Disclaimer: Edmund and Peter Pevensie and all the characters and situations in the Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me.

PERFIDY

"I tell you, Peter, it's a lie."

Edmund wanted to scream the words rather than speak them calmly. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to shake his brother until that look of pained, stunned uncertainty was driven from his face.

Peter merely called for silence in the murmuring court. "What is your name, Dwarf?"

The Dwarf leered at him, grinning through his coarse black beard. "Glawkin, High Majesty, of the great Western Wood. King Edmund could have told you as much."

Edmund glared at the little man. "Again it is a lie. I have not laid eyes on you before this day. By Aslan, I swear it."

The Dwarf merely shook his head and clicked his tongue, still grinning at Peter. "Lies upon lies, High Majesty, and in the Great Lion's name. Shocking. Ask him if we did not meet three months ago, near the river outside his camp. Ask him if, apart from the gold he asked, I did not give him a cut ruby, the size of a pigeon egg and red as blood."

Peter turned to his brother. "Is that true, Edmund?"

"It is not." Edmund shot back. "There were a number of Black Dwarfs among the renegades we were fighting, but I never had words with any of them. I certainly never had gold or anything else from them."

"You never spoke to any Dwarfs when you were out West?" Peter pressed.

Edmund shook his head.

"Forgive me, My King, but that's not so."

Edmund and Peter both turned at the words that were more screeched than spoken.

"Forgive me, My King," the Eagle repeated, and Edmund recognized him as Greywing, a trusted army scout since the end of the Long Winter.

"You saw King Edmund speaking to this Dwarf, good Greywing?" Peter asked.

"I cannot say that, High Majesty. But I did see King Edmund in talk with a Dwarf as I was patrolling three months ago. They were under cover of the trees along the riverbank, and I could not see the Dwarf's face. But it was indeed a Dwarf. A Black Dwarf." The Eagle ducked his head. "I pray you pardon me, King Edmund."

Edmund could only shake his head, wracking his brain for some explanation as he looked pleadingly into the growing mistrust on his brother's face.

"Peter-"

"You're sure, Edmund? You didn't speak to any Dwarfs when you were there?"

"No, I'm sure I never– Wait. No. I remember when that must have been. I went down to the river to wash, and there was a Black Dwarf there drawing water, but he was very old, not a renegade, certainly no threat. He was afraid I would count him with the enemy, but I assured him I meant him no harm and he hurried away. It was a conversation of a moment. I had forgotten it entirely."

"Your Majesty has rather a convenient memory," Glawkin scoffed. "Still, one might expect gold and rubies to be rather more worth remembrance than one elderly Dwarf."

"I remember what's true and what's false, Dwarf. Best you remember the penalty for perjury here in our court.'

The Dwarf snorted. "Yes, I know. You are the brother of the High King. You need fear no consequences if your graft is found out."

Edmund grit his teeth, only barely keeping himself from striking the impudent bearded face. "You prove yourself a liar with each word you speak. Who here does not know this court shows no favor to any creature?"

There was a comforting murmur of agreement from several of the onlookers, and Edmund glanced yet again at his brother. Surely Peter didn't doubt his innocence in such a matter. Edmund had spent half a lifetime atoning for betraying his family to the White Witch, proving his passionate dedication to justice and faithfulness. To Narnia and to Aslan. To his High King.

Peter only looked grieved and bewildered. "What proof have you, Dwarf, that anyone has taken your bribe? That you ever met with King Edmund?"

"Oh, he was clever, King Peter. He made sure there was no one to see, though it seems he forgot how sharp eyed our friends the Eagles are. He told me I was to give him the gold and he would see the matter fell in favor of the Dwarfs once it was brought to Cair Paravel to be ruled on. Now he wishes to have his payment and not give value in return. It's not to be borne!"

Peter looked from the Dwarf to his brother and back again. Then he clenched his jaw.

"You have brought no proof against your Sovereign, Dwarf."

"The Eagle, High King! He saw–"

Peter glanced at Greywing, "Our cousin Greywing has proven himself many times over and we do not doubt he speaks truly what he has seen."

The Eagle bowed his head briefly.

"But what he saw," Peter continued, turning to Glawkin, "neither proves nor disproves what either you or King Edmund has said. Unless you have something further to show as evidence of your claim, we must dismiss it as unsubstantiated."

"Your Majesty–"

Peter's cold look cut the Dwarf off. "As we before decreed, the good Bear shall keep his cave."

The Black Bear made a lumbering bow, looking at the High King with unabashed adoration. "King Peter."

"And you, Dwarf," Peter said, "take care what you speak without justification. King Edmund is Aslan's chosen, approved and crowned by His will."

The Dwarf only sneered. "If I remember the tale aright, High King, the so-called Just King is no stranger to betrayal."

"Mind your tongue, Dwarf, while you yet have one."

Edmund's eyes widened at the sudden savagery in his brother's tone. Narnia was famed for the civility of its laws and of its High King. As much for his prowess in battle, Peter was well known for his courtesy and kindness. Hearing him in an open audience brutally threaten one of his subjects was enough to bring stunned silence to the court.

"Peter–"

"And you." Peter shoved Edmund's hand off his arm and then looked out over the court, blue eyes flashing cold fire. "I'll hear no more today."

He stalked from the throne room, and the chamber was once again filled with murmuring. The Bear stood with his paws over his mouth, staring at his idol in disbelief. The Dwarf merely scowled.

"Quiet, please." Edmund swallowed hard and raised his voice. "Please!"

The Faun chamberlain rapped his staff on the marble floor, and there was silence once more. Some of the eyes that looked back at Edmund were wide and uncertain. Some were mistrustful, wary. Some were openly hostile. He kept his own expression calm and regal.

