29 - Tangled Web

Van knew exactly where the White Witch would be hiding Edmund, because any captain worth his rations kept his valuables where he slept.

Working his way astern, and doing his best to keep low, Van listened to snatches of conversation from the Witch's crew.

"—got him trussed like a pig for roasting, most like," said a gruff voice.

"Or worse," cackled another voice. "I hope it's worse."

The first voice joined in the laughter.

"Shouldn't we get after those other ships?"

"She ain't gave the order, barmy. You want to go doing stuff she ain't said so, that's your own neck."

"I can't believe they shoved off without him. A king, and all."

"Pirates," said the second voice, as if that explained everything. "We got sense to know when to cut our losses, eh? He ain't ever coming out of that cabin." Both crewmen laughed again.

Well, that confirmed Van's suspicions. He pulled his hat (a bit worse the wear for its swim, he thought wryly) down low over his eyes, then slipped around a capstan and toward a back stairwell. But as he glimpsed the deck over a group of water casks, he stopped short.

Edmund and the White Witch were walking the deck together. She drifted along close beside him, pale and shimmery like pearls, ignoring the crew when they gaped at her. One of the crewmen said something in Calormene which, by the tone, Van took as an oath to his god. The other, an ogre, just stared with his mouth hanging open.

Van stared too, forgetting where he was. Edmund leaned close to the Witch as they stood at the port rail, speaking too low for even Van to hear. The captain didn't seem to mind the way the Witch brushed against him. He neither stepped away nor acknowledged it, gesturing instead over the rail to the flat grey waters beyond. Then the Witch looked at him, flirtatious, with an underlying note of unmistakable greed, the way a courtier did when mooning after a rich lord. Van had seen it so many times growing up on Narrowhaven that it made him sick. And Edmund reacted just the way all those lords did: he stepped a bit closer to her, inviting the advance with a considering look that made it clear he knew where such an action led.

What in Underland is this?

Van had heard the Witch was able to ensnare others to do her bidding, even when they were unwilling. But Edmund had faced her before.

Did that make him less susceptible to her power ... or more so?

Van looked back to the Witch, from the long, pale hair piled on top of her head, down a slender neck, and over that sweeping, luminous dress. His dream came back to him in stark precision—of Edmund the boy, facing down the Witch, and then his premonition of Edmund the man, using a magical spear of ice—the Witch's wand—to strike someone down.

Fury filled Van's chest so full he could scarcely breathe. What was Edmund playing at? Just where the hell did he stand in this war? One minute, he pretended at piracy. The next, he confessed to being a Narnian king. And the very next, he could be found chumming it up with Jadis. Either he was a very, very good liar—enough to fool even the Faelings—or there was a whole lot more to this mess than Van had ever wanted to know.

For a few minutes he simply stood there, clench-fisted, unsure what to do. He'd given his word and his oath to Edmund. His word—the last unspoiled thing he had to his name, the one thing he'd never broken, never tarnished. His chest tightened further. I really am rotten all through.

Fine, then. If he weren't acting for the captain, he'd just have to start acting on his own selfish interests like the scoundrel he was.

Grimly, he readjusted his grip on his sai and continued aft. The back stair was empty. The hold, nearly so, but Van almost had a moment of trouble when an ogre spotted him and started to raise an alarm. He stabbed the ogre without a second thought and continued deeper into the stacks of cloth, bags of grain, and crates of what would surely be stolen goods. He ignored these.

Somewhere in this mess, he would find the bilge that pumped water out of the hold, and then he'd jam it and sink this floating bucket of lies into the ocean. Lucy was right.

Piracy, for all its flaws, was honestly dishonest.

With eyes well-accustomed to dim light (How had he not noticed all his useful hereditary perks before?), Van crept along through the lashed stacks of cargo.

A low snort reached its ears. Then a deep, sibilant voice. "Shhhhhut up, or I'll eat you sssssooner."

Another snort, and a scuffle.

"Leave him alone, you overgrown crocodile, or I'll peck your last eye out," snapped another voice—and that one, Van recognized.

Arrow.

Van slipped faster through the stacks of cargo, then jerked to a stop as he caught an overpowering, pungent scent like old, shed snakeskin. Choking, covering his nose with an arm, he peered around the edge of a barrel of apples.

Van considered himself a reasonably brave individual, and not a very pious one. He'd defied his share of death in his long and colorful career in piracy (and Edmund had joined him for some of that, he reminded himself with a sneer). But when he caught sight of what lay at the end of the hold, he shot back behind the barrel with a whole list of prayers on the tip of his tongue. And for the first time in forty-odd years, he found himself wishing he'd never left the boring, comparative safety of Narrowhaven.

- # -

Peter trotted on Onyx toward Cair Paravel, the fastest pace he dared take his troops. Night was coming on, but they couldn't afford to halt. They would be exhausted as it was by the time they arrived, worn down by battle and travel. A trip from Cair to the Witch's castle took no more than a day or so, unencumbered by others. With several hundred troops in tow, some injured past the point of traveling under their own power, their march had been three days and counting.

But the Stag who had returned to their encampment after reporting to Cori had brought with him distressing news: Cair was under attack already.

Susan was under attack. Aidan was under attack.

Onyx must have sensed Peter's unease, because he snorted and stepped up his pace a bit. Peter laid a hand on his neck to urge him to slow back down. "My fault," he told the unicorn.

"Saris will guard them with his very life, sire," Onyx said, glancing back.

Peter gave a bleak nod. Sometimes he thought the unicorn could read minds, among his other talents, but Onyx had never indicated so. Maybe it was just because they'd fought together for so many years. "I hope it doesn't have to get to that point," he told Onyx.

A flutter in the air made Peter look behind him. Salvia glided toward him along the column of soldiers. "The chest is secure, sire. No one is interfering with it."

"Good," Peter said, sparing a look for the wagon trundling along with their column. In that chest was his last-ditch hope for stopping the White Witch's army from overrunning Cair Paravel. Getting it had taken hours of their precious time. Keeping it from sight—even his own—was the worst of the problem. Even now, he thought he could hear it whispering to him to unlock the chest and take the prize within in his hands.

Had he been wrong to take the golden book from the Witch's cursed treasure trove? It had been so easy after all—a pair of gloves, so he didn't touch its surface and succumb to the curse of greed laid on her treasure. Too easy. It had been harder to slip away from his troops and get into her ruined castle unnoticed. No one had set eyes on the book but him. Everyone was curious about the chest's contents, but not even Oreius had dared to question him. It hadn't escaped Peter's attention, though, that the stern old centaur had left others at the Witch's castle so that he could return to Cair at Peter's side.

Centaurs had a talent for reading the future in the stars. Peter looked up and saw a few of the brighter stars beginning to show in the evening sky. Did Oreius see victory at the end of their battle ... or death?