Mired in the Truth

"Pardon me, Princess, but the Kings would like an update on their sister."

Saedra sat up straight in her chair and looked around drowsily. As she glanced about the cabin, the previous night's events quickly came back to her. There was Lucy on the bed looking feverish, and a Dwarf was in the doorway looking uneasy for disturbing Saedra.

I must have dozed off while watching Lucy, Saedra thought to herself. No one could blame her, for judging by the light coming in through the window it was late afternoon, and she hadn't slept all night out of anxiety about what she knew about Edmund, on top of Lucy's health.

The revelation that Edmund loved her was eating away at her. She had been safe with the illusion that Edmund saw her only as a sister and could respond to it accordingly. But now that she was certain, beyond a doubt that he loved her as she had grown to love him—no, he had loved her for much, much longer. If he had truly loved her that long...her feelings for him paled in comparison.

The knowledge that Edmund had (for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom) been in love with her for ages didn't make her happy the way people usually are when they realize that their love is reciprocated. Was it because she was married now? Was she becoming loyal to Peter against her own will? Or was it simply grief that she hadn't married Edmund instead of Peter? Whatever it was, it was gnawing at her, and the pain her stomach hadn't eased.

The thing that bothered her most was that, though it hadn't been blatantly obvious, there was a tension between Peter and Edmund that she hadn't seen before. Did Peter know that Edmund had feelings for her?

"Thank you. I'll be right out."

The Dwarf bowed and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Saedra looked down at her sweaty sister-in-law, brushed back the hair from her forehead, and whispered, "I'll be back in a few minutes, Lu," even though she doubted that the young woman could hear her.

When she went outside, the brightness blinded her for a moment; the storm had passed as she slept. She squinted and spotted Peter and Edmund standing towards the starboard side of the boat talking, so she took in a deep breath and went over to them. When they saw her, they stopped talking and gave her their full attention.

"How's Lu?" Peter asked anxiously. "Any better?"

"I can hardly tell. She hadn't come out of the daze yet, and I don't know if it'd be better to have her sleep than to wake her up. She's awfully feverish as well."

Edmund slapped the railing angrily. "If only we had brought the cordial onboard!"

Lucy had insisted that they keep it back home so it could be there if Susan ever saw a need for it, and also so that they wouldn't lose it on the trip.

"There's no helping that now," Peter said. "We just need to focus on getting to land as soon as possible."

"And when might that be?" Saedra asked Peter. She had hardly glanced at Edmund since coming over; she felt immensely uncomfortable.

"The storm blew us over half a day off course, so it will be almost two days before we reach Terebinthia," Peter replied grimly. "Can she hold out that long?"

Saedra looked very uneasy. "I sure hope so, but I can't shake the feeling that I might be forgetting something that might help her. I could be doing her more damage than help at this point, and two days may do her in."

"Then we can only hope that Aslan has guided your hand," Peter said.

Saedra only shook her head and rubbed her face with her hands.

Peter put his hand on her shoulder and said, "Saedra, I trust you. You are a resourceful woman and I have every confidence that Lucy is safe in your hands."

"High King Peter!" a steward came up to them. "The Captain wishes to speak to you."

Peter nodded and turned to his brother and wife. "I will see you both at dinner." He followed the steward to the front of the ship.

Silence followed as the two of them watched him walk away.

Finally Edmund said, "How are you holding up?"

Saedra grunted, and her eyes darted up to him. "I'm fine, but I should ask you the same question. I haven't been up all night trying to save my shipmates' lives."

The shadow of a smile crossed his lips. "I'll be fine. I was just asking because I knew it bothered you to stay inside during the storm."

She shook her head. "I'm past that now. My only goal is to try to keep Lucy alive." She looked out over the calm waters while Edmund continued to study her.

She and Edmund stood at the railing silently, each in their own thoughts. Saedra wanted to break the silence; she just didn't know what to say to Edmund!

This is probably what Edmund was afraid of in the beginning: That our friendship would be wrecked by romance coming between us.

But would a romance come between us or make us closer?

She looked over at Edmund and was startled to find his brown eyes already fixed on her. Her stomach twisted with a nervousness that she had never felt around him this acutely.

"Are you alright, Sae?" Edmund asked. "You look unwell."

"I'm just a bit fatigued," she smiled, shaking her head. "I had better go check on Lu."

She turned to go, but he grabbed her hand. "Sae, let me watch Lu. You get some rest."

"You need rest more than I do," she said. "I'll be fine."

She patted his hand and went over to the cabin, leaving Edmund watching her with an expression that showed that he had sensed her discomfort and was troubled by it.

