Written in the Dust- for rthstewart

[nfe-gremlin.livejournal.com]

Title: Written in the Dust
Author: bedlamsbard
Recipient: rthstewart
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair, implied but not explicit
Summary: …, that We should constitute and Found a University within our Nation of Narnia for the advancement and diffusion of Knowledge, Wisdom, Science, and Learning. History is written and over-written by the victors.
Author’s Notes: University charter brutally pilfered from all the royal university charters I could find. Thanks to my betas [redacted]!




Caspian the Tenth of His Name, by the Gift of Aslan, by Election, by Prescription, and by Conquest, King of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion: to All to Whom these Presents shall come, Greeting!

Whereas a Humble Petition has been presented to Us by our Beloved Subjects and Our dear Friend Cornelius, praying that We should constitute and Found a University within our Nation of Narnia for the advancement and diffusion of Knowledge, Wisdom, Science, and Learning, and to grant a Charter with Such provisions in that Behalf that seem to Us Right and Fitting.

And Whereas We have taken Said Petition into Our Royal Consideration and are minded to Accede thereto:

Now therefore Know Ye as that We, by Virtue of Our Royal Prerogative and of Our Especial Grace, certain knowledge and Mere Motion have Willed and Ordained and by these Presents for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, do Will and Ordain as Follows:

1. There shall be a Body Politic and Corporate by the Name and Style of “The University of Beaversdam” (“the University”) with perpetual Succession and a Common Seal, with Full Power to Sue and Be Sued, to take by Gift or Otherwise purchase and hold, grant, demise, or Otherwise Dispose of real or personal Property, and to do All Other lawful acts whatsoever Pursuant to this Our Charter.

2. The Objects of the University shall be to Advance and Diffuse Knowledge, Science, Wisdom, and Understanding by Teaching and Research and by the Example and influence of its Corporate Life.

− Excerpt from the Royal Charter of the University of Beaversdam, Narnia

*

Beloscuida sat nervously on the narrow chair in the anteroom, clutching a leather folder to her chest and hoping she looked like she knew what she was doing. She wasn’t the only person in the room; a faun was waiting on another chair, balancing one child on his lap and hanging onto another slightly older child by the back of his collar as she attempted to make a dash for the statue of the Blessed Saint Reepicheep in the corner of the room. A stiff-looking Telmarine nobleman glared at the girl, then looked quickly back at the closed door of the king’s chamber, clearly wondering why he was being kept waiting with the common rabble.

Beloscuida was a Beaversdam woman, hardly common rabble, but she felt like it. She held the leather folder tightly, trying to be reassured by the seal stamped into it: two beavers quartered with the compass rose that had been King Caspian X’s personal sigil. She was a Beaversdam woman and she wasn’t here for just any reason, but to do all the things that had been set out in the university’s charter: knowledge and wisdom and understanding. She had to keep reminding herself of that whenever she thought she was going to lose her nerve. Beloscuida had spent the majority of her adult life doing research, poring through the university library and the palace library, but this was the first time she’d ever had to get royal permission for her research and it was wearing at her nerves. Aslan alone knew how some of her colleagues stood it. Guillen was the one whose specialty was the Royal House, not her. Beloscuida’s field was the pre-Telmarine period by inclination, but she’d run across a reference when she’d been writing her paper on post-Petreian statuary, and she’d been curious enough about it to chase it down until it led to a dead end in the Royal Archives, where you needed a signed writ from the king to even get inside the door, let alone into the stacks.

She looked at the closed door to the King’s office, watched over by two members of the Palace Guard in gilded armor. The problem with being a scholar, even though the Telmarine age wasn’t her period, was that Beloscuida was more or less aware of the origins of everything in the room, including the Guards’ armor and weapons. The armor was made in a fashion that hadn’t been in use for the better part of five hundred years. The glaive was slightly more recent: only three hundred years old. It wasn’t that Beloscuida had any doubt that they weren’t being properly kept up, but – it was a little off-putting, to say the least. She might have been more reassured if they were using arms that had been used in the last century.

