“You make no sense,” Lleu said.
I was too hot, arms and legs aching with fever. I longed to feel the cold I could see all around. Whenever we stohenense, pped to rest I faced the wind and stood gazing across the still, colorless plains, my back straight and my cloak and scarf loose. When we walked to let the horses rest, or when the ground grew rough and we dismounted to fight our way on foot through the concealed pockmarks in the land, Agravain and Lleu sheltered against the animals’ warm bodies; but I always moved to windward, facing the cold unafraid, desiring it. Once I plunged a hand into a snowdrift and rubbed the melting crystals over my forehead and through my hair. Agravain watched me curiously and then looked away, embarrassed by such eccentricity. But Lleu suddenly reached up to dry my forehead with the end of my scarf, and said quietly, “Don’t do that.”
As the day wore on we left the moor and entered one of the narrow, forested dales, following a trickle of icy water that had somehow cut a cleft into the land. Snow clung to the stark and leafless twigs like blossom out of season. In the gray, dimming light I could not tell whether it was snowing yet again, or if the seldom flakes were only drifting from the branches overhead. Among the bare trees were tracts of pine that were once farmed for timber; here we stopped for the night, under the shelter of an evergreen whose heavy, snow-laden needles dragged the spreading limbs almost to the ground. There was little snow beneath the tree, and the ground was too frozen to be damp. When night fell we built a fire. The tree made a protective tent around us, and we were able to heat wine and toast bread, while the smoke drifted and curled into the dark branches above. When we had finished with eating Lleu huddled close to the fire, scowling at the frigid night with his cloak wrapped tightly about his shoulders and his scarf swathed over his head beneath his hood. “It’s too cold to sleep,” he said.
Agravain responded in scorn and wonder, “You’re still cold?” We were well equipped, both with furs and with blankets of thick, good wool.
“Aren’t you?” Lleu snapped back at him. “I didn’t say I was cold. I said it’s too cold to sleep.”
“Then don’t sleep,” Agravain replied without sympathy.
Lleu started suddenly, as though a chill had passed over him; the shadow of a ghost or an idea. He rose and began to peel off the layers of wool in which he had shrouded himself, until he stood straight and shivering with his hands on his hips and his cloak thrown back over his shoulders. “If I’m lucky, maybe the two of you will freeze to death overnight.”
“Never count on luck.”
Agravain glanced at me and. held silent as I spoke, his eyes glinting in the firelight as he waited for me to deal in some crushing way with Lleu’s insurrection.
“I won’t,” Lleu answered quietly. Then with the speed and sudden agility of all his training as dancer and swordsman, he vaulted toward the carefully stacked weapons and seized his own small bow and a fistful of arrows. We both leaped toward him, and he brandished the arrows at us as though he held a dagger or a flaming torch. By chance he scratched the back of Agravain’s outstretched hand, and as Agravain paused to curse and wince, I stumbled in his path.
Lleu dropped the arrows. In the moment of our hesitation he strung his bow; when I regained my balance he stood with the bow drawn and trained in our direction. The other bows and spears lay at his feet, as did the arrows. He burst out in fury, “Don’t either of you move. By God, Medraut, you taught me to kill, and I will do it, if I must, to save myself.” His face was pallid, but his hands did not tremble. His bow was beHisod,nt to its extent, the bowstring taut as he could stretch it. He stood close enough to either of us that there was scarcely any need for him to take aim; all he must do is loose his arrow. Agravain reached for his hunting knife, and Lleu sent the arrow plowing into the hard earth near his cousin’s foot. He snatched for another and notched it to his bow with a speed and accuracy I never anticipated. “I cannot shoot like Medraut,” he said, voice and hand steady, steady. “If I try to come closer than that I might hit you. Don’t force me to try.” He was in desperate, deadly earnest.
“I want your daggers. Keep them sheathed.” Agravain unfastened his hunting knife and tossed it with angry reluctance at his cousin’s feet. I did not move, sure that I could regain control of the situation in some way. Lleu turned the drawn bow toward me. “Hunter turns quarry,” he said softly. “I do not like this game, Medraut, my brother.”
“You play it very well,” I answered, still without moving.
“I will train this arrow at your throat for the rest of the night if you don’t obey me,” Lleu said through his teeth. “How you scorn me! You count too much on your superior strength. You wield it over my head like an executioner’s sword. That you are stronger than me does not make you better, or more ruthless, or wiser.”
“Show me your superior wit,” I said with disdain.
“I am,” he protested, laughing. “Why did you not bind me, or guard your weapons? Did you imagine I would deliver myself with docile acceptance into the cruel and terrifying hands of the queen of the Orcades? Give me your dagger. And mine, you have them both.”
“I will not,” I said patiently. “Will you really stand there all night?”
He suddenly turned on Agravain and launched another arrow at his cousin, and drew his bow again. Agravain stared at Lleu with wide, angry eyes. “I care less for this fawning minion than I do for you, Medraut. Don’t make me hurt him. Give me the daggers.”