Disclaimer: The four Founders and their school belong to JK Rowling and various associated companies. The rest of the characters and plot belong to me and general history (see bibliography at the end of the story). I do not own Robert the Bruce, William Wallace or King Edward I (If I had, things would have turned out quite differently).
Chapter Three
A Dream
"Listen! I will describe the best of dreams which I dreamed in the middle of the night
When, far and wide, all men slept…"
'The Dream Of The Rood'
More and more she was plagued with incomprehensible dreams.
Helga was possessed of a gift that she did not herself understand. Her dreams foretold of the future. Yet, when she tried to remember them in her wakened hours, they were nothing more than quickly vanishing smoke whose color and texture she could remember, but whose substance always seemed to be beyond her.
Tonight she dreamt in the colors red and black.
Of bloodshed and misery.
She dreamt of oppression and of banishment. She dreamt of a great divide.
Awaking immediately, Helga forgot everything her dream had just told her. In the moonlight of the high-arched window she could see that her husband had not stirred from her waking.
She quietly left the bed chamber to check on her children.
In the eight years since the Bishop of Canterbury had blessed the school, there had been a great success in the teaching of their arts.
Mungo, at age nine and a half, had shown an amazing proficiency in the arts of healing. Like Joshua had predicted, he had a gift with his touch.
Aaron, eighteen and a dominator at the tournaments, was now teaching the subtler arts of
Herbology in Helga's place.
Azria was ever at Helga's right hand, assisting in the teaching of her students in healing, already having mastered the art in her nineteenth year.
Her oldest, Hugo was overseeing the staffing of the school. He had taken an interest in the affairs of the church and heeded the advice of the Dominicans on every issue. Helga had been surprised when just two days earlier, Hugo approached her with a scheme he had fixed up with the Abbot Anselm of the monastery on their lands.
He would be leaving soon for London to set up representation for the magical community and for the school in particular, a Magesterium that would prove strategic in the court of the king who was less than sympathetic to their cause. Their only ally (and yet a very important one) the Bishop of Canterbury supported the idea that Hugo presented and he would leave with the blessing of the church.
She was not worried for him, though she had heard that the court of the king, known by some as Edward the Longshanks, was a cutthroat one.
No. She worried more for Azria and saw her daily growing more fond of Salazar's only son and inheritor of his estates, Eomer. Helga had not been able to forgive her sister for making Salazar happier than she could have hoped to. Salazar seemed to support Helga's wariness. He seemed as unhappy about the prospects of a match between the two families as she was.
She moved slowly and silently through the hall and, seeing a light on in Azria's room, she knocked and entered.
"What has you up so late, child?" Helga asked, setting her candle down and moving to the window where Azria sat, looking out.
"I should have learned from Rowena how to read the stars," Azria said.
"What would you like the stars to tell you?"
Azria thought for a moment but did not answer. Turning to her stepmother she said, "I do not want Hugo to go to London."
"He is quite capable of minding himself. He goes in the name of the school." Helga had come up with a solution in that very moment that would ease her apprehension as concerned her stepdaughter and the heir of Slytherin. "Why do you not accompany him to London? You have never been there yourself. And if you worry for him so, it would put your mind at ease to look after him."
Azria considered this for a moment. "I could travel to London with him and see that he is properly installed there. Once I am satisfied that everything will be well with him, I could come back."
"Why would you want to come back?" Helga asked.
"I cannot leave you here to apprentice all of these students by yourself," Azria said.
"Child, I can very well manage on my own. Besides, I have Aaron and Mungo to help me," Helga argued.
"Do you think I should go? Do you think it the wise thing to do?" she asked uncertainly.
"I think it the wisest thing to follow your own heart, child. If it would ease your fear to look after your brother in London, you should do so."
"Do you think Hugo would want me along?" Azria asked doubtfully.
"Of course he does. You would bring him comfort in a strange land."
"Very well, mother," Azria said with an unsure smile. "I will go to London with Hugo."
"I am pleased to hear it so. I see that you have been sad as of late. It will do you good to get away from home and so much work as I have put upon you."
"Oh, nonsense, mother!" Azria said. "I enjoy teaching here."
"Then it is something else that bothers you?"
Azria fell silent and a moment later expressed her weariness and retired.
Helga left in a mixture of relief and despair. Her daughter was unhappy and she had yet to discover why.
Galahad sat beside Rowena on the high tower that was built specifically to observe the stars. It was a clear night and the moon was only full by half. It was a perfect night for watching the stars.
