How Queen Susan Settled the Marsh-Wiggle Revolt - for ilysia_039
Title: How Queen Susan Settled the Marsh-Wiggle Revolt
Author: cofax7
Recipient: ilysia_039
Rating: All ages
Warnings: none, except for mild Marsh-Wiggle abuse
Summary: If the Marsh-Wiggles had not kidnapped Edmund while he was taking an entirely peaceful tour of the northern borders, and then sent a nonsensical demand to Cair Paravel, Susan would not now be wishing for Peter to be slogging through the midnight mud instead. 4,100 words of the Golden Age.
How Queen Susan Settled the Marsh-Wiggle Revolt
Wet, cold mud squeezed up between her toes and thorny branches scratched at her arms as Susan Pevensie crept through the darkness, aiming for the dim and flickering lights of the Marsh-Wiggle village.
This would be the third time Susan found herself sneaking into an enemy camp at night. However this was the first time she was doing it for information-gathering instead of to rescue a captive. Rescue was almost out of the question: Edmund would be too closely guarded for any single person to reach, even someone as good with bow and knife as Susan had become. And Susan had no desire to kill any Wiggles, if it could be avoided.
Intelligence was the goal here, not murder.
Perhaps if Peter and Lucy had not picked this particularly wet spring for a trading voyage to Terebinthia, Susan would not have found herself here. But it was equally true that if the Marsh-Wiggles of Narnia's northeastern marshlands had not kidnapped Edmund while he was taking an entirely peaceful tour of the northern borders, and then sent a nonsensical demand to Cair Paravel, Susan would not now be wishing for Peter to be slogging through the midnight mud instead. And to be fair, she could not honestly blame Edmund for being captured, even by Wiggles. Narnia had been at peace for nearly a year, after all.
In lieu of blaming her siblings, then, Susan focused her frustrated anger on the Marsh-Wiggles, who had for these five years since the defeat of the White Witch been the most placid and undemanding of all the Pevensies' subjects. The thought of a revolt of Marsh-Wiggles simply defied understanding, and neither Susan nor any of her counsellors had been able to produce an explanation.
After riding hard from Cair Paravel, she had arrived at the edge of the marshlands near mid-day, accompanied by three of her staff, one third of the castle guard, and a small troop of Centaurs they had encountered along the way. (She had had quite a battle with General Oreius when she refused to call up any of the levies--there simply wasn't time--and his thunderous stamps had echoed off the castle walls.)
They had parleyed with the Wiggles immediately upon her arrival, but it had not gone well.
They had met on a low rise at the edge of the swamp, a hummock of soil that was only a tiny bit dryer than the marshland itself. There were no chairs and no tables, and so far as Susan could tell, no one at the parley carried a weapon. She had even left her belt knife behind (though in truth she felt half-naked without it--she had not gone unarmed since a month after she was crowned). Her guard waited at a distance, unhappily.
The Marsh-Wiggles stood awkwardly across from her, perhaps fifteen feet away; several yards behind them, she saw Edmund's white face over a gag of some dark material. Perryweather the Squirrel, clinging to Bellevox's broad back, chittered angrily, but Susan shook her head minutely and the Squirrel quieted.
"You notice the gag, Your Majesty?" said Bellevox in a low voice.
"I do," Susan replied. "I wonder what it is that they do not wish Edmund to say."
Bellevox nodded. "And to whom?"
Across the damp and muddy ground, the tallest Wiggle stepped forward. He had a pompous air about him. "So you are here to negotiate at last, Queen?"
Blinking at the impertinence, but determined to keep her temper, Susan put back her hood and gave a grave nod. "I am Queen Susan. With me are my counsellors Tarble the Dwarf, Perryweather the Squirrel, and Bellevox the Centaur. You see we have no weapons upon us, as you requested. Will you introduce yourselves?"
The Wiggle looked startled, as if surprised to be greeted so graciously. He stepped back and conferred with his colleagues in low voices. While he did so, Perryweather scampered up Susan's cloak to her shoulder, and whispered, "Your Majesty, DeepFisher is not with them."
"So I see," said Susan quietly. DeepFisher was, or had been, the Chieftain of the Marsh-Wiggles of northeast Narnia. He had come to Cair Paravel twice in the five years since the Pevensies had been crowned, and had been considered a person of wisdom and reliability. His absence from this conference was a sign of something deeply wrong.
"That last one on the right," Susan went on, her eyes narrowing. "Do you know who he is?"
Perryweather and Bellevox both shook their heads, but when Susan looked down to her left, Tarble was frowning in recognition. "I think, Your Majesty, he was one of those who carried away King Edmund." Tarble had been with Edmund, and had been the messenger who arrived at Cair Paravel, exhausted and filthy, only two days ago.
"Hmm," murmured Susan again, but now the Wiggle negotiator had come back, and she eased her expression into polite, if cold, interest. "Well?" she asked.
"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but we'll not be sharing our names with you." The Wiggle bowed very low: so low his hat fell off into the mud. "But we feel that if you knew our names, you might punish us and our families."
I might indeed, thought Susan. "I see. Well, then, there is no reason to delay the proceedings. Pray tell me--by what right do you hold my royal brother, and your lawful King, against his will?"
The Wiggle negotiator gaped at her.
Susan sighed. "Is it perhaps a jest? Some ancient joke of Wiggle tradition that we are not aware of? Shall we end our conference with crackers and fireworks?"
"Caution, my Queen," muttered Perryweather.
"N-No, Queen, no jest at all, we are deadly serious!" protested the Wiggle, while the others stirred and whispered behind him. The one on the right hissed in the ear of his closest companion, who went pale. (Inasmuch as Wiggles, with their muddy complexions, can go pale, which is not much.)
"About what!" demanded Susan, throwing her hard-won composure away. "What in Aslan's name is going on?"
