I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. If I did, I would be in some way connected to C.S. Lewis and would therefore not have written such a clumsy chapter. Blech.
"Shouldn't we be moving on?" Lucy asked anxiously, later. Evening was quickly stealing into the village, shadows darkening and the sky showing faint twinges of pink.
"We can't," Peter explained, tiredly rubbing circles on his temples. "This is an immediate problem and it needs to be dealt with."
"Can't you just make the centaurs hang them from their ankles?" she muttered. Susan gave her a disapproving glare made less threatening by the bemused glimmer in her eye.
"No, you little lion," she said. "We need to convince them to relocate. It's not safe up here, and we need to show them how to tell a dryad's tree from an ordinary one."
"How can we if they won't even speak to us?"
"They will eventually," Peter said calmly.
As if in reaction to his words, the door to Perick's cabin came open and he stepped out with his axe, glaring at the trespassers. In the past hour, they had seen four other men enter his dwelling, and now they followed him out. Lucy, Susan and Peter stood and faced him. The youngest felt the tips of her ears reddening in embarrassment.
"Haven't you left yet?" Perick called, sounding irritated. "This is our land. We could force you off it."
"Actually," Peter said fairly, "being High King of Narnia, all of this land technically belongs to me. It's down to your word against mine."
"Or we could make it my axe against your sword," Perick growled.
"That wouldn't prove anything."
"Maybe not, but I'll make you a deal – whoever wins the duel wins our dispute, so if you win, we'll recognize you as King and do whatever you command within reason. But if I win, you'll take your family and your half-breed horses off our land. I am speaking for our entire settlement. They have elected me leader for the time being."
"That hardly seems reasonable. You've given me no reason to believe you'll keep your word."
"And you've given me no reason to trust you either," Perick said. Peter's eyes followed his gaze to Lucy. Her brother's expression was unreadable. Turning back to Perick, he unsheathed his sword, but the older man shook his head.
"You have an advantage, stranger," said one of the men behind him. "You must remove your armor."
Peter fixed him with a look practically bursting with exasperation before pushing his sword into the ground and reaching for the buckle of his pauldron. There was a long minute full of satisfied glances from the villagers and the sounds of metal clinking as the young man stripped himself of his armor and mail, finally standing in only a long blue tunic and breeches. He bent, retrieved his sword, and looked back up at Perick.
"Swear on your love for your daughters," he said, "that if you lose this duel, you will stop felling the trees and move south, away from the dangers of these lands. I can ask some fauns to guide you if you'd like." Perick spat upon the ground and raised his axe. Lucy thought for a moment that she could see his wife looking despairingly out the window of their cabin. She had the feeling that Gedra did not approve of this at all, and could not help feeling that she too wished Peter would find some other way to solve the quarrel – she didn't doubt that he would win, but she worried that his opponent would not play fair.
"I swear it," Perick said solemnly. "And do you swear by your devotion to your own family that should you lose, you will leave this village and never return?"
"Done."
Susan pulled Lucy back as the two faced each other, weapons raised. The other men of the village had fanned out to form a disjointed half-circle behind Perick's back, and were now watching him with expressions of smug expectation.
"To disarmament," Peter said. Perick nodded.
"I would not fight to the death with one so inexperienced," he replied, and Lucy caught the hint of a knowing smile on the corner of her brother's mouth.
"Whenever you please."
Perick lunged forward, swinging his cumbersome weapon, obviously expecting Peter to be too surprised to dodge. The young king stepped to the side neatly and watched his opponent fly past and spin around to hurl himself back at his foe. This time Peter's sword came up, cutting a deep groove into the end of the axe-handle near its blade as he parried another frenzied swipe, and he pushed back hard. Perick stumbled backwards, brow creased with evident surprise at the skills of his rival. He attacked again, but more cautiously. When Peter brought his sword around to block on his left, he changed his direction mid-swing and managed to clip the young man's left wrist, earning a small dribble of blood.
The wound clearly changed something for Peter, and Lucy saw his eyes darken slightly before he swung his sword around and dealt Perick a series of rabid blows, just barely blocked by the axe-handle of the older man. Swiftly, flawlessly he feigned a thrust to the left then took advantage of his opponent's momentum and flicked his blade over the back of the hand that held the axe. With a yell, Perick dropped his weapon and grabbed his hand, surprised to find only a shallow cut. He leaned over to pick his weapon back up, but Peter had already sheathed his sword.
"You surrender, then?" Perick asked angrily, confused.
"No," said Peter. "I won."
"I'm still fighting, aren't I?"
"Yes, but we agreed – to the disarmament. When you let go of your weapon you forfeited."
Perick spluttered for a moment, and there were angry murmurs from the villagers who were now at Peter's back. Lucy smiled nervously, proud that her brother had finished it so quickly, but not at ease at all with the reactions of the townspeople, however few they were. One of them carried a long dirk and was fingering it with restrained wrath, his dark eyes following the young king. Peter knelt and picked up his chain mail tunic. He seemed resolutely oblivious to the dissatisfaction of the crowd behind him, and as Susan hurried over to help him redress, Lucy turned to Perick.
"It was fair," she said. "You agreed. It's not traditional but it's fair."
And, to her surprise, he bowed his head and his shoulder slumped down resignedly. Letting the axe drop from his fingers, he nodded wearily at the other villagers and they reluctantly dispersed to enter the other cabins. Lucy watched him for a moment, waiting for him to speak, and then he looked back up at her with a subdued hopelessness.
"We'll be moving out, then," he said quietly. Peter straightened up, obligingly allowing Susan to refasten his cloak.
"You don't need to leave right away," he said. "All I ask is that you don't cut down any more trees. And we still have one important question that we never got to ask for the…interruptions."
"Yes, your Majesty?"
"That may be a longer conversation," Susan pointed out. "Perhaps it's better left for indoors."
Perick nodded somewhat glumly and picked up his axe, then led the way towards his cabin. His eyes held none of the defiant anger of before, and Lucy actually did feel sorry for him this time. He hadn't known about the dryads, and his earlier hostility had obviously been a result of hard times and an overpowering urge to keep his family safe. She could relate.
Lucy was about to go inside when she remembered to check for Ed, who had been avoiding them since that afternoon. Earlier he had found company with a few centaurs who could not care either way, as he was for the most part silent, but closer to Perick's challenge she had noticed him slipping towards the edge of the clearing, brooding. Now she could not see him anywhere. Her stomach jolted slightly, and she quickly hurried indoors.
"Where's Ed?" she asked her two eldest siblings, who shared an alarmed glance before Peter quietly excused himself and hastened back out. Susan beckoned to Lucy and the two sat down opposite Gedra and Perick uneasily. Peter will take care of it, Lucy told herself. For now, they had to know who – or what – the Lady was.
