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Caspian knocked on Susan’s door.
“You can come in,” she called. “We’re dressed.”
Entering the room, he found both her and Lucy inside. They were clad in bright gowns, fancier than they usually wore, and the sort of flowing, light dresses it was a charm to dance in: pink and gold for Lucy, purple and blue for Susan. A little table and stool had been drawn up before a glass hanging on the wall. The table held a basket with fresh flowers spilling out of it, all the same colors as the Queens’ dresses, and Lucy was perched on the stool. Susan stood behind her, plaiting flowers into Lucy’s hair: yarrow, buttercups, apple blossoms. Her own dark locks were already coiled and twined with violets, lilac, and forget-me-nots.
“Have you come to tell us to hurry up?” she asked Caspian. “Because if so, Peter can just be patient.”
“The opposite, actually,” Caspian said. “Your brothers sent me to tell you they’ve just returned from riding. They’ll join us as soon as they’ve cleaned up and changed, and then we can leave for the festival.”
“I told them to mind the time,” Susan said, exasperated. “At least we won’t have them rushing us while we finish up. Lucy? Did you want more pink or more yellow?”
“Mm—more yellow, please. The party’ll go on all night, and I’ll look like I’m glowing in the firelight.”
“Like you’ve got stars in your hair,” Susan said, smiling. Caspian watched, fascinated, as she worked. He had no sisters or girl-cousins, and hadn’t been close with his aunt. He’d never seen hair done before. Susan’s hands were deft and sure; braids and loops appeared as if by magic.
Lucy looked at Caspian.
“Is something strange? You’re staring. Sorry!” (The last bit was addressed to Susan, who had protested when Lucy moved her head.)
“I’m only surprised you’re doing your own hair. I thought the maids would be helping.”
“We know how to,” Lucy said, very amused. “We don’t have maids in Finchley.”
Caspian flushed a bit, but Susan took pity on his embarrassment.
“We would if it were a formal event,” she said. “Like meeting a foreign ambassador. But today’s…well, like Lucy said: a party. We did each other’s hair all the time in the old days.” She looked at the flowers still piled on the table. “Though we had more of it then.”
Caspian caught the wistfulness in her gaze as it went to her reflection; her hair was thick and shimmering and gorgeous, but barely to her waist. It had fallen to her feet in “the old days”.
Lucy caught the wistfulness, too.
“You still look beautiful,” she said, smiling at Susan in the mirror. Susan shook herself and smiled back.
“So do you. And my hair will grow.” She surveyed Lucy’s hair critically, tucked one final blossom into the chestnut strands, eyed her handiwork again, and nodded. “There. What do you think?”
She fished a brass plate out from under the mess of flowers on the table: a decorative platter that usually stood on a side table. But it was metal, and highly polished. Susan held it up behind and a little above Lucy’s head. The back of Lucy’s hair reflected clearly in the plate, and the mirror reflected that reflection where Lucy could see it. She laughed in delight.
“Oh, Susan, it’s perfect! I’m going to make the dryads jealous.”
“You both will,” Caspian said. “It will be my honor to escort two such beautiful Queens to the festival.”
Lucy giggled.
“Flatterer.” She cocked her head at Susan. “Su? Are you thinking something?”
Susan had been gathering the strewn flowers back into the basket with a thoughtful expression. She looked over at Lucy and Caspian.
“We picked so many extra, and we have time, if Peter and Edmund aren’t ready yet… Caspian, do you want me to do something with your hair?”
He stared at her.
“Me?”
“It’s short, but I could do something simple. Lucy and I would do Peter and Edmund’s hair sometimes in the Golden Age. You don’t have to, though.”
Caspian’s uncle would have been livid at the mere thought. He’d taught Caspian that a real king—a strong king—inspired awe in his subjects, fear in his enemies. Putting flowers in one’s hair was juvenile, and girlish.
It was also very Narnian. And Caspian’s uncle was gone. He nodded.
“Is it long enough?” he asked shyly, sitting on the stool. (Lucy had hopped down and was sorting through the flowers.) “It’s not past my shoulders.”
“Edmund never grew his any longer than that,” Susan reassured him.
“Did he really let you do his hair with flowers?” Caspian asked.
Susan picked up the silver-backed brush lying on the table and began running it through Caspian’s hair. He had already combed it when he dressed for the festival, but it felt comforting nonetheless. Perhaps Susan understood that, though Caspian did not say it, because she kept brushing past the few strokes needed to realize it was already neat.
