The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

“Two days, mayhap more, since we’re sharing Fearless.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“Turn around and face me.”

She did.

He said, eyeing her from not more than two inches away, “I’m glad you combed your hair. You looked like a witch.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder?” She turned again, facing the rutted road in front of them. She began whistling.

Bishop laughed. “No,” he said, leaning close to her ear, “you won’t die a virgin.”

“Is that what you’re going to do with me? Force me?”

“Oh, no, I would never force a woman.” He began whistling again, loudly.

Bishop called a halt just as the sun was setting behind them. He hadn’t stopped sooner simply because Dienwald had given them enough food to last a week. He didn’t have to hunt their dinner.

It was a hidden spot, in the shadow of a small maple forest, safe enough. He set a fire going while she laid out the food.

“I hope it doesn’t rain,” she said, looking skyward.

“If it does, we know the tent won’t collapse,” he said. He sniffed the air, smiled even as the certain knowledge filled him. “No rain.”

“Do you think it’s still raining at Penwyth?”

He thought about it a moment, then turned his head and looked back—why, he didn’t know. He felt just a very slight quiver in the air. And he knew, just knew. “The rain stopped.” And then he knew even more.

“You said it wouldn’t stop. You said it would be a flood. You said you’d tie me down and let me drown in it.”

He grinned as he gnawed on a rib of beef. “I thought that had a nice frightening sound to it.”

“You made that up?”

“I did. Did I tell you I think it’s very nice that you don’t want me dead like the other four?”

She broke off a piece of bread and shrugged. “I don’t want you dead. I’m probably a fool. Will it rain again?”

“Aye, it will. The drought is over.”

“How can you know that?”

He shrugged, frowned into the fire. “I just do.”

“I wonder why,” she said, sat cross-legged, handed him another broiled rib of beef. “Do you think it’s because you came?”

He said without thinking, “No, I don’t think so. There is activity in the far reaches of—” He stopped dead in his tracks. Those strange words had just flowed from his mouth without his brain’s permission.

She was sitting forward, all her attention on him, not on the fresh peas from Philippa’s garden that she was chewing. “Far reaches of what?”

He stared into the small fire he’d built, listening to his own voice and wondering at the words that came so easily out of his mouth. “There are ripples leavening the air. Mayhap they portend ancient conflicts, violent quarrels, in the oak groves. There is confusion, strife.” He stopped talking, his eyes closed.

“Bishop, what’s the matter? What oak groves? What sort of ancient conflicts? What quarrels? What are you seeing?”

“I’m not seeing anything,” he said, and he looked both baffled and angry. “I don’t like this, I really don’t.” He knew deep down that things were changing, churning up mysteries, dredging out long-buried secrets, like muck from a swamp, secrets that weren’t even necessarily his. He rose, dusted off his trousers. “I am going to rub down Fearless,” and he left her to stare after him.

She sat there and wondered what he had meant about her not dying a virgin. Her life was suddenly out of control, but oddly, she wasn’t at all afraid. Did he really know she wouldn’t be cursed with virginity until she died?