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

The town they’d slept in this time was big enough to sport a proper inn, as well as a tailor and a dressmaker who’d been more than willing to put together another outfit each for the Pevensies. Soleck had paid for everything before handing over to Peter a full purse and giving him a quick explanation of the currency.

“I feel as if we’re travelling in state now,” Lucy murmured to Susan. “We have proper changes of clothing, we have coins for largesse…”

“Careful now, Lu.” She knew her sister didn’t truly need warning, but Susan couldn’t help but give the caution anyway. “We’re not royal, here.”

“We’re royal,” Lucy responded, her chin up and her jaw set. “‘Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.’” Her stubborn expression faded into one of longing. “We’re just a long way from home. Visiting incognito royalty.”

“On a secret mission,” Susan whispered. “Don’t forget that part. It’s quite important.”

Lucy giggled. “It’s very important,” she agreed. “Especially the secret part. Do you remember Tinderfoot, who could not understand ‘secret,’ no matter how many times we explained the concept? Or…”

“Herald Soleck.” SUsan talked over her sister with as much grace as such a thing could be managed. “Back from your shopping trip?” He’d taken off Edmund, in theory to buy him a more subtle weapon than Aslan’s gift.

“Yes, and may I say, your brothers knowledge of weapons is quite impressive. I did not expect… well, I did not expect that.” He cleared his throat. “Please, don’t let me interrupt you.”

“Oh,” Susan said brightly, with the cheerful spark that had led many in two worlds to label her frivolous or shallow, “we were just talking about home, old friends and the like. Nothing particularly exciting, I’m afraid.”

There was a look on Soleck’s face, but Susan did not think it was disbelief. More, she thought, something like disappointment.

Well, better he believe her somewhat shallow than he spend too much time worrying about her depth or her brother’s knowledge of weapons. He cleared his throat. “There is one who will guide you for a short time after you leave here. She would like to meet you now, if you would? If your reminiscences are not too dear?”

And that, Susan thought, sounded downright catty. She smiled brightly at him, cheerful and friendly. “Of course! A good guide is very important when one is as far from home as we are.”

She thought she might sound a little bit vapid, but Soleck did not seem to mind, or perhaps he simply had other things on his mind. A missing Prince, she mused, had to be putting quite a stress on those normally responsible for matters such as keeping that Prince safe and sound. She softened her smile a little bit, although he did not appear to notice

“Indeed. And I am afraid the territory we will be sending you into is not, perhaps, the safest of places. It is lucky that your brothers seem very familiar with weapons and tactics for those so young. And you?”

His eyebrows were up and he looked less than pleased. “I’m a fair hand with a bow,” Susan answered. “Lu can shoot pretty well, too, and you don’t want to get within reach of her short-sword.” She took a breath and met Soleck’s gaze. “The place we come from has been at war for many years,” she told him with complete honesty, letting the war show in her eyes. It might not have been where they learned to shoot a bow and arrow… but that was a complicated explanation. “We’re no stranger to battle, Herald Soleck, nor are we as green as you might think or wish.”

Lucy stomped her foot. “Your sun-lord and our… our god sent us. Why are you so worried?”

“Because, young miss,” Soleck answered, with quiet solemnity, “you, at least, look as if you should still be in the nursery, or running about Haven as a page. We do not train Heralds, even, as young as you are now. This mission will not be an easy one, and you are children.”

Susan set a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, but there was no stopping her. She had her chin out and a wild look in her eye.

“Do you doubt your Sun-Lord?” she demanded.

Susan wanted to protest, to scold, Lu, stop it, but she wasn’t going to interrupt. Her sister had the floor and she would honor that.

“He is not my Sun-Lord. But no, I doubt neither him nor his avatars the fire-cats.”

“I do not doubt the Lord we follow, either. And if he has said go into this place and find this man, that is what we will do.”

She sounded, high childish voice and all, much like Queen Lucy the Valiant. Susan smiled in lieu of an impolite cheer.

Soleck cleared his throat. He clearly was uncertain what to do with a child speaking like a queen. Susan wanted to tell him she sounded like that the first time she was a child, too, you know, but that would do nothing but muddy the waters and confuse the issue.

“You said there was someone for us to meet?” she guided him gently.

“Ah, yes. Yes, indeed. She is, ah, not what I am, not a Herald. But she is bonded as a mercenary and is known to be trustworthy.”