"My dear, wait!"

Saedra turned around to see Peter jogging down the Terebinthian castle's passageway after her.

They had just finished their third lunch with the leaders of the island, Lord Iras and his wife Lady Eraka, and Saedra had nearly suffocated under the pressure of trying to act as naturally as she could around Edmund. The past three days since landing had been a perfect nightmare for her, since Lord Iras insisted in entertaining the esteemed rulers of the free land of Narnia in any way possible (and of course that included the Princess Consort). Therefore, Edmund and Saedra were nearly always in each other's company, and more and more it wore on her. Saedra had to continue to pretend to be in love with Peter, all the while trying not to act differently around Edmund.

It seemed impossible. By virtue of having to think about how to act around Edmund, she was acting differently, and she knew it. To get away from Edmund and Peter (who still seemed to be unusually quiet around each other), she would go for long walks around the pretty, peaceful island.

"Husband!" Saedra said, trying to sound pleased that Peter was following her, in case someone overheard.

In reality, all she wanted was to go on a solitary stroll. The foggy climate reminded her somewhat of her home at Harden Castle, and it gave her a temporary sense of peace to walk through the town.

"I was wondering if I might speak with you," Peter said once he reached her. "Do you have a moment?"

"I was just going to walk down to the town…" Saedra said.

Take the hint, Peter. I don't want to talk.

He ignored the hint. "Then allow me to accompany you." He held out his arm for her to take, and she took it reluctantly.

As they left the stone mansion, Saedra asked, "What did you wish to speak to me about?"

"You."

"Me?"

"Yes. I have noticed that you have been acting differently since the storm, and I think that in our attempt to bring Lucy back to health that we have neglected you," Peter said.

She knew he was being thoughtful, but still it annoyed her that he was treating her like a fragile doll. "I'm not a child, Peter. I don't feel 'neglected.'"

"Perhaps that was bad choice of words," Peter admitted. "It just seems like all of the attention has been on Lu and that we have been ignoring you, particularly Edmund and myself."

She laughed shortly as they passed through the iron gates that marked the boundaries of the Lord's mansion. "Peter, truly. I'm fine. The Lord and Lady have been nothing but gracious since we arrived. I don't lack anything."

Except knowing how to act around Edmund now, but you certainly can't help me with that.

There was no way she was going to trouble Peter by telling him how his brother had been in love with his wife for years.

They walked over the damp grass down the slope of the hill around the residence without speaking for a while. The grass was cut very short by all of the sheep that the island raised and allowed to graze on the numerous green hills. The ocean was visible on the other side of the quiet town that lay in a shallow valley beneath the Lord's mansion.

"If there was something bothering you, would you tell me?" Peter asked.

Saedra didn't know what to say at first. "Why—yes! You have never known me to hold my tongue if I have something to say, have you?"

"No," he almost chuckled. "But that's only when you're angry with me. If you had something that bothered you but didn't make you angry, would you tell me?"

"I could ask you the same question," she replied, but not harshly.

"Perhaps not," Peter confessed.

"And nor would I expect or want you to. You don't owe me access to the deepest parts of your mind, as I don't with you."

"But what if I wanted access?" he asked.

That threw her for a moment. "Then I am sorry. I will not volunteer information that is unnecessary for you to know. But if you ask me a question, I see no reason not to answer it. Is there something pressing on your mind?"

Peter pursed his lips and gestured that they should veer their course over to the left to go around the town instead of through. It was apparent that he didn't want their conversation overheard by anyone but the occasional goat.

"You must promise to answer me truthfully or not answer the question at all."

"Have I ever told you a falsehood?" she replied with a hint of indignance.

"I haven't caught you in one yet."

Now fully annoyed, she glared up at him. To her surprise, however, he was grinning down at her. She realized that he had been teasing her, and her expression melted.

"What's the question?" she asked.

He looked away and didn't reply immediately. Finally he said, "Do you have a lover?"

She blinked. "Pardon me?"

"You heard the question."

"I did, but I don't understand it. What makes you ask me that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Peter said in an overly-casual tone. "Maybe the fact that you have been acting secretive and hardly saying a word to me or Ed, been going out for long solitary walks that would suggest that you have something pressing on your mind or that you are running from something, or the fact that you look guilty right now."

"I do not look guilty!" she protested. "I'm surprised, that's all. I didn't know that these things were signs of marital infidelity."

"Maybe not for someone else, but for you they are signs."

"And what makes me so special?"

"Because I know you."

She sighed and said, "Peter, honestly. Do I really need to deny these charges?

