One Golden Afternoon

O0O0O0O

It was, everybody agreed, a great stroke of good fortune that the first day of the Summer Festival dawned warm and sunny; it had been known, in past times, to begin with a rather grey drizzle over everything that, while perfectly acceptable if festivities were scheduled indoors, would have put rather a damper on the picnic they had planned. Today, however, seemed to have been ordered up especially for their purposes. Come sunrise it was plain to see that all would go exactly as they hoped it would. The castle was astir, people moving long, low tables out into the courtyard, setting out a few benches for the elderly and injured, should they have need of some rest, and preparing the food in the castle kitchen that would feast the court and the village through to nightfall, when the party would all make their way through the woods to the Dancing Lawn.

"You'll be in a fine temper tomorrow!" Lucy predicted, as she and Susan met in their sitting room for a brief, light breakfast before venturing down to oversee proceedings. "You know how you are when you have so little sleep."

"And yet," Susan's eyes danced just a little, "I seem to be able to tolerate myself all the same. 'Tis only you and our brothers who see fit to complain!"

"We shall keep a good berth of you, then," Lucy decided, spreading so much marmalade on the piece of toast she held that Susan had to check the pot and make sure there was enough left over for her own. "Mm, lovely; is there more tea?"

Susan passed it, and gestured to the small, covered dish at her elbow. "Kippers, Lucy?" she queried, and if there was a slight touch of irony to her voice –given that Lucy's plate was already full to overflowing– the younger Queen missed it, merely shaking her head and making a face.

"Ugh, no; horrid, bony things. Will you look to the watering table today? I would do it, except I want to set up the games for the children." Then she reached for her cup and sipped her tea, leaving Susan to bite the inside of her cheek, and say yes, she thought that sounded just fine.

By the time the Queens had finished their breakfast and made their way downstairs, they found that the lawn and the lower level of the castle were a hive of activity. They were separated quite quickly, Susan drawn off to examine the arrangement of the tables one last time before the first round of food was placed on them, and Lucy to the gates to stand with Edmund, where they were just in time to receive the first few villagers making their way up the hill.

Lucy let Edmund give a nice little speech, welcoming everybody to the celebration. It was the sort of speech Edmund gave best, straightforward, honest and to the point, and it was the sort of speech best appreciated by the villagers anyway. Of course, Lucy thought it would be hard to have found something in that speech to disagree with; Edmund held out his hands to the villagers, called them his friends and told them to make free use of the grounds and eat as much as they liked. Few people of Lucy's acquaintance would have balked at such a welcome.

None of the villagers seemed to mind; the King and Queen stood there for almost an hour, welcoming the approach of everybody, until finally Lucy said that any stragglers could certainly find their own way in, and Edmund said she was probably right. They made their way back inside to the northern lawns, now quite full of Narnians of all ages, sizes and every description, talking, laughing and making free use of the food and drink (a few of the Talking Goats and the like were grazing instead of eating from the table, but that was only to be expected, and it rather improved the look of the lawn anyway).

"If you eat one more of those," Lucy laughed, bending down to tap the strawberry-stained hand of a small boy, "you'll turn into a strawberry yourself!"

This dire prediction had a less than impressive effect. Chortling at Queen Lucy's foolishness, the little boy grabbed another strawberry from a bowl heaped with these and went toddling off in search of other delicacies. Lucy, watching him go, made a good-natured face before turning to the low, laden table and sampling a strawberry herself. They were especially sweet that summer.

"Any good?" Edmund wondered, and at Lucy's emphatic nod he helped himself to one as well. "Mmm, now that's just what– oh, hullo, that's Gurrit, from Keeling Cottage. I've been meaning to have a word with him for a while now; you'll excuse me?"

Lucy did, quite graciously, and Edmund, first grabbing up a few more strawberries, hurried off to intercept Gurrit, a stocky fellow with a goblet in one hand and a large piece of some unidentifiable meat in the other. The young Queen made her leisurely way across the lawn, pausing now and then to chat with someone or other who had claimed her attention. Everybody was in an especially fine mood, the combination of fine weather, agreeable company, lovely food and good wine doing all that was necessary to smooth over any little disputes that might have marred daily life. Lucy, walking among the people whose faces, names and histories were as familiar to her as her own, found her heart grew lighter with every step she took. There was, she thought, no better feeling in the world than this; the simple knowledge that one belonged.

