Hailing the Hillside

O0O0O0O

The lists were to be posted the morning of the Narnian departure. This decision, although simple in substance and statement, was not reached until nearly three quarters of an hour had passed with Peter and Lucy closeted with a very small and fully trusted handful of Ministers from Narnia and the Lone Islands themselves. Opinions were greatly varied and often strenuously voiced, but everyone managed to keep his or her temper and in the end a consensus was reached that it was in no way any form of cowardice for the High King and Queen Lucy to want to give those who had been denied their request a little space of time to come to terms with the blow.

"Appeals made the morning after a rejection are invariably heartfelt but poorly reasoned," one elderly lord from Duke Lionel's highest court observed, and Peter received this truism with solemn respect.

"Then it is decided," he said, and Lucy looked at him encouragingly from where she sat at his side. "We will leave it to His Grace to make free with our decision the morning following our departure. We will hear no appeals until a twelvemonth has passed, and those we then receive must be prefaced with a letter of formal petition. Lastly," looking a bit less like a man-to-be and more like a very relieved boy as he cast his gaze around the table, "we are indebted to you for your service, gentlemen; ladies. Narnia will not become all she is meant to be without friends and counsellors such as yourselves; I think myself a fortunate king indeed to have such as you to advise me."

This speech was met by a smattering of applause, many embarrassed 'harrumphs' and much clearing of throats. Lucy, her eyes shining, accepted Peter's arm and let him escort her from the chamber. Then, standing right there in the corridor, she turned to him and flung her arms tightly round his waist.

"Oh, Peter," she said, "you know, you were simply magnificent in there!"

"Well," said Peter, and might have harrumphed himself, had he but possessed the advanced years required to carry the thing off with some grace. "Well, I don't know about that . . . but what of you, Lucy? You were splendid! You stared down that one Minister who said that we might do well to consider how we would look to our subjects; I don't know how you ever found the nerve."

"It wasn't what he said so much as the way he said it," Lucy reflected, slipping her hand confidingly within her brother's and matching her steps to his. "I mean, if he had just said it in a sort of thinking way, I wouldn't have minded at all. Lots of people think out loud, don't they? It helps clear your head, I think. But he sounded so disapproving and judgmental, I just knew he was truly thinking it of you, Peter— he thought that you were cowardly for wanting to leave. And I know you aren't, so I just couldn't let him think such things. It wasn't wrong of me to stare at him that way, was it? I was certain it would be rude to speak to him the way I wanted to, and I don't think Queens are allowed to call people out—" she paused here when Peter suffered from a sudden, fierce choking fit— "but I just felt as if I must do something. So I only did what I could."

"And as long as you do only what you can, Lucy," Peter grinned, squeezing the hand tucked so trustingly in his own, "there will not be a boy over five nor a man under ninety in all our kingdom who dares question my honour. Not with you serving as so fierce and fit a champion for it." And the tug he gave one of her wispy-tipped plaits was so brotherly of him, so very simply Peter, that Lucy couldn't resist taking one glorious little skipping step before she looked up at him with impish glee, a marvellous idea overtaking her.

"Let's go for a walk!" she said, and Peter betrayed surprise.

"Why, what did you think we were doing now?"

"Oh, we're walking, but we aren't going for a walk. I mean, let's get someone to take us somewhere we haven't yet been; somewhere we've not had time to see. I want to see some of this place before we leave, don't you? I want to see where these people have lived for so long. What about Felimath? I should love to walk all over Felimath, it looked like green velvet when we passed it on the ship."

"That's where the sheep are, isn't it?" Peter asked doubtfully.

"Yes, I think so; but you don't mind sheep, do you?"

"Not mind them, no, I just . . . well, I wonder at your wanting to spend our last day here consorting with livestock."

"Well I had thought," Lucy said gently, "that we might perhaps consort a little with the shepherds too. Or at least see where they live; they, and the fishermen and all their families as well . . . after all, we've spent a lot of time at banquets with the noblemen and women who will be coming to Narnia, but they don't often invite fishermen to banquets. And yet some of the fishermen will soon be our subjects too, won't they? So hadn't we better spend some time with them, too?"

