Chapter 9
When the party from Narnia finally set off on their sad journey toward Archenland, Lucy found herself chivvied into riding in one of the carriages. Ostensibly this was so she could offer some comfort to the Archenlander ladies, but from the looks she caught Alissa and Orieus exchanging, it was really so she could ride in the highest amount of comfort.
She struggled to hide her indignation as she settled into the plush cushions. She wasn't some sensitive thing who couldn't hold up to a day's riding! But to openly argue might hurt the Archenlanders' feelings at this delicate time.
Lord Aubrey was soon softly snoring in the opposite corner to the one in which Lucy sat. Lady Dia settled into some knitting in the seat down the cushions from Lucy, and Lady Melanta, opposite Lucy, looked contemplative.
Lady Melanta watched the young queen's face as the whole party rolled into motion.
"Thou art loved by thy people, Queen Lucy," she said, after they'd been underway for a while. "They wish to see thee well." Her mellow voice was quiet, and their conversation was nearly drowned out by all the noise of travel.
Lucy's expression shifted to one of chagrin. "Is my irritation that obvious?" She glanced to the side, but Dia gave no indication she was even aware a conversation was taking place.
"No," Melanta said, "it isn't, really. I've got to know thee, a little, these happy months in Narnia, and I know your active nature. And having just lost a young Queen, I canst understand our neighbors' reluctance to allow their own young Queen to suffer strain. Particularly as thou wert recently ill."
"But I'm never ill!" Lucy protested. "Why should one illness mean everyone tries to treat me like—like spun glass?"
"Precisely because it is so unusual for you to be, or even admit to, illness," Melanta said gently. "Queen Ramilka, rest her soul, was so often ill that it elicited no great comment. You, on the other hand…"
"Ah," Lucy said, seeing it.
"Add to this you have been the only Monarch around for quite some time, I think you can forgive thy attendants a little overprotectiveness."
"I suppose so. But why are we talking about me?" Lucy said, leaning forward. "Surely thy own grief…"
Melanta smiled sadly. "Honestly? I have been waiting for Queen Ramilka's grief to consume her these past two years. While her death is sad to me, 'tis not such a shock. Following the loss of Prince Cor, she simply never recovered to real life.
"Which is a shame," she continued, "considering she had a loving husband, who did suffer an equal loss, and another son in sore need of a mother. I do not begrudge her her grief, but I do wish she'd been able to heal enough to discover that her new life without Prince Cor in it was not absolutely terrible. Sad, certainly, but not… unlivable, as she seemed to think."
"I am not a mother," Lucy answered. "I don't know. Is losing a child that all-consuming? More painful than other losses?"
"It is…" Melanta sighed, "it is a different kind of loss, yes, but like all other losses, it can be worked through, lived through. It is painful, and because it is the loss of that child's whole potential life, it crops up perhaps more frequently than other griefs.
"An elder, well, you can point to the things she accomplished in life to comfort you. With a child, carried under one's heart for weeks or months, all of those infinite possibilities are dashed."
Lucy realized Melanta was no longer speaking of Prince Cor, and her expression became regretful at the turn the conversation had taken.
Melanta smiled slightly. "Do not fret, Your Majesty. I carried two babes in the womb before being blessed with my three healthy children. One breathed only an hour, and the other was too small for even that, before going to Aslan's Country, so I have a little insight into Queen Ramilka's pain.
"I also," she added, before Lucy could speak, "therefore have a little less patience for her wallowing in her grief for years. Queen Ramilka was tender and soft, and did not like dealing with difficult things. But if she had, she might yet be with us. Oh—"
Lucy offered her a handkerchief for the tears that fell down her face. Somewhat harsh though her words were, Lucy sensed that Melanta genuinely did grieve for Ramilka, whatever her opinion of the queen. It was certainly possible to really like someone but not like what they did—just look at herself and Avarro, for example.
And Lucy supposed that it was all right she'd been carefully pushed into riding in the carriage instead of on horseback with Ed and Peter.
Obviously, she was needed here.
When the van had travelled about three-quarters of the way to the night's campsite, Peter finally decided Orieus was avoiding him, though he couldn't think why.