"As you have heard, the High King shall hear no more suits today. Have patience, good friends and cousins. You shall each of you be heard in time. Until then, Lion's blessing upon you all."

He didn't wait for the audience chamber to clear before he went to find Peter.

Peter's private study was deserted. His bedroom was silent and empty. But from its balcony Edmund could see the bleak beach below and the gray waves tossing beyond it. Along the shore walked a tall, solitary figure, eyes down, golden head bent into the wind, crimson cloak whipping around booted legs. Edmund considered calling to him but decided instead to go down there himself. He made his way back through the Cair, through the courtyard and outside the castle walls, but before he could even step onto the sand, a large hand stopped him.

"The High King has asked to be left alone, King Edmund."

Oreius, the Centaur general who had taught him and his brother everything they knew about how to conduct a battle and how to survive one, about how to be Narnian Kings and warriors and men, the one who, half Edmund's lifetime ago, had been sent to rescue him from the Witch and who had taken Edmund up, terrified, starved and beaten, into massive, iron-muscled arms, fierce and terrible as an avenging angel, and carried him home to Aslan and to Peter, the one who had come to hold the place of almost a father to him, Oreius looked at Edmund now with cold impassivity, a soldier doing his duty, no more than that.

What had Peter told him? Or perhaps the real question was what had Oreius heard? There had been a lot of little things in the months since Edmund had come back from fighting in Lantern Waste. Little disappointments, little failures, little miscommunications. There was the failed campaign itself and the lives so gratuitously lost as well as a maelstrom of other things that more recently seemed to attach themselves to him. Unsubstantiated rumors. Gossip. Little incidents, accidents, coincidences that didn't look quite right. Easily explained. Easily denied. Easily seen to.

This sort of thing, though not so much and not all at once, had come and gone for all four of the Pevensies since their coronation. It was only to be expected for anyone in a place of power and renown. Oreius himself had told them to expect it. Had he forgotten his own advice? Or was there something else? Something not so easily brushed aside? Surely Oreius didn't believe–

"The High King has asked to be left alone," the Centaur repeated, his grip on Edmund's shoulder growing almost imperceptibly tighter.

"I must speak to him."

Oreius's angular, expressionless face did not change. "I am under orders from my King."

"I am also your King."

Edmund looked into his dark eyes, unflinching, until the Centaur conceded a slight nod. But before he released his hold, Oreius looked at the Gryphon and the two Tigers who were standing guard over the High King from the hillside above the beach. Then he looked significantly back at Edmund. A warning? A threat? What did he think Edmund might do?

The pained, questioning plea in Edmund's eyes was met still with professional coolness, but the Centaur took one graceful step back and let the younger King pass.

Edmund looked down the beach and saw Peter watching him, his face as impassive as his General's, but when Edmund moved towards him, Peter darted away, his heavy bootprints cutting the wet sand and then immediately filling with the lapping surf. Edmund sprinted after him, running higher up the beach where it was dry, still making up ground. Silent but for the crunch of their steps and Peter's increasingly harsh breathing, they ran until Peter finally faltered to a stop, bracing himself against the huge rock that marked the edge of the cove.

"I told– Oreius– I didn't want to see anybody."

Edmund pulled up beside him, saying nothing until Peter finally deigned to look at him. There was anger in the blue eyes. Hurt. Disbelief.

"Peter." Edmund squinted up at the wan autumn sun, hardly knowing how to begin, almost afraid to trust his own voice. "You don't believe him, do you? That stupid Dwarf? After everything, you can't trust the word of a stranger over mine. You can't."

"I don't know what to believe. After everything? Everything you can't quite explain away anymore?" Peter glanced to the hillside above them. "Oreius tells me some of our soldiers are leaving."

Edmund looked up, too, puzzled. "Leaving?"

"Leaving the army."

Again Peter looked up. Was he making sure his guard was still there? To protect him from what? From his own brother?

Edmund knit his brows. "Why?"

"What happened out West, Ed?"

"As I said, I never saw that Dwarf before today. I never took so much as a bread crumb from him. Peter, he's lying or he's mad or he's deceived. I don't know what. But, as Aslan sees and knows the truth, I swear what he says is just not so."

"I don't mean him. What happened in the campaign?"

"I- I told you." Edmund shook his head, bewildered. They'd been over and over this months ago. "The intelligence–"

"That doesn't explain our troops wanting to leave."

"I don't understand. Why do they want to leave?"

"Because they're afraid they'll be sold out again."

"Sold out? What do you mean?"

"Sold out. Betrayed. Sent to die by a commander who's been paid to lose. What do you think I mean?"

Edmund could feel the color drop out of his face. "Peter, you don't believe I–"

"Doesn't matter what I believe, Ed. They're the ones who are leaving. In droves, Oreius says."

Edmund looked back to where the Centaur stood watching them, face set and stern, and forced his own face into the same hard lines. "What are they saying? About me."

Peter closed his eyes and lowered his head, still standing braced against the rock.

"I didn't want to have to talk to you about this yet, Edmund. I don't know enough really. Supposedly there were . . . strategic dispatches that were sent to the enemy. Dispatches under your name and seal."

"Peter. Peter, you can't. You can't think it's true. You know me, Peter. Please tell me you know I'd never do such a thing."

"I don't want to think it, Ed. I can't think it. I don't know what else to think." Peter grimaced and rubbed his forehead. "It's– Ugh, I can't think straight. I should be able to work this out. It should make sense. It should all somehow make sense."

"Peter . . ."

When Peter looked up again, the anger and hurt in his eyes were gone. Now the only thing there was pure fear.

"Edmund, I think I must be losing my mind."

Author's Note: Once more, OldFashionedGirl95 and Laura Andrews have been beyond helpful in making this story the best it can be. Thank you!

–WD