The Ivory Merchants

Chapter Eleven - Diamond and Steel: Part Two

Ask Diamond for L

Alert E L beware Neerzat.

L b h p

Diamond for air

b h p

The first thing that sprang out to her eyes was Neerzat's name.

The longest sentence, and therefore the one which Peter was taking most pains to make plain to her. Alert E L beware Neerzat.

E and L were plain enough: Edmund, Lucy. But Neerzat? Did he mean that Neerzat was in Telmar? And planning to work against Narnia there? Well... it would have to be the Ravens to take that message to Edmund. As for Lucy—"Ask Diamond for L". Why did Peter think Lucy needed diamonds? Why had Lucy taken diamonds with her? And "Diamond for air"? and "b h p" repeated twice? What was so important as to need to be said twice, once in relation, surely, to Lucy...

Susan stopped in her thinking, feeling the fear for Lucy swelling up inside her, truly inside her, like a balloon expanding up from her middle and into her throat. No. No. She would not fear. Not to be lost in fear, anyway. Weren't they all...

And in a flash b h p came plain; she could almost hear the words, in Peter's own undaunted voice: "Between his paws!"

Yes, of course. Lucy was in Aslan's care, and so were they all, Peter meant, by saying it twice. Once to tell her not to let worry for Lucy swamp her, and once... once as they had all said it, as he had left, and again as Edmund had. She had said it and she would jolly well believe it. Or try her level best.

The Queen looked about her, pleased that she had decoded the message so far. So... what was left? Ask Diamond for L... Diamond for air. Lucy needed diamonds for air? It didn't make sense.

And that was why she had counsellors, she thought to herself again, and went back out into the sunshine briefly, and called across to the kitchen-garden party.

"Could Windseer and the Beavers come to see me, please?"

o-o-o

And it was, after all, so simple. Not diamonds, Diamond! Peter was pointing her to Diamond, oldest and wisest of the Ravens, to look for Lucy through all the land of the Telmarines.

"But what about that last bit?" she asked the assembled counsellors. "Diamond for air?"

"Oh, that's straight enough," grunted Mr Beaver, "and that's why he sent it written, not by Shortfeather's word, Shortfeather being air himself, and... well, you can see..."

"Being air himself?"

"Your Majesty," interposed Windseer, calmly, "the High King suggests that the Raven Diamond be named as the voice for the air-dwellers on the Council. He has sent this in silence, to give you the most clear space in which to consider, and perhaps also to avoid stirring a clamour of guessing and advising among others of the air."

"Ah!"

The Queen fell silent. This was Peter's answer—part of his answer!—to her aloneness. He was suggesting that she strengthen the Council, and putting forward Diamond as the candidate for Air, but not making the appointment himself. In keeping the matter private, he was leaving it to her, to appoint or not, as she chose. And his suggestion—she felt a curl of pleasure and love unfolding within her. For himself he would surely have chosen another Counsellor from the Air, the grim, hard-eyed, mighty-winged General, who worked closely with him to defend this country, or even his own trusted messenger, Shortfeather. To suggest Diamond was an act of love and concern for her, left alone to think and work for them all—and to leave the decision in her hands bespoke so much trust in her... She looked up at the three waiting Counsellors.

"I will not decide this high appointment now, friends; it calls for more thought. I charge you all to keep unspoken, even to each other, this part of the King's word to me."

They nodded, wordlessly.

"But the other..." Her face lit up with hope, and with the pleasure of being able to take some action against anxiety. "Call our Chief Raven to me now! I will indeed Ask Diamond for Lucy!"

o-o-o

Steadily, steadily... wingbeat by wingbeat, with her eyes fixed, raking the length of the Wall, from the Great River to the mountains of Archenland... and then turning and returning, and raking again, skimming low, barely a tree's height above the ground.

"Scour all the Telmar lands, starting closest to Narnia, good Diamond, for she cannot have gone far..." the Queen Susan had said.

The Queen Susan—grown thinner and paler though it was not yet one moon since she had stood, glowing and triumphant, at the opening of the Summer Fair. Diamond, oldest of the Ravens of Narnia, remembered well how it had been to be left in her youth as the chief of the Raven Conspiracy, in the darkest days. With every sweep of her wings she strengthened in her vow to lighten the load on her Queen, left in like wise, burdened with responsibility held in uncertainty.

Steadily steadily... and on her third passing the full length of the Wall, she saw: a small and solitary figure, determinedly half-walking, half-skidding down a long scrub-covered slope, to where one of the Telmarine work-beasts swayed, mindlessly, in its chains.

