An Uneasy Slumber

Happy 2008!

Due to a lack of enthusiasm for the mysterious ritual known as "sleep," not to mention a lot of energy leftover from New Year's Eve excitement, I've kicked off the year by working on my NaNo. I'm currently editing my original draft, which will not be posted quite yet.

In the mean time, I've divided each of the chapter posts into lettered sections due to length. If it's still difficult to read, I'll have to bite the bullet and divide each chapter into separate posts. Opinions welcome.

Thanks for all the input, both on this blog and off of it! Continued feedback is encouraged, but in the mean time, enjoy the holidays!

Hey all!

I've posted my entire National Novel Writing Month Novel(la) here in hopes of getting feedback. A project inspired by a site on the Internet ought to be continued by a site on the Internet. Go here for more info: http://www.nanowrimo.org

There are, I'm quite sure, errors in continuity, grammar, and the storyline, here, but that's one of the reasons I would like constructive criticism so very much. Please notice that each chapter post, right now, has the word "Draft" in the subject line. Over the course of the next few weeks, perhaps months, I'll be editing, cutting, and changing the original story. When I'm done with it, I'll post it online in its entirety.

For now, however, this story is up, so enjoy it.

EDIT: Yes, the entire story is up here.  If you have trouble locating all ten chapters and the epilogue, look at the tags on the sidebar.

Chapter 1

815 A.D.

a.
Ogre woke up with the morning. He always did so, because it was his duty and his cause. Light burned his eyelids red even though they were closed. He could only lay on his deerskin cot, unmoving. His heart was heavy and his thoughts were slow. He missed the calm of deep darkness and cursed in silence.

Wilfrid cursed aloud. “If I were more powerful than myself, I would make the sun a marble!” he said sleepily and confused. “The morning is a jackal! The morning is a mother of a jackal!”

Knowing it was best not to move, Ogre wondered if his master was reciting a spell. It did not sound like any spell he had heard of, but he was, of course, no one to judge. He could not read, he could not learn; he had never been allowed to touch a book.

Wilfrid could read. He had books as heavy as great stones and scrolls that he claimed belonged to the ancient druids of a forbidden isle. Wilfrid could also sing a song from his lips that would play like honey on the ear. Ogre’s master loved words, and could recite them wonderfully and with great power when he chose, which was rarely to Ogre. Wilfrid was a good man when he was a poet or a minstrel.

He was terrible in the morning, when he cursed the sun and threatened to blacken its eye if he only had a fist big enough and an arm great enough to reach it.

Ogre watched Wilfrid roll onto his side. The thin man had hair the color of copper and a beard as scarce as a goat’s. He closed his eyes, exhaled deeply, and drifted into the endless dreams of tired men.

Because he could not afford to stay still and sleeping in the skins of his cot, Ogre pushed himself forward. He stood on legs that were too sleepy to hold the rest of him up, and he fell back to the ground.

“Mmph!” he said with great intelligence, his head hitting the ground. He touched the bump that formed on his crown. Ogre turned to look at the dirt floor behind him, and saw a stone lying there. If Wilfrid happened to roll over in his drowsiness and hit his head, he would curse Ogre, and not simply with words, but perhaps with spells.

Ogre chewed his lip. He considered his choices. If he were to leave the rock, would it get the brunt of Wilfrid’s anger, or would he?

He took the stone into his hands. It was smooth and cool. Ogre stood once more, this time without falling.

Ogre moved to the mouth of the tent. He pushed back its opening which had been sewn together with linen shirts from the last village.

The brightness of the sun seared his face, and Ogre squinted at the sky. He scowled at it and decided, in his half-dreaming head, that it was his enemy. Wilfrid had called it his enemy, after all, could his servant not do the same?

Ogre still wore his soft, leather shoes from the day before. He had not dared to take them off that night, for the army of Eadmund had been marching for days. The smell of the sweat that had gathered on the soles of his feet was most definitely offensive. Exposing Wilfrid to the stink would have resulted in Ogre sleeping outside. He did not want that, for while his cot did not make the ground less hard, it gave him warmth.

He crossed the ground. The dew wet the cuffs of his trousers. It was June, and the summer did not allow for frost when the sun was present. Ogre liked frost, for it made a pleasing sound to him that was a private delight that he wished to share with no one else.

The army of Eadmund had made camp at the shore of the river. Ogre was surprised, for it had been so dark last night that he could not even distinguish it. It had been another moving shape in the darkness. He had even been too tired to hear the flow of the water or smell the stink of it.

Ogre cast his glance further down shore, and saw, indeed, that there was a village there. The thatched roofs and smoking huts were a familiar sight to him, for he had traveled with the army through many such villages of men and women. He smelled the river again, and supposed that they must use it for cleaning clothes, relieving themselves, and bathing publicly. A number of the places Ogre had visited had forbidden the practice of public baths, for disease and plague was spread that much more quickly.

This particular river was thick and dark. Ogre supposed it to be the home of wæter-elfen, should they choose to surface and attack the camp. He grinned to himself as he watched the water toss and spit at the rocks on its edge. What a sight it would be to see the elves attack when almost everyone was asleep! What murder and blood there would be!

He felt guilt stab through him, a bolt of lightning flung through his chest by God or Woden or the Jupiter of the Romans who had left long ago. Ogre was to be loyal to his lord, even in the privacy of his thoughts. Eadmund was a great man, as was his wizard, Wilfrid. They were great men, and Ogre, despite his name, was really nothing more than a human boy.

Ogre didn’t like them, though. His whole body grew still at the thought. He supposed he must hate them, as well, but he wasn’t allowed to dwell upon it. The archbishop they had met in Lundewic had promised Heaven not only to those who were loyal to their Lord, but also to their lord on Earth.

“Boy, what are you doing? You are standing there! Why are you standing there?”

Ogre turned around and saw Wilfrid standing in the opening of the tent. He wore his woolen tunic, and was just tying it at his waist. He already had his belt on, the dagger held in its leather sheath. Wilfrid did not fight, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t win honor in battle, but he was allowed to carry a weapon with him. He was a man of nineteen years, and though he knew his weaknesses far too well, he had for himself the carriage of a soldier.

Wuffa passed, only just awoken. His knives were in his belt, each displayed with purpose. He sneered at Wilfrid with a twisted mouth and his good left eye. Wilfrid did not look back, and Wuffa stiffened with resentment. He went on to Horsa, standing nearby waving, his hand missing three fingers from the last battle.

“Ogre!” Wilfrid called him back to attention. “There is pickled herring that must be cut for our breakfast. Make sure to use the onions.”

“Yes,” called Ogre, his speech faltering. He had forgotten breakfast. At least Wilfrid was not fierce with him.

“Have it ready by the hour,” said Wilfrid.

“Yes.”

“You will have the smaller portion?”

Ogre nodded.

Wilfrid nodded back, and went inside the tent once more.

No longer tethered by the wizard’s presence, Ogre looked out across the water. The stone was still cool in hand. He raised it above his head and took within himself a great breath. He threw it into the river Thames with the strength of his thirteen years.

Wuffa began to laugh. He had been watching Ogre when the boy had thought no one was. Ogre was at once flushed with shame.

“Look how he throws!” Wuffa shouted. “He is womanish! Oswald! Oswald! Come here, and see the boy throw stones into the water.”

“Woden, what is he doing now?” Oswald, summoned, came toward them.

“I am not throwing stones,” said Ogre quietly and to himself. “It was one stone.”

“What did you say?” Horsa called. He turned to Wuffa. “What did the boy say?”

“Boy!” Wuffa was laughing. “Do you speak like a woman, too?”

Ogre said nothing.

“He is impertinent!” Oswald declared upon joining his fellows. He held at his side an ax with which to chop the wood that lit the fires of the camp. “Tell him that he must speak. Does he only obey the great magician?”

“The magician is not great,” Wuffa insisted. “He is a liar and an artful user of words.”

“He gives us the stories of God and the greatness of Woden before we go to battle,” said Horsa, for he liked the stories that Wilfrid told. Everyone did. “We are stronger, for of course he weaves his spells into his words.”

Wuffa was not swayed. “His spells are nothing. His words are better than all the spells he doesn’t cast.”

The three men continued to argue. Wuffa had red hair that flamed in the sun and Horsa had eyes steady as the blackest of forests and a beard of wiry brown hair. Ogre did not stay to watch, for there was breakfast to cook. He knew he was as hungry as Wilfrid, the liar, magician, and useless warrior.

Wilfrid complained of his fish as he ate it. It was too salty and it was too old. Ogre said nothing and listened, chewing quietly. Every once in a while, he reached into his mouth and pulled out a thin bone, for he had gutted the fish incorrectly, yet another flaw Wilfrid mentioned. When Ogre tried flinging the bones into the corner of the tent, Wilfrid cuffed him and demanded him to remove each one to the grass outside.

“Do you think yourself the king of a hall? No, you are not, you are my incompetent servant,” said Wilfrid. “I do not know why I keep you. After you are done with depositing the bones in the grass, the river, wherever you wish to throw them, go and bring me my calfskin map. Eadmund will be coming to the tent, shortly.”

Ogre did as he was told, and hated himself for it. He wished to fight back, but was unsure how to do this. Ogre was weak at throwing rocks, but how would it be to throw a man? He had never tried. Ogre wasn’t tall, but Wilfrid was thin and untrained. One of the soldiers could throw him with ease. Eadmund, however, was thick and strong, with his thinning pate but full beard. No man could throw Eadmund, for he would throw him first if not at a farther distance; and if he could not throw his enemy, Eadmund would smile and charm him as skillfully as Wilfrid did with his songs.

“Please stop thinking, and do as you are told,” said Wilfrid. “You have sat on the ground these past moments with the bones in your hands and nothing to do.”

“I am not thinking,” Ogre said quickly. “I do not think. Wuffa says I think, but I do not. He lies. I am not a woman.”

“When does thinking make you a woman?” Wilfrid demanded. “Ignore Wuffa. He does not matter. Eadmund does, for he is our lord and future king,” he said with a convincing, solemn air.

Ogre wondered if Wilfrid believed his own praises of Eadmund. “Can I ask you a question?”

“No. Put out the beer, then clean up the bones.”

He quieted his tongue by biting it and holding it between his teeth. Ogre picked up each bone in his large, clumsy hands, and took them outside. He moved slowly and did not care if Wilfrid chided him for the time he would spend on this chore.

b.

In the world outside the tent, Ogre nearly stepped on a hive of bees. He cast the bones aside, and admired the hive that had fallen from the tree. He kept his distance, though he watched it intently. Ogre supposed the bees must have built the hive on the ground in the tall grass.

“Oswald knocked that hive from the tree the other day. Most of the bees have fled.”

Ogre turned and saw Eadgyd standing before him. She was a red-faced woman with a jaw that could belong to a man. Though she sneered more often than she smiled, she was not unkind. Ogre found his eyes studying the clothes she wore. The necklace of glass beads that Eadmund had won for her from a town they had traveled through was fastened around her neck. It was warm, but she wore a red shawl on her shoulders.

Ogre greeted her with a nod.

“I am not a lady. Do not bob at me.” She looked on him with merry disdain, her imperious eyes as muddy as the river, her smirk both warm and distant. “I saw the bees yesterday and have come once more to do away with them. Hilde will complain much if she were to step on them.”

“I will get rid of them for you,” Ogre said. He saw a good, heavy stick lying in the grass and went to take it into his hands.

“No.” Eadgyd paused and laughed at him. “Within two hours, I am meant to go to the tent of Edbert, and he will declare love for me. After that, I am to go to the tent of Wuffa, and he plans to declare his love for me, too, and after that, I am to go to Oswald, who will surely do the same thing. Do you wish me to wear myself out further and go to the tent you share with the wizard?”

Ogre said nothing. He set his eyes down in shame, for he strongly suspected God was watching him and shaking His great head in the sky. Yet Ogre was curious if she was truly making an offer. What could he say if she was?

Eadgyd laughed louder, showing the place in her mouth where her front teeth were missing. “I am sorry! I am, I am! It is only a joke, Ogre. Hilde was telling me about when she was in Lundenwic, and made an offer to the son of a merchant if he would give her apples. She realized that he was barely a man only after asking him!”

“I am a man!” Ogre said with more force than he intended.

She stopped smiling. Eadgyd stepped forward, and though she did not touch him, she stared right into his eyes. “Has Wuffa called you things, again?”

“I am not womanish,” he said. “You were calling me womanish, too.”

“No,” said Eadgyd, carefully. “It was only a joke, as I said. All the men laugh at each other.”

“I do not laugh with them,” replied Ogre.

Her brow furrowed. “Wuffa must not tease you so. He is good despite himself, but rather an idiot. "

“He came up with my name,” said Ogre. “No one knows what my real name is and no one asks. Everyone thinks I am named for a monster, though I am as human as any of them. He is unknind.”

"He talks of his wife kindly, even when he speaks during our time together. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

“Eadmund ought to let me hold a sword. He ought to let me go to battle,” Ogre heard himself say before he could stop his mouth from moving. When Eadgyd did not speak, he added unwisely, “If they will teach me, I will do it.” This wasn’t true, not entirely, for he was aware that his heart, mind, and muscle were not the same as the soldiers.

Though they were alone, Eadgyd began to whisper. “Eadmund has asked you not to fight, so you shall not fight.”

“You can speak to him,” he said softly.

“Do not ask me to do that, and do not speak more of it.” Her mouth was a hard line. “I will not be swayed, certainly not by a young man who has been denied the glory of battle against our enemy.” Eadgyd did not hate Ogre, but even now, when she did work that brought her dishonor, she could not look forward to sinking lower in esteem.

Ogre was not satisfied, and so he persisted. He hid the emotion of his voice, for he was ashamed as he spoke, but his grievances were too many. “Who has asked him that I not fight? Was it Wuffa? He must have asked when I was a boy and I had followed the army, when the village that I came from was destroyed by them. He hated me then.”

Eadgyd also did not wish to comfort a young man who had been forced into the position of a child. “My sympathy is with you. Wuffa did not hate you, and he does not hate you now. You are smaller than him, and Wuffa is not the strongest warrior. He calls you Ogre to draw attention from his own faults.”

“How do you know this?”

“He likes me, and he has told me, but that does not matter.”

“Eadmund likes you, as well. Has he told you anything of the reasons that I am not to fight?” Ogre inquired as innocently as he knew how to do.

“Eadmund?” Eadgyd tilted her head and gave Ogre a sneer. “Eadmund has told me at length of himself. He had a home and a hall in Northumbria, and has ventured from there to here in order to gain fame and raise an army. His good friend Wilfrid has helped him with the army, but Eadmund cannot achieve the fame he wishes to find. He often speaks of his father, Alric, fallen in battle in 798 with many good men.” Her tone grew more rigid and serious. “I admire him intensely, understand. He is as good as any man here.”

As she spoke of this, her voice cracked as if tears were in her eyes, but when Ogre looked, none were there. She did not look at his face, and after a while, he could no longer look at hers.

Eadgyd turned away. Her back was straight as a pole, her shoulders rigid as stone. “Take care not to be stung by the bees when you dispose of them.”

This frustrated Ogre very much. “Take care not to be stung too many times, yourself,” he said to her back, though the poison
he willed into his voice was not as potent as he hoped.

Eadgyd heard this and turned to look at him, smiling. Light and goodness was in her face. “I do not know if Eadmund has lost a warrior, but I know he has lost the rudest clown to face down the other army!” Then she laughed, tossing her head back. Her shawl fell loose from her shoulders, and the wind that rushed past turned it into a flag. “It is a good joke, and I shall tell Hilde!” She began to run back to camp, her soft leather shoes trampling the grass.

Ogre regretted saying it as soon as he had spoken. He was a clown, and not even a very good one, but not because of jokes, but because of his complaints. To allow himself to complain was not at all manly. He ought to boast of what honor he had.
With this in mind, he kept his promise to Eadgyd, and rid the ground of the nest with the aid of his stick. He did not crush the nest, only pried it from the earth and cast it aside.

Does the enemy think of us as bees, silly and of great annoyance? He wondered this, and did not know where the thought came from. It most certainly did not feel like it had come from his head. All his own thoughts were occupied with discontent.

“I cannot run away, you know,” he informed the fractured nest as he pushed it to the shore. A bee would escape it every once in a while, but none bothered him. Perhaps they knew as well as he when it was time to abandon something dead and useless. With his foot, he prodded the almost empty nest into the water. “If I left, I would starve,” but his voice sounded hollow as he said this.

Ogre returned to the tent that Wilfrid kept. Outside was a horse that had been tied to one of the poles of the tent. It belonged to Eadmund. As he passed, he greeted the great animal with, “Hello, Weyland,” and touched his long, black nose lightly. Weyland watched him with a steady gaze as Ogre lifted the linen flap. He wrinkled his nose as he disappeared into the summer-stinking tent.

Eadmund loomed over Wilfrid as they consulted a map, together. They were in conference, speaking too quietly and too quickly for Ogre to hear. He did not move, not even to his corner where he could clear away the animal skins on which he slept.

At last, Eadmund looked up. He smiled. “Ogre! We were speaking of you!”

He thought this was perhaps another joke.

c.

Wilfrid looked at the map as Eadmund continued to talk. “Boy, you are a good person, I hear, even from Wilfrid, and Wilfrid has complaints about every man!”

Ogre nodded. He wished to smile at this, but felt it wise that he should not, for at any moment the wizard might look at him. Wilfrid continued to study his map, however, and did not move.

Eadmund lowered his voice. “I want you to look at this.”

Nodding, Ogre stepped closer. He watched as Eadmund took the map easily from Wilfrid thin arms, and pushed it into Ogre’s hands.

“Read this,” said Eadmund.

Ogre did not tell Eadmund that he could not read, for it would offend. Ogre had never been handed anything to read in his life.
No one could afford to offend Eadmund. Instead, Ogre held it tight and squinted at the map and the small scratches. He pushed his face closer until the tip of his round nose brushed the calfskin. Finally, knowing that lying was as bad as offending a powerful man, Ogre said, “I cannot read it.”

“Then do not try to do so!” Wilfrid cried at once. “Do not try, only look!”

Eadmund spoke with much more gravity. He had confidence, eyes that sparked with a certain amount of knowledge that Ogre couldn’t name. “When you hear a song, Ogre, you are meant not only to hear it, but to listen to it. Do you know the difference?”

He thought about this for a moment. “Maybe.” Ogre paused in horror, realized this was the wrong response, and said, “Yes, I do.”

“Then do that with the map, but with your eyes.” Eadmund grinned and spoke with a kindness that Ogre did not often hear.
He seemed pleased.

Ogre also felt pleased, for he was at last a use to someone. He stared at one of the black scribbles that was written on the calfskin. He tried harder to see what it said.

“I don’t know,” he tried to say, but the words did not come out of his mouth exactly right. In his mind, unbidden knowledge fell into his head as if from Heaven. His tongue twisted in on itself, and he said, “‘This way Wessex.’”

Wilfrid was pale. “You could not have read that so easily.”

“I did not! It read itself,” Ogre tried to explain. “It announced itself,” he said nervously.

The smile beneath his beard grew wide. Eadmund pointed at another place on the map, leaving a fingerprint of sweat and dirt.
“Read this,” he said.

Again, Ogre couldn’t read it. He looked at it and tried to do what he was told, listen with his eyes. The word meant nothing until he stopped and let it announce itself to him. “It says, ‘Forest unknown. Deer.’”

“Yes!” Eadmund cried. He turned his head toward Wilfrid. “And you are certain he never looks on your tomes when you aren’t here to guard them?”

Wilfrid frowned. “There is a trunk I keep. All my books are kept in there.”

“Where is it? I have never seen you carry a trunk.”

The wizard stuck out his pointed, thinly haired chin. “I have cloaked it with nothingness. You can only see it from the corner of your eye if you at one side of the tent.” His smile was broad and proud. “Perhaps you will try and I find it? I challenge you to find it.”

Ogre had heard about this trunk before, and in his upkeep of the wizard’s quarters, he had not once stumbled across it. Wilfrid lied often, but whether he was talented at it depended on who one asked.

“Such a challenge is unimportant, you ridiculous man.” Eadmund laughed. He was studying Ogre. “You were wrong about this boy.”

A strong sense of pride thrummed through Ogre. He did not look up, for he was still examining the map, but his face was warm. He could not lift his voice to boast of his talent, of course, as he had not known he had it.

“I wasn’t wrong,” Wilfrid said carefully, his voice wound tight. “I only wasn’t aware how much he had absorbed. Perhaps he has found my oak trunk, after all, and has been perusing my tomes since the day I bound him to my service.”

“I haven’t read anything, not until now,” Ogre said aloud. He was afraid he would become worthless once more if Wilfrid continued speaking of him in this way. “When I was a boy, before I came into your service, I was told I was born with a caul on my face. Also, I was born in the month of an eclipse.” Both were lies, as far as Ogre knew. He hoped his voice did not show this. “Perhaps I have only just now realized a power I didn’t know I had.”

“Yes.” Eadmund looked proudly at Wilfrid. “Do you not suppose that is what happened?” He looked again at Ogre. “He said he had had one of his foretelling dreams of the coming battle. What was it you said, Wilfrid? About the boy?”

Ogre hoped, for a moment, that this meant he would be at least allowed to ride with them to the fight. When Wilfrid spoke of prophetic dreams, battles were usually what they were about, which was fairly convenient when Wilfrid had to speak to the men and convince them of fighting with greatness and courage for their victory.

Knowing that he couldn’t use a sword, yet, Ogre was curious as to what he would be doing in battle. A round shield would be good equipment for him, he decided, and he wondered if Egbert had one extra in his store.

“I said only that he was standing in the sun.” Wilfrid looked at the ground, the side of the tent, and anywhere that wasn’t where Ogre and Eadmund stood. “He was nowhere near the battle, not in my dream.”

“Of course he isn’t going to battle.” Eadmund spoke with warmth. “But tell him what the sun means, won’t you?”
With some hesitance, Wilfrid began, “The sun is the brightness of the false Roman god, Apollo. To be bathed in his light is to
be associated with his son, Mercury, the false god of scholarship.”

Ogre could not tell the difference between a spell and a morning curse, he knew, but he had been in the service of Wilfrid long enough to understand that where the gods of the Romans were involved, the wizard was most likely lying. He couldn’t tell if this meant Wilfrid was keeping him from battle or not. Ogre knew as well as Eadmund that the wizard was making a fabrication.

Eadmund was immensely entertained. “For false gods, they are rather powerful to have sent you this message.”

“The world sent me this message.” With a wave his hand, Wilfrid dismissed the accusation. “Visions are messages of the wyrd, not of gods, who are all transitory in nature. They, like men, grow in disfavor and die.”

“Would you like to go to Canterbury and argue this with the archbishop there?” Eadmund inquired. “He will take back every one of the blessings he gave us if he heard you speak this way.” There was a strand of disapproval running through his words, but Eadmund said no more.

It is the will of the wyrd that I have found my power, he decided, even if Wilfrid is telling lies. He felt pleasure at this realization, but also fear. He would rather not imagine something so big using him as a tool. The thought of wyrd and of destiny was large and powerful.

Ogre looked again at the map. Every word on it was making itself known to him. The idea that the entire sum of the universe was attempting to make itself known to him, as well, did not make him feel safe, only alone. He was unsure if he was ready for such a thought.

Wilfrid announced, suddenly, “The explanation is unimportant. We have no use for his abilities, not now.”

“Is that so?” Eadmund said carefully, still smiling.

Flushing, Wilfrid looked down at the earth crushed beneath his shoes. He said, “Yes, that is so.”

He is jealous of me, Ogre thought to himself with wonder. His pride rose within him, though all was new and surprising. I am the instrument of the universe and that horrible, false wizard is not, he said to himself. He swallowed back the words before they could escape from his mouth.

“What are you doing?” cried the wizard. “Are you crushing the map in your fingers? Eadmund, he is ruining the map!”

Ogre looked down at his hands, and saw, indeed, he was bending the map in his hands. He had not been paying it any mind,
and now the calfskin was being crushed in the grip of his large hands.

Wilfrid went forward to force the map from him with all his might, but Eadmund stopped him.

“Give him other things to look upon and understand,” the lord told the wizard. “What of that trunk of which you spoke?” His smile was half moon that had turned into a displeased crescent. His grip on the arm Wilfrid had extended must surely be tight, for the wizard cringed and grit his teeth.

Ogre loosened his hold on the map, and tried to find a surface on which to leave it. Eadmund interrupted him, however, and said, “Would you mind looking on this?” From a bag tucked in his leather belt, Eadmund produced a stone. It was about the size of the one Ogre threw into the river Thames not an hour ago. This one had writing on it.

Wilfrid paled at the sight of the stone. He turned away and went to retrieve his tomes. All were buried beneath skins and furs in the tent. Curiously, none of the books came from the invisible trunk that he claimed to own.

Ogre took the stone into his hands with care as if handling a nest. He studied it and the deeply carved letters running along its smooth surface. He looked at it a long time while Eadmund watched him expectantly. Finally, Ogre said, “It says, ‘The river binds it.’”

Eadmund was taken aback, but he smiled, still. “Is that all it says?”

“No.” Ogre pointed at another part of the stone. “Here, it is written, ‘The earth beneath your feet belonged to us before it belonged to you.’”

“Is that all? What more of the river?”

“Nothing more of the river,” Ogre said, his head shaking back and forth.

“Horsa brought that stone to me after our last battle,” Eadmund explained dutifully. “It was on the land the elfen had been fighting upon before we chased them from it.”

Ogre thought on this. His eyes widened, and he dared to look Eadmund directly on his face. “It’s written in the language the elves speak, not our own?”