Since the Centaur was not by any stretch of the imagination a coward, this raised certain suspicions in Peter's mind.
He caught Edmund's eye and gave him a look that his younger brother had no trouble interpreting, after so many weeks hunting Weres in the woods together. Edmund nodded slightly and peeled off of the main group, heading toward the rear of the line. A while later, he returned, shaking his head slightly. Not back there. Peter narrowed his eyes and scanned the group ahead. Nothing.
The slight peep of a whistle from Edmund had him glancing his brother's way. Edmund jerked his chin to the left.
Peter followed his gaze—yes—there! The Centaur was pacing the group, but a little ways off in the trees.
This time, Peter and Edmund both left the line and using the stealth they'd honed in the woods, crept up on the general.
Who was, naturally, waiting for them, his swishing tail the only sign of his unease.
"What can I do for you, Sires?" The bass voice rumbled.
"What's toward?" Edmund asked suspiciously. "Thou usually hast us talk our heads off after returning from a mission."
"This one has lasted weeks," Peter added. "You can't expect us to believe thy questioning and analysis would be shorter."
"I have not had the opportunity to peruse your most recent notes from the field," Orieus said, his gaze shifting.
Peter's blue gaze narrowed. That was as close to prevarication as he'd ever heard from the general, and a detail from their moving out earlier in the day suddenly snapped into place.
"What's wrong with Lucy?"
Ed turned to look at him, puzzled, but a look at the Centaur's downcast expression confirmed Peter's suspicions.
"Well?"
One hoof stamped, uneasy. "Nothing is wrong… now," he admitted.
"What, then?" Edmund asked. "Was she upset we were so long on this task? We did leave her for a while."
"No," Orieus said. "Not exactly." He related his and Alissa's concerns about Lucy's overworking herself, and her near-collapse a few weeks earlier.
Both young men exclaimed in dismay. "She never wrote a line of this!" Peter said. "Not a word!"
"And why would she, Your Majesty?" Orieus rumbled. "She is not a complainer, nor would she wish to worry you."
"But what would have caused it?" Edmund puzzled. "I can see her taking on so many duties she'd be tired but not… not falling to pieces over it. It's just not Lucy."
"This is why Alissa and I were so concerned, and insisted she ride in the carriage today," Orieus admitted. "She has not quite been herself since that night."
"Well, who's new that might have—" Peter started to wonder, and his brow darkened. "The Archenlanders are all new. One of them wasn't, I don't know, demanding or anything?"
"To the contrary, Lord Rorin has been Aslan-sent, giving the Queen a welcome excuse to take leisure moments, and distracting her from stresses."
"Lord Rorin? Who is Lord Rorin?" Peter demanded.
"The Queen Lucy's friend," Orieus stated firmly. "And a good one."
"Come off it, Pete," Edmund interjected. "Lucy did write us about him. They read books together, remember?"
"Ah. Right." Peter relaxed slightly, but fixed the general in his gaze. "So what is thy theory as to what ailest the Queen Lucy?"
"We know not." Orieus said, frustration obvious. "She only confessed to me as to her head hurting—and it did, most assuredly. To Alissa she only made a vague statement about a leaf bursting a dam; the only person she even mentioned was her friend Avarro.
"Neither Alissa nor I could find anyone to say he has reverted to his previously poor behaviors, but nor have we found anyone else who may have been demanding on the Queen's patience, so…" He shrugged expansively. "We know not." He repeated.
"Perhaps we can get it out of her," Peter said, worry in his eyes. "So thou'rt saying I wasn't imagining she seemed tired?"
"Nay, thou were not. Though she is better than she had been," Orieus said.
"Nevertheless," Edmund said, "We can do what we can to alleviate the strain on her."
"Our being back will do a lot of that, on its own," Peter said. "But I know thou hast something else in mind brother; you have that plotting look on thy face."
"Plotting look?" Edmund sputtered. "I have no plotting look."
"Yes, you do," both Peter and Orieus said, and smiled at Edmund's indignation.
