A/n: The name Palomnus is taken from Alymra's stories; he's one of her original characters who features in several of her Narnia stories. I have her permission to use this character.
Chapter Thirty-Seven : Indivisible Flesh
Peter was as solid as his name and yet as wild as a hurricane; there was calm in his eye and he wanted to blow them all away. The remains of his breakfast – bread that had seen better days, meat that had never known them and brackish water diluted with bitter wine half-turned to vinegar – lay on the table beside the throne of wooden boards and posts and pegs erected in the tent that was his quasi-mobile court. He narrowed his sea-blue eyes against the rising sun lancing through the half-open tent flap and stretched the frame that was nearing manhood, easing the kinks that were turning to bruises. He looked at the sealed letter in his hand.
"You are certain of this?" he asked and immediately regretted it. Of course Reynard was, he simply would not have told the High King this news if he were not entirely sure of his facts. The fox nodded, his limbs trembling with effort. Peter remembered his manners.
"Have my troops offered you refreshment?" he asked. The fox panted his response – he had had enough time to regain his breath, but the break-neck race from the Cair to the moorlands north of the Shribble through woods filled with enemies was too much to be sponged away by a few minutes spent presenting a damning report to your lord and master.
"They have, your majesty, but I thought it wise to present this to you immediately." Peter nodded.
"Have you anything more to add?" he asked. The messenger shook his vulpine head. "Then get some rest and some food." Peter snapped his fingers for Palomnus his attendant, wincing as the hair-line fractures in his digits creaked. A Giant's club had caught him on his right hand three days before, sending Rhindon flying. If he wasn't careful, one of these days a blow like that would land somewhere important and he'd be laid up for weeks.
The Faun moved forward and gently escorted the exhausted fox from the tent. Peter remained staring at the letter for a few moments – precious vellum, folded expertly and without a single hesitation; four folds each at precisely the right point to make a perfect square, just enough crimson wax dripped on their junction, the silken ribbon with the carved amber keepsake folded in perfectly while it was still warm and then the whole thing sealed with his sister's diminutive ring. His gaze fell on the matching signet ring on his right hand – heavy and coarse in comparison to the one that would be resting on her lily-white hand. Idly, he looked at the whorls of the Lion's mane and the reverse-sunk eyes; fragments of red wax were embedded in them, the legacy of sealing letters too-quickly, with one's mind on other things.
Susan's ring would be pristine – and she never cleaned it.
He turned the letter over – his name and titles were written in flowing, elegant Copperplate, scarcely blotted, no faint lines of charcoal ruling underneath them, all uniform black. His Imperial Majesty High King Peter of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, Emperor of the Lone Islands.
Was he any of those things?
He did not feel them – yet he knew he should. He was the High King, universally loved by his people and his family. He was undefeated in war, always victorious in personal combat. His soldiers would follow him anywhere. He was King by gift of Aslan and knew – intellectually – all that was required of him was to obey the Lion. He knew that he was doing the right things.
But he didn't feel it. There was an uncertainty in him; the moment that seemed to have happened (although he could not say when) for his siblings had not yet reached him, he thought. He was the great High King Peter, Grand Master of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel . . . all titles he still felt, and perhaps always would, that he was still to earn.
He recognized his inaction as procrastination. Impatiently, he tore at the seal – the wax ripped unevenly and half the letter remained attached. Calmer, he plucked at the carved amber – one of Ed's wolf-trinkets, he noted; this was a gesture of deep love from his sister to give one of those away – and opened the letter by pulling on the ribbon; the way his sister had intended for it to be opened. The script – firm, assured, confident, with not a missed word, tittle or jot – was pure Susan. With one eye on it and one on the flap of his tent – today's sortie was to begin an hour after dawn – he read it;
Cair Paravel, 16th Frostmelt, Third Year of the Reign of High King Peter of Narnia
Peter,
As Reynard will no-doubt have told you, Cair Paravel will soon be under siege – perhaps by the time you read this.
I will not fill this letter with military matters – you know them better than I and will get more from Reynard with a score of questions than I could convey if I wrote until Winter passed to Spring. You know what danger faces the Cair and your country.
And your sister. I do not beg for aid, Peter – I am a Queen of Narnia and I kneel to no-one, and you know asking for help has never come easy to me. Neither do I demand you stay where you are – you are better equipped to decide what will be wise and what will be folly.
What I ask of you – my headstrong, willful and brilliant brother – is temperance and a cool head. I ask you to make the decision that needs to be made, and make it without passion, without your anger coloring it.