"It would ease my mind greatly, yes. But only if you are telling the truth."

"I can honestly say that even though I might desire a lover, I know that the troubles it would cause the both of us. Besides, no man would be dumb enough to cross the High King of Narnia, so even if I wanted a lover, none would volunteer. So no, I do not have a lover, nor do I intend to take one on."

"How reassuring," he said sarcastically. "You want one but can't have one is what you are saying."

"You wanted the truth," she replied. "Are you happy now?"

"Happy? No. Mollified, yes."

"Good. Then you must excuse me, I don't wish to keep you any longer," she said, curtsying.

"Will you not come back with me?" he asked. "It looks like rain."

"No, thank you. I desire some more exercise today."

"Are you sure? You've been having too much exercise…you're so thin these days! We don't want you catching an illness now that Lucy is recovering."

"I'll be fine," she said firmly, not caring for his opinion.

It was true that her weight had been decreasing, but it was the least of her worries. She had never been a thin woman, so it would take more than a couple of weeks of a loss of appetite and strolling to have an effect on her.

"I'll see you at supper. Good day."

Though Saedra was too proud to admit it, Peter had been right about the rain. When she got back to the mansion, she was soaked from head to toe and utterly miserable. She had stayed out so long, not wanting to go back to the castle and see Edmund, that it was nearly completely dark when she stumbled back inside and went up to the room she shared with Peter.

She peeled off her dripping dress and undergarments, shivering in the cold room. There was a fire in the fireplace, but it had been recently lit and the warmth hadn't spread throughout the room yet. She quickly put on some dry clothes and hung the wet ones by the fire to dry, then left the room and went down the hall to Lucy's chamber.

She knocked on the door lightly and heard Lucy's muffled voice say, "Come in." Lucy was sitting up in front of the roaring fire, wrapped in a thick quilt and eating her dinner.

"What happened to you?" Lucy asked as Saedra walked over. "Your hair is soaked and you look as pale as death!"

Saedra sighed and sat down. "I was out walking and got caught in the rain. I'm fine though."

"Here, have some tea to warm you up," Lucy said, reaching over to the tray on the table next to her.

"Thanks," Saedra said gratefully, taking the cup from her. "You're looking much better."

"I do feel better. I wanted to go down to dinner tonight, but Peter told me that I should stay up here for one more night. He was muttering something like, 'At least we'll still have one healthy woman.'"

"He must have been talking about me," Saedra said. "We'd been out walking and it looked like rain, so he told me to go inside, but I wanted to stay out some more by myself."

"You have been doing that a lot lately, I hear," Lucy observed. "Going off by yourself, I mean. Is something troubling you?"

Saedra didn't want to lie, but there was no good reason to tell Lucy what she knew, just as there had been none for Peter. "I've just been walking around the countryside. Terebinthia is really peaceful and pretty, if a bit rainy."

Lucy didn't buy her half-hearted explanation. "Peter's worried about you."

"Is he now? What did he say?"

"Nothing. He didn't need to. He's my brother, after all. I can just see the worry on his face whenever someone talks about you."

"What do you think he's worried about?"

Lucy studied Saedra evenly. "You tell me."

"I tell you? I have no idea!"

"Saedra, you're his wife and you don't have any idea what might be bothering him. Doesn't that trouble you at all? Don't you think that maybe that is why Peter is troubled in the first place—that you don't know or care to know his mind?"

Saedra was taken aback at the reproving tone of her voice and stuttered, "I—I don't know."

There's no point hiding the truth from Lucy, she decided then and there. I will disclose the truth of our relationship to her.

"Lucy, I have to admit something to you. No one knows this besides Peter and myself. The truth is, our marriage is purely political. Peter and I have no special feelings for each other; in fact we can barely tolerate each other. Right after our wedding, we would fight almost every day behind closed doors. The number of spats has gone down recently, but it's not because we have become close, it's because we have little desire to talk to each other. Just today we disagreed, and that is probably why Peter was grumpy."

Saedra had expected Lucy to be surprised, but it was Saedra who ended up surprised when Lucy said, "I expected as much."

"You knew?" Saedra said, alarmed. If Lucy has figured it out, everyone else must surely know!

"Saedra, Peter and I have always been close. I'll admit I was fooled along with everyone else at first, but after you both got married, I quickly figured it out."

"Who else knows?"

"I have talked with Tumnus about this, but besides him, no one. Susan is too enamored with Peridan to suspect anything, and Edmund is just too moody to focus on anything besides himself right now."

Saedra grimaced, as the mere thought of Edmund was like twisting a knife in her stomach.

