Keep the Home Fires Burning

My life became a study in extremes: extreme anxiety, extreme amusement, and extreme pain. Every pleasant event and day was punctuated by agony every night and it was wearing me down like the winter ocean eroded the beaches.

It was Seconday in the fourth week of the month of Twirleaf and that meant dance, music, etiquette, and rhetoric lessons. At least we got them all over with in one shot. I marked the day by managing to make it through all my lessons without nodding off on any of the teachers, as had become a bad habit of late. By now our music teacher had given up on me ever learning to play a musical instrument (for which I was infinitely grateful) and concentrated on teaching me to sing. Without Peter there to distract me I really had nothing better to do than apply myself, and so it was that I was actually learning something. According to the Nymph in charge of voice lessons I had a very good voice and a better ear than Susan and Lucy even if they had a far greater interest in music than I did.

Avalynn, our Giraffe etiquette instructor, was particularly pleased with me when I remembered that one always addressed Okapi males with the title "dane" in front of their names and females with "dant" before theirs. I had no idea why, but that didn't matter. She didn't detail how to tell male Okapi from female, nor had I met one in Narnia to date, but if the need ever arose I was ready to address them in the most civilized manner possible. I also asked her about canine oaths and the gracious lady assured me that swearing by a family member's tail was, for Dogs, even more binding than swearing by their noses. I was hard-pressed not to groan out loud. I knew if I tried it I'd be corrected instantly.

I liked Avalynn for her manners and patience and flawless bearing and because she was the only Giraffe I knew that wore earrings. She worked more with Lucy and Susan than with Peter and me, but I know she was in constant contact with our rhetoric teacher, a stout old Faun named Mathe. He was a master at using a dozen words when one would do and I was fascinated how he could turn clever words into tools and weapons as keen as Shafelm. Even Cheroom acknowledged Mathe as his superior in debate, and he taught Peter and me how to use language in ways we never imagined.

That afternoon I was debating (and losing) with the elderly Faun in his cramped office when a Hummingbird zoomed into the room and around my head, chirping softly. It was only then that I realized I was late for the luncheon Susan had planned to celebrate the betrothal of Sir Giles and his beloved Marion. The Beavers and Tumnus were here for the event and dozens of other friends. Odds were I was the only one that was late.

"I beg your pardon for distracting your majesty from his royal duties," said Mathe, knowing full well I was more upset about having to leave the debate unfinished than about missing yet another party.

I smirked. "I owe you thanks. And I want a re-match. I refuse to accept your argument that dragons live in volcanos. Salamanders, I grant you, that's only natural, but not dragons. Not even fire drakes."

"I look forward to it, King Edmund," he said with a bow and a smile.

I slipped into the party and immediately set about mingling and avoiding Susan's watchful eye. Not for the first time, I was grateful to Mathe for teaching me how to converse about nothing and to make small talk with almost anyone. The ability came easier to my siblings than to me and Lucy hardly needed lessons on how to talk to anything and everything. I swear she could make friends with the salt cellar if she tried. I moved about the room as if I'd been there from the start, making sure to keep Susan across from me at all times. I honestly did not want to get an earful from her right now and so I greeted Giles and Marion enthusiastically.

I knew they had met in Aslan's camp after the Battle of Beruna and I knew Marion was from the Southern Marches, but beyond that I knew almost nothing about the vixen, having met her only once before. She was a very pretty thing, smaller than Giles with much more pronounced black points than he possessed. She had brought about two dozen brothers and sisters, her parents, innumerable cousins, and a huge bull Elk that was the Narnian equvalent of her godfather. Giles was accompanied by his mother, sixteen brothers, eight sisters, and even more cousins. The room was teeming with Foxes, even a couple of Blue and Arctic cousins, and I made no attempt to keep them all straight because they all looked alike.

One thing I will say about Foxes - they are clever conversationalists. I avoided wine because I knew I needed to be on my toes around them. I gradually got the impression that the bachelor Foxes thought of Giles as something as a traitor to their sex even as they tripped over themselves to greet the lovely Marion. One look at Marion's pretty sisters and cousins and I knew they'd get over their conflict by dessert. I eventually ended up sitting with Marion's father and the Blue cousins and the topic was military history and whether or not various breeds of Animals should be allowed their own regiments. Most of us were against the notion. Roth, Marion's father, brought up the successful record of an ancient regiment known as the Cock Fighters, comprised entirely of Roosters. This was the first I'd heard of them and I was very, very hard pressed not to laugh aloud at the notion of armor-plated chickens doing battle. I had an absurd and inappropriate image of small birds pecking at a Giant's ankles. Of course at that moment I spotted Mr. Beaver across the room and I just had to remember how completely silly he had looked in chain mail at Beruna and I snorted into my goblet of water before I could stop myself.

