AN: This is mostly a sort of set-up chapter for some things that will be happening later on in this story.

After Farder Coram talked to Gael, John Faa arranged a meeting with the Gyptian nobles and families chiefs over whatever it was that had been found out. It was a very exclusive meeting, and Lyra was a bit upset when she found out it did not include herself or Lucy.

A fine mess they'll all be in if they end up needing someone who can read an alethiometer during that meeting! Lyra thought; and spoke aloud to Pan.

"They could always have you or Lucy ask the alethiometer questions discussed in the meeting later," Pantalaimon pointed out meekly, still too unnerved by Stelmaria's presence to let any irritation he may have felt at being left out shine through as it did in his human. "They might not need us in the meeting itself."

"Oh hush up, Pan," huffed Lyra, irritably, disappointed that even her own dæmon would not sympathize with her.

Pantalaimon, draped across her shoulders, lifted up his head and nuzzled one of her ears in a comforting manner.

Lucy, on the other hand, had to pretend to be disappointed for her half sister's sake, but she was really too glad not to be needed at the meeting; Edmund wasn't called in, either, so that meant they could talk and catch up.

She did ask him what he'd found out about Gael when Farder Coram spoke with her, but he shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't understand most of it and had largely been there for moral support anyway.

"If there's anything really important, Lu," said Edmund, sitting on the wooden deck's floor beside her, "I'm sure Farder Coram will tell us when he-and the others-are ready. But, Lucy, Peter told me you asked the alethiometer about Gael; what did it say?"

Lucy looked discomfited for a moment. "She's at least one quarter Gyptian, Ed; Rhince is her father."

"What?" Edmund's brow crinkled in confusion. "That's…"

"The alethiometer always tells the truth," Lucy reminded him. She knew it couldn't lie, and she felt positive that she had indeed read it correctly. Instinct was powerful when it came to truth measures; as long as the question was asked correctly, in the right frame of mind, she had no reason to doubt the answer.

"Why didn't he say something?" Edmund shook his head disappointedly; Ella ruffled her feathers and snapped her beak. "He was with us on Caspian's ship…he didn't even really speak to her…"

"He didn't know," Lucy explained. "He still doesn't. I told John Faa and Peter-oh, and Lyra, because she would have found out by reading her alethiometer anyway-but I didn't announce it." She looked at Reepicheep, then at Edmund, then back at Reepicheep again. Her conscience pricked at her. "Oh, I should tell him."

"Of course you should," replied her dæmon.

But Ella seemed to think differently, "Oh no, really, think how you would feel if someone told you a thing like that!"

"Ella," said her human, disagreeing, "if Rhince slept with some strange land-woman, knowing the opinion most people have of Gyptians anyway, maybe he shouldn't be surprised…"

"She was his wife," Lucy corrected quietly, mumbling to her feet.

"What?" This was news. Since when did Rhince have a wife? Did Caspian and Drinian know anything about this?

"The alethiometer said Gael's mother was his wife…it didn't say anything else…only that…that something was keeping them from being together but they got married anyway…then he went away, worked as a Gyptian manservant for the higher ranking persons of his race...came back to sea. The needle stopped moving after that…I think the alethiometer didn't like me asking it the same question twice in a row, or else I was getting a little tired."

"I see." Edmund didn't know what else to say regarding that. "But maybe Ella's right, perhaps you shouldn't tell him right away."

"Why not?" Lucy looked annoyed and there was a slight scowl forming on Reepicheep's face. "Why shouldn't he know? Oughtn't he to be told?"

"Well, do you remember how you felt when you learned that Lord Asriel was your father?"

Other than disgusted and horrified? Lucy thought with shocking bitterness, immediately stunned at her own self, angrily brushing those harsh thoughts out of her mind for the time being. "I was angry that he hadn't told me, I was glad the Gyptians did."

"No, you weren't." Edmund knew her better than that. "Lucy, if he'd been the one to tell you maybe you wouldn't have been as cross in the end, but finding out from the Gyptians that he was your father completely threw you, and you know it."

"Think about Lyra, Ed," Lucy admonished, trying to keep her voice level. "Think about how she grew up believing Lord Asriel was her uncle and that her parents were both dead. If Gael ever realizes-or learns-that she was on the same ship with her father as a child and no one told him-or her-about it…Do you really want that for her?"

Edmund sighed, feeling torn. "I don't know."

"What about your father?" she blurted out before considering the fact that they'd very, very rarely talked about Edmund Coulter the first, and almost never calmly. "What about how your mother never told you one nice thing about him? If you'd had a chance…before he…" Her voice trailed off; she noticed that he had bitten onto his lower lip and closed his eyes.

Reepicheep climbed into his lap, the taboo not mattering for them under these sorts of circumstances, and Lucy patted his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're right, of course you should tell him." But his voice sounded very distant, and she knew he was still thinking about his parents.

"I have something for you," Lucy told him to change the subject, taking out the alethiometer she had been keeping protected and safe for his return.

He took it from her and smiled. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Lucy was glad to be giving him the alethiometer back, but… "Oh, and I'm sorry I couldn't find the book. They must have taken it."