"In any case," Edmund drew himself up, dignified. "I think we should make arrangements to send Avarro back to Telmar before we return from Archenland."
"Indeed? You have been wishing him gone some time, I know," Peter said.
"And I agree with His Majesty on this," Orieus said. "The young man has stayed and stayed. His new manners seem firm. Time he went home to test them." At Peter's sidelong glance, he added, "I have liked him little better than King Edmund, sire, and for similar reason. His sly looks disturb me." He punctuated the statement with a swish of his tail and a stamp of his back hoof.
"Very well," Peter agreed. "I'll write King Henrick tomorrow. By the time we return from Anvard, Cair Paravel will be Avarro-free."
All three nodded, satisfied, and hurried to catch up with the caravan.
When they made camp that night, Edmund and Peter swooped in and snared Lucy for a private dinner in Peter's tent, so they could all relax and catch up. At one point, Peter casually mentioned that he thought it was a good opportunity to send Avarro back to his home.
"After all," he said, "We do not know how long we will bide in Anvard, and it is hardly fair to trap the young man in a castle empty of everyone he knows." He did not miss the flash of relief that crossed Lucy's face. A nudge from Edmund confirmed that Ed had seen it, too.
Peter drafted his letter that night.
The next day they rode in to Anvard, to the beat of muffled drums, their carriages and horses draped in black.
They gave their Archenlander guests the place of honor as they rode into the great gates of Anvard, so that King Lune should see the faces of his mourning countrymen first upon coming out to welcome them.
It was a welcome surprise, from the look on King Lune's face. As he stood at the top of the staircase leading up to the castle's Great Hall, his face was stiff with stoicism.
When the Narnian flagbearer stepped aside to reveal Lord Aubrey and Lady Melanta, the lines of his face softened in gratitude.
The heralds announced the arrival of Their Majesties, High King Peter, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy of Narnia, and the Narnian flag was run up, but the ceremonial aspects of their arrival were kept mercifully short.
As soon as they could, the Pevensies excused themselves and went to find Susan.
She found them first, coming around a corner, calling, "Corin, where hast—" She broke off in a gasp, seeing them, and then all but ran down the hall to collide with her siblings in a tangle of heavy black skirts.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, oh, oh I am glad thou'rt here at last. Hast been so long." She wiped tears from her eyes—she still looked beautiful—and looked them all over.
"Peter," she said, "you need to cut your hair. Ed, stop slouching. Lu—"
She was interrupted by Peter's chuckle. "Well, you haven't changed, Su, have you? Come, let us go in and sit and talk a while."
Susan looked around. "I would, but I need to find that scamp, Prince Corin. You didn't see a little boy tearing past, did you?"
The other three, puzzled, shook their heads and glanced about the quiet, wide hallway. There weren't many places for a boy, no matter how small, to hide.
"It's just as well." Susan sighed. "If he'd crashed into one of you, wouldst have been cause for him to try to fight you."
"It... would?" Edmund asked, trying to figure that one out.
"Everything is cause for Prince Corin to fight," came a dry voice from behind them. They all turned. An older woman in a maid's gown and cap was there. She curtseyed.
"Do you go on, Your Majesties; I shall find Prince Corin and return him to the nursery. Aslan be praised if we get through laying his poor mother to rest without major incidents."
She muttered this last, so likely they were not supposed to have heard it. Lucy suppressed a smile, despite the circumstances.
"Thank you, Cara," Susan said gratefully, and led the way to the suite the Pevensies were staying in.
"That," she said over her shoulder, "was Cara, the chief nurserymaid, and probably the only person Corin reliably listens to. If she says she will track him down, she will."
"Corin doesn't listen to you?" Lucy asked curiously. "I thought everyone listens to you."
"Not, apparently, five year old boys," Susan said repressively. "At least, not consistently. Betimes he wishes to stay quite close, and others he wants nothing to do with me. Nonetheless I think I have been a help to him, and his poor parents."
"I'm sure you have," Edmund said warmly.
"Come, let us sit, and you may tell us all about your time here." Peter said, "and we can determine how best to support King Lune."
Despite the circumstances, each felt happier as they settled in, together once more.