The Winter Prince

by Elizabeth E. Wein

  “I too,” I acknowledged. My throat burned and ached. “Agravain, if you build a fire I’ll heat some wine.”

  I came inside after the others. The cave was lit by the fire and the lanterns Agravain had set about the floor. I shared out the drink carelessly; Lleu nodded thanks when I filled his horn and did not notice that I had laced his warm wine with nightshade. Words from the rhymers’ pageant suddenly struck through my mind, but twisted:

  Into your wine the golden drops

  I pour from out the poisoned cup

  As deat {quoalih comes to the Winter Prince…

  I choked and turned away to strip myself of sodden shirt and jacket, feeling flushed with excitement and fierce determination. Goewin said sharply, “Are you all right, Medraut?”

  She had noticed my clenched and shaking hands. I laughed at her over my shoulder, freely, and tried to stretch away the tension in my arms and back. The ceiling was too low for me to stand erect. “It has been a hard day.”

  “Well, yes,” she agreed.

  “There’s food in the large satchel, Goewin,” I said. “We shouldn’t eat much.” I went to stand outside the entrance to the cave, where I did not have to stoop. The sleet had turned to snow. I watched the dark outline of Shivering Mountain disappear as the light faded quickly, until all I could see were the swirling flakes just beyond the firelight.

  “God’s sake, Medraut, you’ll kill yourself,” Goewin said behind me. “You aren’t even wearing a shirt. Come in.”

  I ducked below the entrance to join the others and sat across from Lleu. Agravain shared out strips of salted meat and dried fruit.

  “It’s snowing, isn’t it?” Lleu asked. His eyes seemed hooded, dark and strange.

  “Yes,” I told him. “But no fear, Bright One; we’ve food and furs and shelter, and there is little wind.” I reached out to push damp strands of his hair off his forehead. His hand moved aimlessly, as though he meant to turn away my touch, but could not connect mind with movement. He was struggling to stay awake. I coughed and turned my face away; I could not bear to watch him.

  “Medraut—”

  I do not remember which of them spoke my name.

  It was Lleu who got to his feet, unsteadily and laboriously, but with a courage and composure that I had not expected of him. He stood before me, but I could not face him upright without striking my head against the ceiling. I did not try to rise.

  “Have you drugged me?” Lleu demanded, his voice even, his hands tremorous. “I was not so very weary before we ate!”

  “Yes,” I whispered without remorse. “I have.”

  “You promised me!” he cried.

  “What did I promise? Do you remember precisely what I said?”

  “No!” he answered angrily. “What, then? It was two years ago, and I was half-asleep.”

  Goewin spoke now in a dull, chill voice, staring at nothing as she accurately repeated the promise I had made. “He said he would never again send you to sleep at any time you might be ill or hurt. You aren’t ill or hurt.” She whispered through her teeth: “He keeps his promises.”

  “But why do this? So I’ll sleep well? Medraut, it isn’t fair! I’m not an invalid.” He sat down heavily and suddenly, unable to keep his feet any longer.

  “I have finished with fairness,” I said. “I have done this to put you at my mercy.”

  “At your mercy?” Goewin echoed. Her face was gray. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

  The four of us sat staring at one another. Agravain watched me fiercely through the screen of his unbound copp { undth="2eer hair, waiting for my word, and it was as though you watched me through another’s eyes. Goewin said in a high voice, “My lord and brother, give me a straight answer!”

  “I am under command,” I said.

  Agravain could no longer hold silent. “My mother means to use the prince of Britain as a hostage; we are to bring him to her in Ratae Coritanorum.”

  “Me!” Lleu breathed.

  “You are the prince of Britain,” Agravain uttered derisively.

  Lleu sneered in return, “Why would I ever take you seriously, Agravain?”

  I asked gently, “Can you lift your hands, Lleu?”

  He could not. He turned to his sister with a look of horror, and turned too quickly; he lost his balance. Goewin caught him. “Medraut, you’re lying,” she said in desperation.

