A/N: The dedication didn't come out in the last chapter, so I'm putting it here. This is a gift fic for Acacia59601, who was the 100th reviewer of "All the Dreams that Might Have Been." She requested a Golden Age fic featuring Peter or Edmund, and this is what I came up with. I'm rather liking this story-on-request thing--it's fun, and I don't know if I would have come up with this myself. P.S. Look ma! Shorter chapters!
Peter kept his eyes on his sword as he held it aloft before him and set his jaw. He could not appear nervous, he knew, even though he was shaking inside. Only a few months before he had no power over his own destiny, much less the fates of Edmund, Susan, and Lucy. He and his brother and sisters had been packed up and shipped across England like parcels, the culmination of a life where he was completely helpless. Then they stumbled through a wardrobe, and here he was marching down the streets of Narrowhaven as Emperor. All the people in the throng were under his dominion. At his word, he could change their lives for better or for worse. That terrified him, for what if he spoke the wrong word? He kept his eyes straight ahead.
Edmund was walking beside him now, and Peter could feel he was almost strolling, swinging his arms at his sides. "I say, Peter, take a look at these faces. These aren't happy people."
Peter glanced at him briefly. "They're cheering now."
"Yes, now. But you get the feeling that they haven't cheered about something for a good long time."
Peter looked around and saw that he was right. He had been so wrapped up in himself that he couldn't see what Edmund saw with his unclouded eyes. He looked ahead of him again, but now he glanced at the people as well as the turrets of the governor's palace rising before him.
The governor met them at the gates and knelt before Peter. "You are most welcome, o Emperor."
Peter sheathed his sword and took the governor's hands in his. "Rise, good sir. We thank you for your kind hospitality." The governor had offered neither food nor shelter, but this had not escaped Peter's notice, as evidenced by the arch in his eyebrow.
The governor caught this look—indeed it was impossible not to notice—and he bowed hastily. "Of course, of course." He addressed a nearby servant. Make ready the Emperor's rooms, and those of his…er, cortege."
Peter stepped forward and addressed the servant himself. "And those of the King and Queens of Narnia, " he said in a sure voice. He looked at the governor sharply. "Are you not familiar with the prophecy? There are four thrones at Cair Paravel, and my brother and sisters reign alongside me."
Edmund noticed the ripple through the courtyard after Peter spoke. The high note of surprise and the raised eyebrows told him that no one had ever spoke that way to the governor. Though his eyes flashed displeasure, there was nothing he could do but bow and make his apologies.
Peter examined the castle carefully as they were shown to their rooms. The palace was a gracious building in the Narnian style, but the people were so skittish of him. No one in Narnia acted like this. They smiled and greeted him warmly, and that was just as he wanted it. Edmund's comment from the parade stuck in his head, and he noticed that Lucy drew close to him as they wandered the passageways.
He wanted to get Edmund alone to ask him what he thought was wrong with these people that they were so afraid of authority, but he never got the chance. The inhabitants of the castle administered him and his siblings with a thousand unnecessary attentions the whole of the afternoon. The best he could manage was a brief interview with Lucy when she slipped into his room for a few minutes before dinner. She knelt on the bed and helped him fit his crown on and chatted away blithely.
"It's so warm out today, and they made me take a hot bath. They said it was in the true Calormene style with rose petals and scented water and everything, but I was terribly uncomfortable. Apparently they thought it was a very high honor." She paused and looked thoughtful. "I don't really like it here, Peter. All the people make so much of a fuss over me, and they keep talking about Calormene ways as if they're the best. I miss Narnia, where people talk to me honestly and look me in the eyes."
He smiled at her. "Me too, Lu. But perhaps we can get the Islanders to behave more freely as well. At least, I think we ought to try."
Lucy nodded. "Yes, Peter. Let's." Peter found he admired his youngest sister's resolve. She looked quite noble and queenly as she thought this matter over, yet years before—no really, it was only months—she had been a girl in uncomfortable clothes who had never left her mother before.
He rose and offered her his arm. "Come on, Lucy. Let's go down to dinner and make a start."
The governor was hosting several guests, all of them dark-skinned men in turbans who bowed very low and paid Peter all manner of flowery compliments and hoped he lived forever. He noticed, though, that their eyes were blank as they said these things, and that made their voices all the more oily. Oily was the word for them, he thought grimly, for it applied to their toilet as well as their manner. They had perfumed turbans and oiled beards and curled mustaches. The hair on their faces was so overly decorative that Peter, who had been wondering if he ought to grow a beard to make him look a little older, swore that he would never grow a beard at all. That was his first impression of Calormenes.
He also grew to understand that the servants in the castle talked so much about Calormen because the visitors were frequent guests, either these particular lords or others like them. Though logic told him this was natural since the Lone Islands were geographically closer to Calormen than Narnia, some instinct told him to be a touch on guard about this fact.
He listened carefully to the dinner conversation without adding much himself. He didn't really trust himself to talk in front of people he didn't know because he felt that his authority was such a fragile thing. One schoolboy phrase and all might be lost. He left the talking to Susan, who was so gentle and charming she could soften anyone, and Edmund, whose mouth worked quickly but whose mind worked still quicker these days. Peter listened, and he watched. He noticed, for example, that the girl attending him was hardly older than Lucy. This started to distract him so much that while everyone was listening with rapt attention (or some facsimile thereof) to a sample of Calormene poetry, he grabbed her wrist while she refilled his goblet with wine.
"Don't think me too forward," he said, "But what dire circumstances has your family fallen under that you have to work at your age?"
The girl started and blushed so much Peter was almost sorry he had asked the question. He happened to glance at Lucy, though, and he felt he had to find out for her sake. Imagine if she were forced to labor at her age. "Please don't be afraid," he said. "I'm only asking because I want to help you."
She looked into his face, and though she shook the tiniest spark of hope took light in her eyes. "Please your Majesty, I don't know what you mean," she stammered in a whisper.
He didn't want her to be afraid, least of all of him, so he began again more gently. "What is your name?"
"L-Lorena," she faltered.
He smiled at her. "Then Lorena, I only want to know why you have to work when you're so young? Has your family fallen upon bad times and you have to help them?" Peter asked.
"I—I don't know. I've always had to work. They make me." She lowered her eyes, and the wine jug shook in her hands.
"Who makes you?" he insisted.
She cast a very fearful glance at the governor. "He does."
"But why? Is there no one to speak for you? Where do your wages go? Why are you being forced to work at such a young age?" Peter's whispered questions grew so fervent that the governor cast his eye on the girl from the other end of the table.
As soon as she saw this, she tried to draw her hand away. "Please, your Majesty. I don't know. Let me go."
He took the jug from her other hand and placed it on the table. "Do not be afraid of him. You are safe with me. I am his K—Emperor."
"Yes, but he owns me."
"Owns you?" Peter's astonishment outweighed his delicacy, and he spoke in a loud voice. "Do you mean to say that you're a slave?"
The conversation at the dinner table stopped and every face was turned to him. Lorena was near tears, and Peter let her go. She took up her jug and rushed to the corner where she tried to make herself as small as possible. Since everyone was staring at him, there was nothing for it but to question the governor. "Does she speak rightly?" Peter asked. "Is she a slave?"
"That has been the practice for many years," the governor answered smoothly.
"Then the practice is about to change," Peter replied with a fierce look in his eyes.