Eadmund responded with nothing but a grin.

Wilfrid came forward and set down his tomes in front of Ogre, though he paused before he surrendered them. “Do not treat them as terribly as you have my map.” Wilfrid snatched the calfskin away from Ogre, and the young man gave the item willingly.

Entranced with the thought of understanding all the books set before him, Ogre set to work opening the first one at the beginning. If a dream that Wilfrid had had predicted he do such a thing, he supposed he must.

He had attempted to study the book for some time before Wilfrid came to him once more. The wizard took the heavy tome from him, turned it so it faced upward instead of down, and handed it to Ogre once more. The young man took it with some resentment, but he took it all the same.

Ogre was reading the books dutifully when Oswald came to the tent. He did not hear as Oswald, out of breath, informed Eadmund that wudu-elfen had been seen.

“Who told you this?” Eadmund demanded calmly.

“Alred saw them. He was wandering about with his sword, cursing trees and all manner of creatures. He is half blind and as crazy as he was yesterday.” Oswald related this with little feeling.

“He may still be right. Wilfrid, come with me, and bring Weyland. If we see wudu-elfen at the edge of the trees, than we will surely be readying ourselves to fight by noon.”

“I think,” Wilfrid said, correcting him as no one else dared to do, “that we will not simply be readying ourselves to fight, but that we will be fighting. Though he is old and should have retired the shield long ago, Alred does not pretend to see elves.”

“No, he only pretends to see old enemies long slain.” Eadmund sighed.

Oswald and Wilfrid left the tent with Eadmund leading. Ogre was alone. He decided that he would do what he was told. He sat upon his animal skins and read.

As the morning wore on, Ogre heard a trill of laughter and a shriek from outside. Eadgyd stepped into the tent followed closely by Hilde. Hilde was fairer of complexion than Eadgyd, but she had a harelip and an excitable nature. She laughed whenever the thought struck her to laugh. The sound grated on the nerves of the men when they supped together and Eadgyd and
Hilde strolled about pouring beer and honeyed wine into their cups. The women had no beer with them now, only blankets of fur and skin.

“Do you think Eadmund will bring back the head of one of them? I think he will,” Hilde said to Eadgyd. “He will bring back the head cupped in his shield! Is that not a terrible thought? I think it is a terrible thought!”

Eadgyd saw Ogre as she stepped into the tent. “They are fighting, now, and Hilde and I are to stay here if the battle lasts into the night. This tent is safest. If we hear them coming, Eadmund has instructed us to go to the town.”

“What work would there be in town, I wonder? We will surely not get the food that we have now, that is certain,” Hilde said louder, though she spoke only for her own benefit.

“Oh,” said Ogre. “I did not think they would be fighting them so soon.”

“An army of them was in the wood waiting for their chance to attack us.” Eadgyd laid out her blankets on the floor. She did not inquire about the books Ogre was reading, which disappointed him.

Hilde talked on for some time, and eventually Ogre was driven outside. He looked out on the deserted camp. It was an old habit that all the fire be put out so that the smoke would not signal their presence nor the flame catch and burn the site.

Far away, he could hear the horn of Egbert. He began to walk toward the camp toward the sound.

Ogre came to the hill above the forest. Beneath him, too far to see each face distinctly, he saw the elfen in their armor. Their armor was not simply helmets, but shining, gold-plaited suits. He could see the green of each elf’s face, the brightness of each hand.

The battle was no minor battle, for Eadmund’s men fought fiercely and with honor. The elves were in wonderful formation, but they were not as strong as the army that Eadmund had at his disposal. Ogre could see bodies laying this way and that in the wet muddiness of the soft earth. They were warriors, all of them, dying for honor granted to them by the Lord of Life, the Ruler of Heaven.

He turned his eyes toward the sun, but he saw no Heaven or angels. Instead, a great lizard was flying about in the sky. It had scales that shone bright green and wings that, at his distance, looked as thin as the wings on a flea. For a moment, Ogre thought he saw a woman with streaming hair riding on his great back. The moment passed and so did the dragon.

Ogre watched the fighting for a long time. Here, one man thrust into an elf; there, an elf trampled a man beneath his horse, for all the elves had horses, though not one knew how to use his effectively. The men looked all the same, and so did the elves in their matching costumes.

If the elves were to somehow get past, he wondered if he would be captured. Would being a slave to an elf be a worse life than being a slave to a wizard? Deep within his chest, Ogre felt his heart grow tight.

“I hate you,” he said, the words whispering past his mouth like breeze. “I hope you all die and never come back.”

They did not die.

In the heavy blackness of night, Ogre could no longer read his books. He sat in the same tent where Hilde and Eadgyd spoke together. Each ignored him, anxious as they were about the return of the men. Even Eadgyd had become worried about her future. The soldiers came shouting back with Eadmund leading, their cries and laughs victorious.

As they sat supping on roast pig, Eadgyd and Hilde circulated through them and the fires, handing out wine and flirting in turns. The fires were lit again, and the camp grew with warmth that Ogre did not wish to share. His eyes traced the sparks among the smoke as he watched them float up into the deep night.

Wilfrid, flushed with pride and beer, stood to sing a song of prayer and thanks. Ogre wished to protest the wizard by not listening to his words, but he failed. He drank deeply of the song, and it ran through him as bitter and sweet as the honeyed wine.

Chapter 2
a.

Wilfrid roused Ogre from his sleep the following day. He was shaken by the pale hand and its thin fingers many times before he began to stir. Ogre found that his head hurt, and knew he had drunk more deeply of the beer than he had intended. His mouth was sour with the aftertaste of pork, beef, and fermented drink.

His eyes met the thin nose and furrowed, copper brow of Wilfrid’s face, and while Ogre wished to tell him the surprise was unpleasant, he was aware enough to hold his tongue. Ogre instead inquired where his books were so that he could continue reading them.

“My books,” said Wilfrid, correcting him. “You will not touch a page unless I give you strict permission.”

“Yes.”

“Some of those pages are written in Latin, but I assume you knew it when you read it,” Wilfrid told him.

Ogre responded with another, “Yes,” but the truth of it was that he did not know Latin and Greek from the language he and Wilfrid shared. “Will you mind if I ask where the books came from that are so precious?”

“The books were given to me by a man you will never know.”

“A more powerful wizard?” Ogre inquired.

The magician frowned. “You have become proud, already!” Wilfrid took hold of Ogre’s arm and pulled the boy to his feet. He straightened his back once he did this as if to show that he was still taller. “Eadmund made a mistake in using your gift in this way. Perhaps you wish me to discover where this talent came from?”

Ogre thought about this. “You said you saw it in a dream.”

Wilfrid laughed, though his displeasure was apparent. “Never have you believed my forecasts of the future.”

“No, but I am ready to accept that that is the answer you wish me to believe. I will ask for no other explanation.”

The wizard was not surprised. “You are not a curious, intelligent soul. I should not expect you to think about any question that brings you dismay!”

Ogre protested. “I am curious! If I find the source of this new thing that I have acquired, though, I fear it will be taken away from me.”

Wilfrid paused. Ogre saw for the first time that they were not headed back to camp. Instead, they were following the same course that Ogre had taken to get to the site of the battle. His throat grew tight, for now he feared he was caught. The best and greatest course of action in this situation, he decided, was to say nothing about it until his master accused him.

“What would it matter if the gift was taken from you?” Wilfrid asked though he did not look at him. “You have nothing to gain or lose and you have no thought of what use your talent could be.”

“Whatever its use, I know that I have been made useful to the army through it,” Ogre said. “Before this, I was disposable. Now Eadmund allows me to look at his face. I am better off than I was before.”

“We still give you food and a place to sleep,” Wilfrid chided him. He led Ogre across the moor and towards the green hill. “Do you wish for more?”

Ogre knew exactly what he wanted to say, and so he told him. “An honored place,” he said with bravery.

“Is honor worth so much to you?”

He felt his mouth open. Ogre had never heard such a thing in all his life. Even when he was a boy on his father’s farm outside of Ludenwic, he was instructed to always seek honor, even if it meant tilling the soil rather than holding a sword. He found himself considering the sort of person Wilfrid was, weak and frail, and he wondered if Wilfrid despised Eadmund for the strength and courage he did not have. Ogre had considered the idea that there was more to worldly life than honor, but he would never think of speaking it allowed.

After a moment, Ogre could think to say, “Yes, honor is worth very much to me.”

Wilfrid dismissed him easily. “Living without honor is no crime.”

“Eadgyd lives without honor. Am I so low?”

“If not lower,” Wilfrid said without sympathy. Then his head jerked strangely and he laughed. “Unless you wish to do the same sort of work as she? You are not that sort of man, are you?”

Ogre burned with shame. “No, I am not. Are you?” he spat.

Wilfrid laughed harder. They had just reached the top of the hill. The earth was flung about, with dirt, grass, and stones turned over. Footprints were worn into the ground where it had grown wet and bare. The battle had escalated to a greater height than Ogre had been, and he supposed he was supposed to be thankful he left when he did.

Ogre stopped. He looked to the sky, for part of him wondered if the great lizard was still there. All that was above his head was a great expanse of blue, stretching from one horizon to the next in a great arc.

“Ah, I see you are looking in the wrong direction,” said Wilfrid. He was greatly amused though there was something tired in his voice. “Look down,” he said.

Ogre looked down.

No one had removed all the bodies of the elves. His stomach twisted, but he felt little disgust, in truth. They were his enemy, and Ogre was no stranger to the sight of death. He knew of no one who wasn’t.

“Are we to clear it?” Ogre inquired of the battlefield. His voice was low. He had helped dig graves for men fallen in Eadmund’s army, but never for his enemies.

“No, that is what the villages nearby must do. Eadmund had told them that because we are fighting their war, they must do what we say.”

“He convinced them so easily?”

“Ha!” Wilfrid began to climb down the slope of the hill. He grabbed onto his assistant for balance, and Ogre was forced to follow. “I negotiated for him, afterward, and they gave in to me after I spoke. He inspires great confidence and mighty courage, but he cannot persuade with only these things. Eadmund has no thought for the art of words.”

“Then you admire him?” Ogre could not resist inquiring. He hoped he would not be cuffed for it. “You don’t hate the honor he receives?”

“A man is his own honor, and that is all I will say on that,” said Wilfrid with great severity. He waited. Then he demanded, “Won’t you ask me what our purpose is here if it’s not to clear away the dead wretches?”

Ogre said nothing, unsure how to respond to such a strange inquiry.

Wilfrid was impatient. “We are here to look for precious things.”

“Oh?” As they neared the bodies, Ogre saw a shield lying on the ground. It wasn’t round like the ones soldiers carried, but long in shape.

Yesterday, he swore he had seen jewels on each one of the weapons carried by the elves, but he supposed he must have imagined it, for there were no such riches, now. Even the gold on the armor of the elves, he saw, had been pried and scraped away. Not one bare, pale green finger he could see had a ring on it. Ogre supposed thieves had come from town in the night, though he wondered at how fast they had worked.

Wilfrid was speaking to him and holding a stone. Ogre tried to give him his attention.

“We are looking for spells,” said Wilfrid, displaying the very stone Eadmund had shown to Ogre. The carvings that spoke of the river and the stones were still there.

“Is that a spell?”

Wilfrid studied it for a moment. Then, arriving at an answer for this question, he said, “It is a tool through which a spell can be cast. Look for them on the bodies of the slain. Shy away from their blood. Egbert touched it in battle and he claims that it burns.”

“Is that so?”

“Just do as I say, whether or not it’s true,” said Wilfrid with a scowl. “I need my assistant to have unburned hands, if you do not mind.”

Ogre did as he was told. He and Wilfrid looked through the tall grass and the dark mud, over the elves and in their empty belts. Not only had the gold on the armor vanished, but also some of the armor, itself.

The green bodies were not all alike as Ogre had supposed from his view last night, but he saw that almost every elf was thin, thinner than even Wilfrid. The green skin varied in hues, as well, and some of the elves were pale as mint or dark as olives. If their faces also varied, Ogre did not notice. Most of the heads had been crushed or else covered with clay, though during the battle or after it he could not tell.

Wilfrid found three more carved stones by midday, all as smooth and cool as the first. Ogre had found only two, but Wilfrid wished him to carry all five as they walked back to camp. Ogre’s stomach was empty and the sun was burning hot, and the stones felt twice their wait in his hands. He carried and read the stones aloud, however, just as Wilfrid bid him.

“This first one is written, ‘The moon is my queen. The tide holds me close,’” Ogre read.

“A protection spell.” Wilfrid scratched his chin speaking chiefly to himself. He made a motion in the air. “Continue.”

“This next one reads, ‘A sea of milk holds me aloft. My mother’s heart is brave, my father’s heart is good, my sister’s heart weeps good tears for me.’”

“Another protection spell. It refers back to the land from which the elves come, I suppose.” Wilfrid was smiling. “The milk may be purity, I think, if not a real river. I don’t know of the mother and father and sister he speaks and what they might mean.”

“His family is giving him their blessings?” Ogre offered.

“No more speaking. Read the next.”

The third read, “Each meal plentiful. Every drink good,” while the fourth was written, “Your loyalty is a lion, this day is a good day for no blood,” and the fifth was simply, “Feet that do not weary with travel.”

“These were difficult to find,” Ogre said quietly, groaning under the weight of the stones. “If they are so powerful, every elf would have one if they were smart.”

“Every elf would have them if they could, but they don’t.” Wilfrid was nearing camp first. He turned around to face Ogre and opened his hands, demanding silently to be given the stones. They needed to be in his hands so that he could show who was the master and who the servant.

“Then they’re rare,” observed Ogre.

“Or they are hard to come by in the country of the elves.” Wilfrid’s hands were not as big as Ogre’s, but his arms were long. A stone was squeezed between his arm and waist, another beneath his chin. “I, of course, had one spell myself since youth. It had been given to me by a wild man when I was boy,” he added. “But the writing has worn down. Now I cannot find it though I kept it with my books.”

Ogre waited to be asked if he might know where the stone had gone. He was unsure how he could tell Wilfrid that he had seen the stone last the prior morning when he had thrown it into the enormous river Thames. Ogre tried to recall the speed of the current and how far the stone might have traveled downstream.

Wilfrid did not ask as he walked into camp, however, strutting proudly with his treasures, and so Ogre had no need to tell him anything at all.

***

b.

Nightfall brought another celebration. This one was not nearly as loud and hearty as the first. The beer was not nearly as good or the laughter as loud. Wuffa was in low spirits, for Eadgyd was occupied in entertaining Oswald with her company. Oswald was Wuffa’s greatest friend and companion, and Wuffa went about reminding everyone of this.

“He wounds me deeply. Brothers do not wound brothers as he has wounded me!” Wuffa declared, forlorn, as Hilde filled his cup once more. His face was red with beer and his eyes wet with drunkenness.

Ogre stood nearby with his own cup. The night was warm, but the fire was greatly pleasing to him. He sipped his beer and hoped that Wilfrid would forget about his missing stone.

Horsa laughed at Wuffa. “Is it your brother who wounds you? Is it not perhaps your own expectations of Eadgyd’s virtue?”

Wuffa hit him. Horsa drew back with a bloodied nose, wiping his face to discover the warmth flowing over his mouth. He reared forward and grabbed Wuffa’s arm, attempting to tear it off.

Alred tried to seize Horsa and instead pulled out part of Wuffa’s hair. Wuffa howled, and Egbert ran to get his sword.

Ogre watched for some time with Hilde. Both were entertained and horrified at the sight, which Hilde demonstrated with her awful laughter. Ogre only looked on and did not turn away.

Eadmund appeared from the darkness. He wore a frown etched deeply into his face. He did not smile when he said, “I suppose this is what my men do to honor themselves when there are no elves that need to be slain?”

Alred stilled and Horsa stopped beating upon Wuffa. Wuffa did not return the consideration, and took the moment to hit Horsa’s stomach with a stiff punch.

Taking control immediately, as a good lord ought, Eadmund went forward and withdrew Wuffa from the crowd. He shook him, for Eadmund was taller and stronger than almost all of his men. “You upset yourself for nothing! Do you wish me to leave you in that town, yonder, and march on tomorrow without you?”

Wuffa shook his head back and forth. “No, I will do no more.”

Eadmund shook Wuffa harder. “Will you continue to fight like this when we go to Elfland? If you do, I will turn you over to the great lizards when we are there, and they will eat you as easily as I stand on this earth.”

“No! I will listen!” Wuffa’s terror was genuine; he did not like the dragons that sometimes marched with the elves. Surely, the elves were terrible for wanting the whole of their land, but the dragons were a symbol of something greater and far worse.

“I am sorry, sir,” said Horsa. “I laughed at him when he did not wish to laugh. Punish me as you will,” he added, hopeful that by admitting his mistakes, his punishment would be light. “Only tell us of what you just said, sir. Are we to march to
Elfland, as you say?”

“No one can get to Elfland. Men madder and older than I go there!” Alred announced.

“You contradict yourself, Alred,” rejoined Egbert. He had found a sword, but now sought to hide it from Eadmund behind his back. “If no one can find Elfland, how can old men get there?”

He scratched his toothless, swarthy chin with a strange twitch. He also touched the black tumor that grew beside his nose, though it had no prevalence in their conversation. Finally, Alred concluded, “A mad man’s mind can wander anywhere it pleases.”

“We are going there all the same!” Eadmund shouted. “I have decided. The elves attack us in full force. Why not we go to their homeland and attack them? We will march on the morrow!”

Horsa looked about nervously, still clutching his stomach. He did not question his lord, of course, not out loud, but his face made plain his anxiety. Wuffa, too, looked greatly doubtful.

“We are not going mad in order to get there!” Wilfrid said, coming upon the party of men gathered there. More of the soldiers were following, curious as to what the commotion was about. “No, we are striking the elves where they are most weak! We are crippling them at the source of their strength! Us men have only fought battles against the soldiers they have sent. Let us fight the ones who send the soldiers!” cried Wilfrid.

Ogre listened as his master continued to speak. His enthusiasm was clearly feigned and his words were slick as oil, but even Ogre found himself convinced. He wondered if it was that Wilfrid had woven a spell into his words, after all. Soon, the men of Eadmund’s army were not only convinced that they must follow him to the elf country, they had become impatient to leave for their destination. The night had grown black, but they were sending prayers up to see the sun once more. Their voices sang out in joy and the beer flowed.

Wuffa had a question, but only for the reason that he was able to resist the enthusiasm of the crowd due to his lingering anger at Oswald. “How do we get there? Do we march? Do we swim?”

Eadmund’s face grew bright. He looked on Wilfrid and nodded.

Wilfrid spread his arms toward the sky. His fingers were wide apart. The fire bathed his face. “We will open a door!”

Most of the men applauded and sang. Even Wuffa was content with this response, and felt no need to ask anything further, but now Horsa had grown doubtful once more. “What door is there to be opened?” he asked. “Who will open it?”

“It is a door that will cross from one world to the next,” Wilfrid explained as patiently as he could manage to do. He let his arms drop. “Think of a soul leaving the body and going to its reward. Our flesh selves will take the place of that soul, and our Heaven and Hell will be Fairyland!”

Eadmund then took hold of Ogre by his collar and lifted him into his arms so that he could raise the boy for all to see. “This is the one who will open it!”

The singing began once more, the joyous laughter ringing high into the dark. Horsa, with his face bandaged, helped men put more wood into the fire, and so the night grew in warmth. Wilfrid was persuaded to sing and Eadgyd coaxed to dance once she and Oswald rejoined the men.

Ogre was given more beer and wine. Often, soldiers reached out to squeeze his arms and shoulders or pat him on the back. Hilde kept herself from laughing long enough to run forward and place kisses onto Ogre’s face.

Not a soul who celebrated knew exactly how he would open the door, least of all Ogre.

***

c.

Wilfrid woke Ogre, again, that morning, shaking the boy in his resting place. It was later in the day than Ogre had intended to wake. In his weariness, he could see through the tent toward the sun, and he decided that it was much higher than it ought to be.

The wizard did not look nearly as joyous as he had been the night before. His eyes were dark and his face was clouded, and Ogre wondered if he had slept. Wilfrid did not yell or thrash him but said only, “Get up,” which Ogre obeyed readily.

He changed into a much cleaner tunic, for the one he had worn that night now stank of beer and hot sweat. The wool of his new tunic made his skin itch, and it was a little too warm. Ogre felt relieved when he pushed open the door of the tent and felt the breeze of a cool day push past him. His first thoughts on seeing the sky and the moors far from him were of the elves and if they still lay on the earth where Eadmund’s men had left them.

Wilfrid soon followed him out of the tent. His walk was bent and his form haggard. He asked Ogre to help him with taking apart the tent and packing away its many treasures inside, including the stones.

The silence stretched between them. Thinking Wilfrid was perhaps miserable from the night before for some unknown reason, Ogre inquired whether or not he had had any more prophetic dreams that night. It was a joke, but he was a little serious as he asked it.

“People do not have dreams of what will be, only what is or what has already happened,” Wilfrid said quietly. His voice was a rattle deep in his throat. “Don’t ask me that again.”

Ogre complied, and grew angry with himself, for he knew he should have asked further of the part he was to play. He opened his mouth, venturing to speak once more, but Wilfrid grew displeased and boxed his ears. Ogre did not speak after that.

Before noon, the men were marching behind Eadmund. Ogre began at the back of the line with Wilfrid, but soon felt other – Egbert, Alred, Horsa, even Wuffa – stepping aside for him. Ogre was soon beside Eadmund at the front, who looked down at him every once in a while with a kind grin. As he looked back, Ogre saw for the first time that the youngest of Eadmund’s army were sixteen, and that though he was younger, they were barely older than himself. He had never thought of this, before.

At Eadmund’s side, he marched forward with a sense of pride in his heart. He supposed that he would learn how to open the door into Elfland as easily as he had acquired his gift of understanding words. It would be quite easy, he decided.

They arrived hours before evening, though the sun was deep in the sky. The moor was as plain as any moor, and Wilfrid had to run to the front of the line to stop Eadmund.

The air had grown thick, Ogre felt, and the anticipation mounted in his chest. He calmed himself, though at once felt stupid
for doing so. One day, perhaps soon if he was ever released from Wilfrid’s debt, he would have a wife as most every man in Eadmund’s army had, including Eadmund. Then, he thought with great strangeness, there would be children. It did not fit in his mind, the idea of younger versions of himself and a peculiar woman. It would be his duty to them to tell stories of his triumphs, no matter their importance in the years to come.

“This must be the place if you say so,” Eadmund said to Wilfrid. There was a twitch in his smile, and Ogre wondered if it was unease.

Of course it wasn’t unease! How could he think that of his lord, he who was stronger than his own master?

“Tell the soldiers to sit where they wish,” Wilfrid said to Eadmund, “but they will be away into the next world, soon, so caution them not to rest too heavily. They will need to do work soon.”

Eadmund chuckled warmly. “When do I take orders from you?”

“Always,” Wilfrid said with a tired laugh. Then he turned to Ogre, and his face had grown stern. “You will need the spells. Stay still.” Wilfrid had a cloak pinned onto his shoulder, and from beneath it, presumably from his belt, he withdrew the bag of stones. He placed it into Ogre’s hands. “Do not let them go. How are you feeling?”

Ogre was looking at the hill before them. In one of Wilfrid’s stories, he had heard of a king buried beneath a hill. The king had been a giant of some sort, and no one had had anywhere to bury him. In the story, an elf queen had stepped forward and had offered to bury him in a place that would suit. The elf queen had been the king’s wife, and she had wished to reward him in his death. Ogre thought it had been a very good story, though he didn’t like it as much as the stories with monsters in them. Those were his favorites.

“Answer me,” Wilfrid hissed.

Ogre grasped the bag tight in his hands. “I thirst. The beer from the night before has made my head hurt and my throat dry.”

Eadmund said to Wilfrid, with great cheer, “Go get Eadgyd and tell her to bring the wine. Our noble young man thirsts.”

The wizard nodded and left.

“I am not making pretensions to be noble,” Ogre said once Wilfrid had left them. “If I am to do this correctly, I only wish to do it to the best of my abilities.”

“As do we,” Eadmund replied. “Does this place feel like the place you should stand?”

Ogre stopped and considered this. He looked at the hill that might or might not contain the body of the dead king. “This is where I am supposed to be,” he said. In his voice was confidence that he didn’t feel.

Eadgyd came and gave him his cup of wine. He drank it, swallowed, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His throat still felt dry.

“Tell him to do it now,” said Eadmund, withdrawing with Eadgyd to a certain distance. They receded into the milling crowd that was the rest of the army. Everyone was there, but now it was only Ogre and Eadmund, alone.

Ogre’s courage wavered. If he was a true hero, he knew that that should not happen. He was to be bold and unhesitant in action and deed. His stomach hurt, and he wondered if it would look strange to the men if he became sick. Perhaps they
would think it part of the magic.

“I want you to look at the sky,” said Wilfrid.

“The sky?” Ogre gaped at him like an idiot.

“Yes,” said Wilfrid quickly. “Look at the sky, and read it. This is the best place.”

“How do you know that?” Ogre demanded bitterly.

“Eadmund was not leading. He was following you.”

His eyes widened. “That cannot be true.” The excitement rose in his breast.

“It is,” Wilfrid insisted.

The tightness of his master’s voice made Ogre wonder if he was lying, for the idea didn’t seem exactly right. Ogre wondered if perhaps he had both lead and followed, but as he couldn’t see how both could be true at the same time, he allowed his suspicions to die.

Ogre touched his throat. It still hurt, so he said, “Can Eadgyd bring more wine?”

