Chapter 28
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, I'm back, and no, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth – at least, not yet. Various factors in my offline life have tried pretty hard to make that happen over the past several months, though.
That said, I still should have gotten this chapter up much sooner, and I feel like a bit of a failure as a writer for not having done so. I am so sorry for the long, long, long-overdue update, and I hope that there are still a few of you out there who haven't yet given up on this story and can forgive its author for some of her many faults.
And so, without further ado…
They returned in short order to the meadow where they had picked the flowers and ate a quiet picnic under one of the outlying trees. Corin seemed particularly subdued; he had his head bent down most of the time, and only looked up occasionally to ask one of his siblings to pass him one of the food baskets.
The wind had picked up even further since they had left the graveyard. When a particularly keen gust whipped across the meadow, Cari could very nearly feel as well as hear the branches above her groaning, and she looked up in alarm.
"Don't worry about the tree, my daughter," King Lune reassured her, causing her to jerk her head back down in surprise at hearing him speak in a steadier voice than he had been able to manage all day. "It is stronger than you may think, and its roots go deep." He hesitated for a few moments before clearing his throat and adding quietly, "Which is one of the reasons it was C – your mother's favorite."
Cari cocked her head questioningly for a moment before she remembered what he had told her the day before. Right. He did say that we'd be eating underneath Mother's favorite tree after visiting her grave. That's the tree they ate under so many times when they were younger, and then after they had me, and then later with Corin after Cor and I were kidnapped. I must have had quite a few picnic lunches under this tree as a little girl. I wish I could remember even a sliver of just one of them.
But after spending the remainder of the meal – as well as the chilly ride home, made all the more uncomfortable by the now-biting autumn wind – ruminating in silence, Cari found herself as unable as ever to produce any such memories. She barely spoke to anybody for the rest of the day – even at supper, where her father's spirits had improved somewhat and he proved more amenable to conversing with his children and Aravis. He also reminded them that, in honor of her birthday, they were eating their mother's favorite foods, which always cheered her up – "but she would be very much happier simply to see all of us together here at this table. I should say, actually, that she is very much happier – for, make no mistake, she does see us here from Aslan's country, and is glad of it, and would not wish us to end the day grieving as though we will never see her again."
But what if I never do? Cari's graveside thoughts returned with a vengeance, and she had to blink hard in order to prevent her suddenly-gathered tears from spilling over onto her cheeks at the dinner table.
Cari spent a good deal of time that evening in front of her parents' tapestry in the hallway. She did not even raise her head, which was situated comfortably situated atop her drawn-up knees, when she heard Cor first approach and then sit down a few feet away from her.
"I wish I could remember her for you," she offered after many minutes had passed between them in silence. "I could only ever remember a glimpse of Father, though, and no more. Even then, I thought it was just a part of my strange dreams that were really my memories of the night Ar – the night we got to Calormen." She sighed, in part to even out her shaky breathing, before continuing. "And later on, when I found out from Hashim and Ruhandi that – that we weren't being raised by our real father, I wanted to tell you that we must have a real mother and father somewhere in the north, or at least we did at one time, but I didn't want you to blurt it out in front – well, in a way that would get you beaten, because you were only about five or six, so I didn't say anything. So I never told you about my memory of Father – although it was more like a flash of him in my mind. I didn't remember him speaking or moving, just standing there laughing. But I never remembered anything about Mother." She finally swiveled her head, which had remained perched on her knees, and looked him straight in the eyes for the first time, although the image of his face was blurred by her unshed tears. "I'm sorry, Cor." She opened her mouth to say something else, but, realizing that she had no idea what that would be, and that whatever it was would not help matters, shut it again. Why did I just tell him I withheld all that for years? And how? I didn't even mean to say that. What if he gets upset with me? I can't fight with him, not today. I think Mother would especially hate to see us arguing today, of all days.
But Cor, his own head resting on his knees, merely shrugged one of his shoulders a couple of times before speaking. When he did open his mouth, his voice was as uneven as his sister's had been a few moments before.
"It's not your fault what you can and can't remember, Cari," he finally said. "And I always knew Ar – he didn't seem like a real father, so I wasn't really surprised when I heard him talking with those Tarkaans the night we left." One corner of his mouth tipped upward slightly. "I appreciate not getting another beating, though. It was back in my younger, foolish days, so I might have said something if you'd told me and all." The teasing light in his eyes was a bit dimmer than usual, but Cari nearly grinned in relief nonetheless, and the noise that involuntarily escaped her throat sounded oddly like a gulping giggle. Cor raised his left eyebrow, and his mouth twisted, but he said nothing for several moments.
"What was Father laughing about, though?" he asked quietly at length. Seeing Cari's confusion, he clarified, "In your memory, I mean."
"Oh." Cari raised her head from its perch on her knees. "I don't remember, honestly. I've tried to, but it's an odd memory – I mean, it starts in the middle of the laugh, not at the beginning, and it leaves off before he finishes laughing."
Cor cocked his head. "Huh. That is odd." He paused a moment before adding, "What did he look like?"