Lucy misinterpreted Saedra's unhappy expression, leaned forward, and said in a more compassionate tone. "It's okay, Saedra. I don't hold any of this against you. All I want is for you and Peter to be happy, so I wish you two would talk things through."

"Believe me, Lucy, I have tried. But Peter simply refuses to talk about some things that are vital to me being able to trust him, so we can't move forward."

"Peter must have a good reason," Lucy said, implicitly trusting her older brother to do the right thing. "You need to trust him."

Not wanting to get into an argument with Lucy about Peter's integrity, Saedra just nodded.

As soon as Lucy was on her feet and the Splendor Hyaline was repaired and restocked, they left Terebinthia. Saedra had been dreading being cooped up on the same ship as Edmund again, but she had some consolation that she wouldn't be sharing a room with Peter anymore; he had graciously given up his spot in the cabin for Lucy to stay in.

As the Splendor Hyaline sailed on, Saedra passed her time hiding out in their cabin and reading books that the Lady Eraka had been kind enough to give her upon hearing of her enjoyment of reading. It was stressful enough to be in Edmund's presence during meals in the galley when they would usually be seated near each other, but she didn't want to run into him on deck. She didn't need him to ask her why she was being so strange around him (she had no doubt that he noticed her awkward behavior), because she had no idea what she would say. However, she wasn't sure how much longer it would be before she cracked under the pressure.

The time when she would get some exercise to keep from too cooped up was after most people had already gone to bed and it was dark outside. She would walk around the deck, the poop, and the forecastle, and stare at the stars that seemed to get even brighter the farther they were from Narnia.

One such night as they were nearing the Lone Islands, Saedra was on the forecastle and staring up at the night sky when she heard someone coming up the stairs. She turned around to see who it was, for at this time of night people rarely came up there. They would be back on the poop deck minding the tiller if they were on duty.

The man finished climbing the stairs, casually walked forward a bit, and then stopped dead when he spotted her. By then, her heart was pounding hard, because she knew who it was.

"Ed!" Saedra said in a light voice. "What are you doing up at this hour?"

He walked over to the railing, hesitated for a moment as if working up the courage to say something, and said, "I didn't know you were up here, but I'm glad that you are. I've been meaning to ask you something." He paused then asked, "Have you been well lately, Sae?"

Saedra averted her eyes and said in the same light voice, "The same as usual."

Edmund bit his lower lip and nodded, as if her lame answer had shown him the truth.

"When did you find out?" he asked in a low voice.

"Find out?" she asked, looking up at him.

He nodded, his gaze showing that he knew that she knew what he was talking about.

She looked away again and sighed, "Right after the storm. It just...clicked."

Edmund took in a large breath. "And...how do you feel about it?"

"I'm shocked. And flattered. And I don't know what to do." What had once been love for Edmund had morphed into a dull pity for him and for herself. Hope had vanished the day she had married Peter that anything might be different.

"That is what I was afraid of," he admitted in a low voice. "That is why I kept my silence."

"But why didn't you say anything before the wedding?"

"I thought you loved Peter."

Saedra was becoming numb with all of the emotions in her cancelling each other out, so she hardly reacted.

So, Edmund had given up his happiness for what he thought would make her happy. That was the answer she had been waiting for, and it seemed so simple she couldn't believe she hadn't guessed it before.

She had never felt so stuck before in her life. She felt like she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, literally and figuratively. She had brought this whole situation upon herself: she had planted the idea of her and Peter being a good match in Lune's mind, she had fallen in love with Peter while being oblivious to Edmund's feelings, and she had married Peter without first trying to know how Edmund felt about it.

And now...now she could do nothing. There was no question of whether she would allow herself to be run away with feelings for Edmund...there were no more feelings to be spent. She felt emotionally drained from the stress of the past weeks.

She surfaced from her thoughts to find herself still standing next to a silent Edmund.

"So, what now?" Edmund asked in a breathless voice when she looked over at him.

Did she dare tell him that she lovedhim? Give him the slightest temptation to begin an illicit relationship with his brother's wife? Fulfill his dreams of being with the woman he adored, even for a little while?

No. She knew that while they might enjoy a romance for a while, the strain would wear on them both. Edmund loved Peter as well, and the guilt would ruin him. Saedra would risk her own future, and in so doing, Talia's.

He was looking at her in such a way that she knew the same thoughts were running through his mind. She hated to see him so tormented, and almost willing to do something so…wrong.

Therefore, though she knew it would hurt him profoundly, she croaked, "It's getting late, brother. I think I will go to bed now." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Good night."

And she simply walked away, leaving the younger man staring at her retreating back.