O0O0O0O

Making merry, Susan decided, as she sat on a bench with several other ladies of the court and village gathered around her, was easiest when one didn't have to put any effort into it. It had been so long since she had smiled and laughed like this –simply because she wanted to– at such length, that for the first few minutes it had seemed almost foreign to her. Now, replying to one teasing comment made by a plump, motherly Talking Hen, Susan found that she no longer felt out of her element, but completely at her ease.

"And what's this I hear," she turned gracefully from the Hen to address one shy village girl who seemed to have grown up almost overnight, "about you and Rab the joiner's son? Am I to credit that bit of news?"

Blushing fiercely, the girl confessed that yes, she was to be a bride before the Summer Festival was over, and Susan, delighted, clasped the girl's hands in hers and wished her every joy. A dowry, she thought, should probably be arranged. The girl's father made his living well but he had three other daughters as well, and any help that could be offered . . . pleased at the thought, Susan turned to hear one of her Ladies make a self-deprecating jest about her own prospects, and missed the approach of her older brother –slow and stilted though it was– until he was nearly in their midst.

"Ladies," Peter smiled, and even managed a small bow, despite the layers of bandages that Susan had insisted he adopt under his tunic, "by your courtesy, I must deprive you of one of your number. I am told that a celebration such as this is not considered official until it has been officially opened, and as she was the one who explained this point to me so thoroughly, I feel I can think of none better to perform that service than my sister. You will forgive me for taking her away?"

They promised they would forgive him if he would oblige every one of them with a dance that night on the Lawn, and Peter at once promised he should outlast all of them. Leaving everybody blushing and giggling furiously over this vow, he caught Susan's hand in his own, placed it firmly on his arm and led her away.

"I don't recall your asking me to open the Festival," she observed, and Peter said he was pleased to hear it, as he didn't like to think of her as the sort to imagine things.

"It only occurred to me just now," he said mildly. "I thought the idea rather inspired."

"You would," Susan said tartly, and at hearing the Queen sound so herself again, Peter favoured her with a wide grin.

"You won't abandon me to do the thing myself, surely," he said, and Susan admitted that no, she could never. "Very well, then. It won't take more than a minute; just something nice and fitting to the occasion. You always manage that sort of thing best of all of us, anyhow, and I daresay they'd all much rather hear it from you. You make it look so much nicer."

Susan very much wanted to call him on this blatant bit of flattery, and would certainly have done so, too, had they not by that point reached the area that had been cleared and raised for the express purpose of giving little speeches. Even then she was turning to face Peter, the expression on her face promising a light reprimand, at least; all of her siblings knew that look. Peter, who had briefly feared he would never get to see it again, covered his rush of relief with a truly wicked smile. Then he caught his sister about the waist and swept her easily up onto the little dais, placing her squarely in view of everybody on the lawn and cutting off whatever rebuke she had been about to deliver.

"I," she breathed warningly, "will not forget this, Peter."

"Nor will I," he grinned, and for a moment he looked almost impossibly like Edmund in one of his most mischievous moods. Then he looked over the crowd, who saw Susan where she stood, and gradually fell silent to hear what she said.

Susan, of course, had no speech prepared, but unlike Edmund, who did best with the straightforward and direct simply because courtly things, unless he learned them from books, made him dreadfully uneasy, Susan was very good at speechmaking. She had a clear, easy voice, and a talent for spinning things out of thin air. This gift did not fail her now, as she twitched her skirts to settle them more prettily about her feet, drew her shoulders back and, with a warm smile for everyone before her, lifted her hands just a trifle to address them.

"My friends," she smiled, "we bid you a warm and loving welcome this morning, and ask that you know our hearts, as well as our home, are opened to you this day. I speak not only for myself but for my good brothers and dear sister when I say to you that it is a pleasure to see you here, a delight to call you our friends and kinsmen, and my privilege to announce that, with your witness and your goodwill, the Summer Festival is hereby officially begun."

