"What did we do before the War?" Isadora asked.
"Which one?" Caspian asked. "We've now fought two."
"Oh. So we have."
They were both sprawled across couches in Caspian's private apartments. Barely ten minutes had passed since their horses had clattered back into the castle. They had made their excuses and retired to his rooms. Their exhaustion was so complete that they had not even removed their boots or armour – just thrown themselves at the nearest comfy surface.
Caspian had only been King for four months but it already felt like a lifetime. The days had fast blurred into one endless nightmare of battles and negotiations.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Nobody's here!" Isadora called jokingly.
"Very amusing, my lady," Cornelius said as he entered the room. Before leaving for the North, Caspian had appointed his old tutor as the Royal Secretary. While the army had marched towards Ettinsmoor, the old tutor had stayed behind to sort out some of the legal and bureaucratic mess left in the wake of the revolution.
Isadora and Caspian pulled themselves into vague upright positions as he placed a stack of papers on the table and pulled his glasses from his pockets.
"While I appreciate that you have only arrived back from the Northern campaign, there are a great many matters which require your attention sooner than later," he said. "Luckily, your uncle was a frugal man so the treasury is in no danger. However, we do have a number of seats upon the Council which require filling as soon as possible. I have arranged for a meeting of the remaining Lords at noon tomorrow; please compile a list of candidates to propose for each post."
As he flipped over the first piece of paper, Isadora stifled a groan and suppressed her desire to slump to one side and sleep her troubles away.
Despite finally being back in her own bed, she had one of the worst night sleeps of her life. Her bed felt too soft after her month in a bedroll. What's more, she had not yet moved to her new quarters near the Royal Apartments. She was still in her family's old rooms and the silence was slowly killing her.
She kept expecting to hear Marisela giggle or Ghaliya sing. Her parents' bedroom was worst of all. To go in there, to see all her parents' clothes and her mother's jewellery lying in their places, was like a dagger plunging into her heart and dragging down into the wound already there.
The morning could not have come quick enough. She dressed quickly and left; praying she would never have to return to those silent set of rooms.
Cornelius had set out some guidelines to help acclimatise her to her new Lordship (or was it technically a Ladyship?). In the office only recently occupied by her grandfather, she settled behind the desk and began to read some of his documents on Meadowholt.
It was a pretty little village in the south of Narnia that lay only a few leagues from the border with Archenland. On three sides it was hugged by an extensive wood and the fourth faced miles of fields and meadows dedicated to the production of the kingdom's grain. Isadora had many fond memories of visiting the manor house there. It was a comforting building built in the Archenlander style and it had been where Lady Prunaprismia had spent her childhood and early adolescence. The locals only had kind words to say of the Scythley family.
Isadora was dreading having to step into the shoes left by her maternal family.
From the room next door there suddenly came a crash and a voice swearing. She abandoned her own work and ventured round cautiously to see Lorrin standing mournfully amongst fluttering piles of paper.
"By the Eagle, it's a mess in here," she said.
"Yes. Father was not the most organised when it came to paperwork," he said. "If you think this is bad then you should have seen his bedchambers. I don't know how Mother put up with it; no wonder she spends so much time up in Redhaven."
"I'll help," she said, moving into the mess. "What do you need?"
"Just sort it for now. Put anything to do with Beruna here," he said, handing her a box, "and anything to do with his lord's duties in here. Anything else I can chuck, I suppose."
The going was slow. The sheaf Isadora was currently sorting through seemed to be composed of letters ranging from shortly before her birth to approximately six years ago. They were not organised in any way at all, instead having just been thrown together into an impossible pile.
When that pile was sorted, she tried to reach for another but sent it tumbling down onto the floor. She swore and bent to retrieve them but paused as she saw something amongst the parchments.
From inside one of the now-open envelopes, she pulled a long, black feather.
"Where did this come from?" she asked, lifting it up to show Lorrin.
He frowned. "Where did you get that?" he said. She held up the envelope and he took it off her. His brow still furrowed, he read the document inside and then stuffed the whole thing into the inside pocket of his jerkin.
"It's rubbish. I'll deal with it later," he said dismissively.
"Lady Isadora? Are you down here?" a new voice called.
"In Lord Sopespian's office!" she answered.
A gentle-faced faun stepped into the little room and bowed politely. He was dressed very neatly in a black waistcoat with golden embroidery. A small set of spectacles sat on his nose and he held a clipboard and a quill in his arms.
"My lady, my lord, my name is Hywel and His Majesty has appointed me as Head of the Royal Household," he said. "Lady Isadora, I have come to enquire as to your new handmaiden. His Majesty has expressed a wish to integrate the Old Narnians into castle life and this is an excellent opportunity to do so. I have compiled a shortlist of young ladies of varying species for your attention. Would you like to conduct interviews? I can handle the matter if you would prefer."
