The Winter Prince

Page 15

So it was that within the hour Lleu stood with me and Cado and our workmen in the hidden place under the earth, dark eyes ablaze with torchlight and excitement. He laughed aloud in the sheer pleasure of sharing in this secret beauty; laughed with real joy, though I know he was afraid to be so far from air and light and the open spaces of day. He lingered over each painting, forcing himself to wrench his gaze from one to the next. "This artistry, in such a place!" he exulted. "I couldn’t have dreamed such a thing if I hadn’t seen it."
But beneath our talk and laughter there came the ominous sound of a cataract of falling pebbles. They skittered down the curved wall across the flank of the painted deer, and came to rest at Cado’s feet. Tegfan called from the other side of the passage, "Should we go up until the ground settles?"
I looked with question at Cado, and he nodded. Into our sudden stillness a larger eddy of earth trickled down the rock wall. "Take the prince outside," Cado said calmly.
More slender than any of us, Lleu slid through the narrow passage with barely an effort. I went after him, and called back to the others in a low voice, "Follow at once, as close as you can." I picked up a lantern and put a hand on Lleu’s shoulder to guide him forward; and the ceiling closed in behind us.
Tegfan croaked, "Go," and the three of us ran up the tunnel. We could hear, could always hear at our back the inner groaning of the disturbed hillside. Stones fallen from the ceiling struck at our heels. We were halfway to the outer cavern when the floor itself buckled, and Tegfan fell. I turned to give a hand to him, and shouted at Lleu, "Go on!" But there was no time. "Shield your head!" I cried then, and struck Lleu between the shoulders with such force that he was shoved stumbling perhaps ten steps farther up the tunnel. Off-balance, I too fell sprawling forward; the lantern hit the floor and flickered out. Then I could find neither strength nor courage to pick myself up as the ceiling fell in about my ears, and I did not dare to stir until the rumbling and crashing stopped.
When all I could hear was my own uneven breath, I moved to get up, but a fallen beam held me pinned to the floor by one foot and the opposite wrist. I moved my free arm a scant few inches and found, by chance, the lantern. Lleu’s voice came unsteadily out of the dark: "Medraut?" kraucan
I answered quietly, "Lleu? I still have the lantern: Come light it."
I stretched my arm to him; he found me and clutched at my hand. He was on his knees, crawling, afraid to stand. He whispered, "Your hands are like ice."
"Light the lantern," I returned.
He did, revealing what was left of the shaft. Behind me, where the debris went deeper, Tegfan lay senseless, buried up to his waist. Behind us both, the fallen earth and rock sloped upward to the tunnel’s roof to fill the shaft beyond. There was no sign of Cado or the five others who had been with him.
"You’re not hurt?" I said to Lleu. He shook his head. The lantern quaked in his hand, so he set it on the floor.
I stretched my free arm toward Tegfan, but could not reach him. "See if—," I said to Lleu, then barked out, "No!" as he began to climb the pile of debris to reach Tegfan. "Distribute your weight. Lie down and stretch up the slope." He obeyed numbly, and felt for the pulse in one of Tegfan’s limp wrists. "Don’t use your thumb," I directed.
Lleu said at last, "He’s all right."
"Hold the lantern up there: can you see any sign of the rest?"
"There’s nothing, sir," Lleu whispered.
"Help me." I could not sit up, trapped as I was; propped awkwardly on an elbow, almost flat on my back, I struggled to shift the beam that held me prisoner. But even when Lleu pulled with me we could not move it. "Take the lantern," I said quietly, "and go for help. Don’t run; we may not have much air. If there is another tremor, don’t come back. Did you mark the way out?"
He nodded. "But sir—," he began. "Are you hurt?"
I shook my head. "But Tegfan must be. And the rest of us, Cado—" I bit the words off, scarcely able to speak aloud what I was thinking. "Six men!" I gasped, incredulous. "Six men, and I responsible!"
Lleu bent, impulsively, to drop a quick kiss on my forehead before he took the lantern and started up the tunnel. I watched him go, the light with him growing more distant. When he turned the corner there was only a faint bloom of yellow warmth against the far wall: and after that nothing but blackness, and I alone.
I can hardly bear to tell of this.
I thought I must go mad waiting there for very long. But soon, soon, four men from the upper shafts came down with lanterns and shovels. Tegfan—he was senseless through all our cautious work to free him, and I started to splint his legs as best I could before we carried him out. But the roof began to tremble again. We abandoned the tools, for it took all four men from the upper shafts to carry Tegfan. The tunnel shuddered and rattled as we half ran, half crawled upward, dodging showers of clay and dust. It was agony to put weight on the foot that had been trapped; I dragged myself behind the others, frantic lest I should cause their destruction as well.
The ground and ceiling beyond the cut doorway to the main tunnel were steady, and a little crowd stood waiting for us there. They had not dared to venture beyond the stone lintels and oak beams that supported the entrance, and sent up a sober cheer of thanks as we burst gasping into their midst. I stood just beyond the tremorous shaft, shaking so that I could not hold kuld upthe horn of ale someone offered me. One said, "My lord, can you see to Tegfan’s legs?" Another asked, "Will we be able to search for the others that were with you?"
