The Winter Prince

In its top, Lleu Llaw Gyffes."

"Ah, shut it," Lleu said.

"Even now you remind me of your namesake," I said gently. "You can no longer rely on the strength of your own body, the integrity of your own mind. Think of Lleu enchanted, imprisoned in another form! Think how it must be to look at your hands and see an eagle’s talons, clawed and cruel."

Lleu interrupted with a wordless cry of horror. He slammed his hands over his ears and said furiously, "That tale ends with order restored and justice done. You know that. Lleu is rescued and healed; his lands are returned to him, and he is revenged."

"And in truth, his punishment seems little worse than the visions you are enduring," I said. I drank some of the wine without heating it, and rubbed a fistful of snow over my forehead. "What makes you shiver so?"

He stared at me with hatred and derision. He sat with his knees drawn up close to his chest, his gloved hands in tight fists beneath his chin. "Come," I said, an1D; had held out an arm so that he might sit against my shoulder.

He muttered, "I don’t want your cold."

"I offer you my warmth," I said.

Reluctantly, resentfully, he curled himself into the hollow between my arm and chest. I murmured low,

"Grows an oak upon a steep,

The sanctuary of a fair lord;

If I speak not falsely,

Lleu will come into my lap."

Lleu sighed and closed his eyes, but soon forced them open again, mistrusting me. He stared at the fire as it burned lower and lower.

But I was tired beyond endurance in my own right. Before long we were both dozing. I did not have the energy to struggle with Lleu, and let him sink into the deep, sound sleep of utter exhaustion. Finally I folded the blankets around us both and slept also.

I woke because I was cold. The fever had peaked and broken while I slept, and I sat up in the dark, thirsty and chilled. The fire had gone out, but the night was not completely black; the clouds had cleared, and the sky through the bare trees blazed with starlight. The moon was new and had already set. I could see Lleu in the dim light; he slept profoundly with his dark head muffled in the dark leather of his sleeve, vulnerable. Cautiously, quickly, I drew the knife from his belt and cut his bowstring.

But I woke him doing this. Lleu forced his eyes open and propped his head on an elbow, shivering, to sit up suddenly as he realized what had happened. He stayed frozen, apprehensive; then, shifting his weight slowly, he marked where my hand flashed with the glimmer of silver. He leaped at me and in our struggle I dropped the dagger, but caught it by the blade with my other hand.

After a moment of absolute stillness Lleu reached down and seized my wrist. He threw all his weight against my arm, and when he had it pinned beneath him, he forced my stiff fingers shut around the dagger’s edge. Then he slowly but firmly wrenched the knife out of my hand—

Ah, God, my hand.

The blade cut through my glove, deep across my palm and the inside of my fingers. I gasped and pulled away from him, overwhelmed.

Lleu said fiercely, "That hurt, didn’t it! You’re bleeding."

Malevolent, swift, I tore off the glove and dashed my hand across his face.

He cried out in horror and hid his face in his sleeve. Then he drove the knife through the darkness until he held it against my throat. We both were still again, poised like that: I breathing through clenched teeth in short, harsh bursts, Lleu utterly silent. He held the knife there for a few moments, then flung it skittering away into the dark. "I’ve never killed anyone, any man," he whispered. "I cannot do it."

"You have the skill," I whispered in answer. I pressed my throbbing hand to my side beneath my other arm. "But you need more than skill, do you not?"

Lleu sat dumb. He rubbed his eyes. "I don’t hate you," he said stubbornly. "I don’t want to kill you."

"Death," I whispered, "often has very little to do with hatred. When hunting one kills through need of food or else for sport and love of skill—never through hatred. When you hate something you do not kill u dto do it. You hurt it." The pain in my hand made me mindless, and ruthless, and I was determined to punish him. I rested another moment; then with sudden strength I forced Lleu to the ground and held him there with one arm pinned beneath him, and drew my torn hand across his mouth and over his eyelids. Lleu screamed.

My fingers were dripping. Lleu pushed away from me with his free arm, but I caught at him with my sound right hand, and held his gloved fingers so tightly they began to feel stiff. He screamed again, out of sheer desperation.

"Wild thing," I whispered. "I’d like to cut your hands off, burn you, blind you… I should crush your slender fingers. I could break all the bones in your hand if I closed my own around yours tightly enough. You are as pure and dangerous as an untamed cat; your beauty makes me sick. And oh, God, you have hurt me, you have hurt me…"

I steadied my voice. "But I am afraid to risk my father’s trust in me, or what is left of it. I am afraid to kill you outright. I thought of ruining you in some irreparable way, so that you could never be king, though you’d still be alive and I’d seem blameless. I could deafen you; there’s a way to direct blows against your ears that will take away your hearing." Lleu tried to pull his hand away, and my iron hold on his fingers grew even more impossible. "Do you doubt me?" I said. "Or I could half smother you; when you go without air for too long it damages your mind, though it need not kill you. And there are things I can do to punish you that you will find more dreadful than any hurt. Be still." I bent over, my wounded hand in his hair, and pressing my mouth to Lleu’s warm, windburned lips, kissed him gently.

