The Winter Prince

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  It went on, and on. Even Bedwyr, who had taught him, could not disarm Lleu son of Artos. The revelers cheered and laughed till they must gasp for bre s gawenath, feverish in their pleasure. Marcus shouted at last, “You’re supposed to let him kill you!”

  “Why would anyone do that?” Lleu cried, without a gap in his defense.

  “So we can get on with this foolish show and eat,” Bedwyr grunted.

  Lleu threw down his staff and held his arms out wide, in a comic gesture of frustration and submission. “What must I do, hurl myself upon your blade?” Bedwyr made as though to stab him, and Lleu fell dramatically, taking near as long to die as he had taken to be killed. “Have you finished?” Bedwyr demanded, and to the crowd’s delight Lleu answered distinctly, “Oh, very well.” He closed his eyes and lay still.

  Bedwyr breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief, and Caius turned to him in high fury:

  “Wretched cur, what have you done,

  So to dispatch my only son?”

  Now he turned to the crowd.

  “Is there a man so wise in art

  That he can quicken fast the slain,

  Defy the ordered season’s course

  And wake this youth to life again?”

  Gofan bellowed deeply: “Send for a Magician!”

  Now until this moment I had been costumed as were the other rhymers, in a formless suit of leaves and straw, except that my mask was black. Hidden within a little throng of shapeless, faceless men, I had removed the shaggy coat to reveal the black robe underneath. At Gofan’s call I stepped into the open space; I held in my right hand the last of the fire sticks from Cathay. Its glittering white core poured heat-less sparks over the fierce golden dragon coiled around my wrist. The crowd fell silent.

  Into the silence I said quietly, “I am the Magician.”

  So I stood, unmoving, until the fire stick flickered out. Then Gofan said, “Oh, are you?”

  I answered modestly, “Well, some know me as a doctor.”

  A little breath of laughter rippled through the crowd, a relief.

  “What ailments can you cure?” asked Caius, and Gofan added, “More than one or less than two?”

  I made the answer.

  “I can cure a thousand illnesses that are not there,

  And heal a thousand wounds that never were.

  I have been praised for miracles from here to Africa!”

  Someone laughed.

  “I have a bottle in my breast,

  A liquor whose clear fire could turn

  A glacier to a running stream.

  One drop will save your stricken son.

  “But first I’ll have my fee,” I added. “Ten silver coins.”

  Caius asked of Gofan, “Have you any silver?” and Gofan retorted, “Only what can be scraped from the lead mines of the Pennines. There’s no ore her s;s e ye but copper.” The audience laughed again. Caius turned to me and reported, “He has no silver.”

  “Then I’ll take copper.” The ritual payment was made. Caius said with flourish,

  “Now try your skill, Magician.

  Grant that new life may follow old

  When your spell weaves through this hall,

  To thrive despite the cold.”

  I knelt and bent over Lleu, who lay smiling with eyes closed, waiting for the ritual words.

  “Into your wounds the golden drops

  I pour from out the healing cup—

  He opened his eyes, and nearly choked at what he saw. I smiled down at him faintly, masked in black silk, my hand on his chest heavy with the gold I wore. I finished the verse:

  “As death came to the Winter Prince,

  So may the Lord of Spring rise up,”

  and held my hand to him. He took it defiantly, ghost white, but smiling nonetheless. When the watchers applauded the mock miracle, Lleu turned a handspring and accidentally shed the rhymer’s wreath in a shower of red berries and white blossoms. Marcus laughed and handed back to Lleu his own circlet. We chanted the final lines of the pageant:

  “Our rhyming is come to a close;

  We mean to play no longer here.

  May fortune fold this hearth and hold:

  So welcome the New Year!”

  Lleu did not speak to me again during the celebration that followed. He outdid himself dancing, and even managed to emerge triumphant from a spontaneous wrestling match that developed in a corner of the hall among a few of the boys and young men. He would not look at me, and in the wild throng of dancers and feasters it was simple enough for him to avoid me. But afterward, before I came to you, I found him sitting on the warm floor of the atrium near the brazier, playing with one of the cats.

