Disclaimer: Edmund and Peter Pevensie and all the characters and situations in the Chronicles of Narnia belong to C. S. Lewis and not to me.

AT THE SOUND OF HIS ROAR

Peter was, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion. He was also twenty years old, chained in a Calormene prison, bloodied from his captors' beatings, and sick with fear.

He could have borne his own captivity, even the flogging, with a certain amount of patience. Such difficulties were what he risked in just being a king, in ruling a people, in defending a kingdom, in serving the Lion. What he couldn't bear now was the sounds that came from the other side of the door to his cell.

Mostly what he heard was the dull thud of a rod or a fist on flesh or the crack and hiss of a whip and, in all of that, the taunts of those who wielded them. Barbarian dog. Accursed of Tash. Where is your demon Lion now? Only sometimes did he hear a moan or a gasp or, worst of all, a muffled sob. Now, for the first time, it was a terrible cry of pain, and Peter cried out in response, thrashing against his chains until his wrists bled afresh. Then he stood in frozen silence, not breathing until, after what seemed like forever, he heard that muffled sob again.

Tears spilled down his cheeks. Still alive. Oh, Aslan–

He heard someone shuffling about and then the rattle of chain and what sounded like a kick against something soft and unresisting.

"Still breathing, barbarian?"

"It is useless now," a second voice said. "Let the two sons of perdition savor their . . . correction for the night. No doubt they will have seen the error of their ways by morning. Bring him."

Peter heard them dragging something across the stone floor. Then there was a clank in the lock, and the cell door opened. Two burly Calormene guards, the same two who had attended to Peter earlier, dumped the something onto the floor in front of him.

"Edmund."

Peter tried to reach his brother, but the manacles at his wrists held him just inches short of that. The guards exchanged a grin.

One of them grabbed Edmund by a booted ankle and nodded towards the opposite wall which had been fitted with chains like Peter's. The other, a brutish giant of a man with a certain fondness for the lash, only leered and pushed Edmund's still face to one side with his wooden shoe that turned up at the toe.

"He is safe enough as he is. And, as he is, his brother can look after him."

Peter strained against his bonds again.

"Look, I said, not touch." Again the brute grinned, and then he spat into the straw at Peter's feet. "Accursed Archenlanders. One day you'll learn to keep to your own country and stop interfering with ours."

Laughing, the guards disappeared into the corridor and locked the door behind them.

Growling low in his throat, Peter leaned forward, pulling with all his might, ignoring the bite of iron against his wrists and ankles. The bolt that held him to the wall, that pinned him just short of reaching Edmund, twisted and creaked but wouldn't budge.

"Edmund. Ed."

After an eternity of uncertainty, Peter realized his brother was finally stirring. With a groan, Edmund reached out one bruised hand. It was just enough for Peter to grasp his raw wrist and pull him close.

"Are you all right, Edmund?"

Peter sat against the stone wall and settled Edmund's head in his lap, turning him onto his stomach to spare his torn back, ignoring the searing pain in his own. He peeled back Edmund's shirt at the neck and shoulder, surveying the damage, and Edmund flinched and trembled at the touch. The sting of that was worse for Peter than anything the Calormenes had inflicted on him.

"Oh, Eddie, you're all over blood."

Edmund shook his head, sniffling a little. "I don't like to think how much of that blood is yours."

His voice was thick, a little raspy, but strong enough.

"It's all right." Peter smoothed the sweat-matted dark hair, feeling rather like sobbing himself. "Cry if you need to."

"Don't need to," Edmund said stubbornly, sniffling again. "I did all my crying while you were in there."

"I'm fine."

"I couldn't stand hearing what they were doing to you, Peter. And then I couldn't hear you at all anymore. I thought–"

Edmund's shoulders shook, and Peter put his arm around him as best he could, careful of the stained places in what was left of his shirt. And the Calormenes dared call them the barbarians.

"That's the worst of it, isn't it?" Peter said. "Listening."

"Waiting." Edmund wiped his face on his torn sleeve, steadying himself. "Wondering."

"Being insulted." Peter tightened his hold a bit, dredging up a determined little grin. "They did have some pretty good ones though, didn't they?"

"'Son of a thousand swine.'"

