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Chapter Text

A. 979. In this year was Æthelræd consecrated king at Kingston, on the Sunday, fourteen days after Easter…. That same year was seen a bloody cloud, oftentimes, in the likeness of fire; and it was mostly apparent at midnight, and so in various beams was coloured: when it began to dawn, then it glided away.

-- Excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Nothing like the clouds of colored fire had been seen over the village of Little Witchingham for ten years, and that was just fine with the villagers who lived there. Marauding bands of Danes on their east, the casually destructive movements of the Saxon armies to their west, and the ordinary concerns of bringing food from earth to table were quite enough for them, if you please, without the addition of bloody portents and unearthly lightning omens above their heads. But the lack of fire and lights in the sky for ten years did not, of course, mean that Little Witchingham had been entirely untouched by strange or mystical happenings.

The village and its surrounding farmland were divided more or less down the middle by the single road, little more than a wagon track, which ended in the yard of the squat stone chapel at the village’s northern limit. Those villagers who lived and worked along that track and to the west of it often found themselves making excuses to avoid crossing into the fields on the eastern side. They would, of course, say that they simply had no business over there. That the folk who lived in East Little Witchingham liked to be left to themselves, and who were they to tread loosely on other people’s wishes for privacy? Odd fellows, they might say if pressed. Perfectly fine people, of course, but… odd. Wore funny clothes. Used funny words, sometimes, when they thought they weren’t being heard. They were mostly of Danish blood on that side of the village, some might have pointed out, and naturally that would make a difference; but little quirks of culture and language could not account for everything.

They could not, for instance, explain the occasional flashes of light that could be seen through the trees along the edge of the easternmost barley plot, nor could they account for the numerous instances of people becoming inexplicably lost when trying to catch a stray sheep among the eastern fields. And although nobody ever believed him, the smithy’s boy Cerdic would swear to any who would listen that Hunlaf the woodcutter had a dog with two tails.

Whatever the reason for the strange happenings that tended to accompany the folk in the east of Little Witchingham, it was the general consensus of the rest of the village that they were not bad ‘uns, at any rate. They got on with life same as other folk, and helped out their neighbors when they could. Hunlaf the Woodcutter was the particular exception to their rule of avoidance; for whether his dog had one tail, or two, or twenty, he could mend a broken plough or carve a toy for a child with unnatural (and some said devilish) speed. Hunlaf was a big man in all directions – although surprisingly deft even with his massive hands – with wild locks of copper hair which he tried to placate by keeping them plaited; and he was never seen without his tall, stout ash stave on which were carved clusters of tiny inscrutable runes. Often during ploughing or harvest a handful of the village men could be seen carrying some broken farm implement from their western plots across the road to Hunlaf’s cottage, which was the only one of its fellows that was not hidden among the trees. The tool would be carried into his workshop and the door shut behind him, and his work was so utterly silent that none could ever figure how he did his repairs. But the silence was always broken for them by his daughter Helga, who would make friendly conversation with the farmers in the dooryard of her father’s shed while he worked. And as often as ploughs were dragged there with injuries even a toddler could have fixed, it was the opinion of the village mothers that it was really she who the farmers’ boys were most keen to visit.

Helga Hunlafsdottir was tall and fair – taller, in fact, than many of those keen farm boys by an inch or two. Her eyes were the transparent green of stained glass mounted in dark lead rings, and her golden hair hung nearly to her knees in a braid as thick as her forearm. Dressed as she usually was in her long cloak the color of oxlip blossoms, she looked like a valkyrja out of one of the Danes’ poems, and she could fix a man with a piercing stare to match if she thought he deserved it. The old women of Little Witchingham muttered amongst themselves that it was a shameful waste for a girl like that to be still unwed at nineteen, all her childbearing years slipping away unused, and there was a silent conspiracy among them to get her married off to one of their sons if they could. But although Helga was sweet and genial to all and had time for each of the village men’s flustered conversations, she had never shown real interest in any of them – and worse, her father seemed in no hurry to talk of dowry with any of them either. At first they assumed it was a divide of culture – that her father would naturally prefer to give her to one of his own Danish neighbors than a Saxon; but as he seemed to make no discernable gestures in that direction either, the speculation about why had only deepened.

“May’ap she think to join the church?” suggested a farmer’s wife one day over her churn, to the general nods of her neighbors. “Sweet girl, that. Make a good sister.”

“Or perhaps,” said the town’s priest, who happened to be passing the dooryard, “they might prefer the hammer of Thunor to the cross of Christ?” Everyone thought then of the runes carved on Hunlaf’s ash stave, and the women’s fingers leapt to their foreheads to cross the thought away.

“I allus thought it were because she had babbies already and no man’d take her,” said one old woman.

“I’d still take her,” piped her son from the safety of the other side of a hedge, and he had to dodge the empty bucket she tossed at him. The first woman scoffed.

“Oh, never! Those aren’t hers – those is orphans what she keeps sometime when she finds ‘em what needs her. She just send one up t’ Norwic back at Candlemas, to be in service on the bishop.”

“Aye, that’s too many to be all hers,” the old woman conceded.

“And she do be dreadful good at herbs and helping the sick ‘uns and all.” To this there was more general nodding and agreement, for it was widely known in both Little and Greater Witchingham that Helga Hunlafsdottir could spend five minutes in the forest and ten at her table and have ready in hand a concoction that would cure most things that ailed one.

“Know why, that?” interjected Cerdic the smithy’s boy, and like always, the villagers humored him. “She’s a witch, that be why.” Everyone nodded sagely and suppressed their giggles, and Cerdic puffed up as he always did when disbelieved. “I sawr that dog!” he protested. “That have two tails, it do. That in’t natural.”

“Nor be yer face, boy,” said the old woman, “but we don’t call ye witch for all.” And as was usual at this point, the conversation descended into the other farm boys trying to capture Cerdic to look for a witch’s mark on his very grubby person, and no more was said of Helga - that day at least. The villagers’ laughing voices fluttered up into the gentle spring breeze and were carried across the road, out over the eastern barley fields where they mingled with the trilling of songbirds, the hum of spring insects, the water-like shushing of moving treetops, and – in the far distance – the squeals and laughter of children in the field beyond Hunlaf the Woodcutter’s cottage.

“Harald! Drop that this instant, that is NOT food!”

In the grass at the edge of Hunlaf’s dooryard, the boy called Harald grinned wickedly and moved the squirming lizard in his fist closer to his mouth. Helga Hunlafsdottir drew herself to her full height in the cottage doorway and narrowed her glass-green eyes. “Harald….”

The boy’s resolve wobbled under her firm gaze, and the lizard took its chance to wriggle free of his chubby fingers. It scurried away into the thick spring grass to celebrate its good fortune with its fellows. Helga swept her oxlip yellow cloak back from her arms and scooped Harald up from the dirt where he had been playing. It cheered her to feel the weight he had gained – when she had found him and his sister Hnossa a month past, he had been thin and weak, having lived on berries in the forest for days after the destruction of his village by a Saxon army. The children had been orphaned, their whole settlement burned, and the older sister had done the best she could to feed the both of them as they wandered aimlessly looking for the next village. All this Helga had learned in pieces from Hnossa; Harald still hadn’t spoken, but that didn’t worry her terribly at the moment. Children often chose silence as a response to the uncontrollable world they lived in. He would, perhaps, speak again in his own time; and if he didn’t, what then? A man didn’t need to speak to make his way in life, and besides – his sister could chatter plenty enough for both of them.

“If you are hungry,” Helga said to him softly, giving the boy a gentle squeeze, “please try to confine your diet to things that are already killed and waiting for you in the kitchen, hmm? Or perhaps some nice bread? Mm? Can you say bread?” She shifted him to her hip and mimed the breaking of bread. Harald stuck out his little pink tongue in response and made a noise at her. “Right,” she surrendered, and carried him into the cottage.

Inside the little house was cool, dark, and dry. The air smelt of new bread and the herbs that hung from the thatch ceiling over a long table which stood under the single window. Helga put Harald down on the rush floor mat and went to the table, pulling toward her a partial loaf of bread wrapped loosely in a white cloth. Her hand rested on the loaf for a moment as she glanced out the window, ensuring that she was not observed, and then at Harald (who was looking not at her but at the corner of the mat he was now trying to chew). She then picked up not the bread knife but instead a long, slender stick of pear wood which had been lying in a cut groove at the back of the table.

“Skera,” she whispered, and touched the stick to the loaf of bread. A thin slice lopped itself off the end of the loaf and fell over onto the surface of the table. Helga slipped the pear rod back into its groove and draped the cloth back over the loaf. Turning to Harald, she bent down and held out the bread to him. He took it with both dirty hands. “Better than lizards?” she asked him, expecting no response.

“Awm,” he grunted, shoving the bread into his mouth. Helga sighed. She supposed while she was at it, she might as well feed the other one too – if she could find her.

“Harald, have you seen your sister lately?”

Chew, chew, chew.

“You could …point in a general direction…?”

Chew, chew, chew.

“Alright. Enjoy your bread. Do NOT eat the rug. I’ll be right back.” Helga pushed herself upright again and stepped back out into the dooryard. It was only the two children staying there at the moment – she’d cared for as many as six at a time in the past – but between Harald trying to eat everything that held still (and some things that did not) and his sister Hnossa always running off and getting into mischief, two was quite full capacity, thank you very much. The sister was older, almost nine, and although she at least knew the difference between a meal and wildlife, she had a particular proclivity for getting into trouble while trying to chase said wildlife. Helga thought for a moment and then went back inside to retrieve the stick of pear wood. Once in the dooryard again, she placed the stick on a bare spot of dirt and bent over it. “Leita,” she said quietly.

The stick lay quite still for a few seconds, as one might expect a stick to do. Then it did something very unexpected and un-stick-like; it quivered gently, stirring up loose soil beneath it, and then it spun in place three times before coming sharply to a halt, its tapered nose pointing at an angle into the meadow beyond the dooryard. Helga nodded as though this were just what she’d expected to happen. She picked up the stick, slipped it into an inner pocket of her cloak, and started walking into the tall grass in the direction it had pointed.

There was a grand spreading oak at the end of the far meadow just before the cultivated land of Little Witchingham gave way to wild forest, and it was here that the spinning stick had directed Helga, if vaguely. She was still far distant from the tree, but when she shielded her eyes from the sun she could just make out the shape of the little girl sprawled out in the cool grass beneath it, head bent low to the ground and feet jutting up into the air behind her. Helga sighed in relief. She had half expected to find the girl buried up to her waist in a badger’s sett or stuck up a tree with a wasp nest. Lying on the ground watching insects was infinitely more manageable. Helga picked up her skirt to stop it dragging on the vegetation and trudged on, stirring up disgruntled young grasshoppers and jarring clouds of fragrance out of the abundant wildflowers. She moved as softly as she could; Hnossa had snuck up behind Hunlaf two days ago and nearly caused him to light his beard on fire, and on her way through the field Helga had decided to even the score by grabbing the little girl’s feet and tickling before she realized anyone was behind her.

As she grew closer, Helga began to hear faint whispers of the sort little girls make when they are imparting great girlhood secrets to a bosom companion. Helga smiled; the little one was telling her troubles to butterflies today. Well, let her; butterflies were excellent secret-keepers, and they held no judgments nor offered opinions. The best kind of friend, Helga thought absently. She was approaching the shade of the tree now, and she tucked her skirt hem up into her girdle to free her hands and slipped out of her shoes. She would have to be utterly silent if she wanted to surprise such an observant child. Helga tiptoed up until she could hear snatches of the girl’s whispers.

“…ssssaaa, ssskæ. Ssssimii hifffu?”

Helga stopped abruptly, her hands still in the ready-to-tickle position. Her skin went cold in spite of the warm sunshine. The words coming from Hnossa’s mouth were not any that Helga recognized, and her voice itself sounded… odd. Incongruous. There was an echoic quality to it that made it sound as though it came not from the little girl’s throat but from some Other Place. But it was not the unfamiliar language or the tone of Hnossa’s speech that froze Helga in her tracks; rather, it was what she was speaking to. Coiled in front of the little girl’s face, its head raised up level with her eyes and swaying gently in the breeze, was a large banded serpent. Helga nearly cried out, until she realized that it was not an adder but a harmless grass snake. Its quick little tongue was flashing in and out of its mouth as though it meant to answer the child’s apparent question. Perhaps it did answer her; for after a few moments of what seemed like silence to Helga, the girl continued in her strange hiss.

“Sssssia gassssi nafassss hhhhorem—”

Hnossa stopped in mid-word as the snake flicked its tongue again, this time bobbing its head in a way that was quite unnatural for a snake. As though it had spoken and interrupted her, Hnossa’s little brows drew together. “Sssjehhh dsssoduuxsss?” The snake bobbed its head more deliberately, and Hnossa rolled over to face Helga, startled.

“Fru Helga!” she cried, this time in her normal voice, and Helga let her still-frozen hands drop down to her sides. The snake melted silently back into the grass, apparently deciding that two humans was one too many. Hnossa glanced back at it, seeming disappointed, and Helga cleared her throat uncertainly.

“I… I was feeding your brother, and…thought you might be hungry too.” The little girl shrugged her shoulders in a way that said she would never turn away food, but she would rather still be conversing with the snake. Helga tucked her skirt under her legs and sat down beside Hnossa, who was picking nervously at the petals of nearby flowers. “Did you make a friend?” she asked diplomatically after a few moments of silence.

“He said his name was Æssmoghhu.”

“Did he?” Helga asked genially to mask her astonishment. The little girl nodded, picking petals off a cowslip.

“Didn’t you hear him, Fru Helga?”

“No, I didn’t,” Helga said quietly. She chose her next words cautiously, careful of the girl’s reaction. “Hnossa, when Æssmoghhu spoke to you, did you hear his voice out here, in the air… or inside your mind?” She tapped gently at Hnossa’s forehead.

The little girl thought about that, her brows and nose wrinkling, and Helga noticed that her downy eyebrows were as pale as milk in the spring sunlight. “His mouth didn’t move, did it, Fru Helga?” Hnossa said after some time, pulling the petals from another flower one at a time before looking up at her guardian. Helga shook her head.

“No.” She regarded the little girl thoughtfully, the full import of what she had witnessed now beginning to dawn upon her. She had heard of people being able to speak with serpents, but only in stories, or in second- or third-hand accounts. Her father’s father Thorfridh had once told her about a seiðmaðr from his grandfather’s village who could do it, but that was long ago and far away. It was a rare thing – and it never occurred in isolation from …other abilities. Helga picked a harebell and tucked it gently behind the little girl’s ear. “Hnossa, do you speak to snakes often, or was this the first time?”

Hnossa shrugged again, but then she followed it with an answer. “When I was little like Harald, there was an adder in the firewood pile. It wanted to bite Father, but I told it to go away and it listened.” Helga smiled at her and pressed further.

“And what did you say to your friend today?”

“That was aloud,” said Hnossa. “You didn’t hear me?” Helga took a deep breath before answering her.

“I… heard you speaking to him. But I couldn’t understand the words you said.”

“But…,” began Hnossa, then she stopped. She took a moment to ponder, and then blurted, “But I was saying ordinary words, Fru Helga! He was surprised that I could hear him, and I told him yes, I would speak to him. And I asked him his name – and then I asked him how I could hear him when other people couldn’t. I think he was going to explain, but then he told me there was a person coming, and I said, What person? That was you, and then he went away.” She picked another flower and twirled it between her fingers thoughtfully. “Why couldn’t you understand me?”

“Because,” Helga explained slowly, “you weren’t using a language that I know.”

“But I don’t know any other languages, Fru Helga, just this one!”

“In your mind, it must sound like our language,” Helga nodded. “But out loud, you were speaking the tongue of the serpents.”

“How?” Hnossa cried, a look of consternation settling over her face. “How can I speak what I don’t know?”

“My grandfather called it the Ormrmal – Serpent Speech,” Helga replied. She reached over and pulled the little girl into her lap. “The Saxons call it Snacan-tunge. There are other names for it in other places. It works in your mind – people who have it can hear and understand serpents and can speak back to them in their own language, even though it may sound to them like they are speaking their ordinary tongue. It is very uncommon. You are the first person I have ever met who can do it.” She tapped the little girl on the nose and gave her a reassuring smile, because she still looked worried. Hnossa gazed up at her seriously.

“Is it bad?”

“Of course not,” Helga said immediately. “You kept your father safe from a bite, and you made a friend today. Those aren’t bad things.”

“But you were afraid when you heard me,” Hnossa said matter-of-factly. Helga sighed.

“I was… very surprised. I have never known anyone who could do it, and it sounds… a little unnerving to people who can’t understand the words. It is a tongue full of whispers.”

This seemed to placate the girl, and the two of them sat in silence for several warm, comfortable minutes. The bright green leaves above them made hushing and puffing sounds in the breeze, and they both watched a fat, dozy bumblebee make its way through several flowers in front of them before floating off to somewhere less inhabited. After what she felt was long enough, Helga brushed her fingers through Hnossa’s milk-pale hair and asked what she really wanted to know.

“Hnossa,” she began, “are there any other things you can do that other people can’t? Maybe things you never showed anybody because you were worried about what people would say?”

The little girl didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached down and plucked a harebell stem on which only the topmost flower was open. The milky blue petals matched her eyes almost exactly, and each unopened bud below it was a deep starry purple. Hnossa stared at the flowers almost dreamily until Helga thought she simply wasn’t going to answer at all. Then, as Helga watched, the bud nearest the open flower began to swell as though it were taking a breath; it pulsed momentarily like a small beating heart, and then it opened. Below it, like a chain reaction down the stem, every other closed bud swelled and then blossomed in succession.

“Harald claps for me when I do that one,” Hnossa whispered, and Helga could feel her little body trembling with effort – and with pride. Suddenly, she twisted sharply in Helga’s lap and faced her. “Please don’t tell anyone!” It was another whisper, but a whisper made loud and sibilant by fear. Hnossa’s petal-blue eyes were large with mortification. “Please,” she repeated. “I don’t want to go into the river.”

Helga felt a little piece of her heart break at those words; she squeezed the little girl against her bodice and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “No, nobody’s going into the river,” she whispered into the child’s hair, wondering how many witch-drownings the girl had witnessed before the age of nine. The fear in Hnossa’s voice made her feel sick in her stomach, and it made her next decision easier. Helga kissed the girl’s head again and then moved her off her lap; she held the bony little shoulders at arm’s length and met her eyes reassuringly. “Would you like to know a secret, Hnossa?” she smiled, and the little girl nodded. Helga looked around to be sure nobody was approaching them through the barley fields or from the forest; then she reached into her cloak and slipped out the long, straight piece of pear wood. She held it up at Hnossa’s eye level, and the little girl ran her gaze along its polished length, lingering for a moment on the etched figures and runes that formed a kind of grip at one end.

“What—” Hnossa began, but Helga hushed her gently. She picked up one of the flower stems from which Hnossa had plucked all the petals and bade her hold it out at arm’s length; then she drew the tip of her wand – for that is what it was – in a small circle around the bare stem.

“Bœta,” Helga murmured. Hnossa gasped. As if drawn by a soft magnetism, a cloud of petals picked themselves up from the grass where they had lain and began to swirl around the empty stem. Then one by one, they reattached themselves to their former places until the flower in the little girl’s hand was whole and bobbing in the breeze with the weight of petals.

Helga turned her gaze from the flower to the child’s face. The smile blazing back at her was brighter than spring sunshine.

Hunlaf the Woodcutter returned from his day’s trip to Norwic in the gloaming hour and was greeted by an owl whose repeated calls from the nearby woods seemed to chide him for coming home so late. He had gone to the town that morning to check up on the orphan boy who they’d placed in the care of St. Mary’s church months before, and he had told Helga he’d be back by dinner, but ah! There had been new potion ingredients at the market, all the way from Brittany, so she could forgive him the couple of hours. The sky was the soft color of new-churned cream with blackberries in, and he took a couple of deep, snorty breaths of the wild spring night air before setting off down the field row toward his cottage. It was his custom to apparate under the big oak, far from the prying eyes of the úgaldr in the village, and walk the rest of the distance home. On a night like this one, it was no trouble – quite the opposite, in fact, a pleasant stroll.

“You can leave the stalking, Sœtr,” Hunlaf said amicably in the direction of the thickening barley to his right, where a rhythmic rustling had been gaining speed alongside him. “You’re no good at it, and besides, I was the one who dropped you in there after we apparated.” The rhythmic steps halted momentarily, were replaced by a second of frenzied shuffling, and then suddenly a small white dog with a brown head shot up out of the barley as though fired from a bow. His jump took him two feet into the air, his paws tucked neatly under him in the same way a deer tucks its hooves when it jumps a log. Hunlaf chuckled at him as he landed on the track at his master’s feet, immediately coiling his body down against the dirt again to prepare for another powerful jump. “Are you a crup or a hart, my friend?” the big man laughed, and the crup barked sharply in answer, banging his thick forked tail rapidly against the packed dirt path. “Come on, then,” Hunlaf beckoned, poking Sœtr in the muscular hind leg with his staff. “We’ve brought Helga a package of new ingredients from the town and we’ll see what she makes of them, all right?”

Sœtr the crup pounced straight up into the air with the force of a Norman longbow, his folded ears coming level with Hunlaf’s broad chest before gravity took over again; this was followed by two sharp staccato barks.

“Yes, I’m sure there’ll be something off the fire for you to chew on, you miserable eater of worlds,” Hunlaf chortled, walking on down the track. “I should have named you Sköll. You do nothing but swallow all my household goods, and you mock me while you do it.”

Sœtr trotted along ahead of his master, a self-satisfied grin stretching his muzzle and his forked tail quivering perpendicular to the ground.

“I wish you would swallow your tail instead like the Great Serpent,” Hunlaf went on as the thatched roof of his cottage came into view. “Then perhaps I wouldn’t have to worry about you running amok around the úgaldr and giving us away. You know, one day they are going to finally believe that witless smith-boy when he prattles about your tails, and then you’ll be sorry, because I’ll feed you to them while Helga and I escape. Hmm.” He hid his grin behind layers of copper beard, and Sœtr (who never believed any of his master’s threats) charged on ahead toward the cottage, barking uproariously.

Helga was standing in the dooryard of the cottage waiting for them, and Hunlaf raised one bushy red eyebrow in surprise.

“My daughter always goes to sleep with the sun,” he said genially. “You can’t be her.” He tapped his staff sharply against some charred logs in a stone-lined depression in the soil, and a merry little fire sprang up where he had touched; Sœtr barked at it and hopped around as though he would like to bite the flames, and Hunlaf shooed him away. “Go on, you. Go thrash some poor rabbit to death and save me the trouble of feeding you out of the kitchen. Go on. And stop that barking, you’ll wake those children and Loki under the ground, too!” He watched as the crup pounced away into the dark trees behind the cottage, then turned back to his daughter. Helga was smiling, but she almost never stayed up past sunset, and he saw now that her wand was in plain sight in her hand. A second unusual thing for her. Hunlaf leaned his staff against the wall of the cottage and eased himself down onto the polished tree stump he kept there for a stool. “Now,” he grunted, waving for Helga to sit on the upturned basket beside him. “What’s got my daughter awake past her bed-time, hmm? Other than the fact that I was two hours late.”

Helga lowered herself onto the basket and took a few moments before answering him. “I found Hnossa under the oak tree this afternoon,” she began.

“Antagonizing something with sharp claws?” Hunlaf asked, unlacing the cloth that wrapped his calves.

“She was speaking to a grass snake.”

“Oh?” Hunlaf said automatically as he coiled the leather thongs around his hand. When Helga didn’t go on, he looked up at her. Her expression drove home her meaning. “Oh,” he repeated, slowly laying aside his leg wraps and their thongs and interlacing his fingers on his ample stomach. “It’s like that, is it?”

“I’d never heard the Ormrmal before. It’s so….” She trailed off.

“Unsettling,” her father supplied, and she nodded. “I take it that’s not the only thing she can do?”

“When I prodded her, she blossomed a harebell bud for me,” Helga said pensively. “And then she was so afraid she started shaking. She begged me not to put her in the river.”

Hunlaf winced. “And naturally, you had to give her a little demonstration to show her she was in safe hands.”

“We can’t find a home for them elsewhere now,” Helga said softly. “Someone has to teach her how to use her magic, or she’ll be like that boy Grandmother told me about from her parents’ village.”

“You mean the one who held in his magic like holding his breath until he exploded, sunk two ships, and nearly killed half the villagers? Yes, someone will have to teach her.” Hunlaf stretched his feet toward the fire and flexed his ankles. “Is the boy magic as well?”

“I don’t think so,” said Helga, turning her wand over in her hands. “I asked her if anyone else in her family could do any of these things, and she said she had never seen it.”

Hunlaf sighed. “Úgaldr-born and now orphaned, with no wizarding family. Which means she knows nothing except what she’s been able to teach herself. No wand, no names for any of the things she can do.”

“She’ll learn quickly,” Helga replied, her smile returning somewhat. “She’s bright. And now that she has a name for what she’s been doing, I think she’ll be eager to learn everything she can.” They fell into a comfortable silence. The night breeze bent the fire to one side and then the other; it whiffled up inside the hood of Helga’s cloak, billowing it up around her hair and filling it with the scent of corn roses. Presently, Hunlaf groaned and stretched, then hauled himself up off the stump and reached for his staff.

“Well, come on then, daughter. Let’s get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.” He stretched his shoulder blades, said “Sœtr, kom!” and then tapped his staff sharply on the ground, eliciting a little puff of purplish light from the dirt beneath it. Helga could hear the sounds of the crup crashing through the undergrowth toward them as she got up from her seat. She pointed her wand at the fire.

“Sløkk,” she murmured, and the fire disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Why so much to do tomorrow?” she asked as Sœtr skidded into the dooryard, looking disappointed that he’d missed the fire. Her father shooed the crup inside the cottage.

“Because,” he said to her over his shoulder, “you have to spend the morning with the little one in the forest hunting bowtruckles and finding some wood for her wand – and I have to spend the afternoon carving it.”

Chapter Text

            “Tell me again what they look like, Fru Helga?” Hnossa said, dangling from Helga’s arm as the young woman swung her over a tiny stream. Helga lifted her skirt and took the long step over the rivulet herself, trying to think how best to describe fairy eggs to the little girl. It was early morning in the forest beyond Little Witchingham, and the sun had not yet dispelled the mist that wove between the trees and clung to their hair. Somewhere deeper into the wood, a nightingale was singing out the last of its dawn song before retreating from the coming day’s heat. Helga had awakened Hnossa just before sunrise and told her that today would be the first day of her education as a witch; she had never seen the girl move toward the door faster. Along the way, they had talked without ceasing, about magical creatures, about when to use magic and when to use one’s hands, about the runes carved on Helga’s wand, and about a million other things. Helga had to see what things Hnossa had already discovered for herself and what things she would need to be taught, and Hnossa talked for the sheer pleasure of hearing her own voice. Presently they had arrived at the subject of locating fairy eggs. They were in the forest, of course, to get some wood suitable to make Hnossa a wand; but to get wand-quality wood, you had to seduce the bowtruckles, and to seduce the bowtruckles, you had to feed them.

            “Fairy eggs look like….,” Helga began, and then paused. How did one describe them? This was a little girl from a farmer’s cottage in a village surrounded by barley and cows. She would have never laid eyes on gemstones or a great lady’s jewelry, and so that comparison would be useless. After a moment’s thought, Helga knelt down to Hnossa’s eye level. “Have you ever been to a church with colored glass in the windows, Hnossa?”

            “We came to the Witchingham church when Harald was baptised.”

            “Well,” Helga went on, “imagine that someone took all that colored glass and broke it into a thousand tiny pieces, like barley grains – except each of those tiny pieces had a light inside it like a tiny star. And then imagine they took those pieces of glass to a waterfall where the sun was making a rainbow over the water, and they THREW those pieces up into the rainbow. Can you imagine what they would look like?”

            Hnossa nodded in awe, her little mouth round and, for once, silent.

            “Well, fairy eggs,” Helga said, standing back up and reaching for the girl’s hand, “look like that, except they’ll be in little clusters stuck to the backside of leaves on low-hanging plants. We need to collect two or three leaves’ worth – otherwise, the bowtruckles won’t let us anywhere near their trees.”

            “How do we find the right leaves?” Hnossa asked. “There are a lot of leaves in a forest.”

            Helga nodded. “Oh, yes, too many to search all of them. That’s why you first look for fairy butter, and let it lead the way.”

            “Fairy butter? What’s that?”

            “It’s just a plant,” Helga smiled. “Like a mushroom or a lichen. It’s bright yellow like sunshine, and squishy like the inside of an egg, and it grows in wet places in the forest on dead wood. Fairies like to eat it, you see. And so they lay their eggs on leaves that are close by, which is why you will always stand a better chance of finding fairy eggs if you look for fairy butter first.”

            The two of them spent a peaceful quarter of an hour strolling the bank of the small stream, looking for anything bright yellow that caught their attention. Around them, the forest was beginning to awake into cascades of birdsong as the sunlight dripped through the foliage and into nests. After a few false starts (a cluster of buttercups, a yellow wagtail hunting worms), they finally found what they were looking for at the base of an alder. Hnossa wrinkled her nose at the sight of the golden fungus.

            “Yick,” she said flatly. “It looks like guts.” And indeed it did; the gelatinous yellow formation clung to the side of the tree in sinuous layers that twisted side to side around each other like the reticulations of a snake, looking for all the world like whipped butter that someone had forced through a tightly woven net. Helga chuckled at Hnossa’s expression.

            “Well, the fairies think it’s delicious. Now, start turning over leaves – you’ll know the eggs when you see them.”

            Hnossa looked dubious, but she began dutifully lifting nearby leaves, watching for any hint of sparkle.

In the end, they found a whole bush full of eggs about two cart lengths away from the fairy butter tree. Helga bade Hnossa hold out her cupped hands while she used her wand to dislodge the eggs from their leafy nurseries. The little girl’s palms held two and a half leaves full of the sparkling little grains, and as they stood up and headed back toward the stream, Hnossa stared in wonder at the glittering heap she held. It looked to her like starlight glinting off multicolored water.

            Helga picked her up under her arms, careful not to jostle her hands, and lifted her back over the little stream.

            “Now,” she instructed as she hopped the water herself, “tell it back to me while we walk, so I know that you’ve learned it.” She led Hnossa further into the woods, where the thick canopy of leaves almost muffled the sounds of the Witchingham chapel bell ringing Terce. Hnossa kept her eyes glued to her hands even as she answered; she didn’t want to drop a single egg.

            “Fairy butter finds the fairy eggs. The eggs are the bowtruckles’ favorite thing to eat.”

            “And what is a bowtruckle?” Helga prompted.

            “A magical creature that lives in the trees. If a tree has bowtruckles in it, it’s good for making wands.”

            “Very good,” Helga smiled. “And why do we need to bring fairy eggs to the bowtruckles?”

            “Because they guard their tree,” Hnossa recited, still eyeing her handful of eggs. “If we try to take a branch, they might scratch or bite us, so we bring them their favorite food to show them we are friends, and that we only want a little piece of their home.”

            “Good,” Helga grinned. “You remember what you’re taught easily, and you’ll make a fine witch.” She punctuated this with a light kiss on Hnossa’s wispy blonde hair.

They had now stopped at the edge of a grove of trees that seemed somehow different than the forest around them, although just how, Hnossa couldn’t have said. They were all the same kinds of trees as the rest of the wood – alder, blackthorn, sycamore, mountain-ash, oak – but they were bathed in a different sort of light here than anywhere else in the forest. The ground beyond the tips of Helga’s shoes changed abruptly from mixed grass and leaf litter to a thick, spongy moss that was an exquisitely vibrant shade of green. Hnossa made a little sound of wonderment.

            “This is where they live,” she whispered, meaning it as a question but knowing it for fact as it left her mouth. Helga nodded.

            “A witch or wizard will usually be able to feel them when they are near – if they learn to be silent and listen, like you are doing now. When I was a child, they lived all through this forest. Now they have retreated here to the center, to avoid the farmers clearing land at the edges. They go further west every year, and I’m afraid that one day there will be no bowtruckles in Anglia at all, they will all have fled to Wales.”

            Hnossa stood quietly for a minute, taking in what she had heard. Then she pried her eyes up from her handful of eggs and asked, “Fru Helga, how do I choose which tree to take wood from?”

            Helga’s grin widened. “You don’t.” When Hnossa wrinkled her face, perplexed, Helga laughed out loud. It was a rich and resonant sound in the quiet of the grove. “A witch or wizard shouldn’t choose their wood,” she explained. “You have to let the tree pick you.”

            Hnossa looked dubious again, and Helga bent down to her and squeezed her shoulders.

            “Close your eyes,” she advised. “Now, what you are going to do is walk into that grove with your eyes closed. You’ll take a few paces, and then you’ll listen.”

            “To what?”

            “To the sounds of the magic. If there is a tree in that grove that is meant to be your wand, it will call to you. You’ll hear it in your mind, the way you could hear your snake friend. You may hear it singing to you, or it may sound like the crackling of a fire or a wind rushing across your ears, but you will know from which direction it comes, and you’ll follow it. And the tree it takes you to will be the tree from which we’ll make your wand. Ready?”

            Hnossa scrunched her hands closer around the heap of fairy eggs and nodded. Helga gave her a light push, and she stepped timidly onto the airy carpet of moss.

            Almost immediately the air changed again. A wind from nowhere rustled through the heavy tree cover, rippling the leaf shadows across the moss and flickering sunlight sparks over the still dew-damp leaves. The light caught on the iridescent shards between Hnossa’s fingers and made it look as though she were holding liquid fire. Somewhere across the grove a bullfinch took off from a branch and fled the grove in a noisy flap of wings – as though it suddenly realized its presence there was no longer appropriate. Helga perceived nothing in that direction except the bird, but it was toward the bullfinch’s vacated tree that Hnossa began moving, and Helga saw the little girl’s posture stiffen with alertness. Smiling, she followed the child across the soundless moss floor of the grove until they stood looking up the straight trunk and into the wide-spreading vault of a large sycamore.

            “This one,” Hnossa said reverently. Helga bent down and wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulders.

            “I had thought it might be a sycamore,” she smiled. Hnossa crinkled her nose, loosening the austere feeling of the atmosphere a bit.

            “Why?”

            “My grandmother carried a sycamore wand,” answered Helga, “and you remind me of her. Never wanting to be still. Always looking for new things. Easily tired of what you see often.”

            “I would never be tired of looking at fairy eggs,” Hnossa said seriously. “Or of this grove.”

            “Oh, yes, you would,” Helga laughed. “You would be tired of anything if you did it long enough. Now. Let’s wake the bowtruckles, shall we?”

            Helga stood up and walked closer to the sycamore’s trunk. She reached out and placed her hand flat against the rippled bark. Hnossa opened her mouth to ask a question, but Helga brought her other hand up and placed a finger against her lips.

            Without warning, three loose, leafy twigs dropped out of the tree canopy and landed on Helga’s arm. At least, that’s what Hnossa thought they were – until one of them stood up and opened a tiny mouth in a chattering series of squeaks.

            “Fru Helga!” Hnossa gasped. She took a step backward as the three twig-like creatures all began chattering together, the first one climbing up Helga’s cloak toward her shoulder. They were the bright, acidic green of new spring leaves, and their black eyes glittered like beetle wings. Above their faces bobbed long, waxy leaf fronds that looked freshly sprouted; the bolder of the three, who was now chattering directly in Helga’s ear, had three of these fronds compared to his companions’ two. From the sounds they made, Hnossa couldn’t tell if they were angry, or only slightly miffed, or simply squeaky and frantic by nature.

            “It’s alright, Hnossa!” Helga said, ducking her head down to her shoulder as the bowtruckle’s leaves tickled her neck. “These are the bowtruckles. Come on, say hello.”

            “H…hello…,” said Hnossa unsurely. Helga reached up and scooted the more intrepid bowtruckle away from her collar.

            “Kitla, behave yourself,” she ordered. The little creature responded by latching onto her hand with both tendril arms and squeaking faster. Meanwhile, the other two bowtruckles had been slowly clambering down her other arm, eyeing Hnossa with suspicion. Helga shook her arm to get them loose, but they held tight to her cloak and sleeve.

            “What do we do now?” Hnossa gulped.

            “We don’t. You tell them why you’re here – and give them what you brought.” At the word brought, the bowtruckle Kitla stiffened and rose to his full height, letting out a high-pitched chirp. Helga poked him. “Yes, Kitla, a present. Now attend the girl, you troublesome thing.” And she plucked him up by the shoulder joint and deposited him on the ground.

            Hnossa took a deep breath. Looking down at the fairy eggs in her hands seemed to brace her. “My name is Hnossa,” she began, “and I’ve brought these fairy eggs for you.” She bent down and gently spilled the pile of glittering eggs onto the moss. The two smaller bowtruckles chirruped shrilly and set upon the eggs almost before she had retracted her hands. Kitla, however, tilted his head to one side and squeaked at her inquiringly. She looked at Helga, and Helga nodded encouragement. “I…hope we can be friends,” she went on, “and I wondered if I could have a small piece of your tree.”

            Kitla reached over to the pile and took a tendril-ful of eggs and pushed them into his tiny mouth, his beetle-black eyes never leaving Hnossa.

            “Please?” she added. “We won’t harm your tree. I only need a piece the size of my forearm.” She held out her arm to show him and the bowtruckle hopped onto it, still chewing his mouthful of eggs. Hnossa giggled; his root-like feet and tendril fingers tickled her skin. Kitla swallowed the eggs and looked up at Helga, squeaking questioningly.

            “It’s all right, Kitla,” Helga soothed. “It will be just like last year when I came and took a piece of your friend’s oak tree over there for one of my neighbors. Do you remember?”

            Apparently he did; Kitla squeaked a few rapid notes at his companions, then took himself another fistful of eggs before skittering back up into the tree. His companions followed him with bulging cheeks.

            “Where are they going, Fru Helga?”

            “They’re going to show us which branch we can take,” said Helga softly. As they watched the bowtruckles climbing the bark, she reached into her cloak and took out her wand. The three bowtruckles had congregated about halfway out onto the span of a branch about the breadth of a person’s leg. Kitla had stopped just before a large knot in the wood, and seemed to be indicating the area beyond where he sat.

            “Tell him thank you,” Helga whispered to the little girl.

            “Thank you very much, Kitla!” called Hnossa. “That is …a lovely branch.” The bowtruckle chattered amicably in return.

            Helga nodded in approval. Then she lifted her wand and pointed it in the direction of the branch, slowly pulling the tip in a circular motion as though she were stirring a soup in the air.

            “Taka,” she said gently. Hnossa watched, mesmerized, as a ring of amber light appeared around the bore of the branch. The glow pulsed and waned, growing brighter and fainter and then brighter again, the ring becoming smaller each time. It began to sink into the wood like glowing honey, and Hnossa saw that the branch was being cut through like a log of butter. When the ring closed upon itself, the end of the branch dropped a few inches, having been neatly removed at the knot. Below Kitla’s dangling feet, the place where it had been attached was neatly healed over and already covered in new bark. A sprig stuck out from the rounded stump, and the tip of it was the bright green of new growth. Helga twitched her wand as though playing a fish on a line, and the free-floating piece of the branch drifted slowly earthward, landing at Helga’s direction in Hnossa’s outstretched hands. “Flett,” she commanded, and the leaves and bark dropped cleanly away, leaving Hnossa holding a perfectly stripped sycamore log.

            Up in the tree, Kitla was poking cautiously at the little green twig at the end of the amputated branch. Helga smiled up at him.

            “No harm done, Kitla. See? It’ll grow back good as new, I made sure.” Kitla chattered down at her in response, and she laughed. “I promise. Now go on and take the rest of those fairy eggs to your nestlings, you great glutton.”

            Chirping and squeaking, all three bowtruckles began scampering down the tree again to finish off the pile of fairy eggs lying on the moss. Helga patted Hnossa’s downy-soft hair and put away her wand.

            “Come on. We’ll give this to my father, and by sunset, you’ll have your very own wand.”

The two of them took their time walking back through the forest toward Little Witchingham, as they had no schedule to meet now that the wand wood had been collected. It was not yet midday, but already the sun was bright overhead, piercing down through the tree canopy in golden bars that dotted the dim woodland. Hnossa carried her piece of sycamore wood with all the care of a girl holding her first child, although she did a great deal of skipping and hopping about with the lower half of her body to compensate. As they walked, she plied Helga with questions.

            “Does your father make all the wands for Little Witchingham?”

            “Yes, and he sells some to witches and wizards in Norwic as well.”

            “Is it hard to make a wand?”

            “It takes a great deal of practice, and a good teacher,” Helga explained. “Not everyone is able to do it, and some are better than others. You see, it’s not just about the wood. Every wand is made from good magical wood, but it also has something inside it that gives it life.”

            “They’re alive?” Hnossa exclaimed, eyeing the protuberance of cloth where Helga’s wand tip stuck out against her cloak. Helga laughed.

            “Not alive like you and me, but you could say that they have a sort of… quickness about them. The core of every wand is a strand of some magical substance – a dittany stalk, the heartstring of a dragon, the hair of a mermaid or a veela. And depending on the core and the wood, a wand may be better at one type of magic or another, or better suited to a certain kind of witch or wizard. A good wandmaker knows all these things about the materials they use, and the trick is getting the wood and the core paired up just so – and weaving them together with the right magic. And that is very complicated indeed. It’s why I leave wandmaking to Father – I have no desire to pore over complex details until my head swims.”

            Hnossa looked as though her own little head was swimming, having just heard confirmation that things such as mermaids and dragons existed, and having no idea what a “veela” even was. She settled for the least overwhelming question she could think of.

            “Why do we need a wand, Fru Helga? I’ve made the flowers blossom without one all this time.”

            “That may fade as you grow older,” Helga said. “Most children can do magic quite well when they are small, almost as if there is too much magic in their little bodies and it must force its way out in great bursts. As you grow, and grow into your magic, doing it without a wand might become more difficult. And a wand helps you concentrate all your magic on one particular spell, and that makes it stronger.” She looked down at the girl, whose milky eyebrows were furrowed in thought. “Have you ever stood under a stream of water coming down from a high place in the rocks, Hnossa?”

            “Yes,” the little girl nodded.

            “Well, did you ever stand with the water tumbling onto your back and shoulders, and then hold out your arm so that the water followed the course of your arm and came off your fingers like a spout from a jug?”

            “I like watching that!” Hnossa giggled, and Helga grinned.

            “Me too. Well, that’s what a wand does for your magic. The magic in your body follows the wand out to its tip, and you can direct it exactly where you want it to go.”

            “Will I— eeeEEK!!

            The forest absorbed the echoes of the little girl’s squeal as both Helga and Hnossa stood stock still, staring at the charred hole that had just appeared in the trunk of an oak a few steps away. Little pieces of bark and wisps of smoke floated down in front of them. Helga had instinctively grabbed at Hnossa’s arm with her right hand; the other she now pressed over her heart as if she could slow its frantic pulsing by applying pressure. Hnossa was squeezing her chunk of sycamore wood as if it were a holy relic about to be plundered.

            BANG! Another hole burst through the slim trunk of a maple sapling further away, slicing it neatly in half. Hnossa gasped and looked up at Helga in a panic.

            “Fru Helga!!”

            “Stay behind me,” Helga said in a much calmer voice than what she felt. Herding the little girl behind her with one arm, she reached into her cloak and pulled out her wand. Slowly, the two of them crept toward a distant clearing from which more bursting sounds could be heard. As they drew nearer, they realized that there were voices mingled in with the bursts, two voices that both sounded very bright and carefree, and the words were intermingled with spates of laughter.

            “Not half bad!” called one of the voices.

            “Yes, but you missed me again!”

            “Only to get you to lower your guard!”

            Helga crept up to a large spreading oak at the edge of the clearing, motioning to Hnossa to keep well behind the trunk. Cautiously, they both peeked out around the tree and looked into the clearing.

            In the pool of sunlight that filtered down through the open space in the forest canopy, two boys were galloping about like spring colts, trampling wildflowers and white mushroom caps beneath their slippered feet and shrieking with laughter. One of them had a round face and thick black curls and looked to be about Hnossa’s age; the other boy was taller, perhaps a little older, with a wild fringe of brassy hair that kept falling into his eyes. They had rips in their tunics, the cloth wrapping their legs was loosened from much cavorting, and they had clearly been playfighting. Both carried wands.

            “Discutio!” cried the dark-haired boy, and a turquoise jet of light shot from the tip of his wand. His companion dodged sharply to the left, and the jet slammed into a rowan trunk across the clearing, bursting another charred hole in the bark.

            “You’re an idiot, and I should never have taught you that!” the taller boy complained, but he was masking a grin. “You can’t use discutio for sport, you’ll blow my head off!” He didn’t look particularly worried that this would actually happen. The shorter boy huffed.

            “Well, so far, the only thing I cast at you that actually worked was the one that turned your feet into duck flippers. I had to try something else!”

            “Yes, thank you for reversing that, and happily it only took three days for you to figure out how!” Both boys were laughing now, and Helga loosened her white-knuckle grip on her wand. Just children. Magical children, mind you, who were very recklessly playing at dueling, but children nonetheless. Helga didn’t recognize them – she knew all of the magical families in her village, and these were not boys from east Little Witchingham.

            “All right, then, show me another!” the round-faced boy countered. His older friend put out a leg, making a courtly bow, and grinned.

            “If you insist. Ventus!” He brought his wand swirling widely around his head, coming to a stop pointed directly at his companion. Nothing visible appeared at his wand tip; but the round-faced boy’s dark curls began to whip wildly about his head as though caught in a strong wind. He squinted his eyes, pursed his lips, and soon was holding up both hands in an effort to shield himself from the now gale-force blast of air his friend was sending in his direction. Helga watched until she saw the boy’s feet beginning to lose purchase on the thick grass. Then she squeezed Hnossa’s shoulder reassuringly and stepped out into the clearing, wand at the ready.

            “Stǫðvið!”

            The swirling wind died abruptly at the flick of Helga’s wand, and both boys snapped to attention, their eyes wide and startled. Helga crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

            “Lady,” the older boy stammered automatically, going into a confused half-bow. After a second’s pause he leaned over and nudged his friend, who hadn’t moved, until he mimicked the bow. “I …regret if we have done injury to you or your ward in the course of our sport,” he muttered, in a very different voice to the one he’d been using with his friend. Helga saw that this was a boy who had been taught rules of decorum, for both the magical and non-magical world. She smiled at him reluctantly.

            “No injury,” she admitted. “Only frightened us. But I worry that you do not know where you are. There is a village just beyond the fringe of this wood which is half úgaldr, and you might have been seen by them and had a great deal of explaining to do.”

            “Ug-what?” whispered the dark-haired boy to his friend.

            “It’s the Danes’ word for non-magic people,” the older child explained. To Helga, he said, “Those of us who are lettered in Latin call them mundanus.”

            “You are both lettered?” Helga asked, surprised. The smaller boy shrugged.

            “I, only a little. Just what my father had learned here and there. Aluric is the educated one.”

            The boy called Aluric stepped forward, twirling his wand skillfully about his fingers before presenting it, handle outward, to Helga. “Aluric son of Alwin, of Flictewicce. My father, God give him peace, was lord of Flictewicce. My companion….” He held out an arm and beckoned his friend forward.

            “Saeric, of Schornecote.” He tried unsuccessfully to mimic his friend’s wand twirl, eventually just holding out the handle like Aluric had done. “Son of Stephanus the freeman,” he added, as it seemed like he should say something else. Helga put her wand away, and they did likewise.

            “Well, I am Helga Hunlafsdottir, of Little Witchingham, which is the village you were so close to without knowing it. And this is Hnossa, my student.” Hnossa crept out from behind Helga’s skirt, eyeing the boys suspiciously.

            “I’m going to have a wand made from this,” she said by way of introduction, squeezing the log as if she thought they might steal it. Aluric put on a charming smile.

            “Then let us hope it will be worthy of its holder.”

            “Are we so very near Witchingham?” Saeric interjected, looking suddenly brighter. Helga nodded.

            “We could walk out of the woods and reach my cottage before the chapel rings Sext.”

            “Then we are almost there, Aluric!” Saeric blurted. “I got us there after all!”

            “Where’s there?” Helga smiled. The younger boy had lovely hazel eyes that were only readily appreciable when he beamed as he was doing now.

            “Botuna!” the boy chirped. “The last place we asked, they said Botuna was just the other side of Witchingham. Come on!” Without warning, he grabbed Aluric by the wrist and took off at a tear toward the edge of the clearing. Helga pulled out her wand and snapped it in their direction.

            “Hǫndla!” Immediately both boys stopped short, the backs of their tunics pricked upward and outward as if grabbed by an invisible parent’s hands. Helga twitched her wand upward, and the boys rose a few inches into the air as if attached to it by a string.

            “WhoaaahhHH!”

            “Noooo no no, ground, ground!!”

            Helga pulled her wand in a slow circle, and the boys followed it in a dangling path until they were back in front of her, where she put them down gently on the grass. Saeric looked simply confused; Aluric looked as if he’d just been threatened with hellfire and had escaped by a single fervent prayer.

            “Why would you do that??” he gasped, clutching handfuls of grass.

            “One thing at a time, boys,” Helga began. Using the same incantation she had just used on the children, Helga aimed her wand into the brush at the edge of the clearing and twitched. After a few moments’ rustling, a large log and two rounded lumps of sandstone came floating out of the treeline. Helga plopped them down facing each other, with a few feet of space between. She sat down on the log and patted the space beside her for Hnossa to climb up. The boys looked at each other, shrugged, and took seats on the two stones. As an indication that she did not intend to levitate them again soon, Helga put her wand down on the log on her other side, away from her hands. Then she laced her fingers in her lap.

            “Now. Saeric. What’s so important that you must get to Botuna so quickly?”

            Saeric looked surprised but pleased that she had addressed the question to him instead of his older friend. “My family is there, lady Helga,” he said slowly, unsure where to begin.

            “You said you came from Schornecote? That’s almost in the West country.”

            “I was born there,” the boy clarified. “It was where my father settled when he became a freeman after his service to the lord Alward ended. But he was born in Botuna, and he told me that should I ever find myself without him, I should go to his family there.”

            “And… you have found yourself… without him?” Helga asked gently.

            “He died of the spattergroit,” Saeric murmured. “In the winter. The mundani thought it was the …what do they call it, Aluric?”

            “Mæseles,” supplied Aluric. “And you didn’t disabuse them of that notion, of course.”

            “Right. Didn’t matter what took him, he died the same.”

            “Fru Helga, what’s spattergroit?” whispered Hnossa. Helga smoothed her hair.

            “It’s a sickness that only witches and wizards can get, just like only the úgaldr get sick with the mæseles.” She turned back to Saeric. “So when your father passed, you began traveling here to find his family. How did the two of you come to be traveling together, then? Flictewicce isn’t close to Schornecote.”

            “I followed the old Roman road that came out of Cirencestre – I walked it until it split away near Oxenaforda, and then I just crossed and kept going north and east, asking directions along the way. One of the places I stopped was Flictewicce.”

            “Which is where he collected me,” Aluric took over. He seemed to have recovered from his fears of being levitated. “My father had died last spring, and my rotten brother was lord in Flictewicce, which gave me no incentive at all to stay. I could do worse than to travel with Saeric here. I thought perhaps his father’s family would suit me better than my own.”

            Helga regarded the boys quietly for a moment or two. They were an unlikely pair – a lord-ling and a freeman’s son – and at a glance seemed a very unequal partnership. But Helga suspected that they were now bonded inseparably by the simple fact that they needed each other on an elemental level. Saeric was desperate for someone to look up to, and Aluric (though he would likely never admit it) was being validated and praised for the first time in his life. Helga smiled warmly at them.

            “Yes, you could certainly do worse. Come on, then. Home to the cottage.” She stood up and pocketed her wand as Hnossa tumbled down off the log behind her. The boys got up, each looking to the other for instruction.

            “Not to Botuna?” Aluric said finally. Helga laughed.

            “Eventually. But it’s nearly Sext and you couldn’t go wrong with a midday meal, now could you?”

            “Do you have honey?” Saeric gasped. “I haven’t had honey since we left Aluric’s home.”

            “If my brother didn’t eat it all before we get there,” Hnossa muttered darkly, shifting the weight of her sycamore log and marching off toward the far edge of the clearing. Helga gestured to the boys, and the three of them followed Hnossa’s stomping figure into the forest toward Little Witchingham.

An hour later, the dooryard of Hunlaf the Woodcutter was in happy chaos as the children worked off their lunch in a frantic game of chase. Helga finished a last sip of strawberry juice and stepped into the dim, sleepy interior of her father’s workshop, closing the door behind her. Hunlaf was paring down the sycamore cutting with a sharp chisel, occasionally working it one-handed while he took a bite of the hunk of bread that sat on the table beside him collecting sawdust. He could easily have brought the wood down to wand-size with one movement of his ash-staff, but he had told Helga long before that he preferred to do the first cuttings by hand instead of by magic. It was his way, he said, of talking to the wood. Helga watched him take another bite.

            “One day you’re going to mistake which hand is for eating and which is for cutting, and I’ll have to magic your tongue back on.”

            “So you’ve told me,” Hunlaf grinned through his copper beard (which was now peppered with flecks of shaved wood). He didn’t turn to look at his daughter, but she didn’t need him to turn to know his face. “So your mother told me, too, and in twenty years it hasn’t happened yet.”

            Helga sat down softly on the heather-filled sack seat behind him, careful not to rouse Sœtr with her motion. The crup lifted his head and half-opened one eye, but when she stroked his cheek gently with two fingers, he nuzzled back down into the sack and resumed his slumber.

            “When you went into the forest today,” Hunlaf went on, still carving, “there were only two children in our care. Now there are four. Are you multiplying them as an experiment with a spell?”

            “I found them dueling in a clearing,” Helga chuckled. “They very nearly took off Hnossa’s head with a stray jinx. I had to tell them how close they were to a village.”

            “The dark one is from the West country,” Hunlaf expounded. “The fair one is the child of an eorl from down Lunden-way, I wager. What are they doing in the Danelaw alone?”

            “They’re orphaned,” Helga explained. “Saeric was trying to reach Botuna because his father had family there. He met Aluric along the way and they threw in their lot together.”

            “Botuna?” Hunlaf said, and this time he turned around. “Oh, daughter, you’re going to have to have a hard talk with them tomorrow.”

            “Why? Can’t they go to Botuna?”

            “Oh, they can go to Botuna,” Hunlaf sighed, shifting his bulk in his seat and half-turning back to his carving. “But the only thing they’ll meet will be cats and owls. Botuna was raided a week ago. I heard it in Norwic.”

            “Raided?” Helga gaped. “By ours, or theirs?” she asked, meaning whether it had been done by Saxons or Danes. Hunlaf shrugged his big shoulders.

            “Does it matter?”

            “No.”

            “No indeed.” The woodcutter scratched sycamore shavings out of his beard and ate the last of his bread. “I think most everyone was killed or taken, and the ones who weren’t are long fled. I’ll open the fire tonight and ask Crickomer Rook in Norwic if any of the boy’s family fled there – slim chance, but better than no chance. But I fear that if that boy had some family there once, he won’t find them now.”

            They were quiet together for a few minutes; the only sounds in the workshop were the scrape scrape of Hunlaf’s tools and the occasional soft huff of air through Sœtr’s nostrils. Helga patted him gently on his silky head, running her middle finger from his nose-tip back along the white stripe that divided his face neatly in half. His forked tail thumped once in his sleep.

            “I suppose now I’ll have three students, then,” she said matter-of-factly. Hunlaf grunted, although whether in response to her or to a hard place in the wood, she couldn’t tell.

            “I expected nothing else,” was all he said. Then, after a few more minutes of silence, he added, “Speaking of your students, have you thought what we’re going to put in the core of this wand?”

            “Oh,” said Helga. She hadn’t, as a matter of fact. “I assumed you’d chose something out of your box of ingredients, whatever you thought best.”

            “Used my last unicorn hair on Sönnungr’s wand two weeks ago. Should’ve bought some more cores when I was in Norwic, but Crickomer’s wife had just brought a new cheese up from the cellar, and—”

            “—and you promptly got distracted from the market, I know.” Helga grinned at her father, who was nothing if not consistent. “Well, I suppose you’ll have to make another trip.”

            “Unless you want to catch her something,” Hunlaf suggested. “I saw a family of unicorns over by King’s Lenn when I visited Ivar – although, I admit, I don’t think unicorn would be right for this wand or this girl. An augurey feather, maybe?”

            “Maybe,” said Helga dubiously as Sœtr climbed into her lap searching for a new sleeping position. “But they’re so mournful, I don’t know that would fit her either.” Her hand was bumped impatiently by the sleepy crup, and she absently began petting him as she ran through lists of animals in her head.

            “Bicorn horn?” she suggested. “They just finished shedding a couple of months back, I might still find some in the forest.”

            Hunlaf grunted and blew a drift of shavings off his table onto the floor. “Can’t say I think that fits her either, and it certainly doesn’t go well with sycamore.”

            Helga leaned back on the heather-sack and sighed; this disrupted the topography of her lap, and Sœtr gave a short, offended bark and hopped off onto the floor. Hunlaf scooped him up and ruffled his neck fur before walking over to his whetstone to sharpen his chisel.

            “Yah, it was time for you to wake up anyway, you lazy beast,” he growled good-naturedly. The crup threw his head back and made a sound that was half bark, half howl before disappearing with a loud pop! He reappeared on the table next to the whetstone. Hunlaf tapped him reprovingly on the snout. “What have I told you about getting on my table next to sharp objects? Shoo!” He waved his big, calloused hand, and Sœtr leapt from the table. Forked tail held perpendicular, he wandered underneath the carving table to sniff about for bread crumbs. Hunlaf shook his head. “That animal gets into more trouble than Hnossa. Between the two, I’m surprised the cottage still stands.” He began sharpening the chisel, and then he suddenly halted. He placed the chisel down gently and turned to face Helga very slowly.

            “What?” Helga asked, because there was an odd look on Hunlaf’s face.

            “Very alike, the girl and Sœtr, hmm?” was all he said at first. Helga shrugged.

            “I suppose so,” she replied. Under the table Sœtr’s tail wagged a couple of times at the mention of his name, but his search for crumbs went on uninterrupted. Hunlaf raised one bushy red eyebrow.

            “Powerfully magical little beast, he is….” The woodcutter nodded his head ever so slightly in the crup’s direction and began to stroke his beard, separating one long russet hair from the rest and uncurling it to its full length. Then he pulled it gently – once, twice, thrice – not hard enough to pluck it, but enough that a little patch of his face rose into a little peak where the hair was anchored. Helga caught on, then.

            “Aahh,” she smiled. “Yes, I bet he has more magic in one whisker than a bicorn has in its whole horn.”

            Hunlaf grinned and stepped away from the table, bending slightly to get a good look at the crup underneath. “Oh, Sœtr….”

            The crup’s forked tail stopped in mid-wag and shot into a straight vertical alignment at the tone in his master’s voice. Sœtr hopped, all four paws leaving the ground for a moment as he turned in midair. He landed in full alert, his tail immobile, staring at Hunlaf.

            “Who’s a good boy, Sœtr?” Hunlaf began.

            Sœtr let out a growling ruff! and then immediately began trotting toward the door, dodging Hunlaf’s hands as he broke into a run and shot between the woodcutter’s legs. Helga threw herself in front of the door and scooped up the wiggling crup as he made a dive for the exit.

            “Oh, no you don’t,” she muttered, tucking him against her hip. Sœtr made a series of huffing sounds as he tried to wriggle free; then he seemed to remember that he was magical, and he disapparated from her grasp and reappeared behind her, aiming again for the door. “Ugh, fine,” Helga sighed and pulled out her wand. “Kyrr!”

            The air distended in a ripple from her wand tip; Sœtr froze in place as it washed over him, one paw lifted in step and his muzzle touching the door to nudge it open. His eyes followed his mistress as she bent down and picked him up, but the rest of his body was immobile. Helga placed him on the table, and she and Hulaf bent down to meet him at eye level. His whiskers floated gently around his snout as though under water, but for all other purposes he might have been a statue. Hunlaf chuckled and took his staff from the corner.

            “Now, let’s try that again, eh, Sœtr?”

            The crup hissed out a whiny huff of breath that said he most certainly did not want to try that again. His deep brown eyes followed Hunlaf’s every movement.

            “It’s alright, Sœtr,” Helga soothed. “We just need two whiskers, and you won’t even feel it.”

            The frozen crup snorted, clearly not believing her. Hunlaf stepped forward with his ash staff.

            “Taka,” he said, drawing the head of the staff in a circle around Sœtr’s two longest whiskers. As it had done for Helga in the forest, a small ring of light appeared around the base of each whisker, but this time the light sank down into the follicle and disappeared under the skin. A moment later it resurfaced as a small orb, each orb pushing the whisker out whole and unbroken. As the whiskers floated toward Hunlaf’s hand, new whiskers germinated in their vacated places and within seconds were as long as the original whiskers had been. Hunlaf plucked the removed whiskers out of the air and scratched his crup behind the folded ear. “There, now was that so hard?”

            Sœtr gave a sharp, abrasive snort to imply Yes, actually, it was.

            Helga gave him a loud kiss on the forehead, laughing as she pulled away. “Thank you, Sœtr, for being such a good boy. You’re free to go. Stǫðvið.”

            Before her wand had even finished moving, Sœtr had shot off the table like an arrow. When he landed, he made sure to bark acerbically four or five times, hopping stiffly and vibrating his forked tail in righteous indignation. He shook himself all over as if ridding his coat of water, threw his head back, and howled; then he shot out of the woodshop as fast as he could run, leaving the shop door bouncing against the frame behind him. Helga put her wand away.

            “And now he’s going to go sit under a log in the forest and ignore you when you call for him.”

            Hunlaf gave a deep belly-laugh. “He’ll be back when he’s hungry and can’t be bothered to catch his own dinner.” Still laughing, the woodcutter ambled back over to his chair. He sat down with a groan. “Alright, daughter,” he grunted, placing the two crup whiskers gently in a box at the far end of the table and latching the lid. “Go out there and make sure the children haven’t lit the meadow ablaze. A couple of hours of quiet, and I’ll have a wand ready for the little one.”

            Helga leaned down and kissed her father’s russet head.

            “Just promise me you’ll come out with all your fingers still attached.”

The sound of the Witchingham chapel bell ringing Vespers echoed across the barley fields as an evening breeze whiffled across the meadow from the northeast, carrying with it a trace of salt air from the sea mingled with heady cornroses and early lavender. The wind played with the fire Helga had just lit out in the dooryard and ruffled the loose hair around her temples as she ducked inside the cottage to retrieve the loaf of bread she had sliced a few minutes before. She picked it up by the corners of the white cloth that wrapped it and carried it back outside to where the children sat around the fire watching steam rise from the stew pot that hung there. Harald was giddy as ever at the sight of dinner, and Hnossa and Aluric were giggling at some joke she had missed while she was inside. Saeric looked glum. Helga had taken him aside earlier and explained to him what Hunlaf had heard about Botuna – she had told him that they would try to find out if any of his people had gone to Norwic, but that they weren’t good odds. He had understood, and he had taken it generally well – after all, these weren’t people he had ever met. But he had traveled an awfully long way to be given such news, and (Helga suspected) the loss of these people probably brought up his feelings about the loss of his father.

            The sky in the west over the village was turning from daylight blue to a creamy orange, while the horizon in the east had just begun to deepen into cornflower. Helga tapped the spoon that rested in the stewpot with her wand, and the spoon began to stir the soup within in a steady circle. She placed the loaf of bread on a stone beside the fire within easy reach of the children’s hands and began to pass out wooden bowls. Aluric was in the process of showing Hnossa his wand while she waited anxiously for her own to come out of Hunlaf’s workshop.

            “It’s made of elm wood,” he was saying as Hnossa took it from his hands. It was slender and elegantly carved, and both the fire and the sunlight glittered on its polished bore. At the handle end was a smooth garnet, perfectly round and so deeply red that it looked like dark heart-blood. Helga was impressed.

            “It’s beautiful,” she said softly, passing out slices of bread. Aluric nodded as if this was the expected response.

            “My father had it specially made – that garnet is a piece of our family’s ancient treasure. He collected the wood and the core himself, and then brought the materials to a wandmaker in Lundenburh who is supposed to be the best in the business. He wanted to ensure the craftsmanship was exceptional.”

            “What’s inside it?” Hnossa asked as she gave the wand back to its owner. Aluric lifted his chin regally.

            “The tail hair of a centaur,” he said with great pride. Helga twitched her wand toward the cottage door and held out her hand as a jug of milk floated out to her. Both her eyebrows were raised high.

            “How ever did your father get that? Centaurs are not the most social of creatures.”

            “No, they aren’t. My father spoke sometimes to a centaur who lived in the forest near Flictewicce. The rest of his herd were suspicious, but this one was friendly enough – for a centaur. My father respected him, and asked him sometimes for advice in matters of governing his land. When I was born, he asked him if he might comb his tail and take a hair that might come loose, and the centaur obliged him.” He put the wand away as Helga handed him a cup of milk. Saeric, looking a little less glum now, produced his own wand and passed it over to Hnossa.

            “Here’s mine!” he smiled. “It’s made of willow. It’s not fancy like Aluric’s, but Father told me that willow is a wood that doesn’t like to be tampered with. He says it’s better when you don’t carve it or polish it too much. Leave it looking like the tree it came from.”

            Hnossa turned it over in her hands, examining the curves and bumps of the wood that had been sanded smooth but left to follow its own grain. “It has freckles!” she exclaimed, giving it back to him. Indeed, the pale wood was dotted with tiny spots of darker grain that covered it in no discernable pattern. Saeric grinned.

            “It matches me, I suppose. The core is a dittany stalk,” he added sheepishly, as though he was embarrassed by it. It was hardly as impressive as a centaur hair, after all. Helga gave Hnossa her milk and patted Saeric’s hand.

            “So is mine,” she reassured him.

            “Really?” Saeric said, brightening. Helga nodded.

            “Really. And don’t ever let anyone tell you that makes it a lesser wand. You’ve seen me use mine today, haven’t you? HARALD, stop eating your sleeve!” She reached over and tugged the little boy’s sleeve hem out of his mouth and replaced it with another piece of bread before he could start whining. When she turned back to Saeric, he was looking at his wand thoughtfully.

            “I’m awfully bad at dueling,” he said dubiously, and Aluric took a drink of milk to hide the fact that he agreed. Helga chuckled.

            “Well, so you might be. But if you have a dittany and willow wand, then your magical strength won’t lie there anyway. You have the wand of a healer, Saeric. It’s no wonder you struggle to use magic for sport or combat. I wager you’ll be an easy hand at healing spells.”

            “Good, he can use them to heal up all Hnossa’s wounds that she gets from running about with this.”

            The five faces at the fire turned to the workshop door, where Hunlaf had just emerged, covered in sycamore shavings and carrying something wrapped in a piece of cloth. Hnossa jumped up from her seat, her little hands clenched in fists under her chin.

            “Is it ready??”

            In lieu of an answer, Hunlaf walked across the dooryard to the fire and held out the parcel in front of him. With great ceremony, he pulled back one flap of cloth, then the other. Hnossa gasped. The wand lying in Hunlaf’s outstretched hands was utterly straight and had very little taper along its smooth white length. The grain of the wood was shimmery and quite visible, looking like raindrops hitting the surface of a pond. Here and there a hair-thin dark streak cut through the light wood. Hunlaf had left the knot intact, and it formed a rounded pommel at the handle end of the wand. Hnossa’s milky-blue eyes were as round as cart wheels.

            “Can I—?” she stammered.

            “Go on,” said Hunlaf, grinning in spite of himself. Hnossa reached out a timid hand and took the wand slowly from its cloth. As soon as her fingers had closed all the way around it, a shower of soft blue sparks gusted out along the whole length of the wand and fluttered down to the packed earth of the dooryard like a rain of glowing dandelion seeds. Wherever they landed, tiny blue flax blossoms sprang up.

            “It knows who it belongs to,” Hunlaf said quietly. At the fire, Harald stopped eating long enough to clap and giggle at his sister’s magic. Hnossa was staring at her new wand in awe, and Helga leaned down to kiss her on the top of the head before guiding her back to her seat. She handed her father a wooden bowl and tapped the spoon in the pot to stop it stirring.

            “Well now we’re all here, let’s eat before the sun sets and we can’t see our stew. Hnossa, dearest, you’ll have to put that down until you’ve finished eating.”

            “I’m a real witch now,” the little girl whispered, reluctantly tucking the wand tight between her knees as Helga filled her bowl with soup. The young woman smiled at her meaningfully.

            “You’ve always been a real witch. Now you get to start learning what to do with it.”

Chapter Text

The soft Easter-month awakening of the countryside around Little Witchingham soon exploded into the joyous cacophony of Milking-month, the bright air thickening with raucous choirs of songbirds, the calls of hawks, and the lowing of well-fed cows complaining of full teats. The meadows outside the bounds of Witchingham farmland were laid with a rich yellow blanket of cowslip, wood sorrel, and oxlip blossoms, and the hawthorns in the hedgerows quivered as an army of honeybees worked away at the snow-white blooms that filled their branches. The Danelaw warmed toward the gentle heat of early summer as the villagers of Little Witchingham began to draw their looms out of the weaving houses into the sunshine to work the piles of new-sheared wool their flocks had given them.

In the cool of the deep forest clearing, under the watchful black eyes of a few hundred curious bowtruckles, Helga Hunlafsdottir had spent the better part of a month cultivating the skills of her three magical wards with all the care given by the villagers to their flocks and planting. The clearing had proved the perfect place for lessons – an open space broad enough to give room for movement (and for play), at a far enough distance from the village that accidental discovery could be avoided, and with an atmosphere soaked in the magic of the trees themselves. It had been Helga’s first task to determine what each child could already do. The boys, having been born to wizarding families, had a longer list of spells they could perform without instruction, and Helga had asked each of them to show her everything they had been taught. Aluric knew more advanced spells than most children, and had a flair for the elegant and the bold; but it was soon clear to Helga that his education, while challenging, had not been consistent. This was a boy who had been taught whatever he asked to be taught, but had not always been instructed in the simpler, more ordinary types of magic that he found dull. He could blast the head off a wildflower at twenty paces with a jinx, and could whip Helga’s wand out of her hand without speaking the spell aloud – but he had never been taught to repair a rip in his cloak or to pour a drink without touching the jug.

In these softer and more practical sorts of spells, Saeric far outstripped his friend. Here was a child who, while not precisely poor, had never had a servant to take any task off his hands. Saeric could mend, cook, fetch, and put together almost as well as Helga herself. Of course, if he were ever to be attacked, he would be a dead boy. He had no head at all for either offensive or defensive spells, and at one point during a lesson actually knocked himself ten feet across the mossy clearing while trying to conjure a protective shield.

“You two are going to have to live together the rest of your lives,” Hnossa told them matter-of-factly after that particular mishap.

“And why is that?” Aluric had scoffed, to which Hnossa had simply shrugged.

“Because he’s as defenseless as a new lamb, and you’ll starve to death without him.”

“Ha,” Aluric had answered, pretending offense while helping Saeric up, but they had all gotten a good laugh from it once they ascertained that Saeric didn’t have a head injury.

Hnossa, as Helga had predicted, was learning rapidly and confidently. Despite having absolutely no magical upbringing and knowing no words for many of the things she could do, Helga found that the little girl had already taught herself to summon objects and to manipulate things, plants in particular. The task now was to teach her to do those familiar things with a wand in her hand, and to give her the same basic repertoire of spells that the boys had learned from their parents and families. By the middle of the month, when the lowing of the cows in the village had reached its bellowing zenith, Helga had ensured that all three children knew how to lift and move an object, how to summon it across a space to their hands, how to repair simple damage to clothes or utensils, and how to take the wand from the hand of someone who threatened them. “You should never use magic for harm, or to give yourself power over others,” she told them often, “but if you are in danger, then you must protect yourselves. And the best way to do that is to take away the other person’s means to harm you.”

“Taking off their head would also accomplish that,” Aluric had smirked, and Helga had bent down to meet his eyes.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But in addition to being cruel, that would also leave you with a dead body at your feet and a great deal of explaining to do when the úgaldr show up. Hmm?”

Aluric had pursed his lips roguishly, but he had nodded.

As the month wore on, Helga did more than teaching in the bowtruckles’ grove – she also did a great deal of learning herself. After a day of instructing the children in spells and magical concepts, she and Hnossa would sit across from the boys and eat the food she had packed while the boys taught them words and spells from the Saxon part of the wizarding world. Helga and Hnossa learned Latin and Saxon incantations and terminology, and they in turn taught the boys the corresponding words in Norse. They came to the consensus that Norse spells were shorter and often required less effort to speak – but that the Latin incantations did have a certain flair and musical sound about them.

“It sounds so much grander to say protego than to say skjalda,” Aluric pointed out, and Hnossa agreed with him. Helga and Saeric were of the opposite opinion.

“But it takes longer to say protego,” countered Saeric.

“If I need to shield myself,” Helga said with a nod, “I’d choose the shorter – and the more natural – word. I don’t care about being grand.”

“I do,” Hnossa murmured. “I’ve never been grand. It’s nice to feel that I am sometimes.” She plucked a piece of clover from the edge of the moss and squeezed it until the tip erupted into a purple blossom. Helga smiled softly at her.

“Well, if it makes you happier, Hnossa, then you say your spells in Latin. Nobody’s harmed by it, and it may improve your abilities by making you bolder.”

As Milking-month drew to a close, Helga had begun to think about what subjects she might teach the children next. She supposed at some point she really ought to teach them how to travel using magic – but given Aluric’s brashness, this might be best left until he had developed more self-control. In the end she settled on teaching them to identify magical plants and prepare simple potions; but first, she would test them on their basics and ensure they were all proficient enough to build on them.

“I have one final task for you,” she told them all after a long morning of summoning stones, repairing broken branches, and disarming each other. Saeric had only just recovered his wand from a mud puddle at the edge of the grove, and he gave her a nervous wince as he wiped the mud from it with his tunic hem.

“Floating things?” Hnossa asked, as she had been keeping track and knew this was the one lesson they had not yet discharged for her that day. Helga nodded.

“But not just any things,” she went on. “We’ve worked our way up from floating small things like flowers all the way to floating large things like that stone over there. But I want to see if you can do something you haven’t tried before.” The children exchanged glances as Helga walked over to the shade of the sycamore from which Hnossa’s wand had come. “Kitla?” the young woman called, and held out her arm. After a few moments had passed in silence, there was a rustling in the foliage above her, followed by the whiipp of a green twiggy bundle dropping down onto her hand. Kitla tossed his waxy leaves, now wider and darker green, out of his eyes and chattered at the children amicably. Helga walked him back over to her students.

“Kitla is a living creature. He will therefore require more concentration and magical strength on your part if you want to float him. And while you are being strong, you must also be gentle – we don’t want to send Kitla crashing into a tree trunk, now do we?”

All three children shook their heads, and Kitla squeaked a vehement negative from his perch on her hand.

“Now before we begin, a few items. First of all, this charm does not work – or at least, will not work well – on large creatures. If you encounter, for instance… a bear, please do not float him. You will only succeed in making him very irritable indeed, and when his paws come back to earth after about ten seconds, that is about how long you will have to run before he eats you.”

At this image Aluric snorted in amusement, Saeric looked horrified at the thought of being eaten, and Hnossa raised an eyebrow as if unsure why she would ever be in such a situation to begin with. Helga hid a grin and went on.

“Secondly, this charm will NOT float a human. Let me make that very clear. And if I catch any of you trying it on little Harald when we get home, you will be in a great deal of trouble. All right?”

“Yes,” they all chorused, and Hnossa kicked at the moss and tried to pretend that hadn’t been precisely her plan.

“Good. All right, Saeric? You first. I want to see if you can float Kitla from my hand over to that tree stump.” Helga pointed to a stump about ten feet away, and Kitla leaned out from her palm to survey the distance. He looked at it twice before chattering at her rapidly, and Helga tapped one of his leaves playfully. “It’ll be alright. I promise. If any of them drop you, I’ll catch you.”

The bowtruckle gave one more dubious squeak before going to stand rigid in the center of her outstretched palm.

“The first spell lifts, the second spell moves,” Saeric was murmuring to himself, twitching his wand in little practice motions as he stepped forward.

“In Norse, if you please,” Helga added, “since you seem to find it more comfortable.” Saeric nodded. He licked his lips nervously, and then raised his wand toward the bowtruckle (whose glittering black eyes were shut tightly in anticipation).

“Lyptir,” Saeric commanded. The bowtruckle let out a high-pitched squeal as his root-like feet lifted off Helga’s palm and he began to float. Helga kept her hand under him, but she gave Saeric a beaming smile.

“Very good. Now the second spell.”

“Flytja,” the boy pronounced, a little more confidently this time. Chattering wildly in protest, Kitla did a slow somersault in the air above Helga’s hand before bobbing gently through the air and coming to rest on the nearby stump. Saeric almost landed him on his leafy head but corrected just in time with a turn of his wand.

“Excellent work, Saeric,” Helga praised. “You should say all your spells in Norse or Saxon. You have much more confidence than when you use Latin.” Saeric blushed with pride as he stepped back into line with his two fellow students. “Hnossa? You next. And since I know you already know Norse, I want to hear yours in Latin. Please float Kitla from the stump back to me.”

Hnossa stepped up much more calmly than Saeric had and pointed her wand at the bowtruckle with no hesitation. “Levioso.”

Kitla had only just begun to relax after his first flight when he felt his root-tips leave the stump. He bobbed quickly up into the air like an acorn cap popping up from under water, and he gave a chattering squeal of displeasure. “Locomotor Kitla,” Hnossa commanded, and the bowtruckle whipped quickly across the gap into Helga’s waiting hand. He clung there tightly for several seconds after he landed, refusing to let go of Helga’s middle and index fingers even when she shook her hand.

“Very good,” Helga beamed at Hnossa before turning back to the leafy creature. “Oh, come now, Kitla, it wasn’t that bad.” The bowtruckle had now wrapped all of his tendril-limbs around Helga’s hand, intertwining them with her fingers and squeezing with all of his twiggy strength. “Just once more?” she asked. The leaves on Kitla’s head quivered and bounced as he shook his head, squeaking in little staccato bursts, and Helga sighed. “All right, fine,” she acquiesced. She put the bowtruckle down onto the grass beside her satchel and shook her fingers gently to dislodge him. “Fine, go on, you little coward,” she chuckled. “There are fairy eggs for you in the satchel, have at them.”

When she stood up again Aluric was watching her expectantly, rolling his wand deftly from finger to finger. “Does that mean I automatically pass the test?” he smirked. Helga put her hands on her hips, watching Kitla submerge his head in her bag and begin gorging himself on fairy eggs, his little root-feet wiggling at the opening.

“No,” she smiled absently. “It just means we’re going to find some other small creature for you to float. Come on,” she said decisively. She reached down and poured Kitla and the rest of the fairy eggs out onto the grass, giving him a fond pat on the head as she swung the empty bag over her shoulder. “We’ll start on the walk back to the cottage, and we’ll keep an eye open for something you can demonstrate on – a squirrel, or a toad, anything like that.”

“Anything but a bear?” Aluric grinned, and all of them laughed as they walked out of the grove, leaving a bowtruckle with overflowing cheeks sitting contentedly in a pile of glimmering rainbow shards.

The sky over the village of Little Witchingham began to dim into a blue-grey as the hour moved steadily from Sext toward None, and a gusty breeze began to riffle the forest fringes behind the burying ground as the priest headed toward the chapel to ring the bell for afternoon prayer. The women of the village who sat at an array of looms outside the weaving-house now began to glance upward at the changing color overhead.

“Look like that come on ter rain,” said one of them, tucking her weft thread into a joint of the loom frame.

“Aye,” agreed her neighbor. “That do. Best take weaving inside.” She tucked her own thread into the frame and stood up, stretching tired fingers. The other women spread around the grassy sward all began to do likewise as the first mutter of thunder was heard in the distance. The oldest of the women called out to the smithy’s boy Cerdic as he walked past them down the path.

“Come here, boy. Do you help carry looms inside afore that rain.”

“Can’t,” Cerdic protested. “H’yer seen my cat? I hent seen her since morning. I’m going round a-looking for her.”

“Probably inside agin the fire box, where you ought to be,” laughed one woman. “Cat know better than you to get in out of rain.”

“She en’t,” Cerdic replied. “I look before I come here. She en’t been in village since morning.”

“Last time she run off,” said one of the younger women thoughtfully, “weren’t it at the Woodcutter’s you found her?”

“Aye,” agreed the old woman. “That girl of his feed any animal what come close to her. Cat probably go there to get her table scraps.”

Cerdic’s face was a picture of misery. “Oh, no – she’ll be et up by that dog!”

“That dog what have two tails, you mean?” chuckled one woman before disappearing inside the weaving house. Cerdic looked offended, then he stiffened up.

“Don’t you laugh, thass not funny. That dog have two tails, I’d swear it in the church!”

“Well go you and rescue the cat, then,” laughed the old woman as she tucked her weaving batten in the pocket of her apron. Cerdic made a petulant face at her that almost instantly collapsed into worry again. He looked around one more time, as if hoping to see the cat there in the village after all; then he turned sharply and began walking off down the dirt track through the eastern barley plot. “And do you hurry afore that rain!” the old woman called after him, and the rest of the weavers laughed with her as they carried their heavy looms into the safety of the dry weaving house.

Cerdic had walked off most of his ill temper by the time he got to the place where the barley field ran alongside the forest. Hunlaf the Woodcutter’s cottage was a little lump in the distance, marked mostly by smoke rising above the landscape into the moist pre-storm air in fits and tufts. If asked, Cerdic would have sworn (in the church, as he’d said before) that the smoke had a faint purple tinge to it. But of course, he wouldn’t be asked. Nobody ever saw anything odd except him, and they’d all decided long ago that he was daft and not to be taken seriously. Somewhere up ahead he could hear the faint barking of the dog that he was sure had two tails. And he thought he could hear, faintly, the raised voices of children playing a chasing game. He’d heard the Woodcutter’s daughter had collected some more orphans recently; Cerdic wondered how they managed to feed and look after them all when he could barely keep a cat in the village.

“Gim?” he called tentatively. “Where are you, Gim? That’s come on to rain, and you’ll be wetted and sorry for it, you stupid cat!” He peered into the treeline of the forest, then into the barley on his other side. Sometimes she came hunting voles in the forest edges. But there was no sign of movement, cat or vole, and he supposed he’d just have to go knock on the Woodcutter’s door and ask if they’d seen her.

“MRREEEAAAAAAWWRRHH!”

Cerdic snapped his head upward as the sound of the panicked, screeching meow was punctuated by a distant roll of thunder. “Gim??” he called. “Gim, come to master, now… where are you?” There was another howling meow, and Cerdic thought it had come from the edge of the forest.

 WHOOSH.

A dark ginger missile came flying out of the trees, passing a few inches in front of Cerdic’s confused face. It came to a halt and hovered, wriggling, above the barley fields on the other side of the path. Cerdic gaped. Meowing hysterically and turning somersaults in the air, Gim the ginger cat floated above the growing crop, frantically trying to make eye contact with her master but unable to control the direction in which she was hovering. Cerdic thought absurdly that it looked as though the cat was swimming in a pond.

“Aluric, wait!!”

“That’s the path, Aluric, come back!”

“It went out of the trees!”

“Aluric, you twit, you’re going to get us—”

Cerdic finally tore his eyes from the floating cat in time to see three children come crashing out of the trees onto the path, followed closely by the Woodcutter’s daughter.

“…caught,” the little girl finished saying, and then they all just stared at each other in a silence broken only by the cat’s angry mewling. The tall boy in the lead had something in his hand which he quickly tucked behind his back. He was blinking rapidly as if he could disguise his shock. The shorter boy was frozen stiff, like a rabbit that has been taken by surprise and cannot remember how to run. The little girl was wide-eyed and looked mortified with fear. The Woodcutter’s daughter had one hand clapped over her mouth; with her other hand, she reached under her yellow cloak and made some sort of motion that Cerdic could not see.

“RrreeaaAAAWR!!”

Gim the cat dropped suddenly from the air, landing nimbly on all four paws in the barley. A second later, she was off like a bowshot toward the village, nothing more than a ginger streak in the distance. The humans continued to stare at each other in silence.

“H…hello, Cerdic…,” Helga said finally, trying to sound calm for the children. “Rain’s coming,” she began. “We… we should all go home and stay dry, hmm?” Subtly she touched Hnossa’s shoulder, and the girl took the hint and began tiptoeing backward along the path to the cottage. Saeric saw her and began to follow suit.

Cerdic opened his mouth to speak, lifted a hand to gesticulate – and then abruptly spun on his heels, taking off down the path after his cat. He looked over his shoulder once and nearly toppled onto his face; then he put on extra speed and was soon just a speck on the path to the village. Helga took a deep breath that shook when it came back out.

“Hurry along to the cottage, children,” she said softly. “I need to speak with my father before Cerdic has a chance to speak to the priest.”

Aluric looked up at her apologetically and then took off at a run, followed swiftly by the other two. Helga took a moment to steady herself; then she picked up her skirts and followed them as the first drops of rain began to bounce off the leaves of the hedgerow.

The weather that evening did not develop into a true storm, but a steady rain picked up just after the None bell and had continued more or less uninterrupted until nearly sunset. Now, as twilight descended, Hunlaf sat in the doorway of his cottage with his staff across his lap; he was pretending to study the intricate snake carved into the lintel of the door, but he was actually watching the path between his dooryard and the village. His sea-grey eyes scanned the waving barley and bare track for the bobbing lights of torches reflecting in rain puddles. But so far, the only movements he had seen were a few birds taking flight after the shower had ceased. Hunlaf had debated what to do when Helga had first brought the children home and shakily told him the story of Cerdic and the flying cat, while the children ate and listened in nervous silence. He had popped into the village for a few minutes on the pretense of trading a few carved pieces for some wool cloth, just to see if anyone looked at him with suspicion or fear. But the visit was uneventful, and the only odd reaction from anyone that afternoon had been a housewife who saw Hunlaf coming, elbowed her friend, and then burst into laughter. He had relaxed a little then – it seemed nobody believed Cerdic’s tales of flying cats any more than they believed him about two-tailed dogs – they had gotten lucky. But it didn’t pay to be too complacent. So, once home, he had stationed himself at the door of the cottage to watch for any sign of villagers approaching with torches and priests and good strong rope.

“I’m sorry,” came Helga’s voice from the cottage behind him. It was the hundredth time she had said it that evening, and Hunlaf grinned wryly like he had the other ninety-nine times.

“Accidents of wizarding life,” he grunted. “Can’t be helped. Any time you’re teaching children, you’re going to have mishaps with magic. You came near to lighting a church on fire once when you were a baby and we lived in Norwic. Floating the altar candles, as I recall. That’s why we moved out here to the country.” Hunlaf chuckled at the memory; behind him, Helga attempted a weak smile.

“I suppose if they were going to come throw me in the river, they would have done by now?”

“Mmm,” Hunlaf agreed. “It’s a half hour’s walk to the nearest water deep enough to drown you in. They’d have wanted to do that in daylight. The better to watch you splash. Lost their light now, haven’t they?”

“But you’re still going to keep sitting in the doorway for the rest of the night, aren’t you?”

“Pays to be watchful,” was all Hunlaf said in reply. After another minute or so of quiet, Hunlaf chuckled to himself. “I suppose we just have to thank the gods it was Cerdic that saw you and not someone a little more respectable.”

“He looked as if he didn’t know whether to be frightened, or pleased that he was right,” Helga laughed softly, feeling a little of the day’s tension falling away from her shoulders as her father muffled a guffaw in his beard.

“What in Loki’s name were you doing levitating his cat, anyway?” Hunlaf grinned, now having to work to stifle his laughter so as not to wake the children curled up in the back corner of the cottage on a pile of heather-sacks. Helga pressed a hand against her cheek to hold back her own laughter.

“Bowtruckle mutiny,” she managed to say seriously, and then the giggles came washing over her, turning her legs to jelly after all the stressful waiting. She sat down hard on a stool and leaned against the cottage wall with her hands over her face, her stomach jerking in silent laughter. Hunlaf snorted through his copper mustache.

“Glad to see you’re feeling better,” he said with mock pique, but he couldn’t hide his grin. They laughed together and then fell back into a comfortable silence, listening to the leftover rain dripping from the roof thatch into little puddles at the corners of the cottage. After a few minutes, Helga sighed.

“It was too close, though.” She pulled out her wand and began to turn it over in her hands, tracing the runes with her fingertips as she thought about what she was saying. “We can’t keep taking the risk.”

“Can’t you?” Hunlaf asked, one bushy eyebrow raised. “It’s a risk just being a witch or wizard. What do you propose to do, stop teaching them?”

“No,” Helga replied immediately. “But I don’t know if I can keep teaching them here. Not so close to an úgaldr village.”

“Ah,” said Hunlaf sagely. “Going to pack up and take them to an island in the middle of the sea, are you? Go off and leave your poor old father to care for himself in his old age?”

“My poor old father who can apparate to see me any time he wants,” Helga smirked. “Not an island. I don’t want them to be cut off from the world. But….” The young woman leaned her head back against the cottage wall and closed her eyes, considering carefully before answering. “Somewhere a good day’s walk away from settlements. Out on the moors somewhere, or deep in a forest. Somewhere they can’t have accidents like today.”

“Aye,” Hunlaf nodded. “And where would you live, in your forest or on your moor? Would you build yourself a cottage?”

“I’d like to have something bigger than a cottage,” Helga said dreamily. “Perhaps an old settlement or a ruined fort from the Roman times. I could use magic to repair it, and each child could have their own little room, and—”

“And let me guess,” Hunlaf stopped her. He knew the tone of her voice. “With a place like that, you could collect a few more orphaned witches and wizards? Start your own little heretic cathedral school?”

“Well, there are bound to be more orphaned magical children in England,” Helga answered. She was sitting up straight now, as if her ideas were occurring to her in a new light. “You know there must be. All over the kingdom, and not all of them have access to a friendly local witch who takes in orphans.”

“Aye, that there are,” said Hunlaf. “Heard of a few myself when I was in Norwic. There are even a couple of them living in the king’s retinue, if Crickomer is to be believed.”

“And who will teach them?” Helga got up and squeezed around her father’s bulk to stand in front of him in the misty dooryard. “Who will teach all of them? I could – if I had a safe place to take them and perhaps another pair of adult hands to help.”

“A school for magic….,” Hunlaf murmured. He was trying to sound severe and disapproving, but it was beginning to dawn on him that it might actually be possible. His daughter was standing in front of him with her fists on her hips, wand sticking out at an angle from her right hand, and the moon was rising full and white behind her head, making her look more like a valkyrja than ever. He cleared his throat. “You really think you could?”

“If the churchmen at Tetford can do it,” Helga replied confidently, “then why couldn’t I? What do they have that I don’t?”

“Money,” Hunlaf chortled. “Endowments of money and land from the crown. People working that land to produce food and goods for the children’s upkeep. If you got yourself a place, that’s what you’d need – if you wanted to have a whole school full of children, that is. And that kind of endowment only comes from the king.”

Helga plopped down on the upturned basket in the dooryard and thrust her chin into her hands dejectedly. “Too bad we don’t have our own wizarding king,” she said glumly. “Or at least, a wizard who had the ear of the úgaldr king. Someone who could make petitions and get that kind of money.” With a great sigh, she pointed her wand at the soil beside her shoes and began turning it in circles. Lines etched themselves in the dirt in a scrolling, helical pattern that followed her movements. Hunlaf watched her, his diaphragm tightening in a wave of nostalgia as he remembered her mother doing that exact thing whenever she felt down. He stroked his russet beard pensively, choosing his words carefully.

“We don’t,” he agreed. “But the Saxon wizards do.”

“What?” The lines stopped abruptly as Helga looked up at him, intrigued. Hunlaf nodded.

“The Saxon wizards are …somewhat… organized. During the time of their king Alfred a hundred years ago, they decided that since he was getting the úgaldr affairs in order, perhaps they should as well. They have a council that meets… oh, once or twice a year, whenever the mood takes them. The gemót, I believe it’s called. And one of the most important things they did back then was deciding that there should always be a wizard at the right hand of the úgaldr king. You know, like Myrlin was with Arthur. They chose the thegn of Salisberie, and the job has gone to that family ever since.”

“Does the úgaldr king know about him? That he’s a wizard, I mean.”

“No, that’s always been very important to them,” Hunlaf explained. “To the king, he’s just one more thegn or eorl bouncing about the court. They only tell the king about the magic if there’s some sort of crisis happening in our world that might affect the úgaldr too. Doesn’t happen often. But if a wizard needs something from the king, it’s the thegn of Salisberie he goes through.”

“Who is he? Do you know him?”

“Aye,” Hunlaf grunted, and Helga sat up straighter. “Name’s Goderic. Goderic de Grifondour. I met him once when the king visited Norwic. Pleasant lad. Had just taken up the position from his grandfather.”

“De Grifondour?” Helga asked, narrowing her eyes. “Isn’t that a Norman name? I thought you said he was a Saxon of Salisberie.”

