"Susan," a voice boomed outside her door, a fist pounding on the wood next to the knob. "Open this door at once!"
Susan pulled her head out from under the covers and caught a glimpse of her hideous reflection. She had seen sheep with prettier heads! It may have been her father, the king, at the door, as she was well aware of, but there was no way she was opening it. Groaning, she yanked on the sheet she had covered her head with, crying under for the last couple of hours or so, and tossed it over her mirror. Looking at herself only made it worse. Her sensible mind tried to convince her that perhaps it wasn't quite so bad as she thought, that she was making a row over something that might-just might-be improved on, but then she would see her face and despair. No, it was ugly. Too ugly.
"The Tisroc is here," the king's voice was testy. Back when she was a little girl, such a tone would have frightened her. But nothing was more frightening than her own reflection, and if she had endured that, a little shouting was nothing.
The Tisroc would think she was a monster if he saw her. His son would not be pleased, either. They'd probably think her parents had dabbled in witchcraft or something else of unspeakable horror in order to gain such a deformed daughter; such creatures didn't appear in the natural world.
Her mother's portrait was still in the passageway of the north wing; Susan could picture it in her mind just by closing her eyes. To think of her poor, pretty mother was painful. People would call her the spawn of goblins the way she looked now-a dreadful insult to the sweet, kindly woman who'd given birth to her.
Wiping her puffy eyes, Susan wandered over to the draw where she kept her jewelry. She didn't care a fig for most of it in light of what had happened to her, the majority of them having been gifts from would-be suitors and local courtiers impressed by her beauty, but there was one piece she wanted more than ever. It was a thin silver chain on which hung the white-gold pendant of a Christmas Rose. This simple necklace had belonged to her mother; she was even wearing it in her portrait if you looked close enough, though the painter had embellished it to make it look a bit larger and grander, more expensive.
Bringing the pendant to her unsightly lips, Susan kissed it and fastened the little chain around her neck with shaky fingers, biting back another round of salty tears.
There was another knock at her door, not the king this time. It was too soft and apologetic for that. Timid mousy voices chirped through the wood. Ah, the maidservants and the ladies-in-waiting. Susan thought she never wanted to see her ladies again. They had been her friends when she was beautiful, they'd hate her now. They would have waited well enough on a plain princess, or even a dull, dumpy princess, but a wretched, down-right ugly one? Never! They'd mock her and she'd hate them for it. She didn't want to hate them, though, she only wanted them to go away.
"Leave me be!" she screamed at the door, not even taking so much as a half-step forward, collapsing on the bed again. "Go away!"
"But your Highness, we're to help you dress for supper with the Tisroc and the prince!"
Bitterness arose in Susan's heart. "Oh, bother that! I think I remember how to dress myself. And besides, I wont go! You can very well tell them I wont be coming down!"
"But why not, Princess?" the voice was meek. No, it was frightened. The king would be cross, anxious over relations with Calormen.
Feeling embarrassed over her out-burst, knowing how unlike her that was, she amended, "Forgive me, I'm unwell."
"You've taken ill, your Highness?"
"Yes," replied Susan. "Tell the Tisroc and the king I'm too sick to come down for supper."
"Shall we bring you something to eat?"
Goodness no! They would see her if they did that! She swallowed a sob. "No, thank you most kindly, I only need some rest."
"Surely someone should attend to you, you want the physician to be sent for?"
Mercy, that wasn't what she wanted! She wanted them to go away. "Please don't send for anyone, just tell my father I'm not coming."
"As you wish, your Highness."
There was the sound of a dozen or so pairs of ladies' feet marching off down towards the other wings of the castle. Susan nearly swooned with relief. There was no way she could keep this up, her good sense told her that, but what else could she do?
Knock, Knock.
Bother this! How could she think of a plan when everyone kept knocking every bloody five seconds? This was madness!
"What?" she barked, assuming the ladies-in-waiting had returned.
"Susan?"