"They did," Edmund confirmed. He winked at her. "That's fine, though, I pinched another one from Svalbard."

"Ed!" She tried to look serious, yet she failed to keep the admiration out of the adoring expression on her face, and he was all too aware that she was impressed.

"Edmund! Lucy!" Peter came rushing towards them, accidentally startling their dæmons and making them jump. Ella dropped three feathers and Reepicheep spun around with his little sword drawn defensively.

"Steady, Reep," Lucy whisper-hissed at her dæmon when she saw that it was only Peter, nothing to be alarmed about. Living around people who all had dæmons seemed to have dulled Reepicheep's ability of detecting a dæmonless person's presence before they standing right next to him.

Edmund gave him a hard look that asked if giving him a fright through Ella had been entirely necessary.

"Sorry," he apologized. Nodding at Reepicheep, he added, "Both of you."

"What's happening?" asked Lucy; Reepicheep lowered his sword back into its tiny scabbard, calming down.

"I came over here to tell you that Farder Coram and John Faa have finished their meeting with the others; they want to call a roping to have other Gyptians-ones that aren't here now-rallied together."

"But why?" she wondered aloud.

"I think they mean to have a raid on the slave traders," Peter explained, "and, if possible, to take alive anyone that might be working for Bolvangar."

"If their headquarters even is still Bolvangar," said Edmund, a bit despairingly. "They might have set up operations someplace else."

"Oh, I don't know, Ed," mulled Peter thoughtfully. "It's far north, remote, untouched since that battle; they could have re-built it without anyone really taking much notice."

"You have to admit Lucy made a good point before, though, Pete," Edmund argued. "The equipment; she blew it up."

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "You would know better than I if they could get materials to make new equipment from scratch."

"Hypothetically," sighed Edmund, not without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "it's not impossible…I just don't see…" His voiced trailed off because he didn't know how to explain.

How would he explain that he'd seen more of the Bolvangar research even than Susan had, that his mother had told him so many things…both truth and lies…that he wasn't even sure, for those wicked persons, what was possible and what wasn't? He wasn't sure of anything anymore. All he knew was that he had to stop them. For every child that had ever been torn from his or her dæmon; for Lucy, who believed in him; for Aslan; for children currently threatened, like Gael; for any children who might be threatened in the future; yes, he had to do something, he had to fight. But his resolve didn't eliminate his fear. He wasn't a coward, but after being deported to Svalbard, he knew all too well what the Ruling Powers did to anyone who acted against them. Most of all, he was fearful of being taken away from Lucy again. He'd just gotten back in her presence again and the world, horrific as it still was, felt right somehow, all the same. The notion of being taken away from her and thrown back into some stinking prison was too awful to even think about for too long.

That night, alone in the cabin he was sharing with Peter (who, unable to sleep, had gone up on deck for a breath of fresh air), Edmund tossed and turned; Ella shifted uncomfortably from claw to claw, her feathers all on end.

Sighing, Edmund gave up trying to get to sleep altogether, willing his mind, if it wouldn't let him rest, to at least not keep making him think about the Gyptian roping that would take place in less than two days. An army of Gyptians, Peter, and Lord Asriel with a whip and sword, against a bunch of slave traders; trying to kill some, and preserve others alive in case they were working at Bolvangar. Edmund thought this highly unlikely, by the way, that any of the slave traders would know much about Bolvangar. It seemed to him much more probable that some of the customers would be the ones trying to re-create his mother's dirty work. He hadn't voiced this opinion yet, but he resolved to do so-probably to John Faa-at some point in time before the roping officially began.

He was desperate to think of something-anything-else. Climbing out of his cot, he took out the alethiometer Lucy had returned to him and the book he'd smuggled out of Svalbard. There was something he wanted to know; something about the ice bears.

Iorek had been upset to hear about the bears back at Svalbard becoming humanized, but he hadn't said why he wasn't living with them. Of course Iorek had to be an exile, Edmund was smart enough to figure that much out, yet that didn't tell him what his panserbjørne friend had done to get himself booted out. At least, he thought, it was something different and completely unrelated to his own current worries to obsess over.

As he couldn't read the alethiometer by instinct as Lucy and Lyra could, he would need the book, his former knowledge gained from intense studies which he hoped had not become rusty during his time locked up as a prisoner of the Ruling Powers, and to light an oil lantern to see by.

Spreading his materials out on the only table in the cabin, he fumbled around for a spare match, cursed under his breath when he grabbed something sharp by accident first, then finally getting a hold of what he wanted, struck the match, opened the lantern, and lit it.

"There." He didn't sit, instead he leaned with his hands on the table's edge, peering down in the rich but murky, almost orange, light glinting off of and out through the lantern's glass sides.

Ella was perched a little ways off, her claws still curled around the long, thin, black iron bar that ran along the low ceiling-panel above her master's cot, her pale eye-lids lowered half-way.

Edmund opened the book to the page he wanted, read something, nodded, then picked up the alethiometer, holding it between the palms of his hands.