“You will become dizzy if you have too much,” Wilfrid said, waving dismissively. “Read the sky.”

“It hurts,” he repeated, both hands on his neck. His wool tunic felt heavier and hotter than it ought, he was sure.

“Please,” Wilfrid whispered. He was pale. “Please, please read the sky!”

Ogre looked to the sky above the hill. He felt his eyes grow unfocused, and so tried harder. He couldn’t see anything. The sky was the sky, the hill was the hill, and the sun was a burning marble that lit his eyes ablaze.

“I can’t.” Ogre began to scratch at his throat. The tips of his broken fingernails left red scratched slanting across his neck. “It’s not there! I can’t see it!”

Wilfrid took the bag of stones and their spells away from him. He opened it quickly, and flung them on the ground at Ogre’s feet. “Don’t see, look!”

Ogre looked.

There it was.

“It’s over the hill,” he gasped.

“I see it.” Wilfrid’s gaunt face was full of light.

“What did you do!” Ogre shouted. He clawed at his throat. “What did you make Eadgyd give me! What did you do!” They were not questions, but accusations. “You are a jackal!” he cried out.

Seeing nothing of the sky, the grass, the sun, or the door, Ogre fell backward. His body stilled before it hit the earth.

No one looked at him. The eyes of Eadmund and his dozens of men were fastened on the hill and, above it, the opening to the world before them.

Chapter 3
a.

Eadgyd could not speak to Eadmund without his permission. The men around her raised their voices and punched the air with their fists joyously. The door was there, the door was open, and everyone could see green hills and moors hovering above them through a window in the air.

She went to find Wilfrid, wrapping her red shawl over her hair. She could find no one else to whom she could voice her concerns and complaints.

Wilfrid stood above his slave, looking down on him with a pale face.

Eadgyd did not address the wizard with shock, only annoyance. “Oh Lord, you did not make me poison him? I had no knowledge he was a sacrifice, sir.”

“He is not a sacrifice,” Wilfrid mumbled to the ground.

“He looks quite dead to me,” said Eadgyd. She tilted her head and drew closer to the boy. “Look how blue his lips are! That’s the mouth of a man who’s frozen to death.”

“Who’s dead?” Wuffa ran up to Eadgyd. He smiled brightly, his joy radiating from him with the force of another sun. “I am dead with joy, you must be certain! Now we will kill those elves, we will!”

“The boy’s dead.” Eadgyd did not turn to look at Wuffa.

“Which boy? Irminric? Osfrid? Swidhelm?” Wuffa looked back at the soldiers. “They’re all there. Hilde is giving them wine as we speak.”

“I hope not the wine I gave Ogre,” Eadgyd said, folding her arms to her chest. “He’s been sacrificed for Eadmund, which I suppose is as honorable a death as he could hope.”

Wuffa cast his glance to the earth and Ogre, who lay still as a stone. “My God, the boy! Wilfrid, did you kill him?”

“It was to open the door, I think.” Eadgyd took hold of one of Ogre’s arms, lifted it, and watched it drop to the ground.

The wizard grew red. “He is not sacrificed and he is not killed!” Wilfrid announced.

With great care, Wuffa bent down to touch Ogre’s face. “He’s cold to the touch! Did he die hours ago?”

“He couldn’t have.” Eadgyd chided him. “I saw him standing on his own two legs before the door opened. It must have been the wine.”

“It was not the wine!” Wilfrid stamped his feet. He reached down, and took up the bag of stones that lay on the ground. “It was these! I wove in my own spells, last night. He needed only to hold them long enough.”

Eadmund came upon the gathering. “Is the boy asleep, then?” he said proudly. “I rather hoped to thank him before it came to pass. A grand deed!” he declared.

“He is not asleep!” Wuffa argued. “Do you see? Feel, then! He’s cold!”

“Don’t speak insolently to your lord,” Eadgyd twittered nervously.

“I hope he’s cold. He’ll be sleeping for rather a long time, I suppose, probably a month at least!” Eadmund laughed grandly. “Do you see?”

“No,” said Wuffa.

Eadgyd said nothing. She looked at the sky, she looked at the grass, but she did not look anywhere near Eadmund.

“He will be asleep until we need him to open the door back,” Wilfrid explained in his desperation. “It was a good decision! He is not a fighter, anyway, and now he is of use.” His voice was small, and he grasped at his throat as if it hurt him. “Even if he is to be awakened and stolen, he knows nothing of the nature of his enchantment. He can tell nothing to no-one.”

“What is this? Is our opener to the next world dozing?” said Horsa, bowing to Eadmund as he came to them. He stopped and stared at the boy on the ground.

“The treacherous wizard put him under a spell!” said Wuffa. He sounded strangely affected. Sweat had broken out on his brow, its oily gleam making a mirror of his face.

“I put him under many spells!” rejoined Wilfrid. “Sleep is one, preservation another! Soon, his body will be protected from the elements in as good a shelter as I can make him! He will be warmed as he sleeps,” he said.

“You could have still poisoned his drink,” Eadgyd said slowly and quietly. Out from the corner of her eyes, she glanced at Eadmund. “He could still be dead and none of us would know.”

“Witches work with poisons, idiot,” Wilfrid snarled. “I put a spell in his drink, good as anything else! It is taking its effect right now.”

As Horsa was drawn to the group, so were Egbert, Alred, and Oswald. Others followed them. Wilfrid found himself answering questions he had already answered. Eadmund, all the while, stood tall and proud and said nothing at all.

The sun sank lower.

“The boy we called Ogre has fulfilled his debt to me!” Wilfrid said. “That is all that has happened.”

“We should bury him,” said Wuffa. “We were horrible to him -”

“You were horrible to him,” Eadgyd interrupted.

“We were horrible to him, and we ought to give him a place to rest while we are fighting elves and he is waiting to wake
up,” Wuffa finished.

“How can we bury a man who isn’t dead?” Oswald cried. “You are as stupid as ever.”

“I am not stupid,” Wuffa argued.

“Yes,” Wilfrid said suddenly. “Bury him! He’ll be fine underground!”

“He will be suffocated from the dirt,” said Horsa. “The village iron welder where I lived buried his brother while he was still breathing, and the man died before we realized he truly wasn’t dead.”

“No, no! Ogre is not dead! If we bury him, he will flourish far better with the protective spell,” Wildrid insisted.

“What protective spell is this?” said Oswald, leaning forward to examine the body once more.

Ogre’s mouth opened.

“He lives!” shrieked Hilde, who had joined the throng.

A vine shivered out between Ogre’s teeth. It resembled nothing more dangerous than a string. It moved of its own accord, however, wrapping itself around Ogre’s face. Thorns began to grow from it, pushing up like swords in every direction but toward the boy from which the vine issued forth.

“You have possessed him!” Egbert turned toward Wilfrid. A shadow had crossed his face. “You have filled him with devils and arcane evils.”

“I only gave him wine,” Wilfrid said in reply. He looked down on the vine, his face flushed with a strange pride. “Now we shall lie him in the earth, and he will be well provided for!”

“But what if we don’t come back?” said Oswald. “If he is living, now, then will he become an old man? He will become an old man and shrivel into nothing beneath the earth, if he thrives.”

“Elfland keeps men there for an extraordinarily long time, I’m told,” Horsa agreed.

“We will all be old men!” Oswald was now truly horrified.

The other men stared at Ogre. The vines writhed over him like snakes. Eadmund’s men were all brave soldiers, and not one of them shied away, not even from magic.

“He is being swallowed alive,” whispered Wuffa. He began to shake his head. “We must leave for the other world, though,” Eadgyd told him.

“But first we must bury him!” Wuffa had become insistent.

“Burial is the death of a poor man!” Wilfrid cried. “This is not a death. When he awakes, he will be lifted out of his grave by the vines, no matter how deeply they draw him into the bosom of the earth, and he will open the door for us. He will not
age because for him, time will have stopped. When he truly dies, then – then we shall give him a hero’s funeral.”

It was small speech, and by no means was it great. Eadmund was about to speak in his loud, warm voice, and tell his men to get in line and march into the land where they would become heroes. Instead, he watched as they began to shovel the earth with their hands, building it over Ogre and the thorns that swarmed over him.

Eadmund finally said, after some minutes, “Stop!”

All but Wuffa heeded, for the soldier was trying to bury the boy with the greatest of desperation.

“If we are to bury him, whether or not he’s dead, he needs to be buried right.” Eadmund fastened his attention to Egbert. “Go get a sword.”

Egbert obeyed and brought back a sword that was by no means great. Its hilt had a strange dent, and the blade was not at all fine. All held their breath to see what Eadmund would do, and Egbert nearly fainted from the suspense as the weapon was lifted from his hands.

Eadmund took the sword and laid it on top of the vines that encased Ogre. “There,” he said. He was not the wordsmith that his faithful companion, Wilfrid, was, and so he did not try and explain. His father, Eadmund had heard from Alred, was also a poor speaker, though a noble commander.

Eadmund was sure he was just as noble. With his army in hand and with Wilfrid pale and gaunt by his side, Wilfrid marched grandly into Elfland. He thought of the sword he had given up, and decided it was a fair price. Upon waking up, whenever he did wake up, the boy would understand his worth.

No one would have to be bothered with guilt when they thought of him.

***
b.

The scribe had a high collar, the nose of a fox, and the cruel eyes of an elf. He wrote it all down from what he saw and heard, though he lived only in the harsh Court of Twilight, where the sun burns bright on through the evening, and the gossip is thick as the blood pudding.

She lived in the Court of Shadows. She claimed for herself the hallow mines and open caverns beneath one of the countries of Faeries. The queen of shadows made the dwarves into her livery, she commanded the elves to keep her belongings to keep her gold and silver as shining as the day she had found them, and she brought with her dragons that slept in the palace constructed deep within the earth. Her castle was hung with linens and silks dark blue and sable, and the queen felt that she was content with this and only this.

The queen also had for herself an almost-husband. He gave her a throne made of silver.

“It’s the very best gift I could give,” said the king of twilight kindly. “It’s an engagement present.” He presented the gift in his own court with great pomp and circumstance.

The throne was adorned with glass creatures. The one attached to the back of the chair was her royal mount, the serpent. The creature had eyes made of pearls and teeth as sharp as the cavern ceilings. The queen did not like to smile, so the dragon on her throne always did it for her.

“I desire to give something to you,” the queen said strangely to her husband. Her voice was soft and, unusually, her eyes had grown wet. “I will have to think what sort of gift I can give you. Give me time?”

“Always,” said the king as politely as he could. “Any gift you may give would be one I could cherish,” he declared.

The women in spiked dresses cooed, the men in black hats raised their glasses, and all applauded him. The pixies and the sprites paused to speak to one another, and everyone knew that when the marriage came, it would be happy. Even the witches who drifted in and out of the edges of the party glowed with pleasure. A pooka turned into a great black horse and offered himself to the queen so that she could give him to her husband. Nymphs went to him to brush his nose and sigh at his giving nature.

In the halls of the Court of Twilight, joy was drunk down as quickly as nectar and honey. No one remembered a party that had been filled with so little obligation. The pressure was on the queen, for the lady oak trees and the satyrs stood aside as she past, gossiping among themselves what her gift would be, when she would give it, and how soon the wedding was to begin. It had already been one hundred and forty-three years since the beginning of the engagement.

The queen’s chief mount was the serpent Iron-Tooth. He spoke because his lady had gifted him with an amulet that turned his grunts and hisses into words. He devoured a herd everyday and didn’t care to speak to anyone but the queen. She made him her confident, and he was privy to the secret of what her gift was.

The gift remained a mystery, for though the king of twilight wished as often as he could to show his achievements in court, the queen deigned to present her awards in private. After their private meeting, no marriage date was set, but the king kept a silk bag in his belt. In it, it was whispered, was the queen’s gift, but no one knew for sure, for he still wore the bag the day the queen appeared unannounced at his court of twilight.

“Do you still have that which I gave you?” she asked loudly so that all who witnessed could hear her.

A minstrel was entertaining the gentlemen and ladies, and he was just playing his harp, strung with the hair of a maiden who had perished at the hands of her stepsister, the very subject of which the minstrel had chosen to sing. He paused so that the court could listen to the intruder-queen, the minstrel’s snake-oil tail glinting and twisting impatiently on the ground.

Said the queen, standing across the room in her sable gown, “I asked you if you still have that which I gave you.”

“I have seen none of it,” the king of twilight laughed. “If you cannot find it, why not look for it yourself? It can’t have gotten too far!”

Because the king laughed, the court laughed with him.

The queen of shadows left and searched. With her, she brought Iron-Tooth and a company of elven soldiers. When Fairyland was exhausted, she began to visit other worlds.

In the world of men, it was 742, and Charlemagne had been born hours ago. In the Court of Twilight, each of these hours had been fifteen minutes. The queen stayed here for a month, and returned in 774 to her almost-husband.

He was in his court, and when he saw her again, he begged that she leave him no more. “It is an important gift,” the king pleaded, “but if you surely wait, it will be found again.”

“Why?” she frowned. “I have searched the world with my retinue of lizards, and I can’t find the thing you so rudely lost.”

“Perhaps I didn’t lose it,” he answered quickly. “Maybe it was stolen or destroyed. Won’t you catch the thief for me if shi is so?”

“I would know if it was destroyed,” and she left once more.

The court laughed at her once she was gone, except for the king, who appeared much affected by the meeting though made no one the confidante of his feelings. If he was distressed at all, however, it was forgotten when the minstrel began
once more and the dryads broke out in dance.

“It’s like a story,” said the pooka to the scribe, “one where the king will win his sweetheart back by the very end. Do you think it’s like a story? It must be one of those stories.”

“The entire world is made up of stories,” said a woman in her black dress with golden spikes. Her red hair was piled on top of her head in frizzy curls and pinned with baby’s breath. “Some stories end worse than others. It’s certainly possible that the gift has been lost for good by the king, himself, and that the queen is out looking for nothing at all. Perhaps he really doesn’t want to marry her, and we have all been lead on in a foolish game!”

This woman’s voice was too loud when she said this.

By the next morning, she had been ordered into a barrel full of nails by the executioner, a dour little girl with blank eyes and cream-colored hair. The entire court gathered to watch as the lady in the spiked dress was thrown down the hill. It was good entertainment.

Afterwards, and after much prodding, the woman who was thrown down the hill was forced to agree. She rather disliked the number of holes on her person, however, for they made it impossible to consume the nectar given to her in her dungeon cell.

News came from the other court that the queen of shadows had put together a party of elves with who she would march with into the next world. The invitation was sent to the king of twilight by a blue pixie with bat wings.

“It’s a request!” he announced to the court after reading it. “I am to come with her and bring my best elves for the search!”

No one knew whether or not they should laugh. The pooka wondered aloud why a lady would send a request for the battle the same way another queen would send an invitation to a dinner.

The king sighed loudly, and ordered that the pooka have his fingers bound together and his mouth sewn shut for the rest of the day.

He declined the invitation, and told the scribe that he would give her his aid in the search for the lost item when it suited him.

c.

Eight days after she spoke to him, the queen ventured with her dragons and her elves to the world where she hoped her gift to be. Her elves were good, and before they left with her, they dined with their families for the last time. The elves of her realm, tall and lingering, grew up close in communities where blood was thicker than the molasses that the trolls made in autumn. Between few elves, stones were exchanged that had been carved with the blessings of the local wizards, who did not sell their wares at small prices.

The queen, in her communications to the Court of Twilight, spoke of green isles that were laid on the land of their ancestors. To entertain his devoted court, the king read aloud the letters he hoped they would find most amusing. “‘The largest island the natives have taken over was once our own,’” he read. “‘I remember living there as a young woman thirty years prior, but each day that has passed in our beloved country has been a year here, and you may imagine that the land is still intact if its other features have faded into nothing short of memory. I cannot imagine leaving this land in the hands of these barbarians for another century, much less two thousand.’”

The court laughed, and the king of twilight was pleased to see them all so amused.

A nymph whispered to the scribe, “Why do we laugh?”

“Her displeasure is most displeasing,” said the pooka. It was agreed that that must be the likeliest cause of the king’s merriment at his lover’s letter, where in fact his merriment was at the merriment of his fellows. The pleasure of the Court of Twilight goes in a circle, perhaps, much like a dance that carries on unending.

The queen waited to attack. In 793, sent the necessary warnings to the island to panic its inhabitants. Light went through the air, whirlwinds came down from Northumbria on the back of Boreas, and her very own dragons – Iron-Tooth, Green Back, Thistle Thing, and Soft Eyes – rode about the sky and breathed flame. A famine followed, for she disrupted the soil and made the land too dry to farm.

“We shall invade in seven days,” she told her men, for on the private isles on which they set up camp, they dipped in and out of the time that governed their country. Hours felt like days, but a year was a day.

Time moved unevenly, and some of the elves were mad enough to defy their beloved, pale queen. They headed ashore with the great serpent Iron-Tooth at their heels. The cattle that were kept in herds in the island were ravaged, the deer in the forests were hunted to fulfill the hardy appetites of the soldiers, and the wolves ran screaming through the forests. The people were horrified in the year 798, for the elves ran wild in their land. A battle broke out in Northumbria, interrupting the elves on their sabbatical. Many Northumbrians were slain, among them Alric son of Herbert and his men. Soon, the lizard felt deep in his breast his loyalty to his queen, and knew she would be kind if he came back. Iron-Tooth led the soldiers back to the isle where the queen and her elves were.

Once there, the queen rewarded the dragon for his loyalty by giving him another pearl, one that not only gave him the gift of speech, but a second body so that he could walk the world in the form of a man if he chose. Iron-Tooth had much pleasure in his new body, and christened himself Julius Iron-Tooth after the emperor so famed in the new world. He wore clothes but carried no sword, entertained by the thought that every weapon he knew of was far less sharp than his own teeth. He would have made a pretty man if not for the fact that he still wore on his body green scales.

The day of the serpent’s christening was the same day the queen carried out her punishment against the disloyal elves, drawing her sword from her scabbard and slicing off each of his thumbs. Afterward, she wore them on her belt.

“Do you see what you have done to yourselves?” she demanded of them. “In battle, your swords will slip from your hands. Wait three days.”

The elves did as they were told.

In 800, the land was seized with groups of elves. Each group was small in number but quick and remorseless, but though their armor was strong, it was not impenetrable.

“If this succeeds, lady, then will you seek out the rest of the world?” Julius Iron-Tooth asked the queen.

“No,” she said. “I only want this island. The rest can belong to the barbarians.”

“But what of the king’s gift?”

The queen paused. “Yes, I suppose it’s important, too,” she said, finally.

In the tree near the queen and the serpent sat the pooka. After they left, he went back to the Court of Twilight and amused all its members by recounting the tale of the queen and her war.

The king of twilight announced, shortly after this pretty speech, “In the interest of speeding my almost-wife home, and keeping her from further exposure to the horrors of war, and worse yet, barbarians, I shall send myself and my armies to
her.”

He was applauded for his selfless deed and accepted the shouts and songs of praise with a sweeping bow.

In 815, a few days before her almost-husband arrived, the queen said to her mount, “Iron-Tooth, something empty has opened within me.”

“Is there?” asked the beast as they flew over the moors. The wind swept past them, and if the queen answered his question, he didn’t hear it.

The king arrived and so did his soldiers. Though his army was also made up of elves, they were not the green-skinned men that served the queen, but pale, freckled elves that always seemed to smile. They were taller than the green elves, too, and had a far better proficiency at the sword. At first, the armies worked together, but it didn’t last, for the queen and king were often out of contact.

The king said to her in 832, after his army had overtaken the Isle of Shepey, “Lady-love, I still search for that gift which you gave me! When I sleep, I dream of it. I admit that I may have lost it long ago, but my memory is unclear on the matter.”

“The gift?” the queen asked. Her eyes were calm and dark, but now they widened strangely.

“Yes,” said the king with great care. “The one that you gave me.”

“Oh,” she said. “Why do you speak of it? Is it important?”

Iron-Tooth, who stood tall in his form of a man, took hold of her majesty by her pale, tiny arm. “She must rest. I will make sure she does this.” He took her away.

The king of twilight watched them leave. Afterward, he went to his soldiers, and spoke of how they would march onto Kent.

Resting, the queen of shadows seemed of a better humor. The dragon asked her if she wished to return home.

“Home?” said she.

“Yes, our home. You can live in your castle beneath the earth and sit in your silver chair and be served by your royal servants, the good dwarves and pixies.”

“This is our home,” she told him kindly, and promptly fell asleep.

Iron-Tooth went to her soldiers and sent them home.

“Our queen does not command this,” said an elf without any thumbs. “I would not like to disobey her wishes if she doesn’t command this.”

“The queen is sick,” the serpent told him. “If you wish to stay, you will not be following her orders.”

“Whose will we follow?” asked an elf with his thumbs intact, but whose ear had been missing a very long time.

“Mine,” Iron-Tooth said with a grin.

Some of the green elves stayed, but most did not. Julius Iron-Tooth was pleased, for he had a country of cowherds and sheep from which he could dine.

The king of twilight did not return home, either. He led his army proudly in a chariot of gold. As he looked upon them with adoration, they looked back with adoration, and he was pleased. “Let us go forth and take this land so that I may find what I
have lost!” They shouted his praises, and every few days, their army went forth.

In 886, though his campaign on the barbarian island had yet to bare fruit beyond the deaths of his soldiers, he spoke to the elves with a new speech. “Go back to the domain of the queen. Empty the places where her tribes dwell in the hallows our country and claim them for the Court of Twilight.”

The soldiers went back with many reservations, but no voices to speak. By 996, ten days after the king had given the order in his world, the tribes of the dark elves were his.

Alfred, who ruled a united country on a small island off the coast of France, believed himself victorious, for the elves along
with the troublesome Danes had retreated for a very long time.

The king of twilight bided his time and harvested soldiers from his new territories. He launched attacks every now and then for the next six hundred years, according to the calendars in the realm of the barbarians.

He did not lead a full-scale invasion again until the spring of 1595, when a play-writer at the time had just finished a play about the fairy-creatures still believed in by the good folk in the country.

In 1601, the whole of London was burning, and Elizabeth I, a brave queen and a God-fearing woman, met in the palace with a creature with which no English monarch had met before. She looked on him as they sat in her hall at the palace, her face powdered and rouged, her clothes extravagant and perfumed. Elizabeth remembered the creature as a girl when she had seen a face very like his own leering at her from an illustration in a book in her nursery.

“Your Majesty,” said General Julius Iron-Tooth with a kind and shining smile. “I have an army of elves, many of which are refugees from the land that the king of twilight has taken. If you wish it, you and I will be great friends, and we shall crush the king, together.”

“Your price will be a great one,” Elizabeth informed him, her face stern. She felt the weight of her years.

“My price is land for the elves in London, or wherever else you wish to put us that can provide people, places, and sheep.”

“What do you threaten me with if I refuse this offer?”

“Nothing,” General Iron-Tooth answered. “Only the ashes of London when it is burned to the ground by our mutual enemy.”

An agreement was drawn and signed. London, as well as the whole of England, was safe from immediate destruction, though the king of twilight was a persistent man and had all of eternity to do as he pleased.

The elves who no longer had a home where they belonged lived in places, allies and nooks, that served them as well as any. They were almost comfortable, save for their neighbors, Englishmen who let them know very plainly they were not welcome, wanted, or, as it had happened in the old days, worshipped, at least not any longer.

General Julius Iron-Tooth had as much veal, lamb, and beef as he could ever desire and a place in government that he rather enjoyed.

The queen of shadows was an ill woman and slept as often as she could.

Somewhere under fine, English earth, a boy slept even longer than that.

Chapter 4

1815
a.

The mail carriage thumped along the road, each wheel jumping on the stones laid in its path. The carriage was jostled hither and thither, along with its passenger, driver, and cargo, each of which was worse for wear as the journey brought them across the country.

Mr. Green was a swarthy man with a round head, a feeble jaw, and the bravery to carry himself with the pomp of the Prince Regent. In his early years of the job, he had not especially enjoyed the occupation of being in the postal service. The roads were long and his solitude was often overwhelming with only a shotgun beneath his seat for company, a most insidious instrument that he had never learned how to fire.

Mr. Green’s most exciting experience was in 1806 when he met a distressed woman on the road. She was clothed in a white, ruffled cap and a marvelous, billowing nightdress. He had been excitable in his youth, and marveled at the woman claiming that the armies of Faerie had come up to her village to attack everyone in sight. The difficulty was immediately dissolved, however, when her husband, the village parson, ran toward the carriage in a flurry before she and the postman had the chance to run back to the city at full-speed. The parson explained that his wife had only seen an elf who had come down from London and who had spoken of invasion in jest even though he was, in fact, a descendent of the elves who had taken up residence in the city when Elizabeth was on the throne. The woman was upset at the trick, but eventually conceded to her husband and, with bright color in her cheeks, went with him back to the village.

Despite this incident, the excitement of which was aborted very quickly, Mr. Green had little interest in his work before his route was changed. On the new route of his mail carriage, he passed by a number of inns and villages where there was to be found a great number of poor and weary travelers willing to accompany him on his travels, specifically if he was going to the city. He asked them many questions of their origins and futures, and each response varied in both explanation and openness of manner. None were as excitable as the horrified woman in the nightdress, of course, but Mr. Green didn’t mind.

The passenger he had at this moment was very open and, to him, kind. He had taken her up at an inn south of ___shire where she claimed a stage couch had turned her out. Mr. Green found the young woman amiable and sweet, and she told him many stories of the city and the women and children who, in support of the armies in Belgium, had taken to wearing regimental colors and carrying flags with them everywhere.

