The Penwyth Curse (7 page)

“Why, yes, my mare, Lockley. There isn't a stallion about to cover her.”

“My Fearless will cover her, willingly. He whinnied when he heard her; he caught her scent.”

“I will think about this. I want to know his bloodlines, Sir Bishop. I want to inspect him, see that he is worthy of Lockley.”

“I will swear upon Saint Cuthbert's scabbed knees that Fearless's withers are the finest in the land.”

“You jest. I don't know anyone who jests like you do.”

“Do you consider it one of my many excellent parts?”

“I have known you for a very short time, only the length of a well-attended banquet. This is all very odd.”

“You may inspect Fearless. If it will gain him the mare, then he will doubtless allow it. You must explain his reward to him simply, no difficult words. As a wizard, I have merely to think my words to him and he understands.”

“You claim you can predict rain. Just maybe your damned destrier can understand what a person says as well. I don't believe a man can be a wizard. Wizards are old and bearded, and they have strange mad lights in their eyes.”

“Even a wizard must begin young.”

“I still don't believe it. You are a man, just a man, albeit a clever one.”

“So you believe me clever?”

“No. I didn't mean to say that.”

“You will see. Now, the curse. The Celtic Druids had no written language.”

“The curse has come down from father to son or daughter from each succeeding generation. It was Lord Vellan's grandfather who finally had a scribe record it. There's nothing more to it than that.”

She was lying and he knew it. He felt frustration boil in his belly. What was going on here? He said, “It is said that the Druids put their prisoners in wooden cages so
they could burn them at night for warmth and sacrifice. Can you begin to imagine the smell of that?”

“When my third husband vomited up white foam, I remember that the stench was beyond anything.”

He did not want to imagine that. He said, “Very well. Now, the Witches of Byrne—a small cult of women who paint their bodies with white lead, color their hair black as a rotted tooth, and rub their teeth with the red berries of the brickle plant to show their ferocity and their desire for raw flesh—even the Witches of Byrne are difficult to find now, since they despise men. It is difficult to continue if there is no man to plant his seed in a woman's belly.”

She said, “My grandmother told me that the Witches of Byrne don't despise men. They merely don't trust them. They observe the horror that men bring, know that those same men would destroy them if they could. Surely you don't deny that?”

“Your grandmother?”

“Aye, Lady Madelyn. You will meet her soon.”

“She is as old as Lord Vellan?”

“Aye, and like my grandfather's, her wits are as sharp as the point of Crispin's sword.”

“You spoke of the harshness of men. I imagine that women, like men, would bring horrors if they had the chance. The truth is that men themselves have few choices.” He shrugged. “I live the best I can. I wouldn't kill a witch unless she threatened my life. Isn't that fair? And just?”

She brushed away his words with a sweep of her hand. “You have few choices? You are a knight. You ride to Penwyth from the king. I have never ridden anywhere at the behest of the king. You take it as your right to give orders to females. You have men to do your bidding. You can do exactly as you please. You took off my slipper and played with my foot. What you claim is nonsense.”

He said, “There is death all around us, Merryn, an inevitable end to all of us, men and women alike. We all want to survive, and that means knowing how to think,
how to act, how to defend ourselves. A man is honorable or he is not. I believe a woman too is honorable or she is not. But honor is nothing if your very survival is at stake. It is true what I said: I live the best I can. I do not kill unless I have to. Look at you, Merryn. Your survival depends upon a curse.”

“It's a difficult thing, all these dead husbands, living in the shadow of this curse.”

“I know the words to the curse. Indeed, I very nearly have it memorized. Tell me what you know, Merryn.”

She studied her thumbnail, then slowly shook her head. “I don't know anything.”

He smiled down at her, but not too far down, for she was tall, mayhap as tall as Philippa de Fortenberry. “Robert Burnell, the king's secretary and the Chancellor of England, is a very learned man. Before I left the king, he gave me all the parchments he had collected on the Celtic Druids and the Witches of Byrne. Reading of them made the lice jump out of my hair.”

“Another jest.” She looked at his thick black hair blowing off his neck in the hot, dry wind. “I always wanted black hair, thick just like yours, with the sun gleaming through it.”

“You think my hair is excellent?”

“Aye, it is, I admit it. You say you're a man of otherworldly knowledge, Sir Bishop, a man who understands curses and magic and dark ways—in short, a wizard.”

“I am. It is my habit to open myself to those of the otherworld, to those in other times, to let their knowledge seep deep into me so that I may understand what they are, and why they still keep themselves close to this earth.” By the time he finished speaking, he'd lowered his voice almost to a whisper. He nearly had himself believing what he was saying.

He watched her rub her arms. A little fright, that was good. What was she keeping from him? He said, “Aye, and now I must gather more information to reach the beings that put this curse into motion.”

