'Do I want to know?'

Susan shifted the leather strap on Edmund's satchel, hiding it from the disinterested eyes of its owner. 'No.'

Edmund's gaze travelled over the sorry state of her dress and rested on her hair, where bits of flowers, leaves and short twigs were caught between the strands. 'I didn't realise plants are the trend nowadays.'

'Of course you didn't,' Susan sniffed. 'You're a man.' She rooted around the satchel, locating the luminous chess pieces among the other tokens of her hunt.

'Su, is that- is that my satchel?' Edmund shifted the scrolls in his hands, trapping them against his side and narrowing his eyes at the bag. 'It is my satchel, isn't it? Why have you got my satchel? Did you break it? Su, I see a tear in the leather-'

'Oh, hush.' Susan held her cupped palms out and the pure gold chess pieces glinted in the glaring sunlight. 'Here.'

'What are those?'

'They're chess pieces, Ed. Golden ones, too.' Susan replied patiently.

'No, I know that.' Edmund stretched a hand out, fingers hovering cautiously over the pieces. 'Aren't those…They're mine, aren't they? Why do you have them?'

'I rode to Cair Paravel this morning,' Susan explained. 'The dryads helped me look for these.'

Edmund's eyes grew wistful as he picked up a golden pawn. 'Our old home?'

Susan nodded, smiling at the boyish glee and longing in his eyes. 'Our old home.'

'Speaking of Cair Paravel.' Edmund slipped the chess piece into the frayed pocket of his tunic and took a scroll from his side, spreading it open. 'Look.' Susan pursed her lips and examined the complex maze of lines and curves drawn in ink on the parchment. Here and there, brief notes and comments were scrawled in small, spidery script that she had no difficulty recognizing, not when she has committed to heart and memory a poem dedicated to her and written in that same handwriting by a certain King. 'Caspian's done a wonderful work on the plans for Cair Paravel,' Edmund was saying in front of her as he held the design open. 'He even did the sketches on these himself,' he mused, oblivious to his sister's discomfort. 'Did you know he could draw?'

Susan recalled the sketch he made of her, one that showed her poised with her bow and arrow notched and aimed at an unseen target. It was a beautiful sketch; made on a plain scrap of parchment he must have found lying around during their time hiding from Miraz's forces. Carefully avoiding looking at the plan, Susan smiled blandly. 'No, I didn't know that.'

'Neither did I!' Edmund exclaimed, still marveling over the plan. He tilted the parchment at a different angle as if to get a better look at it and Susan resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 'I thought his cartographer had charted it for him but Trumpkin told me otherwise.'

'Where is he?' Susan piped up. 'Trumpkin?'

Edmund jerked his head vaguely to his right. 'There. By the crates. We've been discussing the new plans for Cair Paravel all morning.'

Susan looked up at his indication and felt her stomach clench. Sure enough, Trumpkin was there, but it was the man beside him who caught her attention. With his arms crossed on his chest, his head bent in thought and his sleeves rolled up to reveal his tanned forearms, Susan could not remember precisely what her aversion to him was. She watched furtively as one of his guards approached him, bending down to whisper something in his ear.

Suddenly, he looked up sharply. His gaze, naked with vulnerable concern and shock, met hers and Susan drew back. To her horror, he sat up from the tree stump he had been sitting on and started walking towards her. All the while, his eyes never left her and Susan watched, mesmerized, as he strode purposefully, every inch the King, across the thankfully wide courtyard. A thrill rushed through her as a light breeze stirred his beautifully tousled hair and ruffled the plain tunic and trousers he wore.

Susan shook her head, rousing herself from the disturbing hypnotic effect he spun around her. 'Here.' She shoved the rest of Edmund's chess pieces into his open palm. 'Those are all I could get. I'm going to go give Peter his things.' She turned away from him, away from Caspian who seemed to have covered a ridiculous length of the courtyard in that short time she wasted ogling him.

'Pete's out training with the soldiers in the fields,' Edmund piped up, turning the chess pieces in his hands and utterly oblivious to her distress. 'Might not be back anytime soon.'

'I'll go see Lu, then,' she replied desperately. Caspian was close now and Susan turned around, almost running towards the tall castle doors.

'Susan!' Caspian was running now, sprinting past Edmund and ignoring the looks thrown his way. One of his guards had come up to him just a short while ago, informing him that Queen Susan had finally returned and delicately mentioned the distressed state of her dress. He looked up then and met her eyes across the castle courtyard. His eyes went to her disheveled hair, the obvious tears in the new dress he'd acquired for her, and his hands clenched into fists. The next thing he knew, he was striding across the courtyard towards Susan while his mind ran rampant with ideas of how to punish whoever hurt her. A good dip in the Eastern Ocean perhaps, with rocks tied to this faceless man's ankles. Or a good long life stint in the solitary prison tower. Or perhaps he could just pound this stranger's face into pulp with his own hands. 'Susan!' He was close enough now to grab her by her sleeve and pull her to a stop. 'Susan!'