Everyone waiting in the room, aside from the Guards, looked up when the door opened and the Lord Chancellor’s youngest son slipped out, his head down as he scurried past them out into the corridor. The Telmarine nobleman straightened up, obviously meaning to go next, but one of the Guards shook his head and motioned towards Beloscuida. The nobleman scowled at her as she stood up, the sleeves of her academic robe falling back down towards her wrists. She resisted the urge to clutch her folder to her chest and tucked it under her arm instead, walking towards the door with the same careful precision that she used at graduation ceremonies. One of the Guards held it open for her and Beloscuida walked inside, dropping into a curtsey the moment the door was closed.

“It’s Doctor Beloscuida, isn’t it?” said the King.

He wasn’t looking at her, Beloscuida realized when she raised her head a little; it took her a moment to remember that even though he might be the most powerful person in all of Narnia, the King would never be able to see her. His gaze was fixed on the point he must have thought her head would be. If Beloscuida didn’t know better, she would never have realized he was blind.

“Yes, your majesty,” she said, straightening back up and moving slightly to the side so that she didn’t have the slightly off-putting impression that the King was looking just past her left shoulder. “Of Beaversdam University.”

He smiled slightly. “I was at Glasswater myself, but my brother was a Beaversdam man, and he always speaks well of it. What can I help you with, Doctor?”

Beloscuida took a deep breath, and explained. “I’ve been doing research for a paper on post-Petreian statuary, and in the process I ran across a reference to the early Telmarine period in Narnia, when Caspian the Conqueror first arrived.” She paused, waiting for a reaction. Caspian the Conqueror had gone out of vogue after the Unification; most humans that Beloscuida knew preferred to forget about the Telmarine kings that had preceded Caspian the Seafarer altogether. It was considered a matter of great delicacy and sensitivity that was never discussed among polite company – there were quite a few people even in the universities who would rather go to the stake than mention it.

“Go on,” the King prompted.

Beloscuida folded her hands around the leather folder. “It’s a field that has been largely untapped,” she went on, “and I thought that I’d quite like to follow up on the reference in Astrates. The only problem is that all of the Telmarine documents from that period are kept in the Royal Archives, including King Caspian’s journal.”

“I see,” said the King. He tapped his fingers on the desk, looking thoughtful.

“I have references, your majesty,” Beloscuida said quickly, nearly dropping the folder in her hurry to unclasp it. “From Doctor Guillen, and Master Miquel, and the Dean –”

“I understand,” the King said quickly. He put out a hand to take the papers from her, and Beloscuida had a sudden panicked moment of wondering how in the name of Aslan he was going to read them, Lion have mercy, she’d forgotten again –

“Hopestill, if you’d be so kind?” said the King, looking down at the floor to his left, where Beloscuida’s view was blocked by his desk. She blinked rapidly as a big black and white sheepdog put its paws up on the desk, looking down its pointed nose at the papers. The King fanned them out one-handed so that the dog could read them.

“It all seems in order,” said the dog – Hopestill, apparently, and female. She looked curiously at Beloscuida, her tail wagging slowly and probably unconsciously.

The King nodded. “Your request seems reasonable, Doctor Beloscuida,” he said, reaching for a piece of blank parchment. He wrote a quick note on it, then scrawled his signature and passed it to Beloscuida along with her references. “I shall be curious to find out your conclusions, Doctor. Do keep me updated.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Beloscuida said, shuffling everything back into the folder, and dipped another curtsey. “Thank you, your majesty.”

He gave her a friendly sort of nod, and Beloscuida retreated back out into the anteroom, feeling suddenly exhausted. She’d expected it to be much more difficult. What kind of monarch would be at all amenable to a scholar – even one from the oldest university in Narnia – digging up his family’s hidden skeletons?

*

If Beloscuida had had her way about it, she would have gone straight from the King’s receiving room to the Royal Archives, but her partner Nolan had taken advantage of their unusual excursion to Cair Paravel and gotten not only a reservation for dinner, but tickets to the opera. Beloscuida had enough self-awareness to know that if she’d gotten started in the Archives, she probably wouldn’t have wandered out until sometime next month and then Nolan would have made her sleep on the couch for a week. It was for this reason that Beloscuida didn’t turn up at the Royal Archives until nine o’clock the next morning, holding the King’s note out to the Chief Archivist, who looked suspiciously at the Beaversdam seal on her folder. Beloscuida rather suspected that the minotauress had gone up at Glasswater.

