The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

“I confess that a lot of what she said I did not comprehend.”

A serving maid, this one sprightly—not a day over fifty—handed Bishop a fat loaf of white bread and carefully placed a platter of cheeses in front of him. He heard a soft rustling, turned to see Merryn ease into the chair beside him. The chair beside Lord Vellan was empty. Bishop supposed it was for Lady de Gay. Why wasn’t she here?

“You’re still alive,” Lord Vellan said. “All of my men are surprised. My wife said you drank a magic potion to ward off the curse.”

“No, I have not drunk any today,” Bishop said. He gave Merryn a hunk of his bread, paused only an instant before he broke off another hunk and ate it himself. He didn’t taste any poison, but that didn’t mean much. If the four husbands had tasted poison, surely they would have yelled it out before falling dead. The truth was that the bread was delicious. He ate another hunk. The miller here at Penwyth ground the flour well—there was very little grit.

Merryn nodded and looked over the platter, finally picking up a piece of yellow cheese that he could smell from two feet away.

She grinned at him. “It tastes much better than it smells. It’s made from Beelzebub’s milk.”

“It is said that Satan roves the land. I did not know that he also gave milk.”

More wit, she thought, and smiled. “No, not Satan. Her name is Beelzebub. She is one of our goats. She makes the best cheese of all of them.”

“It does have a powerful smell.”

“Aye, it does, but your breath will remain as sweet-smelling as the roses that bloom in my garden. Here, try it.”

He did, and was surprised that the cheese was mellow and sweet. He ate more of it, chewed more bread. The miller would grind his flour and Beelzebub the goat would make cheese for him. He devoutly prayed that the cheese wasn’t poisoned. Made from a goat named Beelzebub, who knew?

He looked down the trestle table at Dumas, who was deep in conversation with one of the old warriors. The old man was nearly bald, but his dirty gray beard was stuck into his belt, the tip of it showing below his waist, just like Lord Vellan’s. He hoped Dumas had discovered something useful, because he himself hadn’t.

“You’re not dead,” Merryn said.

“No. I’m not married to you, either.”

“You think I’m disappointed?”

He looked at her for a long moment, then said, after he’d swallowed more of the wonderful bread, “I don’t know what you are. I know only that you are not telling me things that are important.”

Not a sound from her mouth.

Bishop waited until Lord Vellan had thrown all the white bones to the wolfhounds and drunk a full flagon of wine, then he said, “My lord, as I said, I met your wife, and aye, she twisted my brain. She told me that her mother was a Witch of Byrne.”

There was sudden silence in the great hall.

8

LORD VELLAN CONTINUED to chew on a hunk of Beelzebub’s cheese. “She said that, did she?”

“She told me that her mother knew all about the curse that promised Penwyth would always be protected.”

Lord Vellan shook his head, making his thick white hair swing into his face. “Ah, my ancient Madelyn,” he said. “She tells me every day that she wishes to bury me. I wonder if she will. Ah, but her mother—Meridian was her name—now there was a one. She was a witch, no doubt in anyone’s brain. One of the Witches of Byrne? I don’t know. I never saw her paint herself white or color her teeth red. Indeed, she hated fish.

“The woman plagued me. Whenever I displeased her, she would send a curse to land on my head. I swear to you, Bishop, once my armpits itched until I nearly went mad with it. You see, I had only lightly buffeted my wife’s shoulder, and Madelyn snuck away and told her mother. The itching, it was fairly bad, but not to be compared to the sores that appeared on the soles of my feet. Big sores, open, with pus flowing from them. I thought I would die. I begged her to heal me, swore to her that I would never again harm a hair on her beautiful daughter’s head.”

“You mean you struck your wife again? After you’d already endured the itching?”

“No, I did not.” Lord Vellan snapped his

fingers, and the third wolfhound in the line came forward, tail wagging, to curve his huge body against Lord Vellan’s leg. “Madelyn was angry with me and told her mother I had struck her again. I’m not a codsbrain—naturally I didn’t ever strike her again. As for Meridian, she cursed her husband once too often. He wasn’t stupid, he knew if she became really angry, he’d be dead. So he killed her in her sleep, stuck a knife in her gullet, took her heart and buried it fifty feet from her body. A cautious man, was Sir William.” Lord Vellan chewed thoughtfully on his cheese. “Now Madelyn roams about the castle, pours lime in the jakes, sleeps on the ramparts when the weather is warm, stitches small shirts for Beelzebub so that her cheese will remain sweet, and prays every morning to the ancient ones to bring rain. She told me you would bring rain. She says she felt it.”

Bishop was a straightforward man. He disliked artifice and guile. He watched people, observed what they did. He also observed various phenomena—he loved violent storms as much as he admired rainbows—and tried to understand what it was he was observing. When he listened to another person, be it the king himself, he knew and understood the words that were spoken, knew exactly what to think, knew what to do. But here? At Penwyth? He almost shuddered. He drank some ale, which was really quite good. He said, “I can’t bring the rain. I have not that gift. I merely forecast it.”

“How?” Merryn asked.

Bishop frowned a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s just there, a sense of it inside me. It’s part of me, I guess you would say.”