"A lot like now," answered his sister. "Almost exactly the same, actually, except that he had more hair, and it was – well, blonder. And he was – he was a bit thinner. But he laughed just like he does now."
"Who's laughing?" Both siblings jerked their heads around at the sound of Corin's voice, especially since it, like his face, was noticeably more subdued than usual. Aravis was right behind him.
"Father," answered Cor, at the same time Cari said, "Nobody." They shot each other a pair of odd looks before Cari turned back to Corin and Aravis and explained, "I – we mean, nobody's laughing now. We were just talking about how I remembered Father when I was a little girl growing up in Calormen."
"You remembered him?" Corin finally managed, obviously thrown for a loop.
"Not very much," Cari answered. "I just have one memory of him, actually, and he was just standing and laughing. That's why we were talking about laughing."
"Oh. Right," Corin replied, then briefly glanced back at Aravis, who was still standing well away from the three siblings and carrying herself more stiffly than Cari could remember her doing since the journey out of Calormen.
"Did you remember Mother at all, then?" Corin asked after several awkward moments.
As Cari shook her head in reply, she suddenly realized how drained she felt. "No," she answered quietly.
Corin looked as though he expected her to say more, but when she did not, he offered his usual brief, sharp shrug – which, Cari had noticed not long after she had arrived in Archenland, was very different from his brother's more deliberate ones.
"She remembered a lot about you," he finally offered unexpectedly, drawing looks of surprise from Cari and Cor. "Well, both of you, actually – just more about Cari – " here he nodded toward his sister – "because you were older when you got taken. She told a lot of stories about you when you were little." He paused before adding, "And she told me I'd see you both some day. And – " Cari saw the first tiny hint of a smile cross his face that day – "she made me promise I'd try to be nice about showing you everything once you got here."
Cor rolled his eyes at his brother, but Cari managed to produce a little half-smile of her own. "I'm sure she's pleased with you, Corin," she said. "After all, you were very helpful about showing us around." After all, I suppose you always could have found a way to act even more annoyingly than you already do.
Corin clearly did not know how to reply to this, so he shrugged again. "Maybe," he finally managed, then lowered his head.
He's probably as tired as I am, Cari realized. Maybe even more so. After all, he knew her, and neither Cor nor I did. And of course he's not accustomed to grieving for her with so many other people around.
She rose slowly, using the wall for support, and looked pointedly at Cor. "I suppose we should go, Cor," she said. "We can't hog Mother and Father's portrait forever, and we've all got to be up in the kitchens extra early tomorrow."
Cor briefly frowned at her, but after she sharpened her glance, he rose and touched the bottom of the portrait, as was both his and Cari's wont when they left it for the night.
"Good night, Mum," he murmured, then turned and headed off toward his apartments without another word.
Cari, her back turned toward Aravis and Corin, bit her lip and gazed at her mother's face through the day's seemingly ever-present tears. Good night, Mother, she murmured silently. Turning, she bade her remaining brother a good evening and stepped past him. "Good night, Aravis," she said, nodding toward the younger girl on her way to her rooms.
"Oh, it's all right, Cari," Aravis replied quickly. "I was just about to retire myself." She turned to Corin and wished him a good night, which the boy barely acknowledged, before following Cari to their chambers.
"I am really sorry about your mother, Cari," she finally offered after an awkwardly silent journey up the stairs, through the halls, and past Soren and Theodore. "It is always a – a horrible sorrow to lose a mother." Her voice fell very low at the end, and Cari heard the slightest hint of a quaver in it.
Cari turned her head sharply at this. How could I have forgotten? Aravis lost her own mother when she was just ten years old – the same age Cor and Corin were when Mother died. She must still miss her very much – perhaps even more than I've had the chance to miss Mother.
"You're right, Aravis," she finally managed. "It is a sorrow."
The silence stretched out long and awkward between the two girls, who by then had unconsciously seated themselves on two of the room's floral couches.
Finally, Cari could take the silence no more. "I am glad that you always had your father, though," she finally said. And your real father, to boot, instead of a man like Arsheesh.
The bitter half-snort in Aravis's laugh snapped Cari out of her own thoughts at once. "When he was around, yes," she answered. "He was nearly always out to battle, or on some form of business with one or more of the other Tarkaans. Usually, it was just Mother and my brothers and me." Her voice maintained its characteristically even keel, but Cari understood the tilt of the younger girl's jaw too well to be fooled. "I do not mean to speak ungratefully about him, of course; as a Tarkaan, he had many demands on his time, and of course he was a devoted servant of the Tisroc. And when he was around, he took a great interest in – in making sure we were excelling in all the things our tutors taught us." She paused for a few moments, and Cari could not quite tell if she was grimacing or merely wondering what to say next. "However – " her voice caught ever so slightly on the word – "we did not see him much, especially after Mother died. My youngest brother and I saw him perhaps seven or eight times following his second marriage." Her jaw tightened even harder on the last word.
Cari was speechless. I wish I could have seen Arsheesh that little, she thought cynically before forcing her mind back to the situation at hand. Cari, don't be so selfish. You might try to sympathize with Aravis a bit more. You, after all, know nothing of what it felt like for her to love her father and wish to see him more often – especially since she was also saddled with a stepmother who hated her.