The woman, in the first few minutes of her conversation with the nosy Mr. Green, gave her name as Mayfield. She was not at all annoyed by his prying questions and answered each to the best of her ability. She was five and twenty, she said, and had grown up in Westminster. Her favorite place in the city was Hyde Park, she claimed, but only in the early morning and Kensington Gardens in the late afternoon. No, she didn’t often venture to Drury Lane; yes, she enjoyed herself at its theater from time to time, but rarely found a moment to spare. Yes, her destination was Blackthorn Hill in ___shire. After much prodding on Mr. Green’s part and much hesitance on hers, she admitted that she hoped to visit some sadly deceased relatives in the graveyard of Blackthorn Chapel.

In short, Mr. Green found her to be great company. Unfortunately, while she seemed relatively grounded in reality if a bit flighty, she appeared to be under the impression that she was a man.

She attempted to convince Mr. Green that her name was Lieutenant Mayfield, all the while wearing a bright red uniform with gold buttons and bullion lace. The woman had appeared to do everything necessary in order to pass as a gentleman of the regiment, from the red and white feathers in her shako to the shine of her boots. She even took care to lower her voice so that it almost sounded like she was a young boy, though not quite.

Miss Mayfield was clearly female, and not a soul could mistake her for anything else if they tried. She was really quite pretty, with a pleasing countenance and a space between her front teeth that made her look quite young.

Mr. Green was a gentleman, of course, and didn’t think to take advantage of her. He did his best to avoid looking at the breeches she wore, for it was inappropriate to dress this way at best, criminal at worst. Mr. Green didn’t want to imagine if she had also decided to bind herself, as well, for he attended church as regularly as he could.

He could understand why she was heading out of the city. London drove people mad, but that didn’t mean they would hesitate to send a lunatic like Miss Mayfield to Bedlam. Once, he had driven a haggard looking gentleman from Islington westward, an unkempt if softly spoken man who didn’t have much taste for conversation. They had been alone the entire journey, much like he was alone with Miss Mayfield now, and it was only later at the post office that he discovered the man had been a burglar. Mr. Green hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, and instead amazed himself with the honor of being a criminal’s accomplice.

“Tell me, Lieutenant, are you married?” Mr. Green said carefully, interrupting the silence that had begun to stretch between them. He felt it was best to speak steadily and not aggravate her temper.

“No, I am afraid not!” she informed him pleasantly enough. “I am a free man, and a young one, at that!”

“Free man, indeed,” Mr. Green rejoined with a smile. “No young lady at home?”

“No, sir! My soul is fully invested in my occupation, I am afraid. I belong to the army and no one else, and also, I am an orphan.” The last declaration was delivered so happily, Mr. Green could swear that being an orphan was the pleasantest thing
in the world.

“Now, why are you not with Wellington, might I ask? Isn’t the Duke fighting bravely against that terrifying little Frenchman in Belgium, at the moment?”

Miss Mayfield flushed momentarily. She frowned, and she didn’t look at all as pretty as she had looked before. “Some men are not needed there, I am afraid,” she said finally.

“Less glory than the veterans from the Peninsula, though?”

“Glory can be found off the battlefield.”

Mr. Green found himself nodding his head in agreement. “That it can, that it can,” he sighed.

They arrived outside of ____shire, and though Mr. Green apologized profusely, he felt he could not take the young woman further. His explanation for this was feeble, at best.

“The road up ahead is muddy from the rain, this morning,” he told her. “If I ventured forward with your added weight, Lord, the wheels would be caught in moments!”

In truth, he did not wish to go to the next village and take on more passengers who were less obliging with games of folly than he.

Miss Mayfield smiled brightly and did not question him. “Thank you for doing a member of the regiment proud,” said she, saluting him. She paid him a nominal fee, thanked him, and set off once more.

Mr. Green’s next two passengers were country gentlemen whose chief topics of discussion were livestock and the raising of livestock. There was no moment where Mr. Green was allowed to intervene, much less describe his adventures with the peculiar woman convinced she was a cavalryman. Instead, Mr. Green grudgingly resigned himself to the exchange of words behind his ears, and by the end of the journey, he found himself content to swear off chickens, cows, and whatever else roamed a farm, and any mention there of.

*** b.

Miss Rose Mayfield was very pleased with herself.

The sense of self-satisfaction she felt was so immense, she felt her spirits lift even as she trenched her way through the muddy fields of Blackthorn parish. I fooled that postman so well, she thought to herself happily. She wondered if it was perhaps her costume that had been convincing, for she had been working on it for month. Perhaps it was how she had kept her voice lowered, or how she had made sure to walk in precise, long footsteps like when the soldiers were on review. Rose had forgotten a few times, yes, but as the pleasant enough Mr. Green hadn’t said anything, she decided it wasn’t worth her precious time worrying about it.

The fields were full of mud, muck, and she concluded with some displeasure, the leavings of many cows. Her boots, both of which she had taken three hours to shine before she had left London, were not as lovely as she hoped they would remain. It was very tragic business, she decided, to see good boots ruined so quickly!

She had purchased them on Bond Street, knowing very well that they weren’t really the same boots the brave men serving Wellington currently wore, despite what the shopkeeper attempted to convince her. Regardless, she had made them look like they were items with careful, precise work, and she was very proud of that. Rose had had some difficulty putting them on her feet without the boots slipping off, but that had been rectified fairly quickly once she stumbled upon the idea of putting tissue in the toes.

“You see?” she said to the Professor in her triumph. “They fit good as gloves!”

“Gloves for your feet? Really, Rose, you are surely as silly as that elf woman.” Professor Watterman sighed, and closed the book Rose had interrupted, The Dragon and the Virgin, or the End of the Elizabethan Era and Its Triumphs. He had read the book many times before, but only because he had been the one who had edited it. He was working on the next edition, and Rose had no end of work to do in helping his with it.

“Professor, I know that they are certainly not gloves, not really,” she said impatiently, looking dour and stubborn. She smiled, however, at once brightening her countenance. “But are they not lovely?”

“They are men’s boots, dear.” He spoke gently. “You may wear them when you are working alone on one of your assignments, you may wear them when you are lounging about the house, but I certainly cannot promise you shall be comfortable, but, Miss Mayfield, I forbid you to wear them when you are in public. You will look very ridiculous, my dear. I say this not to be mean and to upset you, oh no, but to be honest.”

Rose was immediately upset. She pouted and stomped and generally looked more like a girl of thirteen than a woman of five and twenty. “But may I not wear them when Holly and I are shopping?”

Professor Watterman reddened. “You must absolutely not wear them when you are out with Holly. It would only encourage her.”

“It will not encourage her if I wear them on assignment, though?” she persisted.

“I already said you can, but only if you do not wear them when other people are about,” he said kindly. “Now off with you. Go upstairs and get ready to go to Blackthorn.”

“I thought I was to spend the afternoon working in the library.”

“You have the afternoon off. Leave before I change my mind, you silly woman,” he told her, but there was a smile on his mouth.

Before she left, she made sure to ask him whether he thought all women were silly.

“Oh, I don’t know, but they seem to be at their worst when they are around me,” he answered kindly enough. “I suppose it would be rather odd if they were silly by themselves, though.”

Rose, now walking past Blackthorn Chapel, stopped to look down at her uniform. It was a ridiculous idea to travel this way, she admitted to herself, but surely, it was all worth it. She had fooled the postman, hadn’t she? She had made the innkeeper and the maid jump when she came downstairs dressed as a soldier, but that, she supposed, was only because they had seen her go upstairs the prior evening in a muslin gown.

She swallowed and continued to her journey through the fields. Very soon, she saw her destination come in sight. Past a tilled field, a hill came up on the horizon.

It was a very large hill, and for a long time it had been called Blackthorn Mountain until the local gentry had corrected the local countrymen of their silly, imprecise name in the 1700’s. Now the gentry, Rose had been told, were trying to change the name once more to something less menacing than Blackthorn, but they had not yet succeeded. Professor Watterman laughed and said they never would, for folktales were stronger than iron, and if there was anything Blackthorn Hill was lacking, it was most certainly not folktales.

Rose neared the mountain. “It is quite tall if one is very close,” she said aloud, for she was very much alone and no one was there to tease her for talking to herself, like the Professor or Holly.

Unsure how she would approach this particular difficulty, Rose began to climb the hill. It was not as muddy here as it was in the fields, and she could not help but wonder why. Though it was June, it had been raining a lot, recently.

“Why would a hill be less wet than the earth surrounding it?” she asked the open air and trees.

Nothing was there to answer her, only the sun filtering through the leaves. It was a pleasant place, she realized. It was quieter than Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park were, of course, and she thought it would be a very good place to read and do work if the hill were somehow closer to London. She would not even dress in a full uniform, she told herself.

Miss Mayfield took out her bag. It was a large parcel, and she had had difficulty carrying it to here from London, but it was important. In it were a change of clothes, a nightgown, three blankets, rope, no less than three books, and a purse of money. On her person, there was a knife and another purse, just in case one was stolen from her. Also, she had taken from the inn some bread and a small pot of butter, both of which she hoped would be overlooked. She wasn’t sure how long she would be on the hill, but she could not help but wonder how charitable the local farmers would be with their handouts.

It was much easier to work in a pair of breeches than it was in a dress, Rose found. She would have been happy to inform this to Professor Watterman if it did not result in her expulsion from the Royal Society of Otherworld Research.

c.

By midday, Rose was exploring the hill. She had set up her things in a clearing, and had left them there in the hopes no one would come to meddle with them.

The hill was far more dry than it ought to be in June, she decided, but no less lush and green. It was irregular, and furthermore, it was the sort of sign that exclaimed the area was influenced heavily by magic. There were places like this everywhere in England, though more often in the country than in the city. Sometimes, it was a tree that stayed green all year round, and if a man tried to chop it down, he would wake up the next morning balding, blind, or similar. It was confusing, though, because while the areas were magical, there was no real explanation why. Professor Watterman had the theory that the areas were resulted from fairy men and women making their home there generations ago. Not even the elves and half-elves knew how to explain it, for most of them had not come in contact with Fairyland in ages, and, certainly in London, were very far removed from their own traditions.

Rose began to examine the leaves. In the margins of one of her books, “Flora of Albion” by Dr. Thomas Canning, she began to make sketches as she walked. This wasn’t the wisest of ideas, because she very soon tripped on a small whole in the ground.

“Ouch,” she said to herself, very glad no one was there to see her fall.

She stopped and turned to examine the hole. It was narrow, probably not larger than her foot. It was certainly deep, however, which surprised her.

The soil around the hole was dry and cracking, and she widened it with great ease. Pieces of earth came off in her hands. Very soon, the hole was wide enough to fit a person through.

She reached her hand down to make sure it wasn’t too deep. For a moment, Rose felt nothing but empty, cool air. Then something crept across her hand. It felt like a snake, except little teeth must have been all over its thin body, for when she pulled her hand back, she saw it had been cut several times! The cuts were superficial, however, and though they were certainly not pleasant, seeing the red welts did not disturb her curiosity in the least.

Rose went back to her camp. She returned to the hole with the rope. After securing one end by tying it to a particularly sturdy tree, she threw the other end into the hole. “There!” she said to herself.

With a firm grip, she took hold of the rope, and descended into the dark. Rose was afraid, yes, but the fact she was dressed as a gentleman of the regiment made it seem perfectly reasonable to be plunging down strange rabbit holes in a magical hill. She was brave when she was a military man, she decided. The darkness was deep, but the sun filtered in from above, and she was thankful for it.

Unfortunately, the rope began to slip through her fingers. She clawed at it, hoping for a better grip, but discovered that it was no use. The rope stayed where it was, as firmly tied to the tree as ever, but Rose slid down it, and very soon, she wasn’t holding onto anything at all.

While she was falling, there was a second where she there wasn’t any air in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.

Rose landed unceremoniously on a part of her body that she had been taught to never mention in polite society, certainly not when she attended dinner parties with Professor Watterman and Holly and had to sit down for what felt like hours at a time. Worse yet, she felt her hands graze the rows of teeth once more, and the snakes writhed beneath her.

In the light from above, though it was decidedly dim this deep beneath the hallow hill, she saw with relief that there were no snakes creeping under her body, only a great number of vines. “Oh! Come alive have you?” she cried in a high-pitched voice. She began to laugh in the same tone one uses when one decides to scream.

Rose maneuvered to her feet. She fell forward twice before she was able to make herself stand up straight. “I am a man of the regiment, today,” she insisted aloud. “I am the bravest person in the entire world!” The vines did not stop squirming and moving, but she felt a little better.

She began to look around herself, admiring the stretch of the darkness and the way the light barely affected it. The sunlight from far above was like a knife trying to cut through a tree, barely making itself apparent. Rose felt a little miserable at this thought.

Tripping over herself once more, Rose found herself lying flat on the ground. She wondered if she ought to look for the other end of the rope. Then she hoped that rope would extend this far in the hill. The vines, all the while, cut at her skin, and she was beginning to bleed quite a bit. Rose withdrew her hands quickly from the vines, but discovered something cold and uneven beneath her fingers.

Calmly, she pulled out a rusted lump of metal, long and with an edge to it that couldn’t cut butter, much less a tree. Or darkness. She threw it to the side. Rose knew a sword when she saw one, but she also knew when a sword was useless, old, and idiotic.

“Go away,” she told the vines in a low, sad murmur. She thought perhaps that it would be a good idea to say please, but then she would feel even more helpless than she already did.

Rose was beginning to wonder how long it would be until Professor Watterman followed her to the countryside to the funeral. She supposed that if Holly decided to hold a funeral when she wasn’t found, it would be a very pretty one. Holly would make sure there would be flowers atop a proper coffin even if no body was to be buried in the graveyard.

Her hands found something else beneath the vines. It was something warm beneath her fingers, warmer than the cold plants and their thorns, and certainly warmer than the cool darkness. She supposed it could be an animal that had burrowed deep, but she couldn’t feel any hair.

Rose began to push vines out of the way. They were insistent, of course, and clung to her hands and arms and legs as she pushed them back. This was an elevated consciousness, certainly for plants, but they certainly had not reacted this way when she found the sword.

Very soon, the light filtering in through the hole at the top of the hill began to reveal features of the warm thing that Rose was uncovering. It was paler than her skin, but it was certainly human, she discovered. Then she peered closer and saw, with a strange delight, that it was a face.

“I do hope you are not a head without a body. It would be very detrimental to both of our states of mental health, I am sure,” she told him. Rose was shaking. “And I also hope you are not the victim of some terrible monster that lives here, because if you are, I am very sorry, but I will not be rescuing you any time soon.”

The vines moved to block her view from the face, but they moved in such a way that she was able to see the body beneath his neck. She could not see in what shape his clothes were, only that they looked thick and warm. Unlike her jacket and breeches, the clothes he wore were untouched by the thorns.

He was a boy, of course, with a round, plump nose, ears that stuck out strangely, and features that were squished together. If he was dead, he would have looked far more pleasant if his hair was gold and in beautiful little ringlets, but it was not. His eyes were closed tight, but his nostrils flared for a moment. Rose put a hand over his mouth, and felt the breath come out between his lips. Beneath his lids, his eyes moved.

She was too close to him. The vines, unable to separate her from the boy, were now seeking to suffocate her. One of the green, spiked coils threw itself over her back and pushed her down, and another landed heavily on her head. They curled, each and everyone, it felt like, around her arms and legs. Her shako fell off, and she knew she would not find it again.

The vine pressed her face to that of the boy’s. Her teeth slid against his cheek as she gasped out for air, and she saw with
a little regret that she had spat upon his eye. Rose’s nose ground against his, her forehead pressed hard against his sleeping brow, and her mouth, briefly, briefly, brushed his mouth.

The vines stopped pressing around her. The thorns stopped driving into her clothes and flesh, and fell beside her as benign as any vine she had ever encountered. They were still heavy, however, and she was quick to brush them off, but it was a small comfort to see they were no longer fighting her attempts to gain freedom. They fell off her, loose as rope, and she was satisfied with the thought that her struggles had somehow managed to defeat them.

“Duke of Wellington would give me a medal if he could,” she said aloud, smiling though in a sad if haughty way. She touched her face, and saw if had been cut several times. The cuts stung as she touched them.

She pushed herself off from the vines and stood, finding it much easier to do than before. Something still struggled
beneath her feet, however, and she stepped back.

A yell, thick as the bark of a dog, came from the vines. It spoke unintelligibly in rough tones that were not very pleasing to hear.

The boy sat up, looking quickly from this side to that. He continued to speak, but Rose now felt that it was no language she had heard in her lifetime, though this was unfair as she only knew English and nothing else. Perhaps it was German, she thought as she looked at the boy with his angry, red face.

The boy coughed into his hands. He continued to speak brutishly, and when he saw her, his eyes grew wide, and he began to shout. She watched him stand quickly, and fall down even quicker.

First she was afraid, but as she looked at his clothes, his hair, and his light eyes, she grew excited. He cursed in that horrible voice, and she remembered the sword, as lost as the shako in the sea of vines that surrounded them. It had been of a particular kind of sword she had seen described and sketched in a number of the Professor’s books, and it was a happy accident to remember such a description at a time like this, wasn’t it?

She looked at him most enthusiastically. His tongue was sharp with curses, but to her ears, the words had suddenly become very useful if not very pretty. Why, Professor Watterman would be more pleased with her than he had ever been!

“Heavens!” Rose Mayfield cried, delighted. “I found a Saxon!”

Chapter 5
a.

Ogre awoke in the darkness. It terrified him, for he couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t open his eyes. Someone was struggling atop him and everywhere thin, boneless arms moved about. He opened his mouth to yell, but his voice did not come.

The person moved, and he realized how very thin the other man was. “Wilfrid!” he yelled, voice hoarse. “You are as much a monster as I said you were! Where am I, you jackal? Where am I!” Ogre struggled.

The boneless arms had stopped moving and the thin man got to his feet to stand on top of Ogre. Ogre imagined that his enemy was gloating on top of him. He wondered if he had been thrown into a bag of dead snakes and carried into Elfland.

He opened his eyes, but only after he reached up to clear away the dirt that was in them. “Wilfrid, you sham wizard!” he cried, hid voice rising. He wondered if some dirt had gotten into his throat and was perhaps being cleared away by his shouts. It made sense, he supposed. Then he wondered if it was really the drug that had been in Eadgyd’s wine caught in his throat.

Ogre decided he had not been asleep very long. A moment ago, he was sure that Wilfrid had fed him the poison. At most, he had only slept one night. He was not dead, at least.

He began to thrash about to loose himself from the vines. He yelled more curses to Wilfrid, hoping the person in the dark was truly the magician. He freed himself from the plants but cut his fingers on the thorns. Ogre bit back his tongue in vain. He hurried to sit up.

He looked about himself and saw, through his blurry eyes, a shaft of light. The air around him was cool and smelled of fresh earth, but above him was a hole of light. This was how he knew he was underground.

Ogre continued to look about himself, displeased, angry, but very afraid. He wondered briefly if all of Elfland lived beneath the earth, but dismissed the thought immediately.

The person in the dark appeared to him by stepping around the shaft of light. It was a tall man, taller than a great many people he had met in his life. His clothes were bright red and his face was soft and had no beard. When Ogre saw him, he stood. Then Ogre’s fell forward, his feet numb tangled in the vines.

In the dark, face down, he heard a high-pitched voice say something very loudly. He heard the words, but he couldn’t be bothered to listen to them. It sounded like a woman speaking.

He looked up once more, and yes, the face was very fair and pale. “Are you a woman or a fairy?” he demanded.

She looked at him with a wide, warm smile, the likes of which made him slightly uncomfortable. She began to babble at him happily, speaking words that all sounded very familiar but none of which he could understand.

Ogre watched as she extended her hand for him to take. He knew very well that he could not get up alone, but not even Eadgyd was rude enough to claim he could not get by without the help of a woman. After trying and failing to lift himself, however, he conceded that allowing a curious woman to help him was not the worst of matters at present, and took her hand in a firm grim.

She pulled him up without hesitation, though with a bit of a struggle. She babbled at him all the while. He swayed uncomfortably where he stood.

“Who are you?” he demanded. He looked at her with anger, seeming to feel that what had befallen him was her own fault. He touched his head for it had begun to hurt.

The woman looked at him strangely. He was forced to ask his question again with the same amount of success, which was to say, no success at all.

Ogre steeled himself with the little physical strength he had compared to the other men in Eadmund’s wizard-ridden army. She did not look as if she wished to attack, or as if she had any idea how she would go about attacking anyone at all. The woman only beamed at him with the widest of smiles. It was very plain that she was far more cheery than a person brought up with a normal degree of misery or misfortune. He suspected she wasn’t and elf, either, if simply because she had the virtue of not being green.

“Speak again,” he told her carefully, in as calm a tone as he could manage.

Whether or not she really understood him was unimportant, for she spoke once more, anyway. He listened, staring at her with as much intensity as he had endeavored to stare at Wilfrid’s books.

“Are we shaking hands?” she asked pleasantly. She grinned down at his hand, still securely held in hers. “Goodness! I had no idea in the world that Saxons were such gentlemen!” She then proceeded to pump his hand twice.

Ogre understood perfectly, and was immensely pleased with his talents. He removed his hand, quickly, however, though he was left wondering whether he could speak as well as he could listen. He cleared his throat once more, hoping the dirt or poison had removed itself as much as possible, and said, “Good, yes, hello. What you speak of?”

The woman stepped back in pale shock. “It isn’t possible!” she cried. “I have not a head for Latin, and you have learned Modern English in no less than a few moments! Well, it’s not particularly good, but O! How wonderful! The Society will quite adore you, I’m sure! You are the very best walking corpse we have come across!”

Ogre could not understand her when she spoke so quickly, but when she said the words, “walking corpse,” he understood her to mean, “upright standing dead person.” Ogre did not always know as much as he liked, but he knew very well he was not dead. He sought to correct her misconception, and told her, “I live. I am breathing. I have not been dead.”

“No?” she asked with a bit of sadness. “I suppose that explains why you are not half as cold as you ought to be!”

“Yes. It explains a great many things. I have never not heard never of upright standing dead persons, no.”

“You know of elves, though?” she inquired.

“Every soul near the river knows of elfen.”

“They are creatures able to do magic,” she explained, kindly. “You must agree that there are others capable of being
magical, as well!”

“Never heard I of dead persons upright, no,” he insisted. “It is magic, yes, that I know tongues and words that are not my own so well, yes.” Ogre raised his chin proudly. “I ask you something, now.”

“What do you wish to know? I would be very happy to answer your concerns if I can,” she told him. She was very impressed, obviously, though she seemed like she was a farmer examining a pig in a market when she looked at him.

“I ask two things,” he said. “The first I ask is important; you must answer.”

“What is it?”

“Elf or woman?”

She colored and laughed. “I am a woman. Are you an elf?”

“No,” he reassured her. “Not elf. You have name?”

“My name,” she told him in a high, pretty voice, “is Rose Mayfield. You may call me Miss Mayfield.”

“‘Miss Mayfield,’” he repeated. “Second thing I ask you now. Where is place that we stand?”

“Oh.” She deflated a little now that the subject had changed to other matters beyond her introduction. She also did not wish to speak on this particular subject. “We stand beneath a hill.”

“You put us down here?” Ogre asked. He knew the wizard was behind all of this, of course, but the woman was strange to him. Ogre suspected that though she was not an elf, she was probably not very sane.

“I put myself down here,” Miss Mayfield explained. “You were already down here when I came exploring. It was a silly idea. Is it not funny how we only realize the ridiculousness of our own ideas until after they have made a terrible mess of things?”

Ogre was unsure how to answer this. “I was here?”

“Yes. I think you were asleep. The vines were everywhere and they were alive. I do not suppose they liked that I was there with you.”

“You know how we go out?”

“Out from under this hill?” she asked miserably. “O, I have not a clue how to do it! Do you see where the light is coming from up there?” She pointed at the hole from which the sunlight came. “That is the only opening I know of, and I am afraid neither you or I can reach it.”

“What is hanging down from there?” Ogre demanded.

“That, I am afraid, is my rope, and it is too short to reach all the way down here. I was climbing down it when I fell.”

Ogre looked around him and saw the vines lying on the floor. He looked up at her. “We use vine?”

“The vines? O dear, I think we may cut our hands on them if we try and climb up!”

“Yes,” he said. “The vines. We need the vines. You have anything to cut them? Sword? Ax?”

Miss Mayfield removed a knife from the tall, leather shoes that she wore. She took it out of its sheath, and Ogre was shocked at its bright gleam and sharpness. “I have a knife, but you see, it is very small.”

“We need to cut twice, then saw off a few thorns. Perfect,” he said, and took it from her without another polite word.

Miss Mayfield pried it out of his hands, both of which were large but smaller than hers. “I will cut the vines,” she said. “You will tell me where.”

b.

It was difficult business, but they were able to turn one of the vines into something one could hold and climb comfortably. It took a few hours, and Miss Mayfield sweat nearly as much as he did, though she did not curse as readily as he. Very soon,
the vine was finished.

“Now we connect to end of rope,” he told her.

She laughed. “How? Do I throw you in the air and hope you catch it? Then you will tie them together?”

Ogre looked at her and felt shame burning his face. “Yes,” he said before he could say no. “I wish that you will throw me, or try.”

He was shorter than her, but he was not a very light person. She did not throw him, but instead, after a little struggling, was able to lift him onto her shoulders.

Miss Mayfield informed him that though this was all a very exciting adventure, she did not feel this particular moment to be pertinent enough to mention to anyone else. She swayed slightly as she said this. Then she added, “I do not suppose that this is was the way you were told to treat a woman?”

