The Winter Prince

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  “I did not lie,” I said. “I did not at first know what was happening, and I did not think he was in danger.” Then I clenched my hands, except the fingers that do not bend, and spoke slowly and reluctantly. “Your sister: I am … I wanted to put an end to this before she invoked your wrath. She trusts me. At least—”

  But before I could amend my words my father interrupted, “Then how can I?”

  I began again. “I thought I could counter her myself. But Lleu is still being hurt. Knowing what she has done to me, what she might do to Lleu, makes me afraid of her.”

  “Medraut,” said Artos quietly, “what has she done to you?”

  I said nothing. I looked at my hands and carefully unclenched them, and did not answer.

  “Well,” said Artos mildly. “How am I to know what to guard against?”

  idth="2em" align="justify">“Before this summer you trusted me on my word alone. I can understand why that might change. But surely when I speak out against her, in defense of your son, you can’t think that she has so great a hold over me?” “I think that is precisely why you ask me to send her away,” Artos answered. “Because she does. I think you’re a deal more afraid of what she may do to you than of what she is doing to Lleu.”

  “That may be true.” I sighed.

  “Lleu is barely more than a child, and more dear to me than my own life,” Artos said. “He still must be guarded from fear or pain. But I had thought you strong enough and wise enough to fend for yourself.”

  I sat still and silent. Does that mean, my father, that I can expect no protection or aid of you, that I must give and give of my loyalty and strength and never receive anything in return? No and no, I told myself; he could not mean that. I spoke at last, attempting calm and resignation. “But Lleu is in danger.” I looked up at Artos, direct. “There’s no sense in risking him only because you don’t trust me.”

  “All right,” Artos said. “We’ll wake Morgause and you can accuse her openly.”

  “What, now?”

  “Why not? Go wake her,” Artos said. “If you would have me send her away, go wake her now, yourself, and bring her here.”

  I stared at him. “Myself?”

  “Why not? She fostered you as her own child: you must have had cause to enter her private rooms before tonight.”

  He watched intently for my flinch, and saw it in hand, jaw, and eye. Furious at my transparency, I stood swiftly and said to my father, “Wait here.” Taking a lamp from one of the wall brackets to light my way through the corridors, I considered Goewin’s earlier accident and thought that I might pour the lamp’s entire contents over your head to rouse you; but instead I sent in one of your handmaidens with a message that you were to meet your brother in the atrium. That was a petty cruelty, as it sounded like an invitation to a secret and midnight tryst. I woke and summoned the rest of the family as well, then returned to Artos. I bowed slightly to the high king and said, “Your family waits you in the atrium.”

  They were all there: Ginevra with Goewin’s hand in hers, Goewin’s stern face tearstained and dream haunted; Lleu, white with exhaustion and apprehension; all four of your children, who had been sleeping in the villa rather than one of the Halls, that they might be near you so long as you were in Camlan; and you, serene and regal in their midst. Artos surveyed his children and nephews, wife and sister, all waiting for him in the dim light of the brazier. “You wanted to speak to me, my lord?” you asked.

  Artos sat down. “Medraut believes you are poisoning the prince of Britain,” he said coldly.

  “Such an accusation!” you answered calmly. Gareth squirmed a little in dismay, miserably biting his lips. Agravain stared at Lleu through narrowed eyes, as though his cousin were responsible. But none of them dared break his respectful silence. Lleu shivered, unable to meet your gaze, hating to be the focus of such malice.

  “Such an accusation,” you repeated, as though you enjoyed hearing yourself say so. “What proof do you have, Medraut? I have given no one any reason to believe evi co bou l of me.”

  Artos made an ironic gesture toward me and said dryly, “He stands before you, and you say that? Is he not reason enough?”

  I turned to my father as though I had been struck. “I!”

  He spoke in spiteful anger. Surely he said that without thinking; surely he did not believe it. I held my ground. “We were talking of the prince, not of me,” I said to you. “Three times this week he’s asked my aid to counter some foul drug that you slipped him in secret. When you used me this way I said nothing and no one ever knew; but over the prince you have no such power, and I will not keep still.”

