Prologue:

He remembered the arrogant young idiot he had been, a quarter-century ago, fresh from his high studies, believing there could be no greater value than the learning he had gained, that in bringing it to the Cause he was bringing a gift of inestimable value. He remembered the words he had spoken – words never to be forgotten it seemed – in the council, when they had told him they were introducing to him a woman of no learning and no family, with the unimpressive name of Moll, and introducing her with the set task of teaching him the Dwarf-bred ways he had half-forgotten amongst men and (for one always-remembered winter, in utter secrecy, in a distant valley) Centaurs.

"I don't need to be taught how to be Dwarf-brood – I am what I am! I make my own culture! And I certainly don't take lessons from some insignificant countrywife who's never seen beyond her own kettles!"

He remembered Krimbin's quick glance, and warning quirk of the eyebrow. Amongst the rest, there had been a muffled laugh. And there she had been in the doorway, furious, vindictive, embodied hard energy in a rock-hard stumpy body. He knew he had made an unforgiving enemy; knew somehow that her fealty to the Cause would make her still his teacher, and that she would teach exhaustively and well, but that he would regret his words every single day of her teaching. As indeed he had.

Chapter 1. Recruitment of a Wet-nurse.

Krimbin stumped into the meeting-room – a cowshed on the outskirts of the city – carrying with him a grim sadness that to Sletha, at least, was as palpable as bitter smoke. They didn't ask, and after a half-minute, he breathed a long, steadying breath, and pulled himself upright to report.

"I have bad news. From the palace."

Which made it clear what the news must be, since there was currently only one active agent at the palace, but the protocols had to be followed, the reports had to be given, and heard. Grattandrack, leader of this handful of mix-brood and rebels, braced himself, and asked what they all knew already. "Lithasrien?"

Suddenly tears stood in Krimbin's hard eyes; the cold sank into them all, waiting until he could go on.

"Miraz… he caught her in sunlight. He knew at once. He had her strangled instantly."

Murmurs from the gathering, and from one tall figure a long, difficult exhalation. Overhead, the owls glanced sideways at each other.

"How? … How?"

"We think someone suspected and set a trap… she was called into the Great Hall, supposedly to show off the little princeling to the…" He spat. "… Protector. We don't know who the traitor was. She... she was led to stand next to a great tapestry, flat on the wall, seemingly – but it was curtaining across an oriel, glass windows… just at the time the sun would strike through."

They remembered her lightness, her loveliness. They saw, each of them, how her slender form would have lilted and laughed to the sun, inescapably giving back light for light, even as she must have tried to escape into shadow. There was no need to talk about what had followed.

Grattandrak, grim-faced, spoke in sharp, dry tones. "Be clear. A trap, or an accident?"

"No accident! Someone put her there, someone put that tapestry in that place! and contrived it to fall."

Then – discovery, or treachery? Gattandrack's eyes flicked from one to another of the little group in the shed – half-a-dozen Dwarf-brood of varying ancestry, Sletha the Hare, a hard-eyed Goat, a water-girl, the dark wood-man, two placid-looking ducks, the emissary from Archenland… His face hardened suddenly.

"You'd best leave. Our gratitude and greetings to His Lordship, but … you have heard that there is perhaps a traitor within our own network. We cannot have you with us as we discuss our next move. If you are truly a friend of Narnia, if His Lordship is truly a friend, you and he will understand why we cannot allow you to remain in this council now."

The emissary stood up abruptly, as if unsure whether to take this for an insult, on his own behalf or on his master's. Gattandrack turned to the Goat.

"Flet, see our friend to the gate out from the city."

"Beh-h-h." The Goat answered with just a low moaning bleat. He was well used to working in deep cover, and would utter no word aloud in the speech of men in the presence of any but the most trusted friend. Moving to the Archenlander's side, he skilfully slipped his collar over the man's hand, and began to move to the door.

The Archenlander shrugged. "Another time, then. I will be back for the summer markets. Strength and fortune to the Cause till then."

"Fortune go with you," replied Grattandrack grimly.

There was silence, save for the soft shuffling of the owls overhead, until the noise of the Goat's hoofs had died away. Grattandrack's eyes, fierce and hard, swept around the group, piercingly, commandingly, blocking any direction for talk save the one he chose.

