The Penwyth Curse (5 page)

A little boy said, “Father, is he the pope?”

“He is a sinner,” Merryn said. “Ah, but just look at how I'm quaking from the threat of his invisible sword.”

The sneer on her face was full-bodied, inviting a clout, but he contented himself with the high ground. “You will see. Now, are you and Lord Vellan agreed? No more deaths at Penwyth?”

“We have not the magic to prevent death, Sir Bishop,” she said, the sneer still well in place. “Think you that we are witches here?”

A witch,
he thought.
Aye, she could easily pass for a witch, what with that mouth of hers.
He said, “I will speak even more plainly. There will be no more strange deaths at Penwyth, be they a husband of two hours or a tradesman who has cheated you.”

“Must we include a man who calls himself a bishop and expects us to treat him with unwarranted respect?”

He drew a deep breath and said, “If you kill me, you will have the king on your necks, doubt me not.” He paused a moment. He was content that Lord Vellan and the little witch understood him. At least Dienwald was right about her hair. Red as a sunset. Actually, red as sin, a wicked red, just as the curse said. He couldn't tell the color of her eyes just yet.

He said, “I am thirsty, as are my men. We have ridden from St. Erth.”

“That is but twenty-five miles away,” she said. “If you barely had the endurance to cross that paltry distance, then as a wizard why did you not simply wave your hand above your head and present yourself to us in a puff of smoke?”

He ignored her. It was that or leap off his horse and strangle her on the spot. It was a pleasing idea. Bishop sighed. “Will you allow us to enter the great hall, Lord Vellan? I have the king's writ for you so you can see that I am only stating his wishes and his commands.”

“Oh, aye, come in, come in,” Lord Vellan said. “Merryn, speak to the servants, have food and drink brought for the false churchman here and his men.”

“I am not a false churchman,” Bishop said. “Bishop is my name, given to me by my father. One should not mock a man's father or the name the father heaped upon his son's head. He had hoped that I would seek out the Church ranks, but that was not to be. Now I have a ‘Sir' in front of my name so that no one need be confused.” He paused a moment, looked directly at Merryn, and said, “Unless one happens to be a blockhead.”

“Sir Bishop,” Merryn said, seemingly savoring each sound as she looked him up and down. “That sounds ridiculous.”

“No wonder you are a widow four times over, madam. Your viper's tongue would make any man eager to totter to his grave.”

“Not you, apparently, sir,” she said.

He gave her a fat smile. “Ah, but I am not here to wed with you, my lady.” He crossed himself, and heard her hiss.

He was still grinning when she turned on her heel and walked up the remaining stairs, through the wide-open wooden door and into the great hall. Ah, now that he was paying attention, he realized that he admired the worn depth of those stone steps, each of them just wide enough for a single man, each too narrow to fight well, so the man above always had the advantage. Aye, it was a splendid dozen stone steps. He wondered how many men had trod them over the past hundred years?

He prayed he would be setting his own feet on those stairs many times before he became dust and bone. From the low, nervous voices behind him, he didn't think his men believed he would grow as old as Lord Vellan.

5

P
ENWYTH
'
S GREAT HALL
was a huge rectangle with a high, beamed ceiling, going up a good forty feet, smoke-blackened from years of roaring fires in the immense fireplace that stood in the center of the east wall. It was a strange thing, but Bishop immediately felt as if he'd come home.

Home?

It was true. It felt comforting. He felt as though it was his great hall already. He breathed in the lingering smell of old smoke, the smell of the wolfhounds, six of them, all at attention in a straight line behind Lord Vellan. He also smelled the air, stale and dry. It made his mouth dry, parched his throat. Lord Vellan was right. The drought was devastating Penwyth.

“We are fortunate,” Lord Vellan was saying to him as he eased himself down onto his magnificent chair, its arms beautifully carved with two lions' heads, their mouths open on silent roars, “that we have a very deep well. There is no shortage of water for all our people and animals. The land, however—if it doesn't soon rain, our crops will die and I shall fear for all our lives.”

“How long has there been a drought?”

“Off and on since the first man came to wed Merryn and fell over dead, his face in his trencher. Maybe it began before. I'm not certain.”

“Mayhap if you rid us of the curse it will rain again,” Merryn said, and brightened. “It would at least be one good thing to come out of it.”

Not the only good thing,
he thought, and decided he would fit quite nicely in Lord Vellan's grand chair.

Lord Vellan said, “Come, you and your men may sit at the trestle table. Bring it close so I do not have to yell at you.”

The men's boots crunched through crackling rushes. Bishop helped his men pull the table closer to Lord Vellan. He remained standing, waving his men to sit on the long wooden benches.

