Quick AN: I decided to break up this chapter a bit, as it was getting overly long and unconscionably delayed. I plan to post the rest of it tomorrow... I feel like it's taking me ages to get the story off the ground, so maybe by posting shorter chapters it'll write itself more quickly...? Anyway, short chapters sort of break up the rhythm a little, but since I get stalled on the long ones... Do you readers have a preference at all - shorter and sooner or longer with a bit more flow? Are things moving fast enough for you? Drop me a PM or a review if you have an opinion! And once again, thanks so much for reading; you all are fantastic!
Chapter Seven: Lucy
Thirteen hundred years...
As soon as she'd arrived at the ruined Keep, racing down the broken stairs to retrieve her cordial and dagger from the little chamber below the Throne Room, she'd realised that a very long time had passed since their reign. What she had never guessed was that it had been centuries. Over a thousand years. More than a millennium.
The thought kept repeating in her head.
Thirteen hundred years.
She knelt motionless in the sand. For several moments she was barely aware of what the others were doing, until an angry voice spoke from just above where she sat.
"You can't be serious," Caspian growled.
Lucy's head shot up. She and Edmund had remained frozen in shock while the others had been inspecting the fallen soldiers, but now she got to her feet. Peter was attempting to hobble past them, supporting a one-legged Telmarine with a blood-stained uniform. The man's lined face was almost green with pain, and his eyes were half-lidded like he was only barely conscious. He looked terrible. Despite his fierce, imposing features, Lucy's heart went out to the poor man.
Caspian, on the other hand, was standing with his arms crossed, blocking Peter's way up the beach. From the look on his face, it seemed he'd passed out of his obedient and awed phase.
"He's sworn fealty to us," Peter declared.
"Not likely!" Trumpkin interjected, moving to Caspian's side. "We kill him now, before he kills us!"
Peter fixed the Dwarf with a hard look. "He swore fealty. He's one of us now."
"Not him!" Caspian shot back. "This man has been hunting us for over a week - chasing us down the river - been on our tail ever since we left Beruna - "
"Literally, in my case!" Reepicheep chirped brightly. "The scoundrel nearly had us cornered, but we slipped away from him, as we always do! Ever since our rebellion began, he's been leading attacks against us, but we Mice are more than a match for such ruffianry -"
"Rebellion?" Edmund spoke up. He was positioning himself between the new Narnians and Lucy, examining Caspian, Trumpkin, and Reepicheep in turn. Lucy hardly noticed, still rubbing her forehead, confused as to how they'd wound up in Narnia thirteen hundred years too late... how they'd wound up here at all, in fact.
"Rebellion. My uncle, Miraz..." Caspian began, turning slightly away from Peter to face the whole group. "He usurped my father's throne. I ran away four years ago, started getting the Narnians together. Miraz and his generals have been trying to stamp us out ever since. We've only just survived, and we do it by showing our enemies the same kindness they show us. We have to kill that man, right now."
The Pevensies exchanged troubled glances - Lucy was certain both her brothers were as astonished as she was that Narnians would suggest murder at all, let alone murder of a wounded and unarmed man - but their faces didn't show it. Edmund's expression was closed and skeptical, Peter's determined.
"We kill him now!" Reepicheep repeated, like he was closing the argument, but started in surprise when Peter spoke: "No. That's final."
Glaring at the new Narnians and shaking his head, Peter attempted to push past them toward the forest. Caspian and Trumpkin looked incensed, but it was Edmund who piped up first.
"Hang on, Pete -"
Peter sighed, exasperated, but Edmund pressed on. "Think it through. You don't know this guy at all - the only thing we know is that after years and years of service to Miraz, he just swears fealty to you, a total stranger, right on the spot."
"Yeah," Peter said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Edmund cocked an eyebrow. "Well, doesn't that make you at all suspicious?"
"You would say that," Peter huffed. "If it were fealty to me or the Bear, which would you choose?"
Edmund opened his mouth, looking delighted, but Peter waved him down. "Never mind. Don't answer that. I need to get him to the Keep, and get back to Susan -"
"And what if he attacks when your guard is down?" Trumpkin cut in. "King Junior here has a point-" Edmund squeaked out an "oi!"; Lucy would have laughed if she hadn't been so disturbed. She didn't want Peter alone with Glozelle, but she certainly didn't want Glozelle left alone with Caspian and the others. Her blood ran cold when Trumpkin spoke again:
"You three don't know Glozelle. You don't know Miraz. But we do. Miraz is cruel. He doesn't just want to beat you. He wants to tear you apart. And this is his right-hand man. Well, one of them at least. We can't afford to trust him, even when he's at our mercy."