She frowned. "Oh, no. No, I don't need a maid at the moment," she said.
"My lady, your rooms, your dresses," Hywel said, his eyes blinking rapidly.
"I can take care of my rooms by myself for now and I doubt I will need help with dressing for a while," she said, kindly but firmly. "If and when I need help then I promise to find you. What I and Lord Sopespian here could really use is a secretary or some sort of clerk to help us shift through all these documents."
"I will have a word with Dr Cornelius immediately," the faun said, jotting a note down on his clipboard.
"Thank you," Lorrin said. With a smile, Hywel bowed and left them.
They stayed working for a little while amongst the letters, still sorting and tidying, until noon rolled around and it was time to attend Caspian's meeting.
Despite it being the inaugural meeting of the new Council, Caspian had decided that he did not want them to be held in the Council chambers any longer and had asked for a table to be brought into an otherwise unused chamber of the Royal Apartments. Now Council meetings would be held firmly in private, albeit with a monthly occurring open session to address the public's problems.
Isadora paused slightly on the threshold of the room before taking her place to the right of Caspian. Twenty one seats had been placed around the table, ten down each side and one for Caspian at the top, but the twenty one were not filled.
Seven of those seats belonged to the seven missing lords who had vanished into the night shortly after the death of Caspian IX and they had never been seen again. Of the others, Glozelle and Scythley had taken Aslan's offer to return to the Old Country and a great many of the others had been killed in the Battle of the How. Only a handful of them remained and, of those killed, only a few of them had had an heir ready to take their place - as Lord Sopespian had had in Lorrin.
She and Lorrin had been the last to arrive.
At Caspian's direction, Dr Cornelius stood and cleared his throat.
"My Lords, and of course, my Lady, there are a number of spare seats around you that need filling," he said.
There was a small pause as the small group looked around them at all the empty seats.
Cornelius gave a tiny sheepish cough and returned to the papers before him.
"Shall we begin with the easiest? King Caspian, sire, your ascension to the throne also includes you coming into your right to the Lordship of Beaversdam," he said. "My Lords Oroitz, Holguín, and Casales, you all survived the Battle of Beruna and you have sworn fealty to King Caspian and his reign so you may continue your Lordships as you have done previously."
Isadora looked at the three other Lords sitting together on the opposite side of the table. Oroitz and Holguín were both in their late twenties. They had been low-ranking players in the great game of courtly politics, much like Isadora's cousin Gregoire had been. Except Gregoire had tried to jump the rungs and he was now dead.
Lord Casales, on the other hand, was about the same age as her grandfather. He had always been quiet, but not in a conniving way like Sopespian had been. More like just in the way that he did not want to get involved in the crazy politics of the court.
"Lady Orellana, your grandfather left you the Lordship of Meadowholt," continued Cornelius and it took Isadora a moment to realise that the old tutor was referring to her. She was not used to being addressed by her surname. Lady Orellana had always been her mother's formal address whereas she had nearly always been just Lady Isadora.
"And then we have the matter of the missing Lords," the tutor said, turning over a piece of paper. "The villages of Stronghurst, Belbank, Solime, Langthwaite, Hythe, Blackwall, and Larton belong to the Seven Missing Lords. Their lands were seized by the Crown after their disappearance and to this day have not been reallocated. Some of the Lords had been granted temporary powers over the people there to aid them if they needed guidance and I recommend we continue with this arrangement as close as we are able."
That had been amongst the notes Scythley had left Isadora. Langthwaite was the next village along from Meadowholt and was the ancestral home of the Bern family. Lord Bern (or Uncle Darius as Isadora had once called him) had also been the ward of the Scythleys as a boy so it only made sense that after his disappearance the lands be turned over to Lord Scythley. The people already knew him and the farming of the village was not that different to what was done by the farmers in Meadowholt; many of them even worked the same fields.
"Of the Lords killed during the Battle of Beruna, only Lord Sopespian and Lord Paredes left living heirs. Lorrin, you are old enough to inherit your late father's lands but Parede's son is only ten. I recommend we hold his lands in trust for him until he reaches the age of twenty one," Cornelius went on. "And finally, Lord Glozelle chose to go to the Old Country and left no heir behind. In addition to his vacancy, there are another six holds which require new lords."
"Thank you, Dr Cornelius," Caspian said as the tutor took his seat again. "No doubt you all have people you wish to suggest for these roles but I would rather grant new lordships to those who helped me claim my throne. I would ask you to leave the appointments of new lords to me."
"As you wish, sire," Cornelius said. The others around the table murmured their agreement and the meeting moved onwards.