Her heart lifted. She had found the Queen Lucy. She could bring relief to the anxious Chatelaine in Cair Paravel, fill and more than fill her mission here. She slowed and glided down, landing on the gravelly ground, a little below the Queen

"Diamond!"

Queen Lucy's voice rang with gladness, and Diamond remembered again how young she was. And all alone here, she thought, and set herself to see that the Queen returned to Narnia.

o-o-o

They had not wandered long after leaving the smithy when a pleased exclamation from Mavram alerted Edmund to the return of the hunting party—Reznar, Nem and two other men whom he half-recognised from the morning's stir before breakfast. They carried bows, and a sack apiece, but not much otherwise—no such large kill as might be expected to be brought back by a hunting party.

The same thing seemed to strike his two companions at the same instant.

"They haven't got anything!" Izrah wailed. "Now what?"

Her sister jerked at her hand reprovingly, glancing across at Edmund as she spoke. "Behave yourself! They'll have something! Have you ever gone hungry in our house?"

"No," Izrah conceded in some confusion; the king saw that it had not been possible hunger which troubled her, but the success of the hunt as a thing in itself—or as a factor in this leadership struggle? Gul was not with them; he decided to try for one bold question.

"So Reznar mightn't be leader now, hey, Izrah? Nor Nem!"

"It's not funny!" she flashed. "And we never thought he would now, anyway, because he's too young."

The king, younger by some years than Reznar, let that go by, but noted privately that it was not lack of years that held Reznar back from leadership, but simply that he was not a leader.

"And you never even thought of Nem?" He tried to keep his tone light, as if he were joking, but he saw that this question stirred Mavram even more than the first. Time to drop it, before she stopped it for him—and she did intervene, almost immediately, speaking very stiffly.

"We are well content that Hoom should speak for the south in these matters, king. It is a pity these, our traditions, are distracting you from your proper business here."

And our traditions and your business between them made a strong demand that he should not enquire further—he bowed slightly in acquiescence.

o-o-o

"Your Majesty, greeting."

"Greeting, Diamond," said Lucy formally, and looked across to Kirrina, for her to greet the Raven in her turn.

"Your Majesty, I bring you word from the Queen your sister, and also from your brother the High King. I bring news of your brother, King Edmund."

"Yes! How is he? Is he setting the Elephants free? We are almost ready to help the ones here, and I don't even see any guards!"

"No, Majesty; the dumb work-beasts near the Wall here are left alone, as the Telmarines go north to debate their leadership. The King Edmund travels to the timber-haulers of the south-west, who are Elephants indeed."

"So there won't be guards to fight! Oh, good! And good, that he's going! And Peter?"

"The High King prevails against those who would break the peace and joy of Narnia, but he sends this word to you: Beware Neerzat."

"Neerzat? In Telmar?" The Queen's voice dropped from its eager questioning into something more distant.

"I do not know, but that is the word he sends."

Lucy nodded, storing the warning away for future thought.

"And Susan?" Her voice warmed again.

The Raven fluttered up to a branch, closer to Lucy, and tilted her head, fixing the Queen with one bright eye.

"The Queen Susan yearns for you, and has wept for you. None other has seen but I, unless it be her Counsellors, but there is little that I have not seen, and I have seen the tears on her cheeks, weeping for you."

Lucy stepped back, a little awkwardly, on the slope. "Did she tell you to say so?"

"No, Majesty. And I have lived long, and know well that it is not for me to thrust my beak into great matters," said the Raven. "Still, I counsel you, Queen, to leave this place and return to those who love you."

"Raven Diamond," Lucy's voice trembled a little, and she paused to steady it, "those who love me know I have to be here. We all Four were agreed that our Elephants must be freed, and when my brother left these, of course I had to come."

"Majesty..."

The Queen cut across the strong, harsh voice with a fresh, sweet dignity. "I thank you for your news, Raven. Please take this message back to my sister: I am well, and I am almost there.

Kirrina moved close to Lucy and murmured very quietly, "Do not dismiss this one yet, Queen."

"I am not going back!" hissed Lucy in return, "And my sister has not asked me to!"

The Raven's head jerked up, and she hopped a little backwards on her branch, her eyes glancing at Lucy and behind, uncertainly, but spoke again.

"She has not, Your Majesty. But is it not plain that you can do nothing here? These beasts are not Narnian."

"You are wrong, Diamond," said the Queen, firmly. "I've heard them."

