The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(46)

I could make no answer.

“The sun for my ransom,” you repeated, low. “And for yours. After New Year’s, in Ratae Coritanorum. Bring me the sun, and Artos will follow to do my bidding. Agravain knows, he is also pledged to me. He will go with you.”

“I prefer to hunt alone,” I said.

“I don’t trust you alone.”

I shrugged indifferently. “Nobody trusts me.”

“My darling!” You spoke without tenderness, your voice smooth and black as tarnished silver. You twisted your arms around my neck and gripped my hair in your fists so that I could not move my head. “You have not agreed. Give me an answer.”

“Have I a choice? You are using me,” I cried out softly.

“I am helping you!” But your voice was cruel and cold.

“I do not want your help,” I whispered in fury. “I am the one you hurt when you are angry, whatever you might threaten otherwise. It is I that you have crippled.”

“Oh, you are not so damaged as that.”

I said in anger, “What of the damage to my soul?”

“Your soul is your own responsibility,” you answered without patience.

“How can you make light of what you have done to me? You have left all my body scarred in little ways, my back, my throat, my hands. There is a scar inside my mouth where once you stabbed a hairpin through my cheek. I am like a ruined piece of parchment scrawled over and over again with your name, so many times it has become illegible. Even in sleep I am not free of you!” I spoke on edge between a whisper and a scream, standing taut and motionless while your fists tightened in my hair.

“You have not scarred me,” you answered through shut teeth. “But do you think I do not dream of you?”

Then kissed me.

For a moment, half a moment, I was lost. There was only sheer pleasure, and desire, and a kind of relief. But half a moment. Then I tore myself away, leaving you clutching fistsful of my hair, and fell over a footstool which went to splinters beneath my weight. I sat graceless and trembling among the shards of ivory as you stooped hawklike over me, and then I heard Lleu’s clear voice speak my name.

“Medraut.”

The guardswoman had started up when I fell. Now she came quickly to my aid, exclaiming in consternation; I was hardly aware of her. All my attention was on Lleu, standing in the doorway. He was on his way to his own bedroom and had not been here long, but he must have seen enough to turn his stomach. The brilliant contempt in his eyes was directed only at me. “You disgust me,” he said quietly.

I gasped a little, unable to speak, still trembling. I do not know what you looked at or saw, or what the other woman did. I saw only Lleu, and heard only Lleu as he repeated coldly, “You disgust me.”

So he pronounced judgment. The Bright One, the sun lord.

It all took me at once: my father’s distrust, the shame and horror of the copper mines, Lleu’s denouncement of me before your other children. His clear young voice demanding obedience even as he stood poisoned and hoping for my mercy. The wooden sword held at my throat.

I spat at his feet. He stared at me with wide eyes, unbelieving, then turned away and left us without another word.

What I did now was of my own choosing, not out of any loyalty that I must break or affirm. I said bitterly, “Godmother, I will hunt for you.”

The weather turned the next day, and barely a day after that Artos sent you back to Ratae Coritanorum with Gwalchmei as your escor {as ifyt. As Christmas approached Goewin said to me, “Please, Medraut, can’t you forgive Lleu? He’s only thoughtless, not evil. The two of you haven’t spoken since Midwinter’s.”

“Agravain and I are going hunting the week after Christmas,” I answered. “I will take Lleu if he will come.”

“Well, you know how he likes to hunt,” she said with a crooked smile. “I’ll try to convince him to go with you.”

“Goewin, why don’t you come as well?” I said. “Then he can’t refuse.”

“Would you have me?” she asked, surprised and pleased. “I’d like to go. Thank you, Medraut.”

We left Camlan two days past Christmas, four days behind you. But I told Agravain we should allow you time to travel, so we set out north instead of south. Artos had given his permission and blessing for us to go; Lleu had never been on a long winter journey, and it would be for him another test, another lesson. Another step toward kingship.