when they came to a small aspen wood. The trees were very young and widely spaced and their small golden leaves fluttered softly in the wind that was forever coming over them like the mountains breathing.

It was there that they saw the three women.

They were old, dressed in gray, sitting on stools under the aspen leaves. One was slowly winding a thread around a ball, while the woman next to her as quickly unwound it. The last held a heavy pair of sheers, poised to cut the thread.

Peter dismounted and Edmund followed his example as they approached them.

"Greetings, travelers," the first woman spoke.

"Greetings to you, ladies," Peter said, sweeping a gallant bow.

Edmund watched them sharply, his eyes running over their tattered clothes, their twisted hands and the shining thread that ran between them.

"May I inquire what you are doing?" He asked at last.

"We are working," the woman replied.

"So I see."

"Perhaps you do not see."

Edmund's eyebrow rose slightly.

"It is wound, it is measured, it is cut. This is the thread of fate, these are the sheers. It is as long as it is. No matter what you do, you cannot make it longer, nor can you make it shorter. Aslan tells us the length, for time does not join him. He is in both the beginning and the end."

"We do not fear death," Peter said.

"Neither should you," she replied. "But you will look him in the face when all is done."

"What can we do if we are forever bound by the thread of fate?" Edmund asked. "Why should we bother doing anything if it's going to happen that way anyway?"

"You are not prisoners of fate, you are only prisoners of your own minds," the woman answered. "Never give up. Strive for the future, but live your lives as if you would die tomorrow. Remember, upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all."

Edmund glanced at Peter and met his eyes. They both seemed quite as puzzled.

"Why are you telling us this-"

Edmund stopped abruptly as he turned back to them and his jaw sagged. Peter gasped beside him.

"They're gone!"

The aspen grove was empty and silent, hung with mist that crept along the ground. Only a ball of shinning thread lay among the leaves on the forest floor. Edmund stooped to pick it up, looking at it. Peter shrugged and Edmund slipped it into his pocket.


It wasn't until that morning that Susan and Lucy found the time to put their schemes into action.

For some strange reason, they started tiptoeing in the hallway that their brothers' rooms opened onto. There were great tapestries lying silent against the walls, the lords and ladies riding out on hunts, watching them as they slipped past. At last they came to the door of Edmund's rooms.

It was a great door, beautifully carved with a unicorn, and their eyes spiraled up the horn. Vines hung heavy in the wood, curling tendrils around the fine iron work of an intricate lock.

"Do you know the password?" Lucy asked softly. "He's always changing it."

"No," Susan said. "Bother these dwarfin locks."

They looked at the door for some time as the light from the window played along the carvings, spiraling down the channels of letters entwined in the vines.

Only ask.

"We want to be let in," Susan said. "For goodness sakes, Edmund!"

As they watched, the letters wobbled and slipped over each other as if the wind were blowing them. Susan and Lucy watched as they tumbled into new positions, marching up to form a new line of words.

What walks on four legs when it is young?

"Of course it would be a riddle," Lucy said impatiently. The letter hastily reassembled themselves.

Two when it is in the prime of life…

"Think, Lucy, think!" Susan exclaimed. "I feel I know this one!"

and three when it is old.

"How many guesses have we got?" Lucy asked.

Only one.

"Four legs when it is young…two in the prime of life…and three when it is old," Susan said under her breath.

"Oh! Yes!" Lucy exclaimed. "I know! Us, of course! When we are babies, we toddle about on all fours, when we are grown up, we walk on two legs and when we are old, we hobble around with canes. It's people!"

There was a moment of silence, then, quietly, they heard a soft click and watched the mechanism of the lock begin to turn, burning light. Susan reached out a tentative hand and gently pushed open the door.

"Right," she said, her voice hushed, "Here it goes."

They stepped inside a hallway, treading softly on the deep rug and looked through the opened door that led into Edmund's bedroom. Susan knew it would be neater than Peter's, but she wasn't prepared for what she saw. Somebody (no names will be mentioned) had pulled all his clothes out of the wardrobe and dumped them on the bed with all the signs of very hasty packing and Susan's sharp eyes noticed the dust bunnies on the floor…but even that didn't match the windows.

"What…did he do?" Lucy gasped, frozen in the middle of the room. Susan came up short, her hand flying to her mouth, her eyes wide.

As Susan neared the bay window that looked out over the garden, she saw that the glass had been completely written over with a white wax pencil. Equations, trigonometry, mental notes, differential equations, discrete mathematics….A recipe for buttered eggs.

"Buttered eggs?!" Susan gasped. "He could have asked me if he was in doubt…and you don't put chili powder in buttered eggs!"

They had a strange feeling that they were somehow invading as they circled around the room, looking at the oddments Edmund had lined up neatly everywhere. But for the exception of the clothes on the bed, everything was very orderly, if a little dusty. There were paintings on the walls of faraway places; one wall of bookshelves; ornamental shields from beyond Calormen, further south than they had ever been.

There was a row of ivory elephants on one of the bureaus and tiny blown glass animals; a dolphin, a bear, a cross-eyed elephant, a shark and a hippopotamus.