 Hunlaf nodded, twirling his fingers in his beard. “Aye, he is. Through his mother. Her father had the job, but he had no sons. She married a Norman wizard who came over from Richart’s court. So the lad’s name may be Norman, but he’s of the bloodline of the Salisberie wizards.” Hunlaf paused for a moment, pulling a tangle out of his beard. He eyed his daughter seriously. “If this is something you truly want to do, daughter of mine… then it’s de Grifondour you need to speak to. If there’s any endowment to be had, he would be the only way to get it.”

Helga came up off the basket with a bounce, not even noticing that the wet wicker had left a damp pattern on her skirt.

“How do I find him? In Salisberie? Or would he be with the king?” She bit her lower lip as her father pondered the question.

“I suspect, this time of year, he’d be at his country house in King’s Worthy. I heard it said he goes home before the start of summer – crowded towns are no place to be in the heat, and he’s got a young brother and a farm to look after.”

 “Where’s King’s Worthy?”

“About a day’s ride out of Salisberie, close to Wincestre. If you leave at sunrise you can be there before supper.” He was looking past her, ostensibly still watching the road from the village, but Helga saw the corner of her father’s mouth twitch in the beginning of a grin. She crossed her arms.

“You’re not going to tell me it’s a fool’s errand and try to stop me?”

“Hnh,” Hunlaf grunted. “Try and stop you, your mother’s daughter, from doing anything? Woden himself couldn’t stop you, so I’m certainly not going to chance it.”

Helga took her father’s head in both her hands and kissed the mop of dark red hair loudly. “Thank you!” she beamed. Hunlaf glared teasingly at her from under bushy eyebrows.

“Didn’t do anything but tell you the next step in a journey that’ll probably come to naught, but—”

“But you’ve never let your own misgivings temper my adventures,” Helga finished for him. Hunlaf shooed her toward the cottage door, smiling in spite of himself.

“Go on, then. Travelling is tiresome work, you need plenty of sleep tonight.”

Helga caught his shooing hand and squeezed it meaningfully before slipping into the darkness of the cottage. Inside was utterly silent save for the snuffling, sleepy breathing of Sœtr the crup, who was curled up on the heather-sacks amid the pile of sleeping children. Helga walked over to them and touched each little forehead lightly, brushing back the downy hair and watching their small chests rise and fall. All three of them had fallen asleep with their wands clenched tightly in their fists, and Helga saw that Hnossa had wrapped herself around her tiny brother like a shield wall. They were so afraid, she realized, that they had gone to bed prepared for an attack.

“No more,” Helga whispered in the darkness of the cottage. “No more nights like this. Not if I can help it.” Walking with new purpose, she crossed the room to her sleeping platform in the corner, draped her cloak over herself, and willed herself to sleep.

The next morning dawned with all the wild glory of a late spring sunrise, shooting the sky full of purple and gold streaks that matched the carpets of harebells and cowslips covering the meadows. The sun’s disc was not fully above the horizon when Hunlaf, Helga, and the children arrived at the oak tree beyond the fields. Hunlaf adjusted the buckle on a satchel’s strap before draping it over his daughter’s shoulder and patting her gently.

“Alright, then. There’s some food for today – handy things you can eat while riding. Now. You’re going to apparate yourself to the great Stone Circle – you’ve been there before, so you remember how it looked, yes?”

Helga nodded. “Like yesterday.” She turned to the children, taking the opportunity to teach them at least one thing before she left for the day. “When you apparate, you can only appear in a place if you can see it in your mind. So if you’ve never been to a place, or seen a drawing of it, or at least heard it clearly described, then you might get lost along the way. It’s always best to apparate somewhere you’re familiar with, and then travel from there to a new place.”

“Can’t I come with you?” Hnossa asked for the third time that morning. Helga smiled at her and bent down to embrace her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Hnossa. I’d love to take you travelling. Perhaps someday we’ll do that, you and I. But today I’m going somewhere that I don’t know is safe for you or not; and I’m not sure of my arrangements for accommodation. I wouldn’t want to bring you along on a journey that might be rough or unpleasant. Wait for the next adventure, hmm?”

“Alright…,” Hnossa acquiesced, and Helga kissed her forehead. She laid her hands on each of the boys’ heads softly and smiled at them all.

“Keep close to the cottage and my father while I’m away. I hope I won’t be gone more than a few days.” When all the children had nodded in answer, she turned back to her father. “From the Circle, what then?”

“Walk east from the Stone Circle about an hour, until you reach the river,” said Hunlaf. “Follow the river south a bit and you’ll come into the village of Ambesberie. You’re looking for a man named Ælfric the smithy. He’s a wizard. Tell him I sent you, and he’ll give you a horse to ride, so long as you promise to bring it back to him in one piece. From there it’s a day’s good riding on the easterly road to King’s Worthy. You can eat on the way. De Grifondour shouldn’t be hard to find once you’re there; I think he has the largest landholding in the town.”

“Let’s hope that’s a sign of his standing with the king,” Helga said, taking a deep breath. “Wish me good luck?”

Hunlaf took his daughter’s face in his hands and pulled her close until their foreheads touched. “Wisdom of Woden, thews of Thunor, laughter of Loki, and Hlín go before. Safely go and safely return.” He kissed her between the eyebrows and then stepped back to give her room. “Good luck, daughter.”

“Keep well. Back soon, I hope,” Helga smiled. She closed her eyes, wishing her father had pronounced Loki’s silver tongue over her as well as laughter; then she disappeared with a pop! Hunlaf and the children stood looking at the place where she had been for a few quiet seconds; then Hunlaf jumped as he felt a tug on the end of his tunic.

“What is it, Harald?” he said, looking down at the small, silent boy pulling on his clothes. Harald tugged the tunic again and then pointed at his little stomach. Hunlaf chuckled. “Ah, I see. Breakfast. I suppose you must be fed, regardless of us adults and our quests and adventures, eh?” Behind them, Aluric’s stomach rumbled mightily in consensus.

“I am a little hungry,” Saeric said timidly. Hunlaf picked up little Harald and laughed, turning to head back to the cottage.

“Well come along, then. We’ll see what sort of food we can make without my daughter here to be sure it’s edible.” Chuckling, he led the children back across the meadow just as the sun let go of the horizon and began to turn the wildflower carpet into undulating gold.

Chapter Text

The road leading into King’s Worthy from the west became a tunnel of lush vegetation about two miles before it reached the town. Tall thickets of overhanging trees heavy with late spring foliage bent toward each other and met gently over the dirt track like lovers leaning in for chaste kisses. Late afternoon sun shone lambent and golden, coming down the path like a traveler in a straight course that lit up the alley of trees as if it had been aimed that way, and giving the whole stretch of road the look of a deep well lined with mossy green rocks and filled not with water, but with mead made from the brightest honey. The only sound to be heard under the gently swaying canopy of leaves was the soft plod of a single horse’s hooves coming down the track at a calm and leisurely gait.

Helga Hunlafsdottir rode through the quiet green and golden glow, the sun at her back lighting up her oxlip yellow cloak and setting white fire to her hair. She was floating in a happy sort of trance brought on by the rhythmic rise and fall of the horse beneath her and the idyllic landscape through which she rode. The journey had gone just as her father had instructed, and she’d had no difficulties along the way – just a very pleasant walk in the cool of the early morning, bread and cheese from the smithy’s wife to break her fast, and now a long, quiet ride on a gentle mount and a road that was nearing its conclusion. Ælfric the smithy had been pleased to meet the daughter of his old acquaintance, and had lent her a beautiful palomino palfrey which he must have bred himself; a smithy could hardly have afforded to buy a palfrey, and in any case, Helga had a suspicion that this horse might have been sired by an Abraxan flying horse from Aquitaine. Its coat was too golden, and there was a bold flash in its eyes that one hardly saw in an ordinary horse.

“You’re not an ordinary horse, are you, my darling?” Helga said sweetly, patting the horse on its glimmering wheat-colored mane. The horse snorted and shook its head softly, and Helga laughed. “No, of course not.” She sighed contentedly and leaned back, only faintly aware of the stiffness in her back and hips after a full day of riding. All days should be like this in some measure, she thought. The weather was fine, her stomach was full of the little strawberry cakes her father had packed for her, and she had almost reached her destination. Unbidden, a song came to her lips and she began to sing.

          “The charms are many that I know,

          Unsung by sons of man;

          More power even than a queen

          Could have at her command.

          The first one is a helping charm

          That full of succour be;

          In sorrow, pain, or any fault

          True aid it renders thee!”

It was an old Norse teaching poem, a memory aid for young witches and wizards learning a basic series of charms – the protective shield, a cure for poison, the revealing charm. Each was described in a verse, and the song was often used as a guide by parents testing their children on these spells before moving them on to more advanced magic. There were eighteen charms in all, and so by the time Helga came to the ending, she could see the tunnel of trees opening into the fringes of the village ahead.

          “The sixteenth charm may win the heart

          Of maid or young man fair;

          The seventeenth makes love wax long

          And long shall keep them there.

          The eighteenth charm I ne’er shall tell,

          Though beast or man may try,

          Save to the one I best shall know

          And in whose arms shall lie!”

Her voice rang out the final notes as warm and sweet as the honeysuckle scent that infused the air around her, and she beamed with the sheer joy of being hale and young and contented with food and travel. Beneath her, the horse whinnied as if commenting on her song, and she laughed musically. “I’m sorry, was it such a very long song?” she asked, and received a snort in reply. “Well, then I’ll try for a series of shorter songs on the way back, how’s that?” The horse gave no answer, which Helga took as acquiescence.

The tunnel of foliage tapered away as the road turned round a bend, and Helga found herself now riding past open fields of crops on one side and a pasture of sheep on the other. One of the shepherd’s boys in the field looked up at her, his mouth agape, and remained so until his companion knocked him about the shins with a staff to return his attention to their task. Before long Helga arrived in the village proper. A squat little grey-stone church sat off in a churchyard to her right, with moss growing on its warm brown roof tiles, and a score of houses and small buildings stood gathered in clusters that radiated out from it. There was a market in the open space opposite the churchyard, and it was there that Helga directed her horse. She spoke to some villagers as they packed up their wares for the evening, and they told her that the king’s man de Grifondour lived at the eastern edge of the village, past the watermill on the banks of the Icen. She thanked them and rode onward through the town, following a low stone wall that ran parallel to the narrow track until the trees began to thicken around her again. The scattered houses became fewer and set further apart until she saw no more of them at all. Eventually the ground began to trend downward, and Helga thought she could hear the river gurgling placidly somewhere off to her right behind the trees. She passed an offshoot of the road leading down toward the sound of the water, and nodded kindly to the man who was walking up the track toward her carrying a sack of flour. That must be the way to the mill, she reasoned, and that meant she was close. Helga sat up straighter on the horse’s back and prepared herself to meet the wizarding Thegn of Salisberie somewhere around the next bend.

She heard her destination before she saw it. As Helga led the palfrey through the shade of a pear tree in full white blossom, a scattering of sounds began to drift toward her on the warm breeze – the metallic tink! tink! of a horse being shod, the rougher sound of blunted weapons at practice, voices with the local accent raised in amiable conversation, and – quite unexpectedly – the laughter of children. It made her smile without even realizing it, and she began to nudge the horse forward with her knees. The palfrey went imperceptibly faster; this was not a horse for hurrying, and it let her know with a snort. Then the trees Helga had been riding through opened abruptly, and she got her first look at the de Grifondour estate.

To the left of the road waved an expansive field of crops that ran all the way up to the foot of a low ancient burial mound. A wide grassy sward opened up on the right side of the path and was clear all the way down to the river, which she could see glittering behind a series of buildings. In the distance the property was ringed by trees, some of which had the regimented look of an orchard. Closer to her was a long row of small structures built of wood and wattle, all bustling with activity like the pockets in a honeycomb – stables, storehouses, a woodshop, a smith, all the types of work that must go on to keep up the running of a great person’s household. Men and women went about their tasks briskly but smilingly, none seeming discontented with their lot. Rising above this row of outbuildings was the bulk of a round stone tower, a rare thing in these parts, and behind it Helga could make out the square and sturdy outline of a rectangular hall. Oddly enough, the hall was made of stone as well; Helga looked closer at the corners where wall met roof and realized that it must have once been an old Roman building, repurposed to fit de Grifondour’s fancy.

All of a sudden, Helga realized she was not quite sure exactly how to proceed now that she was here. Nobody going about their work seemed to have noticed her on the road, and she did not see anyone among them who looked like they were the master of the house. After watching for a moment, she decided to simply ride toward the tower since it was in the center of the property, and perhaps a stable boy or some other person would stop her and inquire as to what she needed there. Patting the horse gently on the neck, she walked it softly onto the grass and directed it toward the imposing stone structure.

The first thing she saw as she came around the tower’s circumference was the origin of the sounds that had first made her smile on her approach. Three boys were cavorting madly around the wide green yard of the hall, each of them carrying a blunted practice sword and rough facsimile shield. One was clearly older than the other two and was teaching them maneuvers that he had already mastered; he was tall, probably taller than his true age, with hair the color of toasted barley and a face sprinkled with the irregular sprouts of what would soon be his first beard. The second boy was pale and lean, verging on scrawny, and his finely angled brows and cheekbones were framed by a thick fall of black silken curls. He stood straight and held his shoulders in the way Helga had come to recognize from Aluric, and she knew that this boy must be of noble stock. The third boy was a Moor. Helga was taken aback - having lived her whole life in the tiny environs of Witchingham and nearby Norwic, she had never seen an African person before; but she had once seen a picture of St. Maurice in a priest’s book, and this boy was like that picture – dark brown skin and hair thick as moss that stood out wildly from his head like a saint’s halo. Helga grinned widely. Watching children at play always brought her great joy, and the three boys were wholly enveloped in their pretend battle and seemed to be having the time of their lives. She could see immediately that the Moorish boy was the better swordsman – he moved without hesitation or time wasted calculating steps – but she could also see that he held back when engaging the lean, pale boy, as though he didn’t want to hurt the boy’s pride by beating him. The older boy was certainly talented and well trained, but there was something sanctimonious in the way he explained techniques to the other two that Helga didn’t quite like.

She had been watching them for several minutes, almost forgetting why she had come, when the pale boy spun around to counter a blow and saw her.

“Eaderic, look! Ow!” He had put down his shield in surprise, and just as he spoke, the Moorish boy’s sword had slammed into his upper arm.

“Sorry,” his attacker said sheepishly, and all three boys lowered their practice weapons and stared at her. Helga recovered herself and remembered her errand.

“Hello,” she began tentatively. “I am here to speak to Goderic de Grifondour. Is he here today?” She was very aware of her Danish accent when she spoke the Saxon language, and it made her nervous for the first time. The older boy put down his weapons and stepped forward, changing his whole posture to make himself look more like an adult.

“Good day to you, lady,” he said ceremoniously. “I am Eaderic de Grifondour. Goderic de Grifondour is my elder brother. He is at present speaking with our master of horse, as we have had a foal born this morning. If it please you, I can take you to see him, and meanwhile your own horse can be stabled, fed, and watered.” Helga’s palfrey looked up from chomping on de Grifondour’s thick grass and whinnied as if he understood and supported this statement. Helga smiled.

“Yes, of course, thank you. We’ve come from Ambesberie, and I’m sure he could use a good rubbing and a cool drink.” She patted the horse affectionately, and he snorted. Eaderic approached to help her down, but before he could get to her, Helga had swung her leg over and dismounted in a flourish of skirt and cloak. The boy’s eyebrow rose a fraction in appreciation, and then he turned toward the row of outbuildings.

“Boy!” he called indiscriminately to a group of youths gathered near the blacksmith’s fire. One of the boys detached himself and came closer, and Eaderic nodded toward the palfrey. “Take this lady’s horse and see that it gets fed and watered, and has a good brushing. And check its shoes, it’s had a long walk.” The servant nodded and began leading the palfrey away. Eaderic turned back to Helga and offered his arm. “May I escort you, lady?”

Helga restrained herself from grinning at this boy, who couldn’t be older than thirteen, behaving like a man grown. She certainly didn’t want to cut him down by giggling. “Yes, thank you. I should be happy to walk with such a gracious young man.” She laid her hand on his outstretched arm.

“Keep practicing, you two,” Eaderic said to the other boys. “I’ll be back shortly, and I’ll teach you the next technique.”

Helga saw the other two boys give each other the same unimpressed look as soon as Eaderic’s back was turned.

“You are a Dane?” Eaderic said to her matter-of-factly as they began walking down the row of buildings, and she nodded.

“From a village near Norwic,” she elaborated. Eaderic tilted his head back knowingly.

“Ah,” he concurred. “My brother visited Norwic when I was a boy – I plan to go with him the next time he travels there.”

Helga again had to press her lips together to hold back a giggle. He said when I was a boy as though he were not still a boy. She looked at him closely; he had fierce ice-blue eyes ringed with thick, dark lashes, strong brows, and the arm she was holding was already well-muscled for a boy whose voice had only just finished deepening. Bless him, Helga thought. He so wants to be like his brother that he can’t wait to finish being a child. Well, she could make him feel like a grown person if that’s what would make him happy.

They were heading now for a stable building that was set apart from the other barns and shops, and Helga could hear the snorting of a horse and the conversing of voices from within. She turned and smiled at Eaderic. “Do you have many foals each year?” she asked conversationally. Eaderic nodded.

“There’s nothing my brother loves so much, besides swords, as horses. We pride ourselves on breeding only the finest. We even brought in a destrier from Normandy last season to sire some of our stock. That was a fine palfrey you rode,” he added. “Do you know his breeding?”

“No,” Helga admitted. “He was lent me by a friend in Ambesberie. But he is a very special horse, I agree.”

Eaderic stopped. “Is this friend Ælfric the blacksmith, by any chance?” He was looking at her entirely differently now, one thick eyebrow peaked, and Helga smiled at him roguishly.

“He certainly is. An old acquaintance of my father.”

“I see,” Eaderic grinned, and he adjusted his cloak just enough to reveal the wand that was thrust into his belt. Helga did likewise, and when he saw her wand in her girdle, she felt his arm relax suddenly beneath her hand. “So you are not come to see my brother on a… mundane matter, then?”

“No, indeed,” she replied, and they began walking again. “I have business of a very particular nature which might require him to speak with the king on my behalf.”

“Well, you came on a good day,” Eaderic smiled. “When a mare has foaled successfully, he’s in a generous mood for a week. Here we are,” he finished, nodding toward the separated stable. He pushed open the door and led her just over the threshold. “Brother?” he called out, and Helga took a good look at her surroundings.

The stable had only a few stalls and a large, open central area piled with straw. Helga thought it must be a designated birthing stable. At the far end, a middle-aged man in servant’s garb leaned against a stall door cleaning a brush. He was speaking with a blond man in a fine red cloak who was crouched in front of him, nose to nose with a little chestnut foal. The baby horse appeared bright and energetic, and the man was laughing happily as he ruffled the animal’s little mane. In the stall behind him stood a beautiful blood bay mare, and she was snuffling impatiently and nudging his head with her nose, clearly wanting her foal to be put back in with her.

“Alright, Gwen,” Helga heard the man say with a chuckle. “Alright, I’m just examining your fine work, calm down.” He stood and patted the mare’s face kindly, and she shook her head to let him know she would not be seduced by his sweet words. “You can put him back in with her now, Eafa,” he said to the other man, who nodded and put down the brush.

“Brother?” Eaderic tried again, and this time the man’s head turned to look at them. “You have a visitor, brother,” Eaderic announced, and then added, “a lady.” At that word, the man quickly wiped his hands on a cloth that lay nearby and came across the stable to greet them.

Goderic de Grifondour was tall, broad of shoulder and chest, and was the very image of his younger brother in adult form. Helga thought he was perhaps five or six years her senior. His golden-barley hair hung loose to his shoulders, with a section pulled back from his eyes and tied at the back of his head, and his beard was thick and full but was neatly cropped close to his chin. His eyes were a deeper blue than those of his younger brother, but just as fierce. The red cloak he wore was finer than any cloth Helga had ever owned, and she had to resist the urge to touch it, just to see what it felt like on her fingertips.

“Lady,” he said to Helga with a half bow, and his voice was deep and resonant. “I am honored simply to see your beautiful face adorning my home.”

“She’s come from the Danelaw with business for the thegn of Salisberie,” Eaderic said meaningfully behind her, and Helga let him see the wand tucked in her girdle before letting her cloak fall back over it. Goderic nodded.

“Thank you, brother. Would you go and tell the boys to wash before supper? Table will be laid soon.” Eaderic gave Helga a courtly bow and retreated back into the sunshine, walking rigidly until he thought they couldn’t see him and then breaking into a run. Goderic chuckled and took one of Helga’s hands in both of his. “Your name, lady?”

“Helga Hunlafsdottir, sir.”

“Ah, a daughter of the Norwic wandmaker,” Goderic said sagely. “I trust my brother escorted you with all due courtesy?”

“He was well taught,” Helga smiled. “That is a beautiful horse,” she added, looking behind him at the now contented mare. Goderic swelled with pride.

“Isn’t she? That’s Gwynever, dam to three of the best destriers I’ve ever bred, and I’m hoping that little one in there will be the fourth. His sire was an Abraxan half-breed – all the courage and power, but without the wings.” He offered Helga his arm and led her outside. “You know Ælfric of Ambesberie, of course?” he grinned.

“He lent me the palfrey I came here on,” she nodded, and they began walking toward the large rectangular hall. “I did think he had the look of an Abraxan too, but I didn’t want to ask because there were non-magical ears listening. And by the way, are all of your servants witches and wizards, or do you employ úgaldr as well?”

“Only a few magic, the master of horse back there included,” replied Goderic, “but most of the mundani servants are aware of us, and they’ve served this family long enough to know how to keep secrets. None of them want us found out because then they’d have to find work at some other thegn’s house, and they like working for me too much because I’m soft.” He grinned sheepishly at her. “But you didn’t ride all day from Ambesberie just to talk with me about horses and servants, did you?”

“No,” Helga admitted. “I have… an idea that I would like to see brought to reality,” she said carefully. “But I will need support from the king. And my father said you were the man who could make that happen.”

Goderic smiled and paused at the door of the hall. “I am the man who will certainly try.”

Table was laid that evening as the golden light Helga had ridden through began simmering down into the soft pink and purple of a field of catchfly blossoms. A few clouds of deeper blue rolled in from the west, bringing with them a soft, steady rain that pattered rhythmically against the thatch and stone walls. The rectangular hall was bathed in the dim amber light from the central hearth, in which burned a pleasant fire that had been charmed to give out good light with almost no smoke. The few tendrils that did escape floated upward into the vaulted ceiling and disappeared among the rafters; the windows had been shuttered against the rain, but Helga could see triangles of purple sky at each end of the roof where smoke from a non-magical fire would be drawn out. She sat beside Goderic at a handsomely carved table at the far end of the hall, while the children sat at another table on the opposite side of the firebox being entertained by Eafa, the wizard master of horse. Beneath one of the shuttered windows, a young man sat on a stool and strummed a lyre, occasionally singing snatches of ballads between bites of rough bread. Goderic had served his guest mead in his best golden cups, and Helga was staggered by the choice of not one or two but three (three??) meats he placed before her. While Goderic spoke at length about Norwic, and meeting her father, and wandcraft, and horse breeding, she munched on bread and honey and tried to decide if she was supposed to eat the veal, the peafowl, or the venison first. If there was a rule about such things, she didn’t know it.

“So,” Goderic said finally when the food had been reduced to bones and crusts. He leaned back in his chair and pointed a handsome rowan-wood wand at the mead, directing it to refill Helga’s cup. “Now that we have eaten and are comfortable, why don’t you tell me what you came all the way across England to ask of me?”

Helga took the cup and sipped, staring through the mellowing fire at the children across the room. Eafa was animatedly telling a story, and all three boys were leaned forward and laughing. After a few moments gathering her thoughts, she put the cup down and turned to face her host.

“I want to form a school.”

Goderic regarded her for a minute in puzzled silence. “You mean like a cathedral school? For what children? No Saxon churchman will allow a woman teacher, not at any church I’ve been to. Maybe among your people—”

“No, not in a church,” Helga shook her head. “And not like a cathedral school. I want to make a school for orphaned witches and wizards. Magical children who have no parents to help them develop their magic.” Goderic tilted his head back, his eyes narrowing as he worked out what she was saying. Since he said nothing aloud, she went on. “There are so many more of them orphaned now, what with the fighting between your people and the Danes – my father is at home caring for three of them as we speak, and I’m sure you’ve seen your share. They can’t learn what they need on their own. And you know what happens if they smother their abilities.”

“They become Death-Shadows,” Goderic murmured, nodding softly. He looked up from his mead and gazed across the fire at the children’s table, and Helga followed his eyes to the two boys who sat with his brother.

“Who are they?” she asked. “Those boys, I mean.” Goderic put down his cup and crossed his arms.

“For now? My wards. The one who looks like he hasn’t eaten in a week is called Rodolphus,” he said, pointing to the lean, pale boy with the silken black hair. “He comes from a noble family in Duke Richard’s court in Normandy. His father came here as a diplomat to argue with King Æthelræd about the sea routes or some such nonsense, and he died here just before Candle-mass. The other one is Walrand of Brittany,” he went on, indicating the Moorish boy. “His father translates for Richard’s court, and he was made ward to Rodolphus’s father to improve his station and help him make a good marriage. They’re like brothers now. The boys came to England with Rodolphus’s father because they wanted to see another country, and now they’re stranded here because we hadn’t the slightest clue what to do with them or who to send them home to – or if they even had anyone to be sent to.”

“Are they both wizards?” Helga inquired, and Goderic nodded again.

“And first-rate ones, at that – or at least they will be. I offered to take them so they could be in a wizarding home, and I’ve written to the Norman court, but….” He shrugged and took another drink of mead. “It’s been nearly four months, and all I’ve received is one hearth-message from a wizard there saying Rodolphus has nobody except female cousins whose husbands want to kill him and steal his inheritance, and that there is unrest in the court, so they’d both be safer staying with me.” They both fell silent, watching the boys roughhousing over the remnants of dinner. Rodolphus had given Eaderic’s hair a clandestine poke with his wand and had turned it a queer shade of green, and he and Walrand were hard pressed not to dissolve into helpless giggles every time they looked at him. Goderic sighed and wiped his hand over his beard, and Helga saw for the first time that day that he looked tired.

“You were good to take them in,” she said softly. “Most men would find themselves ill-equipped for the task, and you have no nursemaid or wife to help you.”

“Are you applying for the position?” Goderic asked with a roguish grin. “Because I could do worse, even if you are a Dane.” He flicked his eyes over her thick golden braid and milk-white skin, and Helga stared at him in disbelief until she realized that he was at least half-joking. She sighed and gave him a wry smile.

“Oh, I have enough children to take care of at the moment, thank you, without marrying and having thirteen of my own.”

“Wouldn’t have to be thirteen” Goderic said nonchalantly as he finished off his mead cup. “We could keep it to a round seven. Good magical number.” He managed to keep a straight face for about five seconds before the laughter forced its way out of him with a snort. Helga couldn’t help herself and began to laugh with him.

“Between us we’ve already got that many, if we count Eaderic and my little witch’s younger brother!”

“Oh, Jesu, don’t tell Eaderic you’re counting him as a child,” Goderic chuckled. “He’d die of embarrassment.” When they had finally laughed themselves back into a contented silence again, Goderic took a deep breath and put down his empty cup. This time he didn’t refill it. “What would you teach them at your school?” he asked her, and for the first time she saw the look of the serious businessman come over his face. She put her cup down as well and turned slightly toward him in her chair.

“Well… I would make sure they all had the basic spells, for one,” she began. She hadn’t really planned it in detail yet, but now that she was explaining it she found the ideas coming to her to be practical and solid. “Everyday things, like moving objects, basic defense, repairing and preparing charms. I would teach them to travel with magic, to send hearth-messages, and to make basic potions. A few basic forms of divination. How to create their own spells. And I’d teach them about magical plants and animals. You know, the things parents would teach if they had them.”

“And what about more advanced subjects? For instance, if a student had a gift for healing magic? Or for scrying?”

“Well, then once a student had mastered all of my basics, I would try to find someone to place them with who could help them with the subject they were best at. Like an apprenticeship.”

Goderic nodded, pursing his lips behind his barley-colored mustache. “And would you teach them to read?”

This was something Helga hadn’t thought about, and it made her pause. After a slight hesitation, she said, “I can teach runes. Norse, and a good deal of Saxon. I can’t read Latin,” she admitted, and Goderic leaned forward.

“But they will need to,” he said matter-of-factly. “Latin is the one language spoken among all the wizards in what was once the Roman world. I don’t speak Norse, and you don’t speak Welsh, and neither of us knows a word of Greek; but I can go to any country in Christendom and speak Latin, and I will be understood. And if the children want to learn from ancient magical texts, they will need to be lettered in Latin for that as well.”

Helga picked up the empty mead cup and turned it in her hands, tracing the outline of the lion etched into its polished side. Words engraved around the rim read AVDACIA – FORTITVDO – DIGNITAS. They were very pretty, and they meant nothing to her because she could not read them. She squared her shoulders and looked up at Goderic with a smile.

“Well, then I suppose I’ll have to have a fellow teacher who can handle Latin, won’t I?”

Goderic leaned back in his seat, chuckling. “You are undaunted,” he said. “That is what I have always heard about your race, and I see that it’s accurate. So, then – if you have all this planned, what do you need me for?” He asked the question like he already knew but wanted to hear her tell him anyway. Helga put the cup back on the table again and laced her fingers in her lap.

“I plan to find an abandoned settlement or forgotten hill fort somewhere away from non-magical villages to protect the children. I’ll fix it up with magic, make it livable, and I’ll bring in some other witches and wizards to help me. But I can’t conjure food to keep them with, and I can’t conjure coins to buy rarer magical supplies. Cathedral schools operate on endowments from the king – I was hoping to get one for myself.”

“You want King Æthelræd to fund a school for magic?” Goderic sputtered, and she nodded before he could start extricating himself.

“He wouldn’t have to know it was for magic,” she explained. “We – and by that, I mean you – could tell him that we plan to take in many orphans as our wards, and the money would be for their upkeep and education. That would be entirely true.”

“Yes, but there are churchmen who do exactly that. He would ask why the kingdom needs yet another home for orphans, and this one not attached to a church.”

 “We could tell him that there are things we would teach that the church cannot,” Helga replied, and Goderic scoffed.

“Like what? And ‘witchcraft’ is not the correct answer.”

“Well…,” Helga paused. She glanced over at Rodolphus, his black hair looking shiny and wet in the firelight, and thought of how he reminded her of Aluric. “Oh!” she exclaimed then, and Goderic raised an eyebrow. “We could tell the king that these orphans are high-born and have nobody to take them as wards in the traditional way, and that we would teach them how to be ladies and thegns of quality, how to run households and behave at court – all things the church does not teach.”

“It wouldn’t be a total lie,” Goderic admitted. “Rodolphus is noble-born.”

“Yes!” Helga grinned, the idea beginning to grow legs. “And I have a boy at home who was son of an eorl! And you could use Rodolphus as an example to the king, because the king knows him. He can’t go home to what little family he has, because they want his inheritance and he would be in danger! So he should be educated here, in safety, until he is of age.”

“The king did rather like Rodolphus,” Goderic pondered, scratching at his beard. “Alright,” he said finally. “Let me think on it tonight. I’ll speak with Eafa after the children are abed, and we’ll look at it from all angles. I make no promises, but if I think it can be presented to the king with any chance of success and with low risk, I’ll let you know in the morning.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Helga smiled accommodatingly, trying not to press dents into her palms with her fingernails. She doubted she would be able to unclench her fists until she had her answer.

That night Helga was shown to a bed tucked into one of the corners of the hall’s loft and helped out of her cloak by an elderly witch who smelled of cooking fires and bread. The triangular smoke hole just above her cast a puddle of moonlight onto Helga’s feet as she climbed in and felt the heather mattress settle around her. This was certainly Goderic’s own bed; a wooden chest which doubtless contained the family’s valuables was locked up near her head, and the wood and iron frame surrounding her had been built for someone tall and broad. Across the hall, in the loft just below the other smoke hole, the three boys were sleeping peacefully on cushioned benches. Below, at the bottom of the ladder she had just come up, Helga could see Goderic and Eafa sitting on the low bench that ran around the walls of the hall. Each man’s arms were crossed, and a murmur of their quiet discussion floated up to her ears. At first, she strained to hear snatches of what they said. But after a few minutes Eafa pointed his wand at the fire in the hearth, turning it a dim, sleepy shade of red. The scent of wildflowers and night air wafted in through the smoke hole, and although Helga had feared she would be awake all night without knowing a verdict, a short while later she drifted off to sleep.

It was a full hour after sunrise when Helga awoke to find herself in an empty loft in an empty hall. The light coming in through the smoke hole was a pale but radiant yellow like a sheet of gold that had been hammered as thin as parchment. Rising up from the hall below was the scent of fresh bread and strawberries. Helga climbed down the ladder stiffly but eagerly and found the food she had smelled waiting for her on the table, along with a cup of fresh milk. Her cloak lay draped over the table beside it, looking as though someone had given it a smart tap with a cleaning charm and a gentle brushing besides. There was no sign of her host or his wards. She hoped he wasn’t out somewhere gallivanting on a horse, avoiding telling her his decision.

After she had eaten everything that had been on the table – she felt it would be rude to leave any remnants – Helga wandered out of the silent hall into the bright sunshine. The day was going to be glorious and clear, a rare thing in that rainy kingdom, and she resolved to be happy about that regardless of whatever Goderic de Grifondour had to say to her. All around her, servants walked jauntily about their business, going here and there with hands full of wood or cut grasses or wool. A little girl was coming up a path from the stream carrying a basket full of fat raspberries, and when she saw Helga, she offered her a taste with pink-stained hands. Helga grinned at her and took a couple of berries before heading down the path that the child had just come up. It led into the orchard she had glimpsed the day before, and she thought she could hear the sounds of children laughing over the gurgling of the river. Well, she thought – if Goderic wasn’t around to give her his answer, then she would bide her time with his wards until he showed himself.

The first row of trees that marked the beginning of the orchard were apples in full snowy bloom. The air around them was heady with scent, and they buzzed and quivered as hundreds of bees began their day’s work among the white flowers. Helga crept up and peeked between two of the trunks near the end of the row – and immediately had to jump back out of the way as a massive silver leopard bounded past her down the avenue of apple trees. She was so shocked that she nearly cried out – until she realized that the leopard was shimmering and translucent, not a real leopard at all but a glistening illusion. Helga gaped. It was a full-bodied hirð charm, something few wizards could produce without years of practice. Goderic had not been exaggerating; if one of the children had produced this, then they were going to be fine wizards indeed. The silvery cat stopped a few trees away and turned to regard her, twitching its tail pensively, and Helga was amazed at how brightly it shone even in full sunlight. When it began to pad silently away down the lane of trees, she followed it, and found its source standing with his wand still out halfway down the row.

“Come back to me, Jadd,” Walrand was saying, holding out a hand to the translucent leopard as Rodolphus grinned at him with approbation and wonder. They had not yet noticed Helga, so intent were they on the apparition in front of them.

“You named it?” the thin boy questioned, and his friend smirked as the silver cat brought its misty forehead up into the palm of its wizard’s hand.

“Naturelment,” Walrand replied. “The patronus, he is a loyal guardian. Why should he not have a name?”

“Why not, indeed!” Helga agreed, and both boys snapped immediately to attention, adopting a courtly posture as they realized they were in the presence of a lady. Helga noticed that Rodolphus glanced twice at Walrand to assure himself he was doing it correctly. The leopard, its caster’s attention now diverted, swished its tail and wandered off into the rows of trees, fading as it went and eventually disappearing entirely.

“Forgive us, lady,” Walrand began, “but our guardian did not make you an introduction last night.” He spoke as if it were he and not Rodolphus who held authority, and Helga saw that Rodolphus made no eye contact with her at all. He instead watched his friend’s face intently, like a student working at a lesson.

“I am Helga Hunlafsdottir of Little Witchingham, in the Danelaw,” she told them. Spreading her skirts around her, she sat down on the petal-strewn grass to show them they did not have to stand on ceremony with her. “Goderic spoke of the two of you last night,” she explained as the boys relaxed a little. “I was sorry to hear of your father.” She said this directly to Rodolphus, although she did not meet his eyes for very long since he didn’t seem keen on it. The pale boy nodded and glanced again at Walrand, as if he were unsure of the proper response.

“You thank her now,” Walrand whispered, and Rodolphus nodded again to himself.

“Thank you, lady,” he said to the grass. His friend chuckled and sat himself down on an upturned wooden bucket.

“This one, he is like a foreigner no matter who he speaks to, so I am his interpreter.”

“Like your father in the Duke’s court?” Helga smiled. Walrand grinned and spread his arms equivocally. Rodolphus was now staring at a mockingbird that had perched in a nearby tree, but he seemed better able to speak when he was looking at no one.

“They call me l’estrange. My cousins. They say I will not meet their eyes because I am a faierie child.”

“Well, are you?” Helga asked.

“No,” Rodolphus answered matter-of-factly, still staring at the mockingbird; then he seemed to realize that it was not an ordinary question, and he turned to look at her briefly, his dark brows arched high on his milky forehead. Helga laughed warmly, joined by Walrand, and after a few moments even Rodolphus himself began to laugh. He stopped abruptly, though, as soon as Walrand’s chuckles faded into a deep breath.

“You both speak excellent Saxon,” Helga said softly in the quiet that followed. “I suppose you both are lettered in many languages? Norman, Saxon, Latin?” Walrand nodded his head at all three.

“And enough Norse to get home if we are lost,” he added in Norse.

“Walrand speaks more than I,” Rodolphus said flatly, now very interested in a squirrel three trees away. His friend shrugged, but he was smiling.

“Comes with being son of an interpreter. You hear things. You hear them enough….” He poked a finger down through his thick hair and touched his temple. “They go in.”

“That name you called your hirð leopard earlier—”

“Is that what Norse wizards call them?” Walrand interjected, and Rodolphus cocked his head to one side.

“Hirð, a bodyguard, a retainer, that which protects his master with his body.” Having recited this, he went back to stalking the squirrel. Walrand went on.

“Apt word,” he said. “The Latin is patronus.”

“You will have to teach me the Latin incantation later,” Helga smiled. “But that name you called it – Jadd? What language is that? I don’t recognize it.”

“It means grandfather in the Arab tongue,” Walrand explained, and when Helga’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, he looked as though he had expected as much. “My grandsire, my father’s father in Africa, he followed Mohamet, and Arabic was my father’s native tongue. I don’t speak it very well myself, but I like to call my patronus Jadd because he is my guardian, like my grandsire would be if he still lived.”

“You cast it beautifully,” Helga praised, and Walrand beamed proudly. “I have only ever seen a few wizards do it with a result like that – a fully-formed creature that responds to their voice. My father is one. His comes as a reindeer. But you must be a very talented young man, to cast one so completely and you not yet full grown.”

“He tried to teach me but I couldn’t make one,” Rodolphus said, and Helga jumped and squeaked because his voice came from directly behind her. She hadn’t seen him circle around, and she had to press her hand over her heart to stop it beating through her bodice.

“People don’t enjoy it when you speak unexpectedly from behind them,” Walrand instructed his friend as Rodolphus came over and sat in the grass beside him. The lean boy blinked placidly as he processed this information; then he nodded softly to himself. Walrand turned back to Helga.

“Can you cast one?” he asked her, beginning to twirl his wand deftly between his fingers. It was a lovely wand made of some reddish wood with a strong, dark grain. Helga tilted her head.

“You know, I’ve never tried!” she said, a little surprised at herself. “I suppose I’ve just never needed to cast one, so I just didn’t bother. I know the spell, of course. I’ve just never used it.”

“You should try it here,” Rodolphus suggested, and this time he actually looked at her for a moment before dropping his eyes back to the grass he was braiding. “That way if you fail, you’ve only failed in front of children and your pride is intact.” Helga laughed at him merrily.

“Rodolphus,” she grinned, picking herself up off the grass, “in my opinion, pride is highly overrated.” She dusted off her skirts and pulled her wand from her girdle as Walrand got off his bucket to come watch her more closely.

“Say the spell in Norse,” he encouraged. “We’ve only ever heard the Latin.”

“All right,” Helga acquiesced. Walrand crossed his arms and watched her expectantly, and even Rodolphus looked up from his grass, though he kept plaiting it without watching his fingers. Helga breathed deeply and held her wand out in front of her. She closed her eyes, remembering what her father had said about casting this particular spell – that one must go back to the happiest day of one’s life, because the hirð breathed the happiness like people breathed air. Helga let herself go back to a bright spring day in the Norwic market, the feeling of sun and mild air and her father’s calloused hands securely wrapped around her tiny seven-year-old legs so she wouldn’t fall off his shoulders. It had been her first sight of a real town, and her mother’s hair had shone red-gold as she had walked ahead of them. Helga remembered watching her mother’s braids bouncing against the back of her pale blue dress and loving her with the fierceness and bright white joy that only a child can muster. She breathed in the memory like sweet air.

“Bíð hirð!” she called out suddenly, and swirled her wand in a powerful circle. A jet of silver-white cloud burst out of the wand’s tip and turned on itself for a moment, like oil floating in water; then it collected itself into a round mass and, after a moment or two, took the unmistakable shape of a badger. Helga’s whole face split into a grin.

“Look at her!” she breathed. Rodolphus tossed his hair out of his eyes.

“It’s not fully formed,” he said matter-of-factly. “Blurry around the edges.” He was right, of course; Helga could see that. The silvery badger lifted its head toward her and sniffed the air with its blunt nose, but the image was wavery, and it didn’t shine as Walrand’s leopard had done.

“Rodolphus,” Walrand cringed, “do you remember what we discussed about when to be honest?” Rodolphus started to shrug, but Helga waved nonchalantly at them both.

“Oh, it’s alright, dear. It is never wrong to be honest. Unless, of course, you’re speaking to an angry man with a large sword, and then perhaps it’s best to be silent.” Helga watched her blurry badger trundle around in the grass for a few steps, growing fainter as it did. “At least I know I can do it,” she reasoned. “They get stronger and more solid with practice, right?”

Walrand nodded. “You got an animal on your first try. That is more than most.”

“I got white smoke,” Rodolphus added. They all watched the badger quietly then, until finally it ceased sniffing the air and began to waddle away down the lane of trees. As its waddle became faster and more pronounced, Helga suddenly heard the sound of hooves clopping the dirt of the orchard path. Before she had time to wonder why her badger sounded like it had hooves, a horse came round the end of the row of apple trees and trotted toward them. Its feet swept through the misty apparition of the badger until it dissipated into wisps of silver vapor. Helga sighed as it disappeared; then she turned her attention to the rider.

Goderic de Grifondour was mounted on an exquisite blood bay stallion which must have been a brother to the mare she had seen yesterday in the stable. It had a look in its eyes that said it understood itself to be no less than a king of horses, and Helga pitied the man who ever faced that horse in battle. Behind Goderic and his stallion trotted Helga’s palomino palfrey, who promptly stooped to munch on the thick orchard grass as soon as Goderic loosened his grip on its halter. Goderic grinned down at them.

“There you are,” he laughed. “Naturally, you would be with the children. Was that a ghost badger?” He pointed over his shoulder at the spot where the silver badger had vanished. Walrand beamed up at his guardian.

“Her patronus,” he supplied. “Can we keep her around for a while so she can teach us more Norse magic?”

Goderic snorted. “Be careful what you wish for,” he muttered under his breath. Aloud, he said simply, “Well? Are you ready?”

“R… ready for what?” Helga stammered. By way of reply, Goderic tugged gently on the palfrey’s lead so that it stepped out of his stallion’s shadow. Helga saw that her cloak had been draped over the leather pack behind the saddle, and that the pack looked to have been refilled. She gasped. “You mean… you’ve decided?”

Goderic nodded, chuckling at himself as he did. “I spent the morning leaving instructions for Eafa and my brother so they can take care of things here. Come on.” He tossed her the lead to her palfrey. Helga could barely contain herself.

“You mean …we’re going to Lundenburh to see the king??” She went up on her tiptoes in excitement, and Goderic sighed.

“Helga Hunlafsdottir, we are going to Lundenburh to see the king.”

Chapter Text

Apparating had always been Helga’s least favorite activity, and this on a list that included things like pulling dead animals out of a crup’s mouth. The press of the wind against her eardrums, the sickening tightness around her chest and stomach, the swirling feeling of disorientation – give her a good healthy walk or ride any day. Apparition, she had always felt, was for people who lacked patience and, in her opinion, a sense of self-preservation. Goderic de Grifondour, however, had no such qualms. And of course, for a journey that could take several days on horseback, being able to simply appear there within seconds did have its merit.

“Where will we be apparating to?” Helga had asked him as they rode out of the orchard toward the stream. If she had to apparate with someone else pulling her, she at least wanted to know where she would be landing.

“An inn,” Goderic had replied, “just inside the walls of Lundenburh on the west side, near the Ludd Gate. The innkeep is a wizard. He keeps an empty courtyard at the back of the place specifically for wizards coming into and leaving the city so they can apparate without being seen by the mundani.” Helga had nodded as though “Ludd Gate” and “walls on the west side” meant anything to her at all, which they didn’t. She had never been to Lundenburh – in fact, the largest town she had ever seen was Norwic, and even that place had more street names than she cared to try and remember. She would just have to hold tight to Goderic’s arm and let him do all the apparating for both of them.

There was a clear, flat space by the stream bank that de Grifondour clearly used often for a disapparating point the way her father always used the big oak tree in the barley field, and Goderic led both their horses into the center of it and waited until both animals had stopped their nervous prancing. He moved the mounts close together, until his right leg pressed against Helga’s left, and then reached out for her arm.

“Will the horses be alright?” Helga asked anxiously. Goderic squeezed her wrist reassuringly.

“As long as we keep tight hold with our legs so they don’t try to bolt. Ready?”

“I hate apparating,” she said by way of answer, and Goderic just chuckled. The next moment, Helga felt a slap of cold, dry air against her face as the stream and the trees and Goderic disappeared into a swirling haze. She felt a little shriek squeeze out of her as the pressure around her lungs surged and then abated, and her palfrey whinnied frantically beneath her – and she could have sworn she heard Goderic laughing hysterically. Then it all stopped at once. Helga swayed on the horse as the air around her came to a dead halt and the rushing sound of wind abruptly quieted. The palfrey did a shuffling little dance of disgruntlement and snorted his disapproval. Helga’s ears felt like they had water in them, and she shook her head until the sensation subsided. Beside her, Goderic was laughing.

“You really don’t like that, do you? Sorry,” he grinned, clearly not at all sorry. Helga pressed a hand against her bodice until her equilibrium returned.

“I keep waiting for someone to invent a better way of getting places quickly, and they keep disappointing me,” she replied. Goderic laughed aloud and swung himself down off his stallion, who apparently was unfazed by the whole operation.

“Well, cheer up,” he said, straightening his cloak. “I heard that some wizards in Saxony have started enchanting broomsticks so you can ride them through the air. I’ll buy one and let you try it, see if you like that any better.” He held out his arms to help her down, and since she was still unsteady from the apparating, she let him.

Once her feet were back on the earth, she was actually able to give some attention to her surroundings. They had arrived in the middle of an empty square courtyard with no apparent outlet save a heavy wooden door in the crumbling wall straight ahead. The brick showing through the gapped plaster was the color of pale red sandstone, giving the building away as a leftover of the old Roman city. High on their left rose what could only be the outer wall of Lundenburh; beyond it, Helga could hear the soft splashing of the Fleta as it tumbled south to join the wide Tames somewhere behind them. Now that her heart had stopped rushing blood to her ears, she realized that the flood of sound she had been hearing hadn’t been her own pulse at all. The air here was positively thick with sounds – the flow of the rivers, the honking of geese and chickens in nearby pens, the plod of numerous horses passing to and fro outside the courtyard, the stomping of many feet on a wooden bridge, and a cacophony of voices buying and selling and calling out greetings or curses. Helga supposed that she had known academically that a city like Lundenburh contained a great many people; but hearing them now, all going about their business at the same time all around her, it was almost like apparating. There was a low hiss of constant noise that seemed to go on even beneath the individual sounds she could distinguish, and she wondered how anyone ever became accustomed to living in such a noisy place.

“Is it always like this?” she asked Goderic, gazing around as if she could see over the courtyard walls. Goderic shook his head.

“Oh, no. Of course not. It’s much quieter today than usual. You should be here on market days. Much more exciting.” Helga stared at him, wondering if he was being serious or if he was answering like that on purpose to tease her.

While Helga stared, Goderic crossed the cobbled space between their horses and the big door. A little bell hung from a hook beside it, and Goderic pulled out his wand and gave the bell two sharp taps. It rang out a pair of silvery little chiming notes that echoed musically in the walled yard. They only had to wait a few moments before the heavy door in front of them creaked open and a young woman came out backward, pushing the door open with her backside. She had sharp, quick eyes and a strong square jaw, and her black hair was a rat’s nest of curls tied up with a rag. She took one look at Goderic and sighed.

“Didn’ yew just leave ‘ere, Grifondour? Thought we was rid of yew til midsummer.”

Goderic grinned at her. “Lovely to see you as well, Finela.”

“Want the lady’s ‘orse in the stall beside yours?” she asked, chocking the door open with a stone and reaching for the horses’ leads. Beyond her, Helga saw not the inside of an inn as she had expected, but a stable. Goderic held up a hand to Finela.

“No stalls at the moment, Lady Pyk,” he said. “My friend and I will be leaving straight from here on our business in the city after we say hello to your father. You can just lead them through to the street entrance of the stable and have the groom’s boy wait with them there.”

“Oo-oo-oh,” Finela simpered teasingly. She turned to Helga. “Thinks if he calls me lady enough, I’ll be nicer to his ‘orse. Great flatterer, that one. Don’t let ‘im kiss yer hand. No tellin’ what he wants when he does that.” And before Helga could say anything in return, the woman had taken the two horses by their leads and pulled them through the door into the stable. Goderic waited a few moments in amused silence after she had closed the door behind her, and Helga began to wonder exactly how they were supposed to get into the inn itself. Then Goderic took out his wand again. Instead of ringing the bell this time, he placed the tip of the wand at eye level in the center of the door and drew it downward along the grain of the wood in a straight line.

“Nos admitte,” he commanded, and the line he had traced with his wand emitted a pale glow. The door opened again, this time of its own accord, and Helga saw with pleasant surprise that there was no stable behind it now. The entrance now gave onto a dim interior space, and the hum of conversation and clanking objects leaked out into the courtyard from within. Goderic stepped back and waved Helga through first, giving her a little courtly bow. “Helga Hunlafsdottir, welcome to the inn of Gwydion Pyk.”

Helga stepped inside and was immediately greeted by the scent of bread being taken from ovens and porridge scorching in a cauldron. They had entered what looked like a small storage room full of sacks of flour, and she lifted the hem of her skirt to keep it from collecting the pale dust as they crossed to the small door that stood cracked open beyond a stack of buckets. The door was low and asymmetrical, and as she came out of it Helga saw that it was positioned beneath a crude staircase tucked in the corner of a large main room. The inn was built of an amalgam of dark stone and ancient Roman bricks held together with thick oak timbers (and, Helga mused, probably a little magic). The walls were dark, the ceiling low, and only the front of the building facing the street had windows; but these were unshuttered and the door flung open to admit light, and there was a merry fire burning in a wide hearth in the corner. This close to the hour of Terce, most travelers had either already broken their fast and gone, or had not yet come in to escape midday heat, and so only a couple of customers sat at the scattering of tables. Helga didn’t know if the usual clientele were mostly wizards or úgaldr; but the man closest to her was heating his drink with a wand. The other man seemed to be asleep next to a half-loaf of bread and an empty cup. Helga relaxed a little as Goderic followed her out of the storage room into the light.

“GODeric, ye mangy excuse fer a graphorn’s balls, wha’ are ye doin’ back in mah inn??” Helga jumped as a man appeared from behind what she had thought to be only a stack of drink barrels, but which apparently hid a door to another room. His hair flowed down to his shoulders in waves, a shade of white that said perhaps it had once been red-gold long ago. His beard and mustache were darker than the rest of his hair, pointed like a goat’s, and he wore a sweeping cloak covered in wild scribbles of embroidery that made it look as though he were wearing a tapestry he had stolen from someone’s wall. Actually, the closer he came, the more certain Helga felt that that’s exactly what he was wearing. In fact, she thought she could see one of the wall hanging brackets still attached to a dragging corner. The man’s voice was brash, but he was grinning merrily, and Goderic threw out an arm and gripped his wrist in friendship.

“Well, nobody else will buy what you’re selling, you great wart off a niffler’s arse,” Goderic laughed, and the man guffawed along with him.

“Didnae think I’d see you again fer a month or more,” he said, dragging his tapestry robe over to a tall table where several pitchers sat beside empty drinking vessels. His voice had the sound of the Cumbrian peoples from that vague, mysterious part of the island between Yorvic, Alba, and the West, and Helga smiled at the musical lilt as she and Goderic followed him to the table. “I thought ye went home tae cutch wi’ those wee babbies ye’ve adopted?”

“Yes, well,” Goderic snorted, accepting the cup of cider he was handed. “The wee babbies are part of the reason I’m here.”

“Tryin’ tae unload them on some other poor wretch already?” the old man chuckled, and Goderic grinned.

“Not exactly. Helga,” he said, turning around to her and holding out an arm in presentation, “this is my old friend Gwydion Pyk. Gwyd, this is Helga Hunlafsdottir.”

“Pleased to meet you, master Inkeeper,” Helga said – because she had no idea what the proper address for innkeeps would be. Gwydion Pyk threw back his head and laughed.

“Oh, Goderic,” he chortled, “I like this one. Think I’ll have that stitched on some cloth an’ sewn on mah robe. Master Inkeeper?? Oi, Muire, d’ye hear that?” he yelled over his shoulder in the vague direction of what must have been a kitchen. “I’m Master Innkeeper now, an’ don’ ye ferget!”

Helga heard a muffled but obviously derisory reply from a woman somewhere out of sight, and both men laughed again. When they had settled, Goderic accepted another cup of cider, and this time Helga took one as well. Gwydion leaned on the tall table and eyed Goderic with interest. “Right. So. What are you and this lovely Norsewoman here to do wi’ those babbies of yours?”

“Well,” Goderic began, staring into his cup for a moment as he decided how to explain. “Helga has found herself in a similar situation to mine – she’s got three orphans knocking about her home in the Danelaw and not a clue how to handle them, because they’re all wizards.”

“Got enough to start your own war band, between ye,” Gwydion chuckled. “So what scheme are ye cookin’ up?”

“We’re going to ask the king for an endowment so we can start a school for orphaned witches and wizards,” Helga said bluntly. Gwydion Pyk stared at her for a moment open-mouthed; then he turned, took a much larger drinking vessel from a shelf behind him, and plunked it down in front of Goderic before beginning to fill it.

“Here,” he said. “Keep drinkin’ til ye’re thinkin’ straight, Goderic. Fionn’s balls, man!” He kept filling the vessel until Goderic patted his hand wryly.

“It’s not a joke, Gwyd. We’re on our way to the King’s Hall now.” He looked like he couldn’t quite believe it himself. Pyk laughed brokenly.

“Just goin’ tae …march right intae the Hall and say, ‘Och, great King Æthelræd, d’ye mind if we take a wee bit o’ the treasury to train up a score of tiny witches??’ Oh, aye, the Bishop’ll love that, won’t he?”

“Well obviously we’re not going to tell him it’s for witchcraft,” Helga said over the rim of her cider cup. It really was very good cider. Goderic chuckled into his cup at her temerity.

“Obviously not,” Gwydion concurred, but there was laughter beneath his sarcasm. Helga could see this was a man for whom laughter was a natural state of being. He turned to the shelf behind him and pulled down a wooden tray that held some bread and a small pot of honey, plunking it down in front of them and slicing it with his wand. “Well, if you’re goin’ intae the snake pit, ye might as well go wi’ a full stomach. Eat up an’ tell me the plan while ye do.”

The morning mists from the river had dissipated by the time Helga and Goderic received their horses from Finela and rode out into the street in front of Pyk’s Inn. Helga glanced up at the front of the building as they rode away from it and saw that the bush over the door, symbolic of alehouses, had been lashed to a pike instead of an ordinary pole, a cheeky nod to the proprietor’s name. Around them the street teemed with people coming in and out of the Ludd Gate just to their left, where a large man with a sword stood guard under the crumbling Roman arch, on the lookout for troublemakers. Beyond the gate, Helga caught a glimpse of sunlight glinting off the waters of the Fleta as it ran down to join the Tames. Just across the road from the inn stood a small wooden chapel with a stone cross planted in the dirt by its door. The cross was carved with a rough picture of a man who seemed to be slicing his own cloak with his sword.

“Who is that?” Helga asked Goderic, pointing to the picture as they rode past it. Goderic didn’t need to look to answer her.

“Saint Martin,” he said, edging his stallion around a mud puddle. “That chapel is dedicated to him.”

“And… he is… a hero? In one of your Christian sagas?” Helga asked, knowing those were not the correct words but having no other context for her question. Goderic looked at her with raised eyebrows, apparently realizing for the first time that she was not a Christian Dane, but a true Norsewoman. Then he chuckled.

“I suppose it’s like that,” he allowed. “He’s a holy man, a saint. We look to saints as examples of how we should practice our faith.”

“I see,” Helga nodded. “Why is he cutting up his cloak?”

“That’s part of the story,” Goderic explained. “He was travelling in the winter, and saw a poor man with no cloak, so he cut his own in half and gave the piece to the poor man to keep warm.”

“Ah, and his story is an admonition to the hearer to be generous and care for the poor?” Helga smiled. “Oh, I like that. I shall read about him when I start learning Latin.”

“You’re going to learn along with the children?” Goderic laughed. The road now began to trend uphill as they wove the horses in and out of clusters of pedestrians. A few children stared at them, and more than one adult dipped their head in Goderic’s direction as he passed. Helga shrugged.

“Why not? We all can learn, no matter how old we grow. The children should be taught that, and I shall be proud to learn with them.”

“You’re an unusual person, Helga Hunlafsdottir,” Goderic chuckled, “but I won’t hold it against you.”

Up ahead, the narrow street broke abruptly into open ground as they reached the summit of the hill they had been climbing. Helga beamed with delight as she took in the view. The green cap of the hill was surrounded by a low stone border; in the center stood the largest building Helga had ever seen, a long and narrow church constructed of an amalgam of timbers and stone and roofed with old Roman tiles that shone a merry scarlet in the morning sun.

“St. Paul’s church,” Goderic offered, steering his horse around the south side of the green churchyard. “It’s the most important church in Lundenburh, where the king goes to worship. The royal house is just beyond these church lands.” Goderic turned his horse down a little pathway that led south across the patch of green landscape ringed in by the bustling town, and Helga followed, craning her neck to look at everything even after they had passed it. Off to their left, just outside the churchyard border and ringed by fruit trees, Goderic pointed out the home of Bishop Ælfstan. The path cut through the Bishop’s orchard, and they passed under a long row of cherry trees heavy with unripe golden fruit before coming to the end of the track at a low gate in a stone wall. Goderic glanced about to be sure they were unobserved; then he edged his wand-tip out of the leather wrist-cuff he wore and muttered at the latch. It dropped out of the catch and the wooden gate swung open toward them. Helga pursed her lips.

“You couldn’t be bothered to just get down from your horse and open it?”

“Why would I?” Goderic queried as he pushed his wand back up inside his cuff, and he looked so genuinely surprised by the notion that Helga simply sighed and smiled at him the way she would have done with a child. Goderic took no notice; he simply clucked at his horse and led him through the gate into the road beyond.

The street they entered ran parallel to the Tames along the back side of the Bishop’s land. On the other side of it stood a tall and broad rectangular hall with a sloping roof that glittered with vermillion Roman tiles. A constellation of smaller buildings of both brick and wood were gathered around it like chicks around a hen. Behind them, past a marshy swath of shoreline, Helga could see the wide sweep of the Tames sparkling in the morning sunlight.

One of the outbuildings was a stable, and it was toward this structure that Goderic directed his horse. The stableyard bustled with men getting onto horses or getting off them, and with stableboys running to and fro among them bringing or taking their mounts. Most of the men, Helga noticed, wore fine cloaks pinned with gold brooches and carried swords that glinted with quality metalwork. A stableboy came and took their reins without having to be called.

“Welcome back, my lord Salisberie,” the boy demurred, and, seeing that Helga seemed to be attached to Goderic, he hastily added, “And you as well, Lady.” She gave him a warm smile and thanked him, and he grinned as he led their horses away.

“Come on,” Goderic said, holding out his arm for her to take hold. “The king usually hears petitions before midday. Let’s see how many thegns we have to elbow out of the way to get in.” He led her across the stableyard to the entrance of the large hall, a ponderous wooden door set in a wall of herringbone-patterned stonework. There was a guard at the entrance, but he only glanced at Goderic and nodded in recognition as he pushed the door open.

The interior of the king’s hall was cool and dim after the bright morning sunshine and the glint of the river. Helga had to blink a few times to regain her vision. When her eyes had adjusted, she found herself in a square, open room looking up into the face of a tall middle-aged thegn with a thick grey beard and sharp eyes. She knew he must be a thegn of some status by the heavy gold and garnet brooch that held his cloak at his shoulder - and by the way he seemed to command the space in which he stood. He was looking her over appraisingly when Goderic inserted himself between them and clapped the man on the shoulder.

“Ælfric!” he said brightly, although Helga thought there was some restraint under the jocularity in his voice. “How goes the king’s business in Hamtun?”

“Well as it ever goes,” was the man’s guarded reply. He was smiling genially at Goderic, but the smile didn’t meet his eyes. Goderic extended an arm toward Helga.

“Helga Hunlafsdottir, this is Ælfric, the ealdorman of Hamtunscir. He sees to the king’s business in my part of the country.” Helga dropped a shallow bow to him, as that seemed to be what he expected.

“A Dane?” he said in her general direction, and she didn’t care for the way he said it. Goderic patted the man’s arm.

“The daughter of an acquaintance of mine,” he explained. “She has business with the king.”

“Oh, and here I thought you’d finally decided to marry,” Ælfric smirked. Goderic laughed at what seemed to be an old, well-used joke.

“If I had, I certainly wouldn’t bring my wife to Lundenburh for all of you vultures to hover round.” He gestured at the room around them as he said it, and Helga noticed for the first time the dozen or so other men who stood in twos and threes in various parts of the large hall. Many of them sat on the bench that ran the whole way round the open chamber, and those who hadn’t stopped to stare at her were deep in quiet conversations. Helga thought they all looked like they were either waiting for orders, or waiting to be let in to see the king in the room that lay beyond the next door. “Is the king deeply engaged at the moment,” Goderic was asking, “or do you think he would hear us before midday?”

“He might,” Ælfric conceded, scratching his beard. “The Bishop and Leofwine have been arguing about land for the past half hour, so he’d probably welcome an interruption, to be honest.”

“Jesu, not them again,” Goderic sympathized. “Would you announce us, then?”

Ælfric crossed his arms and looked as though it were a hard decision for him; then he grinned through his thick beard. “I suppose I could be persuaded.” He cocked out an elbow and put a hand on his sword, which made his cloak swirl importantly as he turned toward the inner door. Halfway there, he spun back around. “Oh, Goderic, since we spoke of marriage - have you betrothed that brother of yours yet? Ælfgyth is twelve this Swithhun’s Day. They’ll both be old and withered at this rate before you make a decision!”

“Go on,” Goderic waved, shooing the ealdorman toward the inner door. “I’ll betroth him when he stops being so young and stupid. Until then, you don’t want him!” He kept up his genial smile until the corners of Ælfric’s cloak had disappeared through the big wooden doors; it then slipped off his face and was immediately replaced by an irritated sort of relief.

“You don’t like this ealdorman?” Helga asked him knowingly. Goderic grimaced.

“I….” He paused, searching for the correct sentiment. “I don’t know that I trust him to mean what he says. But the king trusts him, above most of his other thegns, so I have to pretend to like him for the king’s sake.”

“Not to mention because he holds sway over your land?” Helga smiled. Goderic nodded.

“And to make it worse, he won’t cease trying to snatch Eaderic out from under me like taking an egg from under a dragon,” he whispered.

“And you don’t want your brother married to his daughter because you don’t trust him?” Helga said. Goderic snorted.

“That is one reason among a great many.”

He broke off as the inner doors opened and Ælfric came back out. “You can come in,” he said quietly. “Leofwine and Ælfstan are still gnawing at each other, but your entrance might shut them up if we’re lucky.” He stepped back and held the door open to Goderic, and Goderic took a deep breath.

“Jesu help us,” he murmured, giving Helga a ‘here we go’ sort of look as he crossed himself. Helga patted his arm.

“D’you mind awfully if I ask Thunor to put his hand in as well?” she whispered, touching the hammer-shaped amulet under the fabric of her collar. Goderic shrugged.

“We’re about to beg a king for money to start a school for witches without actually telling him it’s for witches - while the Bishop listens - I’ll take help from whoever’s interested in helping.” He grinned at her then, and they both chuckled as he ushered Helga inside with a bow. They slipped through the door and then Ælfric followed, closing it behind them.

The inner hall of King Æthelræd II was a long, broad rectangle of stone under a peaked roof supported by columns that were chipped and roughened by age. Helga’s shoetips brushed gently at a battered mosaic tile floor that had once shown a vibrant picture of a man in a robe, an image of whatever god the Romans had worshipped there when the building had been one of their riverside temples. Bits of the image were now missing, and Helga assumed the many hanging tapestries around her were hiding rough patches in the ancient walls. Beneath the largest and brightest of these tapestries sat the king, in a low stone seat draped with furs and cushions, surrounded by a cluster of thegns. Helga was surprised; the king wasn’t at all how she had pictured him. Æthelræd II was very young, surely only a year or two older than Helga herself. He was tall, slender, and elegant, a pretty thing like a picture from an illustrated Bible, and his lean form was draped languidly over the throne the way one might casually toss a cloak over a bench. His robe of red and white embroidery was wrinkled from restless adjusting, and the circle of gold on his blond curls was cocked to one side. The young king had his head propped on his hand, smushing up the side of his face against one high cheekbone, and he looked bored out of his mind.

In the empty space in front of the throne, two men were arguing. They looked like they had forgotten anyone else was in the room, something the king appeared to wish was true.

“That land belonged to my grandfather, and I have the charters to prove it!” one of them spat, a scruffy red-haired man in thegn’s dress whose hand was edging toward his sword. The other man, plump and clad in the robes of the Church, pointed a finger in his face.

“That is not what the churchmen of Wirecestre are saying.”

“The churchmen of Wirecestre,” the thegn growled, “will say anything they think will get them another abbey!”

“How dare you accuse men of God of falsehood?!” squeaked the man who must surely be the Bishop.

“With the same words our Savior used: vipers, all of them!”

Behind them, the king rolled his eyes so far that Helga could see the white of his eyeballs, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling at the sight. Ælfric apparently took this as his cue; he nodded to Goderic and then strode right up the center of the room, parting the two combatants like barley stalks.

“A petition is brought before you, my king,” he said loudly as he bent most of the way onto one knee, ignoring the protests of the Bishop and Leofwine. “Will you hear it?”

“God be praised,” the king groaned in reply, pushing himself back into an upright position. “Bishop, Hwicce, you’re both dismissed until after Sext. Go ...wave staffs at each other somewhere else until then.” He waved at the two complainants with a right hand heavy with garnet rings. Leofwine stared daggers at the Bishop for a moment and then stalked off to a corner of the room to sulk; the Bishop maintained his position near the throne, but looked as though he’d swallowed a frog. In the intervening silence, Ælfric stood back up and cleared his throat.

“Æthelræd, King of the English, raised by the right hand of the Almighty to the throne of the whole kingdom of Britain, will hear the business of his man Goderic, thegn of Salisberie. Approach and be recognized, thegn.”

Goderic nodded to Helga, and she followed his lead as he made for the center of the room. He planted his feet firmly on the noseless mosaic face and took a knee, inclining his head to the king, and Helga did likewise; she spread her skirts and dipped to the floor, not rising until she saw Goderic begin to stand again. 

“My King,” Goderic said in a voice much different than the one he used in conversing with her. He looked somehow taller and more impressive than he had done up til now, and Helga smiled inwardly - this was Goderic de Grifondour in his natural element.

“I thought you left Lundenburh for the summer, de Grifondour,” the king quipped. 

“I had done, Sire,” Goderic answered, “but upon returning home I was presented with a proposition from a lady which I could not easily turn away.”

“This lady you’ve brought with you here?” Æthelræd asked cheekily. “Oh, I don’t blame you, I couldn’t turn her away either.” He flicked his eyes over Helga in a way that would have been considered rude from any man without a crown on his head. “And exactly what lady would this be?”

“Sire, this is Hel--”

“The lady can introduce herself, de Grifondour - unless she’s a mute?” He raised his eyebrows in Helga’s direction, and the grin that was beginning to pluck the corners of his lips said that this was the most fun he was likely to have all day. Helga obliged him with another bow.

“No indeed, Sire, I am no mute,” she replied. “I am Helga Hunlafsdottir, of Little Witchingham, in the Danelaw.”

“A Norsewoman? Goderic, your social circle is broadening. How progressive of you.” The king winked at her before turning back to Goderic and settling into a more comfortable position. “Alright, de Grifondour. Tell me what business has brought you all the way back from the countryside.”

“My King,” Goderic began, “as you yourself well know, I have of late come to hold the wardship of two orphan boys from Normandy.”

“Cheeky devils, but I liked them,” the king commented parenthetically. Goderic nodded.

“Aye, Sire. Good boys, both of high rank. It happens that this lady has also recently found herself keeping four orphaned children in her home in the Danelaw.”

“Norse children?” asked Æthelræd.

“Two of them, Sire,” Helga answered, before it occurred to her that she hadn’t been directly addressed. The king only looked at her, so she went on. “Two are Saxon boys.”

“We have heard each other’s counsel,” Goderic continued, “and agreed that we are no fit guardians for so many children at once - seven, if my brother Eaderic is included in the number. And we have thought it wise that they all be given some formal education.”

“Naturally,” the king acquiesced. “Are you requesting they be found places in cathedral schools, then?”

Goderic glanced at Helga, and she held her breath. This was where the real adventure began.

“Actually, Sire… we are hoping to create our own school.”

“Hmph!” The noise came from the Bishop, who still hadn’t roamed far from the place near the throne where he’d been arguing. “Someone else wanting to usurp from the Church. Taking cues from Leofwine, are we, de Grifondour?”

“No disrespect is meant to the church, sir,” Helga said, hoping that was the correct title for a bishop and immediately suspecting that it was not. The Bishop narrowed his eyes at her.

“Do you allow this woman to speak out of turn like this, my King?” He addressed Æthelræd, but he kept looking at Helga. Æthelræd laughed aloud.

“Right now, Bishop, I’m fond of anyone who interrupts you or Leofwine. Go on, I’m listening.”

“Sire, the cath--” began Goderic, but the king waved at him dismissively.

“No, not you,” he said, grinning. “I want the lady to tell me. Go on, lady. Speak.”

Helga flicked a nervous glance at Goderic, but he simply shrugged and took a step backward. Taking a deep breath, Helga picked up what he had been saying.

“Sire, as the Bishop rightly argues, the cathedral schools do good work. They teach orphan boys to read and do sums, so they may make their way in the world - or even one day join the church.” She bobbed a little curtsy to the Bishop, who seemed still suspicious but somewhat placated by this. “But doing business and reading religious texts,” she went on, “are not the places these children we have as wards were born to. They are noble children, sons of thegns and Norman lords. They should, when they grow to be men, be masters of their households. They should marry noblewomen and raise sons in service of the king; they should know how to command servants, and how to conduct themselves here in the king’s presence, and how to make war. These are not things taught by the church - indeed, as it should be, because they are worldly things, are they not, Bishop?” Helga steeled herself for an attack, but the Bishop’s face had shifted - he wasn’t looking exactly friendly, but he at least no longer seemed hostile.

“Indeed not,” he murmured contemplatively. King Æthelræd leaned forward on his throne, the boredom he had been steeped in when they’d arrived gone from his face. He looked now very much like a king.

“So you propose to gather these noble children and educate them to be thegns and ladies of rank - as their families would do if they had them?”

“Aye, Sire,” Goderic nodded. “We would take the six orphans we have already, and any others we should find who are without family to guide them, and set up an estate somewhere where they can be instructed as befits their place.”

“And so what do you need me for, Goderic?” the king asked, though he clearly already knew the answer. Goderic inclined his head.

“Other than your excellent lordship and guidance, my king? The same thing the cathedral schools require to operate, Sire--”

“My money,” Æthelræd finished. “You want me to dip into the treasury.”

“If it please you, my king,” Goderic bowed. “You are a young man, Sire, and praise Jesu you will be on the throne for many years to come. These thegns that fill your hall right now-- ” he gestured around him “--they are full of wisdom ...and full of years. They do you great service; but when they leave you to join the household of the King of Heaven, as we all must, you will need wise and learned young lords to take their places at your side. What better investment, then, than to spend your wealth for the training of future thegns?”

“How long did you practice that speech, Goderic?” King Æthelræd grinned. “Those are the fanciest words I’ve ever heard you use.” There was quiet laughter from a few of the gathered thegns, and Goderic spread his hands and gave a self-deprecating smile. The king sighed and sat back on his throne. “You--” he pointed suddenly at Helga. “Tell me what my money would be used for. Specifically.”

“Well, Sire,” Helga said, “firstly for the payment of scholars to teach the children. Goderic can teach the skills of warfare and horsemanship, and I can teach the girls ladies’ arts, but we would hire learned men to teach them languages and history and arithmetic and ...other skills.” She paused for breath, hoping the king wouldn’t inquire about the other skills. “And secondly, for the bodily sustenance of the children. We would want to clothe them as fits their rank, and feed them well.”

King Æthelræd tilted his head back, sinking more comfortably onto the throne, and now he looked to Helga like a young boy again. After a few moments, he pursed his lips and turned to Bishop Ælfstan.

“What do you think, Bishop? Saint James tells us to care for orphans in their need - would you say this falls under that mandate?”

“Perhaps,” the Bishop said carefully; he was still staring at Helga, and she realized suddenly that he was trying to see what hung at the end of the chain around her neck. Thankfully it was tucked into the front of her apron dress - she doubted the sight of Thunor’s hammer would have helped their case with him. 

“What about you, Ælfric?” the king said to the ealdorman. Ælfric crossed his arms.

“I would be interested in how much of the treasury de Grifondour wants you to hand over, my king. Does he have an amount per year in mind?”

Goderic glared at his ealdorman for a split second before inclining his head again to the king. “I would not know the precise cost until we are certain how many children we will have, and how many scholars we will hire. But as soon as we learn that, I can give you a written sum, Sire. And - this should ease your mind as well as those of your councillors - the cost would surely grow less with each year.”

“Why less?” Æthelræd queried.

“Because once we begin, we will surely gain support from wealthy men of the kingdom who wish to help our endeavor,” Goderic supplied. “With such contributions, our need for royal wealth would grow smaller.”

“Hmm,” Æthelræd mused. His hand strayed to the tassel of his red cloak and began to twirl it absently as he pondered. Finally, he leaned forward again. “This is an unusual request for you, Goderic de Grifondour. I can’t remember you ever asking me for royal money before.” He glanced questioningly at a man in the corner who held a parchment scroll, and the man shook his head no. The king nodded. “No, indeed. There are some thegns with a habit of holding out their hands to me at every opportunity, but you have never been among them. I appreciate that; and it makes me much more inclined to humor you.” He paused again, mulling over the idea just long enough to make Helga start feeling uncomfortable. Then he waved to the man with the scroll.

“Sire?” the man said, approaching the throne. Æthelræd sighed.

“Make a record of this potential endowment,” he said. “Goderic, when you and this lady decide how many children you’ll be keeping and what it will cost you, I expect you to send us a formal request in writing. My scribe here will do some sums of his own in the meantime, some estimations. If your request compares well with his sums, we’ll make the necessary arrangements. And then, of course, we’ll want to have a visit from Rodolphus or perhaps Walrand in a year or so - as a way of judging the effectiveness of your instruction. See if you’re turning out good little thegns with all our money.”

“Of course, my king,” Goderic bowed. “I’m sure the boys would be happy to come back and see you.”

“You can send them with this good lady,” the king grinned at Helga. “She can give me a full report then.” 

Helga shot a look at Goderic, who smothered a chuckle and motioned for her to answer. “Of course, Sire,” she responded dutifully, grateful she had remembered to lace the strings at the top of her collar that day. “I would be honored to receive an invitation to return to my king’s hall.”

“Indeed?” Æthelræd smirked, and Helga blushed.

“WELL,” an impatient voice suddenly interjected from behind them, and Leofwine the thegn appeared at Goeric’s elbow. “If Salisberie is quite finished with his petition, then--”

“Oh, God, are you still here?” the king groaned. “I’d hoped you’d wandered outside and gotten lost.” He sighed. “Very well. Dismissed, Goderic. Unfortunately for me. Shame you can’t take Leofwine and the Bishop with you as you go.”

Goderic bowed low, hiding a grin. “I would fain oblige you, Sire, but I fear the Hwicce need their intrepid thegn more than I, and without the Bishop here, who would shepherd his flock?”

The young king rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Completely useless to me, as usual, de Grifondour. Well, go on then, so these two can prod each other in privacy.” Someone opened the hall door at his dismissive wave, but he and Goderic grinned at each other as Goderic backed away from the throne.

“Deepest thanks, my king. You will have no regrets.”

“Lies. I will have a multitude of regrets, all of them directly related to my occupation of this throne. See that you aren’t one of them.” And having given this pronouncement, he plopped his face back onto his hand and waved reluctantly at Leofwine to continue presenting his case. Goderic and Helga both bowed once more before slipping back out into the antechamber of the hall.

They rode back through the Bishop’s orchard in a cheery silence, broken occasionally by Goderic quietly chuckling to himself. When they were almost back to Paul’s church, Helga gave him an amused sigh.

“Would you like to share the source of your laughter, or should I just guess?” 

Goderic found a single ripe cherry on a low branch and plucked it as they rode out of the orchard into the street. He popped it into his mouth, winced at the tartness of it, and then grinned at her. “Just that if I had known it would go that well, I would have been bringing attractive women with me every time I presented a petition.”

“Oh, I’m so happy to have helped,” she said playfully. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have untied the neck of my dress, and we wouldn’t even have needed to speak.” Goderic didn’t seem to be at all chastened by her sarcasm. He just laughed aloud.

“I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier, to be honest,” he chuckled. “The king is fond of Norsewomen. Married one, you know.”

“Oh?” Helga asked, reflecting that the king didn’t behave as though he were married to anyone. Goderic was nodding in reply.

“Ælfgifu. Daughter of the eorl Thored of Yorvic. You look a bit like her, actually. He told me once that if I wanted a quiet and boring marriage, then I should take a Saxon woman, but that Norsewomen were infinitely more fun because they’ll always answer you back.”

“And where was the king’s wife today?” Helga asked, ignoring his socio-cultural commentary. She hadn’t seen her anywhere in the hall or its surrounds - in fact, Helga herself had been the only woman present all morning. Goderic shrugged.

“Somewhere in one of those royal buildings, I suppose. Probably pushing out another baby.” When Helga balked at him, he chuckled. “Well, she’s been with child every time I’ve ever seen her. I can’t even tell you how many little athelings there are at the moment. I lost count.” Helga shook her head.

“Not for me, thank you,” she said disdainfully. “I think I’ll just skip being married and go straight to being the elderly village witch who frightens the úgaldr by mumbling under her breath whenever they pass.”

“I thought you liked children?”

“Oh, I do, and there are plenty of them roaming about for me to collect and care for without having to create any of my own, thank you.”

“Well, you can afford not to, I suppose,” Goderic said as they steered their horses back onto the descent of Ludd Hill. “You don’t have a title that you have to worry about passing down. But if I don’t marry soon, and find someone for Eaderic too, there will be at least three wizards on the gemót who’ll be plotting to murder us both and take the Salisberie title for themselves.” 

“So, what were those great many reasons, then?”

“Hmm?”

“Your reasons for not wanting Eaderic to marry Ælfric’s daughter. Besides your obvious personal feelings for the man.”

“Oh,” Goderic snorted. “Well, the first that comes to mind is that Eaderic would keel over from apoplexy if I stuck him with her.”

“He doesn’t care for her either?”

“Got one look at her last year and told me later that he’d rather marry one of my horses. A black-haired girl, he’s always telling me. He wants me to find him a black-haired girl like those women from Gwent and Powys. As though I’m just wading through a sea of options and can pick him one like cloth at market day.”

Helga laughed brightly. “I think he has a very high opinion of what you’re capable of, Goderic. He clearly idolizes you.”

“Mmm,” Goderic frowned. “I don’t think he worships me as much as the idea of being the Thegn of Salisberie. Maybe once he’s grown I’ll just retire and let him have the title. Go off and have adventures, chase some dragons, and let him be the politician. And that, of course, is the other reason I can’t let Ælfric have him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Ælfric’s not a wizard. And my brother will have to marry a witch.”

“Even if he falls in love with an úgaldr girl?” Helga asked, her brows drawing downward. Goderic pressed his lips together.

“Love doesn’t enter into it,” he said bluntly. “Look, I have nothing against mixed marriages on principle. I’m not like those wizards who rail about keeping the race pure and all that. If you want to go and marry a mundani man, have at it. I’ll present him with his new sword myself. But Eaderic and I… we have a responsibility that lies above that. The Thegn of Salisberie has to be a liaison between the magical people and the mundani king. It’s delicate and political - and whatever woman marries into that has to be able to understand the situation from the inside. Not to mention, we have to make certain that our sons are wizards so the next Thegn of Salisberie can continue doing what we do. So he has to marry a witch, preferably from a notable family involved in the gemót, and so do I.”

“Is that why you’re well over twenty and still not married?” Helga smirked. “Can’t find a suitable candidate?”

“My options are limited,” Goderic smiled wryly. They had now arrived back in front of Gwydion Pyk’s inn, and Goderic swung himself off his stallion and tossed the reins to the boy who came out to meet them. Helga slipped off the palfrey and did the same.

“So… what now?” she asked as Goderic headed for the inn’s door. He shook the wrinkles out of his fine red cloak and offered her his arm again.

“Food, I hope,” he grinned. “And while we eat, we can discuss how we’re going to go about collecting all the magical orphans you plan to teach at this school we just bought.”

Closer to midday, the tables in Pyk’s inn were considerably fuller now than when Helga and Goderic had ridden out to the king’s hall. Helga noticed that none of the current patrons were heating their drinks with wands, and she supposed that those among them who were wizards chose to blend quietly with the úgaldr travellers who knew nothing about Gwydion except that he had bread and cider for sale. The two of them were led by Finela to the room behind the stacked barrels, which turned out to be Gwydion Pyk’s private chamber. Helga found the place irresistibly charming, if a bit confusing.

If there had not been a bed tucked into the corner of the room, Helga would not have readily known it was someone’s living space. The room held a scattering of unrelated objects, some of which made sense and some of which did not. A spear propped in a corner was topped by a battle helmet with a bent noseplate; a nearly complete set of rune amulets hung suspended from the ceiling by strings; a tapestry fragment was draped over a woad-painted deer skull on a shelf above the bed; and Helga nearly tripped over what she initially thought was a boulder on the floor, but that turned out to be an entire segment of a Roman fresco that had come out of the wall of some ruin. The bed itself was nearly hidden under more of the same tapestry that Gwydion wore as a cloak. Several of the metal rings which had attached it to a wall were still looped into the fabric. The fact that he wore the rest of it around his shoulders now seemed the most normal thing about him.

Bread, cheese, and ale were brought in for them by Gwydion’s wife Muire, while the innkeeper himself shuffled around the room clearing away debris so they could sit down, and uncovering a tree stump that he used as a table for the food. Goderic settled himself on a stool Gwydion unearthed for him under a pile of scrolls, while Helga ended up sitting on the piece of Roman wall.

“By Hercules, who put out the lights??”

Helga squealed and jumped up off the fresco, nearly spilling the plate of cheese into the floor. She and Goderic watched in bewilderment as the painted figure on the plaster, a young man carrying a wine jug, swiveled his head in various directions and blinked his eyes at the sudden return of the light that Helga’s skirt had blocked.

“Um… sorry?” Helga said, nonplussed. “I… I didn’t see you there.”

“Aye,” Gwydion grunted, dropping down onto the bed. “Nor would ye, because that’s precisely how the little rogue wanted it. He likes tae hold still til some poor soul sits down, an’ then he comes out wi’ that who put out the lights nonsense, just tae hear ‘em yell out an’ watch ‘em jump. Right, Antonius?”

“Spoilsport,” the man in the painting said, crossing his arms. Gwydion waved dismissively at him.

“Just sit back down, lass. If he’s in the dark long enough, he’ll go tae sleep an’ we’ll be shut of him.”

Gingerly, Helga lowered herself back onto the stone block; Antonius didn’t call out again, but Helga was sure she could hear him chuckling to himself from behind her legs. Gwydion watched her face and grinned.

“Donnae ye mind the clutter,” he said as he passed Goderic the ale jug. “I’ve got a bad habit of bringin’ home stray objects when I’m drunk - can’t return them the next day because I can’t remember where I got ‘em from, and half of ‘em are bewitched anyway. Muire won’t allow me to drink anywhere but here now. Says we don’t have enough rooms in the place for me to bring home any more artifacts.”

Helga glanced around her and thought that Muire was probably correct in that estimation.

While they ate, Goderic recounted their meeting with the king for Gwydion’s benefit. The innkeeper appeared to share Goderic’s distaste for ealdorman Ælfric, and had a good laugh at the news that the Bishop was still fighting Leofwine for that scrap of land in Mercia. When Goderic told him how easily King Æthelræd had granted their petition for funds, Gwydion shook his head in bemusement. 

“Well,” he shrugged, “there’s no accountin’ for what a young man’ll agree tae do for a pretty woman. Did think he’d put up more of a fuss, though.”

“I’ve been told I resemble the king’s wife,” Helga said wryly, “and that perhaps that tipped the balance. But in any case, I think that may have been the easy part of our adventure.”

“Why?” Gwydion asked, finishing a cup of ale and pouring another. “What’s tae do now that ye’ve got the endowment?”

“Now we have to actually collect the children,” Goderic sighed. “Somehow, we’ve got to find all the orphaned witches and wizards who haven’t already been taken in by a guardian, and spirit them away to whatever location we choose for the school.”

“Hearth messages?” Gwydion suggested. “Put the word out on the network that ye’re lookin’ fer orphans?”

“That would find some of them,” Helga agreed. “But what about the ones who are homeless, that nobody knows about? I found Hnossa, the little witch I’m keeping, wandering about the forest with her brother, living on berries. Nobody who got a hearth message would have known about her. And sending owls with letters would only work with people who can read.”

“Aye, an’ ye can’t very well just pop in and visit every wizarding house in the country, can ye?” Gwydion mused.

“No, and even if we could, that wouldn’t find us the úgaldr-born children - and they’re the ones most likely to find themselves without anyone to teach them.”

“Interesting conundrum we’ve made for ourselves, eh, Gwyd?” Goderic said, helping himself to more ale. Gwydion nodded.

“Aye, quite the riddle.”

“Send ‘em tae Eryr house, ye great numpty!”

All three of them jumped at the words, and Goderic bit his piece of bread so sharply that half of it was sheared away and fell to the floor. The voice was Gwydion’s - but it hadn’t come from Gwydion’s mouth.

“Och, and who asked you?” Gwydion said indignantly, attempting to lever himself up off the bed and failing. He spoke in the general direction of the far corner of the room, where the helmet and spear were leaning, but Helga could see nobody there who could have produced the voice.

“They asked me!” the voice came again. “Well, they asked you, an’ that’s basically the same thing.”

Helga got up from her seat and strode over to the corner, pulling her wand from her belt. She could have sworn that the voice had come from the helmet with the bent noseplate, but it appeared to be quietly propped on the spear haft as it had been when they’d arrived. She poked her wand into the open eye socket.

“Ach, watch where ye’re stickin’ that wand, hen! Ye’d put a man’s eye out!” The face of the helmet had danced to life as it spoke those words, and the ridge of metal above the eye opening now lifted with a creak as though it were raising a critical brow at her. Helga sighed and crossed her arms.

“More bewitched stray objects, Master Pyk?”

“Damned useless thing,” was Gwydion’s reply. “Put a charm on it so I could tell it things I needed tae remember, an’ it would tell ‘em back tae me in me own voice. Except now all it does is insult me!”

“Aye,” answered the helmet, “an’ you’re the one who’s useless, ye ken?”

“Go boil yerself,” Gwydion retorted, and he tossed a hard piece of crust that clanged hollowly off the helmet’s forehead. Goderic reached over then and put a hand on his friend’s wrist.

“What was it talking about, though?” he asked, picking up his lost chunk of bread from the floor and brushing off dust. “It said to send us somewhere?”

“Aye!” the helmet responded. “Somethin’ he told me tae remember months ago. Eryr house.”

“What’s Eryr house?” Helga asked the helmet, which seemed flattered that she was talking directly to it instead of about it.

“They’re a family, hen. In the West, in Cymru. Got the best damn scryers this side of the sea. Always have. The Cymry are born with a gift for seein’ with magic, just like Beowulf over there an’ his people are born good at killin’ things with it.” The helmet nodded slightly in Goderic’s direction, rocking on the spear haft, and Helga pursed her lips to contain a giggle. Gwydion’s face lit up.

“Oh…. aye! I remember now. That’s right, I did tell ye tae remind me of them if I needed ‘em. Aye, Goderic, that’s who ye’ll want to see. One of the witches of the Eryr family.”

“A witch, specifically?” Goderic asked, and both Gwydion and the helmet nodded.

“Oh, aye,” the innkeeper confirmed. “Always the women who have the divining gifts over there. The men specialize in conjurin’, the women in scryin’. You’ll want the eldest woman of the house of Eryr, whoever she is.”

“You know who she is, sieve-fer-brains!” the helmet interjected helpfully. “Lady Rhonwen, remember? Married that fussy Saxon thegn from Croes Ati?”

“I bewitched ye tae remind me, no tae insult me fer mah poor memory!” Gwydion spat at the helmet. He poured himself another cup of ale and took a long drink. Goderic’s brows drew together.

“Do you mean Rhonwen, the wife of Æthelweard Hræfnsclawu?”

“Aye, that’s the one!” the helmet piped. Goderic nodded sagely, and Helga returned to her seat on the fresco block.

“Do you know her, Goderic?”

“I know of her,” he mused. “She attended the gemót last year with her husband. She’s the daughter of an old wizarding family from the Rhufoniog region of Gwynedd. They’re important among our kind, but have lost a lot of their status among the mundani, so everyone said Æthelweard married beneath himself. Then, of course, we saw her, and decided that she’s the one who married beneath her.”

“That Æthelweard’s an old fussy-britches before his time,” the helmet added, and Goderic nodded.

“And she looks like the last of the druids who met Rome at Ynys Mon. If it were up to me, I’d have her sitting in the gemót instead of him.”

“I like the sound of her, then,” Helga smiled. “So if we go to her, she can use a scrying glass to find all the children we’d need to gather?”

“Aye,” said Gwydion, “and probably find you a location as well. She’ll be happy tae help, I think - always put a great stock in learnin’, those Cymry. You tell her it’s a school ye’re building, an’ she’ll probably sign up tae teach herself.”

“Excellent,” said Goderic. He put his cup down firmly on the stump. “Then the lady Rhonwen will be our next stop. We’ll return to my estate tonight and send a message ahead so her household will be expecting visitors, and you can give your father an update.”

“And now that we know it will actually happen, you can tell the boys what we’ve been up to?” Helga suggested, and he agreed.

“Of course. I’ll have a talk with them after dinner. And then tomorrow, if Hræfnsclawu is ready to receive guests, we’ll take another trip.”

“More apparating. Hurrah,” said Helga dismally, and Goderic laughed as Gwydion patted her shoulder and put another cup of ale in her hand.

“Will we learn magic in other languages?”

“You won’t separate us, will you?”

“You mean, we’ll be leaving King’s Worthy?”

Helga walked back into Goderic’s hall from the kitchen late that evening to find her host sitting at the dining table with Walrand, Rodolphus, and Eaderic, being harried by a volley of questions. Outside the sky was turning rosy pink, boding well for tomorrow’s journey to Cymru. They had come home from Lundenburh hours earlier laden with little gifts for the boys from Gwydion’s strange stash of artifacts – a leather ball that bounced of its own accord, some rune amulets that changed colors depending on the caster’s mood, and a quill that corrected the user’s writing - and had waited until after dinner before explaining to them the endeavor they were about to set out upon. While Goderic had told the boys all about the school for wizards they would soon be attending, Helga had busied herself with a hot bath in a large wooden tub in the kitchen. The elderly witch who had helped her out of her cloak the night before had heated the water with her wand, and had poured some lovely smelling potion into it that turned the water colors and made her skin feel soft. The same witch now followed her out of the kitchen, trying to get a wooden comb into her wet hair as she made to join Goderic at the table. When she sat down on the end of the bench beside Walrand, the old woman saw her chance and began combing her hair without hesitation, and Helga didn’t protest. 

