Author's Note: This began as an attempt to explain one thing that bothered me from the book: Why would a Telmarine Lord of Caspian the Ninth's Narnia carry Lions and Trees as currency? It grew of its own accord with another question: how does the arrival of the Pevensies affect Caspian's relationship with his Narnian friend? Thanks to Almyra: wherever possible, I'll put in that quotation!

"Their Majesties all seemed a bit bewitched when they came aboard."

Drinian, after Deathwater island

Though they had left the island far behind them, it seemed to Edmund that something of the malign aura of Deathwater must have clung to their party as they returned to the ship, coming to rest, like a fine mist, over everyone aboard. Lucy had been distant; Caspian, preoccupied. Eustace slipped from his old, surly manners to languid indifference. Even Reepicheep had ceased to perch on the prow, softly singing the Dryad's ditty.

Worse, the effect seemed to have spread through people who had not approached the deadly stream. Drinian no longer snapped out his orders with the same rasping relish; the great bull's bellow of Rhince was subdued. The lively hum of the workaday Dawn Treader was entirely snuffed out.

"It won't do, you know," Lucy announced as they ambled from the forecastle and their nightly stare at the stars. "Ever since we left that beastly island, everything's been wrong. And we're all afraid to say anything about it!"

"It does rather feel as though the spirits of the place are haunting us," Eustace admitted, rather proud that he had bitten off the first, nasty, answer that had touched the back of his tongue. "P'raps Lu's right; we might shake off this horrid, empty way of feeling if we tried talking about - well, whatever it was. I know what we found, of course, but it all seems such a ghastly blur."

"I've tried puzzling it out in my head," said Edmund, and the others nodded. "Oh, I don't know! None of us is altogether sure of what's wrong, but we all know something is. The crew didn't get near the stream, and yet… is it just me? Nobody's been his old self since we stopped there. I don't understand it, and I feel as though it's driving me mad."

"If you would have sense spoken of our experiences, King Edmund," said Caspian, sounding relieved (Edmund thought) that another had put into words what he (probably) was feeling. "Then allow me to suggest that our predicament is laid before our bold and practical captain. If salt good sense is necessary, I know of no man better able to dispense it than Drinian."

"Could we, do you think?" Lucy was almost in tears. "He's been so busy, with this awful weather, and one silly, nasty niggling problem after another to sort out… Wouldn't it be an awful bother, for us to…"

"I did consider showing him the objects we brought back?" suggested Caspian. "The mere fact that we can discern nothing beneath the rust doesn't mean that nobody else will see anything, and Drinian knows the insignia of all the great Narnian Houses as well as I."

"Besides, he's been watching us oddly since we came back." It made such perfect sense, but the Captain had been out of temper for much of the past few days. Edmund told himself he was loath to trouble a man already weighted down with burdens. "He knows something fishy happened on Deathwater."

Just speaking the name - Reep's name - sent chills through the little group wandering along the main deck. "No time like the present," Eustace muttered, sticking out his chin. "Hi, Drinian! Can you spare a minute?"

"Gladly, Eustace." He was tired, he was cold, and he had not been more than ten minutes at a stretch away from deck in the past twenty hours. If his noble passengers had decided to seek out his merry company, Drinian thought sulkily, they had chosen the worst of their moments! "Trouble?" he added under his breath as, led by Caspian, they joined him on the poop.

"Yes," said Lucy.

"No," said Edmund.

"In a manner of speaking," said Caspian .

"Lion bless me, I shouldn't have asked!"

"We brought some items from the last island, Drinian."

"Aye." The word came out flatly. "Your Majesties were very secret with your trophies."

It had hurt, Caspian realised, feeling as if a bowl of cold water had been tossed into his face. That is why Drinian has been withdrawn, ever dashing about his duties, with no time for a merry quip with his friends. We did not confide. For the first time since we slipped our anchorage at Cair Paravel, I did not confide, he amended guiltily. My old friend thinks himself forgotten.

"We think them to be the possessions left by one of our missing lords: will you see if you can identify them, by some mark we may have missed?"

"They're stowed in my cabin." Lucy clasped his hand. "Do say you'll come and look at them, Drinian! Please!"

"Aye." Seized by some of the urgency that affected the girl, Caspian added his entreaty. "What we saw, and felt, in that place makes no sense to me. Will you - as my friend - hear us speak of it?"

The appeal melted all the foolish, human resentments Drinian had felt building as his friend and master had immersed himself the last few days in the company of visitors from another, strange world. "Of course," he said simply, oddly touched that such a small concession on his part should stir so much relief in his companions.

