The Queen Susan in Tashbaan
Chapter 14 – And Your Enemies Closer
If you are still with me by this point you know it already, but it bears repeating: this is not my children's Narnia! It may not be yours either! Further, references to the Tarot ahead.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
Sun-tzu, The Art of War
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Carl Jung
"To Lowrey and our Canadian friends booting Nazi arse all the way back to Berlin!" Tebbitt crowed.
Susan inspected her spotty and chipped glass and discretely rubbed the rim on her skirt as Tebbitt poured them all second rounds of dark rum. The Bali Club would house all of them, no cover, plus Guy. The jazz and blues clubs in that part of Washington were one of the places in the city that were not segregated by race. It was not an especially remarkable concession to the Negro since members of Guy's extended family were always playing, dancing, singing, working, or cleaning at the Bali Club.
"To Lowrey," they all chorused. Susan managed to not grimace as she drank. She preferred the American whiskeys or Mexican tequilas to the Caribbean rums that were all so much easier to obtain than the European liquors.
Gladys was managing an unhappy brave face to Lowrey's exuberant enthusiasm, Tebbitt was obviously wistful, and the Colonel was as enigmatically observant as always. Guy was holding up the wall, sticking to Kentucky bourbon and Susan envied him for it.
Colonel Walker-Smythe cleared his throat, raised his glass again, and murmured quietly, "To Convoy AS-4."
"They sailed, Sir?"
"They did, Tebbitt."
Susan knew this already. She had seen the cables. Six ships, carrying 85 million pounds of war materiel had left New York yesterday. Two hundred tanks, howitzers, tank destroyers, and ammunition, all headed for the Suez and the Eighth Army in North Africa.
A frown ghosted across the Colonel's face.
"Something wrong, Sir?" Tebbitt asked, taking an alarming large gulp of his rum. He was "off duty" tonight, but still needlessly worried she would cut him off.
At Tebbitt's perceptive question, the Colonel's eyes flitted to hers. Susan read his unspoken message and said nothing. She and the Colonel had discussed the worrying story told in the cables of the payload of the SS Fairport, the last ship in the convoy to be loaded at New York harbour. Given the rush of the order, the Americans had had to load the ships as the goods came in and did not have time to apportion the cargo. The tanks were the last to arrive, so they were all on one ship, the Fairport.
"It's a chancy crossing," the Colonel said with a shrug. "Better than it was now that Admiral King is finally using convoys and this one has a three destroyer escort."
Nazi U-Boats had sunk over 500 ships in the Atlantic since January, many of them along the Eastern coast of America and the Gulf of Mexico. The Nazis called it the "American Shooting Season" – picking off fat, unprotected, easily spotted ducks one after another. The losses were highly secret to avoid revealing to the American public the incompetence of their Admiral in charge of naval operations. Admiral King despised the British, and had refused to use convoys or order simple coastal blackouts. The Americans had lost a tanker in the Gulf of Mexico less than 40 miles from the Louisiana coast in June; the Americans had just sunk a U-boat that day a mere 30 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
"Still, what are the odds?" Lowrey said jovially. "They'll pound Rommel into the sand!"
"To our American allies!" With that cheery salute, Susan poured the rest of her rum into Gladys' glass. If there were any more toasts, she was going to have to do it with something more civilized, like Kentucky sipping bourbon.
Amid the revelations of the slaughtered Jews of Europe, the Vice President's purloined pamphlet via a Gryphon aerial toss, and Cor's deployment to Dieppe, Peter had almost forgotten of the Gryphons and War Horses on their way to North Africa, and how Peridan had seduced the congresswoman into providing her support for the rearming of the British Army. There was something, not reassuring exactly but, workmanlike in Susan's letter. Every day, every letter, detailed something new, some other obstacle, some new task. They were holding dozens of strings, juggling dozens of balls. Yet, step by step, hour by hour, the War ground on, the needs continued, the death toll mounted, all oblivious to the contributions of a few people in a Washington office.
But for the nail in the shoe, the World was lost. No one detail was too small that might not matter eventually, a year or a continent away.
The problem with a job well done was that your only reward was a bigger, harder job the next time.
Susan was no longer surprised. After weeks, she knew that some member of Guy's extended family would always be everywhere she went and the Bali Club was no exception. With Charlie's trio (all second and third cousins on the father's side) starting up and Lowrey sweeping Gladys out on to the floor, Susan retreated to the quieter back tables. Agnes was there, holding court, and as she was there, so too was Tebbitt. Like a Hound to the scent, Tebbitt would seek out Agnes who was, as near as Susan could extrapolate the complex familial relations, Guy's second niece four times removed on the mother's side,
"Please, Agnes," Tebbitt was sitting across from her, cajoling, all soft pleading and winsome eyes. "I know this isn't a good place for the cards, but just a few?"
"Hello, Agnes."
Agnes smiled in return. "Hello, Susan."
Susan knew now not to offer a handshake. Whether for deeply held religious strictures, self-defense, or other reasons, Agnes wrapped herself in a cocoon of virginal impenetrability. Agnes did not touch others.
"The reading's always the same," Guy grumbled, easing himself to a chair at the table and repeating the complaint he made as often as Tebbitt asked Agnes for just a few cards. "If you ever listened to what she said, maybe it'd do you some good."
"Reginald, there are a few cards for you tonight," Agnes countered calmly, spreading a white handkerchief over the grubby cocktail table. Her hands were fine and delicate, strange for a young woman in domestic work.
From her lap she put down in quick succession some of the cards she usually drew for Tebbitt. The changeable Moon was followed by the balancing act of the Two of Pentacles, and tonight, the Page of Swords.
"And so, Reginald, you have some act of deception to come," Agnes said, pointing to the Page of Swords.
