The Winter Prince

Goewin asked unsteadily, "What is a sphinx?"

"A teller of riddles," I murmured as I examined the burn, "with a lion’s body and a woman’s head. She devours young men."

"I’m sorry," Goewin pleaded, a guilty Psyche unsure of what she had awakened. She knelt by my cot and said in a low and fervent voice, "You were sleeping curled with your back against the wall and your fists in knots, so deep in a dream I could not wake you. Ai, Medraut, you sleep as though you are in pain! I moved too quickly, and the lamp spilled, but it was an accident. I would never hurt you, never."

"Pass me the robe hanging over the chair," I said. She handed it to me, and looked away as I put it on.

"Is the burn all right?" she asked.

"Don’t apologize again," I said, almost amused at her distress. I stood up and went to the open window to press my shoulder against the cold and soothing stone. The night outside smelled cool. Goewin stood behind me in the dark, trying to hold her little lamp steady. "What did you come here for?" I asked.

"Lleu is poisoned again," she said. "He woke me on his knees by my bed in such agony as I have never seen him. I could not make him get up. He thinks he is on fire."

I turned to face her. "How? What does he mean?"

"His mouth, his eyes, he says they burn. All inside him—"

"It will be spurge," I said. "I need milk. And get a better light." Automatically I began to ransack my shelves for an appropriate antidote, though I am ill supplied against anything so sinister and incomprehensible as your mind working in idleness and anger.

Lleu was in Goewin’s chamber, crumpled on the floor next to her bed just as she had left him. He clung to the tapestry that hung there as though he were trying to support his weight against it. I had to pry the woolen folds from his fingers. When I forced him to let go he clutched at my own hands with the iron grip of desperation, and I could hardly shake him off long enough to set down the armful of bottles that I c ctlewitarried. I finally had to tie his hands. Then he managed to gasp in protest, "Oh: no." It seemed unspeakable that he should be made to endure such anguish, whatever the crime.

When the worst of the night was over Lleu cried out softly, "What is happening to me? I am being used as a pawn, a plaything—"

"How could it have happened?" Goewin said. "You had nothing to drink at supper."

"I had water afterward," Lleu said. "I may not have watched my cup closely enough."

"Surely you could taste spurge in water?" I said in wonder. "Ah, never mind. You’d already been bemused by aconite. Can you sleep now, little one?"

"I will try," Lleu said.

"Then good night," I said, gathering the vials littering the floor. "I will tell your father tomorrow. This—this is beyond my control."

I saw Lleu to his room, then went back to my own and scattered the debris of bottles and herbs in a disordered pile on my desk. The night was half gone. I was supposed to be at the copper mines just after sunrise, but I was determined I should speak to Artos before the day began. Sleep held only the promise of another nightmare. Instead of going back to bed I sat in the corridor before the door to my father’s chambers, to be there when he woke. The stone floor was cold, the door hard against my back; the little burn on my shoulder had blistered so that now it stung and smarted. I drew my knees up against my chest and imagined I could watch there until morning.

Another dream.

I am alone in an abandoned garden. The stone walks are cracked and decaying; sweet flowering vines trail among the ruined roses, verdant beneath a sky of distant sapphire. But beyond the garden walls the land stretches cracked and desolate, sere earth and red rock. An arid river courses down the slope below the garden. I am in the south of Egypt, I think; if I follow the riverbed, I will find the Blue Nile and the high slopes and thin, clear air of Aksum. There is a figure sitting cross-legged on the bank of the dry river, the desert at his back, and I am surprised that in this land of dark-skinned people he is almost fair as I. When I approach to ask my way I find it is my brother. "This is not Africa," he tells me. "Do you not recognize the Mercian plain?"

And it is so. I can make out Shining Ridge and the Edge, though the forest is gone. "Where are the trees?" I ask.

He does not answer. He is bleeding again, as in the first dream, but this time from a wound in his side. Then it is not Lleu son of Artos, the prince of Britain, but Lleu Llaw Gyffes his namesake, the Bright One of the Steady Hand. Maimed and betrayed and enchanted, his hands become talons and his eyes grow round and gold: he is suddenly an eagle circling above my head and screaming.

It was Goewin screaming, and I was awake, huddled on the cold floor of the corridor. Artos stood in the doorway of his apartment, and Ginevra slipped past us with a lighted candle. I stood up quickly. "What in heaven’s name is going on?" Artos demanded. Through the open door of Goewin’s chamber we could hear Ginevra speaking in low tones of reassurement, and Goewin answering with shaking, muffled sobs. "What’s wrong?" Artos called.

"A bad dream," Ginevra answered. "She is all right."

Artos turned to me. "My brave Goewin wakes screaming from nightmares, he said evenly and quietly. "Lleu can barely stay awake for two hours together, and I find you lurking outside my door in the middle of the night."

He paused, seeming to expect an answer, and I said uncertainly, "I must speak with you."

"If you were going to wait till morning you might have found the waiting easier in your chamber than in the corridor."

I looked down in apology.

"We can speak now," Artos said.

We went into his study. Artos sat at his desk and I lit the fire, glad to have some reason to occupy my taut hands, and glad of the extra time to think of how I must tell my story. "You haven’t been sleeping well," Artos observed.

"No," I admitted.

"Sit down," he said.

"Thank you, sir." I sat, with my hands held carefully still on my knees; and then, without expression or bias, I told the king what you were doing to Lleu. Artos listened with equal reserve, without surprise, as though listening to a story about other people in another place and time.

"The simplest thing to do would be to send her away," I finished. "There need be no explanation, and there will be no scandal. No one in Camlan need know why she is leaving."

"Do you have proof of her treachery?" Artos said.

"Not beyond her own dark hints," I answered. "But someone is doing it, and it is like her. It is like something she once did to me." I spoke with difficulty, trying to be candid. "I grew to know her very well, the two years I stayed with her. She can be very cruel. I know there is no love between you, and I can’t see that she has any reason to love your children."

"Has she reason to hate them?" Artos said quietly. "Well, it is true that she toys with people. When did this start?"

"I think it was the night Lleu fell asleep on the porch, and you had to carry him to bed," I answered. "It was raining."

Artos leaned forward, his hands clasped together on his desk, his expression still unbiased but his voice unforgiving. "That night you told me, when I asked you directly, that there was nothing wrong with Lleu," he said. "Were you lying then, or now, and to what end? And if you’ve been suspecting her of tormenting Lleu, why didn’t you come to me at once?"

"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?"

"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.