The Winter Prince Page 4

  One afternoon in deep July I rode north and east with Lleu and Goewin, straight across the green country toward the high moors on the horizon, through the forested park where the high king’s deer and boar grew fat, across one of the old, straight Roman roads paved with heavy flagstones. Beyond that we followed a little river between steep wooded hills, and left behind us the poppy-lit fields. The way grew steeper; behind and below us the oak and birch leaves shone green in the sun, and the river snaked away in runnels of diamond light. Above, the high, flat peak that one can just glimpse from the top of the Edge was shrouded in cloud and mist. I know the moors well enough, but Lleu and Goewin had never been here before.

  “Shall I take your reins?” I asked Lleu as the steep land beneath the horses’ hooves grew stony and riddled with tufts of bracken. The trees about us thinned and dropped away.

  “I can manage,” Lleu said fiercely. His riding had improved, but because of his broken arm the reins still gave him trouble. Caius, the high king’s steward, was teaching Lleu to ride in the Roman fashion so that he might control the horse more with his knees than his hands.

  “The ground will get rougher,” I explained in apology. “Well, be careful.”

  We left the trees behind. The ground cover was all heather and gorse, brilliant violet and gold. The air was still; foamy, scattered clouds swung low in the sky, sometimes blocking the sun, sometimes not. The lowest clouds tore on the summit of the hill we were climbing, making a shredded curtain of mist beyond which nothing was visible. “Where are we going?” Goewin asked.

  “This is the highest of the peaks you can see on the horizon from Camlan,” I said. “Have you never climbed any of them?” I knew they had not. Looking straight ahead of me toward the crest of the peak, riding serenely a little forward of my young sister and brother, I said, “Well, you have already seen the dark below. This is perhaps the abyss inverted.”

  Goewin, with a brief snort of indignation, pulled forward till she rode abreast of me, and said in a cold, inquisitive voice, “Sir? ‘The abyss inverted’? I don p o? I don19;t understand.”

  “The dark above. Not literal darkness, as in the mines, but a place of mystery all the same. When we ride into the mist, look about you.”

  We entered the fog. Beads of water hung like amethysts on the heather. Behind us where the ground fell away the cloud came down like a screen, hiding the countryside below. Only the river could be seen, a shining streak of light slashing through the white wall of fog at an incongruous angle. The mist hid the land between ourselves and the river, and the faraway line of water looked as though it were suspended in midair.

  “Why does it glitter?” Lleu asked.

  “The sun is shining down there,” Goewin told him. “It’s only we who are in cloud.”

  We rode on. The heather gave way to bare peat now, and the country became strange. Even as little as ten miles to the south the moors are gentler than these reaches of bog. “We could get very lost,” Lleu said.

  “We could,” I said. “The fog could be many times as thick. If it were we would stay in one place till it cleared. As it is, we keep the river in sight.” Behind us we could still see the river, a wire of pure silver suspended in the white, empty air.

  Within our circle of mist the peat was black, the air gray. Sudden gullies of water gushed here and there over dark slides of earth. We no longer climbed; the peak flattens near the summit, and we rode on almost level ground along the edge of the top of the hill. Measures of bog stretched away from us toward the highest point, hidden by cloud; vast outcroppings of rock loomed out of the fog, looking at first like huts or groups of people or withered trees, then becoming stones again as we passed by. The horses stepped cautiously between low clots of turf that rose above the mud and were rooted together by clumps of short, coarse grass. Three gray birds flew off into the mist in a flurry of clapping and cracking wings, and twice we heard the loud, strident crying of some disturbed moor bird. That was all we encountered of other living beings. At last we came to a wide, flat, shallow stream with unexpectedly white sandy banks like the mouth of a river; on the near bank stood a cairn of piled loose rock. We dismounted and added a few pebbles to the cairn, drank from the stream, and ate a luncheon of honey, bread, cheese, and eggs. We talked while we ate, for when we were silent we were too much aware of how alone we were, and how lost we could be.

  “On a clear day it might be lovely up here,” Goewin said.

  “Then why should Medraut think it an evil place?” Lleu muttered.

