Needless to say, Lucy was-to put it mildly-rather cross with Peter for his answer to her request at supper the night before. More than that, she couldn't understand it. Didn't he want his brother to get better? Wasn't that why he despaired? Why wouldn't he let her help? Angry, offended, and still ever-anxious over Prince Edmund's illness, she strolled the corridor with a blood-shot stare and lips pursed in concentration.
She saw Peter coming out of an arched doorway, clad in a brown leather jerkin, a rather guilty expression clouding his face when he recognized her. Her eyes met his and asked for the millionth time why he had said no so abruptly and refused to be moved on the matter. Guilt didn't change his resolve, however deeply it pained him, and Lucy could have no sympathy for him at that moment. Holding back tears, she shot him one last broken glance and then hurried off towards the doors that led to the gardens.
Watching her take off, Peter sighed and turned around on the heels of his boots. Life was impossible sometimes; how could he possibly be king over a whole country-the beautiful land of Narnia-when all he wanted was to crawl under a rock after refusing the request of an Ettinsmoor Princess? Tired though he was, there was no chance of a nap that day. There were meetings, tutoring sessions, visiting with Edmund, formal meals, and then, if there was any time left over afterward, he thought he would like to try to visit the elder Ettinsmoor Princess again-there was something about her that puzzled him deeply, and it was the first mystery in a long time he thought he even stood a chance at solving. And, he had to admit, he sort of liked her.
As for Lucy, she didn't stop when she reached the gardens, she was too worked up for that-her legs didn't want to stop moving. Onward she marched, going right into the apple orchard. Not even knowing why she was doing it, she began to run amongst the thick, sweet-smelling fruit trees until she stood panting breathlessly at an old stone well.
The water was clear where the shadows of the leafy trees above it did not block the sunlight, glittering right down to its dark bottom. If the bottom had been made of a reflective material, she would have seen her stricken face looking back at her still covered in unfaded raw determination, but it was only mossy gray stone, so she saw nothing.
A light snort of a whinny came from behind her and she spun around so quickly that she would have fallen right into the well if she hadn't gotten a grip on the slide, pushing her back forward so as not to tumble down it. There was a white horse standing a little ways off, and at first she thought it was Isbjorn, wondering how Susan's horse had gotten out of the stables.
Taking a curious step forward, Lucy could see that this horse was a good deal larger than her sister's white gelding, more like a stallion. Then she noticed the pearly horn and gasped from shock and delight. It was a unicorn! A beautiful, real-as-corn, mystical horned horse, all flawlessly white except for his grayish mouth, was standing before her. From that smooth gray mouth, hung a long ribbon of pale purple silk.
"Hallo!" said Lucy, reaching her hand out to stroke the unicorn's nose. "Were you here the whole time?"
The unicorn blinked at her.
"What's this?" Lucy reached up and took the ribbon from his mouth. Holding it in her hands, watching the light wind push the silk to and fro, she exclaimed, "It's so beautiful!"
There was something of a modest acknowledgement from the unicorn as Lucy giggled, spinning around with the ribbon flying all about her as if it were the tail of a kite.
For some reason she never understood afterwards, Lucy quite suddenly shook out the ribbon as if it were laundry she was about to hang on a clothesline, and as it fell back down from the air, lowering itself, it became, no longer a ribbon, but a cloak. A cloak of velvet so smooth that to run one's fingers along it, felt like moving them through water. The lining was silk, the same colour and texture as the ribbon had been.
"Oh!" gasped Lucy, her eyes widening.
Somehow she knew the unicorn wanted her to try it on; he had such a waiting look about him and took one step nearer for every moment she delayed. Of course she considered delaying just so she could be nearer still to the marvelous unicorn, but that seemed disrespectful, and as she was a very polite girl by nature and by her training as a princess, she threw it over her shoulders, flinging the surprisingly-heavy hood over her head and face.
She felt something sort of cold just below her neck and looked down to examine this. It was a gold clasp in the shape of a male Lion's head; a single large ruby clicked into the great beast's open mouth.
Fastening it, Lucy felt very odd, no longer sensing the touch of the ribbon-lining nor the heaviness of the hood on her head. In fact, she couldn't see the cloak, nor her own body anymore, either.
It took a few minutes for her to figure out where the clasp was now that she couldn't see it and just barely felt it, but the unicorn seemed patient, as if he was simply resigned to her confusion and awe.
The only thing Lucy could see of herself before she undid the ruby-Lion clasp were the tips of her long Narnian dress when the breeze blew them out from under the toe-length cloak. Being such an innocent, it took four times of fastening and unfastening the clasp, turning visible and invisible, until it occurred to her that she could use it to spy on Edmund and try to figure out what his illness was, if only Peter had given her permission. It did seem awfully rude to do so without permission, though she was greatly tempted and actually blurted out in her eagerness, "I will do it, I don't care-I don't!"