"So. Our first attempt has failed. If we aren't to lose this chance, we need another nurse, now. We need to get her into the palace."

"True… true….", came in a rustling murmur from the rafters. The tall wood-man turned, and leaned his face into his arm, against the wall. The brief silence was broken by one of the Ducks.

"But the prince is near five months old now… does he still need to be fed like a hatchling?"

"Yes – and not like a hatchling either. It will still need human milk pushed into its mouth. They grow slow, Uach. If we can get in, he'll be ours to mould for years."

"So, how do we get in? How did she get in?" Nobody bothered to answer, except a low snarl from one of the Dogs. Uach had not been part of the conspiracy when it was formed, and hadn't known Lithasrien; her cheerful curiosity now grated on those who were in grief.

"We have our chance again, but we must grab it strong and quick." Grattadrack again. "We need another woman-shaped to volunteer."

"Yes, we have the chance. They won't be able to keep the babe alive, even if they wanted to – even if there were a lady of the court willing to use her body to nourish the child." This voice – sardonic, gravelly – was that of one of the older female Dwarf-brood present.

"Not Prismia?" It was the water-girl, Larissa, the soft music of her voice sharpened by fear and sorrow.

"Pah! Prismia is too dainty of her shape for that. And the wise doctors of Telmar know nothing of ways to bring on milk in a quiet breast. We can do it – or even bring milk into a Dwarf-brood breast."

"But can the plan work anyway?" Larissa's voice trembled, slipped, stopped. There was briefly silence - a watchful silence from the group - until she began again. "To try to shape the future king to be on our side – what hope does the sweet Narnian milk of a wet-nurse truly have, to work against his thick human blood?"

More than one face registered the irony of such an objection coming from the most human-looking conspirator present – the one with the most human blood in her veins, indeed, far more than Lisathrien. But even so, even so – her life was in the same danger as all the others, if just one sharp-eyed informer saw past the dominant humanness to the tell-tale signs of a distant naiad foremother.

"And why try to win a king?," she persisted, "Why go to the palace at all? Why do we pour all this effort into the very source of our persecution? Why not give that flow to win over the ordinary humans? They are the real hope here."

They all knew the history of Larissa's pure-human father, and what had happened to him, and how young she had been, then. They knew that, and some of them guessed at her terror now. Grattandrak tried to make his voice less harsh as he turned to her.

"Larissa, there's two things to be said. One is, the plan's been made, made and decided, and you don't catch fish by changing rods half way. To get hold of the child young is our cell's work. And the second one is – none of us Dwarf-kin are really king-lovers at core, see? This country works best under a king or queen, we don't deny that, but us ourselves, we'd rather keep to our selves, and run our own lives."

"Dwarves are for the dwarves," came in a grim undertone from the darkness against the walls, and there was a small grimace of agreement from most of the Dwarf-brood around the circle in the lampglow. Grattandrak clenched his fist on the table.

"Yes, but to be for the dwarves, and for all of us in this trap, we have to work through the kingship. And we have all agreed throughout the network, this plan to use the mewling brat is our best chance."

" 'Our best chance'! To wait twenty or thirty years for a baby who may not even survive to grow up, and bring in a new milksop administration, which will let us creep out again? I say our best chance is assassination now! With Miraz gone…"

"You could have said that… you could have, Baroggich, but the network has consulted and the decision-in-council was made last Midsummer. We agreed then: better ten or twenty years waiting and then a more sure chance of success. It's not just this cell; we don't overturn here in one night the strategy of the whole network." Baroggich growled, but subsided, and Larissa bowed her head.

Grattadrach spoke again, slowly and grimly, his hard eyes boring into the knot of Dwarf-brood present. "Dwarves stay. If there's one thing we can all learn from Dwarvish heritage it is to stay, and to grind an enemy down. Call me mix-brood as you like, but I'm Dwarf enough to know we don't need to be quick if we can be hard. Hard stones will grind the grist at last."

Krimbin looked down; the other Dwarf-brood in the shed stared back, unmoving. It was the others present who seemed most stirred; the Hare's ears quivered, and the Ducks shifted uneasily from foot to foot. The wood-man lifted his face, tear-streaked.