"You really are lucky to see your father so often," Aravis said after a moment, "especially since he takes such a great interest in seeing you and – encouraging all of your interests, and complimenting you on your progress no matter what it is."
Cari frowned ever so slightly. "Well, yes, he does. But he does those things for all of us, not just for me."
"Oh, of course," Aravis replied quickly, and Cari could have sworn her cheeks had grown a very tiny bit pinker. "I do not wish to sound ungrateful. On the contrary, I am very thankful that he has provided for me and encouraged me in my education so generously, especially given – that he was not required by any law or custom to ask me to stay here." She paused, and Cari could almost hear her weighing her next words. "I heard him telling Chancellor Velmont the other day how happy he was that you had taken up knife-throwing with Master Ordell. He said you had obviously inherited his sister's talent." Seeing Cari's eyebrows shoot up, she continued, "And he said you had also inherited your mother's brains."
Cari, torn between smiling and staring incredulously, managed to produce an awkward grimace. "He told Chancellor Velmont I'm intelligent?" Oh, bother. That came out all wrong. It sounded as though I assumed Father would tell his own chancellor I'm an idiot, and Aravis knows I'm not stupid enough to think he'd do that. "I mean, he told him I was intelligent the way Mother was?"
Aravis nodded. "Well, yes. You have already gone through nearly two years' schooling in a few months, after all. None of the rest of us has done nearly as much."
Cari shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, you and Corin were further along to begin with, and Cor's gone through nearly as much as I have. I'm not so smart as all that."
Aravis shrugged back, and Cari could sense the eyeroll she was barely holding back. "He thinks a great deal of you, in any case." After a moment, she added, "I suppose we are all very fortunate to have ended up here with him."
Cari nodded. "Yes." If I keep up this conversation for even a few more minutes, my head will start spinning all the way around. She rose slowly from the couch. "Good night, Aravis."
The younger girl followed her lead. "Good night, Cari."
Fortunately, Mara and Maria sensed Cari's mood when she entered her bedroom, and neither said much as they quickly prepared her for bed. As soon as the door had closed behind them, Cari let out the breath she had not realized she had been holding.
So much for "If I keep up this conversation, my head will spin." It's spinning anyway. All this time I've been jealous of the attention Father's shown to Aravis, and now I discover she thinks it's the other way around! I wish I'd heard him say all that to Chancellor Velmont about me, though.
Yes, and did it ever occur to you that she might wish the same about hearing the compliments he pays her when she isn't there, which you are so quick to notice? Did you ever stop to think that she might be feeling like as much of an outcast here as you did at times in Calormen? And can you fault Father, either, for his kindness to her on that account – especially now that you know her father was hardly ever around to protect her from her stepmother's dislike? And wouldn't Mother, whose memory you're supposed to be honoring, have approved of it and urged you to follow suit had she been alive, from all you've heard people say of her?
Cari sighed as she turned over in bed. I'm sorry, Mother. Her eyes watered again, and this time, uninhibited by the presence of others, the tears began streaming down her cheeks in two slow but steady streams. Oh, how I wish you were still here.
The following weeks blended into a blur of classes and time at the castle's farm, which superseded the siblings' dancing and combat lessons. Both twins were thrilled about skipping the former, but ended each day with copious complaints about how much they would rather have spent their hours sword-fighting than being shown how to cut and dress meat or milk cows. Cor, who left the farm every day with cuts on his hands, had at least had his father's assistance – much to the chagrin of his twin brother, who ended up sporting several bruises courtesy of the farm's cows, as well as cuts from slicing cheese. Even Aravis had not escaped her apprenticeship unscathed; hours of cutting and boiling apples had left her hands both cut and burned in several places. However, none of them could argue with the fact that Cari had suffered the most injuries. Her body was studded with bruises from the errant flails she had used for threshing the grain, as well as from multiple collisions with barrels in the winnowing barns and the farm's grist mill; also, she woke up every day with throbbing in her strained muscles due to the days she had spent bundling and lifting grain. Furthermore, she had several scrapes on her hands and arms after tripping both in the fields and on the floors of the mill and barns.
One would think I wouldn't be hurting so badly, after all the years I spent scrubbing floors and hauling and cooking fish back in Calormen, she groaned to herself one afternoon, pounding her fist against the aching small of her back. Not to mention that one person simply shouldn't be allowed to trip this many times in a day.
"Trying to get the bugs off your dress again, Cari?" Corin's voice rang out directly behind his startled sister, who whirled around so quickly that she almost tripped again. When she regained her balance, she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Yes, Corin; as a matter of fact, I am," she finally retorted, "so they'll jump over to you and crawl into all of your new cuts."
Her brother rolled his eyes right back at her. "Hey, I don't have that many new cuts." He quickly perused her arms – her rolled-up sleeves had bared them slightly above the elbows – and Cari could see that he noticed the numerous cuts and bruises she had incurred just that day. "Not as many as you, anyhow. Besides, I think the bugs like your cuts better."
Cari, on the verge of sticking her tongue out at him, bit it at the last minute in favor of a long, frustrated sigh. I am not going to let him bait me into acting as though I'm eight instead of eighteen again. I'm too tired, and it's simply not worth it.