Then the unicorn shook his head at her as if he understood and she recoiled sadly. "I'm sorry, it was rather nasty of me to say that, but I only want to help."
The unicorn made no motion to condemn nor to excuse her for this; he just went on looking at her steadily.
"It would be," she noted thoughtfully, in spite of everything, "easier to be invisible if this dress didn't give me away! A boy would have it so simple, wearing tights and tunics and jerkins and things!"
At this, the unicorn lowered himself down from his strong, solid hooves, onto his front knee-jolts, trying to show Princess Lucy something strapped to his back-a bundle all wrapped up in white silk.
Curious, Lucy untied the bundle and pulled out its contents: nobleman's clothing. There was a pair of wool tights so dark that she couldn't be sure if they were a very deep shade of midnight-blue or else simply black, a purple doublet with jade buttons and gold-thread, and a pale undershirt embroidered with a silver-loop pattern. They were much too large for a dwarf, but small enough that they wouldn't have fit Peter, slender as he was. Edmund might have managed, though, Lucy could help thinking, they might have even been a mite big on him seeing as he had-in her brief glimpse of him-seemed lean from his illness.
That was what tipped her off so that she looked more carefully at the undershirt's right sleeve. Sure enough, spotting an E embroidered in the same silver as the loop pattern.
"These belong to Prince Edmund, don't they?" Lucy asked the unicorn flat out, even though she didn't exactly expect him to answer her.
She fancied she did see a nod and hear a light snort, however, but she knew Susan would have said it was pure rot, only her imagination. Maybe it didn't matter. She wasn't sure how the unicorn had gotten Prince Edmund's clothes, but it mightn't necessarily have been through stealing, they might have just as easily been cast-offs; she'd have never kept them if she thought they were stolen goods. All the same, Lucy felt that perhaps with the prince's clothes and the magical cloak that came from a purple ribbon, she might just solve the mystery from the inside. If only she could convince Peter to let her try.
"I do wish-" Lucy sighed, turning her back on the unicorn for one moment, looking back to the well sorrowfully, fearing the uncertainty of the whole endeavor. She wanted to help the prince; but something told her it was going to be much harder than it seemed. Nevertheless, she had to find a way to go about it. Perhaps the unicorn would help her, maybe he knew something about all this, if only he could talk.
When she looked back, however, Lucy found the unicorn was gone; left without making a single sound or attempting a goodbye. The open bundle still remained in her hands. Hastily, she wrapped it up again, and the cloak became a ribbon once more, looping and tying itself around the bundle without the slightest warning.
Hmm, thought Lucy, tucking the silken bundle under her arm and marching back towards Cair Paravel, that was strange.
Shortly after Lucy's peculiar discovery at the well, Peter managed to slip away from his tutors-earlier even than he had planned to do so-and visit the 'sick' eldest princess of Ettinsmoor. He wondered, rather distractedly, unfocused on whatever he was actually supposed to be learning, if she had heard of his refusing her sister the right to help his brother. If she had, for perhaps Lucy might have told her, there seemed to be a good chance of her being cross. After all, Susan was a proud girl; proud for herself, and for her little sister, besides. Peter could only hope she would let him explain, but remembering her anxious, unsteady demeanor the last time he'd spoken to her, it seemed a little doubtful.
She might even dislike him for what he had said; but he didn't want her to dislike him, he wanted her to understand. Cringing just the littlest bit to himself, Peter lifted his hand and knocked on the double doors. If his thoughts had not been so clouded with frustration and guilt, he might have thought it strange that he could see actual light pouring from the bottom of the doors, when Princess Susan claimed she needed to be in darkness for her bad eye-sight due to illness, but for one reason or another, the thought never occurred to him.
He thought he heard a girl's voice answering his knock, and she didn't sound at all cross. Strangely, she didn't sound very much like Susan, either. But as Susan's voice was constantly changing its tone when he was around (which she, in a rather been-there-done-that manner, attributed to illness), there really wasn't enough reason for him to find this suspicious, and he was glad enough at being admitted.
Afterwards, the girl who had been in the chamber at the time always claimed that she had not said, "Come in," but Peter always was quite-though apologetically so-insistent that she had; and as Peter was a gentleman, and a crown prince destined to rule all of Narnia one day, it is unlikely that he would tell such a silly lie. Apparently, he honestly believed someone had answered his knock and his coming in had been completely innocent.
What he discovered, not without a sudden jolt of fast-striking shock, was not Susan after all; it was Lucy, in the middle of the room, the dress she'd been wearing earlier cast aside messily over the bed-post (Susan would have clicked her tongue disapprovingly at this, had she been there).
