The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

For a long moment he couldn’t speak. He hurt. “You got me off track,” he said at last, staring into the fire, not at her, because if he did he just might take her down and rid her of her virginity.

She said, “You mean about being naked in a hall full of people and laughing?”

“What would you do, Merryn? Would you yell a nice full-bodied curse, even though it wouldn’t help?”

She was laughing and nodding. “No. Nor would I run away because that would make me look even more foolish.”

“That’s right. That’s what the end of that dream was like. There was simply nothing else to do but laugh.” He chewed on the bread. She handed him a flagon of Dienwald’s ale. It was tart and fresh and it warmed his innards, settled him back firmly inside himself, which was a grand relief.

She realized he wasn’t going to say any more about the dream. It was probably faded now, nearly gone. She was looking at his hands, strong and tanned, and she could see his hands stroking her arms, maybe even the length of her legs, maybe even scratching her scalp. Who knew what men did with their hands? She thought of his mouth going where his hands went. Oh my, oh my. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Where are we going, Bishop?”

He swept his hand to the north, saying nothing.

“Do you know what is there?”

“No, but I know I have to go there and I have to take you there with me. I also know that we must go now, without delay.” He paused a moment. “It has something to do with the curse.”

She shook her head, looking at the fire spark.

“What is it, Merryn?”

She was silent.

“There are a lot of things I don’t

understand, you know that. Do you think you could trust me, Merryn?” He waited, watching her intently.

Merryn stirred a stick in the embers, sending more sparks into the air. Finally, just at the point when he was ready to curse the air blue, she said, “Yes, I trust you.”

His breath nearly whooshed out. Relief poured through him, relief and something else. Gratitude, perhaps, that she was willing to go into the unknown with him.

“But you don’t trust me, do you?”

He was looking at her mouth as she said the words. He wanted her mouth on him. Stop it, just stop it. He looked at her eyes and hated the pain he saw there. He said simply, “I would trust you if you would just tell me what you’re keeping from me.”

She more than trusted him. In two short days, she’d come to admire him—his humor, his rage, his smile. She’d come to look at him as she’d never before looked at any male, and she wanted to touch him just about all the time. Hmmm. This was more than trust, and so she said without hesitation, “I think my grandmother poisoned Sir Arlan de Frome, my first husband. I didn’t tell anyone, particularly you, because I don’t want you to punish her, to hang her for murdering that man, because that is what the king would expect you to do.”

Not the curse? No, he refused to believe it. It went against everything he felt. “Tell me why you think this.”

“I heard her laughing with my grandfather the next morning, saying she didn’t want to give Sir Arlan’s trencher to the pigs, they just might keel over dead.”

“That’s all you heard?”

“Aye. It was enough.”

“And the other husbands?”

“I don’t know. All their symptoms were different. She wasn’t ever near them. Some died sooner than others. My grandmother learned all about plants, their uses and how to mix them, from her mother, Meridian. She knew all about different plants that could kill.”

“But you have no proof that she poisoned Sir Arlan?”

Merryn shook her head. He reached out his hand and lightly touched his fingertips to her nose, smoothed her brows, touched her mouth. “Thank you, Merryn. Aye, I trust you.”

“Were you dreaming about a woman, Bishop?”

“Yes,” he said without thinking. He frowned. “Perhaps, but not entirely. It is strange, Merryn.”

“Something very odd is happening to you, isn’t it?”