At her side, Peter raised a goblet –where he had grabbed it from, Susan didn't have the slightest idea– which was the cue for everybody who held one to do the same, amid rousing cheers and general shout of good nature, high spirit and, Susan thought, perhaps an excessive eagerness to dip into the lovely summer wine that had been served. Amid the applause she stepped down from the dais and, narrowing her eyes at her beaming brother in mock-irritation, said,

"That was unworthy of you, Peter!"

"But," he protested, "it was such fun. And you did a fine job, Su, really!"

"All the same," sniffed Susan, "I hope you'll understand why I must do this." And on 'this' she reached out and slapped Peter's cup from his hand, so that the wine inside splashed all across the front of his tunic.

"Susan!" Peter was laughing and disbelieving, and Susan, studying the mess she had made, found she had to smile with some satisfaction. His tunic was crimson, and hid the stain nicely, but it was undeniably very wet. "Susan, I can't go about like this, looking and smelling like I took a tumble into a vat of—"

"Oh, very well," it was Susan's turn to smirk, "we'll hide you until it dries. Come on, then." And, still rather pleased with herself, she caught hold of Peter's hand and tugged him through a narrow archway tucked just behind the little platform onto which Peter had hoisted her. "But just you remember, your Majesty, you brought this on yourself!"

O0O0O0O

It took Lucy some time to realise that nobody had seen her sister after Susan had given the speech –and really, the fact that Susan had given the speech at all would have been enough to strike Lucy dumb for a time anyhow. Susan was excellent at speechmaking, but she really didn't enjoy it all that much– and it took her quite some time more before she found somebody who had seen where Susan went. At the direction of a bright-eyed, strawberry-smeared village lad, she ducked through the narrow arch and followed a long, dark corridor that curved along the outside of the castle, opening up onto the lawn once more.

This lawn, however, Lucy saw as she emerged, was the Eastern lawn, and quite empty of merrymakers. It was quite separate from the northwestern lawn occupied by partygoers, and the small space –the same stretch of lawn on which the four had been gathered when Rabadash first arrived, those long weeks before– was quite devoid of occupants, save for Peter and Susan. Peter was lying on his back on the grass, apparently berating his sister at great length and volume. Susan, seated some distance away, her hands clasped in her lap and looking as prim as she knew how, said nothing. Lucy, confused but intrigued, started across the lawn to join them.

"What's all this, then?" she asked, and was immediately treated to a lengthy and irate explanation from Peter, who, she saw, didn't really seem angry at all. To the contrary, he seemed to be almost content with his lot, flat on his back, looking up at the sun, waiting for his doublet to dry out. To say that Susan looked anything less than supremely satisfied with herself would have been a grievous falsehood as well.

"Sit with us," she invited her sister, and Lucy, who could think of no objection and in fact rather felt like doing so, settled down beside her. "Is everything going well out there?"

"Oh, yes," Lucy beamed, tipping her face up to catch the sun as well, "everyone is having a marvellous time. They liked your speech, too," she added, and Peter bobbed upright.

"Hah!" he crowed, and Susan, not even glancing at him, gave him a firm push and sent him back down again.

"You," she said sternly, "are drying." Then she addressed Lucy again, asking after one village family in particular, and Lucy's answer was of such length and detail that she was only just finishing it when Edmund, too, appeared in the arch of the same little tunnel that the other three had used, and, on sighting his family, gave a good-natured shout.

"What sort of hosts are you lot, then?" he wondered, ambling over to grin down at them. Peter again gave the explanation of what had brought him there, sitting up to do so. His doublet was now nearly dry, so Susan did not push him back over as she had before. Instead she said she supposed they had better prepare to go back to the northwest lawn, but made no move to do so. Edmund, indeed, dropped easily to the ground as well, joining them.

"Oh, no rush," he decided, "things are well in hand, over there. People are having a marvellous time; if this keeps on until we get to the Dancing Lawns tonight, we'll have given everybody something to talk about for a year to come."

