The Winter Prince
Page 11
Caius pressed his lips together tightly. He spoke so that only Artos and I could hear him. “The boy who let them in says it is your sister.”
“No,” I said aloud. Artos glanced at me sharply. “You sent her back to the Or sack;
Artos shook his head. “She pled illness earlier in the season and requested that I allow her to postpone the journey. She is supposed to stay in Ratae Coritanorum, south of here, until spring.”
“But, sir!” I exclaimed in outrage. “You did not tell me!”
Artos looked at me with eyebrows raised. “I have made no secret of her plans,” he said. “Her children are always clamoring for news of her.” Then his face hardened, and he turned to Caius. “Though I did not expect her here. She tries my patience.” He beckoned to Ginevra, and Caius explained the matter to her in low tones.
“I will not have her here,” I hissed. “I will not live in fear of her.”
“It is Christmas!” Artos returned. “What would you have me do, send her back into this cold?”
“She chose to come!”
Ginevra said, “We cannot send her away. But we can guard her. Artos, let her stay only until the weather breaks; and treat her as a prisoner. Her servants can sleep in the Great Hall, and Aquila can search her belongings for any poisons. We will give her a single room to her own use, but she will be watched always, never left alone. Will that ease your mind, Medraut?”
“Guard her servants as well,” I said hoarsely.
Artos nodded. “See to it, Caius.”
“Shall I bring her in, then?” Caius asked, and Artos nodded again. Suddenly suffocating in the heat of the room and the fur and wool I wore, I said, “I’ll go with you, Caius.” For I knew I must face you, and any wrath you bore me from our last parting, and I did not want to wait.
The night was fearfully cold. Your party huddled shivering in the courtyard beneath two or three guttering torches. A servant girl held your gloved hands nestled between her own, and rubbed them fiercely and frantically; but you pushed her aside when you saw me, to clutch at my jacket and press yourself against my chest, silent and shaking. In apprehension I put up a hand to thrust you away, mistrusting you, but stopped in wonder as my fingers brushed the icy tears across your cheek.
“Godmother?”
Still you said nothing, so I let you cling to me and quench your silent tears against my shoulder. I had never known you to weep at anything, ever. I said softly, “Godmother, speak to me.”
You raised your head and gazed at me with frightened eyes of darkling blue, the tear tracks glittering in the torchlight. “I did not think we could get this far. It is a week’s journey from Ratae Coritanorum, but it was warm when we left—the weather turned around midweek. I would never have attempted to come if I had known it would turn so cold. Oh, Medraut, Artos will not turn me away, will he? He must give me shelter tonight—I never meant to put myself at his mercy like this! I am so afraid—”
“You are not afraid of anything,” I said with a laugh. Your gloved hands tightened into fists against my chest.
“No!” you whispered, and buried your face beneath my chin. I was so well wrapped against the chill that I could not even feel your breath; it was as though there were no warmth in you at all. You whispered into my scarf, “But I am afraid now. I—I am no longer young, and I have no authority to speak of, and I do not want to freeze to death tonight.”
Then I saw that you clung to me for support as well as for comfort. I murmured, “You may stay, but Artos will treat you as a prisoner. Your things are to be searched, and you are to be guarded at all times. Will you submit to that?”
Your bent shoulders heaved as you wept soundlessly. “Yes. Damnation take my brother and his kingdom! Only let me be warm tonight.”
I looked up at Caius, who watched you with eyes of contempt and of sympathy. “Take her in,” he said. “I’ll see to her servants.”
Camlan spent the following day preparing for a shamelessly pagan festival. The Christian celebration was to be kept, more solemnly, on Christmas day, but now we fastened holly at the windows to ward off evil. The hearth in the center of the Great Hall was piled with faggots of slender birch logs bound with red ribbon and gold thread, and the villa was sweet with garlands of forced apple blossom. The day passed quickly, the shortest in the year. Once it was dark the household waited ready in restless excitement; the rhymers’ pageant would begin the revelry, but first we must perform from cottage to cottage throughout Elder Field. I sat and read as I waited for Caius to summon me to the rhyming, while your children and the twins sprawled on the warm floor of the atrium in their finest clothes. My small lamp cast myriad minute reflections against the frost on the old, intricate glass windowpanes. I pretended to be undisturbed by the expectant air of the young people sitting on the floor, but the night was already alive with magic, and my attention kept being diverted by Lleu’s clear, authoritative voice.
“What is this mosaic supposed to be?” Gareth asked. “Pass that taper here, Gaheris, so we can see it.” They all knelt on the floor around the central picture, and Gaheris and Goewin held candles as close as they dared in order to see without dripping wax on the glimmering tesserae. The stone and glass tiles glittered beneath the unsteady light. “These are different gods,” Lleu said. “I’m not sure what they mean. The bull stands for Mithras, and the lion for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the sun god. Or perhaps the eagle is for him. The man is for the Christ.”
Ai, such ignorance. I could not let it pass. “‘And before the throne there is as it were a sea of glass, like crystal,’” I quoted aloud, though softly. “‘And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures: the first like a lion, the second like an ox, the third with the face of a man, and the fourth like a flying eagle.’”
