The first thing Enna thought of when she woke was the napkin of tasty morsels she'd set aside for Aramir…where were they? She'd had it when she went up to the kings and queens…hadn't she?
She sat up, blinking in the sunlight from the windows, her conscience paining her terribly. Not only had she forgotten to bring it to the poor youth, but she'd forgotten him altogether! Her own pleasure-seeking had forced any thought of Aramir right out of her head.
She groaned and kicked back the thick blankets. There was still a stain on her palm from where she'd held the gooseberry tart. "Foolish, foolish girl!" she said out loud, getting up and beginning to search her chambers. The little package was not on her little desk, not in any drawers, not on the mantelpiece…nowhere! Enna chastised herself sharply and picked up the dress she'd worn yesterday and draped over the back of the chair.
A little white bundle tumbled to her feet from the gown's many folds then, and Enna realized happily that it was the food. But upon closer inspection, she realized it was quite empty, containing only scraps of the meat pie and blotches of dried gooseberry. Where was the actual tart? A sick feeling settled in her throat, and she dared to look down at the front of her gown…
She found it, smeared down the side of the skirt. With a whispered oath and a hand on her forehead, Enna remembered that she'd held it on her lap during supper. It must have spilled! And she had gone up to the kings and queens with the purple mess all over her!
I think it is the new dress, the king had said to her after a pause, and Enna realized with a jolt of horror that it had been with a humored twitch of his lips!
"Oh, in the name of the honored Gale himself," she snarled, slapping her forehead a few times in succession. She sank onto the bed, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head back and forth. "Why with the king? Why? I would that it had been anyone but the king."
There was a rap at her door, and without thinking Enna stood and called for the person to enter. Naeomi came in, a bundle under her leafy arm.
"Good morn, my lady."
"Hello, Naeomi," said Enna. "Er…Naeomi, I fear I was quite foolish last night, and…" She held up the dress, unable to say out loud that she'd been clumsy and forgetful.
Naeomi gave her a sharp look. "Then my lady must count her blessings, for the seamstress has finished a number of gowns for you, enough for a few days, at least. And I will wash that." She took the dress from Enna's hands and bound it up, then put the bundle of gowns out and began to fold them neatly into the trunk at the foot of the bed. "Does my lady desire to wear the yellow gown today?"
"Aye," said Enna, not really wanting to but unwilling to confront the dryad.
Naeomi yanked her nightgown off quite alarmingly but quickly replaced it with the corn-yellow gown, then proceeded to tie the stays much too tight.
"Naeomi, I beg you, loosen it!" Enna gasped, drawing in her stomach and pressing down her bosom in an effort to find relief.
"I will not have it get around that the Galmanian under my care cannot follow the simplest rules of Narnian fashion," Naeomi replied. "Isn't it quite enough that milady gallivants around the palace with tart splashed on her dress like a common wench? Must you now prance up and down with your finely tailored dress hanging about you like a shipsail?"
Enna felt her blood flow hot, but she repressed the angry words that threatened to surface and suffered silently through the rest of Naeomi's ministering. As soon as the ill-tempered maid swept out of the room, however, Enna reached around and undid the ties completely and stood for a moment, sweating and panting, before redoing them again to a tightness that suited her perfectly.
After pulling on the only shoes she had (the salty leather boots that had belonged to Sabsestrin), Enna plaited her hair in front of the small mirror and wondered how to go about fixing her tart blunder. The more she thought about it, though, the crosser she got at the nerve of the high king.
"How dare he not tell me!" she cried, glaring at herself in the mirror. "Nay—he laughed at me!" Indignant pink blotches appeared high on her cheekbones, darkening the sunburn there, and she turned away with a deep breath. 'Twould do no good to get her blood up, not at all. It would only get her into more trouble, if past experience was any indication.
Enna nodded slowly and gazed out of the wide open window. A brisk breeze was blowing enormous white clouds across the bright blue sky, and the sea was glassy calm. A tern cried somewhere out of her sight. There was a tang in the air just discernable above the scents of brine and salt that suggested rain later on, and Enna leaned out and breathed deeply of the familiar smells.
I wonder if I would be allowed out of this castle after what happened, Enna thought to herself. I would very much enjoy a walk. Narnia is beautiful, in a different way than Galma. She gazed off to the south over the rippling water, and thought for the first time in several months about her mother. Was she well? Enna remembered how thin she had looked in the weeks prior to her escape. With a sick wrench in the pit of her stomach, she wondered if Sabsestrin had resorted to using her mother as he had used herself…at least Enna had fought back, enough to keep him at bay, but had her mother been able to fend him off? They were married, yes, but that wouldn't stop Sabsestrin…
Enna felt bile rising in her throat, and she lowered her head to her hands. Fool! Don't think about that anymore. I've left it behind, now.