Here Peter got a little red, said yes of course they should, and would Lucy kindly please not call him an idiot for thinking she had wanted only to spend her day playing with sheep? And Lucy, who was kind by nature, had assured him in perfect truthfulness that the thought of speaking that way to her brother had never crossed her mind.

O0O0O0O

Peter and Lucy knew that the journey to Felimath would be completed, by necessity, in a boat. It was their desire, however, to find a very small, insignificant boat, as both wished to escape the shores of Avra with minimal fanfare— something that would be quite a feat, really, given that they had been generously fêted at every turn since their arrival two weeks before. So as Peter went to inform a few people of their decision —lest Duke Lionel believe they had been kidnapped when they vanished from the castle— Lucy found a maid who worked in the guest wing of the castle and asked if there might be somebody willing to take them across the water without drawing any attention to the fact. The maid, it proved, had several brothers whom she felt confident would all be honoured to accept the challenge of smuggling Royalty across the channel to the sheep fields, and went off at once to make certain that this was true.

When the girl returned with the news that the boat was readied and awaiting their pleasure, Lucy would have immediately fallen in step with her and gone to fetch Peter to the waterside, had something in maid's face not seemed familiar. The Queen squinted a little, tipped her head, and then it came to her.

"Oh!" she said, "I know you, don't I? That is, I mean of course I know you, I see you almost every day, but . . . your parents, are they the Red Road Fishers?"

"My parents," the girl smiled, "and my four oldest brothers, yes."

"But they're coming to Narnia!" Lucy cried. "Your whole family is, isn't that so?"

"My parents are," the maid said, "and six of my brothers; but not Von. They are leaving Von the cottage for his own; he is to be wed next year at high summer, you see, and he and his bride will need a place to live. My parents had—" she broke off, hesitant, then squared her shoulders and finished her sentence. "My parents had nothing else to give them."

"Well," said Lucy, smiling in such a way as to assure her newfound friend that she found nothing at all about that to look down upon, "that's lovely, and how marvellous to know that we will be neighbours. For Peter and Edmund —that's my other brother, you know, King Edmund— have said that we should use the land around Cair Paravel to rebuild a fishing village that was once there. That is, it is still sort of there, only it's rather in pieces at the moment. We talked of moving it, but the merpeople and the naiads tell us that the fishing is the best just beyond the cove we use as our harbour, and we think that all the fishermen will be best served to make home there. I hope you will come visit us often!"

"Oh . . ." the girl looked rather awkward, and much the way you or I would look when somebody says they hope to see us at a party that we would not dream of attending, "oh, that is very kind of you, I'm sure, but I will not be going with them." Then, at Lucy's confusion, she found herself compelled to elaborate. "Two of my sisters will, but my other sisters and I could not be sure of work. Here we have an income and can help those at home; for all of us to stay at home would be an impossible burden. Only our two youngest sisters will go with Mama and Papa."

At this news Lucy was momentarily crestfallen, but rallied with remarkable speed and impulsively clasped the older girl's hand in her own. "But you would come?" she said. "If you and your sisters could be sure of a place to work, such as you have here? You would come?"

The poor maid looked much alarmed at being grasped so suddenly, but managed to assure Lucy that she would come, if it such a thing were possible, and thought two of her sisters might come as well.

"Then you must," Lucy said. "I do mean it, you must— I am so very sorry, I don't even know your name."

"I— Gerda, your Majesty," the girl said, seeming to suddenly remember that the little girl clutching her hand was in fact full-fledged Royalty. Lucy, hampered by no such recollection, merely continued to clutch Gerda's hand and beam at her.

"Then you must come. Susan and I will see to it that you find work. I am sure there are no end of positions in the castle, and Mrs Clogg —the Head Housekeeper, you know; she rather alarms me sometimes but Susan says she's frightfully efficient, and I think that describes her perfectly— will find a place for you there if only we tell her to. I can't imagine anything more awful than having to leave my family behind for such a very long time; do please say you'll come."