  “No one spoke of evil,” I said lightly. “Only of mystery, and darkness.”

  “Like the mines,” Lleu said slowly, understanding. “This is real, but it doesn’t threaten you. You don’t have to come here. Father holds back the real evil—the pirates and invaders from the sea, the painted people from the north—treats with them and keeps them at ease.”

  “It’s no easy thing to treat with the Sea Wolves,” I said.

  Goewin added thoughtfully, “You have to—you have to be able to imagine what they are thinking. It’s not like feeding hounds and having them be loyal to you. Hounds don’t plan; they don’t think.”

  “But the Saxons think wrong,” Lleu said.

  “Only according to you!” Goewin laughed. “The raiders from the w mis from arships may be evil, but not all Saxons are evil, certainly not those who have settled here in peace. You can’t just dismiss them all. And not all your own folk are good, either. What will you do if a treaty is broken? What will you do if you find treachery within?”

  Lleu laughed also. “When I find treachery within I’ll call on you, suspicious one. I can continue Father’s defense.”

  “But it isn’t just a matter of defense!” Goewin pressed. “You have to be able to change, to know whether to attack or to organize new treaties yourself, even if you’re not sure they’ll work—you have to stand your ground but be fair to your enemy at the same time. That’s what Father really does. You have to learn to take risks.”

  In fierce rapture, I watched their faces as the twins worked their way through the last argument. “Have you thought long on the government of a kingdom, Goewin?” I asked. Oh, she of all of us has always and only been the true child of the high king: Artos the Dragon and Artos the Bear, forbidding and forgiving, who holds a few tottering and assaulted peoples together as a single, peaceful kingdom.

  We turned back. We broke into sunlight again, and began the journey home across that broad, bright country.

  IV

  The Bright One

  IN THE MIDST OF that mild summer Lleu learned to use a sword. Bedwyr, whom Artos calls most trusted of advisers and best of friends, took over Lleu’s training in swordsmanship even before I had taken the splints from Lleu’s arm. Bedwyr had lost his left hand in one of the high king’s early battles, but despite this remained the most accomplished swordsman I had ever known. When Lleu’s broken arm kept him from his usual swordplay Bedwyr suddenly noticed him, and appointed himself Lleu’s tutor. At first he and Lleu did not practice with weapons; to watch them you would think that Lleu was learning some kind of tight, dangerous dance. The two of them spent their afternoons dodging and circling each other. When Lleu’s arm was sound enough to bear some occasional battering, Bedwyr bound it to Lleu’s side to keep it steady and they began using wooden swords.

  Lleu’s fledgling talent was so startling that at first they did not dare to speak of it. Bedwyr, whose blunt and heavy countenance rarely breaks out of its frown, is not one to be lavish with praise; but I heard him once growl at Artos, “I don’t know what made you think Caius can teach your son to use a sword. Lleu can’t hack things down by sheer force, he’s too light. But you watch. He’s a rare one. In a year he’ll be able to disarm you.” In time Lleu’s arm was whole again; together he and Bedwyr made it almost as strong and capable as the right, until Lleu could manage a sword with either hand. He improved rapidly as a young deer might grow, and he began to develop a skill that we could all se
e was nearly as deadly as his master’s. Lleu danced. He was too quick to catch, and too agile to hold. I do not think it was more to him then than a dance, a game; the swords he used were only of wood, or dull. But his excitement in the swordplay kindled to precision, speed, a sapling strength in his arms and back. I had thought him the slight one, the fragile one: his skill was frightening.

  I thought I was content. At long last I could hunt again; I had not brought down anything larger than a rabbit in over a year, and now we hunted wolf, deer, and boar for their hides and the winter’s meat. The cordhallenge and chase were exhilarating. Parties of us spent days at a time on foot with spears in the vast forest south of Camlan, and then we would bring back four or five large kills at once. But best I liked to ride out alone, or in small parties of two and three, and to hunt with the bow.

