Caspian meets that incredulous glance head-on, his own chin lifted and his eyes clear and steady, and there's some echo in him of the way he'd cowed Reepicheep once before; of the man who'd walked among his subjects earlier this same night as they bowed.

"Yes," he says, simply. "And if what you want is to help her, you'll not refuse another person to support her."

Unless it isn't about her, at all.

If Cuthbert decides to push, really push, Caspian thinks this is the moment where he'll do it. He also thinks Alain will wait to see how the wind's blowing, as it were, before he weighs in, but he's been wrong about the gunslinger before.