You are the greatest warrior in living memory – you know this to be true. You also know – for you have told me so yourself – battles are half-won before blades are drawn.
Think like the warrior – like the man – you are, and make the correct choice. Do not come howling to defend me if it will leave Narnia naked before the Giants.
You can make this choice better than I – all I ask is that you make sure you make the right one.
Your ever-loving sister,
Su
For a full minute, Peter remained staring the end of the letter, perhaps half-expecting a post-script to fade into existence. All you ask, Su? he half-smiled to himself, All you ask is that I make sure I make the right choice? And would you like the whole of Caldron Pool fitting in your goblet or your bowl?
Peter folded the velum back along the lines his sister had scored – somehow, it didn't want to go back into the perfect square. He struggled with it for a moment or two – armored fingers clumsy on the delicate skin – and then tossed it to the table. He stood and tried to scrub away the weariness of short Winter days and long Winter nights of campaign as he passed his hands over his face. He flexed his broadening shoulders, feeling the growing tightness of his hauberk. It might very soon be time for another ring or two in the mail – he was outgrowing his armor at a frightening rate.
He felt gawky and gangly, when he looked in the mirror he didn't see the King the others did. His cheeks were downy – he did not shave on campaign as often as he perhaps should, half-thinking it made him look older and half-suspecting it simply made him look as if he were striving too hard. There were moments when his thundered cries in battle were high and clear, his voice shifting and quavering.
He felt too young for it all – too young to be responsible for a Kingdom, a people, his family.
And yet . . . they believed in him. Aslan, the people of Narnia, his family, all were convinced that he could do it. Even when he wasn't himself.
If he had been perhaps a shade more confident, he might have been willing to call them all wrong. He drew Rhindon, reversed it, and knelt before the icon of the Lion. "Let me be worthy of your trust," he whispered.
And then he stood, sheathed his sword and strode from the tent, whistling for his bodyguard and commanders. From the ice-blue skies of the northern Winter they dropped with keening cries, kingship and divinity mixed in their very bodies.
oOo
"Get away!" yelled the Baron, thrusting at the hissing monstrosity with a spear. Almost contemptuously, it grabbed the shaft, pulled hard, and jerked the Narnian Lord off his feet.
The Cruel raised a misshapen paw studded with barbed claws, making ready to bring it down with sickening force on the prostrate Narnian. A few yards away, his wife struggled in the arms of a brace of Black Dwarfs, screaming his name with tears pouring down her face.
From the walls of the valley, a great hunting howl split the air, shattering the bright noon-day sunlight into fractured bars of gold. The Cruel glanced upward just in time to widen its flabby eyes in shock as the great, gray shape of a wolf smashed into its face, jaws savaging and rending. Muscles coiled like sleek springs beneath iron-silver fur and propelled the massive weight of the Lantern Waste Captain into the tangle of Dwarfs and Baroness. Jaws snapped and bit, claws flashed like an unfolding storm, and when the Baroness dared to open her eyes and unclench her muscles from the terror-cramp that had taken them, her assailants lay dead. Licking his long muzzle, the wolf delicately spat out a shred of chainmail as the Baron struggled to his wide feet. He brushed snow from his fur as his wife ran over to him and cuddled him with uncomprehending joy.
"Drax?" asked Beaver bluntly, "Wot you doin' 'ere?" His wife stepped forward across the dam, smiling sweetly and adding diplomacy to her husband's words.
"What I'm sure he means, Captain, is that . . ." Drax did not waste time on pleasantries.
"Baroness, Baron," he growled in greeting. "Where are Queen Lucy and Marshal Nicodemus? I must speak with them urgently." Beaver jerked his head.
"North, the Silver Citadel." The wolf bowed his head and made to sprint away. Beaver's words stopped him, "Drax."
The wolf turned. "Thanks," Beaver said simply. The former-traitor smiled, bowed his head again, and was gone faster than a horse could gallop.
oOo
"You know as well as I do we cannot disengage our forces swiftly," the Gryphon said, her voice high and clear and caught somewhere between a screech and a growl. The bony planes of her beak – cruel and curved like a Calormen scimitar – gave a strange metallic quality to the feline purr of her feathered throat. Peter's face twisted in annoyance.
"I do not employ you to lecture me, nor to tell me that which I know, girl," he said shortly. Briefly, he wondered what this female was doing in the Moorland elite – since Coriadine's death, were they letting just about anyone in? Surely he didn't have so few Gryphons in his army that commissions to the elite were handed out to women?