Lucy was just straightening out, not a lady's bodice at her waist, but a boy's doublet-a very familiar doublet.
Childishly, Peter almost reached up to rub his eyes, then remembered and caught himself, blinking lightly instead.
Lucy's own eyes blinked-then widened with surprise-when she saw him standing there in the doorway, trying to force the corner of his mouth that was slightly agape back into its proper position.
"It's not what you think!" she blurted out piteously.
"I was thinking-" Peter began, trying not to laugh now that the shock was wearing off (one must admit that it would have been rather funny under normal circumstances), "-that I've found my missing clothes."
"Yours?" Lucy blurted stupidly; she had assumed they were Edmund's. "I thought they were-"
Knowing what she was thinking, he chuckled, "They-at least the doublet, I'm pretty sure-were mine once, back when I was his age, then they were his for a while."
"Oh."
"I was thinking something else, Lu." he said, not unkindly, in spite of the no-nonsense trace in his tone that reminded her just a little of Susan. "Why are you wearing my-I mean, Ed's-doublet?"
Her cheeks reddened, but their hue was not as intense as it would have been on very nearly any other girl caught trying on a boy's clothing; Susan would have been scandalized, even Jill Pole would have been horribly ashamed. However, Lucy-because it was just her way-was only brought to a mild blush and a glance that had something of an apology in it if studied closely enough.
"Someone gave them to me," said Lucy, "and I'm sorry if it upsets you, really, but I only want to help-please say I can."
"You don't mean this is still about my brother?" said Peter, aghast at her forwardness.
She nodded. "It is."
"I said no to protect you," Peter told her in a slow, fatherly tone. "Not because I don't care about my brother. I love my brother deeply; but I wont have the whole world perishing for his sake."
Lucy couldn't help being stunned, for Peter looked as if he was just barely holding himself back from thrusting his face into his hands. "How do you mean?"
"Remember before," He reached for her hand and squeezed it lightly. "when you asked me about people who had tried for the peck of silver?"
"Yes," answered Lucy quietly. "You said no one important had-" she paused and swallowed. "-had tried."
"No one important." Peter restated firmly. "But people did try, and nothing good became of them."
Lucy grimaced involuntarily, waiting. What horrors had befallen those who had wanted to help the prince so that his elder brother, the one who ought to be the bravest in the kingdom, feared it? Not for himself, but for others.
"Four men, not of rank, power, or even of good-nature, which in itself would have been more useful, tried their hands at helping him because they wanted wealth." said Peter, sounding like he was telling a dark fire-side story, his face so serious, however, that it was so obviously truth rather than fable. "Two are missing, one is dead, and the last was committed."
"Committed?" asked Lucy, very confused at this. "Committed to helping?"
Peter laughed bitterly. "No, little princess, committed to an asylum."
"But, what for?"
"The man-a calormene who had been living at Cair Paravel for less than two years, if it makes any difference-raved like a lunatic about Edmund being cursed, dancing all night with demons in deadly forms."
"He was quite mad, then?" Lucy guessed softly, glancing up at Peter for confirmation.
The crown prince shrugged. "Probably. Father thought he was, anyway."
"Don't you?"
"Well," Peter volunteered slowly. "honestly? Yes, I think he's insane; so was the now-dead man who claimed witchcraft was afoot; my brother is not a witch, nor a witch's servant, I know that."
Trusting though she was, Lucy caught the catch in his voice and asked about it.
"I know those men were crazy, they were hardly stable before they yearned for that peck of silver, but all the same there is something that happens to Edmund at night, and I don't know what it is.
"I've tried staying up with him, but something always happens to me. It gets so dark that I can't see anything in the room, I grope about, but I can't find a light, not a single candle, though I always leave plenty of them around. It's like being in a dream but I know I'm not really asleep, and I'm not even sure if the bed chamber is still around me. Then, the darkness lifts, and I'm in my chair opening my eyes-but I swear, Lucy, I never shut them. And I can't remember anything...and there's Edmund, in bed, sick as a dog, same as before, if not worse."
Now Lucy had another question. "But if you've stayed with him, Peter, in the dark, how do you know he wasn't there in the dark with you?"
Peter shrugged. "I just do, Lucy, I feel it in my bones. I know it sounds stupid-don't you think I'm aware of that?-but it's not."
"I believe you," Lucy assured him.
"So you see-"
"I still want to help." She wasn't about to let it go.
"You want to help while wearing my brother's doublet?"
"Long story," Lucy giggled.
"I see..."
"Please, Peter, I'm going to ask again: can I help?"
His mind was chanting 'NO!' over and over but his lips moved and said something completely different this time. He nearly hated himself for it; he wanted to throw himself off of a high tower for being so weak and stupid; but he couldn't help himself. "Yes."
AN: Please leave a review.