"We shan't let you do it!" cried one of the other Wiggles, and his companions nodded and stamped their great webbed feet in agreement.
Susan stared. She felt as though she were reading a book written in code: it ought to make sense, and yet it didn't. "Do what?"
"Drain the swamp!" hissed the Wiggle on the right.
"Drain the swamp!" she repeated in astonishment.
"See? See! I told you! You heard her say it yourselves!" cried the Wiggle on the right. Susan made a note of him: he was shorter than the others, with smaller feet, and a narrow, shifty look about him. She decided to call him Mud-for-Ears, just because.
"We did!" said the Wiggle negotiator. "And we shan't let you! You can't do it, see, because we have the King! If you try it, why, we'll--we'll--" and then he broke off, looking miserable. Apparently capturing the King was one thing: actually threatening him was another.
Except Mud-for-Ears seemed to have no such qualms. "You try it and we'll cut off his finger, see? And if you try to capture him back, why, we'll cut off his ear!"
Susan gasped in horror, Bellevox stamped, and mud flew everywhere. Wiping the mud from her face, she reined herself back in, and took a deep breath. This was the most ridiculous negotiation she had ever participated in: without her saying much of anything, the Wiggles had driven themselves into a frenzy of fear and resentment. If Edmund's life weren't on the line, it would almost be amusing.
She licked her lips, frowned at the taste of mud, then raised a hand. The Wiggles quieted. "If I give you my word, as Queen of Narnia, that we have no intention of draining the swamp, will that reassure you?"
One of them kicked uncomfortably at the ground, but one after another, they all shook their heads.
"I see," she said. "Very well, then. I shall retire now, to confer with my staff. Let us meet here again, this time tomorrow. Farewell." Without waiting for a response, she spun around and began marching back to her campsite. After a moment, her companions followed.
That inconclusive negotiation had led to a three-hour argument in Susan's weather-beaten tent. However the negotiation had failed to free Edmund, it had provided information they did not have before. Someone was spreading lies about the agricultural policies Edmund had implemented (as a means of lowering the amount of food Narnia had to import); and something was deeply wrong with the Wiggles. Pessimistic and phlegmatic Wiggles were, but Susan would never before have called them paranoiac.
Tarble's theory, and one Susan was inclined to agree with, was that witchery was involved. But how to address the problem? They needed more information, and in the end, Susan could come up with no other option than to go find out herself.
Perryweather and Tarble, of course, would have none of it. Even Sir MacNeath, the Tiger who was Captain of the Guard, protested. But Bellevox bent his dark eyes upon his Queen, and after a long moment, nodded. "That might do," he said, and Susan waved them all out of her tent to prepare.
Thus we find ourselves with Susan of Narnia, her dark hair raggedly chopped off to shoulder-length, hanging lank and loose under a broad-brimmed Wiggle hat. She had changed her fine woolen riding gown and embroidered tabard for a tunic and breeches, but (with great reluctance) left her boots in her tent. In the daylight, no one would ever take her for a Wiggle: her feet were too small, her skin too pale. But at night, at a distance, she could be mistaken for a short Wiggle-maiden, swathed in an enormous (and rather smelly) cloak.
It would have to do.
The sky above was overcast, with not even the moon to lighten Susan's way. She stepped as carefully as she could from hummock to tussock, sinking at one point knee-deep into the muck, but always heading for the village.
Wiggles are among the least warlike of Narnians, and their land so unappealing, that they have no walls or fences to defend themselves. When attacked, they simply retreat further into the swamp, into the deepest, densest, trackless marshes, where a moment's inattention means one is lost forever.
With no walls or guards, except for one Wiggle sentry who stood looking southward toward Susan's camp, she was able to slip quietly into the village. She stayed in the shadows, moving from one hut to the next, listening carefully. If she could, she wanted to find where Edmund was being held (just in case they were foolish enough not to guard him), but her primary goal was to eavesdrop on the Wiggles she had seen today.
It occurred to Susan, rather belatedly, to hope that Wiggles weren't the type to go to bed early. If they were all asleep, her efforts might be wasted.
The third hut she came to had a light shining through the shuttered window, so Susan stopped, and put her ear to the wall. There were people inside, talking, but after a long moment she realized it was the voice of a woman telling a nursery tale, about the Hare Springfoot and his race with the White Witch. Susan smiled--at least some things were the same here as in the rest of Narnia--and moved on.
The fourth hut was dark and quiet, and it occurred to Susan to wonder why so many were dark. She crept ever-so-cautiously to the door, praying her feet would not break any twigs, and lifted the latch silently. The door swung open, but when Susan stuck her head inside, it was clear no one was here. The hearth was dark and cold, and there was no sense of life in the hut.
Where had they gone?
As Susan passed on through the village, she realized that nearly half the huts were empty. And she was running out of options: if she were still here at dawn, she would be captured and then the Wiggles would have two sovereigns for whatever madness they were considering.
Susan peered around a corner, saw no one, straightened, turned--and bumped right into a Wiggle.
"Pardon me!" whispered the Wiggle. From the voice, and the height, Susan guessed that it was a young girl Wiggle, about Lucy's age.
"Um," said Susan, who had not planned on simply bumping into someone in the darkness. "Who are you?"
"My name is Minnow," said the girl. "I live here. Who are you?"
Susan hesitated. She did not think she could fool anyone that she was actually a Wiggle for more than ten seconds; but admitting she was Human wasn't an option she wanted to pursue, either. Except, just for a moment, she thought she heard a deep, rumbling, purr, and the touch of a deep, soft fur coat on her outstretched hand.
It was enough. "I am Queen Susan," she said.
Without a word, Minnow dropped into a deep curtsey. "Your Majesty! You are in great danger!" she hissed, and drew Susan along the path and into the shadow between two empty huts.
