The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Chapter Eight

"Three years is such a long time...!"

Gwen looked up from where she was busily stamping out rounds of ship's biscuit dough, ready to go in the castle ovens. On the other side of the trestle table, Bethen, the older of the two kitchen maids who had stayed at Beaversdam when the Telmarines had left, had stopped working altogether. Her hands rested idly on the her dough and cutter, while she stared at a spot in mid-air.

From the expression on the girl's face, Gwen guessed Bethen probably wasn't seeing the dancing flour particles in the sunlight which was all she herself could see just there. Being the only lady-in-waiting in the royal household, since the rest of the '-in-waitings' were fauns, had apparently qualified her for the position of confidant to the four younger Telmarines who had stayed. Or perhaps it was just that none of them had a mother. In the old Telmarine court, it would have been shockingly improper for a junior guardsman or a kitchen maid to speak to a lady-in-waiting in more than brief and deferential greeting. But such rigid hierarchies did not belong to the Narnian court – and Gwen didn't mind, either. Particularly. Except for Bethen's tendency this morning to forget what she was doing, when they were in such a rush job for the biscuit baking that Gwen and six of the fauns-in-waiting had been drafted in to help in the kitchens.

Gwen rather wished that the older of the middle-aged guardsman's two sons had waited just a few more days before proposing to Bethen. It had been blindingly obvious since King Caspian's coronation. Gwen had heard about it in lengthy half-whispers from Bethen and abrupt, disjointed sentences from her admirer, on and off all the time since. But now, when the whole castle of Cair Paravel was in a ferment of activity,they had to go and get engaged!

It wouldn't have been so bad, if Bethen had not been an orphan and therefore unable to marry until she was twenty-one. But thus it was – and hence the gusty sighs, and romantic repinings, and unfinished biscuits.

"It won't seem so long when you've lived through it," Gwen put in gently. "Don't stop cutting biscuits, please."

The latter part of her words went unheeded, probably unheard. Bethen turned a pair of dramatically reproving eyes to Gwen. "Don't you think it's been forever since the King's coronation...?"

The King's coronation had been three years ago. And the honest answer to that question was yes. Those three years had seemed so much longer than all years before, with the hope of King Caspian's coronation oath waiting each and every day.

To seek those seven loyal lords of Narnia...

But ladies-in-waiting have certain duties of dignity and discretion and lady-like deportment. They cannot repine like love-struck teenagers. The first year of Caspian's reign had not been so bad. While there had been no more war, there had certainly not been 'peace'. There had been so much to do: sorting and settling and putting to rights, like a country-wide spring cleaning, all of which had suddenly been compounded by the Calormenes.

"Cobbles and Kettledrums!" Trumpkin the Red Dwarf had grumbled at the time. "Even when they're not unhelpful, those darkies, they don't help!"

To the Narnian court that barely had time to draw breath between dawn and dusk, with the King practically living on the road trying to sort things out, the Calormenes had sent a most dignified and respectful delegation of grave-faced Tarkaans who expected to be royally entertained, a message from the Tisroc presenting solemn congratulations and desiring immediate discussions about amicable future relations, and more ivory than Gwen had ever imagined existed. Offloaded from the four Calormen trading ships, it had covered most of the seaward lawn at Cair Paravel.

"Well!" Gwen had overheard Caspian remarking to Doctor Cornelius, when the Calormen delegation had retired to their ships for the night. "I was wondering when we should start repairing the Cair – and I suppose Aslan couldn't really have sent us a much larger sign!"

The building work had run all through that first winter and on into the next summer. Scaffolding had still covered much of Cair Paravel when Narnia had assembled to celebrate the first anniversary of the War of Deliverance and the King's coronation. Gwen had taken a dozen hankies, and somehow managed not to use a single one.

Possibly because she had sat next to Doctor Cornelius who had denied that he needed them, but been obliged to borrowed every one to wipe his mysteriously wet glasses. But possibly not. Something had felt too taut within Gwen to cry. Because – she had known, up at Beaversdam, that such things had happened. But only coming down to Cair Paravel had she seen for herself the new quay which the Narnian giants had dug out at the edge of the island, and the two ships. The Wind Farer was simply a Galmian trading vessel purchased and renamed; The Lantern was new. Only a copy of the Galmian one, but a new ship, the first Narnian-built ship for centuries, all the same. And snatches of gossip through the crowds had talked eagerly of the new shipyard in Glasswater, and the dry-dock that was being dug to start another ship this winter. A bigger ship, an ocean-going, Eastern-sailing ship...

Suddenly it had all seemed very real. The King's promised voyage to the East, yes; but even more the voyage of Rhoop and the other boys whom Caspian was sailing for. It had seemed yet more real, painfully real, actually on board the ships. For the two ships, as part of the celebrations, were open to visitors. Everybody had been going round them, and however reluctantly, Gwen had found herself one of everybody. She hadn't even been able to change her mind suddenly once on board and flee away, for the Lord Drinian had materialised at her elbow to show the King's chief Lady-in-waiting around.