“He did,” Susan said. “When he was in a playful mood. Or Lucy in a very bad one, and Edmund knew playing with his hair would cheer her up.”
Caspian laughed, imagining Edmund, embarrassed and resigned, as Lucy draped flower crowns all over his attempts to be regal.
“He’s a good brother.”
“He is,” Lucy said. “How about forget-me-nots and buttercups for your hair, Caspian? You’re in blue and yellow.”
Caspian’s tunic was a soft blue, scattered all over with little gold stars and suns. He grinned at her.
“That sounds perfect.”
His shyness was melting away under Susan and Lucy’s ease, as if there was nothing at all unnatural about a boy braiding flowers into his hair.
Susan put down the brush now. She slid her fingers back from Caspian’s temple, picking up a strand of his hair and twisting it. The soft touch raised a feeling like goosebumps on Caspian’s head.
“I think your hair’s too short to pull everything back,” Susan said, laughing a little at the image. “It’ll just turn into a chunky mess. How about a simple gather? I can twist sections back from either side, and have them meet in the back. Or braids instead of twists, if you’re feeling fancy.”
“I think I am,” Caspian said, remembering her magic with Lucy’s hair.
“That’ll be better for sticking flowers in, too,” Lucy said, and Caspian saw Susan smiling in the mirror.
“You’re going to look very elegant.”
She ran her fingers through Caspian’s hair again, less thoughtfully and more purposeful. The goosebumpy feeling came back, and though it was a soothing rather than a tickling feeling, he was rather afraid he might shiver.
“Did the High King—did Peter look elegant, when you did his hair in the Golden Age?” he asked to distract himself (remembering only a little late that he was allowed to call the Kings and Queens of old by their names). “Or was he also a big brother under attack by his little sister?”
Lucy giggled.
“The former, at first.”
She cleared a space on the table, hoisted herself up, and sat on it. It wobbled (it wasn’t a very big table), and Susan sucked in a breath. Caspian hurriedly put out a hand to stabilize it, and Lucy leaned sideways to better balance her weight. The table settled again. Lucy’s feet dangled idly.
“It was hard for him, coming from England,” Susan explained, eyeing Lucy and the table a moment more before starting to braid. “Harder even than for Edmund, in some ways. Edmund’s more serious, but Peter was older when we left. And…people are funny there. When we first came, we worried about all sorts of stuff that doesn’t really matter.”
Caspian looked down at his hands, thinking about his childhood, slowly turning over the things he’d been taught.
“My uncle worried about that stuff, too,” he said quietly. “He taught me to worry about it.”
Susan stopped her work to catch his eye in the mirror.
“He tried. That doesn’t mean he succeeded. And we can help you unlearn whatever doesn’t suit you.”
Caspian looked at her for a long while, but she looked serious and kind. So did Lucy, when he glanced at her. He looked back at Susan’s reflection, and gave her a small smile.
“I think flowers in my hair suit me.”
Both girls beamed at him.
“I think they do, too,” Susan said. She began braiding his hair again. Caspian was facing the mirror, so he got only glimpses of her work, hands weaving smoothly somewhere behind his head. She stopped after only a little while, and said, “Caspian, can you hold this?”
He raised one hand uncertainly, not sure what she was asking; Susan took it and guided it up to the back of his hair. He felt a little braid running down around his head, and Susan pressed his fingers over the end, just above the nape of his neck.
“Just hold that while I braid the other side. It’ll look better if I tie both ends at once.” Susan looked over and scanned the table. “I’ll need the ribbons at some point, Lucy. I think you’re sitting on them.”
Lucy looked around beneath her, and pulled out a handful of thin black ribbons.
“Black seems dreary for a party,” Lucy said (Caspian’s surprise must have shown on his face), “But it matches your hair. It’ll blend in, and make the flowers and braids stand out more.”
“Like I’ve got stars in my hair?” Caspian asked, and the queens laughed. Susan skimmed her fingers through Caspian’s hair again, separating out a section on his other temple, and began to braid.
“Exactly. We’re going to make Peter jealous,” Lucy declared. Caspian blinked, and she explained, “He can’t grow his hair out till he’s grown up again. His school would scold him for looking sloppy, and Mum’d make him cut it.”
“He liked it long, before,” Susan said, fingers a gentle tugging rhythm through Caspian’s hair. “It was almost to his waist, once, but then Ettinsmoor made trouble and he had to cut it for campaign. We went back before it got that long again.”