"Yes, I rather liked that one," Peter admitted. "Just how does one manage to be the son of more than two of anything?"

He felt Edmund's shoulders shaking again, and again he wanted to cry himself. Then he realized Edmund was laughing. His laughter was soft, almost soundless, and perhaps there was a bit more exhaustion and pain than amusement in it, but he was laughing all the same.

He shifted a little next to Peter, no doubt trying to find a more comfortable position, and finally lay on his side. There was a half-grin on his battered face.

"Better like this, eh? Together?" Peter pushed the fringe of black hair off his forehead. "Your lip's split. Again."

Edmund laughed faintly and then squeezed his eyes shut, letting a trembling breath out at one side of his mouth. "They're very skillful at their correction, our southern friends."

"Are you sure you're all right, Ed?"

Again he nodded, still with a grimace on his face. "Nothing a headache powder couldn't put right. You?"

Peter jostled his brother's shoulders a little, careful not to hurt him. "Better now."

"I'm glad we did it anyway. That girl was no older than Lucy."

"I'm glad, too," Peter said, careful to keep his voice low. "And I don't care how old she was, I wasn't going to stand by and let them take her in there."

"Did rather spoil our visit though." Edmund gave him a rueful grin and then pushed himself up to sit against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with his brother. "I should have known better than to let you come along when stealth was wanted."

"I wasn't going to let you sneak away alone from the palace of the Tisroc (however long he lives) and get yourself into trouble."

Edmund nodded solemnly. "Good thing I had you along. Otherwise I might have been, oh, I dunno, thrown into prison and beaten to within an inch of my life. Oh, wait."

For once it was Peter who smirked. "You were the one who didn't want to tell them who we are."

"Yes, well, obviously having us two sneaking around Tashbaan disguised as Archenlanders would never be construed as spying."

"We weren't spying," Peter protested. "Not really."

"I was spying. Dunno what you were doing."

Peter frowned. "I still think we should have said something."

"And spark a war between Narnia and Calormen? No fear." Edmund scowled. "At least we know things aren't quite as rosy for the people of Tashbaan as the Tisroc (don't care how long he lives) and his nobles have been telling us."

"And, clearly, what we've heard about them sacrificing their people to Tash is true."

"At least they won't be sacrificing that particular girl," Edmund said. "Do you think she got away all right?"

"She looked scared enough to run all the way back to whatever village they took her from." Peter shifted a little so he wasn't leaning on a particularly painful cut across his shoulder blade. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

There was a flame of anger in Edmund's eyes. "I knew there was more happening outside the palace than they were letting us see. There's no justice here for anyone who's not royalty or at least nobility. Certainly no mercy."

"Could have told you that already."

Edmund shook his head. "You know I don't like to make decisions based on hearsay and rumors. But I'll know better how to deal with the oily ambassadors they send to Cair Paravel now that I know what's what here."

"And a pretty price to pay for the knowledge, if you ask me."

"Yes, well, this wasn't exactly part of my original plan. You shouldn't have come, Pete. It's well worth it for me, getting to see the truth for myself, but you shouldn't have had to go through this, too. I'd've never gone if I'd known you–"

There was a rattle at the door, and Edmund shrank a little closer to Peter's side, his dark eyes widening.

"Courage," Peter murmured, swallowing down the sudden tightness in his dry throat. "We are Narnians, first and last."

"First and last," Edmund repeated.

"And we are Aslan's."

Edmund nodded, his bruised jaw clenched. "First and last."

The cell door swung open to reveal a Calormene guard, but not, Peter was surprised to see, one of the two brutes who had earlier administered correction to the Narnian kings. This one rather reminded him of his brother, slender but tall for all that and wirily muscular. The Calormene had the brown skin and dark hair of his people, but there was only the beginning of a beard on his chin. He couldn't have been any more than a year or so older than Edmund.

Without a word, he caught Edmund under both arms and started dragging him, not too ungently, across the straw-littered floor. Edmund didn't struggle against him. He merely fixed wide eyes on Peter in a silent plea, drawing a hissing breath when his shirt caught under him, pulling it away from the drying wounds on his back.

Peter winced, and then, seeing a touch of pity on the Calormene boy's face, he reached one hand towards him. "Please don't."

