The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

Then he realized the truth of the matter and felt himself deflate. “They were all old men.”

“Well, of course. There are nothing but old men at Penwyth.”

“I’m moving off you now.”

He didn’t want to move off her, he truly didn’t. But he forced himself to move just a bit to the side. She didn’t move until he said, “Damn you, Merryn, you are sorely trying me. Get away from me.”

She tried to slither out from under him, moving back and forth, as if she was afraid that he would force her if she moved the wrong way. He could have told her there wasn’t ever a wrong way for a man.

When he was on his side next to her, she quickly sat up. But she didn’t stop looking. Oh, no, she looked at him and by Saint Peter’s toenails, he swelled even more.

He immediately sat up and began to untie the rope.

“What are you going to do this morning?”

He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought beyond his rage of the night before, his desire to punish all of them for making him feel like a fool, to punish her for keeping secrets from him and being the one who’d pushed him over the edge. He kept working on the knot, which had somehow tightened during the night.

“Do you really believe it will rain today?”

“Aye. Sometime today it will.”

“If it rains, then you don’t really intend to tie me out in it, do you?”

At last he heard some worry in her voice. She should be worried; it was a believable threat.

Her head was down, her red hair tangled.

“If you will finally tell me the truth, if you dump out all your secrets, tell me everything you’re keeping from me, I will reconsider my plan.”

She raised her head then and stared at him straight in the face. “There aren’t any secrets. You have whiskers.”

As a distraction, it was very good. “I am a man. It is morning. Of course I have whiskers. You have suffered through four husbands. Naturally you know exactly what has happened. You know everything.”

To his surprise, she raised her hand and lightly touched her fingertips to his cheek, feeling the coarse hair. She touched his chin, his other cheek. “It’s a curse. That’s all I know. I can’t explain any of it. You are very different from me.”

“Merryn, there are young men about Penwyth. I saw at least a dozen. Everyone in that damned castle can explain exactly what is going on.”

“Aye, but the young men are peasants and they aren’t supposed to have me look at them with any interest beyond the tasks they are to accomplish.” She paused a moment, still fretting with the rope about her wrist. “I never saw one of them naked. They didn’t bathe often, and if they did, it wasn’t in the barracks, where I did once or twice see a naked man-at-arms.”

He laughed, just couldn’t stop himself. Suddenly, without thought, he leaned forward and kissed her mouth. She fell as silent as the rope she now held in her hands. He saw that her wrist was chafed. His wasn’t.

She touched her fingertips to her lips, then looked at him. “No one has ever kissed me before.”

“Your second husband kissed you until blood came out of his mouth.”

She actually shuddered. “Aye, Sir Gifford de Lancey. It was horrible. I don’t want to remember that.”

“He’s dead. Sufficient punishment.”

She nodded slowly. “Aye, I suppose it was.”

“Did he touch you?”

Her hand touched her breasts, but she didn’t say anything.

He fell back laughing again. “In the normal course of things, still being a virgin after four husbands would be impossible to believe.”

She went up to her knees, looked around the small space. “I must relieve myself.”