Caspian crossed his arms and nodded his assent. Peter wavered, but only for a moment. The man groaned, and Peter shifted his weight slightly, then pressed Caspian out of his way completely.
"Not your mercy, Trumpkin," Peter said, his eyes still locked on Caspian's. "Mine. He's hurt. He needs rest. I'll make sure he answers for his actions. But for now I just need to get him up to the Keep, and find Susan. We shouldn't have left her alone so long."
The tone of Peter's voice and the look on his face were so set that the others backed instinctively out of the way. Trumpkin looked at Caspian, who was wordlessly watching Peter. Finally Caspian gave a short nod. Edmund still looked unhappy at his 'King Junior' title, but nodded as well.
"Good," Peter continued, and suddenly looked directly at Lucy. "You alright, Luce?"
Startled, she nodded, realizing for the first time that she hadn't spoken the entire time. "Fine," she forced out.
"Good," he repeated. "Then Lucy, Caspian, if you would finish inspecting the bodies - Trumpkin, you and Ed head over and pull those boats in, get them up onto dry ground so we can use them later. Reepicheep, you're with me. Be quick, all of you; I'd like to get everyone out of range of those cannons before the Telmarines recover their courage. Meet me up at the Keep when you've finished."
To Lucy's surprise, no one raised any objection to this, though Trumpkin and Caspian still looked slightly sour. They all began to disperse, and Lucy was about to do the same when Peter called out again: "Oh, and Ed - " Edmund turned to look at him, and Peter raised two fingers to his own eyes, then pointed both fingers at Lucy.
"I know, I know!" sighed Edmund, raising his hands. Trumpkin snorted, and the hard look on Caspian's face eased slowly into amusement. Lucy couldn't quite decide if she wanted to roll her eyes or not. She settled with raising her eyebrows at both brothers.
"You be careful too, Pete - " she called at his back, and saw him nod as he half-dragged Glozelle up the beach and into the trees, Reepicheep already chattering at his heels.
Edmund and Trumpkin moved off toward the abandoned boats. For a moment Lucy was alone with Caspian, who gave her a brief, somewhat shy smile. She forced herself to return it, but once he had moved away toward one of the fallen Telmarines, she narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance.
She could hardly believe that these three Narnians had just asked her brother for a man's death - no, demanded that man's death. Every Talking Animal she had ever known had been gentle at heart. Even the fiercest warriors - and their army had been fierce, she remembered, thinking of Oreius, their Centaur war general; Harold, a falcon spy who had reported to Edmund; Jorge and Luvina, Susan's panther bodyguards... Even the fiercest of them had all been fair to their enemies. Never bloodthirsty.
Then again, they'd never had to face usurping uncles and giant swimming bears. Shuddering at the sight of the massive corpse, and wrinkling her nose at the smell, Lucy turned toward the soldier nearest her. How wild was this new Narnia? How much had changed since they'd been gone?
...And how certain could she be that she could trust Caspian?
Sighing, she knelt at the side of a man with a gaping wound to his chest - she could actually see his ribs poking out under the blood and the torn uniform. It made her stomach roil.
Lucy glanced up, suddenly realizing that Peter still had her cordial, but this man was almost certainly already dead. Sighing, she reached out to close his half-lidded eyes, then moved to stand, but before she could go after Peter and the cordial, the man on the ground had grabbed hold of her wrist.
She gasped in surprise. His eyes had opened and he was trying to speak. Leaning in closer, she made out just one word: "...comfort..."
"Shh," she said quietly, trying not to breath deeply; the smell of his breath was terrible. "You'll be alright - Let me just -"
Lucy made to go stand again, but the man's grasp tightened. "Comfort... pretty little girl ... comfort for a dead man -" he growled, grabbing hold of her hair and pulling her face toward his.
She managed a small shriek and jerked back, but despite his wound, his hold was strong - he pulled her in, his mouth inches from hers, and his tongue snaked out toward her -
Her free hand went immediately to the dagger at her side.
"Queen Lucy -" Caspian's urgent voice came from over her shoulder; he was ten feet away - the wounded soldier's gaze flicked toward him - Lucy twisted, struggled harder, but the soldier's grip was white-knuckled -
She had the dagger out in her right hand, but the soldier had let go of her hair; he grabbed her other wrist and held her tight, coughing blood. Caspian stormed in and broke the soldier's hold on Lucy's left wrist, and as she pulled away, the soldier coughed up a great lob of blood and spat it at the prince. It landed on Caspian's arm.
"Scum" the soldier managed, before pulling Lucy's dagger hand level with his throat - and the next instant he had forced her arm forward, driving the dagger deep into his neck until her hand met his flesh. She shrieked again, allowing a low, painful, frightened howl to escape her as warm fresh blood covered her hand. The Telmarine seized up and collapsed, dead eyes staring into her.