“I had sisters,” Ogre told her. “They work like I do, they work hard and well. If work must be done, it must be done.”

“Yes,” Miss Mayfield said thoughtfully. “I suppose you are correct, but do hurry up? The rope should not be too far over your head!”

Ogre reached upward. He squinted his eyes as they met the light. His fingertips grazed the end of the frayed rope, and he said, “You have the vine in hand, yes?”

“Oh, of course!” Miss Mayfield replied, swaying once more. “If I hand it to you, I do hope you will not slip and fall attempting to unite it with the rope. It would rather hurt, and I do have quite as many cuts about myself as you do, dear sir.” She held up the end of the vine, and, maneuvering with a little bit of difficulty, Ogre took it.

“Hard to tie them!” he called down to her. “Hold still, yes?” Ogre struggled to loop the end of the vine around the rope.

“If we remain as we are down here, I dare say we shall not be found for a very long time!” Miss Mayfield informed him. “You do not suppose we shall have to resort to eating the vines? Perhaps we shall have to eat each other? I would like to inform you that the option of cannibalism is rather a frightening one to myself.”

“It is tied,” he told her when she stopped for breath.

“Is it? Have you secured it?”

Ogre did not respond with words. Instead, he lifted himself from the obliging if peculiar woman’s shoulders, and climbed the rope.

It was not very difficult for him to climb, for he only had to keep his eyes on the light and continue upward, even when his arms were tired. The woman struggled with it, but she followed soon enough, talking all the while. Ogre listened as best as he could, absorbing each word, but concentrating on reaching the top of his tomb was more important. He hoped that she would not be indignant if he chose not to respond.

Ogre reached the opening. It took a few moments, but he was able to pull himself up and onto the grass, which was cool and sweet. He looked about him, and knew not where he was.

“Would you mind looking at the rope and seeing if it is most securely attached to the tree?” called Miss Mayfield.

“I shall do as you bid me, yes!” he called back, and looked at the tree where the other end of the rope was secured. The knot, he saw immediately, was slipping. He ran to tighten it.

When he turned around once more toward the hole in the ground, he saw that the woman had finally pulled herself onto the grass. She gasped for a moment, stopping to catch her breath. Her hair, which had been piled atop her head in a peculiar fashion, had fallen loose.

Ogre looked about his person. His clothes were fully intact, though the thorns had scratched him. Miss Mayfield had far more cuts than he, and he supposed that meant she must be a friend.

“You are given thanks,” he informed her kindly.

“I have been given an adventure in a hallow hill and a strange boy with which I must take back to London.” She looked very tired, though she was still trying to smile. On her lip was a large cut from which issued forth much blood that seeped into the cracks of her mouth.

Ogre remembered what she said. “London? What is London? Lundenwic?” he suggested. “You are stranger, then?” He laughed, and his throat felt dry as he did.

“I do not mean Lundenwic, dear. Lundenwic was a trading city set up a kilometer from Londinium.” Miss Mayfield pulled herself to her feet with some difficulty. “Do you know Londinium?”

Ogre stopped to think. He frowned. Finally, he said, “That is where the wall is?”

Miss Mayfield smiled strangely. “Which wall?”

“The one they left.”

She looked very pleased. “Indeed! You do not mean the Romans, do you?”

“Yes! Romans! That is their wall. No one goes near it. Dead city, yes?”

“Resurrected city,” she said in a low voice. “It has changed a lot.”

Ogre knew at once that there was something that he did not know. “What has changed? Does this involve Eadmund and his army?”

“It involves a great many men, actually, and a few of them may have been called Edmund. I am forced to do a lot of history reading for the Society, and there are so many great men! Every book is about a great man, what he did, what he said, what he ate, and what he didn’t do.” She sat down on the grass and looked up at the sky. “I am so very tired, but I suppose we must be moving, soon! The sun will set, and we will be left out here in the dark!”

“Avoiding something, yes! What is this something?” he asked her. “I look around me and see nothing I know.”

Miss Mayfield opened her mouth to speak. Then she closed it again. She opened it once more, and said, weakly, “I think that it would be best if we get off this hill, first. Please come with me,” she said. Miss Mayfield stood. “Together, we will go back to my camp.”

“A camp?” he said. “Soldiers, then! They will feed us if we ask them?”

“No soldiers,” she said with a sigh. “There is only myself and, I suppose, you. Come along, please?”

Ogre obeyed her, but only because the cuts on her mouth, face, and hands made him feel a great deal of guilt. He helped her untie the rope and fold it along with the vine. Then they went to her camp, which looked rather sorry and small to him, and gathered her things, which were far too nice to bring with her to a place that was in the wood.

Together, they journeyed down the hill. Ogre was surprised to find that he felt much warmer. The sun seemed to get brighter. His cotton clothes, he realized, were much too hot. “It is still June?” he asked her.

He heard her hesitate as she said, “Yes. It is June.”

Ogre looked toward the fields and, in the distance, the moors. “This is not Elfland.”

“Not in the least,” she said.

It suddenly felt a bit cooler, but he was unsure why. He felt no breeze, but the sun did not feel quite as warm as it had a moment ago. Ogre stopped for a moment and considered. Then he looked down at his clothes. “You will not turn around,” he told his companion.

“Why may I not do that?” Miss Mayfield began to turn her head around.

“No! My clothes!” he cried. “They are falling off in bits and pieces!” His cotton tunic was thinning and curling into gray scraps.

Miss Mayfield covered her eyes with one of her hands. “Clothes do that,” she told him very carefully.

“Not all at once!”

“That hill was magic,” she said to him.

“My clothes were not,” he argued.

Miss Mayfield frowned, though she could not see him. “Your clothes were centuries old.” She paused. “You are centuries old.”

“I have thirteen years!” he cried, grabbing at the last of his tunic. It dissolved beneath his fingers.

“What year do you believe it to be?” she asked him slowly.

“It is 815!” Fury rose in his face. “It is his curse! This is the curse of the wizard, and I hate the wizard!”

“It is 1815.” Her voice was very quiet.

He heard her and he could feel his heart constrict in his chest. Ogre looked about him and saw, nearby, a tree standing very much alone in the field that they walked through. He ran to it, his clothes completely gone from him.

“I am very sorry,” Miss Mayfield said. “I really am, but magic is such a terrible thing, and this has happened before, you know! You have perhaps lost all you hold dear, I suppose, but I do not know what I can do for you besides taking you back to the city!” She stopped. “Are you still there?” Miss Mayfield slowly looked between her fingers and saw that the boy was gone.

Ogre climbed the trunk with far more ease than he had the rope. It was not quite so difficult to scale. Once he was sure that the leaves obscured him, he yelled out, “I not making me go to city Roman, no I will not!”

Miss Mayfield went to the base of the tree. “I did tell you I was very sorry,” she said.

“I am sorrier!” he yelled back.

“Well, all right, do you know what I shall do? I shall sit here, right here, with all my things,” said Miss Mayfield. “I am going to wait for you to come down.”

Ogre did not come down. Miss Mayfield, he saw, did not go away.

The hours wore on, and he looked at the sun as it filtered through the leaves. He emptied himself of all the thoughts he did not wish to think about and, instead, looked to the sun. It was as bright as any June, he told himself, though he was unsure if this was as true as anything else.

*** c.

The sun began to sink in the sky, and Rose Mayfield realized just how tired she happened to be. She took out her nightgown, and left the rest of her things beneath the tree. Rose walked away as softly as she could manage in order to put her nightdress on with some privacy.

When she returned, Rose examined her pack, and found that the bread was gone. The pot of butter had been left behind and so were the blankets.

“If you would ask next time, it would be appreciated,” she informed the tree. She was given no response, from either the tree or the boy in its branches, and so she made a bed for herself and went to sleep. The grass smelled wet, though the mud beneath it had quite thankfully dried.

Rose woke the next morning. Instead of the uniform, she took the gown out of her pack, and went out to find a place where she could put it on. Rose looked rather queer in gowns, for she often looked too tall, when she was not, and as she had the shape of a pole rather than the buxom, pretty ladies who marched about Piccadilly and attended the theater in Drury
Lane.

She returned to the tree after attempting to fix her hair, which had been difficult, as she had no mirror with her, and found the boy standing there. He was clothed in the uniform she had made for herself. Not all of the buttons on the front of the coat were fastened, she saw, and the breeches, if she was not mistaken, were on backward. He had not tried to put on the boots, but instead went about with bare feet.

If the costume fit him better and if he bathed and cut his hair properly, then he might, might pass for a rather green private. Rose examined him again and decided that he would probably have to be much taller and a little trimmer around the middle.

She wished to scold him, as Professor Watterman would have done, but instead she spoke politely. “I do hope you liked the bread, last night.”

“Yes. Good,” he told her. “What we eat, now?”

“Nothing. If we can simply spend the day traveling to London on empty stomachs, I would not mind it. We will not even stop at an inn, mind you, for you are curious enough in your uniform.” Rose stopped herself, blushing a bright shade of red that did not at all flatter her face. “I did not get your name, which you must admit is very unfair, as I gave you mine.”

He gave her him name.

“Is that it? Well, that is very interesting, I think. Did the people who knew you shorten it to some sort of pet name?”

“I do not know ‘pet name,’” he said.

Rose attempted to clarify herself. “Did they call you something besides your name?”

“Ogre.” The boy looked uncomfortable. “This tunic very hot,” he informed her, tugging at the collar.

“‘Ogre?’” she said with a laugh. “Why ever would they call you that?” She began to stow her things in the pack.

The boy stooped down to help her do this. “The wizard who cast the spell on me? He is very bad and stupid. He does not know how to do anything well.”

“He certainly cannot cast a proper sleeping spell, I see,” she said quietly, unsure whether or not he would climb the tree once more if she brought up the subject.

“Terrible spell, yes,” Ogre went on quickly. “But, see, he speaks gold, or spoke gold,” he added in a distant, hollow voice.

“Like gold coins falling from his mouth?” Rose bag was packed with her things, now. She stood up straight and smoothed her gown, which was still wrinkled and a little muddy. “There is the sweetest collection of stories that came over from another country three years ago, and one the stories speaks of women who speak jewels and women who speak frogs.”

Ogre was very confused, though he must have understood the concept of stories, for he did not question her about what she meant. “No, gold did not drop from his mouth, or frogs or jewels. His words were honeyed. He was a scop.”

“He sang stories!” she cried. Ogre had begun to walk and Rose walked with him so that they could go the right way, past Blackthorn Chapel and back to the road. “He must have been very good at singing them,” she said.

“Very good,” Ogre agreed. “He sang one story that was best. Once, he sang it, and one of the soldiers in Eadmund’s army, of which we were apart, the soldier noticed I liked it. I was a boy. Wuffa said, ‘The boy is small but wishes he was the monster in the story you speak so well!’ Then they all called me Ogre, after that, and I did not argue.”

“You did not like it,” she said with great care. “I shall not call you by the name if you dislike me for doing so, I promise.”

“I did not like them to call me it. They were honorable fighters, but they were not honorable in spirit to other men. The name, itself? That I do not mind the name.” He looked out over the moors and the farmed land. “A question?”

“Yes?”

“Where are the trees? Are those farms?”

“Yes, those are farms. I suppose they are very different from the farms you know, then?”

“Very different,” he said. His voice was soft though if it was sad, Rose could not tell. “Where we go in London?” he asked.

“I think I told you,” Rose replied. “The both of us shall go to Piccadilly. There, Ogre, we will find the Society.”

“Society,” he said, though there was a level of wonderment in his voice.

“The Royal Society for Otherworld Research. It is a place with many books and things that I am sure you have never heard of,” she told him.

“I know books.”

“You can read?” Rose was surprised and laughed with pleasure.

“No,” Ogre told her. “But I can understand them.”

Rose felt that this answer was entirely inadequate, but she did not argue with him. Instead, once they found a mail carriage that was heading back to London, she dispensed one of the books from her bag. Though the carriage gave neither of them a very comfortable ride, Ogre appeared to find more enjoyment from Dr. Thomas Canning’s “Flora of Albion” than she
ever had.

***
d.

Everywhere in London were banners. Children carried flags and women carried children who carried the flags proudly. It was the early afternoon, and men who were quite drunk stumbled about the streets, holding one another joyously. Songs were being sung, and Ogre would have attempted to listen to them if he was not staring at the city.

“It is not like this everyday,” Miss Mayfield informed him as they pulled through the gates. She was tired, but she glowed. “The Duke has come through for us! Napoleon has been caught and I hope that the naught little tyrant will be hanged immediately!”

“What do you mean when you say it does not look like this everyday?” he demanded. His eyes were wide as he looked at the buildings. “Are these halls sometimes shorter? Are they sometimes not so grand as this? Woden, there must be a billion kings who live here!” he cried. “How many lords are in this city? How often do they throw armies at one another?”

The postman heard all of this and laughed. “Is he a German?” he asked Miss Mayfield. “Is this a foreigner that speaks so strangely?”

“His brother died in the Peninsula, I told you. That is why he is dressed this way, sir,” Miss Mayfield informed the postman in a superior voice.

Ogre decided that it was perhaps best not to speak in front of the man any longer. He instead busied himself with examining the people who passed. The men were tall, but paler and weaker than they should have been, and the women walked about freely with the men or their children at their sides. Not all of them were lords, he decided, but they were all very well off, for he had never seen such great houses before. They were all very clean, he decided. Ogre wondered if they always carried about flags and shouted, “Napoleon done for at Waterloo!” and “Hurrah for the Duke of Wellington!” If they yelled about a war, Ogre could see no evidence of a battle having taken place around them. The great streets and houses looked intact.

Along with the gentlemen and ladies, he noticed, there were a great number of very small, dirty children wandering about. They all followed the adults, some crying out for bread and others coming away with small purses of money, smiling at each other. He had seen children without parents, before, but never quite like this, wandering about on their own. The children he had once known in the village had not always been treated well, and they had not always been treated as children, but he had never known a child to look as emaciated as these were when there were people on the street who were not. When there was no good harvest to be reaped, everyone was hungry, and when there was food to be given to everyone, everyone had food. He could not comprehend this.

He turned to Miss Mayfield in order to ask her about this. Ogre saw, however, that she had left the carriage.

“We are almost there!” she cried from the street.

Ogre turned toward her and saw that she, too, had acquired a small flag. He climbed over the side of the carriage, swinging one leg after the other, much to the confusion of the postman. Ogre dismounted and went to Miss Mayfield, who was staring at him quite oddly.

“Goodness!” she cried. “I quite forgot you had no shoes! Well, we shall rectify that situation once we reach the Society, will we not?”

“The stones are not cold beneath my feet,” he told her. “I shall avoid the leavings of the horses and I will be all right.”

“Yes, but it is very difficult to think you are an honest English gentleman from the nineteenth century, you see,” Miss Mayfield sighed.

“Well, I am not an honest English gentleman.”

“Every honest English gentleman knows how to lie with his appearance,” she insisted, “and does it as often as possible.”

“I should not tell people what I am?”

Miss Mayfield thought about this. “Not yet,” she said after a while. “We shall wait. I will inquire what the Professor thinks on the subject, and then we shall decide. How does that sound?”

They crossed the street together. Miss Mayfield grabbed Ogre’s arm in the most peculiar way, hooking it with her own. She directed him to the side of the road closest to the busy carriages rushing past, curious contraptions that Ogre found himself more fascinated with than the people. The horses that drew them, why, he could not help but wonder where they were kept. Eadmund’s army had had quite a hard enough time of putting aside moments to take care of Weyland. Where were all the animals kept? In fact, where were all the carriages put at the end of the day? Did all the people sleep in their enormous castles? New questions brought themselves to light every moment, and Ogre did not know how to ask them without sounding very strange.

“I said, how does that sound?” she asked him, tugging the sleeve of his red coat.

Ogre was confused and stopped. “Your voice sounds very well, I think,” he said.

Miss Mayfield covered her smile with the hand that held the flag. “That is not what I meant, but there are other things to speak of, I suppose. Come this way, and we shall go to Piccadilly, together!”

A gentleman passed in a red coat very much like Ogre’s with a pair of women on each of his arms. Each of ladies was cooing at him and kissing him, and one, who had very red lips and curly hair, stopped to wink at Ogre before they departed.

Ogre was bright red and hoped that no one noticed this, most of all Miss Mayfield. “What is the purpose of the red coats?” he asked her.

Miss Mayfield, who was tired, hungry, and had been rather put out for the remainder of their journey into London, brightened immediately. She informed Ogre of mad Frenchmen and evil emperors. Miss Mayfield told him of sticks that made loud noises when they were loaded with powder that had no magical properties whatsoever, which Ogre found to be even more curious than the idea of carriages. Miss Mayfield went on about these things at great length, and Ogre soon could not bother to try and keep up with her, anymore. There was too much around him that warranted his attention, from great structures to expanses of green grass that seemed to serve no purpose beyond a place to put trees, which were curiously absent from the rest of London.

She babbled on about this in a steady stream as they passed the ladies and gentleman in the street. Not a soul seemed to notice Ogre, which seemed all right to him, for in his life as a servant he had not liked to be noticed much. He was unsure how anyone could be noticed in the thick of the crowd with more people than he had ever seen together in one place. Ogre, noticing the masses that seemed only to grow as he neared Piccadilly with Miss Mayfield, began to grow most uneasy.

“Here we are!” Miss Mayfield announced happily. She stopped him in front of a great building that looked no different from any of the others on the street, save for the fact that no peculiar food and wares were sitting in front of it.

“Someone is to meet us at the opening?” Ogre asked. He indicated the door.

“George is probably busying himself elsewhere at this time of day,” said Miss Mayfield with a sigh. “As for Mrs. Downs, she cannot be depended upon for anything at all.”

Together, they ventured to the door, and Ogre watched as Miss Mayfield gave it several sharp raps with her fist.

They waited a moment, after which Miss Mayfield proclaimed, “The Professor ought to be home at this time, I think! It is Holly who is always about, you know.” She paused strangely, then. “I do not know if you will like her, now that I think about it. She is an odd sort.”

Ogre turned to Miss Mayfield and wondered how, exactly, in this strange other world, men defined each other as odd.

The door opened. “Home already!” A woman shrieked with laughter. “Rose, my pet, you should have at least been gone a month!”

Miss Mayfield sniffed. She released Ogre’s arm, and went forward. “Sometimes, I think you want me to stay gone!” She walked through the door and began to remove the bonnet on her head, untying the strings beneath her chin.

Ogre went forward, too, though he did not quite step into the hall. He paused to look at the inscription on the door.

“King George’s Royal Society for Otherworld Research,” it read in small, gold letters.

He wondered whom King George was and if he was only king of this hall. If so, Ogre wanted to know why Miss Mayfield had decided not to mention it to him, before. Perhaps King George was one of those honest gentlemen Miss Mayfield had spoken of, the sort who enjoy lying all the time.

Ogre could hear her voice from inside. “Holly! I have brought us a guest! Go get the Professor!” Miss Mayfield pushed her head outside the door, again. “Come in, won’t you?” she said, grinning.

Deciding that he was not to hesitate any longer, Ogre followed her inside.

He did not expect the inside of the hall to look as it did. There were wooden floors with carpets covering them. He saw no tapestries or a grate for the fire, only strange benches with great pillows sewn to them.

First he saw a man, wider and taller than the other gentlemen he had seen in London, thus far. The man stared at him through eyes that were small and wet. “You are not wearing any shoes, sir,” said the man, his jowls shaking slightly as he spoke.

“Professor Watterman,” Miss Mayfield said grandly, “I would like to present you with a new friend!” She told the Professor his full name, adding, “And you will not believe where I found him!”

“I hope not from Faerie,” the large man said with a sigh. “He quite needs a bath, regardless of his origin, and I will lend him mine, happily, if he truly wants use of it. Did you notice there are no elves out today, Rose?” he asked her.

“No! I did not!” Miss Mayfield gasped, quite forgetting Ogre was there. “Nothing has happened while I was away, I hope!”

Professor Watterman pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and proceeded to wipe his nose with it. “Only a small announcement. Elves are not to leave their houses until tomorrow night. Our silly little parliament thinks they will upset the
festivities!”

Ogre wondered why the elves were kept in the city, at all. Would it not make sense simply to kill them rather than keep them prisoner? The elves he saw in battle did not seem like they would make adequate servants.

“How has Holly reacted?” Miss Mayfield asked to Ogre’s surprise.

The Professor’s brow furrowed and he sniffed into his handkerchief. “She has done nothing all day, of course, but inform me of her boredom and all the ridiculous things she would like to do outside. She wants to disguise herself, the stupid woman!”

“It would be a lovely little game! I could parade about and call myself Mrs. Watterman, like a true wife!” Holly cried as she approached. She wore clothes like Miss Mayfield, though the dress had a strange pattern on it. Her hair was black, like Professor Watterman’s, but long and curled beside her pointed ears. She was also green.

“You already call yourself ‘Mrs. Day,’ do you not?” Professor Watterman demanded in a loud voice. His features were instantly animated and his round face and wide nose were red with fury. “Do I have to give you my name, as well, so that you can make it as stupid as yourself?”

The elf laughed once more in a high voice. “How you make such wonderful love to me, my darling! My affection for you renews itself every time I hear it!” she said. Mrs. Holly Day turned toward Ogre. She looked delighted to see him, and rushed forward. “And who are you, dear boy?” she cried, opening her arms as if to embrace him.

Ogre ducked away in horror and disgust, but he turned around too quickly. His head collided with the door, now closed, and he stumbled backward. His legs gave out beneath him, weak as the water that he had not had all day and night, and he fell down.

He did not faint, though if it could have spared his ruined pride, he would not have minded doing so. Instead, he lay on the rug quite still, watching as Miss Mayfield, Mrs. Day, and the fat Professor crowded about him and stared down at his face.

Chapter 7

a.

Mrs. Canning, or “my dear Amelia” as Mrs. Day was given to calling her, was a strange little woman with a permanently knit brow, tight red hair, and bright, livid eyes. Mrs. Amelia Canning had been married, as a young lady, to an Oxford student, Thomas Canning. She had been under the impression that she could reform his ways and turn him into a husband of her liking. The “ways” that she wished to change within him were his eagerness for academia and his passion for learning, however, and so her attempts to cure him were all for naught.

Mrs. Canning had married Thomas Canning strictly because he was of the perfect height and build to join His Majesty’s military and become the most handsome dragoon this side of the Thames. Dr. Canning had instead gone on to write several dreadfully boring if informative books about English history and its relation to Fairyland. While he was well liked by his wife’s many brothers, all of which either served in the army or the navy, but he was most certainly not one of them. Dr. Canning spoke at length, and with great pleasure, of the history of warfare rather than the actual fighting of it, and he everyone pretended to listen to him politely.

Amelia Canning was forced to content herself with their eight, rosy-cheeked children and the throwing of a number of parties, the latter of which often appeared in gossip columns the day afterwards. She kept herself miserable with thoughts of what might have been. If only, she often said to herself, she had been a military wife like she always wanted to be! There would be uniforms to clean, medals to shine, and the company of handsome officers to entertain her brother and herself!

Almost everyone but Mrs. Holly Day felt that Mrs. Canning was dreadfully silly. Mrs. Day thought she was a darling girl, and Miss Mayfield was much entertained by the thought of a woman wishing to travel about with the regiment’s wives. All the other friends of Mrs. Canning looked over the woman’s peculiarities, and instead concentrated on Dr. Canning’s advisory status to the Prince Regent, a peculiar status often wondered at but rarely question. The delight of being able to dine on fine food near Covent Gardens was also a pleasure, as was the thought of rising in society.

Ogre was introduced to Mrs. Canning prior to her party that evening. Mrs. Holly Day and Miss Mayfield had come with him on a morning visit. The three had been out shopping, and while Mrs. Day had been invigorated by the whole business, Miss Mayfield and Ogre had become very tired. They were happy to take a small rest at Mrs. Canning’s house.

A few short days ago, Ogre had been impressed at the size of the Society headquarters. Now he felt foolish, for that house was half the size of this one, if not less. Carpets stretched across the floors in all directions and a great fireplace was in the dining room where maids and assorted servants made preparations for the evening.

“The room are larger than the ones at the Society,” he confided to Miss Mayfield in as tactful a whisper as he could manage. “They have more riches, then?”

“They are not supported by His Majesty, as our little organization happens to be, and so they may waste their money for whatever furnishings they choose,” Miss Mayfield said with trace of haughtiness in her voice. Then she hesitated, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose it could also be that their rooms are not so cluttered with books and artifacts as ours happen to be! Theirs have the appearance of being much larger!”

Mrs. Canning met them in the drawing room, where the butler, John, had shown the three of them. The lady of the household furiously sifted through a great many bills before her, and Ogre saw they were all bills.

“I am out of my mind with impatience over this terrible party!” she greeted them. Her red hair was fringed with gray, and she reached up to twist one of her curls around her finger with such violence, Ogre thought she was about to put it out. “Is this your friend?” Mrs. Canning demanded. She finally looked up at them. Placing the papers to the side, she stood up with her arms at her front.

“Amelia, my sweet!” cried Mrs. Day, rushing forward. She hurriedly exchanged a salute with her dear friend. “Miss Mayfield and I doing very well, as is my darling little Professor.” Mrs. Day offered this information without being asked. “This,” she said, extending her hand toward him, “is our friend, the newest member of the Society!” She then went on to offer his name, though she added, “But we call him Ogre.”

“Ogre!” Mrs. Canning wrinkled her nose and raised an eyebrow. “That is strange to call a little boy by the names of the very creatures you are so dedicated to researching!”

Ogre heard her say “little boy,” and said, immediately, “I am thirteen. I am not too little.”

