Fill for Challenge 12 -- Changing times
This is for the Change challenge, but is also in the attempt to kickstart myself into writing the sequel to 'Resistance', though I don't expect that this will actually make it into that story.
Set at the absolute end of Prince Caspian; his former Nurse and Tutor assess changes, and the need for change.
Changing times
"Some of the Black Dwarfs, who had been of Nikabrik's party, began to edge away." - Prince Caspian, Chapter 15.
***
She had felt her heart would burst with the joy of that first meeting with her child, her only child, so grown and so triumphant, so joyous to see her, so eager to be in her arms again, and laugh in his exultation at stories grown realities, and at finding his Nurse grown so small now that he could lift her from the ground in his strong, young arms
So grown! and standing among the unknown and the great: Old Narnians and the stranger kings and queens and Aslan himself... standing and confident and proud. She was proud for him, and yearned to speak more with him, and tell him all her tale. But... first there was a whirl of rejoicing, and then they were all so busy and there was much for him to do, much for them all to do, and so much of the world turned upside-down, that she could not ever speak heart to heart with him
She kept close, and he looked across at her, often, but this was no time for story-telling, not even of their own stories. Instead the talk was of grave matters, of balances and retribution and reparations. Moll stayed close, saw Cornelius - Lord Cornelius now - enter and leave the council chamber and heard their talk, or fragments of it, fragments and words and hints. Reparations, property confiscation, punitive expeditions. The Council itself, made up of newly-ennobled Lords, all but Cornelius Old Narnians. The unsettling way her own child spoke of some of the women of the Telmarine court, and of their servants. She watched and listened, and heard, and saw, and gradually, gradually, the simple thankfulness ebbed, and left behind a different recognition of what the changes might mean. She wondered - what did Cornelius see, what did he feel about this new Narnia, and even more, about this new King?
So she watched for Cornelius, and took care to stand near him in the crowd which had come down from the Castle to the glade by the Ford of Beruna, towards the end of that first week, when the strange door was made, and the ancient kings and queens and so many of the Telmarines had gone through it. She could tell that he knew she was there, and she stood her ground as the restless, excited crowd eddied and moved around them, closer, then farther, and then dispersing at last when it was plain that the Lion had vanished as certainly as the lost Telmarines and the stranger kings. When they finally were left standing in their own quiet space, late in the afternoon, she began to speak, but not the words she had planned as she waited. She had meant to ask him about the changes, about the public matters, about his perceptions, but her first words came without warning, irresistibly, surging out as if under some hidden pressure.
"It's not the same. I know it can't be. He's not a little boy - and I am not the same as I was. He is changed, and I have changed. I know not to moan at change, and especially not for change in... affections. But... it is a loss, Cornelius."
She stopped, wondering that she had come so near a complaint.
Cornelius' eyes met hers, sombrely
"Yes. It is changed for all of us - for him most of all, though I think he scarcely understands how. It will take a little while before the new shoes walk easy." He paused, then went on. "It is... not the same for me, either. His uncle took him away, often, to talk of how to rule, but I was his sole counsellor in matters relating to Narnia. Now he has Centaurs and the Woodwise to counsel him, and I am one among many, and the least of those, because I am not Old Narnian. Oh," he responded to her quick frown, "he has defended me. He has said that he will not forget his earliest friend. But I can see that I have not the confidence of the others, and that they have his. My voice is little heard. It even seems," with a gathering, flinty, bitterness, "that he would rather hear a Dwarf - a Dwarf! - on the complex and subtle politics needed to bring his three followings together into one kingdom than one who has lived with all three."
His voice had hardened. Moll felt her spirits lift a little, and her lips quirked in a faint smile.
"Is there Iron in you, after all, Cornelius? Have you learned resentment?"
He was too earnest to smile back.
"Iron in this, at least - that I want now to think of the hard realities of balancing Old Narnia and Telmar-in-Narnia and the Resistance, not moan because a child's fancies are quickly caught by new faces - and faces with all the glamour of the old stories, as well."
"My stories!"
They looked at each other, grimly appreciating the irony of this outcome of those tales. Then Cornelius shook his head.
