Chapter 1: The Scions of Galma

Part 1 Solid and Florid

This chapter gives a flashback to the beginning of the Golden Age which sets the tone for later chapters in this sequence.

Year 1 of the Golden Age

"Aslan's Mane! Of all the blasted cheek!"

Magnis, the Duke of Galma thumped the scroll down on the table of his family parlor. He was of medium height, sandy haired, solid and florid but not stolid. He was dressed in his robes of office for he was due to hold court later that morning as Duke Magister.
His seven year old eldest son, Cuthbart, who had been playing at jousting battles in the corner with his little brother Broder, using wooden toys, looked up startled and slightly guilty, hoping this morning's secret misdemeanour of slapping his little brother with the flat of his wooden sword, hard, had not come back to haunt him. But his father was not even looking at him.

His father was often in some kind of temper. Even though the air had miraculously warmed around them only a few weeks ago with the scents of a full true spring and summer and a fruitful autumn promising to follow, he was not being thankful and rejoicing like everyone else the little boy knew. Cuthbart's father was getting even grumpier.

Duke Magnis strode to the balcony window of the Keep, fists clenching and looking out to the Utter East, muttering under his breath. Taking some courage and feeling dutiful, Cuthbart left his little brother who was quite happily occupied and walked over to his father and stood beside him tentatively.

They could see across the rich productive countryside round about, that sloped southeast through a haze before the townlands of Galma Port, with fine fishing and comfortable bays spread out either side. Behind, the long island rose to cool forested hills and high valleys behind which were hidden the unscalable cliffs facing the wide straits between Galma and Narnia itself. Until recently, they had been ice encrusted for nearly 9 months of the year.

Magnis turned and looked down at his eldest son and then across at his wife, Felika, who was busy reading correspondence.

"Well, it is as we guessed and more, as rumoured by the talking gulls. This scroll I just received from Narnia tells me the Witch is now very much dead. I should rejoice! The long spell against humans and the Long Winter that has bitten our backside for a hundred years has been broken. But whilst we may thank the Emperor Over the Sea for providing the highlands behind us, which sheltered us from the worst of the Narnian Long Winter, the same cannot be said for his son. Aslan has installed a pack of children who somehow blundered into Narnia and broke the spell. Well done to them, but they have already been crowned and sit on the four fabled thrones as we speak! The eldest has been crowned High King if it please you! Peter the Magnificent of all the nerve. Can you believe it?!", he fumed.

Felika raised an eyebrow non-committally. She wasn't buying into this but he hardly noticed.

"No Father", Cuthbart said truthfully. For he knew that he would not have the slightest idea what to do if he was suddenly required to step into his father's shoes at his age and sit in his high seat. He didn't think his feet would even reach the ground. But at the same time he was thinking it might be quite delightful to be called High King and have a whole wide country at his beck and call. Of course, at this early age, he thought chiefly of ponies and wooden swords, roast dinners and custards, or of luscious fruits and nuts shipped from Terebinthia or from further off.

So he ventured a question. "Father, will the summer mean that we will now have pistache nuts and melons of our very own?"

"Eh? What are you talking about? Oh possibly. If someone plants them. But Terebinthia is their true home, and look... Oh, Lions Mane! Stay on the point!"

Duke Magnis rolled on irritably... "Now, attend! These children have filled all four thrones, when at least one should have been ours. The youngest is seven! Your age! As I told you before, Galma has been a royal duchy of Narnia since the island was settled by the Narnian Kings time out of mind, well over six hundred years ago. The Duke of Galma's sworn duty since then, has been to guard and maintain the shipping lanes in and out of Narnia and support it in wars of defence, and we are being called to do so again now the ice in the straits behind us has melted and the spell of terror broken. Politically, we are part of Narnia again, unlike Terebinthia and Archenland, who were always regarded merely as allies, even though the royal families are all intermarried."

"Yes father."

He sailed on "And thus, we are the most obvious and steadfast of its surviving royal family. And your own great grandfather, who became Duke was a second Prince of Narnia in his own right. He became Duke by marrying your great grandmother, the only royal child of Galma at the time, just a few years before Jadis invaded. Just in time! She sealed the place against sons of Adam and daughters of Eve you see. He lost all his relatives, needless to say.

