The Penwyth Curse

  “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

  PENWYTH’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 e
ven 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?”

  He slowly wiped the wine off his face with his sleeve. He looked at her as if she were naught of anything, and he was pleased when she stiffened up and said, “I read better than you do,” but in truth, she really couldn’t. She still had to sound out many words when she saw them, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. She backed away from him and studied the parchment. Thanks be to all the precious martyrs’ shinbones, she could make out most of it. She raised her head and smiled sweetly at him. It was a nice smile, he thought, albeit as false as a minstrel’s tales. “Forgive me for throwing my wine at you, Sir Bishop. It was rude and I most sincerely and humbly apologize for it. I thank you for not striking me down.”

  “Your apology is about as sincere as your desire for another husband, my lady. You make it just because you’re afraid that I will indeed strike you down. I am tempted, so you will mind your tongue and swallow your rudeness.”

  “Of course I don’t want you to strike me down. I am not stupid, nor am I rude. For the most part.”

  Bishop heard his men, to the man, sigh with relief. He knew they were praying that he wouldn’t take offense, that he wouldn’t rise up and throw the female into the rushes, and then fall over dead from the curse. After all, they might be included.

  He smiled at her, not at all a nice smile. “Do tell me what you think of the writ, my lady. Do you agree with the king’s bidding?”

  “It is my grandfather’s opinion that is important here,” she said, and he hated it that she’d so easily slipped out of the mild humiliation he’d planned for her. A woman reading, it was ridiculous. Why, he had only learned to read because Lord Lisenthorpe had a brother who was a monk and revered such things. He hadn’t liked learning it, but now he appreciated actually being able to read a bill of sale or a contract, or a keep’s records. It was true that a man who couldn’t read could be easily cheated.

  “Aye,” he said, unwilling to give it up just yet, “but it appears that Lord Vellan gives you great latitude. He must think your brain holds less air than most ladies? The king said that your grandfather has petitioned many times for you to be made his heir, Baroness Penwyth. Mayhap if you’d told the king you could read, he might have granted it.” Then he gave her an evil smile. “Although I doubt it. A woman who can read is something akin to a duck who can sing.”

  He thought she would burst with rage, and he felt the sweet warmth of it all the way to his belly. He also thought it a good thing that she didn’t have any wine close at hand.

  But she didn’t burst. She stood there as still as a warrior’s pennant on a windless day. She showed control, and that was important, particularly since he would be her hu
sband. After a moment, she said, “It is something the king should do. He should trust my grandfather’s judgment.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” Bishop said, unable to help himself. “The king would sooner give a sheep into the tender keeping of a wolf than allow a holding of strategic importance deeded into a woman’s hands. It is nonsense.” He realized, of course, that he was gravely insulting Lord Vellan along with his witch of a granddaughter, and he hastened to add, “I doubt not your good intentions, my lord, but Penwyth must be held by a strong man, a warrior with experience.”

  “You are not old enough to have much experience.”

  “I have more experience than my years could expect. Now, I remarked that many of your men-at-arms—at the least the five who are standing against the wall over there—are nearing advanced years. And that is why, is it not, that you had to give over your castle to the four marauders?”

  Surprisingly, Lord Vellan laughed. “You will meet my men soon, Sir Bishop. Right now they are guarding me and Merryn, all their attention focused on you. They aren’t nearing advanced years, they have long since gained their advanced years. They cannot fight like the wily young rats they used to be, but they can still think and give me good counsel. They are still healthy, and fit enough.”

  One of the old men coughed into his hand. Without a word, a servant took him a goblet of ale.

  “And what did your men think when at four different times in the past four years, landless knights have come to lay claim to Penwyth?”

  Lord Vellan said, “They thought it absurd to fight. They thought it efficient to let the curse deal all the blows for them. And so it happened as we all prayed it would. All of them, dead by the curse, and all of us still here.”

  Bishop said slowly, “So you allowed all the invaders into the keep? You offered no resistance at all?”

  “No, I did not. I opened the gates, welcomed them, warned them. None of them went to his death without due warning. I read each of them the curse to be certain they understood. I entreated them to leave and take their men with them. When they refused, I provided them fine hospitality. I wanted none of our people hurt as many are in the rage of battle. I wanted no siege.” Lord Vellan shrugged. “It is unfortunate, but none of them believed me.”