"I know," said Susan, "but I must find out what is going on--tell me, you must know! Why have they kidnapped my brother? Where are the rest of your people? What is this madness that has overtaken you all?"
The girl wrung her hands together, but when Susan hissed in frustration, Minnow dropped her hands to her sides. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just so scared! Blackpond is frightening, and he knows everything--"
"Blackpond," Susan reported. "That's the short Wiggle with the weasel face, the one in charge?"
"Yes, yes, but he's not--he's new, he only came this winter, he hasn't a clan, Your Majesty!" Minnow's voice was aghast at this unheard-of circumstance.
Someone new in the village, indeed. Susan let an eyebrow rise, although it was too dark for anyone to see it. "Where did he come from?"
Minnow gulped, but answered shakily, "I don't--I didn't see, but my brother, Tadpole, he swore Blackpond came from the north, through the fens below Ettinsmoor."
The night was silent about them, but Susan looked around carefully before taking the girl's cold hands in her own. "And what happened then?"
"And then--then things got bad. Everyone began talking and arguing, and Blackpond was going around, whispering all the time. And the ones who listened--well, they began to say things, things Wiggles never say, Your Majesty. Not ever. Things about Aslan, and, and, even you, Your Majesty. Horrible things." Minnow tried to pull her hands away, but Susan wouldn't let her. "And then there was a fight, because DeepFisher said that was enough, and he'd have no more of such talk, but--"
The girl's voice was enough to tell Susan what had happened in that struggle. She hoped DeepFisher had found peace (and good fishing) in Aslan's Country. She squeezed Minnow's hands. "And then you came away?"
Vigorous nodding made Minnow's body shake. "We ran into the deep marshes, and hid. But they didn't follow us. Tadpole came back, once or twice, with the twins, and they said that Blackpond didn't seem to care."
"Then why are you here tonight?" Susan asked.
The clouds must be clearing, because there was just enough light now for Susan to see Minnow's face: it looked shocked and frightened and very young. "Tad and I were out eeling, and we saw Blackpond in the reeds. He took a box out of a hollow tree, and he picked up something silver and put it in his mouth, and then he--he wasn't a Wiggle anymore!"
Tarble was right. Witchery indeed, thought Susan. "What was he?"
"He looked like a Human, but his skin was silvery--he glittered, like."
"And then?" Aslan had surely blessed Susan, to bring to her this child, who had all the answers she needed.
Minnow shook her head, still astonished. "And then he put the silver thing back in the box, and he was a Wiggle again. And he hid the box, and came away."
Susan wanted to dance: she wanted to cartwheel and skip and leap in the air. She had him. "And then you followed him back here. Why?"
"I don't trust him. I thought he might be doing something..."
"Well, he is," said Susan grimly, and glanced at the sky. The cloud layer gave no indication of the time, though she thought it was still well before midnight. "All right, show me."
It was a humbling experience, following the Wiggle girl into the marsh in the darkness. Susan was young and strong, and when at Cair Paravel she trained in weapons with the Royal Guard and in dance with her Dryad attendants--but none of that made crossing the mucky and overgrown ground any easier. Minnow's broad webbed feet kept her on top of surfaces that Susan plunged through: by the time they came to the hollow tree, Susan was muddied to her knees and sweat was dripping down her back.
But Minnow was right: a small wooden box, barely two inches by two inches, rested in the punky wood inside the hollow stump. Susan opened it and looked inside. Very well, she could work with that.
Susan turned the box over in her hands, thinking. "Minnow, my smart, brave, wonderful Wiggle. How would you like to come to Cair Paravel?" She looked up to see the girl's face shining with joy and astonishment. "You have saved King Edmund, Minnow--the least we can do is reward you for it!"
"What will you do?" asked Minnow.
"Free my brother. Take me back to the village, please?" For in the darkness, Susan was truly lost in this wilderness of soggy ground and dense undergrowth. The trip back was just as difficult and muddy, but Susan didn't pay as much attention: she was thinking about Blackpond, and the contents of the box, and how much damage could be done by someone with the ability to take on another's shape. And that Blackpond had come from the North, like so many other threats to Narnia had before.
Less than an hour later they found themselves back in the edge of the village, on solid ground. Susan nodded decisively. "Follow me, Minnow." She set off at a brisk walk, heading for the center of the village. The Chieftain's house was a bit larger than the others, truly a house rather than a hut, with glass windows in the front through which shone the steady golden light of actual candles.
Susan hesitated for an instant, motioning Minnow to stay outside. And then, with the box clutched in one hand and her knife in the other, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room she entered was a small hall, with a firepit in the center and benches arrayed along its length. But although the hall could have seated twenty or more, there were only half a dozen people in the room. They sat close to the fire, five Wiggle men who had set aside their hats. A sixth figure was seated stiffly on a bench in the corner: Susan needed only a glimpse to recognize her brother.
As she strode in, the Wiggles leaped to their feet--all but one, the shortest, with a narrow face. "The Queen!" cried the pompous Wiggle. "What are you doing here!"
"Are we under attack?" cried another, but Susan ignored him. She crossed the floor with an angry stride, and set her knife to the throat of the Wiggle whom Minnow had named Blackpond.
He sneered at her. "You have come to me, Human? You have done little more than hasten your end."
"Minnow, come in now!" called Susan. "Free my brother. Take your knife and cut his bonds."
"But--" protested the pompous Wiggle.
"Do it!" said Susan. "Or I cut his throat."
Blackpond sneered, and opened his mouth, and Susan pressed harder with the blade, until blood trickled down to the neck of his tunic. He settled back, but he still looked maliciously knowing. Susan closed her hand more tightly about the box in her pocket.