  The harvest was not bountiful, but sufficient. That in itself was reason to celebrate, and we set beacons flaming across the land in thanksgiving. There were bonfires on the Edge over Elder Field to the west and on Shining Ridge to the east, and we danced between these at Camlan, the heart of all the lights. Lleu had been absorbed for weeks with a group of traveling jugglers and tumblers who had assisted in the reaping and storing of grain. He had never forgotten the few somersaults and handsprings taught him as a child; he was now graceful and supple as he had been then, but stronger. The performers were enamored of him, and on the harvest night they masked him in copper and amber as his namesake, Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the Lord of the Sun. They made him tumble as they had taught him, tossed him and caught him, and called him “prince of acrobats” and “prince of dancers.”

  You need not think of me standing apart from the revelers and watching sullenly just beyond the circle of firelight, the slow cancer in the beating heart. I danced and drank with the rest of them. Late in the evening, when the dancing was over and we sat at our ease around the dying bonfires, I set off the colored flares I had from Cathay, and fire snappers that consume themselves with loud bursts of flame. I told the courageous story of Turunesh, the African woman who gave them to me, how she and her father Kidane had left Aksum and traveled halfway across the world to find such things. Those who were still awake listened with wonder and pleasure, so that I felt myself to be one of all, trusted, accepted, and admired among the high king’s companions.

  Of the autumn and the following winter I remember little, only certain moments that are bright rimmed in my mind’s eye with the clarity of lightning. All were blows to the tumultuous feelings for Lleu that I fought to master, and the incidents formed a kind of pattern leading to the moment when Artos officially named his son prince of Britain. The earliest was after a day of hunting, when Lleu told me in a voice despising and superior, “You’re certainly bloodthirsty.”

  Lleu did not hunt. That is, he rode with us, and helped to dress the meat, but his shots always went wide. At first I had thought he was simply a poor marksman, and I wondered that he had not been better trained. But it was difficult to believe that such a matchless swordsman could be so careless of precision with a bow in his hand. Lleu chose with purpose to miss his mark; he could kill, but would not. I answered, “Are you so noble, to let others kill your winter’s meat for you?”

  To which Goewin added, “I like hunting—am I bloodthirsty too?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Lleu said. “You aren’t so intent on the destruction of life as Medraut is.”

  I at least can heal as well as kill.

  Bloodthirst was not all that Goewin and I had in common. One autumn afternoon, while she was roaming the colonnaded porch that opens off the atrium, she came upon me sitting on the wide stone steps that lead down to the Queen’s Garden. I was fitting feathers to arrows, and Goewin sat next to me to watch. It is a task I enjoy, calling for deft hands, and perfect judgment and balance. Goewin sat companionably for a few minutes without speaking or interrupting me; then suddenly she asked, “How did you hurt your hand?”

  I loo Custakiked at the hills in the distance for a moment, then glanced at her briefly. “Stag hunting on foot,” I said. I will not lie. “I was nearly killed. The bones of my fingers were… set badly, and had to be broken and set over again.”

  She answered as coolly as I had spoken to her. “They don’t bother you.”

  “No longer.”

  “Your arrows are beautiful,” Goewin stated simply. I really did look at her then, and smiled a little in honest appreciation.

  “I wasn’t changing the subject,” she added.

  “I know,” I said. “But the hand looks worse than it is. It doesn’t hinder me.” I bent to my work and added in jest, “Though my arrows would be beautiful in any case.”

  Goewin laughed. “You sound like Lleu.”

  “How?”

  “Sure of yourself. Lleu is so sure of himself! How do you bear his insults and commands with such grace? Sometimes he makes me want to strike him.”

  “Well… Diana and Apollo may quarrel,” I said.

  “Who are they?” Goewin asked, interested.

  I smiled. “The old Roman goddess and god of the moon and sun. They’re twins, like you. There is a story where they argue over which of them is the better archer; there is not much doubt in your case.”

  “Who will notice Lleu’s poor aim,” Goewin said, “now that he can defend himself against Britain’s greatest swordsman?”

  “You’re not jealous?” I asked.

  Goewin scooped a handful of brown, dry leaves from the flagstones and spread them over her skirt. It was a gown she had worn for two years, and was too short for her. In spite of the chill she was barefoot. But no one ever scolded her for that as they did Lleu; suddenly I saw her a little neglected. “No,” she answered me. “After all, I could never manage a sword.” She scattered the leaves about her dusty feet. “Only…”

  “Only you could manage a kingdom,” I said.

