#but then ed prefers to stay clean shaven anyway so peter gets to keep looking properly eldest

[rainintheevening]

Part I – Part II ... Part IX – Part X

Peter knows the smell of blood, knows the smells of fear, and sweat, and anger.

It's muted as he surfaces to consciousness, but still there, and even before he's opened his eyes, he's loosening his tongue, trying to drag moisture into his mouth, ready to issue orders or reassurance.

“Your majesty,” says a quiet voice, musical and wispy. “Lie still. You have suffered a grievous hurt.”

“Indeed?” he mumbles.

Hurt, wounds, blood… and enough memory returns

“Edmund?” he croaks, prying eyes open to light that seems too sharp, and there is movement, boots on stone, a dark head blotting out some of the light.

“I am here, brother, and unhurt,” Ed says quietly, and Peter would relax, but for the cough that climbs from his dry throat, and then another, and another, wrenching at his abdomen, so that at last he feels the pain, quick and hot.

Ed’s arm is under his head, lifting it just enough to hold a cup to his lips, and half the water ends up elsewhere, but enough gets down his throat to ease the terrible spasms, and he closes his eyes tightly, turns his face into the crook of Edmund's elbow, damp fabric of a sleeve cool against his forehead.

“Your majesty, you were not supposed to wake this soon. The knife carried poison, and my antidote is still taking effect. I have only begun to poultice and bandage the wound.” There is a pained edge in the hare's voice, an apology, but also frustration, towards herself, Peter guesses.

He tries to lighten his voice, but the pain radiating up from his right side is still abhominable, and the hand he holds out to her shakes slightly.

“Peace, Drybones. Continue your work, and I will bear it.”

He lifts his head from Ed’s arm just enough to see the hare take his hand, feels her whiskery kiss brush over his knuckles, before Ed lays him flat again.

“Wait,” he murmurs up at his brother, before the younger king can step away. “What happened to the assassin?”

Ed’s eyes seem to deepen, brown shading to black in their depths, but his expression does not change.

“Dead. But he had a letter in his purse, describing his charge, and we have removed from Lord Alcsace's keep into the town. The people at least are with us.”

“Ah.” Peter's acknowledgement twists into a gasp, chokes off into silence as he clamps his teeth together.

He is fully aware of his body now, and he thinks he can truly feel the battle in his veins, the antidote against the poison, every beat of his heart a strike for one or the other, fire creeping across his abdomen, up to his chest.

“Aslan,” he breathes, screwing his eyes shut, and then cool hands take his, loosen the wild grip he's taken on the sheets beneath him.

Above him Edmund's face blurs, but Peter understands the squeeze of his fingers well enough. He anchors himself to his brother, a sure and steady thing in the haze of agony, setting his teeth against the battle, forgetting to breathe until Ed’s reminder reaches him.

Some interminable time later, the pain begins to ease, and the moment that registers in his mind, he lets go, and tumbles down into the exhausted shade of sleep.

When he wakes, it is to flickering lantern light in the cool of night, the faintest of breezes touching his face from the open window, and he lies still, relishing the quietness in his body, and sniffing at distant jewlberry blossoms and woodsmoke.

A stirring nearby, and he turns his head on the pillow to see Edmund rise from a low stool, where he has been leaning against the wall close by Peter's bed.

“Do not try to rise,” Ed says softly, moving to the table, pouring a cup of water, and Peter smiles a little as the light catches on the clear stream falling from the lip of the jug. “Drybones does well as a healer, but she has none of Lucy's cordial.”

As before, Edmund's arm is strong under his shoulders, and Peter does not try to speak till he has drunk two cups of water and half a third.

“Well,” he murmurs, “I for one am glad our little sister isn't here.”

Ed nods curtly, drifts back to the table to pour a drink for himself. “Thank Aslan. Lord Alcsace knew of her reputation. She would have been their first target.”

Precisely.

“Have you sent any communication home?”

“Only a note with Sunleaf, and she is under orders to answer no questions and return at once. Merely saying we have met with an ill welcome on Lord Alcsace's part, and will make it known if we require aid.”