Her heart stopped for a moment, pained. She had thought she didn't want to see anyone ever again, but of course there would be an exception to that rule. Lucy. Darling Lucy. If anyone could ever see through her ugliness and still like her, it was that angel of a child. She'd find something lovable in a rabid rat if the right circumstances presented themselves.
"Lucy, are you alone?" Susan got up and came to the door.
"Yes, of course." Lucy answered, seeming surprised by the question.
She moved the chair opened the door a crack. "Get in here quickly and shut the door behind you."
Lucy's brow crinkled; she couldn't see Susan's face, she was holding both of her arms in front of it and moving over towards the other side of the room at the same time. She closed the door behind herself.
"Susan, aren't you all right? You told the maids you were-" Her lips parted and she swallowed hard. Her sister Susan had turned and looked right at her now, dull, lackluster blue eyes shinning so pitifully.
"Don't be afraid," Susan whispered, lightly reaching out her hand as if she were afraid to touch her own sister's wrist. "It's still me, I swear."
"Oh, Su!" cried Lucy, throwing her arms around her sister. She didn't ask what had happened, not even sure she wanted to know, it seemed so ghastly. She only wanted to comfort her sister, for something dreadful had happened to her. She looked so different!
The face she had stared into was certainly Susan's. She would have recognized it anywhere. Yet, it wasn't the Susan she knew. It was a different Susan, one devoid of all beauty, with a nasty complexion, and somewhat twisted features.
As briefly and to the point as possible, Susan explained about Jadis and Helen, and how she had-after those rather traumatic events-run back up to her chamber and hidden herself.
At first, Lucy was quite indignant with her mother until Susan, masking part of her own anger, seeing it as so small and harmless compared to the fierce little lioness face of her younger sister peering up into her blank, unattractive one, actually said, "Don't be cross with her, Lu, its of no use to you. Leave the anger to me; I shall have just enough, I think, for the both of us."
"But you'll have to tell father, Su," (Lucy called the king father, too). "Wont you?"
"Tell him what?" Susan moaned. "That Queen Helen and the ice countess made a hideous fool out of me?"
Lucy shrugged her shoulders. What else could her sister say?
"Don't be like that! See reason! Surely you realize I can't let them look at me like...like this..." Passionately, she buried her face in her arms and pulled her knees to her chest.
Thinking to comfort her, Lucy put a hand on her back and rubbed it until she felt better.
"There's nothing else for it," said Susan. "I've got to go away. I'll never live in any royal court again, or marry, or have lovers, or go to balls. Oh, Lucy-I'm ruined! I only know one sort of life and I can no longer live it. How can someone go away when there's no where for them to go away to? No one will love me ever again, you know."
Pouting and reaching out of some old habit for the place in her skirt where she often secured a handkerchief, Lucy said, "Well, I love you, and you needn't go on about it so. If you've got to leave court, we'll go together."
In spite of herself, Susan smiled, removed her face from her arms, and grasped her sister's hands like a drowning woman. "Oh, Lucy, you'll come with me?"
"Yes, of course." Lucy was firm, thoroughly resolute. "We'll go out into the world and seek our fortunes, just like the heroines in the story-books the Royal Nurses would read to us before bed when you were younger."
Susan half-scoffed at the comparison, thinking that if life were really like a story-book, she wouldn't have been cursed with a face that would make babies cry and puppies whimper, not remembering as Lucy did, that most fairy-tales involve quite a large dose of unhappiness and dark-themes.
"I can't leave the castle looking like this," Susan reminded her. "We shall have to wait until is very dark and then-" She paused for a moment. "-Wait, what are you doing?"
Rather than listening to her sister's plan, Lucy was rummaging around the closet for something, not paying much attention until her fingers latched around what she was searching for. "Ah, here it is."
Her curiosity peeked, Susan said, "What have you got there, Lu?"
"An old headdress of yours," Lucy explained, lifting the long-forgotten accessory up to show her.
It was a golden-russet circlet with a long draping silken cloth which flopped in the front like a veil. The inside cloth was lighter than its thickly embroidered brocade outer counterpart, resulting in a tinted effect. While wearing it, a person could see out all right, though they might occasionally have to squint in certain lightings if the shadows of the outer patterns should obscure their view, but it was impossible for someone to see into it.