"No surprise there!" Tebbitt exclaimed. "All in a day's work!"
The dreamy and idealistic Page of Cups followed.
"Brilliant!" Tebbitt said with so much smug satisfaction, Guy groaned. Tebbitt was always happy when Agnes pulled the Page of Cups – he would be quoting the Romantic and Victorian poets he had read at University the rest of the evening. Susan hoped he found some pretty and appreciative flirt to whom he could recite Browning and Keats. It had been amusing and a little sweet the first few times he had mockingly regaled her with Love Among the Ruins and Ode on a Grecian Urn, but really he was better off quoting romantic poetry to a girl who would act upon it!
In that vein, as she always did for Tebbitt, Agnes withdrew the Lovers and next to that card, she set one of a man standing before seven cups, all brimming with strange, wondrous, and dangerous things.
Tebbitt brightened. "The Seven of Cups! That's a good one, Agnes! Better than the Five of Wands you usually show me!"
"Reginald, I have explained this to you before," Agnes said patiently, "Seeing Swords or the Five of Wands in such close conjunction with the Lovers is usually indicative of conflict and difficulty, not fulfillment."
"But Cups aren't about conflict!"
Agnes narrowed her eyes and Tebbitt subsided. She appreciated interruptions no more than the Colonel did. "In this case, you are correct and it is different, for the Seven of Cups shows choices to come."
"So I shall have my pick of girls!" Tebbitt was nearly gloating.
"No necessarily, Reginald," Agnes corrected. "The Cups may signal, as you say, that there are good and better choices available. It may also mean that these choices are all fictions, that you really have no choice at all, or that the choices that are available have hidden dangers, or that the desirable choice is not worth the cost." Her fingers lingered over the cup with the snake in it.
He shrugged expressively. "I like having options, and that one looks splendid to me! Not like the Three of Swords or the Five of Cups." With a knowing wink, he pushed away from the table, empty glass in hand. "And speaking of choices, I'm going to avail myself of the options available in here before Mrs. Caspian cuts me off."
Susan did not bother to respond. He could drink himself unconscious, though a drunken stupor would undermine his plans for wooing girls with poetry recitations. A few drinks beyond too many and Tebbitt couldn't keep his rhyming couplets straight. Susan left him to it and slid into his vacated seat as Agnes carefully collected her cards.
"He never listens," Guy complained, sipping his bourbon. "Don't know why you bother, Agnes."
"He hears what he wishes to," Agnes said simply. "In that he is no different than any other." Bending down, she withdrew a neat carpet bag at her feet and set it on the table. "I am glad you are here Susan, for there is someone I wish you to meet."
Susan smiled broadly and from her pocket fished out the peanuts she had picked up at the bar. "I was hoping you would bring her!"
A pointy whiskered head popped out of the bag, and a young, all white rat doe surveyed the table. "Legba," Agnes said, speaking to the rat, "I would like you to meet Susan. She is a very special woman and will appreciate you very much."
Nose twitching in the direction of the proffered nut, the rat scampered out of the bag toward Susan.
"Good evening," Susan said, her fingers prickling as the rat's whiskers tickled. "It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady rat."
Legba nibbled on the nut, then more firmly bit into it and pulled it out of Susan's fingers. She retreated to the bag to gnaw on her prize.
"I gave it to you, friend. I shall not steal it," Susan chided. "You are lovely indeed and Agnes is fortunate to know you."
"She likes you!" Agnes exclaimed, delighted.
"Well, I like you as well, Legba." Susan could never overcome that bias; she did not want to address any animal in the third person, as if he or she was not even there.
"I still don't like her tail!" Guy put in, pushing away from the table to put more distance between himself and the rat.
"Shhhh!" Susan scolded, teasing. "That is impolite. Legba will hear you criticize her and she has a perfectly lovely tail."
Agnes was already restlessly moving the cards in her lap. Susan had come to see it almost like a compulsion for Agnes. The Tarot were a means by which Agnes communicated with the rest of her world. Agnes also had learned not to push Susan too far with her interpretations. The cards Susan had so strongly associated with Lambert, the cards of Temperance and the resting Knight of the Four Swords, had reappeared periodically. When they did, she and Agnes had merely acknowledged the cards and moved on. More pleasant, Agnes knew that Susan found the images of Justice, the Knight of Pentacles, and the girl with the lion of the Strength card a comforting reminder of her absent brothers and sister. So, when those cards appeared, Susan would tell Agnes and Guy the stories prompted by those very Narnia-like images. Susan thought Agnes drew those cards frequently and deliberately in order to hear more stories.
Because she always did, out of politeness, Susan asked, "Do you have something to read to me, Agnes?"
In answer, Agnes quickly set down on the white handkerchief a series of cards Susan had often seen. They varied with Agnes' mood, but the overall messages were the same, and similar to those that Tebbitt drew. For this summer of espionage, there might be the inconstant Moon, the Magician, the cunning thief of the Seven of Swords, the balancing act of the Two of Pentacles or the deceptive Page of Swords. Often, Agnes would then muse upon the combination of the Three of Wands and the Six of Swords, the foundation set, the journey already made and the journey yet to come.
Tonight though, Agnes had something else in mind, for she drew two cards Susan had not heard her speak of before.
"The Six of Cups?" Susan asked, studying the image of a charming – boy? young man? – giving a flower-filled cup to a girl. It was almost childlike, with the bright colors and diminutive cherubic images of the girl and boy.
"The Six of Cups is one the few of the Tarot that explicitly references the past. It is a loving look backward. The card next to it is the Four of Wands."
Like the cards of the Knight, Strength, and Justice, Susan did not need Agnes to interpret this card or explain what she thought it meant as applied. The Four Wands stood tall, straight, and upright, rooted in the ground, festooned with and united by a garland. The Four, standing together, framed a castle in the background.
