Between the Sand-hills and the Sea

The Duke of Galma's daughter, as Caspian said, squints and has freckles. But how did she feel when the King of Narnia returned with his bride?

~:~:~:~

For all the Narnian girls, older and younger.

~:~:~:~

The island Duchy of Galma lies to the east of Narnia, two days sail from Cair Paravel. On its western shore, the waves roll in unbroken from the edge of the world, beating the shoreline bare and rocky. But on the eastern side, the little bays are sheltered, and edged with gentle beaches backed by sand-hills.

The grounds of the Duke of Galma's castle at the main port ran down to just such a beach, the windbreak of shore pines giving out onto the sand-hills in a tangle of wild roses. Here, stumbling among the bushes, a girl walked wildly. An observer might have thought she was either blind or drunk, for she walked heedless of where she went. Up or down slope, through or around the roses, feet slipping in the sand and dress snagging in every thorn, she simply walked. Walked – blind with tears and drunk with misery.

"Squints. And has freckles." Nerienne of Galma repeated that to herself, in a small desperate sob as she wrenched her skirts yet again out of the tangling roses and strode frantically on. "Squints. And has freckles. Freckles!" And she buried her face in her hands. "Squints!"

Squints, and has freckles. That was herself. All her life, she had been the Duke of Galma's daughter; the one on the miserable pedestal above any snow line of friendship; the one who squints and has freckles. None of the daughters of the Ladies-in-waiting had squinted, or had freckles in anything like the quantity she had them, when they had all been little girls. None of the Galmian belles nowadays squinted or had any freckles at all. It is easy to paint out freckles when you only have a few of them, not thousands.

But she had never really cared; that is, she had never really thought about it, to care. They were pretty; and she squinted and had freckles; and life in Galma had gone on in a quiet and unremarkable way without anybody really bothering about it at all. Sometimes, when she got a new gown, Nerienne had looked at herself in the mirror and sighed a little, that she was not pretty to match the gown, but mostly she had just looked at the gown and thought about it being pretty.

And then, at the start of last summer, the Narnians had come. Come with a dragon-prowed ship called The Dawn Treader, and their new king, Caspian the Tenth. All the news over the previous three years had spoken of him as a great and mighty warrior, one to whom the Trees and the Talking Beasts had awoken again: it had been a surprise to find him a lithe, blond-haired lad several years younger than herself. Lithe, blonde, handsome – all the belles of Galma had been entranced by the young king; and it had been pleasant, in a very strange way, to be the one to whom such a hero paid attention to, as the daughter of the Duke of Galma. Never before had a young man with sparkling blue eyes done more than utter polite courtesies to her and then move on to someone who was not up and away on a ducal pedestal, someone who did not squint and have freckles.

All early summer days are beautiful, but those days of the Narnian visit seemed to Nerienne to have been perfectly golden, full of dances and picnics and the culminating splendour of the great tournament. She had sat in the ducal box, in a gown far prettier than herself, and felt her heart in her mouth every time King Caspian had entered the lists, felt agonies each time he fell and sheer delight when his was the victory. Then the Narnians had set sail again, towards the Lone Islands and the eastern edge of the world, in their quest for the lost friends of the King's father. Life on Galma had settled back into its normal pattern of things, touched here and there with occasional twinges of anxiety on Nerienne's part as to how the Narnian expedition might be getting on in their dangerous voyaging.

Winter had passed and spring had come and gone, and the early summer roses were blooming again on the shore, when word had suddenly flown across Galma, of the Narnian ship sighted on the horizon. There was no mistaking it: no Calormene trader or island privateer had such a glory of a shining dragon prow. "The Dawn Treader! The Dawn Treader!" The name had raced through the streets as the great ship had drawn near, and the Duke and his family and retinue had had to have a way forced for them by the Palace guard through the crowds which had assembled at the harbour.

As they stood at the front of the crowd, her father clearing his throat again and again as he always did before having to make a formal address or welcome, Nerienne had been glad, for once, for that snow-line of ducal privilege; conscious also, as the boat-load of Narnians pulled away from the ship and towards the quay, that in her haste she had put on a gown which was definitely not her prettiest. But there had been no time to go back and change, no time to be vain, only to smile as the crowds had the privilege of cheering and the boat bumped against the quay.

King Caspian had sprung ashore, as lithe and blonde and handsome as before. And then before any word of greeting had been said, he had turned, and handed up his bride.

