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.