“Are you sure?” Mrs. Canning looked suspicious. “My Arthur has only just turned twelve, and I think he is taller than you.”

“I am sure that you keep him well fed with your great riches,” Ogre told her.

Miss Mayfield covered her smiling mouth, though she utterly failed at stifling her giggle. Ogre found her to be a peculiar sort when she was not in the Society or within the privacy of its library. Miss Mayfield walked awkwardly down the street, glancing at people and stepping back whenever Mrs. Day stopped to greet an acquaintance, of which it seemed that the latter had many while the former had none. Miss Mayfield also did not like looking into the eyes of shopkeepers or speaking directly to them. Even now, she did not seem to want to speak with Mrs. Canning, and appeared to be very uncomfortable.

Mrs. Canning did not appear to notice this. Instead, she seemed to be studying Ogre very intensely. He allowed her to do so, as it was the first time in a few days that it had happened, and he had been almost disappointed other people were not so attentive to his strangeness. He had already gone through several carriage ride in Hyde Park with Professor Watterman, Miss Mayfield, and George Pipkin, the driver, and not once had anyone stopped to stare at him.

“I think,” said Mrs. Canning finally, “that you are a foreigner. Are you?”

Ogre had the answer to this already planned out, for the postman who had driven him and Miss Mayfield to London had paid him a similar comment, and he had prepared an answer to it hours afterward. “I am the very opposite of a foreigner,” said he, proudly, “for I have lived on English soil for no less than one thousand and thirteen years.”

“Have you?” she asked. “Then you are some sort of nature fairy?”

He faltered, for he had not expected a response like this. “No,” he said, his voice very small. “I am not one of those.”

“He is a boy who was put under a spell!” said Miss Mayfield, coming to his rescue. “I found him in ___shire beneath a great, magical hill! He has been asleep for centuries, and he is a Saxon, too!”

“You do not have to shout.” Mrs. Canning looked a little irritated. “We get along fine when we are talking of the militia to one another, but you are becoming rather very excited over this, my dear Rose.”

Mrs. Day laughed at her. “An Anglo-Saxon will be dining with you, darling Amelia! Are you not the least bit excited, you silly little thing? He was in an army, too, of course, though he claims it to be a very different one from the sort we have in our modern times.”

Ogre nodded. “It is very different, yes! Some things are the same, though.”

“I suppose that is good.” Mrs. Canning brightened slightly. “You will make very good company for the gentleman I have invited as our honored guest, this evening!”

“Another colonel?” Miss Mayfield wanted to know.

“I do so love your honored guests, Amelia!” Mrs. Day chimed in.

Ogre looked about confused.

“He is better than almost all of the soldiers I have ever invited to dinner,” said she with a note of pride in her voice. “He is a general!”

***
b.

Mrs. Day, Miss Mayfield, and Ogre left Mrs. Canning’s busy house only to return at seven o’clock that evening, though they were in far more uncomfortable clothes by then. Ogre disliked his suit, which was confining and hot, and Miss Mayfield looked like a wilted stalk of corn in her dress, which was a very lurid green, she told Mrs. Day.

“I should be wearing white,” Miss Mayfield complained miserably. “Better yet, I should be in my regiment uniform, marching about in my wonderful pair of boots!”

Mrs. Holly Day laughed. “But I am quite partial to green!” she said, waving about a hand that was as bright as the leaves of a nearby tree.

Miss Mayfield colored and laughed. Ogre found himself smiling at Mrs. Day, who, to his surprise, smiled back.

They did not enter the party at exactly seven, for Mrs. Day coerced the driver, George, into turning about the street for no less than fifteen minutes more. “We shall appear fashionable!” Holly Day said proudly.

Ogre only knew that he wanted dinner. He was disappointed, however, to discover that they did not eat right away. Instead, upon entering the party, Mrs. Day, Miss Mayfield, and Ogre were introduced to the other guests by a servant, a footman.

By way of conversation, Mrs. Day circulated them through out the room, and they were introduced again. Ogre had grown rigid and pained with the formality, and, eventually, very thirsty. He attempted to ask one of the servants – a “butler,” Holly Day had told him days earlier – for a bit of wine, but he was caught by Miss Mayfield.

“Not until dinner,” she said to him quietly. “My throat is dry, too, but it would be rude to eat and drink before then.”

Minutes passed, and Ogre was beginning to suspect that this was not a party at all. Perhaps they were trying to hide from the guests that Mrs. Canning had prepared no food or that there would be no entertainment. He could only stand very still with finely dressed gentlemen and ladies who would often stop to talk to him. His identity as a Saxon was swiftly revealed to them, and they would stop to tell him “how interesting it must be to be in his position,” and then they would leave so that another person could stop and chat.

Someone came out and announced that dinner was ready, immediately eradicating Ogre’s suspicions of an absent meal or a great conspiracy of starvation. Everyone was separated into pairs, and Ogre found himself standing beside Miss Mayfield. She looked tired and very impatient, though she was kind enough to give him a brief grin. The smile left her face, however, as soon as she turned away.

Mrs. Day was a little ahead of them in their line of pairs. She had been put with a pale gentleman whose brow was wet with perspiration. She spoke to him at length of nothing in particular as all were ushered into the dining room.

Ogre found himself looking toward the front of the line. To his surprise, he saw a large man in black who seemed to move with the heaviness of a storm cloud. The back of his head was bald, and Ogre could see from his vantage point that his skin was as green as Mrs. Holly Day, if not greener.

They were seated at a long table. In front of Ogre were laid an extensive number of utensils of which he knew every name and use. He nearly lifted a fork to examine its sheen before realizing it was not polite to do so. Behind the chairs were a number of well-dressed servants who did not appear to have anything to do besides watch the guests.

Mrs. Amelia Canning was at the front of her table with her husband, Dr. Canning. He was a far taller gentleman than Ogre had imagined, almost as tall as Professor Watterman. Dr. Thomas Canning was much more trim, however, and smiled a bit more easily. Ogre remembered reading his books, "Flora of Albion" and "Elves and Men," and came to the conclusion that all educated gentleman must look to be powerful and strong in this day and age. It seemed fitting to him, as Wilfrid had been so very weak and awful, and that now it was obviously rectified.

The Cannings introduced themselves and sat, which Mrs. Canning did in an impatient manner and Dr. Canning did lightly. As the dinner began, Mrs. Amelia Canning pointedly ignored her husband in favor of speaking chiefly to her guest of honor, the green general.

“...Tooth,” Ogre heard Miss Mayfield say to him.

He looked at her. “What?” he said in surprise.

“His name is General Julius Iron-Tooth,” she whispered to Ogre quickly. “He is very important.”

Ogre looked again at the man. He watched Iron-Tooth smile slowly at Amelia Canning. All of the man’s teeth were sharp and bright. Strange bumps covered his green skin. “I should avoid him, should I?” Ogre asked her quietly.

“I think so,” said Miss Mayfield.

“Please eat your food, dear,” Mrs. Day told her. “You, too, my darling little Ogre.”

“What did you call him?” cried someone from further down the table. Ogre looked, and saw that the speaker was a boy, taller than him but younger. The boy wrinkled his nose. “Is that an endearment?”

Miss Mayfield moved to answer the boy. She turned and opened her mouth accordingly, and in doing so, knocked over a small
bowl of cream with her elbow. A servant rushed to clean this, but Miss Mayfield fell silent and did not attempt to speak again.
She reddened with shame.

“It is only what they call me,” Ogre said to the boy. He then told him his real name. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Arthur, dear, you must behave yourself,” Mrs. Amelia Canning called absently from the head of the table. “Be the good gentleman I know you are and speak politely.”

Arthur Canning cleared his throat and introduced himself to Ogre. “Are you the Saxon that Mother has told me of?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ogre. “It was a spell. Now I am here and have no chance to go back.”

“Surely, you miss home?” asked a young woman further down the table. Ogre remembered that she had been identified as Lady Blackwood.

Ogre was unsure how to answer this. Eventually, he said, “I think that London is very nice.” He hoped that no one else would press him further.

“It must have been so much nicer, back then, though?” Arthur Canning asked. “Did you live before or after Camelot?”

“Of what?” Ogre had never heard the word before, though he understood enough to know that young Canning was referring to a city. It sounded very foreign, and he supposed it was in another country.

Laughter began all around the table. At first, Ogre supposed it was directed at him. He then looked over at Arthur Canning and saw that the boy was deep red and frowning down at his dinner plate.

“What is Camelot?” Ogre found himself asking.

“Do not think of it,” said Arthur Canning quickly.

“It is only a very old story,” Mrs. Holly Day said brightly. “It is very lovely, with knights in green and white and everything! They fought monsters and evil maidens sent by witches, and sometimes, well, Saxons. I rather liked all the stories. They are all preserved in the Society’s library, are they not, Rose?” Miss Mayfield did not respond to this question. Mrs. Day barreled on, regardless, quite happy to talk loudly for the pure joy of talking. “There was a wizard, too, wasn’t there? I remember I rather liked the wizard in the story!”

“A wizard?” Ogre asked. “I remember a wizard. I was his servant.”

Arthur Canning looked up immediately. His enthusiasm was at once renewed. “What was the wizard like?” he demanded.

“There is not much to tell beyond the fact that he was a wizard,” Ogre lied. He regretted bringing up the subject.

“Was he a good wizard or a bad wizard?” Arthur Canning asked. The boy had great, wide eyes that only seemed to grow wider as he spoke. It was impossible to think he was twelve.

“Do slow down your questions, dear,” Mrs. Canning called from the head of the table. “After dinner, you are to go upstairs to bed, you know. It is only because you asked that I decided to let you eat with our party.”

Dr. Thomas Canning said, “A wizard! Interesting!” and did not say much more over the course of the meal. He instead busied himself with eating and nodding politely as his wife spoke at length with General Iron-Tooth.

Ogre felt that this all was very curious. There was no great entertainment and, to his knowledge, nothing interesting to do besides eat the food and speak to his neighbor. He engaged Arthur Canning twice more in conversation prior to the third course, though the young man was now embarrassed and disliked speaking more than necessary. Ogre tried to speak with Lady Blackwood, but saw that she was occupied in conversation with Mr. Kensington and Lord Henry Allen. The three of them seemed to be enjoying themselves very much.

Ogre ventured a look at Miss Mayfield. He saw that she looked rather miserable. Her eyes flitted about the room, looking at nothing in particular. He wondered if she was thinking about the research she would attend to the next day for the Professor’s new book. Perhaps she only wished to avoid conversation.

When they had eaten their fill, Ogre saw that he had succeeded in eating without upsetting any of the rules Mrs. Day had laid out for him. He was, despite himself, pleased at this small success, and felt oddly cheerful. The emotion soon evaporated, however, as he soon discovered that as the meal adjourned, the ladies were ushered to another room while the men at the table were left to dine alone.

Miss Mayfield’s disappearance did not make Ogre as uneasy as seeing Mrs. Holly Day cheerfully leave the room. He supposed she had been some sort of protection for him, though against what, he could not rightly say, until General Iron-Tooth sat down beside him.

c.

The general had with him a long tube wrapped in what appeared to be brown paper. Ogre watched as General Iron-Tooth lit one end of the tube and placed the other end into his mouth. The general laughed, and smoke came out between his teeth.
“I said, how are you adjusting?”

Ogre realized that he had been asked a question. “To London, do you mean?”

“Yes,” said General Julius Iron-Tooth. “Has it been to your liking?”

“Most of it,” Ogre admitted. “It is a bit like being in another country. It is strange.”

“I would think so, seeing the world change all at once.” The man grinned at him in the friendliest manner possible. “It is better when you are very old and see the world change around you slowly.”

“Is it?”

“Yes! Do you wish to know how old I am?”

“Older than I am?” Ogre asked.

“Much older.” The general breathed more smoke.

“May I ask you a question?” Ogre said after a long, hesitating silence.

The man nodded. “You may.”

“Are you a dragon?”

General Julius Iron-Tooth confirmed this with a nod, each of his scales gleaming in the light. “Are you going to ask me how I appear in the form of a man?”

Ogre shook his head.

General Iron-Tooth frowned. “Perhaps you wish to know what it was like to meet the Virgin Queen?”

“I do not know what that is,” Ogre said truthfully.

“I suppose there is only so much that one can learn in a few days!” General Iron-Tooth laughed, though not unkindly. More smoke escaped from his mouth. “You can recognize a dragon when you see one, however. Have you seen one, before, or can
you simply understand who I am by the scales?”

Ogre saw that the dragon’s teeth did not appear nearly as sharp as he had supposed them to be. Perhaps the man filed them down. “I have seen a dragon, before. It was before I went to sleep.”

“When was this, specifically? Was it 820? 825?”

“It was 815, and I was with Eadmund’s army,” said Ogre.

“I have not heard of them.” Iron-Tooth took another puff of his cigar. “Should I have?”

“It does not matter,” said Ogre, though it did very much matter, because it meant that Eadmund’s attack on Fairyland had come to naught. He wondered what happened to them. “There was a battle between Eadmund and a small number of elves in the forest. I saw no leader among them until I looked to the sky.”

General Julius Iron-Tooth chuckled. “You saw a dragon in the sky.”

“Yes.” Ogre nodded. “It was being ridden by a lady.”

Iron-Tooth no longer laughed, but he still smiled. “What sort of lady? Was her skin green?”

“No, I could only see that her skin was pale, but I am unsure of this as she was far away from me.” He paused and thought for a moment. “I remember her hair, though. It was black and it flew out like a banner.”

Now General Iron-Tooth frowned. The brown paper tube smoldered between his scaly fingers gently, his black nails causing the smoke to peal apart into rivulets. “Black hair?” He did not sound confused, only surprised.

Ogre could feel his lips twitch with something like a grin. “Was she important? I think, perhaps, that she was the elf queen. Was she?”

General Iron-Tooth said nothing. The silence was a very telling response.

“Was she?” Ogre pressed forward. “If you know of the elf queen, what of the elf king? Who is he?”

“He is in Fairyland,” said Iron-Tooth. “That is all the public needs to know. He only comes through a door that opens on the Thames, flanked by his armies. Then he returns to his home.”

“With the bodies? You know more about this than I. Does he truly take the bodies of the Englishmen when he goes?”

“The ones he can carry. Everyone sees it, and rumors start! Fairies are not prone to eating human flesh, especially not one like the king of twilight. His heart thrives on suffering and the fancies of his loving court. He does not need to endeavor in cannibalism.”

“Then why does he do it?” Ogre demanded. “I suppose he must wish to bring shame to the human race, then? I suppose he had eaten Eadmund and Eadmund’s armies and the wizard that I despise?”

“You swear you saw the queen before you slept? It would have to be before she went mad,” General Iron-Tooth said suddenly.

Ogre said, “Yes, of course.”

“And you hold no grudge despite the fact that it was she who probably killed your village?”

“How do you know I was born in a village that was attacked? Did Miss Mayfield tell you? Mrs. Day?” He was seized by the realization that something was wrong.

“Do you hold a grudge?” the dragon, Iron-Tooth, asked once more.

“No,” Ogre admitted, because he did not. “Not against the queen. Maybe against the elves, and maybe the wizard, though.”

“Then I will tell you this,” said the dragon. “The king searches for a betrothal gift given to him by the queen.”

Ogre considered this. “Why is that important?”

General Iron-Tooth frowned. His nose, stout with a pair of flaring nostrils, wrinkled in distaste. “Forget I told you anything. I thought something that did not matter and that was not true. Go speak to Arthur Canning. He is eager to meet you.” General Julius Iron-Tooth left Ogre immediately, turning his back to him.

Ogre supposed he had been told something important, but why he was privy to such information made him uneasy. He was only a young man who had put under a fool magician’s spell, of course, and thought of himself of no interest beyond this. Miss Mayfield, upon their meeting, had said things like this happened all of the time.

Arthur Canning met with Ogre again as the gentlemen continued to speak. Young Canning had a great many questions, all of which were whispered so the other guests could not hear him. He asked of knights, pages, Celts, and Romans, the last of which Ogre was able to speak of with a little authority, but not very much.

“Is it traditional for the heir of the household to dine at these parties?” Ogre asked him when Arthur Canning stopped for air.
Canning looked down at his feet, a boy taller than Ogre but still quite young. “My father spoke of you after Mother sent the invitation to the Society.”

Ogre was surprised, remembering the quiet, obliging smiles of Dr. Thomas Canning. “How did he know of my presence so early?”

“Father and Professor Watterman went to Oxford, together. They are great friends,” Arthur Canning added hopefully. “They share work with one another as they are in the same field.”

“Dr. Canning does not work for the Society despite the fact that his books are on the shelves.”

“Yes, but that is all right, as Father is already very busy doing other things.”

“He spends all his time writing books?” Ogre asked. He could not imagine such a job. It sounded very ridiculous to him.

“No. He does research, even some fieldwork, for the crown. That is a secret, though, and some people know it, but it is not to be repeated often!”

“It is an open secret?” Ogre asked, though Arthur Canning looked at him strangely when he said this. “Does your father work for the king?”

“Yes, he does, but a great many people do that,” said Arthur Canning, a note of disappointment in his voice. “It is still
important, though,” he added nervously, “but he reports to other people, too.”

Ogre was losing interest in the subject, though he was curious why the family would treat working for the king in such a high position so awkwardly. Perhaps Arthur Canning did not like it. “Does your father report to lords and earls?”

“Only a number of gentlemen in Parliament,” Canning sighed. “Though I think he talks to General Iron-Tooth. I think that is how Mother finally got him to the party.”

d.

When he was done speaking to Ogre, Arthur Canning disappeared upstairs for the rest of the evening. His interest in the dinner party had diminished with his disappointment in Ogre. Ogre was glad to have had someone to speak to, regardless. He was relieved, however, when the men of the party reunited with the ladies in the other room.

Coffee was handed out by one of the servants. Ogre had never tried such a concoction, before, and was pleasantly surprised at its taste, warm and earthy. Mrs. Holly Day could not say enough against the beverage and went on about her preference for cups of chocolate until the end of the party. Miss Mayfield sipped her tea quietly, though she managed to knock over the cream as a man dressed in black coattails attempted to hand it to her.

The dinner party ended. Miss Mayfield was one of the first to reach the door, Ogre following close behind. Mrs. Day called both of them back so they could bid good night to Mrs. Amelia Canning, though the hostess was too swept up in her admiration of the general to notice.

George Pipkin, smelling of smoke, drove up in their carriage. Mrs. Day instructed Ogre to help her and Miss Mayfield into the landau-barouche, which Ogre did, though he felt it to be a strange request. As he climbed into the carriage, he noticed Dr. Thomas Canning and General Iron-Tooth speak to one another on the stairs leading up to the front door. They looked at him briefly, and Ogre nodded back at them, for it seemed to be the correct thing to do, if Mrs. Day’s other instructions were to be believed. General Iron-Tooth looked away from Ogre quickly, however, while Dr. Canning gave a small wave and an even smaller smile.

The carriage made its short journey to Piccadilly, but it seemed far longer than necessary, for Mrs. Holly Day stopped to enumerate the mistakes made by Ogre and Miss Mayfield over the course of the evening. Ogre had not known that he had used the wrong fork for his roast or that he had forgotten to pass Lady Blackwood her cream until Mrs. Day mentioned it. Miss Mayfield preferred to look out the window during her critique, and if she heard anything Mrs. Day said, Ogre did not know. George Pipkin, at the front, laughed.

“What is it, George?” Mrs. Day cried.

“I have never met an elf so very thorough as you, ma’am!” said he. “The elves on Threadneedle Street and Haymarket are not half so swept up in etiquette.”

“Well, George, I do not suppose you continue to spend much time with those folk, do you?” she demanded.

George looked back at them, briefly abandoning him responsibilities as a driver. He had pale skin with a great quantity of freckles. Beneath his hat was a pair of ears that, Ogre had not noticed before this, were pointed. “Most of those elves have moved on to Islington, actually, but the few I still hang about with have gone up to Bond Street! Those are all halflings like myself, ‘course.”

“Please put your eyes on the road again,” said Mrs. Holly Day with a huff. She said nothing more for the rest of the drive.
Later, within the cozy, full rooms of the Society, Ogre spoke to Miss Mayfield of the party. The latter was far more comfortable now that a heavy history book lay open on her lap. She smiled at him.

“General Iron-Tooth spoke to me,” Ogre said.

“Did he? Was he very frightening?”

“Yes, but it was strange. He said the king of twilight is looking for something important. I do not know why he said that to me.”

“Is that why the light elves take away all the bodies after the attacks?”

“I suppose so,” said Ogre. “Miss Mayfield, do you know anything of the Camelot Arthur Canning mentioned? I am still unsure what he was talking about, I am afraid.”

Miss Mayfield began telling him a great many tales, including the one about the headless knight in green. The night wore on, and Ogre listened to her speak of them with increased happiness. “They are very nice stories,” she said. “I am not surprised Arthur Canning likes them so, though I think he should perhaps start reading the Arabian Nights, for they are very good, too.”

“Perhaps you should have suggested it to him during dinner?”

“No, no! I was too busy making a fool of myself! You may suggest it the next time Mrs. Canning has us over.”

“I hope that is not very soon, especially if General Iron-Tooth is there.” Ogre groaned. He paused to stretch, his hands running through his hair, which Mrs. Day had insisted on trimming.

“That was very peculiar. He is an officer by Mrs. Canning’s standards, but otherwise, General Iron-Tooth is an important person. He only appears at parties every few years. When I was eighteen years of age, I attended a ball where he was, but after that, I did not see him again, certainly not any of Mrs. Canning’s parties!”

“Are you sure?” Ogre felt that this was strange. “Arthur Canning told me his father sometimes reports to General Iron-Tooth in his research for the king.”

Miss Mayfield jerked slightly. “He does? Why, I did not know that! The Professor certainly does not, either. I shall tell him of it in the morning.”

“The general might have found out I was going to be at the party through Dr. Canning, if the Professor mentioned it,” Ogre said, bewildered.

Miss Mayfield wrinkled her brow. Finally, she asked, “Do you suppose that General Iron-Tooth might have been there because of you?”

Ogre thought of the dragon he had seen only a few days before Wilfrid had put him to sleep. He remembered it high in the air like a great, scaly albatross, and the woman that had sat on his back, her sword raised high above her head.

“I suppose he must be very interested in people who are as old as he,” he said after a while.

Chapter 8

a.

George Pipkin was a charitable soul, he felt, but unlike some people, he was open and vocal about his giving spirit. On a particular, chilly morning in November, he took the opportunity to remind the curious, portly gentleman and the garrulous, spirited lady he worked for just how charitable he was.

“It is very cold!” he called from the driver’s seat of the coach, hoping his passengers would hear him. “You are very lucky that I am willing to drive in this chill, awful weather!”

The grass of Hyde Park was frosted white and the wind blew hard and fast, which, he supposed, was the reason his shouts went unheard. George had no greater desire than to return back to the Society and eat his breakfast with Mrs. Downs, the cook, who was probably enjoying her first, warm cup of sherry of the morning. George had not eaten last night’s dinner, for he had spent the evening at the servants’ quarters of Blackwood House on Oxford Street, playing cards with his great friend, Henry Spike. Playing cards with Henry Spike rather than enjoying a full dinner seemed like a very good idea at the time, for
George Pipkin liked Henry very much. Now, however, George was hungry, and very regretful of his decision.

From inside the carriage, George heard Professor Watterman shout, “Would you stop this blasted thing?” which George supposed referred to the carriage. He halted the merry trot of the horses, and listened for further instructions.

The door of the carriage opened, and George turned to see Ogre step out. George did not feel that he hated Ogre, and had almost grown fond of him during the course of the last six months. Pipkin had supposed Ogre was only a guest, despite his unique circumstances, but the boy had become a full resident of the household with a sizable room of his very own.

George Pipkin had long ago decided he was not the jealous sort, despite Henry Spike’s argument to the contrary. George felt, however, that he had been cheated out of something, though he could not quite tell what that something could be. Perhaps it was that Ogre had garnered an honored position without doing a day’s work in the 19th century, which George was sure he had been doing all of his born life. Maybe it was that Ogre had received his current lifestyle of parties and balls when, months ago, he had no idea how to wear a muslin cravat properly, much less an idea of what a muslin cravat was.

Ogre, after George had been so busy thinking these things, climbed onto the front of the carriage beside him.

“I am to sit here,” said Ogre in his halting accent. “Is this an inconvenience to you?”

“None at all,” said George Pipkin with as dashing an air as he could stand to maintain. He sniffed and he felt very cold. “Were you sent here by the Professor and the lady?”

“No. I have sent myself here.”

George gathered the reins in his hands and tugged. The horses moved forward through Hyde Park, seemingly determined against the cold. “Why did you send yourself here? It will be winter, very soon. Certainly, it will have snowed twice by Christmas! Do you know what Christmas is? Did the English have it a millennium ago?”

“It was the day Charlemagne was crowned.” Ogre looked much more relaxed, now. He breathed out, and George saw that the boy was watching his breath turn to steam. “It was not overly special. There were other things during the winter. I remember a festival with green and red and yellow dyes.”

George Pipkin laughed at him. “That was Christmas!”

“No,” said Ogre, frowning. “When I was a boy, I could not be a part of that festival. It was pagan, and the only people who celebrated it did unholy things and ate horse meat.”

“So you were Christian, then?”

“Yes.” Ogre paused. “No. I was told to give respect for both the Christ and Woden.”

“So you were not entirely Christian,” said George. He felt smug, though this was a strange thing to be, for he had not gone to church since he was fifteen.

“Yes. No.” Ogre was confused. “I apologize,” said he.

Silence grew between them and they continued riding through the park. Gray, clinging sleet began to fall.