He lay rigid, as though he had been scalded.

"Your mouth is sweet," I said.

"God," Lleu breathed. His hair was cold. He smelled of earth and snow and blood.

"Lie still," I said. "Lie still. Am I not well armed against you even without steel? I need no more than a few drops of blood, and this…"

"Don’t," Lleu said quietly. "Don’t, my lord."

He spoke without fear. In his voice I heard only authority and reproach. It was as though he meant to remind me how very much I had to lose.

He struggled again to escape my grip, but I held him fast. "What do you want, Medraut? The inheritance you would win from our father will never give you power over me, me; and I will never beg for your mercy, even though you try to drive me mad. I may be afraid of death, but I do not fear you."

"So you say," I spat.

He winced and turned his face away. "Then do what you will with me," he choked. "You are just like your mother. You would gently ruin me if it served your ends; and in revengeful punishment you hurt and hurt and hurt. I wounded you in self-defense, I did not mean to do it! If I must pay for that with my sight, then put my eyes out! Is that just? Is that fair? Hurting me will not heal your hand, or make me regret that I tried to save myself. By that law you should have been buried alive for your mistake in the mines at Elder Field."

"You are right," I said slowly, letting go of him and struggling to my knees. "But you have never been held accountable for anything you have ever done."

He sat up also, savagely wiping his mouth, and began to say, "You thr#x2beeow this in my face as though—"

"No," I interrupted. "I mean, you are going to atone for what you have done to me now. You are going to stitch shut my hand."

"I am not!" he cried.

"By God, you are," I said fiercely. I had grown accustomed to the dark, and I could see the strip of white linen at Lleu’s wrist, and beyond my reach the silver gleam of the brooch that should clasp his cloak. I felt for the cloak and bound it around my hand, trying to stanch the bleeding. It would not stop. "Now, damn you: there. There by the fire, the lantern’s lying there." I prodded him in the right direction. "I don’t know what you’ve done with the flint and tinder, but there’s needle and thread in the black leather bag. You must pass the needle through a flame first, to cleanse it. And you’ll have to clean the cut, too; you can use snow for that."

"Do it yourself," Lleu said desperately.

I answered with equal desperation, "I can’t."

He found the lantern and set about lighting it with trembling hands. He dropped the flint in the dead fire at first and had to search for it in the hot, feathery, gray ashes; but at last he was rewarded with the scratch and spurt of a tiny new flame, and he lit the candle in the little lantern and opened the grated door so that as much light as possible spilled from it. I sat bent over my hand, and glanced up at Lleu impassively. "Ah, little brother, don’t cry."

Lleu rubbed his eyes angrily. "I’m not It’s the light."

"There’s blood on your face," I said. "And in your hair, too, it looks."

"I don’t care," Lleu said, and went to collect clean snow.

Eventually he held my torn palm between his hands, needle at ready. He breathed deeply for a few moments but did not move, apparently lacking the courage to begin the operation. Again I underestimated him. Without warning he stabbed viciously at the deep slash across my palm.

I yelped in surprise and pain and snatched my hand away. Lleu said credulously, "I thought you couldn’t feel anything in those fingers."

"You cretin," I gasped. "Give me the needle, I’ll do it myself."

"I’ll do it, Medraut," he said quietly. "I’ll do it. But I will not let you take me." This time he bent to the work with patience and gentleness. And it was bitterly cold.

XIV

The Year’s Turning

LLEU TOOK A LONG time, for he worked meticulously and carefully. When it was over we sat in the gray predawn in silence, both of us drained beyond speaking, or even moving. At last Lleu bandaged my hand and then began to gather and fold the blankets. When he had done I rekindled the fire and heated the last of the wine for us to drink with what was left of the dried fruit and bread. While I worked, Lleu sat by the fire with his face in his hands, and when I offered him food he shook his head.

The morning was cold and clear, breathtaking, brilliant. The splendor of the sun was almost unbearable after so many continuous clouded days. The brightness of it seemed to hurt Lleu; he winced, squinting, when he finally raised his #x2be of tface from his hands, and for a long time he kept a shielding hand over his eyes. He could not stop shivering. But when I held his cloak to him he shuddered and said, "Burn it." It was filthy with my blood. I tossed the cloak on the dying fire and then threw the blankets on top of it. They smoked and smoldered, disintegrating.

We set out once more through light, powdery snow and trees with branches sparkling where icicles were forming in the sunlight. We crossed into moorland and began to journey downhill. We walked miles without speaking, left the high moor and once more traveled through forest. But it was a different forest than the one we had left behind; here the trees were taller and farther apart. Lleu did not notice. After his scant few hours of sleep he no longer hallucinated, but he could scarcely keep his feet. He stumbled more and more often, and finally he stopped walking altogether. He stood motionless and waited for me to face him.