The Kings and Queens of Narnia, continued.

Susan. 'Boys and Lipsticks.'

Edmund. 'Delight.'


Peter. "Through the Doors."




King Peter the Magnificent.

After the coronation, Edmund takes the crown off, laughs.

“Peter the Magnificent. Did you make that up yourself?”

Peter says, “Is that how you came to be Edmund the Just?”

Susan changes the subject, but Edmund doesn’t talk to him that whole first night of their reign.


*


When Lucy tells him Aslan is gone, he wishes he had been kinder to Edmund.

A king needs allies.


*


He learns how to address each species; Susan points out that the Beavers need to feel useful, that leopards like nothing so much as praise.

He learns how to deal with transgressors; Lucy reminds him that evil spreads, but counters that Edmund was a traitor not long ago.

He learns how to deal with himself; Edmund is a living warning.


*


One day a centaur calls, “King Peter,” and he turns as if that’s always been his name.


*


Susan finds him on the balcony; he is watching the night tide go out. It reminds him of some other place, some place from long ago that he can’t recall.

Susan leans against the stone banister, watches him walk back and forth for a long time.

At last she says, “I read a poem once. ’Oh, I am aweary, aweary, and would that I were dead.’”

She always did know the most.


*


That first winter seems endless, and even the most loyal courtiers start to murmur about the frost that isn’t breaking.

“What if She is not dead?” asks Mr. Beaver. “Perhaps, like Aslan –“

“She is dead,” says Edmund, and the Beaver falls silent.

Peter says nothing. Edmund’s word on this is more than enough.


*


They sleep under blankets and furs, and when it gets too cold even for that they share beds.

Peter thinks they must have done this when they were little, all of them fit in one bed so well.


*


Mr. Tumus and Lucy are great friends, she is young and lively still, and Peter hesitates to make her yet into a queen.

Susan is enough, he thinks, watches her rest her hand on the gnarled head of a reindeer. She says something, so low the Court cannot hear, and when the beast stands it is weeping.

When she turns to walk back to the throne, her train drags behind her.

He looks at her. “What did you say to him?”

She makes no answer.

Susan the Gentle, Queen of Counsel.


*


He longs for a war.


*


He keeps to his own rooms when the spring comes, and no one questions him.

He is High King, and may do as he likes.


*


For another year the last throne has sat empty, and at last Peter says, “Lucy must be Queen. The country needs her.”

“The country has her,” Susan says. “But she is young.”

“We are all young,” says Peter.

Edmund is fastening his riding coat. “She is willing to be queen,” he says. “Ask her, and you will see if she is ready. She will take her seat with joy.”

Peter looks over and wonders when Edmund grew up.


*


Susan is sitting in his windowsill, silhouetted against the moon.

“Peter,” she says.

He closes the door. “Come away from the window. It’s cold.”

She looks out as if she had forgotten it was another winter.

When she walks closer, he hears her train dragging on the floor behind her.

“Peter. You look awful.”

He tries to smile. “Oh, I am aweary, aweary, and would that I were dead.”

When she rests her hand on his cheek her fingers are bitterly cold, and for a moment he thinks of the Witch.

It’s all right, though, for her arms are soft, and her lips warmer than spring.


*


He is up all night with his counselors, speaking of the defense of the Eastern sea, and by the time they are finished Peter must hear petitions with his brother and sisters.

He falls into step beside them, and Lucy squeezes his hand in welcome.

As they ascend the dias, Edmund says, “When I woke this morning, I did not realize winter had come early, that we were already sharing beds.”

“Behold the High King Peter,” calls the Fox.

This is how Peter finds out that Susan has moved to his bed.


*


Lucy makes them all come to tea even though Susan says they will not fit, and Tumnus stands in his doorway and laughs to see them coming down his road.

“Your Majesties,” he says, bowing, still laughing, “best take off your crowns; they will not fit the doorway.”

Peter flushes as he pulls his off; he had forgotten it was there. The years have made him used to it.

Tumnus plays them a song on his pipes, and they eat cakes and sing and Lucy laughs with all her little white teeth, and if there is less room for them now they are older no one says it.


*


On the way home Lucy pauses, pulls up her mount and stares into the wood.

They all slow their horses, and Peter stops beside Lucy. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and laughing. “I am a goose.”

After they have all ridden on, Peter turns back, sees Susan still watching the trees.


*


When they go out riding, he hopes for wolves.


*

He looks out his window over the sea.

“I do not remember anything but this,” he says.

Susan rests her head against his shoulder. “You were a boy and I was a girl, and you killed a wolf, and you fought a battle and freed Narnia.”

“Is that all you remember?”

He turns to look at her, her face like a moon in the dark.

After too long she says, “Of course.”


*


They do not sleep well, and Peter misses the winter when they all slept in the largest bed, still children.


*


“You must take a wife,” says Edmund, “the other countries expect it.”

He sighs, takes off his court robe. “Yes, but I do not want one.”

“Well, of course not,” says Lucy, doesn’t look over at Susan.

This is how Peter finds out that Lucy does not approve.


*


On the other side of the wardrobe, life starts up again, and they all forget.

Sometimes Lucy looks into the wardrobe, when she thinks no one has followed her.

Peter hopes that if she has not forgotten, at least she will pretend.


*


For a long time, he waits when he enters a room, to give the heralds time to speak.


*


They grow old.


*


“That?” says Susan, laughing. “It was a game we played when we were little.”

“Susan,” Peter says, and when he puts his hand on her arm she jumps.


*


In the moment before the train crashes, Peter thinks, I am aweary, aweary.









* Title and excerpt from "Mariana," by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices call'd her from without.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,'
I would that I were dead!'