"I stand corrected, sire," she said with easy grace. Her leonine body with its great aquiline forequarters – the size of a horse or larger – was perched on a jutting shoulder of rock that rose from the marshy ground. Mist rolled from the wet earth underfoot, giving the impression Peter floated above the clouds, surrounded by half-a-dozen Gryphons perched on mountaintops. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples.
"I know we cannot withdraw immediately," he said, "and neither do I suggest it would be a wise course of action. But . . . aid must come to the Cair." The Gryphon nodded and delicately preened her feathers with her razor-sharp beak. Peter turned to face the other Gryphons, sharpening their claws or ruffling their feathers ready for the fight. "My vote goes for a change in our strategies – consolidation rather than advance, establishing and securing our borders; possibly as far south as the Shribble." Eagle-eyes widened in surprise.
"Sire!" exclaimed Colonel Ferrox with a roar filtered through avian vocal chords, "No! It would undo the work of the last month and a half!" Peter's face remained impassive.
"Securing at the Shribble can be accomplished within perhaps a week – a border further north will take longer and greater resources, the Cair cannot hold for that long," he said flatly, hating himself for the shrill tone that always crept into his voice when he got flustered. "If we pull back to the Shribble, we may be able to march on the Cair with two or three hundreds – which will make a decisive impact on the siege."
"March in how long?" asked Ferrox, his voice inheriting the unintended sarcasm of his torso, "Ten days? More?" He shook his head. "I suggest increasing the violence of our assaults – driving the Giants back and achieving a swift victory. If we have sufficient strength we can force the Giants into an armistice and fly for the Cair with the majority of our forces. Three weeks." He paused. "That is what my vote is for."
"And I am certain," purred the female Gryphon, "that when this becomes a democracy, High King Peter will bear that in mind." Ferrox growled deep in his cavernous chest, but the Gryphoness remained impassive as Peter turned to face her.
"Who are you?" he asked, "I do not recall appointing a woman to the Moorland elite."
"No," she said, "you didn't – Colonel Ferrox did." Peter was about to expostulate at his chief bodyguard, but the Gryphoness interrupted him. "My name is Eruanne, Coriadine was my husband. We have no children – according to the ancient Code, I may take his place in your armies." Peter sighed deeply.
"Eruanne," he began carefully, "I understand your grief and that passions run high in women-folk, but to take up arms and throw away your life in your grief is madness." He paused, "War is no place for a woman." Eruanne narrowed her eyes.
"Are you married, Sire?" she asked, her beak clacking open and revealing warm inner surfaces – crimson red even though there were no chicks pecking at them to make her regurgitate food. "Have you joined your flesh to someone else? Have you accepted someone else's deeds and responsibilities as your own? Have you ever known a person with whom you weren't sure where you ended and she began?" Peter opened his mouth to protest, to explain. "Well, I have! I married my husband shortly after you won at the Battle of Beruna, a year later he was your Marshal and six months after he was dead in your service."
"For which I am truly sorry, Eruanne, but . . ."
"Spare me your sympathy, I do not ask for it and neither would he. He knew the risks as did I. Why do you think Aslan made the ancient Codes, sire?" she asked with a screech and a beating of her magnificent tawny wings. "Because he knew what to be married meant – it means to be that person, to not share their triumphs and failures, but to know them and be them. I am as much your Marshal as he was, Sire – I know you cannot grant me that position, but at least you can let me do what we promised!"
For a second, Peter stood silent. No, he didn't understand. He was simply too young, he thought, too unaware of the subtleties of the world. There were things in the world he suspected he would never understand. For a moment, he wondered if he was supposed to understand them and that his lack of comprehension marked him as a failure. And then the sense of confidence he could always feel if he didn't deliberately seek it out washed over him; he could never be a failure provided all he tried to be was what he should be. He faced his former Marshal's widow, nodding his head.
"I name you Marshal of the North, Eruanne." He raised his hand in the face of Ferrox's protests and the Gryphoness' exclamation of surprise. "Enough! Prepare the army for consolidation and withdrawal – we march in a week with whatever we can."
oOo
Drax slunk through the ruined courtyard of the Silver Citadel, past the melting walls and the ever-present drip-drip-drip of failing icicles. Spring was knocking at the door of Winter, eager like an actor waiting in the wings. But Winter still demanded to complete her swansong – there was more of that act left than Spring suspected.
He ducked under the fallen lintel, propped up on one side by a tumbled column. At a casual glance, this dark space – scarcely two feet high at its highest point – would have been overlooked. It couldn't lead anywhere – underneath it were the very foundations of the castle, frozen soil and earth not even Summer could warm.
