The Winter Prince (The Lion Hunters:01)(9)

Lleu and Goewin also went out on their own, exploring field and forest and the red sandstone contours of the Edge over Elder Field. Goewin has always been a skilled rider and was trying to teach Lleu stunts and jumps; but Lleu did not even share her strength then, let alone her ability. I often came upon them practicing and would watch them racing madly through the unplowed fields, and sometimes I joined them uninvited. I never spoke a single word of disapproval. But I did not like to see Lleu vaulting walls and streams. They both sensed this and were vaguely resentful when I was with them, subdued and ill at ease. I swore to be damned before I let Lleu resent me: no one commanded my compassion. I was neither nurse nor guardian, and he could ride where and how he liked. So when the two began to slip out after dark to ride by moonlight, I told no one and did not try to stop them. When Lleu disastrously ended these escapades by breaking his arm I did not blame myself.

But they came to me for help that night, after all, rather than anyone else. I answered the tentative tapping on my door to find Goewin, for once as pale as her brother, supporting a fainting and battered Lleu. No questions, then; without thinking I caught Lleu in my arms and carried him to my bed as though he were a child of five, not fifteen. As I cut away the shredded remnants of his jacket and shirt I could not help but murmur, “Good God, Princess; what have you done to him? After I spent most of the winter trying to keep him alive, you half kill him in one night.”

Goewin stood in the doorway and watched miserably. “We went riding,” she said. “I said we should gallop, and I got ahead of him—we had to leap a stream, and he was going too fast to stop. It was dark; he missed the jump and was thrown. I—I couldn’t stop it happening—” Her voice shook. It had been her fault, and she knew it. She knew the limits of Lleu’s skill better than anyone.

“Don’t cry, little Princess,” I said. “He’s not dying.”

That made her angry. “Little Princess” stung her. She stood in the doorway a moment gazing at me wrathfully, then choked out, “I’ll get you some water.” She left the room in a quiet storm, black hair tossing, her hands shut in tight fists.

I lit a lantern. The left sleeve of Lleu’s jacket had been almost sheared off, and I guessed he must have been hurled sideways, landing on the arm and then sliding. One bone was broken cleanly and decisively, beneath skin that was brush-burned raw from shoulder to elbow. “Where else did you hit?” I asked.

Lleu spoke through his teeth. “All that side—I don’t know.”

“Your head?”

“No.” He lay taut and still, with his eyes closed and his fists clenched. Except for the arm I could see no severe hurt on him, only bruises and scrapes. Goewin came back and without a word set a jug of water by me on the floor, and turned to stir the coals in the brazier until she had coaxed a small fire into flame. After that she perched on the edge of the cot next to Lleu’s head, out of my way. She watched as I examined Lleu’s slender body, more mindful than Lleu himself of my long fingers testing the dark bruises. It wo Shuises. uld have been so easy to hurt him. But I could not forget my own helpless apprehension the summer before, as I lay under your hands, defenseless as Lleu and more desperately wounded.

“Nothing is broken but the arm,” I said at length. “Will you help me, Goewin?”

She did help me. She obeyed me, followed my directions and worked with me, but she would not look at my face or speak to me until I reached to the floor for the water jug, and the loose robe I wore slipped down my back. Then with smooth fingers Goewin traced the long, ragged scars across my shoulder blade, pale claw marks; there was such gentleness and pity in her touch. “What made these?” she whispered.

My body is seamed with scars. How is it she saw only those? I murmured, “What made any of them?” and jerked the sleeve back up across my shoulder, wishing that she had neither touched me nor spoken. I bent to clean the abrasions across Lleu’s arm and knew without looking at her that Goewin still stared at me.

“What,” she said in an unsteady voice, “have you been doing these past six years that you have gained so many hurts and so much wisdom?”

Lleu lay listening, waiting tense beneath my hand for me to hurt and heal him. Anything I said could frighten him. “I cannot tell you now,” I answered Goewin without hesitation. My stiff fingers were steady against Lleu’s broken arm, and I was suddenly grateful for his trust and fear.

Together Goewin and I splinted and bandaged Lleu’s arm, and washed and anointed the scrapes. There was little more we could do for him. “Have you put away your horses?” I asked. Goewin nodded. “Go to bed, then,” I said. “Lleu can stay here tonight.”