"It is my duty." The Calormene shrugged, glancing briefly at the door as he began shackling Edmund by his wrists to the wall across from Peter. "It would mean my death if you were to escape."

"It's all right, Pete." Edmund huddled with his side against the wall, not wanting to lean against his back no doubt, hampered a little by the chains. "Not his fault."

"Please," Peter repeated, keeping his voice low. "Perhaps you also have a brother."

The Calormene surprised him with a bit of a grin. "Eleven."

Peter couldn't help a faint laugh. "Eleven?"

"Eleven." Edmund shook his head, turning his gaze to the heavens. "Pity the youngest with eleven hovering over him."

Peter chuckled, his eyes meeting the Calormene's again. The boy smiled in answer, brown eyes warm, and then scowled abruptly and turned again to his work.

"I thought the others would be back," Peter ventured.

The young guard shrugged again as he knelt to chain Edmund's ankles. "They're well into their wine by now. I am usually given the night watch."

Peter felt somehow heartened by this. This one was evidently not yet brutal enough to be entrusted with corrections.

"I don't suppose–" Peter gave him a winsome, almost apologetic smile, one that had often worked with vexed neighbor ladies and exasperated headmasters and still seemed to have some effect on uncooperative foreign ambassadors. "Might we have a bit of water?"

The Calormene narrowed his eyes.

"For my brother at least?"

The young guard shoved himself to his feet, dark brows drawn into a hard line. "There is no comfort here for barbarians and blasphemers. Do not think, for all that I am young, that I do not know my duty. I am the servant of Tash and proof against your cunning. Ask me no indulgences."

Peter exchanged a startled glance with Edmund, watching as the Calormene stalked through the cell door and locked it firmly behind him.

OOOO

Emre glared at the door he had just slammed shut. Dare the dogs try to charm favors from him? Yavuz and Kadir were right. He was too soft. This was a prison, not an inn, and the two of them treated prisoners like prisoners. The barbarians' bloody backs were proof enough of that. It had been a mistake to tell the infidels about his brothers, to smile at them, to even speak.

Clearly, the older one, the golden one, had little concern for himself. For my brother at least? He had asked water for his brother, though after so many hours, after the flogging, his own thirst must be nigh unsupportable. Would Emre's own brothers have done as much for him? Not Egemen, the eldest, soldier of the Tisroc (may he live forever). Certainly not any of the next four who followed in Egemen's martial footsteps. They would never beg from an enemy. They would never show such weakness.

Metin or Kudret might have. There was less then two years separating Emre and those two. He liked to think there was friendship as well as brotherhood between them, though it was nothing like the bond between the two barbarians. They seemed closer than any pair of brothers he'd ever seen. And, as with the elder, it was clear that the younger, the dark-haired one, suffered his brother's pain more deeply than his own. What would it be like to have such a brother? To be such a brother?

Before Emre had parted them, the two had been huddled together, speaking low-voiced courage and comfort to each other. More than once, he was sure, he'd heard them laugh. Laughter? Here? Yes, it happened, but it was usually the mocking laughter of the cruel over the helpless or the weak, hopeless laughter of the desperate and the resigned. What had those two here to amuse them?

Emre ate a few mouthfuls of the bread he had brought for his midnight meal, chastising himself for even considering offering some of it to the prisoners. How would they learn respect for Tash and his temple if they were coddled every moment? Infidels must be taught to fear the god of the Calormenes or be crushed before him.

Emre drank from the water bucket and then settled himself on his stool, prepared to watch through the long, idle hours of the night. He didn't doze off, knowing death would be preferable to the exquisite tortures he would suffer if he let a prisoner escape, but he leaned his head back against the wall and let his thoughts wander. Then he was aware of someone talking.

"I didn't mean to upset the poor fellow."

That was the elder of the two prisoners. They were forced to speak louder than they had before, separated as they were by the width of the cell, and Emre could hear their words clearly.

"Seemed rather decent, if you ask me, as much as he tried to hide it."

That was the younger. His voice was slightly deeper than the other's, and Emre couldn't help a little chuckle at that. It was like Engin's, the third youngest of his brothers, whose voice at fourteen was deeper even than their father's. Again Emre scowled at himself. These barbarians were his enemies, the enemies of Calormen, accursed of Tash. He would regard them in no other way. Besides, they were the prisoners. Dared they pity him?

