The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(56)

Lleu glanced up in undisguised horror. “What does she want of me?” He ground his hands into his eyes and leaned back against the old stone, pale and miserable. “Ah, God, you are both damned.”

“And you with us,” Agravain murmured bitterly.

“No, my soul is my own responsibility,” Lleu replied, equally acid, glaring at me. “I have not sold it yet.”

I heard in his clear voice an echo of your impatience, an echo of your disdain. Lleu gazed at me and Agravain, where the two of us crouched stiff and shivering in the shadow of the dark rock. “You hope to catch me unaware. I swear you will not do it.”

In abrupt, unchecked anger, Agravain dealt his cousin so fierce a blow that Lleu fell sprawling in the snow, stunned. He pressed one hand to his face even as with the other he drew his hunting knife, an easier and less exacting defense than his bow. I uttered in a terrible voice, “Agravain!”

I was so suddenly despising of his blind and adoring obedience to you, and so jealous of my brother’s strength of spirit, that I ignored Lleu’s disadvantage. What reason had Agravain to hate Lleu, other than that you desired he should?

“Any hurt you deal the prince,” I said in quiet fury, “I will deal to you.” I struck Agravain carelessly across the face. He stared at me in astonished resentment. “Do you understand that?” I asked in the same voice.

“Yes, sir,” he muttered.

“Perfect,” I said. “Don’t hit him again.”

Lleu moved back to his place by the lantern, certain of the knife he held, and sure of nothing else. “What game do you play now? Whose side are you on?” he demanded angrily of me.

“You must think that I answer to the queen of the Orcades as a dog answers to its master,” I said bitterly. “But I will not see you harmed without reason.”

“You have threatened to kill me!” Lleu protested.

“There is reason for that,” I answered.

In the morning we came to the straight, paved Roman road that runs directly to Ratae Coritanorum. It was barely recognizable beneath the snow; around us the moorland was desolate as ever. Lleu gave a little sigh, trying to conceal his relief. But Agravain guided the horses to turn south along the road. Lleu shook his head. “What are you doing?”

“I am leaving you,” Agravain explained with elaborate precision. “My mother is waiting for me, and I am taking the horses and continuing south. On foot it will take you two days to reach Camlan.”

“All right,” said Lleu. “I will seek shelter and rest in Aquae Arnemetiae; it cannot be more than seven or eight miles north of here.” He turned as though to walk away, but I laid one hand lightly on his shoulder and said, “I will join you.”

“Sir?” Agravain questioned stonily. “You will not come with me?”

“What for?” I sneered. “It is no triumph to return from the hunt without having made a kill. I have no desire to journey to Ratae Coritanorum without the required trophy.”

“What am I to tell the queen?” Agravain cried harshly. “Why would you come so far in such a venture and then turn back?”

“But I am not turning back,” I answered, “merely aside, to follow my own will.”

“Wait,” Lleu interrupted. “What do you mean? You can’t be following your own will if you take the road with me.”

“I can. I can ransom you myself.”

He glanced at my hand lightly resting on his shoulder, his expression agonized. “You would kill me yourself, if my father refused your demands?”

“I would,” I said quietly.

“I am still free.”

I took his face between my hands. He did not try to turn away, but regarded me through dark, desolate eyes ringed with smudges of blue shadow. “Yes. You are still free,” I repeated in quiet.

“Come with me, then, I don’t care,” he said with reckless, passionate courage. “I would rather die by your hand, I would rather have my death prey at your heart forever, than be instantly forgotten by your heartless mother.”

“You must understand how defenseless you have left yourself,” I whispered. It was chilling to hear him speak so bluntly of his own death, he who was afraid of the dark.

“I understand,” Lleu said with bleak clarity. “We are alone, and it is dead of winter; and only by my own faltering strength can I keep from falling prisoner to you. When finally I fail I will be yours, hated and envied, for you to use as you will. So I wait on your fury.”