There was a sudden gust of hot wind. It whipped her hair loose from its plaits and back from her face. He saw that she had small ears, nicely shaped. She hadn't been beautiful to him just four hours before, but it seemed that he might have been mistaken. He reached out his hand yet again to touch her hair, but this time he didn't. He dropped his hand back to his side. At least, he thought, his children wouldn't be ugly, and that would surely be a relief to their future spouses. The dimple in her left cheek was long gone. She was still too afraid to smile.

“Tell me of the husbands.”

She couldn't keep the remembered horror out of her eyes as she said slowly, “I watched them all die. The first one, Sir Arlan, was seated next to me, since he was my bridegroom, and we shared a trencher. I watched him eat. He fed me from his knife. I was a child, and yet I never doubted that he would be my husband until I died.”

“So you didn't believe the curse.”

“I will tell you, when my grandfather stood there and quoted the curse in a loud, clear voice, I believed every word. It would have sent me on my way.” She paused a moment, and he knew she was seeing the scene from four years before. “Did I believe it? No, I did not.

“Then, it was so sudden that I couldn't quite grasp what was happening. Sir Arlan jerked, shuddered and quaked, then fell forward, his face in the beef chunks and gravy in the trencher. One of his men, a very brave and foolish man, rose up and yelled that my grandfather had poisoned his master. He, too, died. All the other men fled Penwyth within the hour.”

“That sounds like poison, not some bloody curse.”

She was silent a moment, then nodded. “Aye, I thought that it must be poison, but you see, he and I ate from the same trencher. He speared pieces of beef on his knife and slid them into my mouth. I drank from his goblet. How could it be poison?”

He looked down at her. “It could be poison, if you were the poisoner and clever about it.”

“I was a young girl. I did not kill him. It would not have occurred to me to kill him.”

What was she keeping from him? Bishop said, “Then, I believe, there was Sir Gifford de Lancey, the second husband. Tell me about him.”

“Do you know all my husbands' names?”

“Certainly,” he said. “A wizard makes it a point to steep himself in knowledge. Tell me more about him.”

“He didn't believe the curse, and neither did his men. After he wedded me, he began to fondle me and kiss me and smack his lips when he saw what he'd gained with no effort at all. He called all our men old cowards, my grandfather a useless relic, said my grandmother was the mother of all ugly witches. He wanted to strip me naked before he wedded me, but my grandfather managed to talk him out of it. By this time, Sir Gifford was laughing at the curse, said my first husband had been a fool, and then he killed two of our people just because he wanted to show Grandfather what he would do if thwarted.”

“What happened?”

“All of a sudden, with no warning, blood spurted from his nose and mouth. He became a fountain of blood.” She shuddered, then turned on her heel and walked to the wide wooden ladder that led down into the inner bailey. She looked back up at him. “There is a lot of blood inside a person's body. He lasted longer than anyone wanted him to, and in truth, it wasn't long at all. There are still bloodstains on the stones.”

Then she turned, and he watched her stride like a young man, her gown swaying around her ankles, a gown that was too short. Four husbands. The second one had died three years ago and it still distressed her. It would distress him as well, watching a man's blood pour from his nose and mouth. Could a poison do that?

What was she keeping from him?

7

B
ISHOP WAS SHOWN TO
the steward's small chamber by an ancient serving woman who had no teeth in her mouth and never stopped smiling at him. She left him alone, standing in the middle of the small room. It smelled of ink and parchment, and the air was heavy and stale, as if the single narrow window had been closed for a very long time. He pulled away the goatskin that covered it, and sunlight poured into the room. He saw dust hanging in the air from the spears of bright sunlight. He looked at the shelf of parchments, each one tightly rolled and stuck into one of the little circular slots that filled an entire wall. There was a small trunk at the end of a narrow cot, and one blanket.

Bishop pulled out a parchment at random and unrolled it. It was an accounting from three years before—the crops, the sales, the births and deaths and marriages of Penwyth. He looked at several other parchments. Nothing to make him believe the steward was cheating Lord Vellan. Mayhap he'd keep the fellow.

He heard the sound of a very old throat clearing behind him. His right hand on his sword, his left hand quickly pulling the knife from inside his tunic, he whirled about,
half expecting to see some mad spirit hovering near him, or an ancient warrior, sword trembling in a knotted, veined hand, ready to strike him down. But it wasn't a spirit or a warrior in the steward's chamber with him. It was a very old woman who looked so frail she was nearly transparent. He prayed she never stood on the ramparts. The wind would blow her away. She stood there, watching him, saying nothing at all, and he felt a frisson of fear. He hadn't heard her come in. One moment he was alone, and the next she was here. Mayhap she was a spirit, mayhap she was a Witch of Byrne.