  The gold band he had worn earlier lay at his side, discarded. The low fire shimmered in the cat’s eyes and on a few silver threads in Lleu’s sleeves and at his throat; he sat alone, head down, very quiet.

  “Good night, Prince,” I said, for I could not pass by without acknowledging him.

  “Medraut!” He let go of the cat, but it did not leave him: it sat next to him on its haunches, rubbing its head against his elbow.

  “My lord?” I said, passionless, pausing to wait for his word.

  “Medraut, I’m sorry.” He ran a hand down the cat’s back and then traced the edge of the circlet with his finger, not looking at me. “I mean; for behaving so badly.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I drew a sharp breath and said quietly, harshly, “But, my lord, your apology can do nothing to reverse what you said before your cousins this evening.”

  “Medraut, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Lleu pleaded. “Surely they know?”

  “They know s01C#x2 now,” I said.

  He rubbed his forehead and murmured, “I feel terrible.”

  “Oh, little brother, don’t waste your time,” I whispered.

  That silenced him. He gathered himself to stand up, the cat in one arm; he was only on one knee when he dropped it. Then he noticed the gold band on the floor, and bent to pick it up, but in the act of getting to his feet again he dropped that as well. It clattered tinnily on the tesserae, spinning round and around upon itself before it finally lay still. Lleu put an unsteady hand to his temple, as though confused, and again bent to retrieve the circlet. I took him by the shoulders and made him straighten. “Have you had too much to drink?” I asked.

  “Hardly anything,” he said. But his eyes seemed depthless pools of black water, and the skin around them had a tight, bruised look to it.

  “Look at me,” I said, and drew him close to one of the tall lamps. He winced at the sudden bright light in his eyes and turned his face away; I took hold of his chin and turned him back to the light. “Let me see your eyes.” I scrutinized Lleu carefully in the lamplight, and felt his hot cheeks, and counted the slow pulse in his throat.

  Ai, Godmother, how?

  I told him in a voice without expression, “She seems to have poisoned you again.”

  After a pause, Lleu cried softly, “Oh, curse her!” in a high, sharp voice, like a bird screaming.

  I said slowly, “You will be in some pain later tonight, I think.”

  “Can’t you do anything ?” he asked.

  “I can,” I answered, looking straight into his eyes. He could hardly stand stead

  ily, and his skin was so pale it seemed faintly cast with blue. As I turned to go I deliberately stepped on his circlet: I kept my foot there for half a moment and added, without looking back, “But I am not going to.”

  His voice when he spoke next was uncertain and low, but he dared to say, “Must I command you?”

  I shook my head in disbelief and answered quietly, “You must never command me.” I left him so, alone with his glittering mosaic in the dying firelight.

  XI

  The Prince Betrayed

  THE WOMAN SET TO watch you was asleep, nodding over the garment she had been hemming. “Have you—,” I began to ask, but you shook your head and put a discreet finger to your lips. “Speak low. I’ve done
nothing to her.”

  “You have to another!”

  “That was for you.”

  “For me!” I laughed. “Well, thank you. But no more of it, Godmother.”

  “No.” You sliced back and forth across the floor, exactly like one of your caged wildcats, I the hare or moorhen that ought to be cowering in a corner and hoping you would not notice that I was there. But I was there of my own will. I waited, waited, wondering how you would strike.

  You were winking hard, fitting what you had to say to words that only I could understand should someone else happen to hear you. “I want you to hunt for me,” you said at last.

  “What quarry?” I asked cauti v toously.

  “I want the sun.” Then you fell silent for a time, and ceased pacing as you cloaked your treachery in words mysterious as mummers’ costumes. “If you were a prisoner in blackness, in the cold, if you were an exile in a place of chill and darkness, you would wish that the sun were yours to command: then you could have light and warmth to your whim and pleasure. The sun in your hand, the sun for a ransom—then see the oppressive shadows bend to your will!”