She sat taking notes on what she observed, stealing glances at her son every now and then, proud to have fostered such an interest of the heavens in him. There was none that made her heart happier than her two sons. She even found herself on occasion, forgetting her loneliness and longing for home when she was around them. Here was a better place to raise them in any case, she reasoned. And her lands were safe in Eire under a steward that she trusted.
She noted a conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter that worried her. She would have to check her notes in her laboratory downstairs, but if her memory served her right, this portended death and disaster.
She was distracted in the next moment by the voice of her son and she thought on it no longer.
"Why do you wear that around your neck," Galahad asked pointing to the fleur-de-lis that hung above her heart. He narrowed his eyes. "Did father give you that? Why do you still wear it?"
He was sixteen and full of resentment for his father who had abandoned them.
"No." Rowena smiled sadly and answered, "This was given me by Salazar. He brought it back from his travels because we are friends." She held the small silver and sapphire pendant up to the moonlight and continued, "It is a fleur-de-lis, flower of the lily. It is used in France to represent royalty, it signifies perfection and light and life to them." She stopped a moment looking down at her notes to hide a slight blush that came to her cheeks. "Legend has it that Clovis, a Merovingian king of the Franks, was presented with a golden lily as a symbol of his purification upon his conversion to Christianity by an angel of God."
Galahad said no more and looked up at the sky again, satisfied in her answer. After a moment of silence between them he turned to her again and said, "One day I will command an army and I will stop father from challenging your lands."
She smiled at him and shook her head. "You make me happy enough to forget your father, you and Theoderic. I would not want you to fight him. Take all the lands he may, but not my sons." She drew him to her and kissed his forehead. Soon he would be taller than her and would be beyond her influence. She was worried by the hate he harbored for his father and prayed that he would not escalate it into conflict.
Rebecca's father had died three years ago.
Of those that attended his small funeral, Helga and Rowena had been touched by her situation and had offered to keep her on beyond her education to help out around the school. She was among a small population of Jewish students and then the only Jew among a staff of monks that avoided her.
She had friends among the founders and their children, save the Lord Salazar Slytherin and his daughter Eowyn.
Hugo had become her particular friend and often came down to the kitchens where she spent most of her time an discussed theology with her. It was a fond subject of her father's and she found that she missed him less when she was in Hugo's company. Their favorite topic was the exodus and they could debate for long hours on the subject of Christ. He was always understanding and never dominated her ideas. Gratefully, he had often intervened on her behalf when Salazar had attempted to eject her from her position at the school.
But in recent months the situation of the Jews had considerably worsened.
Incensed by the king's treatment of the Jews, Hugo had voiced his ideas to her about taking their case and that of the wizarding populations of the kingdom up in court.
She had vehemently urged against this as she feared that it would bring unnecessary attention upon his family and the school, for something as little as her.
It was the only time he had ever refused to listen to her.
He was adamant about action.
And she regretted the fact that she was his main motivation.
For Edward I, king of England, the years following 1289 were times of gathering darkness. His plans for the union of Scotland into his kingdom had failed with the death of the Maid of Norway and, though he remained the nominal overlord of that territory, his hopes of a peaceful union were dashed.
Worse still, his own life had taken a painful turn when his wife, the queen Eleanor of Castile had died unexpectedly. Grief-stricken, Edward accompanied her funeral bier from Lincoln to London. At each stop that the mourning party had taken rest, he had a fine stone cross erected there in her memory. The last cross along the journey had been the Charing Cross at London.
In this dark period for the kingdom of England and the disputed territory of Scotland the king forbade all Jewish activities and closed the chirograph chests in which the Jewish records were kept. This resulted in the liquidation of all Jewish affairs.
Hugo was outraged by the injustice of it all.
He saw her the morning of his departure where she made her last and unsuccessful plea for him to stay. He was deaf to it all.
Brushing her dark hair out of her face, cheeks flushed with the heat of the fires in the kitchen, she looked up in surprise to see Hugo standing there. His face was painted with seriousness.
"Hugo?" she asked distractedly. "You are not leaving today, are you?"
"The position of the Jews has become serious. The position of magic as concerns our religion will be the next to take a fall. I must not tarry longer. I came to say goodbye."
"No, Hugo." She followed him into the hall where he was distractedly pulling on his gloves. "Please do not do this. You are just one person."
"And so is Edward. See how much difference one person can make, whether for good or for grave?" Hugo argued.
"I do not think it is safe. Let the problem work itself out and stay here. They have not your same cares at heart in London. I worry for your safety," Rebecca continued.
He smiled and kissed her forehead. "Dear Rebecca," he said, "I cannot simply do nothing while we are all threatened."
