“No, he isn’t dead, Grandfather. Indeed, he just spoke to me. I promise you it’s the truth.”
“If he isn’t dead now, he will be in but another instant of time. Come, Merryn, you must leave him. You must let us attend to him.”
She looked at her grandfather’s old hand, held out to her. Slowly, she shook her head. She leaned down and kissed Bishop’s mouth. Then she threw back her head and said, “Bishop, it is time for you to rise up and tell everyone that you will wed me this day.”
No one moved. Everyone heard the old woman, who wasn’t old at all, speak to Bishop of Lythe, who was dead, perforce had to be dead, or soon would be.
Bishop opened his eyes. He even smiled at her. “Aye, I will do that.”
Merryn took her grandfather’s hand and let him lift her up. There was a huge circle of blood on the front of her gown. She stared numbly down at it. She heard people all around her, speaking now, saying, “It is the Lady Merryn!”
“. . . Why isn’t he dead? He should be dead.”
“. . . Why did she throw herself on top of him?”
On and on it went. He rose to his feet, shook himself like a dog after a storm.
Like her, his chest was covered with blood. But it was drying now, that blood, looking blacker than a thief’s heart, stiffening the tunic.
There was utter silence. One chicken squawked. A breeze lifted Bishop’s hair off his forehead. He felt only a bit weak now. He touched his hand to his chest. He was whole.
“He isn’t dead, he isn’t dead, he isn’t dead.” The shock made the voices all blend together, until they sounded nearly one voice in his head.
It was impossible, all knew it was impossible. Then someone said, “I understand now. It was just a prick of the knife, the sort that causes a lot of bleeding, but withal the knife struck nothing vital, nothing to kill Sir Bishop.”
“Aye, that’s it.”
Bishop could feel the people’s relief that they could now understand that nothing had happened that would make them hear dark wings flapping over their heads in the deep of the night. He said nothing, just took Merryn’s hand, looked down into her ugly old face. “Will you wed me in an hour’s time?”
“Aye, just as soon as we clean the blood off ourselves and I can let this nose fall off.”
She vaguely heard cheering. She felt her grandfather hug her, her grandmother’s busy hands patting her here and there.
37
THERE WAS NO WOUND IN his chest, no sign that a knife had ever sunk through his flesh into his heart. There was nothing save mayhap a bit of soreness, but perhaps that was because Merryn had pounded her fist so hard against him and laid herself so heavily on top of him.
That made him smile. He leaned back in the tub and closed his eyes. She would come to him soon, a sponge in her hand, and she would bathe him. Then, he thought, he would bathe her, although he knew she’d already been bathed by all her hovering women.
He wondered if there was any mark on her breast, any bruise or mark to prove that something had happened.
He felt energy pulse through him, perhaps more energy than he’d had before the fight with Fioral. Now, that was odd.
Merryn came into the chamber, the sponge in her hand. She was smiling, her blood-soaked gown gone. She was wearing a simple robe, one he knew she would change when they were wed this evening. She stood over him, laid her hand on his shoulder. “How do you feel?”
He only nodded. “Show me your breast.”
Slowly she laid down the sponge, took a step back and opened her robe. She pulled it wide. He stared at her breast, the soft white flesh, but—and then he saw the faint white line and knew it was right over her beating heart. He swallowed. “I don’t have even a mark.”
“I’m glad. This, it’s nothing.” She closed her robe. “I am here to bathe you, my soon-to-be husband. I wish you to lean back, be at ease, and let me attend you. I would say that you have had a hard day.”
Bishop did just that, laughed. “Aye, I have. Do you love me, Merryn?”
She said without hesitation, without even slowing the smooth stroking of the sponge, “Aye, I love you. I love you more than I did just a minute ago. Soon I will have such love for you I will feel knocked about the head with it.”
He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. He li
ghtly closed his hand over hers. “I know that feeling exactly.”