The Winter Prince

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 see 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.