She meant to say more but stopped as she saw Salazar Slytherin pass in the hall and linger with some interest on the pair.
"I will be back at Christmas. Take care, my friend," he said finally.
"And you, my friend," she said sadly as he left.
Salazar approached her with a dark expression. "See the trouble your race has caused for us all?"
"I have done nothing," Rebecca defended herself, becoming uneasy in his company.
"By garnering the sympathy of the Ladies Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in letting you stay on here, you have endangered this school. The king does not share in the church's position of our institution here. He could easily take action against us and has better motivation for doing so as three of our founders have expressed sympathy in the cause of the Jews."
"My staying here will not harm this school. I am only one person," Rebacca said, backing up as he slowly approached her.
"Yes, you are only one little infidel. But your very presence is a danger to this school. I am the only one who sees it. The others are blind. But mark my words, you will be the downfall of us."
"Father!" Eomer's voice was heard over the shoulder of Salazar.
There was enough of a distraction for Rebecca to get away. She retreated to the kitchens again with a heavy heart. Hugo had left to argue the case of her people and she would be the downfall of everything here.
In the hall Salazar watched her go with intense loathing and turned to his son.
"I go to the Abbot Anselm today to give my life over to the order," the unhappy Eomer said.
Salazar did not know how to reply. He was shocked to begin with.
"You cannot become a monk, son," he explained patiently. "You are to inherit my lands. I need you here."
"Give the lands to Eowyn. I want none of them."
"I will speak to the Abbot and forbid him from taking you in," Salazar said hotly.
"Then I will away to another monastery," Eomer argued.
"Why do you insist on this?" his father asked becoming angry.
"Azria has left with her brother for London. I will never see her again. You and her mother have plotted against us and driven a wedge between us forever. She will not love me because her mother forbids it."
"I forbid it as well. She will do nothing but break your heart, son. Believe me when I say I do this for your benefit. Her heart is as inconstant as her mother's and she will forget you soon."
"Then I commit myself to God and the solitary life of the monastery, without your blessing."
"I will not allow this!" Salazar raged.
"Then I will leave and join a different order if you will keep me from this one," Eomer argued.
Salazar took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It pained him to concede, but he did for his son's sake. "I would not have you so far from home. I will allow you to join the monastery on these lands. But I do not give my blessing."
Eomer bowed with a solemn frown and left his father.
Mungo was with his mother that morning. He had seen his brother and sister off sadly and wished that he too could go to London.
To cheer him up, Abbot Anselm and Eomer had taken him to the monastery and let him ring the morning service. Eomer was happy to see that the boy's love for all things spiritual had harbored a devotion to the order and entertained his hopes that he would one day become a monk among the Dominicans as well.
It gave Eomer comfort to have Mungo ever with him. In some small way the boy reminded him of Azria and he missed her less when reading aloud to Mungo his favorite poem The Dream of the Rood.
It was a poem that his sister had often read to him before seeing him off to bed. They both missed Azria. Missing her together made it all the more bearable.
Weeks and months passed in this manner.
Eomer had replaced Azria and Hugo in their absence as Mungo's older brother and he grew day by day more impatient to become a monk like Eomer.
His father's animosity toward the Hufflepuffs did more for driving a wedge between him and his son. Eomer came to resent his father's attitude concerning the Jews and, though he loved the school that the four had founded together nearly twenty years ago now, he thought that his father's concern for it compromised his capacities toward compassion and understanding of the Jews and increasingly toward those that did not possess magical abilities.
By the river this morning Eomer entertained Mungo by reading to him from The Dream of the Rood while Mungo intermittently asked questions of the monastic life and threw bread at the ducks on the water's edge.
"It seemed that I saw a wondrous tree
soaring into the air, surrounded by light,
the brightest of crosses; that emblem was entirely
cased in gold; beautiful jewels
were strewn around its foot, just as five studded the crossbeam. All the angels of God,
fair creations guarded it. That was no cross of a criminal, but holy spirits and men on earth
watched over it there—the whole glorious universe."
"Eomer," Mungo asked, slapping a stick on the wet packed earth of the river's edge.
Eomer looked up from his reading and answered, "Yes, Mungo?"
Mungo was silent, adjusting his thoughts and finally said, "Is it a sin to practice our arts?"
Eomer blinked and stared at Mungo. "Who told you that it was?"
"An old woman in the village," Mungo answered.
"If she thinks so than she must think that Jesus himself had sinned. For he healed blind and lame men for the glory of God. Do you think that Jesus was a sinner?"
