Disclaimer: Edmund Pevensie and all the characters and situations in The Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me. Romulus and Remus appear by the kind permission of Lady Alambiel.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was some while before The Morning Glory actually landed on Galma and her passengers were able to disembark. It was some while longer before Edmund and his Wolves returned to the rather shabby dockside inn where he had left Bran and Elain. Fortunately it was still early in the day, too early for more than a few of the Galmians to be indulging in wine and ale.

"Have you found her?" Bran asked, standing up from the well-worn trestle table where he sat with Elain, waking the cat sleeping next to her. "Have you found The Arabella?"

Elain looked at him, her dark eyes questioning and apprehensive.

"The ship, yes." Edmund dropped onto the bench across from them and slapped his leather gloves onto the table, making two hard-drinking men in the opposite corner turn and stare. "The captain, no."

"What?" Bran and Elain both said at once.

"We found your ship," Remus said, laying his furry chin on Elain's lap and looking up at her with wide yellow eyes, "but there wasn't anyone there."

"And there wasn't any treasure in it," Romulus added with a little huff.

"There wasn't anything in it," Remus told them.

"But the captain?" Bran asked Edmund as he sat down again. "Who's looking after The Arabella?"

"She's dry docked, as we were told," Edmund said. "The mast is broken clean off and there's a lot of damage to her hull and rigging, but the man in charge of the crew doing the repairs said he was stopping work until he's paid something. He said the captain hasn't been seen for two or three days, nor the crew, and like as not he's been left with that worthless scow."

Bran bristled.

"Not my words," Edmund said, holding up both hands.

"But she couldn't have come back empty," Bran protested. "Even if the venture failed, there must have been things that belonged to the crew, to the captain, ships stores, I don't know what else. But empty?"

"Clean as a whistle." Edmund ordered a mug of cider from one of the barmaids. "Now it's possible the captain paid off the crew and let them go, knowing they'd have nothing to do until the repairs were done. But the captain?"

"The captain wouldn't have left her," Bran insisted. "He's a loyal man, loyal to our house, loyal to–"

"Loyal to my father," Elain said, giving her husband a hard look.

"Yes," Bran said, calming a little. "Captain Hoxa wouldn't have abandoned The Arabella. He would have insisted on seeing Elain's father or, hearing he was dead, Elain herself, before he would leave her. Hoxa wouldn't–"

"Hoxa?" said a thin, reedy voice. "Captain Hoxa?"

Edmund turned to see a little man with pale eyes and flabby lips snatch a wool cap off his balding head. Edmund knew him from somewhere. From the shipwreck, that was it. Grimly? Galby?

"Gorby," he said aloud. "You were at Cair Paravel."

The pale eyes widened. "King Edmund. I did not expect to see you here. I was sent to the owner of The Arabella. I was told he was asking after her captain and sent to fetch him."

"To Captain Hoxa?" Bran asked.

Gorby narrowed his eyes. "What is your part here?" he asked. "You were on The Issus when she sank. Your name's Dougal. I came to find Master Teague, the apothecary. The Arabella is his by right, and all she brought with her."

"Master Teague is dead," Elain said, with a defiant lift of her chin. "By right the ship is mine now."

Gorby lifted his sparse eyebrows. "And you are?"

She opened her mouth and then shut it again, glancing fearfully at Bran.

"If you know where Hoxa is," Bran snapped, "tell us. He will know who has right to the ship."

"You say The Arabella returned with cargo," Edmund said, wondering why Elain hadn't simply told the man she was the apothecary's daughter. "What was it? And where is it?"

The little man clasped his splayed-fingered hands over his heart. "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, I am but a humble messenger. If you want answers for what you ask, you must come to the captain. He knows. I do not."

Edmund's Wolves were pressing against his legs now, letting him know they felt his apprehension, letting him know they were on alert.

"How do we know you come from him at all?" he asked. "How did you come here in the first place? I thought you went on the Splendor Hyaline back to Tashbaan."

"And from Tashbaan to Galma," Gorby said smoothly, "where I met Captain Hoxa. I cannot tell you much more of him, I fear. I happened upon him again this evening near The Arabella. He had heard he was being sought and would have come to you himself, but the knave who has charge of the ship would not hear of him leaving again until he had some payment for his work."

Remembering his conversation with the man earlier, Edmund could well believe that. Still...

"How do we know you come from Hoxa?" he pressed.

Gorby fished in the pocket of his stained coat and pulled out a string of little white shells. "Perhaps the lady will know this? He said to show it to you if you had any doubts."

Elain looked at Bran.

Bran nodded in return. "It's Hoxa's. We have seen it many times."

"Very well," Edmund said, but he didn't like it. He didn't like this little eel of a man. How could it be that he had he come from the shipwreck at Cair Paravel and just happened to be here now, at the very same time Edmund and Elain and Bran were here?

"So, you will come?" Gorby said.

"We will be here," Edmund told him. "If you will be good enough to tell Captain Hoxa where we are and that we would like to speak to him, I will see you are well rewarded."

"But, Your Majesty." Gorby spread out his hands to indicate the less-than-private surroundings. "Surely this business is not for all the world to hear."