“I am sure she will guide us truly,” Susan agreed. She found she wanted to smooth things over with Soleck, and hoped this was the direction which would lead there.

“She and the SunLord,” he answered piously. “She is this way.”

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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

The next morning found mounts, Soleck, Leffen, breakfast, and packed saddle bags waiting for the four of them. Breakfast, as laid out by Marna and Orna, was heavy, filling, and delicious. The horses were horses only, as far as Susan could tell, solid working beasts that seemed placid, easy rides. Well, Soleck had no way of knowing they’d spent a lifetime in the saddle, and these may have been the rides available. Susan hoped she wasn’t taking a beast someone needed to pull a plow.

“One more day I will travel with you, and then one more morning. After that, the sight of a Herald and Companion is likely to spook His Highness or cause the wrong rumors to go to the wrong ears. There will be other guides, however.” Soleck half-bowed apologetically. “We would not send you off into strange wilderness alone.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Edmund quipped quietly. He cleared his throat when Soleck looked at him strangely. “We appreciate the guides. It’s a strange place, like you said. We’d likely get awfully turned around without some help.”

That, Susan thought, might be laying it on a bit heavily, but Soleck accepted it.

“There will be maps, of course. And there is a compass for guiding you. But maps and compasses can sometimes be tricky when you do not know if the road you are on is Center Street or The Grand Aisle, no?” He grinned, amused, and it was such an infectious expression that Susan found herself smiling back at him.

“Oh, certainly,” Ed agreed cheerfully. “It does no good to say you’ve got seventeen leagues between Caer… between one place and the next if you’ve got no idea where you are in relation to either place, or even how to recognize either place when you get there.”

“Indeed. And so we will do what we can to guide you, and make certain you know where you are on those maps when your guides leave you. There are better solutions, I am sure…” He hesitated as Leffen tossed his head, but whatever the Companion was saying, he was not sharing it with the rest of them. “…other solutions, certainly, but this is the solution we have.”

None of them questioned that, for what could they say? They rode in silence instead, and for Susan’s part, at least, she studied the countryside, its farmlands and its rolling hills so like places she had been before, and so different.

“Look,” Lu would say, from time to time, “a kestrel,” or “Look, a squirrel,” and she was as excited about both, so Susan knew her sister’s thoughts were along similar paths as her own.

The boys were quieter, but once in a while, Ed would point out a road sign or some curiosity, or Peter would point out the slope of a roof or a way the rocks were put together in a wall. Nobody said remember when we saw this in Narnia?; the habit was too ingrained in all of them. But it was writ large, even in the way they wore their tunics and breeches and split skirts, even in the way they sat on their placid, easy mounts.

Susan noticed, too, the way Soleck was looking at them. She’d catch him looking at Edmund and Peter discussing the strategic importance of a specific wall, or Lucy humming thoughtfully about the the flow of a particular creek. She’d catch him looking at her studying the people walking down the road or riding in carts or carriages.

“You four are… interesting,” he said, slowly and ruefully, when he realized he’d been caught out watching. “I begin to understand what it is the Sunlord would see, to bring you here. You are right, you Edmund, that people will see what they do of your stature, and they will not see what they should of your nature.”

He sounded, Susan thought, a little bit sad. She kneed her horse a little closer to Leffen and looked up at him through a fringe of hair. It was a tactic Lucy had decried on more than one occasion — but on more occasions than that, it had gotten Susan quite far. “Is something amiss, Soleck?”

“Amiss?” His smile was even more triste than he had sounded previously. “This world, I believe, is amiss, that we would send children such as your brother and sister into such difficult situations. I see that the SunLord had his reasons, but the reasons of those above are not for ones like me to question.”

“He’s not a tame SunLord,” Lucy muttered.

“No,” Soleck answered, sounding more than a little bit confused, “tame he is most definitely not.”

“It’s a, a thing we said about our… our god, the one who sent us here,” Susan managed to explain, but that did little, if anything, to wipe the lost and unhappy look from Soleck’s face.

She supposed there were not that many people who could say, as she and Lu could, that they had ridden on the back of the Lion of Narnia, that they had cuddled the mane of their god.

She cleared her throat and, rather than attempting to explain what she imagined might be impossible to make clear, she changed the subject. “You mentioned maps, but what of the lay of the land. That is… we are in Valdemar. You said you were a Karsite. That is a part of Valdemar or another nation?”

“Oh, another nation, most definitely.” He looked startled at the question. Interesting. “To the south and the east of Valdemar, not all that far from here, as such things go.”

