The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(17)

Lleu confronted the assembled crowd white-faced, but appearing strangely elegant; he stood slight and straight before his father, dressed simply and bearing no arms, his dark hair clipped short in the old style of a Roman soldier. He listened gravely as the high king informed him of the duties that were to be expected of him. Then Ginevra armed him, as had his namesake’s mother, binding to his side a real sword; and at last the king presented his youngest child, his heir, to the strong, watchful company of his Comrades. Lleu bowed to us and pledged us his loyalty and service, and one by one we pledged ourselves to him. As my turn finished, Caius began to speak, passing over Goewin. I reached across her and silenced him gently with a gesture, and said only, “Princess?”

Repeating the words that I had used, she too pledged her loyalty to her twin: “Lleu son of Artos, my prince and brother, I swear to you my life and my allegiance.”

Lleu watched her with sympathetic eyes, and let his solemn lips twitch into a smile before her turn passed. At my side, unnoticed by anyone else Cy asym, Goewin slipped her cool fingers into my hand and pressed it gratefully.

After the pledges were finished Artos crowned his son with a thin fillet of gold and declared him prince of Britain.

When the ceremony was over Goewin hid herself, disappearing as quietly and completely as this season’s infant bats asleep in the box hung under the eaves. I found her in the dark end of the porch, where the old, disused masonry and broken columns lie piled out of the way, waiting patiently for the rest of the villa to catch up to them in decay. Goewin huddled against the far wall behind the last pillars, sobbing passionately. Embarrassed and ashamed to see me, she hid her face in the hem of her smock and mumbled incoherently, “The Romans have gone from Britain forever.”

I said gently, “Goewin. Come here.” I led her out into the garden, and stood with a hand on her shoulder, as I had stood by Lleu not long before. “What do you mean?”

“Father’s kingdom, this unity, it won’t last—Lleu’s not like him, and even if he were, too much is changing too fast. It can’t last. Father would have me marry Constantine, the son of the king of Dumnonia in the south. It won’t be bad, it’s important, with all the tin mines and fishing towns. But he may as well marry me to one of my cousins and exile me to the Orcades, as he has his sister, because you can be sure I won’t sit by as queen of Dumnonia and watch Britain trickle through Lleu’s fingers. If I have to I’ll take the kingship from him by force.”

“Princess!” I exclaimed.

“If you don’t destroy him first,” she finished. “I hate living at the end of things!”

“Look.” I pointed toward Elder Field. We gazed across the fields to the trees growing on the Edge, bright green with young leaves. The red stone of the bare cliff was fierce and strong and joyful in the spring sun, and two magpies sa





t preening themselves on the grass verge before the wall at the bottom of the garden. “There is no end,” I said. “Only the beginning of something else.”





V


Sparring




A MONTH LATER THIS isolate, close-woven world of mine was shattered. That evening the peacocks were calling as I walked home from the Edge, their weird screeches scoring the long summer afternoon, and I was unaware of them. The sound was too familiar, a noise I had long ago learned not to hear. But Ginevra does not keep peacocks. I stepped onto the colonnade to join the family in the Queen’s Garden, where we rested through the late sunsets, and stopped, struck through with a stunned, wintry surprise that felt something like despair. Smiling, you rose and crossed the garden to where I stood, and clasped my hands in greeting.

I stood trapped, desperate and ridiculous, trying to find the sense in why you were here. Finally I thought of your younger children, King Lot’s children, and remembered that Artos had recently sent for them at my own suggestion to raise in his court. I had not ever considered that you might come with them. While I stood staring hopelessly you echoed my silence: your lean fingers closed firmly around mine, your blank eyes like fields of slate the perfect reflection of my own. Mother and son, flame and shadow, image and opposite—witless I stood before you and let them all see how alike we are.

At last I said quietly, “Godmother,” and walked down the few s Felyx2ee how ateps into the garden with you.

Ginevra called to me to sit by her, and I swiftly accepted her invitation; you watched me with amusement and said, “So, my child, you have found your place here just as you left it?”