Nerienne could not remember the rest of it very well – only her. The Star's Daughter, a vision of exquisite shining beauty as fair as the brightest morning, that not one of the Galmian belles could ever dream of matching. And most certainly, not herself, the Duke of Galma's poor daughter with her squint and her freckles.

But even that, even that moment on the quayside, had not been the worst. The worst had been the great feast and ball which the Duke had called in honour of the Narnian King and Queen and their four recovered Lords. Lord Rhoop, Lord Argoz, Lord Revilian, Lord Mavramorn: Nerienne had learned their names off perfectly in those golden days of the previous summer, as King Caspian had repeated them over and over, always forgetting the last one and having to be prompted. Now, they had forms, faces – at least, she had been vaguely conscious of men with faces as she had curtseyed in welcome to them on the quayside while the herald proclaimed their names. They must have even bowed in reply, maybe spoken the polite nothings people say to a Duke's daughter. She couldn't remember, nothing except the Narnian Queen and her beauty.

The Narnian Queen in all her beauty had been at the feast and the ball; King Caspian beside her with eyes and time, quite rightly, for no-one else. Nerienne had worn her prettiest gown, not because it was pretty, but because it made her look plainer. Squints, and has freckles. That was herself. But when you are the Duke's daughter, you do not live just for yourself, even if you squint and have freckles. Galma was hosting visiting Royalty: the Duke's daughter must be polite, smile graciously, even dance.

The Captain of the Palace guard had taken her hand, for the first dance. Nerienne had not minded: he was grey-haired and fatherly and had a weakness for dancing, and had been so all her life. He asked every girl at every ball, one at a time working down the social order from herself. That had been the pattern ever since her very earliest ball attendance at the age of three, when they had danced a private little jig behind the Duke's chair. It had always been nice that she never had to worry who or if anyone would ask her to dance first; and it had been especially nice that night, in a dim way, that one thing didn't change.

Dim. The whole ball had seemed dim, in the light of the Narnian Queen's beauty. Nerienne had danced some dances; and people had forgotten her for quite a lot of the others; and she had been sitting at the dimmest end of the High Table, when she had noticed King Caspian and one of the Narnian lords standing close by. She had not heard what they were saying, above the merry tumult of the ball, but it had looked as if the King gestured towards herself and then turned back towards his queen, dismissing the other man with a brief nod. Nerienne had sat as if frozen, staring as the Narnian lord had turned and looked at her. Then he had walked over and – slowly, dutifully, pityingly – asked her for a dance.

Pity! It was the pity which drove her blindly along the shore, for never, never before had she been pitied to her face – not by someone was young and blonde and handsome as King Caspian – and never before by proxy...

She let out another self-flagellating sob: "Squints! And has freckles!" Tears welled up again, and she stumbled completely blindly through a tangle of roses, down a sudden slope in the sand-hills – and smack into a man.

Either he had been seated in a rather ungainly fashion beforehand, or the force of the collision had sent them both crashing to the ground. For a moment, Nerienne struggled in her thorny seat, and then the man scrambled to his feet – and her mouth dropped open in horror. She had fallen over the Narnian lord of yesterday.

It must have been the shock, for while she had been the Duke's daughter who squints and has freckles all her life, she had not habitually added rudeness to those crimes. Nerienne scrambled to her own feet before he could offer her a hand up. "You!" she cried passionately, vaguely conscious that she had stamped her foot at the same time. "You! You! You!"

And before he could speak, she turned, and fled away among the sand-hills.

The Duke of Galma's daughter was absent from the feast that night, due to a sick headache. It had, perhaps, been caused by something indigestible at lunch as the Narnian Lord Mavramorn was also noted to eat little and frown much. But sick headaches cannot last forever. The next morning, Nerienne considered her old Nurse's maxim somewhat ruefully: Lies are like sea birds; they may fly for a while but they always come back to roost and make a mess when they do.

And it was, regrettably, true. Between the hunger brought on by a supper of weak herbal tea and a few oatmeal biscuits suited to a terrible headache, and the fear of the ducal physician being summoned if she had the headache much longer, Nerienne had gone down to breakfast. And while none of the Narnian lords had spoken to her, the Queen had expressed her sympathy and the King had enquired after the state of her head this morning. Nerienne had blushed until it felt like every freckle she had was on fire, and mumbled out that it was better, now, thank you – like a small child who has bumped themselves and made a fuss. Better now? She put a hand rather self-consciously to her head. It did ache this morning.