She was installed at a desk by a window that faced eastward onto the harbor. Beloscuida stared out at the archipelago that had once been the shore, at the ruins on an island that had once been a castle, at the humped shapes of burial mounds on one of the closer islands, where Caspian the Seafarer and his son and grandson all lay buried. Things changed. Even history changed, sometimes.

The archivist came back carrying a small leather-bound book in white-gloved hands. Beloscuida had come prepared; she took out her own gloves and produced her notebook and pen. The archivist looked at her inkpot distrustfully, but left the book with firm instructions on how it was to be handled and the rules of the Royal Archives, which would be enforced with an iron fist if they even seemed like they might be broken. Beloscuida had spent most of her adult life in various libraries and listened patiently; nothing was new and archivists and librarians were both the same. When the minotauress had gone, she was left alone with the journal.

Despite the archivist’s dire warnings, it hadn’t been particularly well preserved. It was charred around the edges and there were pages missing from the beginning, odd stains left on those that remained. Beloscuida opened it up and made a pained face at the archaic Telmarine; she was far more used to Old or Middle Narnian. She almost never dealt with the Telmarines in her own work, just that of her colleagues.

It wasn’t that what little remained of the beginning didn’t look fascinating, but that Beloscuida had a limited amount of time in Cair Paravel, so she flipped carefully through until she found the Telmarine arrival in Narnia. She could remember vaguely from her lessons that the Telmarines who had come to Narnia had left Telmar because of persecution or a migration or something – if she was going to be honest, she’d say that she didn’t really care, the Telmarines were after her period and if someone really wanted to know they could talk to Doctor Guillen or, if they really had to, Doctor Septimus at Glasswater. But only as a last resort, of course.

Caspian the Conqueror had a strong, clear hand. The ink had faded slightly over the intervening centuries between the day he’d written and today, but Beloscuida didn’t have any trouble making out the majority of the words, except for those where the paper had been damaged. If she was going to be honest, he had better handwriting than some of her students and most of her colleagues.

The entry was dated with the old lunar calendar, and Beloscuida wrote that down so that when she got back to Beaversdam she could look up what the modern equivalent would have been. She leaned forward, marking her place on the page with one gloved fingertip, and started to read, hoping that she wouldn’t have to stop very often to translate.

*

4 Verantani 337

37 days out of Telmar City
13,892 souls

Today we left the mountains and began to descend into the lowlands. This is a fierce country; the trees rise dark and tall around us and strange creatures stalk us from their shelter. I hope that the others have not noticed; I am not certain whether they would demand to flee back into the shelter (what little there is) of the mountains or insist upon pressing forwards to vanquish this new foe, if a foe it is. They have not yet shown themselves to us. Sometimes I am even able to forget that we are being watched at all times, and then I will see the gleam of eyes in the darkness or a flicker of movement in the tree cover. There have been strange things said about Narnia as far back as I remember; when we left Telmar City I wrote that I hoped they had no basis in truth. Travelers have always told tales, after all. It is hard to tell so early on – we have only just passed the stone that marks the old border of the High King – but it seems to be that there may be some truth to these traveler’s tales. I hope that the watchers are merely waiting to see that we do not come to conquer, but merely to settle, to find a new homeland. We will fight for our homes if we must, but I do not wish it to come to that; too many have already died.

There is a road that leads out of the mountains. In some places it is densely overgrown, so that we must draw our blades and hack our way through it, and in others it is as clean and clear as the day it was built. It is a good road, as sturdily built as any in Telmar, and if we settle in this land then I will see that it is cleared for proper use. Sometimes the road lulls me into thinking that I am home again, because I can close my eyes and hear my horse’s hooves clopping on it, the way they would in some civilized country. This is a feint, though: there is nothing of civilization remaining in this land. All there is is us.

6 Verantani 337

39 days out of Telmar City
13,891 souls

Gioffre the Baker drowned this morning crossing a river. We buried him beneath a tall pine tree and marked his grave with a cairn; his wife said some words and then we moved on. He will be missed

We are being followed. I am sure of it now, in a way that I was not when we first entered Narnia. I suppose that yesterday I thought that it could have been merely coincidence; they have told strange stories about Narnia for time out of mind. Stories are meant to come from somewhere, after all, but a story is only a story when you listen to it in the light of the day. This is no story. Since we left our campsite yesterday morning I have seen something – someone – following us, a shape in the shadows like a man or even a woman that has stalked us since the border. Worst of all, I am not certain that anyone else has seen it. Gods of my ancestors, I hope that I have not gone mad.