Gerda, her hand held and her heart won by the sunny-smiled little Queen, could only choke back a smile of her own as she said yes, of course, it would be her joy and honour to oblige her Queen and come home to Narnia with her family.

"But please, your Majesty," she said, and timidly wiggled her hand just enough to persuade Lucy to drop it, "if you and King Peter still want passage across the channel, we'll need to go now."

At this truthful observation Lucy at once apologised profusely, fell into step behind the older girl and said that of course Gerda was quite right, they must go straight away. She also, as they climbed the stairs, said that Peter, if he wasn't wondering what had become of them and their boat by now, could only have fallen fast asleep from waiting.

O0O0O0O

Peter had not, as it turned out, fallen asleep, but he had been on the verge of setting out to look for his sister himself when she appeared in the doorway, a very awkward and embarrassed-looking maid in tow. Gerda was introduced to her King as they made their way down to the water's edge, and once they reached the water's edge Gerda's four oldest brothers were also introduced to Peter and Lucy both.

The Red Road Fishers, I may tell you now, are a very large family, both in numbers and in physical proportion. The girls run tall and the men run taller, as well as very broad about the shoulders. Peter and Lucy, for all that the Fisher men bowed very low and respectfully, and treated them with a rowdy sort of courtesy that was particularly refreshing after all the polished manners of the court, felt that their courteous hosts were so very large as to make both young monarchs feel much like the children they were.

"And yet," Lucy would say later, "it's not as if they ever behaved as though we were children, was it? They had a way of behaving as though we were even more grown up than they, although I think that any one of them could have tossed the pair of us over one shoulder and not felt any the worse for it."

Peter would agree that it was so. The King and Queen sat in the bow of the boat belonging to the eldest Red Road Fisher, Von, he who was to be married at high summer. Peter put a few questions to Von about the nature of his trade, to which Von responded promptly and with a sort of honest deference that made Peter feel more a man than he had in all his time spent conferring with noblemen. Soon the two were engaged in deep conversation concerning the intricacies of channel and river fishing compared to open sea fishing as the boat made its way across the open water, and the boats of Von's brothers followed in their wake.

Lucy, for her part, sat with her hands in her lap and her face turned toward the channel mouth. She was eager to see Felimath, of course, but being on the water and realising they would so very soon be setting out once more for parts unknown . . . it was a little daunting. She had loved the time they spent with Lionel and Gertilda, with the rowdy, rosy family and all their equally round, rosy, merry subjects. Even time spent fussing over papers wasn't so terrible, when you knew you were doing it to bring people home. And now . . .

Lucy was not conscious of having sighed aloud, but as the boat ground gently into the sandy shores of Felimath harbour, Peter turned to look sharp askance at his little sister. Her sunny face was somewhat stilled, her expression one better suited to a woman much older than she.

"Lu?" Peter put a gentle hand on her arm, and Lucy jumped a little.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was thinking . . . but are we here already?"

They were, and Von was waiting to offer his hand in aiding the Queen to alight. She accepted, her tiny hand becoming quite swallowed up in his broad, callused palm. One foot got a bit damp when a pesky wave surged up unexpectedly, but Lucy only laughed, darted farther up on the beach and shook her foot.

"It will dry," she predicted, smiling once more, and Peter wondered if he might have imagined the more solemn look on her face. Certainly she seemed quite restored to herself, readily accepting an invitation to visit the Red Road Fisher cottage on behalf of both of them and falling into step between Gerda and a large Fisher man called Bain.

Bain seemed to be a favourite bother of Gerda's, for over Lucy's head the two exchanged much gentle teasing and several good-natured jokes. The little Queen lifted her face to follow each exchange with rapt fascination as Peter walked behind them with the other three Fisher brothers, who talked of tides and netmaking and any number of other things that left Peter feeling both completely out of his depth and greatly intrigued. He ventured to put a question or two to the men, and found himself promptly inundated with information.

