Peter

I woke to a hand prodding me in the side. I groaned when my head twinged atrociously. So, I'd been knocked out. Again. Turning to my side, I opened my eyes and found the blackest eyes staring back at me. Other than the white pool of the figure's eyes, nothing but the dark was visible. He stood up and hazy outlines of his frame moved back. Something glinted sharply and I blinked as he gestured towards the metallic thing he'd just kicked. Then he placed another metallic thing next to it, and through the small door on his right, left promptly. I blinked again. And as the darkness faded away and my blinking eyes could make out the cell I was locked in, I recalled.

I had punched the Captain of Tromin's Guard. The brutes! He had no right! But I sighed. I'd been stupid. If I had though carefully, acted carefully, I could impress the King, postpone the wedding to a much more preferable date. Give my kingdom time. Give myself time. I tried to remember more. It was like bubbles of memories were floating away and I managed to catch only some. I remembered the sharp pain—I touched the back of my head and it came back with a crimson patch. And I remembered her lips on mine again. I closed my eyes, swallowing, resisting. The guards had made a long trek, had carried me through the corridors. I remembered stone-grey passing me rapidly as I lay limp between them. But past that, my memory could serve me no more. They must have put me here, in the dark, to rot. I'd been captive before. But most times, I was awaiting death the next morning, not my wedding. Oh, Aslan! My wedding! It didn't matter, I told myself. I would simply refuse to marry her. I could bet Galman laws couldn't force the groom into marriage. Hopefully.

I finally sat up, groaning as the blood seeped into my collar, ruining my muddy coat further. I realised I was sitting on a bunk —or a bench. Stone-hard. My hand found the metallic chain that held it up, its hook locked into the ceiling. There was high window, supplying moonlight to the room. My vision cleared further and I stood up on the bench, bracing my sore legs for my weight. I clasped the iron bars and tried to poke my head through the narrow gap. I only managed to get my nose through. The only visible things were the moon and a silvery river running downhill. It was very wide and I could see the grassy terrain on each of its sides. The river was significantly far from me, almost a line of a silver paper. I propped up on my toes and tried to gaze down, closing one eye and trying to, futilely, poke my head through. I saw the castle walls and a four-hundred feet drop. Instantaneously and with inhuman speed, I sat back on the bench. Heights are not my strength.

My brother laughed in my ear and I rolled my eyes. Sitting up straight, I realised the walls were stone and some unknown letters had been carved on them. I assumed them to be Galman but couldn't help wonder if that one scribble was Narnian—Sorry. Then my eyes flew to the metallic tray the figure had kicked minutes ago. There was food, if you could call it that. A stale loaf of bread and some milk, partly frozen. But nevertheless, I was hungry, and I would not refuse an offer, as unkind as it maybe. I began towards it, but realised I was bound. Mercilessly, I was bound. There was cuff around my ankle, chained into the wall.

Then I remembered the other clink, the other metallic thing the figure had dropped near the tray. It was a key. There to only mock me. As was the food. They knew I would try and fail and were probably laughing about it in their rooms. But I wasn't going to give up. I tugged on the chain once. It was too hard and solid to break. I leaned ahead, my flailing hand reaching for the tray. But it was useless. The distance was too great. Perhaps if I tried sprawling?

And you could become Tromin's dog! Edmund chastised me.

I snorted and lied down on the hard bench. And tried to sleep. But the twinging in my head was growing, and the blood had soaked my back now. I tried to feel the wound and shrieked at the burning sensation of my cold fingers against the bare skin. My head was bleeding profusely and if I slept, I doubted I would wake up again. So, I lay there, staring the cracked ceiling, trying to understand how the chain had been hooked into the stone and if the bench would tolerate my weight for long.

