The Penwyth Curse (34 page)

He was trying to push her off him again, but he was too weak to manage it. She knew, despite the grinding pain, that she wouldn't let him push her off this time.

Then, amazingly, the pain began to lessen. No, she was dreaming that it was so. It didn't matter, the pain was receding, slowly, it was leaving her. She sighed softly, kissed his mouth, laid her cheek against his.

They lay together as if dead.

“Make room,” Lord Vellan said. “Get away from them. Move back, all of you.”

Lady Madelyn stood over them, wringing her old hands. “What is she doing? What is happening?”

“I don't know,” Vellan said. “But I do know that we must keep away from them.”

Crispin and Dolan were on the other side, staring down at the two young people who looked older than the ancient oak forest that the Witches of Byrne claimed to have stood thick and deep so very close to Penwyth.

No one moved.

It was the strangest feeling, Bishop thought. He felt so tired he wanted to sink into the earth and just lie quietly, the sun shining down on his face. No, he felt beyond tired, felt as if his body could float, there was just so little of him now. But the really strange thing was that there wasn't any more pain. Merryn had taken his pain; she'd taken his wound.

No, that wasn't possible. But it had happened before.

“Merryn?”

Slowly, so slowly he thought he would die of the fear of it, he felt her eyelashes flutter against his flesh.

“Merryn?”

She raised herself above him at that whisper of her name, shook her head, blinked. “What happened?”

He said slowly, eyes still closed, his lips barely moving, “I was stabbed. You came over me. Why did you do that?”

She managed a smile. She was exhausted, felt as though a hundred fists had struck her. “I don't know,” she said, and kissed his chin. “I just knew it was the thing to do.” She stared down at him a moment, not seeing the ancient old man, but Bishop, the man she loved, the man who wasn't going to die, ever. “I just knew that my heart had to be against your heart, my body against your body. The pain, it was awful, Bishop. But we survived, somehow we survived.”

Lord Vellan's hands were on her, raising her, but she grabbed Bishop's shoulders and wouldn't let go.

She looked up over her shoulder at her grandfather. “We are all right. Give us some more time, just another moment. I swear to you that we are all right.”

“But that isn't possible, my sweet girl, it just isn't. I'm very sorry, but Bishop was stabbed in the chest. He's dead now. He has to be.”

“No, he isn't dead, Grandfather. Indeed, he just spoke to me. I promise you it's the truth.”

“If he isn't dead now, he will be in but another instant of time. Come, Merryn, you must leave him. You must let us attend to him.”

She looked at her grandfather's old hand, held out to her. Slowly, she shook her head. She leaned down and kissed Bishop's mouth. Then she threw back her head and said, “Bishop, it is time for you to rise up and tell everyone that you will wed me this day.”

No one moved. Everyone heard the old woman, who wasn't old at all, speak to Bishop of Lythe, who was dead, perforce had to be dead, or soon would be.

Bishop opened his eyes. He even smiled at her. “Aye, I will do that.”

Merryn took her grandfather's hand and let him lift her up. There was a huge circle of blood on the front of her gown. She stared numbly down at it. She heard people all around her, speaking now, saying, “It is the Lady Merryn!”

“. . . Why isn't he dead? He should be dead.”

“. . . Why did she throw herself on top of him?”

On and on it went. He rose to his feet, shook himself like a dog after a storm.

Like her, his chest was covered with blood. But it was drying now, that blood, looking blacker than a thief's heart, stiffening the tunic.

There was utter silence. One chicken squawked. A breeze lifted Bishop's hair off his forehead. He felt only a bit weak now. He touched his hand to his chest. He was whole.

“He isn't dead, he isn't dead, he isn't dead.” The shock made the voices all blend together, until they sounded nearly one voice in his head.

It was impossible, all knew it was impossible. Then someone said, “I understand now. It was just a prick of the knife, the sort that causes a lot of bleeding, but withal the knife struck nothing vital, nothing to kill Sir Bishop.”

“Aye, that's it.”

Bishop could feel the people's relief that they could now understand that nothing had happened that would make them hear dark wings flapping over their heads in the deep of the night. He said nothing, just took Merryn's hand, looked down into her ugly old face. “Will you wed me in an hour's time?”

“Aye, just as soon as we clean the blood off ourselves and I can let this nose fall off.”

She vaguely heard cheering. She felt her grandfather hug her, her grandmother's busy hands patting her here and there.

37

T
HERE WAS NO WOUND IN
his chest, no sign that a knife had ever sunk through his flesh into his heart. There was nothing save mayhap a bit of soreness, but perhaps that was because Merryn had pounded her fist so hard against him and laid herself so heavily on top of him.

That made him smile. He leaned back in the tub and closed his eyes. She would come to him soon, a sponge in her hand, and she would bathe him. Then, he thought, he would bathe her, although he knew she'd already been bathed by all her hovering women.

He wondered if there was any mark on her breast, any bruise or mark to prove that something had happened.

He felt energy pulse through him, perhaps more energy than he'd had before the fight with Fioral. Now, that was odd.

Merryn came into the chamber, the sponge in her hand. She was smiling, her blood-soaked gown gone. She was wearing a simple robe, one he knew she would change when they were wed this evening. She stood over him, laid her hand on his shoulder. “How do you feel?”

He only nodded. “Show me your breast.”

Slowly she laid down the sponge, took a step back and opened her robe. She pulled it wide. He stared at her breast, the soft white flesh, but—and then he saw the faint white line and knew it was right over her beating heart. He swallowed. “I don't have even a mark.”