"When do you suppose they'll let us out, Pete?"

That was the younger again.

"When they're ready to, Eddie. In the morning, I expect, if we behave ourselves."

Pete. Eddie. What odd names these barbarians had.

"Whenever it is, we'll be all right," the older continued. "Aslan won't forget us. We are His."

"First and last," the younger replied, and that seemed to content him.

Emre sneered. Their demon Lion could not reach them here. Immovable Tash, unrelenting Tash, inexorable, irresistible Tash would never allow it. What had they to content them?

There was a long silence. Emre ate more of his bread, wondering if the prisoners had fallen asleep.

"Remember, Ed?" the older one said finally, his voice low. "And bonds could not hold Him."

The younger responded with a rattle of his chains. "For He is freedom."

"And fear could not hold Him."

"For He is peace."

Listening to the two, Emre thought this must be an old ritual between them, a litany perhaps, the words of a poem or a song extolling the demon Lion who stalked the northern countries.

"And sorrow could not hold Him," murmured the golden one.

"For He is joy," the dark one replied.

"And hate could not hold Him."

"For He is love."

"And winter could not hold Him."

"For He is spring."

There was a tremor in the younger one's voice at that, as if the defeat of winter held for him a deeper sort of joy than it would for anyone else.

"And death could not hold Him," the elder said, a growing strength in his voice.

"For He is life."

Freedom? Peace? Joy? Here in this prison? Spring? Life? A strange God these pale barbarians served. Love? What sort of god reigned but by force and terror? Then Emre heard singing, clear, sweet tones that drifted through the bars in the cell door, soft but strong.

"The Lion roars, we do not fear

For the Kings belong to Him

Between His paws we boldly stand

For the Kings belong to Him

Filled with His might and crowned with His love

He breaks all the bonds and brings evil to shame

For the Kings belong to him

For we belong to Him."

That was the voice of the elder, Emre was certain, a voice as golden as his hair. He began the same song again, and this time, beneath it, the dark-silver voice of the younger wove a driving countermelody.

"The Lion roars, for He is freedom

The Lion roars, for He is peace

The Lion roars, for He is joy

The Lion roars, for He is love

The Lion roars, for He is spring

The Lion roars, for He is life."

When it was done, they began again, melody and countermelody, and Emre trembled where he sat. The prisoners' voices were not loud. The song was not harsh, but there was a fierce glory to it, something that seemed to build and build until he was shaken with its rhythm. Immovable. Unrelenting. Inexorable. Irresistible.

The Lion.

The Lion.

The Lion.

They began the song for a third time, and Emre could bear it no more. He leapt to his feet, ready to burst into the cell and command the prisoners to be silent, falling instead to his knees when he heard a terrible roar.

It was a great Lion's roar, a deafening blast, and with it came a violent shaking, a rumbling and the bursting of locks, bolts and bars. Emre was flung to the ground, unable to do anything but cover his face with his arms and cower against the wall as his teeth rattled in his head. The door to every cell flew open, some sagging on broken hinges, others falling to the floor with a crash. Even some of the stones from the walls and beams from the ceiling shook loose and tumbled around him, and still the Lion roared.

Then there was silence, sudden and absolute. Emre lay still for he did not know how long, waiting for his breath to come at a normal pace and for his blood to beat with some measure of sanity in his veins. Finally he opened his eyes and pushed himself to his knees.

Where there had been a door to the barbarians' cell, now there was only a half-crumbled opening. Across from that was a gaping hole in the outside wall. The prisoners!

Emre scrambled to his feet and, from where he stood, glanced into the cell. Where the older of the two brothers had been, there was only a tangle of broken chain. The prisoners were gone.

Emre squeezed his eyes shut and leaned, trembling, against the corridor wall. Gone. It would mean death for him, slow, agonizing death by torture. He deserved no less. His prisoners had escaped. He was disgraced. Only one thing was left for him to do.

He pulled the dagger from his belt, a long, wicked blade, sharp and glinting in the torchlight. It would make him a merciful end. He would do what he must and that quickly, before Yavuz and Kadir came to see what had happened and made him a prisoner himself.