  “Loyal, so loyal,” you sneered. Even Agravain shuddered. Lleu and Goewin had never seen you angry.

  “It is not a question of loyalty,” I answered. “I won’t watch children being tortured. I won’t watch you pretending to murder the high king’s heir.”

  “Why not?” you said. “His murder would certainly be to your benefit.”

  “Mother!” Gwalchmei and Agravain exploded.

  Artos said only, “Lleu, come here.” Lleu moved to sit at his father’s feet, and Artos firmly clasped one of the slim, shaking hands in his own. I stood straight and unmoving until the others were quiet again, then went on speaking to you. “But you haven’t murdered him. You’re tormenting him. Perhaps you do it to test my skill at remedies and antidotes. But I use my skill to serve the prince, not to answer to you.”

  “Your skill needs no test,” you said. “I taught you well. As for answering to me, you will do whatever I demand of you.” You were cold as I. “This trivial display of devotion to Artos and his little prince does not subordinate your bond to me.” No one spoke. You demanded sharply, “Does it?”

  It was hours past midnight. The rest of the household slept. Into the deep unbroken silence that followed your final question I barely managed to whisper the words, “My lord King, finish with her.” I drew a deep breath and pressed my hand to my shoulder, regretting that I had neglected the burn there. So I stood, uncomforted, alone.

  “You will leave in the morning,” Artos said to you at last; “and the boys will stay with me. They were to stay in any case. I will not let my nephews’ minds be twisted by your treachery.”

  Gareth suddenly burst out with fretful sorrow, “Oh, Mother, how could you?” Devoted to you as they are, none of your sons expressed any doubt as to your guilt.

  Agravain muttered fiercely, “I’d count it lucky should you pay such notice to any of us.”

  This you ignored, and asked of Artos, “Have I leave to travel south to visit our mother—yours and mine—before I return to the Islands?”

  Agravain snapped, “Anyone fool enough to talk to the high king like that—after practicing witchery on his heir—”

  “Agravain,” you said gently.

  He looked away. “Excuse me, Mother,” he murmured bitterly.

  “No need, Agravain,” Artos said. “Yes, you may visit Igraine. I will even provide you with an escort. They will be ready to leave as soon as you have gathered clothes for the journey. Your menagerie, the rest of your belo c oft. ngings, and your servants will be sent after you. No one will be told of this meeting, but you will leave tomorrow.”

  “The menagerie is my gift to you.”

  Artos sighed. “Spare me, Morgause. Your gifts to Lleu have been sufficient.”

  “Is that all?” you said.

  “There is more I could say,” Artos answered evenly, “but none of it is necessary.”

  Lleu lifted his head impulsively to look at his father, and at the sudden movement you turned on him. “Prince of Britain,” you said with real hatred, “indeed. You are so young, so frail! Hardly more than a rare ornament, a plaything, to be used and discarded at leisure.”

  “Lleu’s no more frail than any of your own boys,” Artos said tersely. “As to playthings, you seem to find more amusement in your collection of peacocks than in your husband’s children.”

  “And
truly your other son is more useful to me,” you replied, glancing at me. Agravain stared with narrowed eyes, envious, desperate for your favor. All your children are.

  “Medraut fought honestly enough against you to prevent Lleu from being hurt,” Goewin cried. Her loyalty shamed me.

  “No need, Goewin,” said Artos, as he had to Agravain. “I have finished. All of you: enough snarling at one another.”

  You bowed deeply to Artos and kissed his hand. “Then I will take my leave of you and prepare for my journey. I thank you for your lenience, my lord.” You turned to Lleu and knelt before him. “And you, little lord,” you said softly, holding out your hands, “have I your pardon?”

  He glared at you and answered vehemently, “No. You don’t have my pardon. And I think you can guess why I would rather not take your hands.”

  “You know I would not have slain you in your father’s house,” you said.

  “I know,” he replied. “You might not understand: it was knowing you did not mean to slay me that frightened me most.”