"Majesty..." Diamond looked still more uncertain, and ducked her head as she spoke. "I am a Raven,and not a Hare, but I hear and see well. I have heard nothing from the work-beasts, nor ever seen a sign of thought in them. There are Narnian Elephants in Telmar, but they are far from this place, and your brother the King works for their release, bargaining with the Telmarines." She half-lifted her head again, twisting to look up at Lucy, beseechingly. "There is nothing for you to do here, and the Queen your sister has need of you."

"The Queen my sister," and now the Queen's voice was hard and clear as steel, "is the strongest of us all in saying that no Narnian will be left in slavery. She has not asked me to come back."

"She has not, but it will grieve..."

Lucy clenched her fists in frustration, and growing anger.

"Queen" came a quiet voice at her ear, "she tells you what your sister has not said. Ask her what she did say."

Lucy huffed a little sigh of relief at Kirrina's words, as offering a way forward from this impasse, and once again the Raven fluttered, seemingly disconcerted and looking searchingly into the empty air.

How might Susan say it? Lucy thought, and then took a deep breath and tried again.

"Raven Diamond, listen to me: I know my own business here, and I will not discuss it further with you. If you bring word from my sister for me, deliver it now, and no more."

The Raven ducked her head and looked away. Her beak opened twice, soundlessly before she spoke.

"As... as you command, Majesty. Your sister herself sent only this word to you: between his paws."

"Thank you, Diamond." And though Lucy tried hard to continue remote and queenly, her voice—she could hear it herself; her mouth quirked in an irrepressible smile—trembled with relief and triumph and joy, all mixed. "Thank you, good Raven! And to my message to her, add that, too! And fly well, Diamond. I love you very well."

"Majesty..." came croakingly, and the old Raven bowed her head again, as if acknowledging both her offence and its forgiveness, and then took flight.

"Well spoken, Queen!" Kirrina said. "You do well to love all Narnians."

"I do love her. She only wanted to stop Susan from being hurt, and I would love her for that, even if I didn't already for being herself. But she was a bit rude to you! She didn't ever once talk to you!"

Kirrina's face lit up with amusement. "Do not mislike her on that account, Queen! She is the oldest and the wisest of the Raven kind, but even she cannot see all."

"Oh! Couldn't she see you?"

"As it seems. Come away now."

"Could she see you if you wanted her to?"

But Kirrina was already setting off down the slope to the river.

o-o-o

A larger company attended the main meal of the day than had been present at breakfast, and it was a more formal gathering, though still seated on the floor, around several mats. Mavram and Izrah, seated one either side of the visiting king, both were slightly more dignified than they had been in the morning, clearly conscious that they were daughters of a great house. Hurrdah now appeared as mistress of a household indeed, directing both women and men in matters of their seating, and the serving of the food. But though she was powerfully in control, and as strong and capable as ever, she seemed to be less approachable; her face was brooding and she paid less attention to Edmund and seemed to watch more closely her older daughter and her son.

Edmund was glad to feel a little more free of surveillance. In this large company, he began to see just how, in Telmarine society, providing for followers made a leader. The followers—such as the young men who had gone with Reznar to the hunt—seemed to take it as a matter of course that they would be fed and sheltered in his house. In return—they did not precisely defer to him, but the king could see that had he more age or weight of character, they would do so. Instead, the deference seemed divided between the wary respect they showed his mother, and the elaborate courtesies offered by most of the young men to Mavram, who for her part seemed more disposed to give her friendship to Nem than to any other—he had moved from his assigned place to sit closer, at her beckoning.

The food was good; a stew again, with some small unidentified meat—squirrel? tree-rat?—and chunks of some large mealy nut, as well as two different fungi—the large creamy half-moons of wood-curd, and some small, brown chewy globes with a distinctive earthy-rich flavour. He turned, cheerfully, to the little girl who sat next to him.

"Your brother and Nem have provided well for us today, Mistress Izrah, despite your wailing that the hunters had not brought you home your dinner!"

"I knew there'd be plenty to eat," she said with dignity. "There always is."

It was a gallant attempt to wipe out her words of a few hours back; he felt a warm respect for her, almost an affection. "Good food is a great blessing. I am glad Telmar lives so well."

She seemed to relax little at the genuine warmth in his voice.

"We do! And next time Reznar will get a goat."

"Even this wood-curd alone, and these nuts could be the start of a good meal, I think," he said, to turn the talk to less contentious matters.

"Oh, that was just Nem. He got those!"

"May Master Nem always have such success in his hunt! Mmmmmm!" he said, holding up some of the wood-curd and smacking his lips over it, to make her laugh.