They all turned to look at me. “What is that from?” Lleu asked.
“Your mother claims to raise you as a Christian,” I said. “Have you never heard that, or read it? It’s in a book called Revelation.”
“Well, it doesn’t reveal anything.” Lleu laughed, sitting back on his heels and gazing at me with a touch of arrogance in the tilt of his head. Candlelight winked on the golden circlet that he wore, the circlet that set him apart from the others as prince of Britain.
“Those creatures in the mosaic aren’t pagan gods,” I said mildly, resting my book in my lap. “They’re symbolic representations of the four who recorded the life of the prophet you claim to follow.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he demanded.
“Little Prince, you didn’t ask.”
“I wish you would not call me that s cagn=",” he told me.
“Should I have said little idiot?”
Agravain sniggered. Lleu stared at me in annoyance, and answered briefly, “You needn’t say little at all. I am as tall as you.”
“Though perhaps not an idiot,” I allowed, “you are a good deal shorter.”
The others sat by embarrassed and silent. Lleu paused for a moment, struggled to keep his temper, and failed. He spoke in a voice as venomous as his face was pallid: “Well, I thank God I am not a bastard born of incest.”
My hands snapped shut. The book fell to the floor; then stillness. Silence.
To think I had imagined no one could wound me so deeply as you.
“Who is?” said Gwalchmei in a low voice.
“Don’t you know?” Lleu said fiercely and quickly, too incensed to be stopped or to stop himself. “He, Medraut, my brother and yours—”
“Lleu, don’t,” Goewin hissed.
“—son of our father and your mother, who are brother and sister,” Lleu finished in the same hot, hollow voice.
“Our mother, his true mother?” Agra vain said slowly. “But they two…” He gazed at me through narrowed eyes. Gareth stared silently at the floor in helpless embarrassment.
I held quiet. My limbs were of a sudden brittle as figured ivory. I whispered, “Need my parentage be discussed tonight?”
But I had regained my composure. I moved to kneel before Lleu on the floor, my head bowed; even when we both knelt I was still taller. I kissed my fingertips and held them to the golden band at Lleu’s temples. “Your Highness. I most humbly beg your pardon.” I raised my head to gaze at him for a long moment, until he could not bear it and must turn away. Then I got to my feet and left them.
Driven by fury, as though in a dream, I went to my chamber and changed to the magnificent robe Kidane had given me. It is of fine black woven wool, the upper sleeves and shoulders inlaid with intricate small panels of indigo Oriental silk. The sleeves were made to fit close, so that I could wear over them the rare, ancient warrior’s bracelets from Cathay, the miniature dragons that coil heavily from wrist to elbow. They are a symbol of power; they are the mark of royalty. So Turunesh cautioned me when she gave them to me, and I had never worn them, afraid to wear them in idleness. In childish vanity I wore them now. But I could not keep Lleu’s shameful derision from echoing in my memory; I spoke to the empty room through clenched teeth, and said aloud, “I am the high king’s eldest son.” The words were meaningless.
You sat well guarded in the single small room they had allowed to you. Unbidden I bent to your embrace. You drew me down with arms that for all their slender elegance seemed strong as wire, until I knelt at your side with my head cradled against the soft wool of your gown. Your touch was gentle as rain, but I was taut, quivering with anger and hatred—I could not speak or even weep, overwhelmed by such fury.
“Hush, my child,” you said, and, “hush.”
I knelt there long, so long slon"ju. The strong, thin healer’s hands that lifted and twisted my hair were achingly gentle, but that familiar touch had never truly afforded me solace or comfort. Even now you did not ask what had happened. When I made no move to raise my head you murmured, “Where did you get such bracelets? The high king himself wears nothing so splendid;”
“They were given to me in Africa.”
“Given?”
I raised my head at last. “Aye, given, Godmother.”
“This Turunesh was more to you than merely your patron’s daughter,” you mused. “Why did you come back?”
“This is my home,” I said bitterly.
“Medraut, look at me.” You cupped my face in your hands. “You are the true prince of this land,” you said softly. “If you could see yourself! Dangerous, yet of curious grace and beauty; such chaos in your eyes. If it were in my power you would be heir to all—”
“Ah, Godmother, don’t,” I sneered. “It has never been in your power.”
“Nothing is, anymore. Artos will not even let me come to the Great Hall for the feast tonight.” You rose and left me kneeling there, and walked across the room to open a carven box and sift the contents through your fingers. “Let me bind back your hair, as I used to. I have some gold wire I can twist to make you a chaplet.”
“No!” I spat. “I’ll wear nothing that looks like a crown.”
You turned to gaze down at me. A slow smile played about your lips, a mere twitch at the corner of your mouth. “So that is the way of it,” you said softly, and from another casket drew out a strip of black silk. “This, then.” You stood by me and banded the ribbon across my forehead. I rose and shook out the heavy folds of my robe; you stood away, admiring me as a craftsman admires the work of his hands. “You must have an eardrop as well.” I let you fix one on me, a heavy jewel of gold and jet that I think I have worn before.