"A good likeness?" Agnes asked very softly, smiling, her fingers tracing the image.
"Very much so," Susan said, smiling in return. "Thank you. It is lovely, especially with the happy retrospective of the Six of Cups."
The contentment shattered with the next card Agnes set on the white handkerchief. Susan gasped and turned away, for the pain stabbing her heart was as poignantly real as that shown in the terrible card. Guy flinched in his seat so suddenly he nearly upset the drink, probably just as well, as Legba was making her way to it.
"Agnes!" Susan protested, deeply disturbed.
The Three of Swords was an awful image – a heart pierced through by three separate swords. After the cheerful and solid unity of the Four Wands and Cair Paravel, this image and what it could connote to an overactive imagination were horrid.
Even Agnes seemed startled. "I apologize, Susan. I don't know where that came from."
Susan was not going to try to divine what Agnes did, why, or how. This was brutal and devoid of the gentle and reflective quality of the cards so far.
"I accept your apology of course, but please put that awful thing away and do not attempt to read it for me," Susan responded firmly, "Ever."
Agnes quickly drew the card back into her lap, frowning and contrite, but Susan would not apologize for being harsh. Agnes could say nothing about the unthinkable image of a heart pierced by three swords that Susan wished to hear under any circumstances.
Legba offered welcome relief from the tension. Nuts consumed, the white rat scrambled across the table, scattering the remaining cards under her tiny claws.
"Lebga!" Agnes scolded, quickly collecting her precious deck.
Susan would touch neither Agnes nor the cards, but she could scoop up the rat out of harm's way. She stared into the dark eyes and twitching nose. "You are full of tricks, Lady!"
Guy snorted. "You are doing it again, Mrs. Caspian."
"What is that?" Susan asked.
"Sayin she's full 'o tricks. Agnes named her after Papa Legba."
"And who is Papa Legba?" Susan asked, letting the rat nuzzle her hair.
"The Trickster of the Loas," Agnes explained.
"A Trickster!" Susan let the whiskers tickle her face. "How perfect for a rat!"
Indeed, it was from Lady Willa, the chief Rat of the Narnia Mischief, that they had learned of the Trickster god of the Calormenes. Willa had been with them during the treacherous time in Tashbaan and came to know the city very well. Surveillance had been Willa's passion and she had adored the intrigues of Calormen.
"You heard of the Trickster?" Guy asked. "Wouldn't of thought that."
Susan laughed. It was always a little oblique when she and Guy, and now Agnes, spoke of Narnia.
"Well, not Papa Legba. But, I knew the Trickster was worshiped in one place, away in the South. He was a patron to the poor and the slaves, and was always playing tricks on his bloody and brutal older brother. If your donkey brayed in the middle of the night or your war horse went lame, it was said to be the Trickster."
She smiled at the memory for Willa had insisted the Trickster had had a hand in their escape from Tashbaan, though it was not something the Rat had ever been able to explain adequately. It takes one to know one, Willa had told her. And I know what my nose, ears, eyes, and whiskers told me. Certainly turning Rabadash from ass to man had been Aslan's work, but Willa had argued that the element of public humiliation as he turned from ass back to man had the hallmarks of the Trickster and she could not be dissuaded from the point.
"It was said the Trickster would taunt the great Lords and soldiers who worshipped his blood-letting loving brother and were cruel to his people. Among the poor, it was said that if you offered the Trickster your most precious thing, he would return it three-fold."
"Eshu of the Yoruba is another Trickster associated with the number three," Colonel Walker-Smythe injected, drawing a chair up to their table. "The Trickster is in mythologies all over the world. A common element is that the Trickster shows how the weak can overcome the strong through guile."
Susan hid her unpleasant start. She had not seen the Colonel hovering, though the possibility of being overheard was why she, Guy, and Agnes were careful in public places.
"Like Brer Rabbit," Guy said, pushing his chair over to make room at the table as the Colonel sat. He did not look concerned, so Susan relaxed.
"And that new cartoon character, Bugs Bunny," the Colonel added. "A Trickster if there ever was one." He nodded his greeting, "Good evening, Agnes."
"Hello George. It is good to see you again."
George? Again?
"And why are you playing with a rat when you could be dancing with me, cuz?" Susan shied a bit as Tebbitt appeared at her elbow. He really did have very intimate notions of space. It was probably only with conscious effort that he afforded Agnes the personal bubble she required.
"Because I enjoy the company," she responded tartly. Implied was that she enjoyed a rat's company more than his."But, as you asked so very gallantly, yes, Wing Commander, you may stand in for my husband." Charlie's trio had launched into a swing rhythm, it was terrific to dance to, and she wanted to get one good bye dance with Lowrey.
"If you will excuse me?" and taking her cousin's hand, Susan permitted him to escort her out on to the floor.
Colonel George Walker-Smythe watched the odd pair take to the dance floor for the swing. Of course Mrs. Caspian would dance perfectly.
"Well, I'll just go to the bar for a spell," Hill said, not waiting for the request. He collected his drink and drifted out of earshot.
Still, the Colonel waited, as Agnes stroked her rat with one finger, and caressed her beloved cards in her lap with the other hand.
When Hill was well away, he asked, "You stack the deck, don't you, Agnes?"
She snorted at him, as she always did, this renewal of their old argument. "Of course not, George. Do you wish me to read for you?"
"Of course not, Agnes," he mimicked back.
A pair of louts lumbered by. Hazy with drink, they leered at her and winked at him. He affected a dangerous and proprietary look that would keep all but the truly stupid and blind away from her. The protection would evaporate the moment he left.