Drax wormed his way under the stone, slinking down through the narrow, partially-collapsed tunnel and shaking the dirt and snow off his fur as he came out into a solidly appointed room, its ceiling arched and vaulted like a church, the dungeons of the castle. He sniffed deeply, inhaling the comforting scents of his packmates – Nicodemus and the rest strong and sharp, together with the odd, rippling, golden scent of Queen Lucy. Underneath them all, their colors faded but still visible, were Rapine and Edmund and the rest. He gave a little howling yip-yip and moved further into the dimly-lit caverns.
The dungeons of the Witch's Castle had gone down deep, fathoms and fathoms of room and corridor and oubliette. Here were the cells where prisoners had been tormented, the foundries and workshops, the armories and smithies – and the wolf pens.
Drax smiled as he remembered the great struggle a year before – the wolf-war that had driven those still loyal to the Witch from the Silver Citadel, the over- and underground battles pitting lupine against lupine with Edmund at their head. The battles in the Western Wild and the Lantern Waste, the perpetual war of the dozens and dozens of wolves who owed loyalty to the Witch, to Narnia, to Edmund, or perhaps none but their packs.
Now, these dungeons were silent – the final secret bolt-hole of the Lantern Waste, their castle, keep and refuge. None save the wolves came here, few knew of them. Outside, in tents and barracks erected in the ruins of the Citadel, the rest of the armies of the West were stationed. But here, in this warm, friendly half-light, the wolves still dwelt.
Drax turned a final corner, the walls opening out into a large room – holes in the floor marked where posts for fencing had divided the room into individual pens, but now the room was open and free. At one end, a pile of bedding – rags and clean straw, blankets and captured tunics – was collected. Drax saw his Queen and his commander in conference with a few other wolves, but his yellow eyes were drawn to the huddle of dark fur cuddled in the bedding at the end. He padded towards it noiselessly, but a lupine face detached itself from the mass and faced him.
The wolf who looked at him was female, smaller than he was although with powerful shoulders and strong jaws. Her fur was darker than most and her eyes were as blue as the High King's. Around her, pups – their eyes still closed and uncomprehending – nevertheless felt the presence of their father and whined and moved closer to his warmth. The she-wolf nuzzled her muzzle along Drax's, a keening-whine deep in her throat, her blue-eyes gazing up at him with an imploring, grateful gaze.
He arched his neck and his throat convulsed, the muscles of his stomach and guts flexing and a mass of semi-digested meat sliding from his mouth. She bent her head and swallowed it, shifting her legs to let her pups get better access as they suckled. She ran her face alongside his again, sniffing and snuffling at him, smelling the unfamiliar scents of the east on him.
"Captain?" asked the Marshal, breaking the moment, "What news from the Cair?" Reluctantly, Drax turned from his wife and padded over to his commander and Queen. He bowed before them.
As he recounted the previous day's war-council at the Cair and the danger that pressed on Narnia and the Monarch-in-Residence, he reflected that this place was silent and quiet. In another room would be the youngsters – the wolf cubs that they had rescued from the Witch a year before; too-old to be suckled, but too-young to fight. His lovely wife Cyan – and Aslan-forbid anyone would dare call her "Puppy-Blue" to her face – was weaning this year's pups, and a few of the pack had volunteered to guard Queen Lucy, but for the most part the wolves were in the Lone Islands with the Alpha.
Privately, he wondered if it might not always be like this from now on. He wondered, briefly, if he had not chosen the wrong side.
But then Cyan – wonderful, brilliant Cyan, a mature wolf who had by some quirk of fate kept her juvenile coloring to adulthood, the exotic beauty of the Western Wild who had saved him – slunk over and ran her head along his flank. He remembered the days when this cavern was packed with wolves – snarling brutes kept in fear of whips and brands, their Alpha Maugrim ruling by fear because he himself feared, Varden constantly vying for his master's position and life.
No, he thought, this is the right side. I don't know if we'll win, but I know – if it comes to that – I have picked the right place to lose.
Queen Lucy was plucking at his collar, unfastening the letter from her sister and unfolding it with chubby fingers, bitten by cold and harsh living. The young Queen – scarcely a whelped pup even by human standards, reflected Drax – had begun her sojourn in the Lantern Waste lightly, one might even say skittishly – enjoying the rugged and exciting life they were forced to lead. She had reveled in the gulped meals and a diet that consisted mostly of fresh-killed meat, a war fought with surprise and counter-ambush, of constantly shifting battle-lines and nights without sleep or fire or shelter.
