The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(31)

And it is so. I can make out Shining Ridge and the Edge, though the forest is gone. “Where are the trees?” I ask.

He does not answer. He is bleeding again, as in the first dream, but this time from a wound in his side. Then it is not Lleu son of Artos, the prince of Britain, but Lleu Llaw Gyffes his namesake, the Bright One of the Steady Hand. Maimed and betrayed and enchanted, his hands become talons and his eyes grow round and gold: he is suddenly an eagle circling above my head and screaming.

It was Goewin screaming, and I was awake, huddled on the cold floor of the corridor. Artos stood in the doorway of his apartment, and Ginevra slipped past us with a lighted candle. I stood up quickly. “What in heaven’s name is going on?” Artos demanded. Through the open door of Goewin’s chamber we could hear Ginevra speaking in low tones of reassurement, and Goewin answering with shaking, muffled sobs. “What’s wrong?” Artos called.

“A bad dream,” Ginevra answered. “She is all right.”

Artos turned to me. “My brave Goewin wakes screaming from nightmares,&#x cigh#x2201D; he said evenly and quietly. “Lleu can barely stay awake for two hours together, and I find you lurking outside my door in the middle of the night.”

He paused, seeming to expect an answer, and I said uncertainly, “I must speak with you.”

“If you were going to wait till morning you might have found the waiting easier in your chamber than in the corridor.”

I looked down in apology.

“We can speak now,” Artos said.

We went into his study. Artos sat at his desk and I lit the fire, glad to have some reason to occupy my taut hands, and glad of the extra time to think of how I must tell my story. “You haven’t been sleeping well,” Artos observed.

“No,” I admitted.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Thank you, sir.” I sat, with my hands held carefully still on my knees; and then, without expression or bias, I told the king what you were doing to Lleu. Artos listened with equal reserve, without surprise, as though listening to a story about other people in another place and time.

“The simplest thing to do would be to send her away,” I finished. “There need be no explanation, and there will be no scandal. No one in Camlan need know why she is leaving.”

“Do you have proof of her treachery?” Artos said.

“Not beyond her own dark hints,” I answered. “But someone is doing it, and it is like her. It is like something she once did to me.” I spoke with difficulty, trying to be candid. “I grew to know her very well, the two years I stayed with her. She can be very cruel. I know there is no love between you, and I can’t see that she has any reason to love your children.”

“Has she reason to hate them?” Artos said quietly. “Well, it is true that she toys with people. When did this start?”

“I think it was the night Lleu fell asleep on the porch, and you had to carry him to bed,” I answered. “It was raining.”

Artos leaned forward, his hands clasped together on his desk, his expression still unbiased but his voice unforgiving. “That night you told me, when I asked you directly, that there was nothing wrong with Lleu,” he said. “Were you lying then, or now, and to what end? And if you’ve been suspecting her of tormenting Lleu, why didn’t you come to me at once?”

“I did not lie,” I said. “I did not at first know what was happening, and I did not think he was in danger.” Then I clenched my hands, except the fingers that do not bend, and spoke slowly and reluctantly. “Your sister: I am … I wanted to put an end to this before she invoked your wrath. She trusts me. At least—”

But before I could amend my words my father interrupted, “Then how can I?”

I began again. “I thought I could counter her myself. But Lleu is still being hurt. Knowing what she has done to me, what she might do to Lleu, makes me afraid of her.”

“Medraut,” said Artos quietly, “what has she done to you?”

I said nothing. I looked at my hands and carefully unclenched them, and did not answer.

“Well,” said Artos mildly. “How am I to know what to guard against?”



idth="2em" align="justify">“Before this summer you trusted me on my word alone. I can understand why that might change. But surely when I speak out against her, in defense of your son, you can’t think that she has so great a hold over me?” “I think that is precisely why you ask me to send her away,” Artos answered. “Because she does. I think you’re a deal more afraid of what she may do to you than of what she is doing to Lleu.”