  I replied quietly, “I never lie.”

  “But why have you brought me?” she asked.

  Agravain answered, “You are to carry the message back to your father.” He continued recklessly, “My mother hates her brother, she hates his children, the two of you. She hates the unspoken exile she is kept in. She wants freedom and power.”

  I said in a still voice, “Lleu is freedom and power.”

  “She will use the prince as a playing piece to bargain with,” Agravain continued. “His life, his body unharmed, for whatever she desires.”

  “And why do you serve her in defiance of the high king?” Goewin challenged, her voice still high, but steady.

  “I would serve her in defiance of anyone,” he told her with passionate fervor. “And the high king is not her master, after all, only her brother.”

  “Oh, devotion!” Goewin scoffed, holding Lleu upright as he sagged against her shoulder. “Then is Gwalchmei in this as well?”

  “Not he.” Agravain laughed. “Not the newest of the high king’s Comrades! He will be on his way back to Camlan by the time we reach Ratae Coritanorum.”

  “But you, Medraut—” Goewin began. Then she and Lleu both began to speak at once, neither of them willing or perhaps even able to believe that I could fail them.

  “Has Lleu betrayed you so terribly?”

  “I have entrusted my life to you!”

  “Are you not pledged to serve him?”

  “You are my brother.”

  “Why on earth would you do such a thing for Morgause?”

  “Because,” I answered savagely, “she will demand that Artos make me king in place of Lleu.”

  “Why would he do that?” Goewin said coldly.

  “What will he do otherwise, with Lleu’s life in the balance?” I questioned. “I think he loves his youngest child too dearly to refuse. Besides, what has he to lose by complying? Pride, perhaps. It is his own error that keeps me from the kingship, not anything I have done. I am older, stronger, wiser than Lleu; I am liked and admired by the Comrades. If Artos refuses he will have lost both of us. He will not put Britain in such jeopardy.”

  “He has me still, without either of you,” Goewin snarled, “and I am quite capable of reigning.”

  “Do you hunger for the kingship too?” I laughed, too hard, and began to cough. “Join us, then. If Artos refuses, you and I can kill the prince together.”

  Goewin hurled her drinking horn at my face; it glanced off my cheek and cracked against the stone wall. Agravain held her back, and Lleu fell forward with chest and cheek against the floor. He fought to right himself, and managed to bring his arms beneath him so that he could raise his head and shoulders.

  “You speak so lightly of killing!” Goewin flung at me, trying to break free. “You are no murderer!”

  “Indeed I am,” I said grimly, “several times over, and by no accident.”

  Goewin tore herself from Agravain’s grasp and flew at me, snatching for the hunting knife that I still wore at my side. “Ah, no, Princess,” I said, and seized one of her wrists as I drew the dagger myself. “You are like Lleu: quick, skillful, but not very strong.”

  Goewin tried to wrench her arm free, but could not fight very well on her knees in the small space with Lleu sprawled between us. She spat, “Obviously you think more of his strength than you do of mine, or you’d have drugged both of us.”

  “Goewin,” I cautioned with the knife raised, “be still.”

  “Oh, cut my throat! I dare you!”

  “Not yours,” I said, and still gripping her wrist, pressed the blade ag
ainst Lleu’s neck. His head sank. “Now, be still.”

  Goewin went limp. “You would not.”

  “I will not kill him, no,” I granted. “At least, not now. But if you do not stop struggling I will hurt him.”

  “Take him, then,” she cried. “Ah, God, you make me sick. Cold and aloof as you are, I trusted you more deeply than I would my father, counted your word more binding than I would my own. Soulless viper! Take him! How can I stand in your way now?”

  I let her go. She got up and stormed outside into the dark, the snow, the wilderness.

  “Shall I bring her back?” Agravain asked.

  “Let her be. There is nowhere for her to go.”

  Lleu whispered raspingly, “You would not have hurt me.”

  “Are you with us yet, Bright One?” I said in wonder. “You must be fighting as you have never fought before. That dose was stronger than any the queen of the Orcades has ever given you.”