Corin opened his mouth again – to tease her further, Cari assumed – but he was interrupted by Cor and Aravis, who were fast approaching them and in the midst of an argument. Cari wearily set them straight for the third time on which king of Archenland had established the traditional Hunt of the Harvest Stag, hoping to buy a period of peace and quiet on the way back to the castle. Unfortunately, it lasted only two minutes or so into the ride, when Corin began needling his twin about the latter's fresh round of bruises, loudly proposing that the twin with the most injuries on the morning of the harvest feast should have to do all of his brother's preparation work in the kitchens, as well as his own. Aravis rolled her eyes pointedly at this, which earned her a retort from Cor to the effect that she had so few injuries, she should be able to handle both twins' jobs. Before she could reply, Corin felt compelled to point out his brother's utter lack of logic, and that the sun must have scrambled his brains.
Cari sighed and resisted the temptation to fall forward onto Naka's neck and cover her ears. So much for my decision not to act eight years old. My siblings have that covered more than adequately.
The day before the festival, Lady Lara, the king's eldest sister, arrived with her husband, Lord Dorn, and their youngest and only unmarried child, fifteen-year-old Danielle. Cari, who had only met the three of them briefly at her welcome feast, was delighted to see them again, and, if the strength of her cousin's hug of greeting was any indication, the feeling was mutual.
Although, she mused later, watching from her window as the twins, Aravis, and Danielle played dodge-the-ball against the far wall of the northeastern courtyard, I doubt she gives restrained, gentle hugs at all.
Just at that moment, Corin let out a yelp as one of his cousin's shots hit him squarely in the leg. No, probably not. She and Queen Lucy would get along splendidly.
"So, Cari," her aunt remarked when she returned downstairs to the solar, "you must be looking forward to tomorrow's feast. I hear that you will be serving the bread?"
Cari nodded quickly. "Yes," she replied. "I am looking forward to it – provided I do everything properly. I will try very hard, of course." And still probably make several mistakes, even though I've studied the copy I made from Master Dorian's book at least a hundred times. Oh, well.
Lady Lara smiled warmly. "I am sure you will do very well, Cari." After a moment, she added, "And if you should mistake yourself, merely keeping on can be the best thing. The words have been said and the dishes served with errors before, if my memory serves correctly, and it will not be a catastrophe should another mistake or two happen again." Her eyes briefly darted to King Lune, who grinned.
"True enough," he conceded. "Although, if my memory serves correctly, Lina and I were the chief culprits in our own family when we were young. Lara was the one who always managed to carry off her service perfectly." His eyes took on a reminiscent gleam as he added, "As a matter of fact, Lara always knew our words just as well as she did her own. I would not be surprised, in fact, if she still remembers them all."
Lady Lara raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch. "Not all of them, Lune. It has been over thirty years, after all." She tilted her head for a moment. "Although I could probably perform the applesauce portion again, if I had to, and possibly your half of the meat service." She added more quietly, "And, of course, the bread portion; it always was my favorite."
Oh, right, Cari realized after a few moments. Her mother – my grandmother – would have performed that task.
"And you've had recent practice at it," the king added after a short pause. Seeing Cari's confusion, he told her, "Your two aunts have graciously taken it in turns for the past few years to serve the bread at the feast. This year it was to be your Aunt Lara's turn, but she and your uncle have decided to come and cause havoc anyway, even without the excuse."
Lord Dorn burst out laughing heartily at this. "Rather say that her uncle and cousin have come to cause the havoc, Lune. Lara's always been the one to put it to rights afterwards."
Lady Lara couldn't help but offer a small smile at this. Hm. A bit like me with Cor, Corin, and Aravis, I suppose. Except that I don't even try to restrain them most of the time any more. They're just too impossible.
"Well, there you go, Cari," said the king. "Should you forget any of your words – although I doubt that you will – your aunt can supply them to you, as she will be sitting with us at the head table tomorrow."
Cari reddened slightly. "I'll try to make sure that's not necessary, Father. I was going to spend part of tonight practicing, anyway."
"Ah, so you two can practice together, then," broke in Lord Dorn in his booming voice. "That way, your aunt will not be bored by my discussions on hunting with your father."
His wife shot him an indecipherable glance that might have been teasing disapproval or gratefulness for releasing her from a long-accustomed boredom. She then turned to her niece. "Is that all right with you, Cari?"
"Oh." Cari blinked as her focus returned from observing her uncle and aunt's interactions. "Of course, Aunt Lara."
To Cari's surprise, her aunt led her outside to the same terrace King Lune had used for Cari and Cor's welcome feast upon their arrival in Archenland, which was where the harvest feast would be held the following day. "It always helps to practice in the actual setting itself," Lady Lara told her niece, and Cari agreed with her. I never would have thought to practice out here on my own, though.
Lady Lara proved a keen observer of Cari's words and actions. She did not offer much feedback except for a few corrections and a suggestion here or there, such as, "You might want to hold the platter a bit higher," or, "Your father's meat dish will take up a good deal of room, so you'll want to step a bit farther over to your left to compensate so you can set your platter down straight in front of you."
