AN: I have a few things to say about this chapter. First off, it's sort of sad and dark-themed, just a warning. Second, if you are unfamiliar with the fairytales this fic is based off of (or perhaps even if you aren't) there may be some things about Miraz and Prunaprismia's plan here than you don't understand, don't worry, most likely that will all be explained in later chapters and made perfectly clear.
I will not laugh.
No joy is great enough to make me.
No merriment is happy enough to inspire me.
My eyes may shine with all the laughter they want but no noise will my throat make.
I cannot even giggle for the results would be so devastating that I would have to weep afterwards, anyway.
Now everyone can see what I knew quite a good while ago though I couldn't tell them:
I am with child.
The courtiers are happy-or at least they pretend they are happy.
Carrying on otherwise would be an insult to their crown prince and they do not wish to offend him.
Prunaprismia looks at me with squinted eyes.
I cannot help wondering if that is because for many years she has wanted a child and Miraz has been unable to do anything about it.
And now, only after such a short time with my husband, I am carrying an heir in my womb.
Miraz acts apathetic.
I think he wants a son, too, but I am glad he hasn't got one.
It would mean danger for my husband-and maybe for my unborn child as well.
Unless, of course, it was to turn out to be female.
I sort of have an idea that it's going to be a little boy, though.
Because of how hard it kicks sometimes.
The archbishop (how I loathe that man) gives me such hard looks, as if being pregnant is a sin.
I would hate to see the way he would look at a woman who actually wasn't married and had her baby out of wedlock.
How I pity that poor hypothetical girl!
The months are going by so quickly now-it wont be much longer until my child is here with me.
And I have another reason to be happy-though a more somber sort of happiness-I have almost finished Peter's shirt.
Susan was exactly nine months pregnant when she finished the first shirt made of the silver yarn. It was a simple design but it shone so brightly-like a silver apple of the tree of life-that it appeared a thousand times prettier than it actually was. Although she had worked with the yarn all this time and thought she had grown very used to seeing its brilliance, Susan could not help being amazed when she held up the first fruit of her labor and took a good look at it. And the looks of the shirt was only the start of its many wonders; for it was as strong as chain-mail but as soft as the wing of a swan or the hide of a young white doe.
While she was admiring the shirt-unable to fully believe that her own fingers had created such a thing-Caspian came into the chamber and smiled at her.
"So that is what you have been knitting all this time." He realized, taking in its vivid brightness and wondering what on earth his wife had been making the shirt for. It was much too big for herself and common sense-remembering that she had started before they'd even met-told him that she hadn't slaved away all this time to make a silver shirt for him.
Oh, thought Susan-glancing over at her husband sorrowfully, if I only could just tell him about my siblings and my curse, how clear it would all become! He seems so confused.
She didn't have much longer to ponder over a way to explain the shirts without speaking because only a few moments later, a little strangled-sounding gasp escaped from her throat and her hands went to her belly; the baby was coming. How dreadfully it hurt! What Susan wouldn't have given to be permitted to scream out. Screaming wasn't exactly speaking, so as long as she didn't say any words in her cries, surely her siblings would not be harmed-Edmund would not die. Still, the scream would prove what she was afraid a few of the castle people might already secretly suspect, that she did, in fact, have a voice and was not truly mute. And then, what would she do about the whole 'not speaking' rule? Because of this, no matter how massive the birth pains got, she did not cry out. Rather, the castle was filled with long moans and groans that might have come during any creature giving birth to its baby.
"The dumb thing doesn't even scream when she goes into labor." Prunaprismia whispered to her husband in a rather nasty, spiteful tone, still upset that a Narnian nobody so much younger than she was, could pass on life though childbirth while she, the wife of the great King Miraz, could not. "If I didn't know any better, I'd swear she wasn't even human."
"Well she's Narnian." Miraz answered coldly. "Can't expect much from those white-as-snow barbarians, can we?"