"No, I am too old to play the fool's game of wanting affections, Moll. I have learnt hardness as well as wisdom in the past years. I look to the good of Narnia, and truly, it is not for the good of Narnia that counsellors such as I am, or Grattandrak, or Tau, are lightly set aside in favour of these new advisors. Glenstorm I know to be deeply learned in many matters, but this Trumpkin is no sage, and no diplomat, and none of them knows how the Resistance worked, nor much of Telmarine ways or thinking. If Caspian keeps his council as it is now, this country will tear itself apart before that child of Miraz has seen two winters."
Moll shrugged, a little bitterly. "That rock's shattered now, and can't be mended. And you are right to set it aside. Dwarf-brood do not whimper for love not given. As for the country, I will look only to have a quiet life now, I think, and leave these good Narnians to manage for themselves."
"You were not made for a quiet life, Moll. And I do not set it aside."
"So you will stay on the Council, as the least-heard of many?"
"I will. But Moll, I think you have found things amiss as much as I."
"Yes." The anger began to well up in her. "Cornelius, they... I have seen how they look at the Black Dwarfs! And I have heard how they plan to hunt down ..." She stopped, and began again. "They plan to repay hate with hate, Cornelius."
"Yes, though I never heard that such a thing troubled Dwarf-brood before; your kind have always paid such debts in full. But this new kingdom already begins to go amiss in many ways. They have despised Tau because she is woman-shaped, as well as because she is not Old Narnian. They are in love with the notion of kingship, and have allowed our charge to call his petulance, 'kingly wrath', more than once already, and I fear will do so again. Moll, your work is not yet done. The Resistance needs to gather again, and needs the Iron-hard such as you to stand strong with them."
She looked at him, sharply. "A Resistance against Caspian? I have the Iron, Cornelius, but I also have that which makes me hold strong to loyalties given. Where I... give loyalty, I hold till I die."
He looked at her in quick, alert appraisal, but said nothing. She was as suddenly wary, but continued unflinchingly, "Need me, or need me not, I will not work against him."
"I do not ask you to. I do not ask you to leave the loyalty you have given to him. But Moll, you have other and older loyalties. Before I was tutor to a king-to-be, before you were his Nurse, we had sworn to work as the Resistance directed for Narnian freedom."
"The Cell is broken now; the Resistance work is finished. Death cancels all debts."
"Whether the Resistance is dead or not lies with us, and I will not accept that its work is finished. What bought you to the Resistance, Moll?"
She did not answer
"Whatever brought you, whatever made you join then, in the face of bitterness and danger, does that not still hold you now? Narnian freedom needs to be maintained as much as won. Does that not tell you that you cannot settle, in the face of so much amiss, for 'a quiet life'? "
She was silent still, but gazed at him with an intensity of thought which looked like enmity.
"You have said the rock is shattered, and cannot be mended. It is true, and we two among others struck the blows which freed Narnia from Miraz' rule; we brought our charge to power. Is it not our responsibility now to see he wields that power well?"
That broke her silence; she spoke in some bitterness. "He is no longer a child; I can't mould his mind with stories now, and you are no longer his tutor."
"Then what?" he spoke in sudden anger. "You will just accept what he has become, and what he will make Narnia? You will let the Black Dwarfs be forced to reparations? Let the hunting begin? Will you lie snug while your cousins run hunted?"
"My cousins?"
They stared at each other, tensed almost to breaking-point, then Cornelius pulled in one long breath, and spoke again, more calmly.
"You have Black Dwarf in your ancestry, Moll. But even were they not your cousins, is this the Narnia you worked for? And if it is not, then... the work is not done."
A pause. She turned away, and stared out across the darkening river. He waited as the minutes passed. Finally - resentfully, angrily, bitterly:
"No, the work is not done."
She was resentful and bitter and angry, but hearing her, his face was suddenly alight with the excitement of possibility.
"Then you will? You will? Work to mould this new Narnia, and its new king, .. "
"If its new Lord Chancellor..." she jibed, but already the bitterness was leaching from her voice, "can work with an old and simple countrywife."
"Oh, yes, Moll! Oh yes." His eyes were warm with affection. "Very gladly."