  You stopped, facing me, your hands in fists. “The sun,” I repeated, my voice flat. “How am I to get you the sun?”

  You hissed in disgust, “You stupid boy!” and turned away, to strip leaves from the little lemon tree Ginevra had set in the window, and then to tear them to shreds between fierce fingers.

  I hissed in answer, “Godmother, I do know what you mean.” You stood silent, so still that I could hear the slight patter on the tiles as the torn leaves fell from your fingers. I said, “I am pledged to serve the light.”

  “You are pledged to me first.”

  “As I am pledged to both, I may decide not to fail either trust.” But I waited to hear what else you might say. “Why should I hunt for you more than another?”

  You did not speak aloud. For answer your lips formed one single silent word, which I heard as clearly as if you had shouted it: “Kingship.”

  “Temptress,” I taunted, tempted.

  You whispered, “The boy outshines you as surely as the noon sun outshines the moon in eclipse. You know it; you hate him for it. When I tested your loyalty last summer your defense of him was wretched.”

  “I had not known it was a test.”

  “You were so protective of me, or so reluctant to lose me, that it took you a week to tell his father,” you said dryly. “If I had meant to kill him—”

  “Be still!” I lashed out. “Your door is open wide. If anyone should come—”

  “What would happen? How would I be made more of a prisoner than I already am?” You spoke quickly and quietly in desperate anger, heedless of who might hear. “What a fruitless journey I made when I came here—my brother will not speak to me, and I am not even allowed to join the household for their Midwinter’s feast. As soon as the weather breaks Gwalchmei is to take me back to Ratae Coritanorum for the rest of the winter, and in the spring Artos will see that I go back to the Orcades. Out of sight, out of mind. Gods, I am tired of the endless winter nights, the dark and the cold and the boredom! This exile will drive me mad, Medraut. If Artos will not return to me the old freedom, the old power, I will fight him for it. I want to hold and hurt his beautiful young favorite, his darling; I want to see that proud, bright child trapped as one would cage a little bird, helpless as a wren or robin beating vain and desperate wings against bars of my making. I mean to rape and ruin what Artos loves best until he too bends broken to my will.”

  I could make no answer.

  “The sun for my ransom,” you repeated, low. “And for yours. After New Year’s, in Ratae Coritanorum. Bring me the sun, and Artos will follow to do my bidding. Agravain knows, he is also pledged to me. He will go with you.”

  “I prefer to hunt alone,” I said.

  “I don’t trust you alone.”

  I shrugged indifferently. “Nobody trusts me.”

  “My darling!” You spoke without tenderness, your voice smooth and black as tarnished silver. You twisted your arms around my neck and gripped my hair in your fists so that I could not move my head. “You have not agreed. Give me an answer.”

  “Have I a choice? You are using me,” I cried out softly.

  “I am helping you!” But your voice was cruel and cold.

  “I do not want your help,” I whispered in fury. “I am the one you hurt when you are angry, whatever you might threaten otherwise. It is I that you have crippled.”

  “Oh, you are not so damaged as that.”

  I said in anger, “What of the damage to my soul?”

  “Your soul is your own responsibility,” you answered without patience.

  “How can you make light of what you have done to me? You have left all my body scarred in little ways, my back, my throat, my hands. There is a scar inside my mouth where once you stabbed a hairpin through my cheek. I am like a ruined piece of parchment scrawled over and over again with your name, so many times it has become illegible. Even in sleep I am not free of you!” I spoke on edge between a whisper and a scream, standing taut and motionless while your fists tightened in my hair.

  “You have not scarred me,” you answered through shut teeth. “But do you think I do not dream of you?”

  Then kissed me.