“Enjoying yourself, Eadgifu?” Goderic smiled at her, and the old woman grinned toothlessly.

“Haven’t had a girl to take after since yer mum passed,” said Eadgifu, pulling the comb slowly through Helga’s long blonde waves. “All boys. Nobody fer me to fuss o’er til now.”

“Oh, I imagine Goderic’s hair is long enough for you to comb and plait,” Helga told her, winking at Goderic, and he shook his head. 

“Don’t give her ideas.”

Helga and the old woman giggled together, and Goderic saw he was now outnumbered.

“So you’re going away again tomorrow?” Walrand asked, and Helga started to nod before remembering that her hair was being combed. Goderic did it for her.

“Yes. To find all the other children you’ll be learning with,” he told the boy. “Helga, I think you should speak with your father tonight at the hearth and let him know our plans. Perhaps he can bring the other children to stay here for a few days - so they can become acquainted with these three while we’re making arrangements.” At this, Walrand’s face lit up, and Rodolphus imitated his smile. Helga nodded her agreement as Eadgifu tapped her hair with her wand to dry it.

“It would be easier on him, not having to care for all four of them on his own. How would you like that, Eadgifu? A little girl to spoil for a while?”

“Oh!” the old woman gasped, clapping wrinkled hands. “I’d feel like a young maidservant again!”

“A girl?” Rodolphus said doubtfully, and Helga gave him a reassuring grin.

“A very uncomplicated girl, trust me. You have nothing to worry about.” Turning back to Goderic, she asked, “So you’ve spoken to the Hræfnsclawu house, and they’re prepared for our arrival?”

“Won’t be going there,” Goderic said over his mead cup. “Æthelweard is off on some journey to Saxony, has been for a month or more. His wife and daughter have gone back to Rhufoniog to visit her family until he returns. So I contacted them there, and their steward said they’d be more than happy to receive two guests. We leave for Cymru in the morning.”

Helga sighed. “Perhaps if I apparate often enough, I’ll become accustomed to it.”

“Actually,” Goderic said, “I had something else in mind - something not quite as abrupt as apparating. For your benefit.” He was trying to hide a conspiratorial smile, and was failing. 

“Like what?” Helga asked, and his grin widened.

“Surprise. You’ll see. Just …tell me you’re not afraid of heights.”

“I’ve never had cause to be,” Helga answered cautiously. “Should I?”

Goderic only grinned and said, “You can let me know that in the morning.”

Chapter Text

“Are you quite sure this is less abrupt than apparating?”

“Well, it certainly makes for a better landing.”

Helga and Goderic stood at the bank of the Icen, near the place where they had apparated the day before, bathed in the golden orange light and fine mist of a first summer sunrise. It was very early morning, and the whole landscape around them seemed still asleep - even the insects hadn’t yet begun to make their droning mild-weather noises. Only one thing in the whole scene appeared awake and alert. Standing in front of them, reins held tightly in the hands of Eafa the groom, was the most beautiful winged horse Helga had ever seen. He was a blue roan stallion, his muzzle and legs a deep black that faded into a shimmering, dappled iron color across his withers. The charcoal feathers in his wings caught the morning sun and sparkled like black stardust. He was tugging fitfully at his reins, his front hoof pawing restlessly at the streambank. Helga took a deep breath.

“Are you sure?” she repeated, and Goderic chuckled.

“His name is Heremod, and he’s a Granian horse, so yes, I’m sure.” He patted the horse’s nose, and the animal snorted in protest. “Abraxans have the pulling power, but Granians are much faster. He’ll take us to Cymru in a few hours. Not as immediately gratifying as apparating, but fast enough to get us there by midday, and without making you feel ill.” He looked as if he wanted to be congratulated for his chivalry, so Helga managed a weak smile and thanked him; but the horse had a wild, manic look in its eye that made her doubtful.

“Won’t people notice?” she said as Goderic stirruped his hands for her to climb onto the Granian’s back. “If we come flying into their village on a winged horse, I mean. Even if you are a wizard, you don’t see them very often.”

“The Eryr family live in the middle of a forest,” Goderic reassured her, “so there is no village, mundani or otherwise. We’ll fly high until we get there, and then we’ll descend into the deep forest near their estate and climb the hill from there. No chance of accidents. My word as a thegn.” He climbed up onto Heremod’s back behind her, and Eafa handed the reins up to him.

“Now remember, my lord Grifondour,” the master of horse admonished, “you be sure to tell their master of horse that he likes a hot mash flavored with flutterby blooms after a long trip. If he doesn’t get it, like as not he’ll refuse to carry you home.”

“Don’t worry, Eafa, I remember the last time,” Goderic nodded, and Heremod tossed his mane snappily in response. He was prancing even more now that he sensed flight was imminent, and Helga grasped Goderic’s wrist.

“Goderic, where do I hold on?” she hissed. “You’ve got the reins, and I don’t think he’d appreciate my fingers clawing at his mane.” Behind her, she felt Goderic’s stomach shake as he laughed softly. 

“No, he certainly wouldn’t. Just hold onto my arms, and you’ll be fine.” He put his arms under hers on each side of her and held the reins in both hands, and she laid her hands on his leather wrist cuffs like the arms of a chair.

“Well, at least I know that if one of us falls off, we’ll both plummet to our deaths together.” She started to turn around and make a face as she finished this statement, but before she could twist all the way around, she heard Goderic laugh - and then they were no longer on the ground.

Such was the speed with which the earth dropped out from under them that Helga let out a little scream before she could clamp her jaws together. She dug her fingernails into Goderic’s leather cuffs. This was, in fact, quite as abrupt as apparating, thank you very much, and she planned to tell him so if she didn’t die before they stopped moving. But a moment later, they broke into a layer of low clouds and Heremod slowed his arrow-like ascent into something resembling a slow canter. His shiny charcoal wings opened to their full span on either side of them, and his wingspan was so massive that Helga’s initial terror was extinguished in fascination as she watched droplets of moisture begin to collect on the quivering feathers.

“Absolutely exquisite beast, isn’t he?” Goderic said behind her, and she nodded. “My father,” he went on, “brought a small stud of breeding Granians with him from Normandy when he married my mother, and I’m told those came from a herd that descended straight from the original Norse wild Granians. Heremod here is the best stallion in my herd.” He patted the horse’s neck and received a whinny of agreement.

“How do you keep the villagers from finding them?”

“They live in the forest outside King’s Worthy. There’s a barrier spell on the forest border to stop them getting out, and a repelling charm on it to keep the mundani from wandering in. That way they have the whole forest to roam in, and a little space above it to fly around, and the mundani are none the wiser.”

“That’s what we’ll have to do, won’t we?” Helga mused, watching Heremod’s wings brush swaths of cloud out of their path. “Repelling charms. On the school?”

“Hmm,” Goderic grunted. “Yes, I hadn’t thought about that, but I suppose we will. Repelling charms all around it to keep the mundani out - and perhaps an illusion to make the location appear unappealing to them in the first place.”

“Of course, we have to find a location first.”

“I think the lady Hræfnsclawu would be able to show us some good candidates in her scrying glasses, as well as finding children.”

“Well, then I hope she’s as eager to help as Gwydion implied.”

Their journey to the northwest was gentle and unhindered, the smooth flight of the Granian horse belying how fast they were actually moving. Every half hour or so, Goderic would descend just below the cloud cover to check their course, but the majority of their morning was spent gliding through an absolutely silent dreamworld of clouds whose colors shifted with the sun from gold to cream to brilliant white. To pass the time Helga sang the Charm Song for Goderic, who had never heard it before - unlike her palfrey, Heremod seemed to enjoy it - and Goderic sang the popular song “Deor.” Helga was pleased to discover that he had a lovely deep singing voice, smooth and resonant like his speech, and she applauded him warmly in spite of the depressing choice of song. Helga told him about each of the children she had been caring for, and Goderic told her stories of his father’s dragon hunting in Normandy. After a while they both had to put up the hoods of their cloaks to keep the little droplets of water from clinging in their hair; Heremod was already glistening wet, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Just before midday Goderic directed the horse to drop below the clouds again, and this time he stayed there, giving Helga a good look at the terrain over which they flew. Cultivated farmland and pastures far below were stitched with a lacework of streams and divided by patches of unworked moorland or strips of thick forest, all of it in deep and enchanting shades of green. Tiny white specks that Helga assumed were sheep were scattered here and there, so small she couldn’t really see them for what they were. Cutting through all of it, winding here and there in a broadly northwest-to-southeast path, was a tall and sturdy turf wall with a deep ditch on its western side. A gravel walking path ran along the flat top of the wall, and the ditch was filled with murky water. As they crossed over it, their shadow jumping up at them and then flickering back down to the grass again, Goderic laid a hand on her shoulder.

“That’s the great Mercian Wall below us,” he offered. “It marks the western edge of England - everything from here onward is Cymru. We’re very close now. See that forest ahead?”

Helga did see it. Rising up in the distance before them was a range of low hills draped in a blanket of dense green trees. It looked a great distance away, but Helga felt a change in the muscles of the horse beneath her, and Heremod suddenly put on a little burst of speed. The forest seemed to swell up toward them rapidly, and it was the work of but a few minutes for Heremod’s powerful wings. He carried his passengers steadily toward the center of the forest, where Helga thought she could see the tips of a stone building peeping out among the thick foliage atop the largest of the hills.

“Is that Eryr house?” Helga asked, raising her voice slightly over the wind as their descent picked up speed.

“Aye,” Goderic nodded, shifting his arms under hers as he changed his hold on the reins. He directed Heremod toward the thick trees at the bottom of the hill. For a few seconds Helga felt the uncomfortable rushing of air coming up at her from below, and she ducked deeper into her hood as leaves slapped at her from all sides. Then they were through the canopy, and Heremod was prancing to a halt in a forest clearing, shaking water from his feathers.

Helga let down her hood and stared around her in awed silence. This forest was nothing like those in the east, full of rough gray bark and sweet wildflowers, nor was it like the tall pine forests of her father’s homeland. All around her, trees wove in and out of each other in serpentine patterns, their limbs wriggling and curving in unnatural serpentine shapes. Moss, thicker and more vitally green than Helga was accustomed to seeing in the Danelaw, grew not just over the rocks and roots around the swept-earth path but up and over the trees themselves, making the trunks look like sculptures carved from the moss. Even now near midday, not all of the morning’s mist had been able to escape the thick foliage, and sunlight had to do battle to gain entry through the canopy above, resulting in dense forest air that was wet, lambently glowing, and which smelled of the oldest kinds of magic.

“Are you awake up there?” Goderic’s voice broke her trance, and Helga gave her head a little shake. Goderic had already dismounted and was holding up a hand to help her down, a cheeky grin forming among his whiskers. 

“It’s beautiful here,” Helga said softly, taking his hand and slipping off the horse. The forest felt like somewhere one shouldn’t speak too loudly, out of reverence. “If I was born here, I don’t think I’d ever leave.”

“They usually don’t,” said Goderic, beginning to untie his sword from his shoulders so he could put it back on his belt. “I think Rhonwen only married a Saxon out of necessity. The Cymry like to grow where they’re planted. In fact, I think--”

But Helga never found out what Goderic thought about it, because he broke off at the sudden noise of hooves galloping hard and fast downhill toward them. The forest was thick enough that they couldn’t see who rode toward them, and Goderic began tugging more urgently at the laces that held his sword across his back.

“BASTAAARD SAXOOOONNNNS!” The voice was harsh and grating in the misty silence of the woods, the Cymraeg accent made thick with anger. Helga tore her wand out of her belt and stood ready as Goderic finally loosed his sword and brought it around to the front.

“It sounds like just one person,” he whispered quickly. “We outnumber him, so unless he’s got a better sword than I or a better wand than both of us, we should be able to take him.”

“Right,” Helga nodded, lifting her wand hand a little higher.

“MAKE READY FOR BATTLE, YE WALL-HOPPING SAXON CURS!” the voice rang out again, and now its owner broke through the foliage into view. Helga’s mouth dropped open. Thundering down the forest path toward them, sword outstretched, was a fat little man with long white whiskers, wearing ill-fitted armor and riding a tiny Cymraeg pony. The pony had an almost frantic look in its eyes and appeared to be only just able to sustain its rotund passenger on its stubby little legs. Helga lowered her wand in utter surprise before jerking her arm back up again, just in case; but the man took no notice of her. He made straight for Goderic instead and pointed his sword directly at de Grifondour, the light of battle gleaming in his watery eyes. “I command thee to hand over thy sword, sir, or else give me the satisfaction of taking it from thy hand in honorable combat!” He tried to dismount his pony, realized that his leg armor was unintentionally strapped into his saddle, and gave up, opting to menace Goderic from the pony’s back instead. Goderic leaned over to Helga without taking his eyes off the old man.

“Helga…. am I being offered battle by a tiny little man on a tiny little horse?”

“It appears so, yes,” Helga muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

“Good. Excellent. I was afraid I was going soft in the head and having visions.” He began to lower his sword, but the old man on the pony whipped his own blade out and slapped it against Goderic’s to push it back up.

“You dishonor us both, sir!” the man shouted. “Either stand and fight like a man, or else surrender thy blade to me by the hilt, but do not lower thy sword like a common peasant dropping his scythe at sundown! Hengroen, charge the Saxon dog!” 

The pony Hengroen did no such thing, choosing instead to snort and attempt to turn back uphill. Livid with frustration, the little man began shouting at the pony in the Cymraeg language and tugging at its reins. Helga heard Goderic swallow a laugh.

“I intend no dishonor, sir,” he managed to say, forcing himself not to smile. “This lady and I--”

“DA’ST bring the lady into our parley??” the old man gasped, cheeks turning red. “This is between me and thee, Saxon! Now. State thy name, so that I may know to which house to send thy broken hilt upon thy defeat!”

Goderic glanced at Helga and raised his eyebrows, and she shrugged - they would have to play along. “Goderic de Grifondour, son of Ivo de Grifondour and Eadhild, thegn of Salisberie,” he said with a slight bow. “And you, sir?”

“Cadwgan ap Hywel, descended of that Cadwgan which sat at the table of Arthur, and protector of this great house. No Saxon dog will enter here and trouble my lady cousin while I draw breath, sir! Now, up swords and let us be--”

“UNCLE DWG!”

The voice was tiny but strident and came from up the hill, beyond the trees. At the sound of it, Hengroen the pony began to turn himself back around against his rider’s wishes, which brought on another bout of angry Cymraeg grumbling. 

“Uncle Dwg!?” the voice repeated, and as Cadwgan fought with his pony, a little girl of perhaps eight or nine years came running down the path, skidding to a halt in the swept earth as she saw Goderic and Helga. She had the lovely complexion and long dark hair typical of the Cymry, with deep autumn-sky blue eyes. She had hitched up her long gray dress in order to run, and Helga saw that she had lost one shoe somewhere on her journey.

“Stand back, damsel!” Cadwgan admonished, finally getting his pony to face the right way again. The little girl bent over, hands on her thighs as she caught her breath, and then marched around to stand in front of her bellicose relative, blocking him from advancing.

“Uncle Dwg, Mother told you to stop scaring travellers!” 

“They are Saxon invaders, young lady!” Cadwgan protested. “But fear not! I shall drive them back ‘cross the wall!”

“Uncle Dwg, they’re not invaders, they’re the two guests Mother told you we were expecting!” She turned around to face them then, raising her eyebrows to Helga. “You are, aren’t you?”

“If your mother is the Lady Rhonwen Hræfnsclawu, then yes, indeed we are,” Helga smiled at her. Goderic put his sword back on his belt and went down on his knee in front of the child, swirling his cloak out around him.

“Goderic de Grifondour, my lady,” he said grandly, and the little girl stood a bit straighter and gave him a small bow. 

“Lady Helena Hræfnsclawu,” she said importantly. “Or at least, I will be when I’m old enough to be called lady. Are you the witch from the Danelaw?” She turned now to Helga, who nodded.

“Helga Hunlafsdottir. Would you take us to your mother, Helena?”

“Of course,” the little girl said, and then she added with a giggle, “if you’ll help me find my shoe on the way back. I seem to have lost it.”

“Well, you’re in luck,” Helga said, giving her a wink. “I happen to be excellent at finding things that are lost. It’s a gift of mine.”

Helena grinned back at her. Then she reached out and took the reins of Cadwgan’s pony, who began walking toward her almost instantly. There was a distinct look of relief in Hengroen’s large grey eyes.

“Now, see here!” Cadwgan sputtered, once again trying to dismount before remembering that he was stuck. “Young lady, I have offered combat to this Saxon and I insist that you release my steed so that I may do battle! Hengroen, turn about and face the enemy! We do not retreat!” Both the girl and the pony completely ignored him, and he continued to protest and grumble as the four of them made their way up the winding forest path to where Eryr house waited for them at the top of the hill.

Helena led them first to a stable near the crest of the hill, where - as promised - Helga found the girl’s shoe on the path. Goderic gave the master of horse all the proper dietary instructions for Heremod while three stable boys tried to untangle Cadwgan’s armor from his saddle. They left him there, in the midst of challenging the stable hands to battle, and followed Helena further up the hill to the house.

The Eryr family lived in a great greystone building that could almost more properly be called a castle - instead of the long rectangular halls and boat-shaped roofs of the Saxons and the Danes, this home looked much more like the constructions Goderic had seen in Normandy, with flat roofs and a turreted tower. When he mentioned this, Helena nodded and told them that her grandfather had gotten wizard builders from Brittany to come and remake the ancient family house - before he had fallen on hard times with the ddim-hudolus leaders of Gwynedd and lost his wealth. Helga asked the little girl to repeat the Cymraeg word she had used for non-magical people, and after this the two of them spent the rest of the walk up to the castle exchanging words with each other in their native languages, which made Helena feel very smart and grown-up indeed.

When they arrived at the castle someone took their cloaks, and then Helena led them up a narrow staircase into the tower they had glimpsed at the western end of the courtyard. The door at the top was made of dark wood and was set with large metal spikes arranged in spiral patterns. Helena pushed it open and ran inside, and Goderic and Helga followed.

“Mother!” she called out, and ran across the room into the arms of a woman who had been standing at a lectern writing in a book. “The guests are here, Mother!”

“I can see that,” the woman replied, bending to stop her daughter’s forward motion. She smoothed back her daughter’s fly-away hairs and gave her a smile. “Helena, why don’t you go and practice your harp now while I speak to these people? You’ll see them again at table. Go on. Aneirin is waiting.” The little girl gave her mother a nod and smiled at Helga before scurrying off out of the room and down the stairs. When she had gone, her mother came across the room to greet her guests.

Rhonwen ferch Eryr, now Lady Hræfnsclawu, was shorter than Helga by nearly six inches - but somehow Helga thought that, in a contest, this woman could intimidate more with just her eyes than Helga could with both a wand and a sword. Her skin was so snow-pale that Helga could see the faint blue of veins below the skin of her temples. She wore her dark brown hair loose like an unmarried girl, though it was tied in a thick knot near the bottom to keep it out of her way, and the light from the low hearth fire reflected off it in red glimmers like tiny garnets. There were little hazel flecks in her blue-green eyes that could look golden in the firelight, giving her gaze an eagle-like quality that befitted her house and family name.

“Lady Hræfnsclawu,” Goderic said in greeting as she offered her hand.

“Please, call me Rhonwen,” she answered, her Cymraeg accent much thicker than that of her daughter. “I was sad to hear of your mother’s passing, Grifondour. I greatly admired her when I was a girl. And you must be the wandmaker’s daughter?” She turned now to Helga, who also clasped her hand in greeting.

“Helga,” she filled in. “Your daughter is a treasure, my lady.”

“She thinks so,” Rhonwen said seriously, but there was a cheeky lift at the corner of her mouth. “Has she been a talkative host?”

“Oh, she taught me some words in Cymraeg,” Helga grinned. “We’re friends now.”

“Yes,” Rhonwen smiled weakly. She held out her hand to indicate some high-backed wooden chairs at a low table, and they all sat as she went on. “Most of her friends are adults. I can’t give her any brothers or sisters - God knows I had enough trouble getting her - and none of the household have children. I wish she had some friends of her own age.”

Goderic glanced over at Helga and gave her a meaningful grin, then leaned forward in his seat. “Actually, Lady Rhonwen… that is, in some ways, why we are here.”

“Oh?” asked Rhonwen, mildly surprised. Helga got the impression that true surprise was something very rare for this woman. “How would you be able to help with that?”

Goderic nodded in deference to Helga, and she explained the whole idea to Rhonwen, beginning with the day she found little Hnossa speaking to a serpent, and ending with Gwydion Pyk’s suggestion that they come to the Eryr family for help finding orphaned wizards. As she finished, Rhonwen laughed musically. 

“Gwydion Pyk, what an old rambler. Do you know last time he came here, he got hanging drunk with my cousin Cadwgan and wandered off home - naked except for one of my tapestries?” Helga and Goderic both recalled Pyk’s attire during their visit and tried not to catch each other’s eye for fear they’d start laughing. “I’d ask for it back, if I wasn’t afraid of what he’d done to it. Have you met my cousin Cadwgan yet?”

“Ah,” Goderic mumbled, clearing his throat. “Yes, actually. He….”

“He and Helena greeted us at the bottom of the hill,” Helga finished for him, and Rhonwen laughed even harder.

“You’re very polite, both of you. Did he threaten to kill you, or just cut off body parts and send them to your families?”

“The latter,” Goderic laughed, and Rhonwen got up from her chair with a sigh. She crossed the room to a rectangular niche in the stone wall and withdrew a handsome beechwood wand. There was a harp propped in the corner, and she pointed the wand at it; it began to play a soft melody that reminded Helga of watching raindrops collecting and dripping from the overhanging thatch of her cottage in autumn.

“God bless my cousin,” Rhonwen murmured, “but sometimes he is almost more trouble than Helena. That gets even truer as they both get older.” She came back over to her chair but didn’t sit down. “So. You want to build a school for witchcraft, to educate those children who have no family to teach them. I suppose you need me to scry for all the orphaned witches and wizards in England?”

 “Not just England,” Helga put in quickly. “Here in Cymru as well. And up north, Alba and such. I don’t want any children on the island left out.”

Rhonwen’s eyebrow lifted gently, as though she hadn’t expected such an inclusive attitude. “There won’t be many here,” she told them. “In Cymru wizards live close, and the families are all connected. If a child is orphaned, someone in the village takes them in. Only out in the most remote areas would you find a child with no one to teach them. But I’ll scry for them here anyway.”

“Thank you,” Helga grinned, but Rhonwen held up a finger.

“Don’t work for free, though,” she went on. “I have conditions.”

“Conditions, Lady Rhonwen?” Goderic asked cautiously. Rhonwen nodded, tapping her wand against her palm.

“If I’m going to scry for them, I want to teach them too. And I want to go and live wherever we set up the school.”

“Oh, of course!” Helga breathed, and she saw Goderic relax back into his seat. “We’d be happy to have you. Divination isn’t my best discipline anyway, and we should all teach what we’re best at.”

“Aye, we thought we’d have to twist people’s arms to get them to come and teach,” Goderic agreed, “but if you’re a willing volunteer it saves us lots of trouble.”

“And my Helena can come and study with the other children? She’s not an orphan, but I don’t…. well, her father would not be an attentive or thorough teacher in my absence.” Helga thought she heard a hint of bitterness beneath the words, but she told herself she was imagining it. Goderic was nodding.

“Of course,” he said. “My younger brother will be one of the students as well.”

“Alright, then,” Rhonwen smiled. “Helena will be thrilled. She’ll have other children to play with for once.” She turned and walked halfway across the room before stopping and looking back at them. “Well, come on,” she said. “If we start now we can finish before it’s time to eat.”

While Rhonwen set up her scrying materials, Helga and Goderic wandered around her tower room, marveling at the wide array of magical tools she had at her disposal. More than once Goderic reached out to touch some intricate device, only to have his hand slapped away by a flick of Rhonwen’s wand. Helga spent several minutes staring at a shelf of books in an alcove; there were thirteen of them, more books than she had ever imagined could exist in the same room. Several were ancient, cracking parchment that had been rebound in new hide covers, and Helga knew they must have been treasured by generations of the Eryr family. One had Norse runes written on the front, and Helga saw that it was a treatise on the interpretation of runecasting. The others were in Latin, Cymraeg, or some language she had never seen before, a strange collection of straight lines like a chicken’s scrapings. She sighed, realizing what a daunting task it would be to teach magic to so many children when she might not even be able to read what they wrote down.

“Do you like books?”

Rhonwen had appeared at her shoulder, and Helga jumped a little before smiling wistfully. “I’m more accustomed to listening to stories,” she said truthfully. “We Norse aren’t much given to writing things down. I can read, but only runes. Can you read all of these?”

“My father insisted on it,” replied Rhonwen. “Latin, Saxon and Norse runes, Cymraeg, some of the northern tongues, ogham, and enough Greek and Hebrew to get by.”

“Greek and Hebrew?” Helga exclaimed. 

“So I could read Scripture without the bias of the Roman translators.”

“Oh.” Helga traced her finger along the binding of one of the books and sighed. “You must have an excellent mind. Far bigger than my own, I’m afraid. You’ll be a wonderful teacher.”

Rhonwen put a hand gently on her shoulder. “And so will you,” she reassured. “My father told me that learning is the only thing that cannot be stolen, and that an idea is eternal once it has been born. And not all of that learning is to be found in a book. A book just helps in the transmission.” They shared a smile, and for a moment most of the fierceness was gone from Rhonwen’s face.

“Will you teach me?” Helga asked. “Latin, at least?”

“Of course I will. But let’s find our students first, hmm? Come on.”

Rhonwen led her to a table at the back of the room where a copper cauldron with a wide mouth had been placed below a window. Goderic wandered over as well and stared down into it.

“You use a cauldron for scrying?” he asked. Rhonwen’s eyebrow peaked in mild annoyance.

“In Cymru we use cauldrons for most things. Why, what do you use? The skulls of your enemies?” Helga felt a snort of laughter escape her nose as Goderic held up his hands defensively and backed up a step from the table. Rhonwen winked at her, and then she took a tall copper vessel from further down the table and began pouring water from it into the cauldron.

“How does it work?” Helga asked. “I’ve only ever used runecasting for divination. Is the water bewitched?”

“Not yet,” Rhonwen explained. “The water must come from a safe and protected source, that’s the first and most important thing. Otherwise your Seeing can be influenced by outside magic. This water is from the spring beneath our castle, so only we have access to it. And both this vessel and the cauldron are copper, which keeps the water further protected.”

“It’s protected because it’s in a copper jug?” Goderic said dubiously. Rhonwen jabbed him in the ribs with her wand.

“I don’t like your attitude,” she said in a very parental tone. “Go away. You’ll spoil the water.”

“Go away??”

“Go stand over there so you’re not breathing doubt onto the cauldron. Here, take this and write down the children’s names as I call them out. Go on.” She handed Goderic a piece of parchment and a quill and shooed him away from the table. He took it grudgingly, but he only walked a handful of steps away from them. Rhonwen shooed him again, only turning back to Helga and the cauldron when he was standing all the way into the book alcove. Then she picked up her wand. “Dangos,” she said, tapping the surface of the water. A soft ring of ripples spread out from the touch of her wand; as they did, the water inside the ring went cloudy for just a moment. When the last ripple touched the outside of the cauldron, however, the water became crystal clear again - in fact, it became so clear it almost sparkled. Rhonwen smiled. “That’s the part you can learn from a book,” she said. “With that spell and the right tools, most people could see something in the water. The years of practice and the right mindset are what help you know what you are seeing.”

“Hmph,” Goderic scoffed in the alcove, but they both ignored him.

“Now what?” asked Helga. Rhonwen picked up a small bundle of velvet cloth from the table and opened it. She showed Helga a beautifully polished round stone, some kind of opal, so dark blue it was almost black and shot through with fiery streaks of white and colored crystal.

“Heart of Myrddin, we call this. It’s the best stone for water scrying.” Putting the cloth aside, she dropped the stone softly into the cauldron, where it sank to the bottom of the bewitched water. Almost immediately the water began to look as though it were not water but liquid light; it sparkled and rippled of its own accord, and the streaked opal stone at the bottom cast dancing rainbow shapes throughout it like a prism. Rhonwen turned to Helga. “Now we scry. I ask the cauldron to show me whatever it is I’m looking for, and the answers appear in the shapes cast by the reflected light and colors.”

“Would I see anything if I looked?” Helga asked, and Rhonwen shrugged.

“Maybe, if you have Sight. You would certainly see something. Whether it would be a recognizable image, it’s hard to tell.”

“Excuse me, but am I to stand in the corner waiting all day like a bad puppy?” came Goderic’s voice from the book alcove. Rhonwen gave Helga a meaningful look, and then she straightened her posture and took a deep breath.

“Learn patience, de Grifondour,” she said quietly. Then she placed one hand on each side of the cauldron’s rim and closed her eyes. “I wish to see,” she intoned. “Show me the children who have need of us to teach them.” The water rippled again of its own accord. As Helga watched, the quivering and prismatic reflections began to come together and move apart, and for a split second, she thought she saw the vague shape of a child standing in front of a large body of water. She gasped, and just as quickly the picture became dancing light again. Rhonwen’s eyes didn’t leave the cauldron, but she grinned.

“You saw something, didn’t you?”

“Just a silhouette, for a moment,” Helga whispered, and Rhonwen’s smile widened. 

“You might learn scrying yet,” she said softly. Then, louder: “Goderic, is your quill ready? Write what I tell you.”

“Ready,” Goderic said, and he took a step out of his alcove, quill perched above the parchment. Rhonwen’s face became still, and she ceased blinking.

“I see a boy,” she intoned, and her voice had a gentle echo. “Alone on an island. The far, far north, where the ocean is cold as ice.”

“You mean the islands above Alba and Strathclyde?” asked Goderic, the quill scratching quickly across the parchment.

“He wears a plaid,” said Rhonwen in response. “Yes, I think so. Black hair, black as night.”

“Can you know his name?” Helga whispered. Rhonwen’s head tilted to the side, as if she was listening to something they couldn’t hear.

“Mac IainUidhir,” she said after a moment. “The only wizard of that clan. Do you have that? The picture is changing now, I see another child.”

“Yes,” said Goderic, scratching a line under what he had written. “Go on.”

“I see another boy, lying down to sleep under a stone cross. I think he is being cared for by monks.” She narrowed her eyes at the water, as if straining to see something. “I see behind him Saint Aidan - he points his staff south to show me… Saint Peter, standing beside a well.”

“What does that mean?” grunted Goderic, unsure of what to write down. Rhonwen tilted her head again.

“By a well.... Oh, of course - Bywell. St. Peter’s monastery at Bywell, south from Aidan’s home at Lindisfarne.”

“Oh, of course,” Goderic mumbled as he wrote it down. “Riddles as well as copper cauldrons. I don’t suppose there’s a riddle to tell us his name, is there?”

“I think Cross may be his name, or something like it,” Rhonwen murmured, ignoring his sarcasm. “It’s enough to contact him. Make ready, another picture is coming.”

Goderic eyed her sideways, but he scratched a line below the second entry and started another. “If you say so,” he muttered.

“I see a girl now,” Rhonwen was saying, “not orphaned but put aside. Put aside, and now running. I see men following behind her, each carrying golden chains. Wait - I recognize one of them. That’s Gronwy ap Tudur, from down by Oswalt’s Cross. This is a Cymraeg girl. She must be Gronwy’s granddaughter. That’s what you write down, we’ll find her with that.” She paused while Goderic scribbled, mumbling to himself as he puzzled over the spelling of the Cymraeg name; then she took a deep breath and began again.

“A new picture - a field of flowers that look like stars, with a child sitting among them….”

Rhonwen went on scrying for half an hour before the water in the cauldron went dull and flat again, signaling that the stone had shown her everything it wished to show. After putting away the stone and cauldron, Rhonwen led her guests downstairs to the main hall where a meal was being laid out for them on a large round table. Helena was already there with a young man Helga assumed must be Aneirin the harp instructor, and she ran to them and took Helga’s hand immediately, insisting that she be seated beside her. Seeing his charge was in safe hands, the harpist excused himself and went to the kitchen for his own dinner. While a servant filled their drinking vessels and began to cut some bread and cheese, Goderic laid out the long parchment scroll and weighted it down at the corners with cups and platters, and Helena stood on her chair and craned her neck over Helga’s shoulder to get a look at his scrawled writing.

In all, there were fourteen children named on Goderic’s list - they had not written down the five orphans they already had in their care, although the scrying stone had shown them those faces as well. Eleven of these new children were from English territories, two from Cymru, and one from the far northern islands, and there were three pairs of siblings among them. Goderic took a slice of cheese and laid it on his bread, munching the two together as he studied the names.

“Most of them shouldn’t be too hard to reach,” he mused aloud, “except for that poor devil up north of Alba. Long way from here to those islands. Should we start with the two here in Cymru?”

“I think we should start with any of them that might be in danger,” Helga countered. “That poor boy in Alesworth looked like he was living in a cave, hiding from the villagers.”

“They’ll all keep,” Rhonwen said calmly, dipping her bread in honey. “The stone would have shown me if they were in imminent peril. Besides, where would we put them? No. We have to set up the location of the school first.”

Helga thanked the servant who poured her drink and patted Helena’s chair to encourage her to sit down. “You said you could scry for a location, as well?” she asked Rhonwen as she turned back to her host. Rhonwen was tracing the edges of her lips with her fingernail, apparently deep in thought.

“I may not need to,” she said finally. “I can think of a place, actually - one that is perfectly suited to our purposes. It’s in Alba, in the highlands. There was once an ancient hill fort there, at the edge of a loch, and the Romans built a temporary barracks there when they were foolishly chasing the Caledonii about. There are no villages of any kind, magical or non-magical, for several miles in any direction of it. It’s defensible, it has both forest and lake close by, and it has a remaining building and good cellars we can build upon.”

“Excellent,” said Goderic, bumping his fist against the table decisively. “It’s perfect. We can start at once.”

“Oh, not at once,” Rhonwen cautioned, sipping her wine and not looking directly at Goderic’s face. “It’s perfect - and it’s also inhabited.”

“Inhabited by who?” Helga asked, and Goderic frowned.

“But you said--”

“I said there were no settlements or villages around. And there aren’t,” Rhonwen corrected. “But the old barracks tower itself is inhabited by a wizard, and we’ll have to do a lot of convincing if we want him to let us fill it with children.”

“He doesn’t like children?” mused Helga, and Rhonwen snorted a small laugh into her wine goblet. 

“He doesn’t like anyone.” She paused for a moment, putting down her goblet. “But… he does know what it’s like to be young and alone, with nobody to help direct his magical abilities. We might convince him to help these children as he would have liked to be helped himself.”

“Who is he?” Goderic asked as he waved his wand at the wine jug, which floated itself over to him and refilled his cup.

“His name is Salazar,” Rhonwen replied, lacing her hands together on the table. “Salazar Slidrian. His parents were of old wizarding stock in Vasconia, south of Aquitaine. They were in danger from the Moors on one side and León on the other, so they came across the sea and settled in Alba to be away from all the fighting, and took that Saxon surname to blend in. My father met them on his travels up north and they became friends, even brought me to visit once or twice as a child. They died when Salazar was still fairly young - old enough to care for himself, but just barely. My mother kept an eye on him by scrying until he was full grown. He’s become a sort of recluse over the years, and I think the hardest part of it all will be just getting through the door to speak to him. But we can try.”

“Perhaps we can do him some good as well as the children,” Helga suggested, and Rhonwen smiled a mischievous and knowing sort of smile.

“I think I want to try it just to see how he reacts to you,” she smirked. “You are composed entirely of sunshine and good intentions, and those happen to be the two things Salazar Slidrian hates above all else in the world.” 

Goderic snorted, spraying breadcrumbs onto the table, and Helga pursed her lips at him.

“Well, we shall see,” she said, aiming her wand at the crumbs he had spat and vanishing them. “Sunshine melts wax, you know.”

Goderic pushed more bread into his mouth and mumbled, “And it hardens clay.”

Helga stuck out her tongue at him, and Rhonwen laughed. “Either way, I will be entertained by the outcome.”

After their meal, Rhonwen’s servants cleared the table and brought her a large parchment, which she unrolled over the whole space where the food had been. It was a map of the island of Albion in its entirety, from Strathclyde and Alba down to the south Saxons and Kent and from Cymru to Helga’s home in the east. At the top, written in both Latin letters and Saxon runes, were the words Tir o Prydein. Helga had never seen a drawing of the whole island before, and she marveled at the unfamiliar and intriguing outline. The image was crude and did not show great detail, but when Rhonwen tapped her wand on any given place, the picture in that spot would suddenly rush toward them - as the ground had rushed up to meet Helga and Goderic earlier that day when they’d landed in the forest - and the parchment would now be showing a much more detailed sketch of that town or location. Rhonwen bade Helena run upstairs and fetch her special quill, and when the girl had brought it back down, her mother began to mark the locations of each child they needed to collect. The ink that streamed from the quill was a bright, shimmering blue that looked still wet no matter how long it had been on the parchment. Rhonwen drew a circle around each village or landmark where a child was to be found, and beside it wrote the name or description she had been given by her scrying stone. Her hand was as lovely and precise as any Helga had seen in one of the priest’s books in Norwic. 

“...and… lastly… the girl Mildryth, here near the border of Kent,” she finished, writing the final few words at the bottom of the map. Helena traced a small finger around her mother’s letters, careful not to disturb the ink.

“This one is the same age as me,” the little girl pointed out. “Will she be my friend, Mother?”

“I should hope they will all be your friends,” Rhonwen replied, tapping her quill with her wand. The ink bubble clinging to its tip changed from the starry blue to a royal purple. With this new color, she walked around to the other side of the table and began to draw a careful circle around a blank spot on the map that Helga assumed was the location of Salazar Slidrian’s hermitage. There was a small black oval on the parchment beside it that must be a lake, but nothing else was drawn on the map for several inches in any direction. Helena was still examining the name and description of the little girl at the southern end of the map, walking her fingers along the line of letters spelling out the names of the different regions.

“What language do they speak in Kent, Mother?”

“Some of them speak Frankish or Norman, I imagine,” Rhonwen answered her daughter as she tapped the quill again and made the ink disappear from the tip altogether. “The high born ones, anyway. The Kentish noble lines all have ties to Normandy and Brittany. But most of the common people will speak Saxon.”

“If I want her to be my friend, I shall speak Saxon most of the time, then?”

“I think we’ll all be speaking Saxon nearly all of the time,” Goderic commented. “All of these orphans are from Saxon lands except the boy in Alba, the two Cymraeg children, and your Hnossa.” He nodded at Helga as he said this. “And she speaks good Saxon, from what you’ve told me. My two Norman boys speak excellent Saxon as well.”

“And the Cymraeg girl is of the family of Gronwy ap Tudur,” Rhonwen agreed, “so she will be educated in languages as well. I expect the Cymraeg boy will know a little Saxon, even if he is not as comfortable with it as the others.”

“Which leaves only the boy from the far north,” Helga sighed. “He will speak the language of the Picts.”

“He can learn Saxon,” said Rhonwen thoughtfully. “And in the meantime, I can translate for him until he settles in.” She gave her quill back to Helena to be returned to her tower room and sat down, watching the little girl pound up the stairs as though she were racing someone. “The question now,” she continued, “is how to contact each child and explain what we’re offering to them.” She tapped her wine goblet with her wand and murmured something, and Helga saw tendrils of steam begin to drift upward from the dark liquid.

“Perhaps we should visit each of them, so we can explain in person and answer their questions?” Helga suggested. “I’m not so fond of apparating, but I can do it if I must, and this way we’ll be able to address them individually and make sure they have a chance to ask for clarification.”

“No,” Rhonwen shook her head. “We want to be ready before harvest time, and we need all the time we can get to convince Salazar to go along with our proposal - and to prepare his home to receive the children. Visiting each of them in turn would take too long.”

“What if we split up?” offered Goderic. “One of us could go ‘round to each of the children while the other two worked with Slidrian.” Rhonwen didn’t seem convinced by this idea either. 

“It would have to be me that went visiting - neither of you speak Cymraeg or Pictish. And we can’t have that, because Salazar won’t even open the door for you two if I’m not with you.”

“Could we send them messages?” Goderic asked, and this time Helga shook her head along with Rhonwen.”

“Most of them probably can’t read,” she reminded him. “I can only read runes - and some of the poorer children won’t even be lettered in any language at all.”

“She’s right,” agreed Rhonwen. “Written messages would be no good.”

“What if you used singing parchment?”

All three of them turned to look at the unexpected voice. Helena’s harp instructor was standing timidly in the doorway that came out of the kitchen, his harp tucked under one arm and a bowl of blackcurrants in the other hand. He dipped his head toward Rhonwen deferentially. 

“Apologies, Lady,” he said softly. “I did not mean to listen to others’ business.”

“It’s quite alright, Aneirin,” Rhonwen smiled. “Please, sit with us and explain your meaning to our guests.” She waved her wand at a chair across the table from Helga, and it scooted itself out a few inches so the young man could sit down. Aneirin stood his harp against the table leg and sat, holding out his bowl of currants to Goderic and Helga for them to sample.

“Singing parchment,” he began. “It’s a charm I use to help my students learn to recite or sing with correct pronunciation and pitch. I write the words I want them to learn on parchment, and then the parchment, once bewitched, can sing or recite the words aloud for the student. This way they can take the parchment home and practice when I am not with them, even if they cannot read.”

“So we could write a message,” said Goderic, picking a few particularly fat currants from the bowl, “and send it to each of the children, and the parchment could speak our written words aloud to them?”

“Indeed,” Aneirin nodded, looking proud of himself. “And the charm also makes the parchment able to translate languages, so if the child doesn’t understand the language you write in, the parchment will speak it to them in their own tongue.”

“Can it answer questions?” Helga asked. Aneirin waggled his hand.

“Simple ones. It can clarify the meaning of a word; it can repeat itself; and I’ve made them to explain the rules of a certain type of poem before. I suppose my Lady could modify the charm to be able to answer more complex questions, if she desires.” They all looked to Rhonwen, who took a sip of her hot wine before nodding slowly.

“I think it’s a solid idea that solves all our problems at once. Do you bewitch the parchment before or after you write on it?”

“I always wait until after,” Aneirin explained. “It doesn’t affect the charm itself, but if you write on parchment that’s already been bewitched, the blasted thing will keep critiquing your penmanship and trying to offer rhyme suggestions.” He picked his harp up from the floor and seated it in his lap, plucking idly at a few strings. “Would you like me to cut you some parchments tonight, Lady Rhonwen? I had planned to go and cut one for myself in a moment anyway.”

“If you would, please, Aneirin,” Rhonwen instructed. “Medium length, enough for a detailed message. Eleven should do it - we can send just one letter to each of the pairs of siblings. If we manage to convince Salazar to join our venture, the first thing we’ll do is compose the message and get them sent.” She stood up from the table and tapped the parchment map smartly with her wand; it bounced up at the edges and rolled itself neatly back into a scroll, coming to rest gently at the base of Rhonwen’s goblet. “Aneirin,” she said, tucking the long scroll under her arm, “I want you to look after Helena until we get back.”

“And you want the both of us to look after my lord Cadwgan, I suppose?” the harpist grinned. Rhonwen didn’t answer verbally, but she gave him an amused grimace. Across the table Goderic also stood up, one hand still full of blackcurrants and his goblet in the other.

“Until we get back?” he repeated. “D’you mean we’re going tonight? Won’t Slidrian be asleep by the time we get there?”

“Oh, quite the contrary,” Rhonwen smiled. “If he’s anything like he was as a boy, then he’s still sleeping until midday and skulking about half the night, making huffy, misunderstood faces at the moon. If we showed up when the sun was still out, he’d probably pretend he wasn’t home. We’ll try to arrive just around sunset. I’ll have your satchels taken off your horse and brought to you, and I’ll go pack one for myself as well.”

“Will we need our satchels?” Helga asked, quietly vanishing the crumbs from Goderic’s side of the table with a flick of her wand. “You think we’ll be staying there overnight?”

Rhonwen tilted her head in thought. “If he’s in a good mood and wants to humor us, we’ll probably stay a night and maybe two. If he’s not in a good mood, we’ll be back here before moonrise.”

“And if that’s the case, we’ll have to think of another location,” Goderic grimaced, downing the rest of his goblet. Helga surreptitiously vanished the stray droplets of wine that ran down the cup’s sides as he put it on the table.

“One step at a time, my lord de Grifondour,” their host smiled. “Salazar can be difficult… but he may yet surprise us.”

“Yes,” Goderic sighed, tucking the remaining blackcurrants into his belt pouch. “Surprises are what I’m worried about.”

Chapter Text

The soft blue haze of the early summer evening had already begun to swell with banks of gold and orange cloud outside Eryr castle’s windows when Helga seated herself beside the kitchen fire, leaning her satchel in the corner against the stone wall. She had thought that while they waited for Rhonwen to pack her own satchel for their visit to Salazar Slidrian, she would use the time to speak with her father and let him know the progress they had made. Goderic had gone out to the stables to ensure Heremod had been given his flutterby mash before they made their way north; now he came into the kitchen to join her, shouldering his large frame awkwardly between the bustling servants as he made his way over to the hearth. He put his own pack down beside hers and sat on the end of a nearby bench.

“Giving your father an account of the latest developments?” he asked, looking about to see if he was observed before snatching a remnant of cheese from a table behind him. Helga nodded, taking a small amber bottle from the pouch on her belt.

“Yes, he will have arrived at your estate today with the children; I thought I’d let him know where we’re travelling tonight, and what we hope the next steps will be, while we wait for our hostess to pack.” Helga unstoppered the little amber vial and tilted it over the kitchen fire, letting a single drop fall into the flames before closing it again. The flames surged upward a few inches and turned a hot, merry green; Helga waited until the color had spread to every part of the fire before leaning her face into the tips of the flames. “Grifondour House,” she spoke loudly and clearly. The flames danced for a moment, crackling and singing against the hearth, and then the wrinkled face of Eadgifu pushed its way out at them, green and flickering along with the fire.

“Ah, Lady Helga!” the old woman grinned. “We wondered how you and my lord Goderic had got on. All’s well in Cymru?”

Helga nodded to her. “So far,” she smiled. “Did my father arrive at your estate today?”

“Aye, that he did,” Eadgifu confirmed. “With those boys and that sweet little girl. It is so nice to plait a little girl-child’s hair again!”

“I’m happy you’re enjoying their company,” Helga grinned. “Is my father nearby? I wanted to let him know what we’ve arranged with Lady Rhonwen.” The face in the fire bobbed up and down.

“Aye, he’s just outside with the children. Time for them to come inside anyway, getting dark and all. I’ll just fetch him.” Eadgifu’s face sank down into the embers and disappeared, and for a minute or two the flames bobbed and flickered silently in their hearth. Then there was another surge of sparks, and Hunlaf’s broad and bearded face swam up into view.

“Daughter!” he beamed, and Helga lowered her face further into the green flames until their foreheads touched. “You’ve had safe travels and all is well?”

“Better than I’d hoped,” she smiled, sitting up straight again. She gave Hunlaf a brief synopsis of their journey on the Granian horse, their encounter with Cadwgan, and the progress they had made with the help of Rhonwen and her scrying stone. Goderic scooted his bench closer to the hearth and bent over the fire himself to join the conversation, adding his own details. When they finished, Hunlaf chuckled down into the embers.

“Well, I’ll admit, daughter mine – when you first told me your idea, I thought I was sending you on a fool’s errand. But look here! Already with a roll of students and about to go set up a location.”

“We hope,” Helga qualified. “This Salazar Slidrian has to agree to it first.”

“And the lady Rhonwen implied that would be the hardest part,” Goderic agreed. Hunlaf nodded, sending a few sparks skittering up into the hazy kitchen air.

“So you’re going to see him tonight, then?”

“Our host is packing her satchel as we speak,” said Goderic. “How are your wards getting on with mine? Will they be happy as schoolmates?”

“Oh, I think so,” replied the wandmaker. “That— hey, hold fast, there!” There was a shuffling and a scattering of embers as another head shoved itself into view in front of Hunlaf, dislodging pieces of burning wood and spilling some ash out onto the kitchen floor. The striped face of Sœtr the crup wriggled up between the hearth and Hunlaf’s chest, barking madly, fighting against Hunlaf’s efforts to shove it back out of the fire. “Away with you, you little menace!” the wandmaker grumbled, resorting to grabbing the crup by his thick forked tail and dragging him backward until he vanished from Helga’s view. “Go on, go and chase that enchanted ball again. Go on!” He was trying to look severe, but Helga was laughing too hard for him to hold onto anything but the barest glimmer of a scowl. He opened his mouth to say something else, but no sooner had the sound of Sœtr’s barks faded than another head inserted itself into the fire between them.

“Fru Helga!” Hnossa called, squirming as though she were trying very hard to balance on Hunlaf’s lap and failing. “She plaited my hair, Fru Helga!” the little girl wailed. “Are you coming home soon? Is she coming to the school with us??” More complaints appeared to be forthcoming, but before she could speak them, the chubby hand of little Harald came into view and yanked at one of the aforementioned plaits in his sister’s hair. “Ow! Harald, no!” Hnossa shrieked, and she disappeared from the flames with her brother’s little hand still firmly attached. Hunlaf could be heard shooing and scolding for several more minutes before he finally reappeared in the hearth, out of breath but laughing.

“You’d think they’d have used up all that energy chasing each other about the orchard all afternoon,” he chuckled. “I’ve sent them all to the kitchens in hopes the food will distract them.”

“It appears, then, that we’ll have to hurry and prepare the school, so we can take them off your hands.” Helga and Goderic turned around at the sound of Rhonwen’s voice. Their host stood in the kitchen doorway with a linen bag slung over her shoulder and a wry smile on her face. She approached the hearth and inclined her head toward Hunlaf in greeting. “Well met, wandmaker. I see you’re keeping busy while we arrange things.”

“Busy is the word, Lady Hræfnsclawu,” Hunlaf grinned. “I don’t envy you and the other teachers once the whole place is full of them.”

“Well, then let’s hope we can recruit enough teachers to make the load light on each of us,” Rhonwen smiled. “Are the two of you ready? It’s near sunset now.” Goderic stood up in response, and Helga nodded. “Then we’ll say our goodbyes, wandmaker, and hopefully speak with you tomorrow or the next day with good news.”

“Go and eat supper with those children,” Helga grinned at her father. She bent her face down into the flames again and pressed her forehead against his.

“Safely go and safely return, daughter,” Hunlaf pronounced. “And may you have the tongue of Loki to persuade this Slidrian fellow to your cause.”

“Thank you,” Helga replied, picking up her satchel. “I think we’re going to need it.”

Rhonwen led her two guests up to the roof of her tower, which was flat and even and surrounded by a low stone battlement. The three of them slung their bags across their bodies so they would not be lost in travel. Rhonwen held out her hands to Goderic and Helga, and they each took one.

“Ready?” she asked. Helga took a deep breath.

“I hope he’ll let himself be convinced on the grounds of your old friendship,” she said. “I’d hate to apparate for nothing.”

“We’ve got to get you one of those brooms from Saxony,” Goderic chuckled. “Then you wouldn’t need to apparate anywhere.”

“My fondest desire,” Helga smirked at him. Then she squeezed her eyes shut as the three of them disappeared in a blur of motion and wind.

When Helga felt the world go still around her again, she opened her eyes and brushed back tendrils of hair that had come loose from her braid. The three of them were standing near the top of a low hill that was bare of trees or any real sort of vegetation taller than moss. The evening breeze was lively and slapped playfully at her from multiple directions, but it was a mild early summer wind full of the scent of heather and pine, and the sunset sky above them was a gorgeous riot of orange, pink, and gold clouds against a field of pale flax-blue. In the distance, the wind whipped soft clouds up into swirls against the peaks of mountains, making them look as though they were smoking. Helga gazed around, trying to take everything in. The ground beneath her was spongy with moss and tough, coarse grasses, and the bare rock of the highlands poked through it in a hundred places. Behind them spread a long and narrow loch, the surface of the water rippling gently in the breeze and sparkling with reflected sunset light. On a small island in the middle of the loch, a grove of tall pine trees swayed placidly in the wind. Further up the hill, Helga saw, was the object of their quest. Salazar Slidrian’s hermitage stood at the edge of a sharp drop in the land overlooking the water, a long rectangular building with one or two narrow windows facing the loch and a squat, sturdy tower at the northeast corner, which jutted out on a narrow strip of land that extended out into the lake. The stones were grey and unkempt, with moss and lichen growing on them anywhere plants could take hold, but Helga could see that the construction was still strong, a tribute to the Roman engineers who had put the building together six hundred years before. Beyond the building lay a dark pine forest that looked black and uninviting in the dim evening light. A path of bare dirt where the moss had been worn away led from where they stood around to the inland side of the building, but this was the only sign of habitation as far as Helga could see.

“Welcome to Loch Mallachie,” Rhonwen said softly, and Goderic nodded to himself.

“You weren’t exaggerating, it’s completely remote. No danger of the children being found here.”

“And the lake is beautiful,” Helga smiled. Rhonwen adjusted her satchel and began walking up the path, glancing over her shoulder as she went.

“Don’t let it fool you. I think he keeps some sort of water beast in it, just to be sure any non-magical folk are duly frightened away from the place. And while we’re discussing that, don’t take anything on dry land for granted, either. I’m sure he’s got some sort of unpleasantness guarding the front door as well, so best be wary.”

They had made it far enough up the path that they could now see the entrance to the old fort – a heavy-looking, deep-set door made from some wood that was nearly black.

“Damn,” Goderic whispered, stopping abruptly enough that Helga ran into his arm. He was staring down at his feet.

“What?” asked Helga.

“There was a string across the path, and my boot has just snagged it.” He grimaced up at Rhonwen. “What was it you said about something unpleasant guarding the door?”

“Get your wands out,” Rhonwen said by way of response, already pulling hers from her bag. Helga and Goderic followed suit. The three of them stood silently on the path, the breeze ruffling the small hairs around their foreheads, waiting to be set upon by some creature or wraith from the shadows of the building or the woods beyond. They didn’t have long to wait before they saw movement up ahead, near the base of the stone wall. But the shape that detached itself from the darkness was not the shape of a beast or a spirit, but of a man. He strode purposefully toward them, some object held out in his hand, and in the shifting orange and lavender light of the sunset, Helga could see as he approached that he was tall, thin and wiry, with a thick mop of dull mouse-brown hair. The thing he held in his hand was a book, and he began to shake it at them angrily.

“So HERE you are, wife of mine,” he growled at Rhonwen through gritted teeth, and Helga saw Rhonwen stiffen and avert her eyes.

“Jesu help us, it’s a boggart,” she hissed to the other two, trying to ignore the man in front of her whose eyes were spitting fire.

“Every chance you get, every time I leave the castle, you take my daughter and go gallivanting about the country. What are you teaching her now? More languages I don’t understand, so you can write messages to each other that I can’t read?” He shoved the book against Rhonwen’s shoulder, and she staggered backward on the uneven turf. She lifted her wand, but he batted it away.

“Lady Rhonwen,” Goderic began, but Rhonwen flapped her hand at him behind her back.

“Hush,” she managed to say, but Helga could tell that she was finding it difficult to form words.

“Filling her head with all those books,” the boggart spat in the voice of Æthelweard Hræfnsclawu. “Making her just as useless as you are. Not enough that you make it known how much more learning you have than I do. Make me a laughing stock on the gemót. Then you bear me nothing but a daughter and can’t give me any more than that? And now, you’re going to educate her so thoroughly that no decent wizard will want to marry her, either. It was a mercy to your father that I agreed to marry you!” He lifted the book again and batted away the wand that Rhonwen was pointing at his chest. “You know what I ought to do? I ought to put a stop to it.” The boggart-husband held the book out in his hand, where it burst into sudden flames.

Something like a shriek squeezed its way out of Rhonwen’s throat, and she practically flung her wand arm upward and into the crescent motion of the spell. “RIDDIKULUS!” she screamed. Her boggart-husband opened his mouth to berate her again – but instead of words, his voice came out in three harsh caws. The next moment he had transformed into a raven, its wings bound, and dropped to the path in front of them. The smoldering book landed open on top of him, pinning him to the ground. A couple of hoarse, angry caws emanated from beneath its pages. Rhonwen took a step backward, her hands shaking, and Helga took hold of her by the wrist to steady her.

“It isn’t done,” she murmured. “It’ll try both of you next.”

No sooner had she said this than the boggart swirled back upward to human size, and in a moment, Goderic’s brother Eaderic stood on the path before them. But he did not look as Helga remembered seeing him just the day before at their estate; this Eaderic was thin and pale, his hair unkempt and his clothing dirty, ill-fitted and moth-eaten. He staggered toward Goderic, eyes full of hurt and confusion.

“You lost it,” he said sadly. “How could you? Two hundred years we have held Salisberie, and you have lost it!” The sadness in his voice turned accusatory, and he threw himself at Goderic, taking hold of him by the cloak. “You lost it, brother, not just for yourself but for me! I would have been thegn after you, but now we are nothing! I am a son of the house of Salisberie, and now I will have to beg for my supper along the road!” He shook Goderic violently, even as Goderic attempted to get his wand up between them. “Mother told you to take care of me, Goderic!” the boggart shrieked. “She told you, and you have ruined all her hopes! Nnngh!” The boggart grunted as Goderic finally got enough leverage and threw him backward. He lifted his wand level with his boggart-brother’s eyes.

“RIDDIKULUS,” he barked, his eyes hard as stone. The image of Eaderic shrank rapidly to the ground, and suddenly there was a baby on the spot where he had stood, gurgling bad-temperedly as though cranky and in need of a nap. “Much better, eh, little brother?” Goderic panted. The baby blew a spit bubble at him. Goderic was in the process of sticking his tongue out in reply when the baby suddenly rolled over and began to crawl; as it crawled, it turned toward Helga and began to grow, lurching forward on large adult arms too big for its tiny body. Its cry changed slowly into a groan of pain, and suddenly Helga found herself looking down at the sprawling body of her father on the path. A dark stain covered his broad back and almost hid the punctures in his leather surcoat. His thick copper hair was matted with blood from the gaping wound in his skull, and one of his eyes was completely obliterated. He groaned up at her through shattered teeth, and Helga felt hot tears on her face before she even processed what he was trying to say.

“Daughter,” Hunlaf slurred, blood and saliva dripping onto the moss below him. His remaining eye rolled up to look at her. “They…. Too many,” he coughed, and more blood oozed out. Helga slapped her hand over her mouth. “Could have taken them… if you… together.” The words came out mangled and dripping, and Helga thought she might scream in spite of herself. She backed up several hasty steps, only stopping when her back slammed into Goderic’s waiting arm. He held her firmly and shook her a little.

“Finish it, Helga,” he growled, trying not to look at the thing on the path in front of them. The boggart-Hunlaf was still dragging itself across the mossy rocks toward Helga, trying to speak but getting sloppier and more bloodied with each word.

“Where …? Where were… you?” it slurred, and Helga shook her head violently, scattering her tears onto her hand and Goderic’s cloak as he gripped her even tighter.

“Finish it!” Goderic repeated, and he forced her hand down off her mouth so she could speak the incantation. But now that her mouth was free, she found she couldn’t remember the spell. She knew it well – or, would have sworn she did ten minutes ago. But the sight of Hunlaf’s battered body had robbed her of the word in her native tongue.

“Could have… if you were… Daughter,” the boggart was saying. Helga felt a little cry escape her tight lips, and she nearly screamed her next words as she whirled her arm frantically at the image of her dying father.

“RIDDIKULUS!! RIDDIKULUS, RIDDIKULUS!” She whipped her wand through the air over and over, crying as she shouted the Latin incantation the others had used. The rattling groan of the boggart-Hunlaf began to change into a growl, and then a hoarse snuffing sound, and then a sharp, staccato bark. On the path in front of them, covered in the smeared innards of a whole basket of crushed strawberries, was a playfully rolling crup. Its white fur was stained red with berry juice, and its thick forked tail launched crushed berries in all directions as it wagged against the ground. Helga swung her wand at it again angrily, and the crup and its carnage of berries were flung into the air and off the path. The boggart hit the ground yelping and scurried off into a small opening at the base of the stone building, where a little hinged door swung closed behind it.

The three of them stood for a few moments without speaking or moving, each staring at the path where the boggart had been. Goderic finally let out a shaky breath and tugged his cloak back around to the correct position on his shoulders.

“I liked it better when I was a boy and the worst thing a boggart could show me was a swarm of wasps,” he said softly. Helga pressed her palms against her cheekbones to push back the second wave of tears that was threatening.

“That’s the beauty of childhood,” she murmured. “Your fears always have a face and a name, and you know exactly what weapon will vanquish them. When you begin to fear things that can’t be killed or destroyed, you know you’ve grown up.” She wiped her hands on her dress to dry them and slipped her wand back into her cloak pocket. Both she and Goderic then looked uneasily up the path at Rhonwen, who was still staring out over the loch with her back to them.

“Are you well, Rhonwen?” Helga said hesitantly. But they could both see that she was not, at least, not completely. Her breathing was so stiff and shallow that they could barely see any movement – she could have been a statue carved from the rock of the hillside.

“No need for any of us to repeat what went on here tonight,” Goderic offered. “Right, Lady Rhonwen?”

Rhonwen did turn and look at them then, but Helga thought that her gaze was going through them instead of resting on them. Without answering Goderic, she turned slowly and began walking up the path. Goderic and Helga shared a look, and then they followed her in silence.

The door to Salazar Slidrian’s home, they saw as they grew closer, was indeed made of nearly black wood, and it looked like the newest and best-kept part of the whole building. The surface had been polished, and although there was no handle on the outside, there was a lovely pattern of squares made of some silver metal that shimmered in the light of the setting sun. Rhonwen approached the door and rapped on it aggressively with the handle of her wand.

“Salazar?” she called sharply. “It’s Rhonwen. Don’t pretend that you aren’t home.” She still looked rattled, Helga thought, but she managed to keep it out of her voice. They waited, the wind playing with their cloaks beginning to feel cooler now as the sun dipped behind the hills. There was silence from within. “Salazar Slidrian, don’t you dare make me disintegrate this door. I can, and I will, because I’m better at breaking charms than you are at casting them.”

There was another long silence from the other side of the door. Goderic adjusted his cloak impatiently. “Friendly, isn’t he?” he grumbled. Rhonwen sighed, but didn’t answer him directly. Instead she rapped her wand against the door again.

“Salaz—”

At their feet, one of the squares in the door unexpectedly opened with a sharp creak, and they all stepped back a few paces. Warm candlelight spilled out of the little door-within-a-door, and then was momentarily obscured by the small body that stepped out of it. Helga tried to keep her face neutral, but she found her head tilting to the side and her eyes widening in spite of herself. The little creature that came out of the small door was no more than three feet tall, but its ear-span nearly equaled its height. Its eyes were large, round, and watery, a sort of golden-green color like a not-quite-ripe pear. They bulged ponderously on each side of a large wedge-shaped nose, one side of which was pierced and set with a tiny silver ring. Tufts of black hair sprouted unevenly across the space between the massive pointed ears, and each tuft had been braided into a tiny plait that ended in a small green glass bead. Helga surmised that whatever species the creature might be, she must be a female one, for she wore a little red dress made from what must once have been a plaid blanket, tiny but sewn in precise miniature proportions to Helga’s own.

The little creature blinked placidly at Helga and Goderic before turning her watery green-gold eyes up to Rhonwen.

“Mistress Rhonwen is very bad to say she will break Master Salazar’s door,” she scolded. Her voice was like the creaking of branches in a strong wind, and Helga was fascinated by the accent – the Rs tumbled musically like a stone rolling downhill, and the Ss were almost lisped, but not quite. Rhonwen bent down to put herself at eye level with the little creature and put on a smile.

“Master Salazar is bad for not opening the door to Mistress Rhonwen, especially after making her go through a boggart to get here. The least he could do is come to the door and find out why I’ve come.”

“Master Salazar makes a sport of being bad, my lady,” the creature returned, looking as though she were trying not to grin. “And then he makes Bihotza apologize for him.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with his way,” Rhonwen smirked. Standing up, she half turned to Helga and Goderic and waved an introductory hand between them and the creature. “Helga and Goderic, this is Bihotza – the Slidrian family house-elf. Bihotza, these are my friends: the lady Helga Hunlafsdottir, and the lord Goderic de Grifondour. We have come to talk with Master Salazar, because we have an adventure planned for which we may need his help.”

Bihotza’s round eyes grew even wider, if that were possible, and she shook her head slowly. It made the tips of her ears and her braids quiver. “Master Salazar does not like adventures, Mistress Rhonwen….”

“No, he doesn’t,” came a voice from behind the door. “Although he does occasionally make exceptions.” The opposite half of the huge black door swung softly open then, and a young man stepped out of the candlelit interior onto the spongy moss. His tall, slender frame was wrapped indifferently in a cloak of dark green wool, the silver clasp at his throat left undone as though he had merely tossed it around himself for a brief conversation at the door and had no intention of fully committing to being outside. A halo of soft black curls tumbled down from his head to nestle in his collar, gently framing a face that was angular and delicate like a saint in a Byzantine mosaic. His brows were as straight and sharp as knife slashes, and the eyes beneath them were dark and brooding against the pale skin. It would have been a face that nearly always looked dangerous, were it not for the gentle Cupid’s-bow shape of the upper lip and the beginning of a smirk that looked like it lived permanently in the corner of the mouth. Helga curled her toes into the soles of her shoes. The way Rhonwen had described him, she had expected to see a skulking, brooding, wizened little man, perhaps with a perpetual scowl or an unkempt beard; she had not expected him to be handsome.

“Salazar,” Rhonwen was saying, holding out her hands to the young man in the doorway. He didn’t take her hands so much as he let his hands be taken, and he didn’t return the squeeze she gave his fingers, but he also didn’t pull away.

“The lady of Eryr house has come to visit,” he said wryly, and Helga was struck by the softness and lightness of his voice that seemed so incongruous next to his dark visage. It had the depth of a grown man’s speech, but carried in the weightless tenderness of a teenage boy whispering love poems over a hedge into his lover’s garden. Helga bit into the side of her cheek to stop her mind from wandering. If he was going to keep talking in that voice, then she was going to be completely useless by the end of the evening.

“I haven’t seen you since before Helena could read,” Rhonwen smiled, patting Salazar’s hand. “Not in person, anyway.”

“Ah, yes,” Salazar replied, and this time he actually let the smile reach more than just the corners of his lips. “How is the little eaglet?”

“Eight years old and much too self-assured for her own good,” Rhonwen grinned. “Take us inside, Salazar, it’ll be cold when the sun fully sets.”

“Introductions first,” Slidrian smirked. “I need to know who these people are that you want me to let into my house.”

Before Rhonwen could make the introductions herself, Goderic stepped forward and extended his hand, taking hold of Salazar’s wrist. “Goderic de Grifondour, sir, thegn of Salisberie.”

“I see,” Salazar murmured, pulling his hand out of Goderic’s grip before he could tighten it. “The wizard at the hand of the Saxon king. Aatxe’s horns, Rhonwen, this must be serious if you’re bringing the king’s men to my house.”

“Serious in import,” Rhonwen soothed, “but not in a threatening sense.” Salazar raised an eyebrow at her as if to say We shall see about that, but he didn’t argue. Rhonwen put her hand on Helga’s shoulder then and nudged her forward. When she didn’t say anything, Helga realized it was being left up to her to introduce herself. Salazar was flicking his eyes over her appraisingly, and she had to look down at his shoes so she could focus.

“Helga Hunlafsdottir, sir,” she murmured. Salazar Slidrian’s dark slash eyebrows lifted in obvious confusion.

“I’m sorry, Helga Hun-ffla-what, now?”

“H… Hunlafsdottir,” Helga repeated, a little flustered. She hadn’t been expecting to have to repeat her name, and the surprise was almost enough to make her question what her name actually was.

“Huff-la-floffer?” Slidrian repeated stupidly, and Helga’s knee-jerk reaction was to begin a stammering explanation.

“Hunlafs…dottir,” she enunciated uncertainly. “It’s Norse. I’m the daughter of Hunlaf the wandmaker. So my surname is Hunlafs-dottir. Daughter of Hunlaf. It—” She trailed off as she realized that his lips were twitching with barely-concealed laughter. “You’re mocking me!” she gasped, and the laughter broke out from between his lips then in little bursts of air that he held up a hand to conceal – or, at least, pretend to conceal.

“Forgive me, lady Helga,” he chuckled, “but I so seldom have anyone interesting here to mock.” When he saw that she wasn’t joining in his laughter, he swallowed it with some effort – although his expression was still unrepentant. “Truly, I apologize,” he smiled unconvincingly. “I suppose as a consolation, I should let the three of you inside before you freeze. May I escort you?” He slipped an arm out from under his cloak and offered Helga his bent elbow so respectfully that she laid a tentative hand on it, giving him a little half-smile.

“I suppose you may,” she allowed, feeling herself getting a little flustered again. Salazar grinned.

“Good. Right this way, Helga Fluffle-poffer.”

“Ugh!” Helga gasped, glaring at him incredulously and jerking her hand off his elbow. He was still laughing in the doorway behind her as she stalked irritably into the candlelit room, the house-elf Bihotza scurrying in around her feet.

Rhonwen finished explaining their plans to Salazar just as the sun sent its final rays over the cloud-capped hills in the west. She had done most of the talking; Salazar seemed suspicious of Goderic’s position as an official of the king, and Helga had refused to speak to Slidrian while the unrepentant smirk was still on his face. They were sat at a square table in the center of a small but clean kitchen, with a plate of bread and a bowl of bilberries provided by Bihotza in front of them. Salazar had remained largely silent during Rhonwen’s speech, only interrupting with the occasional request for clarification on one point or another. His face had been inscrutable, giving no indication of how well (or not well) he was receiving their proposal. Now he stood apart from them, gazing out the narrow slit-window at the blue-black evening darkness and pondering, while Bihotza the elf walked the perimeter of the room lighting more candles and torches. Helga watched the little creature in fascination; she lit the flames easily and without the benefit of a wand or spoken incantation, simply snapping her long fingers and watching the wicks ignite. Helga leaned over to Rhonwen and whispered.

“Rhonwen, what is a house-elf exactly? I’ve never seen her kind before.”

“They are not common in your father’s homeland,” Rhonwen explained quietly. “Even here in Prydein, you often don’t see them if you are ordinary working folk. They serve wizarding families with long pedigrees and, usually, high birth. They are long lived creatures – Bihotza there probably served first under one of Salazar’s grandsires back in Vasconia – and they remain always with the same family, unless that family’s line dies out. Or if they are set free.”

“Set free?” Helga murmured. “What do you mean, set free? Is Bihotza a slave?”

“Well, now, that is a peculiar question,” Rhonwen mused, watching the elf stoke the hearth fire at the other side of the room. “She was, I suppose, the last time I was here four years ago. But tonight she is wearing a dress – and yet she is still here, working.”

Helga’s brows knit together. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said softly. Rhonwen shrugged uncomfortably.

“A house-elf is set free when their master presents them with clothing. Someone has given Bihotza a dress, and yet she is still serving Slidrian house as though she were not a free elf. Curious.”

“Curious?” Helga balked, pushing aside the cup of wine Bihotza had brought her earlier. “Stop a moment. If they can only have clothes when they are free, what in Woden’s name do they wear as slaves??”

“Remnants,” Goderic answered through a mouthful of bread. He had taken a handful of bilberries out of the bowl and had been arranging them in a square on the tabletop in front of him; now he tapped one at the corner to adjust its position and looked up at her. “Sacks; old blankets; leftover cloth from clothing making. It has to be discarded, and can’t be sewn, otherwise it counts as clothing.”

Helga blinked at him, completely at a loss. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. The wine and bread in her stomach seemed to curdle and shift uncomfortably, and she looked at Rhonwen as if hoping she would counter Goderic’s words. Rhonwen only gave her another imperceptible shrug. Helga stiffened.

“Does this happen in all noble wizarding households?” she demanded, trying not to pronounce noble with an edge to her voice.

“Not in Cymru,” Rhonwen said, her face diplomatically blank. Helga rounded on Goderic, who was now lining up more bilberry squares to make the outline of a house and outbuildings. He flinched under her gaze, looking bewildered by its severity.

“We haven’t had a house-elf since Blandina died when I was a boy,” he explained. Helga reached over and stopped his berry construction.

“But you did have?”

“Of course,” he said easily. “Blandina’s clan was part of our household since before Rome. Would you rather I had sent her away to starve? She was like family. She’s buried in a mound near my parents on the estate, just like a witch or wizard.”

“But she was a slave,” Helga reiterated, seeing that Goderic’s expression was still blank and innocent. “I thought wizardkind no longer held slaves? That we had all agreed to put a stop to it among ourselves, even if we couldn’t among the non-magic folk?”

“We don’t enslave each other,” Rhonwen murmured, looking into her wine cup instead of at Helga or Goderic. Color was beginning to come up into Helga’s cheeks.

“How can you say that, when clearly we do?”

“House-elves are different,” Goderic answered when it appeared Rhonwen would not. He was now constructing a bilberry pathway leading away from his bilberry house. “They’re born linked to a wizarding family. If we put them all out to fend for themselves, what would they do? They’d be utterly lost. No land that belonged to them, no sense of purpose, no skills with which to create a life for themselves—”

“You mean, except the highly advanced wandless magic they possess and the housekeeping skills which they are forced to use for wizarding families?” Helga snapped. “If they can keep your house, they can run their own.”

“But they don’t want to keep their own,” Goderic protested, his brows knitted in confusion. “Blandina would have been insulted at the thought.”

“Would she have?” said Helga irritably. “You couldn’t at least have given her a wage for her labor?”

“What would she have wanted a wage for?” asked Goderic. “She ate from our table, the same as we did; slept in our home; and she didn’t need to buy clothes.”

Helga hissed air out of her nose in frustration and turned to Rhonwen, who was again avoiding their faces diplomatically. “I don’t think he understands, Rhonwen,” she prodded, and Rhonwen nodded over her cup.

“Nor do you, in many ways,” she murmured. “To your credit, of course. But the house-elves have lived this way since the time the Great Stone Circle was built. And once a culture – wizards or elves – has collectively learned a thing as a truth, it is a very hard task to undo that learning.”

“It’s wrong,” Helga spat. Rhonwen’s face was immobile, but she looked meaningfully at Helga over the rim of her cup.

“So is paying a wergild for a man’s life. But your anger cannot make either of them go away.”

Goderic stopped building his bilberry burial mound and looked as if he wanted to ask what exactly was wrong with a wergild, but Helga had already scooted back her chair and turned away from him.

“Bihotza?” she called, beckoning the elf away from the hearth to join them at the table. Bihotza put down the poker she had been using to stoke the fire and approached Helga, eyeing her with cautious curiosity. Helga smiled at her. “Bihotza, are you a free elf?” she asked gently. Bihotza nodded, setting her hair beads to quivering again.

“Yes, Mistress. Bihotza is a free elf since the first snow last year.”

“Did Master Salazar give you your dress intentionally, Bihotza?” Rhonwen asked, and she received another jingling nod.

“Master Salazar is bad at sewing, Mistress Rhonwen, but he is making it himself. Bihotza had to fix it because the seams was puckered, Mistress.”

“Did Master Salazar set you free because he knew it was wrong to enslave you, and he wanted you to be happy?” Helga asked hopefully. Bihotza’s large ears vibrated, and her face scrunched into what Helga thought might be an expression of derision.

“No, Mistress,” the elf said, shaking her head. “Master Salazar freed Bihotza because he wanted her to go away and leave him alone.” Goderic snorted at that, and Rhonwen sighed.

“That does sound like him,” she muttered into her wine cup as she tipped the last of the drink into her mouth.

“Then why do you still work for him?” Helga pressed, taking one of Bihotza’s spindly hands. “If you are a free elf, you could go where you like – live where you want, worry only about yourself, not have to serve someone for no reward.”

“Bihotza stays because Master Salazar cannot live without her, Mistress,” the elf answered nonchalantly. “Master Salazar doesn’t know how to cook, Mistress, nor how to fix his clothes or clean things. Master Salazar would starve to death without Bihotza. So Bihotza stays no matter what Master says. Bihotza is a free elf now, so she doesn’t have to do what Master Salazar says anymore. Master didn’t think about that when he set Bihotza free.” She leaned close to Helga’s ear and whispered loudly, “Master Salazar is a little stupid, Mistress, but Bihotza doesn’t hold it against him.”

“I heard that, you little pear-with-legs,” came the soft voice of Salazar Slidrian. He had wandered back over to the table from the window, and now he took out his wand and summoned the jug of wine from the other side of the room to fill a cup for himself. “I thought elves couldn’t speak ill of their families,” he murmured. Bihotza stood on her toes (which only lifted her to about three and a half feet in total) and shook her ears at him.

“Bihotza is a free elf,” she pronounced, “and can say what she likes about Master Salazar whenever she likes to say it.”

“Hurrah for Bihotza, then,” Slidrian muttered, and he downed the wine in one gulp before pouring himself some more. “Would you mull some of this?” he said, holding the jug out to her as he sat down across the table from Helga. “Saxon wine is piss-poor without spices.”

“It is not – Grifondour estate produces a damned good quality wine, sir,” Goderic countered. Salazar turned to him with a look that said Oh, are you still here? and smirked.

“I assume you’ve never tasted wine from Vasconia, then.” He wiggled the jug in Bihotza’s direction pleadingly. “Bihotza… mulled wine, please?”

“Bihotza doesn’t have to obey any orders she doesn’t like, Master Salazar. Bihotza is a f—”

“A free elf, yes, I know,” Salazar finished with a melodramatic sigh. “I gathered that earlier this evening when I told you not to open the door to anyone.” He picked his wand up again – Helga saw it had a striking striped wood grain, and a milky, polished green stone set into the handle – and pointed it reluctantly at the wine jug.

Bihotza snatched the jug from him before he could cast any spells. “No, sir!” she squeaked. “Master Salazar must not. Master Salazar will ruin the wine with his bad spells, sir!” And having said this, she spun on her heels and took the wine off to a side table to prepare it herself. Salazar rolled his eyes long-sufferingly.

“I’m an expert potion-maker, Bihotza,” he protested, but without much force. The elf answered without looking up from the wine.

“Potions and wines is not the same thing, Master Salazar!”

“Really?” Salazar whispered into his wine cup. “Oh, dear, I had no idea.” He downed the rest of the cup in one swig again. Helga scooted her chair back up to the table and leaned forward, intrigued.

“You are a potions expert?” she asked. Salazar lifted one eyebrow and gave her the barest hint of a grin.

“So you’re speaking to me now, are you?” he quipped, leaning forward to mimic her position. Helga saw that his eyes were a deep and faceted green, like a pine forest after a rain shower. “I suppose I can be called that. Or, at least, potions are what I’m best at doing. As far as magic goes, that is.”

Helga ignored the suggestive tone in his voice and plowed ahead. “So… if you help us form a school for magic… then you’d want to teach the students potion-making, I’d imagine.”

“Ah. That.” Salazar took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, but he didn’t answer immediately; he sat quietly while Bihotza brought the mulled wine to the table and plunked it down grumpily, watching the elf and the wine and, in fact, looking everywhere in the room except at his guests. Rhonwen finally prodded him with the handle of her wand.

“Yes, that,” she said. “That is why we came, if you’ve forgotten. Do you have an answer for us?”

Salazar Slidrian began to pour himself some of the mulled wine, watching the steam float up from the surface of the dark liquid for a moment before responding. “You see, there’s one problem with your plan, Rhonwen, well-organized though it is.”

“What’s that?”

“I hate children.”

“Yes, well, you hate yourself too, but you manage to live well enough in spite of it,” Rhonwen retorted, the pleasant tone never leaving her voice. Across the room at the side table, Bihotza snorted audibly. Salazar pursed his lips.

“Kindly keep your comments to yourself, Bihotza, thank you.”

“Oh, on the contrary!” Helga smiled, helping herself to the mulled wine. “I’d be happy to hear what Bihotza thinks of the plan. Bihotza, come and sit with us and tell us what you think.” There was a stool against the wall by the hearth fire, and Helga summoned it to the corner of the table at her left, patting it to invite Bihotza to sit. The house-elf approached tentatively and sat, spreading her red plaid skirt around her legs.

“Bihotza is grateful Mistress Helga wants to ask what she thinks,” Bihotza hesitated, “but Bihotza knows nothing about schools, Mistress.”

“Maybe not,” Helga allowed, “but this is your home as well as Salazar’s. I’d like to know how you feel about it. If you and Master Salazar agree to help us, we would bring a group of children here to live until they are grown and can do magic well. They would be here for several years, and more would probably follow. We would have to make some changes to this house, and there would be extra work like cooking more food each day, and cleaning clothes for quite a few people. And since you’ve said Master Salazar isn’t quite skilled at these things—”

“Hmph,” Salazar interjected, but Helga ignored him.

“—a lot of it would fall to you. Of course, we could hire some helpers for you. But you would probably need to be in charge of them.” They all sat quietly for a minute or two as Bihotza considered this. The elf blinked her large green-gold eyes slowly and deliberately, obviously giving the matter serious thought.

“Master Salazar should do it,” she said finally, wiggling her ears. “Master Salazar should not be alone all the time.”

“Traitor,” Salazar mumbled. He scooted as if to get up from the table, but before he could leave the chair, Bihotza had snapped her fingers and apparated from her stool to the edge of the table in front of him. Her hands on her hips, she stepped down off the table and stood on his lap, pinning him to the seat.

“Master Salazar has forgotten, then,” she said flatly, and Salazar went still. He put down his wine cup and looked away as the elf continued to speak, her eyes level with his even if he wouldn’t look at her. “Master Salazar has forgotten when Mistress Çinara and Master Santxo died and Master Salazar was all by hisself, and Mistress Rhonwen’s father had to come teach Master Salazar how to apparate so he could go to market and buy hisself food. How he had to bring Master Salazar books so he could finish learning how to be a wizard. How Master Salazar had to learn not to talk the sugeazkuntza when he came across the sea because even wizards here is afraid of it. What if these children can talk it? If Master Salazar doesn’t teach them how to use it right, who will do that? Hmm?”

Salazar still avoided Bihotza’s eyes, but his face was straining to remain expressionless. Helga tried to parse out what the elf had been talking about.

“Sugea… sugeazkuntza? Does that mean…?”

“Parsel-tongue,” Rhonwen filled in. “Ormrmal, your people would call it.”

“You have the Serpent Speech?” Helga asked Salazar softly. He glanced at her but didn’t say anything. Helga’s face brightened abruptly. “Salazar, that’s wonderful!”

“Is it?” he muttered darkly, but Helga was unperturbed.

“The little girl in my care, Hnossa – she has it as well! It was how I discovered she was a witch in the first place. She didn’t know she was speaking it, and I knew that someone would have to teach her how to regulate it, but I was so worried we wouldn’t find anyone who could! But here you are!”

“Here I am,” Salazar whispered, twitching his wand to pour himself more wine. Bihotza snapped her fingers at the jug, and it vanished before it reached his cup.

“No more!” she squeaked. “Master Salazar has drunk enough tonight and will stop before he embarrasses Bihotza in front of guests.” She hopped down from his lap and walked smartly across the room to stoke the fire again, ignoring the irritated glare from her former master. The four at the table sat in silence for a few minutes, broken only by the crackling of the fire and by Goderic’s quiet humming as he used the last of the bilberries to outline a miniature stone circle at the border of his imaginary berry estate.

“If—” Salazar said suddenly into the quiet, and they all jumped. “If I agree to this,” he said slowly, rolling his wand back and forth across the tabletop under one fingertip, “then I want it made clear that I am an equal partner with the three of you. I am not just the owner of the house. I have equal authority, and I teach the children how I like in the subjects that I am given charge of.”

“Of course,” Helga said immediately. “We wouldn’t presume to know more about the Serpent Speech than you, or about potions. Just as none of us presume to know languages better than Rhonwen. None of us will be subordinate.”

“And if we divide the students up, if we are each responsible for looking after a certain number of them, then I want first pick. I won’t be stuck with some wild thing I can’t handle.”

“I think we should all be charged with the students who best fit our personal strengths and weaknesses,” Helga agreed.

“And I am not agreeing to do this all the year round,” Salazar said, pointing his wand handle at Helga. “I will need time away from them. If they have nowhere else to go, then I’ll go away somewhere for a few months out of the year.”

“I’ll second that one,” Goderic concurred. “You can’t expect children to sit inside with dusty books during high summer, not when they should be out of doors sporting. You can take your time away then.”

“And,” Salazar demanded, “I understand that we will need to expand the house, but the rooms below this one are not to be touched. They are mine, and will remain so. My private rooms. No students down there unless I take them there for a lesson, and none of you either. I can’t let you have my whole house.”

“That can be arranged,” Rhonwen assented. “I think each of us should have at least two private rooms – one for a bedchamber, and one in which we can store our books and work on planning our courses of instruction. And the children shall have separate bedchambers – on the opposite end of the house from ours, if you like.”

“The opposite end of the world would be better,” Salazar muttered, looking over his shoulder to see what Bihotza had done with the wine, but his face looked more resigned than combative. “And I hope you don’t plan to start right at this moment,” he added grudgingly. Helga began to grin as she realized that this was his way of saying he agreed without actually saying the words. She scooted out from the table and came around to where he sat, taking his hand before he could get it out of her reach.

“Thank you,” she beamed. “Thank you, thank you!” Salazar found himself trapped as Helga threw her arms around him and squeezed; after a moment’s wriggling, he managed to extricate himself.

“But I will complain aggressively and constantly, because that is my right,” he grunted, smoothing the wrinkles she had put in his tunic. “And I won’t be made to cheer up, no matter what orders I am given by you, Helga Puddle-totter.”

Helga shot him a momentary glare, but she was too pleased to keep it up for long.

“We’ll start making detailed plans tomorrow, and we might even be able to start expanding the building within a week or so!” she grinned. Salazar blanched.

“Did you say tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, Salazar,” Rhonwen appeased, “I know it’s very fast. But we want the school ready to begin by the end of the warm months, and we only have three of those left. If we start now, that will give us time to recruit some other witches and wizards to help us, to make plans for how we will structure the lessons, and to contact all of the children, and give them ample time to travel here, if they cannot do so by magic.”

“But…,” Salazar began, trailing off when he realized he wasn’t sure what his next point was going to be. Bihotza came across the room and patted his hand reassuringly.

“Cheer up, Master Salazar,” she said. “Bihotza will open a new jar of honey for Master Salazar’s guests for breakfast in the morning, and make new bread. Master Salazar likes the bread best when it’s new and hot.”

“Breakfast?” Salazar breathed. “All three of you are sleeping here tonight?”

“Well, you don’t expect us to apparate back to Cymru just to sleep and then come right back, do you?” Goderic chuckled. “We packed satchels. Besides, the lady Helga hates apparating.” He patted Salazar on the shoulder hard enough to make him rock slightly on his heels. Helga reached out and put her hand on Slidrian’s arm – gently, because he looked like an overwhelmed little boy whose mother had just brought home triplets and put them into his bedchamber.

“I’m sorry, is it awfully inconvenient?” she asked softly. Salazar glanced around at the three intruders into his solitary existence, looking for a moment like he might actually say Yes, it is, now go away; then he sighed deeply and gave Helga his faint hint of a smirk.

“It is inconvenient, but I suppose it’s not awful,” he relented. “BUT I only have one bed, and none of you are getting it.” He pointed a finger at them to make sure they understood that he meant business. Goderic chuckled and began poking his head nosily into the doorways that led out of the kitchen to the handful of other rooms.

“Not to worry, your bed would undoubtedly be too small for me anyway.”

Salazar fixed him with a glare that would have frozen the loch and walked over to stand in the doorway Goderic was snooping in, drawing himself up out of his slouch to his full height. He was obviously thinner and leaner than Goderic; but he was shorter only by a few inches, and he spread out his arms against the doorposts to make up for what he lacked in breadth.

Helga crossed the room and pulled Goderic away from the blocked doorway by his cloak.

“Come along, children, let’s be friendly,” she teased. “After all, we have dropped ourselves into poor Salazar’s lap quite unexpectedly, and we can’t blame him for being ruffled. The least we could do is be polite guests, Goderic.” Over his shoulder, she winked at Salazar. Their host relaxed in the doorway, crossing his arms and leaning against the frame, one ankle tucked nonchalantly against the other.

“I’ll amend my statement,” he smirked. “I’m still not giving up my bed, but you can share it with me, if you like.”

Helga stopped abruptly in surprise, and Goderic backed into her, nearly toppling the both of them to the floor. He tugged his cloak out of Helga’s hands and tried valiantly to keep from laughing aloud. Helga blinked at Salazar, not sure if she was supposed to be impressed by his audacity, or if he thought he was being funny. Perhaps both. She folded her hands demurely in front of her bodice and approached him slowly, dropping her eyelids to give herself a soft, doe-eyed look.

“Oh?” she breathed. “Are… are you sure…,” she stammered, “…that there’d be enough room for all three of us?” Salazar’s smirk drooped a little at the edges.

“Three?”

“Of course; you, me… and your enormous arrogance?”

Helga kept blinking innocently up into Salazar’s face as Goderic melted into a bellowing fit of laughter behind them. He mimed being stabbed in the gut with a sword, accompanied by the appropriate sounds and staggering. Even Rhonwen had slipped a hand over her mouth to hide her giggles. Salazar shot Goderic a dark glare, but when he looked back at Helga he had put his smirk back into place.

“Your loss, Helga Huffle-poffer,” he whispered. Then he sank back into the doorway he had been blocking and dropped out of sight down a flight of stairs.

“Oh, dear,” Helga sighed. “I do hope we can all get on with each other a little better tomorrow than we have tonight.”

“Better?” Rhonwen scoffed, opening the mouth of her satchel as wide as it would go. “That was as friendly as I’ve ever seen Salazar. He must like you tremendously. I think he agreed almost entirely on your account.”

“That’s his way of saying he likes me, is it?” Helga frowned. Bihotza nodded up at her as she went to put out some of the candles.

“Oh, yes, Mistress Helga. “If Master Salazar is very polite, then he is thinking of ways he could hex somebody. Once Master Salazar started saying Lady Bihotza – that was the day before Master tried to make Bihotza go away. Today he says pear-with-legs – that means Master is pleased with Bihotza again.”

“That’s not very healthy for relationships,” Helga mused, walking about and helping the house-elf to put out lamps. Rhonwen chuckled as she reached into her bag to find something.

“Salazar doesn’t have relationships,” she said, pushing her arm into the satchel up to her elbow. “Perhaps we can change that.” She dipped her arm further into the satchel, the mouth of which was now at her shoulder. Helga had thought the bag was only elbow deep, but apparently she had misjudged it.

“Well,” Goderic said, yawning cavernously, “let’s worry about changing Slidrian tomorrow. For now, I suppose we really are sleeping on the floor?”

“Nonsense,” came Rhonwen’s muffled reply as her head disappeared inside her bag. A moment later, she reemerged, pulling on something with both hands. “Why do you think it took me so long to pack, Goderic de Grifondour? I came prepared.” She gave another sharp tug, and a long rolled-up something popped out of the satchel. A tap of her wand caused the object to bounce about in the air before unfolding and stretching itself out on the kitchen floor, revealing itself to be a tidy little cot with a blanket and pillow already laid out. Rhonwen brushed loose hair back from her forehead and gestured to Goderic. “Come on, then, lend us a hand. There are two more of them in there.”

The next morning, after the promised breakfast of new bread and honey, the four of them got straight to work. When the breakfast platters had been removed from the table, Rhonwen laid out the map and showed Salazar the name and location of each orphan they had marked. Salazar spent the morning hunched in his chair with his blanket over his head, obviously disgruntled at being awake so soon after sunrise. He winced every time Goderic’s deep voice resonated through the kitchen. But to his credit, Helga saw, he did occasionally lean his face out of the blanket long enough to ask Rhonwen a question.

Over the course of the day, they discussed a myriad of subjects, with Rhonwen filling up a generous stack of parchments with the plans they all agreed upon. Their first point of discussion was the list of subjects they ought to teach the students, and how they would decide that a student had completed their education. Eventually they concurred that there should be four types of lessons – Information, Basic Skills, Advanced Magic, and Personalized Subjects. Everyone would start with the Informational lessons – a little history and the names of notable witches and wizards; the names and traits of various magical plants and animals; things a student born to a non-magic family would need to learn – plus reading and writing, if they were not literate when they arrived. If a student already knew these things, they could progress to the next level. Basic Skills lessons would teach everyday magic like summoning, vanishing, travel, common charms, and spells one would use for ordinary life. Advanced lessons would teach more difficult magic like divination, potion-making, transfiguring objects, and magical self-defense. If a student then showed a particular aptitude for a certain branch of magic – for instance, Hnossa and any others like her who spoke Parsel-tongue – they would then receive individual or small-group lessons in that subject once a week. The four of them read over this plan a few times and agreed it was what made the most sense; they then worked out a schedule for who would teach which lessons, on what days, and for how long.

“We’re going to need help,” Helga muttered over lunch, reading through their list of subjects. “There aren’t enough of us to teach all of this AND cook and clean for the children, too – and who will go out and wrangle these magical animals we want to teach the children about?”

