The Penwyth Curse (Medieval Song 6)

He just shook his head, and stretched out his arms. He felt the smooth sand beneath his palms, no hidden pebbles or sticks, and the air was clear and sweet. Fearless, once inside, immediately settled down to eat from the bag of oats from St. Erth’s stables. Every once in a while, he looked around him into the part of the cave that extended beyond their campfire, into the deep shadows, alert, as if someone was calling to him, and he shook his great head and blew.

Once Merryn had settled beside Bishop, both sitting atop the flattened tent, she said, “Can you tell me why we’re here yet?”

“Did I tell you that your hair is redder now than it was this morning?”

She touched her fingers to her hair. “No, you didn’t. That isn’t possible, Bishop.”

He said nothing, merely lay back against the cave wall, folded his arms behind his head, and stared at the cave ceiling. “It’s true.” Even in the dim light he saw flames dancing around her head. I’m going mad, there’s nothing else for me to do.

The fire was burning down, but the warmth didn’t diminish at all. The air was still, calm, warm. Bishop looked at the opposite cave wall, at the faint shadows cast there by the fire. As he watched, one of the shadows suddenly seemed to spread, darken, and grow larger. Merryn didn’t notice. She was drawing Penwyth Castle in the fine sand with a stick. She didn’t seem to notice anything at all. But Fearless did. He was nodding at that shadow.

Bishop couldn’t look away from it. The shadow was shifting, darkening here, lightening there, until it became a man. A man, he thought. It was a man, nothing else. Then it shifted again, twisting back on itself, and was only a shadow again, falling into strange forms like clouds in a summer sky.

But it was more than a simple shadow. He said nothing to Merryn. He didn’t want her to be frightened.

He realized in that moment that he recognized the man buried in the shadow. Bishop felt his heart begin to pound, loud, deep beats, but he wasn’t afraid. He waited quietly for the shadow to come to him. It moved. When it finally covered him, and he felt the sweet, dry air inside the cave fill his body, his fingertips began to tingle.

He heard Merryn’s voice as if from a great distance. She was calling to him, but he couldn’t quite grasp what it was or who she was. Slowly, he rose and stood in the middle of the cave, the shadow twisting around him, wrapping him tightly, and he said, “My wand. Where is my wand?”

And it was suddenly there, in his hand, and he was staring down at it. It wasn’t more than a foot long, beautifully worked, but still stark, elegant, and it fit into his hand as if it were part of him. It pulsed with light and power; he could feel that power fill him, become one with him, and he smiled into the fire, which was burning fiercely once again, much larger now than when he and Merryn had built it an hour before.

He turned and walked toward the back of the cave. The air was redolent with the smell of incense, a heady odor that filled him just as the huge shadow had. No, not incense, but the smell of a thick oak forest. Where was it coming from?

He didn’t know. He didn’t really care, he just kept walking. The cave seemed to go on forever, yet he knew it didn’t. He knew also exactly where he was going. He was striding through the cave, the roof now high above his head, the passage widening with each step he took. And his wand—surely just a finely wrought stick of some sort, but he knew it wasn’t—he held loosely in his right hand. It felt natural there.

He called back to Merryn, “Stay where you are. I’m all right.”

He heard her say something, but it was faint and distant.

Suddenly there was a low noise that was sharp and steady, a buzzing like a hive of bees flying toward him, louder and louder until he clapped his hands over his ears. The buzzing stopped.

He lowered his hands, realized that he didn’t have his wand. No, he had to have his wand. Where was it? He looked down at the floor of the cave, searching, but he didn’t see it. Rather, he saw a small circular set of stones some three feet high that surrounded a hole. Flagstones, just like the sarsen stones at the huge meeting place on the plains of southern Britain. He knew what sarsen stones were, knew the feel of them. He knelt beside the circle of stones and looked down into the hole. He could see nothing at all, just blackness. He had no idea how deep the hole was. He leaned down, reaching, but felt only air. He cupped his mouth and called downward, “Where are you? Come to me now.”

Nothing, just blackness.

He called out again, this time louder. “I await you. Come to me now.”

A light flickered far down in the blackness, just a small pulse of light, flickering wildly, like a candle flame in a wind. It grew stronger and stronger. He didn’t move, just watched the light come upward, and when it nearly reached him, he drew back as if stung by a bee from that buzzing hive he’d heard just moments ago. No, it wasn’t a bee, not a brief prick but a full-bodied hit, something else—

A hand slapped him.

He reeled back, but not far enough.

A hand slapped him again. Hard.

18

Present

Penwyth Castle

LORD VELLAN, CHESTDEEP in his bathing tub, said to Crispin, “What do you mean there’s another band of men outside the walls? Another brainless ass is here to claim Merryn? But the king himself sent Sir Bishop of Lythe.”

“It seems this man doesn’t know about that, my lord. He’s got at least twenty men, and he’s demanding to come in. He’s demanding to wed Merryn.”

“He can’t do that,” said Lady Madelyn. She stroked the soapy sponge down her husband’s back, thinking his bones were too thin and meager now. She could feel the bones through the sponge. On the other hand, it was no surprise, for she’d felt his bones through the sponge for more years now than she could remember.

Lord Vellan ran his fingers through his wet, grizzled white hair, his magnificent hair still so thick, his pride. “By all the arrows that pierce Saint Sebastian, it is madness, their leader is mad. Aye, I will come.”