By the time they were finished, Cari felt far more prepared than she had previously, although still nervous. Lady Lara had offered very little praise to accompany her advice, and Cari worried that she might be thinking her niece's performance would be far inferior to her own. But if I'd been doing anything horribly wrong, I'm sure she would have told me. She didn't hesitate to point out everything else I was making mistakes at.
The morning of the harvest festival dawned clear and cool, much to the delight of the four siblings, whose assignments in the castle kitchens more than compensated for the lack of warmth outdoors. Cari, who spent the majority of the hours between dawn and noon baking bread in front of the ovens' blistering heat, was particularly glad.
I'm sure Aravis is just as happy as I am, though, she mused as she pulled yet another tray of loaves out of the oven. After all, she has to stand in front of boiling kettles of applesauce all morning. At least I get breaks to mix the different spices and cheeses into the bread dough, even if I still do have trouble remembering which ones go together. I never knew there were so many different kinds of bread before. I didn't even know one could bake cheeses into bread!
Not long before noon, King Lune rounded up the siblings and led them back to their quarters, where they changed into their feasting clothes. Corin made no secret of the fact that, meal aside, he was counting the minutes until he could throw off his heavily trimmed brown-and-gold garb in favor of more comfortable clothing for the afternoon games. Cor looked as though he felt the same way, but said nothing. As he caught his older sister's eye, she could very nearly hear his thoughts: I know, I know. At least we both have clothes now that fit properly and aren't rags.
Cari's mouth twitched slightly at one corner, but she said nothing back. Besides, I like this dress. I really don't care to take it off for a less fancy one. And I really don't care to spend all afternoon making a fool out of myself at the games.
Cari, be reasonable. You didn't make a complete fool of yourself at the Narnian games this summer; why would you think it would happen here?
Oh, let's see. For one thing, I only participated in one activity at the Narnian festival; here, I have to do far more, and therefore I'll have far more chances to trip and fall and injure other people in addition to myself. And for another, I've spent the past week injuring myself, which makes me far more vulnerable to tripping. Honestly, I'll be lucky not to trip while I'm carrying the bread to our table on the terrace for the feast.
But Cari did not trip while carrying the bread to the table; in fact, she did not so much as stumble. She did, however, walk as slowly and carefully as possible after her father and Cor – with Corin clearing his throat meaningfully at her the entire way from the kitchen to the terrace – so as to avoid any mishaps. Aravis followed gracefully behind him, bearing an elegant silver serving bowl of applesauce, and was the last of the party to place her dish on the table at the head of the terrace. Pillars and tables alike were liberally adorned with garlands of autumn flowers, grasses, and leaves, although more than half the space on the tabletops was filled with platters, bowls, and other serving dishes containing almost every kind of food Cari had ever seen. The head table was particularly crowded; in fact, much of the space directly across from the royal family members' seats, space that normally would have been filled with place settings, was instead taken up with serving dishes containing the foods that the king, his children, and Aravis would be serving to the guests at the feast. The dishes they themselves had carried to the table – surrounded by the respectfully standing, silent guests – were merely the last of the foods.
In accordance with the traditions Cari had spent the last few months learning about, King Lune offered a prayer of thanks to Aslan for the year's harvest. Afterwards, first Cor, then Cari, Corin, and Aravis spoke their own traditional prayers, having written out and learned the words from one of Master Dorian's books. Fortunately, Cari's practice with her aunt the previous night paid off, and she made no mistakes.
The king then signaled to his children, and they picked up their serving utensils and spent the next twenty minutes dishing meat, cheese, applesauce, and bread onto the plates of the guests, who proceeded to and from their tables in a single line. At the end, the king served his own children before dishing food onto his own plate, and they seated themselves to eat.
Cari found herself enjoying the meal, despite having to get up fairly often to take empty serving dishes off the tables and replenish them; it was long-standing tradition for the royal family and the castle's lords and ladies in residence to give the servants a meal free of work. Even Corin did not complain about his duties; he merely compensated for them by shoveling down even more food than usual. He and Danielle proved enthusiastic, helpful guides for Cor, Cari, and Aravis, who had not yet learned the shortest routes from the kitchens to the terrace, or the best tricks for stacking the serving dishes. Not to mention how many soap flakes to put in the barrels for soaking all of these bowls, Cari mused as she and Cor dragged a barrel to the pump that drew water from the castle's reservoir. I'd probably have put in far too many and ended up spilling suds all over the kitchen. It's a good thing they have so many aprons in here, too. I really don't want to think about what my dress would look like otherwise.