And how and when and where could wait for future decision. For now, there was no need for more; they separated, and each returned alone to the castle.
Set at the absolute end of Prince Caspian; his former Nurse and Tutor assess changes, and the need for change.
Changing times
"Some of the Black Dwarfs, who had been of Nikabrik's party, began to edge away." - Prince Caspian, Chapter 15.
***
She had felt her heart would burst with the joy of that first meeting with her child, her only child, so grown and so triumphant, so joyous to see her, so eager to be in her arms again, and laugh in his exultation at stories grown realities, and at finding his Nurse grown so small now that he could lift her from the ground in his strong, young arms
So grown! and standing among the unknown and the great: Old Narnians and the stranger kings and queens and Aslan himself... standing and confident and proud. She was proud for him, and yearned to speak more with him, and tell him all her tale. But... first there was a whirl of rejoicing, and then they were all so busy and there was much for him to do, much for them all to do, and so much of the world turned upside-down, that she could not ever speak heart to heart with him
She kept close, and he looked across at her, often, but this was no time for story-telling, not even of their own stories. Instead the talk was of grave matters, of balances and retribution and reparations. Moll stayed close, saw Cornelius - Lord Cornelius now - enter and leave the council chamber and heard their talk, or fragments of it, fragments and words and hints. Reparations, property confiscation, punitive expeditions. The Council itself, made up of newly-ennobled Lords, all but Cornelius Old Narnians. The unsettling way her own child spoke of some of the women of the Telmarine court, and of their servants. She watched and listened, and heard, and saw, and gradually, gradually, the simple thankfulness ebbed, and left behind a different recognition of what the changes might mean. She wondered - what did Cornelius see, what did he feel about this new Narnia, and even more, about this new King?
So she watched for Cornelius, and took care to stand near him in the crowd which had come down from the Castle to the glade by the Ford of Beruna, towards the end of that first week, when the strange door was made, and the ancient kings and queens and so many of the Telmarines had gone through it. She could tell that he knew she was there, and she stood her ground as the restless, excited crowd eddied and moved around them, closer, then farther, and then dispersing at last when it was plain that the Lion had vanished as certainly as the lost Telmarines and the stranger kings. When they finally were left standing in their own quiet space, late in the afternoon, she began to speak, but not the words she had planned as she waited. She had meant to ask him about the changes, about the public matters, about his perceptions, but her first words came without warning, irresistibly, surging out as if under some hidden pressure.
"It's not the same. I know it can't be. He's not a little boy - and I am not the same as I was. He is changed, and I have changed. I know not to moan at change, and especially not for change in... affections. But... it is a loss, Cornelius."
She stopped, wondering that she had come so near a complaint.
Cornelius' eyes met hers, sombrely
"Yes. It is changed for all of us - for him most of all, though I think he scarcely understands how. It will take a little while before the new shoes walk easy." He paused, then went on. "It is... not the same for me, either. His uncle took him away, often, to talk of how to rule, but I was his sole counsellor in matters relating to Narnia. Now he has Centaurs and the Woodwise to counsel him, and I am one among many, and the least of those, because I am not Old Narnian. Oh," he responded to her quick frown, "he has defended me. He has said that he will not forget his earliest friend. But I can see that I have not the confidence of the others, and that they have his. My voice is little heard. It even seems," with a gathering, flinty, bitterness, "that he would rather hear a Dwarf - a Dwarf! - on the complex and subtle politics needed to bring his three followings together into one kingdom than one who has lived with all three."
His voice had hardened. Moll felt her spirits lift a little, and her lips quirked in a faint smile.
"Is there Iron in you, after all, Cornelius? Have you learned resentment?"
He was too earnest to smile back.
"Iron in this, at least - that I want now to think of the hard realities of balancing Old Narnia and Telmar-in-Narnia and the Resistance, not moan because a child's fancies are quickly caught by new faces - and faces with all the glamour of the old stories, as well."
"My stories!"
They looked at each other, grimly appreciating the irony of this outcome of those tales. Then Cornelius shook his head.