There was a pause, a stillness for thirty seconds or more, until Susan felt the precious and familiar weight of Edmund's hand on her shoulder. "All set, Su?" he asked, and she let herself sigh once in relief, without looking away from Blackpond. From the corner of her eye, she saw Minnow retreat to the far end of the hall, looking terrified. Smart girl.
"Almost," she said. "I don't know if you've solved our mystery, Ed? You've had plenty of chances, this last week."
She heard clothes rustle as Edmund stretched and moved, loosening muscles cramped by long bondage. "I'm afraid not, they've mostly kept me in a shed. It's a real gift to stand up without hitting my head on the rafters. But you sound like you've got answers, dear sister."
"Keep them back," Susan ordered, and nodded her head towards the four other Wiggles.
Edmund picked up a stool, tossed it in one hand, set it down, and picked up a chair instead. Since he'd gotten his growth, he liked to show off with that sort of thing now and then. Usually Susan found it ridiculous, but his trained and sturdy strength was just what she needed behind her for this.
"Tell me," she said to Blackpond. "Who sent you?"
The Wiggle sneered: Susan was getting tired of that expression. "Surely, if you are so strong, it would not endanger you to tell us. And it seems dishonorable to fight this way, hiding behind the face of another. What loyalty do you owe them?"
"What could you know, Daughter of Eve?" challenged Blackpond. "I am my own master, it was all my plan. And I shall triumph yet--your blade is but an inconvenience!" With that, he surged to his feet, faster and stronger than any Wiggle Susan had ever seen, and flung her backwards so she cannoned into Edmund.
Edmund dropped the chair and Susan staggered. Blackpond lunged forward, with a knife gleaming in his hand that had not been there before.
But before he reached her, Susan the box open in her hand. Blackpond saw it and staggered to a halt. His knife-hand sagged, as if the blade had suddenly become to heavy to hold. "Where--how did you?"
"Edmund," said Susan cheerfully, "do you remember the story of the magician who stored his heart outside his body, so he could not be killed?"
Behind her, there was a sound as of a stick of wood (or a chair-leg) hitting someone on the head, and then a slithering thump as of a body falling to the ground. "I do!" said Edmund cheerily (if a little breathlessly). "Although I don't think it's a Narnian fairytale."
"No, I didn't learn it in Narnia," confirmed Susan. Keeping one eye on Blackpond, she took her knife and prodded at the small silver ring in the box. The ring was shaped like a snake holding a green stone in its open jaws, and it gleamed unlike any ordinary item of jewelry in Cair Paravel's vaults. "Do you remember how the magician was defeated, though?"
"Oh, that's easy," said Edmund, and there was a cry of pain and another slithering thump. His shoulder bumped against hers. "Destroy the heart, and the magician may finally die."
"That's what I thought," said Susan, and with a sudden motion, she lifted the ring on the tip of her knife and flung it sideways into the fire.
+=+=+
The next afternoon, twenty miles south under a damp grey sky, Edmund burst out laughing. They were leading a cheerfully-bedraggled cavalcade of riders south (including an uncomfortable Minnow, who was riding pillion behind Bellevox, for there were no other horses available).
That morning there had been a painful meeting with five shame-faced Wiggle elders, concluded with many apologies and promises. Edmund had theorized that Blackpond had enchanted the Wiggles; Susan was less convinced. They had left Tarble and Perryweather to advise the Wiggles, who were distraught at Blackpond's knavery and the resulting division of their people. Susan suspected that it could be months before Minnow's family and the other clans would be willing to return to the village from the deep marshes.
"What now?" Susan frowned. It was yet two days' ride to Cair Paravel, and she foresaw that she would be wet for every moment of it. It was a reminder of why she usually left the campaigning to the others.
Edmund reined his mount closer to Susan and leaned towards her, with a wicked grin on his face.
"I was just thinking what a right fool you'd have looked, if after going to all that trouble, you threw the ring into the fire and nothing happened."
Susan's eyes widened in horror. "Edmund! You could have died!"
"King Edmund the Just, Killed by Wiggles? Now, there's an epitaph." He looked at her face, and then let the smile drop away. "In all seriousness, Su, that was a hell of a risk to take."
She bit her lip. "I know, but what else should I have done? A frontal assault?"
Edmund grinned, and then sobered. "I'm not sure I wouldn't have done it, if they'd had you or Lucy. And you know it would have been the first thing Pete tried--he loves to go charging in, sword in hand."
"And that would have set off a political crisis it would have taken us months to settle," Susan pointed out with some sharpness. An attack by Narnian soldiers on a Narnian village? It would have caused a great scandal, no matter the provocation. Despite their successes, some Narnians were still distrustful of the Pevensies' intentions, and no few clung to their older, more wicked, allegiances. An ill-considered action like the one Blackpond had tried to provoke could have ignited months of conflict, leaving them vulnerable just when Peter and Lucy were away; it could have been disastrous.
"Probably," agreed Edmund. "It was a good thing it was me that got captured, then, and you that ran the rescue, instead of the other way round."
It did Susan's heart good to hear her brother compliment her judgment, but Edmund was still talking. "It's still a pity Blackpond--or whatever his true name was--died. I should dearly like to know where he came from, as I've never seen a true shape-shifter in Narnia before. And more importantly, who set him on to enchant--or suborn, I know--all those Wiggles."
Susan nodded. "As would I."
As they climbed the next slope, Susan turned about in the saddle and looked behind. Far to the north, just visible under the low clouds, were the vast bare hills of Ettinsmoor, climbing away to the horizon.
She remembered something Tumnus had said once, about danger to Narnia always coming from the North. Well, they had evaded it this time, with Aslan's help. With luck, they would next time, as well.
END
Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: A Golden-Age story about Susan (everyone else can come along too, of course, but mostly Susan) in which she has some sort of opportunity to take more power (politically, maybe, or through magic perhaps). Writer's decision concerning the circumstances and outcome. AU or canon, both are fine.
