It was almost midday when Peter turned the unicorn round, heading back towards Cair Paravel.
It had been a little over a year since he had first arrived in Narnia; springtime of the following year was coming round, leaving the land in a sort of soft, drippy thaw. Whatever remained of the snow was beginning to melt, dropping slowly down from the branches of greening trees. Bird songs were more and more frequent with each passing day. And Peter could take his unicorn out further, and for longer rides, than he could in the cold weather.
He had become very good at riding over the past year. His muscles had hardened from practice, his balance in general had greatly improved, and he was capable now of riding both with a saddle and bridle, in a proper procession or rade, and bareback, with nothing but the strength of his knees to hold him in place and nothing but the back of the unicorn's beautiful mane to grab onto.
He was fourteen now, and if he thought about his life in his own world, it was mostly just to hope that his mother didn't miss him-worry for him-too much. He didn't like the thought of his Mum never knowing what became of him; or of her calling the police and them never finding a sign of him, either. Professor Kirke might be too wrapped up in his studies to remember to tell his great niece if he suspected her son had simply taken an other-worldly vacation, courtesy of Entanglement. The thought that she might have been too busy with her nursing job to notice he wasn't there for the past year was almost comforting in comparison to the alternative.
Then again, more likely, he assumed, time wasn't going by in the world he came from same as it was in Narnia; he only hoped that, if such was indeed the case, it wasn't going faster there. It would be rather awful to go back one day and find everyone elderly or dead. Except for maybe the Macready; if she was real old, perhaps she'd be retired from bossing him around. Goodness, maybe she even mellowed with age.
Yeah, right... And maybe pigs had learned to fly in his world during the time he'd been gone.
As for the mystery surrounding the twins, Peter still hadn't solved it.
Really, he hadn't even come close.
True, he and Lucy were the greatest of friends, and he loved that little girl more every day and, in spite of her callous way of taking off with Edmund whenever the mood struck the twins' fancy, scaring everyone (including himself and her half-sister) senseless in the process, he believed she loved him every bit as much in return. All the same, she wouldn't tell him Edmund's secret; whatever it was.
Lucy would tell Peter jolly nearly anything else, but not that.
It was safe to assume she hadn't told anyone else, either, because there was no one-excepting Edmund himself, of course-she talked to more than Peter. She had begun, over the last couple months, to speak in extremely short, not even always grammatically correct, sentences to her sister, Tumnus, and a few others, once in a while, but never to hold a full conversation. The only person she really talked to in English continued to be Peter and Peter alone.
She did say, when Peter asked, that Edmund got bad headaches sometimes and that she comforted him; but she clammed right up, acting either awkwardly indifferent or simply running off and not showing herself for an hour or two, the minute he asked about her brother's green eyes.
There had been a time when Peter had truly theorized on whether or not it was impossible that there was a third 'twin' at Cair. Not necessarily Lucy's twin brother, a would-be triplet, but someone who looked like Ed, save for those piercing green eyes, perhaps related to their family by some scandal. The king had married a witch, after all, the royal family here wasn't exactly squeaky clean and saintly on all counts.
The thing that made him dwell on the theory was largely Edmund himself.
At best, the boy was moody. But he was gentle enough while playing with his twin; and he had been spotted, once in a while, lightly caressing Maugrim's fur. At such moments he seemed so at peace. Yet, other times, he would seem agitated, as if something dark and unfriendly was trying to claw its way out of him. It was like the lifting up of a veil, almost. Behind the veil, Edmund was reclusive and dark. When it was lifted, he was someone else; someone loveable.
