8 - Dry Land
Aedan didn't buy the lord's genial greeting for an instant. The moment he arrived at the manor house on the western end of Narrowhaven, something felt off. The impression only intensified once he was announced as the crown prince and shown into the lord's sitting room. Over the aromas of roses and sweet pea in arrangements dotting the space, Aedan caught the sharp scent of uneasiness that often came with people who had something to hide. Aedan wished he'd had one or two of his guard with him, not because he didn't think he could handle this lord and his servants if trouble arose, but because the distraction of their presence would have been handy while Aedan investigated what lay behind the lord's toothy, beaming proclamations of welcome.
While he waited for the lord to come, Aedan wrinkled his nose against the overpowering scent of flowers. His stare landed on a single white rose, the recesses of its petals kissed with just a hint of dusky pink. He plucked it from the enormous vase and gave it a sniff, then rubbed his thumb along one of the springy, smooth petals.
Was Maira all right, wherever she'd gone?
"I really ought to have those flowers removed," the lord said, entering the room. "They're getting old. Servants. Can't get good help these days, can you?" He chuckled.
"They're perfectly fresh," Aedan said. He turned and fixed his eyes on the lord. "So is the water."
The man flushed red. "Yes. Well … The drought … but you know how we nobility must keep up appearances for visiting dignitaries …."
"Save your breath," Aedan interrupted, ignoring the presumption in the lord's tone. "Use it instead to tell me how you manage to have so much fresh water that you fritter it away on flowers."
If anything, the man only stammered more.
Aedan crossed the floor to stare him down. "Tell me what you know, and you might keep your station on this island."
The lord's face flushed an even deeper crimson. "I don't know what you're insinuating, Your Highness."
Aedan pushed the rose at him. A thorn scratched the man's chin, and a thin line of blood bloomed there. "I'm not insinuating at all."
The lord sputtered. "It wasn't my fault," he whined. "I asked for a bit of magic, something to beautify my water gardens, and that wretched magician botched it."
"Who. Botched. What?" Aedan said slowly, holding the man's gaze.
The lord backed up a step, spreading his hands. "It was supposed to be nothing. A trifle, a statue. I didn't expect him to take a real mer-woman!"
Aedan let slip a very wolflike growl. "I have limited patience, my lord. Make yourself clear this instant."
"I engaged the services of a Jinn," the lord confessed.
A chill skittered up the back of Aedan's neck. His gut, which was rarely wrong, began churning at the sense of a puzzle piece snapping into place. "A Jinn is very different from a magician," he said.
The lord gave an awkward chuckle. "A Jinn, a magician. He told me to make wishes. I didn't know this would happen!"
Aedan sighed. "Aslan save me from fools." He tossed the rose on the table. "Go on."
"I wished him to secure for my garden something no one else had, something that would show all my guests my—"
"Arrogance," Aedan supplied when the man hesitated.
"I didn't think he'd use my wish to kidnap anyone. I … I panicked. I used my last wish to bid him hide before I thought better of it. I should have told him to return her to her kingdom, and now, we're all cursed."
"All except this house, for now. Tell me why."
The lord grimaced and slid a hand into an ornate pouch at his belt. Aedan tensed, expecting a weapon, but the lord held out an object on his palm with a sheepish expression.
A large, aqua stone on a long silver chain. "It belongs to the mer-woman. Maybe she needs it back. Maybe she needs to go back to her home, and all this will stop. I don't know."
"There seems to be a lot you don't know, and yet you trifle with it," Aedan grumbled. "Did this Jinn give you his name?"
"Rajan," said the lord, and Aedan's heart sank at the confirmation of his suspicions.
What could Rajan want with a mer-woman, Farhan, and Aedan? What sort of madness had Aedan gotten himself into? His head pounded. He rubbed at his forehead. "You're not to leave this house for any reason. If I find you have, there will be no place in Narnia that you can safely go. I'll be sending a guard to ensure you remain here, and I want to see the members of your council within the hour."
"B-But why?"
"Because you are to be relieved of your position. The last thing we need is your further foolishness. Where is the lamp from which you summoned this Jinn?"
"G-Gone with him," the lord stuttered.
Aedan fumed. So. Water becoming scarce. A Jinn on the loose, with his own lamp in his possession. A kidnapped mer-woman, a missing boy, and Maira somewhere in Narnia, alone, with Aslan knew what happening to her. And Aedan himself at the middle of it all without asking for involvement.
He let loose another growl, so loud the lord cringed backward until he bumped a sofa and fell back onto it. When Aedan faced a challenge, it was usually a living, breathing one wearing armor and engaging him in combat. Diplomatic challenges made his skin itch as if he were about to transform into a werewolf (which he very rarely did).
Well, Aslan, he thought, you've never been one to make things easy, and a Pevensie should rise to the challenge. He turned to the lord. "Pen and paper," he said, "and if there's a griffin in this city, tell me where."
