The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(27)

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But if it is poison, it will be hemlock.”

She pressed her lips together. “Can you help?”

“I think. Go, light a fire for him. I’ll follow.”

Goewin and I sat with Lleu late into the night, in part to comfort him, in part to minister to him, and in pa [im,dth="2ert to discuss together in low tones what was happening. More agitated than languid now, Lleu stirred the coals in the brazier and fidgeted restlessly with books and candlesticks, ornaments and games that lay about the room. He was unable to keep still. In the past two years he had reached his full stature and acquired a kind of wiry strength to match his natural grace; but now his gestures were determined and dogged, as though he had to concentrate and consider every movement he made. At last he sat on the floor next to the bed and for a moment collapsed with his face buried in his hands. Then he looked up and said, “Who is doing this?”

I think Goewin had some idea of the answer to that question, as I did. But neither of us spoke. “Can you guess? Do you know?” Lleu cried softly.

“I can guess,” Goewin said with grim confidence.

“You can’t lay blame for such a thing without proof,” I said.

“We can tell Father and have him stop it.”

“No!” I protested. “It may be accidental.” I thought to make light of the threat, and to protect Lleu myself. “Think of the fear and anger that would spread through the estate if we spoke of poison. Lleu is not hurt.”

“I am!” he said.

“You’re not,” I answered. “You’re made uncomfortable, and you’re frightened. But you aren’t in danger.”

Goewin argued in quiet fury, “How can you know? If it may be accidental, it may as easily be malicious, and because of your skill everyone will blame you, Medraut.”

“I’ve already blamed you,” Lleu put in quietly.

“Ai, Lleu, if you won’t trust me, who will? It would shatter me to have you approach your father with such an accusation! I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“Medraut, I have never heard you so irrational!” Goewin cried. “All the food and drink in Camlan seems tainted when it reaches Lleu’s lips.”

“Then we’ll get food for him from Elder Field,” I said, uncompromising. “Please, Goewin, help me to see this through, help me to keep Camlan from ugly intrigue and suspicion.”

I think that Goewin finally agreed because she so wanted me to prove to her that I was to be relied upon, that I would assure all would be well. Reluctantly, the twins did as I planned. Lleu came out to the fields with me and ate his meals there. The first morning at the reaping he bound a square of damp linen across his nose and





mouth and said apologetically, “The dust makes it hard for me to breathe.” But he worked as diligently as anyone else. Goewin shadowed him when he was at home, methodically and quietly making certain that he ate nothing from the house. Yet we remained on edge, not daring to trust that the matter could be finished.





VIII


A Game of Chess




FOUR DAYS LATER WE woke to find the Queen’s Garden a riot of caged songbirds. It had been decorated before dawn at your whim and for your pleasure. Elegant cages of all different sizes and shapes stood on the walks and walls and hung from the little trees; colored ribbons and bells of bone and silver fluttered from the wicker bars. Ai, Godmother, how is it that for all your cruelty you have so keen an eye for beauty? It looked li ^romke a place for a wedding party.

You spent the day there, admiring the songbirds and feeding bread crumbs to the peacocks. Fascinated as a moth courting a candle flame, I came home from the fields early and wandered about beneath the graceful cages. I tried to stay apart from you; but the Queen’s Garden is not very big. I forced myself at last to approach you where you sat on the grass among the peacocks, collecting the luminous and iridescent breast feathers that lay about. “When are you leaving?” I demanded.

You looked up with eyes the deep, sad gray or blue of a winter evening. “I will leave when the harvest is in,” you said, pulling a stalk of lavender to strip the buds from it one by one, crushing them between your fingers until the air around your hands was sweet with their sharp scent. “I will go to Venta Belgarum to see my mother and then back to the Orcades.

“Only be patient,” you added, stretching languid and catlike. “It is so gentle and warm here. It reminds me of the Summer Country in the south, where I grew up. It is cold in the Orcades.”