  You answered with a full smile, glowing and warm in the dim light. “I do understand,” you said. “That was my intention.”

  At dawn I fled to the mines, and stayed almost till sundown. You were gone when I returned. The household was still unsettled; your servants huddled together in whispering pairs or else were busy packing your belongings. I could not face your children, though it meant little to them whether or not I met their eyes. I sought solace in the young bats, and Goewin found me there, standing under the eaves outside my chamber. When she came close I opened my cupped hands, and the bat I held blinked sleepily at her in the failing daylight. She touched its silken back gently. “They trust you now,” she said, “even the grown ones.”

  “It is very peculiar,” I answered quickly, “because no one—” I stopped, and glanced at her to smile apologetically. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

  She gazed at me and said, “You seem so tired.”

  “I am tired.”

  “You could have easily let Lleu die, or even arranged his death yourself, this last week. Your hands are so strong you could crush that delicate creature you hold, but you do not hurt it.” She c&#xyoursighed. “Medraut, do you ever dream of anything but your mother?”

  I opened my hands and raised them sharply, and the bat took wing into the lavender darkness. I did not look at Goewin. “How much I have betra

  yed to you in one way or another,” I said bleakly.

  “Do you?” she pressed.

  “I had not dreamed of her in over a year,” I answered in a low voice, “and this summer I have dreamed of almost nothing else.” But I managed to smile at her. “Tonight I intend to dream of snow on the high moors.”

  IX

  The Copper Mines

  I TRIED, I TRIED. But my fortune, with the summer, was at its ebb. To see you again, to part from you again, made me feel I was an unwelcome shadow of yourself lurking at the edges of other people’s lives. Your children seemed to settle easily into their new home, never thinking to connect themselves or me to your disgrace. But I could find no simple way, no quick way back to the even tranquillity of the previous year. When I returned to my room the first night after you had gone, the very disorder of the shelves that hung there seemed to reflect my mood. Beneath scattered bottles the plans for the blocked mine shaft lay unfinished on my desk, and now I found them to be flawed and ridiculous. Heedless of waste, I burned the offending scraps of parchment and threw out the empty vials.

  I dreamed of Aksum again and started awake in the dead of night with the obvious solution to the unyielding cave wall. Kidane had once taken me to see the mine where he bought gold; there they had broken the rock in the pits with fire and vinegar, as the Romans had done, shoring the tunnels with arches of stone. I told Cado of this. He teased me for being high-minded, foreign, and old-fashioned, but behind all that he was intrigued with the idea. I knew a little of how it was done, and now Cado and I learned to split stone with fire. We worked together in the open air during moments of leisure. We blistered and burned our hands like children playing a forbidden game, intoxicated with the success of our experiments. One failed attempt made us laugh so drunkenly that neither of us could hold the flint steady to light another flame.

  But our growing expertise sobered us, and at last we requested permission from Cadarn to fire the wall of our shaft. We were far enough from the chief mine workings that we would cause no danger beyond our own tunnel. Together with the six men under our leadership we shored our corridor with beams of oak, and began to break down the wall. We worked with slow but visible success; in a week we moved perhaps three feet forward in the tunnel. We came at last to a narrow cleft that bore promise of a cavern beyond, and the walls were streaked thickly with the green and blue of copper ore. After the last spirit-soaked rags had been forced into the dark fault and lit, and after the choking smoke had cleared, we found we had forced a passage wide enough for a man to slip through.

  Cado went first, a lantern in his hand. He squeezed through the gap and then seemed to halt just beyond our reach and view, curiously silent and still. “What is it?” I called to him. “Are we through?”

  He did not answer at once. When he spoke his voice was firm and low: “Come see, Medraut. The way’s narrow, but I think you can get by.”

  It was narrow indeed; Tegfan, who is short but broad-chested, could not follow. But the others came behind me, curious and anxious to witness the proof of our success.

