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CAIR PARAVEL. LATE FALL/WINTER 1001
As the youngest Pevensie child, Lucy was last. The last to be born, the last in the string of names their mother called out, the last to go away to school. The last, the last, the last. Always the last, until Narnia, where she became the first. The first to go through the wardrobe. The first to meet Mr. Tumnus. The first to love Aslan. The first to be crowned.
The first to notice when something was wrong.
It was a brisk but beautiful late autumn morning at the tail end of a gloriously long summer, but Lucy was returning to the castle from the lower town far earlier than usual that morning preoccupied by the cold shoulders she had received. She turned it all over in her mind, curious and confused. The Narnians had shied away from her. It wasn’t everyone, nor was it done in a way that suggested they were upset with her, but it still unnerved her.
Not quite ready to return to the castle where she would certainly get roped into another courtly lesson on proper etiquette or Calormen history (as if Narnian history wasn’t enough to keep straight), Lucy ventured to the stables. There, she found Edmund visiting with Philip.
For a time, she just watched him, silently marveling at what Narnia had done for her family.
Peter still got to be his usual self. As the oldest, he was the one they listened to and the one in charge. Susan maintained her usual motherly tendencies, though Lucy didn’t really fault her for it. She wasn’t sure how they’d get on without Susan sometimes, honestly. But where Edmund had always been something of a brat before—constantly picking fights, struggling be louder, older, bigger, better, and more important than everyone always treated him—he seemed content now. Or rather, he wasn’t trying so hard to be heard. Now that he finally had the respect he’d always wanted, it was like Edmund didn’t want to fight anymore. He was quieter, often keeping his opinions to himself now until asked for them. He was as careful and considerate with everyone, but the Horses most of all.
“You’ve company, my king.” Philip noted, announcing her presence.
“Philip,” Edmund groaned, not bothering to see who it was. “How many times do I ha-”
“Your majesty.” The horse interrupted, bowing low to Lucy. She thought it was unnecessary, but nodded her head back in return anyway.
“Lucy?”
“Hi, Edmund.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was… I was just looking for a bit of quiet. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“Not to worry, Queen Lucy. It’s quite alright. I should see to the others before we take our leave tomorrow, anyhow.” Philip announced, before dipping his head once more, to the pair of them this time. “Your majesties.”
“What’s on your mind, Lu?” Edmund asked, after watching the horse go.
She should have known he would have picked up on what she hadn’t said. Sometimes during court, she would watch Edmund instead of the Narnians who’d come to make their requests, just to try and figure out what he would advise. He always looked receptive, contemplative and serious, but his recommendations were often unpredictable. She had gotten the sense, over the past few months, that he listened astutely to the information presented and seeked out the pieces that weren’t to put together a whole picture.
“Lucy?”
She blinked. “Sorry, it’s just… all week in the lower city been so strange.”
“Strange how?”
“They won’t come out anymore. Today, just about everyone was shut up in their homes. And the few who weren’t, were either half in or half out. Hardly anyone wanted to talk, not even the fauns.”
Now that she’d said it out loud, it sounded silly, especially while pacing in the near-deserted stables. Edmund must have thought her a child for being so worked up over the fact that the Narnians weren’t coming out to spend time with her, but he didn’t say so. In fact, he said nothing at all. She wondered how he always knew when there was more she had to say.
“It’s almost like they were hiding.” She continued, ignoring the breeze that came through the stables in favor of her continued pacing. “They barely talked to me. Just stood by their fires or inside entirely. The Bears even looked like they weren’t interested in catching up, and you know how much the Shillingtons like to rattle on. I just don’t understand.”
Lucy looked back at her brother, only to see how jerky his nod was. How rigidly he stood, jaw clenched, hands balled up. It was familiar, this look, but it wasn’t until she caught his eye that she understood. He may have held his tongue because he knew there was more to her frustrations, but his silence served a different purpose as well. Edmund wanted to hide how cold he was.