Isadora sighed and stretched as she walked down the corridor towards her rooms. That had dragged on longer than she expected; it seemed Cornelius had been determined to bring even what she considered the most humdrum of issues to their attention. What she had expected to only take a few hours had dragged on so long that it was now getting dark outside. They had even eaten dinner together and were now free to spend what was left of their evening as they pleased. Isadora just wanted to go to bed. With another weary sigh, she opened the door to her family's sitting room.
"Um, excuse me?" a meek little voice said as she made her way across the room.
She jumped and spun around. A pretty blonde-haired girl not much older than herself was sitting in her father's armchair. She blushed and stood quickly when Isadora glared at her.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Isadora demanded. She quickly cast around for something to defend herself with in case the girl tried to attack her.
"Please, my lady, my name is Cloe," the girl stammered. "I am one of the girls who Hywel found to be your handmaiden."
She relaxed. "I already said to him that I did not need a handmaiden," she said firmly, "and I thought they were all Narnian? You look human."
"I'm a half-dryad," Cloe replied, tucking her golden hair behind one ear. "Please, my lady, I really need this job! I have nowhere else to go; my mother died last year and I have never known my father and I know I shouldn't be up here because you said you didn't need a serving girl but I really am desperate and-"
Isadora held up a hand. The girl shut up, although she did make some strange hiccupping noises and she looked like she was on the brink of tears.
"Fine, fine," Isadora said wearily. "I guess you can have the job."
Delight spread over Cloe's face.
"Oh, thank you! Thank you, my lady!" she said. "Would you like me to start now? I can help you get ready for bed!"
"No, no, you can start tomorrow. I suppose I should go tell Hywel that you have the position," Isadora said.
"Don't worry, I'll go tell him myself," the girl replied happily. "Thank you so much for this, I won't let you down!"
Isadora tried to force a smile onto her face as the girl happily skipped out of the room.
In the apparent safety of her room, she shrugged out of her dress and pulled on her nightdress and the old comfort of her red dressing gown. As she loosed her hair from its bun and began to comb it through, her eyes strayed around her room.
This room did not feel comfortable any more. It had once been a lovely little haven of familiarity. As much as her family had annoyed her at times, she had never anticipated having all of them leave so suddenly. This set of rooms were now so empty and the silence was suffocating.
It was too much for her. She stood and left her room, firmly shutting the door behind her.
"My lady?" a voice said as she padded through the living room. Her new maid appeared from behind a chair. She had been on the floor beside one of the bookcases
"Oh, Cloe," Isadora said. "I didn't see you there. What are you still doing here, I thought I dismissed you?"
"I was just doing a little tidying before I left," Cloe said, a light blush spreading across her cheeks. "I know you said I could start tomorrow but I just wanted to make a good impression."
Isadora nodded. "All right, but you really must be leaving now," she warned her. "I need to go have a word with the King."
Cloe's eyes widened. "Can I come?" she asked. "I so want to meet the King!"
By the Eagle, give me strength, Isadora thought. The dryad girl was very endearing but it was all a little full-on at this moment in time. She gave Cloe a pained smile.
"No. I'm sure you will meet the King very soon but, for now, I want to speak with him privately as my cousin and not as my sovereign," she said. "I will see you tomorrow."
Cloe looked sad for a moment but then she smiled.
"I will see you tomorrow then, my lady!" she said brightly.
Isadora took a moment to compose herself as the girl skipped out of the door and then she made her way back to the Royal Apartments. She barely acknowledged the guards outside the door; they were both old and familiar faces and they did not try to stop her as she slipped into Caspian's chambers.
He was in his private sitting room. He'd removed his shoes and jerkin and draped himself over the sofa closest to the fire with a book in his lap.
"Hey," he said, looking up as she entered. "I thought you'd gone to bed?"
She paused and clasped her hands together for a moment.
"Dor? Is everything all right?" he asked, closing the book and sitting forward.
She shook her head.
"I… I can't go back to those rooms," she mumbled.
Caspian looked at her pityingly and lifted his feet down from the couch so she could sit next to him. She did so and leant against his shoulder, desperately searching for some comfort. He held her close, felt her shoulders begin to shake, and heard her begin to cry.
It had been a very long four months.
Thank you to Wildhorses1492 and TortoisetheStoryteller for your reviews on the prologue! I hope you are intrigued as to know where this is all going! :D
I think I can reveal that Flames is going to run through until the return of the Dawn Treader so we have quite a few years to get through and I'm really excited to show you some more of the world-building I've been doing!
But first, a little bureaucracy. I think fanfiction has a tendency to show monarchy as nothing more than wars and balls and skips a little over the tedium of running a country. Dor's life up until this point has been the battles and the parties and now she has some other responsibilities to get her head around. But don't worry, I am not going to bore you with ten chapters on the day-to-day runnings of Narnia. :D
I hope you like the introductions of Hywel and Cloe. Time to bring the Telmarines and the Narnians together! I'll see you in the next chapter.