Bishop shook his head. He calmed himself. She was an old woman, nothing more. She was also wearing a beautiful gown, so she wasn't a servant, then. He said, “Madam? May I be of assistance to you?”

Old, so very old she was, but she still stood tall, her frail shoulders pulled back. She had a knot of white hair high on her head, held with half a dozen blue ribbons that floated about her face. He could see her pink scalp through the ribbons and the strands of hair. Once, he thought, once, a very long time ago, she'd been beautiful. He could still see traces of it in her faded blue eyes, wide, beautifully shaped, and in the sharp slant of her cheekbones. She continued to stand there, just staring at him, saying nothing at all, just looking, and then, suddenly, she began humming, and that made gooseflesh rise on his arms. “Who are you, madam?”

She took three steps toward him, paused and blinked. She extended a hand whose fingers were long and naught but flesh and bone. He carefully raised that delicate old hand and lightly kissed her wrist. The skin looked so thin he wondered if eventually it would just fade away and then the fragile old bones would just crumble since there would be nothing more to hold them in place. But her hand wasn't light. She wore heavy gold rings, some of them set with stones he'd never seen before, weighing down three of her fingers. Aye, the bones would crumble and the rings would clatter to the floor. He caught a
sudden image in his mind of those rings rolling across the floor, stopped by a man's boot. He shook his head, clearing his mind of that strange image.

She said in a faint, wispy voice, “I am Lady Madelyn de Gay. You are in the steward's chamber.”

“You are Lord Vellan's wife?”

She gave a scratchy old laugh, high and thin, and lightly slapped his shoulder. “I could not be his daughter, now could I? I am three years older than that doddering old man, and yet I don't dodder. Watch me.”

Bishop watched her walk away from him, the heavy fabric of her gown trailing the floor, then take a turn around the small room, then turn back to face him. She smiled at him, showing a full mouth of very white teeth. Come to think of it, Lord Vellan had most all of his teeth as well. That was unusual.

“No, madam,” he said. “You don't appear to dodder at all.”

“You are a very handsome boy, well knit, with manners and grace. Merryn told me that you were too excellent for your own good. She said you were riper than a man should be. I am not certain I understand that, but mayhap she is right. Still, I wonder why you are standing here in the steward's chamber.”

“Your husband granted me this chamber during my stay here.”

“The steward, Ranlief, is old—not as old as I or Lord Vellan, but his brain slows and his hands tremble. I cannot imagine his ancient bones resting well on the floor of the great hall.”

“Why don't you give him Merryn's chamber?”

“My sweet dear little granddaughter. There are too many men who would seek to ravish her were she to sleep in the great hall.”

“I have seen few men here of an age to ravish anything, madam.”

“Aye, you're right. That is an amusement that even I haven't considered for a very long time, mayhap in the
last century. But I am a woman, not an eternally randy man. Even Lord Vellan is randy, though his man's lust must remain in his brain, since there is no other part of him to make use of it.

“Nay, I must protect my little Merryn. Old or young, all of them want her.” She sighed, perhaps waiting for him to relinquish the steward's chamber, which he had no intention of doing. She said, “My Vellan looked like you. Aye, he was all proud muscle and sinew, a formidable warrior, an even more formidable lover. He had beautiful dark hair, flowing about his head to his shoulders. Ah, what a ferocious laugh he had.” She frowned, her pale blue eyes fading for a moment. “At least I think he did. It was so long ago, mayhap even before the last century. Are you here to be Merryn's fifth husband?”

“I'm alive, so why would you think that?”

Her bony fingers pleated and smoothed the skirt of her gown. It was lovely, that gown, all pale blue, just like her faded old eyes, just like the ribbons in her hair. The style wasn't one he had ever seen. Mayhap, he thought, it was from the last century. She said, “Aye, now that's a good question. By Saint Francis's white brow, you are still alive, now, aren't you? Odd that the curse didn't strike you down.” She peered at him, up and down. “At least not yet. I think you are also too beautiful to be a husband. Vellan was beautiful as well. I do remember clearly that my mother wanted him for me. She did nothing but praise him to my father, tell him that Vellan would dance with me in the moonlight and make me shriek with delight.”

“Did you, madam?”

“Oh, aye, I danced in the moonlight, but usually alone.”

He smiled at her.

“Aye, I shrieked, too, and I was never alone, thank the merciful heavens, when I did that.” She paused, then said on a frown, “I haven't shrieked in more years than I can count. I will ask Vellan what this is all about—not that he will tell me anything. He lies, fluently and cleanly, you see. So if you are not here to be Merryn's fifth husband,
then what is your purpose? Did Ranlief die and no one told me of it?”

“No, the steward still breathes. I am here at the king's behest to rid Penwyth of its curse.”