"Even his mummy and daddy?"

"Yes, both his parents, and his brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles. Even the old dowager queen. Jadis killed all of them."

With a sing-song kind of voice, the princeling recited, "And she turned them all into stone," with a tone of great finality. He really was a very little boy and to him it was all a distant fantasy.

"What? No! Hasn't your tutor taught you the truth yet? The talking birds that managed to get out, before Narnia was sealed off, told your great grandparents that she never turned any sons of Adam or daughters of Eve to stone at all. They were all killed outright... down to the very last one. On the Stone Table!"

The young Galman prince had a delicious shiver of horror at this news. His mother did not look quite so taken with the idea.

"And eaten by the minnit... minotaurs and, and, and h-h-hags and w-w-w-werwolves?"

"No-one knows my son. Perhaps. Anyway, that is getting us off the track... again! The point of what I am telling you is that Aslan has installed a pack of children from some other place, from another world, when it is our family who ought to be on the thrones, not some interlopers! Wouldn't you say?"

"Y-y-yes father."

Duchess Felika just kept at her correspondence. It was marked as private and bore no royal seals, but it was from her brother Mardon, the Crown Prince and Regent of Terebinthia who had been rejoicing at the turn in events, and obviously thrilled that Aslan had installed children. "It bodes great joy for the world and Aslan always knows what he is about," was his summary "Even father is pleased". That was a relief. How Mardon had recieved word before Magnis he had not revealed. It was dated only two days ago and must have been flown all night. She had heard that the Skua which had delivered the message only two hours ago, had been rather surly and had demanded two plump shearwater chicks as payment, having noticed some on the southern headlands when passing through. He had been prepared to wait. Oh, the grisly price for timely news.

"Now, if they broke the spell, they must deserve some reward of course. For by their own account, if it is to be believed, the elder, this... Peter, fought Jadis in hand-to-hand sword combat and his brother, what was it?", here he perused the scroll again, "Edmund oh for pity's sake Duke of Lantern Waste , broke her wand before... Aslan arrived with creatures from her castle... he had turned back from stone into living flesh, but no humans because there weren't any to unstone as I told you before, and together they defeated her army. And being led by Aslan down the Great River, a few days later they were crowned at Cair Paravel to the acclaim of all the noble Talking creatures and spirits of air, stream, land and sea.'"

The boy felt a thrill go through him.

"So father, may we go to visit them? It sounds wonderful."

"Indeed we may! This contains an invitation. In fact, a summons. This missive calls for me to renew the declaration of fealty and faith... in person. So to Narnia we shall certainly go and soon."

Felika looked up, seeming to look mildly out the door at the sky but she was clearly listening intently. Her husband had not addressed her about the matter directly as yet, but she looked a little relieved.

"Now, Narnia by all our historical records was wonderful beyond imagining before Jadis. Now it can be again. Galma has only a few Talking Gulls, Gannets... and Seals which you have met, and the odd passing merpeople. The last Royal Gryphon of Galma died when my father was a boy and Archenland had none to spare. We used to have fauns and satyrs on our ships too; reputed to be most nimble in the rigging, but they all left for Archenland to swell the numbers there in your great grandfather's time, once they knew Narnia was cut off for the foreseeable future.

"For... as I said, as Duke of Galma, it is my sworn sacred task to order Narnia's defence from the sea and now Narnia is open again, they have asked me to meet them with great urgency, as every man and his dog from Seven Isles to the Lone Islands and Calormen and beyond will be wanting to poke their noses in."

"But why father?"

"Why? Aslan's Mane! What did I just tell you foolish boy?"

"I d-d-don't know father."

"Phsaw!", he yelled, giving Cuthbar a withering belicose stare and whacked him across the crown of the head, which raised tears.

Felika's face tensed, eyes narrowed, ready to step in.

"Because Narnia has been ice-bound and spell-locked for a hundred years! Think! No man, woman or child has been there for that long... until now. Four children successfully ruling and defending the most fabulous country in the world at the time of its return from the worst horror imaginable? That has to be seen to be believed", he scoffed.

"Oh".