“Not Bihotza, Mistress,” came Bihotza’s squeaky voice from the other side of the room. Goderic chuckled.

“I’ve just been thinking of that,” he said. “I think we should hire a man to care for the grounds around the school, and to keep a small stock of magical creatures fed and watered so the children can study them. This person could also teach lessons on magical creatures, and perhaps take care of some ordinary livestock, some pigs or geese, maybe, for eating. Does anyone know someone who’d fit that position?” None of them did; but they agreed that they could send word to Gwydion Pyk in Lundenburh and have him put the question to his wizarding guests when they passed through his inn, and send them a suitable candidate. Helga then suggested that they also hire someone to care for the school building itself – to help Bihotza with the cleaning and repair any damages the children would inevitably cause. In this case, Goderic said that he had just the man in mind.

“Who is he?” Salazar asked suspiciously from under his blanket.

“His name is Hankertonne Humilis. When I had lands from the king near the town of Chedglowe, he was my caretaker there, because I wasn’t often at that property. Last year the land went to the abbey at Malmesberie, and I think he went to work for Abbot Ælfric, but I doubt he’s happy there. An abbey isn’t the best place to try cleaning things using magic without getting caught. He’d probably jump at the chance to work here.”

“Then we’ll write to him as well as Gwydion,” Rhonwen said, making a note to herself on a parchment that held a list of tasks to accomplish. “Now, what about the kitchen? Bihotza can’t cook for so many on her own.”

“May I suggest someone for that?” Salazar asked, coming out from under his blanket a little now that the hour had passed midday. When everyone nodded, he went on. “More accurately, two someones. They’re a couple. Hoshea ben Menashe, and his wife Ya’el. They were friends of my parents, cooks for some lord’s estate in Vasconia. I’d like to invite them here.”

“Jews?” Goderic said, after pondering the sound of the unfamiliar names for a moment. Salazar stiffened.

“Is that a problem?”

“Course not,” Goderic shook his head. “Just never met a Jew before, especially not a Jewish wizard. Do they allow magic in their religion?”

“Does yours?” Salazar murmured, eyeing the cross resting in the open neck of Goderic’s tunic. Goderic shrugged.

“Good point,” he conceded. “But you think they’d be right for the job?”

“They’d keep a clean and efficient kitchen,” Salazar nodded. “Good, healthy food for the children, and they’ve worked in a large house before so they know how to cook big with small amounts of money. And Bihotza is familiar with them, so she won’t feel like she’s being invaded in her own territory.”

“Master Salazar is the one who feels like he’s being invaded,” the house-elf mumbled as she crawled under the table to fetch a quill Rhonwen had dropped. Rhonwen smiled at her as she handed it over.

“Well, it does sound nice for you to have some old friends here, I agree.”

That afternoon Rhonwen composed the three letters – one to Goderic’s man Hankertonne, one to Salazar’s friends in Vasconia, and one to Gwydion Pyk – and after they had stopped for the evening, she apparated back to her home in Cymru to pass them off to her owl-keeper to be sent. When she returned, she brought the stack of parchments cut for her by her harpist, along with his instructions for casting the charm on them to make them speak. They would wait until all the other planning was done before they wrote the letters to the children, so they would have a good idea of precisely when lessons would begin, but Rhonwen spent that evening practicing putting the singing charm on other parchments, just to be sure she had got it right.

The next three days were spent in creating detailed drawings of the modifications they would be making to Salazar’s house. Rhonwen had Salazar draw a plan of the building as it was, and then she produced several sheets of parchment that had been stretched to translucent thinness. These were overlaid onto Salazar’s drawing of his home, so they could draw rooms and corridors they planned to construct and see how they would need to intersect with the existing structure. The rooms below ground were more extensive than the others had first realized, and Helga thought it a shame to waste them – this nearly caused an argument between Salazar and Goderic, but Salazar was adamant that those rooms remain undisturbed. Rhonwen brokered a compromise in which a single room at the bottom of one flight of stairs would be expanded into a larger kitchen, leaving the rest of the cellar rooms untouched, to which Salazar grudgingly agreed. This larger kitchen would be better able to serve a score of people, and the current small kitchen in which they now sat would become a sort of small meeting room for the instructors and other staff. The rest of Salazar’s house above ground consisted of two large rooms – one at the entrance, and one off to the right which must have been the dining hall for the Roman soldiers who had built it – and a series of smaller rooms past the kitchen which must once have been sleeping quarters for the soldiers. It was decided that the dining hall, which Salazar rarely used, would retain its original purpose and be set with large tables for the students to eat from; meanwhile, the smaller soldiers’ dormitories would have their walls magically rearranged to form four classrooms. Rhonwen suggested putting a large staircase in the entrance room, which would lead up to a second floor full of dormitories for the children. Finally, Goderic proposed a wall around the building on the three sides not facing the loch, forming a courtyard in which the students could play or practice more destructive spells with some protection from the wind – and also making the school defensible, should the need ever arise. Rhonwen agreed, and then sketched a tower at each corner of the wall outline – one of which, she requested, would be set aside for her private rooms. Goderic concurred, and claimed a second tower for himself. Helga said she wasn’t enthused about the prospect of so many stairs each morning, and so she opted for a chamber below ground that branched off the kitchen room they were going to expand.

When the drawings were completed, as the week neared its end, Rhonwen sent another letter – this time to Williame Morieux, the wizard builder from Brittany who had helped with some of the expansions on Eryr house several years before. She hoped he would come and serve as an overseer of their building over the next few months – the four of them were reasonably gifted users of magic, but wizard builders were experts in spells and charms that had been precisely crafted for the construction of buildings, and Helga pronounced that she’d never be confident the whole thing wouldn’t fall down on them unless they got someone to help who had experience in the field. They had gotten a response from Gwydion Pyk the day before saying that he would certainly try to scrounge up a candidate for the position of groundskeeper, and now there was nothing to do but wait for answers to their remaining letters so they could begin the construction. Nothing else to do, of course, except writing the invitation letters to the students.

“We will have to tell them,” Rhonwen said as they sat around the table late in the evening, writing herself another checklist, “what we plan to do here, what day to arrive, and how to get here.”

“But suppose the letter is discarded by the child and then found by some mundani?” Goderic asked. “We can’t let the location of the school be discovered, that was the whole point of coming so bloody far north and turning Salazar’s house upside down.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Salazar smirked, “something I feel will not happen very often between Goderic and myself, so please take note.”

“Perhaps we could send them a farar-skjóti,” suggested Helga, but Rhonwen shook her head even as Goderic made a face.

“What’s a fara-skooey?” he whispered.

“A portus key object,” Rhonwen translated for him, still shaking her head. “No, that’s too much of a risk. A non-magic person might find it and end up here by mistake.”

“The ones who have had magical parents could come by hearth travel, they’d know how,” Salazar mused. “We could build a fire large enough for it outside. And some of the braver ones who aren’t from magic families would probably try it, if we explained how and sent them the potion. But walking into a large fire is probably intimidating to a child who’s only just understanding they can do magic in the first place. Some will want to travel on horseback or some other way. So the question is; how do we direct them here without giving away the location to anyone else who would read the letter?”

In the end, it was decided that the best option would be to send each child a small pouch containing a vial of the hearth-travel potion and a small piece of enchanted glass. They could use the potion and travel through a large fire, or they could look into the glass and see images of how to travel to the school if they were riding or flying. In this way, only the child holding the glass would be able to find them. Bihotza gave Rhonwen the remnants of a broken looking-glass to use, and she put on the enchantment while Salazar brewed the potion. Helga was pleased to see that he had not been exaggerating when he’d said he was skilled with potion-making – and when she said so, he called her yet another ridiculous name, so she supposed he must be pleased to hear it.

When they sat down again to write the letter an hour or so later, Helga felt a gentle tug on her sleeve and looked down to see Bihotza standing patiently beside her chair, her large ears wiggling importantly.

“What is it, Bihotza?” Helga asked. The house-elf climbed up on her stool so all four of them could see her and cleared her throat.

“It’s only that… how will the children come here by fire, Master Salazar, if they don’t know the name of the school?”

The four of them looked at each other blankly, realizing that they had nearly forgotten the most important part of the letter they would be sending. In order to travel by hearth, one had to clearly speak the name of their destination – and as of yet, they had not given their school for magic a name. Helga laughed aloud.

“How stupid of us! Of course, Bihotza, thank you! We have to give the school a name. Does anyone have a suggestion?”

“Well, we could always name it after me, as it is my house,” Salazar offered, “but th—”

“—but that wouldn’t make you much of an equal partner, now would it?” Goderic finished. “Anyway, if we’re going that route, it should be named after Helga. It was her idea to begin with.”

“Oh, yes,” smirked Salazar, “Funffle-moff is an excellent name for a school.” His face didn’t change, but his eyes glittered with suppressed laughter, and Helga stuck her tongue out at him.

“I don’t think it should be named after any one person,” Helga countered. “It doesn’t belong to any one person – it belongs to all the children, and I hope it shall continue to belong to generations of children after we’re gone. No matter how the world changes, there will always be orphans who need teaching.”

“Then we should choose something simple and easy to pronounce,” Goderic said. “We don’t want children mispronouncing it and ending up in some stranger’s fireplace in Rome.”

“Spoken like a man who has done exactly that,” Salazar murmured amusedly. Goderic crossed his arms.

“I was seven, I couldn’t pronounce my Rs, and I thankfully only ended up in Northumbria. But it was very traumatic.”

“I’ll bet it was,” Salazar grinned, but he resisted the urge to prod further. Helga was nodding.

“Yes, it should be short and simple, but it should also be meaningful. We’re creating something very important here. Meaningful – but still playful. After all, this will be a place for children. Rhonwen, what do you think?”

Rhonwen had been sitting very quietly while the others talked, looking out the slit window over the loch. Now she turned back to them, her face dreamy and a bit distant.

“I was given a dream the first night we slept here,” she said slowly, turning the copper bracelet she wore round and round on her wrist. “It seemed odd at the time, but now I think it relevant. In my dream I stood at the edge of the land looking down onto the loch, and this house was not here. It was all grass and moss and clumps of mugwort growing among the stones. As I turned to look behind me at the land, I saw a white pig come trotting up the path, running fast but slowing down as it neared me. It was like Henwen in the old legends, except he was a hog instead of a sow. He came and sat down in the grass on the spot where the house sits in reality, winded as though he had run far and long and was suddenly able to rest. When he had caught his breath, he began to eat the clumps of mugwort that grew round about him. Now I see the meaning I was meant to take from it.”

“I’m glad you do,” Goderic muttered, raising his eyebrows at Helga and Salazar. Helga asked for both of them.

“I don’t know the story of Henwen. Would you tell me?”

“It was part of the stories of Arthur,” Rhonwen explained. “Henwen was a white sow whose offspring were portended to bring ill-fate on Prydein, and so she was harried and chased until she was driven into the sea.”

“Not unlike our kind are harried by those who fear our abilities,” Salazar said quietly, and Rhonwen nodded.

“In the stories, Henwen was driven away; but in my dream, this white hog found a place to rest here on this hillside, and he ate the mugwort herb – a charm of protection.”

“Strong against the hateful things,” Goderic murmured, and when Rhonwen lifted an impressed eyebrow, he chuckled. “Mother used to sing the Nine Herbs to us when we were small – Eaderic was still in his cot. I was always useless at magical herbs, but that one I can still recite: Remember the mugwort, and what it makes known / the mighty declaration it sets in stone. / Eldest of green-things, and matchless it be, / as strong against thirty as against three. / Strong against sickness, and poison in the glass, / strong against the hateful things that through the land do pass.”

Rhonwen smiled at him. “Not the exact words as I learned them, but then, every mother sings her own version, I suppose.”

“They must do,” Goderic replied. Beside him, Salazar shifted uncomfortably in his seat and began searching around for the wine jug.

“So,” he grumbled, “you’ve had a dream about a white pig and some mugwort, and we’re supposed to get a meaningful name from that, are we?”

“A hog eating mugwort,” Goderic mumbled, twisting some of his longer whiskers around his finger. “A white hog… eating mugwort….” The four of them fell into a comfortable silence as they pondered how to glean a name from the contents of Rhonwen’s dream. For several minutes there was no sound but the whisper of candles and the soft crackle of the hearth fire. When a voice finally broke the stillness, it was not one of the four at the table who spoke.

“Hog-wort.”

All four heads turned to look at Bihotza the house-elf, who had gone to stoke the fire while they were pondering. She put down her poker and came back across the room, the little glass beads in her hair glittering in the firelight.

“What did you say, Bihotza?” Salazar asked, leaning down to her. The house-elf clambered up onto the stool beside Helga, smoothing her dress primly before speaking.

“Hog-wort, Master Salazar,” she repeated. “Masters and Mistresses could call the school Hog-wort. That puts the two words together, you see. Hog-wort’s School. Easy for the children to say, Master Goderic, and it tells Mistress Rhonwen’s dream.”

“Hog-worts,” Salazar mouthed, testing the sound of the word. He looked at Helga.

“Hogworts,” she repeated, a smile slowly creeping up her face. “Yes, I like that!”

“No mispronouncing Hog-warts,” Goderic grinned. They all looked at Rhonwen, and she picked up her quill. Smiling warmly, she drew their stack of written plans over to her and wrote across the top, the quill scratching quickly across the page in a satisfied way.

“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she pronounced, drawing a line under the words. “That’s it, then. That’s our school.”

“Bihotza, you are a treasure!” Helga exclaimed, giving the elf a little squeeze. “What would we do without you?”

“Like as not,” Bihotza squeaked, “the Mistresses and Master Goderic would do passably. Master Salazar would starve.”

The kitchen rang with laughter as Salazar tossed some crumpled-up scraps of parchment and bounced them off Bihotza’s wedge-shaped nose.

Next morning, all four of them apparated back to Eryr house – Salazar with great reluctance – to see the letters sent off to their intended recipients in the claws of Rhonwen’s prized team of trained owls. They stood atop the tower with the owl-keeper, a satchel full of parchment scrolls at their feet, surrounded by nearly a score of silent barn owls with large black eyes and inscrutable faces. They were all tethered to wooden perches at the moment, but the owl-keeper stood by, waiting for the order to loose them. Each scroll in the satchel was sealed with wax and had a little cloth pouch tied around it, in which was secured a vial of hearth-travel potion and a piece of enchanted glass. While Goderic walked about among the owls, attempting to get one of them to hoot back at him, and Salazar sulked in the corner of the tower deep inside his hood, Rhonwen and Helga looked over their master copy of the letter again, making sure there were no further revisions to be made.

At the top of the letter was a greeting, with a blank space for each child’s name; as they sent each one, Rhonwen would say the child’s name over it and tap it with her wand, and the appropriate name would appear in the empty space. The letter read:

This is a message for ____________.

Greetings, and do not fear this message, as it is for your benefit. It has come to our attention that many children in this land who have magical abilities find themselves now orphaned and without family to care for them or teach them to use their magic. You have been identified as one such child. We are a group of wizards and witches who have endeavored to create a school for magic, which we now invite you to attend – the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

At this school, you would learn all you need to be a competent witch or wizard, as well as subjects taught in the non-magical world such as reading and reckoning numbers. More importantly, you will also be fed, clothed, given a place to sleep, and kept safe from discovery by non-magical people. We do not require any payment from you – only that if you come, you try your best to learn what we have to teach you.

Attached to this letter, you will find a wax seal and a small pouch. If you do not wish to attend this school, simply bury this letter and these items where they will not be found. If you do wish to attend, please send the wax seal back to us with the owl who brought it. In this way, we can reckon how many children will be coming.

Inside the pouch are items to help you travel to us. One is a piece of enchanted glass. If you have means of travel, such as a mount to ride, then you can use this glass to direct your course. Simply look in the glass regularly as you travel, and it will show you the next part of the road ahead, until you come to our location. If you do not have means to travel, then you will use the liquid from the small vial also found in the pouch. Away from non-magical eyes, build a fire large enough for you to stand in. Pour the liquid onto this fire. When the flame changes color, step into the fire and say very clearly, “HOGWARTS.” You will be transported by magic from that fire to a hearth at the school location.

Please arrive on the last day of the weed-month, when you will be assigned to a teacher and given a bed. Lessons will begin the next day. We hope to see you here, well and eager to learn.

Signed:

Lady Rhonwen Hræfnsclawu

Helga Hunlafsdottir

Goderic de Grifondour, thegn of Salisberie

Salazar Slidrian

Helga marveled at the charmed parchment – which she could read with the help of the enchantment, even though it was written in Latin letters. They had done the enchantments late last night, and then used this master copy as a test. Sure enough, when they had sealed it and then opened it again, the page began to speak the written words aloud in their own voices. They had each used their voice for one paragraph – Rhonwen, Helga, Goderic, and Salazar last – and had each read their signed name in their own voice as well. Helga had insisted on this; she wanted the children to hear all four voices of the people who would be teaching them. The harpist’s charm had worked brilliantly, and now all that remained was to send them. Helga took a deep breath of the mild morning breeze.

“Are we ready, Rhonwen?”

“I think we must be, or we will begin to doubt ourselves,” Rhonwen replied. She picked up the satchel of letters and walked over to the first owl on the nearest perch. After shooing Goderic away from the bird before he got himself bitten (she could tell the owl was nearing the end of its patience, even if Goderic could not), she placed the first letter in the owl’s ponderous claws. “Arthur and Morgen of Weslege,” she recited, and tapped the scroll with her wand. The parchment glowed a pale blue for just a moment and then was dull again. At Rhonwen’s nod, the owl-keeper unlatched the owl’s tether, and the bird launched itself into the brightening sky, flying fast and hard due south toward Devenescire.

Rhonwen repeated the process for each scroll, going down the line of owls, giving each bird a letter and then investing it with the name of its recipient. When she had addressed the final parchment – to “Ysolt and Brictric Blæc of Hexworthy” – she closed the empty satchel and then stood back with a deep breath. The four of them watched the big bird winging its way southwest, following its progress until it was lost against the white-gold clouds of the summer morning. When they had stood quietly for a minute or two, the owl-keeper threw open the hatch door that led down into the tower and began carrying the empty owl perches back inside.

From deep inside his hood, Salazar murmured, “Since you’ve dragged me out into the sunlight for this, Rhonwen, can you at least feed me some breakfast?” Rhonwen smiled at him, and gave his shoulders a quick squeeze while he was too sleepy to flinch away.

“Yes, but we’ll make it a quick one and then get straight back to the School. We have a lot of work to do, and only one summer in which to do it.”

Chapter Text

The days rolled on toward midsummer and then past it, mild breezes sweet with heather and pine growing heavier with the warmth of high summer and then settling into a weighty stillness as weed-month approached. Helga, who had never been further north than Yorvic, was amazed to see the sun remaining so long in the sky and setting so near to midnight, creating seemingly endless summer days full to bursting with pleasant golden sunshine that reflected off the loch, and hillsides that rippled with the pink, white, and orange of wildflowers dancing in the mischievous highland breeze. The long hours of sunlight were a blessing put to good use by Williame, Rhonwen’s wizard builder, who arrived with his assistant Heranal about a week after their owl had been dispatched. He and Rhonwen spent his first day there seated at the kitchen table – which had been moved out of doors to take advantage of the fair weather – poring over their drawings and plans, with Williame making adjustments here and there where he saw a need for a more stable construction. Meanwhile, Heranal led Helga, Salazar, and Goderic on a trek over the neighboring hillsides until they found what his wand had been leading them to – an outcropping of fine, strong granite that stretched the whole length of the hill and looked as if it had been lightly quarried once before, likely by the Roman soldiers who had built Salazar’s little castellum in the first place. With Heranal teaching them the proper spells and guiding their work, the four of them quarried large piles of the stone and floated it all back to the edge of the loch to be shaped into blocks for building. Bihotza the house-elf discovered she had quite a knack for the masonry spell, forming a perfectly smooth rectangular block with every snap of her fingers, and so she was placed in charge of the task of block-making while the others quarried more stone as needed or worked with Williame to begin putting the blocks to use.

A few days after they began to build, Goderic’s man Hankertonne arrived, flying in on a massive Aethonan horse and bearing another man riding behind him. Hankertonne was stout, strong-jawed and a little stooped, and would have seemed fierce had it not been for the permanent look of exasperation that left no room for any other sentiments on his face. There was much hand-clasping and name-exchanging, and Hankertonne introduced them to his passenger, an elderly man named Alric Wintermilk of Wixamtree who had come to answer their request for a keeper of grounds and animals. The two men had met in the village of Glasghu, where a few wizarding families kept some farms around the church of St. Mungo; upon discovering they were travelling to the same place, they had pooled their resources and bought the winged horse for the rest of their journey. Alric hoped the fine Aethonan, a fit young mare, could be the start of a small stud of horses he could keep at the school for teaching purposes. Wintermilk was a small and fragile-looking man whose whole body seemed as wispy as his white hair, and the consternation must have shown on their faces, for he assured them that he was more hale and fit than he looked. “And besides, one does not have to be battle-ready and strong to care for beasts,” he told them smilingly. “I have always found that a gentle hand and quiet mien do more to help in husbandry than muscles and swift feet.” Helga liked the old man instantly.

With the addition of two more wands to their number, the building began to make real progress. By Midsummer Day, the basic structure had been completed, and what had once been Salazar’s simple hermitage was now a broad and square building with an upper and lower floor, a gabled roof, and towers at each corner that soared up even higher to culminate in lofty third floor rooms. Heranal, Rhonwen, and Salazar now set to work on the inside of the school – putting in doors and windows, expanding the cellars, and building hearth boxes – while Williame led Helga, Goderic, and Hankertonne in the building of the defensive wall that would enclose the school courtyard. Left to his own devices, Alric Wintermilk set about developing the grounds inside and outside the walls; he cleared a path a short way into the forest which stopped at a pleasant clearing, dug a well for drinking water, and began to create enclosures that would soon house the magical creatures he hoped to introduce to the students. With the help of Bihotza, he also plowed and seeded a winter garden with leafy greens and root vegetables hardy enough to go into the ground in a month when most other crops were near to coming out of it. He and the house-elf walked the rows together after planting, casting growth charms on the little lumps of soil, ensuring that each would produce a plant of exceptional quality and size for a full harvest.

At the beginning of the weed-month Goderic apparated back to Lundenburh, armed with a parchment listing the number of expected students and the estimated sums needed to keep them. He was absent for nearly four days, which was just long enough for Helga to begin to worry; but at midmorning on the fourth day he reappeared in the now-finished courtyard alongside five heavily-laden pack horses bearing the first loads of supplies he had purchased from Lundenwic markets. It appeared that King Æthelræd had been generous with his endowment. Goderic and Rhonwen made a number of journeys over the next fortnight to markets in various parts of the island, purchasing kitchen supplies and seed for the garden, wool and linen for bedding and cloaks for the children, parchment and quills and ink, and potion ingredients that could not be found in the highlands. Goderic even purchased a cow on one journey – much to Salazar’s dismay – because he insisted that children must be fed milk or they would wither and die. Salazar spent that whole day sulking indoors, watching Alric Wintermilk coo and fuss over the animal from an upper window, and refusing to come outdoors again until the cow was hidden away from him in a makeshift shed.

On Goderic’s final journey to Lundenburh, about a fortnight before the students were due to arrive, he brought back with him not pack animals but two handsome speckled jennet horses, which were being ridden by an equally handsome witch and wizard. The man, who wore an odd little pointed hat instead of a cloak’s hood, was just beginning to sprout grey hairs in a dark beard that was also small and pointed. Helga could see all sorts of unfamiliar wizarding contraptions poking out of the bags tied to his saddle. The woman riding beside him was a statuesque beauty, with only the faintest hint of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes betraying her age – the edges of the hair that peeped out from under her exotic silk scarf were still jet black. When she swung herself down from the jennet, the fluttering edges of her cloak revealed a lining covered in tiny embroidered stars. Both newcomers spoke with the same oddly lisping accent as Bihotza – although it was much more melodious in their mouths than in the reedy voice of an elf. Salazar came out to greet them with slightly more enthusiasm than his customary sulk usually allowed, clasping the man’s hand warmly and giving the woman an elegant bow, and introduced them to the rest as Hoshea and Ya’el, the new keepers of the Hogwarts kitchens. Helga found them both endlessly fascinating, and she spent the rest of the day with them in the underground kitchen, helping them organize the foodstuffs and plying them with questions about their home in Vasconia. Salazar also spent the day hovering about the kitchen door – to be sure his parents’ old friends told her no embarrassing stories of his childhood.

The final fortnight of preparation was spent largely in Salazar’s former kitchen, which was now arranged as the meeting room for the school staff. Rhonwen took them through a list of lists, crossing off every last detail they could think of. They recited their rosters of classes and students until they were memorized, and agreed who would take which of the four large classrooms at which time. Alric Wintermilk gave an inventory of which magical creatures he planned to teach the students about, and Rhonwen laid out a schedule for when students would go out of doors to hear his lessons. They agreed upon fixed times for each meal with Hoshea and Ya’el, and made plans for a large feast on the night of the students’ arrival.

Hunlaf arrived with both his and Goderic’s wards on the evening before the other students were due to appear. Sœtr the crup sprang out of his shoulder bag before he had even let go of the children’s hands and promptly went careening out the door and into the forest, barking uproariously at all the unfamiliar scents; he returned a few minutes later with a dead adder dangling from his mouth, his forked tail vibrating with self-satisfaction. Saeric and Hnossa stood in the cavernous entryway and gaped up at the staircase that led to the dormitories, dumbfounded at being inside such a large building that was not a church, while Walrand, Rodolphus, and Aluric had to be wrestled down by Hunlaf to stop them claiming beds before they knew which dormitory was theirs. Eaderic stood by his brother, fussily adjusting his cloak and trying to pretend that he had not been about to dash up the stairs with them. Hnossa’s baby brother Harald sat contentedly in the floor at Helga’s feet, his mouth sealed shut by a sticky bun Ya’el had given him.

Rhonwen’s musician Aneirin arrived with Helena a few hours later, just in time for the evening meal. Their appearance was followed almost immediately by a loud clatter of armor and hooves as a tiny Cymraeg pony apparated into the middle of the entrance hall, with none other than a battle-ready Cadwgan on its back.

“My lady cousin!” he was shouting before the air had even settled around his pony’s mane and tail. “That reprehensible and traitorous harp-man has absconded with thy daughter, my lady! Direct me to him and I will cut him down where he stands! I will—”

“Uncle Dwg!!” Helena shouted at him over the clanging of his helmet flaps. “Uncle Dwg, stoppit! He brought me so I could go to school with the other children, Mother told him to bring me!” She stood with her little hands on her hips and glared at him until he registered what she had said. When his sword lowered a fraction, Rhonwen stepped forward and gave him a long-suffering smile.

“Thank you, cousin Cadwgan, for being so concerned. I assure you, no children here have been kidnapped, least of all my own. But – I do have a quest for you, should you choose to accept it.”

“A quest, lady cousin?!” Cadwgan said perkily, jerking the pony’s reins tight enough to make the poor creature’s eyes bulge.

“Yes, Cousin. We need a worthy champion to patrol the environs of this school and see to it that the children are kept safe here – that non-magical folk do not enter, nor any magical ones who might bring harm. Would you be our stalwart guardian, cousin Cadwgan?”

Cadwgan’s watery little eyes became even wetter, and he snapped his sword in a motion of salute. “I shall stand a bulwark between thee and the ravaging hordes, though they come by land or by sea, and hold fast ‘gainst every foe whether he be one man or a hundred, yea, even the whole host of Hell, and I shall fight until every one be slain, or til I perish myself in the effort and return unto the hands of the Almighty.” And with that, he lifted his sword above his head and charged his exhausted pony out into the courtyard. Rhonwen twitched her wand at the front doors, and they slammed shut behind him.

“Good. That should keep him busy for a while.”

The morning of the last day of weed-month dawned with a pale golden sunrise in a sky streaked with powder-blue clouds. Goderic and Salazar had arisen before the first tendrils of light had cleared the hills on the horizon and had set to work in the courtyard, aided by Hankertonne and Wintermilk, building the large fire that would enable any child who wished to arrive by hearth. They built it broad and low, so that it was wide enough to accommodate two children standing abreast and so the flames would not go above the children’s heads. In the cellars below the school, Hoshea and Ya’el had also been awake since before dawn, firing the newly-built ovens and loading them with numerous loaves of bread and other dishes – small loaves for children who arrived early in the day, as well as hearty foods for the great feast they would have that night. As the first rays of sunrise began to filter in through the tall slit windows of the dining hall, Bihotza found Helga wandering among the five large tables, straightening benches for the fifth time since she’d risen that morning.

“Mistress Helga should come outside now,” the elf whispered. “Childrens will be arriving soon.”

“I feel as if I’ve been preparing all of this for so long,” Helga mused, wiping at a spot of dust on one of the tables, “that I can hardly sit down and comprehend that it’s ready.”

“Mistress Helga has done a fine job,” Bihotza crackled. “Nothing else to do in here, Mistress. Come with Bihotza.” The house-elf held up her spindly hand, and Helga took it with a smile and a deep breath.

“Alright, Bihotza. Let’s go and wait for the children to arrive.”

When they came out into the courtyard they found Goderic and Salazar tending the merry hearth-fire and Rhonwen standing sentinel with her roster of students and her quill, ready to cross out names as each child appeared. Bihotza snapped her fingers and summoned three stools from somewhere inside, inviting Rhonwen to sit alongside her and Helga in the dewy grass at the edge of the fire’s heat. Helga noticed that Hoshea and Ya’el had set up a table near the entrance that would soon hold warm bread for any early morning arrivals. Bihotza snapped her fingers again, and this time a basket appeared in her hands; it held several fresh loaves hot from the oven for them to break their own fasts while they waited.

About an hour after sunrise, when they had all begun to get warm and sleepy after the fresh bread and the fire, the orange flames dancing in the large hearth began to spit and crackle, and a moment later they turned an alarming shade of green. Helga popped up off her stool in anticipation, clenching her fingers against the folds of her dress. The fire gave a few more pops and spat some sparks, and then a figure appeared in a whoosh of flames. A young boy stepped out of the hearth and stumbled into the wet grass, looking around him hesitantly and coughing out a bit of smoke. Helga thought he might be about ten or eleven years old, although perhaps a bit small for his age. He had messy black hair which was now covered in a sprinkling of cinders, and large eyes that were the precise shade of green of a pond full of plants and fish. He brushed soot from his clothes and looked at each of the adults in turn.

“Am I early?” he said cautiously. “The letter didn’t say what time of day.”

“You’re not early,” Goderic reassured, “but you are the first.”

“What’s your name?” Rhonwen asked, unrolling her list. The boy gave up brushing at soot and stood straighter.

“Linnræd, of Wessex,” he replied. Rhonwen scanned her list and made a mark.

“Ah, yes,” she said. “You come to us not quite as an orphan, I believe?” She was scanning her notes in the margins of the list. The boy nodded.

“My father died fighting Danes for the king. My mother does her best, but she’s ill and can’t really look after me or teach me magic.”

“Well, perhaps at Christmastide we might send you home to visit her,” Rhonwen smiled sympathetically. “In the meantime, we have some bread and cheese for you to break your fast. You can get some from that table over there, and then after you eat, you can go inside and introduce yourself to our children. Tonight when everyone has arrived there will be a feast, and you will be assigned a bed and learn which of us will be your guardian while you’re here. Go on now and get some bread.” She patted the boy’s shoulder and nudged him in the direction of Ya’el’s table. He grinned at the thought of food and started across the courtyard, stopping only as Helga caught hold of his hand.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” she beamed, and the boy beamed back at her before galloping away to get his breakfast.

About half an hour after Linnræd had wolfed down his breakfast and gone inside, the next two children arrived, a brother and sister who stepped out of the fire clasping hands. Their arrival seemed to open the floodgates; they had no sooner gotten their bread and cheese from the table when another boy appeared – not through the hearth, but walking through the gates – and then another, this one on a flying horse. His mount was a beautiful Aethonan stallion, and groundskeeper Wintermilk was overjoyed when the boy said he could keep the horse to sire his school herd. By midday four more students had arrived through the hearth, including another brother and sister pair, prompting Bihotza to summon a couple of long tables and benches out onto the grass so the children could be served a midday meal. There were nearly a score of them now, including the children who had come with Helga and her companions, and the newly built courtyard echoed with squeals, running footsteps, and raucous laughter.

A little before the None hour, Helga noticed three dark specks against the clear brightness of the sky which seemed to grow larger, or nearer, she supposed, as she watched them.

“What is that?” Salazar mused, coming to stand beside her and shading his eyes. Helga shook her head; they weren’t birds – or, at least, they showed no signs of flapping wings – and they weren’t in the shape of any sort of flying creature Helga recognized. Rhonwen and Goderic came to see what they were staring at, and for a few moments all four of them were silent as they watched the dark objects grow larger and more defined. Suddenly, Goderic gave a sharp intake of breath.

“What is it?” Helga asked, wondering if they should worry. But Goderic’s face had begun to split into an enormous grin.

“BROOMS,” he beamed, looking for a moment like a small boy holding his first sword. “They’re riding brooms!” Helga had a faint recollection of Goderic telling her that wizards in Saxony had begun bewitching brooms for riding, but before she could nod or reply, he was gone – Goderic had galloped over to the nearest table and climbed up onto it, much to the amusement of the children sitting below him, and he began waving his arms ecstatically at the three fliers now rapidly approaching the courtyard walls. “Clear a space for them to land, everyone!” he barked, and his companions backed up against the tables quickly. All the children had now taken notice and were watching the newcomers as well, the wild swells of noise simmering down into ripples of excited whispers. A minute or so later, they all craned their necks to watch as three children glided over the walls and landed with soft thumps on the grass. They were two girls and a boy, all three looking a little wind-whipped and frizzy-haired from their flight. The boy and the older girl were clearly twins, both with the same jet-black hair and sallow, delicate complexions; the younger girl was their antipode, all wild golden curls and ruddy, bright face. Helga noticed that all three wore cloaks made of very fine, expensive cloth.

Rhonwen approached the trio with her scroll and quill, but before she could ask them their names, Goderic had leapt down from the table and cut her off, heading straight for the boy and his broom.

“Are those the bewitched brooms from Saxony I’ve heard tell of?” he grinned, crouching to the boy’s height. “Jesu, I’ve wanted to get my hands on one. Can I see that?” He held out his hands, and the boy immediately flinched away from him, drawing the broom to his chest. Helga thought that if he’d been a cat, he would have hissed. The girl who was clearly his sister smacked his shoulder lightly with the back of her hand.

“He won’t steal it, Brictric,” she murmured. “He’s one of our teachers.” When her brother still made no move, she sighed and held out her own broom. “Here.” Goderic took the broom from her hands and stood up, turning it over and back again, brushing the twigs at the bottom against his palm, and holding the handle-end up close to his eyes like a child playing with a looking-glass. He was grinning wide enough that Helga thought his jaw might fall off. After a lengthy inspection, Goderic lowered the broom to knee-level and swung his leg across it, quivering with anticipation. “Can I ride it?”

“It’s too small for you,” the younger girl said, although her eyes were daring him to try it anyway.

“Nonsense,” Goderic laughed. “How does it work?”

“They answer your voice and your hands, like a horse,” the older girl explained. “Once you’re up, you can tell it to take you somewhere, or you can steer it. To begin you just get on and tell it to go.”

Goderic bent his knees a little and pulled the small broom in against his body. “So I just do this, and tell it to go uP—AAAAAGGGHHHHH!!” The broom shot up into the air like an arrow from a bow, taking Goderic with it. The courtyard full of children cheered and waved, getting up from their seats or climbing onto the benches to point and follow him as he zipped in wild circles around the school towers, apparently completely out of control.

“Also like a horse,” the dark-haired girl muttered, “they know when a rider is inexperienced.” Only those standing close by could hear her, and the little golden-haired girl laughed merrily into cupped hands. Helga looked around; across the courtyard, she saw Cadwgan spurring his little pony to its top speed, trying to keep pace with Goderic and stay beneath him to break his fall. Rhonwen put her hand over her face and went to try and help get him down. Salazar was doubled over on the grass, wheezing with laughter, his face merrier than Helga had yet seen it since they had met.

“Shouldn’t we do something, Salazar?” she pressed, fighting back a grin of her own. Salazar coughed and spat a tendril of his hair out of his mouth.

“I am doing something,” he sputtered. “I’m laughing, which is much more taxing than I remembered.”

“It’s all right,” the broom’s owner said calmly. “It’ll bring him back down on its own, eventually.”

“Eventually?” Helga smiled, and the little girl showed the ghost of a grin in return.

“Yes, eventually. When it gets bored.”

Goderic finally came back to earth nearly half an hour later, after the broom began taking low circling passes around the tables before finally stopping abruptly and dumping him in a heap near the open front doors. Far from learning his lesson, he got up as soon as his dizziness subsided and went straight to his bedchamber for quill and parchment, intent on immediately writing to a friend in Saxony about acquiring a correctly-sized broom for himself. While he had been airborne, another child had arrived, a youth who looked to be already in his teen years although scrawny and underfed. He had apparently walked most of the way, had been walking nearly since he’d received his letter, and Helga made him sit on the grass in the shade of the school with a jug of water. Rhonwen crossed him off her list as Bihotza and Hoshea began floating the tables back inside, replacing them in the dining hall in preparation for the evening’s feast.

“Is that all of them?” Salazar drawled, as though he rather hoped it was all of them; he had pulled up his hood against the afternoon sun and was stood in the shade of the walls like a grim statue. Rhonwen tapped the end of her quill against the parchment as she counted.

“All but one,” she answered after a moment. “We’re still waiting for the little girl from Kent. She had the furthest to come, so I thought she might be the last. And her family were not magic, so she might be afraid of using the fire.”

“Are you sure she’s coming?” Goderic said absently, watching the owl he had just sent disappearing into the afternoon clouds.

“She sent the owl back with the seal, like we requested,” Rhonwen shrugged. “I hope nothing has happened to delay her.”

“Or worse,” Salazar muttered from deep in his hood. He glared at the sun as though willing it to move further toward the horizon. For quite some time, the four of them stood and watched the courtyard gate, listening for a knock, Goderic occasionally walking over to stoke the lowering hearth fire just in case she was coming that route after all. Around them in the courtyard, the children were quieting down to a low simmer of conversation, sitting on the grass in little groups of two and three as the hour drew closer to Vespers. Hoshea and Ya’el had retreated to the kitchens to begin putting the feast onto platters, and Helga watched as sparks of light began to glitter on the surface of the loch, thrown there by the torches Bihotza had gone into the dining hall to light. Salazar had finally taken down his hood as the heat from the afternoon sun began to mellow. He leaned his head back against the stone of the outer wall, enjoying the shade provided by the lintels of the gate.

“Hello, excuse me, but is this the school, or whatever you call it?”

Salazar shot halfway across the courtyard, letting out a stream of words that Helga could only assume were curses in the Vasconian language. A transparent head was floating just a few inches from where Salazar had been standing, protruding through the closed gate the way a solid person would lean through a window. It was the head of a man of about thirty years, with sharp eyes and no beard, and a great deal of messy hair that Helga thought might have been copper-colored, had the man not been so very obviously a ghost whose whole visage was a wispy, translucent blue. Of course, Helga had dealt with ghosts before, and she assumed Salazar had as well; but it did tend to be quite startling when one of them appeared unannounced in places they were not expected. The ghost head swiveled, looking around at the courtyard, the children, and the four adults in front of him.

“Awfully sorry,” he said, nodding at a still-breathless Salazar. “But as I said, is this that school thing? Hogs-wart, or whatever the name is? It’s just that I’ve got a girl out here – a live one,” he added, as though they might need that specified, “who’s got a letter from some people running a school, and I don’t plan to plop her down anywhere until I know I’ve got the right place.”

“Ah,” Rhonwen sighed, relieved, and pulled out her parchment. Salazar was still standing with his hand on his chest, no doubt counting heartbeats to be sure he wasn’t missing any; Helga patted him on the shoulder before approaching the ghost in the gate.

“It is that place, sir,” she smiled, dipping her head a little in greeting. “We’ve been expecting one more little girl, and so you are very welcome. I am Helga Hunlafsdottir.”

“Alfgeat,” the ghost replied, giving a low bow that looked rather disconcerting, considering they couldn’t see any of him below the collarbone. “Any chance of getting this gate open? Little one’s a bit too alive to come in my way.”

“Oh! Right,” Helga chuckled. She and Goderic each tapped one side of the gate with their wands, and the wooden doors creaked open to reveal Alfgeat the ghost floating a few inches off the path; beside him stood a very small, very tired-looking girl of about eight years – but with eyes that looked much, much older. She carried a doll under one arm that had seen better days, and in her other hand she clutched the scrap of glass she had used to find her way. Rhonwen stepped forward to greet her.

“Mildryth?” she asked gently. When the little girl nodded, Rhonwen smiled at her and held out her hand. “Come along. My daughter has been very interested to meet you – and in just a little while, we’re going to have a feast!” Mildryth took Rhonwen’s hand and followed her across the courtyard to where the other children sat in the grass; Alfgeat hovered uncertainly on the path at the threshold, watching her go.

“Ehm…,” he began, looking a little lost. When he saw that Goderic was about to shut the gates, he floated quickly inside, scratching an imaginary itch on the back of his transparent neck. “I don’t suppose I could haunt your feast, could I? Sort of… float through the food, maybe catch a little taste? Eh?”

Helga smiled at him knowingly. “Alfgeat, if you wish to stay and keep watch over the girl, you’re very welcome. I think you must have guarded her a very long way.”

“Oh, no, no…,” Alfgeat scoffed. “Just… just from Hertfordscire, that’s… that’s not so far, is it?”

“Welcome to Hogwarts, Alfgeat,” Helga smiled. “Come on, you can be our very own school ghost.”

“Providing you promise not to insert yourself through any more walls where I am standing,” Salazar muttered grumpily. Goderic pounded him on the back and laughed, and the four of them followed Rhonwen and Mildryth across the courtyard to where Bihotza had just thrown open the doors for the feast.

The sun hovered just above the surface of the loch as Helga and her companions took their seats, painting the rippling water outside the dining hall windows with bands of red, orange, and gold. Goderic, Rhonwen, Helga, and Salazar sat at the center of the long table that had been laid perpendicular to the other four at the far end of the hall. Hankertonne and Wintermilk sat with them on Goderic’s end of the table alongside Helga’s father, who had agreed to stay for the feast, and Hoshea and Ya’el took places at Salazar’s end, where they could easily slip back to the kitchens if another dish of something needed prepared. Cadwgan had refused to eat at table, preferring to take his meal outdoors “where he could remain always vigilant ‘gainst whatever evils might lurk beyond the walls.” Aneirin the harpist had bewitched his lyre to play a soft tune from a windowsill, and now he stood by the hall doors awaiting orders, with Bihotza at his side. Helga saw that Bihotza had done something to the torches, some charm that made them sparkle as though they were full of fairy light, and the effect was truly lovely. The children had been gathered in the entrance room to await the start of the feast; now, at a signal from Rhonwen, Aneirin opened the hall doors and ushered them in. There was an immediate rush of slapping feet and children’s voices – punctuated by excited howls from Sœtr the crup – that filled the hall and made Helga’s heart swell. When all the children had found a seat and some measure of order had been regained, Goderic leaned over Rhonwen’s plate and prodded Helga with his wand handle.

“Are you going to make a speech?”

“What, now?” she whispered. “Absolutely not, they’re starving and so am I. But I suppose I can at least open the feast properly.” She stood up, eliciting a wave of loud whispers from the children. Helga tapped her wand against her drinking goblet, and a single bell-like note rang throughout the room, silencing the murmuring. “Hello, students!” she began, hardly able to contain her excitement long enough to get her words out. “Later this evening we will do the business we came here for – we’ll introduce ourselves, we’ll all get to know each other formally, and we’ll decide which of you will be responsible to which teacher. All of that will come. But right now, we are a room full of people with hungry bellies, and that is no state in which to make decisions. So first we will eat. Take whatever you like, because there is plenty, and no one will leave the table hungry. Welcome to Hogwarts!” There was a great deal of hand-clapping and table-thumping from the students as Helga sat down, and she blushed in spite of herself. Salazar nodded to Bihotza, who stood in front of the teachers’ table. The elf lifted one hand high where all the students could see, and snapped her long fingers.

Across the room, all five tables suddenly filled with platters of food. In the center of each table, there appeared a large cauldron of stew flanked by baskets of bread on each side. There was a roast of venison, a roast of mutton, platters of fowl and fish – there was even a peafowl served with its tail feathers displayed, courtesy of Goderic’s flock back in King’s Worthy. Scattered amongst the stews and roasts and breads were numerous small bowls and platters of dishes Helga could not identify – exotic foods from Salazar’s homeland, prepared by his old friends’ expert hands. Helga plied him with questions about each one as they ate, and he answered her grudgingly between mouthfuls. The children’s tables were displays of pure chaotic joy, and Helga’s cheeks began to hurt from smiling as she watched them while she ate. Several children were eating so fast she was worried they would be sick – in particular, the tall dark boy from the far north islands seemed unable to eat fast enough. He would barely chew anything, shoving food into his mouth like someone who feared they might never see food again. Helga could see how thin he was, how sunken his dark eyes had become, and she wondered when he had last had a full meal. Hnossa and Harald had eaten like that for a few days when they’d first come to her, and remembering that made her heart feel like bursting.

Thinking of Hnossa now, Helga looked for the girl’s face among the crowd. She found her near the end of one of the tables, sitting between Saeric and a quiet, swarthy boy with dark brown curls. The quiet boy was stoically eating his way through a whole loaf of bread while Hnossa chattered endlessly, having found a perfect audience in a boy whose mouth was always too full to answer her back. At another table, Goderic’s brother Eaderic had taken up with the older boy who’d arrived late that afternoon, and they seemed to be talking very seriously about things they clearly thought the younger children wouldn’t understand. Walrand stood on a bench near the middle of the room, the consummate entertainer, and all the children in his immediate vicinity were roaring with laughter. And tucked into a corner at the end of a bench, Helena and Mildryth had their heads together in some private conversation. Helga looked down the high table at her father, who was pouring Hankertonne another cup of ale, and caught his eye. Hunlaf’s gaze flickered out over the tables full of children and then back to his daughter, and he gave her a slow smile as he reached up to touch the rune amulet hidden in his thick copper chest hair. You did this, daughter, his eyes said, you did what you set out to do, and your mother is as proud tonight as I am. Putting down the jug, he raised his cup in her direction, and Helga returned the gesture with her own goblet, wiping her cheek dry with the other hand as she took a sip.

When the feasting had gone on long enough that even the wildest children were beginning to grow drowsy with food and exhaustion, Rhonwen reached over and touched Helga’s hand. “I think it’s time we begin the assigning of students, don’t you? Before they’re all so full and sleepy that they can’t remember which of us they belong to?”

“Mm, you’re right,” Helga said around the last mouthful of her wine. She reached over and tapped Salazar’s hand. “Salazar, you said you wanted first pick.”

“Yes, well, someone has to get their attention first, and it isn’t going to be me,” he grumbled, pouring himself another goblet of wine and burying his face in it. Rhonwen squeezed Helga’s wrist encouragingly.

“I think it’s time for that speech now.”

“I’m not giving a speech!” Helga protested. “You’re the one with the plans, Rhonwen, and the lists. It should be you making all the pronouncements!”

“It’s your school,” Rhonwen said quietly. Helga sputtered.

“It’s our school, you know I—”

“But it was your idea,” Goderic countered from Rhonwen’s other side. “This whole mad adventure was of your imagining. I think it’s only fitting that you be the voice explaining it to the children.”

“Go on, Helga Hoggle-Poggle,” Salazar smirked into his goblet. “Your audience is waiting for you.”

“Ha ha,” Helga retorted at Salazar, because it was all she could think of; but she stood up from her seat and tapped her goblet with her wand, making the bell-like note sound throughout the room again. The children fell silent, and many of them turned to sit sideways on the benches to get a better view. Helga came out from behind the teachers’ table and stood in front of it, clearing her throat.

“Hello again!” she began, smiling at the children warmly. “I think you have all feasted well and eaten your fill, and so now I would like to formally welcome you all to the Hogwarts School of Magic. You are here, first and foremost, because you are all young witches and wizards who must be taught magic; and secondly, because for a variety of reasons you have no one at home to teach you. Most of you are orphans; a few of you were abandoned, or have parents who are ill, or who are not magical, or who are far away from you and out of your reach. These reasons are unimportant now, because as students here you are all equals. Your birth and your circumstances are irrelevant, and you will be evaluated in one thing only – your commitment to learning magic.” She paused for a moment, letting her words sink in. When she felt she had been understood, she went on.

“In a few moments, my fellow teachers will join me in introducing themselves to you, and then we would like you each to introduce yourselves to us. You will then each be assigned to one of us as your head teacher. Let me explain what that means: you will all attend lessons together, in groups based on your level of ability, and you will all share sleeping quarters based upon your sex; you will take lessons from all four of us at various times and regard each of us as an authority; but your head teacher will be directly responsible for you and a handful of your classmates. They will be a sort of mentor for you as you learn and grow. If you need extra help or guidance, you should ask your head teacher first. If two of you have a disagreement, you should ask your head teacher to mediate. If you behave badly and must be punished, your head teacher will decide your appropriate punishment. If you are ill, you should let your head teacher know. And if the school is ever in danger, although that is unlikely, it is your head teacher who will be responsible for making sure you are safe and accounted for. Does everyone understand?” There was mostly silence from the children, with a few nodding heads and murmurs of yes here and there. Since nobody appeared dreadfully confused, Helga took that as an affirmative.

“Now,” she pressed on, motioning for the others to join her. “We have each agreed that we should take on the students who we think would be best suited to our particular ways of teaching. My companions are now going to introduce themselves, and tell you a little about what they will expect as your teachers. Salazar, why don’t you begin?” She said this last quietly as Salazar came round the table, and he swallowed the drink he was in the middle of taking before beginning a grudging speech of his own.

“I am Salazar Slidrian,” he began, and Helga was surprised at the amount of volume he could command with his normally soft and delicate voice. “My parents came to this land from Vasconia across the sea. I am very good at potion making, at illusions and transfiguring, and I know a great deal about exotic kinds of magic not often used here in the land of the English. You will receive your lessons in these topics from me. I value ambition and desire in students, and will not be a pleasant teacher for you if you do not have a hunger to succeed. If I choose to be your head teacher, it will be because you seemed ready to make bold choices, willing to make careful plans, and hungry to make a name for yourself in whatever branch of magic you choose to call your own.”

There was a silence following Salazar’s words, and Helga thought she saw the older boy who had been talking to Eaderic sit up a little straighter. Then Rhonwen stepped forward and held up a hand to the children. “I am Rhonwen ferch Eryr, now the Lady Hræfnsclawu. My father’s family are an old wizarding clan of Gwynedd in Cymru, and my husband’s family sit on the gemót for Northumbria. My areas of specialty are in divination, runes, arithmancy, and complicated charm work, as well as languages and history. You will learn these types of magic from me – and if you come to us unable to read or write, as many of you do, you will learn letters from me as well. Above all else, I value your mind. I want students who desire to learn everything they can learn, who love things that are detailed and complex, and who would rather sharpen their wit than their blades. I will choose students who I believe would fight with their intellect before they took out their wand.” As Rhonwen stepped back, Helga smothered a grin as Helena crossed her little arms on the table – clearly, she’d heard that speech before, and clearly, she herself would much rather be using a wand.

“I am Goderic de Grifondour, the Thegn of Salisberie,” Goderic said confidently, resting a hand on his sword hilt. “There will be occasions when I must leave the school for short times, because I am the wizard who stays close to the mundani king and keeps watch over our interests in his government. But don’t worry, I won’t let this take away from your lessons. I am skilled in the magic of combat and defense – and in non-magical forms of combat as well, so if you require lessons in swordplay, riding, or archery, those will come from me. My family motto is my motto for my students: audacia, fortitudo, dignitas. That means courage, steadfastness, and honor. I want students who are strong of will, who choose to ignore fear and reach for adventure, and who can plant their feet firmly in a belief and hold that position until the bitter end. If I select you as one of my students, it will be because I see in you the heart of a warrior – even if it is not reflected in your body.”

There were murmurs from some students at this, and some nudging of elbows. He knows how to make a speech, Helga thought wryly; then she stepped back into her former position at the front of the group. “And I am Helga Hunlafsdottir,” she smiled, “of Little Witchingham in the Danelaw. I am best at healing magic, and the magic in the world around us, creatures and plants. You will learn those things from me – and if you come to us with no magical learning yet at all, then you will begin with me, learning simple and ordinary magic – which, of course, is sometimes the most important kind. That is true of people as well. I think ordinary and simple people are the most important in the world, and that is all I need know about you. If the things the others have said do not sound like you at all, then you will find a place with me. All I ask of any student I take is that he or she works very hard, cares for others, and does not stop when the first effort fails.” She smiled over the group once more, knowing that her speech hadn’t been quite as stirring as Goderic’s; but at the far table, a chubby boy who was still picking at the leftover venison looked up at her brightly, and she felt a little more at ease. She nodded, to herself as much as to the children, and clapped her hands together.

“Well, then,” she announced. “Let’s begin sorting you out. Would all of you please get up from your seats and form a straight line, shoulder to shoulder, here in front of the teachers’ table?” There was a clatter of scraping benches and shuffling slippers as the score of children pulled themselves away from the remnants of the feast and muddled about at the front of the room, pushing and shoving, some trying hard to stand next to each other, some just trying not to touch anyone else. Behind them, Bihotza surreptitiously walked amongst the tables, snapping her fingers and vanishing scraps and dishes away to the kitchens. In the end the children’s line was not quite straight, but they were at least spread out enough to be seen. There were twenty-one of them, and so the four teachers had agreed to be responsible for five each, with one person taking a sixth child – which one would depend upon the personality of the last to be selected and who thought they were a better fit. When the children were still, Helga turned to Salazar.

“First pick, as promised,” she smiled. Salazar finished his wine and put the cup down indifferently behind him (much to Bihotza’s displeasure). Then he walked to the center of the line and crossed his arms, staring at the children silently just long enough for them to get nervous. He inhaled deeply; but when he exhaled, his mouth did not quite open.

“hLlllā!”

Everyone in the room froze. Even Helga, having heard Hnossa use the Serpent Speech not so long ago, shivered a little at the sound. Salazar was a grown man who had been speaking the strange tongue since he was a boy, and hearing it on his lips was not just unnerving, as it had been that day with Hnossa in the field – it was almost frightening. Two people in the room, however, were not frightened or wary. As soon as the sibilant echoes of the command died away, Hnossa detached herself from the line and came to stand at Salazar’s side. And from the other end of the line, the sallow boy who had refused to give Goderic his broom walked slowly over to join her. Salazar put one hand on each child’s shoulder and turned to Helga.

“I told them to come, and they came. These two are Parsel-mouths. I think they should be my first two students. That is, if you can bear to lose your ward.”

Helga bent and kissed Hnossa on the forehead. “She needs to learn her gift, and I think you’ll be a fine mentor for her.” She grinned as Hnossa ducked playfully away from her kiss, and then gestured to the boy. “Now who is this?”

“Tell us who you are, yes,” Salazar said, turning his attention to the boy in front of him. He was perhaps twelve, perhaps a bit older, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes that sparkled blackly like coal. He held himself upright, like a child of status, but his skin and hair were lackluster, as though he had long been ill or kept always indoors. “Your name?” Salazar asked again, but the boy only glared at him, as though evaluating whether the question was worth answering. “Hhhí fú?!” Salazar hissed sharply, and the boy flinched; but this time he answered.

“Brictric Blæc. Of Hexworthy.”

“Hexworthy?” Goderic interrupted. “Did your family have charge of the king’s coin mint there? Are you the son of Ecgberht the Blæc?” He waited for an answer, but the boy only glared at him, clearly only interested in speaking with Salazar. His sister waiting in line answered for him.

“That is our father, sir,” she offered, and Goderic grinned.

“You lent me your broom,” he remembered, and the girl smiled faintly.

“You nearly died.” When Goderic laughed heartily at this, she went on. “I am Ysolt Blæc. Our father was slain defending the mint from Danish raiders. Mother….” She paused, choosing her words. “Mother found remarriage difficult with us as her heirs, so—”

“Mother didn’t want us,” Brictric spat, looking at the floor instead of his sister. Salazar dropped to one knee and took the boy by the shoulders, forcing him to meet his eyes.

“Well, I want you,” he said forcefully. There was no tenderness in it, but incredible sincerity, and after a moment or two of silence, Brictric gave him a slow nod. Salazar nodded in return and stood up. “I want the two of you to go and sit at the table at the far right. That will be our table.” He gave Hnossa and Brictric a gentle shove in that direction, and when they had taken seats, he began to walk up and down the line, scanning the other students’ faces. He stopped in front of the older boy who stood beside Eaderic and crossed his arms. “What is your name, young man?”

“Eduardus Croc,” the boy replied timidly. Salazar looked him over.

“And how did you come by that name, Eduardus Croc?”

“The brothers at the abbey found my mother sleeping beneath a standing cross along the road,” the boy explained, “with me in her arms. She was a slave to some Danes and her master had got a child on her, so she ran away. She lived with the sisters in the nunnery, and the brothers raised me. I had to be careful to hide my magic from them.”

“And what do you want in life, Eduardus?” Salazar questioned. Eduardus stood up straight at this query, suddenly confident.

“Authority. To be a man who makes decisions, and to never be imposed upon the way my mother was imposed upon. To have no man remember that I was once a halfling Ishmael with every man’s hand against me.”

“Is there anything that would deter you from that goal, Eduardus?”

“No, sir,” Eduardus pronounced. The corner of Salazar’s mouth twitched with a nascent grin.

“Then I think you are the sort of student I want to teach. Go and have a seat with Hnossa and Brictric.”

“Thank you, Master Salazar,” Eduardus said, inclining his head a little before backing out of the line. Eaderic gave him a playful shove on the shoulder as he went, and he returned the gesture. Salazar watched Eaderic thoughtfully.

“I suppose you would prefer to remain under your brother’s tutelage?” he mused aloud. Eaderic looked up at him, eyebrows lifted, as though the question had not occurred to him.

“I hadn’t expected to have a choice,” he said matter-of-factly, glancing at Goderic for direction. Goderic fiddled with the pommel of his sword.

“You want to steal my brother from me, Salazar?”

“Steal has such unpleasant connotations,” Salazar grinned, tilting his head. “I simply see something in him that I believe suits my philosophies. Eaderic, where do you see yourself as a man? Your brother has the title of Salisberie; since it will go to his children and not to you, what place do you see for yourself?”

“A title of my own,” Eaderic answered quickly. “Land from the king, title of thegn in my own right, and a seat on the gemót beside my brother.”

“Yes, and I think you would like to be head of the gemót one day, if you can manage it. And how do you plan to lay hold of that seat and title?” Salazar prodded. Eaderic shrugged.

“In whatever way I can, Master Salazar.”

“Whatever way?”

“The firstborn can afford to have noble scruples,” Eaderic replied. “I cannot.”

“Excellent answer,” Salazar grinned. He turned to Goderic. “Oh, let me have him, Goderic, and I’ll owe you something later, I promise.”

Goderic’s thumb strayed to the gold ring that was attached to his sword hilt, turning it restlessly as he looked at his little brother. “Eaderic, is this what you want? To answer to Salazar instead of me?” The brothers regarded each other for a long moment, and Eaderic’s face softened into a little half smile.

“I think I’d like you to be my brother again, and not my father,” he said gently. “All the years you should have been bullying me and sparring with me and getting me into mischief as brothers do, you’ve instead had to worry about teaching me. Let someone else do that work now, Brother.”

Goderic took a moment to puzzle over this, still turning the sword ring restlessly between his fingers. Finally, he smiled wryly. “I think you’ve chosen a hard taskmaster, little brother, but as you wish.” He came forward and squeezed Eaderic’s shoulder, and Eaderic reached up to grip his brother’s wrist.

“Yes, well, when you’ve both finished having this emotional outburst, I still have one more student to pick,” Salazar smirked, insinuating himself between them and nudging Eaderic in the direction of the far-right table. Goderic chuckled and stepped back with the others, leaving Salazar free to examine the remaining students. He paced up and down the row, stopping in front of a few students to look at them more closely but not seeming to reach a decision. Rhonwen cleared her throat.

“Any day now, Salazar….”

“Contain yourself, Rhonwen,” Salazar murmured. “You commandeered my house; this is my payment.” He looked up and down the row again; Helga was about to suggest that he consider the Blæc boy’s twin sister, as he seemed so uncommunicative without her, when Salazar stopped in front of Aluric and crouched down.

“Aluric of Flictewicce,” the boy supplied before Salazar could ask. Salazar nodded appreciatively.

“I hear you are the son of an eorl, Aluric. Why aren’t you back home taking up his mantle?”

“That fell to my elder brother, Master Salazar.” There was a hint of irritation in the way he said it, and Salazar did not overlook it.

“You don’t care for your brother?”

“I don’t care to be told what to do, not unless I’m being told by someone who’s earned the right to do so.”

“Would you care to be told what to do by me, Aluric?” Aluric looked Salazar up and down, sizing him up the way Salazar had been evaluating the students, as if this was a hard question to answer. This made Salazar’s lips twitch with another suppressed grin, and Helga could tell he had already made his decision. Finally, Aluric tilted his head back and mimicked Salazar’s expression.

“On a trial basis,” he grinned. “My father told me never to make promises I couldn’t see the end of.”

“I like the sound of your father,” Salazar replied, and held out his hand to the boy. When Aluric clasped it with his own, Salazar stood up and turned to Helga. “Alright, Helga Honeypotter, I’ve chosen my five. Go on, then.” He sent Aluric off to sit with the others, where he was warmly greeted by Hnossa, as Helga glared at him for not using her correct name in front of the students.

“Salazar,” she hissed.

“Helgaaa…,” he hissed back, but he had a smirk on his face she knew she wouldn’t be able to wipe off. He laughed into his wine goblet as Helga turned back to the other two.

“Which of us next?” Goderic asked, and Helga waved her hands at them both dismissively.

“Oh, you two sort out which ones best suit you. I’ll take whichever children are left. I think they’re all brilliant.” Ignoring Salazar’s quiet scoff into his goblet, Goderic stepped forward.

“Well, since Salazar has stolen my brother from me, I would at least like to keep Walrand and Rodolphus. I’ve grown rather fond of them both.” He walked over and put a hand on each of their shoulders. Walrand grinned widely up at him, and Rodolphus dropped his head to hide his face behind his hair – but Helga could see a faint smile there as well.

“In that case,” Rhonwen interjected, “I’m laying claim to my daughter.” She walked over and laid a hand on Helena’s soft hair, and when she smiled down at her, Helena returned it – but for just a moment, Helga had thought she’d seen a flicker of disappointment cross the little girl’s face. “Helena, go and sit at the first table over there, that will be ours.” Rhonwen gave her daughter a little push, and Helena walked over to sit at the table on the far-left side of the room, her face in her hands. Goderic seated his two boys at the second table, and then he and Rhonwen moved to stand together at the center of the line of children.

“Now what?” Goderic said, and in response, Rhonwen pulled out her list of students and began scanning the names.

“I want to be your student, my lord Grifondour.”

Everyone turned to look at the end of the line, where a boy of about ten had stepped out and was marching toward the assembled teachers. His face was covered in a spray of freckles that went right up his forehead into his dark red-brown hair, and the set of his mouth promised infinite mischief – although there was something hollow and hard about his eyes. He planted himself directly in front of Goderic and looked up at him, undaunted by the difference in height. “You said you wanted warriors, and I am a warrior, sir. I want to learn magic to make heathen armies quiver in terror.”

Goderic knelt to be level with the boy, whose eyes looked ready to spit fire. “What business would you have with heathen armies, lad?” he asked softly, in a voice Helga hadn’t known he possessed. The boy jutted his chin forward.

“The business of bringing my mother home.”

“Ælfwine,” a girl’s voice whispered from the line behind him, “please don’t. Not again.” The girl looked very like the boy, and Helga saw they must be brother and sister. Goderic acknowledged the girl with a tilt of his head, but turned back to her brother.

“Ælfwine, is it?”

“Ælfwine Caccepol.”

“What has happened to your mother, Ælfwine?” Goderic murmured. The boy kept his chin jutted out, and Helga saw that he was doing so to keep from crying.

“Raiders from Duiblinn took her to the slave market. She is not dead,” he spat the two words in his sister’s direction, “and when I am a man, I will find her and bring her back.”

“Alone?” Goderic questioned, and the boy’s lips tightened.

“If I have to.”

“I believe you,” mused Goderic. He stood back up and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Go and sit at my table, Ælfwine, and God help Duiblinn when we finish teaching you here.” The boy shot another look at his sister and then half-ran to the second table, where he received a hearty slap on the back from Walrand and a timid smile from Rodolphus. Goderic moved to stand beside Rhonwen again, but before he got there, the boy’s sister had left the line and planted herself in front of Goderic’s table.

“Eadgyth Caccepol. Permission to accompany my brother?” she chirped. Her face was very like her brother’s, but her eyes were bright and warm where his had been hard. She was perhaps a year or two older than him, and Helga noticed with some surprise that her hair had been chopped off just below her ears, giving her an ethereal, elvish look. Goderic crossed his arms.

“Would you accompany him on his quest to Duiblinn?” he asked, and the girl smiled wryly.

“Obviously.”

“Even though you clearly think it’s a fool’s quest?”

“Even a fool’s quest can be a grand adventure, can’t it?”

Goderic laughed warmly at that. “Well said, Eadgyth. Yes, join your brother. I like adventurers as well as warriors.” He gave her a little bow as she danced off to his table, where her brother and Walrand greeted her by pounding their fists against the benches excitedly. When the noise had abated, Rhonwen stepped up and consulted her annotated list.

“Is there a boy here called Myrddin?” she inquired, her eyes flicking back and forth between the parchment and the line of students. A boy who had been standing aloof at one end of the line walked gracefully up to meet her and stood, awaiting her questions. He looked to be perhaps twelve or thirteen, and Helga thought he was the most exceptionally beautiful child she had ever seen; he had large, almond-shaped eyes the color of the sea set in a delicate, almost angelic face, and his hair was the same dark shade as Rhonwen’s, with the same red twinkles in the firelight. Rhonwen locked eyes with him for a moment. “Your whole name?”
            “Myrddin a’Pruwet,” he replied, and his voice was as lovely as his face. Rhonwen was nodding as though that meant something.

“And your namesake is not a coincidence?”

“Father told me our line was sired by the great wizard Myrddin,” he said matter-of-factly, “although I suppose that is difficult to prove.”

“You can prove it to me with your skills, then,” Rhonwen smiled shrewdly. “If your father was right, they should be prodigious. Go and sit with my daughter, please, Myrddin.” The boy nodded to her elegantly and went to take his seat. Helena took her head out of her arms to stare at him as her mother turned back to her list. “Starculf of Notton?” she read before looking up to see if she was answered. The swarthy, quiet boy who had been sat beside Hnossa at dinner stepped out of the line. Through his veil of dark curls, Helga thought she could see a face that still held traces of the ancient presence of the Romans on their island, with dreamy, far-away eyes. Rhonwen smiled as she stepped over to him. “Starculf?”

“Aye?” the boy murmured, as though he was not much used to talking.

“When my cauldron showed you to me, you were lying in a field gazing at the stars,” Rhonwen began. “Do you love them because of your name?”

“I wonder what’s up there,” the boy replied, speaking in the accent of the people north of the five boroughs. “Want to know about them, and whatever else I can’t see.”

Rhonwen smiled. “I like people who wonder about things. Wondering is how all knowledge is born. I’ll take you as my student as well. Go and sit at my table.” She gave the boy a gentle squeeze on the shoulder as he made his way to sit beside Myrddin; then she underlined something else on the list in her hand. “Linnræd?” she called.

The boy with the messy hair who had been the first to arrive that morning took a step forward, attempting to smooth down his cowlick now that everyone was looking at him. “My lady,” he greeted Rhonwen nervously. Rhonwen tapped her parchment.

“You have an interesting name, Linnræd. Is it a family name, or does it have personal relevance?”

“Oh, yes. That,” the boy shrugged. “Mother said I would move in her womb every time she walked near the village pond. And right after I was born, my crying brought grindylows to the surface. I talked to fish when I was little. I thought lots of people could do it – didn’t know it was unusual til I was older.”

“Yes, it’s an uncommon talent,” nodded Rhonwen. “One that I would like to see you develop, if you’ve a mind to apply yourself to your studies. Would that suit you?”

“Yes, my lady,” Linnræd said politely, holding back a grin. Rhonwen gestured to her table, and the boy patted down his cowlick one more time before running over to join the others. As Rhonwen looked back at her list, Goderic moved to stand beside her.

“Well, we each need one more,” he mused. “Shall I make another selection?” When Rhonwen waved her hand at him dismissively, Goderic took a step forward and motioned to the children. “Alright, close ranks, you lot. Let me get a look at who’s left.” The children dutifully moved in to form a smaller line. Eight students remained to be chosen, four boys and four girls. Goderic eyed each of them carefully, stroking his beard. “Let me ask,” he began after a long moment. “Do any of you have a particular desire to be my student?” The children glanced at each other, waiting for someone to speak. Finally, a boy with bright red hair and a spray of pale freckles across his nose stepped forward and bowed to Goderic with great formality.

“Take me, my lord de Grifondour.”

Goderic returned the boy’s bow with a dip of his head and regarded him carefully. “What’s your name, lad, and why would you prefer to be my student?”

“Arthur of Weslege, my lord,” the boy replied. “You said you wanted students who would become warriors. In truth, my lord, I don’t know if I am a warrior or not. But my father named me for our ancestor who was once king in this land, and a warrior is what he would want me to be.”

“You come from the line of Arthur? As in The Arthur?” Goderic breathed. The boy shrugged.

“So said our father. Not from the royal bed, but from one of his bastard sons. My sister could tell you the whole lineage from rote, but I’m not the best at lists. Anyway, I think our father would want me under the tutelage of the king’s thegn. I think he would find it fitting, and I want to honor him.”

“Do you value honor, Arthur of Weslege?” Goderic asked, and the boy stood a little straighter.

“Above most other things, my lord.”

“Then take your rightful place at my table,” Goderic said solemnly. As the boy began to bow again, Rhonwen stepped forward and placed a light hand on his shoulder.

“You said your sister could recite your ancestry from memory?” she asked excitedly. Arthur smiled at her.

“Yes, my lady. And I think you would do well to have her as a student, if I might be bold and suggest it. She does nothing but read and invent stories.” He turned back to the line and gave his sister a playful shove forward before taking his seat at the second table. Rhonwen reached out and took the girl’s hand.

“Morgen of Weslege,” the girl supplied, and Rhonwen consulted her notes.

“Yes, I see that my cauldron showed you surrounded by parchments and books,” Rhonwen nodded. “Tell me, Morgen, what do you love most in the world?”

“Cats,” the girl said immediately, and then hiccupped as though worried that was a wrong answer. “I mean… that is to say, if you mean what do I love to do most in the world, then I suppose it’s studying and writing. But cats are very helpful in that regard.” This made Rhonwen chuckle.

“Yes, I’ve also found them good companions for scholarship. Take a seat at my table, Morgen.” The girl made a little curtsey and took her seat next to Helena, giving the younger girl a friendly smile that was reciprocated gratefully. Having now put five children at her table, Rhonwen laid her parchment aside on the teachers’ table and turned to Helga. “Well, Helga, the three of us all have five students each,” she said. “Will you take the remaining six, or shall one of us take the sixth?”

“Not me,” Salazar said immediately, backing up and going to stand at the head of his table. Helga shrugged.

“I don’t mind, if—”

“Ahem…”

All four of them jumped at the interruption; they turned to see Alfgeat the ghost hovering behind the teachers’ table, looking to catch their eyes. When he saw that he was acknowledged, he floated through the table to hover close to Goderic’s ear.

“What is it?” Goderic asked, and Alfgeat cleared his transparent throat before leaning in to speak.

“My lord, I hoped you’d consider the little girl, Mildryth, as one of your students.”

“The girl you came here with?” Helga said, and the ghost nodded.

“Any particular reason?” Goderic inquired, and Alfgeat moved closer and dropped his voice low enough that Helga and Rhonwen could hear but the children could not.

“Because you want students who are brave,” the ghost whispered, taking a moment to collect his next words. “When I met this girl, she was sleeping in the ruins of my old village along the Wæcelinga road. She had walked all the way from Kent up past Lundenburh on her own, after watching her parents burn to death in their own house and being outed as a witch when she tried to use what little magic she had to put out the fire. She had to run from the villagers, live at the edge of settlements like an outlaw at eight years old, and after all that she’s more afraid of her own magic than she was of meeting a ghost for the first time. She’s terrified of being a witch – but she chose to walk all the way here anyway. Does that fit your definition of bravery, my lord? Because it does mine.”

Goderic stared at Alfgeat for a moment, taking in what he had said. Helga saw that the ghost’s eyes burned with a fierce, almost parental love for the girl. She watched as Goderic stroked his beard contemplatively; then he stepped back toward the children and beckoned the tiny girl to step forward. In the sparkling torchlight of the dining hall, Helga saw what she had missed in the late afternoon dimness outside; the girl’s face and hands had been washed clean, but her dress was old, tattered, and – to Helga’s dismay – stained with black soot. The hair of her doll had been singed and blackened as well, as though she had slapped the doll against some flames to put them out. Goderic knelt down in front of the tiny girl and took one of her hands as though he were speaking to a princess.

“Mildryth,” he said softly, “your friend Alfgeat thinks you should be my student. He says you have the heart of a warrior. Would you like to be a warrior, Mildryth?”

The little girl fidgeted for a moment before answering. “Father said we should all be warriors for God,” she murmured, looking more at her doll than at Goderic. He nodded gently.

“And if God called you into battle – would you be afraid?”

“I might be, sir,” Mildryth sniffled, picking at her doll’s singed hair. “But I hope I would be brave like Saint Lucia and Saint Felicitas.” There was a moment of silence, and then the girl lifted large blue eyes up to Goderic’s face. “Do you think God would answer my prayer for courage, if I am a witch?” Helga saw Goderic’s shoulders lift in a deep breath before he answered.

“I think that prayers for courage are the kind of prayers God answers most often,” he said gently, patting the little girl softly on her wispy brown hair. “And those are the kind of prayers I like to hear as well. Go and sit at my table.” He guided her toward the second table, where Eadgyth enveloped the little girl in a hug as she took a seat. Goderic remained standing near the head of his now full table and nodded in Helga’s direction. “These five are yours, then,” he said.

“Wonderful!” Helga smiled, stepping up to look at the five remaining students. Saeric stood at one end of the line, looking a little downcast at not being chosen by the first three teachers, so Helga leaned down and kissed the top of his head firmly. “I was hoping they’d leave you for me anyway,” she whispered, and he gave her a wry smile as he pushed his hair back into place. Helga took a step back and looked the children over. “Well, now,” she began, “Saeric I already know, since I was the one who brought him here. Why don’t the rest of you tell me about yourselves?”

“Why?” asked Ysolt Blæc flatly. “You don’t have any selecting to do. You don’t have to interview us.”

“No, but I want to be an excellent teacher for you all,” Helga replied. “I want to know you like you’re my own children. Ysolt, you spoke a little of your background when your brother was introduced. Why don’t you tell me what sorts of things you’re good at, and what you’d like to do when you are grown and have finished your education?”

The girl blinked at the question, as though nobody had ever asked her what she was good at or what she wanted before. After a moment’s thought, she said, “Mother didn’t teach us a lot. But there is one thing I can do well.” She turned to look at the golden-haired girl she had arrived with, staring at her without blinking until the other girl began to laugh nervously. Then several students gasped at once; Ysolt’s jet black hair had begun to turn the exact shade of gold of the other girl’s ringlets. The gold spread until it reached the tips of her hair, which was now twisting up into big, round curls. Her sallow, pale skin turned ruddy and vibrant, with flushes in her cheeks. She grew shorter by about two inches, and her nose shortened and widened. The last to change were her eyes, shifting from their natural deep brown into a bright hazel. Helga’s jaw dropped. If she had not seen it happen, if the girls had not been wearing differently colored dresses, she would have sworn there were two of the same golden-haired Cymraeg girl standing in front of her. Goderic left his students and came closer, his eyebrows lifted.

“A metamorphmagus,” he breathed. Helga managed to shut her mouth and grinned.

“The gift of Loki, my people call it,” she added. Salazar was craning his neck jealously, and Helga thought now he must regret not taking both twins. “That is excellent, Ysolt,” she encouraged.

The girl shifted slowly back into her own form and managed a hesitant smile. “It came from my father’s family. My mother hated it.”

“Well, I think it’s brilliant,” Helga smiled. “Now what do you aspire to do in life, Ysolt?”

“Truly?” Ysolt asked, and when Helga nodded, she shrugged a little. “I want to find myself a husband who likes to hoard books instead of money, and grow old reading with him, and have children who can trust me and who will never know how it feels to be put aside.”

Helga felt her chest tighten, the way it had when Hnossa had begged not to be thrown in the river. She leaned down and took Ysolt’s hand, because she felt a full hug would not be received as well, and squeezed her fingers gently. “That is grander than any magic I could teach you, and I hope you get every bit of it,” she whispered. Ysolt didn’t answer, but she squeezed Helga’s hand in return.

When the moment had passed, Helga stood back up and moved over to the golden-haired girl Ysolt had transformed into. She had a mischievous glint in her eyes that appeared to be a permanent part of her face, and she looked as though she found everything terribly funny. “Your turn,” Helga prompted, and the girl blew a ringlet of hair out of her eyes before speaking.

“Arddun ferch Cuhelyn, and I think she’s mad,” she giggled, tilting her head toward Ysolt. “In the best possible way, of course.”

“The best possible way?” Ysolt murmured, and Arddun giggled again.

“Anyone,” she said to Helga, “who wants a husband must be a little mad. From what I’ve seen, the most common cause of death for girls is babies, and the most common cause of babies is husbands.” There was a ripple of laughter through the room, and Helga thought she saw Rhonwen nod her head subtly out of the corner of her eye. She smiled wryly.

“Well, I suppose you are somewhat correct, at least in a mathematical sense,” she conceded. “If you wouldn’t like to marry, how would you prefer to spend your time?”

“Being out of doors, mostly,” Arddun replied, “flying my broom and chasing after flying creatures. Birds, winged horses, dragons, pixies – I’d live in the air with them if I could. I want to stay alive as long as possible and keep flying until I’m too old to stay on my broom. I suppose I might find a boy I’d like to keep about,” she added as an afterthought, “although it is unlikely, but he’d have to be able to keep up. That was why I ran away from home in the first place – they were going to betroth me to some great lump who was at least twenty-five and looked like he could make stones cry from boredom. I don’t think he could run even if the room was on fire.” She stopped to take a breath after that long pronouncement, and Helga took the opportunity and laid a hand on her golden head before she started speaking again.

“Well, I can promise you that we won’t be doing any betrothing here, Arddun. And all I ask of you is that you promise not to fly your broom indoors. Is that a deal?” She waited for the girl’s nod, and then gave her shoulder a little squeeze before moving on to the boy beside her. This was the chubby boy Helga had noticed looking particularly enthused at her earlier speech, and sure enough, the grin he was giving her said that he was perfectly content to have been passed over by the other teachers. Helga smiled back at him. “And what about you, young man?”

“I’m Tancred,” he said brightly, “of Alesworth. And I’m glad I’ve got you, because I want to learn all about healing with magic.”

“Do you?” Helga grinned. “Well, you and Saeric should be fast friends, then.” She nodded to Saeric at the other end of the line, and the boys shared a genial wave. “Have you already learned some healing spells?”

“A little,” Tancred said. “Father had taught me some magic, but he died last year when a spell went wrong. Healing was what I was best at, though, of what he was able to teach me.”

“And is that what you would like to do when you are a man? Set up shop, or travel, as a healer?”

“Not exactly,” the boy demurred. “I want to join the Church.”

There was a murmur of surprise throughout the room at those words, and Helga glanced at her fellow teachers; Goderic shrugged, Rhonwen tilted her head as if her curiosity was roused, and Salazar was rolling his eyes as if that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Helga watched the boy’s face, but he didn’t seem at all discouraged by everyone’s reaction. She chose her words carefully before responding.

“Tancred, forgive me for questioning you, because I am not a Christian Dane, and so I don’t always understand all the parts of your religion; but I have been under the impression that your holy book forbids magic, and that your church puts witches to death. Have I got it wrong?” She didn’t think she had, based on everyone else’s reaction, but it didn’t hurt to ask. The boy’s smile hadn’t wavered, and he shrugged.

“Not so wrong, I suppose. But I reckon the priests are just people, same as us, and we can all get things wrong now and then. And I reckon those sorcerers the Scripture talks about are folk who curse people, or folk who got their magic from the Devil. Now me, and you – folk like us, we were born with our magic. And the Scripture says that it’s God who shapes us in our mothers’ wombs, and so then it’s God who put that magic in me. And if God has given me a gift to heal people, then I’d better use it. If I’m a churchman, I can go tend the sick wherever they are, even the non-magic folk. Think of all the sicknesses I could heal that the Church doesn’t have medicine for!”

There was a rapturous brightness in the boy’s eyes, and Helga smiled in spite of herself. After a long moment, she asked, “But don’t you think they’ll notice? After a while, I mean?”

“They might do,” he shrugged. “But if they ask, I’ll just say God has blessed me with the gift of healing, and that’ll be the truth.”

“And if they catch you with your wand out?” Helga pressed.

“Then I suppose I’ll go to meet my God a little sooner than I might do otherwise,” Tancred said seriously, but his cheeks were still stretched in a smile. “But I’ll have done a powerful lot of good on my way there.”

For a while, Helga just looked at the boy in silence, a little overwhelmed. She wondered if he knew precisely what he was signing up for, and then she remembered that this was the boy who Rhonwen’s cauldron had shown living in a cave, hiding from the villagers who had driven out his parents, and she supposed he must know, maybe more than most. She took his head in her hands and gave him a kiss on his mop of yellow hair.

“Then if that’s what you want, I’ll do everything I can to help get you there.”

“I’m grateful, Mistress Helga,” he said softly; then he stepped back into the line so Helga could address the last of her students.

The boy at the end of the line was older than the others, perhaps fourteen, and it was he Helga had watched with such concern during the feast, eating as though he’d been starving. He was dark of hair and eyes, delicate of face, and Helga thought he would be a very handsome man when he was grown, although he did look very thin and pale and in need of a few more meals like tonight. Most curiously, he was holding a rolled-up piece of parchment with the end touching his ear, and he made no move to lower it as Helga approached.

“Hello,” she began. “And what’s your name?”

The boy didn’t answer immediately; instead, his eyes flickered over to the parchment held up to his ear, and he seemed to be listening for something. In the moment of dead quiet, Helga began to hear something like whispering, although she couldn’t quite decipher it. When it stopped, the boy spoke.

“Silvanus mac IainUidhir,” he said, and his voice was thick with the accent of the Pictish peoples of the far north. When he didn’t volunteer any other information, Helga prompted.

“Can you tell me something about yourself, Silvanus?”

Again, the boy didn’t answer straightaway, inclining his head to the parchment instead, and this time Helga realized that the whispering sound was coming from inside the parchment’s folds. Realization hit her, and Helga put out a hand and touched the boy’s wrist.

“Silvanus, can you understand me?” She waited, and the boy again listened to the parchment’s whispers. He then nodded his head equivocally, and held out the parchment as though letting her inspect it. Helga didn’t understand, and Silvanus must have seen this on her face, for he took the parchment back, unrolled it, and spoke to it in a stream of words that were completely foreign to Helga’s ears. As soon as he finished, the parchment began to speak aloud.

“I can understand you with this parchment,” the voice said, “the one you sent me. I saw that you bewitched it to speak, so I asked it if it could translate things and it said yes. So when you spoke earlier, I asked it to translate and held it to my ear and it changed your words into my language.”

When Helga looked up from the singing parchment, she saw the boy grinning from ear to ear, obviously pleased with himself. Over his shoulder, she could see Aneirin the harpist positively dancing in place, ecstatic to see his invention being used in such a way. Rhonwen quick-marched over to join them, clearly intrigued.

“A bheil Gàidhlig agad?” Rhonwen asked the boy after glancing over the parchment.

“Tha,” the boy replied, and Rhonwen nodded.

“The language of the Gaels is his native tongue,” she explained to Helga before turning back to Silvanus. “A bheil thu a ’bruidhinn Sasunnach?” The boy shook his head at this, and Rhonwen nodded knowingly again. “He doesn’t speak any Saxon. He’s been using the parchment to translate everything tonight, it’s absolutely brilliant.”

“He doesn’t let himself be thwarted,” Helga grinned. “I’m already proud of him. Talar þú Norrœna?” She asked this last in hopes that he might have picked up some Norse from the vikingrs who were a constant presence in his far northern homeland. Silvanus scrunched his eyebrows in concentration, and then waggled his hand ambivalently.

“Fár orð,” he said uncertainly, and Helga sighed. He had a few words, but not much.

“Well, then we’ll have to keep using the singing parchment until you learn Saxon, won’t we?” she said, leaning over the scroll. The parchment spoke back to Silvanus in his own language, and he nodded before replying.

“I can go on using this,” the parchment said for him, “but can I have some more pieces please? I think the spell might wear off some time.”

“Absolutely!” Rhonwen beamed, and she glanced to the back of the room. Aneirin was already gleefully rummaging in his sack, holding his wand in his teeth as he pulled out pieces of parchment in both hands. “We’ll have a stack of them ready for you in the morning before lessons begin.” Silvanus listened to the parchment’s translation and then nodded at her happily.

“Speaking of lessons in the morning,” Salazar prompted from his table, “I’ve been told that children apparently need indecent amounts of sleep, so shouldn’t we begin that process?” Helga jumped at his voice, and realized that she could now see the moon glittering on the surface of the loch outside the windows.

“Oh, of course, thank you, Salazar,” she agreed. “Yes, I suppose it is time for the children to be getting to bed. Bihotza, are the sleeping chambers prepared?”

“Aye, Mistress,” the elf nodded, coming up the aisle between the middle tables and vanishing scraps of food from the floor as she went. “All the beds is made and ready for children to sleep in them. Shall Bihotza go ahead and light the torches upstairs, Mistress?”

“Yes, please,” Helga said, “thank you, Bihotza.” The elf vanished one more scrap of bread before holding up her long fingers and giving them a snap; she disappeared with a loud pop! that left the children from non-magic families whispering incredulously. When she had gone, Helga motioned for all the children to stand up from their seats. There was a great noise of bench scraping and quiet conversation as they all got to their feet, and then Helga nodded to Rhonwen.

“The girls will sleep in the upper chamber to the right of the stairs,” Rhonwen announced, coming to stand in the center of the room, “and the boys will be in the left-hand chamber. Goderic and I will show you all to your beds, and we ask that you all stay there and do not wander about the school after dark. Should you need anything during the night, call out for Bihotza, and she will go and fetch your head teacher. In the morning, water will be provided for washing, and you will each have a clean new dress or tunic to wear. You will come here to your teacher’s table to break your fast, and once we have all eaten, lessons will begin. Girls?” Rhonwen motioned with one hand, and the girls left their tables and came to stand around her.

“To me, then, boys,” Goderic called, gathering the other students. Helga smiled at them all once more.

“Sleep well, children – and welcome again to Hogwarts.” There was a ripple of contented clapping from the students, and then they began to file out of the dining hall in two haphazard lines as Goderic and Rhonwen led them toward the stairs.

It took the better part of half an hour to get all of the children settled in their beds – there was much disgruntled bargaining among students who preferred beds nearer the door, or nearer a window, or nearer one another, and Rodolphus earned himself some odd looks as he floated his bed into a tight corner perpendicular to everyone else’s. But once the hubbub of children preparing for bed had simmered down, Rhonwen and Goderic left Bihotza to put out the lights and said goodnight themselves before heading off to their tower rooms. Hankertonne and the cooks had finished cleaning the kitchen in the interim and had retreated to their sleeping chambers off the teacher’s hearth room, and Wintermilk the groundskeeper checked on the animals once more before wandering off to his own little cottage. Helga stood at the school’s front door and watched him go; she was about to close and bar the door for the night when she heard loud snoring and muttering coming from the courtyard.

“Stand and fight…. Bloody coward….” The words were mumbled and blurred with sleep, and Helga followed the snuffling until she found Cadwgan, sprawled out by the now-dead fire in the courtyard and using his pony for a pillow. His sword lay at an angle in his clenched fist, the tip dug into the earth. The pony half opened its eyes at Helga’s approach and snuffled at her sleepily, clearly begging her not to wake its aggressive little master. Helga patted the pony’s head gently and waved her wand in the air, conjuring a blanket which she lowered slowly over the sleeping warrior. “…Shall wear…cloak… with honor, sire,” Cadwgan snuffled through his thick mustache before drifting deeper into sleep. Helga smothered a giggle and tiptoed back to the school, careful to close the doors quietly behind her.

The only torches still lit inside were in the little hearth room that had once been Salazar’s kitchen. Helga entered and found her father seated at the little square table, munching a leftover cheese and cradling the sleeping baby Harald, and Salazar pouring himself a last drink before bed. Sœtr the crup was curled up in front of the firebox, his forked tail twitching occasionally in his sleep. Salazar eyed Helga for a moment before offering her the cup he had just poured for himself. She took it with a wry smile, noticing he was not calling her any names with her father at the table.

“So, you’ve done it, daughter,” Hunlaf grunted as Helga sat down with a tired sigh. “It would be a fool who doubted you, once you’ve set your mind to do something, but even so I’m a little in awe of you tonight.”

“I’m only doing as you’ve taught me,” she smiled at him, patting his big hand across the tabletop. “Will you go home tonight, or will you sleep here and leave in the morning?”

“Oh, this little fellow is much too comfortable for any apparating,” Hunlaf said quietly, patting the sleeping toddler gently. “We’ll stay til after breakfast, and then I’ll take him home and get on with the business of ordinary life. And the business of making wands, of course.”

Helga nodded. “Oh, yes, I had nearly forgotten. Some of the children don’t have wands – do you have enough supplies on hand to make them?”

“It might take a trip to Norwic,” Hunlaf conceded. “Perhaps before you start lessons in the morning, you can give me a list with the names of those who need one, and some details about each child. I can work double time and try to have them done within a week or so.”

“And what will you do with the little one in the meantime?” Salazar asked, coming over to the table but not sitting down. “He’s not a wizard, is he?”

“No,” Hunlaf shrugged his free shoulder. “But with his sister a witch, he’s not going to just forget about all this, so I’ll have to keep him to raise myself, I suppose. I’ll teach him some carpentry so he’ll have a trade, and I’ll make sure he understands that he’s got to keep his sister and this place a secret as he gets older.”

“Assuming he ever speaks at all,” Helga mused, finishing her drink. “The two of you must come visit often. And we’ll come and stay with you during the summer months, Hnossa and I.”

“I expect nothing else,” Hunlaf grinned. “We’ll be here for Jól, at the very least. Perhaps by then, I’ll have a little apprentice wandmaker.” He stroked Harald’s wispy hair gently, and Helga realized for the first time that her father was perhaps thinking about the frail little boy her mother had died trying to give him so many years before, the boy who had withered away in his father’s hands mere hours after his mother had breathed her last. Now he had another little boy in his arms, and she saw that Hunlaf meant to have this boy as his son whether he had magic or not. Helga smiled at her father softly, knowingly, and he gave her a little grin in response.

“Is that wise?” Salazar said cautiously, still not sitting but coming to stand at the back of Helga’s chair. “Teaching the boy about our world when he’s not one of us?”

“Oh, but he is one of us,” Helga countered, craning her neck up at him. “He’s Hnossa’s brother, he’s family.”

“Family,” Salazar repeated, staring into his wine cup. “Yes, he is. Like the count in Vasconia who drowned his sister because she was a witch? They were family, too.” Helga stared at Salazar blankly; he always seemed to be thinking of things that would never even occur to her. Hunlaf adjusted his hold on the sleeping Harald and laid the rind of his cheese on the cutting board in front of him.

“You don’t trust anyone who isn’t magical, do you, young man?” he asked, although Helga could tell he wasn’t asking because he didn’t know the answer. Behind her, Salazar sighed.

“I don’t trust anyone with less to lose than me,” he said after some thought, and she heard her father grunt softly.

“Well, that’s the beauty of it,” Hunlaf said as he stood up, careful not to wake Harald. “This boy might not be magic himself, but he will have just as much to lose as you or I. He will know these other children, grow up visiting them, becoming their friend. He will know our world. And we will be his only family. I think he would be loth to give any of that away, if it is all he knows. Hmm?” He laid Harald gently into the little pile of rushes and blankets Bihotza had piled into a corner for his bed and fixed Salazar with a hard look. After a moment, Salazar simply shrugged.

“If you insist,” was all he said in reply before downing the rest of his drink and heading toward the cellar stairs. Helga helped her father unroll a blanket onto his cot by the hearth; then after saying her goodnights and kissing Hunlaf on the cheek, she followed Salazar through the little door and down into the cellars. Salazar had stopped at the bottom, waiting for her at the little juncture that led either left, into his own part of the cellars, or right toward the kitchens and Helga’s room. His eyes were still dark, but the mischievous glint was back. Helga sensed what was coming, and she pursed her lips at him.

