The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

“I? I did nothing. I have heard stories of his power, of the devastation he brings when he is displeased.”

He frowned at that. “He knows where you live, where your fortress stands.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Somehow he must have divined that I was there also.”

“And he was surprised,” Brecia said slowly. “And then enraged. You’re right, he must be planning something quite spectacular since he didn’t kill you right here.”

“He could not divine that I was with you. Even I could not divine that. Perhaps one of your ghosts is his spy.”

The ground shook.

He smiled. “Well done, Brecia. Do you really wish to help me fetch our wands?”

The ground stilled. He heard a bird flying overhead, actually heard it, and the march of an insect near his foot.

“Aye,” she said, “I’ll help you. There is something else you must know, prince.”

“I don’t think I’m going to like this, am I?”

She merely shrugged. “Mawdoor sent one of his advocates into the forest to see me. Three months ago, at the time of the full moon.”

He waited.

“It was his offer of marriage. But it was much, much more. It was also a threat if I refused him.”

“What did you do to his advocate?”

“I did nothing, merely told him that I had vowed celibacy until the third millennium.”

“What did he say to that?”

“The advocate suggested I rethink the millennium.”

“Did you turn him into a snail and step on him?”

“I wanted to mix him into my blue smoke and have him meander out the top of my fortress, but I feared Mawdoor’s retribution. I sent him on his way with blessings and kind words. I am not a fool, prince.”

“No,” he said, “you are not. And no, you will never wed Mawdoor.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Oh, yes. You will be mine.”

20

MAWDOOR’S FORTRESS WAS stark black and forbidding. It was the kind of forbidding that made a man’s toenails fall off, as grim as a Druid priest’s altar ready for sacrifice. It was an immense circular black wooden tower standing on a hillock that he himself had created, a thick black spear aimed some fifty feet toward the heavens. A ten-foot wooden wall—a perfect triangle—surrounded the tower, with other towers at each of the three corners. The wood was blacker now than when it first appeared, because, it was said, every time a mortal saw it and fear sank deep into his heart, the wood became blacker. No one knew how much darker the darkest black could get.

This was true. Local tribes avoided the fortress; indeed, they walked carefully, eyes on their feet, when they were within a mile of Mawdoor’s lands.

Mawdoor had named his fortress and all its lands Penwyth, a name that had come to him in a dream, he’d said to his acolytes, a name that meant nothing really, but it sang softly in his brain. His dream was of a not-so-different future with his fortress still here, just changed a bit, perhaps not so very black. It pleased him.

The prince had never been inside Mawdoor’s fortress. The only reason he’d come this far west was because he’d wanted Brecia. He looked up at the fierce black fortress and knew he didn’t want to go inside it now either. He’d heard for years that Mawdoor had become quite mad and shut himself away in his black tower for long periods of time. Then he would emerge, looking fit and enraged and ready to string mortals’ entrails from one end of this huge island to another. It was a pity, because the madness hadn’t interfered with his powers. Nor his brain. He was very proud of his brain, an instrument that could see the fastest birds flying in the sky, could tell him what sorts of birds they were and whether or not he wanted them for his dinner.

His brain gave him great beliefs. He was convinced that the gods themselves had sent the great bluestones at the sacred meeting circle in the British plains from the ancient land just north of the Erin sea. He also believed that the gods had hidden a treasure in one of those bluestones, a fabulous prize for a wizard who was clever enough to figure it out.

The prince agreed that there was madness in Mawdoor. There were always rumors about wizard treasure, theories exchanged behind cupped hands, but no one really believed them. Besides, what sort of treasure could be hidden in a bluestone?