“Why are you out here?” George Pipkin finally asked.

Ogre looked down. “I told them I wanted air. I get very tired of it, sometimes.”

“Of the folk or the attention?” This was an alien thought to George.

“The Professor is good!” Ogre rushed to explain himself. “Mrs. Day is good, too, and as for Miss Rose Mayfield, she has been as charitable as can be within her power. It is not them that I tire of, nor their fine house!”

“Is it the parties?” George demanded with more vehemence than he wished to use. “I suppose you must be tired of all the demands of balls and meetings with gentlemen, then.”

Ogre hesitated. He tilted his head back to look at the sky over London. He said nothing.

George Pipkin laughed. “I wish I could be tired of parties! At some of them, you are in the company of the best bred men in London.”

“You said ‘company!’” Ogre’s grip tightened on his seat. “It is not really company. None of these people do things that are entertaining. Even Miss Mayfield has never heard a hero poem sung. She only reads them aloud, and that is laughable.”

“I know nothing of hero poems,” said George, truthfully, though he knew quite a number of drunken ballads than he and Henry Spike would sing in tandem.

“If you anything of epic songs, you would know that when Beowulf snaps off Grendel’s arm, it is not to be said like a sermon, it is to be sung! The listener must feel the hero break his enemy’s arm. A lifetime ago, everyone I knew understood that.”

“It is a different world,” said George.

Ogre nodded and said nothing.

“That was not a very adequate response, was it?”

“No,” said Ogre. “But that is all right.”

The sleet had frozen, and now it was snowing. On either side of the path the horses took, snowdrifts began to gather, blue and white.

“Do you know how to play cards?” George Pipkin asked.

“I have been taught Vingt-un.”

“Good! Then I will teach you more. You will come with me tomorrow night to Blackwood House, and we will compete against Henry Spike. He is very smug from his winnings last time, you know.”

Ogre’s eyes widened. He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, the both of us will give him a run for his money, what little he makes!” George Pipkin grinned. “Playing at cards is not exactly jousting, or whatever it is you did in the past, of course.”

“Tomorrow, you said?” Ogre asked after a moment.

George Pipkin thought to himself that he was a charitable soul, indeed, and wished to gloat about it.

“I cannot do cards tomorrow night,” said Ogre. “I must help Miss Mayfield translate some texts. She has made me do much of that lately for I am very useful at it.”

“Well, I have made my offer,” said George.

“Yes, you have, and thank you.” Ogre attempted to be steadfastly polite. Then he said, “Perhaps the night after tomorrow?”
George grinned. He titled his head back, his nose prominent in the icy November air. “Even better,” he said, wondering what Henry Spike would say when he told him they both had the chance to beat an Anglo-Saxon at cards.

***
b.

“You won that hand very quickly.”

“It is easier to read faces than dead languages,” said Ogre.

Henry Spike laughed at George when he put down his cards. “Are you losing hope, George?”

“No, only money.” George rubbed his eyes. “Should we not get back to the Royal Society, soon, Ogre?”

“Not yet!” Ogre smiled brightly. “I have more to win!”

“Certainly, there was gambling in the Dark Ages?” Henry Spike asked as if he were actually interested.

“They are called the ‘Dark Ages?’” Ogre said in surprise.

“You call this gambling?” George Pipkin cried. “He has been winning since we began!”

“Untrue, my dear, stupid man,” said Henry with a grin that crossed the small expanse of his thin, pale face. “I have won at least two hands, George. Ogre has just told us he can read faces; now, like any skilled card players, we must seek to exploit this information.”

“Are you sure you are not a member of Parliament?” George leaned back, refusing to take up his cards, again.

“No, no, George, I am the bastard son of a member of Parliament. There is a vast difference, I assure you.” Henry Spike triumphantly lay down his cards.

Ogre was crestfallen. “I am not as lucky as I thought,” he said.

“It is never about luck,” George told him. “It is about being clever. Henry is very clever. He may only seek my company because he is so horrible a little man!”

Henry Spike beckoned Ogre forward and whispered to him. “Likewise, George has frightened away any reasonable companions besides myself! He is a wicked man with a soul as rotten as the meat on Goswell. You should not seek the company of someone like him any longer.”

“I prefer both of your company to Saxons!” Ogre said with pride.

“He prefers us to Saxons! How wonderful!” George Pipkin was at once entertained. “What do Saxons do if they have no cards to play? Do they play dice?”

“Yes,” said Ogre. “They play at dice and bones. I was only answering these questions for the Professor just yesterday. Also, for entertainment, one drinks, sings, and, well, drinks, I suppose!”

Henry Spike grinned. “The men I know all drink, at least besides Lord Blackwood. George Pipkin, however, is no exception, and thrives on brandy like a fish on water.”

George told him to be quiet. “Did you have brandy, way back then?”

“There was wine,” said Ogre. “Beer, I remember well, but that is only because I remember living with the soldiers more than living in a town.”

“I could not survive without my brandy!” George declared. “Who served the wine? The soldiers? Yourself?”

Ogre winced. “The women! It was always the women’s work. Eadgyd and Hilde were the ones in charge of it in Eadmund’s army. There was only two of them, and they were always tired from their other practices.”

“Why were they always tired?” Henry was shuffling the cards absently. “Did they fight in the battles, too? I have never supposed a woman would have the heart to spill much elf blood.”

“They were tired,” Ogre said, nervously, “because there were two of them. They were the women of the army.”

“Yes, but what did they do that made them so tired?” he demanded.

“They were women. They did tiring things,” Ogre explained once more. He did not seem to think that there was anything more worth saying.

“How tiring? Did they sew? Clean laundry? Give birth?” George asked.

Henry smothered his laughter with his hands. “They became pregnant, I suppose, when they were very unlucky. Ogre, I do appreciate your delicacy of the matter.”

“Thank you,” Ogre said. “It is very difficult to understand the mannerisms, today.”

“But what did the women do?” George asked once more. “What sort of labor was their lot to perform?”

Henry Spike rested his head in his hands as looked at George. “My dear friend,” he said with a lengthy sigh, “I do not believe you are half as wise to the ways of the world that you think you are.”

George Pipkin, mildly offended, let the matter drop. He allowed them to play cards until midnight, and afterward escorted Ogre back to the society. Ogre thanked him profusely, his face beaming with almost pathetic gratitude, or at least what George believed his gratitude to look like. After a conversation of a great many minutes, George Pipkin excused himself, claiming that he needed to get to bed. Ogre went upstairs, forgetting that George’s quarters within the house were in the same direction. George Pipkin, instead, left through the backdoor of the Society, and walked out into the streets.

Later, as Henry Spike slept beside George, he was awoken to find his bedmate moving about.

“Those sort of women!” cried George. “Well, why did not you two simply go ahead and say it?”

“Go to bed, now,” said Henry. “I am really very tired, and even if you don’t know you are tired, you are.”

George kicked Henry beneath the covers. Henry kicked back, though with not as much force. After a while, no one kicked at all, and each was fast asleep.

***

1816
On a tolerable but cold evening in March, Ogre was forced to the Opera House at Convent Garden. Miss Mayfield accompanied him. Mrs. Day came with them, but she was in a dreary mood, and could not be made to talk very much, which made the occupants of the Society suspect she was ill. Mrs. Holly Day insisted she wasn’t, and to prove this to her dear family, she went with Ogre to his first opera.

Professor Watterman did not come, which was not unusual in the least. He made it clear to everyone that he was a hard and diligent worker and, at any rate, hated going anywhere he would be seen with his elfen wife if he could avoid it.

“You wanted epic ballads, didn’t you, Ogre?” Miss Mayfield asked cheerfully as they stood in the throng outside the theater. “Now you shall have them in abundance! They are all in Italian, too, so you shall have the fun of understanding all the words
that I do not!”

“I am all right without my epics, I really am,” said Ogre, who was dreadfully uncomfortable in his breeches and coat. They kept him warm, but the cotton itched at him like mad. “Those songs you play on the piano really are quite nice,” he added for good measure.

“Ah ha! I know you are lying! I play the piano terribly, and I know you dislike those pretty little songs I play for Holly to sing!”

“I don’t dislike all of them,” Ogre insisted.

“You best not, dear, for I plan to sing a number of them when we get home tonight! It will be the only way to get all this dreadful opera out of my head, it really will!” Mrs. Day sighed. “I do wish the dear Professor had not been so quiet and ordinary of his treatment of me, before we left! I’m afraid it has quite put me out.”

Ogre whispered to Miss Mayfield, “Rose, I don’t want to sit and listen to this.”

“How do you know that you will dislike opera until you hear it?” she asked plainly. “Do you not wish to try new things? This century and the ones before it have so much to offer you, and despite your many reservations, I think you have enjoyed yourself so far.”

“It is nice to live in a world where houses sometimes have more than two rooms, Rose, but Woden forgive me--”
Miss Mayfield turned to him with a smile. “Did you just say ‘Woden?’”

“I can’t stand what this opera may be about. The idea of seeing it does not seem right.”

“Are you afraid to see it?”

“Are you daring me to see it so that I will be stupid and try to prove I am not frightened?”

Miss Mayfield sighed unhappily. “How dreadful that that trick no longer works on you!”

“How dreadful that I should continue to become smarter and smarter!” Ogre laughed.

“Being smart isn’t dreadful,” said Miss Mayfield, “but I’m sure that being prideful is.” She smiled, though it was not very convincing. She seemed to cringe, slightly.

“I am prideful, but not overly so,” said Ogre.

“You boast so very often at parties,” Mrs. Day cried. “Please move forward, my darling dear, for it is dreadfully cold, and my hands are blue.”

Miss Mayfield and Ogre both looked at Holly Day. Then they looked at her hands.

“All right! They are bright as evergreens! Goodness, you two are so very literal. Sometimes I wish witty little Amelia were with me always so that she could go on forever of her officers, and such. She can be so much fun, sometimes.” Mrs. Day sniffed.

“I boast?” Ogre said in confidence to Miss Mayfield. “Of course I boast! It is a fine, old tradition. I can’t understand why no one bothers to do it, anymore.”

“We are almost inside the theater,” said Miss Mayfield. “Could we not talk about this later?”

“If you insist.” Ogre was addled, and Mrs. Day’s mood did not seem to lessen him.

c.

Inside the theater, Ogre felt warm all at once. Yes, it was colder outside than it was inside, but oh, what a difference the ambiance of a stage made! He felt strangely welcome as he sat in his seat between Miss Mayfield and Mrs. Day. Ogre was sure he had felt this comfort before.

He watched the crowd that had gathered around go silent, even the people in the private boxes above everybody’s heads. The curtain slowly drew itself up, and the story began.

People in red and yellow, blue and green, ran on stage to sing at the top of their lungs. It took a moment of listening for Ogre to figure out they were supposed to be villagers, a thought that struck him as rather strange, because he had never seen villagers dressed like this. Every face, man and woman, was covered with make-up, and Ogre thought they all looked a little silly. As the story progressed, however, Ogre found himself more taken with Giselle and Weyland’s misfortunes and destinies than their peculiar, red mouths.

The songs were all about how wonderful life was, which was not strange to Ogre until he remembered when the scene was set. Ogre, who had been born in 802, had never before noticed that his village was colorful and pretty and full of singing women with blond hair, mainly because it hadn’t been. Instead, he remembered the village of his youth as something that was a little dirty, sometimes full of underfed people, and often subject to the whims of local thanes. It was not an awful life, because Ogre certainly remembered there had been happy times, but it was not as dreadfully lovely and painfully wonderful as this.

The next act had Giselle and Weyland together once more, only to be torn apart by an army of great, evil elves. The actors who came on as elves had green paint all over their skin and large, sharp teeth in their mouths, and none of them looked like any elves he had ever seen. Certainly, the person who had written this play had a better idea of what the invaders looked like with the example of the elves in London.

Ogre, out of curiosity, looked over at Mrs. Day to see what she thought of all of this. He thought she would look angry and embarrassed but, instead, she was impassive. One moment, he could swear he had heard her sigh, but other than that, there was no other indication of distress.

In the third act, Weyland was trying to unite with Giselle. With true heroism, he was attempting to rescue his lover from a great, terrible, wooden dragon that breathed, much to the audience’s delight, real smoke. It was clear that strings from above the stage operated the wooden dragon, but Ogre also felt that the beast was also somehow more real, despite its falseness.

It was then that Ogre remembered Wilfrid, who was a weak, false man who told the most comforting tales of his day. Ogre remembered always being angry with him, but he loved the master’s stories. The contrast had frightened him then, but now he wondered at it. He wondered so thoroughly, in fact, that it took him a moment to realize the show had been stopped.

A little, bald man with a red face came into the center of the stage. His ordinary clothes fit awkwardly with the brightness of the singers and actors. Regardless, the little man began to speak.

“A small army of bright elves has just come up the Thames. If you fine ladies and gentlemen would be so kind, I hope you will remain in your seats for a little while. Our production will continue for a while longer, of course,” the man was quick to reassure them, as if the show was somehow more important than an attack on the city. “When it ends, however, we ask that everyone remain seated until a messenger has been sent. Thank you, yes, thank you very much, and that is all!”

The show began once more, and Ogre knew right away he was not the only soul to feel uneasy. Most of the people on stage did not sing with half the reassurance they did before, which was unfortunate, because between the beautiful songs, one could hear the distant noise of cannon fire. When Weyland plunged his sword into the beast, Ogre could swear he heard a scream that had nothing to do with anyone inside, much less anyone or anything on stage.

The opera ended. Giselle died tragically and so did Weyland.

Ogre began to speak with Miss Mayfield. “How often does this happen? It hasn’t happened once since I’ve been here.”

“Sometimes, the attacks don’t come for years at a time,” said Mrs. Day in response. “It is best to be inside when they do come, of course. Certainly, my darling husband has not ventured outside, I hope.”

“What about George?” Miss Mayfield asked this nervously. In her hands was a handkerchief with old lace. She twisted it in her hands, coughed, and laughed. “You don’t suppose George was out visiting his friends, do you?”

“I don’t think so,” Ogre said. He thought for a moment, and finally asked, “Shouldn’t they be asking able bodied men in this theater to go outside and join the fray?”

“They used to do that. Now we have soldiers, and they all have muskets and pistols.” Miss Mayfield was immediately filled with pride. She smiled at Ogre. “If they asked for anyone inside this theater to fight, I can’t help but wonder how many people will be killed by elves and how many from the misfire of the regiment.”

Ogre asked if this had happened before, and Miss Mayfield said yes, yes it had. They began talking to one another for a long time. Mrs. Day joined in on their conversation, and soon the rest of the theater’s occupants were all talking to each of their neighbors.

The little man came out on stage, once more. “It is all over! Go home, all of you, and come for our next performance, The Light of the Harp! Please be careful getting home.”

Ogre and his companions were most certainly careful about going back to the Society. There was quite a lot to step over, sadly, though Ogre noticed, among the broken glass in the streets, there were no bodies. The observation sent a chill through him, and he was thankful to get back inside the doors of the house on Piccadilly and its rooms full of books.

Miss Mayfield at once went to find George Pipkin. The Professor, who greeted Mrs. Day at the door, at once assured her he was fine.

“Of course you are!” said she. “I would have simply died if you had thought to be killed. Then it would have been only Rose and Ogre in this house, alone, and the Society would fall into disrepair!”

Professor Watterman, in a strange moment of affection, took Mrs. Day’s hand, and squeezed it. Then he left her alone, returning to his study. He bid Ogre a good evening before he went, and Ogre felt obliged to do the same, though he didn’t know why.

Miss Mayfield came downstairs in a panic. George Pipkin was not in his quarters and nowhere else in the house. Mrs. Day went to consult the Professor on the matter while Ogre went to check all the rooms, again.

An hour afterward, there was a knock on the door. Mrs. Holly Day ran to answer it, and George Pipkin entered, as whole and unhurt as he had been that morning. He had been at Blackwood House with Henry Spike, and the both of them had been quite all right. They, as Ogre had watched opera, had played cards. Miss Mayfield voiced her relief all the same whereas the Professor remonstrated George for not informing anyone he had left for the evening.

Ogre went to bed late. He was tired, though he was completely exhausted when he awoke from a nightmare three hours before sunrise. Ogre had dreamed of an army of green men with the fangs the elves had had in the opera, but with the faces of Wuffa, Oswald, Egbert, Alric, Horsa, Eadgyd, Hilde, and all others who had been in Eadmund’s army. He also dreamed of Blackthorn Hill, hallow, magical, and warm when the world around it was muddy and inhospitable.

He reminded himself what Wilfrid had once said about dreams. They did not tell the future, only the present and the past. Ogre had not thought of Blackthorn Hill for a few weeks.

The next night, Ogre went to bed early, but he awoke once more from a nightmare about Eadmund and his soldiers sitting in the Court of Twilight, feasting on things that sane, good men did not feast upon.

The night after that, Ogre awoke from seeing Eadgyd, who had been the queen of shadows all along, and Wuffa, who had pealed his skin back and had revealed himself to be General Iron-Tooth.

Each dream worried at him for the next week and then the week after that. A few weeks became a few months, and soon, it was October, and everyone in the house knew Ogre would stay up at night, wandering each room. He had done it before this, but never so many nights in a row.

The Professor and Miss Mayfield sat down with him. They spoke of a number of things, together. Soon, Ogre smelled herbs and perfumes before he slept each night in a little box that Miss Mayfield had put beside his bed. His nightmares were still there, but they were not quite as fierce.

Ogre was resting well again for a very long time. He seemed more awake at dinner parties and other outings. His skin had lost its pallor. He seemed happier, almost, and when he turned fifteen in January, he seemed quite the healthy youth. Ogre had grown taller, and though his features still called attention to his Anglo-Saxon life, he could pass for a young heir with a great deal of ease. George Pipkin laughed to see Ogre play the part of a young, healthy man, and Professor Watterman sent him on more errands than usual.

In the beginning of June 1817, Ogre awoke tearing at his own flesh. He had scratched his arms with his own fingernails and has begun to gnash at his lips with his teeth.

Professor Watterman at first supposed him sick. As he began to question Ogre more closely about his dreams, which the young man was hesitant to talk about, the Professor began to form a peculiar number of ideas in his great, round head.

“I think there is a spell inside of you,” he told Ogre.

“Don’t you mean a spell is on me?”

“It’s only a supposition of mine,” said Professor Watterman. “It’s just me, wondering my dry, stupid thoughts, you see. But humor me, boy, won’t you? Come on, now.”

“But what makes you think the spell is inside me rather than over me?”

“Because, my dear boy, I think the spell may be, well.” He paused. “It is a theory I discussed with Dr. Canning.”

“Go ahead,” Ogre said.

“Suppose, only suppose, that your dreams have been your sleeping mind attempting to tell you something. Consider the question, and ask, could a spell be inside of you and, if so, could it be trying to get out?”

Chapter 9

1817

a.

Miss Rose Mayfield took out the regiment uniform that she had buried in her hope chest. She declared her intentions to Professor Watterman of wearing it for the entire month of June. It was, she argued, in the spirit of celebrating the anniversary of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington, and the entire isle of Britain.

Professor Watterman, who had discovered that his adopted daughter would hassle him with the matter until she was as tired as he was, gave in to her demands.

“But you cannot wear the full uniform, Rose. Instead, you may wear the red coat and your shako.”

“Professor, what about the boots? If I give up the breeches, do I have to give those up, too?”

“Yes,” said Professor Watterman sternly. “Do not think I need people thinking strangely of this house more than they already do.” With that, the Professor went to examine the toe bone of a giant in the other room, which Dr. Canning had been kind enough to bring back from Greenland.

Mrs. Amelia Canning came by for tea with Mrs. Day in the morning. “Miss Mayfield, my dear! Such a lovely coat! You did not steal it from some unsuspecting colonel, did you? It looks very professional! How very comfortable and dashing you look in it!”

“Why, thank you!” Rose Mayfield spoke with far more assurance than she had with Mrs. Canning, before. “I made it all myself, actually. I quite liked finding the buttons. I had to hunt ages for them in the shops. They had to be just the right size.”

Mrs. Holly Day was distinctly amused. “Darling,” she said with a grin, “won’t you go and find Ogre? He will be late for tea.”

“Holly, he’s probably asleep. I can’t wake him. I just don’t have the heart.”

“Yes, he seems so peaceful once he finally rests. I do wish he did it more often,” said Mrs. Day with a grand sigh. “All right, then! I will let it go this once, but no more. Tomorrow, and the day after that, he shall join us for dinner and tea.”

Rose began to grow bored as Mrs. Day and Mrs. Canning gossiped about people she didn’t know. They all drank tea together, and Mrs. Downs only interrupted them once. She stumbled in the room to declare, in a loud slur, that all the cooking sherry had mysteriously vanished, and she would go out to the market to get some more.

“Do find some eggs while you’re out!” Mrs. Day called, though she probably went unheard.

Rose heard someone else stumble into the room an hour later.

“Mrs. Downs, are you back already?”

“It isn’t Mrs. Downs, Holly,” Rose whispered. “Be quiet.”

Ogre walked through the room in his linen nightshirt. His eyes were half-closed and his mouth moved, though he did not speak. He appeared to be addressing something to a pile of books.

“How exciting! A sleepwalker!” Mrs. Day turned to Mrs. Canning. “How do you like that for entertainment? Is he not the strangest thing you have ever seen? He walks very normally, though.”

“He has done this before, I suppose?” Mrs. Canning asked, a little bored as she sipped her tea. “He only looks rather lost, and that is all.”

“Ogre?” Rose asked. “Ogre, can you hear me? Are you asleep, again?”

“Don’t wake him up, or else he’ll fall over and hurt himself,” Mrs. Day said helpfully.

Miss Mayfield stood and walked near Ogre, attempting to move silently though with little success. Her arms were out in front of her. “I’m going to take you back to your room, now. Come with me.”

Ogre looked at Rose absently. His mouth continued to move as he swept his arm to the side and knocked over a stack of
books on botany. Ogre’s face did not look particularly infuriated; instead, it was blank and carefully unaffected.
Miss Mayfield took his arm. “We are going upstairs, now,” she told him.

He refused to follow her and stood very still.

“Ogre, please. Come on, now. You’re sick.”

“And indecent, too,” said Mrs. Canning. “He is in his nightshirt. He ought to be dressed during the day even if he is taking a nap.”

Grasping Ogre’s hand firmly, Miss Mayfield finally succeeded in leading him upstairs. She took one step at a time, and Ogre followed, quite dumb.

“I do hope you are not possessed,” she whispered to him as they approached his room. “It would make so much sense.”

At the door of his room, Ogre needed no more encouragement. He crossed the floor and lay down in his bed. If not for the emptiness of his pale face, he would have looked rather peaceful.

Miss Mayfield barely lingered for a moment after he had settled down, for she fully intended to join the ladies once more for tea, when Ogre rolled over and said, “Rose?”

“Yes, Ogre?”

“I did it again. I know I did.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Rose with the kindest smile she could muster. “This will have to be taken care of, soon, I fear.”

“Why soon?”

“Your health,” she said. “And what if you were to sleepwalk, one day, and I was not here? What if the house was empty and you stumbled into that room, downstairs, with the fairy flags and the swords of those Irish clans.”

“I would not hurt myself, not intentionally.” He sat up, nearly hitting his skull on the headboard. “Rose, I want this done with, and I want it over.” He hesitated for a long moment. “It has been too long. I don’t think I can do this, anymore.”

“Have you swallowed your pride, then?”

Ogre became stern. “I dreamed I was at Blackthorn Hill, again. It is becoming too serious. I think I need to go back there.”

“You will probably fall asleep again once you get there. I’m sure of it!”

“No you’re not,” Ogre insisted.

“All right, and do you suppose all of this will go away once you get there?”

“Of course not,” said Ogre. “If we go there, though, and try to understand, maybe it can at least be explained.” He leaned forward and said, slowly, “The Professor told me it was my decision, Rose.”

“He would do a thing like that. He always leaves everything up to everyone else!”

“Come back with me and the Professor.” Ogre looked at the ground as he said this. “If we go back, you need to come with me. Whatever happened that made you wake me, I don’t know. Couldn’t it be useful?”

Rose backed up toward the door. “Ogre?” she finally asked.

“Yes?”

“I am going to bring my trunk, this time, and – and you must promise the Professor will not argue with me on this – two
changes of regimental uniform.”
***

b.

Ogre at first thought that they would take another mail carriage to Blackthorn Hill, but Professor Watterman insisted on making George Pipkin take them.

“Yes, we must go in that lovely new carriage we have just bought, dear!” Mrs. Day readily agreed.

“You are not coming, are you?” Professor Watterman knitted his brow in displeasure. “I would prefer you to stay home. In
fact, I would prefer you to pretend you had never heard of Blackthorn Hill in your life.”

“If I come with you, my darling, I shall promise to stay out of trouble and be a good girl.”

The Professor gave a harsh, stout laugh. “I don’t believe a word of it. You would still seek to bother me even if you did as you say.”

Mrs. Holly Day sighed. “If you do not agree to take me along with you, my dearest love, than I will seek to bother you regardless.” She proceeded to go upstairs to pack her things.

Professor Watterman did not rebuff her actions, but only ignored her as best as he could until the beginning of their journey. By then, there were other things to worry about, and he was almost perfectly indifferent to her.

“Dr. Canning will come after us if we find anything intriguing, there,” the Professor told Miss Mayfield in the carriage. “You said there was an inn nearby?”

“Yes, but it is a few hours travel to Blackthorn, I’m afraid!”

“Then we will camp.”

“And I shall wear my boots?” Miss Mayfield asked, excited.