He felt for the artery that throbbed in his neck and touched the razor-edged blade to it. He would go to Tash. Freedom. Peace. Joy. No, that was an infidel's delusion. Tash was terror and implacable servitude. Love? From a God? It was not for such as he. The Lion had come and taken away His own, and Emre was left to pay the grim price.

He closed his eyes.

Tash awaited him.

"Stop! We're still here!"

Emre's eyes flew open. There stood the two prisoners, the golden one supporting his brother in the crumbling doorway of the cell that had been theirs.

"We're still here," the elder of the two repeated.

The dagger fell from Emre's nerveless fingers. "You– you didn't–"

"Still here," the dark one assured him with more of a weary smirk than a smile. "Don't do anything you'll regret in the morning."

Emre went to him and helped him to the stool he had just abandoned. Then Emre knelt and offered him a dipper full of water.

"Thank you," the older brother said as the younger drank. Then he took the empty dipper and helped himself to the water, too.

Emre blinked at him, still half dazed, and then scrambled to find another stool. "Please. Sit."

With a grateful smile, the golden one sat, leaning back and then flinching away from the wall with a sharp intake of breath. His brother's dark eyes were immediately on him.

"All right, Peter?"

"Sure. They just got me pretty good right across my shoulder blade."

"Please." Emre snatched up the cloth that wrapped his bread and dipped it into the clean water. "If I may."

The two– he hesitated to think of them still as barbarians– the two northerners exchanged a quick glance, and then the elder nodded towards his brother.

"Him first, if you would."

"No, Peter," the dark one protested. "You should–"

"Edmund, I mean it." The golden one turned to Emre. "Him first."

The younger one frowned, but allowed his brother to pull his shirt away from his shoulders. As gently as he was able, Emre began cleaning his wounds.

Peter and Edmund. So those were their actual names. "Pete" and "Eddie" were just brotherly familiarities. Egemen would have at the very least cuffed Emre soundly for being so disrespectful with his name. These two were clearly unlike anyone here in Tashbaan. Peter and Edmund. He hadn't thought those names were much used in Archenland.

"Please," Emre said as he soaked dried blood from the welts in the dark one's pale skin. "What happened just now? The roar– The Lion–"

"Aslan," both of the northerners said together. And though their eyes, sky blue and sable brown, were as unalike as could be imagined, they shone now with the same light.

Emre wanted that light.

"He . . . " The mere idea of it was more than Emre could take in, but he'd seen the proof of it with his own eyes. "He cares for you."

There was something encouraging in the one called Peter's smile. "He cares for all of us. You as much as anyone."

"But I–" Emre ducked his head. "I am a follower of Tash."

"Only if that's what you choose."

"The Lion– Aslan–" Emre's head dropped lower. "He would never accept such a one as I."

"He accepts anyone who will come to Him," Edmund, the dark one, said, a wry knowingness in his expression. "No matter who they are or what they've done. As long as they come to Him."

Emre looked into his dark eyes, eyes that were steady with truth and so wise for someone yet so young, and then turned back to his task. Once he had finished with Edmund's wounds, Emre divided what was left of his food between the two northerners. Then he began tending to Peter's wounds.

"I couldn't." Emre pressed the reddening cloth to the deep, swollen cut on the older brother's back, "I could never serve your Lion and live here in the land of Tash."

Peter grimaced, but he managed a smile, too. "You could come with us. In our country, you would be free to do as you please."

"Archenland? I've never– "

"Not Archenland," Edmund said. "Narnia."

Emre froze where he was. Narnia. Peter and Edmund. The Kings belong to Him.

"N– Narnia. You're–"

"Merely guests in your city," Peter said, a touch of humor in his blue eyes.

"Guests," Emre breathed. Everyone knew of the visit of the White Barbarian Kings. King Edmund the Just. High King Peter the Magnificent. Honored guests of the Tisroc (may he live forever). "You're– You're–"

He dropped the cloth and bolted down the corridor to the room where the guards slept. The door was hanging drunkenly from its sprung hinges. Yavuz and Kadir were hanging drunkenly from each other, staring foolishly at the destruction around them, dazed with sleep and wine and confusion.