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "How can I let go of this?", the North
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Caspian, gratuitous violence/sex.
Author: cofax7
Recipient: ilysia_039
Rating: All ages
Warnings: none, except for mild Marsh-Wiggle abuse
Summary: If the Marsh-Wiggles had not kidnapped Edmund while he was taking an entirely peaceful tour of the northern borders, and then sent a nonsensical demand to Cair Paravel, Susan would not now be wishing for Peter to be slogging through the midnight mud instead. 4,100 words of the Golden Age.
How Queen Susan Settled the Marsh-Wiggle Revolt
Wet, cold mud squeezed up between her toes and thorny branches scratched at her arms as Susan Pevensie crept through the darkness, aiming for the dim and flickering lights of the Marsh-Wiggle village.
This would be the third time Susan found herself sneaking into an enemy camp at night. However this was the first time she was doing it for information-gathering instead of to rescue a captive. Rescue was almost out of the question: Edmund would be too closely guarded for any single person to reach, even someone as good with bow and knife as Susan had become. And Susan had no desire to kill any Wiggles, if it could be avoided.
Intelligence was the goal here, not murder.
Perhaps if Peter and Lucy had not picked this particularly wet spring for a trading voyage to Terebinthia, Susan would not have found herself here. But it was equally true that if the Marsh-Wiggles of Narnia's northeastern marshlands had not kidnapped Edmund while he was taking an entirely peaceful tour of the northern borders, and then sent a nonsensical demand to Cair Paravel, Susan would not now be wishing for Peter to be slogging through the midnight mud instead. And to be fair, she could not honestly blame Edmund for being captured, even by Wiggles. Narnia had been at peace for nearly a year, after all.
In lieu of blaming her siblings, then, Susan focused her frustrated anger on the Marsh-Wiggles, who had for these five years since the defeat of the White Witch been the most placid and undemanding of all the Pevensies' subjects. The thought of a revolt of Marsh-Wiggles simply defied understanding, and neither Susan nor any of her counsellors had been able to produce an explanation.
After riding hard from Cair Paravel, she had arrived at the edge of the marshlands near mid-day, accompanied by three of her staff, one third of the castle guard, and a small troop of Centaurs they had encountered along the way. (She had had quite a battle with General Oreius when she refused to call up any of the levies--there simply wasn't time--and his thunderous stamps had echoed off the castle walls.)
They had parleyed with the Wiggles immediately upon her arrival, but it had not gone well.
They had met on a low rise at the edge of the swamp, a hummock of soil that was only a tiny bit dryer than the marshland itself. There were no chairs and no tables, and so far as Susan could tell, no one at the parley carried a weapon. She had even left her belt knife behind (though in truth she felt half-naked without it--she had not gone unarmed since a month after she was crowned). Her guard waited at a distance, unhappily.
The Marsh-Wiggles stood awkwardly across from her, perhaps fifteen feet away; several yards behind them, she saw Edmund's white face over a gag of some dark material. Perryweather the Squirrel, clinging to Bellevox's broad back, chittered angrily, but Susan shook her head minutely and the Squirrel quieted.
"You notice the gag, Your Majesty?" said Bellevox in a low voice.
"I do," Susan replied. "I wonder what it is that they do not wish Edmund to say."
Bellevox nodded. "And to whom?"
Across the damp and muddy ground, the tallest Wiggle stepped forward. He had a pompous air about him. "So you are here to negotiate at last, Queen?"
Blinking at the impertinence, but determined to keep her temper, Susan put back her hood and gave a grave nod. "I am Queen Susan. With me are my counsellors Tarble the Dwarf, Perryweather the Squirrel, and Bellevox the Centaur. You see we have no weapons upon us, as you requested. Will you introduce yourselves?"
The Wiggle looked startled, as if surprised to be greeted so graciously. He stepped back and conferred with his colleagues in low voices. While he did so, Perryweather scampered up Susan's cloak to her shoulder, and whispered, "Your Majesty, DeepFisher is not with them."
"So I see," said Susan quietly. DeepFisher was, or had been, the Chieftain of the Marsh-Wiggles of northeast Narnia. He had come to Cair Paravel twice in the five years since the Pevensies had been crowned, and had been considered a person of wisdom and reliability. His absence from this conference was a sign of something deeply wrong.
"That last one on the right," Susan went on, her eyes narrowing. "Do you know who he is?"
Perryweather and Bellevox both shook their heads, but when Susan looked down to her left, Tarble was frowning in recognition. "I think, Your Majesty, he was one of those who carried away King Edmund." Tarble had been with Edmund, and had been the messenger who arrived at Cair Paravel, exhausted and filthy, only two days ago.
"Hmm," murmured Susan again, but now the Wiggle negotiator had come back, and she eased her expression into polite, if cold, interest. "Well?" she asked.
"Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but we'll not be sharing our names with you." The Wiggle bowed very low: so low his hat fell off into the mud. "But we feel that if you knew our names, you might punish us and our families."
I might indeed, thought Susan. "I see. Well, then, there is no reason to delay the proceedings. Pray tell me--by what right do you hold my royal brother, and your lawful King, against his will?"
The Wiggle negotiator gaped at her.
Susan sighed. "Is it perhaps a jest? Some ancient joke of Wiggle tradition that we are not aware of? Shall we end our conference with crackers and fireworks?"
"Caution, my Queen," muttered Perryweather.
"N-No, Queen, no jest at all, we are deadly serious!" protested the Wiggle, while the others stirred and whispered behind him. The one on the right hissed in the ear of his closest companion, who went pale. (Inasmuch as Wiggles, with their muddy complexions, can go pale, which is not much.)
"About what!" demanded Susan, throwing her hard-won composure away. "What in Aslan's name is going on?"
"We shan't let you do it!" cried one of the other Wiggles, and his companions nodded and stamped their great webbed feet in agreement.