Drinian was a 'returned' Narnian from the Seven Isles. He was captain of The Lantern, joint admiral of Narnia's two ship navy, and of a single minded love for the sea. His conversation had thus run earnestly upon one line only, and Gwen had found her mind wandering. This was a Galmian ship. Was it the same as the one Miraz had hired from Galma? And if it was, where had the boys fitted into it? How had they divided the cabins? How had they spent their days?

"Are you fond of ships?" Drinian had asked suddenly, as if he had read her mind or at least detected her intense interest.

Gwen hadn't been sure how to answer that one. There had been a time when she had passionately hated ships and the sea and all things connected with them, because they existed and were to be used to take Rhoop away from her. The thought of King Caspian now going away on one at some point made her feel unsettled and anxious. But – but if a ship was to go and bring Rhoop home – she couldn't hate them. And there was-

Gwen had opted for the most acceptable answer to her present companion: "There is something about them, isn't there?"

Drinian had quite agreed. His conversation had set sail once more, expounding the glories of ships in general and remembering ships in particular he had known. The first one he'd sailed on … the first one he'd captained … large ships and small ships and …

Gwen had nodded and listened. It was something ladies-in-waiting did a lot of, but her question hadn't just been the empty remark of 'making polite conversation.' There was something about a ship, when you met it close up. Something in the smell of salt and tar and hemp rope and damp wood – very different to the smell of the sea by itself, and somehow more stirring too. Something in the feel of the rigging and the heavy cloth of the sails where you touched them; something in the thousand little noises about her; something in the way the deck shifted beneath your feet...

There was a reason why the King's eyes lit up when ships were mentioned. And there had come to be a reason, quite aside from her unmentioned hopes for Rhoop, why Gwen had taken up taking as great an interest in the news of the how the ships were doing as of how the repair work at Cair Paravel was doing.

The Cair had been finished in that second winter. The Narnian court had moved with much rejoicing, in a foul wet week that had made the muddy road down from Beaversdam seem longer than ever, in the early spring. And at the same time, the new ship had begun. In Cair Paravel, the news about it had come much faster, and Gwen's heart had seemed to beat much faster about it, too. The best season for sailing opened in early summer. Would – would-?

Money for the work had been rather tight. But that had not brought the sudden end to that year's hopes. The Giants on Narnia's northern border had chosen that moment to start raiding. The King had had to go north, not east, and it had taken him the whole summer and into the autumn before the Giants had been properly defeated. Gwen had gathered up her whole defunct hatred of ships and poured it out in the direction of marauding giants – until Caspian had returned in triumph, with the first of an annual payment of tribute large enough to have the abandoned ship in Glasswater finished without any more delays or worries about costs. Which meant-

Gwen drew a long breath and sighed almost as deeply as Bethen. Which meant they were here. Baking and packing and otherwise getting ready for the King's long awaited voyage to the East.

Down at the quay was The Dawn Treader, a glory of purple sail and green hull and great, bronze dragon prow and tail. If there was something about ships, there was very much something about The Dawn Treader! All Narnia, not just Gwen and the King and Drinian, seemed to be feeling it this time. In everybody's faces was the unspoken longing to go too; the crew members were feted and envied everywhere they went; and Gwen doubted there was a small boy in Narnia who would have chosen anything over getting to be the cabin boy of the Dawn Treader.

She suspected it was this spirit of national excitement which had led to Bethen and the guard's engagement. Gwen just wished they had not chosen right now. Not, really, for the practical problems of incessant daydreaming. But because-

Gwen rapped the rolling pin smartly on the table. "Carry on cutting, please!"

You couldn't really be irritated by Bethen, any more than you could go on hating giants who sent glowing acknowledgements of the power and majesty of what they termed "Narnia's Lion" and enough tribute to build beautiful ships. For, when rescued from her daydreams, Bethen raced to make up time with a speed and skill in biscuit cutting that made Gwen feel very much that kitchen maids are probably far more useful and worthwhile people than ladies-in-waiting, who mostly know how to embroider and stick cushions under queens' feet. That tray of biscuits was filled, whirled across the kitchen to the waiting stack by the bread oven, and followed by another and another. Gwen couldn't keep up. But then, she wasn't eighteen and just engaged.

Aye, to be eighteen and just engaged...

That was why she wished it hadn't been just now. Not that she minded or objected to anyone else getting engaged or married or anything! Just – just that the memory of it made the little, tight knot of anxiety inside Gwen feel somehow tighter and more anxious. Everyone else was thinking and talking about the king's voyage, more than his quest. How far would he go? The Lone Islands? The unknown seas beyond? Aslan's country? All that sort of thing. And even if they did speak of the quest, it was in a sort of numerical way. Would King Caspian find all the missing lords? Or how many? One? – two? – six?

It all made Gwen want to – but she wasn't sure what. Scream, maybe; or run away; or go to sleep for the year and the day Caspian was pledged to sail Eastward for, until someone might wake her and tell her the worst – that there was no news and no lords and the Lone Islanders had buried the few unidentifiable bodies which had washed ashore from the shipwreck nearly twenty years before.