"What a nice thought," Lucy sighed, and found, to her surprise, that she was rather sleepy; the sun was nearing its midday height, and the warmth was making her terribly drowsy. Lying back, she stretched out on the grass and spread her arms. "Mm, lovely."

"Don't nod off, now!" Susan scolded, but even as she said this, Edmund settled down on his side, propping his head up on one hand and poking Lucy with the other (she poked him back, of course) and Peter leaned back on both his hands with a smile, watching them.

"A few minutes' rest won't hurt anyone, Susan," he decided. "Indeed, if I'm to dance with that whole lot of ladies tonight, I could do with a bit of a breather." And Susan had to concede the wisdom of his rationale.

"It really is a lovely day," she sighed, and tipped her face up as well, studying the sky. "A lovely day, and a lovely summer . . . but now, of course, it's half over, isn't it?"

"Halfway to autumn," Lucy agreed, wiggling a bit where she lay in the grass. "Lovely autumn, with the leaves so pretty, and the feasts and hunts . . . shall we take the new horses, do you think?"

"I don't see why not," it was Edmund, reflecting on the suggestion. "It would be a much better place to test their mettle for the wars, certainly; if they don't balk at the blood of a few beasts, we may try them later for battle. But of course," he concluded, "I may not be back by that time, anyhow."

"Oh," Lucy said, a shadow passing over her face, "I forgot about the Giants . . . well, you shall simply have to trounce the lot of them and come home in time for the hunts, is all." And Edmund, quite gravely, said of course she was perfectly right, and he should have thought of it himself. Lucy poked him.

"As long as you're home by Christmas, Ed," Peter decided, smiling, and Edmund said well, it was nice to know one was so wanted!

"I'll do my best," he promised, and all fell silent then, as if by some unspoken agreement, and fell into their own private reflections.

Susan, seated as she was, was in the best position to observe all of them, and did so with quiet contemplation. Peter, settled back on his hands as he was, was in a posture more relaxed than many were privileged to see in their High King. His face lined with laughter, he watched their brother and sister with a sort of devoted fascination that warmed Susan in a way the sun never could.

She, too, enjoyed watching the younger pair, Edmund reclining on his side like a lean, lazy cat in the sun, taking amused little jabs at Lucy from time to time, tweaking her skirt, poking her side, or plucking a daisy to let it fall on the stomach of her kirtle. Lucy had retaliated for some time, but now she had given up doing so and simply stretched out on the grass, her eyes shut, her face a sunlit study in blissful contemplation.

It was so precious, Susan thought, this one golden moment, made all the more so for how fleeting she knew it to be. Soon, she knew, it would all disappear again; Edmund would ride North, and they would be left behind to worry about him. There would be concern over the harvest if it did not yield enough, and they would be anxious for the food stores if they could not put enough by for winter. There would be envoys to come, and journeys to make, treaties to sign and ratify, disputes to settle . . . wars to fight . . . life would go on.

But Susan, sitting as she was, watching the family that was dearer to her than anything she had ever known, found she could not bring herself to worry about it. Life would go on; life, after all, always did. It was the very nature of it. And I, Susan thought, I will be here to see it. And that, she decided, was more than enough.

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A.N.: And that's everything!

To all who have reviewed so faithfully over the past sixteen months, thank you for taking the time to leave your suggestions, opinions and the like. There were times when the lurkers outnumbered you thirty to one, but even when you took back the edge (you are now outnumbered a paltry ten to one) I loved you no less!

Today not only marks the end of this fic but also the beginning of my next. Worlds in Dream will be considerably shorter than this, but then, that means it will be done all the sooner! The first chapter is up, and I do hope you enjoy.

Finally, of course I have no claim over CS Lewis's lovely Chronicles of Narnia, no matter how often I have read the covers off them. This story was written purely for pleasure and as a thirteenth birthday gift for a cousin . . . who is now nearly fourteen and a half. Sorry about that, Erin; clearly, my planning skills want some improvement.

Again, thank you all so very much.