She then decided it would be good to leave the castle for a little while, just to get her head about her again, looking like she was wearing a shipsail or not.
--
Before she knew it, Enna was outside, under the warm sun, alone and unhindered. Apparently, it was quite a normal thing in Narnia to up and leave the castle to wander the rolling hillsides. The faun at the gate had even suggested she go west, for the Great River left a lush floodbank that was a comfort to tired eyes. Enna had decided she would indeed walk there, but first she would go down to the shore and dip her feet in the chill seawater.
The sand was hot, but the wind sighing off the water was cool, and she turned her sunburned face up to it. It smelled sweet, as though it carried bits of the tranquil, unconcerned life on some Eastern island.
Enna sighed heavily, pushing her memories of Galma back into the darkest corners of her mind.
"Are you unhappy, Enna?"
Enna jumped, stepped on the hem of her gown, and fell backwards into the kelp-encrusted sand. Aramir stood over her, trying hard not to grin. "Great Gale, Aramir, have some care and announce yourself before you are in my ear," she said crossly when she recognized him, grudgingly taking his proffered hand and regaining her footing.
"I apologize," he replied. "I thought you'd heard me."
Enna hadn't, but she wouldn't admit for the world that she'd been thinking of the home she'd sworn to forget. "Oh. I…the wind must have taken your voice…"
"Aye," he answered. "It smells like a storm. Winter is coming on."
She nodded. October, by the calendar—but he was a sailor, after all. Knew the seasons by the look and feel of the sea.
"But I asked if you were unhappy."
Unhappy? Of course! Her destination was miles away, but she was landbound until a passenger ship opened up. When would that be? "I am not terribly discontented," she answered cagily. "Why?"
He looked askance at her. "Because you were sighing."
"May I not sigh?" she replied saucily, her guard beginning to go up.
"Nay, it's not that," he said. "I just…never mind. I can see this conversation is pointless."
Aramir's tone was slightly perturbed, and Enna was humbled. She bowed her head and felt a little remorseful—after all, she hadn't been her nicest to him. "I'm sorry," she said in a low voice. "Please, go on."
Aramir knelt down and ran his fingers through the soft sand. "I just don't think that…well…I believe that we—if you will pardon my familiarity—are intended to stay here."
"Yes, by the kings and queens."
"Nay, not them," he countered, finding a seashell and flipping it out into the water. "By someone—something—higher than that. Why else would we be grounded in a foreign country, Narnia, of all places? Where the kings and queens take great interest in our comfort? I don't mean to abuse my countrymen, but the Calormenes are not famed for their hospitality to foreigners. Archenland will be cut off from the outside world once the snows come. But we are here, in Narnia, where the winters are harsh but not insurmountable or long. And the monarchs are kind to us, and the food is good, and the people are peaceful."
Enna listened quietly, and his words made more sense than she'd expected them to. She dug the toe of her shoe deeper into the warm sand, thoughts churning rapidly in her mind. "I see…and you really believe this?"
"Aye, I do," he answered, looking up at her with intense eyes that reminded her uncannily of the captain's.
"But I do not wish to be here at all, Aramir," Enna replied sharply. "It cannot be in—in someone's plan to force me into yet another circumstance I wish to leave! Are you saying that someone decided I would be locked in a ship and starved?"
"Perhaps, Enna," he rejoined, standing up and letting a handful of sand sift between his fingers and be blown away by the wind. "Think about it. It is too coincidental to be a coincidence!"
"All right," she snapped, uncrossing her arms and looking him dead in the eye. "Say all this was true. Why are we here? What are we to do? I can see nothing but eating and sleeping and having these existential discussions."
"Forgive me," Aramir said after a pause, "but I do not know what the word existential means."
"Relating to or concerning the matter of human existence," Enna replied automatically, crossing her arms again and looking out at the ocean.
Aramir sighed audibly. "I do not know, Enna. I have no inkling whatsoever why we are here. I can only guess."
"And what is your guess?"
He shook his head. "Perhaps it is to teach us a lesson. I do not know."
"I believe that I have been taught enough lessons for one lifetime, thank you," Enna retorted. She then turned and walked back towards the castle, leaving the young man to skip pebbles across the water, rage bubbling just beneath her surface. How dare that uneducated seaman try to tell her the meaning of her life? He was a simple sailor, and she the daughter of a dead but rich merchant. Who, between the two of them, had more qualifications to speculate on her destiny?
"Me," she hissed aloud. "Me! Not him, and not anyone else."
Enna realized as she reached the crest of the cliff that she had forgotten to congratulate Aramir on his release from prison, but her exit had been swift and perfectly timed. She was not going to ruin that and risk humiliation to go back to tell him. That would simply have to wait.