Work Text:
Caspian has been reviewing supply manifests with Drinian all morning.
It has been, so far, ordinary enough to be boring – tallies of salt pork and fresh water, a minor argument with Drinian over whether they need more rope, the kind of administrative peace Caspian has learnt not to take for granted. Edmund has been back in his life for six days. Six days of not having to imagine the worst, after three years of nothing else. Caspian is, for once, entirely at ease.
Then Lucy comes running up the gangplank.
Alone.
He looks up; where are the others? Lucy had left, hours ago, to explore Narrowhaven with Edmund and their cousin Eustace. All three of them should be together.
'Lucy?' he calls. 'Where are—'
'Ed's missing,' Lucy gasps. 'We were in the market and I turned around and he was just gone. We've been searching for an hour and we can't find him anywhere.'
The world goes still.
'Missing?' Caspian repeats. His own voice is unrecognisable.
'Yes! I've looked everywhere, every street off the square, twice.' Lucy's eyes are wide. 'Eustace wanted to go back to the ship. He— Caspian, something's wrong. Ed wouldn't just wander off; he's too sharp, too sensible, for that.'
Caspian is already moving, shouting orders. Somewhere at the edge of his mind, he registers that Eustace is out there alone too – and dismisses it in the same breath. Eustace did not vanish. Edmund did.
'Drinian, assemble a search party. Armed. Now.'
He turns to Lucy.
'Show me where you lost him.'
They move quickly through Narrowhaven's streets, Lucy leading the way. Edmund is smart, cautious, and experienced. He would not just disappear. Which means something – or someone – took him.
The thought slows his steps for a handful of paces, no more, before he forces them back in line again.
Lucy has not stopped talking since they set off – where they had been, what she saw, what she should have done differently – and Caspian lets most of it wash past him.
'This is my fault,' she says, not for the first time. 'I should never have looked away—'
'Lucy.' It comes out harder than he means it to. He stops for long enough to let himself say the next part more gently. 'You did nothing wrong. Looking away for one moment is not a crime.'
She nods, but when she looks at him her eyes are bright and he thinks she is searching for permission to believe him. He knows his response was inadequate. Edmund does not have the time for him to slow down and offer a better one.
'Where next?' he asks, because he does not trust himself to say anything else.
'Here,' Lucy says, stopping in a crowded market square. 'We were looking at fabrics and I turned to ask Eustace something and when I looked back, Ed was gone. I thought he'd just stepped away for a moment, but—'
'How long?' Caspian interrupts.
'Long enough I've stopped believing he just wandered off. Caspian, where could he have gone?'
Caspian, who is scanning the area for anything unusual, does not answer. His sailors fan out, questioning merchants, searching side streets.
He works the square the way he would a battlefield: quarter by quarter, nothing overlooked twice. He sends two sailors to check the harbourmaster's log for anyone who has left port in the last hour, and another pair to ask after any physician or apothecary who might have treated an injury. It is, for a few minutes, easier. Caspian has a task, and that helps steady him. But Edmund needs them to find him soon, and Caspian does not let himself forget it.
Drinian finds the lead.
'Your Majesty,' he calls, gesturing Caspian over. 'This merchant says he saw a young man matching King Edmund's description being dragged into an alley by two men. About an hour ago.'
Caspian's hand finds the hilt of his sword before he tells it to.
'Which alley?'
The merchant points, and Caspian is moving before the man finishes. He finds the alley empty except for a torn piece of fabric that might be from Edmund's shirt; it reeks of something sickly, cloyingly sweet.
Someone took Edmund. Drugged him. Dragged him away.
'Search everywhere,' Caspian orders, and his voice is deadly calm. 'Every street, every house, every ship in the harbour. Find him.'
'Your Majesty,' one of his sailors says hesitantly. 'There are... rumours. Among the crew, mostly – sailors talk, in port. About this city. About slavers who take people from the streets.'
'Slavers,' Caspian repeats, his voice flat.
'Yes, Your Majesty. They operate in the market on the east side of the city. If someone took King Edmund—'
Caspian does not wait to hear more.
'Two of you, get her back to the ship,' he says, without slowing. 'Now.' He is walking, his hand on his sword. An hour ago the worst of his problems was rope. He does not know what to do with the size of this one.
If someone has put Edmund in chains, if someone has dared to collar him like property, he will not leave enough of them to stand trial for it.
