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"Telmarines? In Narnia?"
††††
"We fought the Telmarines before, you know."
Caspian blinked at the girl (though she seemed more woman than girl, he guessed her to be close to his age) sitting beside him.
"When do you mean? Before when?"
Queen Susan pursed her lips, glanced at him sideways, before staring back into the flames. Their light danced over her face, warm orange flickers reflected in her eyes.
"It was... in the sixth year of our reign. In the fall of the year, when they appeared in the Western Woods, coming over the far Western mountains, the trees said."
Caspian couldn't suppress a little flinch at the mention of the trees.
Queen Susan must have noticed, because she smiled a little. "Why do you think your people fear the woods so much? It was the dryads and hamadryads that went to war for us then. Who saved Ed–"
She stopped too suddenly to be natural, and Caspian leaned forward, curiosity piqued. "I do not know this part of my history," he said quietly, felt a little niggle of shame. He was very aware of her use of 'your people'.
"But you fear the woods," and her smile was sad.
"We burned them." The words came before Caspian could think them over. "We burned the woods to beat them back. There is a nursery rhyme my aunt taught me, about the smoke, and the fire of the Telmarines."
He stopped, horror struck, shame wrapping round his throat, and the queen's glance burned him, even as tears filled her eyes.
"Leave me. Please." Gentle, even in grief.
Caspian opened his mouth, gripped by remorse, but when she turned her face still further away, he thought better of it. For what apology could he offer to remedy the sins of his millennia-dead ancestors?
He rose, bowed, turned away, miserable with the weight of it all.
Across the large, low underground room, he caught the eye of a dark-haired young man who had just entered, a piercing glance, before King Edmund was looking past him, waving a hand at someone else.
It was the trees that saved Ed, Queen Susan had said, and Caspian shivered suddenly, even in that close air.
Saved him from what? Or more correctly whom?
††††
"Caspian?"
He was sitting on the wall above the pavement that led down into the How, staring moodily at the bowl of nut soup he'd brought with him, when the voice made him jump.
"Queen Lucy," he greeted, making a vague effort to rise, before she waved him back.
"You can just call me Lucy, you know." The little girl came up the pavement past his feet, reaching a point in the wall where she could put her hands on top of it, and vaulted up. "We're both royalty, after all," she added, settling next to him.
"Am I?"
"By right of conquest, yes." She shrugged, a quiet, dispirited thing, but then brightened as she pulled a handful of... something from her dress pocket, and began munching.
Caspian didn't know whether to act offended or penitent. He could never really decide around the kings and queens.
She was watching him, and sighed through a full mouth. "It's not your fault, it's just the way it is." She swallowed, glancing up at the small clouds drifting in the early morning sky. "If the Telmarines won, they won, and Aslan... He must have allowed it for a reason."
The ache in her voice cut him to the core, and he had a desire to put his arm around her shoulders, to comfort her, but he didn't quite dare.
"We would never have conquered against you," he murmured.
A sharp little laugh, quickly stifled. "You didn't."
Ah, there it was. The thing Queen Susan had spoken of the day previous. "I have not been told of this by my teachers, even my professor. What happened then?"
Lucy gave him a long look, one he could not hold, but there was a smile in her voice when she said, "Eat your soup. I know it's not roast partridge, but it is old Drybones’s recipe, so trust me, it's very good for you. Thirteen-hundred years and the hares have kept her soup alive."
He obeyed.
For a time they sat in silence, the girl staring out over the grassy field.
"There's a reason Peter finds it hard to trust you," she said at last. "The Telmarines broke faith in a terrible way. They murdered a peaceful delegation, and tortured Edmund before the trees were able to rescue him. Oreius's eldest son was in that delegation, on his first official venture as a knight. Edmund had to tell Oreius how Coalmark was slaughtered. He was only nine winters old.
"Renard was killed in that delegation too; he was one of the first Talking Animals we ever met in Narnia, he helped save us from the White Witch's police. He was Peter's representative that day."
She gave a distinct sniff. "That poor fox," she whispered. "They didn't even give any of them a proper burial."
Caspian might as well have been eating dirt for all he tasted of the soup. "And what of King Edmund?" he asked at last.
"They let him live because he was human. But they held him captive, and tortured him." Her face twisted. "He told them nothing, of course. Though he warned them."