"What's this?" Susan's voice, which had been hushed before, now hardened. Lucy whirled around to see Susan standing with her hands on her hips, looking up at a bare patch of wall. Several throwing knives were stuck in it.

Lucy fought against a smile as Susan fumed, "Looks like target practice," she suggested.

"He has no right to throw knives at a wall!" Susan cried, waving her hand emphatically at the knives as if she expected them to hop down and run away in submission. "This is unacceptable!"

"I agree," Lucy said. "What shall we do about it?"

"I'll have to talk to him when he gets back," Susan said firmly, looking around. "We'll dust the room and beat out the rugs, but we'll leave everything the way it is."

The room went through a whirlwind of cleaning, dust fogging the air. They could almost hear Edmund's voice saying, "Can't clean it; it raises the dust." Lucy couldn't help laughing.

"I can't wait to tackle Peter's room," she said with a wry smile.


They were riding on the pebbled shore of one of the lochs, when Peter suggested they water the horses. They dismounted and stood looking over the silver waves to the distant hills that seemed to rise from the water, crested with trees and as magnificent as the waves on a massive sea.

Edmund turned up the collar of his cloak against the wind and wrapped the edge around himself until he looked like a tall, black bat. Peter glanced at him, grinning; he knew Edmund only did that when he was in a particularly eccentric mood.

"What are you thinking about?" Peter asked at last, reaching down to rumple Archie's ears as the dog pressed against his leg.

Edmund thrust out his arm and gestured towards the panorama that stretched around them.

"It's beautiful," he said simply.

"So it is." Peter replied.

Edmund squinted into the sunlight, watching two hawks toss their prey to one another, reflected in the blue water below them. They swooped and turned effortlessly, coasting on the unseen waves of the wind, tumbling into freefalls, then spreading their wings and sliding down towards the water, only to beat up into the air again. The rabbit they had caught was thrown back and forth, always caught perfectly, like some exquisite and complex dance.

"What the deuce is that?"

Peter's incredulous voice brought Edmund suddenly back to the present. Beside him, his chestnut steed stiffened and backed away from the water, eyes wide and coat trembling. Peter's buckskin let out a long, frightened whinny.

"What?" Edmund asked sharply.

Peter had no need to tell him.

A great monster was rising out of the loch; it seemed at first to be a gigantic snake towering at least two stories high, then a broad, gray back broke the water, sending ripples leaping towards the shore. It let out a great, strange call and looked around itself with large, deep seeing eyes.

They stood and watched it, rooted in place by the sheer magnificence of the creature. It turned to look at them, but it was only a passing glance and it continued on, plowing through the waves like a sailing ship with a great mast. At last, it bent its head and dove. They had a glimpse of a short powerful tail, then it vanished, leaving nothing but ripples to mark where it had gone.

Edmund let out a sigh and realized that he had been holding his breath. They glanced at each other, unspeaking, then mounted their horses and turned away, riding up the braes towards the crest of the ridge. When they looked back, they could just see a monster shadow, gliding along beneath the surface of the loch.


Author's Note:

It just occurred to me that I hadn't posted a chapter for a while. So here is one. Hopefully it's the right one. Lammas Day is actually August 1st. But the only Narnian month I'm familiar with is 'Greenroof'.

Blog:

I've done a blog post about what real Medieval Knights would have worn, wielded and ridden. I'm not trying to be critical, but whoever did the choreography, armour design and battle design for the Narnia movies...needed help. There were several times, for example, during Peter's duel with the Witch when she could have, quite literally, sliced him in two (he might have had a chance if he'd actually used his shield, rather than flapping it around behind him).

My heart went out to both Peter and Edmund running about in their chainmail/armour set-ups (and were those chainmail leggings Peter was wearing in Prince Caspian?), because, full body armour gets heavy (especially for a small boy), unless you happen to be in possession of a horse and of course, Peter had the misfortune to lose his unicorn (which wasn't wearing a saddle?! Horses are pretty slick when you ride them bareback). His helmet was also the sort that looked like it could snap shut at any moment, which might have presented problems in the battle. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the chin strap magically disappeared and he managed to lose it part way through (I can't remember how), which, as I mentioned before, could have allowed the Witch to slice him neatly in half…or perhaps it was just to let his beautiful hair flow in the breeze.

The Narnian charge in the beginning was splendid, full of fluttering banners (and I saw some spears, which was nice), but whoever decided to give up the high ground ought to have his head smacked (yes, I'm looking at you, Peter). The whole battle would have been much better if everyone had stopped charging the Witch and just found a good bowman with an arrow (are you listening, Edmund?). The chainmail dress was very pretty, I'm sure, but it didn't protect the Witch in any places that mattered.

~Psyche the Disgruntled

Production Note:

Susan was so upset by the mess she found in Edmund's room that she insisted on bringing in the vacuum cleaners. Lucy was all for remodeling completely. Edmund has not yet released a statement, but Peter is purportedly giggling in a corner.

Next Chapter: In which Peter does something Stupid and Edmund has a Rather Bad Time.