He truly hated to see Agnes in these environments. He had thought on it long and insofar as Agnes was concerned, knew that his concern crystallized when he had seen her evade clumsy, drunken grasps at a party while juggling drink trays. Agnes' beauty stirred centuries of lusty feudal and slave privilege in men's blood. Her domestic service was only a bare step up from the slavery her family had endured in the British West Indies on the sugar plantations. There was no doubt in his mind that she would, sooner or later, fall to rape and pregnancy as the other women going back generations in her family had, mother to daughter. She was cleverer than those other victims, he thought, hoped. But if she endured where she was, the end would be the same.
He knew what those powerful and worldly men did and how they thought. He had spent his whole adult life studying how they might be lured by women and money to betray their countries.
"Did you look at the College packet I sent over with Guy?"
"I did, thank you, George. The answer remains the same."
"Will you at least consider it?"
"No."
"Agnes, I saw it again this evening in how you analyzed Tebbitt and Mrs. Caspian. You have extraordinary talents. With a university degree and training, you would be superb at psychoanalysis." He did wonder why she had picked that awful Three of Swords for Mrs. Caspian, following on the unifying symbols of the Four of Wands. Was Agnes suggesting a possible split in a family he had thought was very close? Or was it a hint of personal romantic loss?
"George, what you call Jungian analysis, I intuit. I cannot learn this or be taught it. I just know it."
He refused to believe Agnes' future was so hopeless a cause and would simply have to persist. He could not protect them all, but some vestige of a father's regret for young girls who could not be young girls motivated him always to try.
Mulling girls and boys too young for what they had to endure, he took a sip of his ginger ale and studied the dance floor. Lowrey and Gladys were inseparable, to be expected, one fulfilling the other, an anima and animus partnership, which if it had been a bit more interesting, he might have analyzed. To his eye, Tebbitt and Mrs. Caspian, the more intriguing pair by far, were behaving themselves. He allowed himself a disbelieving shake of his head and heard Agnes utter a bemused and satisfied chuff. Seeing Mrs. Caspian's poise in this more casual, social setting was making him reassess (again) just what her background really was.
"I mentioned before, Mrs. Caspian neatly handled a dodgy bit of business for us."
Agnes nodded and stroked Papa Legba with the tip of her finger. The rat nuzzled her hand.
"And so you are thinking of giving her a greater responsibility?"
"Of course you divined that as well?" He could never quite fully reign in his skepticism. The Tarot undoubtedly was a useful tool in Jungian psychoanalysis. He did not know why it was necessary to ascribe occult sources when the complexity of the human consciousness was a sufficient mystery.
"You are always very interested in her reactions to the cards I read. I can tell you confidently that what is to be learned of Susan is not to be gleaned from your psychology textbooks and research papers."
He laughed, conceding her perceptive point, and that Agnes knew he had tried just that. As he could not pat a shoulder or clasp her hand, he settled for gently stroking Papa Legba.
"How else then might a poor, blind man such as myself glimpse the human mind and soul? By Tarot and crystal gazing? In the Empress and High Priestess of the Major Aracana?"
On this ground, Agnes was comfortable and confident. "Both influence Susan, to be sure, though the Queen of Pentacles is a better fit than the earth mother of the Empress." She rolled a nut toward the rat and again restlessly shuffled her cards in her lap.
"Yes," he agreed, mulling it over. "The fertility of the Great Mother archetype does not suit her so well I think." So it always was – Agnes would speak in terms of the Rider-Waite Tarot and he would speak in the language of the Jungian psychoanalysis taught at University.
As Agnes put a visual to her assessment by setting the Queen of Pentacles down on the table, he asked, "And what of this Queen?"
"Very like the Empress, but not so associated with the creation of life. She is wealthy, often materially and certainly in spirit. She has the gentleness and intuition of the Great Mother, but with the practicality in the material world of the Pentacles suit."
That seemed a sound summation. "The ease with which she has slipped into our office makes me think I see the Trickster archetype in her as well."
"Oh yes, there is a Moon influence, some of the Seven of Swords and the Magician." Those cards followed on top of the Queen of Pentacles. "She could not do what she does, as well as she does, and not have that. She is, as I have cautioned you, an expert at concealment."
"But from where does this expertise come?" he asked, repeating the query he had made so many times before and to which Agnes had made no useful answer. He had overheard most of the earlier conversation and again was none the wiser. It was as if there was a common language among Agnes, Hill, and Mrs. Caspian, and he was the foreigner.
Agnes smiled enigmatically and set out the High Priestess. "She never reveals her secrets in full."
"Mrs. Caspian has revealed more of her secrets to you than to me," he chided.
"You are her Emperor, George. In your language you are her guide and wise man - teacher. Susan would not confide the full to you, not when she so values your knowledge and works so hard for your respect."
"Fair enough." Papa Legba was scampering about the table looking for mischief, so the Colonel picked up the rat for another scratch. "Anything else?"
"Regarding whether she can manage the deceptive task that is ahead?"
"Yes."
With studied patience, Agnes carefully collected her cards again. "Does she meet with a man or a woman?"
He wondered why Agnes thought that mattered. "Woman."
Agnes' eyes flitted to Lowrey and Gladys dancing. He would never tell her what the task was, but was always curious to hear her assessment of a person's suitability for it.
"And you think the woman might respond more favorably to another woman?"
"I wish to preserve the option of trying a woman first and then a man if necessary." There was only one other man he could send in and he knew where that would end. If the Colonel could spare them all that additional misery, he would.
Again, Agnes shuffled through her cards, the Queen of Pentacles on the top. "The Queen of Pentacles is a bridge and under her gentle and practical influence, there is greater trust, loyalty, and reliability. No one else among your staff better demonstrates these qualities in my judgment."