"No, I am too old to play the fool's game of wanting affections, Moll. I have learnt hardness as well as wisdom in the past years. I look to the good of Narnia, and truly, it is not for the good of Narnia that counsellors such as I am, or Grattandrak, or Tau, are lightly set aside in favour of these new advisors. Glenstorm I know to be deeply learned in many matters, but this Trumpkin is no sage, and no diplomat, and none of them knows how the Resistance worked, nor much of Telmarine ways or thinking. If Caspian keeps his council as it is now, this country will tear itself apart before that child of Miraz has seen two winters."
Moll shrugged, a little bitterly. "That rock's shattered now, and can't be mended. And you are right to set it aside. Dwarf-brood do not whimper for love not given. As for the country, I will look only to have a quiet life now, I think, and leave these good Narnians to manage for themselves."
"You were not made for a quiet life, Moll. And I do not set it aside."
"So you will stay on the Council, as the least-heard of many?"
"I will. But Moll, I think you have found things amiss as much as I."
"Yes." The anger began to well up in her. "Cornelius, they... I have seen how they look at the Black Dwarfs! And I have heard how they plan to hunt down ..." She stopped, and began again. "They plan to repay hate with hate, Cornelius."
"Yes, though I never heard that such a thing troubled Dwarf-brood before; your kind have always paid such debts in full. But this new kingdom already begins to go amiss in many ways. They have despised Tau because she is woman-shaped, as well as because she is not Old Narnian. They are in love with the notion of kingship, and have allowed our charge to call his petulance, 'kingly wrath', more than once already, and I fear will do so again. Moll, your work is not yet done. The Resistance needs to gather again, and needs the Iron-hard such as you to stand strong with them."
She looked at him, sharply. "A Resistance against Caspian? I have the Iron, Cornelius, but I also have that which makes me hold strong to loyalties given. Where I... give loyalty, I hold till I die."
He looked at her in quick, alert appraisal, but said nothing. She was as suddenly wary, but continued unflinchingly, "Need me, or need me not, I will not work against him."
"I do not ask you to. I do not ask you to leave the loyalty you have given to him. But Moll, you have other and older loyalties. Before I was tutor to a king-to-be, before you were his Nurse, we had sworn to work as the Resistance directed for Narnian freedom."
"The Cell is broken now; the Resistance work is finished. Death cancels all debts."
"Whether the Resistance is dead or not lies with us, and I will not accept that its work is finished. What bought you to the Resistance, Moll?"
She did not answer
"Whatever brought you, whatever made you join then, in the face of bitterness and danger, does that not still hold you now? Narnian freedom needs to be maintained as much as won. Does that not tell you that you cannot settle, in the face of so much amiss, for 'a quiet life'? "
She was silent still, but gazed at him with an intensity of thought which looked like enmity.
"You have said the rock is shattered, and cannot be mended. It is true, and we two among others struck the blows which freed Narnia from Miraz' rule; we brought our charge to power. Is it not our responsibility now to see he wields that power well?"
That broke her silence; she spoke in some bitterness. "He is no longer a child; I can't mould his mind with stories now, and you are no longer his tutor."
"Then what?" he spoke in sudden anger. "You will just accept what he has become, and what he will make Narnia? You will let the Black Dwarfs be forced to reparations? Let the hunting begin? Will you lie snug while your cousins run hunted?"
"My cousins?"
They stared at each other, tensed almost to breaking-point, then Cornelius pulled in one long breath, and spoke again, more calmly.
"You have Black Dwarf in your ancestry, Moll. But even were they not your cousins, is this the Narnia you worked for? And if it is not, then... the work is not done."
A pause. She turned away, and stared out across the darkening river. He waited as the minutes passed. Finally - resentfully, angrily, bitterly:
"No, the work is not done."
She was resentful and bitter and angry, but hearing her, his face was suddenly alight with the excitement of possibility.
"Then you will? You will? Work to mould this new Narnia, and its new king, .. "
"If its new Lord Chancellor..." she jibed, but already the bitterness was leaching from her voice, "can work with an old and simple countrywife."
"Oh, yes, Moll! Oh yes." His eyes were warm with affection. "Very gladly."
And how and when and where could wait for future decision. For now, there was no need for more; they separated, and each returned alone to the castle.