“Well done,” Peter murmurs, and something in his brother’s back relaxes.

“For now, the common folk hold him at bay,” Edmund adds. “We may either leave with our tails between our legs like kicked puppies, and return later with an army, or stay and attempt something diplomatic. But,” he adds as Peter begins to speak. “I run ahead of us. That debate will wait for the morrow, and our gathered council.”

Peter sighs, lets it go, listens to Ed tapping fingers on the wooden cup, the louder tap of his signet ring. The lamplight edges Edmund's face with gold, and Peter notes the firmness of his jaw, and the dark stubble sprouting there.

A different kind of ache is building in his stomach, catching his attention. “Is there anything to eat?”

Now Edmund smiles properly. “Of course. I'll go see what Courser and Ariane have made. Though,” he adds over his shoulder, halfway out of the room, “you won't be allowed anything thicker than soup for the next day or so.”

“Mane,” Peter mutters after him, just to make that loving smirk grow as Ed stops just outside, turns to confer with what must be some of their retinue on guard.

Peter listens closely, picks out two satyr's voices, Trifon and Kostas, and he wonders where the wolves are; perhaps on patrol outside the house? That was certainly how he would deploy them.

Quite quickly food is brought, and under Drybones’s watchful eye, Edmund props Peter up with a cushion enough for him to eat, with a bowl in his hands, resting it on his chest when he tires. Ed sits on the low bed by his feet, tearing into some very brown but sweet-smelling bread slathered with a white butter, along with some well-salted meat, while Peter is forced to carefully spoon up his own intensely uninteresting soup, though it tastes well enough.

He notes the fervor with which Ed falls to; he must not have taken food in all the time Peter had been sleeping.

The soup is warm and soothing, no doubt infused with a healing physic of one kind or another, and Peter feels himself relaxing again. When it is all cleared and Drybones spreads a grass mat on the floor to Peter's left, the old hare is humming a whispering breezy song, singing not quite under her breath as she stetches out her paws and flops down on her side. Peter's eyes drift shut.

He snaps them open again at the scrape of wood on wood, blinks over at Edmund, taking a seat on his low stool again, sitting on Peter's other side, naked sword laid across his knees.

Only a single lantern remains lit, and shadows play across Ed’s face, making it appear thinner than usual.

“Truly?” Peter asks, sleep thickening and slowing his voice. “You are to sit up when there are guards at the doors, wolves at the windows, and the hare who once bit the head of a mad squirrel clean off is also watching over me?”

Peter ignores the faintly protesting squeak that interrupts Drybones's song, and keeps his eyes on Edmund’s, until his brother looks away.

“I shouldn't have let them separate us,” he murmurs. “I should have been there to protect you.”

Peter glances down at his side, the lump of bandages under his loose shirt at the bottom of his righthand ribs. The attack had come from the right, the place where Edmund was accustomed to stand, where so often Edmund was his shadow and shield, his righteous blade and quiet right hand.

Lord Alcsace had been right to separate them, and Peter had sadly been wrong to give him so much trust. He had turned away from the soldier walking on his right without thinking, and found a dagger buried under his ribs a moment later.

Assassination of the High King of Narnia is no small action to attempt, and Peter only prays to the Lion this will not end in war.

But that is a worry for the morrow.

“You are an ass, Edmund,” Peter grins softly. “I will need you fully alert for tomorrow's council. Do not make me command you to sleep.”

“It may not be my duty to guard you,” Edmund says, eyes drifting around the room, never still, “ but it will always be my honour.”

Peter presses his lips together, and shakes his head just a little. “Then at the least, lie beside me and guard me from there. You cannot argue that will make me even more secure.”

Edmund turns his head, looks straight at Peter as he rolls his eyes in the most un-kingly fashion possible. But he doesn’t argue, he compromises by sitting next to Peter's head, and taking his boots off, leaning back against the wall, stocking feet up on the sheets. He keeps his sword unsheathed.

Peter falls asleep to the clean smells of bandages and ointment, and close by the smell of an oiled mail shirt, leather, and the cool earthy scent of mist that is Edmund. He knows those scents well, and he knows he is safe.

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