If it is still with us tomorrow I will go out and confront it. There are not meant to be any people in this land. If there are people here, I do not know what I will do. I led my people out of Telmar because I would not stomach the Empire’s intrusion into that land, and I chose Narnia because there have been no people in this place for time out of mind. We must go somewhere, and I cannot think of anywhere else we can go unless we choose to turn north into the moors or build ships and take to the sea. I will find them a home, even if I must take it by force.

9 Verantani 337

42 days out of Telmar City
13,891 souls

They are saying now that Gioffre’s death was not an accident, but murder. His child claims that she saw a woman with waterweed in her hair pull her father into the river and hold him down as he struggled, then vanished once he was dead. It seems impossible, but the story has already made the rounds of the camp. There are even those who say that this land is cursed and that our own deaths will follow shortly if we remain here. I do not think this is true. It seems like the worst kind of nonsense, crude and violent and dangerous. I think that we have been on the road so long that many people have forgotten that if we leave Narnia, we have nowhere else to go.

The figure that has followed us from the first day remains. I have ridden out several times to find it, under the guise of scouting ahead, and have not yet managed to meet it in the flesh. Some of the others have seen it, though I think that they believe it is a member of our own party. I hope that this illusion continues; if the knowledge that we are being stalked by an unknown creature becomes widespread, then I shudder to think what chaos will reign rampant among our party.

If this continues, then I shall have to order the soldiers within our party to ride armored and ready to fight. I did not expect to find much danger in this land, though I suppose I should have. So many of the tales have said that Narnia is a dangerous place for humans to be, but surely no land is incapable of being tamed by the hand of man. They say that the High King who ruled here a thousand years ago was a man like any other, after all. I can be as great a man as he. I, too, can rule Narnia.

*

Caspian had ridden ahead to try and find out what had been stalking them since the border marker, but he found exactly the same thing that he’d found all the other times he’d done so: nothing. For all intents and purposes it was a beautiful spring day, with the sun cutting through the tree cover and creating patterns of light on the forest floor. The only thing wrong was the silence.

No birds sang in Narnia. Caspian had seen them, saw them every day – sparrows darting from tree to tree, falcons swooping above them, the huge dark shadow of an owl in the night – and certainly some of them made noises, the normal sounds that birds made when they spoke to each other. But they never sang. All their sounds were short and brief, a perfunctory greeting and not the prolonged singing that Caspian had been used to in Telmar. He’d thought initially that they were just uncomfortable with the presence of strangers in their territory for the first time in centuries, but they had been in Narnian territory for over a week now and had been no change in their behavior. The members of the vast train of Telmarine refugees probably doesn’t even notice, thank the gods; Caspian has no idea how he’d explain it without falling back on travelers’ tales.

He dismounted by the side of a brook and led his horse down to it to drink, looking upstream. It wove through the forest, a bright ribbon amongst the darker trees, and burbled cheerfully over the rocks, which made a refreshing change from the usual silence of Narnia. He wouldn’t admit it if anyone else asked for fear of sending a shock wave through the refugee train, but the whole damned country seemed haunted. No wonder nobody lived here.

Caspian knelt down to scoop up some water himself, splashing it onto his face and neck. It was a hot day and his padded jerkin sat heavy on his shoulders, redolent of sweat and all the other stinks that came with wearing it day-in and day-out without a proper wash. When he cupped his hands to drink some of the water, it tasted clean and cold on his tongue, sweeter than any water he’d ever tasted in Telmar.

When he looked up again, there was a woman looking at him.

Caspian jerked back from the stream, his hand going to his sword, and got it half out of the scabbard before he realized that she was just an unarmed woman, alone in the woods. She wasn’t one of his people – no Telmarine woman had hair like that, white-blonde and straight, with lilies braided into it. She was wearing a gown of some kind of unfamiliar material, like green silk but different, somehow. Her eyes were green and her expression was curious.

“Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing in Narnia?”

Caspian could ask her the same question, but he restrained himself. “My name is Caspian,” he said, keeping his hand on his sword. “We’re here to settle.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are already people living here,” she said, with a distinct undercurrent of disdain.

Caspian looked at her for a moment, about to say that he hadn’t known there were, since every report he’d ever heard said that all the population of Narnia had fled when the High King vanished, and then remembered something he’d seen once, when he was very young. His grandfather had owned a working farm outside of Telmar City and Caspian had spent summers there, scaring the chickens, teasing the pigs, and running through the herd of skittish purebred sheep his grandmother doted on. When he’d gotten too much for his grandfather’s employees to handle he’d been sent off to catch dinner from the river that ran through the estate, carrying a pole and a net.

There had been a man sitting on the pier they used for barges when Caspian got there. At first he’d thought that the stranger was another one of his grandfather’s employees and ordered him imperiously off the pier, but when the man hadn’t responded Caspian had taken another look at him. He’d been darker than any Telmarine Caspian had ever known, with crisp salt-and-pepper hair and a close-cropped square beard, and his eyes had been shifting grey and blue, like the color of the river in all weathers. He’d looked at Caspian as if he’d been amused by the command, then vanished in a shower of water droplets. When Caspian had asked about him later, his grandfather had said that he was the spirit of the river and should be treated with respect, because he had the ability to make the farm prosper or fail. Caspian had gone looking for him, but he’d never seen the spirit again and eventually he’d forgotten about him. Until now.

The woman had something of the same look about her. Caspian took a step backwards without meaning to and put one hand out for his horse. The reins slipped through his fingers as the horse turned tail and ran. He could hear it crashing through the woods and cursed silently, hoping it would find its way back to the column on its own. He gripped his sword hilt, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it – he’d never drawn a blade on a woman before.

She looked interested. “Are you a son of Adam?” she asked.

He stared at her. “Beg pardon?”

She repeated herself, but the words still didn’t seem to make any sense, and Caspian said cautiously, “I’m human,” because he had the feeling that maybe she wasn’t. He coughed, eyed her again, and added, “What are you?”

“I’m a naiad,” she said, in the same that way that anyone else would have said, “Well, the sky is blue.” She was looking at him with a very odd expression on her face. “You’re human,” she said, marveling a little at the word. “I’ve never seen a human before.”

“I’ve never seen a naiad before!” Caspian said, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar sounds. At some point he’d let go of his sword, and his hands hung loosely at his sides, awkward. “I don’t mean to offend you, but we aren’t going anywhere. We’ve come here to stay.”

“But you’re a son of Adam,” said the woman – the naiad. He didn’t know what that meant. “Are you all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve – are you all human?”

“Yes,” Caspian said, and she went slightly pale.

“I need to speak to my father,” she said, stepping into the water. Her ankles went slightly translucent, so that Caspian could see the rocks behind them. He tried not to stare, as it seemed like it might be rude.

“Wait!” he said, putting his hand out to stop her. His fingers grazed her shoulder and he snatched his hand back, trying not to stare; it had felt like putting his hand into a bowl of cool water. His fingers had gone into her, denting what wasn’t like any skin he had ever touched before.

She looked at him curiously. “What?”

“Your people – the ones that have been following us,” Caspian said. “Will you tell them to stop? They’re scaring my – my people.” It wasn’t the first time he’d called the refugees his, but this time it felt different somehow.

“They’re not my people,” said the naiad. “They’re not anybody’s people.” She gave him a thoughtful look. “You’re a son of Adam,” she said again, her voice gone soft and thoughtful. “We haven’t seen a son of Adam in Narnia for a thousand years.”

*

21 Verantani 337

18 days into Narnia

Narnia is a fair land, if an odd one. We have found the place where we shall build our settlement – a settlement that I hope will last for a thousand years. It is half a day’s ride from the Great River, so that the river god can come and go as he pleases, and Byzia’s stream runs just outside the walls. We speak often; her father has been hinting at a marriage. He says that it would bind our two peoples – I and the Telmarines to Narnia, and Byzia and the river Narnians to the Telmarines. I do not know if the other Narnians will come around to our presence in Narnia just because the river god trusts us, but it is not a bad suggestion. And it is certainly not an unwelcome one.

