The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(23)

Lleu rose slowly. Two arrows stood in the earth between his bare, dusty, scratched feet, and a third hung from his torn sleeve. “I won’t run from you,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t care if they do catch me. But I won’t let you think you frighten me.”

“If you could see how white you are,” I said weakly, wiping my eyes with the back of one hand.

“It’s not so funny,” he said through his teeth. “It’s not funny at all.”

“I apologize for laughing then,” I said. “I haven’t laughed as much in years.”

“If ever,” Lleu said stonily. His color was returning, and anger replacing fear.

“Why did you leave Glass Island?” I asked.

“I was bored, and it seemed like cheating—no one had any idea where I was.” He stared at me. “You tracked me there? Then you have been—” He stopped, and repeated fiercely, “I won’t run from you.”

I said, “Little lord, I won’t make you run from me. You can run from your cousins.” Then I raised my hunting horn and sounded a long call. “Are you fit enough to outrun them all the way to Camlan?”

“Damn you!” Lleu cried. “Damn you, Medraut! I’ve been running all afternoon!” He pushed past my horse, but after going several paces turned back to look at me. I laughed and blew another horn call. He tore down the slope away from me.

I followed in his wake at a leisurely pace, triumphant and exhausted by the terrible hairline precision of those five wasted arrows. What did it matter to me if Lleu managed to reach the Queen’s Garden ahead of his cousins? He did outrun them, after all: he must. He was fully aware that he had lost to me and was determined not to lose to them.

The game should have ended there.

But during the course of the day Lleu had left his youngest cousin bound hand and foot somewhere on the Edge, and, thoughtless idiot that he was, he had forgotten. Gareth is best natured of any of your boys, and when we found him he considered himself to have been fairly beaten; this despite having been trussed up all afternoon with Lleu’s sandal straps.

You were not so forgiving.

That evening at supper all four of your boys were still talking of the day’s game, and you listened to them with amused and indulgent laughter. But as we were rising to leave the meal you drew Lleu aside and said to him softly, “But, my prince, you won’t be so neglectful of my youngest child again, will you?”

“Of course not, my lady,” Lleu said readily. “Gareth wasn’t ever in any danger, th Sny >

And you to him: “Perhaps you ought to be punished.”

“That is for my father to decide,” Lleu answered, purposefully regal, “not you, Aunt.”

“I will suggest it to your father,” you said directly to Lleu, though Artos himself sat by, watching your performance with silent contempt.

“I will consider it when you do,” Artos said, rising slowly and standing poised with one hand on the table, like a wary forest creature gauging a potential enemy. “Punishment and revenge are two different things.” You held Lleu with one hand on his shoulder and he stood still, waiting for you to release him.

I do not trust your nails so close to anyone’s eyes, and with a sudden, abrupt movement I freed Lleu from your hold. Ginevra spoke curtly, voicing my thought: “Don’t touch him.”

You turned to me and laid





a hand against my own cheek in Lleu’s stead. A gentle, tender touch, and I thought it to be mocking. “Or me,” I said, turning your hand aside. You smiled at Lleu mildly and said, “An apology is not always enough. But never mind, this time.”





VII


The Queen of the Orcades




THE FOLLOWING DAY IT rained, but a few of us still sat on the colonnade after supper rather than in the atrium. The evening was warm and light, the stone and tile porch a pleasant place to sit and breathe the rich, fresh smell of the wet gardens rising around. Artos and I played draughts, and between us Goewin concentrated on the moves we made. It should have been a quiet interim of rest. But you came out to the colonnade to join us; you stopped behind me to examine the game, and as you stood there you brushed the tips of your fingers against the back of my neck. Such a curious thrill of mixed delight and repulsion ran through my body that my arms broke out in gooseflesh. Instinctively I tried to cringe beyond your reach. Artos said to you mildly, “You’re interrupting.”