Suddenly, it came clear and sure in his mind, just as it had always come to him since he was a small boy. He breathed in deeply, through his nose and his mouth, just to make sure. Bishop smiled. “I have good news for you, my lord.”

Merryn said, “What is your good news? You will depart after you have survived drinking our wine?”

“No, it is far better news than my leaving.”

She said, “I can't imagine what could be better than that.”

Bishop was still smiling. “In that case I will leave you to wonder, though it will tax your few wits.”

He saw that she couldn't think of anything worthy to say back to him. He could see every feeling on her face. He imagined she was a bad liar. That face of hers, it was an uncommonly interesting face, not really beautiful but fine-boned, vivid, strong, the mouth full. And her eyes, incredible eyes, were just as the curse had said—as green as desire. He felt a bolt of lust looking at her eyes. Not a bad thing, since he was going to wed her, but it was a surprise. To be suddenly as hard as the stones in the mammoth fireplace, it wasn't a common occurrence.

But it was true. He'd gotten hard just looking at her
eyes. He realized he'd like to see that red hair of hers brushed out of the tight braids to hang loose and free about her face and shoulders. Wicked as sin? He'd surely find out. He smiled even bigger. If he didn't die, why, then, things were looking up.

“Ha!” said Merryn, and knew it wasn't worth anything. No way around it, he'd bested her. She said on a sigh, “All right, Sir Bishop, I am listening. What is better than another dead husband?”

Bishop merely shook his head. “Perhaps when you have learned some manners, perhaps when you can bring yourself to entreat me in a sweet, submissive voice, I will tell you.”

“We will all grow old if we wait for a show of submissiveness from my granddaughter,” Lord Vellan said.

“You are already old, Grandfather.”

“I am beyond old, Merryn. Now, I entreat you, Sir Bishop. What is your good news?”

Bishop stared at Merryn.

“Very well, what is this ridiculous news?”

“It is going to rain.”

Lord Vellan was shaking his head, back and forth. “Rain? You make that prediction? No man can predict such a thing.”

“You will see,” Bishop said.

Merryn said something under her breath that he couldn't make out, then she said aloud, “Sit down, Sir Bishop.” Once he was seated, she rose to pour some wine for him into a lovely heavy pewter goblet. “You actually claim to predict that it will rain? Do you have a closer knowledge of the Witches of Byrne or the Druid priests, Sir Bishop? Are you in truth a wizard? It was not just a lame jest?”

“I have told you that is said of me.”
The virtues of lying cleanly and fluently,
Bishop thought, remembering the lessons of his two elder brothers, two of the best liars in England. “As for the rain, the fact is that I can smell the rain coming in the air, I have always smelled it, even as
a child.” Bishop tapped the side of his nose. “And it has never left me. It will probably rain tomorrow, or the next day at the latest.”

She snorted.

“How do you do it, Sir Bishop?” asked Lord Vellan. “From whence did this gift come?”

Bishop said, “Perhaps from my grandmother. When I was a small boy, I heard my mother speak about my grandmother being able to do inexplicable things.” He shrugged. “I suppose you're right, that it is a gift of sorts, this foreknowledge of the rain.” He saw the naked hope on Lord Vellan's face, the stark disbelief on Merryn's face. Of course they didn't believe him. Why would they? He'd just walked into their lives, claimed he was a wizard, and now he was predicting rain for this rain-starved land. At least he wasn't lying about that. Predicting the rain—he'd first done it when he was but three years old.

Bishop listened to the servants and soldiers speaking behind him, and he raised his goblet. He eyed Lord Vellan as the girl poured him wine from the same carafe. Still, he was afraid to taste the wine, hated that he was afraid, but knew it was that simple, and that the damned witch saw the fear on his face.

She laughed, grabbed his goblet, and took a healthy swig. She wiped her mouth with her hand and set the goblet back down in front of him. “Since you have not forced your way in here and forced me to wed you, you are quite safe from the ancient curse.” She paused a moment, then frowned, a studied frown meant to enrage him. “At least for the moment. Who knows with ancient curses? Maybe confusion arises after centuries of moldering.” And the witch actually laughed.

Lord Vellan raised his own goblet. “If it rains, I will be in your debt, Sir Bishop. All of Penwyth will be in your debt.” He gave a quick look toward his granddaughter. Was that a threat toward that red-haired witch in his old eyes?

Bishop was pleased, thinking it only right that all his
future people be in debt to him. It was a very good feeling. He called out, “Bless God and all his armies of angels,” and wondered where that salutation had come from as he tipped back the goblet and drank deep. He was expecting something vile, but the wine was excellent. He even licked a drop off the rim of the goblet. If it was poisoned, he certainly couldn't tell. In any case, it was now too late for both of them, since his future wife had been his taster. He drank the rest of the wine, looking her right in the face as he drank it down. He had no choice, for she was staring back at him—a sneer and a dare in her eyes.