“But he let me and Susan do it with flowers a lot, whatever length it was.”
“He realized he didn’t mind it about the same time he realized he liked his hair long. Long hair fits him, not the Peter he was in England, trying to be what everyone expected.”
Caspian didn’t know what to say. Peter was so sure of himself, High King and older brother and friendly, laughing, Peter. He had such a steady strength that just being in his presence was reassuring. Caspian couldn’t imagine him messy and lost. Not like Caspian was.
“It’s cruel that he can’t grow his hair,” Caspian said at last, the confusion bursting out of him in careless words. “England sounds—”
He caught himself, turning red.
“England’s not all bad!” Lucy protested. “There’s balloons and the wireless and painkillers—and ice cream!”
“But it is complicated, in different ways than Narnia is,” Susan said. “It does seem horrible, sometimes.”
Caspian’s face burned harder.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to insult your home. It only…reminded me of Narnia under my uncle.”
He said it barely audible, very ashamed. It was a horrid thing to say. His uncle, and men like him, had nearly taken everything from the Pevensies.
Lucy stared at Caspian, then stopped swinging her feet, and instead rested them on Caspian’s knees.
“I suppose there are people like that everywhere, only usually no one listens to them in Narnia. I am sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Caspian asked. “I’m the one comparing your home to…”
“To your home,” Lucy said. “Or your childhood, at least. Saying something reminds you of your family is a bad thing. That’s so sad.”
“I didn’t—”
Caspian stopped, looking at the two girls. Lucy looked like she might actually cry. Susan finished the second braid, and carefully pulled the first away from Caspian; she held his hand in hers instead of letting it drop. He didn’t know how she was managing to hold both braids in one hand without them unraveling. The Pevensies’ parents must have taught them wonderful magic indeed.
“My childhood was sad,” Caspian said at last. “I’ve never admitted it. My uncle would have said I was prince of a great nation, and I had everything…but I was lonely. And I was trying so hard to be—I-I don’t even know who.”
His uncle had thought a Narnian prince—like he thought Narnia—was proud and warlike and controlled. His aunt thought a good nephew was one who was quiet and out of the way. Even Professor Cornelius, Caspian’s only friend and the person he loved best in the world besides his nurse (and she gone), had expected much of Caspian; when he became king, he might remake the world. Caspian had dreamed of being a king of old, and tried to be a Narnian prince, and all he really wanted to be was someone’s child. He’d thought that if he could be proper prince, a good prince, then his aunt and uncle would want him. A very secret part of Caspian had thought that if he became the king Cornelius was teaching him to be, a true king for all Narnia, he would be able to call them all back: rescue his nurse from exile, summon the Golden Royals from the past, even find his parents somewhere in Aslan’s country. Maybe he had been so busy trying to be everything he was supposed to or been told he could be, that he had forgotten to learn who Caspian was.
But merely thinking all that made Caspian’s face flush, and he didn’t say it to the queens. Even if they were just Susan and Lucy, it still felt too childish and uncertain.
“But I didn’t think my childhood was sad while I was in it,” he said. “And now my life is wonderful, so does it even matter?”
Susan pressed herself against Caspian for a moment as she kissed the top of his head, a strange sort of half-hug.
“It does. But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”
“Tonight is supposed to be a festival…” Caspian’s face felt hot.
“Yes,” Susan said with a kind laugh. “And here I am ruining your hair. May I have a ribbon, Lucy?”
Lucy handed one over. Susan tied off Caspian’s braids, then finger-combed Caspian’s hair, trying to neaten it. He couldn’t stop a shiver.
“Does that tickle?” Susan asked, and Caspian’s face, starting to cool, flushed again.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to fidget. My nurse always said I could never sit still.”
“It’s hard when someone’s brushing your hair,” Lucy said. “You should see Edmund. He squirms like anything.”
Caspian began to relax again.
“But you kept trying to braid his hair anyway?” he asked.
“He looks so dignified with violets in his hair!” Lucy protested.
Caspian laughed, though a moment later the laugh caught in his throat a little as he realized Lucy really meant it. Flowers, flowers and everything they meant, fun and softness and beauty and being yourself and letting someone love you, could be dignified.
“Well, he didn’t always think so,” Susan admitted with laughter in her own voice. “But that’s what sisters are for: pestering you into looking dignified whether you want to or not.”