After the feast, everybody headed to the west lawn for the traditional harvest games, with the four royal siblings taking a quick detour through the castle to change from their formal dinner garb into more comfortable outdoor garments. Cari, along with the twins, Aravis, and Danielle, bobbed for apples, participated in the tennis tournament (which ended mercifully early for Cari, as Aravis, her playing partner, was having a bad day in the nets and she herself had never been able to play the game consistently), and ran in the traditional grain relay. This last activity nearly proved to be Cari's undoing, as it required each member of the opposing teams to run clear across the lawn from the starting line, gather the scattered wheat stalks at the other end and bind them into a sheaf, and carry the sheaf back before his or her teammate could dash off to repeat the process. Cari had never been a particularly fast runner, so she was assigned the third spot of her ten-person team. This proved a wise choice, for in her haste, she tripped once on the way across the lawn and twice on the way back, and the last time she dropped her sheaf and spilled the stalks she had taken so much precious time to gather. Gathering and re-binding them cost her team more than half a leg, and even Cor and Corin's fleetness could only raise the team in the end to eighth place out of twenty teams.
After Corin, the team's last and speediest runner, crossed the finish line, Cari steeled herself for all manner of teasing and dirty looks from the twins. However, Corin seemed satisfied with spending the next few minutes in an imitation of her fall-ridden odyssey that was so hilarious, even Cari could not help but smile, although weakly.
"Don't worry, Corin," she said when her brother's antics had finally subsided. "I won't run next year, so you needn't worry about losing so badly again."
Corin threw her a mock-stern look. "Of course you'll run, Cari. Cor and I'll simply have to learn to run twice as fast as we do now. That way, we might actually end up seventh instead of eighth."
"Ha, ha, ha," replied Cari, narrowing her eyes at him.
"And don't forget Aravis," Cor put in. "She'll have to learn to run three times as fast."
Aravis looked at him sharply. "Three times? Why?"
" 'Cause you're only half as fast as Corin and me, of course," he responded.
"Would you like to prove the opposite right now, then?" Aravis immediately shot back, at the same moment Cari answered, "Well, technically if she were only half as fast as you, she'd need to run four times as fast as she does now, not three."
"Huh?" exclaimed both twins, the looks on their faces so quizzical that Cari burst out laughing. Even Aravis grinned.
"Well, in any case I'm still faster than her," said Cor after a few moments. Seeing Aravis's dirty look, he grinned. "And I don't mind proving it again."
"Again? How do you know I didn't run faster the first time, unless you can keep a clock in your head?" retorted Aravis as the two jogged to the finish line to run a reverse leg.
Cor did indeed beat Aravis, but only by a stride, and the two argued all the way across the lawn to the enormous pile of straw that marked the ring-in-the-haystack dig.
Due in large part to her assiduous dedication to her dance lessons since her inauspicious experiences at the Narnian festival, Cari did very well at the dances held on the lawn after supper that evening. Of course, it helps that Archenlanders tend to do more group dances than Narnians, she mused as she grabbed onto Cor's waist in front of her as part of the popular human-snake dance, then held on for dear life as Danielle, right behind her, enthusiastically seized hers and very nearly knocked her off balance.
Oh, I am going to be sorer tomorrow than I've been since Calormen, farm work and all, Cari groaned to herself that night as she helped Cor pour yet another kettle of hot water into one of the kitchens' dish-barrels. The royal family's duties for the day had continued into the night, as they and the castle nobility had cleared the tables, cleaned the terrace, and cleaned all of the day's dishes. After Cari had stumbled into a table and nearly smashed an entire armload of dishes while clearing the terrace, her father had suggested that she switch to dish duty. Not that I blame him; if I break anything, it'll be just one dish at a time, rather than an entire stack of them.
But Cari did not break any dishes; that honor went to Aravis, who accidentally smashed two plates, a bowl, and a tankard that was still half-full of mead before the night was out. The twins both set to teasing her at once, and Aravis and Cor very nearly broke out into a fight. Luckily, just at that moment Danielle, skipping into the kitchens from the terrace, slipped in the spilled mead and would have fallen flat on the floor had Corin not caught her and then slipped himself, so that he landed in a sprawling heap underneath her. Cari widened her eyes in alarm, but her brother and cousin both burst out laughing, and after a moment so did she. In fact, the longer the laughed, the more amusing she found the situation; even when the others had finished laughing, she kept on going. She barely even noticed Corin throwing Cor a quizzical look, or Cor rolling his eyes and sighing exaggeratedly in reply.
"Oh, don't mind her," he said airily. "Just another laughing fit is all. She'll come up for air in a few days or so."
Cari was laughing so hard at this point that she could not even hit him, as she wanted to, but she did manage to pound the rim of the barrel she was hunched over. Corin widened his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. Aravis, who after all had seen a similar display from Cari before, merely raised an eyebrow. Danielle, however, patted Cari on the shoulder and asked anxiously if she was all right. Cari managed to nod, but it took her several minutes to calm down. When she did, she found her ribs so sore that it eventually took a couple of tries and Cor's help to stand fully upright again – a fact he did not let her forget until they finally left the kitchens for their apartments long into the early morning hours. By then, Cari's head had begun to ache, along with the rest of her. Of course it would. Why leave one part of my body free of soreness?
The next morning, however, Cari found herself longing for the previous night's mild headache. Even before she opened her eyes, she felt a throbbing at the back of her skull that she had not experienced since she had crossed the desert into Archenland that summer. Oh, blast it. Oh, blast it. Have I already gotten so weak that I get sick after a couple weeks of working only half as hard as I ever did in Arsheesh's house – if that?
