Free The Penwyth Curse by Catherine Coulter Page B

other’?”
    â€œDo you believe my hair is as red as fire? A wicked red?”
    He looked at her wild red hair, blowing fiercely around her head in the dry wind. He nodded. “Aye, at least as red as fire, and beyond wicked.”
    He reached up, touched his fingertips to her hair. Slowly, never looking away from her, he wrapped some strands around his finger, over and over, until he was tugging her toward him.
    She shook her head and he released her hair. She said, “And are my eyes as green as desire?”
    â€œNo, your eyes are as green as lust.”
    â€œOh.” She blinked at that. If he wasn’t mistaken, and he knew he wasn’t because he was, after all, a man, she blushed.
    He said, “What do you know about this key? ‘The enemy will fail who uses the key’?”
    â€œAn odd line, but I know nothing at all about any key. No one does, not even my grandfather.”
    â€œSo the curse is for any and all females with red hair and green eyes who just happen to live at Penwyth?”
    She said nothing.
    â€œAll right, tell me this. Is there a mare in season within the walls?”
    â€œWhy, yes, my mare, Lockley. There isn’t a stallion about to cover her.”
    â€œMy Fearless will cover her, willingly. He whinnied when he heard her; he caught her scent.”
    â€œI will think about this. I want to know his bloodlines, Sir Bishop. I want to inspect him, see that he is worthy of Lockley.”
    â€œI will swear upon Saint Cuthbert’s scabbed knees that Fearless’s withers are the finest in the land.”
    â€œYou jest. I don’t know anyone who jests like you do.”
    â€œDo you consider it one of my many excellent parts?”
    â€œI have known you for a very short time, only the length of a well-attended banquet. This is all very odd.”
    â€œYou may inspect Fearless. If it will gain him the mare, then he will doubtless allow it. You must explain his reward to him simply, no difficult words. As a wizard, I have merely to think my words to him and he understands.”
    â€œYou claim you can predict rain. Just maybe your damned destrier can understand what a person says as well. I don’t believe a man can be a wizard. Wizards are old and bearded, and they have strange mad lights in their eyes.”
    â€œEven a wizard must begin young.”
    â€œI still don’t believe it. You are a man, just a man, albeit a clever one.”
    â€œSo you believe me clever?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t mean to say that.”
    â€œYou will see. Now, the curse. The Celtic Druids had no written language.”
    â€œThe curse has come down from father to son or daughter from each succeeding generation. It was Lord Vellan’s grandfather who finally had a scribe record it. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
    She was lying and he knew it. He felt frustration boil in his belly. What was going on here? He said, “It is said that the Druids put their prisoners in wooden cages sothey could burn them at night for warmth and sacrifice. Can you begin to imagine the smell of that?”
    â€œWhen my third husband vomited up white foam, I remember that the stench was beyond anything.”
    He did not want to imagine that. He said, “Very well. Now, the Witches of Byrne—a small cult of women who paint their bodies with white lead, color their hair black as a rotted tooth, and rub their teeth with the red berries of the brickle plant to show their ferocity and their desire for raw flesh—even the Witches of Byrne are difficult to find now, since they despise men. It is difficult to continue if there is no man to plant his seed in a woman’s belly.”
    She said, “My grandmother told me that the Witches of Byrne don’t despise men. They merely don’t trust them. They observe the horror that men bring, know that those same men would destroy them if they could. Surely you don’t deny