The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

She laughed at that. “Oh, no, I wasn’t recognizing you as anything, prince. Actually, I was looking at you and thinking about my great-grandmother, whose hair was so red that some claimed flames leapt out of it.”

He waved away her words. “That is enough. It is time for us to mate. You know you can trust me.”

She shrugged, studied his face, looked into his eyes. Was she trying to look into his mind as well? She couldn’t—he was closed to her. Then she snapped her fingers right in front of his nose, huffed a little breath.

And she was gone. Simply gone.

She hadn’t managed to rescue her wand. It still lay flat on his palm, stone cold, the gems flat and opaque, as if stripped of all light, all power, all meaning.

The prince stood there, miserable to his feet. Why was nothing ever easy?

16

Present

“BISHOP, WAKE UP.” SHE shook his shoulder. “What are you dreaming about? You’re laughing, nearly choking on your laughter. Come, wake up and tell me what you’re seeing in your dream. Are you dreaming of me and how clever I am? Is my wit making you laugh?”

He was standing inside a huge tower, some sort of stone altar in front of him. He saw no one, heard no one. He wanted to howl, he wanted to kill her—Brecia—it was Brecia, with her glorious red hair. He really wanted to take her throat between his hands, and at the same time he wanted her beneath him, her legs spread wide. Then, quite suddenly, he was laughing and shaking his head at her cleverness.

He awoke to Merryn’s hands shaking him, lightly slapping his face, and he was still laughing, but it wasn’t a funny sort of laughter, he knew that. He was laughing because there was simply nothing else to do.

He shook his head, not laughing now. “I begin to believe that nothing in this beleaguered life is ever easy for mortals.” He paused a moment, frowned. “Nay, maybe even for those who are not mortal, those not from our time.”

“What,” she said slowly, “isn’t easy for mortals? What do you mean about those who are not mortals? Come, Bishop, why were you laughing your head off? What is this about those not from our time?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. What had happened? What was going on here? He shook his head, sat up too quickly, and hit his head against the tent pole. No laughter in him now. No, he felt niggling fear from the sharp stirring in his blood, from the still-faint images in his brain, but it was all retreating now, slowly, very slowly, until the echoes of his laughter, the echoes of that stone altar faded away. Brecia faded away.

Bishop wanted to leave Cornwall right now. He wanted to go to the far islands to the north where the Vikings had settled. He wanted to hunker down in a stone hut with a warm fire. He wanted no mysteries, nothing he couldn’t grasp with his hands, with his mind. He wanted to look at the icy sea water crashing against those islands, feel the water cascade over his bare feet—for an instant, he saw bare feet, scores of them, faint, somehow hovering above the ground. No. He shook the thought away. Damnation, he wanted to actually feel the cold water on his feet. Aye, he wanted what was real, what was solid.

“You look very strange. What did you dream?”

“I don’t know, but it really wasn’t funny at all,” he said.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”

Wit at this hour. He shook his head at her and crawled out of the tent. The early-morning air was sharp on his face. He raised his face skyward, looking at the sun, still low in the heavens because it was just past dawn. As he stood there he wondered why he was riding to Tintagel. It came into his mind and he knew, simply knew, that he was going there. But what was there? He shook his head and breathed in deeply. Whatever it was, he knew without a single doubt that it would become clear to him.

He turned to see Merryn on her knees making a fire. He stood there, making no sound, just watching her, the way her hands moved on the twigs, twisting them exactly the way she wanted them, leaning down to blow the small spark into life. She sat back, her palms on her thighs, and nodded, satisfied, as the nest of fire spread to the larger sticks and sent out warmth. Her gown was wrinkled, her hair falling out of its braids, long red tendrils touching her cheek, curling at her neck. Suddenly, she looked up at him and smiled, a sweet smile that was only for him, a smile that reached her eyes. He saw awareness of him as a man, awareness of what they’d done the previous night, how she’d touched him and held him. And she’d liked it, a lot, he’d known that. And he realized that she liked reflecting the memory of it now. He couldn’t think of a thing to say other than Would you like me to pull up your gown and put my mouth on you?

She said, that smile fading now, “Bishop, I’m worried about you. Can you remember anything about your dream?”

He joined her at the fire, coming down on his haunches, taking the hunk of cheese she handed him. He chewed, tore off some of the bread Philippa had wrapped in thick white woolen cloth, and in that instant he saw a gown that was as white as that woolen cloth—Brecia’s gown. Then it was gone.

“When I first awoke,” he said, looking into the flame, “I saw myself, only I wasn’t really me, and I was laughing because I simply couldn’t believe what had happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think of yourself standing in the middle of a great hall, filled with people. Suddenly your clothes disappear. Everyone stops talking and stares at you.” He shrugged. “Would you laugh, because there was simply nothing else to do?”

She looked at him blankly.

He grinned. “Ah, mayhap a man would do that, not a woman. Women have many more interesting parts to cover than men.”

“I think your parts are far more interesting than mine. I’m just me, but you’re—”

“What?”

She sighed and chewed on a piece of cheese. “Your parts are undoubtedly more interesting than poor dear Crispin’s when I saw him naked. But I did feel you. That part felt very interesting.”