Mungo thought about this and said, "No. Scripture said he was a man without a blemish. He was blameless."
"Then you have your answer," Eomer said returning to his poem.
" Wondrous was the tree of victory, and I was stained
by sin, stricken by guilt. I saw this glorious tree
joyfully gleaming, adorned with garments,
decked in gold; The tree of the Ruler
was rightly adorned with rich stones;
yet through that gold I could see the agony
once suffered by wretches, for it had bled
down the right hand side. Then I was afflicted,
frightened at this sight; I saw that sign often change
its clothing and hue, at times dewy with moisture,
stained by flowing blood, at times adorned with treasure.
Yet I lay there for a long while
and gazed sadly at the Savior's cross,"
"Eomer," Mungo interrupted again.
"Yes, Mungo?" Eomer said with a smile, amused at the boy's persistence.
"Are the Jews wrong because they do not believe that Christ died for us?"
Eomer thought about how best to answer this difficult question. "They have a set of beliefs that are not our own. There are people who do not believe in magic. Do you think that makes you wrong, believing that magic does exist?"
Mungo shrugged. "How do they know that it does not?"
"How do we know that Jesus is not the Savior of sinners?" Eomer asked.
"Because we believe he is," Mungo answered.
"Can we prove this?" Eomer asked.
"No," Mungo answered. "We believe he is the Redeemer because of faith."
"Jews have faith in something else. Is having faith wrong?"
Mungo thought about this for a while longer. He watched across the river as an armed messenger came up to the school where Rebecca stood talking with Godric and his son Isaiah. In the red and white striped cloak and the seal of the King of England, Edward I on his chest, the messenger held a rolled piece of parchment out to the girl as Isaiah stepped up on one side over her and read it with her.
Godric engaged the messenger in brief conversation then the red and white clad messenger bowed and left.
Eomer stood and with Mungo, made for the bridge and then the opposite bank where Rebecca stood with the Lords of Gryffindor.
The summer parliament of 1290 was decisive in England's history, and consequently for the school in Scotland and its founders. The reforming legalist king had never been more active in his reign: creating order out of the chaotic feudal administration of his father Henry III, and looking for ways to raise revenue from his increasingly wealthy kingdom ; the settlement with Scotland was discussed and substantial subsidies were granted by the church from its vast possessions.
He also issued some of his most famous laws. One of these laws was the great Quo Warranto by which he attempted to regulate, if not completely cut back, the undisciplined power of some over zealous feudal magnates.
And, even with the efforts of Hugo's new Magesterium (representative Ministry for Magic of the age), the position of the Jews worsened. His support of them also earned him the censure of the Bishop at Canterbury and he threatened to pull support from the School of Witchraft and Wizardry in Scotland. Now, as it was, there was hardly any outside support for the school. And it was closely associated with sympathy for the Jewish population.
A milestone in the history of this turbulent island was carried to pass when on July the eighteenth in the year of Our Lord 1290, the king decided one further matter of great import: his Council at Westminster expelled the Jews from his kingdom and the territory of Scotland.
All Jews in the land had until the passing of the year 1290 to vacate the kingdom.
And so, with great sadness and shame, Rebecca came away from the school in Scotland that had been her home for the better part of her life. Isaiah Gryffindor had offered himself as her escort at far as Christchurch, for she would not accept his services further. Rowena had found a family in the south of France, a family connection, that would take her in there.
She stopped first off in London to say goodbye to her greatest friend and ally, Hugo.
"I am sorry I could do no more for you," he said sadly, standing on the bridge over the vast river where he was to look on his friend for the last time.
"You have sacrificed much needlessly for me and my people. You can do no more. I accept your friendship, but cannot bear to leave you with your guilty feelings."
Rebecca reached up to her cloak and ripped the tabula off of it.
"Do not do that!" Hugo said, looking to his right and left. He was anxious for her to linger no longer here. London was no safe place for Jews in the least. Removing one's tabula was tantamount to death for a Jew.
She gave it to him. "Now I am free," she said smiling.
He kept that scrap of yellow material with him always.
She left with Isaiah and Hugo saw her no more.
Salazar had mixed feelings over the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom.
In a way it was a blessing. The church would no longer fault them, the magical people, with alliances to that race.
But also, the Jews had been the traditional scapegoats in a time when superstitious views still ran high. Now, he feared, there would be no one to blame for increased warfare with France, disease, crop failure. The people of England would naturally turn to the magical community.