Nay! It could not be so! Surely Aslan would not have opened the way for this voyage if it was all in vain. And there was no other way than the grace of Aslan that you could ascribe all the comings-together for this journey. The victory over the giants; the tribute; the exact number of skilled Narnian seafarers who had come back from Galma and Archenland and Calormen to make up the crew of the Dawn Treader. Even this unseasonally early summer weather, such that Caspian would be at sea and well out towards the Lone Islands before the third anniversary of his coronation. It could not be in vain.

Gwen repressed another sigh. And there lay the other fear. What if Caspian did find them? What if – what if they had just not come back? Found a good land, and recognised that there was no life for them in Narnia under Miraz, and just – forgotten – Narnia and anyone they had left behind?

No! That could not be, either! Or at least not for all of them! Octesian might have stopped for treasure; Argoz who was fond of a good and comfortable life might have stopped somewhere with the best Calormen mustard (a weakness of his the other boys had always teased him about) but not – the others!

Mavramorn? Gwen demanded of the niggling fear, stubbornly refusing to consider the nearer and dearer example. Stop and settle down? With his deep love of adventure and quest to find what it was beyond the eastern sunrise?

Ah, but, the fear began to retort. It's...

Gwen picked up the last ball of dough and slammed it down on the table and the fear. As King Edmund had said: Aslan opens the way as far as he would have us go. The rest is up to Him. For the King, that meant the journey to the East. For herself, that meant waiting in Cair Paravel. Gwen permitted herself a slightly wry smile. The Lion knew she had plenty of practice at that! She was a lady-in-waiting!

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There wasn't much time for waiting in the next two days. All provisions to be gathered; all cargo to be stowed; twelve reluctant hens to be recaptured when they decided they didn't share the enthusiasm of the rest of Narnia, would rather not sail on the Dawn Treader, and escaped into the castle orchards; the ceremony of Trumpkin being named Regent of Narnia in the King's absence; and then, suddenly, the early breakfast and the gathering on the quay for the morning tide.

To take ship eastward for a year and a day... It seemed like almost every Narnian had come to see Caspian and the Dawn Treader off. Certainly someone from every part of Narnia, just like the day of the coronation. Men, Beasts, fauns, centaurs, dryads, satyrs, dwarves, naiads – they filled the whole island of Cair Paravel with their presence and their humming voices. So very, very different to Rhoop and the boys' nearly unlamented departure, Gwen reflected, standing with the rest of the court party near the front of the crowd. Maybe the more people saw you off, the greater the chance of returning. No! Gwen caught her thoughts and shook her head at them. Whether you came back or not was Aslan's will and His alone.

"...and commend you all to the care of the Lion." At the foot of the gang-plank, Caspian raised his voice in final farewell, bent and spoke a few last words to Trumpkin, and then lifted one hand to them all and stepped on board.

Amidst the great clamour of cheers that arose in reply and farewell, the gang-plank was drawn in and the mooring ropes cast off. They could see Caspian on the deck, talking to Drinian, and the crew rushing about. And then a steady chant sprang up on board and men began to strain at the rigging. The great purple sail rose, inch by inch; flapped in the breeze and then swelled out. Between wind and ebbing tide, the Dawn Treader's prow dipped and rose and took its first rolling plunge toward the east. On the shore, hats and hands, paws and tails, and all manner of cheers rose again. And King Caspian was off on his voyage, to seek the seven lost friends of his father.

Even with a fair wind, it takes time for a ship to go out of sight, and Narnia stood still on the quay, and waited until then. It must have been mid-morning when a sort of collective sigh ran through the crowd, and everyone began to move again, and exclaim on how stiff they were and how late it was, and all the other commonplaces typical among those who have stayed behind, and are not, just at this rawest moment of parting, going to speak of the travellers.

Gwen could hear herself saying such things, felt herself moving through the crowd and back towards the castle gate, but it was all like a dream. None of it seemed real – as though everyone and everything that was real had gone away with Caspian.

"Lady Gwen! Oh, Lady Gwen!"

No, not everyone that was real. Bethen's younger sister Rhianel pushed out of the crowd towards Gwen in the shadow of the gateway. "Whatever shall we do without the king?!"

Gwen stopped. Why Aslan should have allotted to her care two ever-anxious kitchen maids who were prone to dramatic announcements, she wasn't sure. But thus it was – and Rhianel was looking so very young and lost and anxious and only fifteen – Gwen held out her hand.

"The King was away last year, too."

"That wasn't the same!" Rhianel protested, taking Gwen's hand and holding on rather tightly.

Gwen had to agree with that – but what they must do and the over-riding hope of it all was the same. The same as last year, the same as all these years.

Courage, dear heart...

"We have to wait, Rhianel. Wait for the King and trust in the Lion."

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A/N: Once again, Gwen has gone and subdivided her chapters! This was to have been the penultimate; now there will be two more!

I realise this chapter does skim very quickly over the first three years of Caspian's reign. This is because I have two other fics in progress about these: "The Call of the Running Tide" and "Soli Deo Gloria." When Gwen is finally done... :)

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