Many of Narnia’s inhabitants are far stranger than Byzia and her father. I have written of the Talking Animals before – including the birds that have been watching us since we crossed the border – but I did not realize there were still stranger creatures in Narnia. There are creatures that are half-man and half-beast – minotaurs and centaurs and fauns and stranger things, like monsters spoken of in fairy stories back in Telmar. If we remain in Narnia – and we will remain in Narnia – then they shall have to come to terms with us. I think we can be very beneficial to Narnia.

*

“The Archives are closing,” said the Assistant Archivist, eyeing Beloscuida with some interest. He was a young, slightly earnest-looking Telmarine holding a book beneath one arm; with the other hand he made a slightly nervous gesture towards the diary in front of her, as if he longed to snatch it away and bear it off into the safety of a velvet-lined case, or whatever it was that the Royal Archives kept their most precious manuscripts in.

Beloscuida yawned, covering it delicately with her gloved hand, and eyed the deepening twilight outside the window. Her eyes hurt, and her elbow; she’d been leaning at an odd angle so that she could keep track of her place on the page and take notes at the same time. She made a notation at the bottom of her notebook about the last entry she’d read and closed the diary. The Assistant Archivist did not quite snatch it up, but he did take it from the table very quickly, holding it the same way he might a baby.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Beloscuida told him, capping her ink bottle and tucking her supplies into her pen case.

“I hope you found what you were looking for,” he said, trying to loom over her and rather failing, since he was a good handspan shorter than she was when she stood up.

She pushed her chair in and leaned her hip against it. “I found something,” she said. “It wasn’t what I expected.”

They called him Caspian the Conqueror now, a man who’d led an invading army into Narnia and driven the native Narnians into hiding and begun a three-hundred year hegemony over a land that had hated him for every minute of it. All they taught about him in schools now was that he’d come and conquered and was best forgotten except as a warning of what not to be. Beloscuida had never given a second thought to him until she’d run across an absent-minded footnote about the first Telmarine settlements in Narnia being peaceful rather than violent. All the history said that Telmarines had hated and feared Narnians since the day they’d arrived. She’d never thought that the history had a reason to lie.

*

Since the Unification Narnian history has looked upon Caspian the Conqueror as, at best, an embarrassment and at worst as a genocidal maniac. In recent years the discussion has been sidestepped completely and all Telmarine history that predates Caspian the Seafarer pushed under the rug, leading to a “blackwashing” of the early Telmarine presence in Narnia. Every Telmarine king before the Seafarer has been summarily dismissed as nothing more than an uncivilized brute. For almost a century, no scholar has dared to criticize this belief, and I myself was more than convinced of this until I found a footnote buried deep in the depths of a tract on pre-Telmarine Narnian artwork. This led me on a trail that began with the diary kept by Caspian I – the title “Conqueror” is not quite accurate anymore – and ended with an excavation of the Telmarine castle last occupied by the usurper Miraz.

In the month of Jovenal of the Telmarine calendar (Midsummer by the Narnian), the Telmarine lord Caspian married the naiad Byzia, daughter of the river god of the Great River. This was a decision that was widely viewed as treasonous among much of the native Narnian population; the diarist Swiftfallow the Porcupine wrote:

Well, that river bint has gone and done it now. Naiads and river gods always think they’re better than everyone else, like they can make decisions for the rest of Narnia – son of Adam or not, that stranger is still a foreigner, not a friend of Narnia. He’s no High King Peter or King Edmund, and if the river god thinks that he can make him into one by speaking kindly of him and marrying him off to his daughter, then he’s got another think coming. We’ve had humans in Narnia before: it ended in disaster. I’m not the only one who thinks that way either.

Four months earlier Caspian had led nearly 14,000 refugees out of an occupied Telmar in search of a new home. From the beginning his progress through Narnia was closely monitored by disorganized groups of Narnians, all of them wondering the purpose of the Telmarine presence in Narnia. There had been no humans in Narnia for the better of a millennium, and the sudden presence of a sizable population was a lightning rod for unrest. Already the pieces were being set for a civil war that would encompass the whole of Narnia, Telmarines and Narnians alike, and give Caspian I the name that has haunted his descendants for the centuries since. The only problem was that no one knew it yet.