He felt that it would soon be necessary to entrench themselves here in Scotland. It would soon prove crucial to sever ties with those that judged them. There was already talk among the parliament and nobles in England about the heretics and their school across the borders in the disputed "pagan" Scotland.
He sat brooding over these matters when his daughter, Eowyn entered his laboratory.
"What troubles you, father?" she asked sweetly.
He was astonished at how much she now resembled her mother. Verina had always respected him and out of that respect grew a love that drown his feelings for Helga, seemingly until they had died. The two children that she gave him had increased his love for her. He could not imagine a better mother for them and was thankful that they both displayed her even temper, though Eowyn was more like him than her mother.
Eomer had more of the even temper of Verina, and the passionate will that had driven him to love Azria Hufflepuff and uncompromisingly commit himself to the life of a monk when she had forsaken that love. Azria was too much like her stepmother, Helga in that she made promises as easily as they suited her and then broke them in the same effortless way. This would be the way of it with the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins he supposed. He and Helga had started a painful tradition of heartbreak.
But Eowyn was different.
She respected her father and possessed his moral fiber and love of the school he had founded. He knew that it was with her that this school would remain. Come what may, the Slytherins would always have Hogwarts.
"The church is nearly finished with us. Our situation with them hangs upon the knife. With the Jews gone they will be looking to us now for blame. We are an incomprehensible breed to they that do not understand our magic," Salazar said in a bleak voice.
She handed him a glass of wine that she brought. "But I thought that it was the Jews we wanted to be rid of?" she asked confused as she sat beside him.
"I wanted the Jews out of the school, not gone from the island. I do not harbor hatred for them personally. I feared that they would bring the school unnecessary shame. They have and now they have left us in their impossible position of infamous scrutiny from the crown and now the church, thanks to that meddling Hugo. And Helga encourages him!"
Eowyn sat silently and listened to her father's concerns as she often did, as her mother often had.
Verina had been upset by her son's leaving and rarely came out of her room. Eowyn had now taken her mother's place as her father's chief companion.
"Perhaps," Eowyn chanced. "It would be wise to speak to Helga, come to an agreement. Your discourse with her and her family will not make the running of the school any easier and it could prove more ruinous than good." Eowyn sipped her own wine and eyed her father waiting for his reply.
He seemed to ponder this for a moment and finally said, "You know child, you may be right. You clever girl. You have a head for compromise and negotiation."
She kissed her father's cheek dutifully and retired to her mother's bedroom to attend her.
Salazar went to a cabinet that he kept locked often. Inside was a gift from the Caliph when, many years ago now, he deciphered a dream for the ruler. It was an egg that sat dormant waiting for the correct conditions to hatch. He thought perhaps it would remain in this dormant state forever as he had no use for something of this nature. But he had obliged the Caliph and had accepted the gift graciously, for it is an insult to refuse a gift when offered. Next to the Caliph's gift was a chalice that he had picked up on his return from the east in Greece.
This chalice was old and had ancient markings on it in black stone set into bronze. He had meant to give it to Helga when he had returned. He kept it back when he learned of her hasty marriage to the knight Sir Guy Ottery.
He had given Rowena the necklace that he had brought back for her on his travels, but he had felt Helga undeserving in every way.
Maybe it was his own wounded pride that was hindering the development of this school and the old grudge against her would continue to fester and lead to the ruin of them all. He decided now that he was happy in marriage and the father of two adored children, he could forgive Helga for only doing what she thought was best.
He found her alone at her embroidery, bending low in concentration in the dim candlelight. Her hair was tied back away from her face but a few flaxen strands escaped and tickled her nose. She blew them hastily out of her face and continued laboriously at her work.
Her husband had left a fortnight ago and Rowena had since removed herself from the guest quarters of this house into more permanent ones at the school with her two sons, along with Godric and his family, who spent two seasons a year here and the other two at his home in the south.
"You should get more light before your eyesight goes," he said moving into the room.
Helga looked up, momentarily startled. "You frightened me," she said heaving a sigh and placing a hand over her heart.
"Did I?" Salazar asked. "I did not mean to. I brought you this," he said offering her the cup he had taken from Greece. "I have meddled with it," he said with a childish smile. Taking a phial containing some silvery substance he poured it into the chalice.
Curious, Helga leaned in and watched. Nothing happened. "That is rather unimpressive for a man of your abilities, Salazar," she said with a wry smile.
He returned the smile and said, "It is a sort of thought preserver. Even the troubles and images that you gave forgotten can be summoned and stored in here so that your mind can be free of the burden of too much thought." Sheepishly he continued, "I had meant for it to be a gift upon my return from the crusades, but I have been angry with you and have kept it out of spite."