Susan stared. She felt as though she were reading a book written in code: it ought to make sense, and yet it didn't. "Do what?"
"Drain the swamp!" hissed the Wiggle on the right.
"Drain the swamp!" she repeated in astonishment.
"See? See! I told you! You heard her say it yourselves!" cried the Wiggle on the right. Susan made a note of him: he was shorter than the others, with smaller feet, and a narrow, shifty look about him. She decided to call him Mud-for-Ears, just because.
"We did!" said the Wiggle negotiator. "And we shan't let you! You can't do it, see, because we have the King! If you try it, why, we'll--we'll--" and then he broke off, looking miserable. Apparently capturing the King was one thing: actually threatening him was another.
Except Mud-for-Ears seemed to have no such qualms. "You try it and we'll cut off his finger, see? And if you try to capture him back, why, we'll cut off his ear!"
Susan gasped in horror, Bellevox stamped, and mud flew everywhere. Wiping the mud from her face, she reined herself back in, and took a deep breath. This was the most ridiculous negotiation she had ever participated in: without her saying much of anything, the Wiggles had driven themselves into a frenzy of fear and resentment. If Edmund's life weren't on the line, it would almost be amusing.
She licked her lips, frowned at the taste of mud, then raised a hand. The Wiggles quieted. "If I give you my word, as Queen of Narnia, that we have no intention of draining the swamp, will that reassure you?"
One of them kicked uncomfortably at the ground, but one after another, they all shook their heads.
"I see," she said. "Very well, then. I shall retire now, to confer with my staff. Let us meet here again, this time tomorrow. Farewell." Without waiting for a response, she spun around and began marching back to her campsite. After a moment, her companions followed.
That inconclusive negotiation had led to a three-hour argument in Susan's weather-beaten tent. However the negotiation had failed to free Edmund, it had provided information they did not have before. Someone was spreading lies about the agricultural policies Edmund had implemented (as a means of lowering the amount of food Narnia had to import); and something was deeply wrong with the Wiggles. Pessimistic and phlegmatic Wiggles were, but Susan would never before have called them paranoiac.
Tarble's theory, and one Susan was inclined to agree with, was that witchery was involved. But how to address the problem? They needed more information, and in the end, Susan could come up with no other option than to go find out herself.
Perryweather and Tarble, of course, would have none of it. Even Sir MacNeath, the Tiger who was Captain of the Guard, protested. But Bellevox bent his dark eyes upon his Queen, and after a long moment, nodded. "That might do," he said, and Susan waved them all out of her tent to prepare.
Thus we find ourselves with Susan of Narnia, her dark hair raggedly chopped off to shoulder-length, hanging lank and loose under a broad-brimmed Wiggle hat. She had changed her fine woolen riding gown and embroidered tabard for a tunic and breeches, but (with great reluctance) left her boots in her tent. In the daylight, no one would ever take her for a Wiggle: her feet were too small, her skin too pale. But at night, at a distance, she could be mistaken for a short Wiggle-maiden, swathed in an enormous (and rather smelly) cloak.
It would have to do.
The sky above was overcast, with not even the moon to lighten Susan's way. She stepped as carefully as she could from hummock to tussock, sinking at one point knee-deep into the muck, but always heading for the village.
Wiggles are among the least warlike of Narnians, and their land so unappealing, that they have no walls or fences to defend themselves. When attacked, they simply retreat further into the swamp, into the deepest, densest, trackless marshes, where a moment's inattention means one is lost forever.
With no walls or guards, except for one Wiggle sentry who stood looking southward toward Susan's camp, she was able to slip quietly into the village. She stayed in the shadows, moving from one hut to the next, listening carefully. If she could, she wanted to find where Edmund was being held (just in case they were foolish enough not to guard him), but her primary goal was to eavesdrop on the Wiggles she had seen today.
It occurred to Susan, rather belatedly, to hope that Wiggles weren't the type to go to bed early. If they were all asleep, her efforts might be wasted.
The third hut she came to had a light shining through the shuttered window, so Susan stopped, and put her ear to the wall. There were people inside, talking, but after a long moment she realized it was the voice of a woman telling a nursery tale, about the Hare Springfoot and his race with the White Witch. Susan smiled--at least some things were the same here as in the rest of Narnia--and moved on.
The fourth hut was dark and quiet, and it occurred to Susan to wonder why so many were dark. She crept ever-so-cautiously to the door, praying her feet would not break any twigs, and lifted the latch silently. The door swung open, but when Susan stuck her head inside, it was clear no one was here. The hearth was dark and cold, and there was no sense of life in the hut.
Where had they gone?
As Susan passed on through the village, she realized that nearly half the huts were empty. And she was running out of options: if she were still here at dawn, she would be captured and then the Wiggles would have two sovereigns for whatever madness they were considering.
Susan peered around a corner, saw no one, straightened, turned--and bumped right into a Wiggle.
"Pardon me!" whispered the Wiggle. From the voice, and the height, Susan guessed that it was a young girl Wiggle, about Lucy's age.
"Um," said Susan, who had not planned on simply bumping into someone in the darkness. "Who are you?"
"My name is Minnow," said the girl. "I live here. Who are you?"
Susan hesitated. She did not think she could fool anyone that she was actually a Wiggle for more than ten seconds; but admitting she was Human wasn't an option she wanted to pursue, either. Except, just for a moment, she thought she heard a deep, rumbling, purr, and the touch of a deep, soft fur coat on her outstretched hand.
It was enough. "I am Queen Susan," she said.
Without a word, Minnow dropped into a deep curtsey. "Your Majesty! You are in great danger!" she hissed, and drew Susan along the path and into the shadow between two empty huts.
"I know," said Susan, "but I must find out what is going on--tell me, you must know! Why have they kidnapped my brother? Where are the rest of your people? What is this madness that has overtaken you all?"