  Such proof: utterly unexpected, and weirdly beautiful. The passage we had forced opened not to a cavern or tunnel but to a little natural chamber, with a low ceiling and rounded walls. The walls were infused with thick green streaks of malachite and smooth red clay, almost evenly spaced between fields of pale limestone: and sweeping across the curve of the walls were pictures like nothing I have seen before or since, painted by some human hand countless ages past. The images were of a tall, broad, heavy-antlered deer that dwarfed the awkward figures who appeared to stalk it. Here at the hill’s heart, this strange and savage hunt endured in the darkness of a forgotten time.

  “But how did it get here?” I wondered aloud.

  “There used to be another passage in,” Cado said, holding up his lantern. “See! The clay’s filled the entrance, not even a gap in the seam. How old can this be!”

  I said with conviction, “I must show Lleu.”

  “Who patches tile pictures with such love and skill.” Cado laughed. “Send Tegfan to get him. We’ll set up the supports till they get back.”

  So it was that within the hour Lleu stood with me and Cado and our workmen in the hidden place under the earth, dark eyes ablaze with torchlight and excitement. He laughed aloud in the sheer pleasure of sharing in this secret beauty; laughed with real joy, though I know he was afraid to be so far from air and light and the open spaces of day. He lingered over each painting, forcing himself to wrench his gaze from one to the next. “This artistry, in such a place!” he exulted. “I couldn’t have dreamed such a thing if I hadn’t seen it.”

  But beneath our talk and laughter there came the ominous sound of a cataract of falling pebbles. They skittered down the curved wall across the flank of the painted deer, and came to rest at Cado’s feet. Tegfan called from the other side of the passage, “Should we go up until the ground settles?”

  I looked with question at Cado, and he nodded. Into our sudden stillness a larger eddy of earth trickled down the rock wall. “Take the prince outside,” Cado said calmly.

  More slender than any of us, Lleu slid through the narrow passage with barely an effort. I went after him, and called back to the others in a low voice, “Follow at once, as close as you can.” I picked up a lantern and put a hand on Lleu’s shoulder to guide him forward; and the ceiling closed in behind us.

  Tegfan croaked, “Go,” and the three of us ran up the tunnel. We could hear, could always hear at our back the inner groaning of the disturbed hillside. Stones falle
n from the ceiling struck at our heels. We were halfway to the outer cavern when the floor itself buckled, and Tegfan fell. I turned to give a hand to him, and shouted at Lleu, “Go on!” But there was no time. “Shield your head!” I cried then, and struck Lleu between the shoulders with such force that he was shoved stumbling perhaps ten steps farther up the tunnel. Off-balance, I too fell sprawling forward; the lantern hit the floor and flickered out. Then I could find neither strength nor courage to pick myself up as the ceiling fell in about my ears, and I did not dare to stir until the rumbling and crashing stopped.

  When all I could hear was my own uneven breath, I moved to get up, but a fallen beam held me pinned to the floor by one foot and the opposite wrist. I moved my free arm a scant few inches and found, by chance, the lantern. Lleu’s voice came unsteadily out of the dark: “Medraut?” kraucan

  I answered quietly, “Lleu? I still have the lantern: Come light it.”

  I stretched my arm to him; he found me and clutched at my hand. He was on his knees, crawling, afraid to stand. He whispered, “Your hands are like ice.”

  “Light the lantern,” I returned.

  He did, revealing what was left of the shaft. Behind me, where the debris went deeper, Tegfan lay senseless, buried up to his waist. Behind us both, the fallen earth and rock sloped upward to the tunnel’s roof to fill the shaft beyond. There was no sign of Cado or the five others who had been with him.

  “You’re not hurt?” I said to Lleu. He shook his head. The lantern quaked in his hand, so he set it on the floor.

  I stretched my free arm toward Tegfan, but could not reach him. “See if—,” I said to Lleu, then barked out, “No!” as he began to climb the pile of debris to reach Tegfan. “Distribute your weight. Lie down and stretch up the slope.” He obeyed numbly, and felt for the pulse in one of Tegfan’s limp wrists. “Don’t use your thumb,” I directed.