Caspian laughed again while Lucy complained, “Oh, Susan.”
“I’ll need those forget-me-nots now, if you haven’t squashed them all,” Susan said. Lucy made a show of pouting. “Come on; they’re for Caspian.”
“Oh, alright, then.” Lucy gathered up the forget-me-nots and held them out toward Susan in a loose bouquet. Susan began plucking out flowers one at a time, tucking them somewhere into Caspian’s hair. “But Edmund likes having his hair done. With the first snowdrops or—”
“Alright, alright, I remember!” Susan said, Caspian thought a little too quickly, though she was laughing still. “I’m only teasing, Lucy.”
“Snowdrops?” Caspian asked.
Susan tucked a stray curl behind Caspian’s ear.
“Edmund can tell you if he likes. What Lucy’s saying is Edmund finds having his hair done soothing, no matter how much he wiggles.”
He wondered what she meant, what she wasn’t letting Lucy say. But then, Caspian hadn’t wanted to talk about his childhood. Maybe Edmund didn’t either, or something like it. And Susan was smiling at Caspian in the mirror.
“It is nice,” he said. “It’s…friendly.”
“Yes.” Susan stepped back one pace to survey his hair. “Right, I think that’s enough blue. Any more and it’ll get crowded. We need a buttercup now, Lucy.”
“Just one?”
“Just one. I’m going to put it right here.” Susan tapped the back of Caspian’s head. He tried to envision what she was doing.
Lucy understood, apparently, as she nodded.
“I’ll find you the biggest, prettiest one.”
She picked over the golden blossoms piled on the table, and finally held up one as large as her palm, petals like buttery sunshine. Susan took it out of Caspian’s sight; he felt one last bit of gentle tugging on his hair.
“There,” Susan said. “Now you’re ready for the festival.”
“Oh, perfect!” Lucy hopped off the table and ran around behind Caspian to look at his hair properly. “You look so handsome, Caspian!”
“Do I?”
“See for yourself,” Susan said. “Oh, hold still. You’re as impatient as Lucy.”
Caspian was twisting his head this way and that, trying to see his hair in the mirror. He ducked his head, chastised, but Susan was laughing, and Lucy stuck out her tongue at Susan.
“Just eager to see your handiwork, my lady,” he dared to tease, because the Pevensies teased each other so, an easy bantering quite unlike Caspian’s stiff audiences with his aunt and uncle, and Susan laughed again with a little swat to his shoulder. She picked up the brass plate and held it so Caspian could see his hair.
Two small braids curved through Caspian’s hair; two lines of forget-me-nots danced down their lengths like stars drawn toward the sun: the buttercup, tucked into the point where the two braids met at the back of his head. The flowers were bright and cheerful against his dark hair. The braids rested as gracefully against the loose strands as though they’d grown there.
“Well?” Susan asked, and Caspian realized he was staring in silence. “What do you think?”
“I…I look so Narnian.”
“You are Narnian, silly,” Peter said. They turned to see him and Edmund in the doorway, clean and dressed in rich tunics (crimson and gold for Peter, green and coppery-brown for Edmund).
“Very nice, Caspian,” Edmund said. “Now you’re ready for the festival.”
“Oh, don’t act like we were the ones holding you up,” Susan said. “Do you like it, though, Caspian? We can always take it down again if you’ve changed your mind.”
“No! I like it!” He flushed, but smiled up at her anyway. “I think it suits me. Thank you, Susan.”
“You’re welcome, Caspian.”
She smiled at him and returned the plate to its usual place. Lucy held out her hands, and Caspian let her pull him to his feet.
“You look jolly festive,” Peter said. “If my hair were longer…”
Lucy and Caspian caught each other’s eyes, and dissolved into giggles.
“What?” Peter demanded. “What?”
“I’m-I’m sorry,” Caspian gasped desperately. “I don’t mean to laugh at my High King—”
“Well, I do,” Lucy said. “I told him you’d be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous!”
“Yes, you are,” Edmund said.
“Don’t worry,” Lucy said, looping one arm through Peter’s and the other through Caspian’s. “I’ll make you a flower crown at the festival; the dryads’ll have put flowers everywhere. You too, Edmund.”
“I don’t want one!”
“Yes, you do,” Susan said, taking his arm. He sighed in a very long-suffering sort of way, but a moment later a grin was peeking around the corner of his mouth. Caspian grinned himself, and, arm-in-arm and flower-bright, the five monarchs went out to join the festival.