GN 2: Learning
The four young monarchs learned, and worked, and played together. At first, they were all in the same lessons, which were mostly held in a pleasant long narrow room with long table in its center, a fireplace at one end, and a whole wall of windows. The Pevensies arranged themselves along the table's length, closer or further apart as their studies demanded.
While they all could read and write, they could only read and write in English (well, the older two had theoretically learned some French, Latin, and Greek, but to call them even basically fluent in any of these was stretching it). Fortunately English was close enough to standard Narnian that even Lucy had little trouble adjusting her understanding to be able to read most of the books and poems and songs that the Narnians had hid and kept safe during the White Witch's reign.
But there were other dialects and tongues to be learned, as well: the tongue of the Calormene equivalent of their court, and the oddly patterned language used in Telmar, and the oozing, silky language spoken by the inhabitants of the Lone Islands. Mostly they muddled through, though Susan, who hadn't been a notable scholar in England, found herself able to apprehend more of these languages than her siblings; so the Language tutor gave her extra lessons to study. That was the first point of separate lessons for any of them.
When they started digging into Narnian history, they found it rather slow going until Lucy discovered a book in the library that was a history book but told it like it was stories, and they read it aloud in the evenings to one another. Their tutor was delighted with their progress. He was a Faun, and some sort of cousin to dear Mr Tumnus. Evidently they kept in touch with one another, too, for the next time Lucy had tea with Mr Tumnus, he fairly well filled her arms with other wonderful books full of true stories when he learned the secret to their success.
They also had to learn the art of heraldry, so they could interpret the arms and sigils of their Court's noble families and neighboring lands. Edmund found himself noticing the connections amongst them, and grew fascinated with it. So much so, that the wise Centaur who was teaching them all of this started teaching Edmund some of the subtler arts of statecraft, the way of seeming to promise without actually promising anything, and the ways of finding out what one's enemies wished to be kept hidden, and that sort of thing. And that was another point of separate lessons for one of them.
Their Dancing master, a human named Mr. Lefrons, was delighted that there were two boys and two girls, so he didn't often have to go hunting down partners for them. He did, sometimes, so they would learn how to dance with people who were much taller or shorter or larger or older than they were, but mostly they learned and made mistakes and stepped on one another's feet. And with dancing came music, of course. All of them could carry a tune and whistle, but both Lucy and Edmund got true enjoyment out of singing and playing, and so they had some extra lessons for that, too. Another point of separation.
Generally, they got on very well with all of their tutors, but of course nothing is perfect. Their Composition tutor seemed to have taken a dislike to her assignment, and to Lucy particularly.
They were all familiar with how to use a fountain pen, of course, but writing with quills seemed to baffle them, and indeed for a time their writing was so uniformly atrocious that the Composition tutor thought they'd all exaggerated their ability to write at all. This was resolved, fortunately, before she outright accused them of lying to her.
"No, Queen Lucy, the stem of the small D must connect to the bowl of the letter, or it will be mis-read as the letters C and L. Are you quite certain you know all of your letters?" Miss Pemele's voice was honeyed.
Lucy slanted a frustrated look at the Dryad from under the hair she'd dragged in front of her face the last time she'd run her hands through it in frustration. "Yes, I'm quite sure. I've known them since I was one and a half. I just can't get the hang of using a feather to write with! The ink skips, and then it blots, and I can't seem to do straight lines properly."
Miss Pemele leaned back against one of the chairs, an unmistakably skeptical look on her face.
Lucy sat back in her chair, frustration on hers. She let her gaze rove around the room for a moment, thinking. Then she suddenly leapt up and headed toward the large fireplace that warmed their lesson room.
She crouched near to the blazing hearth, near enough that Susan said in alarm: "Lucy, be careful, you'll burn yourself!"
Lucy gave her sister the look that comment deserved, and turned back to the fireplace.
"Your Majesty, there is no need for dramatics—" Miss Pemele began, but Lucy waved her off.
"I'm going to prove to you that I know my letters," Lucy said, and darted her fingertips toward the burnt-down bits of wood that had tumbled in a heap. She drew her hand back, pulling out several charred sticks.
Glad of the excuse to stop struggling with their own quills, the other three stopped their work, and watched her curiously.
It wasn't until Lucy had carried her burnt sticks back to her chair, seated herself, picked one of them up, and started to write with it, that they understood.
"Ah! A pencil!" Edmund exclaimed. "Good thinking, Lu!"
"It's not very exact," Lucy admitted, making a few practice strokes. "The lines are rather thick. And crumbly." She hurriedly wrote down the alphabet, the numerals, and the sentence, I am Queen Lucy of Narnia, and I can write when I have a tool I can use. "But I think it makes my point." She said, staring straight at Miss Pemele determinedly, as she handed the Dryad the sheet of paper. The Dryad's mouth flattened a little as she looked over the page, but Lucy only raised an eyebrow.