  “You would not hurt me,” Lleu repeated, and with his final fading consciousness reached out to take my crippled hand in his, unafraid, blindly trusting and certain. I could not understand what he tried to say. His fearlessness puzzled me, and I sat silent, gazing down at the dark head and slim hand that clasped my own, wondering.

  Goewin came back inside, and without a word helped me to strip Lleu of his wet clothes and to wrap him in furs and blankets for the night. Agravain packed away the remaining food and put out all the lanterns but one; then the three of us joined Lleu in sleep.

  I dozed in fits and starts, tangled in monotonous dreams of riding and moors and rain. In the middle of the night I began to cough uncontrolla {h uzedbly, yet could not wake; I lay wretchedly gasping for air, unaware of where I was or who was with me. Then a gentle hand shook my shoulder, and a gentle, concerned voice said, “Medraut. Medraut, sit up, it’ll stop.”

  The voice was insistent. The hand worked its way beneath my back to help me up, and I could breathe again. Goewin knelt by me, holding me upright, gazing at me anxiously. “Shall I get you something to drink?” she asked.

  I said at last, softly, “You are very kind, Goewin.”

  “Oh.” She crept, to the bags and satchels and poured water for me. “Well, you sounded so awful.”

  “Think where you are,” I said.

  She blinked. The lantern flickered, burning low, and sent waves of light across her face. “I know where I am,” she said.

  “Why help me, then? To win my favor?”

  “You woke me up,” she answered irritably. “You sounded as though you couldn’t breathe. Are you ill?” She touched my forehead briefly with cool fingers and said, “You’re burning!”

  “Always,” I said darkly.

  “No,” she said, and drew back from me a little, not sure what I meant. “You’ve a fever.”

  “I know,” I said scornfully.

  “For how long?”

  “Since early this evening.”

  “Don’t go,” she said.

  “I must. My mother—”

  I stopped, flushed: I, who never spoke a word more than I meant to speak. After a long moment Goewin said slowly, “Do you ever call her mother?”

  “I don’t,” I answered shortly. “But she is.”

  “What hold has she over you besides that?”

  I stared at her. “What hold?” I coughed again, near laughter, incredulous. “Isn’t that enough? You’re not blind, Goewin.”

  “But you don’t want to do this!”

  “How could you know what I want?” I said. “Under her orders I can take vengeance on your beautiful brother and let the blame fall on her.”

  Goewin said forcefully, “Revenge for what?” Neither of us spoke for a few moments. At last Goewin ventured, “Then you’d torture Lleu and turn over what’s left to her? That would please her as much as if she did it herself, wouldn’t it? Either way you are seduced—”

  “No!” I burst out, so violently that Agravain stirred in his sleep. My fingers had gone taut and white around the small horn cup Goewin had given me. “I follow my own will!”

  “Then why are you doing this?” Goewin pressed.

  I coughed and pushed my hair back from my face; it was dry now, and tangled. Goewin took the cup from me and watched me in apprehension. I said, “You of anyone should understand.”

  “I understand your mother,” she said unexpectedly. “I understand her all too well. I live in constant fear that I will be kept prisoner as she is, because I am dangerous and powerful, and because I am a woman. I would not betray Lleu even if { Llstant f I wanted to; he is my sole ally, my one defense against such a fate. But you, Medraut, you have been offered the regency of his kingdom, you have power in your hand. So why?”

  I drew my fingers across Lleu’s cheek and lips as though I were touching something beautiful and delicate, an exotic flower, a piece of old silk, the skeleton of a leaf. “For a word. For my father’s word. For something I want Artos to say. I want him to admit, before all, that it is his own iniquity that keeps me from the kingship. That the shame is his, not mine.” I paused, my fingertips trembling above Lleu’s still face, and then went on speaking as though to myself, as though she were not there. “And I want Lleu to be afraid of me, to know and admit to my authority. I want—” I hesitated again, lost. I did not know what I wanted. “Lleu’s grown so confident and cruel.”

