first: A Door in the Wall
Second: On the Other Side of the Door
Third: The Call Comes Again
Fourth: New Travelling Companions
Fifth: Complications and then Complications
Sixth: Stranger Things
Seventh: A Change and Changes
Eighth: But Not A Return
Ninth: The Gods Not Tamed
Tenth: The Tiny Queen Arises,
Eleventh:The Gentle Queen Awakens
Twelth: The Terror of the Plains

The ride was an easy one, and they were not going at speed. Polla spent a few hours regaling them with tales of her exploits as the Terror of the Plains, tales which Susan suspected were lightly censored for ears she could not help but think of as young.

When they broke for the night, it was at a campsite, the first time they’d had a chance to “rough it” in this new world.

“Oh, let us get the tents,” Edmund chivvied. “We haven’t had a chance to in ages, and it’s always nice, like setting up a new house wherever you are.”

Half or more of the time, their ‘tents’ had been royal pavilions, set up by aides. Susan chose not to point that part out; she was fairly certain her brothers could set up a tent.

“Lu and I can gather firewood.” She looked around the forested area; their campsite had clearly been used thus before; it was set back from the road but in a clearing in the trees, there was a firepit made of stacked stones with a spit already set above it, and there was a wide smooth spot cleared of brush where the boys were already setting up tents. “Is there an axe or a hatchet?”

“…This, I was not expecting. Here, the hatchet ought to be small enough for even Lucy to handle comfortably. Don’t go too far from… ah.” Polla coughed as Susan swung her quiver onto her back. “Still, don’t go too far from camp.”

“We’ll stay within earshot of a shout,” Susan assured her. “What’s the biggest threat in these hills?”

“There are big cats — cougars and something a little smaller but a lot more nasty — and there are sometimes bandits. You’re better with the cats than the bandits, truth be told, because you can scare off a cat.”

“We’ll be careful,” Lucy promised solemnly. She hefted the hatchet thoughtfully. “These trees don’t talk, do they?”

“No, we’re not deep enough into the Pelgaris Forest for that. Still, it’s best to stick to deadwood, even here. None of that will give you any trouble.”

“Of course. Thank you.” Lucy bounded off, her eyes on Susan wide and happy. Susan could read in her sister’s expression what she wanted to crow to the sky: Did you hear? They have trees that talk!

She patted Lucy’s shoulder. “There will be time to explore, we can hope, when the mission is done.”

“I do hope so. This is different, it’s… in Narnia…” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Anywhere we went, even the trees knew us. ‘Sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.’ And then we were their historical kings and queens, or we were Caspian’s old friends. Here, we’re strangers. We’re kids again. It’s strange not to be known when we’re not at — not on — not at home?”

Lucy, Susan knew, would always think of Narnia as home. “I know, Lu. But we’re going to help these people and do great things here, as well. And then maybe you’ll get to wear lovely dresses again,” she teased. “And give out largess.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I’ll leave the pretty dresses to you. You’ve always been better at them.” She walked in silence for a moment. “And Peter’s always been better at the high diplomacy, and Edmund at the low.” She twisted around and aimed a mischievous smile at Susan. “I just like talking to people.”

“I seem to remember you’ve stopped two wars and started a third by ‘just talking’,” Susan retorted.

“Well, I’m very good at talking. It was… I think it was a little easier when I was little older. But at this size, I’m very good at listening.” She stretched out her arms and tested the hatchet, carefully, on a piece of deadwood. “We should have trained more.”

“We trained as much as we could. There was fencing class, and that archery we practiced. And all those long walks to keep our legs in the habit of walking.”

“But there wasn’t proper training.” Lucy swung her hatchet again. This time, the deadwood cracked and split. “It wouldn’t have done, I suppose. They’d have asked questions. They asked enough questions, about all of us. Peter and all his questions about the War.”

“Me and those awful girls at school,” Susan agreed quietly. “You and the time you split that horrid boy’s lip and made sure he blamed himself.”

Lucy glanced guiltily back at her big sister. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”

“There are things you’re all good at. I’m good at knowing what’s going on. Like the way that the people in the bar were gossiping — did you hear? They were talking about the Young Prince and all the trouble he gets into. And then in the village, they were talking about King Roald, and they were fussing about him. So the Young Prince…”

“That’s who we’re looking for?” Lucy murmured. “And they think…”

“He enjoys partying, he likes to cause trouble. If he’s missing, it could be a prank.”

“Do you really think Aslan would have brought us here for a prank?”

Susan didn’t say the first thing that came to her mind — they had not seen Aslan. They only had the word of a cat that Aslan had sent them. “No,” she answered instead. “I don’t think he’d send us here to resolve a prank.”