“I'm glad. This, it's nothing.” She closed her robe. “I am here to bathe you, my soon-to-be husband. I wish you to lean back, be at ease, and let me attend you. I would say that you have had a hard day.”

Bishop did just that, laughed. “Aye, I have. Do you love me, Merryn?”

She said without hesitation, without even slowing the smooth stroking of the sponge, “Aye, I love you. I love you more than I did just a minute ago. Soon I will have such love for you I will feel knocked about the head with it.”

He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. He lightly closed his hand over hers. “I know that feeling exactly.”

There came a knock on the chamber door.

Merryn called out, “Who is it? Who wishes to behold the bridegroom in his bath?”

“It is I, Crispin, my lady.”

“Come, Crispin,” Bishop called out.

Crispin came into the chamber, not looking at the two young people who'd so recently been older than his father, mayhap even older than his grandfather, but down at the strange stick he held in his hands. He thrust it out toward Bishop.

“My lord, one of the children found this, said that when you stood up, the stick dropped from the sleeve of your tunic. It's just a stick, only it's not, if you know what I mean.”

Bishop took the wand. “Thank you, Crispin. I thought it was gone.” And he wondered how it had gotten into his sleeve. No, he didn't want to know.

After Crispin closed the door after him, Merryn took a very deep breath. “It fell out of your sleeve? I thought it disappeared back at the cave near Tintagel.”

“It did. But it's here now.” They looked at each other. Merryn whispered, “We're both alive. Something happened, Bishop. Did the wand help it happen?”

He said nothing, merely held the wand, feeling its soft warmth against his palm. There was so much flooding through his brain, making his breathing hitch when he thought too deeply about what had happened.

“It's the same wand, isn't it?”

“Aye, it's the same.” He sat forward and she soaped his back with the sponge. He looked closely at the wand, and then he stiffened straight as an arrow. He jerked about, splashing water onto the floor, onto Merryn as well.

“What is it? Are you still hurt? Bishop, speak to me.”

“Look, Merryn. Look.”

He held the wand up, his thumb pressing against an indentation in the wood. She knelt next to the big wooden tub, laid her finger atop his thumb.

“Feel.” He moved his thumb and her finger traced the indentations. “Let me hold it to the light,” she said, took the wand from him, and stood. He watched her walk over to the window with it, hold it to the afternoon sunlight.

She read slowly, “ ‘Ambrosius.' ” She looked back over at him. “ ‘Ambrosius?' What does that mean?”

Bishop stilled. “Is that all you see? Is there another name, another word?”

Merryn turned the wand slowly in her hands, examining each inch of it. “Here, wait. It says ‘Merlin. Merlin Ambrosius.' Do you know what that means? Is it a name, Bishop?”

Bishop said slowly, “When I was wounded once several years ago, Benedictine monks took me in and healed me. One old monk loved to read the tales written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who lived more than a hundred years ago. He wrote about an advisor to Uther Pendragon—the father of King Arthur.”

“Merlin,” Merryn said. “Aye, I remember now. He was a magician, wasn't he?”

“Aye, and he was more than that. He was a wizard, so
it was written,” Bishop said. “A wizard,” he said again, more slowly.

“I don't understand this, Bishop.”

He didn't either. He didn't think he wanted to. The wand had belonged to Merlin? It was more than a mortal could bear.

A mortal. Aye, he was a mortal, but the prince and Brecia, they hadn't been mortals. And the prince had made Brecia pregnant in their first wild mating, just as he knew he'd made Merryn pregnant.

In that moment, Bishop sensed something. He knew he felt the prince close to him, heard the prince's voice, and he was laughing, softly, and then, suddenly, he was gone, and there was only the sweet warm air and Merryn at his side.

“Come here and kiss me, Merryn.”

“We've been married for a full five days now and I am still very much alive.”

“Aye, you are, husband. Have you written to King Edward?”

“Aye, and a messenger should be with him soon. Dienwald and Philippa and their children will be arriving tomorrow. Vellan and Madelyn wish to meet them.”

Bishop rose and tapped his knife handle several times against a goblet from the Rhineland, one of Lord Vellan's prized possessions.

He waited until there was complete silence in the great hall, all faces turned toward him. He raised the goblet. “Here is to the end of the Penwyth curse. It is over and gone.”

There was wild cheering and everyone drank.

Bishop smiled down at his wife. “I am the fifth and final husband!”

There was more wild cheering.

Merryn rose to stand beside Bishop. Everyone fell silent again. “No more curses to haunt Penwyth!”

Bishop said after they'd quieted a bit, “All have
wondered why people live so very long here at Penwyth. I will tell you. It is because anyone who loves Penwyth, who is utterly loyal, deserves a long life. And so it is.”

“—I can't lift my sword but I am alive, aye!”

“—All of us deserve long life!”

Everyone was cheering and laughing and talking about the four husbands who'd all toppled over dead so quickly after their marriage to Merryn.

“No more curse!”

“No more curse!”

“Long life to those who love Penwyth!”

Lady Madelyn said, “I wonder if there truly was a curse. One that came from the ancient Druids? From the Witches of Byrne? No, I don't think there ever was a curse.”

“Of course there was, Grandmother,” Merryn said. “Bishop and I broke the curse.”

Lady Madelyn just shook her head.

Vellan looked at his wife of so many years he would need more fingers and toes to count than were in the great hall, and said, his voice thick with disbelief, dread, and a dab of pleasure, “What do you mean, Madelyn?”

“I poisoned Arlan de Frome, that's what I mean. Then I prayed that the others would die as well since I couldn't manage to poison them. My prayers worked.”