Say, Cousin?
Edmund tied the last knot and stood up, panting.
"Take this," he heard from his left, and looked up to see Lucy offering him a mug of water.
"Thanks," he said, sitting on the edge of the deck as he accepted the mug. "The sun at noon is no joke, reflected on the water."
Lucy leaned on the railing beside him, looking over the sea. The two stayed in silence for several minutes, well content.
But after a time both were drawn out of their thoughts by the sound of a throat being cleared. They turned to see an un-dragoned Eustace staring at both of them, trying to find a polite way to gain their attention.
"Do you need something, Eustace?" Lucy asked, much more willingly than she once would have.
"I wanted to ask Edmund something."
Edmund glanced at Eustace's fingers, twisting themselves under his shirt and out again, and at the face that looked so uncharacteristically uncertain. "Go ahead."
"When I came down—came back, I mean—when Aslan brought me back, you said something. I've wanted to ask you about it. But I was so caught up in Aslan, and telling everyone sorry—"
"Just ask," Edmund interrupted.
"You told me that you'd been a traitor." Edmund felt his eyebrows rise; that had not been the question he'd been expecting. Eustace had asked a lot more questions about sailing recently, wanting to know how to do the tasks Edmund worked at. "And I wondered—did you betray Peter? I mean, why are you still a King? In England you'd be executed for treason-"
"It was before we became Kings and Queens," Lucy put in. "Edmund doesn't mind the story being told," with a sideways glance and smile for him, "because it shows who Aslan is. You'll find your own story comes out like that too."
"It's a bit of a tale, though, so sit down if you want to hear it. See, Lucy discovered Narnia first. I followed her—with the worst of motives, I might add…"
"… but by then, I needed Lucy's cordial. I only came round after the Witch had been defeated and Aslan had returned. Peter's said, then and now, that the reason we lasted till Aslan's army came was because I broke the White Witch's wand, but it didn't feel like that when I woke up. It felt like I'd missed it all. But after the hugging, and celebration, Aslan came and said 'Well done.' And that was all I needed. It meant I'd played my part, and He was pleased. Then we went to the Cair, and He crowned us, all four of us. Even me."
Eustace was silent for a moment. Edmund waited. People usually had questions after that story; questions that he'd asked himself.
"Aslan makes people like us kings?" Eustace asked, a bit dubiously.
"Of course," Lucy answered, smiling. "What other kind of people are there?"
"I guess." Eustace fell back into his brown study. Edmund leaned back against the mast, looking back out over the sea, seeing the Lion who often came over it, stooping and looking Edmund in the eyes. He would always remember that Well done.
"Say, cousin?"
"Yes?"
"What do you think Aslan will make of me?"
"No one knows that but Aslan."
"Don't you trust Him with it?" Lucy asked when Eustace frowned.
"Of course I do. But—I'd like to know."
Edmund laughed. "We all would. But I am sure there is a very good reason we don't know. How would you have reacted, if you were as you were when you first got here, and you knew what you'd become?"
"Or Caspian," Lucy added thoughtfully. "If he as a prince had known he'd become his uncle's enemy, that would have made life much more difficult."
"Enough of that! Here, Eustace, lend me hand pulling in this sail, would you?"