"I don't think expecting the wench to give birth like a proper woman of her rank-or at least of her species-is asking too much." Prunaprismia said, tossing her head back haughtily.
"Worry not, my lovely queen, for soon we shall be rid of her and we can find him someone else-get Telmar a proper princess just like we planned." Miraz reminded her in a low voice. "For the well-being of Telmar-and our plan to save it from this cursed dumbling-let us pray that the baby is born in perfect health."
Though it certainly had very little to do with the prayers and wishes of the two cold-hearted, scheming Telmarine monarchs, the baby was indeed born in perfect health. He-for the baby was in fact male as Susan had rightly assumed-was a small white little wisp of a thing, taking more after his mother than his father, but with soft rosy-pink cheeks that were not even slightly yellowed with any trace of illness and his eyes were clear and bright not glanced or unfocused in the least. The little bit of hair he had on his head (and he didn't have very much of it) was as black as an old frying pan.
"He's beautiful." Caspian said, completely awestruck as he looked down at the sweet little bundle in his wife's tired arms.
He's more than that, thought Susan as she smiled down at the baby-being the proud mother that she was, he's perfect.
"He looks just like you, Susan." Caspian beamed down at his wife and son with deep admiration.
Yes, he does look like me, Susan said in her mind, and he has my mother's hands, I know because I have them, too, but he does have your eyelashes, he sure as anything didn't get those from me.
Of course, Caspian had no idea what she was really saying in her mind and heart, but he could tell from her lovely smile that she was completely delighted over the birth of the little boy and so he let that be enough.
The major problem was what to name him. In both Narnia and Telmar it was for the most part considered the right of the mother to name a child, especially a first, or else a seventh, child but how could the princess Susan give her little boy a name when she couldn't speak or write down any name other than her own? At first, she had contented herself with the thought that Caspian would pick out a good name and all would be well but as she cuddled her dear little baby and thought about what she wanted to call him, she began to feel sorrowful and even a little desperate. She wanted to name him after her father, the late King Frank, for she had gotten to thinking about how her sweet little son reminded her a little bit of Edmund when he was born and how, in quite a few respects, Edmund took after their father-and how much she missed Frank and wanted to pass on his name-sake.
Just when she had given up hope and thought she would surely end up with her child simply being called, 'Caspian the eleventh' or something like that, Doctor Cornelius came in to see his student's first born son and as soon as he saw him, he asked what they were going to call the dear little baby.
Caspian shrugged. "It should be Susan's choice but as we've still had no luck in teaching her to speak..." He shook his head wearily. "...you don't think some...I don't know...troll or something...would come and take away an unnamed child, do you?"
Although she thought the superstition to be all stuff and nonsense, Susan still tightened her arms around the baby just in case. Nothing-real or fake-was going to come and take her child away! Not after all the trouble she'd had giving birth to him, they weren't. She'd like to see some hypothetical kidnapper go through five hours of labor without screaming bloody murder and see how well they'd take the thought of losing their baby after that!
"Might I make a suggestion?" Doctor Cornelius inquired, smiling at the prince and his new family.
"By all means." said Caspian.
Susan felt a little relieved; Caspian's professor was Narnian so at least, the baby might have a Narnian name after all as she couldn't imagine a half-dwarf suggesting a Telmarine sort of name for a half-Narnian child.
"Because her royal highness," He nodded at Susan when he said this. "is in fact a Narnian, I was wondering if the princess wouldn't like for the boy to be named after her native country's late monarch. Narnia is going through such troublesome times now and everyone remembers how good the last king-"
At this, Susan's eyes filled with tears of joy and she sat up straighter in the bed, motioned for the half-dwarf to come closer, and kissed his cheek.
"I believe your suggestion is received with a moderate amount of approval." Caspian joked mildly, turning again to grin back at his wife and child though he was speaking to his tutor.
And because of that, the first child of Princess Susan of Narnia who was also the princess of Telmar, was named after a cabby turned king who had been known to all as, 'King Frank'. After which there proceeded to be many great banquets and festivities over the baby because the crown prince having an heir, a first born boy, is no small matter in any kingdom that has ever been heard of in any world.
