The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

Fioral leaned down to strike Crispin again, but Dolan grabbed his arm. “Nay, my lord, leave the old man be. Remain above his insults. Realize that all who live here at Penwyth are a superstitious lot, and since it looks like all the people have lived here since the dawn of time, it’s obvious that they would become only more superstitious as time went on.”

“Ah, so it is all that clear to you, then, Dolan?”

Dolan nodded. He heard the softness in the master’s voice and it curdled his belly.

Fioral grew still. The sore on the back of his neck throbbed and dug deeper. He wanted to rub it. “You dare to lay your hand on me, Dolan?”

He’d been a fool, Dolan thought as he felt the hand of fear drawing close. In that hand would likely be a knife, his master’s favored weapon, and that knife could slide so easily into his chest. He held himself very still. “I meant no insult. It is just that all the old folk are just that, old and thus no threat to us. There is no reason to kill them.”

“He’s right, you young fool. Leave Crispin alone. He’s a good soldier, a solid man, and he’s done naught to you.”

Fioral jerked around to see Lord Vellan stride into the great hall, with perhaps not as much vigor as he once had, but he was still impressive, that old man, particularly wearing his beautiful ermine-trimmed tunic, just finished for him, he’d heard one of servants mention, by Lady Madelyn. Fioral couldn’t believe the mad old crone could still make such fine stitches, her fingers were so knotted and gnarled. He wanted that tunic. It was fit for a king, not this doddering old fool who should have been sent to hell years before.

Fioral said, “You will answer for your man’s rudeness, my lord?”

“Oh, aye, that I will. Tell me, Fioral, what did Crispin do to so enrage you? Did he attack you? Threaten to run his sword through you?”

Fioral spit, not more than an inch from Crispin’s head. “I would prefer to kill you, old man, and then it would all be over.”

Vellan said, “Nothing would be over, you idiot. Sir Bishop will return soon, and he will draw your fingernails off your hands, one by one, and I will laugh when each one drops to the ground and your howls resonate from the keep walls.”

Fioral couldn’t help it. He looked down at his hands, his fingernails, blunt, short, dirty, and strong. He looked up. “This Bishop of Lythe is probably dead, my lord, and you know it as well as I do. He just up and left and took Lady Merryn with him. What do you think happened to them? They went perhaps to London to see the king? I don’t think so, and neither do you. They’re dead, killed by bandits. I would have killed them had I seen them before arriving here at Penwyth.”

No one said anything because no one wanted to die. Lord Vellan just continued looking at him as if he were a bug to be trod upon. Fioral paused a moment, then said, “No, let us say that there is a curse here at Penwyth. This Bishop took Lady Merryn away from Penwyth and forced her to wed him, believing the curse wouldn’t touch him. But it did. What do you think of that, my lord? Bishop of Lythe is dead because this curse of yours can act anywhere, anytime.”

“All right,” Vellan said. “If the curse killed Bishop, then where is my granddaughter?”

“She is on her way back to Penwyth. She will come back to me, to wed me, her rightful husband.”

“You have no right here, Fioral,” Lord Vellan said. “You will die for your impudence. All your bragging, it is nothing.”

Fioral walked to Lord Vellan, drew back his fist, and would have slammed it into the old man’s jaw, but in that instant the sore on Fioral’s neck seemed to explode. He felt his skin tearing, pus spewing out, disease pouring through him, eating him alive. By all the saints’ blessed sins, he felt fear tear through his belly. He clapped his hand over the sore and ran out of the great hall.

Slowly, Crispin stood up. He brushed the rushes from his trousers, raised his head, and said to Dolan, “Something is very wrong with your master. Other than his madness.”

“Aye, it’s a sore on his neck that doesn’t heal. I will go see to him.”

Lord Vellan was laughing, then yelled after the young warrior, “The Penwyth curse is many-faceted, is it not, Fioral? Just look at you, rotting from the inside. How does it feel knowing that you will soon die and nothing you can do will stop it?”

Vellan laughed and laughed as he watched Fioral disappear up the winding stone staircase, Dolan at his heels. Then he began hiccuping, and even that felt very good. He said to Crispin after he’d swallowed some warm ale, “So where do you think Bishop is?”

“I pray he is close, my lord.”

“Aye, me, too, Crispin. Me, too.”

Not more than an hour later, when the afternoon was sinking over the hillocks into the western horizon, Dolan came into the great hall. He stopped in front of Fioral, who now had a bandage on his neck and was sitting again in Lord Vellan’s chair, holding himself quiet as a stone. “We have visitors, my lord. An old man and an old woman, asking to be allowed to see you. They say they barely escaped bandits. They beg for protection.”

“Tell them to go elsewhere or we’ll slit their scrawny throats. Penwyth needs no more ancient varmints.”

“They said that they can tell you about the whereabouts of Lady Merryn de Gay.”

Fioral rubbed his jaw. The sooner he got his hands on the girl, the sooner he’d be the lord of Penwyth. And then the dreadful sore on his neck would heal. He was sure of it. He nodded. “All right, then, bring them here. Dear God, are there nothing but crumbling old bones littering this miserable place?”

When the old man and woman shuffled into the great hall, Fioral knew he’d never seen two uglier specimens. The old woman looked hideous, all scrawny, hairs sticking out from three warts on her face, a face that could sour a man’s belly with but a look.

The old man was just as bad, bent and hunchbacked, dirty gray hair hanging over his face and down his back, his teeth black.

Fioral said, lounging back in the chair, “I allowed you into my keep. You will tell me now what you know of Lady Merryn de Gay or I will slit your withered old throats.”