At length she managed to force herself to sit up slowly – and painfully, for many of her other muscles ached as well – and Mara quickly sensed that something was wrong.
"Are you not feeling well, Princess Cari?" she inquired not five seconds after laying her eyes on the girl.
Cari managed to shake her head a few inches to each side. Ouch! "I'll be fine, Mara, thank you," she finally said. "I just have a bit of a headache. I'm sure it will clear up."
Mara tilted her head, and Cari could tell she knew better. "You might ask for rosemary tea with lavender, Princess," she advised gently as she buttoned Cari's dress. "It should help relieve the pain."
Cari tried to smile slightly, but the expression came out looking more like a grimace. "Thank you, Mara."
The tea she asked for at the breakfast table did indeed help, but only a tiny bit, and for perhaps an hour. Throughout the rest of the morning, the headache grew steadily worse, and Cari found herself spending a good deal of time and effort trying to keep from visibly wincing every time somebody spoke, or laughed, or dropped a stone on the board during a game of Jump-Crystals. When Lord Dorn opened the door leading off of the entrance hall on his way indoors to lunch, the sound of the rain outside felt to Cari's overtaxed ears like a chorus of thunderstorms breaking out over the edge of the Eastern Sea all at once, complete with lightning and thunder. She cringed.
"Cari? Are you all right?" Danielle's bright, high-pitched voice, normally an endearing sound, hit Cari's eardrums with nearly the force of the screams Hwin had emitted during their final flight to the Hermit's home in the Southern March.
Cari winced again, but managed to keep it more understated this time. "Yes, Danielle, I'm fine," she answered. As soon as the younger girl had turned to speak to Corin, she shut her eyes tightly and brushed some of the gathering sweat off of her forehead. Blast it! I shouldn't have chosen this dress; it's too thick. I am sweltering hot, and that does not help my headache – or make me amenable to drinking more rosemary-lavender tea.
However, Cari did manage to down a full mug of the steaming brew by the end of lunchtime. Even then, the pain in her head barely decreased if at all, and she ended up bringing a newly-refilled cup out onto one of the terraces after lunch in hopes that the afternoon's second dose would prove more effective than its first. In any case, it's cooler outside than in here. I shouldn't feel so much like roasting.
Unfortunately, the crisp autumn air did not do much to ease the heat that bubbled up from some unseen, bottomless source inside Cari's body and coursed through her veins for the remainder of the afternoon. She surreptitiously rolled up her sleeves as far as was both possible and polite, and when she thought nobody was looking, she either waved her hand in front of her face to cool it or blew upwards from the direction of her bottom lip. Even then the warmth did not abate, and given the headache, which only made the heat feel worse, it was all Cari could do to follow the most basic threads of the conversation she was holding with her father, aunt, and uncle. Well, really, it's their conversation; I can't even remember what Uncle Dorn said two sentences ago, let alone respond to it intelligently.
"Cari?" Her father's voice, a hint of concern apparent in it, interrupted her thoughts. Blast it. What did he ask me again? Have I caught a story…no, that doesn't make any sense at all… She looked up blankly just as her father finished repeating the question, of which her ears seemed not to have caught a single word.
Cari was mortified. "I'm sorry, Father, have I caught what again?"
Her father's brow was clearly wrinkled by now. "No, Cari, I asked if Master Dorian had taught you that yet." Seeing his daughter's blank face, he added, "That is, about the war your uncle was mentioning – yes, the Great Western War," he finished, just as Lord Dorn opened his mouth.
"Oh." "Oh"? Come on, Cari; you can surely find something to salvage out of this disaster. There's no need to appear a complete and utter idiot in addition to hopelessly clumsy; even half an idiot will do at this point. "Um – yes– I mean, no – no, we haven't gotten to it in our history books yet," she managed. "I have learned a few things about the war, but that was from – well, from my personal study, with Master Dorian's encouragement." And Father's, of course, seeing as I only found out about the Battle of the Flood in the first place because he showed me Mother's tapestry.
By the time Cari brought herself back out of her thoughts, however, the others were a couple of questions ahead of her again, and more than once she had to ask them to repeat themselves. The call indoors for tea could not have come soon enough, although she could barely force down another half-cup of the rosemary-lavender brew that had heretofore taken just enough edge off her headache to keep her sitting upright.
Even sitting, however, proved a difficult task by suppertime. Having long since given up trying to follow the conversations of those around her, Cari spent the entire hour trying as hard as she could not to pass out cold on the table. When they rose after dessert to adjourn to the solar, a wave of dizziness rushed through her aching head, and she had to grab the edge of the table with both hands to keep from losing her balance and falling flat on the floor. Cor, who had been sitting next to her, quickly reached over to steady her.
"You all right, Cari?" he asked in a low voice. "You look like you're – well – feeling feverish."
Ha! I wish I were only feeling "feverish." "Boiled, fried, and pickled to boot" is more like it. Oh, no, I should not have taken my hand off the table – down I go!
Fortunately, Cor held her up with his brother's help, but just then, King Lune turned his head and noticed them.
"Cari, are you all right?" he inquired, and every head in the room swiveled to regard his daughter, who was gripping the table with one white-knuckled hand and clinging to Cor with the other.