The conversation was warm and friendly but it did make it tricky to properly appreciate the island itself, which was a pity. Felimath is the prettiest of the Lone Islands, low lying and carpeted with green, ringed half-way around with yellow sand, black sea-wall and cosy fishermen's cottages, and studded with fluffy sheep. The greatest part of the population is clustered about the cove and lives in a long strip of cottages housing most of the Lone Islands fishermen, who take their names from aspects of their own family homes that distinguish them from the others. This is why there are Blue Roof Fishers, Two Chimneys Fishers, and, of course, the Red Road Fishers, as well as many more.

The Red Road Fishers are so called, not because the road on which they live is red (all the fishermen live on the same road, a sandy, gravel-strewn track that is separated from the beach and cove by a sea wall of large, black boulders), but because their cottage is built at the foot of the red hill-track, a narrow trail of deep red dirt that carves its way directly up the hillside to the highest point of Felimath. The monarchs saw this for themselves when they reached the cottage itself, and the chatter amongst the Red Road Fishers broke off in favour of loud hails aimed at those within the family home.

"Hello, the house!" the cry went up, and at once a flood of people poured forth from the little dwelling to swamp family and new friends alike. Peter and Lucy both remembered Gerda's parents well on sight; Gard and Bea were a tall, kindly couple, work roughened and slightly careworn, but warm and generous all the same. It was with greatest difficulty that the monarchs were able to beg off an invitation to dinner, citing their desire for a quick tour of the island before returning to ready themselves for the voyage home.

"But then Landan and Serra must go with you!" insisted Bea. "Isn't it so, Father?"

"Indeed, indeed it's so, Mother," Gard nodded ponderously. "Indeed, it's so."

Landan and Serra were the youngest son and daughter of the house, and their little faces shone at the idea of serving as personal guides to the monarchs when they were on Felimath. Both were so deliriously excited at the prospect that neither Peter nor Lucy had the heart to refuse, so off they set, the King and Queen following the two younger children up the steep track cut into the hill above the cottage. The trail was not wide enough to permit them to walk abreast and so they went up single file, carefully picking their way along a steep, red ribbon of dirt that snaked and twisted its way through the verdant hillside.

"These are the shepherds' huts," Landan explained, barely pausing as he waved his hand at a cluster of little dwellings about halfway up the hill. "There aren't as many Shepherds as there are Fishers but they are very nice, and sometimes give us sweets."

"A high recommendation indeed," Peter said solemnly, and Landan, suspecting no irony, nodded enthusiastically. They then continued onward, Landan narrating every step of their journey with great and conscious importance. From him they learned the intricacies of the lambing season and the business of reading the tides; with his help they grew to better understand the delicate political balance maintained between the few Shepherds, who held most of Felimath, and the many Fishers who held but a single road of their own, and any other number of daily details that would have looked perhaps petty to a great lord but were the life and breath and living of those to whom they mattered most. More importantly, too, Peter and Lucy learned these things from a child who had not yet seen the need for diplomacy, and so shared each detail with a sort of reckless candour that was both charming and a great aid to understanding.

The little boy was, as near as the monarchs could tell, two or three years younger than Lucy and possessed at least four times her energy. Serra, not very much younger than Landan, was in contrast perfectly silent, and seemed to be made entirely of tangled dark curls and a dress and eyes that were rather too big for her tiny frame and face. She stayed clinging to Landan's side for the duration of the tour —and a more knowledgeable, self-assured tour guide than Landan could not have been found for the monarchs had they searched all three islands over— but near the end of their journey, after they had circumnavigated the upper swells of the island, watched a few late lambs gambolling clumsily around their placid mothers and discussed the daily business of life on Felimath, she made an abrupt transference. She did it in perfect silence and with utter lack of fanfare, but Lucy, who had been looking at her at the time, saw it happen.

As they returned to the Red Road that would lead them back down the hill to the cottage and drank in the view of the channel sparkling before them, Doorn and Avra lying serenely in the near distance, Serra moved, vanishing from Landan's side, darting three steps backward and taking up residence in close proximity to Peter's left leg. She grabbed hold of his hand —and her little hand was not only rather grubby from being so much out-of-doors, but also still quite sticky from a porridge her mother had fed her for dinner— and looked up adoringly at him.