He gently deposited Papa Legba at Agnes' hand. "Thank you, I had come to the same conclusion as well, but appreciate your opinions." Rising, he nodded in the direction of the dance floor. "I shall see to it now."
With a wave in his direction, Hill saw his signal and ambled back over from the bar to assume the protective role at Agnes' table.
On the dance floor, the Colonel tapped Tebbitt on the shoulder, intending to cut in, and discovered that his timing was impeccable. Mrs. Caspian was already giving the willing pilot a jocular shove toward a pair of heavily made up, giggling girls at the end of the bar.
"Sonnet 18!" she exhorted.
"Colonel, Mrs. Caspian," Tebbitt awarded them both a jaunty salute, "Give me women, wine and snuff, for bless my beard, they aye shall be, my beloved Trinity."
Mrs. Caspian laughed. "I would suggest one of Keats' more romantic works as an alternative." With another gentle nudge, Tebbitt sauntered off.
Mrs. Caspian raised her arms to meet his hand and shoulder and the Colonel swung his protégé out on to the floor.
"I received word from the High King today," the Raven told the Queen under the din of the Faun musicians.
"He wishes for more information on the Grand Vizier?"
"Yes. I sent a message to the Tarkheena Lasaraleen asking for a meeting."
Queen Susan nodded her understanding. "Tarkaan Anradin said the Tarkheena and her husband have information on the Grand Vizier that would be very damaging should he make a bid for the Tisroc's throne. So, we offer her the information from Anradin about the Tisroc's general, and receive in exchange the information about the Grand Vizier."
He knew Queen Susan would have no difficulty following this reasoning. She had been with him when they had made the deal with Anradin and had seen the scroll in the Grand Vizier's own hand detailing a future Narnia that was weak and subservient to the greater wealth and resources of Calormen. They needed more information on the Grand Vizier in the event the Tisroc did not live forever.
He bobbed his head in agreement. "We will hold it, wait, and if the Tisroc fails or does not stand for a vote before the War Council, we use it to discredit the Grand Vizier."
He flew to a nearby table and settled on a chair back. The enigmatic Queen, who could wear a Trickster's guise and many others, glided to the next seat, her face furrowed with human concentration.
"Chief, the information we have on the Tisroc's general is very valuable. We need to be sure the Tarkheena offers us something in kind."
"Yes, we do." In his solemn stare, the Queen then perceived what he was asking of her.
She let out a breath of tense air and the authority she carried so well settled upon her. To a Raven's keen sight, it was plain the Queen Susan was no ordinary royal.
"I will do the very best I may, Chief."
"Your best is all I ask."
Peter thumbed the letter, thinking that in one sense he was seeing more in it than even Edmund had. His brother's notations were all about the plotting, the convoys of Gryphons and War Horses, the general's secrets, and the Trickster of the Calormenes. This was not a surprise, really.
Underscoring the unspoken point, Edmund was sitting at the desk, absorbed in his brown-wrapped book, frowning, fingers lightly tracing the page. As he had all his life, Edmund was, again, missing one element that was developing between the lines. Peter wondered if even Susan had seen it coming.
There was no point in raising his observations with Edmund now. It would have to wait for Susan's return next week and he would discuss it with her then.
Instead, Peter asked about issues Edmund would have considered, "Are you surprised that Susan is receiving so much responsibility?"
"After her performance atop that Gryphon, no. I think Sallowpad has an eye for talent. Susan is pretending to be an adult and is doing so well at it, Sallowpad is conveniently overlooking her actual age. I think she has fooled everyone else." Edmund looked up from his book. "Any reason why you ask?"
"No, not especially. I agree though. I think Susan has tricked everyone in Washington."
Queen Susan slid off Bardon's back at the gracious home of the Tarkheena Lasaraleen and her nominal husband, Tarkaan Ahshota. The pair owned The Daily crier sheet, and none in the known lands was more virulently opposed to the Tisroc and his Narnian ally.
"Do you have the food for her monkeys?" Bardon asked.
"Regrettably."
She had been able to quiz Prince Cor briefly about the "care and feeding of Tarkheena Lasaraleen" and he had told her to be sure to bring treats for the woman's spoiled, obnoxious monkeys – and hope they did not throw it back at you, or other, more vile things.
"How do I look?" she asked the Gryphon.
"Plain."
Sallowpad had told her to dress even more drably than she had to the Residence Dinner. It was very dreary and Queen Susan felt the lack of elegance in her apparel keenly.
Peter once again paged through Susan's lament about her wardrobe and her lack of fabulous accessories for this important assignation. Edmund had annotated the discussion with some very lifelike illustrations and Peter wondered if it was reflecting his brother's speculations regarding Tarkheena Lasaraleen, RAF Pilot Peridan, or perhaps that brown wrapped book he had been reading so very carefully. Between the pages, he found a draft response to the Gentle Queen, purporting to be from the Just King, setting forth in excruciating detail his long thwarted ban on corsets and extending the ban forthwith to high heeled shoes, hats, gloves, stockings, and lipsticks.
A good-looking young man greeted her quietly at the door –she silently thanked Prince Cor for this warning as well. The mirrors lining the richly appointed hallway multiplied Queen Susan and her escort many times over as they walked through the echoing house. The din of the city seemed far away; a fountain tinkled in a courtyard and the smells were not of a hot, crowded city in summer, but of flowers, fruit, and more faintly and less pleasant, monkey.
The Tarkheena was enjoying her baths day, the man slave explained. Susan followed him to the Tarkheena's opulent spa. Warm waters swirled from her private bathing pond; unseen, a player plucked a stringed instrument; servants and slaves, all male, attractive and silent, hovered. The Tarkheena herself was sprawled on a marble slab as her attendant, another man, shirtless and very muscled, rubbed fragrant oils into the lady's bare skin.