But there were serious flaws in this theory, which caused Peter, after much inward debate, to have to let go of it entirely. The first being that, if there was a third 'twin', another Edmund, that one would have green eyes all the time; yet, since that day in the sitting room, Peter had only seen a brown-eyed Edmund, regardless of what mood the boy was in. It was true that sometimes when he wasn't doing well Edmund wouldn't look people in the eyes as readily, but Peter had caught a glimpse of them once when Lucy's twin was in a less than reasonable mood, and they'd still been brown. So, veil lifted or no, there was no sign of another person secretly living amongst the twins. Secondly, how would Lucy communicate with the green-eyed boy if he were a separate entity from her twin? In English, which she used so sparingly save for were Peter was concerned? It seemed unlikely. And the green-eyed boy, if he wasn't Edmund, shouldn't have been able to understand twin-speak. Maugrim and Maya understood Edmund and Lucy's twin-speak, but that was different somehow.
Moreover, there was Lucy's recognition of her twin that one time he did have those green eyes to take into consideration.
It was Edmund all right; through and though. That logical conclusion remained unchanged.
And so had the mystery lived on.
Sighing, Peter slid down from the unicorn's back, for he had reached the stable.
When it could be helped, Peter liked to take care of the unicorn himself, rather than have the stable-boy do it. And he had an inkling the unicorn liked it better that way, too.
"See you tomorrow, friend." He stroked the unicorn's muzzle.
The unicorn neighed softly, snorted, then stuffed its nose into a leather feedbag.
Once inside one of Cair Paravel's various antechambers, Peter found himself a comfortable chair by a window that had been left open so that a cool ocean breeze, coupled with the songs of the merfolk, could be enjoyed, and took out his Game Boy Pocket. He didn't know how much longer it would be before the battery died, but he hadn't used it too much his first year (there was rather too much else to do and see at Cair to bother himself about video games very often) and it had been almost new when he put the Game Boy in his backpack, back in his own world.
Being not far off, and hearing the beeping and background music of the game starting up, Edmund appeared almost magically at his elbow.
The boy-twin still never spoke a word to him, but they had sort of bonded in a silent way over the beauty that is video games. Lucy liked the Game Boy, too, and took her turn whenever Peter offered it, but she wasn't particularly fascinated by it, not like her brother was.
Right then, she was playing behind the only currently drawn curtain in that antechamber with a large, curly-haired doll in a blue-and-white frock. She more interested, as any eight year old girl might have been, in hosting a tea party in which the blue-and-white garbed doll was the guest of honour than she was in making a little character on a screen race jump up and down. The pieces of her tea-set that remained unsmashed (you couldn't have someone like Edmund for a twin brother and keep a whole set of china in perfect order) had various little chips and cracks in them, and part of the gold rim round the biggest cup was rubbed off or else simply faded, yet she seemed contented with her flawed toys regardless.
Peter wasn't the least bit surprised when he saw her, cracked saucer in hand, stick her upper-body out from behind the curtain. Since Edmund was in there, he'd figured she had to be nearby as well; also, Maya was asleep in one of the window-seats, and she didn't like to be far off from her little mistress.
She seemed to be trying to invite Edmund or Peter to take imaginary tea with her, but went back-quite happily, wholly unoffended-to attending to her doll when they waved off her offer, engrossed in their game.
"Oh, that noisy thing again?" came a sigh from the open arch that served for a doorway.
Peter glanced up, letting Edmund take complete control of the game, and noticed Susan standing there.
At thirteen she was even prettier than she'd been at twelve. Whatever small amount of childish rounding that had been left in her cheeks a year before was gone and she'd grown into her height so that it didn't look gangly.
It was the young queen's height, in fact, that Peter learned to judge his own by. He hadn't realized he was getting-and already had gotten-taller till about six months ago when he found himself having to look down at Susan instead of directly across.
"You would like it better if you tried it," Peter told her.
Susan wrinkled her nose. "Me? Play with that contraption?" She shuddered a little. "Your flashlight is useful, but I don't see the purpose of that silly old thing."
"Edmund likes it," he pointed out.
"I rest my case," she teased.
The sides of Edmund's mouth turned downwards and he glared at his half-sister out of the corner of his eye.