Of course, Susan herself was feeling very worn-out from giving birth so she sat a lot of these great events out, resting up in her chamber room, too exhausted for the first couple of days or so even to begin work on the next of the silver shirts-which would be the smallest one because it was for Lucy-and could do little else but sleep the hours away until her strength returned to her.
On one of these days, when Caspian was away attending some grand ceremony of congratulations being held in a smaller castle belonging to a Telmarine earl who had beseeched them to accept his hospitalities and Susan was soundly asleep in her bed mere inches away from where little baby Frank's canopy-draped cradle was located, a hooded figure with slim-looking, olive-coloured, hands quietly stole into the chamber.
The figure was none other than Queen Prunaprismia herself wearing a dark, velvet cloak taking care not to make even the slightest noise as she bent over the cradle and gingerly lifted the baby out of it. She peered back nervously as the mute mother as if a little worried that Susan would awaken and see her, but composed herself and tightened her grip on her nephew's little son's bundled up body when she saw that the princess did nothing but let out a faint moan in her sleep and roll over. All was going according to plan.
For a short moment, Prunaprismia felt a twinge of guilt knowing that stealing babies away from their mother was no small matter. Then though, she fought those feelings back; if she wanted to get rid of Susan, the baby must go first. Besides, if Susan herself was unfit as a Telmarine ruler who was to say the child that shared half of her genes and traits would not be unfit as well? What did a young, dumb wench like Susan need a baby for anyway? After all, her life would be ended soon and wasn't it a much greater evil to let the child live and be motherless all his life? Miraz would dispose of him, then of Susan later on, and soon all of this would be quickly forgotten. A new bride would be found for Caspian-one clever of tongue and of a well-known back ground. No one would remember the Princess Susan for anything good, worth-while, or virtuous; she and Miraz would see to that very soon.
For now though, Prunaprismia thought, I must follow the plan and take the child to my husband for him to dispose of and then quickly come back here and complete this part of my task.
And so she did; hiding poor small, helpless, son of a prince, Frank away until Miraz was ready to deal with him and then rushing back-just as quietly as before-into her nephew's bedchamber. This time, she carried a small bowl of a thick red liquid in her hands, blood that had perhaps belonged to a goat that was being killed for a castle-meal. Hovering over Susan's sleeping figure, the queen, no longer feeling any empathy or being bothered by her conscience at all by this point, dipped her fingers in the blood and gently wiped a small line of it across Susan's mouth in a messy zigzag. She dipped her fingers into it again and drew another line with it across the edge of Susan's upper lip.
After she had finished, Prunaprismia promptly left the chamber and hid the bowl of blood far away in the depths of the servants' kitchen when no one was looking so that the evidence would not be found and linked to her scheme.
A couple of hours later, Susan woke up feeling very uncomfortable. There was something on her mouth and it was sticky and sort of crusted on her lips making them tingle very awkwardly. Without thinking or bothering to look in a mirror, she stood up and stumbled over to a wash basin and cleaned off her face. When she had finished doing so and dapped it dry with a towel, feeling much better, she turned to look down at her baby, surprised that he hadn't heard her get up and started crying for her to hold him as he usually did. Poor Susan's eyes widened with complete horror and terror that only a mother who loses a child can ever fully know and understand as she caught sight of the empty cradle.
She had been crying over the cradle-and had, of course, searched around to see if by some chance her baby was somewhere else in the room though it seemed unlikely-when Caspian walked in and saw his wife in her broken-but silent-lament.
When he, too, saw that their child was gone he raced over to her side and put his arm around her and asked, "Susan, what happened? Where's Frank?"
Susan just cried harder, burying her face into her husband's neck and throwing her arms around him, because she had no way of telling him that she didn't know.
AN: Feedback? Thoughts? Comments? Anything? Please review!