She did laugh, though it seemed more at his words than his clowning. "You don't hunt wood-curd, you just find them! So it doesn't count."

Doesn't count for leadership? he wondered, but did not speak his thought. Instead...

"But Master Nem has the good skill to find them."

"Only because Wisemother tells him things..." Izrah was saying, but Edmund was already leaning forward, grinning along to Nem, and still holding up the wood-curd.

"Well done, good finder! You found well!"

Unexpectedly, a voice hissed behind him.

"I have heard, and now I see it!"

Hurrdah.

She had been passing, he supposed; now, though, she was crouched close behind him. Now she leaned closer to his ear, saying low and bitingly: "Is it because you are young yourself that you do not see the shame in pressing a child for answers to the questions you fear to ask her elders?"

Edmund flushed, but did not attempt any self-exculpation, though it was hard to imagine what question she thought Izrah had answered. He had not pressed, but... it was true that he had earlier seen the advantage in Izrah's bouncy chatter.

When he did not reply, she jibed again from behind, still for his ears only: "You do well not to try to excuse it, king!"

"If you think ill of me, you would not change for any excuse of mine, I think," he said, as quietly. "But... " he swivelled to look straight at her, "if you bid me ask her elders, understand that I do not fear to ask. Will you fear to answer?"

She opened her mouth to reply, thought again, and then said, "The household mats are not the place for such talk. And I have much to do, and cannot... "

She was standing as she spoke, but he was quick to stand also, trusting that to the hall at large this would seem simply courtesy to his host.

"Then I will ask one thing only, if you do not fear questioning."

Her face and gestures were well controlled; only her eyes showed her anger. No more than he did she want a public breach, Edmund decided.

"I do not fear. We will speak again, and you may ask your question."

o-o-o

She arranged it easily enough but then, he reflected, the whole household probably was used to obeying her strong will. She simply announced, especially to her children, but to Gul as well: "You have spoken much with our guest already. I will take time now, myself alone, to speak with him."

Then, when they were alone: "I have not time to waste, but I do not fear your question. Ask it."

"I will be brief. I can see well that Hoom's family has lost by the change which came from the end of the trade in ivory; I can see that he holds this as a debt from new ways, and wants to return to the trade, and wants to use me for this end, hoping that he can thereby become leader of your people. But I do not understand why you, who brought to your family new ways of wealth and power, join with him in this. Tell me, what is the debt which you seek to repay to Capun, that drives you and your house in this?"

"A debt as old as the child you have badgered with your questions!" she flashed.

"Mistress, whatever you believe, or whatever I may have done another time, I was not at our mealtime pestering your child with questions for my own ends. Nor will I—she is as gallant and great-hearted as my own little sister."

The hostility on her face seemed to flicker, revealing an underlying sadness.

"A great heart—that is from Rittar, her father, like her shining hair."

He replied courteously, though he felt she was avoiding his question, "I have heard from her how he worked with you to build this great house. Izrah is very proud of her father."

"She has never met her father."

It took him a moment to hear that, to hear how her words, seemingly away from the point, had in fact been answering him from the beginning. A debt as old as the child... She has never met her father.

He looked closely at her, and she returned his gaze with iron-hard eyes, as if defying the past to hurt her.

"Forgive me if I give pain, Mistress Hurrdah, but let me be clear. Her father died before she was born?"

"The pain was given long since. Yes, he... died, when he was gone, like Hoom, on a journey to the North."

There was silence, as he wondered how best to continue, then she added, almost to herself: "Women can do more with plants than build houses, King Edmund."

It took him a moment to understand, or to guess, what that meant. When he did, he hesitated to put the thought into words; she had spoken as if thinking aloud, but she had said his name—she was giving an answer to his question, but in the Telmarine way, where silence could speak, to those who had learned to listen.

He chose his answering words very carefully, not to question again, but to feel his way to certainty: "Plants can yield medicines of great virtue."

"Yes."

"Or work to do powerful harm."

She did reply directly to that. Instead, looking far away, and as if she had forgotten him altogether, she began to croon more words of the chant which Hoom had chanted:

"did they not bring us safe through darkness,

did they not teach us ways of wisdom,

ways of power over the mighty,

from that which grows, the many uses...".

Her eyes snapped back to him, dark with things unsaid. She held his eyes for a long moment, perhaps until she was sure he understood, and then she turned and left.

So. He had his answer. Rittar had been poisoned, and so died, leaving a heritage not of great house-building alone, but of lasting hatred in this woman; she and all her family held his death as debt against Capun and for that reason had added their strength to Hoom's bid to gain power. That one act, a death engineered to retain power, was the small wedge which was splitting the people of Telmar in two.