While it was pretty enough, Susan had never worn it, preferring headdresses that delicately shaped her face instead of covering it. Lucy had probably played dress-up with it more than Susan had ever even touched it.
"You can wear it so we don't have to ride in pitch blackness."
"You're brilliant," Susan told her gratefully as she slipped the veil into place.
Lucy smiled modestly and waved her hand as if to say, "Oh, it was nothing-just a passing idea."
Taking a deep breath, Susan reached up and pulled the sheet off of the mirror so she could look at herself. The veil was an improvement, certainly. Unlike that dreadful face she'd seen earlier, the veil gave hope. The veil didn't make her look like a freak. Thinking vainly for a fleeting moment, she reached under the veil and pushed a lock of her dark hair over one shoulder so that the tips stuck out. After all, her hair hadn't changed, and people had always said it was pretty, too.
While Susan packed her dresses (unlike her jewelry, pretty much all of them were of her taste and choosing and did not remind her of any lost suitors, and so she wanted to take a few of them with her) Lucy poured over a map by the oil lamp in the corner of the room, trying to decide where they might go.
In theory, Susan was better at planning places and routes, but Lucy didn't want to end up in some dull, boring, run-of-the-mill, milk-and-butter town that her elder sister picked out thinking purely of the practicalities of their situation. If they were going to run away, they might as well find a real adventure. By which she did not mean shelling peas for some inn keeper in a village on the Telmarine border. The very thought made her shudder.
Another place she certainly didn't want to end up was Calormen. She'd spoken briefly with the Tisroc and his pompous eldest son, and from what they said about the their country (they were bragging, by the way), she knew it wasn't a homey sort of place. She was interested in seeing the Archenland Court, The castle of Anvard sounded rather nice, she thought, but it was a bit too far south to pin their hopes to. It was best to aim for something closer; Susan might be more likely to agree to let Lucy navigate if her expectations seemed reasonable.
Lucy's eyes flickered to Narnia. She had always loved all things Narnian. She adored the dwarfs who came to visit the Courtiers; she pestered a sour-faced nursemaid, who'd had a cousin who was supposedly half-Narnian, for stories of that country so often she finally quit and went to seek employment elsewhere; she even wore Narnian dresses as often as it was allowed. She had only actually been to Narnia once, for dinner over a lordship's manor, but she had loved her trip so dearly that she'd replayed every moment of it in her mind hundreds of times.
Oh Narnia, Narnia. Susan had actually met the crown prince of Narnia when she was about three or four. A small golden-haired little toddler, he poked her on the cheek once with his index finger at supper in the dinning hall, evidently out of some bizarre curiosity, and she had causally kicked him in the shins under the table in return. He never tried to touch her again. That story (Which Susan conveniently claimed she 'didn't remember') always made Lucy chuckle. There was something about the crown prince of Narnia that she liked even though she had never met him personally. He seemed friendly-brotherly, even-and she liked friendly people.
With some reluctance, and a half-hearted attempt to change her little sister's mind, Susan consented to go to Narnia. She hadn't the faintest idea what she would do when she got there, but at least she wouldn't be there alone. She had Lucy: her sister, her traveling companion.
They crept down to the stables when the grooms were on their break and saddled Isbjorn. Lucy was sorry to leave behind her own mare, Rosie, but she knew that horse had a particularly bad case of homesickness. If the creature started to get nervous and dejected after only a three-hour venture, and became borderline depressed when they went on a trip that left her in a stable other than the one at the Ettinsmoor Castle for more than a week, she wasn't going to be happy in Narnia. Isbjorn was different, more adventurous, and more desperate to be with his owner. If Susan went away and didn't come back, he might die of a broken heart. If Lucy left, Rosie would miss her a little bit but would not be shattered over her absence.
So she strapped the packs to Isbjorn, took the reins in her hands, and helped her elder sister up behind her.