“The king? The king sent you?” She laughed. The old lady threw back her ancient head and laughed and laughed. It scared him down to his toes, that laugh. It was all thin and sharp and, truth be told, there was something veiled and secretive buried in that laugh, something beyond what was real and expected.

Bishop didn't like this at all. He was becoming as fanciful as a young girl. He wondered if she would swoon she laughed so long and hard—that, or just fall into a heap of bones on the floor at his feet. He held himself perfectly still, waiting to see if she would survive that mad laughter.

She did. She smoothed her skirt, pulled down her sleeves, clenched and unclenched her fingers. “If you have forgotten, my name is Lady Madelyn de Gay and I was once a great beauty. I remember my sweet mother told me I was a princess, the most beautiful girl in all of Cornwall.” She frowned, a far-distant cast to her eye, seeing something he couldn't begin to imagine. “If I was a princess, then why wasn't I married to the king? Why aren't I living in London, in beautiful Windsor Castle, not here hidden away on witches' land?”

“Witches' land, madam?”

“Oh, aye, the Witches of Byrne. They first began on the small rolling hills hereabouts, dancing on the barrows, chanting into the hearts of storms. Then they moved to caves closer to the sea. They love to eat fish, you know.”

“No, I did not know. Madam, never in my life have I tried so diligently to understand, but what you say makes no sense to me.”

“You are a man,” she said. “Rarely do any of you look beyond the flesh to the grit and sinew that lie beneath.”

“Mayhap that is true of all people,” Bishop said. “Sometimes life is too pressing in its demands to look
beyond what you are able to see. The curse, madam. Why did you laugh when I told you I was here to remove the curse?”

“Oh, you are so young, so innocent of evil. But there is evil, there will always be evil, whether it breeds and festers inside men or is an old evil that hovers just above the earth, swooping down to bedevil poor mortals, but always there, just waiting, waiting.”

“I might be innocent of all evil, madam, but I would know it if I saw it. Do you believe the curse to be evil?”

Suddenly, in a flash, something changed. She was no longer ancient, with the light of madness in her pale eyes. She was hard as steel and alert, standing tall, right in front of him. She said low, her voice harsh and deeper than it should be, “You know nothing. You know less than nothing. You will not do well here at Penwyth, not if it is your wish to rid us of the curse.”

“Why won't I do well?”

“The curse will never die. It protects us, that curse. I have heard the witches talk about life after forever is finished and done with. Is there evil in life after forever?” The old woman shook her head. A delicate wooden pin fell to the stone floor. “It is enough to muck up a mortal's brains.”

She paused, then just as suddenly she seemed to fade, to shrink back from him, to become the old woman she was. He fancied he could see that old heart beating beneath her shrunken chest. She said, “What is your name?”

“I am known as Bishop of Lythe. Sir Bishop now, knighted by Lord Dienwald de Fortenberry of St. Erth.”

She nodded. “Ah, the Scourge of Cornwall. Another fine boy is Dienwald. His is a spirit as wild as a witch's curse rising to the black heavens. His is a brain that is fresh and perverse. He looks at things differently, does Dienwald, so I have been told. I have heard many stories about him. Is it true he is wedded to the king's daughter?”

Bishop said, “Aye, for three years now. He knighted me because I saved her life.”

“If I was a princess, then why wasn't I wedded to Dienwald?”

“He would not yet have been born, madam.” The old woman appeared to chew this over for a while, then floated away from him to stand looking out the narrow window.

“That was a jest that pleased me. Ah, just look. The land is dying. Isn't that curious?”

“It will cease to die once it rains.”

“There won't be any rain. Until my granddaughter is proclaimed the heir, there will be no rain.”

“There will be. Sometime tomorrow.”

She turned to look at him again. “I heard the servants whispering that you're a wizard, that you understand ancient laws, that you hear old spirits at play, that you can speak to the old spirits. No good can come of that. Aye, and there's your name—Bishop—a fine name. You will not remove the curse, you will not. You must leave Penwyth before it is too late. How do you know it will rain?”

“You just said it. I am a wizard, madam. I know things. It will rain.”

“Then tell me, sir, how many children did I birth?”

Suddenly he simply knew. “You birthed five children, madam, but only one survived—Sir Thomas de Gay, a fine man I once met.”

It was difficult to tell if her eyes looked startled, but he believed they did. She said at last, “Your answer is correct. All those dead babes. It seems that more babes die than survive in this bitter world.”

“I am sorry, madam. Now, would you tell me about this curse?”

She yawned in his face. Her breath wasn't sweet, nor was it foul. It was simply old and faded, nearly sheer, like an ancient whisper. “I don't think so. I am vastly tired.” She waved her hand, then let it fall to her side, as if it had a will of its own, as if the rings were so heavy she couldn't keep the hand up.