  For a moment, half a moment, I was lost. There was only sheer pleasure, and desire, and a kind of relief. But half a moment. Then I tore myself away, leaving you clutching fistsful of my hair, and fell over a footstool which went to splinters beneath my weight. I sat graceless and trembling among the shards of ivory as you stooped hawklike over me, and then I heard Lleu’s clear voice speak my name.

  “Medraut.”

  The guardswoman had started up when I fell. Now she came quickly to my aid, exclaiming in consternation; I was hardly aware of her. All my attention was on Lleu, standing in the doorway. He was on his way to his own bedroom and had not been here long, but he must have seen enough to turn his stomach. The brilliant contempt in his eyes was directed only at me. “You disgust me,” he said quietly.

  I gasped a little, unable to speak, still trembling. I do not know what you looked at or saw, or what the other woman did. I saw only Lleu, and heard only Lleu as he repeated coldly, “You disgust me.”

  So he pronounced judgment. The Bright One, the sun lord.

  It all took me at once: my father’s distrust, the shame and horror of the copper mines, Lleu’s denouncement of me before your other children. His clear young voice demanding obedience even as he stood poisoned and hoping for my mercy. The wooden sword held at my throat.

  I spat at his feet. He stared at me with wide eyes, unbelieving, then turned away and left us without another word.

  What I did now was of my own choosing, not out of any loyalty that I must break or affirm. I said bitterly, “Godmother, I will hunt for you.”

  The weather turned the next day, and barely a day after that Artos sent you back to Ratae Coritanorum with Gwalchmei as your escor {as ifyt. As Christmas approached Goewin said to me, “Please, Medraut, can’t you forgive Lleu? He’s only thoughtless, not evil. The two of you haven’t spoken since Midwinter’s.”

  “Agravain and I are going hunting the week after Christmas,” I answered. “I will take Lleu if he will come.”

  “Well, you know how he likes to hunt,” she said with a crooked smile. “I’ll try to convince him to go with you.”

  “Goewin, why don’t you come as well?” I said. “Then he can’t refuse.”

  “Would you have me?” she asked, surprised and pleased. “I’d like to go. Thank you, Medraut.”

  We left Camlan two days past Christmas, four days behind you. But I told Agravain we should allow you time to travel, so we set out north instead of south. Artos had given his permission and blessing for us to go; Lleu had never been on a long winter journey, and it would be for him another test, another lesson. Another step toward kingship.

  We rode through the deer park, and passed through
the gap in the peaks south of the high moor where I had taken the twins two summers before. Then we were in hilly, empty forest, with the moors rising around us. The forest close to Camlan is cultivated, but in the Pennines it is wild, mostly trackless, haunted by boar and bear and wolf. The day began gray and dark and never truly grew light. At noon when we might have stopped to eat it began to rain, a cold, soaking rain mixed with sleet. It was warmer to continue riding. By afternoon we had come over twenty slow miles; now we rode along a valley beneath a bare ridge whose peak had shrugged off layers of black, broken rock. “I know where we are,” said Goewin. “That hill with the landslip is Shivering Mountain. There used to be lead mines here.”

  “There are still caves,” I said. “We often use them for shelter on long hunts. I know a place we can stay; it will be full darkness soon.”

  Relieved at the promise of a dry place to sleep, Agravain and Lleu began to fling congenial insults back and forth. Agravain boasted that he surely sought bigger quarry than Lleu could ever hope to bring down; Goewin rode with me companionably. I could not look at any of them, wanting to laugh at Agravain’s gibes, but held in check by my own hidden treachery.

  I found the cave, which was dry and warmer than outside. The opening was out of the wind, and there was an overhanging rock near the entrance where a small fire could be protected from the rain without polluting the air of the inner chamber. We fed and blanketed the horses, and unloaded our own satchels. Lleu untied the bundles of spears and bows we had bound to the saddles; he dropped them just inside the cave’s entrance with a clatter, and Agravain laughed. Lleu said ruefully, “I’m tired.”