Then it finally all slid into place. The animosity in the people. She’d seen it in the castle that morning too. After a gloriously long summer and a waning autumn, winter had finally reached Cair Paravel—it was only a dusting of snow over the ridge of the citadel, and it melted away in the rising sun, but the first sign of frost left its mark. The guards at Cair Paravel stood stiffer, the maids moved a touch slower, and every fireplace blazed hot throughout the castle.
Edmund was the only one of her siblings to even recognize the frost on the grass for the first signs of winter. He’d arrived to their morning meal with a look of discomfort on his face. He wasn’t often smiling, but a flat out scowl was unlike him now. Peter had teased him about a difficult training session with Oreius that morning, and Susan asked if he had, yet again, stayed up too late in whichever study he had claimed for the night. But Lucy knew better. Peter would have been equally as sore if it had anything to do with their training, and the look in Edmund’s eyes was as sharp as ever, refuting Susan’s theory.
“What is it?” Edmund asked, the tension in his voice pulling her from her thoughts. He was watching her carefully, perhaps as intently as she’d been staring at him before getting caught up in her own thoughts. She knew she should apologize for it, but instead, Lucy smiled wide and threw her arms around Edmund’s waist, nearly knocking him off balance and into the hay.
“Lucy!” He cried, but she only reached up to kiss his cheek. Then, she was gone. Zipping away back up to Cair Paravel and paying her brother little mind, because now she understood what was affecting the Narnians.
It was the same thing he was struggling with: winter.
In a matter of hours, she had her plan together. She had known it would take some careful timing if she wanted to keep them secret, but she discovered the next morning that her initial thought that keeping her plans from Edmund would be harder couldn’t have been further from the truth. He’d gone for a patrol ride through the Western Wood, a frequent trip he made in an effort to see the people and explore the kingdom.
It was tricking the Narnians into believing all was business as usual that proved nearly impossible.
In the end, she gave up all pretense of sneaking about. Instead, Lucy spent hours hanging lights and garlands throughout the castle grounds first and progressed into the cobbled streets of the lower town afterward, talking with any and all who inquired about her actions. That had been her initial purpose, anyhow. To bring the people back out and remind them that winter wasn’t all bad. Eventually, some of the Narnians even joined her, helping to reach the places she couldn’t.
When he returned from a long and chilly ride to see the entirety of Cair Paravel lit up—from the turrets of the castle and through the town below, clear down to the base of the cliff side where the waters lapped at the shore—Edmund’s heart warmed. The days had grown steadily shorter and colder, and the night longer and darker, but the closer he came to the lights themselves, the quicker his frigid mood evaporated.
The brightest light came from his sister; it was contagious, already having spread to those around her, and to those around them, further and farther until everyone around him seemed to shine. In their faces was the tell-tale sign of the love that was unique to his sister: bright and warm, just like the lights set up around them.
Lucy had become a great many things to the people of Narnia already: fiercely loyal, unendingly kind, and brilliantly optimistic and faithful. And through her efforts, the Narnians had seen something else, too. Because while love was often seen as something soft, unguarded, open, and vulnerable—something much like the terror that winter held for so many in the kingdom—Lucy had made it something different, because Lucy herself was different. She thrived on the love she gave and the love she received. And in pulling together a golden city awash in light and laughter, it was clear to see that love was her talent, her gift.
She reminded others of the warmth they had forgotten they had in one another, frozen under a century of snow and ice. And she did it not by being their queen with her head held high, asking others to do what she wanted, but by carrying endless lights and candles and mirrors and splashes of paint and everything else up and down the cliff side for days by herself. They saw her do what could have easily been ordered, laughing and smiling. They knew by watching her work and eventually joining her, that this was something she did for them for no other purpose beyond sharing the joy.
Lucy had already proven herself their friend in her daily visits through the town, and even if she had just done that and nothing more, Edmund imagined she would have still been well respected as their queen. But by pulling together their city and washing it in golden light and laughter to chase away the chill of a wicked winter, it was clear to see that as much as she loved the people, they would love her too.
The people were hers by gift of Aslan, but Lucy belonged to the Narnians too, by gift of her own.