“‘In the midst of the lampstands,’” you murmured low, “‘one clothed with a long robe and with a golden girdle round his breast; his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire.’”
I stared at you. “That is from Revelation.”
“Had you been speaking of it?” you gasped in mock surprise, amusement in your gaze. “I know what happened. Agravain was here before you, asking terrible questions of me. But I have set his jealous heart at ease.”
“How could you?”
“I lied to him,” you answered casually, and commenced to brush your hair. “There’s a riddle for you, my virtuous child: Is it worse to deny the truth, or to hide it? I doubt you’ll hurry to set him straight.”
I did not know what to answer. As I hesitated, the guards woman at the door entered; she said to me, “My lord, Caius is asking for you.”
“Send him in,” you told her.
“The rhyming!” I sighed. I had forgotten in my anger. “I cannot go dressed like this.”
“Why not?” you answered. And Caius exclaimed as he came in, “Medraut, you look a prince!” He laughed, and slau="justcame to stand before me and clasp my shoulders as he admired my finery. “You need not change. You know the costumes were made to fit over our clothes.”
“Even so.”
“No fear, we’ll make it part of the performance. I’ll get you a cloak. No one must see you yet.”
“Medraut!”
I turned back to you before I left the room. You said quietly, “Come bid me good night when all is over.”
We took the pageant from door to door throughout the village, nameless, anonymous luck-bringers in our shaggy and shapeless costumes. Our small party had become a parade when we arrived back at the estate, for many of the villagers had followed us on their way to the feast at Camlan. Warm with the cider and ale of Elder Field, we burst shouting into the crowd gathered in the Great Hall, who returned our shouts for greeting. Then Gofan in his great voice called out the opening lines of the pageant:
“Way! Make way!
Yield the floor, clear the way!
We’ll mend all evil’s ill with mirth
On this Midwinter’s Day.”
He commanded silence. The laughing crowd stood still.
“Under your green-girt beams we come
Neither to beg nor borrow;
Happy we play upon your hearth
To speed away all sorrow.
We are the season’s rhymers!
Cry welcome to us here!
Fortune we bring to field and fold
At the closing of the year.”
Now our audience was rapt. The words were old and familiar, and it was too long since they had been spoken in this hall. Caius stepped forward into the small circle of clear ground, the red, holly-trimmed hood hiding his face so that the white linen mask beneath could not even be glimpsed.
“In come I, the Old Year,
Keeper of this fruitful land.
Your stout hoards of grain, ale, and meat
Are blessed beneath my hand.”
A ragged cheer went up. They were apt words from the steward of the estate, but no one was sure that it was Caius.
“Here is your hope, here is your bread,
Your shield against the dark’s sharp blast:
Who boldly dares before me stand
To lay me low at last?”
Bedwyr answered him, the high king’s swordsman, gray-hooded and glittering with icicles of silver foil and mica.
“In come I, the New Year;
The snow falls at my word.
The black months wheel around ere Spring,
< my 30" align="left">Ice-edged as my cold sword.
I am the one stronger than all
Who march in this parade:
Which of these gay retainers, lord,
Dare turn aside my blade?”
Marcus, in his crown of forced flowers:
“In come I, the Winter Prince,
Son of the Year that’s gone;
Green ivy, hawthorn, and holly I bear
For pledges of the returning Sun.
I will fight for the Old Year:
Though the grim Midwinter’s rod
Strikes the soil, soon the young Sun
Will st
ir the Spring’s triumphant sod.”
Bedwyr as the New Year answered:
“Pull out your sword, young Harvest Lord,
Defender of the Sun!
As the Year dies, so you shall fall—
You and the Old Year both I shall have
Before I quit this hall.”
Gofan brought forth the swords, staves bound with ribbons and green leaves. Half serious, half in jest, Marcus and Bedwyr began the ritual duel. Marcus cried out in feigned innocence: “The New Year has only one hand! How is he to fight me?” The audience laughed, full well aware of Bedwyr’s skill with a sword, and guessing his opponent to be untrained and woefully mismatched. Marcus retorted smartly to the good-natured jeers of the spectators; but when Bedwyr casually knocked Marcus’s staff aside with his useless arm, Lleu’s voice rang out above the rest in a peal of delighted laughter. Marcus whipped around to face him. “I suppose you can do better?” he challenged. He tore the wreath of flowers from his head, crying, “I’ve been killed eight times today already. Let the New Year fight one who can defend himself!” Faceless still, masked in white linen, he advanced upon Lleu and snatched away the golden circlet to replace it with his own. “A worthy champion for the Old Year!” Marcus announced triumphantly, dragging the protesting Bright One to the center of the floor.
“Pull out your sword, young Harvest Lord,
Defender of the Sun!”
Bedwyr repeated, as Marcus pressed his staff into Lleu’s hand.
Lleu swallowed his mirth and straightened the wreath he now wore, black hair tousled beneath blossom out of season, dark eyes glinting in a face white with excitement: he stood slender and solitary amid the costumed figures, a single human youth among savages or gods. He said to the audience in confidential tones, “You realize how unfair this is. They’ve been practicing all evening.” There was some laughter at that, but it was hushed, for this would be a duel worth watching.