  “He’s not cruel!” Goewin said.

  “He is,” I said. “He is ever conscious of his beauty, his power. And he never quite stops sneering at me for my being so… scarred.

  “I might end by killing him,” I finished bitterly. “I would do it if I had a reason, if I were given the command. He would deserve it.”

  “He would not. You fret like a jealous child,” Goewin whispered roughly. “I am as much in the way of your kingship as Lleu is. Take me in his place. Let him go.”

  “I couldn’t take you,” I said slowly. “I am too much afraid of what I might do to you.”

  “What could be more terrible than anything you might do to Lleu?” she asked.

  I looked at her hard and straight, perplexed, unable to believe her so naive. Then I took her face between my fevered palms and held her close, so that we must look directly at one another. My hands moved down her throat, across her shoulders, until at last they were cupped gently beneath her breasts; and then she knew what I might do to her. “I am your sister,”

  she said.

  “You see how it happens,” I said, and let her go.

  She sat still for a moment, her eyes lowered, as though in prayer. Then she carefully set the horn cup on the floor away from us, and moved back to her place between Lleu and the cave wall. She lay on her back with her eyes closed and said in an icy voice, “If you don’t bring Lleu back alive and unharmed I’ll kill you, I swear it, surely, I will find a way to kill you.”

  “I fear you as little as you fear me,” I whispered.

  XII

  Peak and Forest

  MORNING, NOW. LLEU WOKE up and was sick. I began to help him dress, but he shrank from the touch of my hot hands over his bare arms and back; Goewin, watching, barked out, “Let him go!” I glanced at her with half a grin, but shrugged and gave Lleu his dry shirt and jacket and then drew away. Afterward he crouched dejectedly next to the fire with his head in his hands, not yet able to eat or to stand. Goewin said to me severely, “You who never lie, have you thought what quarry you will bring away as proof of this week’s hunting?”

  The young lion raised his head with an effort and answered in quiet, “Has he not?”

  I took Goewin outside to speak to her alone. I wanted to be certain she knew her wa ~;

  “Why would he wait,” Goewin asked, “once he knows what you intend?”

  “He won’t know that,” I said. “I will not follow the road. I cannot risk a direct route.”

  “Oh, Medraut,” she sighed. “Where will you go?”

  The high moors and valley below us lay blanketed in snow, several inches deep
. The clouds were thin, but covered the whole sky, so that the sun glinted weak and silver through a misty screen and gave neither warmth nor much light. It was enough, though. “Today I mean to strike out across open country.”

  “Where you can find your way by following the sun and the sound of water, and no one will be able to find you.”

  “Just so.”

  “Then all I can do—”

  “Obey my word.”

  Goewin left before we did. I made her take Lleu’s horse as well as her own, so that she was forced to travel slowly, and so that Lleu must remain dependent on me. The Bright One, my prisoner, betrayed his fear only in the way he clung to his sister when she embraced him in farewell: his face hidden against her shoulder, his hands clenched in fierce and frantic fists.

  After she had gone we too set out, descending through a narrow pass with steep, rocky sides as though we traveled among the bones of the land itself; rocks tore through the snow like dark, fleshless elbows and knees. After this stark gully we emerged onto a gently sloping moor, still in sight of the distinct black ridge called Shivering Mountain. Here I turned across the moor that spread before us, smooth and white and apparently endless. Beneath the snow the ground was treacherously uneven. We journeyed slowly, more slowly than we had the day before. When we lost sight of Shivering Mountain it was difficult to have any idea of where we were, for all directions led to the same seamless white horizon. We passed a high point on the barren slope and continued down a similar expanse of emptiness.

  We stopped to eat in the shelter of the fallen entrance to a disused mine. Within our sight the horizon was at last broken by a few low, unnatural mounds of earth that rose from the level ground, ancient burial chambers or ruined huts. “Where are we?” Agravain asked. We had said little to each other during the morning’s journey; the wind made it difficult to speak when we were in the open.