Drenched in Drothers
...
"Rakes and Bladders!" said a hoarse mutter. "Rushwash tea almost has more uses than a broad-sword".
The person with ruby lips and muddy face breathed in a deep lungful of steam from her deep freshwater mussel shell, noting the steam clearing the smoky sinuses after that awful coughing fit she'd had.
And then that grassy sweetness and the slight gelatinous consistency when she sipped was just the thing for soothing the throat. She felt calmer, so she silently counted and marked time with a discreet toe tap, somehow able to track both rhythms together and come out with two coherent numbers. She could measure a marked slowing of both breathing and pulse. Interesting.
She inhaled slowly and deeply again, managing not to cough, savouring the moment, steadying her mind and analysing her situation.
The ridiculous thing was, she had just been getting used to the shag the Marshwiggles smoked and starting to enjoy it. Snakes and Ladders! Now she was most likely back at square one. Or worse. That hacking tickle in the back of her throat was likely to persist. Hmmm… no… more… shag.
"So what do you intend to do?"
She looked over the edge of her mussel shell at the Marshwiggle sitting across from her. Despite his immensely long legs and arms, that tended to go in all angles at unguarded moments, he looked relaxed and comfortable, only mildly concerned. His soulful greeny-brown eyes searched hers for a long moment. Then, he dropped his gaze, pursed his lips knowingly and held his tongue. He looked at his own shell cup, holding it negligently in his slightly webbed green hand. Giving her time.
Drench was her patient and steadfast friend. He gave her as much room as any wiggle needed, but somehow seemed to know just when nothing else would suffice.
And here he was again. He preferred directness.
So she said, "Stop smoking that awful muddy concoction for a start!"
"Oh? We Wiggles thought you were working on becoming one of us. The earthstrong fosterling? But not strong enough for our shag eh?"
She shook her head.
"Not entirely. I have been liking it. But truth was, I think it was its use as a part of my disguise that kept me at it. As you well know."
She smiled at Drench and paused, considering.
Then she continued "But just before, I got nervous and puffed too hard. The coughing fit hit some place in my throat. Plates and platters! All of last week's breakfasts came up too and that's a fact. I swear if I tried again in a few weeks, I would just cough more. Cough until I sicked up my lady bits. I think its bad for me Drench. Sorry."
She drank two shells of tea one after the other, put her shell cup down, shifted her own long limbs and stood up and stretched, feeling a few joints pop, trying not to cough.
Looking around, she felt so at home. She had always known she wouldn't pass for a Wiggle in Paravel town or Beruna anyway. But away here, any of the very few people passing through the meres and eyots of the Shribble would simply take her for some strapping young eel-wife, left at home to mind her own business: the eel pots and gutting the take.
And that had been just the way she liked it. For a while... but she had been getting bored. And now things had changed. She paced about, dreads flopping miserably.
Drench just sat, sipping his tea.
"You know, just today, I was writing in my book. Then that bird came along."
Drench raised an eyebrow. "Mmmm...?"
"I was writing happily about what gobshites my cousins Broder and Cuthbart are and how stupidly proud some of the Telmarine nobles are! She nearly read over my shoulder. I'm sure of it. She's an educated one. Just the twang in her voice that coached messenger birds use. I closed the book just in time."
"Well, that is wordstrong." said Drench. "But you have told me all about them before. And it can't have been such happy writing then."
He paused and sipped reflexively.
"Oh I know... I know! I'm sorry, but I cannot forget what I had to stop them doing!" she said. "After all that Peter and the others had done for them!"
She sipped some more herself, and rubbed her sore throat form the outside. "Writing helps me understand my enemies Drench, I think so anyway. I might be getting somewhere."
The muddy green-brown eyes with no whites, lifted and met her's gravely, then he put down his shell cup and began.
"It used to be said in the years of the White Witch, that you have to invite your enemy into your own home if you want to know his worst feature and pander to his best one. I am old enough to remember her last years. She and her followers were getting a bit desperate, knowing the prophecy was coming to its fulfilment, so we had to work hard to bring out the best in them."
"Are you're saying you invited hags and boggles and werewolves into your tipis? Just so you could get abused by them?"
"Mmmm, something like that. I remember being a stripling, a mere frog of a child, sitting wide eyed on the stool next to the peat fire, while my parents kept a cold shivering hag in conversation and fed her hot eel and rushwash soup. She'd come picking through the frozen meres, hidden in her cowl. She was 'on a mission from the White Lady' she said, but never said what it was. To us she was just hungry and cold."
"She came to our tipi first and then after a good feed, snarled at us on the way out, cast a curse for good measure I think, but she never harmed anyone that I saw. She made her way from tipi to tipi after that, stayed a night here, a few hours there. She was unpleasant, but peaceable enough. All seemed well."