He bent to inspect her work. She had a fine hand for the art. This particular piece was of scarlet velvet which she wove gold string into. It was the Gryffindor coat of arms, the lion on a field of lilies.
Helga blinked astonished and said, "I truly am sorry I hurt you. Thank you for the gift. It is magnificent and quite thoughtful. It shall have plenty of use as my mind has been more than troubled as of late."
"Yes," Salazar said taking a seat next to her in the empty hall. "I am sorry about the girl Rebecca. But that is for the best."
"Is it?" Helga asked unsure. "I cannot help but think that the worst is yet to come. My dreams are becoming bleaker and bleaker."
Salazar sat up with concern. "Of what nature are these dreams?"
"I cannot say for they are a mystery to me." She rested a hand on the chalice and said, "But this will be a great help. I cannot thank you enough."
He smiled. "It was my daughter's idea, really. She thought it would be best if I came and settled my grudge against you."
Helga stared for a while. In the dark he resembled the young man that she had first fallen in love with. "And I settle my grudge with you."
"What is this for?" he asked, getting to his feet and leaning over her work.
"I am going to make a tapestry for the dormitories of the apprentices at the school." She pointed to the lion and said, "Does it not look like Godric's coat of arms?"
"Yes," he said with a smile. "It is lovely. The students will be fond of them."
There was a moment of silence when Helga leaned back to allow Salazar room to inspect her work. Without thinking she leaned forward with a beating heart and kissed him.
He was unsure how to react to this and for a moment he just froze, shocked.
Then he kissed her back, moving a hand across the smooth line of her jaw and cheek, entwining his fingers in her hair. He leaned in closer to her, resting his hand on the arm of her chair. Her hand moved to the nape of his neck pressing him to her.
Just as soon as it had happened, he pushed her away with the greatest feeling of guilt and betrayal. "I cannot do this," he said, looking terrified.
Helga said nothing but she was astonished at his reaction. It had not been the first time he had kissed her. Her astonishment melted into regret and she asked quietly, "You really love her, do you not?"
"Yes," he whispered guiltily, standing. He would not look at her. He was ashamed of betraying his own faithful and gracious wife. "I am sorry. I never should have done that."
"No," Helga said firmly. "It was I who kissed you. You have nothing to be sorry about."
He did not listen to this and was out of the hall before she had finished the sentence.
She looked after him with regret. She had not regretted the kiss. She was tied to a loveless marriage. She only regretted the fact that his match to her sister had not been so. She had seen it in his eyes, in his very reaction to her. She had accused them of consorting to spite her. She would have been happier had this been the case. She was even more unhappy at the realization that they were truly in love with each other while she was without.
She returned sadly to her embroidery but could not see her stitching for the tears in her eyes.
Unaware that she had had an audience of her youngest son, Mungo, Helga retired to bed, blowing out the candle and leaving him, an eleven year old boy on the darkened stairs opposite the ones that she had climbed. He sat trying to sort out the scene for himself.
He had only come to the conclusion that the friendship of the founders of the school so sacred to all of them would crumble on the basis of the scene he had just witnessed. He went for a walk in the half moonlight to clear his troubled thoughts.
Rowena sat most nights now alone on her tower observatory at the school. For some fortunate chance, tonight her attention was focused on the grounds below her instead of at the stars where they were normally fixed. It was a warm night for April, but she pulled her shawl around her arms as if a wind was biting into her.
Galahad was still there, but had left off his nights of star gazing with his mother. He had turned to the normal pursuits of young men his age, the sports of jousting, tournament combat and hunting. Godric had been more of a father to him than the one God had given him. And he seemed to adore her son as his own. Indeed, Isaiah had become one of his best friends as their interests began to merge.
She was always worrying now that one would topple the other from his horse. Jousting really was a dangerous sport, one Galahad desperately wanted to prove himself in.
He was growing ever more to worship his older brother.
Her worries waned with his growing skill and she convinced herself that Galahad, grown now and not a boy any longer, would one day be a knight like his father, but purer of heart.
Thoederic was the one that really gave her cause for concern. Twenty-two and very capable in warfare he had joined in on some minor battles with the Scottish clans as they pressed the English Lords for their rights there. He, being Irish in origin, should not have been involved in her opinion. She pressed her will upon him and convinced him to return to his island and their lands and leave the turbulent political climate of Scotland to its nobles.