"Excuse me, cousins," I begged with whatever dignity I had remaining and escaped the reception as quickly as manners would allow. I shut myself up in the nearest empty room and laughed myself breathless, clutching my aching chest as I slid down the door to sit on the floor and regain my self control. I was rather taken aback at my own giddiness. I rarely broke down so completely and usually it was over something Peter had done or said. Exhausted, I sat there with my legs outstretched, feeling slightly ridiculous and very glad no one had witnessed my little fit. It would be too hard to explain since I really didn't understand it myself.

Peter. I leaned my head back, knocking my crown askew as I remembered him laughing as he threw Lucy into the waves the day of the anniversary. Then the image in my mind's eye shifted and I remembered him sitting beside me on the balcony, our feet dangling over almost an eighty foot drop as he tried to comfort me. I could feel his embrace when I gave him the knife I'd made, the smooth leather of his jerkin against my chin as he hugged me so tightly and kissed me right on top of my head.

I love you, Edmund. I'll hurry back. I swear..

I would never admit it out loud, but I loved it when he kissed me that way. I always had a sense of his absolute love when he did that. It brought me back to that horrible and glorious day this past spring when he had made me a knight and kissed me thus.

And then I realized why I had been laughing, why I had been able to laugh like that.

The feeling of dread was gone. Vanished.

Peter was free. Whatever sense of fear I'd been carrying all these weeks was no longer there. I had actually grown used to the constant sense of anxiety but now that it was removed, it was like having a weight taken off my shoulders. I sat up, snatching my crown off my head before it fell off, and spent a few moments enjoying the overwhelming sense of relief. It was as if I could suddenly breathe again. I had an incredible urge to hug someone, but who could I tell?

Aslan. He and Oreius were the only ones who knew what I had sensed. I felt a burning delight in my chest that had nothing whatsoever to do with the pain of Jadis' curse. I scrambled to my feet and yanked open the door, more excited than I had been in ages. My thoughts were a wild jumble of emotion and thanks to the very Lion I was going to see.

I knew he was coming to the luncheon and I rushed back into the reception hall. The room was quite crowded from the knees down and smelt musky from so many Foxes at once. Lunch was being laid out and I thought I might actually manage to eat something now. Susan looked surprised at my second entrance, then arched an eyebrow at me and smoothed her hair, making it a point to tap her crown.

"Oh!" I clapped my crown back on my head and she smiled, knowing something was up. I was rarely this excited even at the best of times. She'd have the whole story about Peter out of me before midnight, of that I was certain. Well, I didn't mind telling her now that it was a moot point.

Aslan was around the corner of the room, deep in conversation with more Foxes. He looked up as I rounded the corner and in his eyes and expression there was joy equal to what I felt. I stared at him, a slow smile spreading across my face. He knew. He knew exactly what I was going to say and so I didn't have to say anything at all.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Late that night I lay trembling on Susan's bed, my head on her lap as she gently smoothed my sweaty hair. Lucy sat on the floor before me and Aslan, golden and glowing, was beside her. I couldn't stop the small groan of pain that escaped me and I closed my eyes so I didn't have to see the sympathy I knew was there. My body was a battleground for two powerful types of magic and I was paying a heavy price for survival. Tonight was worse than usual for some reason. I think the pain had finally caught up to me because it was nausea that downed me so completely. The cordial had worked - like the Deepest Magic, it couldn't help but work - but I don't think even the cordial was made to heal the same magical wound, over and over again and gradually it was losing the ability to eliminate the pain.

Susan leaned over me and I felt her arms gather me closer. Understanding and tenderness were all I craved and needed right now and fortunately those assembled here had them in abundance. She took my hand in hers and whispered gently to me. I couldn't hear what she said but the sound of her voice was soothing. I pressed my face into her soft robe. The fabric smelled of roses, stirring memories of high summer and how happy we had been before all this had happened. My head ached anew as tears threatened to fall. I would not cry. I would not give Jadis that little bit. Not now, not ever.

Aslan came forward. I could smell his sweet breath and I opened my eyes, unable to hide my misery.

"Sleep, Edmund, my son," he whispered. In his eyes I saw my own pain reflected. "Sleep, brave king, and dream only of the joy you knew today."

His command was my blessing and I gratefully submitted to his words.