The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

“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

BISHOP 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.”