True to her word, as always, Lucy arrived in the apple orchard to speak with Edmund. Somehow she knew-and was delighted-that he didn't have anything terribly important to tell her besides thanking her for saving his life in private. He still called her 'Your Majesty'-with only occasional switches to 'Queen Lucy'-which was annoying, but his tone wasn't so distant and unfamiliar now, so that she truly could believe that in spite of the change of relationship between them, they were still friends. Edmund had not betrayed her, nor broken his promise; her friend had kept his word just as she kept hers.

Because it was so easy to get out through the wardrobe-tunnel without being seen, they began to meet up in the orchard more and more frequently. Knowing the secret would be more than safe with Edmund of all people, Lucy showed him the way in and out of the tunnel extending from her wardrobe to the wall around the trees so that he wouldn't have to wonder how she got out. In turn, feeling maybe just the slightest bit bolder after learning of this, Edmund started slipping notes to her during formal suppers and balls-much the same way he'd slipped the dagger necklace back to her after changing the chain-letting the queen know what times he would be able to get out to see her, and when to expect him waiting for her among the apple trees.

Lucy always looked forward to those times. They'd walk around quietly and talk about different things in such a manner that-if Edmund would have only started calling her by her name again without putting a title in front of it-would have felt very much like their old times by the brook and the lamppost. It was easier to endure knowing everything had changed when they had those moments to look forward to. Once they even climbed one of the apple-trees together and, laughingly, forgetting for the first time in months to address her as royalty, Edmund asked if she remembered those days when he was being a beastly little turd, trying to avoid her, and she'd followed him up to the highest branches of trees.

"I hadn't thought girls liked to climb trees," he smiled at her. "You proved me wrong."

Lucy leaned back on the wide, thick branch she was resting on and said, "I remember that you said you were going to run away to Ettinsmoor-then you said you were sailing east-and I believed you."

"Worse, you wanted to come," Edmund chuckled, shaking his head as he plucked an apple, cleaned it on his sleeve, and tossed it to her.

She caught the fruit just before it plummeted to the grassy ground, narrowly escaping falling from her out-stretched fingertips. "Edmund, do you ever wonder what would have happened if we actually had gone on an adventure like that somewhere? Just the two of us, not telling anyone?"

"Don't be silly, Lucy." said Edmund stiffly. "You know you wouldn't have gone anywhere without telling Peter first."

"You just said my name again," she pointed out.

"Don't behead me for it," muttered Edmund, sarcastically.

"But you didn't answer the question."

"It's one of those things you shouldn't ask." Edmund told her, his jaw-line looking very tight.

"It's a very simple question," said Lucy, looking over at him expectedly.

"No," said Edmund; "it's a trick-question. You don't mean it that way, but it is."

"How is it a trick question?"

"If I say yes, that I've wondered about that every day since King Caspian married you and took you away from the Lantern Waste, then you might rightly assume I still think about that-and other things, too, things a knight isn't supposed to think about the queen he serves-and I'd be bordering on treason. But if I say no, then you would think I don't care about you-that I've never seen you as more than a tag-along kid."

"I'm the only one here," Lucy pointed out sort of quietly, even though, innocent-minded as she was, she vaguely understood his point.

"Friendship has its limits," Edmund told her with a sigh. "Friendship with a queen even more so."

"I didn't want to be queen, you know."

"I know," he assured her. "But I also know you don't hate it now that you are...you're a good queen, it's okay to admit you're happy about it."

Lucy lowered her eyes. "It almost feels like betraying you."

"It's because you love him, isn't it?" he said after a pause.

"He's so kind to me, Ed." she murmured, fidgeting with a crease in the petticoat of her scrunched-up dress.

"King or no king, I'd kill him if he wasn't." Edmund mumbled, forgetting himself.

"Isn't that treason, too?" asked Lucy, feeling confused.

"Of a sort, I guess."

"Then why can you say that and not...other things?"

"It's different," said Edmund softly. "I don't know how-it just is."

Lucy reached up and touched one of the seed-pearls on her dagger-necklace pensively with her free hand, the other still holding the apple.

Meanwhile, Caspian sent for Sir Peter to come and talk with him in the throne room.

As soon as the tall, blonde knight arrived, Caspian sent the other courtiers and knights present away, saying he wanted to talk with his brother-in-law alone.

"You sent for me, Your Majesty?" said Peter, bowing respectfully.

"Yes, I...er...wanted to ask you your opinion on something." said the king, looking a little embarrassed.

"Certainly, Sire, what do you wish to know?" Peter replied, wondering what all this was about.

"Well, I'm sure you're aware that my first wedding anniversary is coming up, and I was hoping to give Lucy something really nice, and I was thinking...a boat?"

It took all of Peter's will-power not to laugh out loud from surprise. "A boat, your Majesty?"

"Well, it is technically a ship, but it's on the small-side...it is a pretty little thing, though-the boat-makers called it the 'Dawn Treader'." Caspian explained, his face a little redder than usual. "Do you think she'll like it? I mean, I know most women care more for jewels and clothes and what not; but Lucy...well, she's-"

"Not like most women?" Peter finished for him.