Murder, hatred, resentment, division and underlying all of it, generations of cruelty to Narnian Elephants, their personhood denied, valued only as the worth of their bodies, whether in ivory or meat or the work which could be wrung from them in slavery. A huge weight of wrong, and he had so very little in him, of wisdom, or experience or greatness, to use against it. To find the way forward from here, he thought would take all he had in him, and then some.

o-o-o

"I'm going to get him used to me before I tackle those."

Lucy spoke bravely but close to, the chains seemed massy beyond her imagining, and the ring around the leg of the Elephant, solid and immovable.

"Iron yields, Queen. I know what lies in the earth, and I know how it can yield."

"Yes." But Kirrina's words seemed to come from far away. She forced herself to take another step, to get closer still, to see exactly how the shackle and chain were put together.

Even close, even so close that the Elephant stood above her rather than in front of her, it was hard to believe this was a Talking Beast. There was deadness in the eyes; there was no recognition there that Lucy even stood there.

She could feel her breath beginning to catch. Her arms—she willed herself to reach out and pat the Elephant's trunk, but her arms would not obey her.

Kirrina was watching attentively, but gave no help at all.

"I'm frightened!"

"Yes. I have seen it before, with mortals. You are in danger of hurt or death, and you feel fear." Kirrina stopped, and frowned a little, as if she were trying to see something a little beyond her sight. "This is strange, Queen; it is uneasiness, for me, to know you are in danger." She stopped again, and again seemed to ponder and then went on, more certainly. "It will be a sadness to Narnia, to know your death."

"Do you mean...? Do you know that I am going to die?

"Assuredly. Did not you know that?"

"No." Lucy had begun to shiver. "But... will I get the Elephants free first?"

The questioning on Kirrina's face dissolved into amusement.

"I do not speak of this day, Queen, nor foretell how this venture will unfold! Only that I know that all mortals die. As to whether you can free and heal this one and the rest... you will show me that, in your good time, I trust!"

She was again, in part, the teasing, impatient Kirrina Lucy had known by the sea at Cair Paravel.

"Oh. I thought... Never mind. I'm starting now."

She squatted down, next to the huge leg. It helped a little, for a moment, to pretend it wasn't part of a Beast at all—that it was a tree, maybe, which had an iron collar fixed around it. And that it was her job to see how it could... She looked closely at it. The cuff was hinged; it was two semi-circles which had been snapped shut, and were held together by one link, and that link in turn to the chain. It would be best to work on the one link which held the iron ring closed, she decided, and that way she could at worst slip the chain loose, but better, much better if she could wrench open the horrible iron ring...

Of a sudden the solid bulk of leg shifted, terrifyingly alive, weighty and indifferent.

In danger of hurt or death... The Queen did not move, did not even breathe. But she had come so far, and was here almost, as an emissary of so many. She thought of them all: of Edmund, who had felt so wretched in his imagined 'failure', and the hard-spoken Dwarfs of Krittinsfall, and their giving, and Kirrina's bringing and teaching, and Susan's trusting...

"I'm really starting now," she said aloud, not even sure as she spoke if it was true, and reached into her bosom for that which Kirrina had counselled her to ask of the Black Dwarfs. Diamond and steel.

Diamond and steel - a multitude of tiny sharp-glinting diamonds, chequering the shining, unyielding steel. It had been their finest work for many months—she had been able to feel that, and to see it as well in their fierce sidelong glances to each other.

"It'll cut their wroughten iron like butter," Kracherk had said, in a mix of exulting and contempt, and then had clamped his lips tight shut, and only scowled when she had asked about payment.

They had given it to her not with courtly grace, but roughly, and not because she was their Queen, but for this task, here, now.

Now. Gathering all her courage, the Queen edged closer, reached out and touched at last the rough grey hide—unexpectedly warm, and unexpectedly prickly, with sparse sharp hairs piercing the tough leathery skin. She held her hand still for a moment, wondering if the Elephant would feel her hand moving, and how he might react. But she was here, and here for a purpose. She slid her hand down, came to the iron ring, took a deep breath and then determinedly knelt to her work, holding the iron ring with one hand and grasping the dwarf-made file with the other, got to work on the imprisoning link.

o-o-o-o-o

o-o-o

Author's note: Made it! Finished a chapter by the month's end. I'll aim for the next by about the third week of January. And since it is in time for it,warm seasonal greetings to all readers. :)