Then, placing his hands heavily on his son's shoulders, who was still stifling his tears, he gave him a shake and looked sternly down at him, tilting his chin up. Then he said in commanding tones...
"You and Broder are my sons! We will bide our time. There will be no shunting these four off their thrones after Aslan's full blessing. So... we cannot secure the thrones by precedent? But by the Lion we shall do so by natural succession! In time, you, yes... you, or your brother, or both, will marry at least one of the sister-Queens of Narnia. Then my grandsons will gain at least one of the thrones. I am also thinking about your uncle's daughter as a match for this so-called High King in a few years if we can manage it. She is just the right age."

...

All this talk of marriage made the young princeling want to squirm away and return to playing with his little brother, or burrow into his mother's soft warm embrace, but there was something in his father's tone which kept him by his side. His father was in deadly earnest and he knew better than to rebuff him when in such a mood. There was a promise of greatness in his future there too somewhere, which he held onto to keep a grip on his emotions. He stared trembling back at his father and managed a stuttered "Y-y-yes F-father, I hope I shall father."

In burying the several terrors of his father, marriage and his long term future, he clutched onto the more immediate chance to visit the astonishing land of wonders, which had captured his imagination. He hoped it would be soon.
But he also knew he had just made a promise to his father which he would have to fulfil.

...

Two weeks later...

The Duke and Duchess of Galma, accompanied by their eldest son, sailed for Cair Paravel, at the head of a four-strong fleet, crewed by Galman sailors, three of which were to be left in Narnia to provide it immediate sea capacity. These were a large-sailed fishing boat and a pair of dromunds. But at the front was a festive small ship with green and purple sails called the Galman Gull. It had all the creature comforts for spoiled royalty.
It had been the dowry that came with Felika of Terebinthia when she came to marry Magnis and it was now Galma's ship of state. It had sailed all over the Eastern sea, representing Galma for trade and diplomacy. But naturally, it had never been into the straits between Galma and Narnia-proper before. But with the ice and the spell barrier now gone, the deck crew kept curious eyes on the headlands and bays of the fabled land as they swung towards it having now nearly crossed the strait behind their own island. The crew in the rigging were busy hauling in sail and the oarsmen were getting ready for the call now, as they came in sight of the Cair, perched atop a sandstone headland, lit up in the afternoon sun. The air was golden and the scents that drifted across brought secret memories of long forgotten delicious things to everyone's minds.

Half an hour later they were gliding around the break water and then the ship was hauled in to bump gently against the quay. The gangplank was lowered, there was a ringing trumpet call from ashore and the Galman royal family alighted onto a welcoming carpet of flowers and leaves. A herald announced, "Behold! The Duchy of Galma returns to its native Narnian soil! The High King Peter and his family welcome the faithful Magnis Duke of Galma, Felika Duchess of Galma and Princess of Terebinthia and their firstborn son, Cuthbart Earl of Galma on behalf of all Narnians! Aslan be praised!"

At that, a cheer went up from all and it seemed to be heartfelt.

Magnis could not help but grin broadly. This really was one of the most extraordinary moments in his life.

Peter was mounted on an astounding horse, which held great wings aloft with the shout and then Peter dismounted. He was dressed in full battle regalia and had a guard of thirty knights of various non-human-kind: fauns, hama-dryads and the like. A double line of enormous centaurs stood along the street upwards, armed with very thick pikes held at a precise vertical on their left flanks so their tips were well above their heads. They were not taking any chances. So, this was how they were going to play it.
Cuthbert was utterly agog. Magnis only slightly less so, having read as much as he could of Narnian history and people. Felika maintained her poise with equanimity, but even she had not been prepared for this. Terebinthia had its strange beasts and sacred mysteries too but this was almost overwhelming.

Then, as the Duke, Duchess and little prince walked towards Peter, the centaurs touched their pikes overhead forming a tunnel through which they must mass. Then the horse lowered its wings and three ordinary looking horses were revealed, upon which were mounted the three other child sovereigns. For form, both Magnis and his wife performed a graceful courtesy, and Cuthbert managed a shy nod. They looked up and all the four smiled. Lucy grinned.
To get to the Cair, the trio were treated to an open carriage drawn by two caparisoned black horses. The rest of their entourage were escorted on foot. The curious beings gathered about the sovereigns and up the sides of the winding road were gawking as openly at the Galmans as the Galmans were trying studiously to avoid gawking back at them.