Caspian sighed heavily. "Exactly."

"I don't think you have to worry," said Peter, reassuringly. "Lucy is pretty easy to please."

"I'd noticed that," agreed Caspian; "but I want her to be happy-not just say she is."

"I don't think she wants anything else." Peter half-lied. Actually, he could think of one thing he was pretty sure Lucy, while she was happy enough in her new life for the most part, secretly still wanted; but he didn't dare betray her by mentioning it to the king. Because, really, it wasn't something as much as someone. And that someone was a certain knight who had once been his squire; she could never be with him.

Caspian glanced over his shoulder at the two thrones on the dais behind him. "You know, I never thought I would truly accept another after I lost my first queen."

"I beg your pardon, Sire?" said Peter, blinking uncomprehendingly.

"Oh, in name, yes, it was my duty to be hospitable to whoever my advisors chose for me. It was also my duty to keep my word to your parents; even when I saw how young she was. But I feel different now; almost like I cannot believe there wasn't always a little Queen Lucy living here at Cair Paravel. She just...I don't know...sort of belongs in her own rights and ways."

Stunned, Peter whispered, "King Caspian, you...you really love her, don't you?"

"It's complicated," said the king, his tone a little weary. "I don't feel quite the same about her as I did my first wife, not that burning passion, and she's so much younger than I am; but, Peter, I do believe I've learned to love her anyway."

Shifting uncomfortably, Peter murmured-trying to speak clearly, yet failing from the sheer awkwardness of the conversation, "You love her as a man loves a good child?"

"No," Caspian couldn't look his knight in the face as he spoke, "I love her as a man loves a good wife."

"I see..."

Caspian looked up and noticed his knight's face. "I've made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry."

Peter shook his head. "No, Your Majesty, it isn't your fault."

"That's right," said Caspian, having forgotten; "you're already married, you know about all that stuff."

That was true enough; but it was hard for Peter to think of his little sister as a married woman-even though she had been one for almost a year.

The night of the king and queen's first wedding anniversary arrived. It was rather a big deal, actually, there were fireworks and a grand feast and presents, and just when the stars were shinning at their brightest, King Caspian prepared to show Lucy the ship he had brought for her.

"Close your eyes, Lucy, we will make sure you don't bump into anything on the way outside." Caspian told her, leading her by one arm while Rilian led her by another. "Keep them closed until we tell you it's all right to open them."

"Don't peep through your eyelashes, Mother." Rilian teased. "I can see that!"

"Okay, step down," said Caspian, when they came to a small flight of stairs.

When they had helped her towards the eastern sea and onto the deck of the docked Dawn Treader, they told her she could open her eyes.

Lucy was amazed to find herself on board a beautiful purple-and-green sailing ship; small and petite, yet still strong-looking, with a beautiful dragon's head at the prow, a gleaming tail at the stern.

"What do you think?" Caspian asked, eager for her reaction.

"It's..." stammered Lucy, gazing about her, utterly dazzled and amazed. "...It's lovely...I don't know what to say..."

"Some day soon we'll have to take you sailing in it, wont we, Mother?"

"I..." Lucy was still rendered almost completely speechless.

"You do like it, don't you?" Caspian wanted to be sure.

"I love it," Lucy finally managed, still in shock.

When everyone else, seeing that the surprise was over, set off talking and laughing and making merry again, Caspian gently gripped his little wife's arm and led her into the Dawn Treader's grandest cabin. There was something he wanted to tell her, and it seemed only right to say such a thing on a night as important as that one was, but he didn't wish to do so with a bunch of harmless-yet-overtly-nosy courtiers hanging on his every word. He didn't want to put undue pressure on her to give a reply before she was ready. The king had learned enough in his lifetime to know that true love-the real kind-ought never to be rushed.

"I can't believe you brought me a ship." giggled Lucy.

"I almost brought you a galleon-but, I don't know, this boat just felt more like something...something you would care about owning." he confessed.

"I'm sorry I didn't get anything for you," said Lucy, smiling with a slightly guilty look about her. It wasn't that she had forgotten, or that she didn't care for him enough, it was simply that she realized all the monies from the royal treasuries were his anyway. She had considered cutting some of the Love lies bleeding flowers off of the amaranth plant as a present for the king, but those flowers made her think too much of Edmund (maybe for their namesake), and she didn't feel right giving them to her husband.

"I'm king, Lucy, I don't need anything."

While she was glad that he was so understanding, Lucy couldn't help wondering why he was staring at her so intently, making what on anyone else besides the king of Narnia would have been classified as 'sheep eyes' at her.

"Lucy," he said softly, reaching for one of her hands. "I love you."

Startled beyond all reason, far more stunned than she had been by the Dawn Treader in all its glory, she almost pulled her hand away. Had he just said...?

"I know that this whole marriage thing was your parents idea," said Caspian, stroking the top of her hand in an attempt to reassure her that they were just talking and she didn't have to feel afraid or embarrassed-she only had to listen; "and I know I am a lot older than you are, but you're growing up-and into a truly remarkable young woman at that. I just want you to know that, while our relationship was arranged as a political matter, my affections are not engaged elsewhere. I really do love you, Lucy."