"Then, she left, with no thanks or by-your-leave to anyone mind. So me and a few of the other little ones scuttled after her, hiding behind tussocks and frozen willows. Just curious to watch her go, never meaning harm, guarding her really, to make sure she didn't fall into a deeper pool through the ice. We had just had a slight thaw you see, but all on a sudden she sprang from behind a boulder and spat a dart out her mouth. Hit my best friend, Ripplereed, right in the neck. Laughed she did, before she scuttled off and disappeared. Somewhere. We were too distracted to note her direction. And anyway, what authority were we to report to?
So us young ones carried him back home, but he slipped into a fever and died early the next day. Ripplereed was the fastest and cleverest of us. I had always looked forward to spending my years with him as my neighbour. But that was never to be."
He sighed and took up the mussel cup and dipped it into the pot and had a good long drink.
"Then we heard rumours of similar things happening all over Narnia. Not just the general harassment and menacing. A minotaur came down from the Northern Moors, much further west from here and sought shelter with another wiggle hamlet, the Rockweaver clan. He received nothing but kindness and conversation – and had his fill of mussels - as much as the clan would have harvested for themselves in a week he ate in a day and slept for a week. Before leaving a great pile of the worst manure imaginable, but no-one complained. Just held their noses. We're used to strong smells on the Shribble. Then when the kindly clan head asked him rather wordstrong to help in raising a new tipi before he left, she was just gored and trampled. And a clan of dwarves at Lightning Ridge had some lonely efreet call on them and cleaned them out of their underground mushroom supply before burning their most talented metallurgist to death with its bare hands. These things all happened around the same time. Everywhere. That was when we realised what the White Witch was doing. She was sending her minions out to do away with the most talented and promising people who might hold everyone together should the prophecy start to fall."
She of the ruby lips and grey eyes looked distraught.
"Pray forgive me Drench. I had forgotten you had seen wanton evil my goodly friend. It is easy for me to forget that Narnia's bliss was preceded by a century of horror. But not for you I deem."
She paused and massaged her temples.
Then she hissed, "Oh, rakes and adders, you know, that just drives the point home more! In the years since we were all here, there was something the Galmans and some of the Telmarines never seemed to understand. I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I can! All Narnia needs its human people to do is bring fairness, respect, playfulness... and love... and safety and defence of course, to the place... and it gets returned... tenfold... by the people and the land itself!"
"And then...?
"Everyone is happy and contented. Well, as well as anyone can expect.
"Which is why...?"
He was testing her now.
"Which is why... um, which is why sons of Adam and daughters of Eve need to rule Narnia, because... err... when they do it well, err... the magic of the place works well for everyone. Well, as well as anyone can expect."
"And you are a...?
"Daughter of Eve."
"Who understands the magic of Narnia and wants to do her utmost to mend things", finished Drench, "but has been holed up here on the Shribble for eight months for fear of being sent back home and now finds herself invited to..."
"... to... to...stand trial to become one of the sovereigns of Narnia", she breathed.
Then she tutted and groaned, "I still cannot discern how my cousins and some of those Telmarines missed that most basic magic of this place! Susan and Peter and the rest; they taught it so well! Oh, don't get me wrong. A few of the Telmar nobles were delightful and were coming along nicely. But not all..."
"And now you find the four are not here, and you are...? Here you are and not where you can influence anything."
"Well, I did think I might get locked away too Drench. For making trouble. Anyway, there was no way I was going to share close quarters with any of them. Not after what I witnessed!"
Her voice quavered. "But now it's all over. And there's going to be a trial. Not a punishment, but a kingmaking. Am I going to sit here and wait till it's all over and we have new rulers...? Do I just go back home and marry some dolt from Redhaven or Avra? Or... or..."
"Or do you join the trials, make a total fool of yourself and maybe find a throne under your miserable rump anyway?", put in Drench.
"That wasn't quite what I meant to say..."
"No. But you might have thought it. If I may be so bold, I think I've known you long enough to know you weren't going to stay here beyond spring. Your sword hand has been looking lonely lately."
"Wasn't I? Has it?" She looked across the shadowy tipi at Drench, quite sharply, trying to deny his statement.
Drench grinned at her discomfiture.
"Alright then. Stay here for the rest of your life throwing eelpots in and cooking eel stew. Be my strapping young eelwife! There! That's a proposal if you like. You're a lot like Ripplereed to tell the truth. And don't hold that against yourself. But you're a Terebinthian princess aren't you? Of old Narnian bloodlines and only from 80 years ago? And from what you told me the Terebinthian royals have got more than a bit of the sea people in their veins too. Not to mention education, and oratory, and courtliness... and sword skills. And that, you have in spades. So that makes you just what they're looking for."
Here, Drench sighed, "But I daresay you'll cut your own legs off with your longsword or trip over your legs in the dance trials first and then you will be disqualified."
Princess Francesca of Terebinthia let out a peel of laughter at this, imagining herself doing just those things. She realised how glad she was to be where she was and with whom she was at that moment and that only made her feel more complicated about this immense task that was beckoning.
…