- # -
Maira had left Rory and Puck Rifkin to some task in the officers' barracks. She now hurried along a castle corridor behind a dryad bearing a ring of keys, and an enormous striped badger, walking on two legs and bearing an armload of bedsheets. Maira stared at the badger as they went, somehow less frightened of it than of the dryad and her keys. Would Maira now be locked in some dungeon?
Rory had promised to find her later for an audience with the kings and queens (plural! What sort of land was this Narnia?). For now, they urged her to find some rest and refresh herself before meeting the monarchs.
As they walked, Maira patted dust off her rough clothing and wondered what she might say to these kings and queens. Who was she to demand anything of them, let alone asking them to comb their kingdom for one errant brother?
"Here we are," said the dryad. She unlocked a heavy wooden door that swung inward on a large bedroom. Beyond the bedroom, Maira spied a light-filled doorway leading to still more rooms. "This will be your suite for the duration of your stay," the dryad added. "Badger Strawberry will be your attendant. You may ring her using the chamber bell if you need anything." The dryad gave a deferential bow, then drifted gracefully away.
The badger bustled into the room ahead of Maira. "Let's get this bed made up for you, mistress. My staff will draw you a bath directly."
"Y-You needn't go to all this … fuss," Maira said, turning in a circle to goggle at the most lavish room she'd ever seen. She usually slept on a pallet with a worn wool blanket. Now, they expected her to get into an enormous, carved four-poster bed with the world's thickest mattress, and then find her way out of it again.
"Nonsense," the badger said. "You're Princess Rory's guest, and a friend of Prince Aedan."
Friend? Was she the friend of a bona fide prince?
The badger didn't notice Maira's hesitation, merely hurried around the bed and arranged its sheets with surprising efficiency. From an ornate cedar trunk at the bed's foot, she pulled a stack of blankets and arranged those on top. "There, now. Will there be anything else? Oh, of course there will. A dress. I'll send up Lilywood. She'll have just the thing."
Badger Strawberry whisked out the room as fast as she had come. Not ten minutes later, an army of hares hurried into the room bearing buckets of steaming water. Behind them, Strawberry grumbled, "Don't jostle the buckets with all your hopping, for Aslan's sake, or you'll be mopping this floor again!"
Maira watched, fascinated, as they filled a huge copper tub in the adjoining room with the water, then added a soap that filled the room with the loveliest smell of water hyacinth. The scent made Maira ache with a nameless longing.
When the hares scrambled out of the room again, Strawberry gave Maira a whiskery smile. "Take your time. When you're finished, Lilywood will be waiting in the bedroom with a few dresses for you." She, too, bowed, then was gone.
Maira peeled off her clothing and left it on the trunk in the bedroom, then went to the tub. She sank into it with a dreamy sigh. Hot water, in a tub big enough to submerge her whole body. Clouds of floral-scented steam rising around her. Decadence unheard of in her little over-the-shop apartment at home.
Was Father all right? Did he even know she and Farhan were missing?
Was Aedan all right? He'd agreed to help her without hesitation, and now, he was missing, too. What if Narnia's kings and queens determined she was responsible for his disappearance? What if he was hurt or in trouble?
Who was she to think she could fix any of this?
- # -
Peter Pevensie had much on his mind. Narnia's spring celebrations had just ended, and all the dignitaries had gone home to their respective countries and provinces with stories and trade deals and offers to their lords and kings.
And Aedan Pevensie hadn't shown up for any of it.
I have training, Father. The northern border needs securing. I must see to my regiment's new armory. There was always some excuse.
"You are brooding again, Peter," came a voice, full of dry amusement.
His wife, Cori, approached the state room desk. He hadn't even heard her come in.
She tilted her head to study him with soft, dark eyes. "Come and meet our guest."
Peter shot out of his chair. "Am I late for the audience?"
Cori smiled. "Not quite. I knew where to find you."
He sighed, then gave her half a smile. "What would I do without you?"
"Be less organized, I am sure," she said, then flashed a grin that reminded him very much of the young woman she'd been when she first came to Narnia.
He circled the desk to take her hand, then brushed a kiss across her knuckles. "I'm just … concerned."
"Your concern for everything and everyone is admirable," Cori assured him, "but you cannot oversee all of it."
"I can't even manage our own son," he rumbled.
"Our son manages himself well enough," she said.
"He certainly does. Well enough to be elsewhere whenever we need him to be here at Cair."
She laid her hands over Peter's. "He will grow into his crown, as you did. You were not prepared to be king over all Narnia when you first arrived, were you?"
"I was barely prepared to lift a sword," he admitted, "but Aedan has grown up with one in his hand, and I fear he's more soldier than sovereign."
"Life at court is not his element," Cori agreed, "but neither was I accustomed to life on a battlefield. We adapt." She kissed his hands.
He smiled and tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. "Rory says Aedan has taken on a quest for this girl. Maybe he'll adapt his way into diplomacy."
Cori chuckled, then shook her head ruefully. "I suppose we should see how we may help, then."