She stared at him, wide-eyed, as though stricken dumb-her cheeks dark pink.

"It is all right, sweetheart, you don't have to say anything just now." And with that, he let go of her hand, turning to leave the cabin.

Before he left, however, he kissed her once very lightly, on the lips like a lover. Even though they had been married for a year, he had never kissed her there until that moment, in fact, no one ever had. Lucy had gotten, during the course of their short marriage, many a brotherly sort of kiss on the forehead or the cheek-same as Peter or her father might have kissed her when she did something that pleased them. But this was the first time Caspian had expressed any romantic interest in her; and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. She knew without shadow of doubt that she had some love for him, and young as she was, the little queen was not wholly indifferent to the notion of romance, but whether she fully welcomed this sort of attention from her husband left her feeling uncertain.

The next morning at the castle, Edmund's half-Calormene stepmother, having come to court for a visit, was worked up and emotional over the fact that, when she'd mentioned to Edmund that she wished to get him married off now that his sister had been happily wedded to Sir Peter for some time, he'd told her-directly to her face so there could be no misunderstandings-that he had decided never to marry.

"But Eddie-" his stepmother bawled piteously, her hennaed palms stretched out to him in protest. "-how can you? Don't you want a wife?"

"I did-" he retorted coldly; "-but you never asked me about it then, did you?"

"Darling, you cannot live a full life without a woman to look after you." she protested, choosing to ignore his biting comment.

"Oh, believe me, I can."

As they were speaking, Caspian came walking by. He was whistling, clearly in a pleasant mood; so Edmund's stepmother risked dragging him into the debate she'd started.

"Your Majesty, I've heard some depressing news."

"Eh?" said King Caspian a little absently. "What news?"

"My stepson tells me he wishes to never marry," she all but wailed, in a passionate tone.

"Why not, Sir Edmund?" Caspian asked curiously. "A wife is a blessing."

Easy for you to say, Edmund thought sullenly. Out loud he replied, "That depends on the woman, Sire."

"He speaks the truth." said the king, shrugging at the stepmother.

"But we would find you a lovely girl, Edmund, a splendid Tarkheena."

"That's all the more reason not to marry." muttered Edmund to his feet.

"All right, darling, if you so insist upon it, we'll find you a Narnian bride-or an Archenlander-I promise." said his stepmother, smiling warmly as though her saying this was generous and would fix everything.

"I don't care what race the woman is!" exclaimed Edmund, rolling his eyes and folding his arms across his chest. "I'm not marrying anyone-I refuse."

"Love comes in the most surprising of places, Sir Edmund, while you are making your resolutions, you might bear that in mind." Caspian told him.

As cruel, heartless fate would have it, Queen Lucy herself came walking passed the very corridor they were all talking in, humming lightly, not noticing them until Caspian called out, "Lucy, come here for a moment, wont you?"

Watching as she came closer, Edmund tried not to moan from pure longing and grief; Lucy looked so beautiful. She wore a dark emerald-green dress embroidered with tiny pink roses and slim lines of paler-green ivy; her long hair in a neat side-braid. On her neck she wore, he noticed, the necklace of seed-pearls with the dagger pendant.

"Edmund's stepmother and I have been trying to explain to him the meaning of marriage and love-it seems he disagrees with us." Caspian filled his wife in.

"Really?" Lucy blinked innocently at Edmund, turning to face him.

"Yes," said Edmund stiffly. "I don't want to marry."

In truth, Lucy didn't want him to marry either, not very fond of the notion of another girl taking whatever place in his heart might have been hers if things were different, but she did want him to be happy. And if there was any way that a marriage could make Edmund happy again, Lucy was willing to put up with discomfort for his sake, so long as she knew he was in love with the maiden he married.

"It isn't so awful as you think," she said quietly.

Caspian laughed at this, wrapping his arms around Lucy from behind, pulling her close to him. "It isn't awful?"

"I what I meant was-" she laughed, realizing how that must have sounded.

Edmund thought he was going to be sick watching Caspian's arms wrapping so lovingly around Lucy. Queen Lucy, he reminded himself-to no avail. Although pleased for any happiness that sweet, deserving Lucy might have found with the king, he could not fully shake off his mounting jealousy.

"You might still find joy in a good woman, Sir Edmund." Caspian told him, pressing his cheek against Lucy's.

"There's only one I want." Edmund confessed, trying to keep his face from twisting in pain.

The half-Calormene stepmother pounced. "Who is she? I'll see about-"

"I lost her," said Edmund, glancing over at Lucy in her husband's arms. "Happy belated anniversary, Your Majesties."

With that he bowed respectfully, his face void of any overt expression, and walked away.

"Poor fellow!" said Caspian, unawares. "I wonder who the lady he fancied so was. She must have broken his heart to leave him in such a state."

Holding back tears and forcing a smile to stay on her face, Lucy reached up passed the king's arms and touched the dagger pendant hanging from her neck. "I think she broke her heart, too."

AN: Please review.