The girl wrung her hands together, but when Susan hissed in frustration, Minnow dropped her hands to her sides. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm just so scared! Blackpond is frightening, and he knows everything--"
"Blackpond," Susan reported. "That's the short Wiggle with the weasel face, the one in charge?"
"Yes, yes, but he's not--he's new, he only came this winter, he hasn't a clan, Your Majesty!" Minnow's voice was aghast at this unheard-of circumstance.
Someone new in the village, indeed. Susan let an eyebrow rise, although it was too dark for anyone to see it. "Where did he come from?"
Minnow gulped, but answered shakily, "I don't--I didn't see, but my brother, Tadpole, he swore Blackpond came from the north, through the fens below Ettinsmoor."
The night was silent about them, but Susan looked around carefully before taking the girl's cold hands in her own. "And what happened then?"
"And then--then things got bad. Everyone began talking and arguing, and Blackpond was going around, whispering all the time. And the ones who listened--well, they began to say things, things Wiggles never say, Your Majesty. Not ever. Things about Aslan, and, and, even you, Your Majesty. Horrible things." Minnow tried to pull her hands away, but Susan wouldn't let her. "And then there was a fight, because DeepFisher said that was enough, and he'd have no more of such talk, but--"
The girl's voice was enough to tell Susan what had happened in that struggle. She hoped DeepFisher had found peace (and good fishing) in Aslan's Country. She squeezed Minnow's hands. "And then you came away?"
Vigorous nodding made Minnow's body shake. "We ran into the deep marshes, and hid. But they didn't follow us. Tadpole came back, once or twice, with the twins, and they said that Blackpond didn't seem to care."
"Then why are you here tonight?" Susan asked.
The clouds must be clearing, because there was just enough light now for Susan to see Minnow's face: it looked shocked and frightened and very young. "Tad and I were out eeling, and we saw Blackpond in the reeds. He took a box out of a hollow tree, and he picked up something silver and put it in his mouth, and then he--he wasn't a Wiggle anymore!"
Tarble was right. Witchery indeed, thought Susan. "What was he?"
"He looked like a Human, but his skin was silvery--he glittered, like."
"And then?" Aslan had surely blessed Susan, to bring to her this child, who had all the answers she needed.
Minnow shook her head, still astonished. "And then he put the silver thing back in the box, and he was a Wiggle again. And he hid the box, and came away."
Susan wanted to dance: she wanted to cartwheel and skip and leap in the air. She had him. "And then you followed him back here. Why?"
"I don't trust him. I thought he might be doing something..."
"Well, he is," said Susan grimly, and glanced at the sky. The cloud layer gave no indication of the time, though she thought it was still well before midnight. "All right, show me."
It was a humbling experience, following the Wiggle girl into the marsh in the darkness. Susan was young and strong, and when at Cair Paravel she trained in weapons with the Royal Guard and in dance with her Dryad attendants--but none of that made crossing the mucky and overgrown ground any easier. Minnow's broad webbed feet kept her on top of surfaces that Susan plunged through: by the time they came to the hollow tree, Susan was muddied to her knees and sweat was dripping down her back.
But Minnow was right: a small wooden box, barely two inches by two inches, rested in the punky wood inside the hollow stump. Susan opened it and looked inside. Very well, she could work with that.
Susan turned the box over in her hands, thinking. "Minnow, my smart, brave, wonderful Wiggle. How would you like to come to Cair Paravel?" She looked up to see the girl's face shining with joy and astonishment. "You have saved King Edmund, Minnow--the least we can do is reward you for it!"
"What will you do?" asked Minnow.
"Free my brother. Take me back to the village, please?" For in the darkness, Susan was truly lost in this wilderness of soggy ground and dense undergrowth. The trip back was just as difficult and muddy, but Susan didn't pay as much attention: she was thinking about Blackpond, and the contents of the box, and how much damage could be done by someone with the ability to take on another's shape. And that Blackpond had come from the North, like so many other threats to Narnia had before.
Less than an hour later they found themselves back in the edge of the village, on solid ground. Susan nodded decisively. "Follow me, Minnow." She set off at a brisk walk, heading for the center of the village. The Chieftain's house was a bit larger than the others, truly a house rather than a hut, with glass windows in the front through which shone the steady golden light of actual candles.
Susan hesitated for an instant, motioning Minnow to stay outside. And then, with the box clutched in one hand and her knife in the other, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room she entered was a small hall, with a firepit in the center and benches arrayed along its length. But although the hall could have seated twenty or more, there were only half a dozen people in the room. They sat close to the fire, five Wiggle men who had set aside their hats. A sixth figure was seated stiffly on a bench in the corner: Susan needed only a glimpse to recognize her brother.
As she strode in, the Wiggles leaped to their feet--all but one, the shortest, with a narrow face. "The Queen!" cried the pompous Wiggle. "What are you doing here!"
"Are we under attack?" cried another, but Susan ignored him. She crossed the floor with an angry stride, and set her knife to the throat of the Wiggle whom Minnow had named Blackpond.
He sneered at her. "You have come to me, Human? You have done little more than hasten your end."
"Minnow, come in now!" called Susan. "Free my brother. Take your knife and cut his bonds."
"But--" protested the pompous Wiggle.
"Do it!" said Susan. "Or I cut his throat."
Blackpond sneered, and opened his mouth, and Susan pressed harder with the blade, until blood trickled down to the neck of his tunic. He settled back, but he still looked maliciously knowing. Susan closed her hand more tightly about the box in her pocket.
There was a pause, a stillness for thirty seconds or more, until Susan felt the precious and familiar weight of Edmund's hand on her shoulder. "All set, Su?" he asked, and she let herself sigh once in relief, without looking away from Blackpond. From the corner of her eye, she saw Minnow retreat to the far end of the hall, looking terrified. Smart girl.