Suddenly, a peculiar sound reached me. Like grains of sand grinding against your boot's sole. Or two rough stones rubbing against each other. It was close and I sat up, glancing around curiously. A subtle movement caught my eye. And I started away. It was a stone brick, slowly being pulled back. I waited and watched even more curiously as the brick was slowly pulled out completely, leaving an opening in the wall. I peeked through. And saw an equally curious eye staring back at me.

I startled back, screaming softly.

"Who—wha—what in the—" I stuttered.

My eyes widened when a scarred hand poked out of the hole in the wall. It waved and I stared disbelievingly.

"Aren't you going to shake it?"

Oh. I approached warily and then subtly and briefly shook the hand. Then it was withdrawn and I breathed a sigh. "Who are you?" I asked, and my lonely voice echoed in the cell.

"An old man," the voice answered.

I peeked through but there was nothing to be seen except darkness. And a very blurry figure, resting against the wall. I gulped and sat back on the bench, and said, "Tromin imprisoned you, too?" For some time, there was only a very sharp silence.

But the man spoke up, "That was my misfortune, yes."

"Did you—did you punch one of his guards?" I teased, hoping to amuse the dreary man.

But his voice dulled and dried further, "No. It was—it was a family feud. My brother, you see, he is an ambitious man. He was younger and wanted—wanted my—larger share of the—the—estate. He is a kind man of heart, though, you see. Or he would have killed me. He devised a different way to…you know." Silence. And I opened my mouth to sympathise with the man but he said, "Do you have brothers, good sir?"

I smiled. "Only one. He's too much trouble himself, sir."

"Younger then?"

"Yes," I replied.

"I found mine once, wrestling with the pigs on our farm. I would have stopped him but he seemed to be winning." A laugh. "Do you have any stories about your brother, sir? To pass the time, you see."

I considered. "Well, there are many," I said thoughtfully, "but I know just the right one."

Don't you dare, Edmund hissed.

"Oh, I will," I said, laughing.

"What?"

"Uh, nothing, sir. Well, in the first summer of the first year of our re—" I paused sharply. "—of the first year," I said and could almost hear as the man's brows went up, "my brother found a hedgehog and…"

I recounted the time Edmund had found and rescued and brought home, with great pride, a hedgehog. The hedgehog was dumb as were most creatures from the valleys in the Western Mountains. It was a cute and small little thing, hardly large enough to completely fit in your hand. I think that is why Lucy took an instant liking to the animal. Its eyes almost glowed with the profound adorableness it possessed, and the extremity of its smallness and tendency to lure any idle passers towards it had bothered me. But the extent of that botheration was tiny to the dread I felt when my eyes suddenly found the spines protruding out of its hard skin. It was an irrational fear but I swear on my life it hissed at me and then bared its teeth when I came to wake Edmund on the days Tirius visited his home. It envied me, I say. But Edmund was not convinced and waved his hands to dismiss the absurd matter.

I let it pass also and the days passed drearily and dully. On those days, we had already defeated most of the Witch's army's remnants, and more forces would take a considerable time to rise. It was not until then that I realised that I, quite really, missed the battles and the rush of adrenaline and the ferocious pumping in my veins. Boredom, it seemed, would be the death of me. But Edmund didn't seem, at all, bored. He spent entire days pampering that little creature of his. Most times, Lucy would join him, and would giggle gleefully when the hedgehog shivered as she tried to pluck its spines.

Susan shared my sentiment. "Lucy doesn't like to spend time with me now," she said to me one morning as we sipped tea. "That thing is dreadful! She's afraid of bugs, but she can tolerate such a dangerous beast?"

I had laughed.

Weeks passed and the monotonousness of the castle only grew worse. But my brother was, of course, still oblivious to the bored moods of our cooks, captain and lieutenants, soldiers, guards, attendants, and servants. It was the fifth day of the third week of Ilosium, the very best day of my life. And I have three younger siblings. It was that day that finally rid us of the hedgehog.