'What?' she snapped, whirling around angrily.

He opened his mouth but his gaze suddenly slid down to her shoulder and he blushed, his words dying on his lips. Frowning, he averted his gaze shyly. 'Your...ah...your sleeve-Sorry...It's-' He gestured at her bare shoulder helplessly.

Susan glared at him and glanced passingly at her shoulder. What is he on about- Her eyes widened and she tugged her sleeve up her shoulder. She was positive that her cheeks were burning fiercely now. 'Was that all?' she asked him with as much dignity as she could draw from her depleted reserve.

'Ah...no.' Caspian ran a hand through his hair nervously. The dark brown strands seemed almost auburn in the sunlight. 'No. What happened to you?'

Susan frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'What happened to...you?' He gestured vaguely at her dress. 'Did something happen to you while you were out riding? Were you attacked?'

'Honestly, do I look that terrible?' Susan groused, her lower lip sticking out slightly in a pout that she thought she outgrew. 'First the guards look at me like I'm the White Witch and then there's Edmund being Edmund and then you come up here thinking I've been attacked when all that's happened is I've been having fun. A lot of fun.'

Caspian bit back a smile at her unusually belligerent tone and the little pout that looked so adorably out of place on Susan's classically gentle features. 'My apologies, Your Majesty,' he murmured, bowing a little. His eyes flicked up teasingly and Susan blushed. 'I was simply concerned about your well-being,' he explained, wanting to draw their conversation out.

'Well…' Susan rubbed her nose awkwardly. 'Thank you.' She became aware of Edmund hovering some distance behind Caspian, stealing covert glances at them from behind his building plan.

'I was just-'

'Lucy's up at-' Caspian laughed nervously. 'Go on.'

'I was just going to go…visit the kitchens, maybe see if I could scrounge something up for lunch. Seeing as I missed…lunch,' Susan explained pathetically. Lunch, Susan? That's what's on your mind? 'So if you don't mind, I'll just excuse myself.'

'I'll walk you to the kitchens,' Caspian offered hurriedly. 'Trumpkin has been trapping me with building plans since morning.' He grinned down her as he led her to the steps leading up to the castle doors. 'This is a welcome distraction.'

She smiled faintly, looking straight ahead as she walked past him. 'Distraction? Hmm.'

'Your Majesty!' Both Caspian and Susan turned to look as Trumpkin hurried across the courtyard towards them. 'Your Majesty-' he wheezed. 'We still have the building plans to go through-'

Caspian pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Trumpkin-'

'-we really can't afford to take any more breaks-'

'Trumpkin, please-'

'-to finish them up by today for the Lords' perusal-'

'Trumpkin!' The dwarf stared up at him in surprise and Caspian subtly tilted his head towards Susan, who was watching their exchange with an amused smile. 'I'm quite occupied at the moment,' he bit through his teeth. 'This could wait until later, perhaps?'

'Oh, yes.' The dwarf clasped his hands in front of him, assuming a suitably chastened expression. 'Yes, of course. There really is no hurry, Your Majesty. I was simply…exaggerating. As I often do.' He threw Caspian a sly look before retreating, his hands now clasped behind his back. 'Please, Your Majesties,' he called over his shoulder. 'Take your time.'

Caspian exhaled in relief and turned to Susan, flashing a winsome smile. 'The kitchens?'

'Are you certain you have time to spare?' she asked him drily. 'I can find my own way to the kitchen.'

'Of course I have time-'

'Your Majesty!' Camillo burst through the massive wrought iron gates leading to the gardens. 'King Caspian, sir! A moment of your time!' The old centaur galloped up the stone steps and bent his knees generously, bowing his head in greeting to the King and Queen. 'Apologies, Your Majesty, but something in the gardens require your attention.'

'Camillo, can this wait? I'm in the middle of something.'

Susan raised a hand, halting him in the middle of his refusal. 'No, no. Let's hear it. What is it, Camillo?'

'It's the Helenian roses, Your Majesty. King Caspian brought over the remaining plots in the Cair Paravel gardens to this castle when they began rebuilding works and I've been trying to nurture the flowers but-' Here, he paused and dramatically took great gulpfuls of breath. 'I fear my efforts and that of the King's to preserve the last of the roses might have been for naught.' He peered at the King. 'You might want to see the flowers one last time before they disappear forever, sire.'

Caspian blushed and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. 'Camillo, really. Is that necessary? They're just flowers-'

'Would Her Majesty like to come along and take a look?' Camillo asked shrewdly. 'I was informed by a reliable source that these were your favorite flowers.'

Surprised, Susan frowned as she tried to decipher the innocence on the aged centaur's face. 'Were you? And who is this reliable source?'

Camillo shrugged and he turned around, fully expecting the two monarchs to trail behind him. 'Oh, nobody significant. Just that King beside you.'