Magnis was sure he even saw faces in some of the trees.

…

Over coming days, Magnis was in truth, singularly impressed with Peter and his handling of all his responsibilities, servants and followers and the manners with which he greeted the Duchy of Galma back to Narnian soil. Peter may have assumed the courtly mantle at the age of thirteen, but he seemed to have the critical thinking, the forthrightness, and the authority of a man of thirty, although it was delivered with the limited vocabulary and insouciance of extreme youth. He had obviously been well briefed by someone with a knowledge of history and brought up by his parents to take responsibility.

Even his diplomacy as they talked was just what was required to smooth the relationship. On paper, Peter utterly acknowledged Galma's relationship to the former Narnian Royal family. And in private, he assured Magnis that he was unsure of the length of his own family's tenure, merely that he and his siblings were doing all they could to put Aslan's wishes into practice following the demise of Jadis. This, Magnis could not argue with. He almost felt himself salivating. They may get Narnia more directly than he thought.

Magnis found Peter's, indeed all his siblings accents odd and also amongst the occasional "Lion's Mane" and "By the Lion", he used unfamiliar epithets such as "jolly well" or "by Jove" or "strike a light". When Magnis asked what Jove was and if Jove was a god from Peter's world, Peter simply said, "Oh, it is just something we used to say back home" and Magnis never heard it again.

Magnis struggled with not giving blunt direction, which was his character at home, and managed to use questioning instead.

One morning after breakfast, he asked things like, "Have you considered the vulnerability of the northern strait between Galma and Narnia sire?" and "I have often wondered whether such-and-such might be a useful way of dealing with a werwolf should I ever meet one, what is your experience sire?"

It did feel ridiculous to call the boy "sire". But there was nothing else for it, he was going to get Peter in his debt in as many ways as he could. As it turned out, the boy had already killed a werwolf more than once as well as a gaggle of efreets, hags and boggles. And fought the White Witch in hand-to-hand combat! So Magnis said nothing about marriage... yet. It would have to wait a few years.

But Edmund was another matter entirely.

It was not an exaggeration to say he was unnerving. This curly-mopped ash-blonde nine-year-old had clearly lost one of the trust bones in his body, because he looked sideways at Magnis whenever he was not being addressed directly.
He also refused to follow the stuffy courtly protocols that Magnis was attempting to impart and there was nothing Magnis could do about it. Officially, this boy was his senior. Indeed, if Narnian law meant anything, this family had the authority to displace his own in Galma and appoint someone else if they found sufficient cause. But Magnis said nothing whatsoever about that.

For Edmund seemed able to store up precise details in conversation and then unexpectedly bring them out later in front of others and ask Magnis directly, or others in his retinue, what the purpose of his questions or comments about some matter had been. Then Magnis would find all those beastly eyes upon him and he would have to account for himself. There was no use denying anything because the boy had a memory as sharp as a tack. It was confounding and forced some of his strategies for manipulation to be abandoned.

Instead, Edmund drew him out about all sorts of aspects of Narnian law and judgment. In this way Edmund not only learned about matters such as the regulation of trade, the uses of imprisonment and labour as punishments, and the treatment of wilful evil-doing, all of which he could have verified himself by viewing Narnia's older legal records, he also learned more about Magnis' character by the judgment history he had laid down as case law in Galma over the last twenty years.

Susan often joined him in these discussions. As they explained, they had decided that she and Edmund would jointly run the courts of law. "Goodness knows, there were as many female as male dwarves, hags, boggles, satyrs and dryads who sided wholeheartedly with the White Witch. We think they need to see a woman's understanding, in coming to decisions about justice", she intoned, pushing back her long dark hair with a slender pale hand. Her dark violet eyes regarded him solemnly and he began to realise this whip of a girl was no push-over. She was grasping her responsibilities to be an ethical ruler and did not see her shadier subjects merely as wicked things to be put to death.