“And Is Valdemar on a coast? What other nations border it?”

“Truly these are things you do not know? But you must have come from somewhere…” Soleck shook his head as Leffen danced in place, not “speaking” such that they Pevensies could hear, but being quite clear on his opinions nevertheless. Soleck coughed. “Ahem. So. Rethwellen borders Valdemar peacefully, and…”

By the time he was done, Susan found herself wishing for maps and a pad in which to write this. How had she ever learned all this, back in Narnia? More importantly, by the time she was done, the angry and confused look had vanished from Soleck’s face.

“Thank you for the briefing.” She bowed formally from horse-back, only to see Soleck flushing again. “It does make our job easier.”

“And you, in turn, make mine easier. Thank you.” He sounded confused rather than grateful. Susan wondered what was bothering him.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1122353.html. You can comment here or there.

(It’s friday somewhere? *innocent*
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

“It seems like they’re used to Heralds coming through,” Peter whispered into the dark. Marna’s friend Orna had put them all up in a broad sleeping loft where, she told them, her sons had slept before they’d left the house.

“And as they’ve not come back with wives and children yet, well, the space is open and someone might as well sleep there,” she’d continued, fussing over all of their protestations. “And there’s food for the eating, and the clothes fit you two well enough, and…” And on she’d gone, but she hadn’t turned down Susan and Lucy’s offers of help in the kitchen, nor Peter and Edmund’s offer to split wood for the coming winter.

“Even our age, or younger. Soleck had to explain a couple times that we hadn’t been Chosen, whatever that means. Seems like these Heralds do a lot more than just pass messages,” Edmund offered.

“If the Horses – Companions – are that rare here, it would make sense. You might team a messenger up with a talking Horse if you had them, or for a very urgent message…” Lucy had skill in keeping her voice very quiet, and yet sounding excited and ready to jump from her bed, as she did now.

“I heard them ask Soleck for a judgement on a small matter,” Peter murmured. “And he sounded as if he was used to such things. It seems reasonable that he might be empowered to send us on such a mission as this.”

“The question is,” Susan put in, “the mission itself. Not only ‘can we do it’, but should we? I mean… we can assume that Aslan sent us here, and if we assume that, then yes, we should do the mission. But…”

“But a cat is not a lion,” Peter agreed quietly, “and there are times when others pretend to speak with Aslan’s voice. I say… I say we go along for the time being, and do our best not to stumble too badly.”

“At least until we can find out what a stumble might mean, here.” Edmund sounded thoughtful. “I mean, will we end being turned to stone, or, well…”

“Causing a major diplomatic incident by wearing the wrong veil,” Susan filled in. She had made her own mistakes, back in Narnia, back on Earth. “Or simply irritate an ambassador by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“We should tread carefully and make friends,” Lucy agreed brightly. “It’s a nice world, so far. The people are nice. The houses are nice.”

“I do miss Mr. and Mrs. Beaver,” Susan admitted softly. “But this is a nice house. And everyone’s been so kind so far.”

“Perhaps there’s a war.” Peter sounded distant. “Lucy and Ed are right. We’ll have to tread very carefully indeed here. We’ll have to remember that this isn’t home – and that this isn’t home, either.”

“But we can find their… but we can do this mission, yes?” Lucy was nearly leaning out of her bunk. “It sounds like quite the adventure!”

“We can take the mission, yes.” Peter sounded like himself again. Trust Lucy to remind him he had a heart. “Something brought us here, after all. We should find out what, at the very least. And the best way to do that is to play along.”

Susan curled in her bunk, trying to ignore the cold feeling in her chest. She had often been the pragmatic one in their little team. Why, now, was she fighting it?

She wrapped her arms around her knees and made herself sound bright as she backed Peter up. “I’m sure we can learn much more about them than they’d expect. As Ed said, we look younger than we are.”

“We are younger than we are,” Lucy laughed. “I wonder how long we’ll be here, this time…?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out. Just don’t leave any pots on the boil anywhere,” Edmund joked.

“But for now,” Peter put in firmly, “we should sleep. We’ll have a long day ahead of us in the morning.”

Susan closed her eyes. An old verse of Narnian poetry came to her mind, and she recited the words silently until she could make herself sleep.

My love, I but stepped out a bit; my love, I but to the fence did flit.
My love, ‘twas just a moment gone. I swear I would return anon.

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