The hedgehog, Ukia, and a 'she' apparently, was napping comfortably on one of the sofas of the Large Eastern Balcony. Susan had called us for a late evening tea. We all took our seats on the table, but Edmund, feeling sore from a recent exercise in the Grounds, decided to sit on the sofa. And you will never guess…

"He sat on the hedgehog?" the man guessed from his cell.

I burst out laughing so loud the birds sitting on the window flew away with a start. Clutching to my stomach, I sprawled, undignified, on the hard ground, still roaring with laughter. I wiped my eyes and managed to continue the conversation between laughs, "Oh…Sir…my good sir! The spines…the spines, sir! They stuck!"

To this, the man laughed as well.

I finally sat up, settling against the bench, shaking with an occasional bout of laughing. "He couldn't sit for a week! And couldn't sit without fidgeting every other second a month! I tell you, sir, it was the best day of my life!"

He chuckled softly and then said, "What happened with the hedgehog?"

"Oh, she was returned to the Mountains, sir, where my brother had found her while gathering the sheep," I said, amused at the thought of my brother as a shepherd. "To a hedgehog family. We do think she was their missing child."

I stopped laughing and silence sharpened and stretched between us. The amusement faded from my mind soon as I realised, with a surprised, abrupt jerk, that I was not home. I was imprisoned in Galma and these people meant to marry me to the woman who had almost killed the same brother. In his embarrassment of that day, I took pleasure. But I cannot deny it hurt me profoundly when he had cried in his pain. I lied down on the stone bench, refraining myself from feeling homesick and desperate again, from feeling the need to see my siblings and my people. And I slept, the pain and danger of my head wound forgotten.

It was not a prodding elbow or the ferocious twinge of my head, but a soft groaning sound, one indicating pain and its endurance, that woke me. I had thought I was dreaming, another one of those dreadful nightmares. But the sound grew more and more distinct, cutting through the haze and tiredness of my sleep. I still refused to pay more attention but a soft scream eliminated any possibility of getting more sleep. I sat up, still dizzy but much more aware, and gazed around, looking for the source of the distant moaning. I turned sharply when I realised why the moaning was faint. It was reaching me through the wall, permeating in the air were its remnants. I gulped and leaned down. The brick had been replaced into the wall. I took it out, cautiously.

There were three figures in the cell this time, two standing, and one cowering into the wall, and all men, I judged by their dark outlines. The moonlight spilled in from the window in that cell and I saw the menacing smiles the standing men, the scars on their faces. Soldiers. They punched the third man. Abusers. I gasped. The kindly old man in the next cell was the one being beaten up, I realised suddenly. I looked around frantically. I tried to reach for the door but the cuff stopped me. I grunted and picked a stone from near me. I threw it through the opening in the wall. By my luck, it struck one abuser's temple, who in turn bashed heads with his companion. I smirked.

But moved back when the two suddenly found the hole and slowly moved towards me. One closed his eye, and peered through the hole, squinting in the dark. He saw nothing as I had attached myself to the wall adjacent to the hole. I threw another stone through the opening. The man shrieked and there was a lot of Galman swearing before I heard the door to the other cell opened. I moved back when the door of my cell opened and in came the same scarred and grinning soldiers.

"You," one said, "will regret it."

I was already regretting my stupid actions—the other man had pulled out a whip. But I refused to cower before them. I stood up, ready to fight if I must. But instantly stumbled when my head twinged brutally, my mind swirling, vision swaying. The men laughed and one pinned me against the wall.

"Don't," I hissed at them, not as a plea, but a bold command.

"Who is he?" the one with the whip asked.

"Don't know. But must be valuable if he's up here," the other replied.

"Twenty lashes wouldn't do much harm to the boy."

"Don't!" I yelled when he turned me towards the wall, shoving my face into the bricks. "Don't," I said again.

"You could ask nicely," said one, rolling the whip's end around his palm.

"Don't do it," I said.

"Please?" they mocked.

"No," I replied.

"Well then…"

And they dealt me the first lash.