Author's Note: Wow! I was overwhelmed by the number of reviews I got. I really cannot say how touched I was. To everyone who reviewed: thank you so much, you have no idea how much your reviews meant to me. I actually rushed this chapter because of the response, which is why it's so short. Sorry for that, but I wasn't sure how long it would take to get the next part done, so I went ahead and posted this. Thank you all again. Seriously, reading some of those reviews, I got a bit teary. Thanks for the support! Thank you, thank you!
In this chapter we meet Nerise. Hehe. Please tell me what you think of her.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the story and any original characters.
Tumnus slipped into the palace through the kitchen garden door to find the palace in a sort of organized chaos. Most of the party had disappeared to their respective chambers to change before dinner and the palace servants were rushing about with pressing cloths, shoe polish, tablecloths, plates, and bits of ribbon. Great bouts of steam issued from various doors and the clatter of dishes and carts echoed and re-echoed throughout the labyrinthine corridors. Tumnus trotted through the halls, making for the back stairs up to the receiving hall. He cut through the great kitchen and nearly ran into Susan who was rushing around in a highly frenzied, quite unladylike, state.
"Oh, dear. No, Sally! I don't care if the Tarkheena does need a basin of hot rose water, that soup has got to be on the table in fifteen minutes! Oh! Tumnus, thank goodness," Susan said, sparing him a rather harried smile. "Now, I've had something made up for you to wear tonight," she stopped at the alarmed look on his face. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, had you planned to wear something else? No? Well, then, I've had it laid out for you in your usual room. It's in the new Calormene style," she said with a gleam in her eye and a glittering smile on her lips. "I'll send Peter's valet up with you and we'll see you down for dinner in ten minutes."
"Majesty, that soup'll not be done for another good twenty minutes," the cook called across the room.
"I'm afraid our guests have been rather demanding on the household staff," Susan said ruefully to Tumnus before turning back to the cook. "Push it back a course, then. We'll have the greens first, then the cheese. Bring out the soup when it's ready." She signaled to a man that Tumnus only now realized had been hovering off to the side and turned to deal with the next pressing issue. Tumnus was left standing bemusedly in her wake, feeling rather like he had just been run over by a carriage. The man cleared his throat loudly.
"If Mr. Tumnus would be so kind as to follow me?" the man said in Telmarine accents and bowed at the waist before turning to disappear into the press of busy servants.
Dinner was served in the Great Hall, promptly at nine, and proved, despite the turmoil below, to be an exquisite affair. Tumnus was sat a quarter of the way down from the head of the table, between a rather beautiful widow from the Lone Islands and a solemn, dignified scholar from Calormen. Lucy sat on Susan's right, across the table and up five seats from Tumnus.
He looked at her rather closely, trying to determine if she was still upset, but she appeared to have put the incident at the river behind her. She was chatting quite animatedly with a young Tarkaan who had accompanied the Grand Vizier on his visit and her bright laughter carried down the table. Tumnus was glad to see her socializing with boys her own age. The scholar began speaking to Tumnus about some ancient texts he was translating but Tumnus was so lost in his thoughts he only managed to nod and murmur the occasional bland, encouraging comment.
He'd noticed her strange behaviour and had hoped it meant something other than what he thought it did, but with this kiss between them he feared she was heading towards heartbreak. She was very dear to him, but she was only a child. And a human, into the bargain. Which, he thought wryly, he certainly was not.
But it disturbed him, how he'd reacted to the kiss. For a moment he'd been tempted to turn the fleeting kiss into something more tangible. And afterward he'd held her without really meaning to and struggled through his confused emotions before he settled on one that was acceptable.
The official position, he'd decided, was one of gratitude. He was flattered that she would think of him in such a manner, but she must realize that such an attachment-- a passing infatuation, surely -- was entirely unacceptable given their differences in rank, species, and, not least importantly, age. He'd meant to tell her gently, but she'd never given him the chance, sensing his rejection and fleeing in a cloud of pubescent woe.