“If there is mud,” said the Professor. “Not before or after. Ogre?”

Ogre looked up at Professor Watterman. He had been nodding off.

Professor Watterman leaned forward. His bulk nearly shifted the carriage. “Do you have any reason to suspect these dreams are prophetic?”

“Dreams are about the present and the past and all that is in between. They do not tell the future.” He looked out the window. Outside, on the moors they passed, it was raining. He had not been out of London in a long time, he realized, and had quite forgotten there existed a world outside of it. He would have been a little more overjoyed, he decided, if he were not so very tired.

“Who told you that?” Professor Watterman asked in surprise. “There are many recordings of prophecies all throughout history. Even the Bible has a few.”

“I know,” said Ogre, “but someone told me that about dreams. He was a, well, he was a wizard.”

“Not the one you’re always talking about?” Miss Mayfield asked.

“The cruel gentleman? Lord, you believe what he has to say, after all?” the Professor demanded, sitting up. “You have told us again and again that he was a liar.”

“I suppose I have.” Ogre admitted this with his eyes cast to the ground. “You must believe me, though, when I say that there were times that I almost trusted him.”

“I’m sure he did, but he left you under a hill, Ogre. His words are hardly to be trusted,” Professor Watterman said.

“That is, unless you wish to contradict yourself,” Mrs. Day added. She had been waiting for a moment where she could jump into the conversation.

“He put you to sleep for a thousand years,” Miss Mayfield said. “I can imagine few things crueler than that.”

“You’re a man out of time,” Professor Watterman agreed, though he said it in a way that sounded as if he wanted Ogre to take pride in this fact. He gave him a weary, small smile.

“‘Out of time?’” said Ogre, thinking over the words. “You mean that in such a way as to describe my displacement in another era?”

“Why, yes.” Professor Watterman looked vaguely surprised.

Ogre’s face was pallid and his eyes red with want for sleep. “For a moment, I though you meant that my time had run out.”

***
George Pipkin drove them to the road closest to Blackthorn Chapel. “Everyone out! I’m not driving the horses through grass and mud!”

“Mud!” cried Miss Mayfield in delight. She looked at the Professor expectantly.

“Well, go ahead, go ahead!” He moved to leave the carriage. It shook as he did so. “Ask George to remove your trunk from the top of the carriage, and do as you will!”

“I have no boots!” Mrs. Day declared. “Will you carry me, darling?”

“No,” said the Professor. He stopped to help her out of the carriage, however, and her hand was briefly grasped in his. He pulled away, though, almost as soon as he had touched her.

She beamed. “You are a gentleman!”

“Not where you are concerned, you seductress fairy woman.” Professor Watterman grit his teeth.

Ogre followed Mrs. Day out of the carriage. Miss Mayfield came out last, and asked George to help her get the trunk.

After taking all of the bags off of the carriage, George Pipkin bid them well. “I shall be back at the inn several miles away. When shall I come back to get you?” he asked, addressing himself to the Professor.

“George, have a very good dinner, and come back in the morning. We shall be here all night.”

“I hadn’t a clue in the world you made jokes, Professor,” George said with a laugh. “Now, really, when should I be back?”
Miss Mayfield spoke up as she looked through her trunk for her boots. “See you in the morning, George.”

“Have a lovely night!” Mrs. Day cried. She took a lacey handkerchief from her sleeve, and proceeded to wave George away with it. It seemed that she was trying to imitate the manners of a lady, but instead, she looked like a little girl playing at the same goal.

George Pipkin was, against his better judgment, forced to leave the four to their own devices. He climbed back to his seat on the carriage, and drove the horses down the road in the opposite direction. He did not look back.

“I think he is angry at us for having such a strange adventure without him,” Miss Mayfield said vaguely. “Should we take all our things with us, or hide them in some shrubbery so we don’t have to carry it everywhere?”

“I think he thinks we’re all mad.” Ogre sighed.

“I think you think we’re all mad,” said the Professor. “Luckily, we are not.”

“Put our trunks and bags in the shrubbery?” Mrs. Day laughed at Miss Mayfield. “Why, that is most ridiculous, Rose! Surely, if we are to hide our things there, we ought to paint whiskers and eyes on each item so that they are camouflaged as wild beats! I will get the chalk from my purse!”

“Never mind,” the Professor mumbled.

After the majority of their luggage had been camouflaged appropriately, they were indeed hidden in the shrubs at the side of the road. Professor Watterman, Mrs. Holly Day, Miss Mayfield, and Ogre all began the journey toward Blackthorn Hill. Mrs. Day was quite happy to remark on the number of trees and rocks they passed, and the Professor eventually told her that if she was closer to the ground, she would probably remark on the blades of grass if she could. She readily agreed to this, and launched into a speech about how happy she would be if she had the power to shrink herself.

The fresh air of the country did Miss Mayfield well. If Ogre was not improving in health, she certainly was. Her cheeks were now ruddy and her eyes bright. He saw she was now quite as happy as the first time he saw her. She never seemed half so cheerful at parties or at home, for that matter.

The mud of the fields stuck to everyone’s shoes, but despite this, the moors seemed a far cleaner place than London. The Professor, who did not often go out, as was evidenced by his portly body, seemed to enjoy walking about.

Ogre suspected he was the only one with a gathering sense of dread. Professor Watterman had said they would stay the night, and had consequently driven away George Pipkin for the rest of the day. Ogre wondered if perhaps keeping him, and more importantly, the horses, would have been a good idea.

It was a little while after they found Blackthorn Chapel that the hill came into view. Ogre was not sure what he had hoped to find, but the mound looked very much the same, with its rocks, trees, and wild grass. How odd, he realized, for the earth to have built itself up in this way when all of the land around it had gone flat over the centuries.

“Do we simply approach it like this?” Mrs. Holly Day asked. In her voice was a strange tremor, which was very foreign to the ear of those who lived with her.

Ogre hesitated before he said, “I do not think we should wait.”

“You are very right!” Professor Watterman agreed, as if all his duties as patriarch had been deferred to the boy. “We have waited long enough, and I can think of no reason to delay.”

“Charge!” cried Miss Mayfield, who had put on her red jacket over her dress.

They approached the mound, and began to climb it. Mrs. Holly Day had a bit of trouble, as the bottom of her gown snagged on a pointed stone. They carried on until the top.

“Where did you find Ogre, Rose?” Professor Watterman turned to her.

“Yes, how did you enter the hill, dear?” Mrs. Holly Day looked very uncomfortable. She sat down on a large rock to catch her breath. “I hope it is not too far away, because though the natural world is quite pretty, and I adore looking at it, I am not so sure I enjoy being in it.”

“The hole is somewhere, I am very sure. I brought extra rope so that we shall all climb down it,” Rose Mayfield added happily.

“Also, I have with me some knives from the kitchen back home! We shall cut at the vines if they come alive again, and attack us.”

“How did you beat them off the first time?” Ogre wanted to know. “When I woke up, none of them were moving.”

“They just stopped on their own! It was a curious thing.” Her cheeks reddened slightly as she said this. “I am sure we shall not be so lucky, this time.”

c.

For two hours, they looked for the hole. Rose and Ogre described all they could remember of it, adding a tree stood nearby, though if it was oak or maple, neither could seem to agree. At last, as they approached their third hour of the search, Professor Watterman stopped them.

“It is no use. The blasted hill is magic in all its misery, and has healed itself up!” he announced. "It has been three years, anyway."

“I suppose finding it again is out of the question,” Mrs. Day said with a sigh.

“We can still look,” Ogre insisted. “It has to be important. Where else am I acquainted with the hill besides the hallow innards beneath?”

“Ogre, my boy, do you think someone actually dug all the way down into a previously existing hill to place you there?” The Professor asked. “This was created unnaturally.”

“It must have been grown over time, not all at once, Professor,” said Miss Mayfield.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

She motioned around herself. “Look at all the trees and things! This is time magic. If the hill had appeared suddenly, there would be nothing on its but dirt and grass. If we were back at the Society, I’m sure I could find a book all about it!”

“Perhaps it is protective?” Mrs. Day suggested. “The spell, I mean.” Her inspiration was met by stares and a loathing look by her husband. She laughed at all of them. “Well, I am sure I do not know! Protective charms and the like is the only thing I am really familiar with! Mother brought it from the old country, and was always about the house, mumbling at the doors and windows so our neighbors would not dare sneak in during the night.”

“The wizard had no reason to put a protective spell on me,” Ogre said. He laughed suddenly, bitterly. “He hated me and he kept me about him so that he could feel superior. Then he tried to poison me, and when that did not work, he buried me!”

“Do you think he could have done it on purpose?” Miss Mayfield had pulled out her feathered shako. She placed it on her head, adjusting its red and white feathers.

“It is undoubtedly caused by some magic, is it not?” Professor Watterman was looking at the trees, now, with great interest. “Look how the sun comes through the leaves! It is time distortion, for here it looks as if it is noon, when in fact noon was hours ago!”

“Under other circumstances, it would be a lovely place for a picnic,” Mrs. Day remarked, also turning toward the sky. She shielded her eyes. “How bright and wonderful the sun is!”

Ogre looked toward the sky, as well. His eyes found the sun, and horror filled him. “That is not the sun,” he said quietly.
“It certainly does not look like the moon!” Miss Mayfield looked up, as well, and saw nothing that suited her interest. She
turned her attention toward shining the buttons on her jacket with a handkerchief.

“It is not real sun!” he yelled. “I mean, it is not a real thing! Can’t anyone see it? It is an opening! It is a door that has not yet opened!”

Miss Mayfield turned her eyes toward it, again, and the Professor cocked his head and Mrs. Day squinted.

The sun that hung over them burst into nothing, and in its place was an opening that hung in the sky. Through the opening were bright green hills, all very like the one they stood on.

“It is Fairyland,” said the Professor. He pulled out a napkin from his pocket, and proceeded to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Dr. Canning made illustrations while he was spying in the court. He did it all in chalk, and when he brought it back to me, I thought he was perhaps a little mad, for he claimed the colors were twice as vibrant as the ones he used.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Day, and let out a nervous giggle. She covered her mouth, and began to walk backwards.

“It is very lovely.” Miss Mayfield was almost as awed as the Professor. She looked at Ogre. “Did you open it?”

Ogre heard her, but he did not answer. His mouth was open. “Do you...you see that shape that is walking toward us from it?
The black moving across the nearest hill?”

“I do not,” said the Professor honestly.

Miss Mayfield frowned. “Nor do I.”

“I do. It is a man who has not shaved in what looks like a very long time,” Mrs. Day said. “That is a very full beard!”

Ogre knew at once that it was Eadmund. His spirits rose, and he wondered if the great man would see the door from his end.
“Eadmund!” he yelled. “We are here! I am here! I have saved you!” He turned to Miss Mayfield, his smile wide. “Eadmund is alive,” he said in a shaky whisper. “He is a hero and he is a friend.”

“Are you sure?” Miss Mayfield asked. She, too, now saw the man coming toward the door. He walked in long, measured paces.

“Of course it is Eadmund. Where is his army, I wonder? If he is alive, I am sure that Oswald, Egbert, Alric, and even stupid Wuffa are.”

“I am not asking if you are sure it is Eadmund, I am asking you are sure he was your friend.” Her voice was quiet and hallow.

Ogre was about to answer confidently in the affirmative, but stopped himself. He looked at the ground and began to wonder when Eadmund had ever named him a good companion. His memories of the man were so very fond, but he could not remember an instance that did this fondness justice beyond a moment or two. This perplexed him.

“Here he comes! The fellow is about to jump!” Professor Watterman said with a laugh.

Ogre looked up just in time to see Eadmund fall from the hole in the sky onto the ground. He stood up in his garb, his tunic slightly torn, and, if Ogre was not mistaken, bloody, though he could not see the source of the wound. Then his eyes saw the peculiar, long and scraggly beard. It was red as copper.

Without saying a word, Ogre ran toward the man as quickly as he could. He wrestled the thin wizard to the earth once more, and shouted to his friend, “It is Wilfrid! Help me hold him down!”

Wilfrid shouted at him in Old English, and Ogre had to re-orient himself to hear the words, “Get away! Help! How can I be killed, now, of all times?”

Professor Watterman came up from behind, and took hold of Ogre. He lifted the young man into the air and watched him struggle.

Ogre twisted himself around so he could face Miss Mayfield, his best ally. “You will be good, will you not? You will help me kill the son of a pig!”

Professor Watterman dropped Ogre. From the ground, he looked up at Miss Mayfield’s face, and saw that not only was she horrified she showed no comprehension. It was then that he realized he had been speaking in his natural tongue.
He did not continue speaking to her, but instead turned to Professor Watterman, and howling, “Why did you stop me? That is Wilfrid! It is the wizard!”

“It is also a man missing an arm,” Mrs. Day observed from a short distance away, for she had not wanted to be a part of the action at all.

Ogre looked and he saw. Wilfrid, dressed in rags with unkempt hair, was shaking as he tried to stand, but with good reason. Where his right arm was supposed to be was a stump with bandages covering it. The blood on Wilfrid’s chest was dry, but the bandages were slightly damp.

With a pang of betrayal, Ogre watched Miss Mayfield bravely step forward and make Wilfrid sit down. Wilfrid looked at her strangely, but did as she made him, perhaps because she was taller than him and a little terrifying in her bright red coat.

“Another fairy, now? You are not pretty enough to look at nor ugly enough to truly frighten!” Wilfrid told her with a peculiar, creaking laugh. Under his yellowed eyes were dark spots. He looked old, though not old enough for a man over one thousand years in age.

“What did he say?” Miss Mayfield asked Ogre.

“He thinks you are a fairy.” It was a moment before he found his voice. “Why is he not dead? Why is he not younger if no time has passed?” Ogre said aloud.

“You will be our translator,” the Professor informed Ogre. “I cannot recognize a syllable this man is saying! His accent is completely alien to the one with which I learned Old English. Did he say the word ‘unpleasing?’ That is all I heard.”

Ogre hardened his courage. He asked in a tongue that made him feel years younger, “Wizard! Do you remember me?”

Wilfrid stared at him. “I have never seen anyone as curious as you and your party in my life, and I have been in Elfland for almost three, long, awful years. But I am not there anymore, am I?” he asked.

“No, you are not,” said Ogre. He was about to ask once more if the wizard recognized him when, to his horror, he watched Wilfrid bend forward and cry.

“I am away from that awful place at last! I do not care if I am home, I do not care if I am in Hell, I know only that I am away!” Wilfrid laughed as tears streamed down his withered face.

“Stop that!” Ogre said harshly. He looked over at the Professor and Miss Mayfield who stared. Mrs. Day had stepped even further back, and was in between the trees, not wishing to come out. “Wilfrid, you are a man, even though you are womanish and stupid,” Ogre said. “Where are Eadmund and his army?”

“Eadmund lives and Eadgyd with him, though he has always hated her and she has always feared him, and I have no idea how the two will continue to survive together.” Wilfrid said after some thought. “I am home, and they are not.” He looked around at the trees with wonder, and the breeze that rattled the branches.

“What about the rest? There were dozens and dozens of soldiers!” Ogre felt his heart grow heavy in his breast as he said this, for the answer would surely not be the one for which he hoped.

“Hilde died first. A dragon swooped down and ate her. She was weak, of course, but I sang a song of heroism for her, anyway, and everyone living then enjoyed it. Wuffa, the last of our men and the last of the true warriors besides Eadmund, was killed by the king of twilight two days ago. I was separated from Eadmund, then, and have been trying to get back to my world ever since.” Wilfrid paused to breathe hard. He reached up to feel the stump of his arm. “How do you know of my lord? Has he become legend?”

“You do not remember me?” Ogre asked.

Wilfrid looked at him for what seemed like a long time. “No,” he finally said. “Should I? I have been away from this world for seems like centuries, though truly it as only been a few years, yes?”

“It is Ogre.” His voice was quiet. Try as he might, the anger he felt withered in his throat and he could not manifest itself, again. When Wilfrid still did not appear to understand, Ogre gave him his real name.

Wilfrid laughed at him. “You do not mean the boy? You are an imposter! I put the boy asleep! He is not as old as you, and
even if he was, he would not be so tall! You are being false,” he said. “He is awake, of course, but only because I needed him to be. Now he can be my servant, once more.”

“The stupid spell on me broke before its time, then! You did not want me to age? Well, I have! And it has been one thousand
years!”

“Do not lie,” said Wilfrid. “I know a lie when I hear it. I am very good at telling them, myself, so that is how I know.” His seemed unsure as he said this, however. “The invasion has failed, but I have not,” he said.

“What have you told the man?” said the Professor. “He is shaking!”

Ogre had nearly forgotten Professor Watterman’s existence. “I have told him that it has been one thousand years,” he said, careful to speak in the modern language.

“You should have waited,” Miss Mayfield said gently. “I tried to wait with you.”

“Why is the door not closed?” Wilfrid screamed. He had turned to look at the sky. “My God! Ogre, close it! I had that stone – the spell – about me to keep you from knowing your talent, but it disappeared, one morning, long ago, and now you have no reason not to do it!”

“What is he screaming about, now?” she asked. “He looks quite frightened!” She turned to the window into Faerie and her eyes widened.

“Close it, boy!” the Professor shouted.

Ogre heard the marching feet approach before he could even begin to try. He looked to the window in the sky, and armies of the beautiful elves with gold, brown, and bright red hair, came marching through the door in armor of white, red, and gold.
Each wielded a sword and each wore a face of the grimmest pallor.

“Disappear!” he shouted at the door before he could think to do anything else. He shouted the word twice more, once in Old
English and again in Modern. Soon, he was howling at the armies to go away.

With his remaining limbs, Wilfrid ran for cover. Perhaps he ran toward Mrs. Day who was crying, “You will not touch my husband! You will not!”

Ogre looked toward the army and not toward his companions. In front of the army was a man who rode a chariot drawn by a cockatrice. He was dressed in blue and yellow from head to foot and wore a wreath of gold leaves on his head. His ears were not pointed and his skin was well burnt with the sun. He rode tall, and rode with a smile on his face.

The soldiers came in a wave, and Ogre, to his great shame, found himself running, too. The door grew heavy with the men as they pushed through it and landed on the grass. Each elf stopped to brush off his armor and came forward once more, doing his task with the gravity of a ditch digger in a churchyard.

As Ogre ran from them, he saw Miss Mayfield running in the opposite direction. She was screaming, “Charge!”

“Rose!” Ogre yelled.

He stopped and turned around in time to see the man in the chariot take hold of Rose, pulling her up by the hair. She screamed and kicked, her face bright red as she spun in the air.

“Are you supposed to be a man?” said the king of twilight. His voice was warm and doting, his smile unflinching as Rose screamed in his grasp. “My court will happily check for you!”

This, of course, was the very last thing Ogre heard the king say, for something heavy swooped down upon him and lifted him into the air. The ground fell away beneath his feet, and has he went higher the site of his one thousand year slumber resembled nothing more than an anthill swarming with ants.

d.

When Ogre looked up, all he could see were dark green scales. The air was cold, and sliced at his face with great speed. He shouted insults and curses, and was sure the wind carried them all away. The leather wings above him made great swooping sounds.

Ogre and the dragon landed in a forest minutes later, though it was a great distance away from where he wanted to be.

The dragon let him off beside a ravine, and quickly darted into the trees, his heavy tale following close behind him. Ogre barely had time to run before General Iron-Tooth came out to meet him wearing a rather charred looking black waistcoat and breeches. His scaly skin was shiny with sweat and his red eyes were wide. He was panting, and Ogre could see in his mouth a great many sharp teeth.

Ogre calmed himself at the sight of those teeth. “You are to take me back there,” he said slowly.

“You are not going to ask me how I found you and your great, stupid family, then?” he demanded, laughing in a desperate manner. “I have preserved your life against harm, and a good thing, too!”

“I will not run, this time,” Ogre insisted. “Only give me a sword, and I will rescue Rose. Though the king of twilight will undoubtedly kill me, I will do it, anyway. It will be a good death.”

“How realistic the boy is!” Iron-Tooth turned from side to side, as if addressing an audience of invisible men. Tears were brimming in his eyes. “Finally, he has proved his use, and now he reveals himself to be a noble idiot! How lucky is the queen of shadows!”

“I wish to rescue Rose and, if the Professor is dead, I will reap a price for his death,” he said, though this time he was wicked, for he spoke in Old English. “You are awful to speak of your heathen queen at a time that she and your alliance are of so little importance to me.”

“Stop it! Unlike the most miserable of Professors of the world, I have long forgotten your language, and do not care.”

“You are not a dragon, you are a man who has with him the heart of a coward,” said Ogre, liberated to say as he wished in the hopes that General Iron-Tooth was not lying about forgetting Old English.

He was exasperated. “I have gone to all this trouble! Dr. Canning informed me the Professor was taking you to your hill. I threw away an invitation to a ball and the appearance at a military review so that I could follow above your head. I was a good general, and made sure you did not open a door to Faerie and compromise the entire country!” He began to laugh. He turned again to his invisible audience. “See how things always turn out for me? The elves are rejected in proper English society and my queen is mad! Now a boy has killed all of England!” The general bent over to hide his face. “I should have made sure you did not open the door. The hill was protected, though, and I had to fly around it again and again to finally see you!”

Ogre listened. “Why did you take no one else?” he asked, this time in such a way that Iron-Tooth could understand him.

“You were the most important, or at least I suspected you had some power in you all along, but I didn’t know you did until the door opened the way it did for you. You said no spells! You read the magic that hung in the air like it was a poem on a page! I knew you were well versed in languages, but the Professor has hidden your ability from me. He has not even told Dr. Canning!” Iron-Tooth studied Ogre’s expression, and added, “Everyone else was hiding. The Mayfield woman was already in the grasp of the king.”

“The king is your enemy. You should have struck him down.”

“He is powerful, idiot.”

“You were a dragon!” Ogre cried.

“I am a dragon, and the king is a dragon slayer. He killed a fair number of lizards for the queen’s engagement presents.” Iron-Tooth was rubbing his head. “I need...I need to alert the regiments. Certainly, by now, the soldiers have begun to march through the countryside.”

“Go to them, then, and take me with you! I will correct it all, every last bit of it. You are a general and I will be a warrior! Give me one of your fangs for my sword.”

“Give me a boon and I will make Rose Mayfield a priority,” he said, and his shrewdness showed in his face with an intensity that eclipsed his sorrow. “I will even give you your sword!”

“Give me a musket, instead. I will save Rose, myself.”

“You will go nowhere without doing as I wish. All of London and all that I have grown fond of can burn, in the mean time!” He was mad. “The regiments can alert themselves!”

“I will not give you a boon!” Ogre ran at him, arms out in front. He wanted to knock them down, though he was not half so tall or thick-limbed.

The dragon took hold of him, and dragged him up from the ground by his collar. “Enough!” he cried. “Look around you! See the trees?”

Ogre spun in the air. His fury was hot, but he found once the dragon suggested he look around him, he was compelled to do it.

“There’s another door, here,” Ogre whispered. “It’s not a false sun, this time. Do you see that great stone? It is not really there.”

“Good,” said Iron-Tooth. His entire body relaxed, and he dropped Ogre. “Go to it.”
Ogre landed uncomfortably, his face in the dirt. He picked himself up, however. “It leads to Elfland?” he asked, overjoyed.

“It leads to a pocket world the queen of shadows has created all around herself. Speak to her and convince her to come back to England.”

Nothing but silence passed between them. Then Ogre said, “You cannot do this thing?”

“I have tried to convince her for centuries.”

“Why do I have to do it?”

“You have her heart,” the dragon said plainly.

Ogre was put off immediately. “I am a man. How can a man have a woman’s heart?”

General Iron-Tooth took a breath of hair. He moved his black-clawed hand across his forehead. “Let me ask you this. How did you get your talent, Ogre?”

“O Lord. It is from her?” Ogre was baffled. He could not move. “Say I am not something great and stupid, like her son and a fairy prince!” he cried at once.

“If you were her son, I would question my queen far more closely,” Iron-Tooth said with a note of disdain. “You are very, unforgivably human.”

“Then what am I to do with her?” Ogre demanded.

“You have acquired an aspect of her. She, too, could once read things that no one else could, unlock spells and codes.” He paused in thought. “If I had known of your ability, I would have put you to work breaking the codes of foreign countries,” he said absently. “No matter. My terms are these. Go through the door and speak to the queen where she lives hidden in her chambers. Come back with her, and Rose Mayfield is safe.”

“Then you are to wait here as the rest of England is eaten alive by fairies?” Ogre wished to add, “Like a coward would?” but he supposed it would not be the best idea to say it.

“I will fly to gather our armies,” said General Iron-Tooth. “Despite my own interests in regaining old allies, I have a duty.”

“Then do it,” said Ogre. He turned on the heel of his shoe and walked toward the stone. He was secretly overjoyed over his exit.

Ogre reached the stone. It was large, at least the size of Iron-Tooth if not taller, and it was very sharp at the top. Ivy grew over it.

Despite himself, Ogre looked back to see Iron-Tooth watching him carefully. Perhaps he was not a very terrible person, only a man who had his own interests at heart. Ogre immediately pretended he had not thought the dragon admirable, not even for an instant, and studied the stone with determination. This was all to find Rose and reunite the Royal Society of Otherworld Research, or he realized with mounting dread, the remainder of it.

His thoughts fell away the center of the stone opened into a rectangle. The door opened into nothing but darkness. Ogre put his head through, and looked down. Below him were winding stairs made of brick and torches hanging on what looked like a very long tower.

Ogre did not look back at Iron-Tooth. His thoughts, in fact, could not have been further away. Instead, he lifted his foot, and placed inside the door, landing on the first step.