Even the Great Cabin, dominated by the gilded, glowing mural of the Lion on one wall, was cramped with five people inside it. Lucy dragged the rusty objects from a sea chest beneath her bed as Caspian perched on its twin. The boys squeezed onto the other the instant its lid was closed, leaving Lucy the single small stool. Drinian lounged comfortably against the bulkhead, frowning at the remnants of armour she offered to him.

"Narnian, for a certainty," he said, fingering the sword hilt. "And not of a Dwarf's forging! I see no hope, Caspian, of identifying our lost countryman from these."

He turned out the pouch of coins, and his eyebrows lifted. "Ah! Lions and Trees of the late King's minting!"

"I remember wondering about them," Edmund announced, pleased to find one memory returning, needle sharp and bright. "They're old Narnian coinage. Surely - no offence intended - the Telmarine kings created their own?"

"So they did; but occasional attempts were made to breach the divide between old Narnia and new." Caspian rubbed his hands, ready to begin a lecture. "Under Caspian the Third, for example; and again, in the reign of Aidan the Second…"

"Cost him his crown and the head that wore it," Drinian grunted, returning the coins to Lucy. "The late King minted coins of the old style toward the end of his reign: an acknowledgement we, the Telmarines, were intruders to the land, and (so my father claimed) a hand extended to the true Narnian population. I fancy that won a few more of the court fools to Miraz's party! Not our mysterious lord on Deathwater, of course. What killed him? Could you discover no clue?"

Two of his companions had turned very white at the name; the others, very red. "I see," Drinian sighed. "Light the lamp, Lucy. There's a tale here that will be long in the telling, I dare say."

Haltingly, in awkward fits and starts, the story of the golden stream emerged. Drinian listened: he snorted at the recital of the two kings' dispute, remembered plainly in the telling for the first time by all parties. "I'm sorry I made such an utter fool of myself, Caspian," Edmund offered meekly.

"I rather think I began it, Edmund," answered the other, no less hangdog. "We were about to draw swords on the matter of ownership, weren't we?"

"Probably."

"Definitely, Ed," said Eustace. To Drinian, he added: "I never saw such a pair of posturing idiots in my life."

"Glad am I the men were all employed elsewhere," said their captain devoutly. "It does no good for them to see their masters behaving badly! So our poor countryman - whomever he might be - undressed on the ridge and… it hardly bears considering! How easily any one of us might have done as he did: coming upon the place on a hot day, for instance…"

"It may sound callous, but is that not the most monstrous part of it?" asked Caspian. "I am sorry, Drinian; we ought to have confessed all this to you sooner. I believe our minds have been somehow affected by what we discovered."

"Hardly to be wondered at." The great mystery, then, was barely a mystery at all. Drinian was annoyed with himself for allowing an unusual royal silence on the subject of an exploration to trouble him so. "Still, Your Majesties were wise to hurry our departure from the place! We have a stout crew, but with a stream that turns aught you drop in it to gold, the best of them might have been tempted."

Two kings, Lucy thought, never looked more sheepish than Caspian and Edmund in that moment. Eustace grimaced.

"I learned to loathe the sight of gold on Dragon Island," he said, pleased to discover he could now allude to his misadventures there without a shudder. Imagining the golden man as he dived into the inviting waters of the cool, clear stream, feeling his own fingers solidify into metal, knowing a moment of despairing helplessness as hands, arms, shoulders followed, chilled him to the bone. There are worse fates than a brief spell as a dragon, he thought. "So that may be why the thought of turning grass into a fortune leaves me cold. Lu didn't seem affected either. You recognise the temptation, Drinian, but it hardly sounds like you're interested in it."

"I have gold and jewels enough for any man in Narnia, Eustace," came the careless reply. "And I was not subject to the strange air of that place: there are advantages to being captain, and needed immediately in half a dozen places at once!"

"I never knew anyone less interested in gold or fine jewels than Drinian," Caspian confided. "Goodness, I'm tired! Lucy can scarce keep her eyes open; come along, we should be leaving her in peace. Boys, I shall join you later. My Lord Drinian, can you bear to share a cup of ale with me, before you retire to your deserved rest?"

"Make yourself comfortable in my cabin, Caspian; I'll fetch the ale." The foul weather showed no sign of abating: there would be a dozen more disagreeable chores tomorrow, and today's were barely done. Yet Drinian, like his ship's noble passengers, felt ridiculously more cheerful as he strode down into the hold in search of a flagon and two cups. If, as the others seemed to believe, there was a curse on the land they called Deathwater, had it not been shown, the way to lift its trace from the Dawn Treader was by honest conversation among friends?