"You must–" Emre drew a hard breath. "You must come. Yavuz, the prisoners–"

"What have you done, boy?" Kadir managed to shake off some of the fuzziness in his expression. "Put your eyes back into your head. If you've let the prisoners escape, you know the penalty."

"No," Emre gasped, "the prisoners–"

"What, imbecile?" Yavuz demanded, wincing and holding one hand to his doubtless-aching head. "I have no patience for your foolishness tonight. What? Is the whole world coming down about our ears?"

"They- They're the Kings!'

"The Kings?" Yavuz roared. "What are you babbling about?"

"The White Barbarian Kings! The Kings of Narnia! King Edmund and High King Peter!" Kadir paled and looked at Yavuz, but the brute only roared again.

"They lie, you fool! They think to make use of your stupidity!"

"But the Lion–"

Yavuz shook Emre by the arm. "Don't be more of an ass than you are, boy. You serve Tash not their accursed Aslan."

Emre glared at him. "Take care, Yavuz. It was the Lion who blew down these walls and broke their chains. I heard Him!"

Kadir glanced towards the corridor. "So the prisoners are gone."

"No," Emre assured them. "No, they're still there. They haven't gone."

"We've–" Kadir looked at Yavuz, ashen faced. "We've beaten and imprisoned the Barbarian Kings, the guests of the Tisroc (may he live forever). We'll be hanged."

Yavuz glared. "Don't you be an idiot, too, Kadir. They dishonored our temple, showed contempt for our customs and blasphemed Tash himself. The Tisroc (may he live forever) would expect no less than for us to do our duty in such instances."

"He would expect us not to force a conflict between his soldiers and the creatures that Narnia would bring against them. There are all manner of beasts and spirits, unnatural and unfathomable, that the Barbarian Kings have at their command. The Tisroc (may he live forever) invited the infidels here because he wants peace, not war, and now we have insulted and outraged them. I tell you, we'll be hanged and our flayed corpses thrown into the streets!"

Yavuz looked as if he might bluster again, but then he, too, went very white. "Ask the prisoners to leave, Kadir. Tell them to go in peace and quickly, and we'll say no more of it."

Kadir's eyes widened. "I ask them? You ask them! I thought they were Archenlanders. How were we to know they were Narnians? How were we to know they were Kings? We are undone," he wailed. "We are undone."

"You, Emre. You ask them." Yavuz shoved him almost off his feet. "Go on. Ask them to leave at once."

Emre scrambled back to where the Narnian Kings were sitting. The younger one, King Edmund, was still tending the wounds on his brother's back. Emre dropped to his knees before them.

"Your Majesties, Kadir and Yavuz–"

"We heard them," the High King said mildly.

"Have to be deaf not to," King Edmund added, laying down the wet cloth.

Emre bowed his head. "They respectfully request that Your Majesties come forth and leave this place without any undue mention of, um, recent incidents."

The younger King raised one dark eyebrow. "So they have beaten and imprisoned the Kings of Narnia, the honored guests of the Tisroc (how long do Tisrocs live anyway?), and now they mean us to simply leave? Tell them to come in to us."

Emre looked at Peter, wide eyed, and the High King nodded serenely.

"Tell them. We'll wait."

Emre did as he was asked. A moment later Kadir and Yavuz, their eyes wide with fear and their heads hanging with dread, crept into the corridor. Both of them dropped heavily to their knees before the young sovereigns.

The High King had settled his torn shirt again about his shoulders and was sitting there, his golden head held high and his face calm and noble, as if his crudely made stool was a royal throne. At his right hand stood his brother, grave and discerning, his dark eyes seeming to pierce right into the souls of their one-time tormentors. The two Kings might have been holding court at Cair Paravel itself.

"You have our leave to speak," the High King said, and there was just a touch of royal hauteur in his tone.

After a brief moment of muttering and shoving between the two guards, Kadir finally spoke.

"Most gracious, kind and merciful King–"

"High King," Edmund corrected sharply.

"High King," Kadir immediately amended. "Most noble Peter, High King over all Narnian Kings, we, the most wretched of men, come before you to beg you to come from this place and return to–"

"To the royal palace?" the High King asked with a bit of a grin. "We'd have rather a tale to tell there, wouldn't we, Ed?"

