He opened his eyes to see Merryn not an inch from his nose, her warm breath fanning his face. His brain righted itself. What was this? She was the one who had gone headfirst down the hillock. He said, frowning, “Are you all right? You fell and hit your head. I remember that.”
“I’m better than you are. I opened my eyes and I saw you hunkered over me. You jerked your head up at this loud clap of thunder, and a flash of lightning streaked your face white. Then you just fell on top of me.”
“A loud clap of thunder,” he said.
“Aye, something must have happened. There aren’t any lumps on your head that I can tell. My lump is good-sized, but you don’t see me flat on my back, do you? You’re a warrior, aren’t you?”
“It’s raining.”
“It’s more than raining. It’s making up for the months when there was nothing at all except blowing dust. I don’t know how much longer the tent can stay up. You have to get yourself together, Bishop.”
He looked past her, saw the blur of rain battering down on the tent. Surprisingly, it was holding. But for how long?
“You were right about the rain. It is incredible. You are a wizard, aren’t you?”
“Aye, I am a wizard,” he said without thought, without any consideration at all. Now wasn’t that odd? He felt suddenly filled with energy, the pain gone, and he wanted to draw his sword and leap out of the damned tent and kill bandits. No luck there. No self-respecting bandit would be out in this deluge.
“We can’t stay here. How do you feel?”
“I healed myself,” he said, just to see what she would say, just to see how she would react to that.
She reared back, alarm in her eyes. “You are jesting again, aren’t you, Bishop?”
“Of course,” he said. “We will stay here until the rain stops or the tent collapses in on us. Come down beside me and we can warm each other.”
She hesitated only a moment before easing down beside him. They were both damp, and that wasn’t good, but she realized soon enough that the heat from his body would warm her quite well. Even in the dead of winter he would warm her. She said, “When I woke up I realized that I didn’t know how much time had passed. But it’s dark. It wasn’t dark when I fell down the hillock. It was full into the day, wasn’t it?”
“Aye, it was, but then the sky darkened, don’t you remember?” He was remembering that huge flash of white light that stayed and stayed until suddenly—there was just nothing. The dream, there had been the dream. Gone now, all of it.
“Aye, just before the rain came down it darkened, but look now, Bishop. It’s night. Did you do something?”
“By all the saints’ knee-bent prayers, what do you think I am? A god to change day into night at my whim?”
She was silent. He felt her fingertips wandering over his chest. “Could you?”
He wanted to laugh. The cost of coincidence. He’d been right about the damnable rain and now he’d moved beyond that simple task—now he could change the march of the sun. “Very well. I am a god, not just a wizard.”
She giggled. “You are jesting with me again. My head hurts a bit, but it isn’t bad.” She paused a moment, then said, “Were you really going to tie me down? Let me lie there in the rain?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t say anything more, just settled her cheek against his shoulder. Soon both of them slept.
And when they awoke it was still raining and the tent still hadn’t collapsed. They could see dirty light outside. How long had they slept? Had it really been night? How long had that bloody dream laste
d?
He knew suddenly, knew with absolute certainty, that if he left Penwyth land, there wouldn’t be any more rain. The rain was for this land only. But how could that be?
Five hours later, Bishop, with Merryn in front of him atop Fearless’s back, rode beneath a now sunny sky to St. Erth Castle. The torrential rain had turned to billowing dark clouds that hid the sun, and then the clouds turned white and the sun was bright.
All this happened the moment they left Penwyth land.
He shouted to the porter at St. Erth’s gate, waved at Gorkel the Hideous, and Eldwin, the master-at-arms, and shouted out greetings.
The last thing he wanted was an arrow through his gullet because someone believed him an enemy.
When he rode Fearless into the inner bailey of St. Erth, he was nearly deafened by all the noise.