"Of..."
"Of the High King’s wrath."
Her gentle whisper sent a shiver down Caspian's spine, even in the full sunlight.
"Nothing makes Peter so upset or angry as his family being in danger."
Caspian thought he would burst with impatience. "So what happened?"
"It was the trees that saved Edmund, they heard him screaming. The Telmarines had made camp, built a wooden fort at the foot of the mountain. There were less dryads in that area. But they had waited for the kings, waited for orders. When Ed vanished, when they heard him crying out days later... they went to war. It takes a powerful magic to make the trees walk, and their love for him was powerful indeed. The Western Woods are his territory after all.
"It was the ravens that brought us word that things had gone awry, but they had no details. Only that Edmund had been captured, and the trees were moving in.
"'Telmarines. Telmarines have taken the king,' they said."
She let out a long breath, slumping toward Caspian, as if the telling of this tale exhausted her. "Peter was calling for his armour before Hollowfell had finished three sentences. I dressed him, that day, as he had dressed Edmund two weeks before. And I bade him take my cordial, forced him to, actually."
She ran her fingers over the crystal bottle strapped at her hip.
"And then he and Erah were gone, riding fast with only a few others. Oreius was left to gather the army. He didn't yet know about Coalmark; he still hoped it would be a rescue for his son too."
Again she sagged a little, and Caspian could bear it no longer, shuffling over enough for her to lean into his shoulder at least.
She stayed there, staring down at her lap, now turning the bottle of healing cordial over and over in her hands.
"Truthfully, the giants came a lot closer to killing Edmund, but he... he was terribly wounded, before the trees broke in and saved him. They tore down the Telmarine camp, killed all but three of the Telmarines. A few little animals were doing their best to tend to all his injuries when Peter found him."
"The cordial." Caspian gestured. "Did he use it?"
"He would have, if only to spare Edmund the pain, though he wasn't dying, but Edmund refused."
"And so you went to war against Telmar." Caspian was beginning to understand a few things.
"Later, yes. The trees chased the three men back up the mountain, let them go. It was about a month before the Telmarines massed an army and attacked. It was the last time Susan ever rode out to battle."
Caspian didn't need to have it detailed for him, though he almost wished someone would. High King Peter had led an army to crush the invasion. And Telmar had taken a few hundred years to rebuild and return.
"And King Edmund. He recovered?" Silly question, considering the second king had just been sitting down to breakfast with his brother, looking perfectly healthy, but hadn't he been an adult then? And then changed somehow when they went back to That Other Place.
"In time, yes." Lucy closed her eyes, still leaning into Caspian's shoulder, exhaled slow.
There was an air of finality in that sigh, and Caspian discovered he had no more questions anyway.
He was finishing his stone cold soup when the girl sat up suddenly, lifted her face to the sky. "The spies are back!" She raised one hand, and Caspian saw a small flock of birds wheel sharply and descend toward them.
Caspian swallowed hard. One more night then, before the Narnians struck back. With the High King Peter at their head once more. He was beginning to think Miraz should be afraid after all.
††††
"And what of your dealings with the Telmarines?" Dr. Cornelius inquired, and Caspian stiffened, another piece of bread and cheese halfway to his mouth. "They were first seen in your day, were they not? Telmarine history is very fuzzy on that, as there isn't much recorded from before the first king established himself."
King Edmund had brought them food, joining the prince and his tutor sitting out on a ledge of the How. Already he had told many stories to the eager Cornelius. Caspian, still shaken by the losses of the night, and his brush with ancient evil, was content to listen.
"Mmm, yes." King Edmund's voice was suddenly quieter. "They were few in number and far... wilder. United only in their fear of anything too strange."
"A fear that has not changed," Cornelius remarked. "But what did happen, your majesty? When you first met the Telmarines?"
"You don't have to tell about it if you would rather not," Caspian interrupted. He didn't dare try to meet the king's gaze though, keeping his eyes on the food in his hands.
"Why wouldn't I?" Edmund asked, after a deafening silence. "What have you heard?"
"It was Lucy who told most of the story. She said you went to treat with them, when they appeared in your woods. But they betrayed you, and even..." Caspian's courage failed him under the solemn, dark-eyed gaze.