Susan grumbled something about the fact that she should be allowed to direct her own horse and that Lucy should be the one sitting in the back. Lucy quietly pointed out that with the rustling fabric in front of her face, Susan probably wasn't in the best of conditions to direct the venture.
Knowing that taking off the veil wasn't an option, she sighed and gave in, still grumbling somewhat until fear over her own near future griped her again and shut her up for a little while.
Someone entered the stable just as they were leaving it. Peering over her shoulder and through the veil, Susan saw it was Prince Rabadash and the head groom. He was handsome; just like she'd heard. More so, actually. She had something of a soft spot towards the tall, darkish handsome sorts. There was something nice about fair-haired, rosy complexioned noblemen, too; she certainly didn't discriminate against them, but she had always found herself naturally drawn to darker men. Sighing, she imagined what it would have been like to be her old self again, flirting with the crown prince of Calormen at supper.
"Lucy," she whispered shortly to her sister. "He's very good-looking, don't you think?"
Straining at bit, Lucy leaned over on Isbjorn's back and squinted at him (this was more for Susan's benefit, because Lucy had already seen him before with the Tisroc but did not want to upset her sister by not even glancing at him before replying).
Eh, she thought to herself-trying not to laugh, he probably would be handsome if he ever rid himself of that 'do I smell doo-doo?' expression he seems to constantly wear on his face.
Much as she tried, Lucy simply couldn't think of anything nice enough about Rabadash to say out-loud, so she simply shrugged her shoulders and muttered, "I guess so; but we really should be going before he notices us."
Susan half-hoped he would, not thinking about how he might react if he saw her without the veil. How much he might hate her. Truly, though, she needn't have worried about him taking any notice of her or her sister at all. He was far too busy stamping his foot and yelling insults at the head-groom in a whinny drawl that made her head ache, even from the other side of the stable.
Her momentary fancy for the prince was over; Susan felt her nose wrinkle up. Suddenly he didn't seem quite so handsome as she had thought at first. She didn't much like the idea of hearing that loud-mouthed prince whine day in and day out, and felt deep pity for his menservants-they had to be around him all day, poor things!
"Ugh," Susan grimaced, disgusted. "Let's just go."
"Gladly," murmured Lucy, making a faint clicking noise with her tongue to get Isbjorn moving again.
Because they knew there was always the chance that someone might be sent after them to try and bring them back, the girls were clever enough to use mostly old dirt roads and back ways, and to stay out of sight of the general traffic as much as possible. Susan knew she couldn't endure being taken back to the castle and being seen in her current state and Lucy didn't want to give up their new freedom until they'd seen Narnia, nearly intoxicated with the novelty of it all, so they were careful.
Things seemed to be going well until Isbjorn let out a distressed whinny as something made of shinny metal plopped in the dirt behind them. The gelding refused to keep moving and shifted uncomfortably until both princesses decided it would be safer to get off of his back and investigate than to try to force him to press on.
"Oh, here it is!" exclaimed Lucy as she held up a small object made of glittering gold.
Susan squinted; the sun was hitting her veil the wrong way and her view of whatever her sister was holding wasn't very good at the moment. It looked like a sort of boomerang, only she couldn't imagine why there would be a gold boomerang in the middle of the road or why that would have made the horse stop so suddenly. She lifted her arm to block the sunlight and change the shadows in her view. It was a horseshoe. Isbjorn had thrown a shoe.
"Hallo there!" The two Princesses of Ettinsmoor were startled by a voice calling them. "I say! Are you all right?"
There was a blue-and-purple coach driven by a brown-faced dwarf, squat in his seat. The speaker was a fair-headed boy a little younger than Lucy with a thin, wire-like band of gold around his pale forehead and short yellow hair. He was sticking his head out of the coach's window, through the sky-blue curtains, peering over at them curiously with his hand over his eyes.
Although Susan was anxious at being spotted by anyone, she didn't see the lad as too much of a threat. He was a puny thing-Lucy could have taken him in a fight if she had to-and the dwarf-driver didn't appear all that strong either, however well he managed the horses he directed.