"Hardness is not the only virtue, Gra'drach. Supple trees… ". He broke off, then tried again. "Supple trees stand longest. For her sake, for L'arien's sake, we need to bend with this blow… try once more."

The water-girl shuddered, but closed her eyes in acquiescence. "So. But it should be a mother, milk-flowing, with a babe of her own, and ready to risk both her own future and her child's for us. Who?" (A murmuring of "who? who?" from the rafters.) "Where do we find one at this short notice?"

"Here. You find me." The flat tones of the middle-aged female Dwarf-brood again. "No need for a babe. I tell you, we can bring on milk at need. I'll tell 'em that my child has died. They won't care – they won't ask too much."

Larissa gasped. In her eyes was a fear, and a shame, and a hope. "No, Moll. It should be me. I know that. I know it has to be me. I'm sorry… I was too frightened to say I would, but I know it has to be me."

"No. Remember - it was the king's love of a slender body which gave our Lith'en the chance there in the first place. Now, since they've seen what they saw, they will be looking hard and turning down any fair young thing who offers to feed the brat." Moll's amusement had a bitter edge; her laugh was short and grating. "No, certainly it will be just grab at the first old, ugly wet-nurse who comes by, this time. Not you, La'ssa."

"And Miraz?" a calmer voice spoke from the shadows. The man's no fool. He has already seen our plan in action – why should he not know that any nurse will be a danger?"

"I don't think he truly saw it for a plan," said Krimbin, "just… the rage rose in him at the sight of … proof that some drops of dryad blood still run in human veins. In sunlight… you know… . And if he had known it for a plan, he would have kept her alive to drag what information he could from her."

"Even so…" a tall keen-faced Dwarf-brood pushed forward into the light to speak, "… even if he doesn't think it is a deliberate attack, he may well understand that taking a woman of the people to keep this prince alive has risks for its affections. Never underestimate the drive of affection – the drive to receive affection – in humans."

"So long as it is kept alive, so long as it flourishes, good Doctor, I don't suppose Miraz'll pay much heed to the impact of one as little and insignificant as I am."

"Ahhh… we are all too wise by now to call you insignificant, or to call unimportant the ability to seem so. But let us not rehearse old quarrels, but address the needs at hand. You can bring on milk, you say? Pardon me, but your body is not young."

"No need for pardon for true words, Doctor," again the sardonic twist to the word, "and though I have not high learning, I hope I have enough plain wood-wit to see to a flow of milk sufficient for our needs and the child's needs both. And you can rest easy that the sun won't wake any shimmerings in me. I'm as earthy-bound as any of my Dwarvish ancestors, for all the strange and Human blood in me."

Grattandrak gnawed at one thumb. "If things go with you as it did with Lithasrien…"

"…as it has gone with many others on many other missions - of course I am ready for that," she said firmly.

Larissa crumpled suddenly, folding in on herself and covering her face. Uach pecked gently at her feet, murmuring "We are all between the Lion's paws."

Moll's lips wrinkled briefly, into a silent, contemptuous snarl at the words, but then, as she saw Ashdreo's watchful gaze, she returned to convincing Grattandrack of her readiness:

"Only a fool would think of endangering another life to save this insignificant one," (Cornelius grimaced; would she never let it rest?) "and you are no fool, Grattandrak. If I die, I die. If it come to that, I will take one with me, at least. But I have the best chance of us all to succeed. Give me the mission. "

"Then," Grattandrak visibly ceased his calculating, and came to a decision, "we accept. We accept your offer to take this mission, we honour you, and we leave you to prepare for it."

The words shifted the meeting abruptly back to protocols. Grattandrack and Krimbin and Sletha rose first to their feet, and most of the others followed suit; Larissa stayed huddled, her face hidden; the Ducks padded over and gently stroked Moll's feet with their beaks; the dark woodman kept his eyes fixed on her, adding deliberately to Grattandrack's formal words his own: "May Aslan guard you, and keep you from their eyes."

This time Moll kept her face stony-still. What had Lith'en thought of Aslan's guarding, she wondered, as the light had been choked out of her at the last?

[Of course, I don't own any of Narnia! A few of the characters I've made up, but almost all the Telmarine nobility, and two of the Resistance members here, are from C.S. Lewis's work – I remain very grateful to him, for Narnia, and all his books.]