Susan ducked her head under a waving palm frond and dodged a nut– she hoped it was a nut – lobbed at her from a chattering spider monkey. Susan retrieved a sugared date from her pocket, carried for this eventuality, and held it out for the wee assailant. The monkey squealed her approval, swung down from the tree, grabbed the date from Susan's fingers, and darted up the rich curtains that hung about the bathing room.
"Queen Susan," the Tarkheena murmured from her dais. "Welcome to my home. May one of my boys get you something?"
Susan found that she liked the proprietary condescension no more when the tables turned and it was a powerful woman referring to her playthings. Whether man or woman, it was demeaning. She shoved the criticism aside. She was not here to critique the Tarkheena's self-publicised hedonism
"Thank you, no, Tarkheena."
"You are certain? I am enjoying date wine this morning, would you not join me?"
It was rather too early for wine, another point Cor had mentioned. Tarkheena Lasaraleen was astute enough to only conduct business in the mornings because by afternoon, she was drunk.
"Please be seated then." She gestured to a table and chairs.
The lady had pillowed her head on her arms. As Susan took the offered seat, the Tarkheena shifted on her slab, turned her head and looked Susan over. Tarkheena Lasaraleen was, even by the standards of the Calormene nobles, something of an outlier – she was unscrupulous, driven, intelligent, and loathed the Tisroc and all like him with a fiery passion. Purportedly, the only person she hated more in all the Known Lands was the Grand Vizier.
"You dress to obscure rather than accentuate your beauty, Queen Susan. Why is that?"
So scrutinized, Susan was again reminded that it seemed the only person of dim wit in Tashbaan was the Narnian Ambassador, Sir Flobber.
"Respect for my Lord Caspian, Tarkheena, still recuperating these eight weeks. Further, having lived so long in fear of Ettin occupation, I find it uncomfortable to do otherwise. Those who draw attention to themselves in Narnia are more likely to become targets and eaten."
The man working the Tarkheena's backside carelessly flicked the obscuring bath sheet away and with effort, Susan did not avert her gaze at the woman's blatant immodesty. Again, she was grateful for Cor's warnings.
The Tarkheena grunted as her servant began vigorously massaging her legs. In this stark, bright light, there was no obscuring the fundamental fact that Tarkheena Lasaraleen was old. She was slim, she was trim, and she had the very best appearance that wealth could give. But, the young men paid to flatter her, the oils rubbed luxuriously into her skin by strong male hands, the dyes painted in her graying hair, and the heavily applied kohls to her thinning lips and sagging eyes could not hide that essential fact. The Tarkheena was in a losing battle with the inexorable ravages of time. There was no grace here, just ugly clutching to a youth she was at least twenty years well beyond.
The lady reached for the pale date wine at her hand and took a hefty sip.
"The Crow sent you with something for me?"
"If you have something for us," Susan replied steadily, keeping a watchful eye on the monkey hovering overhead. She held out another sugared date and the monkey swung down, grabbed the treat, and darted away.
"Prince Cor taught you that, did he?" The Tarkheena sighed indulgently and rolled on to her back at a nudge from her massaging manservant, who continued silently working the Tarkheena's feet and legs. Susan hoped he would not go higher.
"Poor, lovely lamb. Has Cor departed yet?"
"Today, Tarkheena." And a painful goodbye it had been.
"So the Bird sent you instead." She scowled briefly, as if with pain. "Jivra! That's enough for now." Her man immediately stepped away from his ministrations to her bony legs. Lasaraleen enjoyed her men pretty and silent.
The Tarkheena eased herself to sit on the slab, carelessly slinging the sheet partially over her old and glistening body.
"You there, all of you, leave us!" the Tarkheena commanded. She slid off the marble and trailing her bath sheet, sat at the table opposite Susan.
Susan wondered what conceit operated that made the Tarkheena not even bother with a simple robe. Was Lasaraleen hoping to disconcert her? Was she so deluded that she believed the flattery she heard? Or, having boasted of taking so many lovers, so brashly and openly for so many years, did she simply not care?
A key dangled from a bangle on her skinny wrists. She turned to a small locked box on the table to open it. The monkey swooped down, chattering.
"Hello, my love," the Tarkheena cooed.
The monkey barred her teeth, and Susan hurriedly offered the horrid little beast another date. The monkey shrieked and clambered away again.
Tarkheena Lasaraleen opened the lock box and withdrew a thick stack of parchment. Susan, in turn, withdrew from her own bag the scrolls they had obtained from Tarkaan Anradin.
"The Bird said you have information on one of the generals of the Tisroc – may he die tomorrow."
"Yes. We have letters he exchanged with his mistress, a Telmarine girl, barely sixteen."
Susan proffered the letters for the Tarkheena's inspection.
"That does look like his own handwriting," she conceded, sipping her wine again. She carefully, and swiftly inspected each document, nodding her head with satisfaction.
The Tarkheena's smile turned vicious and smug. "Excellent. He is quite the favorite of the Tisroc and may have political aspirations of his own. This should put the match on his pyre nicely. What else?"
Susan moved the relevant parchment to the top for the Tarkheena to review. "We have a report, attested to, that the General slapped and kicked a perilously ill soldier."
"So, he is corrupting maidens and beating his own men. Better and better." Her eyes glinting with malice, she added, "The General could be destroyed over these."
Susan quickly gathered up the documents. The Colonel had instructed her to give the Tarkheena a taste of the accusations, just long enough for her to assess the documents, but not enough for her to memorize them.
"And you, Tarkheena?" Susan asked. "What are these documents worth to you?"