With a disgusted kick at the fresh corpse, Caspian helped her to her feet. Staggering, she flung herself back from him, shaking her wet hand to rid it of the blood and pushing her mussed hair from her forehead. She collapsed on the sand again a few feet away, taking long, gasping breaths and trying not to sob.
"Everything alright?" Edmund called over his shoulder from half-way down the beach, where he and Trumpkin were heaving a boat up the beach. The Dwarf looked up curiously. They hadn't seen anything, thank God.
Caspian looked at Lucy - she nodded frantically, unable to speak - before calling back to her brother in a forced voice. "Fine." Edmund nodded and returned to his work.
Lucy tried to steady her breathing, but found that she couldn't quite manage to do so. Tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks, which she brushed at angrily.
"Queen Lucy -" Caspian said, crouching in front of her. She turned her face away. "Queen Lucy -"
"It was my hand -" she managed, voice wobbly. "He just grabbed me, I didn't mean to -"
"It wasn't your fault -"
"Why should I believe you? You're one of them - you wanted to kill them -"
"Queen Lucy -"
"This isn't Narnia," she croaked, shaking. "This isn't my Narnia. This place is chaos." She couldn't help it now - the tears streamed down her face, and she buried her head in her arms.
"Lucy. Listen to me." Caspian's voice had lost all traces of awkwardness and taken on the ring of earnestness she'd often heard in Peter's voice. She was so surprised, she finally looked up into his face. There was a nervous wrinkle in his forehead, but when he spoke there was also a sad, experienced honesty in his dark eyes that made her certain he spoke from his heart.
"This is war we're in, and evil things happen in war. It was a foul act. But it was his foul act." Taking her bloodied hand in his, he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and began to wipe the blood from her fingers. "This isn't the Narnia you wanted - but this Narnia still needs you. You're strong. Your hands are still clean. Your heart is still clean."
Slowly she drew in a long, difficult breath. Caspian was still staring into her eyes, his face inches from hers, expression anxious for her response, almost desperate, even the tiniest bit lonely - and in that moment Lucy knew somehow that she would never distrust him again.
She smiled, and he smiled back. His expression relaxing, he used one thumb to push a final tear from her eye. She scrubbed at her face and sniffed one more time, then smiled more broadly and squeezed his hand.
"You're not too bad yourself, either," she said finally, pushing her hair behind her ear.
This made him grin boyishly. He pushed his own hair out of his face and got to his feet, pulling her to hers as well. She didn't quite feel back to normal, but she suddenly felt much lighter. Glancing around, though, she realized there was no way she could bring herself to inspect any of the other soldiers after what had just happened, but Caspian seemed to have read her mind.
"Stay here, I'll finish," he ordered, then passed her dagger to her, which she proceeded to clean on her skirt, steadying herself with long even breaths while he made a quick survey of the other Telmarines.
Edmund and Trumpkin had pulled the last boat onto dry ground now, and were striding back towards them. "All dead?" Edmund called.
"All dead," Caspian replied, circling back around to return to Lucy's side. She gave him a grateful look.
"Safe and sound?" asked the Dwarf.
"Thanks to Prince Charming," Lucy said, squeezing Caspian's arm. Edmund's eyebrows shot up.
"And to milady's bravery," Caspian bellowed dramatically, making her a perfect court bow, which she returned with a low curtsey (made only somewhat awkward by the fact that she was wearing her English girl dress, not the swirling skirts of a full-grown Queen). They both chuckled lightly.
Trumpkin said "Hm!" and Edmund's eyebrows flew even higher, which made them her and Caspian laugh harder once they noticed.
"Come along, good Dwarf, up to the Keep - let's introduce these good folk to our secret hideout."
"Highness, there's nothing secret about it, not with that blabbermouth of a Mouse around..."
Caspian and Trumpkin began to march up the beach, gesturing for the two Pevensies to follow. Lucy made to leave, but Edmund grabbed her arm.
"Lucy, dare I ask - were you flirting with him just now?" Edmund hooked a thumb in the direction Caspian had just taken and narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
"So what if I was?" she said in her best attempt at a matter-of-fact tone.
Edmund gave her this look that said 'he's twice your age and you're barely in the double digits.' Lucy just rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ed! We were just talking about this with you, in England, flirting with those girls -"
"It's different for me!"
"How?" she shot.
"Well - I've already had - you know, changes... in my body..."
She immediately held up a hand. "Let's just cut it short right there. I'd rather not hear any more."
He sighed. "...Good Lord."