Chapter Six: Colors

"See? He slept in the bed this time!"

"Brack, do you think he'll shout again?"

"Maybe. I hope. Papa said he didn't talk for almost an hour after he woke up."

"Maybe he couldn't."

"He might just like to growl like the talking Bears over in the Lantern Waste!"

Why, why, why wouldn't they let me sleep? I lifted my head with a moan and I was rewarded with muffled giggles. I finally spotted my tormentors: a boy and a girl, both very young, both very small. I muttered something unintelligible and dropped back down on the poor excuse for a pillow beneath my head.

"Time to get up, Edmund!" said the boy, giving me a shake. I swatted back in a futile attack and forced my eyes open just to glare at him. It rather lost the effect when I shifted a bit and almost fell off the pallet.

"He's up! Come on, Baia!"

Up. Brack said that so easily. When I got home I was going to sleep for a week. A month. I slowly pushed myself to a sitting position and I was surprised to see the little girl standing beside the bed studying me.

"Good morn," I rasped, barely human at this hour. I swung my legs over the edge of the pallet and jarred my feet. I kept forgetting how close to the ground the beds were here. "Ow."

She bobbed a little curtsy. "Good morn. Your hair is mussed."

"Hnnn?"

She went over to the dressing stand and came back with my comb, handing it to me expectantly. I sighed, dragging it through my hair once or twice.

"Better?"

"No."

I handed the comb back. "You fix it."

She obliged, spending a few moments making me more presentable. I leaned heavily into my hand so she could reach my hair and tried to stay awake.

"What is your name, my lady?" I asked.

She giggled at being called lady. "I'm Baia."

"My name is Edmund."

She found a knot amidst my tangled hair and tackled it enthusiastically. The pain of having hair ripped out of my head went far towards waking me. "I know. Are you really the king of Narnia?"

"I'm a king of Narnia. My brother Peter is king, too."

"Does he look like you?"

"Not really. Peter looks like our father and I look like our mother. His hair is yellow and his eyes are blue and he's taller than me."

"Yellow?" She sounded horrified and I supposed she had only ever seen dark hair all her life. "His hair?"

"Yes, goldish-yellow. It suits him. He's very nice," I added, feeling a need to champion him. "Nicer than me. At least in the mornings." That last I muttered, and Baia smiled at my tremendous yawn before growing serious. I then found myself the subject of a long and intense examination, and through bleary eyes I returned the favor. Baia had very large, brown eyes and straight black hair hanging in a braid down her back. She was rather cute and it was nice to converse without having to constantly defend myself.

"Are you done growing? You're the tallest person I've ever seen besides the Dryads in the elm trees."

"Not yet. I'm not a Black Dwarf, you know. I'm a boy. We can grow quite tall. At least I hope I do," I confessed.

"I thought you were grown up already. You're tall and you talk like a grown up."

"I suppose I do," I agreed. "It comes from being a king and being blessed by Aslan and talking to a lot of different types of people. I have some strict teachers, too. One of them teaches me how to speak and how to argue."

She blinked. "He's a good teacher."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

My day was very similar to the one before except for the fact that two out of three apprentices tried to make my life difficult. They left things in my path and one of them, Bort, wasted a lot of time trying to trip me. My training under Cair Paravel's three sword masters stood me in good stead and I dodged their traps and ambushes easily enough. The Master caught on to their shenanigans when he tripped over a set of tongs and planted his bearded face into the sand floor. The third apprentice, the only girl in the group, brushed the sand from his beard and quietly advised him that one of her peers had deliberately set it there and why. What followed was a rather spectacular explosion of curses, oaths, threats (some of which were carried out on the spot with my coal shovel), shouts, and sundry other displays of fury that disrupted and amused the entire smithy.

I was very impressed by the Master's vocabulary and his sense of what was right, though I wasn't sure if he'd have behaved quite so quickly if I wasn't a guest of sorts and a king. Later, when I got to know him better, I was happy to learn that he would have responded so loudly regardless. Black Dwarfs may be caustic, rude, and obnoxious but that doesn't mean they tolerate unjust conduct or condone bullies.

"And Edmund! Don't hesitate to crack them in the head as I have done if they disobey the rules of conduct again!" Handing me back the shovel, he rounded on the hapless pair of apprentices. "This is a smithy, not a playpen for children! If you want to play games, go back to your homes at the Caldron and bother me no more!"

Thus ended the tirade that left Bort and his comrade quaking in their boots. It made for a satisfying afternoon and thereafter they left me alone. I still fetched and carried and they could still call for coal and water and supplies, but they did their own work and dared not murmur about it.

Later in the day I was returning from the river lugging two buckets of water (and for once I was glad the buckets were small and therefore not so heavy) when I noticed something that gave me pause. I set my burdens down to rest my sore arms and stared across the compound where another master smith and apprentices were sharpening and shaping some axe blades on grinding wheels. Long streams of sparks flew off the union of metal and stone like fireworks.

"Now what?" demanded Brickit, striding across the compound towards me and waving his arms in annoyance. "Haven't you caused enough trouble for one day, Spawn?"

I ignored his rudeness and kept staring. "The sparks are different."

"What?"

I pointed. "The sparks are different. On the middle wheel they're long and white but on the other wheels they're shorter and red. Why?"

My observation momentarily startled him, but he hid it quickly. "Cast iron and steel, boy. Soft metal gives a longer, lighter spark. Dense metal has short, red sparks. I'm surprised you noticed."

It was my turn to share that feeling. "Why?" I returned. "I'm here to learn."

He snorted. "What about securing my good will?"

I smiled and picked up the buckets. "Isn't that the same thing?"