Lasaraleen leaned back in her chair; with her bath sheet dangling off her shoulder, it exposed a sagging breast. Susan steeled herself and was not going to be put off by these parlour tricks. She knew herself how to use appearance to create impressions and turn advantage; her dour dressing was just such an example of this manipulation.
Lasaraleen suddenly bent again to her little chest and withdrew an enormous, brilliant blue diamond set with white stones. Susan recognized it immediately – the Desire.
"Pretty thing, isn't it?" Lasaraleen said with vain titter. "You have heard of it, of course. Everyone has, the Desire."
She undid the clasp and settled it around her own wrinkling neck. "No one else may touch it. Bad luck, death, madness to those that do."
With her motions and manipulations, the sheet slid off her torso completely to pool about her waist.
Tarkheena Lasaraleen placed her hand over the Desire, and the mocking tone was replaced with something steely hard. "The Tisroc, the Grand Vizier and their ilk would have the Tarkaans and Tarkheenas divide up their hard earned possessions and share them. With the poor," she bit out like an epithet.
"Understand this, Queen Susan," she hissed. "This is mine. I earned it and I will not share it. Let the Trickster damn the Grand Vizier and all who fly with him if they try to take it or anything else away from me."
"Of course," Susan murmured politely, wondering where this was going. It was not a rant; the Tarkheena was instructing.
"As vilely corrupt and profligate as the Grand Vizier is, the Galmans are worse."
"Soviet Union!" Edmund suddenly spouted from his vantage at the desk. Peter was so startled by the unexpected outburst, he nearly spit out the glass of water he was drinking.
"Yes, Edmund," he said patiently. "I was able to discern that a tirade against Galma and the confiscation of personal wealth by the State for redistribution for the greater good are references to the liberal politics of President Roosevelt, the even more liberal politics of Vice President Wallace, and American hatred of communism, Stalin and the Soviet Union."
"You heard the Grand Vizier visited Galma, yes?"
Susan nodded. "Of course. His tour of the communes was reported extensively in the crier sheets."
At this mention, Lasaraleen snarled. Bright spots appeared on her face, obscuring the red blush already painted there.
"Those happy, smiling communes were a complete fabrication, Susan of Narnia. It was all a clever fraud erected to fool the Grand Vizier in a scheme worthy of the Trickster himself."
It was an effort to keep herself poised and collected. This state visit had been meticulously planned and widely discussed. Susan's incredulity must have shown.
Smugly, the Tarkheena took another hearty sip of her sweet wine. "The Grand Vizier was so thick he believed what the Galmans told him without checking basic facts."
"And those facts are?"
The Tarkheena nodded approvingly. "Would that the Grand Vizier had your acumen, Queen Susan."
The Tarkheena sorted through a thick stack of parchment and spread out a series of gruesome sketches, statements and letters written in broken and despairing hands. The Tarkheena pointed out a particularly heart wrenching drawing, painstakingly rendered. Having seen what a clever forger could cobble together, the documents could be as fraudulent as what had been shown to the Grand Vizier. Susan thought these were legitimate, or at least real enough to pass for authentic.
"Might I take a sample page or two for our expert to review?" she asked.
The Tarkheena shrugged. "Fine. What your expert will tell you is that based upon those documents, those communes of cheerful volunteers the Grand Vizier saw are really labor camps manned by slaves who were driven from their homes, their property confiscated for the greater good of Galma."
Susan scanned the stack quickly and withdrew two drawings and two purported eyewitness statements.
The Tarkheena busied herself with organizing the remaining material and neatly stowing it in her lock box again. "The Grand Vizier is the most dangerous sort of man – he professes virtue, he has many, many ideas, the power to act upon them, and he is gullible and guileless to the point of utter stupidity. The Galman King is evil, the Grand Vizier thinks he is Tash reborn, and he would sell every last Calormene for a sack of seed and the promise of a new world order and think he got the better deal."
Pressing the point, Queen Susan asked, "Why would you sell this information to the Narnians? This is powerful material, so why not keep the exclusive for your own crier sheet?"
The Tarkheena made a disapproving tut sound. "You were doing so well, young Susan."
She bristled at the condescension but held her temper. "Enlighten me then, Tarkheena."
Lasaraleen shrugged. "More than one outlet for a bad story is not a bad thing you know. We would leak these stories to our friends in the Tisroc's opposition. However, they have their own skeletons and bedbugs, and if they compromise to protect themselves, the Grand Vizier's stupidity might not see the light."
"Narnia is your failsafe, then."
"Our ally," she whispered, fiercely, leaning forward to clasp Susan hand. The Desire swung pendulously between her shriveling breasts – a macabre image in bright daylight. "If Narnia does not fear the Grand Vizier, then you are fools. He would cut off Calormen support for Narnia in a moment, and watch your monarchy fall without a single regret."
"Neither the High King nor Chief Sallowpad are fools, Tarkheena," Susan responded icily, withdrawing her hand from Lasaraleen's clasp.
The woman laughed an annoying titter and the Desire quivered on her throat.
"She's even worse than the real Tarkheena Lasaraleen," Edmund said from his desk, once again displaying the uncanny knack for discerning Peter's reading speed. "If it is who I think it is, she and her husband own one of the most anti-Roosevelt rags in America."
"That comes through clearly," Peter said, skimming Susan's bizarre code again. The British were doing deals to gather information on Vice President Wallace. The business with Galma was probably some foreign trip taken to the Soviet Union. Regardless, the implication was that British were saving the information as a squirrel stowed nuts, for possible use later.
They were going further even then gathering intelligence about an ally. The British were, it seemed, concerned enough about an American politician to consider interfering in the political processes that would keep him in power.
Had Edmund and Susan ever interfered so in another country's affairs?