"Tortured me." King Edmund looked away, out over the land. "I would have taken a hundred times worse punishment if they would have let the others live." Quiet, straightforward, only a hint of emotion. "They were not an organized people," he went on. "The trees left three men alive to go back, go back and tell. It took them two months to raise an army. Peter would have gone after them, gone up into the western mountains and hunted them down, but he wouldn't leave me."
King Edmund's voice softened still more, and Caspian almost had to strain to hear him.
"When he found me, after the trees rescued me, he would have used our sister's cordial, but of course I wouldn't let him. As much agony as I was in, I wasn't in immediate danger of dying. They'd bled me a few times, hadn't let me eat or drink, so I was awfully dizzy, and Peter walked beside the litter the whole way home.
"He wept for every one of them. Renard, the fox; as old a friend as the Beavers. Mane, I did not deserve his loyalty. Blackbeard, Carrifsong, Coalmark–" Edmund stopped abruptly, twitched his head as if to shake off something.
Caspian's bread was as appetizing as bark, but still he forced himself to chew and swallow.
"The first night we camped," the king finally said, "Peter sat up to watch over me. The healers had already splinted the broken bones, to be set when we returned, but they could only carry me so fast. Drybones gave me something, knocked me out like a light. I woke and he was still there, sitting with Rhindon in his hand, listening to the whisper of the trees, putting words to the lament they sang. When they set the bones, I think it hurt him more than me. But he's a brilliant nurse—I think he's going to be a surgeon like Dad someday.
"It's hard for him to forgive anyone who hurts us, his family, never mind forget. He counted every lash on my back, and was sorry the trees had already taken care of all the people in that camp. But he still met them in the foothills, on the edge of the woods, and still went to treat with them. He still gave the second lot of Telmarines a chance."
King Edmund exhaled heavily. "And he very nearly paid for it with his own life."
"They attacked his party of treaty as well?" Dr. Cornelius asked.
"Yes. But Peter's guard was up, and the attacker died with Erah's horn through his back." A shrug, and Edmund's tone lightened as he popped a nut into his mouth, cracked it between his teeth. "So there was a battle, and the Telmarines were soundly defeated. It's all in Her Times and Peoples, which will be in the treasure chamber somewhere. At least the original manuscripts."
"Oh my, truly?"
Caspian had to smile at the incredulous delight in his professor's voice.
"Oh I do hope I can read them someday."
"I'm sure you will." There was a smile in King Edmund's voice as he answered. "Caspian," —and Caspian started— "I do hope you'll rebuild the Cair. When you're king."
King?
A sharp bark of laughter escaped him, but he suddenly didn't care how King Edmund was frowning. "How can you sound so confident?!" he burst out. "What makes you think we can possibly defeat Miraz? Your brother is right you know." Jutting jaw, even as tears stung his eyes. "I did destroy our hope of winning at the castle. I am not a leader, or a warrior. And after everything you just told me..." A desperate gulp at the stone lodged in his throat. "Why would you ever want a Telmarine sitting in your throne?!"
Caspian discovered he was on his feet, standing over King Edmund, breathing quick with the effort of holding back tears. Dark eyes stared calmly up at him, unflinching as Edmund leaned back against the rock.
"Where were you born?"
The question jolted Caspian, and he let out a long breath, dropped his shoulders. "At- at the castle. Like my father, and his father before him, back generations."
"So you were born above Beaver's Dam, or what used to be, I suppose. Well," and a ghost of a grin crossed the young king's face, "that makes you more Narnian than I am. I certainly wasn't born here."
Edmund rose quick and graceful, and he seemed taller than Caspian somehow, chin with a regal tilt.
"Aslan is in this, in your calling and our coming. Trust me, Caspian, you will be king. You have fears, just as your ancestors did. But you haven't let those fears turn to hatred. No matter your heritage, you are Narnian now." He leaned forward, clapped Caspian gently on the shoulder, smirked. "Trust me I know what the bad ones look like. And you are not one of them."
"Neither was my father," Caspian blurted, turned away sharply.
A pause, before Edmund spoke. "I believe you."
"He was a good man," Dr. Cornelius said very quietly. "Very kind to me. He loved your mother and you very much. I know he wished to make a better, kinder land for you, my prince."