"Why don't you take a turn and see if you like it after all?" suggested Peter.
"Oh, I couldn't."
"Sure you could," he insisted, in a no-nonsense tone that told her he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Come here."
She folded her arms across her chest and looked sullen at his giving her an order, but she came nonetheless.
Trying on a rather too large black velvet hat trimmed with ermine fur, Lucy looked up from her tea party again and waved at Susan.
"Yes, hello, Lucy." She smiled at her sister. "Lovely hat, dear."
After wrestling the Game Boy away from Edmund, Peter handed it to Susan and showed her how to use it.
"This is the silliest..." she began, slowly getting the hang of it, her voice trailing off as as her concentration increased. "Oh, look at the funny little man jumping over the mushrooms!" She swallowed back a giggle. "This is rather amusing." Then, "However, if an army ever really does invade the castle, I highly doubt collecting gold coins is going to help."
Peter laughed at that; he couldn't help it.
Susan gave the Game Boy back to Edmund for a bit. "What are you looking at me like that for?" She'd noticed Peter had been staring at her ever since his laughter had ceased.
Frankly, Peter wasn't sure why he was staring at her. He just sort of was. Well, he did have some reason; she was dressed up real fancy-like, and he'd only just noticed. Her dress, apparently new, was of the darkest purple velvet over-laid with grey brocade. Round her neck was a necklace of black pearls with an oval amethyst pendant, and her long black hair was up in a silver hairnet woven with tiny white beads. But that hadn't been at all what he was thinking about when he gazed at her a moment ago.
All the same, it was as good an excuse he was likely to come up with. "You look nice. Is Cair Paravel having guests this afternoon?"
Susan grimaced nervously. If her hair hadn't been up so neatly, hanging loose, she might have tugged on the loose ends of it. "Well, now, yes." Her face flushed. "Prince Rabadash might be arriving sometime today for a visit."
Lucy broke another piece of her tea-set, dropping a cup down in surprise.
"Oh, Lucy!" cried Susan, leaping up. "Be careful. Don't touch the broken china. I'll have a servant in here to clean it."
"Don't want Rabadash." Lucy pouted. "Don't like him."
"I know you don't, sweetheart," Susan said. "But it's been two years since we last saw him, maybe you'll get along better now that you're both older."
Edmund gave Peter the Game Boy back; suddenly he didn't feel like playing. He hated Prince Rabadash. Why did Susan always do this to them? Always wait till the last minute to tell them her horrible betrothed was coming for a visit? A decent sister would just let them hide like they wanted to. But that was Susan for you, always trying to act like a mother; keeping them in line, making sure they stood, all scrubbed and polite, in attendance whenever 'important' guests arrived.
Sometimes, Edmund just wanted to scream at her, "You think you're our Mum, but you're not!" Except, that would require actually speaking to her, which he never did. Besides, what was the alternative to Susan being the 'mother figure' in their lives? If their mother had lived, Edmund was smart enough to discern that his life and that of his twin sister would have been made the worse for it. Though, once in a while, when a bad mood was upon him, temptation strong, he did wonder... Then it would hit him, like a ton of bricks, what he'd seen, the thing that had convinced him that any 'witch' in his blood wasn't something to be embraced, and his wondering would stop. He wasn't the sort to give in so easily. Not when the one thing that mattered, the one person he was sure he loved consistently and without any compulsion or valid resentment, was on the line.
"He's here, your Majesty."
Peter and Susan turned their heads, almost simultaneously, to see Catalina, Caspian, and Tumnus standing on the other side of the arch.
From somewhere not too far off, a tower-bell was being rung and trumpets were being blown.
Lucy and Edmund tried to make themselves scarce, but Tumnus took them in hand. "Sorry, but there's really nothing I can do about it."
Maya, ever loyal, sat up and stretched, padding over to Lucy's side, even though she didn't like Prince Rabadash either.
