The Next Four Months

Chap two

(Susan)

Two months. It had been two months since they left and it was getting difficult. I was tiered all the time, something felt wrong and they say a mothers instinct- even an expectant one- is never wrong.

It had been a bad start, she was predicted a girl. I bore the future Queen, which I should have felt I could celebrate but I didn't. I was disappointed, and a bit scared. I needed a son, I needed to keep all my people happy and with word of an uprising in Owl wood it wasn't proving easy. There were so many things going wrong under my watch.

I sighed, lying flat on my bed my back clicking as the pressure released on my spine and my feet. They were all swollen, my ankles puffed up so my calves flowed straight into my heels. I couldn't believe my Mum had coped so well with this. And she had me and Peter and Ed as well. It hurt so much, and I was so, so tiered, I had no idea how Mum had ran around after Edmund and coped with me and Peter arguing. And me? I couldn't even cope with the day-to-day life I'd had for a good while.

The silver chain round my neck slid out from the neckline of my dress and down my skin towards my chin. The chain had the tiniest links I'd ever seen and had a small tear drop shaped diamond on the end. A present. Traditions went that a newly married man should give a gift-usually jewellery- to his new wife on the morning after their wedding, as Caspian had explained it was meant as a sort of compensation with him having just taken her virtue. I remembered him puting it on me, I was barely awake when I felt him drape it across my bare skin, dragging the two ends around my neck. He'd used his nose to push my hair away from my neck, making me shiver delicately from his very gentle touch. Nothing was said, we didn't need any words just lay dozing in each others arms basking in the aftermath of the most life changing twenty four hours.

It was so magical, so amazing and now I should have been feeling the same, the magic and surreality. But I felt none of that. I was yet to spend any time enjoying it, enjoying being pregnant. I hadn't even thought about the baby really, I had no name ideas, I had no drive to go out and find little toys and trinkets and clothes for my newborn. That worried me too, so many worries. I lay looking at the thing that had taken over my body, I felt a little offended that she'd stollen my figure.

There had been worse news, news I felt I was already grieving over. Ash had told me more than that a little girl was within me, she'd told me my little girl was my only child. A problem with blood, that's what she'd said, would mean we could not successfully have more children. I would never have a baby boy, never give Narnia a new king. I felt I'd failed, I'd failed Narnia's future, my family and I'd failed Caspian- what good was I to him if I could not give him what a Queen was supposed to give?

I knew I shouldn't think like that, I knew it was silly, my King would always love me, no matter whether I gave him a son or not, still I doubted.

The others- Edmund, Lucy, any of the servant body- didn't know I was expecting a little girl. They weren't aware of the pain my back and feet felt nor the strange sharp headaches I'd began to feel. I was a bit worried actually, maybe it was a bit more than the average pregnancy symptoms, more than what my Mum had experienced. Maybe I was ill; maybe our baby was ill.

I couldn't go bothering people, it was probably nothing after all and I would just be making a fuss. Instead of worry I sat and watched the shape of my belly contort and morph like an alien living on the moon. I was humongous! Seriously I was sure that child was secretly eating extra helpings, I felt so much bigger than my Mum or Sandra ( a friend I'd met in America, my age but with a big problem her parents didn't know about) had been. I was sure it all came down to my lack of sleep, I was always tiered these days and I hadn't really slept well since the King's had left. Even though, as was tradition in this country, Caspian and I had separate quarters we hadn't spent a night apart since the wedding- I supposed I missed his warmth.