Caspian choked, covered his face with his hands.
"I will leave you now," came King Edmund's murmur, the sound of his boots on stone fading down the passageway.
Something snapped in Caspian, a cord cut, and he sank down on the rocks, trembling. And as he had on that day years ago, when his father had not woken, no matter how his young son shook him and called for his papa, Caspian wept, and the good Dr. Cornelius came to comfort him.
††††
They were sitting in the grass by the spring, half-dozing in the hazy sunshine as their clothes dried, when King Peter said suddenly, "You don't think Miraz will kill him, do you?"
Caspian, leaning back on his elbows, froze, all sleepiness vanishing in an instant.
"Or the others," Peter added.
The older boy's voice was quieter, smaller than Caspian had yet heard it, and even as he watched, Peter pulled his knees up to his chest, curling around them, his bare back and shoulders suddenly, painfully vulnerable.
"No," Caspian said slowly, carefully, as he sat up. "I think Edmund will be alright. My uncle has some honour. Twisted at times, yes. But still, he is a king now. He must behave as one."
Peter exhaled, uncurled slightly to toss a pebble into the pool. "Suppose I should be grateful for that," he muttered, half to himself.
Cautiously, Caspian crossed his legs, sat forward, fidgeting with a small tear in the dry pair of breeches he'd donned after their swim. They had both been drenched in sweat after their sparring session, and Caspian was glad for the spare clothes the doctor had brought from the castle. But this kind of talk from the High King made him nervous. Because this wasn't the High King talking, this was the boy only a year older than him, worrying for his brother's life.
Peter saved Caspian from trying to say anything.
"They came to our Narnia first, came down from the western mountains into the woods. The Telmarines. Ed went to treat with them, of course. As Duke of the Lantern Waste and Lord of the Western Woods, it was his right. He took only a small party, eight of his own knights and one of mine.
"They were hungry, the ravens said. A hunting party, Hollowfell told him, few women, no children, thin and wild. Scouts, he thought. Maybe fifty all told. Ed wouldn't need much support.
"Hungry." Peter shook his head, something bitter in his voice that knotted Caspian's stomach.
"They welcomed Ed and the others into their camp, shared the rations Ed's party had brought. And in the night, killed all but him. Because he was human."
"So I have heard," Caspian murmured.
A huff from Peter. "But they didn't just kill them. Kingsfoot and Renard and the rest. They– they butchered them. For food. All of them." He shook his head. "Even Coalmark the centaur. Oreius's son. When they held Edmund prisoner, they told him he would be allowed no other food but the meat of his friends."
Caspian doubled over, gagging, but mercifully nothing came up, and he wiped away tears with a shaking hand. He could barely comprehend the horror of such a thing, images of Glenstorm and his sons twisting through his mind.
Yet Peter kept talking. And the tears kept coming.
"They tortured Edmund for information, but got nothing. They broke both his legs, his right hand. Beat him. The cuts on his back–
"But he didn't break until the third day, didn't cry out once until he knew it was the only way he might be rescued. The trees, they heard him, saved him, sent us word. Spared only three Telmarines to go back and tell, tell what Narnia does if you wound her sovereigns.
"Ed knew me, when I found him, he knew me, but, oh, Lion's mane–" Peter's voice broke, and he covered his face with one hand.
Caspian caught his breath, but he had no words, nothing but the useless, impotent apology gathered at the back of his throat. So they sat in aching silence, a breeze ruffling the grass, stirring their hair.
"I forget, back in our world," Peter finally said, voice muffled, "and thank Aslan I do, I have enough to bear there. But here we are, surrounded by Telmarines, and I can remember it all."
A few deep breaths, before he lifted his head, went on. "He wouldn't take the blasted cordial Lucy had sent with me, he swore he wasn't dying. But mane, it took a week for the pain to subside. I looked after him for over a month before the Telmarines came back, this time with an army. He made me swear not to let my guard down, even as he made me swear to give them a chance, made me swear to parley.