In another chamber, two doors down, Maugrim had been sprawled out on a cozy fleece rug. Yawning and grunting, the wolf shook himself as he rose. He could hear bells; a guest was coming. Edmund would be forced to stand at attention; he might as well be at his side.
So, by the time the Calormene royals approached, the entire Narnian court was standing outside of Cair Paravel waiting for them.
Not, of course, that this induced the Calormenes to go any faster. Oh, no, they took their sweet time. This is not to say that it is not a good thing to be cautious when traveling up a cliff-like terrain, but deliberately going slow as molasses when a perfectly acceptable, and not at all dangerous, path that is used daily without a single problem ever being reported, just for dramatic effect, is not the way to go about showing how cautious and wise you are. All it does is annoy whomever you're keeping waiting.
"For pity's sake," Susan whisper-hissed to the sullen-faced twins. "Try to smile a little!"
"They hate him, he hates them," sighed Tumnus, shaking his head. "No amount of smiling will change that."
The first Calormenes to reach the doors were a team of musicians. Peter thought they might say something, or at least greet their hosts, but instead, without so much as a nod, they began striking up a merry but far too high-pitched tune that made Maugrim flatten his ears, Maya whimper, and Edmund and Lucy wrinkle their noses in perfect unison.
This was done so that Prince Rabadash and his nobles could arrive in-sync to the beat of the music. It was rather pathetic, but as everyone else remembered the same kind of nonsense from his last visit two years before, it was only Peter who was taken by surprise and struggled, hard as anything, not to bust out laughing. He made of a point of not looking at Lucy, for his had a feeling that, if their eyes met and silently agreed on the sheer stupidity of Rabadash's musical number, neither of them would be able to keep a straight face; they'd both be doubled over in hysterics by the time the Calormene party was in sight of them.
Still, it was a terrible struggle. Peter couldn't remember the last time he'd wanted to laugh quite this badly but knew he couldn't.
Susan, thoughtlessly, for some reason having ended up at on his right side (the Narnian court, even under the rein of Susan's stricter advisers, was not so formal that line-ups were done according to rank, so it wasn't uncommon for a queen to find herself standing near a cook or a tutor or, in this case, a young man of no title who had been living with them for the past year), reached for his hand.
Afterward, the queen tried to maintain that, in fact, she had only been trying to get him to straighten up and stop biting his lip, so obviously fighting back a severe round of chuckles, by digging her nails into his hand; but that was not actually true. In fact, she didn't dig into his hand; she held it gently for the split-second before she realized what she was doing and hastily dropped it before Rabadash, or anyone who might report it to him, could see and get the wrong idea. She had, in reality, been trying to draw comfort from Peter, not reprimand him as she later claimed.
The music sped up as the horses and litters and other traffic created by members of the Calormene nobility parted like the dashed Red Sea itself for Rabadash and two of his tallest, most buff, well-adorned guards to come to the front.
The Calormene prince and his guards even alighted in time with the musicians' playing; and Peter rolled his eyes before he could remember to stop himself.
Then, forcing his face to be straight again, Peter took in Rabadash. He had been curious as to what the prince looked like, as he had never seen him before, Rabadash's last visit having taken place before he arrived in Narnia. And though he had expected a good-looking young man, dressed in finery, and those expectations were relatively met, he had also expected somebody gallant, admirable, and, well, younger.
Prince by title or not, his otherwise handsome and dark face was distorted with this appalled 'I smell horse manure' type expression, and there wasn't a single tell-tale sign of bravery or valor in him. Peter half-thought this prince would break down in a horrid tantrum and cry if surrounded in battle. He probably had been taught to fight, and to fight well at that, but when that failed him and the whole situation appeared hopeless, he didn't seem to be of the sort that was likely to stick it out and go down like a real man. Moreover, Rabadash had to be at least seventeen or eighteen years old; back in his world, it probably wouldn't have even been legal for Susan to date this pompous bloke.