Should he ask? Edmund had said he would not lie to his brother and High King. That meant, though, that Peter needed to be very cautious in what he did ask.
Peter's answer came in what Edmund had said of Aslan's instruction to them. The way forward was here, not in Narnia. Narnia was important and to be cherished always, but what they had accomplished there was most important as a tool and lesson for moving ahead here.
Susan had done her duty as she had been trained to do and Peter was proud of her. While uncomfortable reading, these things were undertaken in defense against far greater evils. If the Nazis won, this business would not matter a whit. If the Allies won, eventually they would all be able to withdraw from this unseemliness. Susan was coming home next week, to those who loved her, and would thankfully be leaving this ugliness behind.
Colonel George Walker-Smythe had been drumming his desk absently, waiting. The appointment had been at ten o'clock. Mrs. Caspian would have been punctual and would not have lingered. At quarter past eleven, he heard the phone ring and a moment later, Gladys called out, in a voice still raw from crying, "It's Susan, Sir. Line Two."
"Mrs. Caspian?"
"Colonel."
"Any difficulties?"
"What she offered was, in my judgment, very good. We can discuss it at the office, and I am bringing back some samples for the Shoemaker to review. Assuming he confirms their authenticity, I recommend we accept her terms."
Even over the telephone, he could hear her reined-in fury. Mrs. Caspian's emotional control was superb, but could be even better.
"Excellent. Well done, though I expected no less from you. What is the problem, then?"
He heard her silent dismay that she had betrayed herself, however infinitesimal it was. She did it so very rarely and given that the deal itself had gone well, that meant only the one thing. What he did not expect was her swift, angry counter.
"She will only agree to the exchange if Tebbitt brings the documents. Tonight."
Well, that was that then. "Yes," he said, blandly.
Her voice was soft, gentle, and all the more devastating for it. "You knew, didn't you, Sir? You knew she would want Tebbitt with Lowrey gone. That was why you sent me."
If Mrs. Caspian was to advance, she needed to learn what it really meant to be a runner and babysitter in this dodgy business. She held the leash and sent others out to do the work. Still, so dignified a person deserved his truth and she had discerned it already regardless. "I had hoped she might be less likely to make the demand if I sent you, yes."
"It didn't work," Mrs. Caspian bit out.
"That was always the possibility," the Colonel conceded. It had been the likely outcome, actually, but preventing it had been worth the effort.
He caught some muffled discussion with Hill. He waited, though he had observed that Mrs. Caspian was as skilled at waiting as he was. She was not one who could be prodded to hasty or injudicious action. He heard his own phone ring and Gladys pick it up.
"Mrs. Caspian?"
"Sir?"
"Thank you for reporting in. I look forward to receiving your full assessment. I shall ask Gladys to track down Tebbitt and I will give him the order myself that he is to make the delivery."
He felt, rather than heard, her sigh of relief. "Thank you, Sir. I could not do it."
"It is my duty to give the order and his to follow it, Mrs. Caspian. Your duty is to provide the motivation so that he follows the order."
There was a pause, and then he heard a welcome firmness return to Mrs. Caspian's voice. "I understand, Sir."
The Teacher wondered if perhaps that had been the wrong instruction to give to his Student.
Chapter 15 to follow,
Folly
A special thanks to Anastigmat whose ideas on Agnes' Tarot reading I am now finally able to use in full. Miniver and Hever had given me the idea of exploring Jung, and so here we have another effort, by another person, to get to the mystery of a Friend of Narnia via some less conventional means.
I've noticed an increase in my "anonymous" reviewers. Thank you! If you want to have more of a conversation, I've enabled anonymous posting on my Live Journal as well. Links are in my profile.
Hearing from you all, anonymous, and known, helps me enormously and I am very grateful to those who take the time to comment.
Links to the Trickster and pictures of the Tarot cards, in particular the pivotal Four of Wands and Three of Swords, are in my LJ.
Longish notes are in my Live Journal because I couldn't possibly make this stuff up. To summarize, I've mashed several real life events together and tweaked them, hence the reliance upon the Narnia conceit for that aspect of the story. The events described above are based upon the following:
**Vice President Henry Wallace was a thorn in the side of the British and they were very, very concerned that he might become President if President Roosevelt died in office or did not stand for re-election on the Democratic ticket in the November 1944 election. In May 1944, Wallace visited the Soviet Union, toured Siberia and came away extolling the happy places he had been, unaware that the trip and his tours of the labor camps had been sanitized and doctored. Further, Wallace was known to be an adherent of the Soviet author, philosopher, painter and reputed occultist, Nicholas Roerich. The extent to which the British had a hand in having Wallace removed from the 1944 Democratic ticket to be replaced by Harry Truman is unclear, but the suggestion is made in The Irregulars and elsewhere.
**The Tarkheena Lasaraleen is based very loosely upon newspaper woman Cissy Patterson, who owned The Washington Times Herald. Mrs. Patterson was an isolationist and an opponent of the Roosevelt Administration. During a dinner party, Mrs. Patterson was purportedly caught in flagrante delicto on the floor of a bathroom with the husband of her close friend, Alice Roosevelt Longworth (daughter of former President Theodore Roosevelt). Mrs. Patterson was a notorious braggart about her sexual escapades. Another socialite, Evalyn Walsh McLean, not Mrs. Patterson, actually owned the Hope Diamond.
**Mrs. Patterson son –in-law was Drew Pearson, the muckraking Tarkaan Anradin of the story. Pearson was responsible for reporting that General George S. Patton's slapped the ill soldier Charles Kuhl, nearly ending Patton's career. Pearson also threatened to publish love letters between General Douglas MacArthur and MacArthur's 16 year old Filipino lover, Isabel Rosario Cooper.