"I'm fine, Father," she managed, but immediately noticed the unwitting rasp that had somehow crept into her voice. She made a half-hearted effort to clear her throat, inwardly wincing at the fresh stab of pain the attempt brought to her head. "I – I think I am merely a bit treaded – I mean, tied – I mean, tired." She blinked in an effort to clear the tears from her eyes.
The king, however, lifted both eyebrows in clear disbelief. However, his first words were not to Cari but to Lord Dorn, Lady Lara, and Danielle. "I shall join you shortly," he said, then nodded toward Aravis and the twins even as he made his way around the table and reached out to put an arm around his daughter. "Thank you, Cor, Corin – Aravis. You may join the others in the solar."
Cor raised his left eyebrow in the expression Cari's eyes had memorized years ago, but he said nothing. He did, however, give her shoulder a whisper of a squeeze before releasing her. Cari managed to drive one corner of her mouth up a tiny bit in reply – at least, I think it moved. Poor Cor.
However, she quickly turned her attention back to her father, who was calling her name and frowning in concern. Just as she was willing herself to open her mouth in an attempt to reply, he gently placed his hand on the side of her head, near her cheek, and almost immediately drew it away as if he had been burned.
"Carisa!" he exclaimed, clearly upset. "Your skin is nearly on fire." Leaning down so that his eyes were on a direct level with hers, he asked, "Does not your head hurt as well?"
Cari closed her eyes and let out as much of a sigh as she could manage without causing her head too much further pain. She reluctantly opened them again to answer her father. "Yes, Father – a little." Saying the words brought a fresh wave of pain to her head, and she breathed in sharply even as she blinked again.
Her father tilted his head intently, and he could not keep the worried tone out of his voice. "I think your head must hurt more than a little, Carisa. You should see Master Salus or Mistress Thamina. Come, I shall send for them and take you to your room." As he referenced the castle's head healers, he reached out and put his arm around her shoulders to support her. Cari winced in anticipation of a fresh wave of pain in response to the contact, but almost sighed in relief when it did not come. Her shoulders, which had hunched tighter and tighter throughout the day as her pain worsened, relaxed slightly into her father's supporting arm, and she found herself able to slowly turn her head in his direction without feeling as though she would pass out.
"I – it's all right, Father, there's no need to trouble them," she protested, although rather weakly. "I think I should be all right if I simply lie down and rest."
King Lune, however, had clearly heard enough. "Not when your skin is this warm, Cari," he answered sternly, and began to guide her down the hallway toward the nearest flight of stairs to the upper floors.
By the time they reached their destination, Cari barely had the strength to stand, let alone protest her relative lack of illness – a tactic that would not have worked in any case once Mara and Maria took one look at her. Within no time flat, Cari found herself being frog-marched into her bedroom and undressed. Through the pain-driven haze that had settled around her, she noticed Mara's eyes widen in a fashion that would have struck her as unnerving, had she not at that moment begun to shiver uncontrollably. All she could hear above the sound of her own teeth chattering was a muted exclamation from the older woman about a fever and a few terse orders issued to an uncharacteristically silent Maria. Only when her head hit her pillow, causing a screaming burst of pain, did Cari realize that the two servants had somehow managed to put her nightgown on and ease her onto her bed.
Not long afterward, following a soft knock that nearly burst Cari's head open, King Lune entered the room. Following on his heels appeared a tall figure whom Cari eventually recognized as the pale, silver-maned Mistress Thamina, the female of the castle's two senior healers. Despite her eyes' screams to stay shut and block the lamplight that had remained after the two servants had hurriedly shut the blinds, Cari managed to open them and respond to the older woman's questions about her fever and pain and how long they had lasted as best she could. During the conversation, her body heated up again, causing her to bat away every inch of covering she could reach. After a brief, whispered conference with Mistress Thamina and the servants, the king withdrew – Cari thought he might have said he would be right outside and that she was in very capable hands, but she couldn't be entirely sure.
No sooner had Cari left than what sounded like the Winding Arrow pouring into her room caused her to jump nearly out of her skin; as it was, her head felt as though it had smashed full-tilt into the ceiling. She moaned in protest, but a few seconds later felt the sweet relief of a cool cloth covering her forehead, and the next moment its mate on her right arm. Within short order, her neck and limbs had been wrapped in a soothing cocoon that partially eased the burning of the blood inside her veins.
"Thanks, Mara…Mar-Ma-Maria…Mistress…Thamina," she managed to whisper, even as the healer bent over her and momentarily lifted the cloth on her forehead, causing an involuntary moan of protest. Mistress Thamina raised half of one eyebrow, which Cari despite her discomfort registered as both strange and a bit alarming, before conferring with Mara again.
Before Cari passed out into a merciful bout of unconsciousness, the last thing she could remember was the healer's steady hand holding her head up while the other poured a trickle of cool, sweet water down her throat. Even as the older woman murmured, "Drink a bit more, Princess, that's good," Cari felt herself descend into a misty dimness.
I know I must have tasted that water before, she felt her mind murmur as she drifted off into unconsciousness.