The two men in the corner pretended to stop listening.

"I will bespeak a room for us. I'm sure the landlord has a place we might speak in private. You see to your part in the matter, and I will see to the rest."

Again Gorby clasped his hands over his heart. "As you will, Your Majesty. As you will."

"I don't like it," Bran said when he was gone. "Why didn't Hoxa just come to us?"

"I don't know," Edmund admitted, "but I don't like it either. At least this way, we won't be led where we don't want to go."

The barmaid, a stocky little woman with enough hair on her chin to indicate there was some Dwarf blood in her, finally brought Edmund his cider.

"Tell me," he said, and he laid a gold coin on the table, "is there a room we might use for a short while. No more than an hour, I would venture to say."

The woman smiled as she took his money. "There is, sir, the Oak Parlor as the master likes to call it, and it was a fine thing in its day, sir. A fine thing."

"I'm sure it was. And it would be where?"

She nodded toward an open door behind him. Ground floor, then. Windows looking out over the muddy street in front of the inn. Good. Very good. There should be no reason to expect trouble, but somehow Edmund felt it coming all the same. Romulus and Remus were pressing even closer to him. They could feel it, too.

"May we use the parlor now?" Edmund asked the barmaid.

"Just as you please, sir. I'll go and tidy it up straight."

"No need," he assured her. "It will be fine."

"As you say. And will the other gentleman and lady be wanting anything?"

Edmund looked over at Bran and Elain.

"No," Bran said, his tone almost curt.

Elain merely shook her head.

"Just the room, thank you," Edmund said, and then he picked up his mug. "I'll take this along."

"Very good, sir."

"And there will be a Captain Hoxa coming to meet us in a little while. If you will let him know where we are, I will thank you for it."

"I will, sir, and no worries."

She took the second coin he offered and bustled away.

Edmund escorted the others into the Oak Parlor, a shabby little room that may have been fine in its day as the barmaid had said, but its day must have come and gone some ages before. Still, it would do. Elain sat herself in a faded green armchair next to the crackling hearth and settled Adina in her lap. Edmund gave her a small, encouraging smile that seemed to ease the apprehension in her eyes, but then he turned resolutely to the windows and surveyed the street. Comforting her was her husband's job. Bran came to stand next to him and the Wolves.

"Why didn't she tell Gorby her father was the owner of The Arabella?" Edmund asked him, his voice low.

Bran glanced over at Elain and then turned back to Edmund. "I don't trust the man. I didn't like him when we sailed from Tashbaan. He was a pitiful coward when the ship was going down. I don't like his being here now. There's something not right about it."

Edmund made him no reply. He felt the same way.

No one said much for the next hour or so. The Wolves growled at everyone who passed the inn, but no one came inside except for one old Galmian who looked as if he must have indulged in plenty of ale wherever he had just come from. Eventually, Remus fell asleep with his head on Edmund's boot. Romulus looked down on him in disgust.

"Pup."

Hiding a smile, Edmund put one hand on the Wolf's head. "Shh. You be on watch now. In a little while, he can take your place."

With a sigh, Bran leaned against the window frame and rubbed his shoulder. Edmund didn't ask him about it. It would be strange if it wasn't still sore, but the Naiad Arethusa had assured him Bran was on the mend.

"Why don't you both sit down," Elain said a quarter of an hour later. "It makes me nervous to have you both standing there like–"

She broke off when Romulus started to growl. Remus leapt to his feet, growling, too.

Gorby was striding along the street toward them accompanied by a figure in a hooded cloak. Edmund frowned. It seemed unlikely that a sea captain would wear such a garment. There wasn't much of him visible apart from the cloak and hood. Nothing but his–

"Bran," Edmund said. "Tell me quickly, is Captain Hoxa Calormene?"

"From Terebinthia," Bran said, looking swiftly out the window, but the two men had already passed them and come into the inn. "Why?"

His only answer was a knock on the parlor door.

"Your pardon, sir," the barmaid said, letting herself in, "but the gentlemen you mentioned have arrived."

She stepped back to admit Gorby and the other man, the man wearing shoes that turned up at the toes. Bran saw it now and swiftly put himself between Elain and the visitors. Then he put his right hand on his left forearm. Edmund remembered seeing the pile Bran's few possessions after the shipwreck. Among them had been a dagger sheath designed to be concealed in his sleeve. Edmund, his hand on the hilt of his own sword, took a step forward.

The man in the cloak laughed. "I did not credit what this miserable toad told me, but I see it is true. Well met, King Edmund of Narnia."

He put back his hood, revealing a cruel, dark face, coarsened by indulgence and full of cunning.

Edmund smiled faintly and made a courtly bow. "Solak Tarkaan. I hardly expected to see the thirty-seventh son of the Tisroc (may he receive in full the just reward for each of his noteworthy deeds) in so humble a place. But how have we been deemed worthy of such an honor?"

Solak made his own bow, elaborate and ridiculous after the Calormine fashion, and then held out one hand toward Elain. "I have come, great King, to claim my wife."

Author's Note: Um, what?