Nerienne got up and paced frantically across the room. There was a hawking party arranged for today, due to ride out quite soon. She could either go on it, and spend the day in the company of the King who pitied her and the Queen who outshone her and Lord Mavramorn who patronised her – or she could tell another lie and have another headache. It would only actually be an almost-lie this morning, her head felt so like it was going to burst – but worse than any potential twinges of conscience was the fact that the Narnian Queen had looked so beautifully and radiantly sympathetic at breakfast, Nerienne strongly suspected she would forgo the hunt and come to sit with the poor Duke's daughter with her squint and her freckles and her headache.

The entire situation was simply frightful! Nerienne stopped by her window and stared out, feeling rather like a condemned prisoner trapped on an inescapable island. She could see over the roofs of the palace down to the harbour. The Narnian royal pennant fluttering from the masthead of The Dawn Treader seemed to mock her. 'We'll be here for two more days!' it said. 'Then we'll sail away and you'll still be stuck here, with your squint and your freckles!'

Squints! And has freckles! Some reserve of proper behaviour gave way in Nerienne. She wouldn't go on that hawking party! And she wouldn't stay here to be pitied by the Narnian Queen! And it wouldn't matter what they thought, if nobody could find her! She flung the door open, and rushed out without even a cloak. Along the corridors, down the backstairs. The castle hummed with preparations for the day's outing: servants hurried to and fro; everyone concentrating on the front doors and the courtyard where the horses were already being brought round. No one noticed Nerienne slipping out the side door to the deserted gardens, or down through the windbreak of pines to the sand-hills and the sea.

The shore was almost disappointingly peaceful – a soft, gentle breeze, little waves lapping, the scent of roses sweet and heavy in the sunshine. Nerienne felt she would have preferred it better with breakers smashing and foam churning, lashed under a grey autumn gale – but, at least, there was privacy. Solitude! Somewhere to walk and walk and walk! Not pitied! Not pestered! Not disturbed! They would not wait the hawking party for her – in fact, they must all have ridden off by now. Nerienne stopped, and pulled one fold of the skirt of her muslin breakfast gown, which she had not bothered to change, carefully free of the rose thorns – but it was stuck in a hundred other places too, and her few minutes of wild pacing so far had given it a dozen rents already, and – so what?! She abandoned the effort and tugged free with a nasty ripping noise.

So, her gown would be ruined. It was a lovely morning for riding out over Galma. The two facts seemed to go together, somehow. It was a lovely morning for riding out; and the Narnian king and queen would ride side by side, on the Duke's best pair of riding horses, with one each of his best gyr falcons on their wrists. And King Caspian would laugh and talk and smile with the Queen as he had with Nerienne last year – not because the Queen was the most beautiful woman in the world (though she was), but because she alone understood whatever those two understood when they looked at each other.

Nerienne stumbled up and down another sand-hill. At least she was spared having to see them. They would come back, of course, this evening, and then there would be the problem of how to explain her absence and how to survive another formal dinner, but perhaps if she stayed here by the sea all day, she would get sunburn. That would surely let her off, for who would want to dine, let alone dance, with someone who squints and has freckles and is as red as a boiled lobster as well? Then there would only be the problem of tomorrow, and then the morning of departure, and then the Narnians would be gone. They would pity her, of course, for being childish and easily ill, but that would be not much on top of being pitied for squinting and having freckles. They would go away, and life on Galma would settle back into its monotonous routine with a squint and freckles.

The prospect stretched out suddenly before her. Life on Galma would settle back into its monotonous routine with a squint and freckles. Just like before. Except that in the reflected light of the golden days of last summer and the radiant beauty of the Narnian queen this summer, 'just like before' was bleak and empty and desolate. Nerienne stopped and stared blankly. Life would be just like before. Awful; unfriendly; solitude-above-the-snow-line; on and on like the sea running out to the horizon. And the vague, uncertain dreams of something else which had bloomed last summer, of a new world so different she could not really visualise it, would be gone with the Dawn Treader.

She did not think, exactly. Her mind, her eyes, everything seemed frozen, rather like a rabbit caught in the glare of a bright lantern. But very slowly and very automatically, she stepped backwards into a little bowl-like hollow in the sand-hills, and sank down to the ground to hide her face in her hands.

A footfall in the sand. A man's voice. "Your Ladyship?"

~:~:~:~

A/N: World borrowed from CS Lewis; title borrowed from Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Youth.'