“I’m sorry, have you forgotten the way to your chambers, Master Slidrian?” she said in a voice that was purposefully tart. A ghost of a grin flickered around the corner of his mouth.

“My old offer still stands,” he smirked, gesturing toward the door to his chambers. “If you ever tire of sleeping next to the kitchen like a servant….” He trailed off, narrowing his eyes at her in what he must have thought was a seductive gaze. Helga snorted at him down in her throat.

“I would rather sleep out of doors like a sheep,” she said simply, tossing her braid over her shoulder and intentionally hitting him with it as she walked off toward the right-hand door. She could hear him chuckling softly to himself behind her as she went.

“Suit yourself, Helga Hugglepuggle,” he quipped just before she closed the kitchen door in his face.

Chapter Text

At dawn the next morning, Helga awoke to the sound of the Prime bell, and for a moment she could not quite remember where she was. The tone was very much that of the distant Little Witchingham church bell, but of course there were no bells or churches in the barren highlands, and in her warm sleepiness, Helga thought perhaps she had dreamt the whole mad adventure of the school for witchcraft, and that she was back in her little cottage by the barley field. Then the door of her chamber creaked open a fraction, letting in soft light and the smell of new bread and fresh hot milk being churned, and she came fully awake as Bihotza the house elf slipped inside and lit the torch on the wall.

“Mistress Helga should be waking up now,” the little elf creaked. “We is almost ready to send the food up to the childrens in the hall.”

“Oh, thank you, Bihotza,” Helga yawned, stretching her legs under the thick blanket. “Have we a bell somewhere in the school? I don’t remember hanging one.” Bihotza smiled cheekily at her, then she lifted her long fingers and snapped them toward the ceiling. The bell rang out once more and then faded to echoes, then to silence.

“Bihotza is doing that herself, Mistress,” she grinned. “Easier than going round and shaking all the childrens awake.”

“What a good idea, Bihotza!” Helga beamed, and the elf inclined her head politely. “I’ll just get dressed, and then I’ll come and help you all in the kitchen.” She swung her feet out of the bed and into her slippers. Bihotza shook her head softly.

“Don’t need help, Mistress,” the elf smiled. “We is almost finished, just the butter to shape up. Mistress should go and sit at the big table with the other teachers and greet the childrens.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Helga conceded. “I’ll be up in just a few moments, thank you.” Bihotza nodded at her and slipped back out into the kitchen, closing the door softly behind her. Helga dressed quickly, the excitement of the first day of lessons beginning to creep over her and sharpening all her movements. She plaited her hair with her wand instead of taking the time to use her hands, wanting to get upstairs as soon as she could. When she came out into the kitchen, the large tables were already laid with baskets of warm bread, bowls of honey, and jugs of milk and water. Hoshea and Ya’el were using their wands to draw the last of the milk from a lump of butter floating in the air between them; the milk splashed back down into their churn, and Ya’el waved her wand and sent the creamy lump through the air to an empty platter on the table. By the time it landed, it had smoothed itself into a lovely rounded knob, already firm and ready for cutting up and putting on bread.

“Good morning, Morah Helga,” Ya’el smiled, twitching her wand at the churn; a swatch of thin linen lifted itself off the rim and dipped down into the warm milk, coming back up slowly as it filtered out any lingering butter. Helga smiled back at her.

“It is quite a nice morning, isn’t it?” she beamed. The kitchen was mostly underground, but there were small slit windows at the top of the wall, open now to let out the haze of cooking, and through the rough grass at ground level Helga could see the first bright gold and pale blue of sunrise across the loch. “You’ve all done a wonderful job with the breakfast,” she said, turning back to them. “Thank you for all the hard work.”

“Trifles,” Hoshea dismissed with a wave of his hand. “We have cooked for more than this. Now you go and make wise children, Morah. Be a little fish in fresh water!”

“I will certainly try,” Helga grinned, a little bemused by the expression. She nodded another greeting to Bihotza, who was arranging the last few small dishes on the table, and then she crossed the kitchen and pushed through the heavy wooden door into the dark and cool of the cellar hallway.

“I told her no bells.”

Helga jumped and let out a little squeak of fright, which immediately faded into an exasperated sigh. Salazar was stood in the open doorway that led to his half of the cellar rooms, and he looked precisely as though he had been hit over the face with a roof beam. His hair was scattered around his face in chaotic black tendrils that almost certainly had not even been brushed with fingers, let alone a comb, and although Helga was pleased to see that he had at least managed to put his clothes on, his tunic had not been laced at the top and was hanging lopsided over one shoulder, revealing a wide swath of pale skin. She noticed that he had a lovely collarbone, and that there was a single freckle at the place where it dipped down to the hollow of his throat – and then she jerked her eyes upward in a hurry. It was best not to give him any ideas by looking too long.

“What?” she asked him, because she had been so startled, and because he looked so disheveled that she had forgotten what he had said to startle her in the first place. His dark slashed eyebrows were drawn together in a disgruntled V, and he leaned on the doorpost for support.

“Damn that elf, I told her no bells,” he muttered by way of reply, smothering a yawn. From the kitchen behind her, Helga heard the reedy voice of Bihotza piping up over the sounds of clattering dishes.

“Bihotza is a free elf, Master Salazar!” she called, as if he had spoken loudly and not in a sulky murmur. “Bihotza can play bells if she wishes, and Master Salazar can’t tell her no!” They both heard the sound of a dish being set down sharply as if to punctuate the statement. Salazar stifled another yawn and stared at Helga blandly.

“I’m never doing anything charitable ever again,” he spat. “It causes me nothing but misery.”

“Oh, you poor, pitiful thing,” Helga said in mock sympathy. “How unbearably cruel we’ve been, to make you rise before midday.” She reached out and patted his cheek playfully as she moved toward the cellar stairs, feeling him stiffen under her touch and grunt at the unexpected contact. He seemed to recover himself after a moment, however, and began following her up the stairs, lacing the threads at the neck of his tunic as he went.

“New school rule. Nobody touches me until after sunset.”

“You mean we’re allowed to touch you at all?” Helga smiled over her shoulder. Salazar grinned up at her wickedly.

“You are,” he smirked. “But only after sunset. And only if you promise to slap me a little harder next time.” Helga stopped just below the top step and turned fully around, intending to give him a verbal lashing; but his eyes were sparkling with mischief like an incorrigible child, and instead she found herself sighing for the second time that morning.

“Oh, hush, you,” she grumbled, and she placed her palm flat against his forehead and shoved. Salazar stumbled backward down two or three steps, and Helga lingered only long enough to be sure he wasn’t going to tumble all the way down before ducking through the door at the top of the stairs. As she crossed the teachers’ hearth room and made for the entrance hall, she could hear him laughing behind her.

The sun had begun to break into full golden splendor over the loch as the teachers took their seats at the high table in the dining hall, joined by Hunlaf and the rest of the school staff. They had no sooner sat down than the doors of the hall burst open and the children came running in like a small herd of sheep leaving a pen. They were all clad in the new clothes Bihotza had laid out for them the night before – black woolen trousers and stockings beneath linen tunics and gowns dyed a pale purple with lichen. They each also had a new pair of leather slippers on their feet and a slim belt into which a wand could be tucked, and Helga was pleased to see that they had all given their faces and hands a good scrub. There was a bit of giggling and shuffling about, but after a few minutes they sorted themselves out among the four tables; when they had settled, Bihotza snapped her fingers and called up the food from the kitchens.

The children set upon the breakfast eagerly, and Helga had to remind herself to eat her own food instead of watching them eat theirs. She dipped her warm bread in a cup of buttermilk and waved down the table at little Harald, who was sat on Hunlaf’s lap and was watching him very seriously as he broke a large piece of bread into smaller pieces. Beyond them, Goderic was wolfing down loaf after loaf, stopping occasionally to vanish dribbles of honey out of his beard with his wand. Rhonwen spent the breakfast eating steadily with one hand and waving her wand with the other, using a replicating spell to make copies of the lesson schedule on pieces of singing parchment. Salazar ate stoically beside Helga, making no mention of their conversation on the stairs, although he did offer her a taste of the cider he was drinking. It was a beautiful golden color, but she could smell how strong it was even over the scent of her milk, and she told him that it might be more appropriate for an evening by the hearth and not the first drink of the day. Salazar replied that she could suit herself and called her yet another incorrect name, grinning at her from behind the rim of his goblet.

When the children had nearly finished their food, Helga stood and tapped her wand against her cup, producing the ringing sound as she had the night before. The children gradually fell silent, and Helga gave them a warm smile.

“Good morning, students,” she greeted, and several of them murmured in response. “In a few moments, your first day of lessons will begin. We will start every morning this way – breaking our fast at sunrise, and then assembling into groups for our lessons. When you hear Bihotza’s bells that mark the end of our morning meal, you should all follow us out into the entrance hall. This morning we will begin by determining which of you already have wands and which of you will need one made for you; we will also begin to learn our schedule of lessons. As you pass out of this room into the entrance hall, Aneirin will give you a piece of speaking parchment with all of your lessons written on it.” She indicated the harpist, who was making his way to stand at the door with Rhonwen’s stack of pages. He smiled at the children, and one or two of them gave him a little wave. “This way,” Helga went on, “if you cannot read them yet, you will still know which lesson to go to at each hour because they will tell you. Now, I would ask that when you have been given your parchment, please separate yourselves into two groups in the next room. Those of you who already have a wand, please go and stand on the far side of the hall beside the lesson room doors; and those of you who do not, please remain against this wall, beside the dining hall door. Does everyone understand?” Helga waited until she had seen every head nod, even Silvanus mac IainUidhir, who was listening intently to the rolled-up letter at his ear. Then she clapped her hands together as Bihotza’s disembodied bells began to sound in the air above her. “Well, then – let’s all begin!”

Leading the way down from the high table, Helga made her way toward the doors and the other teachers followed her, joined soon after by the students in a great clattering of benches. Aneirin found himself hard-pressed to put a parchment into each grasping hand without having the whole stack toppled out of his arms. There was much chattering and laughter as the assembly poured out into the entrance hall, and Helga saw Salazar wincing at the noise; but after a few minutes of chaos, she noted that the children had indeed begun to separate themselves to each side of the room. Happily, it appeared that most of them already had wands. Only four children remained by the door of the dining hall: Silvanus, little Mildryth, the taciturn Starculf, and Eaderic’s friend Eduardus. The latter three she knew had no magical parents, and though Silvanus had a wizard father, Helga realized that he must have died when the boy was very young, too young to have had a wand made for him. One student, however, was standing uncertainly in the center of the room, having joined neither group. Eadgyth Caccepol caught Goderic’s eye as he closed the dining hall door and held out her wand to him.

“Master Grifondour,” she questioned, “which side should I join? I have a wand, but it cracked open when—” She noticed then that her brother was listening, and she lowered her voice. “It cracked open when we tried to fend off the raiders who took Mother. Must I have a new one?”

“Well,” said Goderic, taking the wand from her and holding it up into the light from the window, “I suppose that depends on whether it can be repaired or not. Master Woodcutter, what do you think? You’re the wand expert.” He held out the cracked wand to Hunlaf, who put little Harald down to play on the floor and came over to join them. Hunlaf took the wand and turned it over in his hands, moving it this way and that, and holding it up to his nose to look down its length. The crack was deep, and something that was not wood could be seen through the gap. Hunlaf made a sound against his teeth.

“Oh, I don’t know about this one,” he murmured, poking a fingernail into the gap and making a face when it touched the soft center. “Core is exposed. And I think it’s been exposed long enough that it might cause some problems doing more than the simplest spells. Young lady, are you quite enamored of this wand?”

“It belonged to my grandmother Mabyn,” Eadgyth replied, and Hunlaf grimaced.

“Well, then put it away carefully in a box and treasure it always, but you’ll have to have a new one if you plan on doing much magic.”

“I thought as much,” Eadgyth sighed, and she tucked the broken wand back into her belt before going to join the other four wandless students.

Helga brought her father a blank parchment and a quill and patted him on the shoulder. “There you are, Father,” she smiled. “I suppose you’ll want to write some notes about them so you know what materials to use?”

“Aye,” Hunlaf nodded. “Five of them’s not so bad. At least it’s not the whole lot. But I’ll have to go to Norwic to get more cores – and it’ll take me at least a week. Two weeks, if the villagers break a few tools in the harvest and I have to stop and repair them. Well, now. Let’s see who we’ve got here.” And starting with Mildryth, he began asking the wandless children a series of questions to get an understanding of what kind of wand they might need, scribbling their answers on the parchment in untidy, slanted runes. Helga wandered over to stand beside Rhonwen, who was watching Helena fidget and giving her a stern look.

“Do you think we ought to start lessons with the others while father speaks with these five?” she asked. Rhonwen assessed the other children, who were beginning to look a bit restless.

“Perhaps,” she nodded. “Your father could take those five back into the dini—”

RAP RAP RAP RAP.

The sound of the sharp reports echoed through the entrance hall, and even the children fell silent as everyone looked about for what had made the noise. Then it came again – four loud, sharp raps – and all heads turned to look at the front door.

“Have you invited more people?” Salazar muttered, sounding as though he might simply die if one more person showed up on his formerly secluded land. Helga shook her head, and the other teachers gave him equally innocent looks. Suddenly, they all heard a great clattering of hooves and armor from outside in the courtyard, followed by a howling battle cry.

“YEEEAAAAAOOOOGGGGHHH!! Present thy arms and fight, thou damnable cur!”

“Cadwgan,” Rhonwen hissed under her breath, and she began marching toward the front door. There was more clattering of hooves, as though the poor pony was being led in a wide circle, and Cadwgan’s voice rang out again.

“I command you, fiend, either to gird thyself for battle or to flee in thy cowardice—OOOFH!” Cadwgan’s words were cut off abruptly, as though a thick blanket had been thrown over his face, and Rhonwen shot Helga a tense glance before throwing open the front doors to see what the racket was about. What they saw was not what any of them had expected.

A tall, thin, and rather elegant looking man stood at the threshold, a wand held calmly in clasped hands in front of him. He was of perhaps middle age, with some grey streaks in his dark hair, which he wore long and tied at the back of his neck with a cord. His clothes were fashionable, and what looked like an old Roman style brooch held his cloak at the throat. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes. They were large, misty, and pale almost to the point of being unnerving. Helga thought there might be the faintest hint of lavender under the wispy grey of the irises. The man was leaning nonchalantly against a two-wheeled cart full to the top with slender wooden boxes. Behind the cart, looking sheepishly at the crowd in the doorway, stood three children – a girl in her early teens with deep red hair, a boy of perhaps twelve or thirteen with the same silvery eyes as the man, and a scrawny, fair boy of perhaps ten.

In the courtyard behind them all lay Cadwgan, sprawling and writhing under what was indeed a very large, heavy blanket that had pinned him to the ground. His pony nibbled grass disinterestedly beside him, making not a single move to help his master out of his predicament. The man at the door looked over his shoulder at the trapped Cadwgan and then turned back to Rhonwen, shrugging ruefully but making a show of putting his wand away.

“My apologies if I have caused a disturbance,” he said softly. His voice was gentle, but there was something a little uncanny about it. “The knight drew a sword,” he explained. “I thought it safest to smother his attack… quite literally, if you’ll excuse me.” Cadwgan was screaming threats at him from beneath the conjured blanket, and Helga thought that he had probably reacted very wisely.

“Do you have business with us, sir?” Goderic asked, pushing a few of his students back from the door to get through.

“Yes… yes, I believe so,” the man said. “I was told by Gwydion Pyk that you had begun a school for magic. I assume this is that place?”

“It might be,” Rhonwen answered cautiously. “Who are you?”

“Vindalicus Olivantius,” the man replied, dipping his head a bit but not lowering his unnerving silver eyes. “Maker of fine wands. I have a market stall in Lundenburh, although I have been known to travel with my wares.” He indicated the cart behind him with long, limber fingers, and Helga now recognized the boxes as the right size and shape to hold wands.

“Did you say Olivantius?” came Hunlaf’s voice from behind the crowd of students. They parted to let him through, and he came to the door and gave the newcomer an appraising look. “I sell wands in Norwic myself from time to time. I’ve heard your name there, have I not?”

Vindalicus Olivantius inclined his head in a slow nod. “I think it is likely, sir, if you are in the wand trade. Our family have been making wands since before there were emperors in Rome. My ancestor Servius Ventidius Olivae, called Britannicus, came to this island with Caesar’s troops, and we have been in the business of providing fine quality wands to wizards and witches here ever since.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Hunlaf mused. “I remember now. My friend Crickomer said yours were the only wands to be had down Lunden-way, if a man could afford the price of them.” Olivantius spread his long arms equivocally, bowing a little.

“Price reflects value, my friend,” he said glibly. “Our materials are high quality, and our craftsmanship is meticulous. A wand from Olivantius may last you a lifetime, unless you live a particularly dangerous sort of life.”

“And I suppose you are here to sell us some wands, is that it?” Salazar murmured, making Helga jump; she hadn’t noticed him drawing so close to her shoulder. Olivantius pressed his hands together and smiled innocently.

“A school full of little witches and wizards, orphaned or mundani born, sir? I simply thought that perhaps many of them might be in need of a wand, and I keep quite a variety of them ready-made so that customers may purchase one without having to wait. Have you any wandless children, Masters?”

“A few,” Goderic admitted, “although I don’t know if our coffers are deep enough to buy any of your wares.”

“My father had planned to make wands for those children who are without them,” Helga explained. “Although… I’m sure your wands are also excellent, sir, if your family has long been in the trade.”

“Ah, but how long does it take to carve a wand?” Olivantius said smoothly, nodding deferentially to Hunlaf. “A day? Two, if you have other work to do besides? And if you must make several….” He shrugged, blinking his large silvery eyes rapidly. “It could take you weeks, my good man. But with wands from my cart, you could have the children working spells this very morning – not having to sit by and watch their fellows practice charms with nothing to do themselves.”

“He makes a good point, daughter,” Hunlaf said to Helga, one eyebrow raised. “If you bought wands from him, you’d have them today and not have to wait for me to go and get more materials from Norwic and carve them while helping with the harvest.”

“Oh, but Father!” Helga gasped, putting a hand on his arm. “You make such good wands, and I would hate to push you aside after you’ve already invested so much in this.”

“Nobody is pushing me aside, daughter!” Hunlaf chuckled. “I grant that both this man and I must make good wands. He simply has the advantage of having many wands already finished. I would hate for those five children to be delayed in their lessons while waiting on me.”

“Well, I suppose… as long as you’re not offended,” Helga acquiesced. Rhonwen, however, still looked unconvinced.

“There’s still the matter of paying for them,” she said coolly, meeting the wandmaker’s pale stare. “I’ve heard of you as well. My husband and his brother both carry one of your wands. I know how much they cost. To pay for five of them seems an undue expense for a venture like ours.”

“Ah!” Olivantius countered, holding up one long finger. “Then let me tempt you with an offer, my good lady. How would it be if I provided five wands as a trade?”

“A trade?” Goderic asked. “What have we to barter with that you would want?”

“Oh, not physical goods, my lord,” Olivantius replied, “but a service rendered.”

“What sort of service?” Salazar pried, sounding suspicious. Olivantius held up two fingers.

“Two simple things, my lord. Firstly, I would ask that this school and I have… an arrangement. I assume you intend to take in more students in the future, and I assume that some of them will require wands as well. I would hope… that in years to come… I could continue to provide wands to this fair institution. And I would also hope that should those students need another wand many years from now, or need to purchase a wand for their own future offspring, that they would remember their old friend Olivantius.”

“You want an association with this school that will help you sell wands,” Rhonwen summarized, and Olivantius nodded with mock-sheepishness.

“It would be my great delight to hang a placard on my market stall proclaiming that my wares supply the wonderful school of Hogwarts,” he smiled, “especially once the reputation of this place begins to grow, as no doubt it will.”

“And yours with it,” Salazar muttered, and Olivantius didn’t disagree. Rhonwen crossed her arms.

“What is the second request?” she prodded. Olivantius extended an arm behind him, toward the three children who had been silently watching the exchange.

“Only that my own children be admitted to this fine establishment as students, my lady. The wands I provide today would be a kind of payment for their upkeep.”

“You don’t want to teach them at home?” Helga asked, and Olivantius put a hand over his heart.

“It is not a question of wanting, my lady. To be a merchant is a busy thing, and since my wife passed there is nobody to attend my children while I sell in the market. And I can teach them only about wandmaking, because it is all I know. Here they may learn other types of magic, disciplines that may serve them well when they are grown. I cannot expect all three of them to become wandmakers, after all!” Behind him, Helga saw the girl rolling her eyes in a way that said she most certainly had no plans to make wands. She looked back and forth at her colleagues, gauging their reactions.

“What do you all think?”

“You’ve seen his wands, Rhonwen,” Salazar said quietly. “Are they worth the upkeep of three more children?”

“My husband’s family swears by them,” she shrugged. “Master Woodcutter, would you be offended?”

“Not at all,” Hunlaf scoffed. “My suppliers have all said good things about him. And this way, those five children don’t have to wait. And I can go home and have a good long rest before harvest.”

“Surely we can take three more children,” Helga said, already starting to smile at the thought. “Goderic has one extra right now – if each of the rest of us take one of these, we’ll all have an even number of students.” Everyone nodded at this except Salazar, who muttered something that sounded like bollocks under his breath. Helga gave him a wry smile. “You can have first pick of these, too, Salazar,” she offered. Salazar glared at her for a moment from under his dark slashed brows, and then he sighed.

 “If it means all of my students will have a wand for their first lessons, then I suppose I can tolerate one more.” Helga gave a little squeak of excitement and had to restrain herself from reaching out and squeezing his hand, for which he looked very grateful. Goderic patted both of their shoulders with heavy hands and then stepped out of the doorway to offer his hand to Olivantius.

“I believe we have a deal, my good man,” he grinned, and the wandmaker slipped his long, bony hand into Goderic’s and smiled back with a grin that did not quite meet his misty grey eyes.

While Rhonwen went outside to rescue her cousin from the blanket in which he had become entangled, Olivantius the wandmaker rolled his cart into the entrance hall of the school, the children parting in front of him without having to be told, all staring at the long wooden boxes that rattled against each other as the cart moved forward. His daughter and his youngest son went to sit beside the window, obviously uninterested in a process they had watched almost daily at home, although the middle child stayed right at his father’s elbow with eyes alight with excitement. Helga had a good look at the boxes on the cart herself, and she noticed that each box seemed to be marked on the small end with a little spot of paint or ink like a thumbprint. There were many marked with red and gold, and a fair few marked with white; only a handful were marked with green, or blue, or any other colors, but they all seemed to be stacked together by color. Helga thought perhaps it was the wandmaker’s system for differentiating between different types of wands, or different sizes, without opening the boxes. Olivantius parked his cart in the center of the hall, chocking its wheels into place with little wedges of wood, and waited as all the children made a circle around him.

Once Rhonwen had returned from helping Cadwgan, Olivantius asked that the wandless children come forward one at a time. “It is quite important that they come one at a time,” he explained as Eadgyth stepped out from the group, “because otherwise the wands might become confused as to who they are looking at.”

“The wands will be confused?” Eadgyth asked, a little bemused herself. Olivantius nodded.

“Yes, well – when you get a wand ready-made and you aren’t having the materials selected especially for you, I find that letting the wands do the deciding gets the best results. Now….” He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and led her over to his cart. “First, let us see if any of them take an immediate liking to you. Hold your hand out over the wand boxes… yes, just like that, there’s a good girl… and walk about the cart. And if any of them starts to shake or rattle when your hand passes over it, why, that’s probably the wand for you.” Eadgyth eyed him like she thought he was a little unhinged, but she did as she was told. Everyone fell silent. Nothing happened with the first few stacks of boxes; but as Eadgyth neared the stack marked with little yellow spots, an odd whistling sound began to fill the room. It started at such a pitch that Helga thought her ears were ringing, until she noticed that everyone else could hear it too. Eadgyth leaned over the cart, reaching her hand toward a box that seemed to be vibrating itself off its stack. The closer her hand came, the louder the whistling grew, and as she reached out a finger to touch it, the box began emitting little puffs of bright green smoke. “Aha!” cried Olivantius, and he leaned over and snatched up the box before Eadgyth reached it.

“Is that what it’s supposed to do?” Eadgyth said, both amused and concerned. Olivantius was muttering to himself as he flicked the box open.

“Quite alarming, yes— ah! I should have known. Dogwood.” He held open the box so Eadgyth and those nearest could see the wand inside, which was a deep red that seemed to shift in hue as Olivantius moved. “Quite noisy wands, these are. But they know what they’re about. Well, there you are, girl, take it and test it.” He waggled the box at Eadgyth, who lifted the polished red wood out of its box gently and rolled it about her hand to feel the weight of it. When she held it above her head, it began to emit large shooting stars like bolts from a longbow; they lit up the whole room with golden sparks and screamed out high-pitched whistles before crashing into the ceiling and raining embers down onto the crowd. Goderic clapped his hands and grinned, Walrand gave a whoop of excitement, and several other children gasped or giggled. Eadgyth shook embers out of her cropped hair and smiled.

“I suppose it likes me?” she laughed. Olivantius was clapping his hands rapidly and daintily around the empty box.

“Oh, yes, excellent. Quite a good show. Dogwood wands always put on a good performance. And that one,” he said more seriously, putting the empty box back into the cart, “contains the heartstring of a green Cymraeg dragon. So don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a noisy blowhard. There’ll be some power in that wand, oh, yes.” And having said this, he shooed Eadgyth back into the line and waggled his hand for the next student to come forward.

There was nothing quite so dramatic as the whistling sparks to mark the next wands to be chosen. In fact, when Silvanus waved his hand over the cart, there was no sound at all. Upon seeing this, Olivantius gave the boy a good long stare, and then asked him a series of questions. Silvanus listened intently to his parchment, prompting Olivantius to inquire as to his native tongue. When he was informed that the boy spoke the language of the Pictish peoples, Olivantius stroked his chin thoughtfully and then leaned into his cart, moving stacks of wand boxes out of the way until he found what he was looking for. He pulled one box out from the bottom of the cart triumphantly, and Helga saw that it had something written on it instead of a splotch of color.

“Very rare,” Olivantius was muttering, “not something I usually work with, but it just might….” He opened the box and offered Silvanus a wand that was a bright, creamy white. “Pine,” he explained, “with a core of Selkie hair. Bit closer to home, I think.” When Silvanus waved the wand, a blast of wind surged through the entrance hall, whipping everyone’s hair and clothes around and smelling strongly of salt water. Silvanus gave a smile that needed no translating.

It took at least five different wands being tried and rejected before the right match was found for Eduardus. Olivantius sorted through his inventory and muttered something about the boy being “a wobbler,” whatever that was supposed to mean, and finally came up with a wand not in a box but wrapped in leather. “Experimental, this one,” he mumbled as he untied the cord. “Hawthorn and jarvey hair. Gave me some trouble making it, and I won’t make one again in a hurry, but there you are. Give it a test, boy.” Eduardus gave the wand a little flick through the air, and a shimmery stream like quicksilver flowed from the tip and swam about his head in a little rivulet. A few children ooooed and aahhed, and even the wandmaker’s disinterested daughter stuck out her chin appreciatively before staring out the window once more.

When Starculf approached the cart, he didn’t walk around it or wave his hand over any of the stacks; he simply put out his hand immediately and touched a box at the very bottom of a stack in the corner. It was a very old and battered-looking box, its corners blunted and its markings faded with age, and Olivantius lifted a thick and tufty eyebrow.

“Are you quite sure of that one, boy?” he asked. “Don’t want to look about at any of the others first?” Starculf shook his head no, and Olivantius tugged the box out from beneath the stack obligingly. “Yes, you would be sure of it, wouldn’t you?” the wandmaker muttered as he opened the box, revealing an exquisitely carved wand of a pale, almost grainless wood that had begun to turn a creamy yellow after years of seasoning. “Limewood,” Olivantius grunted, waggling the box until Starculf took out the wand. “Wood of seers and legilimens. Core of occamy feather from the far East. Last of the old stock of materials my ancestors brought from Rome. That wand has been waiting a great many years for the right hand, boy, so don’t disappoint it.” Starculf said nothing, which was no great surprise; but as he turned the wand in a slow circle in his hand, all of the light in the room turned a brilliant silver and began to twinkle like starlight. As Olivantius clapped his dainty little clap, Helga looked over at Rhonwen and saw her beaming with proprietary excitement at the thought of one of her students having the makings of a seer.

The last to approach the stacks of wands was little Mildryth, who hesitated before putting her hand over them as though they might leap up and bite. She was very small and had to lean her whole body into the cart to come near the stacks in the center, but as she stretched her hand toward the boxes marked with white spots, one of them began to glow at its seams, as if a candle were lit inside it. Olivantius reached in and pulled it out for her, and when he opened the box a warm yellow light flashed brightly at him before winking out. The wandmaker looked sternly at the wand inside for a moment, and then Helga saw his entire mien shift. With all the other children – and, indeed, with the adults as well – Olivantius had worn an air of dismissive superiority. But now, contemplating the wand that had selected Mildryth, some of his pomposity subsided, and he surprised all of them by lowering himself onto his knee to match Mildryth’s height. He held out the box to her, and the wand she took from it was a warm gold like honey and marked with a dark, distinctive grain. She held it timidly at first, but when she put both hands on it, the room filled almost at once with a deep and sonorous ringing like a church bell. Mildryth nearly dropped the wand in surprise. When the ringing had died away, Olivantius looked the girl in the eye with a softness that Helga had not expected from him. “Cypress and unicorn tail hair,” he said gently. “And I am most honored to put it into your hands, young lady. A cypress wand does great things whenever it goes out into the world, and I shall keep watchful to see what becomes of this one. And of you.”

A strange silence hung in the air as Olivantius finished speaking, and lingered as he put the empty box slowly back into the cart. When the children began speaking again, it was in whispers, and the mood was only broken when Rhonwen went to her bag to get her lists and quill so the wandmaker’s children could be enrolled. Helga leaned over to her father and spoke softly into his ear.

“What was that all about, father? He spoke so differently to Mildryth than all the others.” Hunlaf shrugged faintly, watching the other wandmaker with curiosity.

“Probably doesn’t amount to much,” he dismissed, “but I think it’s those old wandmakers’ superstitions. You remember the sayings my amma was so fond of, that Mother would repeat sometimes when she was muttering over wands?”

“You mean, like… Ef stafr es af alri, þat skal æxli aldri?” Helga mused. “No good comes of elder wood, stubborn ash-wielders, that sort of thing?” Hunlaf nodded, giving a dismissive shrug as he picked Harald up off the floor.

“Tales and nonsense, much of it, although there was truth to a few of them. Ash does prefer a steadfast wizard, for instance,” he grinned, indicating his own staff with an inclined head. “Well, there’s a tale among wandmakers from the old Roman homelands that cypress wands are carried by martyrs. People destined to die a noble and tragic death.”

“Oh, you don’t believe that!” Helga said immediately, distressed in spite of herself at the absurd image of little Mildryth in a Roman amphitheater. Her father chuckled.

“No, I don’t,” he reassured. “But it seems Olivantius there does. It’s not entirely foolishness, of course; I’ve never worked with cypress, but I’ve heard tell from those who have that it likes a witch or wizard with great capacity for overcoming fear. One would assume someone must have that trait within them, to die for a cause. But a wand doesn’t predict anything about anybody, daughter. Be at ease.” He patted her shoulder with a big, calloused hand and passed Harald to her so he could go and speak with Olivantius on his way out; and after playing with the toddler for a few minutes, Helga forgot her trepidations and was content.

Once Olivantius had shuffled his cart out the door and bid his offspring farewell, the three children in question were made to line up in front of the teachers so Rhonwen could assign each of them to a list. Each teacher introduced themselves to the new arrivals as they had the night before. Then as Helga had promised, Salazar was given first choice again, and he made a beeline for the girl. She appeared to be the oldest of the three, which Helga thought must appeal to Salazar’s preference for more mature and sedate students – and since she had been determinedly feigning disinterest the entire time she had been there, Helga saw clearly that she would be Salazar’s kindred spirit.

“Vendicina Olivantius,” the girl answered when asked for her name, and Salazar regarded her with hands tucked behind his back.

“And what are your talents, Vendicina?” he asked in his soft but commanding way. Vendicina did not have to ponder this question.

“I am excellent at sums and figuring,” she replied, “and my father will be sorry when he realizes I am not there to keep track of his money for him.” Beside her, her brothers giggled quietly, and Salazar gave her a wry smile.

“You are more proud of this than of your magical abilities?” he asked, and the girl crossed her arms behind her back, mimicking his stance.

“Magic is just doing sums with words,” she said simply. “If you put the right words together with the right movement, you will get the same effect every time. Just like if you do a sum with three and seven, you will always have ten. Most of life is just figuring and sums, Master Slidrian. And I find it very useful to be good at them.” She was quiet for a moment, and then as an afterthought, she added, “But in the interest of your question, I think I have some aptitude for potion-making, since it is mostly measuring and figuring. And I can speak the Parsel-tongue.”

A ripple of whispers spread around the assembled children, as much at the casualness of Vendicina’s pronouncement as at the words themselves, and Salazar lifted an eyebrow at her. “Efe issska?” he hissed, slipping into the serpent-speech instinctively.

“Sssā, sskæ,” she answered him, a little hesitantly. “My grandmother had it, and I have used it very seldom since she died.”

“Well, you shall have practice of it again now that you are here,” Salazar smiled, and Helga thought he actually looked honestly pleased at something for once. It had a softening effect on the sharp lines of his face that made Helga uncomfortably aware of the shape of his lips, and suddenly the image of the little freckle at the end of his collarbone swam unbidden to the surface of her mind. Absolutely not, she scolded herself, and she stepped in to question Vendicina’s brothers before her mind could go any further in that direction.

The middle child, whose eyes had so resembled his father’s and who had seemed genuinely invested in the selection of wands, was named Cunomorinus. His dark hair, shot through with bits of copper here and there, hung in a fringe that obscured his eyes if he dipped his head in a certain way. This, coupled with his very thick eyelashes, helped to soften the uncanny effect his silvery gaze could have had. Helga wondered if perhaps he wore his hair down in his eyes for this very purpose.

“And what is your magical affinity, young man?” Goderic questioned him, and the boy flicked hair out of his eyes before answering.

“I know more about wands than anything else,” he grinned. “Somebody has to carry on making wands in our family, and I’d like it to be me. Of course, Vendi will have to help me with doing the sums and such because I’m hopeless at it. I can count if I have to, naturally, but I’ve got too many ideas for wands floating about in my head and I lose track of the numbers!”

“And do you like having so many ideas floating about in your head?” Rhonwen inquired, and Cunomorinus nodded vigorously.

“I’ve been told it’s not like that for other people, and I can’t imagine how they get on – all that emptiness in their head, nothing to chew on or ponder or invent while they’re doing boring ordinary things? Maddening, I would think.”

Rhonwen smiled at this and immediately assigned the boy to her own list of students.

“Well, I suppose that puts you and I together, then,” Helga said to the youngest boy, crouching a little to be on his level. He had hair the color of old straw, large, bright eyes, and a spray of freckles on a face that looked as though it smiled rather frequently. “What’s your name?”

“Lugotrix,” he said meekly. Then he pulled something out of a little purse sewn onto his belt and held it out for Helga to see. “And this is Carantus. He lives in my pocket.” Helga started a little as the thing in the boy’s hands moved and squeaked; then she relaxed. It was a very fat harvest mouse, with its tail curved in a grip around the boy’s little finger. Helga grinned.

“Oh, hello, Carantus!” she said, holding out a finger for the tiny mouse to inspect. “And does Carantus do any magic?”

Lugotrix tilted his head and considered. “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I’ve never asked him….” The mouse Carantus, having ascertained that Helga’s finger was not made of food, nor did it conceal any food beneath it, scuttled nonchalantly across his master’s hand and disappeared inside the boy’s sleeve. Lugotrix shuddered away a giggle as his mouse’s feet tickled all the way up his arm, and Helga laughed.

“Well, you and Carantus are both very welcome, Lugotrix. And if you are fond of animals, then you should be happy to know that we will teach you to care for magical ones as well as ordinary ones here.”

“Speaking of teaching,” Rhonwen interjected softly from behind Helga’s shoulder, “shouldn’t we be doing that soon?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” Helga smiled. “Well, now that all the business is taken care of, first thing’s first; let’s all get into our groups.”

The first lesson of the day would be the most different for each group of students, owing to the fact that they all had to be brought up to the same level before they began to learn any complex magic together. Most vital was the group of five students – Linnræd, Silvanus, Hnossa, and the Caccepol siblings – who couldn’t read. It was Rhonwen’s desire that they should be at least basically literate by the end of the Criste-masse feast, and so it had been decided that these five would spend the two hours after their morning meal learning their letters with her. Meanwhile, those students with some letters but very little magical learning – Mildryth, Tancred, Eduardus, and Starculf – would spend that time with Helga learning basic spellwork. Vendicina and Brictric would pass their two morning hours with Salazar, practicing their serpent-speech; Hnossa would work alone with him in the evenings, at least until her reading was competent enough that Rhonwen could release her from morning lessons to join the other two. The remaining students would be under Goderic’s supervision, learning what they were all ostensibly using the king’s money to learn in the first place – the noble arts. They would practice swordplay and horsemanship, learn some music from Aneirin, take some basic instruction in Latin, and Bihotza would teach the girls to weave and embroider. Rhonwen thought this a very great waste of time, but as Goderic pointed out, if the king’s messenger ever came to inspect what sort of education they were giving their wards, he’d want to see evidence of something a bit less heretical than magic spells. Rhonwen had eventually agreed with him, but she did so grudgingly.

At the end of these early morning lessons, when Bihotza rang the Terce bells, the students would go out of doors into the school courtyard. There half of them would learn about magical creatures from Alric Wintermilk while the other half practiced travelling by magic – using hearth travel, apparating, and, when Goderic’s latest purchases eventually arrived, riding enchanted brooms. After an hour of this the two groups would switch places, and then they would all go back inside an hour before Sext to eat their midday meal. On this first day, Wintermilk took advantage of the presence of Sœtr the crup, showing him off to each group before Hunlaf and Harald returned with him to Little Witchingham.

“A crup is an excellent creature,” Wintermilk told the assembled students, stretching out Sœtr’s forked tail for them to examine, “especially if one intends to capture jarveys, because the crup can smell their magic, and is a very fine digger.” Sœtr barked sharply to show that he agreed with this assessment, and that his excellence should be obvious. “But beware if you have non-magical family,” the groundskeeper went on. “The crup can be quite aggressive toward folk who don’t smell of magic.” At this, Sœtr gave an offended ruff and hopped, shaking his striped head, and Wintermilk patted him gently. “Of course, every crup is unique,” he amended, and Sœtr sat down on his haunches to show that he had been mollified.

After the students ate their midday meal they were re-divided, this time into four groups of roughly similar ages. The next four hours would be spent by Helga, Rhonwen, Salazar, and Goderic delivering lessons in their strongest branches of magic, with groups rotating to a new teacher each hour. Rhonwen instructed each group in the history and culture of magical people, beginning with likenesses and differences between magical and non-magical people, and the rules the children must follow to protect themselves from discovery. Helga took each of her classes on a romp through the fringes of the forest, looking for bowtruckles and teaching them to identify ordinary plants which had magical properties if used correctly. Salazar familiarized his students with potion-making equipment – how the metal of which a cauldron was made could affect the outcome of a potion, how to use a spell to control the temperature and size of a small fire below their pots, and how they must always be precise in their measurements, or they might end up with an explosion instead of a sleeping draught. And Goderic taught each group the most important means of self-defense they would ever have cause to use: how to disarm anyone who might attack them. When the final lesson bell rang an hour after None, the children were released to amuse themselves in the courtyard until the evening meal was served. They all ran out into the golden afternoon light, excited and jabbering about their first lessons, as though they had not just spent the better part of a whole day hard at learning. Goderic leaned against the stone wall of the entrance, grinning bemusedly.

“I think they could go for three days before they needed to stop,” he chuckled. “And meanwhile, I haven’t been this exhausted since my first battle when I was fourteen.”

“The last time my back felt like this,” Rhonwen concurred, “I had just given birth.” She rubbed at her left shoulder ruefully, pulling the arm this way and that to resolve a tense muscle. Helga nodded.

“Oh, yes, it was wonderful, but it was awfully tiring, wasn’t it? I think I shall need better shoes if I’m going to take them out into the forest again. My feet will need a soak tonight.”

“God, listen to you ancient ones,” Salazar muttered, stifling a yawn. “Shall I pour all of you grandsires some warm milk, or shall I just go ahead and fetch a priest for your deathbed prayers?”

“Are you saying you didn’t find the children exhausting, Salazar?” Goderic smirked, laying a hand heavily on Salazar’s shoulder. Salazar reached up and removed his colleague’s hand gingerly with two fingers.

“Excruciatingly,” he agreed. “But instead of lingering in the doorway and bemoaning my decrepit body, I plan to do something about it.”

“And what would that be?” Helga prodded, although she felt she already knew the answer. Salazar grinned at her.

“I’m going to open some more cider and drink it until I can’t feel any of the parts of me that are tired. Care to join me?” His raised eyebrow said it was a layered question, and Helga pursed her lips.

“I wouldn’t mind a single cup, as it did look quite lovely this morning when you drank it with breakfast, but that will have to be my limit. I don’t know about you, but I hope to be awake for classes in the morning. And besides – I have lessons of my own to attend after we eat.”

“You have lessons?” Goderic asked as they all wandered into the teachers’ hearth room to wait for the food to be ready. Rhonwen nodded.

“Yes, with me. Helga is going to learn Latin, as I promised her.”

“And I’m very excited to begin. I want us all to be able to teach spells in the same language, so all the students learn the same consistent spellwork. So we’ll be having a private lesson every evening after our meal is finished, until I’ve mastered it enough to speak and write all the spells I plan to teach.” Helga and Rhonwen sat down at the little square table, and Goderic leaned against a chair.

“I’m surprised you can find the energy for more lessons,” he chuckled. Salazar brought over two cups that he had filled with cider and put them on the table, pulling out the chair across from Helga and fixing her with a cheeky stare.

“As it happens, I speak Latin too, you know,” he smirked, moving his chair into position behind him without taking his eyes off Helga’s and sliding one cup over to her. “If Rhonwen is ever too busy, I would happily fill in for her. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on any… private lessons.” He said it with just enough slant on the words that even Goderic took notice and made a face at him. Helga thought of several possible tart responses… and then simply extended one long leg under the table and shoved Salazar’s chair out from under him as he moved to sit down in it. Salazar avoided tumbling to the floor, but only just; when he pulled himself upright, he was muttering a string of Vasconian curses and trying to tuck his hair behind his ears to look dignified.

“Serves you right,” Rhonwen muttered, smothering a grin; and then Goderic melted into uproarious laughter that was so contagious, Helga found herself covering her mouth to hide giggles. Salazar righted his chair and sat down, making a great show of looking put-out.

But over the rim of his cup of cider, he gave Helga a look that told her he hadn’t learned his lesson in the slightest, and had no intention of doing so in the future either.

Chapter Text

The first weeks of the holy month flew by in a whirl of lessons, excitement, and unfamiliarity. It took a few repetitions before all of the children began to learn their schedule of lessons by heart, and there were several mornings that found Bihotza shepherding stray students into the correct room or leading a confused Silvanus, who couldn’t hear his parchment’s directions because the other children were too loud. The adults, too, had to grow accustomed to the new routines; on more than one morning, Salazar showed up to breakfast wrapped in his blanket and refusing to make conversation, and by the final lesson of the afternoon, Goderic could sometimes be found staring out the window along with his students, eager for the final lesson bell and the freedom to go out into the courtyard. Wintermilk the groundskeeper often found it necessary to stand sentry at the gate during the afternoon free time to prevent some of the more adventurous children from slipping out into the forest to explore, and after one incident of a cloak being set on fire, Hankertonne had to make a rule forbidding students using their wands between lessons. Adding to this happy chaos was Alfgeat the ghost, who had a tendency to appear without warning in unexpected places. At first he mostly followed little Mildryth to wherever her lessons happened to be; but once it became clear that the girl was feeling more secure and less in need of his reassuring presence, he took to roaming the school and the grounds, wafting through walls and into classrooms at will until one afternoon, when he interrupted one of Salazar’s lessons and got a hex cast at him for his troubles. Salazar spent his next several evenings developing a ghost-repelling charm for the walls of his classroom and his bedchamber, with Alfgeat hovering behind him helpfully offering suggestions.

Helga found her Latin lessons far more confusing than she’d imagined – the letters were fine and generally made sense, but how many words did one language need for fall? – and she was glad that the children in Rhonwen’s morning reading class were taking to it a great deal faster than she was. They had learned all their letters and could write their names within the first week, and Silvanus was able to say the words yes, no, hello, goodbye, bread, drink, wand, and spell in Saxon after only a few days of lessons. (He had also learned to say bollocks by the end of the first week, and Rhonwen was hot on the trail of whichever student had taught him that.) Rhonwen had a list of words she wanted them all to be able to read by the end of holy month, and hoped that Silvanus could dispense with using the speaking parchment by All Hallows Day. Helga thought that not only was that reasonable, but that the students might surprise her and be further along than she expected. Children, she had always found, had a remarkable capacity to learn and adapt. It was the busiest time Helga had ever known, and she found that both she and her students were learning and adapting to a wealth of things quite apart from their lessons. On the third day after the students had arrived, Helga went for a walk with Hnossa outside the school walls before the evening meal, and they met Hoshea and Ya’el standing at the banks of the loch. The pair were speaking, or perhaps praying, Helga thought, in their native language; and both appeared to be shaking the edges of their robes out over the water. She and Hnossa waited respectfully until they had finished, and then she approached them with a quizzical look.

“It is the top of the year,” Ya’el told her, smiling. “Time to shake away old things and begin anew.”

“HaShem casts away all of our sins into the depths,” Hoshea nodded. “So we go to the water, we throw away what we have done wrong, and we resolve to make a clean start.”

“And tonight,” Ya’el added, “we eat new fruits, because we are beginning new things.” Helga beamed at them both as they joined her and Hnossa for the walk back up to the school.

“That sounds lovely!” Helga grinned. “I suppose this is a month of holy days for everyone. Can we all join in? We’re all starting something new, you know. This school, everyone learning new languages and making new friends, all of it.”

“Of course,” Hoshea smiled; and that night at dinner, Helga saw that a bowl of early pomegranates from Vasconia had been placed at the center of each table. Salazar showed her how to crack hers open, and she savored the sharp, sweet juice as she reflected on how lovely it was to be at the beginning of something.

At the end of the first week, when Goderic was satisfied that all of his students could knock a wand out of someone’s hand, he began teaching them to create invisible shields. This proved more difficult than he had anticipated, and more than half the month had passed before even his most skilled students were able to manage more than a weak shield, easily broken by the simplest jinxes. Seeing them beginning to look discouraged, Goderic changed tactics. When the oldest group of students walked into his classroom the next day after their midday meal, they found it empty save for Goderic himself and a small wooden chest on the floor at his feet. The chest was secured with a lock, which seemed like the right thing to do considering the way it rattled and bounced against the stone floor as though something inside it wanted to be let out. Goderic ushered the six students in and waved for them to gather some distance away from the box.

“No shield charms today, brother?” Eaderic queried, a little disappointed; he had been one of the few students who had managed one the day before, and was ready to show off again. Goderic gave him a knowing smirk.

“No, I thought we could all use a change of pace. We’ll get our blood up today, have a little excitement, and try shields again later this week. Now.” Goderic stepped closer to the box and put one heavy boot on top of it, reducing its movements to an occasional wiggle. “Who’d like to guess what’s in the box?”

“An pucadh,” came the soft voice of Silvanus, who was staring at the chest warily. He wasn’t speaking into his parchment, but thankfully Goderic didn’t need that word translated. He nodded appreciatively.

“Aye, well done, Silvanus. Perhaps you’ve seen one before. Your pucadh is also called a pucel, a pwca, or a bwgan; and in this class, we will call it… a boggart.” There was a sharp hiss of breath from Aluric at the word, Myrddin took a step backward, and Eduardus looked decidedly pale. The wandmaker’s daughter Vendicina, however, was eyeing the box like it was a challenging puzzle. Goderic chuckled at them gently. “I see most of you have at least heard of a boggart, enough to get nervous. For any who might be unsure – the simplest description is that it’s a spirit that likes to frighten people, in whatever way it senses will give you the greatest jolt. A boggart changes shape, depending on whatever your greatest fear is. They can’t hurt you, unless of course they frighten you while you’re up a tree and cause you to fall, or something like that. Now, do any of you know where you might be likely to encounter a boggart?”

“They like the dark,” answered Vendicina promptly. “And the small. Any place that is dim and full of close spaces. Beneath furniture. In the gaps in masonry. Boxes that are seldom opened. My father has had to throw out a few wand boxes because they’ve gotten boggarts in them sitting at the bottom of the cart.”

“Aye, very good,” Goderic nodded. “Now, I’ve borrowed this one from our own Master Slidrian, who up until recently was using it to guard his property here – so it’s very nearly a tame boggart. At least, it knows what box it lives in, so be reassured that we can get it back into its chest at the end of the lesson.”

“It doesn’t sound very tame,” Myrddin said doubtfully, watching the box trying to shake off Goderic’s foot. Goderic chuckled.

“It will still try to give you a fright. But you have the advantage of facing it as a group – so only one of you will be terribly frightened at a time. And being in a group makes you better able to defend against it, because the key to banishing a boggart is being able to laugh at it. Using an incantation, you will force the spirit into a shape that amuses you. Of course, that is often difficult in the face of something that frightens you, and you may manage only a wry smile – but your friends can laugh with you, and it’s the laughter that the boggart runs away from.”

“Can it kill the boggart?” Eduardus asked, and Goderic shook his head.

“No, they’re not properly alive, so they can’t die. But this spell – and your amusement – will send the boggart away, usually back into its hiding place, but you can make it leave the building if your attack is strong enough. Now. Wands out, everyone, and we’ll practice the incantation and the movement.”

Goderic ran the students through their paces, repeating the riddikulus charm until everyone (including Silvanus) could pronounce it correctly, and practicing the scoop-and-jab motion of the wands until all six of them could do it identically like marching soldiers. Watching them do it one more time, Goderic nodded approvingly. “Excellent. Now, the real question; has any of you ever faced a boggart before?” Only Vendicina raised her hand.

“In my father’s shop,” she added, and Goderic gave her a deferential little bow.

“Well, then I’m sure you won’t mind letting the others have a go first. Now, boys, do I have a volunteer?” Nobody moved for a very long moment, until Eaderic and Eduardus began quietly elbowing each other and trying to shove each other forward. Eaderic was the stronger of the two, and he shoved just hard enough to make Eduardus lose his footing and tumble forward a step.

“Alright,” Eduardus hissed at him, and Goderic eyed his sibling.

“I saw that, and you’ve bought yourself the next turn, Brother, so don’t get comfortable.” Eaderic rolled his eyes at this, but Goderic was already positioning Eduardus in front of the quivering chest. “Now, don’t worry. You know the incantation, you know what to do with your wand. What you have to remember,” he said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder, “is that the real power of the spell is your willpower, in looking at the thing that frightens you and taking away its ability to do so. How you do that is up to you, but you have to picture it clearly in your mind. Ready?”

“Not particularly,” Eduardus murmured, but he locked his eyes on the chest and lifted his wand. Goderic slapped him on the back and bent to unlock the chest.

The lid flew back as soon as the latch came free, and there was a clattering and a rush of air as the boggart whipped itself up and out of the box, taking shape even before its paws had come to rest on the floor. It was a massive grey wolf, and its severe golden eyes were fixed directly on the neck of the boy standing in front of it. Everyone in the room took an instinctive step back, even Goderic, as the wolf’s lips curled up in an aggressive growl. Eduardus gulped; the wolf stood as tall as Goderic’s sword, and its paws looked about the size of human hands. As it took a tentative step toward the children, snarling and dripping saliva, the room began to fill with the scent of carrion. Goderic gestured for Eduardus to stay put, because the boy looked like he might just drop his wand and run.

“You know the spell, Eduardus,” he encouraged. “Do exactly what we practiced, and make the wolf amusing.”

“Amusing… of course…,” Eduardus muttered in a way that would have been deprecatory if his voice hadn’t been shaking. He licked his lips nervously, and the wolf kept advancing inch by inch, taking its time since its prey didn’t seem to be terribly mobile. He left it so long that Goderic feared he might have to intervene; then without warning, Eduardus jabbed his wand at the wolf-boggart and shouted the spell.

“Riddikulus!”

For a moment, it didn’t seem that the spell had worked. The wolf was still a wolf, and it was still snarling at Eduardus hungrily. It lifted its paw to take another step closer – and then it stopped, looking down at its paws with an odd huffing whine. Goderic saw that a piece of parchment appeared to be stuck to the wolf’s front right paw, as though the page were coated with something sticky like resin. The wolf tried to take an awkward step, lifting and lowering its paw over and over, nudging the parchment with its muzzle to dislodge it and failing. It tried to step backward – and found that another piece of parchment was stuck to one of its back paws as well. Whining, the wolf began to shake its paws, alternating between front and back, but the pages were truly stuck, and the wolf was forced into a strange sort of high-stepping walk, moving in circles and shaking its body ineffectually in an attempt to rid itself of the parchment. The movement was so bizarre and silly that Goderic found himself snorting with derision, and all of the watching students began to laugh as well. Even Eduardus managed a grin as he looked at Goderic for approval.

“I saw Abbot Theobald’s cat get a string stuck to its paw once,” he explained. “We chased it for half an hour trying to help it get loose, and the silly thing was so distressed, it tried to walk on two legs for a moment. It seemed appropriate.”

“Well done!” Goderic laughed, giving Eduardus another slap on the back. “That’s how you do it, everyone. Now if we left it long enough, the boggart would slink back into its box, but we’re not letting it get away with just one defeat today. Brother? You’re next.”

“If I must,” Eaderic sighed deeply, and then approached the wobbling wolf, trying to look bored instead of worried.

It was an excellent day of lessons, with a great range of boggart shapes being dispatched – a swarm of tiny spiders turned into clouds of dandelion seed, a Norse raider stripped of his weapons and made to wear a too-short dress, even a bad-tempered cow whose lowing brought Salazar out of his neighboring classroom to see what on earth was happening. Morgen stabbed at it with her wand and the cow developed a human head, which shouted moo! in a very human voice and drew laughs from the whole room. Salazar took his boggart back from Goderic huffily after the last class and expressed his hope that there would be no more boggart lessons for a long while – his boggart was traumatized, he said, and he wanted to keep it at least half-tamed so it could guard the school grounds. Goderic privately thought Salazar himself was traumatized by the boggart turning into an angry cow, but he kept these thoughts to himself.

The holy month lived up to its name; as the ides came and went, a bevy of holy days and ceremonies were celebrated amongst the inhabitants of Hogwarts, often to the great amusement or confusion of those watching rituals they themselves did not observe. The day after Goderic’s boggart lessons, Helga watched with great interest as Ya’el and Hoshea constructed a little hut in the school courtyard, stretching tapestries around three sides of a wooden frame and laying pine branches from the forest over the top.

“You ought to have another layer of those, or it’ll leak,” Goderic mused, coming outside to watch with her. Hoshea laughed.

“This is how it must be, Moreh Goderic. We must be able to see the sky through them.”

“Is it a shrine?” Helga asked, and Ya’el smiled at her as she hung a string of fruits from the wooden frame.

“It is a memory. Our ancestors journeyed forty years in the wilderness before they came to the land HaShem prepared for them. They were ever on the move, because they did not belong in the wilderness – their homes were temporary things. We build the sukkah to tell the story, and to remind ourselves that our present troubles are also temporary.”

“And the fruit is for God’s bountiful harvest?” Goderic surmised, and Hoshea nodded.

“You must eat with us in the sukkah tomorrow, because what HaShem provides, we must share.” Helga clapped her hands a little in anticipation.

“Oh, that’ll be perfect!” she grinned. “Haust blót begins tomorrow, and then I’ll be celebrating the harvest too. We can have our own little dinner together – and can there be some special dishes for the children to eat as well?”

“We do no work on the first days of sukkot,” Ya’el explained, “but we have already left preparations and instructions for Bihotza. She will be sure there are harvest foods for the children to enjoy.”

“Haust blót?” Goderic asked Helga as they made their way back into the school. “You mean that thing where you spray blood all over the place and dance naked around a bonfire?”

“You’re exaggerating,” Helga scoffed at him. “You have to kill an animal to eat it, which usually involves blood, and nobody is naked. Unless they want to be. But it’s quite cold here at night, and I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a harvest festival, Goderic, not a massacre.”

“But you’re not going to be sacrificing animals out in the courtyard, are you?”

“Spoken as though your own ancestors weren’t doing it a few hundred years ago?” Helga smirked. “No, Goderic, of course not. Rhonwen wouldn’t allow it, and anyway, I think enough people are offering the gods enough blood without me having to add to it. I’ll just be pouring out libations.”

Goderic stopped in the dining hall doorway, processing what she had said, and then he called after her. “You’re going to be pouring libations? As in, wasting good mead by tipping it onto the ground? Merlin’s beard, that’s almost worse!” Helga didn’t respond to this, but she laughed over her shoulder at the offense in his voice.

Ya’el and Hoshea ate meals in their little hut for a week, joined at various times by one student or another who was curious about their ritual; Helga herself ate several suppers with them, learning the Hebrew names of the things they were eating and even dragging Salazar along for one dinner. He complained miserably the whole time about sitting on the ground, but Helga thought this was just pretense. He seemed more relaxed in the company of his old family friends, even cracking a smile at some of their jokes. Helga caught herself watching his lips on a few of these occasions and dug her fingernails into her palms to stop herself. She couldn’t be looking at him like that if he was going to keep using those lips to make fun of her name – and he made sure to do that every chance he got. It seemed to her that eventually, he would run out of different incorrect names to call her, and that he’d either have to start reusing them or give it up; but as he’d been at it for months now with no signs of stopping, she supposed she might as well just get used to it. There were, of course, limits to her patience; and when he called her Helga Haustblotter that night on their way out of the hut to light her bonfire, Helga responded by confiscating the jug of good cider he’d been drinking and pouring it out as a libation offering. The horrified look on his face was priceless, and he called her no incorrect names – or anything else – for the next three days.

On the afternoon before the final day of Helga’s haust blót celebrations, Tancred approached her and asked whether they might do something special for the Christian feast of Michael’s-mass like they had done for the other holidays. Helga was happy to oblige him, but had to ask him what the holiday was for – she had a vague understanding of the feasts for Christ being born and dying, but everything in between was a little muddy.

“It’s a harvest festival too, I suppose, when you come right down to it,” Tancred said in his quiet, unassuming way. “About being thankful for what God has provided for our table. But it’s also when the angel Michael cast the Devil out of heaven, so we celebrate all the angels and how God sends them to defend us.”

“Is there a ceremony you’d like to do?” Helga asked him, and the boy shrugged.

“Not with no church up here, and no priests. But my mother said we should always eat blackberries on Michael’s-mass because he threw the Devil into a blackberry patch.”

“I think we can manage some blackberries,” Helga grinned. True to her word, she went and spoke to Bihotza, and that night every table held an assortment of blackberry cakes, drinks, and preserves. As an added surprise for Tancred, she had also spoken to Rhonwen just before dinner about decorations, and the students ate their dinner that night under a ceiling that glittered with little shimmering parchment angels that flew of their own accord. Tancred’s face lit up as he entered the dining hall, and Helga was so enamored of the charm that she had Rhonwen write it down for her to learn during her next Latin lessons.

Holy month gave way to winter-month, and as the chaos of learning new routines and celebrating new holidays died down, the four teachers got down to the business of serious instruction. Having gotten their students acquainted with the tools of each of their magical disciplines, they could now begin showing them more complex and interesting types of magic. Salazar had spent the first month ensuring that his students could use cauldrons and flame spells proficiently, that they knew all of the proper potion terminology, and that they could readily identify, measure, and prepare common potion ingredients. Now, as their second month of school began, he decided to treat them to a demonstration.

“Potions can be powerful,” he told the six students in his first group after midday, “some more than others, and they should be respected, never handled lightly. I’ll be showing you such a potion today – but you will not learn to make this potion until you are older, because it can be quite dangerous if used improperly. Do you understand?” The six children – Linnræd, Cunomorinus, the Weslege siblings, and the Caccepol siblings – all nodded, although Eadgyth tilted her head quizzically.

“Then why show it to us now, Master Slidrian?”

“Because I want you to be able to identify it by sight and by smell,” Salazar said grimly, “in case anyone ever tries to use it on you. And because I want you to understand why you should treat potions with such care.” With that, he stepped away from the small table he had been blocking with his body, revealing a diminutive copper cauldron, highly polished and lightly steaming. Salazar had draped the classroom window so that only one narrow beam of sunlight was allowed into the room; this fell directly onto the cauldron, making the dust motes glitter as they spiraled upward, mingling with the steam. “Step forward to look, but not close enough to breathe it in,” Salazar said quietly, walking around behind the table to let the students approach. All six of them came forward to get a better look.

“That looks like the inside of a shell,” Linnræd observed, watching swirls of iridescence on the shimmering surface of the liquid. Salazar nodded, giving the boy a hint of a smile.

“Indeed. Sharp eyes, well done. Crushed pearls are one of the ingredients – I will not tell you the others, so don’t ask. The pearls are responsible for that sheen you see on the surface. Let that be your warning. If you are ever offered a drink and you see that pearl-like shimmer in the cup – refuse. Pour it out.”

“What is it?” asked Cunomorinus, and Salazar crossed his arms.

“Amortentia.”

“A love potion?” Morgen grinned, her eyebrows lifting. Salazar nodded.

“I see you’ve read about it, very good. Yes, it is the most powerful love potion yet developed – and the most dangerous. Don’t let descriptions fool you: a potion cannot create love. But if you drank this, you would become hopelessly and dangerously obsessed with the person who made it, even to your own detriment. People have died under the influence of amortentia, or lost their whole future to a false desire. And if someone is feeding you this to gain your affection, then no good can come of their intentions.”

“That’s wicked and dishonest,” Arthur frowned, and Salazar stifled a smirk.

“Very,” he agreed. “But the world is full of wicked and dishonest people, so you’d best be prepared. Now. One at a time, you will each come to the cauldron and inhale this steam, and tell us what you smell. Ælfwine, you first.”

Ælfwine regarded his teacher skeptically for a moment, then reluctantly approached the cauldron. He plunged his head into the spiral of steam and the little sparkles danced about his head and made his dark ginger hair seem brighter. When he pulled back, there was an odd look on his face – soft, almost wistful.

“Well?” prodded Salazar. “What do you smell?”

“Rosewater,” Ælfwine said, suddenly fighting back tears.

“And?”

“And…,” Ælfwine paused, sniffing the air again quizzically. “And… beeswax.”

“And what else?” Salazar prompted, and the boy smelled the potion again, taking a moment this time to identify the scent.

“Honeysuckle,” Ælfwine said finally, “wet after a rainstorm.” Salazar gave him a rare smile.

“Very good. You can step back.” When the boy had retreated, looking surprised and a little haunted, Salazar addressed all six of them and held up three fingers. “Amortentia will have three odors for most people – sometimes one after the other, and sometimes mingling. The first odor will always be the same for you throughout your life; it is the smell of home, family, childhood, and comfort. Of the person from whom you first learned what love was.”

“Mother always smelled of rosewater,” Eadgyth said quietly, giving her brother’s hand a squeeze. Salazar nodded at this.

“It is usually something like that. The second scent,” he went on, “represents a different love – self-love. It will be a scent reminiscent of something that brings you great joy and fulfilment, a sense of pride or achievement not dependent upon another person. Therefore it often remains consistent, but it may change – if you undergo a significant change in your Self. Ælfwine, do you know why you smelled beeswax?”

“My bow string,” Ælfwine said after some contemplation. “I’m a good shot. I feel strong when I shoot. Capable.”

“And you coat your bow string with beeswax, of course,” Salazar surmised. “Very good. Now, the third scent. This one will change, probably many times over the years, unless you are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have only one great love in your life. The third scent is the scent of romantic love, and it will be a scent associated with whoever you fancy at the moment. When you are old enough to really fall in love, that scent will overwhelm the others; but right now you are all thankfully still children, and we can feel decently safe.” He lifted an eyebrow at Ælfwine then, and smirked. “Honeysuckle in the rain?”

Ælfwine stared at his shoes, so Eadgyth answered for him. “There was a honeysuckle hedge between our land and the next farm,” she giggled, elbowing her brother. “The farm where that girl Ælfeva lived.”

“I see,” Salazar said seriously, but his eyes were glittery with amusement. “Well, then, Eadgyth, since we’ve tortured your brother enough, come and see what you can smell.”

Eadgyth kept her head in the steam longer than her brother had, waiting until she had identified all three odors before straightening up and turning back to her teacher. “Blackberries, linen drying in the sun, and fennel seed bread,” she said, a little puzzled. This gave Salazar another point to expound upon.

“Notice, everyone, that although Ælfwine and Eadgyth have had the same upbringing, as siblings, their first scent differs. Eadgyth?”

“Mother often took me with her blackberry picking,” she explained, and Salazar nodded.

“So you both smell scents of your mother – but in a way that is unique to you. That is the nature of memory. Now—”

“Master Slidrian?” Eadgyth asked, stopping him before he moved on. “I don’t know why I smelled fennel seed bread. I can’t think who that might represent.”

“Can you not?” Salazar grinned, shrugging. “Well, sometimes that third scent surprises us, and smells of someone we don’t even know we fancy yet, someone we’ve only just met or haven’t realized our feelings for. And in rare cases, sometimes it can be prophetic. If you’re one of those people with only one great love that I mentioned, you might possibly smell that person years before you ever meet them. But whatever the dangers of amortentia, I suppose we can say that it is good for one thing; sometimes the scent of it helps us discover things about ourselves.”

“What do you smell, Master Slidrian?” Linnræd grinned cheekily. Salazar regarded him silently, cat-like behind his black curls, and for a moment the students thought he might not answer. Then he shrugged softly.

“Orange rind, heated copper, and oxlip blossoms.”

“Copper because of your cauldrons?” Morgen surmised. “Because you’re good at potions and proud of yourself?” Salazar inclined his head toward her subtly.

“I suppose so,” he said, hiding a grin behind mock humility. Cunomorinus raised his hand slowly.

“Master Slidrian, what’s an orange?” Some of the other students grinned at this, but it was obvious that they knew no more than he. Salazar stifled a laugh.

“It’s a fruit from where I was born, in Vasconia,” he explained, grinning himself now. “My mother would peel them and feed them to me while she told me stories.”

“And who smells of oxlip blossoms, Master Slidrian?” Eadgyth prodded smartly, and behind her, Linnræd snorted a laugh into his hand.

“Might be the same person who always wears a cloak the color of oxlips,” he whispered – but he stopped abruptly when Salazar pointed a wand directly between his eyes.

“Alright, Cheeky, you’re next,” he glowered, and directed Linnræd up to the table with a twitch of the wand. The boy obliged, but he went with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Salazar had assumed his lessons to be decently safe, owing to the relative youth of those being asked to smell the potion. What he hadn’t bargained for, of course, was the bramble patch of adolescent emotions the lesson would inadvertently unleash. The trouble began within the first hour of instruction, when it came about that Morgen smelled olive oil at the end of her amortentia fragrance – the same olive oil that Cunomorinus had smelled when remembering his childhood in the wandmaking workshop. There was some good-natured ribbing as she walked back to her place in line, which Salazar attempted to smother with a pointedly-raised eyebrow; but while Linnræd and Eadgyth both swallowed back their jokes, looks continued to be exchanged and giggles continued to be stifled until Cunomorinus retreated behind his curtain of hair and stared at his shoes. Morgen spent the rest of the lesson with her cloak pulled up around her face, leaving only her eyes visible. This should have been the end of it, at least in Salazar’s opinion; but when Arthur’s first fragrance turned out to be fennel, and Eadgyth blushed until her freckles disappeared, Salazar realized that he might have made a slight misjudgment.

The next lesson he taught that day went no better than the first.

By the end of that day’s round of amortentia demonstrations, a spiderweb of previously unknown adolescent feelings had been revealed, and Salazar was sorry that he’d made any of them smell the potion at all. Eadgyth and Arthur seemed relatively content to look occasionally at each other across a classroom and blush, but Ælfwine apparently had other ideas about what sorts of looks should be directed at his sister. On more than one occasion he was caught menacing Arthur with his wand from behind a door, or trying to catch the hem of his cloak on fire if he and Eadgyth sat too close. Cunomorinus and Morgen both seemed incapable of looking at each other at all. Linnræd, having been outed by the potion as having an interest in Arddun, had decided to lean into it and brought her flowers from the courtyard during their free time after lessons; Arddun simply pretended he didn’t exist and took her broom up for a ride to get away from him. Hnossa found herself at the receiving end of attention from both the silent Starculf and the ebullient Særic, neither of whom had any luck at all in prying her away from her own attachment to Aluric. And Tancred, unable to identify his third scent at all, could be seen all the rest of that week going from place to place in the school, sniffing things and trying to find a smell that matched. The only people who seemed to benefit from the amortentia’s revelations were Ysolt and Myrddin, who had taken to sitting together in the courtyard after lessons poring over a book borrowed from Rhonwen and looking silently content.

“No more love potions, Salazar,” Rhonwen muttered down the teachers’ table at dinner as the week came to an end, watching Bihotza clean up the third spilled drink of the evening, dropped by a student who was too distracted by someone else to watch what they were doing. Salazar waved his goblet at her dismissively.

“Well, how was I to know you could get this kind of chaos out of a potion demonstration?” He gave her a peevish glance before turning back to the room full of students, trying to figure out which one of them was making the cup-on-table knocking sound that had been slowly driving him mad all evening. Rhonwen frowned at him.

“You mean, how were you to know they had feelings?”

“They’re not even adults yet, how many feelings can they possibly have?”

Across the room, a small cake landed square in Linnræd’s face, and Arddun was looking the other direction as though she didn’t even know he was in the room. Helga and Rhonwen both glared at Salazar, and he rolled his eyes.

“Fine. No more love potions.”

As if to punctuate the decision, an apple came flying from one of the student tables, putting out the candle closest to Salazar’s plate and splattering on the wall behind them. Bihotza vanished the bits and gave Salazar a withering stare.

Helga had rather hoped that conditions would settle down over the next few days, but she found instead that they were trending in the opposite direction. The initial outbursts prompted by the amortentia’s revelations had turned into a general sense of wild energy that permeated the whole school, and pranks were becoming the natural order of business – a pie smuggled from dinner placed on the floor beside someone’s bed where shoes should have been, items going missing only to be found in a teacher’s seat, and more than once Cadwgan had to be placated after being convinced the school was under attack. It was chaotic enough that after two weeks of it, all four teachers gathered in Salazar’s former kitchen with only one item on the agenda – decide how to put a stop to it.

“We could give them all a sleeping potion in their milk tonight,” Salazar grumbled, pushing the edges of Helga’s parchment away from his goblet. “Maybe a little something to help them forget, while we’re at it.” Helga swatted at his hand and kept copying the Latin text she was practicing.

“A stupor is not the answer to everything, Salazar,” she muttered, working very hard to get one of the curving letters right.

“Why don’t we have a sporting day?” Goderic offered, closing the door of a tall cabinet that had fallen open. “You know, like they do in Normandy and Saxony? A good bit of sporting always helps me get rid of unwanted feelings.”

“I don’t think we should be letting twelve-year-olds ride about the courtyard with pointed sticks, Goderic,” Rhonwen said distractedly, brushing at the drop of water that had fallen on her sleeve from somewhere in the ceiling. Goderic shrugged.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be exactly like in Normandy,” he conceded. “It’s not as though we’re training them for battle. But some good, healthy games... you know, get all of that extra energy out of them.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Goderic,” Helga brightened, “although we’ll have to make them leave their wands indoors so they don’t accidentally kill each other.”

“Unless we let them shoot at targets with their wands?” Goderic countered hopefully, and Helga gave him a look that said we shall see about that.

“I assume these games will be played in teams?” Salazar asked, eyeing Goderic but speaking to Helga.

“You mean, each of our four groups of students competing against each other?” Helga replied. “But then we can’t make judgements or keep score, because we’ll be biased.”

“Bihotza can be the final authority,” Rhonwen suggested. “She won’t favor any one team.”

“And when exactly are we doing all of this?” Salazar inquired, summoning the wine jug to the table for a refill. As if in answer, the sound of something crashing came from the direction of the entrance hall, and Goderic grimaced.

“The sooner the better,” he muttered, closing the loose cabinet door again. “Tomorrow, even.”

“Oh, not tomorrow,” Rhonwen shook her head. “We need at least a little time to plan. We need to decide on games and rules, and how to schedule it all, and we’ll need to give Ya’el and Hoshea and Bihotza some time to plan mealtimes around it all. Actually, we should probably have a big meal that night, like a celebratory supper. That’ll distract them even further.” Salazar took a deep drink and sighed at this.

“Sounds terribly chaotic and expensive, but I suppose there’s no other solution.”

“Wait!” Helga said excitedly, putting down her quill. “What about Vetrnætr?” Salazar snorted into his cup.

“Honestly,” he smirked, “if you really want me to stop calling you names, you’re going to have to stop giving me so much good material to work with.” Helga jabbed at his hand with her quill before clarifying.

“Vetrnætr,” she repeated. “The Winter Nights. That’s coming up in a few days, and it would be nice to have a feast to go along with the Álfablót.”

“But what about Hallowtide?” Goderic frowned. “That’s a week later, and we can’t have two feasts one right after the other. It’s a little too much to ask of the kitchens, don’t you think?”

“What’s Hallowtide?” asked Helga, and Goderic shut the cabinet door again before coming to the table.

“Days of prayer to remember the dead, especially the martyrs.”

“Álfablót is for remembering the ancestors, too!” Helga grinned. “Why don’t we do them both at the same time? We could have one big feast and do all of our praying and offerings together!”

“Excuse me,” Salazar interjected, “but am I allowed to have any holy days of my own, or will this be taken over in the same manner as my house?”

“Of course, you can, Salazar!” Helga beamed. “What do they celebrate in Vasconia?”

“Well, as it happens,” Salazar explained, “we all seem to be thinking about dead people at approximately the same time of year. It’s time to light the argizaiolak. I have candle boards for my mother and father that will want lighting.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in such things, Salazar,” Rhonwen said quizzically. Salazar shrugged.

“I don’t. But traditions are comforting, especially when you’ve turned my house into a den of chaos, and candles do make things very atmospheric.”

“Well, that settles it, then!” Goderic exclaimed, thumping his fist on the table. “We’ll do them all at once – on the eve before Hallowmas. That’s at the end of yours, and at the beginning of mine, and Salazar’s goes along with them both. A day of games, and then a feast in the evening. Perfect! Rhonwen?”

Rhonwen was ahead of Goderic, and she had already taken out parchment and begun to write down lists in preparation. Out in the entrance hall there was another resounding crash that jostled the cabinet door open again, followed by the sound of Hankertonne muttering to himself as he went to tackle yet another mess. Rhonwen frowned as she wrote. “Perfect, yes. Providing we can survive until we get it all arranged.”

A fat drop of water fell from the ceiling then and landed right in the middle of the word she was writing, as if it wanted to help prove her point.

Preparations for the sporting and feasting were kept secret from the children until the morning of Hallow’s Eve, which dawned cold and amber above the mist-blanketed loch and hillsides. Out the windows of the dining hall, Helga could see the water of the loch in little patches where the fog was thin, flat calm and dark as pewter at first and then warming to copper and gold as it caught the sun; and beyond that, a mad tracery of spiderwebs draped across the heather on the banks, dewy and glittering as though the whole hillside had been sown with fairy eggs. They had gone out to make most of the preparations while the children had been getting washed and dressed, and walking in the courtyard had been like walking in a bowl of milk, utterly silent and white and smelling of cold, wet earth, of mushrooms and deep leaves and the pines of the forest beyond the walls. Rhonwen said softly that it was like walking with Uthyr and Menw under their cloak of invisibility, and when Helga gave her a quizzical look, Rhonwen obliged her by telling part of the story of the Three Enchantments while they worked to set up the games. Her voice was rhythmic and sonorous in the crisp, glowing air, and it almost made Helga feel hypnotized – right up until Salazar crept up behind her in the mist and stuck his wand handle into her ribs. She screamed, and Salazar fell back onto the wet grass laughing, the sounds of his merriment blending with the echoes of her shriek.

At the end of the morning meal, instead of signaling Bihotza to ring the bell for first lessons, Helga stood up and made the announcement that there would be no lessons that day – a statement which was met first by some half-awake murmuring, and then by general celebration. When she continued with the announcement that they would instead be having a day of outdoor games, followed by a Winternights and Hallowmas feast, the mild excitement erupted into cheers and clapping, and Helga was pleased to see that even Morgen and Cunomorinus managed to look at each other long enough to grin. Each teacher then left the high table and led their own group of students out into the courtyard, where the morning sun was now beginning to burn off the mist, revealing a bright, clear eggshell blue sky. Bihotza was declared Mistress of Games, and installed herself on a chair whose legs had been magically lengthened to elevate her above the school lawns so she could get a clear view of everything. Once she was in place, at a nod from Helga, the elf snapped her fingers to produce a sound like a small trumpet, and the games began.

The simplest sports were played first, and the children began with a race down the length of the courtyard. Each group of students first held a lesser race amongst themselves to determine each teacher’s fastest runner; and then the four victors – Eadgyth, Linnræd, Silvanus, and Aluric – faced each other for two lengths of the courtyard. It was a close finish, and only Bihotza in her high chair was able to tell that Eadgyth crossed the cord on the grass just a moment before Silvanus. Goderic marked a tally under his name on the banner where they were keeping score, grinning proudly in Helga’s direction, and while she was shrugging and telling him it was well-won, she saw Salazar over his shoulder, prodding the banner with his wand and changing the capital G in Goderic’s name into a picture of a gnome making a rude face. Helga scolded him; but she did have to admit, it was a funny picture.

After the foot races came the broom course, to be flown around a series of pennants hung from various points on the school building and walls. Arddun, Brictric, Ælfwine, and Helena were chosen as the best flyers on their teams, and while they each flew admirably, Arddun rode loops and circles around the others and still came out faster, scoring for Helga’s team. Brictric was none too happy about losing and had to be given a stern lecture from his sister on sporting conduct; he spent the rest of the day glaring at Arddun from across the courtyard.

The broom race was followed by rounds of questions on magical theory and history, first in teams and then a final round pitting a champion from each team against each other in a trial of both knowledge and speed. Rhonwen’s team held the firm lead throughout, and Morgen in particular gave a stellar performance as her team’s champion, leading them to a solid victory. There was a surprising upset, however, when Eduardus and Vendicina went on to win a decisive victory for Salazar’s team at a tæfl game. After this Goderic came out of the school with four wooden practice swords, and each team was asked to choose a champion to compete in a mock battle. Walrand, Myrddin, and Eaderic were quickly chosen for their own teams because of their upbringing and experience in the noble arts; but it became apparent after a very little discussion that none of Helga’s six students had any idea what they were doing with a sword. Only Særic had ever even held one, and he had only ever been able to spar a little with Aluric in the few months they had known each other. Helga worried that any of her students would be seriously injured by an opponent who had been brought up using a sword, even if it was a wooden one, and was about to protest the event all together, when Arthur stepped forward from amongst Goderic’s other students and offered to serve as a champion in their stead. If he won, he proposed, his victory would be counted for Helga’s team. Helga ruffled his ginger hair and gave him a kiss on the forehead, Goderic slapped him on the back and told him he had the makings of a king’s húscarl, and Cadwgan was so enraptured by the heroism and nobility of the boy’s sacrifice that he had to be removed from the yard in the middle of reciting an epic poem. The boys took it in turns against each other then, with Myrddin fighting gracefully but not nearly as sturdily as Arthur, and with Walrand taking Eaderic’s feet out from under him in a move that shocked absolutely nobody except Eaderic himself, who had assumed he would win simply because he was older and taller. Arthur then faced Walrand for the final battle, and it was well fought and evenly matched right up until the end when Walrand’s extra experience paid off and he was able to knock the sword from Arthur’s hands. Arthur accepted the defeat genially, and they joined the other students who had already begun to eat their midday meal as Goderic excitedly put a second tally on his part of the banner.

After everyone had eaten, the students competed in a game of shooting at targets with wands, which came down to a very close shootout between Aluric and Ysolt, both of whom were quite precise. Bihotza was hard pressed to tell whose wand blast was closer to center, and in the end, it was decided that the score should be settled instead by Aluric and Ysolt’s teachers, with the point going to the better shot between the two. Helga and Salazar both gamely stepped up before the targets, although Helga pointed out meekly that offensive spells had never been her strong suit, nor had aim, and she thought she’d better apologize to her team in advance. Salazar called her another name before grinning and blasting a hole dead center in his target. Helga tried to follow suit; but just as she fired her shot, Cadwgan rode his pony at top speed through the courtyard after some imagined enemy, nearly knocking Bihotza off her tall chair, and the distraction caused Helga’s hex to hit the target at a glancing angle. The jet of turquoise light ricocheted off the wooden target board and shot straight at Salazar, who had to throw himself to the grass in a hurry to avoid losing all of his hair. Helga threw her hand over her mouth and began to babble an apology, running over to help him up; she was met with his outstretched wand instead of his hand, however, and he had cast a mild stunning charm at her even before he’d made it back to his feet. The charm knocked Helga sideways more from surprise than from its effect; nevertheless, there was a moment of tense silence in the courtyard as Helga glared at Salazar with her mouth hanging open in offended shock. None of the children moved or spoke – nobody had expected the game to culminate in teachers shooting at each other. Salazar stopped too, one knee still on the ground, the color draining from his face as he realized exactly who he’d just taken a shot at. Timidly, he put his empty hand up in a gesture of placation.

“Helg—”

“SNÚ!” Helga shouted, and a bolt of bright orange light punched out of her wand and slammed into Salazar’s shoulder. Before he could finish standing up, Salazar began to spin on the spot, his knee digging a little crater into the mossy turf. He let out an anguished yelp, which then turned into an oscillating warble as the spinning picked up speed, stopping only when he overbalanced and toppled over onto the grass. The silence in the courtyard had begun to bubble into little pockets of whispers and giggles, finally breaking into full laughter as Walrand lost the battle with his mouth and guffawed aloud. Salazar picked himself shakily off the ground, inspecting the muddy smudge on the knee of his breeches and breathing deeply as if fighting back nausea. He regarded Helga darkly for a moment.

Then he grinned.

“Alright, then. Have it your way. Rictusempra!”

The blast of silver light caught Helga full in the face, and she hit the turf squarely on her backside, laughing so hard she could barely breathe. Her feet kicked at the grass as she rolled over onto her side, hiccupping and gasping for air in between bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Salazar watched this stoically for a few moments, finally tucking his hair behind his ears and strolling over to stand directly above her. Helga rolled over onto his boots, her fists clenched at her stomach, powerless to stop the laughter. Salazar grinned down at her cheekily.

“Alright, Helga Cackle-snigger, if you’ve had enough, just ask me nicely and I’ll take the charm off you.”

Helga could barely stop laughing long enough to take in a deep breath, let alone get through a sentence, but she gasped and tried to force out a word. “S… S….”

“Yes?” Salazar smirked.

“S… sk… skjálfdu!” Helga spat, and one of the fists clenched at her side managed to shove her wand toward Salazar’s legs. Salazar had just enough time to register the shock on his face before his legs began to shake and wiggle as if made of fairy butter. He tried to take a step back and both of his feet went out from under him, landing him in a heap beside the still-laughing Helga as a chorus of cheers and giggles went up from the surrounding students. In the end, Rhonwen had to come and take the charms off both of them, and Helga conceded that Salazar had won the target shooting contest, at least – although the consensus among the students was that if there had been a separate event for duel they had just witnessed, they would have been hard pressed not to give Helga the victory.

The last game of the afternoon was to be a massive team affair participated in by all – both Goderic and Salazar’s teams had scored in two events, and the winner of this final game would take the day’s crown. Rhonwen and her students had agreed to join Goderic’s team, and after some persuasion, Helga and her students joined with Salazar. The game had been suggested by Silvanus, who had written down all of the instructions for them on a piece of Aneirin’s singing parchment with as many words as he had yet learned to write, along with some pictures. It was a game he had seen played often as a child in the far northern islands, something called crécht-cenn in his native language. The game called for the teachers to bewitch a great number of small objects – they had decided upon berries after a quick word with Hoshea and Ya’el – to make them float a long way up in the air. At the start of the game, the berries would be bewitched to fall at random intervals as though it were raining berries; the students below would each have a basket strapped to their heads, and would have to run about the courtyard trying to catch berries in their basket. Whichever team managed to catch the most berries would be the winner. As the berries were being carted out into the courtyard from the kitchens, Rhonwen asked Silvanus in his own language how such a silly children’s game had gotten a name that meant “wounded head.” Silvanus had answered her with a grin and then waited for his parchment to translate for everyone else – in his home back in the islands, the parchment said for him, they hadn’t used berries. They had used rocks.

In the end, the rain of berries was a rousing success – although Eaderic refused to participate because he said it was too silly, and Vendicina nearly had to be removed from the game because she kept shoving people out of her way, everyone else spent a happy hour running about like mad and making themselves dizzy tilting their heads this way and that. Helga and Goderic strapped baskets to their own heads and joined in with the children, while Rhonwen and Salazar remained as non-combatants – someone had to keep their eyes forward often enough to stop children running into each other, and to bewitch the berries that had landed in the grass back up into the air so they wouldn’t be stepped on and wasted. Silvanus did well, as had been expected – but the real stars of the game turned out to be Lugotrix (who seemed to have a knack for being in all the right places when large clumps of berries fell together) and Hnossa (who ensured her basket was full by sneaking about behind very tall people and waiting for them to tilt their heads the wrong way and spill). Helga knew she had spilled quite a few herself on the several instances she’d had to twist and bend her neck, which was beginning to stiffen up and hurt after being held in the same position for too long. On more than one of these occasions, turning her head this way and that, Helga had caught sight of Salazar on his side of the courtyard, throwing his head back and catching berries in his mouth. She was still cross with him for hexing her, but – she sighed – it was difficult to be terribly cross with him when he was being so adorably foolish. About the third or fourth time Helga glanced at him, he noticed her looking, and from then on, his efforts to catch the berries became more and more pronounced – right up until he missed and got hit in the eye. Looking sheepish, Salazar gave her a wry grin and caught one in his hand, tossing it gently in her direction. Helga managed to catch it with her teeth, and just as she looked up to grin at him, she was pelted with five more that he had thrown directly at her forehead.

Bihotza chose that moment to un-magic the remaining berries and call an end to the game, which was all that came between Helga, Salazar, and a fully-fledged berry war.

The air in the dining hall that night was so thick with energy that Helga thought she could have stirred it with a spoon and been able to see it swirl in front of her. The berries had been tallied and the final score had gone to Hnossa, and thus Salazar, whose students were now celebrating the day’s victory by shooting little puffs of smoke and sparks into the air above their table. Out on the loch, the sunset had turned the water into a shifting pattern of orange and black ripples, occasionally catching the sparkle from the candles that peeked through the hall’s windows. Helga looked up and caught her breath for the third time since they’d come inside for supper. When Salazar had said he would light candles for his mother and father, this wasn’t at all what she’d had in mind.

Floating above the heads of the students and teachers, hovering just a few feet below the ceiling beams, were at least three score slender, twisting candles, each affixed to its own little wooden board. Some floated just a bit higher or lower than others, and they all bobbed softly as though they were drifting on calm water. Each student had been given their candles as they had come inside from the games and had been invited into teachers’ room to light them at the hearth – that had been very important, Salazar had insisted, that they be lit from the hearth and not by magic – and each candle had been lit in the name of a family member who had died. Helga herself had lit one candle for her mother, and one for her baby brother. Rhonwen had lit seven little candles with a stony face, floating them in front of her with her wand because she couldn’t carry them all, and nobody had been brave enough to ask her how many of them had lived long enough to have names. Goderic and Tancred had then worked together to say a Christian prayer for the beginning of Hallowmas, Helga had said one in Norse to mark the Álfablót, and then they had all carried their candles into the hall. It had been Goderic’s idea to make them float up to the ceiling, and now, standing in the hall surrounded by torchlight and wand sparks and shouting children and the wavering, watery candlelight from above, Helga thought the effect was something she would never forget.

“Truce?”

Jumping at the intrusion on her thoughts, Helga turned to see Salazar coming up the teachers’ platform toward her with a cup of cider in each hand. He held one out to her, and she gave him a wry smile before accepting.

“I suppose so, as long as you behave yourself for the rest of the evening.”

“Nearly impossible, but I’ll see how long I can manage,” he said softly, taking a sip from his own cup and looking at her over the rim. Goderic and Rhonwen were making their way across the room to join them at the high table so the feast could begin, and in his chair in the corner, Aneirin began to play the lyre gently; it was a drippy, autumnal sort of tune that Helga instinctively recognized as Cymraeg and not Saxon. It was otherworldly, somehow, in a way that Saxon music never was, and felt quite appropriate for the atmosphere. On the wall above his head, Helga saw that Salazar had hung up the banner where they had marked their scores, and she sighed.

“Is that necessary, Salazar?” she asked. When he feigned ignorance of what she meant, she pointed at it with her cup. Salazar chuckled.

“Absolutely necessary,” he said into his cider. “Actually, I wanted to make a big green tapestry to hang over the high table with a giant S rune on it that I could bewitch to wiggle like a serpent, but I didn’t have the time.”

“Oh, so you could lord your victory over us?” Helga prodded, and Salazar shook his head innocently.

“Not lord it, just… celebrate the children’s achievement, of course.”

“Ah, of course,” Helga mocked, but she gave him a grudging smile. “Why green?”

“One, because it is my family’s traditional color,” Salazar replied, “and two… because it matches my eyes.” He turned the eyes in question on Helga as he said it, and she took a longer drink of her cider than she really wanted to avoid staring into them. That was the last thing she needed. The candlelight, the cider, and Aneirin’s music were creating such an atmosphere that if she wasn’t careful, she’d be likely to forget what a wretch Salazar had been for most of the day.

Aneirin kept playing as they called the feast to order, switching to a more lively song as the food was summoned to the tables and the children began to eat. Salazar was remarkably true to his promise and was almost solicitous, refilling Helga’s cups or her and cutting her helpings of the massive roast pig Goderic had brought from his estate for the feast. Helga noticed that Ya’el and Hoshea passed over the roast pig and stuck to the peafowl, and after a cautious question or two, she found herself knee-deep in an esoteric conversation about the dietary customs of their religion. They had just made it around to explaining to her why Goderic’s Christian prayers seemed to end with the same word as their Hebrew ones when Rhonwen gave a little yelp and stood up sharply from the table.

“What is it?” Helga gasped, ready to push away from the table herself. Rhonwen was standing with her hand pressed against her heart like she’d had a fright.

“Something hit my face,” she said, looking warily around as she lowered herself back into her seat. “Something small – almost like an insect, but it’s nearly winter and I wouldn’t think… I don’t know….” She trailed off, still looking around for a culprit.

“Maybe it—pphhtthh!” Goderic stopped in mid-thought, sputtering as something came whizzing at him and nearly landed in his mouth. He fished the offending object out of his lap and held it up. “Raspberry?” he said, confused. “It’s a raspberry. Someone’s throwing berries.”

Helga sighed and stood up. Using her wand to make her voice heard over the din of feasting children, she called out, “Alright, very funny, everyone. Which of you is throwing raspberries at the teachers’ table?” None of the children replied or even moved, except the ones who couldn’t be bothered to stop eating, and nobody admitted guilt. In the corner, Aneirin’s lyre struck a discordant note as a raspberry hit the strings. Helga’s eyes narrowed; she hadn’t seen a movement from any of the students to suggest any of them had thrown anything, and even as she scanned the room again, three more berries struck Aneirin in the face, hand, and lyre strings. This time Helga was sure she hadn’t seen anyone throw them. Aneirin staggered up off his stool, abandoning the lyre and wiping raspberry juice from his cheek.

The lyre kept playing without him.

Without warning, chaos broke out in the dining hall. Raspberries began flying across the room from all directions at once, even dropping from the ceiling and flying up from the floor. The candles on the teachers’ table all blew out at once, even though there wasn’t a breath of wind, and the sound they made as they went out was that of someone loudly passing wind. The corner of Salazar’s score banner unhooked itself from the wall as the floating candles overhead began rapidly rising and falling as if floating on a stormy ocean. Food began to levitate from platters and splat into students’ faces; a few of the bolder ones tried pulling out their wands and deflecting the food, while the rest took cover beneath the tables and benches. Torches went out and then flared back to life again, and at one corner of Salazar’s table, a little rain cloud appeared and began raining directly over Eduardus’s head. Helga and the other teachers came rushing round the high table, their wands at the ready – but what exactly were they supposed to do? All four of them looked at each other blankly. Bihotza was running up and down the room, snapping her fingers at torches to re-light them and snatching glass drink vessels out of the air before they could be dropped and smashed, and Hoshea and Ya’el were stood in a corner with a shield charm conjured above their heads, trying to avoid bits of pork that were being launched in their direction. Across the room, Aneirin’s stool began floating up into the air, and he only just managed to grab his lyre off it before it fell. The stool bobbed merrily along above the heads of the students, momentarily dropping low enough to knock Eaderic hard between the eyes before popping back up and floating away. Eaderic took an angry shot at it with his wand, which clipped it and caused it to spin, but had no other effect. The stool had made it to the center of the room when Rhonwen suddenly grabbed Helga’s arm and pointed with her wand.