“Then we should treat it as if it is real. Besides,” Lucy added, and although her voice was quiet, Susan could hear the edges, as sharp as the hatchet she was swinging, “we should be mindful not to discount someone, just because they’ve been known to prank before.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1145146.html. You can comment here or there.

first: A Door in the Wall
Second: On the Other Side of the Door
Third: The Call Comes Again
Fourth: New Travelling Companions
Fifth: Complications and then Complications
Sixth: Stranger Things
Seventh: A Change and Changes
Eighth: But Not A Return
Ninth: The Gods Not Tamed
Tenth: The Tiny Queen Arises,
Eleventh:The Gentle Queen Awakens

They left the tavern on that solemn note. Polla, Susan could tell, was attempting to hide a limp. She moved until she was between the woman and the mass of the crowd, and smiled as she saw Peter flank Polla on the other side.

The woman, in turn, said nothing, but Susan noted that she let herself lean a little more heavily on her cane, and that she still sighed with relief when they had reached the inn’s stables. “You’re good kids.”

“You’re not the first war veteran we’ve encountered.” Edmund’s answer was casual, so casual that at first Susan thought he’d gone too far. “It’s hard to be out there with strangers seeing a weakness like that, right?”

Polla didn’t answer for a moment. She busied herself with the saddle on her dun mount, a small and flat saddle far less complicated than the ones the Pevensies had been using. There were not so many straps on it to take such time, and yet she was still working on her saddle when Susan had finished saddling her own mount.

“It is hard,” she agreed, so quietly that the jangle of tack nearly covered her voice. “And it’s frustrating. I am not weak, but that’s all they see. A limp, when I used to be the Terror of the Plains.”

“The Terror of the Plains?” Lucy asked, in her high child’s voice. Polla turned from her tack to look down at Lu.

“It was advertising, more or less. Telling everyone I was far bigger than I was. Telling them we were bigger than we were — my merc crew,” she continued, before they could ask. “We were tough and a little wild, but we were a small crew. So we talked ourselves up until we nearly believed it.” She swung herself up into the saddle. Seeing her there, her limp momentarily unimportant, Susan could believe her having been the Terror of the Plains.

Susan swung up into her own saddle. “I — we — know a bit about being seen as smaller and weaker than we are. It can make you want to throw rocks, can’t it?”

“Susan!” Peter was, of course, scandalized.

“Well, it can. It always has, Peter, whether it was you and Ed forgetting that Lu and I had brains of our own, or Mum and Dad thinking we were… we were just children.” She looked directly at Polla. “We’re smaller than we are, as Lucy once said. And so we know all about being looked at as lesser and… incapable.”

Polla caught it. She coughed. “Then the gods look favorably upon Valdemar after all, don’t they? You’re a sharp one — Susan, it was? You remind me of my old Captain.”

“Thank you.” Susan smiled broadly. “There are far worse compliments than to be reminiscent of a mercenary captain. Some of…” our best friends and finest warriors, my favorite lover, the ones that won that war for us… “We have known some fine mercenaries over the years.”

“I begin to think that your years are counted a little differently than your average gal-on-a-horse counts them.”

“We count every year twice,” Lucy put in, chipper and patently insincere. “That way there are twice as many birthday parties, and we can grow up twice as fast.”

Polla chuckled. “You’re quite adorable. But don’t think I don’t see how you sit your saddle, young miss.”

Lucy slouched deliberately and exaggeratedly. “Dunno whotcher talkin bout, lady?” She ruined it by grinning, which led to Polla barking out a laugh. Even Edmund chuckled, the quiet sound that he normally reserved only for family.

“You’re fun, too. Not sure I’ve ever met people that were clever and kind and fun.”

Lucy straightened up. “We’re still kids,” she answered innocently. “We’re supposed to be fun. And clever, well—” she shrugged. “We might be pretty smart. There’s a reason we were chosen, of course.”

“Of course. Valdemar does some pretty strange things though, young Lucy. And sometimes they are not the best chosen. You’ll forgive me for trusting my own judgement more than theirs, I hope.”

“Only as long as you forgive us for trusting ours.” Lucy’s smile was so bright, people often forgot to take offense even when she was being patently offensive. “We were brought here to do a job, but people seem very reluctant to let us do it. I think it’s making my brothers and sister a little touchy.” She stage-whispered the last as they walked their horses out onto the road.

“And not you?” Polla raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, no, I never get touchy. I’m the cheerful one. That’s what I’m called, Lucy the Sunny.”

“Valiant,” Edmund interjected, lazily but with a point hidden in all the silk. One again, Susan remembered how much she’d missed this side of her brother — and of her sister. “They called you the Valiant. And you earned it.”

Lucy blushed and ducked her head. “They did at that, sometimes,” she muttered.

Polla let the silence hang a few minutes, their horses’ hooves clopping on the cobbles as the only sound. “They,” she said, finally, the single word punctuated by a birdcall.

“They,” Edmund repeated, in the same smooth tone.

“You were brought here to help with our little problem.”

“We were sent,” Susan answered.

“Susan…” Peter began, but she shook her head.

“We were called for — and we were sent. The rest is a wee bit complicated, but we come from a long way away.”

“A long way away, hrrm? Well.” Polla smiled, a strange smile but not a bad one, “let’s hope it turns out to be worth the trip, then.”