  In a voice so soft it was almost a whisper, Goewin said, “Yes. I think I could.”

  “You see, Princess,” I said quietly, “you and I are not so different.”

  When we walked inside together Lleu was sitting on the floor of the atrium beneath one of Ginevra’s pot-bound lemon trees, toying with an unfinished corner of the mosaic. The chips of colored stone glinted in the heavy afternoon sun that poured through the old glass windows. Lleu was absorbed and at ease, vaguely graceful even in the way he sat, head bent, thinking, motionless. When he noticed Goewin he leaped to his feet and whirled her in a short, wild dance across the tesserae, scattering a few unused tiles that clicked beneath their feet and shot across the floor like thrown stones skimming over ice. The twins half sat, half fell into one of the stone ledges set in the windows as seats. “What is it?” Goewin laughed.

  “I’ve beaten Bedwyr,” Lleu announced.

  “You’ve what?” Goewin said, hardly able to take him seriously.

  “Four times today I disarmed him.”

  Astounded, Goewin said, “Today? You di Cy?four times today?”

  Lleu’s dark eyes sparkled and his face glowed. He nodded. He would never say such a thing if it were not true.

  “How on earth did you manage that?” Goewin asked shakily.

  “From learning all that tumbling. He didn’t know where I’d be—he couldn’t hold me. Oh, Goewin, we were so pleased!”

  “Lleu,” Goewin said carefully, glancing up at me, “Bedwyr is considered the finest swordsman in the kingdom.”

  “I know,” Lleu said softly.

  “But you must be—Lleu, you can’t be that good in one summer’s training!”

  “Ask Bedwyr,” Lleu said. “Anyway, it isn’t really one summer. I’d learned to use a sword before Bedwyr began to teach me. He teaches skill.”

  “He couldn’t ever teach Caius enough skill to disarm him,” Goewin said. She stared at her twin. “You must be simply brilliant. And nobody ever noticed it!”

  “I’ve never been well enough before,” Lleu said. “Oh, Goewin, I can’t tell you how”—he laughed—
“how remarkable I feel. Aren’t I?”

  Goewin tried to push him out of the window seat; but she could no longer best him in strength. She laughed instead. “Yes, you conceited creature, you are remarkable.”

  But I could not laugh.

  Artos was not in Camlan when this happened. He was making his seasonal progress through the south of Britain, checking defenses and supplies in the small towns and cities. Lleu wrote to tell him of the occasion, and Artos wrote back exulting: “Lleu, my Bright One, you will make a king, after all—think of it, the finest swordsman in Britain at fifteen!

  “I’ll begin to train you as I’ve trained Medraut… Stay strong, grow wise, and I’ll crown you with pride in the spring.”

  Such love in those words, such love and joy. It was never Lleu’s name that I envied.

  On a November morning a few weeks later I walked with Lleu and Goewin to Elder Field to visit the smithy. It was the first day in two weeks that the sky was clear; the air was chill but not cold. The track across the surrounding fields that leads to the wooded Edge and the mines was so muddy that we almost had to wade. Men were out setting the hedges and cutting back the hazel coppices, glad for the respite from the rain. We kept close to the edge of the wood; the trees glittered with drops of water, and wet dead leaves clung to our ankles. When we arrived at the smithy, Gofan greeted us cordially, though shortly, and over the ringing din that Marcus was making indicated that we should stay out of the way. But despite the furious clatter and the heat they were producing, the two were not particularly hard at work that day. In this late autumn time of hedge laying and hunting they had set aside the constant repair and production of harness and yoke fixtures, scythe blades and plowshares that kept the smithy busy earlier in the year. Gofan was teaching his young apprentice a more intricate work, and they were making a gate or screen of wrought iron.

  After a time the two men left their work quiet and came over to sit and talk with us. Sunlight streamed in across the floor from the open porch, turning to shadow now and again as the clouds moved across the sky, making the coals in the forge grow brighter for a moment. “W Cnt.adohat have you been up to in your Roman villa?” Marcus asked.