“Look! On the stool!” They all looked, although for a moment, Helga wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The air above the stool seemed hazy, rippling and cloudy like a disturbance in a stream, and then suddenly the haze began to take shape, and then Helga did know what she was looking at, although it seemed impossible.

It was a man.

Bobbing merrily through the air in the dining hall, riding the stool like it was a little boat on a pond, was a tiny little man clad in a tunic, breeches, and cap of wildly contrasting colors, bright red and golden yellow and deep woad blue. He was not a ghost, or at least, Helga had never seen a ghost that looked so solid. But there was something not quite right, not quite human, about his face. There was a wicked sparkle in his black eyes as he mimed rowing a boat, causing the stool to move about even though he held no oar and did nothing obvious to move it, and he was cackling in a way that reminded Helga of the boiling of a cauldron just before it turned traitor on you and began bubbling over.

     “A tale I heard, about a bird

     That some men call the Partridge;

     She stole the best from another’s nest

     And made them into pottage!”

Apparently greatly amused by his own song, the little man ended his verse with another rude noise and then began speeding around the room in wide, fast circles on his floating stool. When he was directly over Eaderic’s head, he vanished, and the stool dropped like a stone. Eaderic managed to throw himself out of the way just in time to avoid a head injury, and the little man reappeared on the other side of the room – sitting on poor little Helena’s head and sticking his tongue out in Eaderic’s direction. Myrddin attempted to come to her aid, taking a swipe at the little man, but he had vanished again before Myrddin could make contact and had reappeared in midair again, riding a stolen candle-snuffer like a broom. Between screeches and bursts of laugher, he seemed to be trying to sing the popular song “Deor,” and was doing it very badly.

“What… in the name of Morrigan… is that?” Salazar muttered darkly, watching the little man whiz around like he was tracking a dangerous wasp.

“It’s a perversus, God help us all,” Goderic replied, not taking his eyes off it. “I saw one once, when I stopped in Hentone on my way to Wincestre. The churchmen thought they had a devil in the priory, and I didn’t disabuse them of the idea, because they were partly right.”

“What’s a perversus?” Helga asked, eyeing the little floating man warily. Rhonwen sighed.

“It’s a devilish little spirit that feeds off people’s emotions,” she murmured, “and it’s not anything like a ghost. At least a ghost used to be a person, and you can reason with them. They can even be good company, like Alfgeat. But not a perversus. A perversus isn’t properly alive or dead, can’t be reasoned with or gotten rid of, and exists for the sole purpose of creating chaos.”

“It’s an ondvitleysa,” Helga said softly, understanding now. “I’d heard stories, but I’d never seen one. I didn’t know they could look like little people.” Goderic dodged a flying plate and then made a face.

“An onve-what?”

“Ondvitleysa,” Helga repeated. “That’s what our people call them. It means breath of madness.”

“Appropriate,” Goderic muttered, jerking out of the way as the perversus went flying past his head.

“I don’t care what it’s called, how do we stop it??” Salazar growled. The perversus was now wearing the score banner like a cloak and trying to pour milk on children’s heads.

“We?” Rhonwen said irritably. “You made it, Salazar, you stop it.”

“I made it?” Salazar snapped. “What do you mean, I made it?”

“They’re not even adults yet, Rhonwen, how many feelings could they possibly have?” she quoted at him, one dark eyebrow arched. “Well, now you know.”

“Dammit, I said I was sorry about the love potion lesson,” Salazar muttered, and Goderic barked out a hoarse laugh.

“And now we’re all sorry,” he quipped bitterly.

“SORRY, SORRY, SORRY!!” the perversus screamed, flying low over the four of them and dumping thistles on their heads. Salazar shook the flowers out of his mop of curls and made as if to leap down the steps, wand out and a dangerous look in his eyes; Helga grabbed the back of his tunic and jerked him back against the table.

“Salazar, no. If you start shooting at it, you’ll endanger the children.”

“As it happens, I think they’re already in danger,” he grimaced, watching Hnossa and Aluric dive under a bench to avoid being scalped by the flying spirit and his candle snuffer. The little man was now beginning to fly in a mad spiral around the room, gaining speed with each circuit and screaming a new song at the top of his voice.

     “I wear a cloak of silence when I tread upon the ground,

     Or when I rest within my nest, or splash around the sound.

     Lifted high, I look down on the most exalted men

     Carried far by my grand arms and riding lofty winds.

     These, my treasures, rush and sing in bright white melody,

     When, spirit-guest, I take no rest upon the lake or lea.”

He was about to start the song again at the beginning, to the great dismay of everyone in the room, when a voice rang out over the chaos.

“A SWAN.”

The Perversus froze in mid-flight and actually reversed his candle snuffer, whirling around to face whoever had dared interrupt his song. Walrand stood up on top of Goderic’s table, brushing thistles out of his springy hair and meeting the little spirit-man’s gaze boldly.

“Ooo, did somebody say something?” the little man screeched. “Or did the ickle childrens just pass wind through their mouths?” And he treated the room to yet another rude sound. Walrand was unmoved, and he pointed at the Perversus.

“Your riddle, Perversus!” he called. “I answer it, you see? Your riddle is a swan!” The Perversus abandoned the candle snuffer, looking miffed that someone had ruined his riddle with an actual answer; the snuffer dropped over Helga’s table and narrowly missed hitting Ysolt and Arddun as it fell clattering to the floor. The Perversus whizzed through the air and halted inches from Walrand’s smug face, bobbing up and down like a cork in water.

“You may think you’re clever, but defeat me, you’ll never!” And having pronounced this, he turned himself upside down and made a rude hand gesture at Walrand from between his ill-proportioned little legs. Instead of backing down, though, Walrand simply crossed his arms and took a solid stance on the table, one foot on each side of a large basket of bread.

“Then tell me my riddle, if you can!” he grinned.

     “Curious creatures four I saw, together travelling;

     Dark the marks they made, black of tracks.

     Swifter than swifts they journeyed forth, and faster in flight,

     Swept above into sky, dived down below waves.

     And ceaselessly striving, one warrior gained ground,

     The golden path presenting them, four as one.”

Walrand had a beautifully sonorous voice, and Helga noticed that his Breton accent diminished when reciting poetry; his pronunciation was clear and confident, and he never stumbled over the alliterative lines. The Perversus swam through the air in a little loop and came to rest floating just above Eadgyth’s head, his elbow pointing down into her hair as if his whole weight were resting on her and not simply hovering in empty space above her shoulder.

“Hmph,” the spirit scoffed. “Any fool knows that one. It’s a pen and three fingers!” And to punctuate his answer, he held up three very particular fingers – one on each of the three arms he now inexplicably had. Rhonwen was glaring daggers at him, and Helga thought she might have to hold her back by her cloak as well; but far from being offended, Walrand began laughing uproariously, as though the spontaneous third arm was the cleverest trick he had ever seen. The other students at his table began to laugh as well, and soon the hilarity had spread through most of the room. Children were beginning to crawl out from under tables now that edible missiles were no longer flying, and Helga watched in astonishment as a circle began to form around Walrand and the Perversus. Buoyed up by the rising tide of laughter, the little spirit man did a series of tumbles in the air and landed on the head of Rodolphus, mimicking Walrand’s stance and crossing his own little arms.

“Have you another, Perversus?” Walrand smirked. The little man grinned wickedly.

“More than you’ve got,” he sneered. And before Helga quite knew what was happening, Walrand and the Perversus were engaged in a battle of riddles. The air of chaotic energy began to slowly mellow, and outside the circle of students, Bihotza began surreptitiously creeping about the tables, righting drink vessels and vanishing messes. Helga let out a sigh of relief, and she felt Rhonwen do the same beside her. Salazar, however, was still rolling his wand between tense fingers.

“Well, that’s got him distracted,” he mumbled, “but now how do we get rid of him?”

“I don’t think you do,” Goderic grimaced, opting to pour himself another cup of wine. “I think ‘currently not destroying everything’ is the best status we can hope for, and it looks like Walrand’s managed that.”

“What, so we’re just supposed to… let him live here now?” Salazar frowned. Rhonwen shrugged.

“It’s not a matter of letting him. Unless you can come up with a spell that banishes a Perversus – and I’ve never heard tell of one that works – we’re stuck with him.”

“An ondvitleysa attaches itself to a place,” Helga agreed, giving Salazar a sympathetic pat on the arm. “At least, that’s what I’ve always heard. I suppose if the building were abandoned, he might wander off in search of people to draw energy from; but as long as this place is full of children, he’s got a full banquet and I think he’ll not be likely to leave.”

“Is it too late to change my mind about starting a school, then?” Salazar asked, staring out over the half-wrecked dining hall with blank eyes.

Goderic gave him a stout squeeze of the shoulder as he went back to his seat, chuckling, but none of them actually gave him an answer.

The rest of the evening’s feast went relatively smoothly, considering the presence of a Perversus in the room. Walrand and the little spirit man had seemed to exhaust each other’s supply of riddles, after which the next order of business had been a dancing contest between the Perversus and a few other adventurous students. The Perversus mostly behaved himself. He was raucous and loud and rude, and he did have a rather distressing penchant for appearing suddenly in the middle of people’s plates; but he had stopped throwing things, and people were able to finish eating, at any rate. And he only lit a student on fire once.

Helga watched the barely-restrained chaos as she finished her dinner, musing that they might have had to evacuate the whole place if Walrand hadn’t had the intuition to distract the spirit with riddles. Indeed, the Perversus seemed to have developed a strange notion of comradeship with the young Breton, and Helga noticed that whenever he began to get too destructive again, a carefully placed comment or challenge from Walrand would manage to bring him back down. What they would do when Walrand finished his education and left the school, she had no idea; but for right now, this was something they could live with.

“I hate being indebted to a child, but if that boy hadn’t done something, I think I would have had to run screaming into the night,” Salazar said softly, reaching over Helga for the last piece of bread in their basket. Helga nodded.

“Oh, I know. We really should reward him, somehow.”

“Give him a ring for his sword hilt, your Majesty?” Salazar smirked, peeling the rind from a piece of cheese with his knife. “Hmph. What would we reward him with? In case you hadn’t noticed, Helga Heatherfeather, we aren’t exactly sitting on a hoard of gifts here in our little fortress, and I don’t think a flagon of my Vasconian cider would appeal to a boy who hasn’t even sprouted hair on his face yet.” He started to put the cheese on the bread, reconsidered, and then broke both cheese and bread into two smaller pieces. Helga sighed.

“Yes, you’re right, I don’t know what we’d do for him. But we ought to have a system, you know? A way to reward students when they do something exceptionally well or master a difficult lesson, or amend bad behavior.” She turned to find Salazar holding out his hand, offering her half of the bread and cheese he had just broken, and she took it grudgingly.

“And what about me?” he said softly. “Do I get a reward for amending my behavior?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as you do it,” Helga said coolly, but the corners of her mouth twitched with a repressed grin as she took a bite. Salazar scooted closer to her.

“Oh, come, now. I’ve been on my best behavior ever since we called truce. I brought you cider, I carved the pig for you, and now I’ve given you half of the last piece of bread. Consider my sacrifice.” He tilted his face up to her in that forlorn-Byzantine-icon expression that had so caught her attention the first night they’d met, and now she couldn’t repress the smile any longer.

“I will take your sacrifice under consideration, Master Slidrian, if you promise that more good behavior is forthcoming. And no more dueling. We don’t want to set a bad example for the children, and they certainly don’t need any adults encouraging them to shoot at each other between lessons.”

Salazar’s face settled into something resembling seriousness then, and he put down his cup. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” And since he looked like he genuinely cared about the answer, Helga’s posture softened and she patted his arm.

“No, you shocked me more than anything. It only barely hit me, and I was stumbling more out of surprise than from the charm.”

“It was instinctive,” Salazar added, pushing his cup away. “Your shot ricocheted at me, and I went into a defensive stance without even thinking. I suppose…. I suppose I’m easily prompted to violence. In Vasconia, if something unexpected came at you, you had to fire back or find yourself in irons.” Helga thought of the way little Hnossa had stiffened in her arms when she’d thought she might be tossed into the river for witchery, and she sighed.

“It’s alright, Salazar. Honestly. I think I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve not lived in fear for most of my life – like you have. Like many of these children have. You shouldn’t have to apologize for something you had to learn to keep yourself alive.”

“But I do apologize that it was directed at you,” Salazar said quietly. “You are the least threatening person I’ve ever met, and perhaps one day I’ll learn to treat you accordingly.” Unexpectedly, he picked Helga’s hand up from the table, and she swallowed the gasp that almost slipped out of her mouth.

“Salazar—”

“Truce?” he asked, for the second time that evening. “A real one, this time?”

“On what terms?” Helga managed to say; she wasn’t sure if she was more distracted by the candlelight sparkles that encircled the green of his eyes, or by the texture of his skin under her fingers. Salazar leaned in a little closer and whispered.

“I promise to take things you say and do a little more seriously… and you promise to take things I say a little less seriously. Are those terms you can live with, Helga?”

He pulled her hand in closer, where she could feel the warmth of his breath on her knuckles, and she had only just registered that he had called her simply by her given name, without any sort of epithet, when he gently touched her fingers to his lips.

SPLAT.

“GOTCHA GOTCHA GOTCHA! HAHAHAHAAA!”

As Helga recovered from the shock of the warm liquid that had splashed into her face, she looked up to see the Perversus whizzing merrily around above the high table, cheering and congratulating himself. Salazar was still holding her hand close to his lips, but both of their hands and Salazar’s whole head were now covered in what looked like a whole churn’s worth of warm, fresh curds. Dribbles and rivulets of creamy white ran down through his black curls and over his eyes and mouth, and he sputtered irritably blew out air as he tried to keep it from running into his nose. The empty sack the Perversus had used to make the drop, which looked suspiciously like a stretched animal stomach, lay wet and disgusting in Salazar’s lap, and there was a distinct smell of hot milk creeping over the whole high table.

“Helga,” Salazar managed to spit, blinking whey out of his eyes, “does that truce we just made extend to my behavior toward irritating abominations of the spirit world?” Helga wiped droplets of whey off her face with her free hand, wrinkling her nose at the warm-milk smell.

“No damaging the building, and no children in the crossfire,” she said flatly. Salazar spat away a curd that had dribbled down onto his mouth.

“Agreed.”

He let go of her hand and swiped his sleeve across his eyes, and then he launched himself out of his chair with his wand drawn. The Perversus cackled and sped off across the room with Salazar hot on his heels, shouting Vasconian curses and trying to hex the little spirit man out of the air. The chase went on long after the feast had been brought to a close and the children sent to bed, and the moonlit school echoed well into the night with the sounds of ricocheting spells, the crashing of furniture, and peals of wicked, merry laughter.

Chapter Text

The month turned, and so did the weather. Mornings now dawned frosty, and the chill lingered even after the Terce bell, sending the children back inside from their outdoor lessons with red noses and chattering teeth; in the distance, the mountains were capped with soft white hoods of snow. The afternoons, however, were still mild enough to be pleasant, and the leaves that had managed to stay on the birches around the loch reflected the sun and bathed everything in a warm golden light.

The Hallowmas feast had come at precisely the right time, a welcome respite after two months of lessons, and in the weeks that followed the children seemed to dive back into their studies with renewed energy. The Perversus still made his presence known, sometimes interrupting lessons by flying through walls or dropping objects on unsuspecting students at dinner, but his attention span was no longer than a few moments at a time, and he was easily diverted from whatever trouble he had started – plus, he could always be counted upon to give Cadwgan something to chase around the school courtyard. In any case, he seemed to have relieved the tension in the atmosphere, and the students’ attentions had now fully returned to learning. Helga could see that her morning class of basic-spellwork students would no longer need the extra help by the end of the month, and Rhonwen noted that her reading lessons were now shifting from heavy instruction to application and practice, something the children could easily get during more advanced lessons and private reading. In their afternoon talks, the four teachers began making plans to finish off the early morning lessons in basic spells, reading, Parsel-tongue, and the noble arts by Christmastide, and to replace them with lessons in charmwork and transfiguring.

“You realize, of course, that this means I’ll now have to teach two whole lessons before the morning break?” Salazar sighed, watching Rhonwen finalize her notes with some sharp movements of her quill. Rhonwen didn’t look up at him.

“We all will, so you can stop your grousing.”

“Yes, cheer up,” Goderic grinned, nudging his shoulder. “We’ll be teaching these in pairs, and that means you won’t have to deal with them all alone. You’ll be working with me.”

Somehow, Helga got the impression that this did not cheer Salazar in the slightest.

On the last morning before the leaves began to completely desert the birches for the winter, Alric Wintermilk met his first class at the Terce bell and led them out of the school walls, down the path he had made into the pine forest, and into the little clearing just out of sight of the school. They sat on mossy logs and stones, their cloaks wrapped tightly around them against the morning mist, as Wintermilk took his position in front of a wide patch of bare soil and waited for them to settle. The dark green of the pines around them was interlaced with bright bars of golden yellow and orange birch, broken at regular intervals by the sharp gray lines of the tall pine trunks, and the effect in the slanting morning sunlight was that of being surrounded by a vast tapestry curtain of green and gold plaid. When all the students had taken their seats, Wintermilk took out his wand, disturbing the tendrils of fog that had been creeping around his head and blending with his wisps of white hair.

“We will be seeing our first truly dangerous magical creature this morning,” he began in his characteristically gentle voice, “and I wanted to do some of our basic instruction here first, so we will all know what we are dealing with. Further into this forest, we will come to the edge of a small ravine, and from there we will be able to look down onto the nest of today’s lesson. You must all listen carefully and follow my instructions absolutely. Nobody may go closer to the edge than where I stand; nobody should make any quick movements; and if we speak while we are there, we must do so quietly. Is that understood?”

The students all nodded, already falling silent with the anticipation of what sort of creature they might be about to see. Wintermilk returned their nod and then pointed his wand at the bare soil at his feet, muttering, “Conplanare.” The surface of the dirt quivered for a moment and then went smooth as glass, like the unbroken face of a newly cut parchment. “Now,” he continued, “since some of you are still practicing your reading, I will write the creature’s name here, and those of you who read well will please hold your silence and allow the new readers to have a go at the word first. Scribito.” He said this last word to his wand, and then pointed it at the smoothed earth. Letters began to etch themselves into the soil, the moist earth showing up darkly in the grooves against the pale brown of the surface. Hnossa’s little mouth moved silently as she puzzled out the word; then she put her hand in the air.

“Grap-horn,” she said slowly, the word unfamiliar. “Is that right, Master Wintermilk?”

“Very good, Hnossa, well done,” Wintermilk smiled. “Now, has anyone here ever heard of a graphorn?” Lugotrix put up his hand, remembered that his pet mouse was perched there, and tucked the mouse back inside his tunic.

“My father uses bits of the horn in wands sometimes, although I don’t know anything about the creature.”

“Quite right,” Wintermilk nodded. “That is one of the most useful things about a graphorn – its horns, for which it is named. The horn may be used as a core for wands or, if crushed into a powder, as an ingredient in many potions. In both cases, of course, this component is very expensive. You see, the horn of a graphorn is a very tricky thing to get one’s hands on. They are incredibly aggressive creatures, and if you are close enough to touch the horn, well…,” Wintermilk chuckled softly. “Well, I doubt you’d be walking away with your life, let alone a horn. Now, graphorns will shed their horns at certain times of year and grow fresh ones, and this is usually how wandmakers and potion makers acquire them – by scouring graphorn territory and hoping to get lucky. You can see why the ingredient is hard to come by.”

“What do they eat?” Tancred asked, forgetting to put up his hand. Wintermilk didn’t seem to mind.

“Whatever they want to eat,” the groundskeeper laughed softly. “There’s nothing that can fight them off. Their hide is incredibly tough – it will resist not only claws and teeth but nearly all magic as well. Mostly they eat large forest animals, although they will stoop to eating small ones, or scavenging if food is scarce.”

“They would make good cloak and gloves, then?” Walrand grinned, and Wintermilk put up a finger to stop the thought in its tracks.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt they would make the most impenetrable leather you could imagine, yes – if you could ever get your hands on some of the hide, which is nearly impossible. How would you kill the creature? That wonderful hide you’re after would repel anything you attacked with.”

“Take it from a dead one you found?” Ysolt suggested, and Wintermilk shrugged.

“Possible. But once the skin begins to decompose, the magic begins to go. You’d have to stumble upon one within an hour or two of its death, and that’s just very unlikely. Now. What does a graphorn look like?”

“Well, it’s got horns,” Helena giggled quietly. Wintermilk raised one gauzy white eyebrow at her.

“Cheeky, Lady Helena,” he scolded, but he was smiling. “And what about the rest of its body? No,” he shook his head, “most of you will never have seen one, coming from the southern parts of the island as you do. They keep themselves up in mountainous regions, perhaps coming down occasionally if their table is particularly bare, and so they will be seen most often by folk who live in the hills. In fact, they’ve even been seen a time or two by the non-magic folk around these parts here in Alba – enough times that those folk have taken to drawing pictures of graphorns in their artwork, although they don’t properly know what they are drawing. I’ll draw you one of those pictures now, before we go and see the real things.”

Pointing his wand at the smooth earth below the word graphorn, Wintermilk began turning it slowly in various directions. A rounded, swirling, stylized image began to take shape in the soil, showing a strange beast with head lowered and forepaws raised as if preparing to pounce. As he drew, Wintermilk explained.

“The graphorn,” he began, inclining his head to each detail as it appeared in his drawing, “has – as you could surmise – two very long horns. One of the only visible differences between the male and female of this creature is the horn – a male will have longer, wider horns, and they will often have impressive curls or twists in them. He with the fanciest horns will win the ladies, you see. Its back rises in a hump near its shoulders, and it has clawed feet, including one short claw on each foot like a thumb. And – most notably – the graphorn has a very unusual tentacled mouth, which has several functions. They can use these tentacles to grab up their food, for instance, or to show affection to each other. But be warned; they can also use them to send a killing jolt of magic through you – if they haven’t already killed you with horns or claws, of course.” He stepped back as he finished his drawing, giving all the students a good view of a strangely curving beast, a long spiraled horn sweeping over its back and its curving tentacles lowered toward its stylistically-curled feet. Arddun suddenly made a face.

“I’ve seen that picture!” she said, pointing, and Wintermilk nodded for her to go on. “My father and his friends traded with the Pictish people, up here in these mountains. He brought back some jewelry once, and some of the pieces had that exact picture on them! I never did know what animal it was supposed to be.”

“And nor do the non-magic folk who draw it,” Wintermilk smiled. “Not really. But now we all know it is their attempt at a picture of a graphorn. So – who would like to go and see the real beast?”

All twelve hands went into the air.

Wintermilk led the little band of students deeper into the forest, where there were fewer birches and more pines, less sunlight and more mist. Up ahead, they could see that the tall ferns and wispy pine saplings ended abruptly, their only indication that the edge of the ravine was close. Wintermilk stopped them before they approached the fringe of the undergrowth.

“Alright, now,” he whispered, “everyone remember the rules. Very still, very quiet, and not too close to the edge. Lugotrix, you’d better fasten that little beastie of yours into a pouch or pocket. The graphorns we are about to see today are a breeding pair, and they will not hesitate to kill you to protect their young. If you are taller than the undergrowth, please crouch as I do. Now, follow me.”

The little herd of witches and wizards crept delicately through the ferns and saplings until they reached the fringes of the foliage; then, they followed Wintermilk’s lead as he carefully parted the greenery in front of him and looked down. Beyond where they all crouched, the moss and soil and pine needles tapered off into a tumble of lichen-spotted rock, sloping down into a deep ravine and ending in a small and fast-moving beck flowing downhill in the direction of the loch. Across the stream, before the rock began to ascend back up the other side of the ravine, a natural crevasse could be seen in the gray stone. Two massive graphorns sat in the soft pebbly soil outside the little cave; one of them was dipping its tentacles into the stream to drink, while the other sat hunched in a shallow depression in the earth. Wintermilk pointed.

“Can you see their horns?” he muttered carefully. “That one drinking? Female. The male sits. See the curls in his horns?” When the students all nodded, Wintermilk adjusted his position and pointed to the bowl-shaped depression in which the male sat. “That dug-out area is the nest. The pair will dig it together when they form a breeding couple. Female graphorns breed about every five years – more often if food is plentiful, less often if it is scarce. They mate in autumn and lay an egg or two around the start of winter; then the two will take it in turns to sit the nest. It appears that our male down there is sitting with the eggs while the female is taking her turn to forage. The eggs will hatch in spring, so the babes can begin to fatten up on the abundance of spring and summer. They will stay with their parents for three or four years – until their mother is ready to breed again. Then they will reach maturity and begin to seek out their own mates.”

As Wintermilk finished speaking, the female graphorn lifted her head sharply, as if sensing something. She sniffed the air once or twice before turning her gaze up the hill and in the students’ direction. Her tentacles wriggled; then she snorted. Wintermilk let the ferns fall back together in front of him and gestured to the students.

“Well, she’s spotted us,” he whispered. “Time to go. Back to the clearing and then back down to the school, everyone.” And he crawled awkwardly backward with them through the undergrowth until they were once again on the recognizable path to the clearing.

The groundskeeper waited on the path while everyone readjusted their crooked cloaks and pulled fern fronds out of their hair; then he began to lead the class back down through the tall pines. As they walked, he took questions.

“Are there graphorns in Normandy?” Rodolphus asked, pulling a long stick from the bushes and tapping it against every tree he passed. Wintermilk both nodded and shrugged in the same motion.

“In the mountains, although they are rare. Most of Normandy is a bit too warm for their taste.”

“Then I don’t really need to know about them, do I?” Rodolphus prodded, taking a smack on the shoulder from Walrand. Wintermilk laughed.

“Well, probably not, unless you intend to go into wandmaking or potions when you are grown.”

“My father was in Duke Richard’s court, so I don’t intend to go into anything.”

“Tais, Rodolphus!” Walrand hissed, aiming another smack at his friend’s arm, but Wintermilk only laughed again.

“Well, then I suppose all you need to know is that they’re dangerous and you should keep away from them.”

“What should you do if one of them comes at you?” Saeric sniffled through a red nose.

“I suggest praying to whatever deity you believe in and hoping They aren’t on the graphorn’s side that day.”

“Could you tame one and ride it?” Helena piped up, skipping down over some rocks and dragging Mildryth along with her. Mildryth looked horrified both by the suggestion of riding graphorns and by Helena’s wild skipping.

“The trolls try to, every so often,” Wintermilk grinned, “although tame is a very strong word for it. If you ever see a dead troll, count its scars and you’ll know how many graphorns have told it No.”

With the exception of Brictric, whose face rarely moved, all the children joined in a hearty laugh.

The morning after the excursion to the graphorn nest, breakfast was interrupted by a louder-than-usual outburst from Cadwgan, followed by a great clattering in the courtyard. Everyone except the most serious eaters abandoned their plates and crowded out the front doors to see what was the matter. Once outside, they found Hengroen the pony being ridden in furious little circles by a spluttering Cadwgan, who was waving his sword over his head at three wizards who were hovering above the courtyard on brooms. They were all lean and muscular men with long brassy or red-gold hair and thick, impressive mustaches, and a large package hung suspended between them, connected to each of their three brooms by long ropes. It appeared to be a heavy parcel, and Helga suspected the three ropes were being aided by a little hovering charm. The man in front called out to Goderic and lifted a hand in a wave, and Helga had to listen closely to understand him – he spoke the language of the Saxons, but his grammar was odd, and his pronunciation unfamiliar. Goderic pushed through the crowd of students as Rhonwen stepped in to drag her cousin away so the men could land.

“Weland, I presume?” he grinned at the lead man, and they clasped hands as the three wizards lowered their brooms and their bundle to earth.

“The goods procured,” the wizard named Weland nodded, indicating the parcel. Helga understood then – these men must be the wizards from Saxony who made and sold the enchanted broomsticks. Goderic’s purchase had finally arrived, and he looked as giddy as a little boy at a feast.

“Well, let’s see them, then!” he crowed, practically throwing a little satchel of coins at Weland’s outstretched hands. Weland caught the purse, glanced briefly at its contents, and then motioned to his companions as he tucked the payment into a leather pouch at his belt. One of the men flicked a wand at the package, which promptly unwrapped itself, and the whole crowd of students jostled around into a vague semi-circle to get a look. Lying on the open cloth were eighteen exquisite new brooms, twelve smaller ones made for children and six made for adults, all otherwise identical. The long handles were stout and polished, with a dip in the middle for sitting in that was only slightly visible against the smooth taper, and Helga could smell the oil with which they had been finished from where she stood.

“It’s a set of twelve student brooms to keep at the school, you see?” Goderic was grinning, speaking to his fellow teachers but unable to look away from his new toys. “Because we have twelve in each group, and they take turns going to that lesson, so they can share. And then one for each of us, and one for Hankertonne to teach with, and one for Alric to use around the grounds.”

“Yes, but who’s going to teach us?” Salazar muttered, eyeing the brooms suspiciously. Arddun’s hand shot into the air, her face lighting up with a mischievous excitement, and Helga gently pressed the girl’s arm back down and mouthed No, shaking her head to hide her amusement. Weland gestured to his two companions and gave a little bow.

“We shall stay, demonstrate for you how to ride, and go home at midday. Yes?”

“Yes, of course! Excellent!” Goderic beamed.

“Fabulous,” Salazar grimaced, sounding like he wished he’d stayed in bed that morning.

The children were granted a reprieve from morning lessons that day and allowed to stay inside and study, or socialize, or practice some of their safer indoor spells, while Weland and his friends turned the courtyard into a classroom for the adults. The wizards from Saxony first hopped back onto their own brooms and gave a little flying demonstration; then they came back to earth and began to show the Hogwarts staff how the brooms functioned, and how to maintain them for safe flying.

“You keep the brushes straight, yes?” said the biggest man, a wizard called Horsa, to Hankertonne, who would be in charge of keeping the brooms stored when not in use. “The bent ones, the splinters; you clip them off. Straighter brushes, straighter flying.”

“Do they have minds of their own?” Rhonwen asked. “One of our students who arrived on her own broom implied that they were like horses – that they could sense things about the person riding them.” The third man, whose name was Donar, waggled his hand.

“These? Very new brooms? No. Too fresh. But… same person rides same broom often? The broom learns. Becomes acquainted. Like horse or man, a broom that grows old grows wise.”

“They also feel the blood, the heartbeat,” Weland added. “You are excited, or afraid, heart beats fast, broom goes fast.”

“Well, that certainly explains a lot,” Goderic chuckled, remembering the lightning-quick circuit of the courtyard Ysolt’s broom had taken him on. “And that is very like a horse.”

“Did I mention I have a terrible rapport with horses?” Salazar muttered, holding his broom at arm’s length. Helga laughed merrily, already throwing one leg over her broomstick.

“Why does that not surprise me, Salazar?”

“If Bihotza were out here,” Rhonwen smirked, “she would say that Master Salazar has a terrible rapport with most beasts.”

“And with most people, too,” Goderic chortled, laughing at Rhonwen’s poor imitation of Bihotza’s voice. Salazar pulled a face at him, finally venturing to stand with one leg either side of the broom but not allowing it to touch him.

“Goderic, let’s be civil,” Helga chided softly, arranging her skirts so that her feet wouldn’t get tangled. She felt she could afford to be a little charitable today; Salazar had been true to his word since their truce at the Hallowmas feast and had been on what was, for him, his best behavior. He had only called her a silly name once in the past week or so, and it had been in the privacy of their shared cellar stairwell – where, as an added surprise, he had also kept his propositioning down to a very polite invitation with almost no innuendo. Well, that, and a few smoldering looks in her direction for which she no longer quite had the resolve to tell him off. She always meant to, always intended to ask him whether his eyes were broken and couldn’t he look anywhere else… and then quite unsolicited, her mind would re-conjure the image of his contrite face at the feast, the memory of the light touch of his hand, the rings of flickering candlelight around his green eyes, and her retort would lose its impetus. She couldn’t very well tell him off for staring at her when she was daydreaming about him kissing her hand. It would be quite hypocritical.

“Yes, Goderic, be civil,” Salazar repeated, pouring sarcasm into his voice to disguise his trepidation as he brought the broomstick in a little closer to his legs. “I don’t have a terrible rapport with most people. Do I?” He had murmured this last to Helga a little under his breath, and she reached over to correct the posture of his arms.

“Most people? Unfortunately, yes,” Helga said, giving him a wry smile. “Most. But not all.” She let her hand linger on top of his until he caught the slant of her voice; a grin began to pluck at the corner of his lips, but before he could reply, Weland waved his hand for their attention.

“All ready? Good. Now, to begin, we will try going up. Pull the broom against you, hold firm so you do not lose it, and push against the ground with your feet as you tell the broom to go. Gentle command, the broom rises gently. Hard command, the broom jumps like a horse at your heels. And do not lean or sway; steady rider, steady broom.” Weland, Horsa, and Donar all did exactly that, levitating easily and hovering about three feet off the ground. “Now you all,” Weland invited, gesturing. There was a moment of hesitation as each of the school staff looked at their neighbor expectantly, nobody really wanting to go first; then Goderic grinned and clicked his tongue like he was calling his horse.

“Up-up!” he said briskly – and brisk was what he got. Goderic bobbed sharply up into the air, higher than their instructors, before settling back to a reasonable level. Unlike his first unexpected flight on Ysolt’s too-small broom, though, he seemed to be in control now, and he crossed his feet nonchalantly where they dangled below the broomstick and leaned back comfortably in his seat. “Brilliant! Alright, who’s next?”

Hankertonne and Alric both seemed quite at ease on their brooms, even though neither of them had ridden before, with the caretaker rising slowly and hovering steadily in his characteristically solid way and the groundskeeper chuckling with delight, swinging his feet as his wispy hair bobbed in the breeze he had made. Rhonwen spoke to her broom quietly and firmly in Cymraeg; it seemed to understand her, although it kept much lower to the ground than everyone else’s and then moved so little, Rhonwen might have been sitting on a stone wall. Helga patted her broom the way she would pat a horse before giving it an instruction, figuring that it might not be completely sentient, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Alright, broom, up gently now,” she said easily. The broom took her promptly up into the air at exactly the height she’d had in mind, and although she let out a little gasp at the moment her feet left the ground, once she was airborne she discovered that sitting on the broom was quite a natural sensation, and she let out a relieved breath. She found that the slightest change in the way she held herself resulted in a minute shift in the broom’s altitude or angle, and whatever she visualized the broom doing was what it did. Goderic had been right about one thing, Helga thought – this was definitely going to be her preferred method of travel from now on. In fact, she might never have to apparate again.

“Up?” she heard Salazar say beside her, sounding a little like he hoped it wouldn’t work. It did work, however, and Helga could hear him give a muffled grunt of displeasure as his feet left the ground. He was unsteady in his seat, and the broom came up in increments, swaying horizontally and vertically as it did, like a leaf drifting upward instead of down through the air. Helga saw his knuckles go white as he tried to keep himself from falling off, and she instinctively put her hand behind his back to steady him.

“Loosen your grip, Salazar,” she said, trying to instill calm and confidence with her voice, her hand on his lower back pushing him up into a better posture. “Tension makes it harder to control. Just visualize the broom being steady, and it will be.”

“Visualize it being steady?” Salazar hissed, the effort of speaking making him wobble again. “Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” But at least he wasn’t falling off the broom now, and Helga saw his knuckles grow perceptibly pinker. Without thinking, she moved her hand gently across his back, her thumb brushing lightly against the ridge of his spine through the soft wool of his cloak, repeating the motion until she felt the taut muscles there begin to relax. His heart must have been racing, enough to make him feverish, because she could feel the warmth from his back even through the thick layers of his tunic and cloak. And that, of course, made her think yet again of how he’d taken her hand at the Hallowmas feast – of the exact temperature and texture of his fingers, information that seemed irrationally stuck just at the edge of all her thoughts. For just a moment, she began to wonder how the texture of his hands would compare to the texture of his back, of the warm skin just below where her hand currently rested.

Then both of them seemed to realize what was happening at the same instant, and Helga felt all his muscles go tense again in the second before she pulled her hand away. He steadied himself from another sway and then managed to take his eyes off the broom long enough to shoot a sharp glance at her.

“I’m sorry, but were you just… petting me?” Salazar murmured so that only she could hear him, his broom wavering again. He had plastered a look of mock-offense on his face, but Helga could see something like vindication beneath it.

“No,” she answered sharply – a little too sharply, since that had been exactly what she’d been doing without even intending to. “I was… trying to get you to loosen your grip on the broom before you fell off.” She pretended to focus her attention on rearranging her dress, which didn’t need rearranging in the slightest; out of the corner of her eye, she could see Salazar staring at her with a wild mixture of shock and eagerness. Then his gape of pretended offense turned into a sly, crooked grin.

“Whatever you say, Helga Handsy-Petter.”

And before she could retort, he was joining all the others in following Weland’s instructions for controlling their brooms’ forward motion, wobbling a little but paying rapt attention to his lesson like a good little student. And since she had to either join the lesson or be left behind, she never got the chance to answer him back.

It was hours later before Helga realized that this time, perhaps, she didn’t really want to.

Weland, Horsa, and Donar spent all that morning teaching the Hogwarts staff everything they needed to know to competently fly their brooms. At midday they sat down to eat with everyone in the school hall, and then there was much back slapping and hand clasping between them and Goderic as they bid everyone farewell before afternoon lessons. Later that evening in the hour before supper, the four teachers went back outside and tried flying practice laps around the courtyard, much to the amusement of the students who didn’t think it too chilly to come outside and watch. Goderic flew his broom well now, his long years of horsemanship coming into good use once he realized exactly which of those skills translated to brooms and which did not. If enough students were looking, he would show off by turning a circle or flying close to the roof. Rhonwen flew only one or two laps and kept low to the ground; she was competent, Helga saw, but she didn’t seem to like flying very much, and Helga thought from the way she held herself afterward that the flying posture must hurt her back. She had proved she could do it if needed and that seemed to be enough for her, and she spent the rest of the evening leisure hour watching and calling encouragement to the others.

For Helga, flying came surprisingly naturally. It was much less abrupt or bouncy than riding a flying horse, and it was miles better than apparating. Brooms, it seemed, responded best to calm assurance in their riders, and that was something at which Helga excelled. She found she could direct the broom almost without moving her hands, as long as she had a clear idea of what she wanted to do with it, and her laps around the courtyard drew some cheers and applause from the students watching below. Salazar, who was neither calm nor assured, only stayed in the air for short bursts and then landed again; he was airborne a little longer each time he went up, but Helga could see that he was still holding himself with too much tension and had a tendency to overbalance. She offered him as much help as she could without embarrassing him, and he was impeccably polite and well-behaved each time. He made no reference at all to their exchange during the morning lesson, and Helga was both glad and a little disappointed. The last thing she wanted was another awkward interaction, of course, and this time in front of students; but it was a little disconcerting to go on flying laps around the courtyard as if nothing had happened. His polite silence went on even after they had all gone indoors for dinner – he passed her platters and cut bread for her and refilled her cup, all with the utmost deference – until Helga almost began to wonder if she’d imagined the whole interaction, or at least, if she had inflated its importance by thinking too much about it all afternoon. Perhaps this wasn’t awkwardness after all, but simply Salazar carefully abiding by the truce he had called. Telling herself this, she ate and drank and made conversation until the torches began to burn low and dinner began to give way to bedtime. Goderic had already left the table to go fly his broom again in the dark blue dusk of the courtyard, and Rhonwen had followed him outside, reminding him that if he caught spattergroit from flying in cold night air, it would be nobody’s fault but his own and would serve him right. Helga watched Bihotza walking among the tables, vanishing scraps and shooing students toward the hall door, and decided that she had better go to bed herself. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, she’d be able to stop working herself up over things that didn’t matter. She turned to bid Salazar good night, and the words got stuck in her throat.

Salazar was staring at her over the rim of his goblet, and the look on his face was neither polite nor well-behaved. His gaze was half-lidded, but through the thick dark lashes, Helga could see that his eyes looked like a blacksmith’s forge at the moment before the coals began to move and breathe with the heat. The deep green irises still caught the candlelight, the way they had done at the feast, but tonight they looked like embers instead of fairy lights. There was no smirk; his mouth was slack and motionless, the rim of his goblet just barely touching his lower lip, metal gently kissing skin and breath clouding the polished surface, but there was enough tension in his eyes to make up for the laxity of his expression. He saw her looking at him and made absolutely no effort to hide his stare, and Helga was unsure if he was daring her to return the look, or if he was simply unable to stop. A flush of heat crept up her neck into her face, and she was suddenly and irrationally sure that everyone else in the room was watching them. She pushed her seat back from the table abruptly and took a drink of water to stave off the sensation. It was too large a drink, and a few drops spilled out of the corners of her mouth and plopped down into the open neck of her dress, making her even more uncomfortable than she had already been. She started to dry herself with the cuff of her sleeve and then stopped at the last second, suddenly not sure that she wanted to draw any attention to her chest.

“Well… good night, Salazar,” she said to the table in front of him instead of to his face, hearing a wobble in her voice that made her wish she could suck the words back in and try again. For a moment, Salazar still didn’t move. His gaze remained fixed on her even as she nearly caught her toe on the leg of the chair as she pushed it back in. Then his eyes dropped a fraction – to the glittering track the spilled water had made down her neck and into her bodice – and when he looked back up at her, the embers had become flames. The heat from his stare was so stuporous that she was suddenly afraid of what he might say – if he answered her at all.

“Good night…,” he murmured against the rim of the goblet, and then, like an afterthought, he added, “…Helga.” He still held the cup to his lips, and Helga wished to the gods that he would just take a drink already and stop letting it hover there, breathing on it, allowing the metal lip to keep grazing him, skimming little glancing touches against his lower lip that caused the soft shape of it to stretch and shrink and yield, exactly as it might do if—

Stop, she hissed internally, and shoved the chair the rest of the way under the table. Stop that right this instant.

“Good night,” she said again, not realizing she had repeated herself until she was several steps away from the table. She didn’t turn around to look at him until she was at the door of the dining hall, too far away to feel the heat from his eyes. He had finally put down his goblet; but now he was tracing his fingertip in a slow circle around the rim, still staring directly at her as she half-hid behind the frame of the door. His touch was delicate enough that she knew it would have produced a soft ringing sound, were she close enough to hear it over the chattering students. Something about that slow, circular drag of his finger suddenly made the heat flutter back up into her neck and cheeks, and she scurried the rest of the way out into the entrance hall, heading for the teachers’ room and the kitchen stairs and willing herself not to run.

That night, she lay awake long enough to hear Salazar come down the stairs to his own chambers, his footsteps echoing across the silent kitchen to her bedroom door; and in the moments before she heard the creak of his door closing behind him, she could have sworn she felt a wave of heat from a gaze that she couldn’t see, like the flush of warmth from a fire being stoked in a hearth.

The day after the arrival of the brooms from Saxony it began to rain, a slow, cold, soaking rain that turned the whole world to shades of leaden blue-gray and obscured the border between earth and sky with walls of rolling mist. It soaked into the ground until the thin highland soil had had its fill, and then it began to run in rivulets from the hills down toward the loch. The shoreline crept higher, the surface of the water became a constant dancing sizzle of raindrops, and the air was redolent with the scent of wet pine needles. Helga thought that it would have been beautiful – if the school courtyard hadn’t begun to be a muddy, sopping mess of puddles and bedraggled grass and hoofprints. Cadwgan had taken to riding his pony at full tilt up and down the grounds, charging at imagined invaders in the fog, and anyone foolish enough to walk outside as he rode by got a spray of mud on their clothes for their trouble. Outdoor lessons had to be put on hold. The children started learning how to use hearth travel instead of brooms, entering through the kitchen fire and coming out at the teachers’ staff room hearth; and Alric Wintermilk brought some of Rhonwen’s messenger owls into the entrance hall to be studied up close. Hankertonne followed everyone about with his wand ready, vanishing wet footprints or cloak drips after anyone dared go outside, chasing the Perversus to stop him opening windows, and muttering to himself about leaks in the cellars. The rain went on for days, giving no indication that it would stop during their lifetimes, and everyone, student and staff, went about their business feeling generally cold and wet and gloomy.

After days of watching everyone around her begin to resemble droopy, overwatered plants, Helga went to speak to Alric and the cooks about putting something hearty on the table. “It is blood-month, after all,” she pointed out. “If I were at home in Little Witchingham, the village would be slaughtering pigs this week. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a pig,” she added, noting the looks on Hoshea and Ya’el’s faces. “Doesn’t Goderic have some cattle on his estate? I’m sure he could spare one. He’d be slaughtering it himself if he were home, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, he would,” Goderic answered for himself, slipping in from the kitchen doorway where he’d been listening. “We always put up our meat just before the feast of St. Martin.”

“The man with half a cloak?” Helga asked, grinning at the memory of their ride through Lundenburh. Goderic chuckled a little as he took some sacks off a shelf.

“That’s him. His feast is day after tomorrow. But you’re not considering laying out another grand dinner already? It’s only been a few weeks since Hallowmas.”

“Oh, no, nothing that big,” Helga reassured him. “But it is perfect timing. Everyone’s so wet and cold and miserable, and nothing fixes that like a good meaty stew. Plus, Tancred always gets so excited when we’re able to observe one of your Christian feasts.” The sparkle in her eyes said that the thought of her students getting excited about something got her excited as well. Goderic, however, looked somewhat less thrilled.

“Well, I can have my people send you a cow, but you’ll have to enjoy it without me, I’m afraid.” He had turned one of the sacks upside-down and shaken it to get rid of lingering flour dust, and Helga now saw that he was filling it with two-day-old bread, some cured fish, and a jar of honey. Travelling food, she realized after a moment.

“Why, where will you be?” she asked, coming around the table to help him rearrange the bread loaves so the sack wasn’t lopsided. Goderic sighed.

“The gemót, unfortunately,” he said, sneaking a small block of cheese into the sack. “I did warn you all that I’d still have to go back and forth and keep up my duties as the king’s thegn.”

“And is this for the king, or is this the wizarding council?”

“Oh, this is our gemót, just for wizards. And it’s the Big One. The gemót meets a few times all throughout the year, and never really on a definite schedule – except for this one, at Martinmas. You can skip some of the others if you want, but if you’re going to show up for any of them, it’d better be this one. We name new members at Martinmas, and vote on any major changes. Plus, the mundani will be having their witenagemot soon, and it’s my job to tell everyone what issues and laws the king will be bringing up there, if I know of them, and collect their petitions to take to the king.”

“How long will you be gone, Master Grifondour?” Alric Wintermilk asked, passing Goderic a basket of berries he was reaching for. Goderic shrugged.

“Two or three days, at least. I leave tomorrow so I can be at the Great Stone Circle for the opening ceremony at sunset; and I’ll come home when everyone is finished arguing about whatever they’re going to argue about. And it’ll be a lot of arguing this year; Ecgberht the Blæc’s seat on the gemót is empty and they’ll want to fill it, and that’s just one that I know of. And Ceretic of Longe Bottom in Luddenden told me back in the summer that they’re considering creating seats for representatives from the Danelaw, which will drive the Saxon purists mad.” Here he turned and patted Helga’s shoulder. “Actually, you should tell your father about that. If they agree to open the gemót to Danes, there’s nobody I’d want more than him. He’s a good level head, the gemót could use him. I’ll support his nomination myself.”

“I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be about getting involved in politics,” Helga smiled, “but I’ll tell him all the same.”

Goderic spent the rest of that evening flitting back and forth between his rooms and the entrance hall, packing things into satchels and then deciding he had over-packed and carrying something or other back upstairs. Rhonwen had to remind him to pack his hooded cloak, and while he wasn’t looking, she cast a charm on it to repel rain. At one point, Salazar caught him trying to pack a flagon of his Vasconian cider, and they very nearly pulled their wands on each other to settle the matter, saved only by Bihotza’s intervention. But by nightfall he finally had everything ready, satchels stacked by the door so they could be easily loaded onto his horse the next morning. Then, true to his word, he went to the hearth and contacted Eafa back at his estate in King’s Worthy. The master of horse promised he would consult the cowherds and would send them a good meat-cow the next day.

When the sun rose on Martinmas-eve morning, it was pale and spotted with cloud like a linnet’s egg. The rain still came down unabated, soft and misty in the early morning hours but with no signs of stopping, and Goderic packed his horse under a rain-shield that Hankertonne cast above their heads with an outstretched wand. He planned to apparate to the village of Ambesberie to meet with his old friend Ælfric the smith, and the two of them would ride to the Stone Circle together as evening fell. As he mounted the destrier, almost on cue, there was a knock at the gate – Eafa had arrived with the requested cow. Goderic gave the animal a longing, wistful look as it was brought into the muddy courtyard; then he hurriedly apparated away before he could get any ideas about postponing his journey in favor of fresh meat.

Alric and Hankertonne slaughtered the cow later that morning, while the students huddled dismally around the hearth fires during what should have been their outdoor hours, and the rest of the evening, the kitchen was occupied with sorting out the meat – preparing what they planned to eat the next day and preserving what they did not. Some was cured with salt, and some smoked – this had to be done indoors due to the incessant rain, and Hoshea and Ya’el had to use magic to force the smoke out the open kitchen windows into the gray mist. The stew was started cooking that afternoon so it could bubble slowly for a day and a night, and by the next morning, the whole school was filled with the delicious smell. Helga released the students from attending any lessons on Martinmas Day, and that night they all sat down to tables full of fresh bread, pots of honey, and autumn fruits, with a cauldron full of dark brown stew at the center of each board, steaming and aromatic. Tancred had talked the kitchens into adding a goose to the spread as well, and he sat at the high table in Goderic’s empty chair through half the feast, regaling Helga with stories about St. Martin’s adventures in goose pens. It was a thoroughly satisfying evening, and for at least a few hours, the leaden skies and dripping eaves were forgotten.

On the morning after Martinmas, the students awoke not to the sound of Bihotza’s enchanted bells, but to a great rumbling that sent a tremor through the very stones of the school. Helga rushed out of her bedchamber and through the kitchen still in her night dress, her yellow woolen cloak thrown hastily around her shoulders, and nearly ran headlong into Salazar at the foot of the cellar stairs. He was still in the process of pulling his tunic down over his head, and Helga willed herself not to look at his bare stomach as he shoved his face up through the collar and glared at her.

“What was that?” she sputtered at him, recovering herself enough to pull her cloak closed around her. Salazar looked irritated, although whether at her, or at the sound, or simply at being awake, she couldn’t tell.

“No idea,” he muttered. “I was asleep too, you know.”

“It sounded like something falling, Salazar. Something collapsing.”

“Something heavy,” he agreed irritably, and they both scrambled up the stairs and through the staff room to the entrance hall. Rhonwen was stumbling down the main stairwell from her tower room, her dark hair unbound and streaming out behind her like a cape, and the sleepy faces of several confused students poked out of both dormitory doors.

“I heard it too,” she said by way of greeting. “Everyone did. It sounded like collapsing masonry.” As she came off the bottom step, Bihotza appeared in front of them with a loud pop.

“The childrens rooms is all fine, Mistress,” she pronounced hurriedly, “and Master Goderic’s room.”

“The dining hall? The classrooms?” Rhonwen asked her, and the elf shook her head, her eartips and braids fluttering.

“All fine, Mistress.”

“Perversus!” Rhonwen shouted, voicing what they all half-suspected. The little man popped into view just above Salazar’s head, bobbing side to side to avoid Salazar’s hand swatting at him like an insect.

“Didn’t do nothing!” he trilled before the question was asked. “Wasn’t me! Shoulda been me – means somebody’s stealing my tricks!”

Salazar grunted and side-stepped to get out from under the irritating little spirit. “Well, then, what in Aatxe’s name was it??”

“Outside, maybe?” Rhonwen asked Helga and Salazar; they both shrugged and followed her to the front doors.

Outside, the rain was coming down in a soft gray cascade, just as it had been for days, and at first, nothing seemed amiss. Casting a shield into the air above her, Rhonwen ran out into the cold shower and began peering up and down the length of the courtyard wall. Helga and Salazar cast their own shields and followed her, both grateful they had remembered to put on shoes. After a few moments of inspection, it became clear that nothing was wrong with either the exterior of the school or the courtyard walls. Helga was just about to suggest that perhaps it had been a rockfall on the lakeward side of the school, some rocks tumbling from the cliff they were perched on into the waters of the loch, when another low rumble cut off her train of thought. All three of them snapped their heads toward the forest outside the courtyard, where the crumbling sound of stones was immediately followed by a howl from Cadwgan.

“FIENDS! COWARDS! I COMMAND THEE TO MOUNT THY ATTACK IN OPEN AIR LIKE MEN, AND NOT FROM THE BOWELS OF THE EARTH LIKE CREATURES!”

“Jesu,” Helga heard Rhonwen mumble under her breath. She began stomping off toward the courtyard entrance, letting down her shield long enough to fling the heavy gate open with her wand.

“Stay here!” Helga called to the students who had now started to gather at the school doors, knowing full well that they would probably ignore her; then she and Salazar scurried off after Rhonwen.

The problem became immediately clear as soon as they rounded the school walls and came down the path toward the forest. Alric Wintermilk’s stone cottage at the forest edge had collapsed into a pile of rubble, and one look was enough to see why. The days of constant rain had finally taken their toll on the thin highland soil, and the little rise of land Alric had settled on had subsided, taking the better part of the small house down with it. Cracks had opened up in the soggy ground all around the cottage, and now Cadwgan was riding his very damp and unhappy pony in circles around the heap of collapsed stones, poking his sword at the dark gaps in the mossy earth. Helga very nearly panicked at the sight, until she saw Alric himself standing bemusedly at the edge of the rubble heap, scratching the back of his neck as the rain plastered his wispy hair to his head.

“Gods, Alric, are you alright??” Helga called out, running over to him. He didn’t appear to be injured, but his eyes were out of focus. Salazar followed and extended his rain shield to cover the old man, who was very calmly staring at the rubble of his cottage with both eyebrows raised.

“I went out early to milk the cow, you see,” he said, not really looking at anyone in particular. “Good job we had a cow to milk. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been up before sunrise. And… well….” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of what had been his cottage. Helga gulped at the thought. If Alric hadn’t been out milking the cow, they’d have been dragging his body out from under those stones. It made her shudder, and the cold rain blowing against her linen night dress didn’t help. As if her own shivering had become contagious, Rhonwen gave a great shudder herself and then took the groundskeeper by the shoulder.

“Good God, Alric, you’re soaked to the bone. Come on, let’s go inside the school and get a hot breakfast for you. Come along, now.”

They led the rattled groundskeeper back along the path to the courtyard, shooing students back inside who had ignored Helga’s command and ventured out for a look, and leaving Cadwgan to fight the imaginary soldiers of the Underworld who might be marching up out of the broken ground at any moment. Alric seemed to be in shock, but after they’d gotten him dried off and breakfast laid out, he began to be more like his normal self. The rain mercifully tapered off to a drizzle while they were eating and then finally stopped altogether, and the school seemed suddenly too quiet with no rain beating on the roof for the first time in days. Students kept leaving their tables to go and stare out the windows over the loch, marveling at the clear morning sky like it was a rare and impressive bit of magic. Helga watched their faces and knew that it would be nearly impossible to get them to sit still for lessons that day, what with the chaos and the sunshine finally reappearing and all.

Rhonwen seemed to have the same idea as Helga. “Could everyone please come back to their tables for a moment?” she announced at the end of breakfast, amplifying her voice with her wand and waiting until all the students had grudgingly wandered back to their seats. She had eaten her own breakfast quickly and then disappeared to her tower room for a while, and now she had returned with her hair tightly plaited up behind her – something rare for her – and wearing a warm but short cloak. When all the children were seated, she whispered something to Bihotza and then continued her announcement.

“First, I want to tell you all that I have decided to cancel regular lessons again today.” She waited for the cheers and claps to die down, and then waved the students quiet. “Of course, we will still be learning something; but not in the way we usually do. In the first place, Master Grifondour is still away and won’t be here to teach his lessons. Second, as you’ve all noticed, the rain has finally stopped and we could all use some fresh air. And third, well, you’ll all agree that we’ve had a very eventful morning, none of us more so than Master Wintermilk.” She waved in the vague direction of the groundskeeper’s cottage, and Alric smiled at the students bemusedly. Rhonwen caught the eye of Bihotza as she reappeared, and then nodded. “As I said,” she went on, “we will still be learning something. But we’ll be doing it outdoors. In a moment, Bihotza will summon everyone’s warm cloaks down from your rooms, and then we will all proceed outside the courtyard walls to Master Wintermilk’s cottage, which has fallen down because of all the rain. As long as the weather is clear, we will spend today clearing away the fallen stones, retrieving Master Wintermilk’s belongings and cleaning them, and flattening out the ground so that the cottage can be rebuilt. This will be a very good opportunity for you all to practice some of your spells, like moving and fetching objects, and cleaning charms. Everybody is to be helping, and nobody is to go into the forest. Is that understood?” When everyone had nodded or called out their assent, Rhonwen nodded to Bihotza, and the elf snapped her fingers, summoning all the students’ cloaks down from their chambers. Rhonwen walked amongst the children, adjusting cloaks and helping pin brooches, and then she began to herd them toward the door. Salazar finished his wine and sighed.

“Does ‘everybody is to be helping’ include me?”

“I think it includes both of us,” Helga grinned at him. Salazar made a face.

“I was afraid of that,” he winced; then he threw his cloak back on and shoved the hood down over his head.

The day was bright and cold in the wake of the endless rain, and they spent the better part of it clearing the debris from Alric’s collapsed house. Stones were floated up off the heap, inspected for cracks, and then set down again a good distance away on the path. The few that were too badly damaged to reuse were set apart from the others, but most were still sound and would be put back into the walls of a new cottage when it was built. Students got lots of practice picking things up, moving things, putting things down, and finding things with magic, and all the bustling around generally kept everyone warm enough in spite of the frosty edge to the air. Everyone pitched in except Hoshea and Ya’el, who stayed behind in the kitchens to make portable lunches that could be eaten out in the open air, and to prepare for the evening meal. By the time the sky began to turn purple at the edges, they had completely cleared the site and recovered nearly all of Alric’s belongings; a few of his tools had been broken, and he’d lost the few vials of medicinal potions he’d kept for use with the animals, but most of his things were salvaged – bedraggled and dirty, but intact. They brought his waterlogged clothes and blankets inside the school to dry by the hearth while they ate supper, and Rhonwen and Alric sat together at the high table making notes for the reconstruction on a parchment.

Early the next morning – mercifully clear and dry again, Helga was relieved to see – Rhonwen marched the whole school back outside and showed them the spot she and Alric had picked for the new cottage. It was about half a furlong away from the previous site, further away from the downward slope of the hill and closer to the path, and the ground there was solid and seemed unaffected by the torrents of rain that had undermined the former house. It was a bit lumpy, though, and covered in clumps of tough highland grasses, and so Rhonwen set to work teaching the students how to strip back the grass and loose topsoil with their wands, and to set aside any useful rocks they might find along the way. They made steady progress until about midmorning, when Lugotrix left the place he’d been working on with Silvanus and began tugging on Helga’s cloak.

“Lady Helga, Silvanus says you should come and look at these rocks.” He pointed to the spot where Silvanus was poking his wand quizzically into the soil, and his mouse Carantus ran down to the tip of his finger as if to help him point. Helga put down the stone she’d been moving and followed him over.

“What is it, Silvanus?” she asked slowly, since Silvanus was practicing having conversations without his speaking parchment now. The tall boy unfolded himself and came to stand beside her, pointing at the stones he’d uncovered with his wand.

“Féach!” he said, eyeing the row of large rocks. “Look, see. Is….” He searched for the right word. “Is… cuar.” He moved his wand tip along, from one stone to the next, and Helga began to see his meaning as Lugotrix filled in the missing vocabulary.

“They’re in a line, Lady Helga. A curved line.”

“Cuar! Yes, curve,” Silvanus nodded, tucking his black curls behind his ears. “Is not… how rocks… live.” He frowned at this, knowing it wasn’t the correct phrase, but Helga thought she understood what he meant.

“It’s not natural, you mean?” she prompted, and Silvanus nodded again vigorously.

“Not natural,” he repeated. “People.” Helga took another look at the stones, and after a moment she felt she had to agree. The boys had stripped back the vegetation and loose soil in their portion of the site to reveal what had probably first looked like a simple ridge of stones; but when enough of them had been uncovered, the fact that they were lined up in a very unnatural-looking row was hard to ignore. All of the stones were roughly the same size, and they all looked as though they had been lightly worked – they were not as smooth as, say, the stones from which the school had been built; but someone had clearly taken the time to shape them into vaguely block-like shapes. And if one followed the line along for a few more feet, it did look as though it had been laid on a curve. This was not, as Silvanus had said, how rocks “lived.” A person had put them there.

“Rhonwen? Salazar?” Helga called over her shoulder. “I think you should come and see these stones that Silvanus has found.”

As soon as Rhonwen got a good look at the line of rocks, she put an immediate halt to all other activity and set everyone to following the stones along their curve, half the students going one direction and half in the other. By midday, their hard work had revealed not just a curved line but an entire circle of stones, their matching size and shape broken only by one very large, flat stone on the southeast edge of the curve. Interspersed here and there alongside the stones were a few dark spots of looser earth that Rhonwen determined must have once held timber posts. The larger, mismatched stone had a visible dip in the middle, and looked as though it had been worn dark and smooth by many years of feet passing over it.

“That’s a doorstep,” Salazar said matter-of-factly, and Helga nodded.

“The one at my cottage back in Little Witchingham looks like that, although not quite as deeply worn.”

“It’s a house,” Rhonwen murmured. “An old round-house, from the times before the Romans came. Or what’s left of one, anyway. You can see where the timber frame went into the ground, and these stones must be part of a later improvement of the foundation. Odd, though – to find one house out here on the edge of a loch by itself, without any other homes about. And we’d have found others when we built the school and courtyard, if they were here.”

“Maybe whoever lived here enjoyed his privacy,” Salazar muttered wryly, giving the two women a pointed look, and Helga laughed.

“Yes, and maybe he went mad from the solitude.”

Salazar made a face at her, but she was saved from further retorts by Alric as he returned from dumping another load of soil across the path.

“Well, that’s quite a sight, isn’t it?” he said bemusedly. “Now what do we do with it?” The children all sat in the center of the ring of stones, brushing dirt off their clothes and eating the bread and cheese that had been brought out for them – all but Arddun, who had finished her food and was walking gingerly around the line of stones with her arms out, as if she were balancing on something at a great height.

“Are we going to dig up all the rocks?” she asked as she passed her teachers, hopping over the large door stone as if it were a gap. “Use them all to build up Master Wintermilk’s new house?” Rhonwen stared at the ring of stones as Arddun walked along it, and Helga could see the razor-focus of a scholar in her eyes.

“It would be a shame,” she muttered after a moment of thought, “digging up something ancient.” She brushed her fingernails against her lip slowly, back and forth, something Helga had seen her do before when she was pondering an idea. Finally, she turned to Alric, one eyebrow peaked. “Alric… how would you feel about having a round house?”

The groundskeeper thought about this for a moment or two, and then he shrugged amicably. “Well, it would certainly make it easier to sweep out the corners.”

Rhonwen grinned at this and took out her wand.

Midafternoon found students and teachers hard at work preparing the old stone foundation to be reused. Stones were cleaned off, gaps were filled in, and loose soil was firmed up. While they worked, Rhonwen gave the students a history lesson about the peoples and times before the Romans, how they lived, how they worked – and how they did their magic. Any small objects they pulled from the soil were brought to her for inspection, and if they were interesting enough – a couple of blue beads, a tiny intact pottery vial – they went to Rhonwen’s collection in her chambers. Finally, the only task that remained was to flatten out the hump of soil in the center of the circle.

“Don’t just blindly jab your wands at the soil here,” Rhonwen warned the students as she watched them practice a digging spell around the edges of the raised earth. “This being in the center of the circle, we might find a stone hearth or something like that under this mound, and we wouldn’t want any broken wands.”

“Or broken pottery,” Morgen added, using the sleeve of her gown to brush loose dirt from something that looked like the rounded bottom of a cooking pot. “Somebody’s left their crockery around their hearth for us to find.”

“Not just crockery,” Starculf grunted, and several people looked up from their work, surprised he had spoken aloud. He offered no further explanation, but as he moved his wand to push back the soil, something bright caught the low autumn sun and flashed in everyone’s eyes.

“Silver!” Eadgyth gasped, leaving her side of the mound to come and have a look. Everyone watched, fascinated, as Starculf made another motion of his wand and revealed the curved edge of some sort of silver dish, rising up out of the soil like a crescent moon.

“Everyone stop….”

Students and teachers all stopped their excavating and swiveled to look at Linnræd, who was staring not at the silver bowl Starculf had found, but at the place where Morgen had been digging up pottery. He pointed at what she had uncovered, making a face as if he expected her to realize something, but she only stared back at him quizzically.

“What? It’s just a plain old clay pot that someone’s patched back together,” she shrugged. “Starculf’s bowl is much more interesting.”

“That’s not a clay pot,” Linnræd said flatly, and he shot Rhonwen a tense look. Rhonwen’s brows drew together, and she came round the little rise to see what he meant. Morgen moved back to give her access. A hush of anticipation fell over the little crowd of students and teachers as Rhonwen began to shift soil not with her wand, but with the brush of fur at the hem of her cloak. It took Helga no more than two or three brushes to see what Linnræd had already noticed. The shape was not quite right for a cooking pot; the curves were not something shaped evenly on a wheel. The color was too pale, the surface too smooth. And what Morgen had taken for repairs looked more like….

Like seams. Helga put a hand up to her mouth.

“Rhonwen, is that….”

“It’s a skull,” Salazar answered for her, appearing at Helga’s shoulder and making her jump. Rhonwen didn’t say anything, but as she ran her finger over one prominent curve of the object, it slipped down into loose soil and revealed the unmistakable hollow of an eye socket. Some of the children who had looked skeptically at Salazar’s pronunciation now jumped back a few paces, putting distance between themselves and what was now clearly visible as a human skull. Rhonwen laid her fingers gently on the brow above the socket she had just revealed, then she looked up at the students.

“Linnræd was right. Everyone stop what you’re digging at; this isn’t just an ancient house, it’s a grave.” For a moment, nobody moved except Morgen, who was rubbing her sleeve hem aggressively against her cloak as if trying to scrub it clean. Alric Wintermilk smoothed down his wispy white hair and leaned against his staff, looking thoughtful.

“What now, my lady? Cover him back up and pick a new spot for my cottage?” He looked torn between respect for the dead and disappointment at all their work going to waste. Rhonwen thought about this for a few minutes, looking down at the skull and around them at the vast circle they had already cleared, and then gazing out over the loch.

“No,” she said finally. “Even if we rebury him, there’ll be so much coming and going over this ground that he’s likely to be accidentally turned up again. And there really isn’t another position that would be better for your cottage. No, we won’t rebury him here.”

“Then where do we put him?” Salazar asked hesitantly, as if he was afraid Rhonwen would decide to bring the bones into the school cellars and put them in his clothes chest. Rhonwen was looking out at the loch again.

“There,” she said, and she pointed. Everyone looked out toward the center of the loch, where the island with its grove of pine trees sat unobtrusively amid the slate-grey water, looking a little smaller than its usual size now that the water level had risen with the rain. “We’ll rebury him on the island. What do you think?” She directed this to the other adults, who all shrugged.

“If you think it’s the more respectable thing to do, my lady,” Alric acquiesced, and Salazar crossed his arms.

“Clearly he liked his privacy, living out here alone. The island seems appropriate.”

“Helga?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Helga deferred. “He wasn’t a Norseman, so I can’t presume to know what he’d want. I don’t know much about his people, except what you’ve been teaching today. But I suppose Salazar has a point; the island is quiet and private, and he could be left in peace there.”

“Exactly,” Rhonwen said, accepting Starculf’s helping hand as she stood up. “None of us ever go to the island, so he’d be unlikely to be disturbed again. And the island is vaguely round. We’ll make him a nice round barrow, I think he’d like that. Something about being in a round barrow, on a round island, encircled by water, encircled by hills… circles within circles, that was very much the style of the ancient people. What do you think, Silvanus? You’re the closest thing we have to a member of this man’s culture.”

“Cruinne-cè,” Silvanus nodded, making a spiraling motion with his wand. “Circles and circles. Sky, sun, moon, horizon. Buried in circles is good.”

“Well, that settles it, then,” Rhonwen nodded. “Let’s finish uncovering him, and then we’ll apparate him over to the island and make him a brand new barrow.”

At the sound of the word apparate, Helga winced. “Salazar, you don’t happen to have a boat, do you?”

“Do I look like a man who has a boat?” Salazar grumbled, and Helga giggled in spite of herself.

It took them another half hour of working together, gently shifting soil with a combination of hands and magic, to completely uncover the skeleton in the center of the ancient roundhouse. Rhonwen confirmed that it was probably a man, because his hips were too narrow to bear children, and his jaw was heavy and square. They also confirmed that he had been a wizard when they found the delicate remnants of a wand in the soil near his right arm. The wood was broken into three pieces, the core probably long decayed; but the cold and waterlogged soil had stopped the wood from completely disintegrating, and Rhonwen carefully removed the ancient fragments from the grave and wrapped them in a cloth, intending to reinter the wand along with its owner.

When all the bones had been uncovered and carefully lifted from the earth onto a clean linen shroud, Rhonwen rubbed out the stiffness in her left arm and addressed the students. “In a moment, the other teachers and I are going to move our ancient friend here to his new resting place on the island. It isn’t a very big island, so I’m afraid most of you will have to stay here. Bihotza will stay with you, and you can all finish the job of digging out the rest of these stones and pots and flattening the ground. Silvanus, I’d like for you to come with us. I think it would be appropriate for you to say a few words in the closest thing we have to this man’s native tongue.”

“Can I come too, lady Rhonwen?” Tancred asked timidly, brushing dirt off the knees of his breeches. “I’d like to pray for him. I mean, I know he lived before the Roman times and all, and so he wouldn’t have been a Christian, but I just wouldn’t feel like I’d done my bit if I didn’t.”

Helga reached over and took his hand. “Of course, Tancred. And I’ll say my own prayers, too, and between us all, he’ll be well and truly prayed for from all sides. How’s that?” Tancred gave her a grin and a nod, and then he kept hold of her hand as Helga took up her corner of the ancient wizard’s shroud and prepared to apparate.

The little burial party stayed on the island for an hour or so, with Alric Wintermilk first digging the grave itself with his wand, and then the four adults ceremoniously lowering the ancient wizard into his new resting place. The six of them gathered in a circle then, joining hands around the circular grave – Helga had to work particularly hard to focus, given the distraction of Salazar’s knuckles under her fingertips – and prayers were said in Latin, in Norse, and in the oldest and fanciest words of his Pictish tongue that Silvanus could come up with. Afterward, Alric remained on the island to raise the mound over the ancient wizard’s grave, while Helga and the others apparated back to the school to check on the continuing work there. The sun was sinking slowly into the grassy hills in the distance, casting everything in an oblique slant of pink light, and they could see as they came down the path that the students had done good work while they were gone. The whole site had been smoothed out, flat and tamped down and ready for a cottage to be built, and some of the older students had even started placing some stones on top of the ancient foundation ring to make a little raised boundary. Someone had laid a cloth on the path in front of the site, and Helga could see as they approached that it held the few small artifacts that had been pulled from the soil while they were away – a little clay bowl, half of a cloak pin, two more beads, and, towering above all the other finds, the silver dish that Starculf had been uncovering when the skeleton had been found. Starculf was hovering over the artifacts now as they came down the path, clearly eager for his teachers to see the full object now that it was free from the soil. Helga heard Rhonwen suck in a quick breath as they reached the display.

“What’s this, then?” she said, although Helga got the impression that she already had a good idea exactly what it was.

“Silver bowl,” Starculf beamed, looking quite proud of himself. The bowl was several hand-breadths across and shallow, with hundreds of tiny indentations running across its gleaming surface in geometric patterns, and the sunset light made the whole thing gleam like a big pink jewel in Rhonwen’s hands as she picked it up.

“And this came out of the ground right beside the body?” Rhonwen asked, and Starculf nodded. The other students were beginning to gather around them now, and Rhonwen waved all the stragglers in to join the group. “Oh, this is more than just a silver bowl, Starculf,” she murmured, running her finger along the edge of the dish. “You’ve found something quite important. Everyone? Gather in and make sure you can see and hear me; we’re going to have one last lesson today before supper.”

“Bollocks,” Salazar whispered as the students began to form a ring around them; but as he sat down resignedly on a hefty boulder beside the path, he spread the edge of his cloak over the bare rock beside him and patted it, inviting Helga to sit. After a moment of hesitation, she did.

“Can everyone see this lovely silver bowl that Starculf dug up today?” Rhonwen was saying, holding up the dish so all the students could get a look. “Well, what you are looking at is actually one of the rarer pieces of magic that any of you will ever see. In fact, I have only ever seen one other of its like in my own life, and that was owned by my great-uncle Moreith, and had been passed through his family for many generations. They are very hard to create, because they require a depth of skill in multiple branches of magic, and I think it means that our ancient friend we dug up today, or one of his ancestors, was a very powerful wizard indeed.”

“Well, what is it?” Hnossa piped up, bored of the introduction, and Rhonwen swallowed a chuckle.

“Llyn meddyliadwy,” Rhonwen said cryptically, watching the Saxon-speaking students wrinkle their noses at the unfamiliar Cymraeg sounds. “Literally, it means something like thinking pool. This bowl is designed so that a witch or wizard, after filling it with the right potion, can extract thoughts and memories from their mind and then look at them straight on with their eyes, in order to better understand or experience them. The memories can be put back in your head again after you’ve finished, of course, if your potion was made properly; but naturally, traces of those memories can cling to the bowl – which is why they are almost always buried with their owners at their death, so that nobody can take advantage of them and see bits of memories they might not have wanted to share. Some wizards, of course, choose to leave certain memories in the bowl on purpose and then pass them down through their families; this can be a very helpful way to preserve family history, or to offer advice to future generations.”

“It’s a hugrtjǫrn!” Helga grinned, and Rhonwen nodded in her direction.

“Yes, you might hear these objects referred to by different names in different languages. As Lady Helga has just said, the Norse wizards call them hugrtjǫrn, while in Cymru we call them llyn meddyliadwy. And the Norman wizards would call this a penseve, which is the word we shall all use, because it’ll be the easiest for you all to pronounce.”

“Isn’t there a Saxon word we can use?” Saeric asked. Rhonwen grinned down at him cheekily.

“No. The Saxons are not a people who like to examine their own thoughts.”

“I heard that!”

The voice came from behind them on the path and seemed to ring in the cooling sunset air. A few students leaned out from the group or stood on tiptoe, and then smiles began to break out like ripples in a pond.

“Master Goderic’s back!” Eadgyth cried, and then there was a small stampede as students broke away from Rhonwen’s lesson to run down the path and tackle their teacher. Goderic de Grifondour caught the first few runners in a bear hug, laughing and ruffling hair as he handed the reins of his horse off to Bihotza. He shuffled through the wiggling mass of children until he was at Rhonwen’s side, and he gave her a look of mock indignation.

“You’re painting a very general picture of a very diverse people, my lady,” he protested, gazing down at the penseve with great interest. Rhonwen snorted.

“I have never known a single Saxon who could be bothered to take the time for self-reflection,” she countered, and Goderic crossed his arms.

“If I’d ever had access to a penseve, I might have done,” he retorted. Rhonwen gave him a look full of mock haughtiness, and then she held the bowl up to the students again.

“Well, since Master Grifondour is so interested in self-examination, his memory can be the first we look at in our demonstration of this penseve.” Several students giggled, and Salazar patted a bemused Goderic on the arm as he and Helga got up from the boulder.

“Make it a good one, Goderic,” he said slyly. “I have so little in my life in the way of entertainment.”

“Are we going to put it back tomorrow, though?” Ysolt asked, tugging on Rhonwen’s sleeve. “Are we going to rebury it with the man on the island? I wouldn’t want a bowl of my memories getting looked at.” Rhonwen clutched the penseve a little closer to her chest, but she laid a soft hand on Ysolt’s head and smiled at her.

“Nor would I, and normally, you’d be right. But a penseve is so rare and so valuable that I think it would be a great waste not to use it for the school. A reservoir of memories could be a great boon to future students and teachers. And I promise, I’ll give it a good magical cleaning before any of us looks into it, out of respect for our ancient friend.” To all the assembled students, she announced, “It’s almost time to eat now, so I want you all to go inside and get cleaned up before supper. You’ve been out digging all day, so I expect a great deal of washing under fingernails. While you all get cleaned up, Master Salazar will make us a batch of the potion for our penseve, and Master Goderic here will select a memory for us all to see.”

“Wonderful,” Salazar murmured, as though he had just been sentenced to hard labor – although Helga privately thought that he looked pleased to be doing a bit of advanced potion making. Goderic, meanwhile, sighed resignedly.

“I should have stayed at the gemót for another hour,” he grimaced, and then the three of them joined the little throng of students following Rhonwen back along the path to the courtyard gate.

The sun had fully set by the time the tables in the dining hall were laid for supper. Rhonwen kept the penseve well-hidden until she was sure the children had eaten most of their food, and then she set it out for display in front of the teachers’ table on a stool from the kitchen. Salazar poured it full of a bright, silvery potion that got oohs and ahs from the students, and he had to promise them he would teach it to them in a future lesson. Then Goderic pulled out his wand and drew a bright, ropy strand of wispy light out of the side of his head, which he then dropped into the bowl, releasing it from his wand with a little swish in the potion. The children spent the remainder of supper time going back and forth between getting more bread or cheese from the table and dunking their heads in the bowl to watch a hazy yellow memory of little Goderic de Grifondour learning to ride a horse.

When supper had ended and the students had all been sent upstairs, the penseve was carefully carried up to Rhonwen’s chambers in the west corner tower, where it was placed reverently on a table on the opposite side of the room to the window. Goderic followed to retrieve his childhood memory, and then the four teachers sat around the candlelit chamber to talk over the events of the past few days. After being filled in on the status of Alric Wintermilk’s cottage and the reburial of the ancient wizard, Goderic gave his fellow teachers a survey of what had gone on at the gemót.

“They do want to speak with your father, Helga,” Goderic began, pouring them all a cup of wine that he had warmed.

“Did they decide to make seats for Danes on the council, then?” she asked, and Goderic shrugged.

“It’s still tentative. They never came to a formal decision, just said they’d take it under advisement, but they do plan to go and visit the wizarding communities in the Danelaw and speak with some of the village leaders to decide if they’re the sort they want. Alnoth of Greengrass Field and Thored of Rowale are really pushing for it, though, because they’ve got Danish kin they want included, and so is Edric of Yachelea. And he’s got the wealth to back it up. Oh, and that reminds me – it’s a good job we’ve got the Blæc twins here at the school, because if Thored of Rowale had his way, Ysolt would be locked up in his bedchamber and Brictric would be floating face-down in a river.”

“What?” Helga hissed over her wine goblet. “They’re twelve!”

“Exactly,” Goderic rumbled. “Which means Brictric is getting close to old enough to want his inheritance, and Ysolt could start producing heirs in another year or so.”

“The Blæc estate?” Rhonwen asked knowingly, and Goderic nodded.

“Their mother remarried after their father’s death, and she remarried to a mundani, so her husband’s seat on the gemót is empty. She has her dower lands, but the Blæc estate should belong to the twins. Which means Ysolt is now a very desirable commodity among the young unmarried lords on the gemót. And Brictric is… an inconvenience to them.”

“She’s not a commodity!” Helga sputtered, and Rhonwen patted her shoulder as she got up to go and fuss with the decorations around the penseve table.

“Her share of the estate is,” she said simply, and Goderic sighed.

“Thored of Rowale is desperate to marry her and snatch up the Blæc lands and titles – and their seat on the gemót. But I told them that under no circumstances is Ysolt going to be leaving this school before her education is finished – and I managed to convince them not to give away Brictric’s seat just yet. They agreed to leave it open for him until he’s sixteen, which is a few years longer than they usually leave a seat open, but not quite so long that they’re willing to end a family’s gemót heritage over it. And Edric of Yachelea voted against Thored because he doesn’t like him, and that turned the tide.”

“So they all know about the school now, do they?” Salazar asked quietly, sinking back into Rhonwen’s cushioned wall bench. Goderic cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“I think I managed to explain it pretty well, and for the most part, opinions were favorable, if a little bewildered. Nobody’s ever done this before, after all. Of course, there are always a handful of naysayers for any question.”

“How many naysayers?” Helga winced, and Goderic looked uncomfortable.

“Well, it started with mostly just the one.”

“Who was it?” Rhonwen asked softly, sliding a cushion under the penseve. Goderic cleared his throat again, and Helga thought that he looked like he didn’t want to answer the question. He scratched his beard, met Rhonwen’s eyes hesitantly, and then sighed.

“Your husband, Lady Hræfnsclawu.” He said it very formally, emphasizing her married name, and Rhonwen stiffened. For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Rhonwen sniffed loudly and stirred the potion in the penseve with her wand.

“My brother-in-law Osmund is the one who should be on the gemót. He’s the better thinker, and the better man, of the two. Æthelweard is only the oldest son and heir by an accident of birth.”

“Æthelweard is an accident of birth,” Salazar muttered into his wine cup, and as Helga thought about the boggart she had seen the first night they’d come to Loch Mallachie – sputtering, indignant, red-faced, and rendering Rhonwen paralyzed with terror – she felt she had to agree.

“So he made trouble, did he?” Rhonwen pried, and Helga watched as she lifted her wand to her temple and began to extract a memory. Goderic nodded unhappily.

“Said we were up here trying to steal the heirs of great wizarding families for our own diabolical ends.”

“What, does he think we’re eating them?” Salazar scoffed.

“Worse, he thinks we’re trying to turn them all against the established order, or trying to take their estates and their seats, or that we’re trying to get control of who marries who so we can eventually funnel half the wealth of the island into our own pockets. He accused me of snatching up the twins so I could marry Ysolt off to Eaderic.”

“Well, she is a black-haired girl, Goderic,” Helga joked, remembering their conversation on the ride through Lundenburh and trying to lighten the mood. Goderic gave a half-laugh.

“They’d never work. She’d kill him in his sleep.”

“What else did he say?” Rhonwen pressed, although her back was still turned to them and she began pulling out another memory. Goderic sighed again.

“He alternated between saying that we had them all chained up here like prisoners and weren’t teaching them at all, and saying that we were up here teaching them dark magic, turning the boys into our own personal wizard army and making the girls unfit for respectable marriages.”

“Ha!” Rhonwen laughed, but it was cold and humorless. “Æthelweard thinks that a woman who can read is unfit for marriage. He considers my ability to string two salient thoughts together a personal attack on his very existence.” She pulled another memory from her head and slung it forcefully into the penseve, making the potion splash.

“Surely nobody took him seriously?” Helga asked cautiously, taking the second cup of wine that Salazar offered her. Goderic shrugged.

“I think some of them were starting to. But that was on the first day of the meeting, so I did what I could to quash it. That night I sent an owl to Gwydion and asked him to send that wandmaker, Olivantius, to the gemót the next day. Once I got him there, he was able to testify about visiting the school and providing us with wands, and how he’d been perfectly fine with leaving his own children here, and he managed to convince everyone that we weren’t running a prison or a school for the dark arts. And he might not be on the gemót, but half the wizards there own one of his wands, and they all respect him. In the end, I suppose they preferred the word of a merchant who had actually been here and seen it to that of a lord who hadn’t.”

“That means we owe him again, doesn’t it?” Salazar cringed, and Goderic made an equivocal face.

“Better him than someone who doesn’t like us, I suppose. And the upshot of it is that we might have some additional funding coming in for the future. My friend Ceretic of Longe Bottom got up after his testimony and gave a nice little speech about what an important service we were providing, and how if any one of the men on the gemót right now were to drop dead before their children were adults, and if their children were in danger of other lords hungry for their land, then wouldn’t they want a place where they could go to be safe and still learn magic while they were there? And that seemed to convince Edric of Yachelea, who’s got only one son and looks like he might drop dead at any given moment, and he said that he might be convinced to donate if we needed to make improvements in the future.”

“And if he does it, everyone else will,” Rhonwen nodded, putting yet another memory in the bowl. Helga could see the liquid glowing unusually bright against the silver rim, and she wondered how many memories it could hold before it was full.

“Everyone except your dear husband,” Salazar sneered, and Helga saw Rhonwen’s fingers clench around her wand before she brought it up to her temple again.

“Yes. Everyone except dear, dear Æthelweard.” They both said it as though the word dear was a substitute for a hex, and the disgust with which Rhonwen shook the next memory off her wand and into the penseve made Helga shudder. And when they had all said their good-nights and left for their own chambers a little while later, Helga looked back over her shoulder before she shut the tower door. Rhonwen was still in the same place, still standing rigidly over the penseve and siphoning memory after memory out of her head and into its crystalline, swirling depths.

Chapter Text

A soft hush fell over the highlands as the blood-month drew to a close, and as the first day of the last week dawned, it began to snow. Clouds that had been heavy and ponderous for days now emptied themselves over the hills and the loch, their contents drifting to earth first in gentle flakes and then in huge, shapeless clumps that began to blanket the school grounds in soft white silence. The pines in the forest and on the hillsides became blurred brush strokes of grey and white that blended disorientingly with the grey and white banks of cloud on the horizon; glistening sheets of ice began to spread out from the shore of the loch, reaching fragile fingers out into deeper water and collecting a thin dusting of snow that made it look like the shoreline had grown overnight, and that the loch had shrunk; and the deeper water that remained unfrozen reflected back the glassy pale blue sky so brilliantly that to Helga, it looked as though the whole world had become a window of stained glass, milky white and icy blue and full of glittering light.

Inside the school, bright white sunshine beamed in through all the classroom windows, reflecting off the drifts of unsullied snow outside, and students’ eyes and attentions began to wander. Everyone was a little hypnotized by the gentle, rhythmic fall of the snowflakes outside the windows, and Helga had to keep calling their gazes back to whatever magical plant she was trying to show them. It was just as well, she reasoned when she caught herself beginning to stare at the snowfall too; after today, they would be dispensing with regular lessons anyway. The next few weeks would be spent reviewing what they had learned since school had begun, in preparation for testing the students’ progress before their fortnight-long break. This fortnight of rest had been insisted on vehemently by Goderic, who was adamant that no work was to be done for all the twelve days of Christe-mass, and Helga had agreed that it would be a good thing to have some time off, since they planned to start teaching new types of magic in the new year. Two weeks with no lessons would help the children return to their learning fresh and ready for new things.

The students would, however, be learning one final bit of magic that day before their weeks of review and study began. In the afternoon, instead of their normal rotation of classes, Salazar surprised them all by taking the whole school at once on a very chilly walk down to the shores of the loch. The students walked together in clumps, shoulders touching for warmth, their hands bundled up inside their thick cloaks and their boots shuffling through thick new snow, until they reached the rocky edge of the ice-crusted water. Salazar made an imposing figure in his long cloak and hood, black against the crisp white backdrop of the loch and the sky. In his arms, he carried a shining cauldron about the size of an average stew-pot, and Helga could see from the way it flashed in the sun that it was almost certainly made of pure silver. He must have put a charm on it to make it light enough to carry, she thought, judging from the way he held it so effortlessly. When everyone had shuffled down to the shoreline and had spread out so they could all see him, Salazar pulled back his hood, winced at the bright sunlight, and then addressed the students.

“A few weeks ago, I made you all a promise,” he began, and his soft voice carried remarkably in the crisp air. “I told you that at some point, I would teach you how the potion I brewed for the penseve was made. Well, we’re going to do that today, as your last lesson before we begin reviewing what we’ve learned so far.” There was a ripple of excited murmuring among the students, although it was tempered by their desire to stay huddled in their cloaks. Salazar waited until they were silent again, and then he held out the cauldron for them to examine. “The first thing you must know about the penseve potion is that it must be brewed in a cauldron made of solid, pure silver.”

“Because silver keeps the potion pure?” Vendicina asked from the back row. Salazar inclined his head a little in acknowledgement.

“That is part of it, yes. But it is also because silver is highly reflective, and reflected light is important to the development of this potion. And it is also because of how silver reacts with heat. This potion must be brewed slowly and for a long time. A silver cauldron heats itself evenly on all sides, making it easier to brew thoroughly and to control the temperature, and it is less prone to boiling over. Of course, a solid silver cauldron is also expensive – which is why you don’t find many people brewing this potion.”

“Then how did you get yours?” Rodolphus said flatly, getting a pinch from Walrand for his trouble. Salazar gave him a wry smile.

“It was my grandmother’s. Now I want you to notice two things about this cauldron. One – it is highly polished, inside and out. This is important for infusing light throughout the potion.” He turned the cauldron on its side to show the students the flash of sunshine on the inner surface. “And two – it is immaculately clean. This is also absolutely necessary for this potion. Impurities in your cauldron can spoil the brew.”

“And why are we outside?” Walrand shivered, tugging his hood tight around his neck and chin. Helga felt sorry for him; winters in Brittany were mild, and this was more cold and snow than Walrand was accustomed to. Salazar grinned at him and pulled out a pair of black dragon-hide gloves.

“We are here,” he pronounced, putting on his gloves with a flourish, “for water.”

“Water?” Arddun complained. “Don’t we have a well we could have used?”

“Don’t we have a charm to conjure water that we could have used?” Goderic muttered under his breath. Salazar picked up the silver cauldron by its handle and eyed them all severely.

“Yes, we have both of those things. And they’re both useless for a penseve potion. In the first place, the water for this potion cannot be conjured – it must come from a natural source. And in the second place, the water must be free from magical interference. Our well up at the school has had a charm cast on it by Master Wintermilk to prevent it freezing, and that charm makes it unsuitable for the penseve.” Taking out his wand then, Salazar aimed it at the sheet of ice covering the shallows of the loch and made a little circular motion with his wrist; a disc of snow-caked ice popped up and floated aside, leaving a perfectly round opening to the dark water below. “You must always use still, fresh water for this potion,” he continued, stepping as far onto the ice as he dared and leaning over the hole. “Running water will not hold memories very well, and sea water will not hold them at all. Water from a deep lake is best. And the water should always be cold. Summer is not the time to brew this potion, and icy-cold winter water will yield the best results.” He dipped the cauldron into the hole in the ice then, and came back up with it nearly full. After a few slippery steps, he got himself back up onto solid shore and handed the cauldron off to Mildryth – confirming Helga’s suspicions about the easy-lifting charm. The little girl stared at the huge pot that took up the entirety of her tiny arms; then she realized that Salazar had begun walking back up the path, and she hurried to follow him, walking carefully so as not to spill. Everyone else fell in behind them.

“What do we do with it now, Salazar?” Helena piped up, running to catch up with her friend Mildryth and then skipping dangerously around her and the full cauldron. From behind her, Rhonwen prodded her with her wand tip.

“That’s Master Salazar when you’re at lessons, Helena, how many times do I have to tell you?”

Helena scowled inside her hood. Salazar kept walking, ignoring both the scowl and the omission of his title. “Now, Helena, we take the cold water up to the big fire that Master Wintermilk has helpfully set up for us in the courtyard, and we boil it.”

“For how long?” Eadgyth called out over the crowd of heads. Salazar didn’t turn to answer her, but he did pull a small disc out of a pocket somewhere in his cloak and hold it out so she could see it.

“At least ten minutes after the boiling gets going. That’s about one notch on this sundial.”

“To purify it?” asked Saeric, sniffling through a runny nose. Salazar put away his sundial.

“Exactly. The purity of the water for this potion is paramount. After we boil it, we’ll strain it through a cloth; and then we’ll go inside and prepare our ingredients while it cools.”

“Thank God for that,” someone muttered at the edge of the group, and there were titters of laughter. Helga couldn’t tell who had spoken, but she saw Eadgyth give her brother Ælfwine a hard punch to the shoulder, and she had to stifle a laugh of her own.

When they got to the courtyard, they found Alric Wintermilk had indeed gotten a fire going for them. The students crowded around it as much for warmth as they did out of a desire to see the lesson. Helga saw that another silver cauldron was already on the fire – this empty one was duller, and clearly of a lesser quality than the one they had carried to and from the loch, but just as clean – and Salazar took Mildryth’s burden from her and emptied the cold water into it. While they waited for the water to boil, Salazar put the pure silver cauldron onto a small table that Wintermilk had placed nearby for him; then he walked over to the slightly-open door of the school, pointed his wand, and muttered, “Accio lesson box.” A moment later, there was a little clunking noise, and then a small wooden box wiggled its way through the gap in the door and floated itself into his hands. Salazar took the box over to the table and began to unpack its contents. Helga saw him take out a large bolt of some kind of very fine white cloth, a smaller piece of smooth leather, and a little round bottle made of dark glass about the size of an apple. When he popped open the seal, Helga caught a whiff of lavender.