Magnis was speechless. He often asked his wife's opinion about cases but would never have considered her openly carrying out magistry.

Felika, Duchess of Galma, was a golden skinned, brown haired pleasant woman of Terebinthian origin, and somewhat less ambitious for her children's futures than her florid husband.

She became of immediate use to Susan though. Susan had a practical mind and in truth was doing immensely well as chatelaine, but with limited knowledge of the uses and purposes of parts of the castle. Felika found Susan to be charming and confident, but her ideas for solutions to problems to be orthodox and uncreative.

It was Felika who suggested that the task for servants to clean the privy pits would be made more wholesome if the users were provided with lime and sawdust so they could throw a handful of each down afterwards. Susan's idea had been to just let it all fill up and somehow flush it out to sea.

"I think the mer people might have a thing or two to say about that Your Majesty" she said. "Besides, if the night-soil is sweetened in this way, the results may be used to enhance the earth around your castle. Where I come from, Terebinthia, the rocky hills and dunes can make it rather difficult to grow food, so we are quite practiced at doing what we can." She smiled gently as Susan squirmed a little at what they were talking about. So she changed the topic ever so slightly.

"I hazard a guess that if you build the soil on the lee of this headland, you could plant an orchard and be eating excellent apples in just a few years. I wonder if the wood-women and hama-dryads might be able to assist?"

She also found Susan to be under educated about women's business and as Susan was obviously on the cusp of young-woman-hood, she made sure that Susan was ready for what was sure to come… sooner if not later. Susan's attendant wood-women may have been versed in such things; for Felika knew, she had at least three in her own ancestry, but she thought it best to not take the chance. And it is was well she did offer instruction, for before they left, Susan came to her and announced with impeccable poise and delicacy, that she had indeed become a woman.

Felika and Magnis set their eldest son the task of befriending Lucy. He did try. But Lucy was constantly surrounded by a gaggle of adoring creatures and her attention was very hard to hold. The result was that the boy was left to follow her around, gradually becoming more and more grumpy as the object of his attentions slipped further from his grasp.

He came dripping to his mother one afternoon, up on the third floor of the turret apartments, and flung himself wetly onto a couch sobbing and shaking with shame and frustration. He had been trying hard to join in on the romping games Lucy had been playing with young satyrs and nymphs. It had been great fun at first, skipping about, playing tag, ducking under great tree roots and rolling around on the grass. Always he was trying to show Lucy what a grand jumper and balancer he was.

But Lucy couldn't have cared less, much less noticed. She just treated him equally to any of the others and if anything, she was rather puzzled that he always seemed to be trying to get her attention. After he had been tripped over at least a dozen times by several of the nymphs, who were always joyfully helping him up afterwards, giggling madly, inviting him to climb another tree, he had completely lost his cool. He had taken a stick, and begun to use it to poke at his playmates angrily, shouting "I've got a stick and this is my sword, so you watch out!"

It had not taken long for two of the young satyrs to deftly trick him into poking them, whereupon they had grabbed his stick and pulled hard, resulting in him tumbling pell-mell into the lily-pond.

"And she doesn't hear what I am saying!" he sobbed. "Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Lucy isn't e-ven in-ter-es-ted-d-d in… m-m-m-meee!"

Felika sighed and patted her son to help him calm, pulling another water-lily root from under his muddy collar. She helped him change his clothes and thought of how she would love to just take her boys home to Terebinthia for a while, where they could be enjoying the balmy beaches and laurel groves with trumpet creepers and the orchards of pistache nuts and apricots and to fish off the rocks and speak to the merpeople. She knew it would do them good. Narnia was wonderful and should have been all that Terebinthia was and far more, but Magnis' ambitions for his dynasty was spoiling all of it. And Galma was such a little place. She often consoled herself that her task was to bring a calming balance to her husband's bluff and pother, but right now with an ambitious husband and two little boys it was rather a strain. How she longed for a daughter.

It was while she helped put her son down for an afternoon rest that she looked out the turret window and saw a wondrous sight. Beating in from the sea was a huge copper gryphon. As it swung around the turrets, she could see it bore the green and blue leg jesses of Terebinthia. It was a messenger from her own brother.

...