Edmund put his hand on her shoulder, and looked up at the Dryad, too. "We all know our letters and numbers and things."
"What we don't know," Peter put in, "is—oh—how to compose essays for our History tutor, but more importantly, we don't know how to compose a letter of state, or, I don't know—"
"Pacts and treaties," Susan said.
"Proclamations," Lucy suggested.
"Laws." Was Edmund's contribution.
"Things we are going to need to know how to draft, sooner rather than later." Peter summed up. "Your worrying about our handling of quill pens is not helping us toward that goal."
"We'll need to know how to understand those things too," Edmund said, and they looked at him. He shrugged. "Well, the first time someone sends us a trade agreement, or something, are any of you going to know what traps to look for? I certainly don't."
"Good point, Ed," Susan murmured.
"Well," Miss Pemele said stiltedly. "I shall certainly have to discuss this with your other instructors. But I believe you have done enough today," and Lucy wasn't sure if she was being given a look or not. But they were dismissed early from that lesson, so they went back to Peter's sitting room, which was becoming their de facto meeting place.
The next day, at the time for Composition, a round-bellied, long-bearded Dwarf with twinkling eyes was waiting for them. There was something in his face that made one want to like him, and the Pevensies all did. "Greetings to Your Majesties, all," he said, executing a bow. "I have been asked to take over Miss Pemele's instruction period, to better meet your educational needs. My name is Barnabas, and I shall be teaching you Politics."
They all looked at him in surprise; when lessons had initially been talked of, their advisors had said Politics would not be taught for some time. Barnabas smiled at their surprise. "Apparently your arguments—as a group—were quite effective, which bodes well for your success in learning what I have to teach you. Now, to begin…"
And that was the first time they had a taste of the changes they could effect by standing up for one another.
There were other lessons added as they mastered the ones they had begun—logic and mathematics, and navigating and cookery, and plain sewing and embroidery (Susan loved this; Lucy tolerated it; the boys finished their minimal projects, said they had a fine appreciation for the art, but declined to continue).
Lucy hung about the Healers' hall until they taught her some of their arts, and when Orieus heard of this, he sent Peter and Edmund to learn basic aid, as well. Susan cajoled the bakers into teaching her how they crafted their breads and pastries, and the boys even learned how to put together a decent stew.
Each day began with weapons' practice in the yards, always running and fighting. Sometimes, Orieus would add horseback riding and woodscraft. They learned to hunt, both as a High Court pastime as well as at need.
The boys began to learn battle tactics and how to plan a war and prepare for a siege, and how to direct a navy, and those such things. Susan declared she was well out of it, and worked on her embroidery, but Lucy, who still longed to learn sword craft, hung about.
Neither Orieus nor the boys objected to her being there, as she made herself useful by learning to clean and perform basic repairs to worn armor, sewing in new patches of leather to replace the old, or fixing a new ring into a broken suit of mail.
They supposed she was just avoiding doing needlework with Susan, until one day, Orieus had given the boys a tactical puzzle to work over, and both Peter and Edmund seemed stumped. All three stood along one side of the table on which they laid out the different scenarios. Edmund and Peter stared at it, little counters representing military groups and personnel strewn across its surface, for what seemed like hours.
"What if we—" Peter reached for one of the counters and started to move it, then dropped his hand. "No, that won't work, because then the enemy would only come around and take the left flank, right?" He glanced up to his left for Orieus' nod. "Hmm."
Edmund was standing on Peter's right. "Well, we have this cavalry group in reserve. How long for them to arrive at this point in this scenario?"
Two days, Orieus told him. "All right. If they get here within two days, the enemy will have got to… here." He moved a piece, and examined the board, then sighed. "No. The extra cavalry won't work, either. It's still a stalemate." He tapped his chin, thinking.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't consciously notice when someone pressed between him and Peter, nudging him aside.
He noticed, though, when a small hand reached out, plucked a pair of scouts from the reserve box, and placed them on the board. "If this scout is an Eagle, and this other scout is a Fox, you can get a lot of useful information very quickly. Like the fact that the enemy does not have a secure supply line to his men, and you could very easily disrupt it by sending a team of archers to pick off…" she stood on tiptoe to move another piece near the middle of the table, "this little group. Then the enemy won't have supplies and will have to talk. Or starve, I guess." Lucy shrugged.
As one, Peter and Edmund turned to stare at the top of her head, and Orieus' eyebrows shot up as he, too, eyed the girl.
"Indeed, little Queen, that is one way to break the stalemate," he said. "And you considered the value of the different kinds of citizens Narnia has. Well done. Your royal brothers seem to keep forgetting that."