“Can anybody tell me the magical uses for the lavender plant?” Salazar asked the assembled students, cradling the dark glass in one gloved hand. Some of the children looked sheepishly at Helga, who had definitely taught them about lavender a month before – but in their defense, she ruminated, it had been during all the chaos just before Hallowmas, and this was why they were planning to review.

“It’s used for sleeping potions,” Vendicina finally offered, and Salazar gave his best student a quick proprietary grin.

“Indeed, Vendicina. What else? Anyone?”

When none of the other students did anything but sniffle in the cold, Helga rescued them. “Lavender is powerfully protective,” she filled in. “I’m no potions expert, but I do use lavender in some medicinal potions to protect against wounds turning sour, and to prevent illnesses. Lavender can ward off some basic hexes, too, and prevent one’s dreams from being influenced by outside magic, and keep one’s spells from being tampered with. I even use it in a spell to prevent stains on cloth and wood in kitchens. And my grandmother said that it could be used in dream divining, although she never explained to me how that would work.”

“Thank you, Mistress Helga,” Salazar pronounced, a look of mock-professionalism plastered on his face – although Helga could see whatever incorrect name he wanted to call her dancing around behind his eyes. “Now, what I have here in my hand is a distilled essence of lavender in the form of a thin oil. The next step of this process is to take this oil and, while the water boils in the other cauldron, to coat the inside of your pure silver cauldron – where you will brew the actual potion – with the oil. Tell me, why would I do this?”

“To seal it against anything that would spoil it,” Ysolt suggested, and Salazar nodded to her as he took the piece of leather from the table and poured a small puddle of the oil onto it.

“Very good. A treatment with lavender oil before brewing the potion helps seal the cauldron against impurities and outside magic. It also gives a little boost to the other ingredients we will add later. Myrddin, please come and give this cauldron a good polish on the inside.” Salazar handed off the cloth and showed Myrddin the proper technique for distributing the oil throughout the cauldron’s interior. By the time they had finished, the water on the fire had boiled for long enough, and Salazar extinguished it with his wand. The white cloth was then unfolded and laid over the open mouth of the silver cauldron, and Salazar called for a couple of older students to put on their gloves and come hold the cloth steady. Eduardus and Eaderic dutifully held the corners of the cloth while Salazar levitated the dull cauldron off the embers with his wand, skillfully tilting it at just the right angle to pour all of the boiling water slowly through the cloth, into the bright silver vessel below. And after weighting the corners of the cloth with stones so it would stay put, Salazar announced that they would leave the water out in the courtyard to cool, and then led everyone back inside.

Once everyone had gathered in Salazar’s classroom, he directed the students’ attention to the array of potion-making bits on his large table. Helga saw three boxes in which she knew Salazar kept potion herbs, along with a shallow dish, a little sieve with a very fine weave, a mortar and pestle, a silver spoon, a jar of very pale olive oil, and a small, dark cauldron under which Salazar now lit a diminutive fire with his wand. When all the students were silent and attentive, he flicked open all three of the herb boxes.

“Who can tell me what three plants I have here?” he asked, and this time someone had a ready answer.

“That’s rosemary,” Tancred supplied, pointing to the first box and looking like the scent of it had piqued his appetite for supper. Salazar tapped the pointy green sprig and nodded.

“Rosemary, correct. And this?” He indicated the tufty purple flowers in the second box. After a moment’s hesitation, Vendicina responded.

“Vervain,” she said confidently, and Salazar nodded again.

“Correct, as usual, Vendicina. Now, what about the last one?” Everyone leaned in to examine the third box, but nobody offered an answer; the herb in the third box was dried and crushed, and no student wanted to hazard a guess at what plant it might once have been. Helga thought she saw a few remnants of what might have been light-colored petals, but she couldn’t be sure.

“May I smell it, Salazar?” she asked, and Salazar held out the box to her in lieu of an answer. Helga waded through the assembled students, took the box, and shook it gently under her nose to awaken the fragrance. There wasn’t much of one; something vaguely grassy, vaguely floral, with perhaps the faintest hint of almonds, and some quality that made her nasal passages feel suddenly dry and cold. There was nothing left of the shape of the plant to be sure, but Helga knew enough about herbs to take a guess. If the potion was about enhancing memories….

“Well, Helga Herbsniffer?” Salazar smirked at her, interrupting her thoughts. Helga shot him a Not In Front Of Students look, and then tried her luck.

“Is it eyebright?”

“Correct, Fru Helga,” he grinned, using Hnossa’s title for her with mock seriousness as she stepped back behind the students again, and she thought she saw him toss her a little wink before he went on with his lesson. “We have here rosemary, vervain, and eyebright. Three simple ingredients, but they all have to be prepared in a very particular way. Since the water we boiled now has to chill, so we can put these ingredients in when it is cold, we will use this time to prepare our herbs. Eyebright,” he demonstrated, pointing to the dried leaves, “is essential for potions dealing with memory. It allows the penseve potion to hold memories without damaging them, allows them to be viewed, and also keeps the viewer from becoming lost in the memory, providing them a way out when they are finished using the penseve. We will do very little to it today; as you can see, it is already dried and crumbled, and this is how it will go into the cauldron. The rosemary, on the other hand,” he said, moving his hand to the first box, “must be prepared. Rosemary ensures the accuracy and clarity of what you see in the penseve, so that nothing is blurred by time and everything is easily understood. Now, this rosemary must first be burned down to a fine powder. Brictric, you like to burn things; please, come up here and assist me. The incantation for this type of very slow, smoldering flame is cremare. Everyone repeat that word, please.”

There was a chorus of “cremare” from the assembled children as Brictric pushed sullenly up to the front. Salazar placed the rosemary in the shallow dish Helga had seen, and showed Brictric how to place his wand tip gently against the springy stem as he spoke the incantation. The boy’s wand, deep black except for the rich brown pommel and punctuated with little spines here and there, began to glow hot at the end, and then the rosemary caught and began to smolder. The class watched silently until the sprig of rosemary had burned down to ash and the room filled with a scent like incense. Salazar sent Brictric back to stand with the others as he used the spoon and the little sieve to sift the ashes until all that remained in the dish was a fine powder.

“This is the consistency you want,” he explained, showing everyone the softness of the ash in the shallow bowl. “No chunks or unburnt pieces can be left in. And now, we put this aside and address our third ingredient, the vervain.” Salazar took the tufty purple flowers out of their box and dropped them into the mortar, which Helga now saw was made of metal. “Just like silver is essential to the brewing process,” he explained, “iron is crucial for the preparation of the vervain plant. You must crush the plant with a mortar and pestle made of iron, and when you heat it in the next step, the cauldron must be iron as well. Vervain is an important part of this potion because it protects against tampering and lies. You will not be able to fool yourself with a false memory with vervain in the potion; and if you try to extract a memory you have altered or invented and put it in this potion for someone else, the vervain will ensure that when you take it out again, it will be spoiled and unfit for viewing.” As he spoke, he began to grind the flowers with the pestle, and Helga found the repeated circular motion hypnotic – or perhaps it was the soft flicker of muscles and tendons in his wrists that had her so enthralled. At that thought, she forced herself to stare at the back of Morgen’s head until she’d gotten it out of her mind. Salazar shot her a quick glance, as if he knew what she’d been thinking and found it amusing; then he was back to teaching, showing the students the consistency of crushed vervain.

When he had finished, Salazar placed the crushed vervain in the small iron cauldron on the tabletop, pouring in enough olive oil to cover the plant completely. He explained that this should be the purest oil available, and that it must be heated to the highest temperature the cauldron would allow, and stirred rapidly. He taught them another incantation for this (perciere) so they would not have to wear out their arms with stirring, and kept it up until the bits of plant in the oil were nearly dissolved. Then, he sent Arthur out into the courtyard to retrieve the silver cauldron and its purified water.

Once the cauldron was back inside, Salazar took the silver spoon from the table and dipped it into the box of dried eyebright. “For a cauldron this size,” he explained, “you’ll want three heaping spoonfuls. For a smaller batch in a more ordinary cauldron, two spoons. And in a small sample-size cauldron like the one in which we infused the vervain, you would use only one spoon.” He measured out the three spoonfuls of eyebright, dropping them into the now-cold water and watching them spread across the surface. Helga could see the water around the edges of the leafy bits beginning to turn a very slight color, and it made the cauldron look like a giant goblet of tisane. Salazar allowed Linnræd to then come up and sift in the rosemary ashes, and had Starculf pour in the vervain-infused oil. Then he gave it all a quick stir with the silver spoon before taking out his wand again. He levitated the cauldron, waved his hand for everyone to follow, and led the whole lot of them across the entrance hall into the teachers’ room, where he lowered the silver vessel down onto the large hearth box.

“Alright, everyone,” he pronounced, waiting until he had every eye on him before going on. “This is where it gets tricky. The real secret of this potion is the brewing process – and the timing. The heat must be exact; the length of time on the fire must be exact; and the incantation must be exact. Penseve potion must reach precisely the point of boiling, and then be kept at that exact temperature for one hour and one minute.”

“One hour and one minute?” Aluric protested. “That sounds terribly arbitrary, Master Slidrian.”

“It’s not,” Salazar replied seriously. “If you do it any less than one hour and one minute exactly, the potion will not work. And if you do it for any longer than that, it will spoil and become toxic, maybe even enough to kill you if you try to put your face in it. So if you have any doubt at all whether you’ve taken it off in time, then you’d best throw it out and try again.” He checked to see whether the potion was boiling yet, saw that it was very near, and took out his wand. “Alright, everyone, the incantation. Are you ready? For this process, you won’t be using the stirring charm I taught you earlier. The motion of your wand as you cast this new incantation will keep the liquid in motion. Stand over the cauldron, move your wand in a circle going from right to left, and say the spell – lustrato. Everyone repeat that.”

“Lustrato,” came the chorus of voices again. Salazar nodded, checked the potion again, and stepped up to the edge of the hearth box.

“We’re nearly at boiling. We are all going to take turns at stirring this, and we will switch out over the course of the next one hour and one minute, so I hope you all remember the incantation. I will go first, and then I want Vendicina to take over for me in a couple of minutes. The rest of you, form a line around the hearth. Ready?” The students began nodding at him just as the bubbles began to break the surface of the liquid. Salazar nodded to Bihotza, who took an exotic-looking hour glass from a nearby cabinet and turned it over; then he stepped up to the cauldron and said “Lustrato,” stirring the air with his wand.

The liquid in the cauldron began to emit a faint silver light, and all the students ceased shuffling and complaining, standing on tiptoe so they could stare into its depths.

By the time Bihotza rang the bells for the evening meal, the potion had been successfully brewed, strained through another cloth, and put back outside in the cold to chill. The winter sun was already melting into the horizon, and the snow-covered hillsides and loch were bathed in glorious streaks of pink, amber, purple, and gold. Helga and Tancred lingered to help Salazar pack away his potion tools while Rhonwen and Goderic began to herd the rest of the students into the dining hall. When all the herbs, dishes, and tools had been packed away in Salazar’s lesson box and the table wiped with one of Helga’s cleaning spells, Salazar cast a banishing charm to send the box back to his chambers, and then the three of them headed for the water bucket in the entrance hall to wash their hands for supper. Halfway to the bucket, however, they all stopped short, suddenly captivated by the unexpected sound of singing.

“Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.”

Helga was unable to resist; she wandered across the entrance hall to the small window, where Ya’el and Hoshea stood hovered over a freshly-lit oil lamp. It was Hoshea’s smooth baritone singing that had been filling the room, and as Helga listened from a polite distance, he sang two more verses of the song in what she assumed was their native language. It was a far-away-sounding tune, wavering and evocative just like the flame it seemed to be made to accompany, and Helga kept still and quiet as the last notes quivered through the cool air and fell silent. Salazar came up behind her, glanced over her shoulder at his old friends, and tilted his head.

“Is that today?” he said simply, as though this was all familiar to him, and Ya’el turned away from the oil lamp to acknowledge him.

“It is,” she nodded, and the light caught on a hundred little glass beads that had been sewn carefully onto the fine silk scarf she wore over her hair. It was absolutely beautiful, one of the prettiest things Helga had ever seen, and she thought that it must be a very important day for Ya’el to wear something so dear.

“I’d forgotten,” Salazar murmured. “Are we all celebrating it with you?”

“You are not interested in celebrating HaShem, Moreh Slidrian,” Ya’el said, giving Salazar a knowing smile. “You don’t believe in HaShem.”

“No, but I believe in those little honey cakes you used to make every year back home,” Salazar replied, returning her grin.

“I like cakes and honey,” Tancred beamed, squeezing himself between Salazar and Helga. “What are we celebrating?”

“Yes, I’d like to know that myself,” Helga smiled. “That song was beautiful. Was it a prayer? Is that lamp an… offering? For your god?” She said it a little hesitantly; Rhonwen had been teaching her a great deal about the Christian feasts and ceremonies during their Latin lessons, but she still had only the vaguest understanding of Ya’el and Hoshea’s worship. She knew they had only one god, and it seemed to be the same one as the Christians, but beyond that, she was a little out of her depth. Hoshea stepped back from the window a little and beckoned for her to come closer.

“We sing to thank HaShem for a great miracle our people received long ago, and for bringing us through another year so that we may light the lamps once again,” he explained, showing Helga the oil lamp sitting on the windowsill. It was an odd lamp, unlike any Helga was accustomed to – a long rectangle of beautifully glazed ceramic, covered in intricate etchings of flowers, with a series of lamp wells that ran down the length of the flat base. Only one of them had been filled with oil and lit, and Hoshea didn’t look as though he planned to light any of the others.

“Why only the first one?” Helga asked. Ya’el smiled at her.

“Because it is the first night. Tomorrow, we will light two. And so onward, for eight nights.”

“Eight nights of fried cakes and honey and Vasconian cheese,” Salazar muttered hungrily, washing his hands in the bucket behind them, and Helga grinned at him in spite of herself.

“Eight?” she said quizzically. “Not seven? Or ten? That’s an unusual number of days for a holy festival.”

“It is eight nights because that is how long the miracle lasted,” Hoshea explained. “We light the lamps to remember.”

“More than a thousand years ago,” Ya’el intoned, linking Helga’s arm with hers as they watched the flame flicker, “our ancestors were oppressed by a foreign king who had taken control of our homeland. They forbade our people’s customs and worship, and they broke into our temple, defiling it and spoiling everything inside it.”

“But the people fought back,” Hoshea said softly, eyes sparkling in the dim light. “A man named Mattithyahu led the people in a rebellion to take back our homeland.”

“And the brave woman Yehudit pretended to seduce the enemy general, before taking off his head while he slept off his wine.” A breath of wind made the lamp flicker, and the light flashed off her eyes in a way that made Helga firmly believe Ya’el could have happily wielded that sword herself.

“The people were then free,” Hoshea went on, “but there was a problem. The lamp in the temple was meant to burn continuously before HaShem, but the oil in it had to be holy oil.”

“But the invaders had spoiled all the oil in the temple,” Ya’el explained. “They were only able to find one jar that had not been broken open and spoiled. Only enough for one day. And it would take them many days to make new holy oil. They decided to light the lamp anyway.”

“And that was when the miracle happened,” Hoshea whispered.

“The oil that should have only lasted one day instead burned for eight days,” Ya’el finished, “just enough time for them to prepare new oil. So now, we light the lamps for eight days to remember what HaShem did for our people – and to remember what our people were able to do in the name of HaShem.”

“You see, the light is not for HaShem,” Hoshea added, answering the first question Helga had asked. “It is because of HaShem – but it is for us. For everyone. To remind us.”

“The light is resilience,” Ya’el said softly. “It is the thing inside that cannot be extinguished. The kernel of power inside the weakened body. A straight back under the oppressor’s lash. A root in the ground through the winter, waiting for spring. The knowledge, in the dead of night, that the sun will rise if we only wait for it. Light in a far-off window when you are lost in the dark.”

“Populus qui ambulabat in tenebris vidit lucem magnam.”

Everyone glanced down at Tancred, who had been so silent Helga had almost forgotten he was there. There was a look of rapture in his eyes as he stared at the lamp on the windowsill.

“What?” Helga asked him – she had learned quite a bit of Latin by now, but she hadn’t quite managed to catch all of what he had said. Tancred didn’t look away from the flame as he translated.

“It’s from the prophet Isaiah. The people who went about in darkness have seen a great light. Before Christ was born, there were many hundreds of years without any prophecies. God was silent. It was a long, dark night – and then, the sunrise.”

Ya’el watched Tancred’s face for a moment, a funny sort of smile playing about her lips. Then, she reached down and took the boy’s hand. “Tancred, would you like to sing the Hallel with us before we go in to supper?”

“I wouldn’t know the words,” Tancred said glumly, finally looking away from the flame in the window. Hoshea chuckled.

“I think you would. They are part of what you call the psalms. We will sing in Hebrew, and then you can also sing them in Latin. I think you know very much scripture by rote, yes?”

“Oh, yes, I know lots of psalms by heart!” Tancred grinned, his smile returning. Then a shadow flickered across his face. “But… am I allowed to? I mean, you know… since I’m a Christian and not a Jew?”

Ya’el crouched down beside Tancred and took both of his hands. “We disagree about mashiach, yes. But HaShem is still HaShem, isn’t He? And why can we not both sing to Him?”

“Alright, then!” Tancred beamed, and Ya’el patted his face before standing back up to her full height. Hoshea patted Tancred on the back, and then pulled up the hood of the boy’s cloak for him to cover his head.

“Come along, Morah Helga,” Salazar whispered over Helga’s shoulder as the three at the window began to work out which Latin psalms matched the Hebrew words of the Hallel. “We’d best leave them to it.” He took Helga’s hand and began to pull her toward the dining hall. Helga made a face at him.

“Oh, Salazar, let’s stay. It’s such a beautiful ceremony!”

“Yes, but if we wait for them, the swarm of locusts in there will eat all of the levivot before we get our hands on any. And while the light of hope is a lovely concept, fried cakes dipped in honey are lovelier.” And the child-like excitement on his face was so convincing that Helga allowed him to pull her from the entrance hall toward the warm light and aroma of the dining tables. As they slipped through the doors, the sound of singing started up behind them – a little confused, in two different languages and with two different melodies.

Helga thought it almost sounded better that way.

The dining hall buzzed with conversations that night as the students at all four tables sampled the sweet fried cakes and Vasconian cheeses that had been added to their usual board, and Tancred could be seen flitting from table to table like a merry little bumblebee, explaining to all the other students about the story of the lights. At the adults’ table, Hoshea and Ya’el were obliged to tell it again for Goderic and Rhonwen, who seemed familiar with the part about the wicked king and the rebellion, but were fascinated to hear about the miracle of the oil and the ceremony with the lamps. Rhonwen remarked that the notion of the light strengthening the viewer against the darkness reminded her of the magic of the patronus charm, and that got them all lost in a long discussion about patronuses. Ya’el told them all the incantation for the charm in Hebrew, but it was completely beyond Helga’s ability to pronounce, especially after the strong Vasconian wine Salazar had poured out for them all. She gave up after her third failed attempt, and when Salazar began calling her “Helga Hebrew-botcher” behind the relative safety of his own goblet, she hit him with a wedge of cheese and changed the subject, teaching the others the Norse incantation instead. They were nearly at the end of the meal and the conversation when Goderic remembered that Helga had produced a fully-formed patronus in his orchard the day after they had met, and decided to regale the table with the story.

“No, it was right there, I saw it!” he swore upon seeing everyone’s surprised looks, vanishing honey out of his beard. “A wispy silver badger, running through my apple trees.”

“That’s very difficult magic, I’m impressed,” Rhonwen said over her goblet, but Helga waved her words away.

“Oh, it wasn’t actually all that solid. I think Goderic is exaggerating just a bit. It was certainly in the shape of a badger, but it was very wobbly around the edges.”

“Still,” Salazar shrugged, “most people can’t get a shape on their first try at all. Just a little cloud.”

“Can’t any of you do it?” Helga asked, glancing around. Rhonwen made a face.

“I managed it once, when I was a girl. I had a… a friend. He was quite gifted. He showed me how, and I was able to do it that once. It was a sea-eagle. But I’ve never been able to repeat it.”

“I can do it, most of the time,” Goderic said, searching all the baskets on the table to see if there were any more fried cakes. “But it took me absolutely years to get it right. I used to get a great wobbling squiggle of a thing every time, before I finally got the hang of it and it came out as a lion.”

“Never managed more than a wisp, myself,” Salazar muttered into his cup. “But I’ve always been better at more subtle magic anyway.”

“My father says it’s all about what you’re imagining when you cast it,” Helga ruminated, noticing that a crumb of the cheese she had thrown had gotten stuck in Salazar’s hair. She winced apologetically and brushed at his curls to knock it loose. “Maybe you’ve not been conjuring up a happy enough memory.”

Salazar’s eyes flickered up to where Helga’s fingers were trying to untangle the crumb from his hair without crushing it further, and for a moment she thought he might push her hand away; instead, after one of his characteristic inscrutable looks, his lips twitched with the hint of a smirk. “You may be right, of course,” he murmured. “It’s just that I’ve not had a vast selection of terribly happy memories to choose from. Perhaps you’ll have to help me make a new one.”

The cheese crumb fell out of his hair and between her fingers, but Helga didn’t see where it fell. Salazar was taking another sip of his wine to hide his expression, but she could see the flash of mirth in his dark green eyes – and something else beneath that, something warmer and more suggestive. Helga felt her cheeks flush, and she turned abruptly back to her plate, hoping that none of the others at the table had been listening too closely. They had, of course; but with the exception of Goderic, who was still sifting through the empty baskets for more cakes and might not have been paying attention at all, everyone else had the decency to look in a completely different direction and keep their smothered grins to themselves.

Bihotza rang the evening bells a little while later, and the students began reluctantly herding themselves toward the entrance hall and the stairs. The elf followed behind them, vanishing table scraps, and Helga hurried down from the high table to help her, eager to avoid eye contact with any of her colleagues. When the tables were cleared and the dishes sent down to the kitchens, the adults all followed Bihotza out into the entrance hall, saying their good-nights before going to their separate chambers. Goderic and Rhonwen were about to head up the stairs, and Alric was about to head out to check the gates before going to his own cottage, when Salazar suddenly snapped his fingers.

“Oh, damn. The penseve potion,” he muttered, and Rhonwen stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“That’s right, you set it outside to chill. Well, it’s thoroughly chilled now. You’d better bring it inside before it freezes.”

“Wintermilk, hold the door for me while I fetch the cauldron,” Salazar told the groundskeeper, “and then we’ll lock it behind you as you go to your cottage.”

“Aye, Master Slidrian,” Alric nodded, and the two of them headed for the large front doors. They had only gotten halfway across the entrance hall when the winter silence was broken by an unexpected sound – a sharp knocking.

“Jesu, it’s after sunset and it’s freezing,” Goderic murmured, coming back down the stairs. “Who in God’s name is knocking at this hour?”

“Is it your cousin, Rhonwen?” Helga suggested, wondering if the old man and his pony had had enough of the snow for the evening and found their stable quarters too cold. Rhonwen shook her head.

“Cadwgan doesn’t knock, he recites epic poetry and expects you to interpret that he wants to come in.” She twitched her wand behind her as she came down off the stairs, and her cloak came fluttering out of her tower room to land snugly on her shoulders. “Whatever it is, I’m more concerned that Cadwgan isn’t attacking it.”

“Unless it isn’t on the outside, milady,” came the voice of Hankertonne the caretaker. He was leaning in the doorway of the teachers’ room where he had been tending the hearth, and now he began looking up at the high entrance hall ceiling suspiciously. Salazar followed his gaze, and his dark slash brows drew together irritably.

“Perversus?” he snapped. “Is that you? Show yourself this instant.”

There was a loud sound of someone breaking wind, and the little spirit man appeared as he was told – lounging inside the hood of Salazar’s cloak. “Didn’t do it!” he shrilled. “Wasn’t me!”

“You don’t even know what we’re accusing you of,” Goderic scolded, watching as Salazar unlatched his cloak pin and flailed himself out of his cloak as though he’d suddenly found himself wearing a web full of venomous spiders. The Perversus simply did a rolling flip in the air, bobbing upright with Salazar’s cloak hood draped over himself like he was a floating head atop an invisible body.

“Still didn’t do it!” he cried, sticking his tongue out at Goderic before floating over to hover beside Salazar’s shoulder, mimicking the young man’s stance and expression. Salazar whirled around, his arm raised to strike, and found the Perversus mirroring his exact motion.

“Then prove it!” Salazar spat. As if on cue, the knocking came again – and now it was clear that it was coming from outside the building.

“Told you it wasn’t me!” the Perversus shrieked, and then he laughed crazily before zooming away, taking Salazar’s cloak with him and knocking over the hand-washing bucket as he went. Salazar made to storm out after him, but Helga caught his sleeve.

“Let him go,” she murmured. “You can summon your cloak back later, and I think you’d better stay.” Salazar shot a poisonous look in the direction the little spirit man had taken, but he acquiesced to Helga’s gentle tug.

“We might all do well to be on guard,” Ya’el said, fingers brushing the tip of her wand where it stuck out of her cloak pocket. “Are there not spells around the school meant to keep wanderers away? And who else knows we’re here? We expected no visitors.”

“And if Cadwgan isn’t attacking them…,” Rhonwen thought aloud, and Goderic nodded.

“…then he might have been overpowered,” he finished for her. They all stood and stared at the door, and in the silence, the knocking came again.

“It’s all right, Masters. Bihotza will get it.”

Helga turned around and saw the little house elf stomping purposefully toward the front door, the bells on the ends of her braids tinkling in time with her pointed sighs of exasperation. Helga snatched at Salazar’s sleeve again.

“Salazar, stop her! What if it’s someone dangerous?”

“Dangerous?” Salazar snorted, and Helga actually saw him grin. “I think Bihotza could kill a man by snapping her fingers if she really wanted to, Helga Worry-warter. Don’t fret, she can hold her own.”

Indeed, even though Bihotza was a full head shorter than the door latch and had to use magic to open it, she did it with such confidence and vigor that Helga didn’t dispute him. As the latch came undone, the little elf wiggled her fingers into the gap in the double doors and began to pull the right side open. A sharp gust of winter night air whipped into the entrance hall as the door opened, setting Helga’s teeth on edge and causing the dwindling flame of Ya’el and Hoshea’s oil lamp to flicker. Everyone stared out into the dark purple evening and tried to get a glimpse of whatever or whoever had been knocking, but none of them could see anything.

At least, not until they looked down to Bihotza’s level.

Standing at the school doors, half obscured by wind-blown snow that had landed on its woolen cloak, was another house elf.

Helga heard herself gasp, and then she was running over to the door to help Bihotza open it wider. The elf on the doorstep looked half-frozen, and she wasn’t about to leave it out there any longer. Snow had begun to accumulate on the tips of its enormous ears and pointed nose, and its bulbous grey eyes were watery and half shut against the cold. Drifts of snow had begun to settle over its large feet, so that only the tips of what looked like leather slippers could be seen above the shifting whiteness, and it was sniffling.

“Could I come in, please, Mistress?” it finally creaked. “Won’t make no troubles, only needs a nice warm fire.” Helga realized several things at once. The creature spoke in the same scratchy, reedy tones as Bihotza, but with a faint accent more like that of the people who lived in the hills around them; she thought that this must be a male house elf, since the voice was not quite so high pitched as Bihotza’s, and she saw only a small patch of short, unadorned hair between the ears; and his words had been addressed to Bihotza, not to her. In fact, she wasn’t sure he had even looked up and seen her yet. Bihotza didn’t answer him, and she eyed him suspiciously; but after a second or two, she backed up and waved him inside. “Many thanks, Mistress,” the snow-covered elf croaked, and he shuffled into the entrance hall and began to shake snow off his cloak like a dog. “Lovely and warm in here,” he muttered, stomping his cold feet. His cloak hung partially open, and now Helga could see that he wore a finely tailored little tunic over breeches above his laced-up leather shoes. Another free elf, she thought with a smile, and she bent down to his level.

“What’s your name, my friend?” she said, taking out her wand and helping him dry up the puddles of melting snow around him. The elf looked up at her quizzically, studying her face, and then he returned her smile.

“Bróccín, Mistress,” he squeaked. “Don’t mean no intrusion, this late in the evening and all, but a body’s got to get in out of the cold somewhere, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does,” Helga smiled sympathetically. “But what are you doing out and about on a night like this, Bróccín?”

The elf sniffled again, pulled a scrap of fabric out of a little bag on his belt, and wiped his long nose on it before answering. “Tryin’ t’get to the woods, Mistress. Them woods up there beyond this grand house. But it got so I couldn’t even see the path for the snow. And then I come to the edge of the loch, and I sees the lamp in your window, and that’s how I got back on the path and came to your grand house.” At this, Helga turned slightly and looked over her shoulder at Ya’el, and the two women shared a slow smile.

“A light in a window when you’re lost in the dark?” she whispered, and Ya’el simply closed her eyes, her lips moving almost imperceptibly in what Helga thought must be a prayer.

“How long were you out there knocking?” Rhonwen asked, pulling her cloak tighter around her as Hoshea moved to shut the door. Bróccín waggled his ears, dispelling the last few drops of snowmelt.

“Since just after sunset, Mistress. Reckon you couldn’t hear me, big as this house is.”

“How did you get through the gate?” Helga pried, and the elf’s eyes widened.

“Magic, Mistress. Snapped my fingers, like I always does.”

“But how—” Helga sputtered, and Goderic chuckled.

“House elf magic,” he grinned. “We should have thought of that when we made the enchantments, Salazar. You and I both know better, there’s precious little a house elf can’t magic their way through.”

“If Bróccín snapped hisself inside the gates,” Bihotza snorted, “then why did he stand hisself outside and knock for an hour in the cold like a silly turnip, instead of snapping hisself inside the house?” She raised one patchy eyebrow and crossed her little arms. Bróccín looked appalled – not at being called a turnip, but at her suggestion.

“That wouldn’t have been very polite,” he said simply, and Helga had to laugh.

“Well, I’m glad we finally heard you, Bróccín,” she smiled, and she took him by the hand. “Come along with us, and let’s see if we can’t get you something warm to eat and drink, and a nice place to sleep.” And before anyone else could comment or protest, she led the elf out of the hall and into the teachers’ hearth room, with Bihotza following grudgingly behind them.

Everyone stayed awake well past their normal bed times that night, sitting hunched over the teachers’ room table with cups of mulled wine, listening to Bróccín tell his story. The house elf spoke between mouthfuls of leftover supper, sometimes stopping halfway through a sentence to lick something off his spindly fingers. His masters, he said, had been a wizarding family called MacGilleAogain, part of the court of the mormaer of Athall. (Helga wasn’t sure what most of those words meant, but she nodded attentively just the same.) The current head of the family, who Bróccín referred to as “the Mac Laogan,” wasn’t exactly a cruel master – that is, he never beat Bróccín with a stick, as he had seen other wizards do to other elves – but he was, in Bróccín’s opinion, quite the rudest and the least interesting human to be found in all of Athall.

“And as they’s not my family any more,” Bróccín said as he chewed, “I can say that if I likes.”

“How did you come to be free, Bróccín?” Rhonwen inquired, studying the little tunic and leather shoes the elf wore. Helga noted the embroidery, but also the age and wear, and thought that the garment must once have been worn by a human child who had since outgrown it. Bróccín sucked on his teeth to remove some particle of food, oblivious to Bihotza’s disapproving glower at the noise it made.

“Asked too many questions, Mistress.”

“Too many questions?” Goderic chuckled. “I never knew house elves to be the questioning sort.”

Helga glared daggers at him for that comment before turning back to the elf. “You were sent away just for asking questions, Bróccín?”

“Too many, Mistress,” Bróccín said, waggling a finger before licking honey off it. “Annoyed the Mac Laogan. Elves can ask questions if they likes, of course. Little questions, like which cloak pin does Master want to wear today? Or what does Mistress mean by that? And maybe sometimes bigger questions, like how does a loom work, or what plans Master has. But some masters is better suited to answering bigger questions than others are.”

“And Lord MacGilleAogain is not one of those?” Rhonwen surmised, and Bróccín shook his head, making his ears flop.

“No, Mistress. The Mac Laogan didn’t even like to answer why he didn’t go to the mormaer court today, let alone Thinking Questions.”

“But you asked him Thinking Questions?” Helga asked, repressing a grin. The elf tried to nod while he was taking a drink of ale, splashed some of the liquid down his face and onto his tunic, and snapped his fingers to vanish the stain under Bihotza’s baleful gaze.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he grinned sheepishly. “Wanted to know things. Started out asking him why he did such thing, how such thing worked. Master answered a little, but only as many words as he had to. Then one day I asked him what I should do if Master told me to do one thing, but Mistress told me to do not-that. He grumbled and said of course, I should listen to Master, since he was in charge of me and Mistress because Mistress was a woman. And then I asked him why that should matter, and he got very discombobbled and sent me to clean the stables.”

“Remarkable how often men don’t have an answer for that question,” Rhonwen murmured out of the corner of her mouth, and Salazar sputtered a laugh into his wine cup. Goderic had gone quiet, his face looking like that of a student doing a difficult sum, and Helga had to smother a laugh of her own.

“But I got to thinking some more while I was mucking out the stables,” Bróccín went on, “and when I came back for dinner, I asked Master why the wizards was in charge of the elves, and he said it was because we was born that way, and so I asked him why that should be, and he said it was because we needed the wizards to take care of us. And then I asked him why we should need wizards to take care of us when we can do magics with our hands, and wizards have to do it with sticks. Master got all purple in the face then, and he said it was because without the wizards, we didn’t have no purpose. And I asked him what that meant, and he said it was your reason for living, and I said how that was funny, because I thought our reason for living was to be alive. Then Master said how we elves would all pine away and die if we didn’t serve the wizards, because we liked it and it makes us happy. And I granted that this was true about most elves I knew, but that I wouldn’t feel like pining away if I didn’t have no wizards to serve, and then I said how funny it was that Master told me what he thought I liked, even though Master wasn’t inside my head.”

“And what did he say to that?” Rhonwen quizzed, her face now much more serious. Bróccín shrugged.

“Didn’t say nothing. Sent me to clean the kitchens. But before bed, I come back up to his chamber to clean his boots for the morning, and after I set them out, I went over to his table where he counts his gold, and I tapped his arm. And the Mac Laogan looked down at me, and he said Bróccín, if you ask me one more question tonight, I will take the first bit of clothes I can find out of that chest over there and turn you loose on the road with it.”

“And what did you do?” Helga asked, suspecting the answer. Bróccín gave her a cheeky grin.

“I asked one more question, Mistress.”

“You’re a very strange elf,” Salazar said quietly, refilling both his cup and Bróccín’s with his wand. “I’ve never heard an elf speak the way you do.”

“What do you mean, Salazar?” Helga asked, and Salazar shrugged.

“Most elves have a very particular pattern of speech, no matter which human language they grow up speaking – although it is more noticeable in some languages than others. It’s much more jarring in Saxon, for instance, than in Vasconian. But in general, elves play fast and loose with verbs – and they almost never refer to themselves or others in the personal.” Helga must have been giving Salazar the same doing-a-difficult-sum look that Goderic had been demonstrating, because Salazar chuckled under his breath and gestured toward Bihotza. “Have you never noticed that Bihotza never refers to you as You? Nor to herself as I or Me? It’s always Mistress Helga this, Bihotza that. Never in the personal.”

Helga hadn’t really paid attention to it of course, but now that Salazar pointed it out, it seemed obvious. She glanced over at Bihotza, who was making dark, thunderous faces at the mess Bróccín was creating.

“Bihotza is still at the table and can hear everything Master Salazar says,” the little elf grumbled, somehow managing to watch Bróccín’s crumbs with one eye and glare at Salazar with the other. Salazar smirked into his wine cup.

“Yes, I know, you’re a walking pair of ears. Thank you very much for demonstrating my point.” He turned back to Bróccín. “Where did you learn to speak so differently from other elves?”

Their guest tilted his head, as if he found the question itself surprising; then he swallowed a mouthful of food before answering. “From the wizards, Master.”

“Someone taught you?” Rhonwen prompted, and Bróccín tilted his head in the other direction.

“Well, no, but also yes,” he said rather vaguely. “I always noticed the wizards talked different than us; and I always wondered why, if we were talking the same language, did we talk it different? This was when I was a very little elf, you see, and so I asked my grandmother. She was a very old elf, and she had been alive so very long and knew a great lot of things. And she said it was the way the first house elves were taught to talk, back when the wizards first got us to serve them. But I had ears, same as every elf, and so I listened to the wizards. And if Master Mac Laogan can say I and Me and You and all of that, then why can’t I?”

“Quite right,” Helga smiled, tapping her cup against the table for good measure. Beside her, Goderic finally stirred.

“Hold a moment,” he stuttered, waving his hand at the quiet table as if hushing a clamor of voices. “Just… just hold on a moment. Do you mean to say that you don’t want to serve wizards? That it doesn’t bring you satisfaction?” Helga thought he now looked like a student who had finished a sum, had been told that the answer was incorrect, and couldn’t for the life of him discern where he had gotten the calculations wrong. Bróccín actually stopped eating at that, and the look in his large grey eyes was very similar to the look one might give a stupid but lovable dog.

“No, sir. Not particularly.”

Goderic scratched his beard absently, his thick brassy eyebrows drawn together in a severe point. “Wh… but…. And hang on, what do you mean, when the wizards first got you to serve them? Haven’t house elves always served wizards?” Bróccín’s large ears waggled at that, and he glanced around the table at each of the listening faces before leaning over his bowl and fixing Goderic with a wide-eyed gaze.

“House elves hasn’t even always been called house elves, sir,” he said very seriously, and then he sat back in his chair and began eating again. “At least,” he went on through a mouthful of bread, “that’s what my grandmother told me. She was a very old elf, you see, and she told me what her grandmother had told her – and she had been a very old elf when my grandmother was small. We wasn’t always house elves, she said – once, we was just elves. It was the wizards who called us house elves when they got us to come and live in their houses. Before that, we lived in forests or mountains, and did as we pleased. There was elf language, and elf festivals, and elf stories.”

“And you didn’t serve anyone?” Goderic queried, still looking flummoxed.

“We served each other, sir,” Bróccín said. “Grandmother said the elves was always helpful, always worked together and didn’t have kings or armies. They liked to take care of each other, and when they found humans that needed taking care of, they helped them, too. Brought them things, or helped on their farms sometimes. Maybe that’s why wizards all thinks the elves likes to be servants.”

“But what happened?” Helga asked, stopping Goderic from letting loose his entire list of questions. Bróccín shrugged.

“Grandmother said that one day, some wizards realized that the elves had strong magic, so they started leaving food and nice things out for the elves to find – so they’d come to the wizards houses more often. And they did just like that, for a long time. And they was almost like friends. And then the Terrible Time happened.”
            “What was that?” Rhonwen said softly, and Bróccín squinted his large eyes.

“Grandmother didn’t know for sure, Mistress. It was so very long ago, and stories get worn away like rugs that get walked on over and over. But she thinks there was some kind of sickness among the elves, and they had to leave the forests. The only place to go was to the wizards they’d visited. And then a few of the wizards got wicked ideas, and so they made a bargain with the elves. Stay with us, they says, and we keeps you safe, and this elf family will have a magical bond with this wizard family. Sounded nice. But they didn’t say what kind of bond, nor for how long. By the time the elves saw what the wizards had done with their tricky magic, it was too late.”

Helga whipped her head to the side, shooting a look at Goderic and Salazar that would have hexed them if she’d used her wand. Salazar stared into his wine cup, refusing to meet her eyes; Goderic scooted his chair back from the table sharply out of self-preservation. “So they tricked your ancestors into a magical ensnarement?” she murmured in disbelief, turning back to the elf. “Why didn’t they fight back? If your magic is so much stronger than ours….”

“Didn’t know how to fight, Mistress,” Bróccín said sadly. “Never done it before. Some did try, Grandmother said; but they was killed. And then the wizards made sure none others tried it. Killed any that wanted to fight. And they was in charge of which elves got to marry, you see, and so the only elves that got to go on making more elves was the ones that was gentle.”

“The ones who didn’t ask too many questions?” Rhonwen suggested, and Bróccín’s mouth twitched in a little half-grin.

“Yes, Mistress. Grandmother said that for a while, they kept remembering; but then the wizards wouldn’t let them speak the elf language any more, nor keep any elf customs. The little elves was only allowed to speak the wizard languages, until nobody remembered the elf language anymore. And Grandmother said that after a while, they stopped teaching little elves the words for I and Me. She said she reckoned it was to make sure they only thought about serving wizards, and never remembered being Themselves.”

“That’s wicked,” Helga muttered, and Goderic scooted another inch away from her instinctively.

“How do you know all of this, if the language and history of elves was all lost?” Salazar asked. Helga glared at him pointedly, too, but he simply returned her gaze without expression. Bróccín wiped his chin on his tunic and then vanished the stain again.

“Not all lost, sir,” he replied, his ears waggling. “Little bits got remembered, very old elves telling stories to very little elves, and we that’s heard the stories keeps them secret so the wizards don’t throw us out to live all alone. Grandmother made sure to tell me that. Don’t talk of it to the wizards, she says, or you’ll be out in the cold.”

“Except you couldn’t help asking too many questions,” Rhonwen smiled, and the elf smiled back.

“But what are you doing out here in the middle of the highlands?” Helga asked. “You really are out in the cold here, there’s nothing around us for miles. If I were a free elf, I’d head for some place with a settlement, with—”

“With wizards, you mean?” Bróccín smirked, and Helga bit her lip at her own words. “No, Mistress. No wizards wants a free elf hanging about – can’t give them orders, and it sets a bad example for the other house elves. And the other house elves don’t want a free elf about either, because they’ve all been taught to think being free is shameful.”

“But there’s not much up here, even if you’re avoiding people,” Salazar countered. “It’s not a hospitable landscape. You won’t find much to eat or drink or many good places to settle out here.”

“But I might finds elves, sir.”

Everyone at the table was quiet for a moment, and then Helga tilted her head, as if that would help her understand.

“What do you mean, Bróccín?”

“I means, free elves,” Bróccín answered reverently. “Grandmother said that not all the elves got taken in by the wizards. She said that her grandmother’s grandmother knew of other free elves in the world, far across the water in other lands where the sickness never happened and the wizards never made their wicked bargain. And she said that her grandmother’s grandmother knew of a few elves who lived free on this side of the water, too – or, at least, they did when she was a little elf. She said if there was any free elves left in this land, they was in the ancient woods where the trees walked.”

“Gwydion’s army,” Rhonwen whispered, and when Helga raised an eyebrow, she explained. “There’s a story about the ancient wizard Gwydion driving enemies out of this region by enchanting the trees. Some wizards say it’s why the Romans never made it any further than this. Driven out by the walking trees.”

“Then this is the right place, Mistress?”

Rhonwen contemplated for a moment, running her fingernail across her lower lip as Helga had seen her do often before. Finally, she shrugged stiffly, rubbing absently at her left arm. “It’s certainly the place where the trees walked. But I’ve not been any further in than the first clearing. Salazar, you’ve lived here since you were a child; you know these woods. Could there be free elves deeper into the forest?”

“Anything is possible,” Salazar sighed, “but I doubt it. I spent a great deal of time exploring as a youth, and I never saw any evidence of any sort of sentient creatures. No settlements or remnants, no leftover objects. And I certainly never saw any elves.”

Bróccín’s ears drooped dejectedly as Salazar spoke, and Helga reached over to pat his hand. “But you said elf magic was much stronger than ours,” she reasoned. “Could it be that there are free elves in the forest, and they’ve just thoroughly concealed themselves with magic?”

“Could be,” Salazar shrugged. “If there are, I’m sure they’d be unwilling to show themselves to a human wandering through their forest. But I think it would take absolutely ages to search the whole forest thoroughly enough to be sure. Even for an elf.”

“Nothing better to do, sir,” Bróccín half-chuckled, “being a free elf now, and all. Might as well look.”

“Oh, but you can’t undertake a search like that in winter!” Helga protested. “There won’t be much in the way of food in the woods right now, and if I were an elf, I don’t think I’d be out and about very often in snow like this. And if it’ll take as long to cover the whole forest as Salazar says, you’ll freeze to death before you finish.”

“I do think your search would stand a better chance of producing results if you waited until the spring thaw,” Rhonwen agreed. Bróccín played with some crumbs on the table before vanishing them absentmindedly, almost as if out of habit.

“What do I do until then, Mistresses? I’m a house elf without a house.” He chuckled again at that, but there was a touch of seriousness in it. Helga patted his spindly hand again.

“Why don’t you stay here with us, Bróccín?” she asked suddenly, ignoring the exasperated eye-roll she glimpsed over Salazar’s cup. “We’ve more than enough room and food here, and you’ll be close by the forest. As soon as the weather turns mild again, you can start going out into the woods if you want, search as much as you want, and come back here at mealtimes and at bedtime.”

“You’ve already got a house elf,” Bróccín said, gesturing toward Bihotza, but Helga waved away his concern.

“Bihotza is a free elf as well,” she reassured him. “You’re nobody’s house elf, Bróccín, and neither is she. But you are welcome to live here freely, as we all do. Isn’t he?” She glanced pointedly around the table at her fellows, and got a chorus of responses. Hoshea and Ya’el patted the elf on the shoulders and expressed eager welcome, and Rhonwen gave the elf a nod and a smile. Salazar sighed deeply, as if the insertion of one single additional living thing into his former hermitage might be the death of him, and then murmured “Of course,” into his wine cup. Goderic was still staring blankly across the room, eyebrows drawn, his face a picture of deep cogitation, and Helga let him be. “Bihotza, what do you say?” she asked finally, turning around to get the elf’s opinion.

Bihotza was staring down at the table, rolling a stray bit of chestnut about between her hands; the fact that she hadn’t already vanished the crumb away was Helga’s first clue that she was not herself. Salazar seemed to notice in the same moment, and he put down his wine.

“Bihotza, what is it?” His voice was even softer than Helga was accustomed to hearing it, and although the words themselves offered little comfort, the tone was gentle. Bihotza’s eyelids flickered, and when the chestnut crumb rolled to the edge of the table, she let it fall into the floor.

“Wasn’t always house elves?” she muttered, and after a long silence, she finally looked up. Her pear-colored eyes were wide, and her brows were knitted together in the same sharp bewilderment that was on Goderic’s face. “The elves was just elves once, but Master Salazar’s family was wicked?” She stared at Salazar questioningly, as though she needed to hear it from him as well as their guest. Salazar sighed.

“Well, I suppose someone was wicked, a very long time ago. But as I’m only twenty-one years old, I can assure you, it was not me. And I’ll thank you not to blame me or my parents for something that happened centuries before we were born.”

“Salazar,” Helga scolded softly, but Bihotza didn’t seem affected by his words. Actually, she looked as though she’d been struck on the head with some heavy object and was trying to recover her wits.

“Bihotza is going to bed now,” she said slowly, pushing her stool back from the table without ever taking her eyes off the place where she’d been rolling the chestnut. She clambered down stiffly instead of hopping to the floor, and as she wandered past the hearth box (without even noticing that some ash had spilled out), Goderic wobbled up from his seat and began to follow her.

“Yes, I think I’ll do the same,” he murmured, scratching absently at his beard, and they both wandered out of the room in a daze. Helga started to go after them, but Bróccín reached over and patted her hand the way she had been patting his.

“Best let them go, Mistress,” he sighed. “They needs time to think about it.”

“They seemed very unwell, both of them,” Helga pressed, and Rhonwen chuckled softly.

“Imagine having your entire worldview changed in a casual conversation,” she said. “Goderic’s spent his whole life as part of an oppressive system because he believed what his parents taught him, and Bihotza’s lived her whole life thinking herself something she was not. I would be a little unwell too.” Helga pondered that for a minute before finally nodding. She reached over and began stacking the dishes that Bihotza had left ungathered.

“I suppose they might have trouble wrapping their heads around it,” she conceded, and Bróccín shrugged.

“They’ll be alright by morning, Mistress. At least, alright enough to talk and blink like live things instead of dead frogs. I’s seen it before.”

“Yes, this is probably the biggest thought that Goderic de Grifondour has ever tried to digest, but he should be able get there by morning.” Salazar drained his cup and handed it to Helga, who gave him a scolding look as she took it.

“For someone whose family has also enslaved elves for gods-know how long, you certainly seem to be accepting this information well. Why aren’t you as surprised as Goderic?”

“Heh,” Salazar chuckled, a little bitterly. “I’m never surprised by human wickedness. Nothing I’ve learned tonight is at odds with what I’ve already experienced.” He gave her a little smile, but there was something weak about it, something not quite sincere. As he got up from the table, Helga was suddenly reminded of their conversation at dinner, and how he’d told them he’d never managed a full-bodied patronus charm because he’d had a shortage of happy memories with which to feed it. It had been said blithely and in passing, on his way to another inappropriate offer in her direction; but now Helga saw that he had meant it.

“Salazar,” she began, but he was already on his way to the stairs.

“Good night,” he answered simply, giving her a brief glance over his shoulder that was only vaguely enticing – it was his habit to tease her, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it tonight. When he had gone, Rhonwen lifted one eyebrow.

“You should know, he’s a great deal more upset than he let on,” she mused. Helga put the dishes down and was about to ask her how she could tell; but then she realized she already knew the answer. Salazar hadn’t just gone to bed without inviting her to join him and calling her a silly name.

He’d gone to bed without calling her anything at all.

Bróccín had correctly predicted the course of Goderic and Bihotza’s recoveries – they were indeed more or less back to their normal selves by the next day, although they both developed a sudden awkwardness whenever they found themselves in the same room with Bróccín. Goderic seemed to suddenly become tongue-tied when speaking to either of the elves, as if he was no longer sure how to speak to them without saying something that might offend them, and Bróccín often had to put him at ease before they could continue to converse. And more than once, Helga passed by the curtained area where Bihotza slept and heard her muttering to herself – practicing using the word I instead of her name. It was hard to break a lifetime of speaking habits, of course, and most of the time Bihotza went right on as she had always done, albeit with a little more spring in her step. She still found plenty of excuses to glare at Bróccín, mostly for his constant making of messes, but Helga thought both she and the human cooks were glad of another pair of hands in the kitchen, even if they were hands that tended to leave a trail of crumbs.

As the feast of Christe-masse approached, Helga began to notice a flurry of activity around her, both in the kitchens and amongst her colleagues. Quite incongruously, there seemed to be a great deal of preparation below stairs, but very much less eating than normal upstairs. After some careful questions, Helga discovered that it was the custom of Christians to fast from many common foods during the weeks before Christe-masse. Tancred told her this was so they could better focus their hearts on prayer – and also because this way, the grand feasts they were about to have would be that much more appreciated. Helga had never celebrated a Christe-masse before, and it was all terribly exciting. She had determined that she would celebrate both Jól and Christe-masse at the same time, and so she began asking as many questions of the others as they could stand. Rhonwen answered dutifully, ever the teacher; Tancred answered eagerly, sometimes giving her more information than she could remember. Goderic, on the other hand, had become oddly secretive; instead of answering Helga’s inquiries, he had taken to asking her oddly personal questions about herself – colors she liked or didn’t like, items she needed or that she already owned – and scurrying about making notes on a piece of parchment. After a week of this strange behavior, Helga finally pointed it out to Rhonwen, who told her that it was the custom of some Christians to give each other gifts as part of the twelve nights of feasting, and that Goderic was almost certainly trying to ascertain what sort of gift might please Helga (and not doing it with much subtlety, Rhonwen noted with a grin). This only served to heighten Helga’s excitement for this new festival, and she immediately went to her chamber and took out a parchment and quill, making a list of gifts she could give to her colleagues and whether she would need to send a letter to Gwydion Pyk in Lundenburh to obtain them.

As they had planned, Helga and her fellow teachers spent the next several weeks reviewing their students on all the magic they had learned since the start of their lessons. They also began to draw up hard and fast schedules for the new morning lessons that they would be starting after the twelve feast days were over. All of the children with non-magic families had been brought up to a workable level with the other children, and those who had needed to learn to read were now all basically literate – at least, enough that they could practice on their own. Rhonwen resolved that they would divide the children in half, roughly by age, so that one group could learn charmwork from her and Helga while the other group learned transfiguring from Goderic and Salazar; and after half the morning had passed, they would swap places. The children were informed that they would begin new lessons after the twelve days of Christe-masse, but of course, nothing resembling work would be expected of them until then – which was a good thing, since their excitement for the upcoming feast had reached a fever-pitch.

There was, of course, one last-minute lesson for the children to hear before the feasting began. On the day before the eve of Christe-masse, Vindalicus Olivantius arrived from Lundenburh, bearing with him not only his usual cart full of wands, but a second cart packed with tools and materials. Rhonwen had spoken to him a few days before, and he had agreed to come and give a little talk to the students about how wands were made, and then to stay for the feast with his own children. He had brought more than his tools with him, however; he also came bearing news.

“A fire, my friends,” the wandmaker rattled as he magicked his carts across the school courtyard, his silvery eyes looking a little frazzled. “Never seen the like in all my days. Burnt all the way from the Aeld Gate to the Ludd Gate.”
            “A fire? In Lundenburh?” Goderic interrogated. “Jesu, is the city still standing? What of the king and the court?” The rest of the teachers piled out the door into the snowy courtyard to listen as Olivantius answered.

“The king is unharmed, so far as I know; all his buildings are stone, and they may be scorched, but I suppose they’re standing. But the court is in a right mess, and nobody is doing much organizing or governing at the moment. Lost a great deal of the wooden buildings, though. Gwydion Pyk is alright – his place is brick and held together mostly by magic anyway. But several wizards I know lost shops or houses, and there are a great many dead, both mundani and wizard. Especially in the east part of the city – it started there, and there were some caught unawares and burnt up before they could escape. West side fared better, because we caught wind of what was happening and people were getting out of the way and wetting the buildings. But it still would have burnt down the whole city if a few of us wizards hadn’t gone about putting out some of the worst of it.”

“There are wizards among the dead?” Rhonwen shivered, pulling her cloak about her against the snow. “Who? Do you know?”

“None of your ilk, I’m sure, Lady Hraefnsclawu. I doubt any of yours were in the city this time of year. At least three of the old Roman families, though. Ludovicus Antignomarus, the whole Senicianus family, the Aucissas. That neighborhood near the Aeld Gate was where a lot of wizards with Roman ancestors had congregated, and that was the place where the fire spread the fastest.”

“Whole families?” Helga gasped. “Children, too?”

“Aye, my lady,” Olivantius sighed. “Not a soul left of the Senicianus name, and it was such an ancient name, too. Oh, which reminds me….” The wandmaker shuffled over to his second cart, the one piled with tools and materials covered in blankets to shield them from the snow, and rapped his own wand against the edge of the cart as if knocking on a door. “You in there, come on out now. We’ve arrived.” For a moment, Helga thought the old wandmaker might have gone soft in the head; then the blanket at the back of the cart stirred, and as it was pushed aside, a pair of enormous and very familiar-looking ears popped into view.

“Rhenus doesn’t like the snow, Master Olivantius,” the elf squeaked, and he looked as if he were contemplating crawling back under the blanket, but Olivantius prodded his spindly hand with the tip of his wand.

“Oh, no, you don’t, you’re squashing my wand core boxes already. Come on out, the both of you, and you can get warm inside the school.” He flicked his wand, and the blanket came fully away, revealing the elf’s knobby knees as well as a second elf, huddling by his feet and ducking her long nose into the collar of her soot-smeared sack dress to keep it warm. Olivantius watched the two elves climb out of his cart and fussed with his boxes before explaining. “Rhenus and Illica. They were the family house elves of the Senicianus clan, and, well, as I’ve said – there are no more of the Senicianus clan. Last of the line died in the fire, and now they’ve got no family to serve. Thought you could do with more hands, and they could do with somewhere to live.”

“Bollocks,” Salazar whispered, mostly muffled behind his thick wool cloak.

“If their whole human family has died, does that break the magical contract?” Helga asked Goderic. “Does that mean they’re free?”

“No, Mistress!” Rhenus squealed, his wide eyes getting even wider. “Rhenus doesn’t want to be free! Rhenus and Illica is good elves, Mistress! Please, Mistress! We hasn’t done anything wrong!”

Goderic winced – whether at the shrillness of the elf’s voice, or at a twinge from his newly-discovered conscience, Helga couldn’t tell – and then shrugged. “Technically? I suppose it would break the contract. After all, it’s based on families. But nobody ever tells the elves that.”

“I wonder why,” Helga muttered, and Goderic winced again.

“There’s not really a rule on the subject,” he went on. “I suppose most of the time, a nearby family takes the elf. Or somebody shuffles them around until they find a family that needs one. There’s been some talk on the gemót about appointing one wizard to be in charge of all house elf matters, which would include relocating elves who lose their families, but nobody’s ever brought it to a vote.”

“Thank the hamingja for that,” Helga murmured, ignoring his confused expression before turning back to the elves. She knelt down in the snow to match their height and reached out and took one of each of their hands – quite awkwardly at first, since both elves seemed wildly unaccustomed to being touched. “Rhenus and Illica, is it?” she smiled. The elves looked at each other questioningly before nodding.

“Mistress?” Rhenus said cautiously. Helga gave his long fingers a little squeeze.

“I’m very sorry if I upset you both a moment ago,” she began delicately. “You see, where I come from, nobody has elves in their houses, and so I’m only just learning about all of this. I think everybody should be free and in charge of themselves, and it would be very distressing to me to belong to somebody, or to have somebody belong to me. But it seems you feel very differently about that. And that’s alright. We’re all allowed to think and feel differently from each other, as long as it doesn’t lead us to harm one another. So I won’t try to change your minds, and I won’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do. I won’t make you wear clothes or try to set you free like the two elves who already live here. And you are very welcome to come and live here with us. We teach children how to do magic here, and we all work together to make sure the children have nice food to eat and clean clothes to wear. And if that kind of work suits you, then I’m sure we’ll all be grateful for your added help.”

“Oh, Illica is very good at cleaning, Mistress!” Illica squeaked, and Rhenus nodded vigorously.

“Rhenus likes to cook, Mistress!”

“Well, that’s wonderful, then!” Helga smiled gently. “There is an awful lot of cooking and cleaning to do, for so many children, and every pair of hands is appreciated. You are welcome to stay here for as long as you like, and I’ll try not to distress you again like I did a moment ago. But if ever you decide that you’d like to put on some clothes and see what it’s like not to belong to anybody, that would be alright with me. And I promise you, nobody here would think it’s shameful.” The two elves squinched up their faces at that, as if they found that hard to believe (and a little distasteful), but they said nothing. It prompted Helga to add one more thought. “I only ask one thing of you both,” she said carefully, choosing her words before she let them out. “The other two elves who live here already are free elves. They were given clothes by their wizards, and they live and work here because this is where they choose to be. Now, I know that you both have been brought up to see that as disgraceful; but Bihotza and Bróccín don’t feel that way, and they enjoy being free. So just as I’d like for everyone to be free, but I promise not to argue with you about it or shame you for the way you feel, I ask that you promise not to make Bróccín and Bihotza feel shameful because they are happy being free. Can you promise me that?”

“If Mistress says it as a command, then we has to do it,” Illica ventured, but Helga shook her head.

“I won’t do that, Illica. I want this to be a choice that you make yourselves. Can you do it?”

The elves were quiet for a moment, seeming to have a conversation with each other using only their eyes and the waggling of their ears. Finally, Rhenus shrugged.

“Mistress is very polite,” he creaked, “and nobody has ever asked Rhenus and Illica to decide anything before. If it’s what Mistress wants, we can try it.”

“Well, that’s all I ever really want,” Helga said, squeezing their hands again. “Everyone trying their best. Now, what do you say we all go inside and get warm?”

“Thank Sugoi,” Salazar muttered from inside his hood. “My toes are freezing.”

“Welcome to Hogwarts, both of you!” Helga grinned, and she patted both elves on their scrawny shoulders before stepping back to let them walk ahead of her, ushering them through the double doors in Salazar’s wake.

That evening, the students all gathered in the entrance hall to hear their last lesson before the Christe-masse rest; they sat with crossed legs on the stone floor, clustered in twos and threes and sharing cloaks for sitting on and huddling under, as Vindalicus Olivantius laid out the tools and paraphernalia of wandmaking on a couple of low wooden tables near the base of the stairs. He showed them the materials first – blocks of wood yet to be shaped, boxes of shimmering unicorn hairs and pristine feathers, bags of glittering scales and ashwinder dust, and little vials of various oils with which the finished wands would be polished. He talked at length about the finding of wand woods in bowtruckle groves, about the magical properties of different types of trees and the potentials of different magical cores, taking questions as they arose and offering personal anecdotes. Helga leaned at the back of the crowd, sharing a windowsill with Salazar, just as attentive as the children. She had heard much of it before, of course – had heard it her whole life from her father, and had watched him make many a wand at his little table in their cottage. But it was fascinating to see someone else’s process at work and to compare the two. Most of it was familiar, but there were subtle differences. She noticed that Olivantius used a wider variety of materials in his wands than did Hunlaf, and that he was much more willing to experiment with combinations – a difference that came, she supposed, from making quantities of ready-to-buy wands instead of catering to individual customers. Olivantius also finished his wands much more artistically than her father, carving ornate handles and polishing the wood to a shine, while Hunlaf often preferred to “let the wood do the talking,” as he described it. Helga could see why Olivantius wands were sought after and expensive. He was very good, and his work was handsome. But as she slipped her hand into her cloak pocket and felt the smooth but unadorned bore of her own wand, she smiled to herself. Sometimes simple was better.

The next day was the eve of Christe-masse, and the school buzzed like a hive of bees with preparations for the coming feasts. Just after their morning meal, the students assembled in the entrance hall to say farewell to Linnræd, Ysolt, and Brictric, who were going home for the holiday. Rhonwen sternly reminded them all to be back at the school by sunset the day after Twelfth Night, and then Ysolt and Brictric mounted their brooms and took off from the courtyard, Brictric scowling the whole time as though he’d rather not go home at all. Then Helga escorted Linnræd into the teachers’ room, where she gave him a packet of medicinal potions for his mother, along with spells and instructions for using them, before sending him home through the hearth in a rush of green flame. He had only been gone a few minutes before the flames changed color again, and the school resonated with echoes of frantic barking as Sœtr the crup burst out of the hearth and went dashing off through the school, chasing some imaginary prey. Hunlaf stepped out of the flames behind him, chuckling and bouncing Harald on his hip. The toddler still didn’t speak, but when Hunlaf set him down on the floor after brushing soot off his tunic, he waddled over to Helga and gave her skirts and her knees a wobbly hug.

It was a cold day, but the snowfall had stopped for the time being, and the clear eggshell sky and bright, crisp sunshine turned the morning into a blaze of white light as the whole school and their visitors spilled outside onto the forest path, wrapped up in cloaks and hoods. Everything shone and glittered, and Helga thought this must be what it would be like to live inside one of the sun crystals that vikingrs used for navigating at sea. Even in the thick forest, where the evergreens blocked out part of the sky, the reflected light on the snow drifts dispelled much of the shadow as the rowdy band of children and their teachers traipsed through the forest, using their wands to pluck thick boughs from the trees and sprigs from berry-laden bushes. While everyone else collected greenery to decorate the school for the feast, Helga and Hunlaf walked a little apart, catching up with each other as they searched for a fallen tree that was hardy enough, dry enough, and just the right size to burn for their Jól fire. It had to be big enough to burn for at least three days, starting at sunset that night and lasting the whole of Jól, but it also had to be small enough to fit through the front doors of the school. Helga supposed there might be a magical solution to that particular problem, but it had always been her family’s way to use no magic on their Jól log; Jól was about the return of the sun and the renewing of the earth for the new year, and it only seemed right to let the earth be in charge of the fire. They finally found what they were looking for in the form of a fallen oak not far off the path. Hunlaf tied a great many ropes around it, and several of the children joined in as he began to drag it back down the forest path to the school. Hunlaf made a great show of how heavy it was, and how grateful he was to have their help, all the while never letting on that he could have pulled it entirely by himself.

The rest of the daylight was spent draping every door, window, and protuberance of the school with greenery, which Rhonwen bewitched to keep it from drying out or losing its fragrance; meanwhile, the elves surprised Helga and Hunlaf by conjuring up a grand new temporary hearth right in the center of the entrance hall where their Jól fire could take center stage. As the log they had brought back was actually too large for the hearth in the teachers’ room, Helga thought this had been a brilliant idea, and she congratulated the little creatures heartily as Hunlaf struck a flint and the log began to burn. Bihotza cast a charm to direct all of the smoke out through the front windows, since the school had no smoke holes at its ceiling like a house would do, and by sunset, the whole of the school had begun to smell deliciously of pine, berries, good oak, and the faint hints of the feast that was being prepared downstairs. Tancred asked for all the lights in the dining hall to be put out except for a few candles on a low table he had set up just below the teachers’ platform, and then the vigil began. This, Helga discovered, seemed to be the one thing that everyone’s holidays agreed upon – a night of wakefulness and watching. Helga, Salazar, Hunlaf, Olivantius, Hnossa, and Harald drank dark Vasconian wine and sat around the Jól fire, telling stories and waiting for the sunrise; in the dining hall next door, Rhonwen, Mildryth, and several of the other more devout Christian students spent the night on their knees in prayer while Tancred sang. Helga could hear his beautiful high voice carrying through the open doors between the two rooms, piercing and seeming to tell of watchful longing, and she thought that although she knew very little about whatever he was singing about, one couldn’t help but be moved to hear him sing it. She had no doubt that he would make a fine churchman one day, if he could keep his wand out of sight.

The waiting, watching, storytelling, and praying went on through the night and into morning. As the first rays of golden winter sun broke over the hills and bounced off the loch, Helga heard a change in Tancred’s song. His voice was still piercing and melodious, but the wistfulness and longing was gone, replaced with an upward swirling of ever higher notes that conveyed boundless joy so clearly that the words could have been in Helga’s own native tongue. She knew enough Latin now to catch a few phrases here and there, but the words were almost unnecessary. Tancred’s voice carried the message all on its own.

They all broke their fast as the sun continued to inch itself up over the horizon, and then Helga noticed several of the students mysteriously disappearing, scurrying away into one of the empty schoolrooms at Tancred’s insistence and shutting the door behind them. When Helga tried to ask them what they were up to, she was met with nothing but giggles and a conspiratorial silence. Helga shrugged; she would find out what they were planning soon enough, she supposed, and it was just as well that they were all safely out of the way and not under foot. There was much to do in preparation for the grand feast they would be eating that evening, and Helga busied herself by helping in the kitchens. Goderic had gone out into the forest with Hunlaf and Alric Wintermilk early that morning, as soon as they had eaten, and had come back an hour later with a massive wild boar to grace their Christe-masse-and-Jól table, and it would take the combined culinary talents of everyone involved to have it ready by sunset.

About an hour before the feast was to begin, Tancred’s head poked around the door frame of the kitchens, and he beckoned to Helga.

“How many of you can be spared?” he asked innocently. “I mean, now that most of the cooking is probably done?”

“Spared for what?” Helga said, raising an eyebrow in mock suspicion. “Does this have anything to do with whatever you’ve been so secretive about all day?”

“It might.” Tancred was trying to look furtive and mysterious, but he was incapable of it, and he broke into a grin. “It’s only that we’ve put together a little performance for you all, and we’d like as many people to be able to come watch it before dinner as can be spared.”

“Go on, Mistress Helga,” came Bihotza’s voice from behind the enormous boar’s head, which she was decorating with berries. “Mistress Ya’el and Master Hoshea, too. Elves can finish. Just putting everything together on platters now.”

“Aye, Mistress, tis no trouble,” Illica agreed, and the other two elves nodded – at least, that’s what Helga assumed they were doing, since she could only see their waggling ears over the tops of the laden tables.

“Well, if you’re sure….”

They assured her that they were, and so she wiped her hands on a cloth and followed Tancred out of the kitchens and up the stairs. Halfway up, he turned and held up one pudgy finger.

“Oh, and can we borrow Harald?”

“Borrow him?” Helga grinned, wondering what the students could possibly want with a toddler. “Will we get him back in one piece?”

“That’s the plan,” Tancred grinned back. “At least, we’ll try to keep him from eating the scenery.”

“Good luck,” Helga chuckled, and they climbed the rest of the stairs laughing.

The “performance” turned out to be what Rhonwen called a “dramatic liturgy,” and what Helga discovered was simply a re-enactment of the Christian scriptures. Goderic had been coaxed into reading aloud from a massive Bible that Rhonwen had brought down from her tower room, and while the reading was done in Latin, Helga found that even if she hadn’t been learning the language, she would have gotten the idea well enough from the children. Tancred had convinced half of his classmates to put on costumes and act out the story as Goderic read the words, and with Rhonwen murmuring explanations in her ear, she found she could follow along. Helena, with a ring of light charmed to float just above her head, dramatically told little Mildryth that she would give birth to Christ. Arthur and Mildryth wandered about the dining hall, apparently looking for a place to stay. Helga saw that Harald had been commandeered to represent the baby Jesus, and the children had done their best to wrap him up in a long piece of cloth (on which he was now happily chewing). Then one of them cast a charm on him to make him sparkle, and he abruptly lost interest in the cloth and began trying to catch the sparkles in his mouth, to the great hilarity of everyone except Helena and Mildryth, who were taking their performance very seriously. While Harald was being forcibly confined to a makeshift manger, Tancred, Saeric, and Eadgyth appeared holding long sticks and trying to shepherd Lugotrix; he had wrapped himself in a sheepskin blanket and was crawling around on all fours, making the most terrible sheep-sounds Helga had ever heard. When Goderic narrated the arrival of angels, Helena, Arddun, and Morgen came hovering in on brooms to make their dramatic proclamation. Eaderic was suitably stern and regal as Herod, and Walrand, Rodolphus, and Silvanus looked rich and exotic in scarves borrowed from Ya’el as they arrived from the Far East to bring gifts to little Jesus. (Harald tried to eat these gifts as well, and the jar of myrrh had to be confiscated.) When it was all done, Helga and the rest of the audience clapped heartily and congratulated them, and Harald was given a little berry cake for his trouble. Then Bihotza rang the bells, and it was time for the Christe-masse feast.

The next twelve days were a blur of merry celebrations. Goderic had vehemently declared that aside from preparing food, no work was to be done, and so each day was filled with playing in the snow, telling stories beside the Jól fire, and dancing to the music from Aneirin’s harp. Every night there was a grand feast, although perhaps none so grand as the first night, and everyone shared their own traditions with the others. Salazar spoke of fires and dances, and something about a Vasconian ceremony involving goats that nobody quite understood; and Olivantius told family stories of the old Roman feast of Saturnalia. On the third night, Helga performed her jólblot, opting to pour out a libation of wine instead of making a blood sacrifice, and they ate another boar for Freyr, toasting to each other over its head at the center of the table. Songs were sung, epic poems were recited – and Walrand and the Perversus got into another riddling contest, this time with supporters cheering each of them on. Nobody was really sure who won, and the riddling eventually devolved into all the children trying to see who could out-dance the Perversus. Much to Helga’s surprise, Salazar also seemed very keen on dancing, which he invited her to do every chance he got. Between songs, he explained to her breathlessly that dancing was terribly important in the Vasconian celebrations of this time of year. His ancestors would dance to celebrate the return of the sun – and while he was intellectually aware that the sun would come back with or without his intercession, it was quite a good excuse to spend a great deal of time clasping hands with a beautiful woman. When Helga scolded him breathlessly for his lack of subtlety, he only laughed.

“The solstice isn’t a time for subtlety, Helga Huff-and-puff,” he chuckled as the song changed and he twirled her into yet another dance. “In Vasconia, this is the time for courting. Quite a lot of marriages are made at the solstice. Quite a lot of unauthorized coupling, too. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in helping me uphold the tradition?”

“You’re a shameless flirt, Salazar Slidrian,” was all she said back to him, twirling away from him as the tune Aneirin played became faster and wilder.

“I’ve been called worse,” he grinned, chasing after her to catch her hand again.

Twelfth Night found the inhabitants of Hogwarts merry but exhausted from nearly a fortnight of feasting, and there was an air of quiet contentment in the dining hall as Bihotza and the other elves brought in a massive bowl of spiced Vasconian cider and placed it on a table in the center of the room. It was mulled and steaming, and the whole room was immediately filled with the delicious fragrance. On this night, each teacher’s students were seated at their particular tables, and each teacher approached the bowl and took a cup of the cider to toast to their group of children, wishing them hale and hearty and well able to learn in the coming year. Helga was barely able to contain her excitement as the children toasted them back, and the room fell to various rounds of well-wishes, toasts, and songs. There was a basket of gifts waiting under her seat at the high table, and it was all she could do to pay attention to eating dinner and drinking everyone’s health when she was itching to hand them out. She finally got her chance after they had eaten, when Goderic approached the cider bowl again and poured out one more toast for the children, explaining to them the tradition of Saxon lords giving gifts to their followers at Christemassetide.

“Of course, there are no lords and peasants here at Hogwarts,” he said, his voice sonorous in the high-ceilinged hall, “but there are teachers and students, and I would be honored if I could give each of you a Christe-masse gift in the old tradition.” As the students whispered amongst themselves, Goderic flourished his wand, and there was a metallic pinging sound all over the room as a shiny silver coin appeared just in front of each child’s plate and dropped to the table. The children gave him a round of applause, those whose parents had been wealthy offering him polite smiles and nods of gratitude while many of the others scrambled to shove the silver pennies into their cloak pockets before they could disappear or be stolen. Goderic returned to the teachers’ table, beaming magnanimously, and Helga thought he must have been looking forward to this for all twelve days of the feast. “I’ve, eh…. I’ve something for you all as well!” he hedged, practically giggling like a child, and Rhonwen gave him an exasperated look over her cup.

“Go on, Goderic, we all know you’ve got a sack of gifts under the table.”

“This is the best part!” Goderic muttered as he crawled under the table, and as Helga reached for her own basket, she thought she might agree with him.

They let Goderic go first, if only so he could get his excitement out of his system. He’d had a new cloak made for Salazar, of the same fine fabric as his own but in a deep emerald green that must have been wildly expensive – twice dyed and probably helped along a bit with magic. It was a distressingly perfect complement to the color of his eyes, and Helga nearly spilled her cider as she watched him put it on. For Rhonwen, Goderic had procured a beautifully polished cauldron engraved with the eagle of her father’s family; and for Hoshea and Ya’el, he brought out a new lamp stand, the same size as the one they had lit weeks before but made of gold, with little flower petals around the wells for the oil. To Helga, he presented an ivory box inlaid with little bits of amber and colored glass. It had compartments inside it, and would be perfect for storing herbs. Helga was still trying to get her head around the staggering amount it must have cost him when Rhonwen brought out her gifts – a book of potion techniques for Salazar, a book of astronomical magic for Hoshea and Ya’el, and a book of languages and spell-writing for Helga. Goderic had received an enchanted tapestry that showed a story of King Arthur, since – as Rhonwen murmured conspiratorially to Helga over their cups – he was highly unlikely to ever read a whole book if she gave him one. Helga, who had never owned a book in her whole life, kept staring at the one she had been given, running her fingers over the leather of the cover; and when Rhonwen put down her cup of cider, Helga enveloped her in a tight hug.

There were some gifts that they had all worked together on, or had at least all contributed for the cost; they had each put in a little to give Hankertonne the caretaker a new outfit of clothes, complete with boots that had been charmed to repel rain and mud and an apron that was impervious to stains. Helga presented her father with a box full of exotic wand materials that he could experiment with – wood from Vasconia and Normandy, core materials from the East contributed by Hoshea and Ya’el – and Helga could see his eyes light up with ideas as he took the box from her and began poking about at its contents. There was a fine set of saddle and harness decorations for Cadwgan; and they had all put in a portion of the cost for a new winged horse for Alric Wintermilk to add to his herd, which he and Goderic would go and purchase as soon as the winter snows had cleared. Then Hoshea and Ya’el brought out their gifts – a flagon of fine Vasconian wine for Salazar, a scroll of magic in Hebrew for Rhonwen, a beautifully beaded scarf for Helga, and for Goderic, a pointed hat like the one that Hoshea himself wore, except taller and made of fine leather. Goderic immediately put it on and insisted on wearing it for the rest of the feast, even though Rhonwen thought it made him look ridiculous.

Finally, it was time for Helga and Salazar to give their gifts, and Helga found herself pleasantly surprised at Salazar’s thoughtfulness as she watched him pull each item out of his basket. He had sent away for a fine bolt of cloth for Ya’el and Hoshea, since he knew they liked to make their own voluminous robes in their particular style, while Helga gave them a silver bowl engraved with the tree Yggdrasil. She had gotten Goderic an intricate snake’s head carving, like the one in the doorway of her father’s cottage, that could be affixed to his scabbard or his horse’s bridle; and Salazar gave him a circular cloak pin made to look like a snake eating its tail. Helga gave Rhonwen a set of rune tiles for divination, and Salazar gave her a very old book. When he handed it to her, Rhonwen ran her fingers over something etched into the cover, and then she gave Salazar a piercing look.

“Salazar, you didn’t have to give me this. You don’t have many of your mother’s things left.”

“And who mothered me after she died?” Salazar said quietly. “Your mother, and then you. She would want you to have it. And it does me little good sitting on a shelf collecting dust.”

“Oh, alright, go on,” Rhonwen waved, sniffling a bit as she went back to ruminating over the book. Salazar sat back down beside Helga and bent to get the last gift from his basket, and Helga did the same.

“That was awfully nice of you, Salazar,” she murmured, and Salazar stifled a little smirk as he pulled his basket into his lap.

“And you never figured me capable of being nice, is that it?”

“Oh, you’re perfectly capable, I’m sure,” she said wryly, “it’s just that you seem to have such fun being wicked.”

“I have a great deal of fun being wicked,” he grinned, “and I wish you’d join me. But every so often, I do like to surprise people. Now come on, Helga Hufinfloffer, let’s see what we’ve got for each other in these baskets.” And he pulled out some object wrapped in a cloth and passed it to her, his eyes flashing with mischief. Helga put her own basket aside on the table and took Salazar’s gift; it was heavy and hard under its cloth wrapping, and the shape seemed familiar. She took a deep breath, hoped it wasn’t anything embarrassing, and pulled off the cloth.

“Oh, Salazar,” she whispered, staring at the cup in her hands. It was a lovely, delicate thing, a chalice just large enough to hold one serving of wine or cider, with two ornate handles made of gold scrollwork that she had never seen the equal of in any Saxon church. There was a seed pearl set into the curl of gold at the top of each handle, and the engraving on the front of the cup had been filled with black nigellum metalwork to make the picture stand out against the gold. Helga ran her fingers over it, unable to stop the smile that was spreading over her face. It was an engraving of a badger.

“It was made by Arabs,” Salazar said quietly, watching her trace the outline of the badger with her fingernail. “Traded north by way of the Byzantines. Hoshea knew of a metalworker who could do the engraving, so I told him exactly what I wanted.”

“You remembered,” Helga murmured. She couldn’t have cared less where it had come from or what it was made of. She had thought he’d only been using their conversation about patronus charms as an excuse to flirt with her – but he’d been paying attention all along. “The badger… you were listening.”

“Of course, I was listening.” The tone of his voice had shifted, and when she looked up at him, he was staring at her with eyes that, for once, weren’t veiled by his lashes or looking furtively away. “I may not always respond in a way you’d prefer, but never think anything you say to me goes unheard.”

Helga stared at him. She was suddenly short of breath, and although she wasn’t quite sure why that should be, the candlelight catching little embers of color in his charcoal-black hair certainly didn’t help. Fumbling a little, she pulled the small package out of the bottom of her basket and handed it to him, since there didn’t seem to be anything else to do.

Salazar took the little bundle from her with a cheeky grin, and his eyes lingered on hers for just a moment before he began untying the string that held the leather closed. The package fell open in his hand to reveal a puddle of gold chain that caught the torchlight and sparkled as he teased it apart with his finger. At the end of the chain was a heavy golden pendant, eight-sided and brushed to a velvety sheen. It also bore nigellum-filled engraving, a tilted S-rune that had been etched with a slight curve and whose upper tip became the head of a tiny snake. There was a hinge with a pin through it at the top, and Salazar was already toying with the mechanism as Helga found her voice.

“You pull the pin up to open it, and press it back down to close it,” she said ineffectively, as Salazar had already figured this out. “It’s Byzantine as well,” she went on. “I had them put the rune on it – an S for Salazar, but also a little serpent. Gwydion Pyk called it a… a reliquary, which, as I understand it, means it was made by the Christians to hold some bit of the clothes or hair or bones of one of their saints. Of course, it’s empty now. But I thought you might like it. A little place to tuck away something secret… it seemed very much like something you would appreciate.” When she took a breath again and looked up, Salazar was staring at her, and the frank and open hunger she saw in his eyes before he fluttered his lashes and looked away would have been enough to make her knees give way beneath her, had she been standing. He looked very studiously down at the open pendant for a few seconds, and then he reached his other hand out toward her. She was so surprised by the motion that she nearly pulled away, but she stopped herself, and his fingers came to rest at the edge of her face, brushing lightly against her skin before slipping into the loose lock of hair that had pulled free of her heavy braid. He ran his fingers down through the long golden strands, and when he pulled his hand back, there was a single shed hair caught in his fingers like a thread of gold silk in the candlelight. Salazar rolled the shimmering hair up into a little knot between his fingers and delicately, reverently, placed it inside the reliquary before closing it and pushing the pin into place.

“There,” he said softly, “now there’s a bit of a saint in it again.”

Helga had been surprised into silence. She watched him dazedly as he pulled the chain on over his head, found herself mesmerized by the movements of his hands as he pulled his collar open and dropped the pendant into it to hang against his chest. Her mouth went distressingly dry, and that seemed to be incredibly poor timing; Salazar was leaning in close to her again, and she felt quite certain that if he tried to kiss her at that moment – which is what his eyes said he was planning to do – that she would be unable to open her mouth, and her tongue would simply crumble to dust.

And he did kiss her – at the edge of her cheekbone, just below her eye. He lingered just long enough for her to feel his breath stir her eyelashes, and then he was leaned back in his seat again, pouring himself more cider and asking her if she wanted to put her new cup to the test. Helga felt as if she’d had a bucket of hot water dumped unceremoniously over her head, and she had to wait until the wave of heat had made it all the way down to her toes and worked itself out through her slippers before she could answer him.

“It’s almost too pretty to drink from,” she murmured, realizing as she said it that she badly needed a drink to salvage her parched throat. Salazar chuckled.

“It’s made to drink from,” he smirked. “How else do you think I was going to get you to share cider with me more often? Come on. One more toast before Twelfth Night is over.”

She handed him the cup, and he poured it full of cider. She wasn’t paying attention to what they were toasting, or what Goderic said when he got up to make a slightly slurred speech, or even to the antics of her father as he got up to try and teach little Harald to dance on his toddling feet. All she seemed to be able to concentrate on was the little glint of garnet that the torchlight created in Salazar’s dark hair, and the lingering heat at the edge of her face where his lips had touched her.

The night hours passed in a soft blur, broken only once by Bihotza tolling the bells as Twelfth Night became Epiphany morning. It was another vigil of sorts, but a gentler and less wakeful one, and as the sky over the loch began to lighten from night-black to pale grey, the Hogwarts dining hall eased from buzzing revelry into a soft, warm murmuring. Children were scattered about the tables in various states of wakefulness – many of the younger ones had fallen asleep right beside their plates, while the older ones sat in little clusters of twos and threes, talking softly and giggling over shared secrets. Aneirin the harpist had fallen asleep against the wall in the corner, but the harp in his lap played on, bewitched to keep up a gentle, floating sort of melody that sounded like the falling of snow. Rhonwen was still awake, but her eyes were drooping over the book Salazar had given her, and Hunlaf snored merrily at the other end of the table, with Harald draped over his ample chest, drooling into his copper beard. Helga stirred herself to wakefulness after what she thought had been a momentary doze; then she saw the pale grey light outside the windows and realized that she must have slept a few hours at least. Her back was stiff, but not quite as stiff as it could have been after leaning back in a wooden chair for half the night. She moved to work the sleep out of her limbs, and then she suddenly became aware of why she was not quite as stiff as she ought to be. Salazar’s chair was scooted right up against her own, his arm draped around behind her, and she had been sleeping with her head leaned back against his shoulder.

“Good morning, Helga Snuggleupper,” he muttered sleepily from just behind her ear. She could hear the mischief in his voice without even looking up at his face.

“Oh, don’t start, Salazar, it’s too early,” she yawned. “No smirking or name-calling until after the sun is fully up.”

“Well, then I might as well go back to sleep,” Salazar murmured, yawning himself. “Since I’m not allowed to have any fun yet.”

“Good idea,” Helga said faintly, wondering if it was worth the effort of dragging herself down the stairs to her bed, or if she should just fall back asleep right where she was.

“We’re all going to sleep like the dead tonight,” commented Rhonwen from a few feet away, looking up from her book. “I’m getting too old for this. All I want is a nice peaceful day today, so we can get the school cleaned up and ready to start lessons again tomorrow.”

“We’ll start cleaning once the sun is fully up,” Helga said blurrily. “Let’s just doze a bit more for now, hmm?” Her head drooped back against Salazar’s shoulder, and she felt him relax against her.

Whumph. Whumph. WHUMPH.

Everyone sat bolt upright except for Goderic, who jerked up and then immediately put his head back down again, groaning and massaging his temples. The thumping was coming from the direction of the courtyard, possibly from the gate, and as soon as they all processed what they had heard, it was immediately followed by a howling and clattering of armor as Cadwgan roused himself to defend the school against the forces of evil. Rhonwen sighed heavily.

“Bihotza?” she called, and the elf appeared beside her with a pop!

“Mistress?”

“Would you please apparate yourself outside the school gate for a moment and see who or what is trying to get in? And if it’s someone who isn’t here to attack us, could you please let them in and keep Cadwgan from getting carried away?”

“Of course, Mistress,” Bihotza nodded, and she disappeared. She was gone for perhaps two or three minutes before she popped back into view in front of the teachers’ table.

“It’s a man outside the gate,” she creaked, “says he wants to talk to Master Goderic.” Everyone turned to look at Goderic, who peeled himself painfully up off the table and winced before speaking.

“Jesu, what does he want at this hour on Epiphany morning?” he muttered, more to the table than to Bihotza. Then, louder, he said, “Who is it?”

“Said something about a long bottom, sir,” Bihotza squeaked. “Had a parchment in his hand—”

“Long bottom?” Goderic interrupted, sitting up now but cradling his head. “You mean Ceretic of Longe Bottom in Luddenden?”

“Aye, sir!” Bihotza nodded. “That’s what he said.”

“What the devil is Ceretic doing here?” Goderic murmured, massaging his head and moving the nearest candle out of his line of vision. “Go ahead and let him in, Bihotza, and keep Cadwgan off him.”

“Aye, sir,” the elf nodded, and disappeared again. They could follow her progress by listening – the thunk of the lock, the groan of the gate being opened, the mad howling and galumphing of hooves as Cadwgan wheeled for an attack, the surprised and indignant shouting as Bihotza apparently levitated Cadwgan out of her way, and finally the opening and closing of the school’s front doors.

The man who strode into the dining hall in Bihotza’s wake was tall and lean, with a strong jaw, messy brown hair, and sharp grey eyes. His cloak was of rust-colored wool and rough from travel, but the tunic beneath it was of fine patterned fabric. He had the look of a man who perpetually had too much to do and not enough time to do it in, and he made a beeline for Goderic, fingers tapping against the parchment scroll he carried in one hand.

“Goderic?” he prompted, and Goderic spoke to him without lifting his forehead from the table where he’d laid it back down.

“Jesu, Ceretic, shouldn’t you be at home recovering from a night of drinking like a normal person?”

“Spent Christe-masse at court, keeping an eye on things for you,” Ceretic replied. “And I don’t like to drink too much when I’m in the same room as Ælfric of Hamtunscir.”

“Hah!” Goderic chuckled darkly, finally forcing himself to sit upright. “Probably wise. If you’d had a son yet, he’d try to steal him out from under you and marry him off to that daughter of his.”

“Not a chance,” Ceretic laughed. “Rather have a graphorn for an in-law than him. And he’s getting even closer to the king, now that you’re away more often. We’re going to have to watch him.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Goderic grumbled, reaching for his goblet and finding it empty. Ceretic came the rest of the way up the steps to stand directly in front of Goderic’s seat at the table.

“That’s actually what I’m here to do. I volunteered to deliver this to you so you’d get it now and not three weeks from now. That’s probably how long it would have taken a mundani messenger to get it to your estate and for them to contact you.” He handed over the parchment, which Helga could see had some sort of official looking seal on it. Goderic broke the wax and began reading – with great difficulty, if his squinting and massaging of his temples were anything to go by. Rhonwen leaned over to get a look, turning over the broken bits of wax.

“What is it, Goderic?”

Goderic sighed deeply, as though being awake in the current situation was really too much to ask of him. “It’s a letter from King Æthelræd.”

“Not bad news?” Helga asked, sitting forward in her chair and ignoring the disappointed little huff from Salazar as she did so. Goderic made a face that she couldn’t quite interpret.

“Well, that depends on your definition of bad news.” He reached for his goblet again, remembered it was empty, and sighed once more. “Helga, do you remember when you and I went to petition the king for the funds to start the school?”

“How could I forget?” she said wryly. “The king spent the whole audience staring down the neck of my dress.”

“Yes, well, do you remember what he said just before we left? About checking our progress?”

“Yes, he said he’d want to see Walrand and Rodolphus in a year or so to see how we were getting on.” Now it was Helga’s turn to make faces. “Isn’t that what he said?”

“Oh, that’s what he said,” Goderic grumbled. “It’s just that apparently, his idea of a year or so is more like six months. He wants to see them as soon as it’s spring.”

“Bollocks,” Salazar whispered behind her, and Rhonwen shut her book and crossed her arms.

“Do you mean you’re going to have to take a sample of children to visit the king? For how long? And what will he expect of them?”

“Helga and I both have to go,” Goderic said, tossing the letter onto the table. “He specifically requested Helga’s presence.”

“Of course, he did,” Salazar said darkly, summoning the one remaining pitcher of cider with his wand.

“And he wants to see both the boys he knows, plus a girl or two, so they can demonstrate all the noble arts they’ve been learning.”

“Take Helena,” Rhonwen offered. “She’s flighty, but she knows how to act like a well-bred lady when she has to. She can play harp well. And she can keep her mouth shut when it’s important.”

“Whoever you take, you have until the spring to get your act well-rehearsed,” Ceretic advised. “At least you’ve got more than a month. If this had been sent by a mundani messenger, you might have had a week’s notice at best.”

“Which I’m sure would have pleased Ælfric to no end,” Goderic rumbled, “catching me with my breeches down.”

“Nobody wants you with your breeches down, Goderic,” Ceretic grinned. “Not even Ælfric.” He ducked as Goderic threw a crust of bread at him, and then stepped out of the way as Bihotza hurried along behind him to vanish it. Rhonwen sighed, rubbing the stiffness out of her left shoulder, and pushed herself up from her chair.

“I think Bihotza has the right idea. Come on, then, everyone, we might as well get up and get to work.”

“Don’t say work,” Salazar groaned into his cup.

“No, she’s right,” Goderic agreed grudgingly. He stood up from his own chair, staggered a bit, and then steadied himself. “We’ve got to get this place cleaned up and back in working order today, and then tomorrow, we have to get back to business.”

“Yes, we’ve got new lessons to start tomorrow,” Helga sighed, watching Goderic pick up the king’s letter disgustedly and stuff it into his cloak pocket.

“And tomorrow evening, we’ll all have to sit down and plan exactly which students we’ll present to the king to make the best impression, and what we’re going to demonstrate for him. If we plan that much, then we can have those students put in some time practicing for their performance.”

“I don’t suppose you could demonstrate their skills by wiping his memory, could you? So we never have to visit him again?” Salazar said it as a joke, but there was a glint in his eyes that said he was half-serious.

“And that’s why you’re not going,” Rhonwen replied, eyeing him knowingly as she began stacking her Christe-masse gifts in her seat so the table could be cleaned. Everyone else followed her example, and then with Bihotza leading the way, they got to work as the sun broke over the loch, golden on the new fallen snow.

Chapter Text

The snow stayed on throughout the month after Jól, and every time it looked as though it might begin melting, another blanket of it was laid down in the night, driven into sculpted waves on the hills outside the school by the unpredictable winds. On the very rare clear days, the bravest of the students spent their free hours digging ring forts in the snow, or chasing each other unsteadily across the sheet of ice that extended several meters from the shore into the loch. But those days were mostly outnumbered by periods of snowstorms and deep, piercing cold, and everyone spent most of their time indoors if they could avoid going out at all. Flying lessons were cancelled until the weather broke, and Alric Wintermilk came up with small creatures and husbandry lessons that could be conducted in the warmth of the entrance hall, with his pupils sitting on the stairs huddled in their cloaks. Hankertonne had to double up on his spells that helped insulate the walls of the school against the chill, and what Salazar thought was a sudden rise in student interest in potions lessons turned out to be simply their desire to hunch over their warm cauldrons, toasting their hands.