"But it was no use." And now the bitter note crept back into Peter's voice. "Those Telmarine lords leading their armies tried to kill me at the treaty table too. But they remember Erah, I'm sure. And the red-fletched arrows of my sister. It was the last time she went to war, and she did not miss one shot." He was proud now, chin tilted up, sunlight washing his lightly tanned shoulders in gold, blue eyes daring Caspian to protest. "We routed the Telmarines, and beat them back all the way to the mountain passes, where the giants and the dwarves triggered rock slides to close off the passes."
"No wonder it took us hundreds of years to return," Caspian murmured.
"So what was the point?" Sharp, and frustrated, Peter's hands balled into fists. "We were ready to welcome them, you know. We would have helped them, given them any food they could need, let them settle in Narnia, traded with Telmar, fed them, sheltered them. We would not turn away starving people, any more than I would turn away starving wolves.
"But they wouldn't." And now there was only sadness in the slope of his shoulders, weariness in the hands that fell open in his lap. "They chose war. And here we are."
In the silence, Caspian sat, shredding grass and awkwardly glancing up at Peter once or twice. He still didn't know how to respond to any of this. An apology wasn't right, would only insult Peter, he was sure now.
"It brought you back," he finally offered. "Back from that other world."
Peter glanced over, nodded slowly. "Yes. It did. You did." He snorted. "It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, you know. Being called back just to install our replacement. And now our heir is to be a Telmarine." A shake of his head, but he smiled faintly over at Caspian. "But I suppose you'll do."
He pushed himself to his feet, shedding the boy like a cloak off his shoulders, so Caspian was once more looking up at the warrior king, Peter of Narnia. Even shirtless and barefoot, hair dried messy, he looked noble and brave, like a king should be, like the Peter who had met Caspian's ancestors on the field of battle a thousand years ago.
"I accept."
The words came flying out of his mouth before he could really think about them, about what he meant. Peter blinked down at him, eyebrows drawn together.
"The treaty." Caspian scrambled to his feet, stood facing Peter as he fumbled for words. "I accept. Your offer of food and shelter. To live under your rule and protection, to be your people too. My ancestors would not, but I would. I will. If–" He faltered under the High King's gleaming gaze. "If it is not too late."
Peter stood quite still, eyes burning through Caspian, but Caspian didn't turn away, only kept his chin lowered, waiting. He refused to fidget.
"Thirteen-hundred years," Peter said slowly. "Thirteen-hundred and fourteen years. And I'm younger now than I was then."
A spasm of emotion crossed his face, and he turned suddenly away, looking up above the trees and the great heap of the How that rose beside them, looking to the hazy clouds that had drifted across the sun.
"Oh, Aslan!"
A choked whisper, that pierced Caspian's heart, but he could not name the feeling those two words rang with.
Then Peter exhaled, dropped his shoulders, closed his eyes, a kind of surrender, with his face still turned up to the sky, to the shaft of clean light that slipped through to wrap him in its royal gold.
"Too late?" he asked, and when he faced Caspian again, there were tears in his eyes, but he was smiling, small and a little sad, yet genuine, honest. "No, Caspian. Not too late for this."
And he held out his hand.
Caspian took it, but King Peter's grip slid past his wrist, stepping closer to clasp Caspian's forearm firmly, the greeting of men, of warriors and of equals. His other hand was warm on Caspian's shoulder, a kind of affirmation.
"Welcome to Narnia, Telmarine."
And then Peter was laughing, shaking Caspian gently, before he dropped Caspian's hand, and embraced him, not quite as fiercely as Queen Lucy had, but with the same sudden warmth.
Startled, and unused to such demonstrations, Caspian couldn't help pulling away slightly, but Peter didn't seem to notice, as he stood back, still laughing softly.
"To think that I should live to see the day," he murmured, shook his head.
His suddenly lightened spirits were infectious, and Caspian found himself smiling back.
"Thank you, your majesty. I think."
Peter grinned, as he went to collect the rest of his clothes out of a nearby tree. "Let's just hope Ed had as much luck with his delegation."
Caspian watched him for a moment, the confidence in his movement. "And you believe you can defeat him? Miraz?"
Peter pulled on his shirt before he answered.
"I imagine he's a bit tougher than you." But his blue eyes were clear and serious as he looked over at Caspian. "But I will do all I can. We all will. And Aslan will take care of the rest."
And Caspian... Caspian believed him.
††††
"You have a chance to become the noblest contradiction in history: the Telmarine who saved Narnia."