After a week or so, this had begun to pall – the unending reality of this was too much for her. She was so young, and had never had the harsh schooling in the real world her brother – in truth, not so much older than she – had experienced. The fact this could not be avoided, the fact it was not a holiday of adventure from which one could return to the luxury of the Cair, had begun to wear at her.
Still, she was a Queen of Narnia and – with strength and determination and an unshakable faith in the Lion – she had pushed through this and come out the other side. The hardship was not a game any more, but neither was it the be all and end all. There were meals taken around fires, snatched dances and howled songs in clearings, a camaraderie that few – if any – soldiers in Narnia could match. There was a firm assurance in Lucy's face – leaner and harder than it had been a month and a half before and with a cleft of concentration between her brows – that had not been there prior to the Waste. She finished the letter and turned to Nicodemus.
"Prepare the armies for departure," she ordered crisply. The Marshal rolled his yellow eyes.
"Your Majesty," he said with infinite patience, "We cannot simply set out immediately and – even if we could – it is a march of a week or more to the Cair." Lucy smiled sweetly – she was naive enough to think that Nicodemus' objections were purely practical.
"I know," she said evenly, "that's why I didn't say we leave today. Start getting the army ready to move. If we take the wolves, the Centaurs and the cats we can move much faster than we would if we took the Fauns and the Dryads. It's less than a week for wolves, isn't it?" she asked Drax. The Captain nodded, human-loyalty and pack-allegiance beginning to jar.
"It is, your Majesty," he managed, "Running at full-pelt, it is less than a day – but if we are marching as an army and wish to arrive fresh enough to fight it is at least three days, probably more. But you must understand that . . ."
"But less than a week!" exclaimed Lucy, perhaps willfully ignoring Drax and turning to Nicodemus with a joyful grin. "See? We can be at the Cair within a week if we move swiftly." Nicodemus shook his head.
"Your majesty, you are asking us to abandon the Lantern Waste." Echoes of the argument he had had with Edmund came washing back over him. He suspected that he would be able to dictate to this puppy – a mere cub who her own brother had ordered to listen to him and who, so far, had proved tractable when it came to military matters – what would be done. "We have already lost much territory – from Caldron Pool to the Lantern is in the hands of the People of the Toadstools and the Witch's wolves. Our forces are committed to a punitive assault, a retaliatory strike to take these lands back."
"Then uncommit them," Lucy said with a simple grin. Nicodemus made to expostulate and explain this was impossible. "We shall leave the Fauns and Dryads to defend the Western March, but the only people in the Lantern Waste are the soldiers. If they are not there, then there's nothing to abandon." She smiled sweetly again.
Gradually, it dawned on Nicodemus she thought of the land as people – that, despite the fact she was often here, it was not to walk through the clearing of the stumps of the Trees, or to stand in the light of the Lantern; it was to visit the people of the Western March. She didn't see it the way he saw it, the way it should be seen. The very land was sacred. He tried a different tack.
"Your Majesty," he pleaded, "I recognize your desire to defend your family and your people – but what of ours?" He gestured with his head at the helpless, utterly dependent pups lying in the nest. "If we do not defend the Lantern Waste, then we cannot hold the Silver Citadel – the pups will be killed when the Citadel falls."
"Not if they are not here," growled Cyan. "We can fall back to the Beaversdam encampment – Queen Lucy is right, Marshal," she continued before Nicodemus could interrupt her. "We have lost the Lantern Waste – we no longer hold it, we contest one tenth of it at best. Our forces can be better spent elsewhere – breaking the siege of Cair Paravel, for one!" Nicodemus growled angrily. "Even you, Marshal, must accept that we have lost – for now, at least." Cyan turned to Lucy. "Your Highness, I beg permission to begin moving my pups now together with last year's whelps – they are capable of defending the encampment, but not fighting in the wars."
Lucy smiled as if her permission were the most natural thing in the world. "Granted, Cyan," she said. The blue-eyed wolf bowed and made to move away.
"You should stay at the encampment," her husband said. She turned and shook her head.
"No," she said, "Queen Lucy's Fauns and Dryads are defending our home – the least I can do is defend theirs." She caught sight of Nicodemus' face, drawn and haggard in the dim light. "The Marshal will remain in the Waste, I am sure." The great gray wolf started as if roused from sleep.
"I am the Marshal of the West," he growled softly, "but first and foremost I am a soldier of Narnia and a servant of King Edmund the Just. I promised him that I would guard his sister, with my life if necessary – I go where she goes until such time as he releases me from that obligation." He sighed deeply.
"I shall begin withdrawing from lands we have died to secure."