She did this out of concern for him, the school and Salazar's growing temper with him. On more than one occasion he had commented to her on her son's impetuous nature. Salazar, being an English noble himself, saw Theoderic's involvement as a direct threat to him and the safety of the school. "He could foster Edward's hatred for our school further with his involvement in this conflict that is not even his!" Salazar had raged.
Rowena had to agree with him. She was ever fearful of attracting the attention of the mob on their peaceful institution here in the shelter of the Hebrides. Her husband and the trouble that he could cause weighed heavily on her mind always. She had no wish for her son to further lead to the school's endangerment.
He had gone to Eire in a rage at his mother's request. Their relationship had been nothing but turbulent since his father had left him at the age of five. She felt that Theoderic had placed most of the blame for it on her shoulders. It was a heavy burden, but she bore it as best she could. It was in fact her fault.
Distracted from her thoughts by a movement below, Rowena directed her attention to the stand of trees near the wall of the school far below. A figure emerged there and placed something bundled near the wall. Rowena watched with growing interest and then alarm as the figure made to return to the wood but collapsed about a half a kilometer from its destination.
Rowena was fixed to the spot for a brief moment before she recalled herself and ran as quickly as she could down the narrow steps of the Astronomy Observatory and out of the school to where the figure had collapsed.
Salazar did not return immediately to his own home across the bridge. He walked on the edge of the river, deep in thoughts—guilty thoughts.
Helga had shown him that she was willing to accept him and he could not deny that he wanted her. That kiss had been real. They had both felt it.
It tore at his heart to feel this way toward Helga when his own good and gentle wife had done nothing worth such betrayal. His mind was in a torrent of guilt and shame.
Verina. Good, sweet, kind, gentle Verina had given her love for God over to him the moment he had asked. When he had married her, she had asked him not to betray the love that she had stolen away for him. He had taken that request very seriously. And until now, only a grudge, put up as a wall, had kept him from Helga. It had been foolish to take that wall down now.
It would be harder to deny himself his first love when now she offered herself freely to him.
But Helga had been right.
She saw it. He loved Verina. Even Helga could see it through her blind affection for him. Maybe she would make it easier by keeping herself at a distance from him.
He could only hope.
Presently he saw Rowena run from the gates of the school across the river. She was in quite a state of urgency, rushing after something at the edge of the wood. He immediately turned that way.
He saw, only moments afterward, a boy crossing the bridge from Helga's manor. It was her son Mungo. He had apparently taken up late night walking on this temperate night as well.
He looked with troubled eyes on Salazar and walked with him silently to where Rowena knelt huddled over something, someone.
A hero had emerged among the nobility of Scotland in this age of dispute with England that incensed the young men of the land into a patriotic frenzy. A warrior hero born to a Renfrewshire knight had led the bitterly divided clans of Scotland to a victory over the troops of the English king in Sterling. William Wallace had taken the castle there in Sterling in 1297 after an embittered battle that had taken place over the bridge of that town. He had unwittingly inspired a people with the dream of a nation.
Among those that caught the fever of nationhood and the quest for Scottish independence was a contender for the crown by the name of Robert. He was the seventeenth Earl of Bruce and his family owned extensive lands in the village not far up the River Annan from Hogwarts school, Lochmaben. Becoming a faithful supporter of Wallace's campaign, Robert the Bruce had not been the only one whom Wallace's cry of freedom had reached. From war and conflict ages old, land holding elite and farmers, the sons of noblemen and peasants alike followed the hero who would tell England that Scotland's sons and daughters were under the control of the cruel Longshanks no more.
Theoderic had been one of the many that had heard the call to take up arms and answered. He had fought with Wallace at the bridge in Sterling and, for him, it felt like victory was near. But for him it was not a battle of nationhood. He was not like the others in that he fought for his homeland. It was not his home. But the school his mother loved was here and he felt the threat of Edward the Longshanks upon it day by day. It was his hope that the struggle of independence, once won, would favor the school much more than English control over it would.
And so he fought.
And in fighting he had displeased his mother for whom he was fighting.
She had begged him instead to return to his home in Eire and not to involve himself in Scotland's politics further.
Theoderic had returned to his lands in Eire that he had not seen since he had left when he was fifteen. The rolling hills and deep green dotted with the white of the sheep touched his heart and he felt fondly at home.
But he would not forget Scotland, for Bruce had become a friend to whom he would remain loyal to the end.
His mother's steward had come to meet him on the road. He was a capable man and trustworthy, loyal to his mother and her family and had toiled endlessly to keep her profitable lands and the lucrative mill that lay on them from her enterprising husband, the Earl of O'Neale.
He was to see that everything was in order, for Rowena herself would make the long trip home for a few months this summer.