"Good day, Queen Susan, O delight of my eyes, lady of my heart," Rabadash rattled off quickly and dismissively, not as if Susan really were as special and important as all that to him.
The two guards at either side of their prince bowed graciously.
Susan dipped a respectful half-curtsey. "Welcome to Cair Paravel, your Highness and your Lordships."
Rabadash took her hand and kissed it, then, pulling back, twisted his mouth and examined her as if she were naught but an oil painting his father the Tisroc had bought for him.
The twins pulled terrible faces on him, and their wolves (even timid Maya) growled, but he took no notice of them, save for out of the corner of his eye. If he thought of them at all, it was only in longing for the day after he had married their beautiful half-sister, firmly established himself in the barbarian court, and had the pair of brats and those sharp-toothed wild beasts that followed them about exiled as far north as humanly possible; Ettinsmoor, perhaps.
Reaching up, Rabadash cupped Susan's chin with one hand. He didn't do so roughly, exactly, but he wasn't doing it in a tender manner, either. He tilted her head up towards him, and stared at her face very hard for a few moments. "Lovelier every time I see you, O beautiful one, but you still have some freckles on your nose. You would look fairer without them, my queen. See what you can do about that."
Peter gritted his teeth. He liked Susan's freckles. Funnily enough, he hadn't been aware that he'd ever even thought of those freckles before, or cared a fig about them, till the moment Rabadash said something against their existence. Yet, he did. He really and truly did. He liked those small, sweetly scattered, freckles on her otherwise lily-white face; they gave her character.
"Who is this?" Rabadash had noticed Peter. He was dimly aware of the lack of formality at Cair Paravel, and he didn't like it. Which accounted for the extra load of condensation in his already rather patronizing and demeaning tone.
"My friend," blurted Lucy, glaring angry daggers at the Calormene prince. Usually she would never have spoken in English to someone she hated as much as Rabadash, but in Peter's defense, to assert that he had best not try to embarrass or hurt him, something inside her psyche must have deemed the uncharacteristic venture worth the discomfort.
Rabadash raised a single, dark eyebrow, looking as if a rock had grown a mouth and spoken. "It sounds as if you have found your voice in the time I've been gone."
The resentment with which Rabadash was looking at Lucy when he commented on her sudden ability to speak English struck a nerve in Peter, who, reaching out, wrapped his arm round the little girl and pressed her protectively to his side.
Nobody noticed that Edmund looked angry as well. Not just with the prince, but also with Lucy. She was beginning to talk too much, and that frightened him. Supposing she drifted away from him, forgot their twin-speak entirely one day in favor of proper English? Or worse, supposing, now that she had proven that she was physically capable of speaking English, even around people she didn't care for, someone came and took her away-separated them all over again?
Lucy might not have been the sort to dwell on their past separation, but Edmund lived with the horror of being dragged off to Anvard every day of his life.
Anvard in itself had been a lovely place, and under different circumstances, Edmund might have been happy there. In another universe, perhaps he was. Perhaps in some other world, he was even friends with the royal family there. But, in this one, he was not. Anvard symbolized being painfully severed from half of himself, and he could not will his mind-conscious and subconscious-to let go of that belief, no matter how much time had gone by since it happened.
And no one ever knew-or cared to know, as far as he could figure-how he felt about all this. He sometimes wondered if, to everyone except his twin and sometimes Tumnus, he was practically invisible. He even wondered if Susan really loved him, or if she secretly wished she was not burdened with an unruly boy half-sibling at court; that Lucy had been a single birth.
Although Edmund's anger and fear escaped Peter's notice along with that of everybody else, there was one thing the fourteen year old boy from another world saw that no one else did.
It was only for a fleeting moment, but he thought he saw tears glinting in Susan's eyes, being quickly blinked back, when Rabadash let go of her face.
If he ever really hurts her, Peter's thoughts raced, his throat going dry and his heart pounding without warning, I'm going to kill him.
AN: Please leave a review.