− Excerpt from “A Reevaluation of Caspian I” by Doctor Beloscuida of Beaversdam University

---

Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: I like any of the following: Humour; culture clashes; dirty politics; clever, funny, ironic characters; World War; history (fake or real); OCs; romantic, witty banter between consenting adults; AU; cross overs; any Narnian (Pevensie or otherwise) observed from a third person point of view
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: "Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes"; “I don't like small birds. They hop around so merrily outside my window, looking so innocent. but I know that secretly, they're watching my every move and plotting to beat me over the head with a large steel pipe and take my shoe.”; "O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet." "I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink."
What I definitely don't want in my fic: explicit m/m, dubious consent; excessive angst; Lucy as marginalized; angst-filled "Problem of Susan" after the Crash

Comments

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

History! Brilliant, alternate history! Written by the victors and the losers and discovered by academics who attend Beaversdam University and go the opera with their partners! And a blind King!

This was lovely and brilliant and so very, very creative. Thank you, mystery writer. You have delighted me with this story. The whole of the story is looking at Narnians from other points of view and I hugely appreciate it. This is just terrific. I love Beloscuida and her careful archiving habits and all the doctors and graduations. There is just a great feel of a "modern" Narnia. The attention to detail is also wonderful -- the brother was a Beaversdam man! The beavers quartered with a compass rose! Over and over, there are wonderful details here.

Thank you so much for this very, very different view of "Caspian the Conqueror."

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

And OMG, Blessed Saint Repicheep. HILARIOUS. Wonderful.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you enjoyed it! I have a thing for outsider POV, heh, so your prompt was wonderful for me.

[metonomia.livejournal.com]

This is delightful, mystery writer. There needs to be so much more academic/academically-focused Narnia fic, especially if written like this, with so much attention to detail and all of the intricacies and discoveries that go with historical research.

I LOVE the idea that Caspian the Conqueror was not necessarily so much a conqueror - and I love your setup here wherein it is Narnians' dislike of humans that seems to be the impetus for the Telmarine/Narnian troubles and subsequently the New Narnian ignorance of Caspian I's history. You present a history that is much more realistic and three-dimensional, and I adore it.

Also, the frame narration is exquisite here; the layering of Beloscuida's story, Caspian's diary, Caspian's pov, and then Beloscuida's (teasingly inconclusive! I want mooooore, I want to know what happened post-marriage for Caspian and Byzia and the Telmarines and Narnians) essay comes together super well and just makes my academic heart even more happy.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think the dislike was pretty mutual for the Telmarines and the Narnians, but the Narnians probably made the first violent move. (Who am I kidding, they make the first violent move IN THIS STORY before they even know who the Telmarines are. Strangers! They don't like them!)

[autumnia]

This has been a very fascinating read. I enjoyed the meta and worldbuilding you've created for the time before Caspian X became King. History does change over time and it's interesting to see that Caspian I wasn't actually a Conqueror as the stories claim, nor did the original Telmarines paint Narnian past (in particular the reign of the High King) in a bad light.

I also enjoyed the present setting, with a "modern" Narnia that has universities and enjoy reading of a blind King who has a "guide dog" of sorts as well. :-)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

This was fantastic! I love the peek into post-Rilian Narnia, and I love love love the university, and I LOVE the look into Caspian I and into the way later generations would view him. The formatting of this fic was also fantastic.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I may have had a little too much fun with the university, heh.

[edenfalling]

Wow! I love how you've woven the documents and the narrative sections together to tell the story from several angles at once. I really like the feel of modern Narnia, where humans casually mingle with fauns and minotaurs and Talking Beasts, but there is still a distinction drawn that the noble is a Telmarine nobleman. I like Beloscuida and her love of libraries and her involuntary assessment of the historical origin of the royal guards' uniforms. I love the hints that the Telmarines left their old country because it was conquered by Calormen, and the way they don't even realize that Narnia is inhabited for a while, because they are only looking for other humans. I like that the pre-Caspian X era of the Telmarine kings is one of those touchy subjects you just Don't Talk About, and because of that, all the nuance of those years has been written over by error-riddled morality tales. I love Caspian I's concern for his people, how he wants to do right by both them and the Narnians (once he realizes that there are Narnians), and his memory of the river god in Telmar that gives him a frame of reference for relating to Byzia.