"Our horse has thrown a shoe," Lucy called up to him.
"I see," said the boy. "I am Eustace Clarence: Duke of Dragon Island, squire in the court of Narnia, who are you?"
Glancing over at Susan and then back at Eustace, Lucy decided to risk everything. "If you please, Duke Clarence, my sister and I are Princesses from Ettinsmoor-we were trying to get to Narnia when..." She rolled her eyes back towards the white gelding who was looking quite innocent and oblivious of the whole scene.
"What luck! It just so happens that I'm on my way to Cair Paravel, the Narnian court, you might as well join us in the carriage. I can have my valet take your horse along behind us."
Now that she thought about it, Lucy realized that Duke Clarence spoke in a very proper tone which his boyish voice was really not suited for. The Duke took himself seriously. She decided to find it charming rather than irritating because he clearly didn't mean any harm by it. And he was being jolly kind to them after all.
The valet was a froggy sort of person with a stern face and a fuzzy cowlick under his well-worn straw hat. Lucy knew him for a marshwiggle after a few moments of trying to think of what those creatures were called.
"Puddleglum," said Eustace, nodding his head in the princesses' direction. "Please take their Highness's horse down to the first blacksmith you can find and then meet us back at Cair Paravel."
"I'll do it," agreed Puddleglum, a somber frown on his brow and lips. "What's a fellow got in life but to do their duty, that's what I'd say. Not that it wont be likely for something to happen on the way. The horse could spook and rear and I could lose him for ever. Or, I dare say, he could throw another shoe. Worse, we might not make it to a blacksmith 'fore darkness falls. But we must hope for the best-we've got to put a brave face on it."
"Don't mind him," Eustace whispered to Susan and Lucy as he helped them up into the coach. "he always talks like that. Deep down he's really very brave, I think."
Making sure her veil was still in place, that her headdress wasn't dropping, Susan sat down next to Lucy, across from Eustace and a girl around his age sitting quietly at his side.
"I'm Lady Pole, Jill," the girl spoke up when she realized Duke Clarence had quite forgotten to introduce her, currently busying himself with waving good-bye to Puddleglum. "Of Archenland." (She was, in fact, actually the sister of the marquis's son Susan or Lucy might have married).
"Pleased to meet you," Lucy told her, reaching out to shake Lady Jill's hand. "I'm Princess Lucy, and she's Princess Susan."
"I know," she said cheerfully. "I've met her father before, when he came to the Archenland court on a short visit some years ago."
"And how did you find him?" Susan asked conversationally, in spite of herself.
"He seemed nice enough, for a king, I suppose." said Jill, shrugging her shoulders in a disinterested manner. "He mostly spoke with my father and he took my brother aside and talked with him for a while. Jack said it was all small-talk, like about the weather and the ducks in the royal moat, probably just checking to make sure he wasn't a half-wit."
"I see," Susan said quietly, not sure why the mention of her father in the Archenland court made her feel sort of sad. Maybe she just missed him, knowing that as long as she was ugly and he was still ruling as king in a court she could never return to, they might never see each other again.
"If you don't mind my asking," Jill's cheeks reddened as if she was about to ask a question she felt she hadn't any real right to ask. "Why do you cover your face like that, Princess Susan?"
Lucy was wearing a headdress as well, but it was of a completely different style, a darker colour, and it covered her fair, wispy hair and the crown of her head, not her face. Susan's was more outlandish and mystifying.
Due to the long silence that followed, Jill's hand went to her mouth apologetically. "I'm sorry, really, I did not mean to pry."
"It's fine," Susan whispered, looking down through the veil at the slightly ruffled fabric of the skirt of her dress bunching up in her lap. "I cover my face because I must. I am unwell, I am sick."
"I'm sorry," Jill said again.
Lucy looked out the window at the passing roads...thought about her sister...her mother...her stepfather...Ettinsmoor...Archenland....Narnia....and sighed heavily.
AN: I worked very hard on that chapter and want to hear your thoughts. So please review.