"Almost," she said. "I don't know if you've solved our mystery, Ed? You've had plenty of chances, this last week."
She heard clothes rustle as Edmund stretched and moved, loosening muscles cramped by long bondage. "I'm afraid not, they've mostly kept me in a shed. It's a real gift to stand up without hitting my head on the rafters. But you sound like you've got answers, dear sister."
"Keep them back," Susan ordered, and nodded her head towards the four other Wiggles.
Edmund picked up a stool, tossed it in one hand, set it down, and picked up a chair instead. Since he'd gotten his growth, he liked to show off with that sort of thing now and then. Usually Susan found it ridiculous, but his trained and sturdy strength was just what she needed behind her for this.
"Tell me," she said to Blackpond. "Who sent you?"
The Wiggle sneered: Susan was getting tired of that expression. "Surely, if you are so strong, it would not endanger you to tell us. And it seems dishonorable to fight this way, hiding behind the face of another. What loyalty do you owe them?"
"What could you know, Daughter of Eve?" challenged Blackpond. "I am my own master, it was all my plan. And I shall triumph yet--your blade is but an inconvenience!" With that, he surged to his feet, faster and stronger than any Wiggle Susan had ever seen, and flung her backwards so she cannoned into Edmund.
Edmund dropped the chair and Susan staggered. Blackpond lunged forward, with a knife gleaming in his hand that had not been there before.
But before he reached her, Susan the box open in her hand. Blackpond saw it and staggered to a halt. His knife-hand sagged, as if the blade had suddenly become to heavy to hold. "Where--how did you?"
"Edmund," said Susan cheerfully, "do you remember the story of the magician who stored his heart outside his body, so he could not be killed?"
Behind her, there was a sound as of a stick of wood (or a chair-leg) hitting someone on the head, and then a slithering thump as of a body falling to the ground. "I do!" said Edmund cheerily (if a little breathlessly). "Although I don't think it's a Narnian fairytale."
"No, I didn't learn it in Narnia," confirmed Susan. Keeping one eye on Blackpond, she took her knife and prodded at the small silver ring in the box. The ring was shaped like a snake holding a green stone in its open jaws, and it gleamed unlike any ordinary item of jewelry in Cair Paravel's vaults. "Do you remember how the magician was defeated, though?"
"Oh, that's easy," said Edmund, and there was a cry of pain and another slithering thump. His shoulder bumped against hers. "Destroy the heart, and the magician may finally die."
"That's what I thought," said Susan, and with a sudden motion, she lifted the ring on the tip of her knife and flung it sideways into the fire.
+=+=+
The next afternoon, twenty miles south under a damp grey sky, Edmund burst out laughing. They were leading a cheerfully-bedraggled cavalcade of riders south (including an uncomfortable Minnow, who was riding pillion behind Bellevox, for there were no other horses available).
That morning there had been a painful meeting with five shame-faced Wiggle elders, concluded with many apologies and promises. Edmund had theorized that Blackpond had enchanted the Wiggles; Susan was less convinced. They had left Tarble and Perryweather to advise the Wiggles, who were distraught at Blackpond's knavery and the resulting division of their people. Susan suspected that it could be months before Minnow's family and the other clans would be willing to return to the village from the deep marshes.
"What now?" Susan frowned. It was yet two days' ride to Cair Paravel, and she foresaw that she would be wet for every moment of it. It was a reminder of why she usually left the campaigning to the others.
Edmund reined his mount closer to Susan and leaned towards her, with a wicked grin on his face.
"I was just thinking what a right fool you'd have looked, if after going to all that trouble, you threw the ring into the fire and nothing happened."
Susan's eyes widened in horror. "Edmund! You could have died!"
"King Edmund the Just, Killed by Wiggles? Now, there's an epitaph." He looked at her face, and then let the smile drop away. "In all seriousness, Su, that was a hell of a risk to take."
She bit her lip. "I know, but what else should I have done? A frontal assault?"
Edmund grinned, and then sobered. "I'm not sure I wouldn't have done it, if they'd had you or Lucy. And you know it would have been the first thing Pete tried--he loves to go charging in, sword in hand."
"And that would have set off a political crisis it would have taken us months to settle," Susan pointed out with some sharpness. An attack by Narnian soldiers on a Narnian village? It would have caused a great scandal, no matter the provocation. Despite their successes, some Narnians were still distrustful of the Pevensies' intentions, and no few clung to their older, more wicked, allegiances. An ill-considered action like the one Blackpond had tried to provoke could have ignited months of conflict, leaving them vulnerable just when Peter and Lucy were away; it could have been disastrous.
"Probably," agreed Edmund. "It was a good thing it was me that got captured, then, and you that ran the rescue, instead of the other way round."
It did Susan's heart good to hear her brother compliment her judgment, but Edmund was still talking. "It's still a pity Blackpond--or whatever his true name was--died. I should dearly like to know where he came from, as I've never seen a true shape-shifter in Narnia before. And more importantly, who set him on to enchant--or suborn, I know--all those Wiggles."
Susan nodded. "As would I."
As they climbed the next slope, Susan turned about in the saddle and looked behind. Far to the north, just visible under the low clouds, were the vast bare hills of Ettinsmoor, climbing away to the horizon.
She remembered something Tumnus had said once, about danger to Narnia always coming from the North. Well, they had evaded it this time, with Aslan's help. With luck, they would next time, as well.
END
Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: A Golden-Age story about Susan (everyone else can come along too, of course, but mostly Susan) in which she has some sort of opportunity to take more power (politically, maybe, or through magic perhaps). Writer's decision concerning the circumstances and outcome. AU or canon, both are fine.
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "How can I let go of this?", the North
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Caspian, gratuitous violence/sex.