Peter, for his part, seemed a little dumbstruck at his sudden acquisition of a hanger-on, but he was an older brother himself and a rather good one at that, so he let her stay, and said nothing about it as they continued on down the path. When they reached the cottage once more Landan bolted for the door, hollering for his parents, but Serra stayed where she was, beaming up at Peter in silent, slavish devotion. Lucy tried to be too polite to grin about it.

"I— erm—" Peter tried to remember how he had dealt with his sisters when they were this small, but he had been quite small himself at the time, so the memories were foggy at best. "Serra, it was . . . very nice to meet you, but I think perhaps we must . . . erm . . . Lucy?"

Lucy helped as best she could, but in the end it was Bea Fisher who emerged from the cottage to peel her youngest from the leg of the High King and apologise on the little girl's behalf.

"Oh, no," said Peter, flustered but a little pleased, "no, she wasn't bothering me, she . . . uh . . . Serra? Serra, we . . . you'll visit us, will you? You'll come up to the castle when you come to live in Narnia?"

The blinding smile on the child's face was in every respect as affirmative as a spoken reply would have been, and as Bain Fisher rowed the King and Queen back to Avra, Peter sat beside his sister with a rather foolish, fond smile on his face. Lucy, seeing the expression, smiled too, and put her hand in his.

"At least," she said impishly, "his Majesty can be certain of one loyal subject in the Narnia we seek to build."

And Peter fast proved that he might be King and Knight and any other number of lordly things, but he had not yet grown too noble to consider pinching a cheeky little sister.

O0O0O0O

There is little that remains to be said of Peter and Lucy's time in the Lone Islands. It was the first of what would prove to be many visits over the coming years, and the alliances that were formed during that first meeting would only cement into the truest and most lasting friendships as the years passed. The love and respect in which his subjects held Duke Lionel ensured that the Lone Islands were to become one of Narnia's most loyal protectorates, for the Duke would have brooked no treason against the boy and girl who had conducted themselves with such easy, regal joy the entire time they were guests in his home.

Parting was, of course, a terrible thing, since everyone had only just become such good friends, and little Winky, held in Gertilda's arms as they stood at the docks to see the Splendour Hyaline off, squalled in a most appalling fashion until Lucy caught him up in her arms and showered him with kisses.

"When I come back," she told him, "you will have grown so much, Winky. You will be big and strong and tall . . . you will be walking, and talking, I think . . . I daresay you might have forgotten me entirely. But I promise I will not forget you, and whenever we do come back I will bring you presents and toys and so many sweets that you will be sick all over me when next I pick you up to say good bye."

"Words to warm a mother's heart," Gertilda said, making Lucy laugh and promise that of course she would bring sweets for Gertilda, too.

"And thank you," she said, looking earnestly up at the Duchess. "We had . . . oh! the loveliest time."

Then Gertilda reached out and embraced the little Queen, petting her hair as if she were one of her own daughters, and Peter and Duke Lionel exchanged a very awkward, raspy-throated good bye and a firm handclasp that quickly turned into a hug as well. Then the King and Queen walked up the gangplank to board their ship, newly stocked with provisions for the journey to the Seven Isles.

"Are you sad to leave?" Lucy asked softly, as she and Peter stood at the rail and waved to the uproariously-cheering crowd. Peter nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Are you?"

"Very much," she said, and her hand sought his for a reassuring squeeze. "But I think . . . Peter, I'm also terribly excited. Just think— soon, we'll be doing this all over again, in a brand new place, with new people we have never met!"

And Peter thought it would probably be very impolitic to tell his sister that what excited her was that which scared him the most.

O0O0O0O

A.N.: I suppose that "there's so much more I want to write besides this!" is a poor reason to use when motivating oneself to finish a story, but it seems to be working for me with this one, so I won't question it too closely. This was actually one of two different stories I could have begun after concluding Worlds in Dream, and in hindsight, I really should have bucked chronology and grabbed hold of the one I really wanted to write, but . . . well you can see how that went. I have discovered that there is a little something to be said for raw inspiration after all!

Up next: Dealing with Difficult People, in which we see a King and Queen attempt to do just that.