For answer—it was an answer—came a low rumble and clatter from deep in the tunnel, and the lower shaft collapsed. It sealed itself from the roots outward, as though some starved inner core hungered to consume the entire hillside. I have killed another friend, I thought, buried alive six men; and so imagined the abyss closing around me, and plunged into the devouring darkness.
Light mist on my face, then, and wind. I opened my eyes to a gray sky that seemed blindingly bright. I lay on the flat ground just beyond the quarry, with Caius and Cadarn kneeling by me. "Lleu," I gasped, and sat up too fast. The red stone tilted about me. "Where is Lleu?"
"Home," Caius said. "Unhurt, not so much as a scratch. Gently, lad." He helped me to sit up. "Gods, what a day for you. Can you walk?"
I hesitated to answer. Cadarn said, frowning, "Let me see your foot."
It was already so swollen that I could not get my boot off. "We’re shutting down for the day," Cadarn said. "The king has sent Caius to see you home. You can borrow one of the ponies if you can’t walk."
I could not even take the reins, for my wrist was also badly bruised. When we reached the villa Caius helped me to my room and sent for Aquila; they had to cut away my boot before Aquila could bind my ankle. Lleu brought me supper, and with it the message that Artos wanted to speak to me when I had finished. I could not eat. I said that I would go at once to Artos, and Lleu soberly offered me his shoulder for support. Outside his father’s study he said to me, with apology and pity in his voice, "I am to be present at this interview."
Artos was pacing, waiting for us. "Get Medraut a chair," he said curtly for greeting. Now he stood still, to lean against his desk and face me. "Do you know what angers me most in this miserable day’s work?" he demanded.
I shook my head. I could not look at him. "Tell me."
"That Lleu was there when it happened. That you knew the chance you took with the explosives: you even thought to get Cadarn’s permission before you used them. That you knew the shaft might not hold up, and yet you had Lleu down there with you not so much as an hour after you had broken through the wall. Trust! My God, Medraut, what would you have me think of you? What kind of an idiot would take his sovereign’s heir down a forced mining tunnel before the earth even had a chance to settle?"
"He is not hurt," I whispered.
"And for that you’d do well to offer up a fervent prayer of thanks," Artos snapped. "And meantime pray as well for those men under your command, who also trusted you, Iaen and Gwyn, Cynedyr, Cado—"
"I know their names!"
Artos hit me, hard, in cold fury.
"Father!" Lleu cried out softly.
Artos turned on him. "Not a word from you, my Bright One. You’ve been little wiser than your brother, today." He faced me again, and spoke more gently. "Only I expect more of you, Medraut."
"I spoke without thinking," I said in a low voice. "But Cado k01Cou, Medrawas my friend. Forgive me, sir."
"And forgive me also, Medraut." Artos sighed. He shook his head and leaned against the desk again, folding his arms and regarding me with sorrow and anger. "I have never lost so many lives at once unless it was in a battle."
I shook with pent despair. "An accident—I could not stop it happening—"
"I know." He spoke evenly now, in control of his anger. "But the fact remains that Lleu was with you when it happened." Lleu sighed this time, but held silent. Artos continued, "Your transgression is in a lack of responsibility, Medraut, and as punishment I can only see fit to deny you that responsibility in the future. You are stripped of your foremanship. You may not return to work in the copper mines until Tegfan’s legs are healed. You will remain within the villa for the rest of the week, and for a month after that you will not leave the grounds of the estate unescorted."
I bowed my head. Behind me, I heard Lleu say, "And I?"
Artos answered gently, "I think such an experience has been punishment enough for you."
I looked up sharply at my father, and challenged: "Is Lleu not old enough to choose where he will or will not go? Is he never to be given any responsibility, not even for himself? Can you ensure that he never kills anyone by accident, any more than you can protect him from being struck by lightning?" I stopped for breath, my heart racing. Words came to me out of the dark, out of memory: "Am I my brother’s keeper?"
Artos did not move. He said in deadly quiet: "You will return to your room."
The following week was the blackest period of my life. I could not walk for several days, and I had sufficient leisure to imagine a half dozen ways I might have avoided so great a disaster; I sat at my desk for hours with my face in my hands and could think of nothing else. Artos allowed me to join the sad and bleak little funeral service held at the mines. But most of the week I was confined to my room, alone.
As I began to accept that for all its horror the ordeal was over, and irreversible, I tried to think of other things. I distilled oils for Ginevra, exotic but harmless essences such as cinnamon and vanilla; and I read. I read over again almost all the books I own, and some others I found in my father’s study, abandoning myself especially to those that are not true: Irish legends, Roman poetry, the few Greek plays that I have in Latin translation. One evening in November Artos discovered me over one of these, weeping in still and stricken silence. At first I did not even notice he was there, standing behind me, until he laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. Startled, I could only stare at him in inarticulate shame that he should find me in tears over a fiction.