Thirteen: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1145146.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1142393.html. You can comment here or there.

first: A Door in the Wall
Second: On the Other Side of the Door
Third: The Call Comes Again
Fourth: New Travelling Companions
Fifth: Complications and then Complications
Sixth: Stranger Things
Seventh: A Change and Changes
Eighth: But Not A Return
Ninth: The Gods Not Tamed
Tenth: The Tiny Queen Arises,

This way turned out to be into a tavern and to the darkest back corner. Peter and Edmund were waiting outside the building — the Mended Drum — for them, somehow already looking as if they belonged there. Peter had always been able to do that, step into a scene and belong there. Susan had watched Edmund learn it over their time in Narnia, and then again when they returned.

It seemed to relax Soleck. He smiled sidelong at them and held open the door, leading them far into the back.

In a shadowed corner, a figure sat with hood up, nursing a thick-walled mug of ale. She glanced up at them — Susan had only Soleck’s use of the pronoun to go on, as the cloak the figure was wearing concealed everything — and nodded. “Herald.”

“Polla. We have a deal?”

“These are them?” Her voice was deep for a woman, or high for a man, and husky. Susan caught the woman eyeing her, and did the same in return. “Well, on Valdemar’s head be it.”

The insult was clear. Susan braced herself, hoping neither her brothers nor Lucy would take obvious offense.

Instead, Edmund flopped into the chair nearest the woman and grinned. “That’s the idea, no?” He held out his hand. “Edmund.”

Susan could not see the woman’s expression, but her voice sounded pleasantly surprised. “Polla.” She took Edmund’s hand and shook it; her hand was broad and scarred, the nails trimmed short. “And the rest?”

“Oh, this is my brother Peter, Peter, say hi to the nice lady, and these are our sisters, Susan and Lucy.” Something about the way Edmund said it made Susan feel like he wanted to add on their titles, the names Aslan had called them by. It made her bow a little more regal than it would have otherwise been.

“Pleased to meet you,” she offered. “You are to be our guide, then?”

“That’s me. Bonded and paid by… them that’s hired you.”

Well, on Valdemar’s head be it. Susan did not say it, but she thought it might show in her face.

That was confirmed, or nearly so, when Polla threw back her head and laughed. “This one, I like. She has steel in her spine. Tell me, Soleck-Herald, what brought these four to you?”

Soleck cleared his throat. “The SunLord,” he muttered.

“The SunLord?” Polla’s voice shifted, dropping down into a conversational tone, and she leaned forward. “Interesting. The gods do not so often interfere directly, do they? Especially not V’kandis, and especially not here in Valdemar. Well.” She nodded to all four of them. “This will be an interesting trip. You can ride, I’ve been told. And you can fight?”

Edmund started to lean forward, as if to speak, and then leaned back, nodding at Peter.

Susan raised an eyebrow but did not interrupt. She wondered if they had been doing some negotiating of their own, while she and Lucy had been off shopping.

Peter cleared his throat. “Ed and I are fine in close-quarters fighting. We’re good with a sword or a mace. Lu and Susan are good with a short-sword, but you don’t want to get between Susan and her target; she’s a wicked shot with a bow, and Lucy’s pretty good too.”

“Girls good on distance, boys close up. Check.”

“Are we likely to see much combat on this mission?” Susan hoped she didn’t sound like a ninny; it was an important question, but sometimes she found her information requests were met with disdain.

Polla leaned back. A smile was visible from under the shadow of her hood. “Likely? Depends on you four. Is it possible? Combat is always a possibility. Once I got jumped while I was eating soup at a tavern three hours’ ride from the nearest battlefront.”

Soleck cleared his throat. “There’s no need to frighten them.”

“There is every need to frighten them, if the idea of battle makes them quake in their boots. But I don’t think they’re frightened. I think they’re measuring me up, am I right?”

Peter cleared his throat. “If you’re to be our guide… then we should know you. This is a strange land to us, and Herald Soleck and his Companion are the only ones we know apart from you.”

Polla laughed, a deep and happy sound that echoed in their small corner. “See? HE’s a diplomat, too. I see why you picked ‘em for this mission. All right. When can you be ready to leave?”

“Immediately, if necessary,” Peter answered for them. “We have little in the way of luggage and our mounts have been rested.”

“Don’t talk half fancy, does he? Well, maybe it’s for the better. Let me settle up my tab, and then we’re off, me kiddos.” Polla levered herself to her feet; it was then that Susan noticed the walking stick by her side.

Soleck put a hand on Polla’s. “I will pay. ‘Expenses’ was said, no? This is an expense.”

Polla laughed again, shorter and more clipped this time. “If you’d been my client…”

“But I am the client now, and we cannot go chasing after last year’s chickens. I will pay. You see these children on to the road.” He bowed low to Polla, and then to Susan and Peter, to Edmund and Lucy. “Bring him home,” he murmured very softly. “Sunlord’s-gift, we are all counting on you.”

Susan stood. Next to her, she could feel her family doing the same. She nodded her head to Soleck, the words and tone of Queen Susan coming back to her. “We will do all we can, Herald Soleck, to bring him home safely to you. On that, you have our word.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1136266.html. You can comment here or there.