The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(25)

“Why?” Goewin breathed in soft disbelief. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”

“To teach me a lesson, just as she said,” I spat. “To teach me not to break all my bones hunting. God help me, she was so angry—they carried me in torn and broken, flesh bled white, filthy with dust and stinking with stag’s blood. She was so angry. She cursed me for an idiot under her breath all the while she was mending the splintered bones in my legs and wrist.”

“Medraut, I have seen you hunt,” Goewin whispered. “Why would you let yourself be so terribly hurt?”

“We were on foot, with spears, and I went against a full-grown stag with my dagger,” I answered, knowing that such a response explained nothing. “That she should fondle Lleu’s hands like that, all the while thinking of what she has done to mine! She is so unpredictable, and so cruel—”

“She hasn’t hurt us,” Goewin said.

“And so strong,” I finished, pushing the wet hair back from my face. “Even after she destroyed my hand I still clutched at her for comfort, just as I did as a child. I went back to her, trembling, every time.”

“But why should you be so afraid of her?” Goewin persisted.

“When I resist her she invokes our dark secret, that she is my mother, and I must obey.”

“Is it so secret?” Goewin asked. “You call her Godmother.”

“No one knows. Only those few who were sworn to silence at the time of my birth, and now you and Lleu. It is why Artos would never make me his heir, even if I were his only child. There is nothing I count more shameful. I could not bear for her other children to know.”

“But why, Medraut?” Goewin insisted quietly.

“What do you think?” I replied in equal quiet.

She looked away. She wanted a straight answer, and I would not give her one. “Tell me what you think,” I repeated. “You have heard me talking in my sleep, you have seen the scars across my back. Surely you have made a guess.”

“All right,” she said in grim determination. She still pressed her hand over mine, trusting and intimate and infinitely courageous. “This is what I have guessed, Medraut. I think that you were like all the rest of us, ignorant of your parentage, and that you and Morgause were lovers. And when you found out she is your mother you set out to destroy yourself.”

I said nothing. Goewin asked at length, “Is that right?”

“No,” I answered bitterly. “You could hardly think worse of me! But you’re wrong. I have always known she is my mother.”

Goewin stared at the wall, her jaw set, frowning. We were both drenched through. “She has no power here,” Goewin said at last with stubborn certainty, to reassure herself as well as me. “You told her so much yourself. Lleu wasn’t punished. She can do nothing.”

“I lack your courage before her,” I said. “I have brought down a king of stags with my bare hands and a hunting knife, but she can bring me down with a few words and an idle kiss.” Once more I pushed damp hair out of my eyes, and smiled ruefully. “Ah, God, I’m dripping wet.? [ng

Goewin smiled with me. “I too. Come back inside.” Calm now, we walked up through the silver and green and gray gardens. The colonnade was empty.

We met you in the hall. The lamps were not yet lit, and in the half-light of rain and evening it was too dark to see your face. “The prince is gone to bed,” you told us softly. “You might step in and see that all is well; he is very cold, and Artos had to carry him in because we could not wake him.”

“Could not wake him?” Goewin echoed in alarm.

“I would guess hemlock poisoning,” you said seriously, “if I did not think better of my brother’s servants.”

Goewin said in disgust, “Who would do such a thing? He must have a fever.” She pushed past you toward Lleu’s bedroom, but I did not follow immediately. I asked you quietly, in the old routine, “What kind of fever makes one shiver?”

“You need not be afraid,” you said. “I think he will recover by morning.”

Lleu lay in bed, asleep. Goewin was drawing the tapestries across the windows when I came in, and Artos was lighting the brazier. I knelt by the bed and shook Lleu’s shoulder, saying lightly, “What makes you so tired, little one?” He pushed my hand away halfheartedly and murmured a few unintelligible syllables, but he could not be roused enough to sit up or to say anything coherent. Nevertheless his breath was even, and he was not so very cold after all. Artos came to stand by my side; he asked quietly, “What is it?”