King Edmund smiled sardonically.

Yavuz threw himself down at Peter's feet. "No, we beseech you, noble Kings, have pity on a pair of fools. We did not know, could not have known, that the gracious brother-kings of our Tisroc (may he live forever) would walk our humble streets alone and unheralded. If we had, oh glorious High King, we would have given you a welcome you would long remember."

"We're not likely to forget the one we did have," Edmund said.

Kadir lifted his head just enough to look up at the Narnian Kings, eyes pleading. "Tell us, great ones, of your mercy, what we must do to appease your righteous and well-earned wrath and keep our foolishness unknown to our already overburdened Tisroc (may he live forever)."

The younger King fixed the two supplicants with a steely glare. "Ask pardon of my King."

"We do! We do!" Kadir insisted.

Yavuz lifted pleading hands as he groveled at the High King's feet. "We humbly beg you to pardon all of our offenses."

"Now," the High King said, his face suddenly stern. "Ask pardon of my King."

Yavuz and Kadir looked at each other in bewilderment. Emre looked at the High King. What strange customs the Narnians had. Still, the two guards prostrated themselves before the younger King whose eyes were upon his brother.

"Even here in Tashbaan," said Kadir, "the name of Edmund the Just is known for wisdom and, more than that, for mercy to rival all the gods. Let the shame attending our folly serve as our rightful punishment and spare those of my nation and yours the waste and wrath of needless war."

King Edmund tried to look severe, but there was a reluctant touch of humor in his expression. "I bet even the street sweepers in Tashbaan can talk your ear off."

The High King's mouth twitched at one side, but he managed not to smile. "Very well," he told the two supplicants coldly. "We pardon you, for ourself and for our royal brother, with this charge: From this day forward, show mercy as you have been shown mercy, and remember the Great Lion Aslan has power even here in the heart of Tashbaan, even as far as unto the temple of your Tash. Now go."

Kadir and Yavuz scrambled backwards out of the Kings' presence, and Emre took their place at the young sovereigns' feet.

"Please, oh, my masters, what must I do?"

"Whatever you like." Edmund took his arm and brought him to his feet. "But you're welcome to come along with us back to Narnia."

Emre glanced at the High King and was met with a smile.

"More than welcome," Peter said, "but, um . . . I don't think we know your name yet."

"Emre, your most humble servant."

Peter nodded. "Emre, then. As my brother says, you are welcome."

"Please, Your Majesty, will you– will you take me to meet the Lion?"

Again the High King smiled. "As you will soon find out, Aslan is not a tame lion. He's not to be appointed times and places, certainly not by me. But you will meet Him. If you have that desire in your heart, you may be sure it will happen in good time."

His brother smiled. "Somehow, I don't think it will be long. Till then, though, I'd much rather finish out the night in the palace than in this prison. What do you think, Pete?"

The High King sighed. "I don't suppose sneaking into the palace is going to be any easier than sneaking out."

"Stealth was never your strong suit," said King Edmund. "It's still the middle of the night. Just do what I tell you, and we'll be fine."

"And just how are we going to explain our, um, injuries without bringing on a diplomatic crisis?" asked Peter.

"That's easy. Our clothes, once we have some fresh ones, will cover the worst bits. We'll just plead sickness and stay in our quarters until we're healed up enough so nobody will notice the rest. Oreius will take care of it for us."

Peter groaned. "He's going to kill us, you know. For disappearing like we did without telling him."

"Susan won't let him," Edmund assured him. "When she hears about this, she'll make him wait and let her do it herself when we get back home. Come along now. We'll both be doing better once Oreius gets us patched up."

The two kings supported each other as they walked through the gaping hole in the back of their cell, and Emre followed them out into the night. He didn't have the slightest idea who they had been talking about or exactly what they were leading him to, but he didn't care. He was going to Narnia. He was going to meet the Great Lion.

AT THE SOUND OF HIS ROAR, SORROWS WILL BE NO MORE.

Author's Note: You may recognize this from the Bible story of Paul and Silas in prison (Acts 16:16-39). This is my take on what it might have been like in Narnia. Many thanks to OldFashionedGirl95 for invaluable critique (and some virtual cookies). Any remaining errors are, sadly, my own.

–WD