The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(4)

He did not even know his mother. She tried to comfort him while I felt his forehead, gauging his fever; but when my hands moved to his throat, testing the swollen glands there, he fought me, wildly trying to tear my hands away. “You want to strangle me,” he managed to whisper, coughing and struggling. I stared at Ginevra, perplexed.

“Go gently, Medraut,” she cautioned wearily. “He is afraid of everything.”

I bent down and said firmly, close to his ear, “Little idiot. I’m trying to help you.” I brushed his own hands aside, trivial, and lifted him till he sat upright coughing and sobbing against my shoulder. With one hand I rubbed his back firmly and with the other stroked his damp hair; and gradually the coughing subsided, and he could breathe a little. He slumped against my side, whimpering and exhausted. “Keep him sitting,” I murmured to Ginevra. “I can make him a drink to ease his cough. Where can I find water?”

“In the next room,” she told me. “You may use anything—there’re herbs and honey, as well.”

I found all I needed; the room was a dressing chamber converted into a little clinic, and Aquila seemed to be keeping almost all his medicines and equipment there. The suddenness of what was happening worked on me like a drug. I could move and think with precision, knowing with accuracy what I could do for Lleu. I forgot the winter journey, the misery of the last months with you, my own uncertain welcome in my father’s house. I had the sure certainty of my knowledge, and the healing in my hands. I went back to Lleu with the drink I had mixed, and held him while Ginevra coaxed him to swallow. Still he fought, this time refusing to drink when he noticed the sharp and bitter taste beneath the honey, strangely alert for all his delirium.

“Don’t send me to sleep,” he begged desperately, quiet and fervent. “I want to breathe, not to sleep.”

“This will ease your cough, little one,” I answered. “It won’t make you sleep.”

“Who are you?” Lleu asked abruptly. “Stay here.” He choked again, and clung to me.

“I’ll call for someone to watch him,” Ginevra said.

“I’ll stay. I don’t mind.”

So she left us. I eased Lleu back down onto the pillows and sat on the floor next to the cot to wait for morning.

Sometimes Lleu slept; sometimes I helped him to drink, or held him upright until he stopped coughing, or drew the covers up again when he threw them off. A servant brought me a blanket, and late in the night, when Lleu’s breathing grew less ragged, I could doze a little. But most of the night I sat and watched, until the gray dawn light came stealing from behind the cloth-covered windows, and I could hear that others in the household were rising. Then I could not bear to seneot beartay awake any longer and fell asleep just as I sat: on the floor next the bed, leaning on the mattress with my face buried in one arm and the other flung across Lleu’s waist so that I should know if he stirred.

Not long afterward someone woke me and helped me to rise, and I found myself being led through the corridors in the direction of my own chamber. I felt dazed and stupid; it was a long time since I had let myself grow so exhausted. The girl who accompanied me explained that my room had been set in order for me while I had been with Lleu, and that I must feel free to come and go as I pleased within the villa. She was dark-haired, tall and long-limbed, with a somewhat hard face whose severity was tempered by humor. She seemed familiar, and at my door I asked her name. She stared at me, then laughed. I knew her then, and smiled with her, too tired to laugh. She looks more like Artos than either Lleu or I. “Princess Goewin. You must think me very foolish.”

“No, no,” she said. “You’re half-asleep, and I have changed since I was eight. I recognized your pale hair.” She opened the door to show me in and said conversationally, “You saved Lleu’s life, didn’t you? I insisted they open your window, so it’s my fault if it’s too cold in here. I remember you almost always had the window open, and it needed airing badly.” There were wooden shutters instead of glass in my window, and I used to keep them open for light, not minding the cold. It touched me that Goewin had remembered. I went to the window and leaned out: the Pennines glistened clean and bare in the distance, and closer by were black trees and stone walls limned with white. “You’re not wanting to go out in it again?” Goewin asked at my shoulder, narrowing her eyes against the bright light.

This time I did laugh. “No. I’m going to sleep. If Lleu gets worse, call me.”