The slave market is exactly where his sailor said it would be. Caspian can see it from a distance: a crowd gathered around auction blocks, the glint of chains in the sunlight.
Men and women stand on every block. A boy who cannot be more than fourteen. An old man too stooped to stand without help, and a trader prodding him upright anyway. Caspian has fought campaigns; he has seen what war does to people. He has never seen this.
Nobody cries out. No-one pleads. Just a terrible, practised quiet, as if everyone here has already learned that struggling changes nothing.
Caspian cannot pick Edmund out from this distance – too many bodies, the crowd shifting and closing around each block in turn – but he is moving before he has consciously decided to, Drinian and his sailors scrambling to keep up. His hand is on his sword, half-drawing it before he even realises what he is doing.
'Where is he?' His voice comes out cold. Controlled. The kind of quiet that precedes violence.
The merchant turns with an oily smile.
'Your Majesty! What an unexpected—'
'Where. Is. He.'
The smile falters, and past the merchant's shoulder, Caspian finally sets eyes on Edmund.
His lover stands on the nearest block, an iron collar around his neck and chains on his wrists. Men stand around him, examining him, discussing him. One of them gestures at Edmund like he is livestock. Caspian's own hands are shaking too, though nothing in his voice will reflect that.
Caspian does not care about the smile, or the merchant, or anything else in this market. His eyes are on Edmund, on the collar around his throat, on the way he is in chains.
Someone put chains on Edmund. Someone collared him like an animal.
Caspian is going to kill them all. Slowly.
'I'm afraid I don't know who—' the merchant starts.
Caspian has half-drawn his sword before Drinian catches his arm.
'Your Majesty,' Drinian says quietly. 'Let's not start a war in the market square.'
Caspian stops, but only because Drinian is right. Killing this merchant in the middle of the market, however satisfying it might be, would cause an incident he did not have the patience to untangle afterwards. And it would take him away from Edmund. Edmund, who is still chained, still collared, still standing on that block like property.
Caspian forces himself to breathe. Forces the killing rage down into something colder. More controlled, and dangerous.
'Edmund Pevensie,' he says, and his voice could cut glass. 'King Edmund of Narnia. My companion.' Each word is deliberate. 'He was taken from the streets of this city, and brought here. Where. Is. He.'
He watches the merchant's face go pale at the mention of Edmund's title. As if that made a difference.
'Your Majesty, I assure you, there must be some mistake. We would never knowingly—'
'I do not care about what you know.' Caspian takes a step forward, and the merchant stumbles back. Good. 'I care that somebody took him, and put chains on him. Somebody brought him here. And you?' His hand tightens on his sword. 'You were going to sell him. Give me one reason, one, why I should not run you through where you stand!'
'I— Your Majesty, if there's been an error—'
Caspian lets himself look at Edmund properly, now he has been found – a long, greedy look. Edmund's chin is up, his shoulders squared, despite the chains and the collar and being examined like livestock. But he is shaking.
Caspian wants to go to him, remove those chains with his bare hands, and kill everyone who touched him.
But first, he needs to make the merchant understand.
'There,' Caspian says, pointing to Edmund. His voice is still that terrible quiet. 'Release him. Now.'
'Your Majesty, this slave was purchased legally—'
Caspian's control breaks.
'He is not—' His voice catches on the word. 'He is not a slave!' Even shouting, the sentence has to be rebuilt to get there. But every word is clipped and precise. 'And if you do not release him, this instant, I will consider it an act of war against Narnia. And then I will deal with you, personally, before I deal with your city.' His hand tightens on his sword again. 'Do you understand me?'
The merchant's face has gone from pale to grey.
'Yes! Yes, of course! Remove the chains! Quickly!'
Caspian watches, jaw tight, as one of the merchant's men hurries forward with keys. The man, his hands shaking, unlocks Edmund's wrists first, then reaches for the collar.
The collar. Around Edmund's throat.
Caspian's hands curl into fists at his sides. It would take three steps to cross the space and remove it himself. Three more, and he could have his hands around the merchant's throat instead, to see how the merchant likes the feel of iron against his own neck.
The moment the collar comes off, Caspian is moving. His hand leaves the hilt of his sword for the first time since the alley.
He reaches Edmund in a matter of moments and his hand is already lifting toward Edmund's face when he catches it and stops, an inch from skin, because it is the same hand that wanted the merchant's throat under it minutes ago.