Without the promise of outdoor play at the end of the day of lessons, Helga and her colleagues had to adopt new strategies to keep their pupils from drifting off to sleep under their cloak hoods. Goderic opted to begin teaching his classes to shoot fire from their wands, which did wonders for morale but left more than one tapestry smoldering on the classroom floor, and which resulted in Helga being required to teach her classes the spell for regrowing eyebrows. Rhonwen took a more subtle approach, doling out cups of hot cider at the beginning of each of her history lessons; it took only a few classes for the students to realize that she had laced the drinks with a potion that would cause smoke to billow out of the ears of anyone who fell asleep while she was teaching about the Wand of King Math or the Cloak of Menw.

There were two things, of course, that kept the late winter days from being a completely featureless landscape of snow and boredom. The first was the change in morning lessons, and the chaos of remembering new schedules. Lessons in reading and basic magic had been replaced with classes on transfiguring and charms, and the first few days after the Christemassetide break saw all four teachers lingering in the entrance hall after the morning meal to help herd forgetful students into the correct rooms. The other break in the monotony came courtesy of the message Goderic’s friend Ceretic had brought them on Epiphany morning – the necessary preparations for their upcoming presentation to King Æthelræd. The teachers had conferred and agreed to send eight students, ensuring that all of the “noble arts” the king expected to see would be covered. Walrand and Arthur were selected to demonstrate swordsmanship, as they were the best of the lot and would put on a good show. Eaderic would demonstrate his skills on a horse, and Aluric was chosen for his ability as an archer. Rodolphus, who would never be a great warrior, would read aloud in various languages, do sums and figures, and hopefully impress the king with his ability to converse about history and theology. For the girls’ part, Helena would play the harp and sing for Æthelræd and his thegns, as she had a lovely clear voice and had been learning with Aneirin long before the school had been started. Morgen, who had a great command of history and poetry, was disappointed to learn that this was not actually something generally desired of noble women; but she was at least able to use her knowledge to their advantage in the creation of a large embroidered tapestry showing the exploits of Æthelræd’s ancestors. Morgen planned the pictures to be embroidered, and sketched them where they should go, and Ysolt’s quick and precise fingers brought her picture-stories to life with spool after spool of colored thread. They would present the tapestry as a gift to the king, and Goderic hoped they would all be invited to dine with the court at the end of their presentation, so they might display the courtly manners and dinner table politics that he had been so careful to teach them. The eight students selected for these demonstrations agreed to give up their free hours between the end of lessons and the evening meal to practice, and everyone at Hogwarts glanced at the courtyard gate at least twice a day, wondering when the official summons would arrive.

One month rolled into the next with very little change in the weather; the snow was still piled against the school walls in huge drifts and the wind still had a cutting edge, although Helga did notice that the sun made a few more appearances between the clouds than it had done the month before. It was still bitterly cold, but the white landscape of the school courtyard shone in the intermittent sun almost as bright as the light cast from a wand. The inside of the school glowed too, as Rhonwen and Tancred began the month by going about lighting charmed candles and floating them up to the ceiling for another of their Christian feasts. (Helga didn’t quite understand this one, although Tancred tried to explain it more than once; but she was never one to object to any feast day that involved a great cloud of candles glittering in the hall.) Out in the edges of the forest beyond the school walls, the first snowdrops had begun to sprout in those places where the snow had not been piled so high, and Salazar immediately picked as many of the little white blossoms as he could find, using them throughout the next week as he taught his classes to make potions for both memory and forgetfulness. Putting the students into pairs, he had each pair make a batch of each potion, and then he instructed them to write for him on a piece of parchment the significance of the ingredients, and how the two potions were alike and different – which was meant to be made with cold water and which with hot, why both were best made around this particular time of year, and which was the more expensive to produce and why. The majority of the potions were generally successful, and Salazar’s classes went swimmingly – right up until Cunomorinus distractedly began to chew on his cauldron spoon while Salazar explained the properties of mistletoe. The spoon in question had only moments before been stirring his batch of forgetfulness potion, and Cunomorinus promptly forgot the whole lesson and had to be taught it again.

The new morning classes on transfiguration and charms were taught to two groups together, with the younger half of the students learning charmwork from Helga and Rhonwen while the older group learned transfiguring with Goderic and Salazar, and after the first hour, they changed places. Helga and Rhonwen spent their first few lessons on the theory of charmwork, helping students identify which of the spells they had already learned in other classes would be considered charms and which would not. When they were ready to begin learning new spells, Helga quietly asked Lugotrix if she might borrow his little mouse, Carantus, for the day. He happily obliged, as long as she promised he would be unharmed and given treats. The fat little harvest mouse didn’t look as though he needed any additional treats, but Helga promised that she would get him the best she could find in the kitchens, and she put him in a little wooden cage at the front of the class until they were ready for him.

“Now,” Rhonwen was saying as Lugotrix and his fellow students lined up across the room, which had all the tables and chairs moved to the side to allow space for wandwork. “Who can tell me the difference between charming something and transfiguring it?”

Morgen’s hand shot into the air, and Rhonwen nodded to her. “Transfiguring changes the properties of a thing, and charming it changes its behavior. For example – if you turned my shoes red, that would be transfiguration. But if you made them walk across the room of their own accord, without me in them, that would be a charm.”

“Well done,” Rhonwen smiled. Behind her, Helga quietly took Carantus from his cage and perched him in the palm of her hand, and at a signal from Rhonwen, she touched him gently with the tip of her wand and cast a silent spell. The little harvest mouse began to grow rapidly until he was the size of a small cat, and Helga gently set him down on the stone floor as he began to gaze at his surroundings in wonderment.

“So that was actually transfiguration, then,” Linnræd pointed out, while Hnossa absently patted Lugotrix on the shoulder as he gaped in mild alarm at his now-enormous pet mouse.

“Yes, it was,” Helga nodded, “but we needed to make him bigger so he was easier to see for today’s lesson.”

“Then why is that called a growth charm, if it’s really transfiguration?” Helena said, crossing her little arms. Rhonwen patted her daughter on the head, and Helena jerked sideways to avoid her mother’s hand.

“Because people often use words interchangeably, even if that’s not actually what they mean. Some people use the word charm for any kind of spell. And I suppose you can all call them what you like, so long as you know what is actually a charm and what isn’t.”

“So we’re going to put charms on Lugo’s mouse?” Saeric asked hesitantly. “It won’t hurt him, will it?”

“No, of course not,” Helga reassured, “or I wouldn’t have borrowed him.” She reached down and patted the mouse on his now considerably larger head, and he squeaked at her confusedly. “Now, you’ve all learned how to move things already, either before you came to us, or in your basic spellwork classes in the autumn. Today, you’ll learn to stop things from moving. Specifically, Carantus here.”

“The incantation for what may be called the Stilling Charm, or the Freezing Charm,” Rhonwen announced, “is pronounced Immobulus.” She flourished her wand toward a blank undyed banner that hung against the wall behind her, and the word appeared there in clear, sharp capitals as if written with ink. “Everyone please repeat the word with me: IM-MO-BU-LUS.”

There was a chorus of “Immobulus” throughout the room, and Helga said the word with the students to make sure they got it right. Then, she took out her wand. “Now, before you cast this, a few things to remember. First, this charm will stop something moving abruptly, in the middle of whatever it is doing. If you’d like for something to slowly come to a halt, that would be a different charm.”

“It is also temporary,” Rhonwen added, taking out her own wand. “It will wear off after some length of time, so don’t use this charm on something you need to remain still after you’ve left it unattended.”

“How long does it last?” Eadgyth asked, and Helga tapped her wand handle against her head, smiling.

“That’s the next thing to remember. It depends upon the size of the thing you’re stopping. A small object or creature will be made still for five or ten minutes at least, and maybe longer. A medium sized object or creature, probably only a few minutes. And a very big object… well, you probably have just enough time to get out of its way.”

“And of course, you would not use this on people. For people, there is a different spell,” Rhonwen finished.

“Petrificus?” Arthur asked, and Rhonwen inclined her head to him.

“Very good, Arthur. Yes, petrificus totalus is the incantation for people. Does anyone know the biggest difference between those two spells?” Morgen’s hand went into the air again, but Rhonwen gently dismissed her in favor of Starculf, who had timidly lifted a few fingers.

“It doesn’t wear off?” he said tentatively, and Helga grinned at him.

“Exactly, Starculf,” she beamed. “When you use the Body Bind on someone, it will have to be undone before they can move again, while this one wears off. Now, are we all ready to practice?” Everyone nodded with varying degrees of confidence, and Helga reached out to Lugotrix. “Lugo, would you please go and stand at the other end of the room?”

“Alright,” he said, still watching his mouse warily. As he took his position, Helga gave him a reassuring smile.

“Carantus is used to listening to you, so you’re going to help us today. In a moment, I’ll have you call Carantus over to you; and while he’s scurrying across the floor toward you, one of your classmates will try to stop him in place with our new charm. Alright?”

When Lugotrix nodded, Rhonwen and Helga began forming the other students into a line, of which Helena found herself at the front. As soon as her mother’s back was turned, she scurried backward and shoved her friend Mildryth into the first position in her place. Helga raised an eyebrow at her, but she followed it with a conspiratorial wink; then it was time to begin.

“Alright, Lugotrix,” Rhonwen nodded. “Call your mouse.”

“Carantus?” Lugotrix sing-songed, and after a moment of confused squeaking, the enlarged Carantus began skittering across the stone floor toward his master. Helga gave Mildryth a gentle nudge forward.

“Alright, now, Mildryth, let’s try it.”

The little girl gave Carantus an apprehensive look, but then she took a deep breath, pursed her little mouth, and aimed her honey-gold wand at the scurrying harvest mouse. “Immobulus!” she squeaked. The air between her wand and Carantus rippled, and she closed her eyes as if afraid of her own spell. When she opened them again, the mouse was paused in mid-scurry, his tail curled in the air and his whiskers swaying gently as if in water.

“Excellent, Mildryth,” Rhonwen clapped. “Everyone note, that is precisely how it is supposed to look.” She ushered Mildryth to the back of the line, and everyone moved forward a step. Aelfwine leaned out from his position at the middle and stared at Carantus, whose eyes were darting about in confusion.

“Does making him bigger change the amount of time he stays like that?” he asked. “Or does it go by his real size?”

“You know, I’m not sure!” Helga said, tilting her head and shooting a glance at Rhonwen. “I’ve never cast it on anything that already had a growth spell on it. Do you know, Rhonwen?”

“I’m sure it must affect it,” Rhonwen contemplated, running her fingernail over her lower lip. “But we can wait a few minutes and find out for certain.”

And wait, they did. After about five minutes – by which time, Helena was tapping her foot impatiently for her turn – Carantus suddenly twitched his nose, and then a few seconds later he was off, running wildly toward Lugotrix (who had by then been told to move to a new corner of the room). Helena shot her wand toward him confidently, said the incantation, and grinned as he froze in midair, right in the middle of jumping toward Lugotrix’s outstretched hands. The rest of the lesson became almost like a game, with everyone moving about the room, Lugotrix calling Carantus here and there and the whole class taking aim and trying to catch him in the middle of a funny pose. When Bihotza’s bells finally rang to signal the end of the lesson time, Helga gave the very confused mouse a good scratch behind his ears before returning him to his normal size and handing him back to Lugotrix, with instructions to take him to the kitchens and get him something nice to eat before bringing him back so the second class could practice with him as well. Carantus looked up at her as if he’d understood her words, and promptly scurried deep inside Lugotrix’s tunic sleeve.

The snow finally began to melt around the school and the loch as the ploughing month began, although it was not quite the grand arrival of spring that Helga had been accustomed to in that same month back in Little Witchingham. In the highlands, it was a month of varied and unpredictable weather that made planning outdoor lessons somewhat of a guessing-game, with days of bright clear sky followed by unforeseen storms, or by sudden returns of the chill of winter. But the ice at the lake shore melted, and although it stayed cool and breezy almost until the equinox, the returning colors of the forest and hillsides were like bright banners, announcing that spring would soon be taking up residence in the highlands again. Early wildflowers began to show their delicate faces amongst the moss and heather, and the gorse on the other side of the loch put forth tentative sprays of yellow blooms, as if testing the weather before it went into full flower. As soon as it looked like the bright days were there to stay, Helga began taking her classes out into the forests and through the heather, looking for plants of both the magical and mundane varieties. They learned how to identify knotgrass and gurdyroots, and they collected a large basket of cyclamen flowers, learning about their ability to shield against hexes if planted in a garden around a house, and of their uses in lesser love potions. The flowers were then donated to Salazar after the lesson, so he could use them in his own classroom when talking about the different types and strengths of love potions, and more than one student exchanged a glance or a giggle at someone’s whispered suggestion that he might want the blossoms to make up a batch of love potion for his own use. Salazar threatened to transfigure the whisperer into a gurdyroot if he found out who they were, but his heart wasn’t really in the threat, and he gave Helga a gentle wink over the students’ heads as she brushed soil and cyclamen leaves off her yellow cloak. Helga turned briskly and headed back to her own classroom for her next lesson, hoping the students hadn’t seen the color that had flared up in her face at his wink.

The truth was, Helga had to admit to herself as spring took hold around them, that she didn’t think Salazar would need to resort to love potions anymore, not after the silent spell he had managed to cast on her at Twelfth Night. When her face had flushed, it was in the spot just below her eye – the place he had kissed her – that the blushing had started. Helga had begun to find herself wrong-footed and out of sorts ever since waking up on Epiphany morning leaning against Salazar’s shoulder, and she didn’t know what she ought to do about it, or if she ought to do anything at all. It was as if someone had come into her chamber and moved all the furniture two inches to the side, leaving everything superficially unchanged but just different enough to muddle her and make her stub her toes. The fact that it was Salazar Slidrian, of all people, who had caused her to feel this way made it seem all the more unreal. He had worn the necklace she had given him every single day since she’d watched him put it on at the feast; he always kept it tucked inside his clothes, mostly hidden from view, but the glint of the chain at the open neck of his tunic caught Helga’s eye every morning at breakfast, and sometimes she found herself staring at it as if her gaze was held there by some enchantment. This was all preposterous, of course, and she knew it; he had accepted a gift, and he’d given her a chaste kiss on the cheek, and if that was enough to turn her head upside down, well then, she was sillier than she’d ever thought herself to be. But of course, it wasn’t just that. Helga found herself noticing more and more often as the month wore on the subtle changes in Salazar’s behavior, and this seemed to be doing more to turn her head upside down than the necklace or the kiss ever had. He was still infuriating, of course; he still called her names at every opportunity; and he still took his chances with cheeky propositions whenever he thought nobody else could hear them. But his smirks had become gentler, the names a little less inflammatory, and the propositions had taken on a tone that, if not serious, was certainly less flippant than it had previously been. During their free hours, while the students were learning about magical travel or creatures in their outdoor lessons, he had taken to following her into the forest or across the low hills as she gathered roots and herbs – he needed them for his own potions, of course, so it wasn’t entirely a ruse; but he certainly managed to time his foraging expeditions precisely to line up with hers, and sometimes, Helga thought, he did a great deal more talking and smirking than he did foraging. It was a mark of how much had changed his ways that Helga had begun to wait by the door for him to join her.

The daylight hours stretched and strengthened as the ploughing month wore on past the equinox, and as Easter-month approached, spring arrived with its full force. The hills across the loch exploded into waves of vibrant yellow gorse flowers, and the wildflowers blooming around the school walls and the fringes of the forest began to show their depth and diversity of color and shape. Aside from the occasional cold snap, the weather began to be predictable again, and everyone streamed out of the school as often as they could in order to take in the sunlight. Flying lessons got back onto a regular schedule, and Alric Wintermilk began teaching his classes how to care for the flying horses in his small but growing herd. More time out of doors also meant more time for Goderic to work with his selected students on their noble sports before their trip to see the king. Aluric, who had been unable to practice much due to the relatively unsafe nature of indoor archery, finally got to set up targets in the courtyard, and Walrand and Arthur now had lots of space and fresh air in which to spar with their wooden swords. Cadwgan, who could always be called upon to make things more interesting, galloped his poor, tired pony around the courtyard after Eaderic and his destrier, repeatedly offering him battle; Eaderic occasionally obliged him (when he felt like it), and they practiced mounted combat while other students looked on, cheering on one or the other. It was now fully spring, and the king’s summons was expected any day. In fact, Goderic had been certain it should have come already, and he thought there must be something interesting afoot back in Lundenburh to have kept Æthelræd distracted for this long. It wasn’t exactly ideal; while the delay was giving them extra time to prepare, Goderic’s nerves were on edge, and with each day that passed with no royal summons, he behaved more and more like a cat with a very long tail surrounded by a lot of stomping horses. Helga repeatedly pointed out that the longer they had to practice, the better, but Goderic wasn’t convinced, and the other teachers were privately quite glad when Goderic switched from some of his more violent defensive lessons to teaching his classes how to block minor curses. In his current state, nobody wanted him shooting anything out of his wand in anyone else’s direction.

In his new morning lessons, at least, Goderic was a little more subdued, although this might have been because he had to share the classroom with Salazar, and neither of them knew precisely how to go about teaching in a team. The first months of these new lessons had been awkward, the two men adjusting to each other’s teaching styles and trying to decide whose turn it was to speak. But thankfully, those slow, cold mornings had been devoted mostly to the teaching of theory and not the practice of spells, and by the time spring arrived, they had developed something resembling a rhythm. Transfiguration, as their students had found out, was a lot more complicated than it let on, and the classes had spent the end of winter learning how to think about transfiguring before they were ever allowed to point their wands at anything. Much of the magic took place in the spell-caster’s mind before it ever left their mouth, and the students were given quills and parchment and asked to complete thought exercises to prepare them for the intellectual labor of transfiguration. By the beginning of Easter-month, Goderic and Salazar both agreed that the students had gotten the concept well enough to begin practicing spells – which was a good thing, because the sunshine and colors outside the windows had made the children twitchy and inattentive, and there would be no more getting them to scribble on parchments.

“Alright, everyone,” Goderic announced as the first lesson of Easter-month began, “let’s review our theory before we take out our wands today. I’d like for someone to – very briefly – explain what you must do before attempting to transfigure any object.”

“You have to decide how the two objects are alike,” Myrddin summarized, “and how they are different. The more detail you can think of, the better your transformation will be. You have to decide, essentially, what things about the current object will change when it becomes the target object, and which things will not change. That’s why the more alike two things already are, the fewer things must change, and the easier the spell will be.”

“Correct,” Goderic nodded. “Which is why it is far easier to, say… change a pair of slippers into a pair of boots than it would be to change a pair of slippers into a pair of frogs.” A few students chuckled at this, and Salazar gave them a smirk.

“So, for example; what if I wanted to transfigure Goderic here into …a chair?” he asked the class. A few more students laughed at that, and Eaderic had to pretend to cough into his elbow to cover his snorts.

“Well, obviously, a person is not a chair,” Vendicina offered. “But they both do have legs.”

“And arms,” Walrand grinned, “if it is a fancy chair.”

“His cloak is red,” suggested Arddun, “so the chair could have a red cushion.”

“Tall. Sturdy. Reliable. Straight-backed,” Rodolphus said flatly, staring out the window instead of at his teachers or classmates. “It would be a wooden chair, with a golden, brassy grain in the wood that would mimic the varied shades of his hair. The arms could have hands, and the legs could have feet, and they could look like human hands and feet. And at the top of the chair back, a carved face. Red velvet on the seat and on the back, trimmed in gold like the rings on his sword. A very solid chair, without a hint of wobble.”

Everyone blinked at Rodolphus a little bemusedly, and then Salazar chuckled under his breath. “Once again, Rodolphus, your way of seeing things differently has given you the advantage. I dare say your transfiguring would look an awful lot more like a chair than everyone else’s.”

“Can we test that and find out?” Eaderic snorted, and he and Eduardus fell to giggling and nudging each other with their elbows. Goderic eyed his younger brother and shook his wand tip at him.

“Keep going that way, brother, and you might find yourself transfigured into a privy seat.” At this, Eduardus shoved Eaderic and began cackling, and Eaderic shoved his friend back a little harder than necessary.

“Human transfiguration,” Salazar interjected, hiding his own smirk as he got the class back on track, “is the most complicated type. And it’s the most dangerous, if you should get it wrong. So as much as I would like to see Goderic changed into a chair today, we won’t be starting with anything nearly so complex. In fact, we won’t even be changing one object into another distinct object. We’re going to start with our most basic level of transfiguration – color.” As he finished, Goderic reached behind them to a nearby table and unfolded what had been lying there: a long red wool cloak. It was a duller red than the one he usually wore, and as he shook it out, the students could see that it had seen some use; there was fraying at the edges, and the wool was not as soft as it probably once had been. He passed it to Salazar, who spread it out and held it up by its corners so Goderic could prod it with his wand.

“Levioso,” he murmured, and the cloak hovered in the air a short distance off the ground, its corners swaying slightly as if in its own private breeze.

“You’re going to be taking it in turns to change the color of this cloak today,” Salazar instructed. “Since only one thing about the object will change, all the mental work you’ll have to do will be thinking of the precise color you want it to change into.”

“So turning it purple would be easier than turning it green, then?” Ysolt asked, and Salazar inclined his head toward her.

“Very good, yes. Since red and purple are more alike than red and green, that would take less effort, and you’ll probably get a stronger color.”

“Now, before we line up, let’s all practice the spell,” Goderic said. He nodded to Salazar, who waved his wand and made the words appear in the air as Goderic spoke them. “Pingitor verte,” he pronounced, slowly and deliberately, and he waited until all the students had correctly repeated it. “Alright, then, everyone get in a line.”

Everyone took their turn at changing the color of the old cloak, and for the most part, they were successful. Tancred struggled to get much of a change, opting instead to make the cloak a very bright and vibrant red, as it undoubtedly once had been, and he admitted that he didn’t think he would be much good at transfiguration as a general discipline. Brictric was very good at it; however, as he did such a good job at turning the cloak a poisonous-looking shade of black, it took a few tries for the students who came after him to change it back to anything else. Arddun managed to change the cloak from her friend Ysolt’s royal purple to a bright yellow, which earned her a hearty clap from Goderic and an approving nod from Salazar, as it had been a difficult transformation. When Eaderic followed her and turned it grass-green, she whispered conspiratorially in Ysolt’s ear and waggled her wand stealthily at her waist, changing the color back to yellow. Eaderic at first thought that his own spell had gone wrong, and began to change it to green again; when it reverted to yellow seconds later, he realized what was happening and began angrily searching the class for the culprit. The lesson came to an end when the two began shooting spells at each other instead of the cloak, and Goderic and Salazar had to haul a fuming Eaderic and a laughing Arddun to opposite sides of the classroom, he with bright yellow breeches and hair, and Arddun with odd splashes of green all over her dress.

As the Easter-month wore on and spring peaked around them, the warm weather and the scent of wildflowers began to work its way inside the school until even the teachers found it difficult to remain indoors for long. Goderic’s nerves about the king’s summons finally began to abate, and he soon started joining the students during their flying lessons so he could get in more time on his new broom. Helga began holding whole lessons outside the school walls, writing anything she needed on a flat bit of earth with her wand and coming back indoors only to collect the next batch of students. Rhonwen did likewise about once a week, when she was teaching something that didn’t require her to write twelve different names or dates on her wall banner; and even Salazar had thrown open all the windows in his classroom, testing his students’ ability to keep their cauldron flames going in the errant breezes. Preparations for visiting the king became less and less frequent as the students became more interested in cavorting during their free time than practicing archery or embroidery, and Helga could hardly blame them; given the choice between sitting indoors with a needle and thread or repeating the same sword blow fifteen times and racing other students through wildflowers or splashing in the shallows of the loch, she knew which she would choose. Indeed, instead of spending her own free hours sitting at her table and working out the next week’s lesson plans as she probably should have done, Helga found herself lingering out in the sunshine, watching the children at their outdoor lessons and occasionally participating in a class or two herself. Salazar often joined her, although he preferred to sit in the shade of the walls or lean against the school door instead of getting himself involved in any of the activity; but Helga was pleased to see that he left his cloak and hood indoors most of the time now, and he only winced and grumbled about the sunshine on the very hottest and brightest of days. There was a healthier cast to his skin now, a few more copper highlights in his jet-black hair, and his green eyes had a snap and a sparkle to them that gave him an air of mischief, if perhaps not quite joviality. He would have seemed entirely changed, were it not for his sharp wit and his insistence on calling Helga names in front of the students, for which she always scolded him but which she had also now simply come to expect as a matter of course. If he’d stopped doing that, they would all have wondered if he was ill.

On one such glorious morning late in the month, as the students left their early morning classes to go out for their flying and magical creatures lessons, Helga was herding the stragglers out into the courtyard and making plans to go searching for fairy eggs and bowtruckle nests now that the weather had warmed, when Salazar met her at the door.

“Quite a lovely morning, isn’t it, Helga Hollywobble?”

“What have I told you, Salazar?” she said, smothering a grin and fixing him with an exasperated look that she often used on students. “Not in front of the children, please.” Salazar sighed a deep, long-suffering sigh, but he was smiling.

“Oh, alright,” he conceded, but there was mischief in his tone. “If you insist.” He waited until the last student had scampered past them out into the courtyard; then, without warning, he threw an arm around Helga’s waist. She had just opened her mouth to protest when the first gust of wind smacked the words away from her, and the world became a spinning blur of color. There was the familiar and hated surge of air pressing in on her from all sides, making her ears feel full of water, and then the abrupt and flat stillness as her feet came down on hard earth again, and she gaped around her to see where she had been apparated to. For a moment, she didn’t recognize her surroundings; then the glimmer of the sun on water reached her through the ranks of blooming trees and thick pines, and she heard a distant peal of laughter wafting toward them from the other side of it, and she understood. They were on the island in the middle of the loch, and Salazar was biting his lip to hold back giggles.

Whirling around, Helga slapped him hard on the arm. When this did nothing but force one of the chuckles out of his mouth, she hit him again, and again, until she was raining a flurry of short jabs against the thick wool of his sleeve and cloak. “Salazar, you wart!” she hissed. “I HATE apparating.” Salazar had lifted his arm to block her blows, but he was still laughing.

“Well, you said not in front of the students,” he grinned, as she finally stopped hitting him. “So here we are. Not a student in sight.” His eyes were exactly the same color as the pines that surrounded them, and they were sparkling with dark good humor. Helga sighed, and this time, the exasperation was real.

“You apparated me here so you could call me names?”

“Among other things,” he replied, and although his expression didn’t change, something flickered across his eyes that reminded her of the way he’d looked at her on Twelfth Night. Helga stood very still, suddenly rooted to the spot by the memory of that look, and of the kiss on her cheek that had followed it. She glanced around her, trying to focus on anything that wasn’t Salazar’s eyes, but there wasn’t much else to look at – rocks, trees, a couple of birds, some clusters of yellow celandines, and the mound at the center of the island surrounded by smooth stones. Helga fixated on the mound for several seconds, and then she said the first thing that came to her lips.

“Salazar, there is a dead man on this island.”

“Oh, it’s alright, he won’t mind,” Salazar dismissed, waving his hand at the earthen mound gently. His eyes never left hers, and he was still grinning.

“Salazar, did you bring me to a burial site… to flirt?” Helga gaped. Salazar pushed his fingers through his dark curls, shaking some of them loose where the wind of apparating had tangled them, and his grin quirked as though he was holding back another round of giggles. Helga thought he might be trying to look sheepish, but it wasn’t a natural expression for him, and he soon gave it up. Tucking his hands behind him, he moved to stand beside her, both of them now facing the burial mound, and he raised his dark slash eyebrows thoughtfully.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he said gently, his voice suddenly full of the soft poetry that she had been so struck by the first time they’d met. “Death and life… loss and love… the end and the beginning are all intricately linked. Death creates life. Even the simplest farmer knows that integral fact about the soil he works. Wildflowers spring up with the greatest alacrity from the ground where someone has been buried. And endings create beginnings. Where better to find ourselves, if we’d like to begin something?” He didn’t turn to her or dip his head, but his eyes flicked over to her, as if gauging her reaction. Helga’s face was blank. There was a hypnotic quality to Salazar’s voice that always made her feel a little bit unmoored from reality if she listened long enough, and today, among the breeze and the pines and the wildflowers, it seemed headier than usual. She blinked a few times, collecting herself; and then once again, she found herself saying the first thing that dropped from her mind into her mouth.

“That was the most pretentious thing you’ve ever said, and you know it.”

She looked straight at him then, and saw his lips pressed into a tight line as he struggled to hold back laughter. Once she met his eyes, it became too much for him, and he burst into sputtering giggles, even bending over and resting his hands on his knees until he got himself back under control. “No, you’re right, you’re right,” he gasped, and Helga crossed her arms and waited until he finally stood back upright, tucking curls back into place and trying to swallow a threatening second wave of laughter. She tried to look severe, as if he were a student who needed disciplining, but – much as she did with the students – she found true severity hard to come by. In truth, it was something of a pleasant surprise to see him like this, and while she didn’t want to encourage inappropriate behavior, she also didn’t want him to revert back to his usual doom and gloom, either. So, she simply waited. When he had collected himself, Salazar tucked one more wayward curl behind his ear and cleared his throat; he was trying to put on a serious face, but his cheeks were faintly flushed from all the laughing, and the smile still lingered behind his eyes.

“Well,” he began, swallowed something else he was about to say, and then went on, “if I promise not to go on being pretentious, will you at least walk with me? I don’t suppose our ancient friend over there would object to us walking around him.” He tipped his head toward the burial mound before holding his arm out to her. Helga regarded him seriously, suddenly realizing that it was not just a walk that she would be agreeing to, but – as he’d suggested – a beginning. If she accepted, she would be creating something, giving force and animus to something that had, up until now, been only an idea oscillating between them, palpable but unspoken, vaguely acknowledged but undefined. Did she really want to give that idea a form and a motion? She studied him, measuring his sincerity, and she was met by the same look he’d given her on Twelfth Night just before he’d taken a strand of her hair, a look that was frank and open and full of crackling heat, a pine-log fire full of resinous knots that wanted to spit and spark. The sun was very nearly overhead, and as the clouds shifted, the light glinted sharply off the reliquary chain where it rested against his collarbone before dipping down inside his tunic, and suddenly she thought that perhaps she did want to let the idea take shape after all. He was still holding out his arm, and after another moment of hesitation, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.

“I think I can agree to a walk,” she said softly, and the only indication from him of the heavy weight of her acquiescence was the tensing of the muscles she felt through his tunic sleeve.

The two of them walked about the island for almost an hour, making several circuits around the center mound, sometimes talking and sometimes in silence, passing glances and unspoken thoughts back and forth between them until they had caught each other’s rhythm, growing easy in each other’s company. They stumbled on loose stones and caught each other; they laughed at each other’s jokes and splashed each other with cold lake water; and sometime between their third and fourth pass around the little island, the habitual tension between them had softened into something warmer and more comfortable. As they passed the burial mound again, their walk much slower now that they had begun to tire out, Salazar paused, taking out his wand and aiming it at the cluster of celandines that were trying to grow in the raised earth. Two or three of the buds swelled and began to open, and another sprout popped up in the dirt beside them, but it was small. Salazar sighed.

“I’ve never been particularly good at that one,” he murmured wryly. “I can’t seem to get flowers to do what I want unless I’m crushing them and putting them in a potion.”

“It helps if you roll the wand in your fingers while you cast it,” Helga advised, holding out her own wand to show him. She pointed it at the cluster of yellow blossoms just as he had, but she turned the wand in a slow rotation as she did it, like a spit over a fire, and the celandines began to blossom wildly and spread until nearly the whole burial mound was covered in lush green heart-shaped leaves and bright yellow stars. Tendrils of the plant spilled over some of the smooth stones and crept out to touch the toes of their shoes, and Salazar reached over and lowered her wand arm as if he feared they might be swallowed up in flowers.

“It helps,” he corrected, “if you’re you. I don’t think my magic tends toward the flower variety.” One of the strands was still growing slightly toward their feet, and Salazar reached down and plucked the starry yellow flower from the end of it, finally making it stop. He twirled the blossom between his fingers, turning the starry petals into a yellow blur until Helga reached over and stopped him before he could twirl all the petals off. She tugged the flower out of his grasp, studied his face for a moment, and then reached up to tuck the celandine into the black curls behind his ear. There was a flicker of surprise that crossed his face, and he almost pulled away from her before he realized what she was doing. Helga thought that must have been precisely how she had looked when he’d run his fingers through her hair on Twelfth Night. Then the surprise faded, and he met her eyes with a steady gaze.

“So,” he began, and then there was a very long pause as if he had not quite settled on exactly what he wanted to say.

“So?” she prompted, and he cleared his throat.

“So,” he started again. “Now that we’re completely alone, except for our very dead friend here who must have gotten used to us by now… am I allowed to call you whatever I please?” There was a ghost of a grin flickering around his mouth, but it hadn’t reached his eyes, and he held her gaze more steadily now than he had done in months. Helga sighed, letting him see that it was pretended exasperation.

“I suppose so,” she acquiesced, a little smile plucking at her own lips. “Within reason, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed, and then he reached up and stroked her cheek lightly with the back of one finger. “Helga Hunlafsdottir.”

She had only time enough to gasp – although whether it was at the touch of his finger or at his use of her true name, she wasn’t sure – and then he kissed her, his finger trailing up her cheek and into her hair and then weaving between the strands of her thick braid as he pulled her in. Helga felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the world and then rushed back into it again. She was overwhelmed by the scent of him – rushes and meadowsweet as she brushed her hand across the shoulder of his cloak, cassia spice wafting over her from his hair, the bright fruity smell of the celandine tucked behind his ear and beneath it all, the soft, warm earthiness of his skin. For a moment she stopped breathing, and she felt him hesitate, as if he were suddenly unsure that he’d done the right thing. But when she didn’t pull away, he pressed in closer, and Helga found her hands curling against his chest as his other hand stole around to the small of her back. One of her fingernails caught against the chain of the reliquary necklace in the open throat of his tunic, and she followed it up to his collar bone; his skin was warm and flushed from the sun and their long walk, and she felt his breathing catch as she slipped her whole hand between the linen and his chest, where his heart hammered so violently that she was certain she should be able to hear it. From the pounding in her ears, she thought her own heart must be doing the same. It was very like apparating, she thought absurdly, the pressure on her lungs and her ears and the wild blur of color that was all she could see through the curtain of her lashes, and the feeling that if she let go of him, she would be flung off into the atmosphere and spun out of existence; but unlike apparating, her feet were firmly on the ground, her body held solidly in place against his, and the only air stirring against her face was his breath mingling with hers. They were an island of stillness, and it was the world around them that was spinning out of existence.

“Master Salazar?”

The voice came so suddenly and unexpectedly that Helga jumped as if she had been goosed, and her teeth came down sharply against Salazar’s lip; and yet for a moment, she didn’t think he planned to stop kissing her, regardless of the voice or of her biting him. Then a growl of deep irritation rumbled up out of his throat, and he grudgingly pulled away from her, turning to look over his shoulder where the voice had come from.

Bihotza stood about ten feet away from them, wringing the hem of her little plaid dress in her long fingers.

“Bihotza…,” Salazar grimaced, and Helga felt the hand that still rested against her waist tensing up into a fist. The elf, however, was apparently not in the mood to be scolded.

“Master Goderic said to come and find Master Salazar, and Mistress Helga, right away,” she piped, her reedy voice a pitch higher than usual. Salazar let go of Helga immediately, and she watched his face shift from frustrated desire to intense concern almost as quickly as blinking.

“What is it, Bihotza, what’s wrong?” he snapped, his dark slanted eyebrows forming a sharp V as he searched the elf’s face. Something in her voice must have told him that this was no trifling interruption, and Helga put a hand over her mouth, her first terrified thought that one of the children had fallen off a broom during a lesson and was badly hurt. But there was confusion in Bihotza’s face as well as worry, and that became even more clear as she shook her large ears, rattling her many earrings.

“Didn’t say what’s wrong, Master Salazar,” she explained. “Went to see what he wanted, and there was Master Goderic in the hall, talking to some elf we’s never seen before, and he says go and get Master Salazar and Mistress Helga, right now.”

“An elf you’ve never seen before?” Helga repeated, and Bihotza nodded.

“Yes, Mistress. And not a free elf. Wearing an old leather saddle bag. Whatever they’s told Master Goderic, though, he was worried.”

“Trouble, Bihotza?” Salazar pressed, and the elf nodded vigorously.

“Looks to be, Master Salazar. Bad news. Better get back to the school, now. Got to go and help get the childrens inside.” And with a pop, she disappeared. Salazar turned back to Helga, the urgency of the situation and his clear desire not to leave the kiss unfinished at war on his face.

“Salazar,” Helga began, but then she didn’t know what she wanted to say, and she stopped. Salazar ran his fingers through his dark curls, got his thumb caught on a tangle, and growled in exasperation. Finally, he gave her a piercing look, then forced himself to take a deep breath.

“Later?” was all he managed to say, and Helga nodded unsteadily.

“Later,” she repeated. Then Salazar grabbed her hand and apparated them back to the school in a blinding rush of wind.

The entrance hall was a wild mess of chaos even after Helga got her bearings from the apparation; all of the students had apparently been called back inside, and were stampeding up the stairs to their bedchambers with faces flushed from wind and sun. Rhonwen was pacing and writing on a parchment at the same time, and Rhenus and Illica were scampering off in the direction of the dining hall on some errand. Bihotza had returned from herding children and was standing in front of a flustered Goderic, casting sidelong glances at an unfamiliar elf as he explained something to them both with much waggling of his long ears. At the sound of their apparating, Goderic whirled around, and the face beneath his golden beard was flushed.

“There you both are, thank Jesu. Rhonwen, the list?” He practically snatched the parchment from Rhonwen’s hands as she crossed the room to hold it out to him. He scanned it rapidly and then looked back up at Helga and Salazar. “Have either of you seen Cadwgan?”

“No, why?” Salazar shook his head, but Goderic didn’t answer him immediately.

“Bróccín!” he called. A moment later, there was a loud popping as the elf appeared at Goderic’s feet.

“Yes, sir?” he squeaked. Goderic shot him a manic look.

“I need you to go and find Cadwgan, immediately.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I bring him to you?”

“God, no,” Goderic spat. “I need you to lead him off on a wild chase through the woods. Tell him whatever you have to, I don’t care, whatever will make him go charging off into the forest and keep him there for the rest of the afternoon. Don’t let him come back until I give the word. Understand?”

“Keep Master Cadwgan away from the school at all cost, yes, sir,” the elf summarized, and then he disappeared. Helga could stand no more; she walked over and put a gentle hand on Goderic’s arm. The man jumped under her touch like he had been slapped.

“Goderic, what is going on?” she pressed. Goderic’s eyes bulged as he answered her.

“The king is coming.”

It was only four words, but Helga felt she had somehow misunderstood. She shook her head. “Coming? What do you mean, coming? His messenger is coming with the summons?” Goderic laughed, and there was an edge of panic to it.

“Jesu, I wish it was that. No, you heard me. The. King. Is. Coming.” He said it very deliberately, so she could catch hold of each word. Behind her, she heard Salazar hiss in a sharp breath.

“Coming here? Surely not,” he exhaled. Goderic waved the parchment in his hand at the unnamed elf.

“Tell them, Penda. Tell them what you told me.”

“Tis true, Masters,” the elf squeaked. He was fiddling nervously with the leather cord that held his saddle-bag garment in place, as if he hated to have to say any of it. “Master Ceretic sent Penda to warn Master Goderic and his friends.”

“Ceretic, your friend from the council?” Helga asked, and Goderic nodded distractedly as he went across the room to give Hankertonne some instruction. Penda the elf continued.

“Master Ceretic first thought the king was just gone on his travels, like he does every year when it’s warm. Didn’t think nothing of it when the king and his friends packed and went off, cos they always does. They goes from place to place, you see, in spring and summer. And that sneaky man went with him, but then, he usually does, too.”

“Ælfric of Hamtunscir, you mean?” Helga guessed, and Penda nodded.

“That one. Master Ceretic wasn’t invited, so he went home. Didn’t suspect nothing was wrong until he got a hearth message from his friend in the wizard town at Glasghu. Said the king and his peoples passed through there, and that they’d mentioned Master Goderic and his school.”

“Bollocks,” Salazar hissed, and Helga pressed a hand to her face.

“But how does the king even know where we are?” she gaped. “We never told him the location, and he had intended for us to come to him, not the other way round.”

“Master Ceretic doesn’t know that, Mistress,” the elf replied, his ears drooping. “Penda asked Master Ceretic, and Master Ceretic said the only thing he could think was that maybe that sneaky man had a friend who was a wizard, and that they told him of the school, and that he told the king.”

“Leave it to Ælfric of Hamtunscir to go all the way across the kingdom just to catch me with my breeches down,” Goderic muttered, coming back across the room to join them again. “If Ælfric has a friend who’s a wizard, then they must be a stupid wizard, and when I find them, they’ll be even stupider, because I’ll bash their brains in for telling him anything.”

“When are they coming?” Salazar asked, and Penda shrugged his scrawny shoulders.

“Can’t say, sir. Master Ceretic sent Penda as soon as he got the message, but the king had already gone through days and days ago. Could be any day now.”

“Could be today,” Goderic growled. The students who had been chosen to present to the king had all been brought back downstairs and lined up against the wall of the entrance hall, their clothes freshly brushed and their faces washed, and Goderic surveyed them nervously. “Probably is today. I know about how fast the royal retinue travels, and I know how far it is from Glasghu to here. Damn that man.” He checked the parchment he held again and sighed. “Penda, can you stay and help the elves here until we’ve dealt with this?”

“Of course, sir,” the elf nodded. “Master Ceretic told Penda to help however he could.” Goderic nodded, and then he raised his voice so that everyone in the room could hear.

“Alright, everyone. Listen. The king might arrive tomorrow, or tonight, or five minutes from now, and we’re all going to have to work together to keep him from discovering anything he doesn’t need to know. I’ve sent Rhenus and Illica to set the high table in the dining hall for a courtly dinner, and then they have instructions to remain hidden in the kitchens. Bihotza – I need you to put out the archery targets in the courtyard, bring Morgen and Ysolt’s tapestry into this room, and then do the same as the other elves. We don’t want the king seeing any of you while he’s here. Stay in the kitchens and get the food prepared, but don’t come out where he can see you. Penda, go with her.”

“Yes, sir,” Bihotza squeaked, and Penda nodded before they both disappeared. Goderic checked his list again before going on.

“I’ve sent Bróccín off to keep Cadwgan occupied and out of our way. Jesu knows, we don’t want him showing up and offering to do battle with the king’s retinue. All the students who aren’t part of the demonstration are to stay upstairs, in their chambers, and on their best behavior.”

“And what about Alfgeat?” Salazar asked, crossing his arms. The ghost in question pushed his upper half through the teachers’ room door at that moment, making Salazar jump.

“You called?” he grinned. Goderic frowned.

“No time for pranks today, Alfgeat,” Goderic admonished. “You stay upstairs too, and keep an eye on the children. You’re in charge up there, you and the oldest boy and girl. Vendicina, and… and Eduardus. Help those two keep the younger ones quiet and their wands AWAY. Got it?”

“Of course, my lord,” Alfgeat nodded, suddenly serious. He drifted away up the stairs much faster than usual, and Goderic ran fingers through his brassy hair and sighed.

“Alright, there’s that. Now, Ya’el is going to stay in the kitchens organizing dinner. Hankertonne is waiting outside the gate to let them in if they should arrive. Alric?”

“Here, sir,” the old man said, appearing at the school’s main doors.

“If anyone asks, you’re our Master of Horse. Have mine and Eaderic’s destriers saddled and ready in the courtyard, and cast an illusionment charm over the paddock where the winged horses are. We don’t want the king seeing that.”

“Right away, my lord,” Wintermilk nodded, and he disappeared out into the sunny courtyard.

“Hoshea?” Goderic called, and the cook appeared out of the shadows of the stairwell.

“Moreh Goderic?” he bowed. Goderic took a deep breath.

“For today, we’re telling the king that you are here to teach the children Biblical languages and history. Keep your wand out of sight, and try to act like a pompous scholar.”

“I shall be the most puffed-up rabbi you have ever met, Moreh Goderic,” Hoshea grinned, and Goderic gave him a weak smile.

“Oh, and …I’m sorry, but try to look a little less Jewish, won’t you? The king won’t care one way or another, but Ælfric will start muttering as soon as he catches a whiff of unleavened bread.”

Hoshea sighed, but he smiled wryly as he took off his pointed hat and tucked it into a large pocket in his cloak. “Whatever we must do, Moreh Goderic,” he shrugged. Goderic whirled around to Salazar and Helga.

“Salazar, you’re the teacher of Latin and mathematics.”

“Oh, joy,” Salazar muttered, but he didn’t protest.

“Helga?” Goderic snapped, turning to her. “Unlace the neck of your dress. We need all the help we can get.” Helga gaped at him, but evidently he wasn’t joking; he didn’t even wait to see her expression before going off to check on Arthur and Walrand’s practice swords. She stared after him for a moment, then followed.

“Goderic, you’re behaving like a mad person,” she called, but he ignored her. He straightened Eaderic’s crooked cloak, checked the tension of Aluric’s bow string, and brushed dirt off the polished wood of Helena’s lyre. Helga tried again. “Goderic, I’m not unlacing my dress.”

“Best leave him be right now,” Rhonwen murmured, and she pulled Helga back to the other side of the room. “Is that your best cloak?”

“It’s my only cloak,” Helga responded, and then she noticed that Rhonwen had donned an expensive-looking woad-blue cloak trimmed all the way round with copper brown and creamy white embroidery. It smelled of rushes, as though it had been kept in a chest for special occasions. “Is it a problem?” Rhonwen looked her over, tsked softly, and tapped Helga’s cloak with her wand. There was no overwhelming change, but Helga noticed that the fabric now looked brand new, and the yellow was as bright as the day the women of Witchingham had dyed it.

“Salazar, put on your new cloak Goderic bought you,” Rhonwen was saying; Salazar sighed wearily, but he snapped his wand in the direction of the teachers’ room and cellar stairs and summoned the brilliant green cloak from wherever he’d been keeping it.

“And for God’s sake, everyone hide your wands,” Goderic said, finally coming back over to join them. He had slipped his own wand up inside the cloth wrapping on his forearm, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure all the children were wandless as well. Helga tucked hers into the back of her belt, hidden under her cloak, and sighed.

“Goderic, what are we going to do if we sit here until sunset and he doesn’t show up? Go through all of this again in the morning?”

“Damn,” Goderic muttered, as if he hadn’t thought of that. Rhonwen ran a fingernail over her lower lip.

“I could go to my room and scry for them,” she suggested. “Use the cauldron to see where—”

Her voice was abruptly cut off by the sound of distant horns.

The flush drained from Goderic’s face, replaced by a sickly pallor, and everyone in the room whirled around to face the front entrance. The sound had come from across the loch, where the track that led up from the south came over the rise and rounded the shore toward the school. Goderic gulped.

“I know those horns,” he said flatly. “I’ve ridden behind those horns. It’s him.”

“Best behavior, all of you,” Rhonwen called to the students lined up against the wall. “Do not speak unless one of us prompts you, or the king addresses you directly. Behave exactly as Goderic has been teaching you. Remember to bow. Remember to address the king properly. And above all, remember that you must not let him suspect anything.”

Goderic had gone to the front entrance and thrown both doors open, chocking them open with two heavy stones, and the other teachers came to join him as he stood nervously on the top step. He made eye contact with Alric Wintermilk, who was holding the bridles of two war horses in the courtyard, and with Hankertonne, who slipped outside the gate to wait on the path. Helga touched Goderic’s hand gently.

“Goderic, are you going to be alright?”

“I’m going to kill Ælfric of Hamtunscir someday,” was all he said in return.

For a while, nobody said anything else; every time someone opened their mouth to speak, another horn blast from across the hills made them think better of it. They spent a tense quarter of an hour or so in silence, listening to nothing but birdsong, the rustling spring breeze, occasional splashes from the loch, the impatient pawing of the two destriers, and the unsettling blasts from the king’s horns, which sounded closer each time. Finally the rumble of horses and carts could be heard, and a faint cloud of dust peeped over the walls of the school courtyard. Everyone held their breath as the sounds approached the main gate, muttering voices now audible amongst the sounds of horses and wheels. They heard a voice they thought was Hankertonne’s, and then the gates creaked open.

King Æthelræd II rode into the Hogwarts courtyard on a beautiful blood bay destrier, his whole person draped in stunning red and white embroidery and both his golden crown and golden hair catching the sun. He looked extremely fresh for someone who had just traveled a long distance, and Helga got the distinct impression that he had been riding in the cart they’d heard creaking up the path, and that he’d gotten out of it and mounted his horse entirely to make an entrance. Beside and just a little behind him rode Ælfric, ealdorman of Hamtunscir, on an equally striking black stallion. Following on foot in their wake was a tired-looking scribe, with his arms full of parchments and his eyes glassy with boredom. Helga thought he might be the same scribe who’d been taking notes when she and Goderic had first met the king, but she couldn’t be sure. The rest of the king’s retinue stayed outside the school walls, where their animals could graze on the hills or go down to the lake for a drink, and Helga was grateful for it. The fewer people they had to let inside, the better.

“Goderic de Grifondour,” the king said haughtily, but he was grinning. “Well, you really have done the thing properly, haven’t you?” He glanced around him at the courtyard walls, the archery targets and waiting horses, and the school building itself as Goderic came down the entrance steps to greet him.

“With your generous gift, my King?” he said, bowing. “How could I do otherwise?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised how many people do otherwise,” the king pronounced snarkily, but he was still looking mildly pleased.

“Everything is prepared for you, my King,” Goderic announced, finally coming up from his bow. “Our students are prepared to demonstrate their learning, both indoors and out, and our kitchen staff are even now preparing a worthy feast for you, so the students may sit and sup with you as proper lords and ladies would at court.”

“Did you hear that, Ælfric? Goderic is all ready for us.” the king said wryly. One look at Ælfric told Helga that he had heard that, and that he didn’t like it. The ealdorman looked like he’d just bitten into an unripe fruit, and it was clear that he’d absolutely intended to catch Goderic off guard and embarrass him in his unpreparedness. The king smirked. “Does the sound of our horns carry so far that you could hear us coming all the way from Glasghu, Goderic?”

Goderic smiled sheepishly, with only the barest glance at Ælfric to let him know he was onto his scheme. “Happily, Sire, a friend of ours heard of your passage through the countryside and of your intended destination, and we were informed just in time to make sure we had provisions fit for a king’s table.”

“Indeed?” Æthelræd grinned. “A true friend to you, then, and a true friend to me as well, if they’ve given you time to bring out your best wine. Well, then. Let’s be about our business. Show me what you’ve bought with all my money.” Æthelræd swung himself down from his horse, followed grudgingly by Ælfric, and Helga saw the scribe pull out one of his parchments and some sort of writing utensil as he scrambled behind them. Goderic bowed again and held out his hand to Alric and the horses.

“Our Master of Horse, Alric Wintermilk,” he introduced, and the old man bowed; the king was more interested in the horses themselves, of course, and he gave each animal an appreciative pat on the nose.

“Are these from your own stock, Goderic?” he asked. When Goderic nodded, the king grinned. “Your family always did have the best hand at breeding horses. I’ve never seen a poorly animal come from your stables.”

“My king, you flatter me,” Goderic demurred. “But they are fine animals, I think. Once you’ve been shown around, we’ll have a student demonstrate horsemanship for you, Sire.”

“And archery as well?” said Æthelræd, pointing at the targets on the other side of the courtyard, and Goderic inclined his head.

“Of course, sire. We’ve taught it to all our boys, naturally, but we have one young man who shows a particular skill for it, and he shall make a fine demonstration. And we shall have a sword battle for you, as well.”

“With Walrand as one of the competitors, no doubt,” the king nodded, more to himself than to Goderic. “He was a fine swordsman even when we first gave him a practice blade.”

“And he improves every day, my king,” Goderic agreed. “He and Rodolphus will be pleased to see you again. Shall I introduce you to the students and our other instructors?”

“Lead on, Goderic,” Æthelræd assented, and Goderic walked one step behind him as they mounted the school steps; this put him side by side with Ælfric, and the two men shot venomous glances at each other behind the king’s back as they reached the school doors, where the other teachers waited in a line, bowing as the king arrived.

The introductions went as well as could be expected; the king lingered before Helga, giving her the same rakish looks and cheeky compliments as he’d done the first time they’d met, and Helga was once again glad she’d kept the neck of her gown laced up. Salazar was hard pressed to keep a civil look on his face when the king moved to him next. He managed it, but only just. Rhonwen was cool as a statue as Æthelræd managed to both insult her Cymraeg heritage and compliment her attractiveness in the same sentence, and Hoshea seemed blissfully unperturbed by the suspicious way Ælfric glared at him upon hearing his name and his accent. When they all left the doorway and moved into the cool dimness of the entrance hall, it felt like they’d gotten past the first major obstacle, and Helga breathed slightly easier.

As expected, Æthelræd was pleased to see Rodolphus and Walrand again, and he spent a long while talking with them and laughing at Walrand’s jokes. He clapped Eaderic on the shoulder and told him he’d gotten taller since he was last at court; then he moved on to the unfamiliar students. He asked vaguely after the ancestry of Arthur and Aluric, noted the practice weapons they held, and told them he hoped they would put on a good show for him. His attention was mostly arrested, however, by the embroidered tapestry that had been set up at the foot of the staircase, with Ysolt and Morgen standing at either side of it. His eyes followed the figures and stitched names of himself and his wife, his father, uncle, grandfather, and all his grandsires back to Alfred the Great, all connected by the embroidered leaves and branches of a serpentine tree. The king stood back, hands on his hips, and gave an impressed chuckle.

“And have you ladies sewn all of this yourselves?” he asked, still looking at his own image on the cloth. Both girls curtsied, and Ysolt took it upon herself to answer.

“Indeed, my lord,” she replied. “It has given us the benefit of a great many hours spent in contemplation of our lord and king, and of his proud and blessed lineage.” At this, Æthelræd finally looked her in the eyes, and one of his eyebrows arched in amusement.

“Oh, Goderic has been hard at work teaching you the secrets of that golden tongue of his, hasn’t he?” he grinned. Then he studied her features. “Whose daughter are you? I’ve seen your face before on someone older.”

“My father was Ecgberht the Blæc, who of late had charge of my lord’s coin mint at Hexworthy.”

“Ah, yes. Ecgberht,” the king nodded. “I thought I’d seen those flinty eyes before. I thought he had a son?”

“My brother is here, my lord,” Ysolt said swiftly, “but he is unwell today. I expect he is still abed upstairs. He would dearly have loved to make my lord’s acquaintance, but we did not wish to endanger your royal person by exposing you to any illness.” Behind them, Helga put a hand over her mouth to smother a laugh at the thought of how much Brictric would have hated being paraded in front of the king. Æthelræd was grinning at Ysolt as though he’d found a new form of entertainment.

“Well, I’m surprised to find you here, and not already married to some thegn in need of your fortune,” he smirked, obviously expecting a witty reply. Ysolt kept her face cold and regal, but she didn’t disappoint.

“A great many thegns are desirous of my fortune, Sire,” she nodded. “I simply plan to wait until we’ve decided which of them deserves to get it.”

“I like this one, Goderic,” the king said over his shoulder. “Make sure you marry her off well, so she can come to court and keep us entertained during Leofwine’s incessant ramblings.”

“I shall do my very best, my king,” Goderic bowed, and Æthelræd moved on to Helena and her lyre. As expected, the king was quite pleased with Helena’s rendition of Cædmon’s Verse in Latin, and her accompanying melody, asking her to sing another after she had finished. They had planned for this possibility, and Helena immediately struck up the chords of the song “Wulf and Eadwacer,” with Morgen joining her as a harmony. Æthelræd tapped his foot and smiled the whole time, while Goderic scampered around behind him getting the boys ready to go outside and demonstrate their sports. The scribe had filled one parchment with neat little notes and had pulled out a second, and all the while, Ælfric kept glaring at everything with his sour-fruit face, seeing that his scheme to undermine Goderic had backfired. As Helena neared the end of the slow and poignant song, the sun came out strongly from behind a cloud, brightening the courtyard and spilling light into the school doors and windows as if to applaud her singing.

In retrospect, Helga thought, they ought to have known something was about to go wrong.

The first sign of trouble came during the final chorus of the ballad. Morgen’s voice layered beneath Helena’s in a mournful low harmony, and their voices swelled as they prepared to end the song.

“Easily broken, what never was bound,

The rhyme and the riddle, the song of us two….”

They were circling back around to repeat the final lines when Helga glanced across the room at Ysolt and saw, instead of the smiling face of a proud classmate watching her friend, a wide-eyed look of carefully controlled panic. She gave Ysolt a quizzical look, and the girl brought one finger out of her long sleeve and pointed it surreptitiously at the king. Helga didn’t understand, and she glanced at Æthelræd, hoping he hadn’t suddenly decided to dislike the song. What she saw made all the blood in her body drain abruptly down into her feet.

Poking up out of the king’s golden curls, just inside the circle of his crown, were the tips of two translucent white rabbit ears.

Helga elbowed Salazar in the ribs, and he scowled at her; but the look on her face made him pause, and he followed her gaze. His face went paler than she had ever seen it, and they watched the translucent pair of ears grow slowly up out of the king’s head and solidify until he was sporting a pair of long, white rabbit’s ears that bobbed gently as he bounced his head with the music. Helga put a hand over her mouth and looked rapidly around the room, trying to catch someone in the act of casting a spell, but nobody appeared to be moving their hands or their mouths. She caught Rhonwen’s eye and saw that she had noticed it too; her lips had thinned down to a tight line, and she was aggressively trying to get Goderic’s attention without the king seeing her. Eaderic had seen it as well, and Helga watched him slap his brother’s arm and force him to look back around at the king. Goderic’s jaw went slack, and Helga saw him reach instinctively to pull his wand out of his arm wrapping before he remembered himself. Æthelræd seemed blissfully unaware of what was happening, and Helga thought perhaps one of them might be able to use a wandless spell to counteract whatever was being cast before he noticed anything amiss.

Then the king’s scribe looked up to ask Æthelræd a question.

Several things seemed to happen at once; the poor scribe’s face went white, and his eyes bulged out of his skull as his gaze locked onto the transparent pair of ears on his monarch’s head. Helena’s song ended, and Æthelræd saw the scribe’s expression as he turned to tell him what to write down. Ælfric noticed the ears at the same moment, and his bushy gray eyebrows shot straight up his forehead as one hand instinctively dropped to his sword hilt. The king’s hands went to his hips, and he gave his scribe a bemused look.

“Cuthwin, what in God’s name are you staring at like that?” Æthelræd chuckled, and Helga saw Rhonwen frantically whispering something behind them, probably trying to counteract whatever charm was responsible for the ears. But her countercharm wasn’t working, and as Helga watched in horror, she realized why. The ears began to grow higher, until they could all see a second head pushing up out of the king’s hair like a strange plant breaking through the ground. The head was followed by shoulders, and the shoulders by the rest of a small body that finally separated itself from the king and then dropped down to float just behind him, mimicking his hands-on-hips stance.

The Perversus.

Oh, gods, we forgot about the Perversus, Helga thought frantically.

“Bollocks,” she heard Salazar mutter beside her.

“God in Heaven,” Ælfric gaped, and the king whirled around to face his ealdorman.

“You too, Ælfric?” the king smirked. “What’s gotten into you both?” Behind him, the little floating man had become fully solid, and was now bobbing along like a cork, mimicking the king’s every movement and expression.

“It’s a devil!” Ælfric gasped, and the hand that wasn’t clutching at his sword hilt came up to cross himself. Æthelræd snorted, and his eyebrows arched.

“A devil? Oh, come now, Ælfric, just because a woman is better than you at something doesn’t make her a devil. Your poor singing voice doesn’t give you the right to attack those who can sing.” He tilted his head, and the Perversus tilted his, too, moving his mouth along with every word the king said. Across the room, Aluric let a giggle escape and then clapped his hand over his mouth, and Rodolphus was staring at the ceiling to keep himself from making the wrong facial expression.

“Behind you, Sire!” Ælfric babbled, pointing frantically over the king’s shoulder at the Perversus. Æthelræd spun back around, but of course, the little spirit man stayed floating at his back, and all the king saw as he turned was the goggle-eyed scribe, who was clutching his parchments to his chest protectively. When Æthelræd turned back around to face his ealdorman, the Perversus bobbed back around, always just out of his line of sight.

“Really, Ælfric, now you’re accusing the scribe of being a devil? Just because you’re unlearned….”

But it had all become too much for even the Perversus, and a snort of laughter escaped the little spirit’s mouth. The king froze, hearing the laughter so close to his ear; he swiveled his head slowly, and this time the Perversus stayed put. Æthelræd turned fully round and came face to face with the little floating man, who doffed his brightly colored cap, bowed until he rolled over in the air, and then grinned a wicked, sparkling grin.

“Very nice to meet you, I’m sure, your King-ness,” he cackled, and for a moment, there was dead silence in the entrance hall as the king and the spirit stared at each other, unmoving. Then, Æthelræd screamed.

The Perversus screamed back.

As if the screaming opened the floodgates of chaos, the whole room sprang to life at once. The Perversus rushed at King Æthelræd, who squealed and threw himself to the floor to get out of the spirit’s way. It zoomed over the prone king and flew straight at Ælfric, who only had time for one strangled shriek before the little spirit man whooshed down to his knees and then disappeared up the ealdorman’s tunic. Ælfric began shouting and flailing his arms as the Perversus wiggled around under his clothes and then popped out his collar, making him look like he had two heads. The scribe dropped all of his parchments, sending scrolls and quills and string rolling across the floor, and took off running toward the open school doors. Hoshea, who was standing nearest the entrance, did the first thing he could think of – he threw himself at the scribe, tackled him around the knees, and wrestled him away from the door before he could run outside and alert the rest of the king’s retinue. A swift tap from Hoshea’s hidden wand rendered the young man unconscious, and Hoshea stashed him in the corner.

“Perversus!” Salazar was hissing, trying to get the little spirit’s attention without the king realizing they were on familiar terms, but he was ignored. The Perversus had now popped out of Ælfric’s clothes and was seated on top of his head, with long strands of the man’s beard pulled back on each side of his face like the reins of a horse as he rode the screaming ealdorman around the room.

“Goderic, what is this madness??” the king shouted from where he crouched on the floor, not daring to get back up. This was a mistake, because the Perversus whipped his head around at the king’s voice (his body still pointing the other direction), and he let go of Ælfric and whizzed over to sit on the king’s back as if he were in a saddle. His head still pointing the opposite direction as his body, he smacked the king’s backside and hooted with laughter.

“Charge, horsey, charge!” he screeched, and Æthelræd screamed again, trying to crawl out from under the Perversus and succeeding only in looking very much like a horse indeed.

“Hold still, sire!” Ælfric shouted, and to everyone’s dismay, he unsheathed his sword and ran toward his beleaguered monarch. Everyone in the room pulled out their wands then, and both Goderic and Salazar shot stunning spells at the ealdorman. Both missed, and Ælfric kept charging. The king squealed, pulled a dagger from his own belt, and then ducked his head as Ælfric swung the sword at the Perversus, appearing to cleave the little man in half. But as soon as the two halves had rolled off the king’s back, they bobbed up into the air and reassembled themselves – and now the Perversus sat atop the blade of Ælfric’s sword, riding it as if it were a fence beam.

“Silly willy, swords can’t kill me!” he chortled, and Ælfric screamed in frustration and began shaking the sword, trying to dislodge the Perversus. He tripped over the king, falling backward and nearly skewering them both, and the Perversus went flying off across the room, going transparent just long enough to shoot through the tapestry. Ælfric dragged himself to his feet and followed, his sword over his head.

“Come back here, devil!” the ealdorman screamed, and the little spirit man’s head popped back through the tapestry, his face obscuring the embroidered head of King Alfred.

“Why, want to cut me in half some more?” he giggled wickedly, and then put out his tongue and made rude noises. Ælfric slashed at him and he disappeared, and the sword sliced through the portion of the tapestry that showed Alfred uniting the kingdoms. There was a groan of dismay from both Morgen and Ysolt, and Helga heard herself squeak with frustration and panic.

“Salazar, do something!”

“Like what?” he snapped, his eyes bright with fear and irritation. “We only got him to stop last time because Walrand was good at riddles.”

“Goderic??” Helga shouted, and she saw Goderic was near to tearing his hair out.

“I can’t!” he shouted over the chaos. “Most spells don’t work on a perversus. You can’t banish them, you can’t kill them… you can’t even freeze them or hex them, not for long. We wouldn’t be able to contain him long enough to stop him!”

“Not to mention if we shoot at it, we might hit the king,” Rhonwen said through her teeth. At the tapestry, the Perversus was still baiting Ælfric, popping his head through various parts of the pictures and then disappearing when the ealdorman tried to hack at him, leaving whole sections of the embroidery in shambles. At one point, he shoved his little round backside through the picture, right over the drawing of King Æthelræd himself, and he made some more rude noises as Ælfric slashed frantically at the cloth. Ysolt had looked away, unwilling to watch all her hard work get sliced to pieces, and Morgen had both hands plastered to her face in despair. Meanwhile, the king had finally managed to compose himself long enough to stand up, and after feeling his person with both hands to make sure he hadn’t been injured, he held out his dagger toward the Perversus and the attacking ealdorman and put on his most regal face.

“Devil?!” he shouted. “I command you to—”

But what he was about to command, they never discovered, because the Perversus had shot out from behind the tapestry at the first note of the king’s voice and had flown straight at Æthelræd’s head. There was a loud crack of thunder, and then a rain cloud suddenly appeared directly over the king, soaking him with a torrent of rain that plastered his golden curls to his forehead and turned his red and white embroidered robe to a sodden maroon and grey mess. The Perversus had now conjured a little broom and was riding it wildly about the hall, diving at people without warning until everyone resorted to swatting at him as if he were a particularly large wasp. Ælfric was still swinging wildly at the little spirit with his sword, and more than one person had to duck or dive out of his way to avoid decapitation.

“Ælfric, for God’s sake, man, put your sword down, it’s not helping!” Goderic shouted, but the ealdorman ignored him, taking a wild swing that nipped the tip off Aluric’s bow and trimmed off a little chunk of Walrand’s hair. Walrand, for his part, was doing his level best to get the Perversus to pay attention to him, hoping to distract him with another riddle contest; but the spirit man would not be diverted, and he kept riding his broom wildly just above eye level, shouting and singing and releasing multicolored smoke from his backside whenever he wanted to punctuate the end of a verse. Ælfric went on trying to bring the Perversus down with a sword blow with little or no thought for anyone who stood close by, and when he nearly took off Eaderic’s ear with an ill-placed swing, Goderic had had enough.

“Ælfric, stop!” he commanded, and when the ealdorman ignored him, Goderic drew his own sword and blocked Ælfric’s next swing.

“You dare draw your sword on your ealdorman, de Grifondour?” Ælfric spat. “That’s tantamount to treason.”

“You put yours away, and I’ll put away mine,” Goderic growled. Instead of answering, Ælfric swung at him, and everyone within ten feet of the two men flattened themselves against the walls to get out of their way as they broke into full battle. It was truly a demonstration of swordsmanship fit to entertain a king – but the king wasn’t watching, being too preoccupied with trying to evade the rain cloud that now followed him wherever he went in the room. Goderic had picked up the wooden practice shield that Arthur had dropped as the boys had scrambled to get to a safe distance, and he knocked aside blow after blow from the ealdorman’s blade, trying not to be driven into a corner. Ælfric swung out wide to come up behind Goderic’s shield, but then he suddenly found the sword wrested from his hand and floating in midair. Both combatants whirled around to see Salazar holding his wand out like a blade; with a flick of the wand, he sent Ælfric’s sword thudding into the thick wood of the nearby door, and the ealdorman growled and threw himself at the hilt, trying desperately to pull it loose. And all the while, the Perversus still zoomed about in wild circles overhead, singing off-key and filling the room with colored smoke.

“Well aimed, Slidrian,” Goderic said, catching his breath as he gripped Salazar’s arm in a gesture of gratitude. Salazar shrugged.

“Yes, well, you’d seemed to have forgotten you had a wand as well as a sword, so I figured someone ought to step in.”

“Yes, I suppose subtlety is a lost cause at this point, isn’t it?” Goderic breathed heavily, watching King Æthelræd abandon trying to run away from the rain cloud, instead picking up Walrand’s discarded shield and attempting to use it to stay dry. Ælfric was still trying to dislodge his sword from the school door, and the Perversus had taken to dropping conjured flower petals on his head every time he circled back around to that side of the room. Goderic yanked his wand out of his arm wrap and took another shot at the Perversus, this time with a stunning spell. The Perversus hopped off his broom in midair, gripped the broom handle like a war club, and smacked at the bolt of light that had come from Goderic’s wand, dissipating it into a shower of sparks that rained down over the room and whistled when they hit the stone floor. Then he hopped back onto his broom and was off again. Across the room, they could see Helga conjuring a protective shield under which she had herded the children, all except Walrand, who was still trying in vain to get the Perversus to engage with him. Salazar sighed.

“Any ideas, Goderic?” he muttered. Goderic opened his mouth to respond; but the sound they heard next stopped anything either of them had been about to say.

“A’ HOGWARTS!!!!”

The bellowing voice made both men cringe as they whipped around to stare out the door into the courtyard. They were just in time to see Cadwgan and his pony Hengroen come to a skidding stop after apparating into the courtyard, the pony looking frazzled as Cadwgan rode him in a circle and flourished his sword; then they had to leap back out of the way as the old man rode the beleaguered pony at top speed across the courtyard, up the steps, and into the entrance hall of the school.

“Jesu save us,” Goderic muttered, unable to do anything but watch as Cadwgan circled his mount and then rode screaming toward Ælfric, offering him battle.

“REMOVE THY SWORD FROM ITS UNNATURAL SHEATH AND FACE THY OPPONENT, SIR!” he was demanding, and Ælfric stopped tugging at his sword just long enough for his face to register a look of bland disbelief before ignoring Cadwgan and going back to yanking on his sword.

“DA’ST turn thy back on me, sir??” Cadwgan sputtered, so deeply offended that his face began to turn purple as the Perversus made another pass of the room and dropped flower petals on them both. Helena scurried out from under Helga’s protective shield to try and wrangle her uncle, and she managed to scoot under his swinging sword and grab Hengroen’s reins.

“Uncle Dwg!” she shouted over the melee. “It’s not him we’re fighting! It’s the Perversus!” She pointed up just in time to make eye contact with the Perversus before the little spirit man yanked the lyre out from under her arm, popped all of its strings with a loud twannnggg! and shoved the instrument over her head, where it hung around her neck like a yoke. Cadwgan gave an incoherent scream of rage and took off after the Perversus, riding Hengroen around the room in circles as he tried to get the spirit to do battle. Helena made resigned eye contact with Goderic and Salazar and sighed; then all three of them jumped as a loud pop! sounded between where they stood. Bróccín appeared at their feet, his already large eyes bulging with panic and his embroidered tunic covered in pine needles and dirt.

“Lost ‘im, sirs!” he wheezed, clearly out of breath. “I’s very sorry, but I couldn’t help it! Lost ‘im for just a minute or two, and next thing I knows, he’s running that pony back to the school! Apparated before I could catch him, sirs!”

“It’s alright, Bróccín,” Goderic sighed. “You did your best.”

“And it’s not like the situation wasn’t already well past managing anyway,” Salazar muttered. King Æthelræd was staring desperately at them from the center of the room, still trying to block his personal rain storm with the shield and gaping at the elf that had just appeared out of thin air as though one more unexpected happening might send him over the edge. The room was full of colored smoke and the flashes of spells as everyone tried to make something land on the Perversus when he passed overhead without hitting Cadwgan riding below him. Ælfric, still covered in flower petals, had finally managed to loosen his sword and was working it free from the door when there was a flash of misty white at the top of the stairs. Goderic and Salazar looked up to see Alfgeat the ghost hovering just outside the door of the boys’ bedchamber.

“What the…?” they saw him mouth, although they couldn’t hear his voice; then he drifted down into the chaos and floated across toward them, waving politely at the king as he floated past him. Æthelræd slumped to his knees as if he’d narrowly avoided fainting.

“Alfgeat!” Goderic called out, almost reaching out a hand to grasp the ghost’s arm before remembering he wasn’t solid.

“Have I missed something, Lord Grifondour?” the ghost asked cautiously, gazing around at everything he’d missed.

“Alfgeat, can you stop a perversus?” Salazar hissed, cutting straight to the point. “I mean, you’re sort of… I mean, you’re both… spirits, or….” he trailed off, waving his hand vaguely, but Alfgeat took his meaning.

“Not that one, Master Slidrian,” the ghost shook his head. “A weaker one in an emptied-out old house, probably. But that one’s young and fresh and powerful. It’ll take more magic than I’ve got to shut him down.”

“More magic than any of us have got, apparently,” Goderic frowned. Alfgeat started to nod; then he glanced over at the teachers with an odd look in his translucent eyes.

“Say that again, Lord Grifondour,” he said, a grin plucking at the corners of his translucent mouth, and Goderic’s brows furrowed.

“Say what again? More magic than we’ve got?”

“More than any of us have got,” the ghost agreed. Then he leaned down to look at Bróccín, who was worrying the hem of his tunic until it had gone squiggly with wrinkles. “Bróccín, where are the rest of the elves?”

“In the kitchens, sir,” Bróccín replied, “making supper and hiding from the king. Why?”

“We’re going to go and get them,” the ghost answered him, smiling grimly. “Come on.” He wafted quickly across the room toward the teachers’ room door, passing through the king and nearly making him faint again. Bróccín gazed after him, a little perplexed; then he shrugged and disapparated. Goderic and Salazar glanced at each other.

“What do you suppose they’re planning?” Salazar murmured, watching the Perversus conjure big handfuls of squishy fairy butter mushrooms and throw them at Ælfric’s face, stopping him from using the sword he had just gotten free. Goderic thought about it for a moment, and then something dawned on him.

“What was it I said to you when Bróccín got through our protective charms back before Christemassetide?” he asked, a slow smile creeping up through his beard. “There’s precious little a house elf can’t magic their way through?”

“But a perversus?” Salazar hedged, dodging as some of the fairy butter missed the ealdorman and nearly hit him. “One as wild as that one? Is a house elf strong enough?”

“Just one might not be,” Goderic said thoughtfully. “But we have four. Five, if you count Ceretic’s elf who arrived today. Five house elves might be able to take on one particularly wicked perversus.”

“I sincerely hope you’re right,” Salazar grumbled, ducking another handful of fairy butter. Moments later, Alfgeat came whizzing up through the floor in front of them. Before either of them could ask him anything, his arrival was followed by a chorus of loud popping as all five elves apparated into the room. Rhenus and Illica gaped around them at the chaos and clutched at each other’s hands, and Bihotza took one look at the state of things and whirled around on Salazar.

“This is all Master Salazar’s fault,” she piped, eyeing him sternly and shaking one long finger at him. Goderic snorted a little laugh even as he dodged a clump of fairy butter.

“She’s not wrong, you know,” he quipped, and Salazar glared at him.

“Not to worry, Masters,” Penda soothed, reaching up to pat Goderic on the hand. “House elves will put everything to rights.” He looked over at Bihotza, who nodded back at him.

“Right,” she squeaked authoritatively, “elves in a line.” Rhenus, Illica, Penda, and Bróccín arranged themselves to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bihotza, and when she was satisfied that they were all in position and listening, she nodded again. “We does it all together at the same time. Ready?” The other four elves nodded, and Bihotza raised her voice. “One… two… three… NOW!”

All five elves extended their spindly hands toward the chaos of the room in front of them, and the air rippled out from them like water in a pond. Silence seemed to follow the ripple, and when it had vanished into the opposite wall, the entire room was utterly quiet and still. The colored smoke dissipated within seconds, and everything was suddenly clearly visible. Ælfric stood frozen in a puddle of soggy flower petals and stepped-on yellow mushrooms, with drips of the fungus pattering silently from his beard and sword blade to the floor. Nothing moved but his eyes, which were flitting frantically back and forth in his head as he tried to figure out why he couldn’t move. The king was in a similar situation, frozen completely still under the shelter of the wooden shield, the rain cloud above his head thundering mutedly and leaking a slow drizzle. Cadwgan and Hengroen were caught in mid-charge, which was a good thing for the little pony; Cadwgan had reared him onto his back legs, and if he hadn’t been immobilized, both he and his fat little rider would have gone toppling over onto the floor. And best of all, the Perversus was frozen in mid-air, bobbing slowly and stiffly like a chunk of ice through a winter lake. His mouth was still open in song, a clump of fairy butter oozed from one hand, and the corner of the destroyed tapestry was in the other. Everyone breathed a quick sigh of relief as they realized that he had been about to light the tapestry on fire when the elves had frozen him – a tiny little flame twitched in the space between the tapestry fabric and the spirit man’s pudgy forefinger, bright but unburning.

For a few moments, nobody moved or spoke. Then Walrand put down the stool he’d been using to protect his head, extended his hands toward the elves, and began to clap. Everyone else immediately followed suit, and the elves got a healthy round of applause before Bihotza finally waved everyone quiet again.

“We celebrate later, Masters,” she said forcefully. “Got to take care of the Peversy-man first.”

“Won’t last long, sirs,” Rhenus agreed, nodding and shaking his head at the same time. “Hexes and charms don’t stay on them spirits long. Rhenus and Illica had to fight one before. Got to get it locked away until it calms down, Masters.”

“Well, then whatever you need to do, let’s do it,” Rhonwen concurred, coming out from under Helga’s shield and vanishing spots of dirty water and fairy butter off her cloak. “What do you need?”

“A little box, Mistress Rhonwen,” Bihtoza said, “copper if we’s got one.”

“Does anyone have a copper box?” Helga called out. Everyone looked around at each other blankly. Finally, Eaderic peeled himself away from the wall where he’d been trying to avoid the chaos.

“I have a box I keep beeswax in. It’s wood, but it’s lined in copper.”

“Good enough,” Bihotza nodded, and Goderic flapped his hand at his brother urgently.

“Go and get it, quick.”

Eaderic leaped over the shredded tapestry and pounded up the stairs, where he turned quickly into the boys’ bedchamber. He was gone for a minute or two, probably dumping out the contents of the box on his bed; then they heard the door slam again and Eaderic came running back down the steps. He skidded to a halt in front of the elves and handed Bihotza a little casket about the size of a Roman brick, with a latch on the front. Bihotza passed the box to Bróccín, who flipped it open, examined the copper lining, and nodded.

“Now what?” Salazar pressed. Bihotza narrowed her eyes.

“We shrinks him, Master Salazar,” she said, and there was a flinty quality to the way she looked up at the frozen Perversus. He had already regained the ability to wiggle one finger, and his eyes rolled frantically as he tried to wiggle it hard enough to rotate himself in the air. Bihotza held up a hand and pointed at him, and the Perversus began to shrink. His eyes bulged with panic, and a little squeak managed to leak out of his nose as the broom he sat on disappeared, but he was otherwise unable to resist. He grew smaller and smaller as he floated down to Bihotza’s eye level until he bobbed in front of her at just the right size to fit inside Eaderic’s box. The elf reached out two long fingers and seized the back of the little spirit man’s tunic; then she took his hat off his head, stuffed it in his open mouth, and shoved him inside the box. Bróccín snapped the lid down and latched it, and then he and Bihotza both laid their hands over the casket. A flash of light washed over the box, and then Bihotza took it from Bróccín and handed it to Salazar.

“Can’t keep him in there long, Master Salazar,” she warned, and Bróccín nodded.

“It’ll wear off in a few hours, sir, and he’ll be able to pop hisself back out. We’d best deal with what we’s got to deal with before then.”

“Right,” Salazar muttered. Turning around to Eaderic, he held out the box. “I believe this is yours, so I’ll leave it in your charge. Take it somewhere out of the way, and don’t let any of the other students open it.”

“Of course, sir,” Eaderic said, taking the box with a short bow to his head teacher. Then he brought the box up to eye level, glared at the latch, and gave it a nasty little shake before running off up the stairs again.

“Actually, I think that’s where the rest of you should be as well,” Helga announced, checking over all the students to be sure they weren’t hurt. “I think all of you should go upstairs to your chambers, and stay there until we’ve gotten all of this sorted. We’ll call you back down when it’s safe and there’s supper on the table.” She gave Rodolphus a nudge, and he tore his eyes away from the frozen king and ealdorman to begin shuffling up the stairs. The other children followed him, Morgen stepping gingerly over the shreds of her ruined tapestry with a look of utter devastation. When they had disappeared into their chambers and the doors had shut behind them, Goderic sighed.

“And now, we have to mop up this mess.”

“And we’d best do so quickly, Moreh Goderic,” Hoshea advised from the corner. “I believe this young scribe is beginning to come awake.”

Everyone took out their wands and got immediately to work, getting rid of as much of the chaos as they could in the shortest amount of time. Salazar cast finite incantatem to get rid of the king’s rain cloud, and Helga vanished the puddles of water and the piles of soggy flower petals and squashed fairy butter. Rhonwen swept up the remnants of the tapestry with a swipe of her wand and sent them whooshing away to her room in the tower, and she repaired the broken lyre with a tap and a quick charm. Goderic put Ælfric’s sword back in its sheath, trying to avoid the man’s wildly flickering eyes in his frozen face, and he cast a spell to repair the hole in the door where the blade had been lodged. All of the students’ practice weaponry was removed to the teachers’ room, including the shield that they had to pry out of the king’s immobilized hands, and Goderic gently put Æthelræd’s dagger back into its sheath as well before Helga came and tapped the king with her wand, drying him off. Rhonwen cleaned up the ealdorman, and then she and Salazar worked together to levitate the frozen Cadwgan and Hengroen outside and around to the back of the courtyard, where they put both of them into a gentle enchanted sleep that would last until supper. When everything else had been taken care of, they moved the unconscious scribe and the frozen king and ealdorman to the center of the room.

“Now what do we do with them?” Salazar murmured, and the king’s eyes flashed with a look which said clearly that he would have taken off running, had he been able to move. “They’ve seen too much,” Salazar said, “but they can’t exactly be gotten rid of, can they? I suppose we’d be doing the kingdom a great disservice if we got rid of their monarch.”

“That depends on who you ask,” Goderic muttered under his breath, and both immobilized men snapped their wide, frightened eyes toward him.

“I know you were joking on Epiphany morning, Salazar,” Rhonwen said quietly, “but I think we have really only one solution.”

“Memory charms?” Helga asked, and Rhonwen nodded.

“They’re too important not to let them go back to their lives, but we can’t let them go back knowing about all of this.”

“Well, be careful,” Helga grimaced. “He’s a king, you can’t erase too much of his memory. If he suddenly doesn’t know things that he’s supposed to know, people will notice something’s wrong with him.”

“Debatable,” Goderic muttered again, and this time the snap in Æthelræd’s eyes was more offended than frightened. “Can we erase enough of Ælfric’s memory to make him forget that I have a brother? I’m sick to death of him asking if we can betroth Eaderic to his daughter.”

“I think we should only erase this afternoon,” Rhonwen cautioned. “In fact, I think we should only erase what happened after Helena started singing her song. We need to leave him with a good report and a memory of seeing the school so he leaves you alone in the future and lets us get on with it.”

“Won’t he wonder why he can’t remember the rest of the afternoon? The sports, and the dinner?” Helga asked, and Goderic shook his head.

“Not if we modify his memory to include a vague but pleasant recollection of seeing my brother ride his horse – which he’s seen before, so that’ll help – followed by a muddy haze of wine. Æthelræd’s been known to drink too deeply at supper and lose a few hours now and again. This wouldn’t be the first meal he didn’t remember.”

“You’d better be the one to do it, Rhonwen,” Salazar advised. “You’re the best at memory charms, and you’ll come up with the best modified memories to implant.”

Rhonwen sighed deeply, massaging her left shoulder and grimacing at the stiffness and pain there. Then, she bent down beside the unconscious scribe and touched the tip of her wand to the young man’s temple.

“Obliviate.”

By sunset, King Æthelræd and his retinue were safely on their way back down the road to Glasghu, where they would spend an uncomfortable night in an inn and hopefully not have too many strange dreams. While modifying the king’s memory, Rhonwen had added an implanted thought that would give Æthelræd a deep aversion to travelling anywhere north of the Humber ever again, and they hoped that would keep him from setting off on any more surprise visits. They had dragged all three men into the dining hall before unfreezing them and had let them pass an hour or so in a deep sleep so the light outside would be right; then they’d put wine cups in their hands and woken them up, and the king had gone back out to his horse in the courtyard well and truly convinced that he’d had a grand feast, and that Goderic must have given him the strongest wine he’d ever imbibed. When they had gone, the children were all released from their confinement upstairs, and they had a noisy and excited supper as those who’d been downstairs during the chaos rehashed and reenacted the day’s events for those who’d missed them. At the high table, the teachers ate steadily and quietly, hungry from exhaustion and from skipping their midday meal, but unwilling to discuss the day’s chaos until their taut nerves had finally relaxed. Goderic made his way through the entirety of a small cask of mead and nobody stopped him; after the day he’d had, Helga supposed that if he wanted to spend the whole of tomorrow in bed, he’d probably earned it.

Rhonwen must have been thinking along similar lines, and she was the first to break their silence. “I think perhaps we should cancel morning lessons tomorrow,” she said over her wine, and Goderic answered her blearily without looking up from his cup.

“I think we should cancel all the lessons,” he muttered. Rhonwen lifted an eyebrow, and then tilted her head contemplatively.

“If we let you sleep until midday, Goderic, do you think you could manage to sit at a table for a planning session in the afternoon?”

Goderic grunted in response, but it seemed to be in the affirmative. Helga accepted the cider that Salazar poured for her and then turned in her seat to look straighter at Rhonwen. “Planning?” she asked. “What are we planning for?”

“Well, milking-month will be here soon,” Rhonwen shrugged, “and we did say a long time ago that we would give the children the summer season away from lessons. Send home the handful who have somewhere to go, to visit their families, and give the rest of them at least some time to play and be children, or stay somewhere with a wizarding family. Start lessons again at the end of the weed-month, like we did this year.”

“So what are we planning, then?” Salazar asked over Helga’s shoulder. “Where to send each of them?”

“That,” Rhonwen nodded. “And I also think we should plan some assessments. Just before we end lessons for the year, I think we should test them, to see how well they’ve learned their spells. I think we should each make a list of what the children should be able to do from each of our lessons without help, and what information they should have learned by rote at this point. And the last few days of lessons before we send them away or release them for the summer here would be given to testing them.”

“And then if there’s something they haven’t quite gotten,” Helga followed, “then we can plan to review that at the beginning of the next year’s lessons in the autumn.”

“Exactly,” Rhonwen nodded. “We’ll give them the day off tomorrow, and we can all sleep late and then spend the afternoon planning. Goderic, what do you say?”

Goderic’s head was buried in his arms, but he flapped one hand at them in a gesture of assent.

“Alright, then,” Rhonwen said, putting down her cup. “I’ll announce it to the children, and then I think we should put Master Grifondour here to bed.”

“I think we should put all of us to bed,” Salazar grumbled. Helga gave him a quizzical look over the cider.

“The sun isn’t even fully down yet, Salazar. Isn’t it a bit early for us all to go to bed?”

“We’ve been at war with a perversus,” Salazar snorted, “and I think we’ve earned it. Tell me you aren’t exhausted.” He inclined his head toward her pointedly, and she had to admit, he wasn’t wrong.

“Well, yes, actually, I am, but if we all go to bed now, who’s going to herd the children to their rooms? Or are we going to force them all to go to sleep early along with us? Because I don’t think that will go over very well.”

“I can put the children to bed, Morah Helga,” Ya’el offered from the other end of the table. “Happily, I was in the kitchens all day and missed all of the chaos, so I am still wakeful. And Bihotza can help.”

“And I will help Moreh Goderic upstairs,” Hoshea said, yawning himself as he stood and began to pry the goblet out of Goderic’s fingers.

Rhonwen finished her wine, then she stood and amplified her voice, announcing to the children that they would have a free day tomorrow while the teachers made end-of-year plans. Helga finished her cider, tapped her gold engraved cup with her wand to clean it, and tucked it into her pocket before rising from the table. Over the cheers and applause from the students, Rhonwen managed to tell them that Ya’el would be in charge of sending them off to bed that evening, and then the teachers began making their way out of the dining hall, saying their good-nights to students as they went. They parted ways in the entrance hall, with Rhonwen and Hoshea supporting a stumbling Goderic up the stairs as Helga and Salazar watched in amusement from the teachers’ room door. Then they closed it behind them and crossed the room that had once been Salazar’s kitchen, Helga tapping the hearth box with her wand as they passed and lowering the flame there to red embers. They descended the cellar stairs in silence, and then Helga paused at the bottom to yawn before going through the kitchens to her own chamber.

“Helga.”

Salazar’s voice stopped her with her hand on the door, and it made her feel as if someone had poured warm water down the back of her neck. It wasn’t only the voice – that soft, breathy tone that had so arrested her on the evening they’d first met, that sounded too delicate and fae to belong to a grown man – but it was the simplicity of it; it was her name, and nothing else, and that did more to stop her in her tracks than his voice ever could. She turned around to look at him, and her mouth went dry.

He was standing in the open doorway of his bedchamber, one arm extended with the tips of his fingers still grazing the door handle, and his eyes were bright and sharp in a way they hadn’t been at supper. Helga realized that she’d barely seen him drink anything that evening, when he could usually put away a whole cask of his cider by himself. He hadn’t been exaggerating his tiredness – she could see the exhaustion in the lines of his face – but his eyes were clear and unblurred by drink, and they were fixed on her. There was not even a hint of cheekiness in that look, just frank and unguarded wanting, and Helga had to swallow hard before she could answer him.

“I suppose it is later, isn’t it?” she managed to say, remembering what they’d agreed before they’d left the island. She had a sudden and jarring flash of memory, the sunlight and the scent of the celandines and the heat of his face against her own, and she had to put her hand against the doorframe to steady herself.

“Yes, it is,” was all Salazar replied. He seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move, but her feet felt stuck to the floor.

“You… did you want to …talk about…?” She trailed off, unable to say the word kiss and knowing full well that he’d rather finish it than talk about it. Salazar watched her dither for a moment, then he took out his wand and pointed it into his chamber. A single candle somewhere deep in the room flickered to life, and between its pale dancing light and the warm, red glow seeping down the stairs from the teachers’ room hearth, Helga could see a small table and a chair, the vague shape of a clothes chest, the glitter of candlelight on a dozen or so small potion bottles, and of course, the soft outline of the bed. Salazar glanced at the bed instinctively and then caught himself, turning his face swiftly to the floor, and Helga thought she saw a faint flush on his cheek – although that might have been the hearth light from upstairs.

“Yes, let’s …talk about it,” he said softly, “for a start.” He finally lifted his gaze back to her, letting his long, dark lashes flicker for just a moment against his cheeks before pulling them up like a curtain, and the eyes that met hers were like hot green fire. His tunic had fallen open a little at the neck, showing her the freckle just above his collarbone, and Helga’s hand suddenly went hot as she remembered the way his skin had felt in that spot, warm from walking and shaking with the force of his heartbeat. From the look on his face, she knew his heart would be pounding like that again right now if she walked the two steps across the cellar floor and touched him. Her toes curled in her slippers, and she almost started toward him in spite of herself.

“Salazar, are you trying again to get me into your bedchamber?” she asked, attempting to make it sound cheeky, just another playful exchange in their daily battle of wits.

“Yes,” he said flatly, and the frankness of it made her breath catch in her throat. There was a draft coming from under the door behind her, but instead of bringing her the scent of the kitchen from whence it came, the little breeze seemed to linger in the space between their doors, circling around them and bringing her the scent of the meadowsweet from his cloak and the cassia from his hair. He didn’t say anything else; he simply extended his hand a little further and pushed the door all the way open. Then he stepped inside his bedchamber, put his back to the door, and waited for her reply. The wavering candlelight struck little sparks in his dark curls and backlit the undone laces at the neck of his tunic; the laces were shuddering, quivering rhythmically a fraction of an inch above his chest with each frantic heartbeat, and it was this more than anything else that made her choice for her.

Helga hesitated for another moment, just long enough to watch the corner of his mouth slip minutely in disappointment. Then she pushed herself away from the kitchen door and walked past him into the candlelit chamber. As she passed, she thought she heard him release a shaking breath that he had been holding in, and she turned her head to look at him. He reached out one hand, thought better of it and pulled it back, and then reached for her again. The backs of his fingers landed softly on her exposed neck just where it met her shoulder, and he let them drag slowly upward until they touched the fine, wispy hairs where her braid began. His fingers were hot against her skin, and she could feel his hand shaking. He met her eyes, his dark brows raised in a question, waiting to see if she would tell him to stop. She didn’t.

Salazar lifted his hand off the back of her neck just long enough to put out his arm and shut the door behind them.