In short, this is beautiful and messy and, despite past tragedies, hopeful. Thank you for writing and sharing it!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[linneasr.livejournal.com]

LOL Blessed Saint Reepicheep!

Tee hee! As a Medieval & Early Modern historian myself, you have captured the Academe SO VERY WELL!! Not only that, but the silence among humans about the Pre-Unification Telmarine Period is so dead on! I'm told, for example, that to bring up the Nazis while I'm in Germany will range from needing several hours to talk it through (ie: don't bring them up lightly) to dead silence and probable future shunning (ie: don't bring them up ever).

I also like how Cair Paravel now has an opera house. And, one assumes, shops, haberdasheries, dockyards and orange-sellers. Crowded tenements? Hm. It doesn't fit. But it might, particularly if this is set quite a bit post-Silver Chair, in the just-before-Tirian phase.

Very nicely done, Mystery Author. A pleasure to read.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. This is set roughly in the middle of the period between Caspian X and Tirian. We don't see Cair Paravel in LB, but I like the idea that it turned into a bustling metropolis of the early modern stripe. (I'm an undergraduate in Medieval & Early Modern Studies and Classical Studies, so I'm glad that the academia bits worked for you!)

[cofax7]

Oh, that was quite marvelous. I love the glimpses we get here of future Narnia, and I really really love the way the history of the Telmarine Settlement is peeled back so gradually.

Also I love the vivid description of archival research--clearly you know what you're talking about!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent! I love all of the detail, and am left really wanting to read more of Caspian I and Byzia, and find out how the relations between the Telmarines and Narnians truly soured- was there ever a relatively friendly time or were the river folk the only ones to establish friendly relations? This just does a great job of painting pictures of both "modern" Narnia and that particular maligned point in history.
-H

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think there was an uneasy peace for the first few years after the Telmarines settled before hostilities began in earnest; I don't think there was any real integration between Telmarines and Narnians, though there were probably a few marriages beside Caspian and Byzia.

[lady_songsmith]

post-Petreian statuary! That was the moment I knew I was going to adore this fic. And I did. The little details of academia - Glasswater and Beaversdam, prickly protective librarians - and the alternate history, the blackwashing of Caspian, the hints of Narnian bitterness over humans, even or perhaps particularly in the wake of the Pevensies -- brilliant! And the Blessed Saint Reep made me giggle forever. Well done!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Poor Caspian got kind of a bad rap, poor guy.

[snacky]

The Blessed Saint Reepicheep may be my favorite part! :D

I really liked the multiple layers of story here, with Doctor Beloscuida and her research into post-Petreian statuary, to her meeting with the King, and then with Caspian I and his Naiad bride, and the rewriting of history to reflect current values.

It's a really fun read! Thanks for sharing!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Gosh, St. Reep appears to be surprisingly popular. :)

[ilysia-039.livejournal.com]

Alternate history! Being uncovered by an intrepid scholar! In Narnia! How lovely! Really, though, this is brilliant, and wonderful take on the fact that "history is written by the victors"- except, in this case, the history written by the Telmarine victors was an odd one. Poor Caspian I.

Lovely, lovely. Thank you!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Poor Caspian I, indeed -- he doesn't really deserve all the vitriol that's leveled at him in later years.

[harmony-lover.livejournal.com]

*Lol* Being a junior member of the academy myself, I love the way you have brilliantly captured all of its little peccadilloes here - the squabbling over seniority, the permission to enter archives, the endless admonitions over how to handle antique documents, the scholarly silences and oversights that seem to develop through mutual consent - it's amazing, and wonderful. The alternate history is equally fascinating and compelling; recasting Caspian I as a leader of refugees rather than a conqueror opens up the whole of the Telemarine occupation to reinterpretation and reevaluation. Perhaps the other kings that followed him will now also get their stories told in a way that is more unbiased. I was also intrigued by the idea that Caspian I wanted to be a leader like Peter - clearly, he has heard enough of the history of the Golden Age to at least emulate the Pevensies, however strange and hostile Narnia now seems to him. Wonderful!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and that the academic bits worked for you.