He recalled his own first heartbreak and how he'd been sure he would die of despair. He also recalled that he'd been stealing kisses from a wood nymph the very next week, with no thought of his former love. It had been a long time ago, but he was fairly sure he had made a complete recovery in a comparatively short period of time. He could only hope that Lucy would do the same.
Aslan save us from adolescent angst, he thought with a sigh, pushing his salmon around on his plate before laying aside his fork. An attentive footman came immediately for his plate and another served him the confection of iced fruit that was dessert. He was savoring the first spoonful when he felt a hand on his arm. He looked down in surprise at the well manicured, beringed hand and then up the delicate silk sleeves into the face of the lady on his right.
"He's moved on to the next defenseless victim," she said with a smile, nodding her head towards the scholar, who had turned to talk to a bespectacled Badger on his left. "I'm Lady Nerise of Avra. We were introduced this afternoon when we arrived, but with so many people in the party I'm sure you've no idea who's who," she said wryly.
"I-I'm sorry. Yes, there was rather a hubbub. I'm Tumnus." He was a little stunned by this beautiful woman with her cultured voice and stunning dress. She laughed delightedly at his introduction, removing her hand from his arm and raising her glass to him.
"Well, Sir Tumnus, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I look forward to deepening our association during my time here," she said with a sly smile.
"Em...yes," Tumnus began but was saved from having to think up a reply by Susan, who stood up and suggested they retire to the Tapestry Room for after-dinner entertainment.
"Will you escort me, Tumnus?" she asked coyly. Tumnus cleared his throat to cover his surprise before rising and offering his arm.
"Gladly, milady"
The interaction between Tumnus and the beautiful dark-haired woman he was now escorting to the Tapestry Room did not go unnoticed by Lucy. Although she had been rather determinedly not looking in Tumnus' direction all evening her attention had been drawn down the table by the woman's intolerably husky laugh. Lucy had seen her hand on Tumnus' arm and felt a surge of jealousy which was quite out of place, given his rejection of her in the garden.
Lucy watched the woman and couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. Her hair wasn't really brown, but a sort of burnished coppery colour and she wore it in a complicated arrangement of braids and ribbon gathered onto the top of her head, a style that was favored in the Lone Islands. Her features were rather large for her face, Lucy thought, but seemed to balance each other out, and the effect was nice, if one liked that sort of striking look. She had full, red lips (probably rouged, Lucy thought), a rather distinctively Calormene nose, and large almond shaped eyes that were quite unexpectedly blue. Her features seemed to be those of a Calormene, but rather finer, and her skin was far too pale for her to be from that state. Her dress seemed to point to her origins in the Lone Islands. Rather perplexed, Lucy turned to the young man who was escorting her.
"I say, who is that woman in the blue dress?" she asked in as bored a tone as she could muster.
"Oh, that's Nerise of Avra. Her uncle rules the capitol city on Doorn. Yes, her mother was a Calormene, you know. She inherited some lands over there in some godforsaken desert." The young man frowned as he struggled to remember the details. "She was married to one of them, if I remember correctly. A Calormene. The Tisroc's nephew or some such. Yes. But of course, he was killed, wasn't he? Yes, on a sea voyage to Telmarine. Terrible tragedy."
"Yes, terrible," Lucy murmured appropriately. "But why is she here with the Calormene embassy? Did not she return to the Lone Islands when her husband died?" Her escort remembered no more, but as they had arrived at the Tapestry Room, he consulted some of his friends for more on the story.
"Well, she's the Tarkheena of his lands, ain't she?" said one rather plump fellow. "Her mother's people did some kind of favor for the Tisroc and he let her keep control of all her husband's lands, as well as those she had brought to the marriage. Dashed unusual for those Calormenes to give control of anything to a woman, but she's a dashed unusual woman, is Nerise." The talk turned to the current exchange rate between the Lone Islands and Calormen and Lucy was left to mull over what she had just learned.