The instrument was heavier than he remembered, and he opened it slowly, gazing into its crystal face. Once had gotten his question framed, he watched the needle swing round and tried to make his mind stay level on the question he was asking it. This was very hard to accomplish while trying to-at the same time-read and decipher the symbols and letters that were pointed to. But he kept at it and after a bit he began to understand.

"What's it telling you?" Ella's eyes opened all the way, sensing her human had had a breakthrough with the alethiometer at last.

Edmund's brow was tightly furrowed. "It's telling me about Iorek…and his family…before, back when he lived in Svalbard."

Something…male bear…something female bear…something rash actions…fight…no, death-blow, then fight. Wait a second, why would there be a death-blow before a fight? That didn't make sense. No, yes it did; the death-blow was the cause of the fight.

But the bear it was telling him about wasn't Iorek-or, at least, it wasn't using the same symbol it had used when referring to Iorek Byrnison mere seconds before…it had to be another bear. Only, Edmund hadn't asked about another bear, he'd asked about Iorek.

Perhaps, he thought, the other bear's story is the reason Iorek is not in Svalbard anymore?

Was he falsely accused? But, then, that was before the armoured bears started acting like humans, and that meant they couldn't be tricked. Still, maybe they could have been bribed or angered into it; the panserbjørne did seem to have an inflated sense of dignity, honour, and self-pride.

"Concentrate, concentrate," Edmund murmured to himself. He could read it, he knew he could, it just wasn't easy-wasn't natural. He'd get it in a moment.

Why did it keep stopping at the symbol that seemed to mean the other bear? What did that have to do with Iorek? Single Combat. Lost. Away. Never come back. Not welcome. Fire-hurlers; burning threat. Armour gone. Armour returned. Susan Pevensie.

He paused when he realized the alethiometer was telling him about his own sister. What did she have to do with anything he'd been asking the alethiometer?

Iorek knows where armour is. Goes to get it. Breaks church.

Oh, so that was it! Edmund thought he got it now; it was telling him about how Susan told Iorek where to find his armour after it was taken away and he was forced to work as metal-shop laborer in Norroway.

The needle was swinging round again. Apparently the alethiometer was starting from the beginning. It was back to the bit about what Edmund could only interpret as 'death-blow' but could not make any sense of. In the end, he had to let that go, he wasn't getting anywhere with it, and he had already dropped the questions. If he'd been reading it by instinct and not knowledge, he would have had to give up. Even as it was, he struggled.

Then, he read it again, for the fifth time at least. And he understood.

Recoiling, he glanced over at Ella and winced. Poor Iorek.

"He was a prince in Svalbard," Edmund said sadly, "the heir to the throne." He closed the book and the alethiometer, putting them away while he spoke; his eyes were starting to hurt, he wasn't going to read either of them anymore tonight. "Something happened, I can't understand that part, but I think it's to do with the old king. Someone killed him."

Ella whistled. "So shouldn't Iorek be king, then?"

"That's just it," he went on, "as far as I could understand from the alethiometer, he was challenged for some reason…by another bear, possibly a cousin, I think he's the king of Svalbard now; King Ragnar Sturlusson."

"Challenged?"

"To a one-on-one combat," said Edmund. "Iorek lost."

The idea of Iorek losing seemed absurd, really; strong, powerful Iorek losing a fight, indeed! And Edmund had seen how he could fight; fencing with him was something he would never forget. There it was, though. Iorek had lost, lost and been sent away in shame.

"What I don't get," said Ella, twisting her beak, "is why he was sent away. He lost his throne because Ragnar won…but why shouldn't Iorek get to live in Svalbard afterwards still?"

"I didn't understand it, either," Edmund confessed. "Not really. But, it's like Lucy said, the alethiometer doesn't lie, it tells the truth. We both know that better than most."

"Of course we do." His dæmon sighed. "All the same…Are you sure you read it right, Edmund?"

"Mostly, yes. Except for the parts I told you I didn't understand."

"Why do you think Iorek never talks about it?"

"He's embarrassed probably, anyone would be."

"I don't know; I think it goes deeper than that."

"It probably does," Edmund agreed.

The cabin door creaked open and Peter walked in, back from his stroll on the deck, ready to crawl into his cot and go to sleep.

He blinked in the lantern light, took in Edmund and his serious expression, and said, "I didn't know you were still awake. What are you doing up?"

"Nothing." Edmund decided not to tell him about Iorek's having been the crown prince of Svalbard, or that he had been straining himself over the alethiometer when he was supposed to be sleeping. Certainly it wouldn't have been considered odd behavior for an alethiometrist of all people, and he knew Peter would have been understanding, but for the time being he felt he didn't want to talk about it any further.

"Then why do you have a lantern lit?" Peter didn't say it accusingly, or even as if he were anxious. He spoke absently, sleepily, all the while eyeing his cot and edging towards it.

Edmund smirked, opened the lantern, and blew out the flame in one quick breath. "What lantern lit?"

He couldn't see his brother-in-law in the dark, but Edmund felt it was safe to assume Peter was rolling his eyes. "Very funny, Ed. Good night."

"Night, Pete."

AN: Roses are red, violets are blue, please do review. (Or else I'll just have to come up with an even WORSE piece of bad poetry for the next chapter's AN...)