He heard his men speaking quietly behind him, knew they were watching him drink, believing him a fool. He couldn't blame them. He'd gone into battle with more confidence than he'd drunk a single goblet of wine, served him by a witch who was watching him with a heavy sneer, a witch who should have had tangled black hair and a black tooth or two, but instead had neat braids wound around her head in a sort of plaited crown. That hair—it was as red as a drunkard's nose, mayhap as red as an Irish sunset, mayhap a wicked red. As for her teeth, they were straight and very white. Very well, he supposed that she could have something pleasant about her, he just wasn't aware of it yet.

He allowed her to pour more wine into his goblet, knowing that she was enjoying every moment of it. Then he raised the goblet toward his men, toasting them, “Drink up, lads. It is a tasty grape.”

“They don't have wine, Sir Bishop. They have ale, made here in our own alehouse. Nay, sirs,” she said to his men now, who looked ill at ease, all of them sitting on the edge of the wooden benches, ready to bolt—all except Dumas, who looked ready to strangle her if need be. She said to him, “The ale is the best in all of Cornwall. It is my mother's recipe.”

Dumas cleared his throat. “My lady, if you would be
so kind, we would all prefer sweet water from your castle well.”

She laughed, the witch actually laughed at his stout, brave men, after she had nearly scared them out of their tunics. What gall.

“What is your name, sir?”

“I am Dumas, my lady.”

“Have you long known the churchman here?”

“Aye, my lady, since he was an unripe lad of seventeen summers.”

Merryn looked back at Bishop. “I see he has outgrown his unripeness.” Actually, since she wasn't blind, there was absolutely nothing at all unripe about him. He was well made, looked to be as strong as Prince, her grandfather's most vicious wolfhound, his muscles stark and hard. His hair was thick, richly black, his eyes dark, dark blue, and that damned face of his was finely hewn, his cheekbones all sharp, and his mouth—no, she wouldn't look at his mouth because his mouth made her feel some very strange sorts of things. He was magnificent, truth be told, and he probably knew it. He'd probably had maids swooning all over him since he'd reached an age to have that mouth kissing and those muscles flexing. Even his teeth were straight and white. Surely there had to be something ugly about him, but she didn't see anything. She would have to look more closely.

Merryn forced herself to look away from him. She sipped at her wine, waiting for her grandfather to read the king's writ.

Lord Vellan didn't say anything. Evidently, she thought as she turned toward him, he wasn't through studying this man who claimed it would rain, this man who claimed he was a man of science, a man who understood things that mortals couldn't begin to comprehend.

A man who was a wizard.

A wizard
.

Surely there was no such thing anymore than there were
still witches roaming the caves hereabouts. The Witches of Byrne were so few now that no one ever saw them.

Lord Vellan sliced off a hunk of cheese from a huge wheel that one of the servants held in front of him on a big wooden platter, then slipped his knife back into the sheath at his belt. He frowned as he chewed, and Bishop wondered why he ate it if he disliked it. He cleared his throat, and at last he said, “Sir Bishop, give me the writ.”

Bishop pulled the rolled parchment from his tunic and handed it to the old man. His veined, gnarly hands trembled a bit as he unrolled it, but unlike his hands, Lord Vellan's hair was thick and healthy, albeit gray as a thick morning fog. Bishop couldn't get over how the tip of that long, long beard of his, tucked beneath his belt. How old was he? Surely he was somewhat older than the dirt in the inner bailey.

Bishop said suddenly, “I was only a boy at the time, but I met your son, Sir Thomas de Gay. He was a fine man. I was very sorry to hear that he had died in the king's Windsor tourney four years ago.”

Merryn went utterly still. She didn't say a word, just waited. He'd met her father? She felt a jerk of pain. She could no longer picture her father's face.

Lord Vellan said, “My son should have remained at home. But men revel in violence, they seek it out to test themselves, only there was no need for him to do so. He was not as lucky as his father. He should have stayed at home, but he didn't and was done in.” He handed Merryn the fine parchment.

Bishop's mouth dropped open. “Why do you give it to her? She is a girl. She has no idea what mean those marks on the paper. She hasn't—”

He shut up when wine splashed against his face. He couldn't believe it. He was a visitor, a guest—
a wizard
—and the lady of the keep had thrown her wine at him. And all he'd said—

She was frightened, embarrassed, and scared. He saw all of it clearly on her face. He could read her more easily
than he'd ever read a parchment. She said, “I acted without proper thought. I accept it as a fault. If you are really a wizard, then will you strike me down?”