"I think I probably talk to more of the animals than they do," Lucy said thoughtfully. "So I'm a little more familiar with what they can and can't do."
"Nevertheless." Orieus said, and rearranged several of the pieces. "Now, Queen Lucy, what would your next step be if this were the situation?" He watched her carefully as she pondered a response, looking at the table.
Both Peter and Edmund went to speak, but he raised a hand. "I'm interested in what your royal sister has to say."
"Well," she said slowly, "it seems obvious you should move that infantry over there," she pointed, and both of her brothers nodded agreement.
Their faces fell, though, as she continued. "But you can't, because that little gorge there will make them go around, and it would take too long to get them into position. But if you move this group of Great Cats over here, then…" she described the more favorable outcome, and looked up at Orieus' towering height. "Right?"
A rarely-seen grin broke across the Centaur's dark face, and he bowed. "Indeed, little Queen. I believe I shall add Tactics to your lesson roster, if that is agreeable to you."
Her smile was sunny. "It is!" She narrowed her eyes. "This does mean I get to learn sword-work, right?"
Orieus couldn't keep himself from laughing, a broad smile creasing his usually stoic face.
"Oh, Su's going to love this," Edmund chuckled. "Our little sister the tactician."
"It's just as well," Peter sighed. "Neither you nor I seem to see all the possibilities quite yet, though I'm sure we'll learn. It's good to know there's someone in the family with a knack for it, at least."
And they all continued learning, and growing and starting to figure out who they were.
Peter started to develop into a really outstanding swordsman. Susan was the one of their number who had a deft touch with international relations. Edmund, for his part, started to really delve into the laws of Narnia, and began to have some laws changed or abolished for the sake of justice and fairness. Lucy kept most in touch with their varied subjects, and every few days would arrange to visit one or another of them, and come back brimming with tales of another facet of their strange and wondrous kingdom.
And eventually Lucy did get her wish. When Orieus thought she was strong enough, he began to teach her weapons-craft. She began to learn to handle a short sword, and was decent enough, but Orieus wanted her to learn close quarters combat most of all.
"If I am not, or a guard is not nearby to keep you safe, Queen," he told her, "I had much rather you had the means to save yourself. If you can defend yourself with a dagger—or your hands alone—you shall be far safer than if we had a phalanx of guards around you at all hours of the day and night."
So she learned hand to hand fighting with her brothers, and dagger work, and escape tactics. (It took Peter and Edmund quite some time to get over their squeamishness about hitting their sister; they only managed it at first when she had scored some serious hits on them, and Orieus chided them for not taking their sister's safety as seriously as she did.)
It wasn't all sitting around the Cair, learning to rule though. Within their first year, Peter had to go west to roust out Werewolves in the forest, and before he had even returned, there came mention that a Hag had been seen in the mountains, and Edmund went to deal with her. Both brothers came back rather sick and sad from the killing that had been necessary, and proud of their work, and most of all happy to see their sisters at the Cair.
And Susan soon after visited Beaversdam for a friendly look-in on Mr and Mrs Beaver, and found herself swept up for some time in an investigation of the murder of an Owl who'd lived for years in those parts. She had been found a ways back in a narrow cave, where no Owl would willingly go. But Susan was able to determine the culprit in the end, and brought him back to the Cair for the justice that was due to him.
It seemed no sooner had all of this wrapped up than Lucy, who had gone to a nearby glade to learn some dances from the Dryads there, discovered the murderous ghost of a Naiad who had been luring travelers to their doom, and she was occupied for a good while in figuring out how one laid a water-spirit's ghost to rest. But she did in the end, earning herself the favor and trust of the nearby river god, and for a while it seemed things could be quiet at the Cair.
Then the requests for audiences started rolling in. Would the Four hear a merchant's grievance, would the Four attend a banquet, would the Four make a visit of state to the Lone Islanders, on and on.
They consulted with their advisors, accepted some invitations, gently turned down others, and instituted a weekly Court session so their subjects could bring matters to their attention.
Time went on, and they all kept learning and growing, until it occurred to them, one by one, that they were no longer looking to their advisors for approval of their actions, but rather for advice on them; in short, that they were actually ruling Narnia. And as each of them came to this realization, a sort of pride and terror mixed fell over each, pride in having grown into their positions, terror at the fates held in their hands.
They were all very grateful for their retreat into Peter's sitting room, where they could be less Kings and Queens and more brothers and sisters, and they considered anew Aslan's deep wisdom in placing all four of them on the thrones together.
OK. I do realize Lucy has a bit of Legolas-effect going on. She's just not really old enough for her flaws to be really visible (she's, like, 9 or so, and lives in a land where Horses can talk. C'mon.) But the flaws are there, I promise : )