But his interests lay in Scotland and the lands of his family here seemed well protected. Theoderic took possession of the lands temporarily from the steward and went presently to the mill to overlook its situation and then to the monastery.
He did not plan to stay here more than a month, only long enough to see his mother properly situated.
Rowena was spurred into urgency as she came upon the figure that had collapsed just outside of the forest.
It was a woman. She was dressed as a peasant and she had marks of a fierce beating on her. Her forehead had a worrisome gash upon it and she was bleeding terribly from her left side. Rowena held the cloak of the woman away from the wound and prodded it with her fingers. It was deep.
Rowena was unsure what to do as the woman was bleeding badly and she would not rouse herself no matter how firmly she slapped at her cheek.
Her breathing was weak and Rowena was desperate to help her. She wondered if the woman would survive if she left her just for a moment to fetch Helga who lay asleep in her family's castle across the river.
She looked about desperately, at what she did not know. Any sign of help, a passerby. But it was night—
She heard footsteps despite the late hour.
It was Mungo who had approached. Salazar had come upon the scene next to the boy. She did not ask how they had come to be there at that hour but urgently asked for their help.
Salazar kneeled beside her. He saw the gaping wound and the battered face of the woman and looked to Rowena questioningly.
"She came from the woods," Rowena explained breathless.
"She needs help right away," Salazar said urgently, gently lifting the broken form of the woman.
Rowena stood beside him, gently guiding the woman's head onto his shoulder. She made to follow him as he quickly cut across the bridge to Helga's manor.
But Mungo was missing.
Rowena looked around and could not see him. She called out for him and he did not answer.
Her calls awakened Godric who had come to see about the noise.
"There was a woman," Rowena explained frantically. "Salazar has taken her to Helga. I cannot now find Mungo."
Godric nodded and they split up, calling for the boy.
Remembering the bundle that the woman had dropped beside the castle, Rowena headed off in that direction thinking that Mungo could have found something in it to interest him.
Her heart leapt as she saw him lying in the dewy grass, unconscious beside a squalling infant girl. His hand was upon her forehead where a cut had begun to close itself again. It was a baby girl that the woman had left at the school, attacked and bleeding as she was. It must have been her child.
Though her eyes were red with crying, her eyes, Rowena could see clearly in the moonlight. They were a bright crystal blue. There was a sense of the special and unique about her. She felt that this child would be powerful someday.
"Godric!" she called.
"What has happened?" he asked as he approached the scene.
"He healed her. He has spent all of his energy and collapsed," Rowena surmised, standing to her feet with the infant as Godric lifted Mungo's motionless form.
"Helga," Salazar said, coming into her bedchamber with a lighted candle. "We need you downstairs."
"Whatever for?" she asked, alarmed and half-asleep.
"It is urgent. You must hurry."
She threw on a robe of deep green velvet and followed him. In the great hall of her manor lay a woman bloodied and battered. She was not moving.
Presently, Rowena entered with a crying baby wrapped in rags, Godric behind her with her son.
Helga
cried out in shock as she saw her child. She immediately went to Godric's side
demanding an expanation.
Godric explained hastily that
Mungo was quite fine but worn out. It was the mother of the infant that
required attention.
For a few intense moments, Helga touched her wand to the woman whispering incantations to close her wounds and revive her. She placed a hand on the woman's forehead and closed her eyes in concentration.
Everyone was breathless with anticipation. All prayed that the woman would awaken. Rowena turned to praying for the woman's soul.
Helga opened her eyes and sadly announced that there was no hope for the woman who had died.
Rowena looked sadly to the child in her arms that was crying out for her dead mother.
The two men present wondered at the words that she whispered sympathetically to the child as Helga quietly revived her son and lavished him with worried motherly kisses. "I saw her in a dream, mother," Mungo was saying.
He was stopped as all turned to Rowena with questioning expressions.
Rowena had said, "I understand your pain, child. But you will feel it no more. I will be your mother from this night on and you shall feel nothing but love. You are wanted here."
When Salazar pressed her later for an answer, Rowena merely stated that the mother had been an outcast and persecuted witch. She had seen her in the village on occasion, but had for the most part ignored her. She was a pathetic beggar woman. And now she was dead.
She knew her child would be well looked after here. Rowena did not explain her sympathy for the outcast mother and Salazar had not pressed her further.
Maren was to be the name of the child and Rowena would raise her in as much love as her two boys had grown in. And they had loved her instantly as well.
In May of that year, she returned to her home in Eire for the summer with her son Galahad and her baby girl Maren.
She was happy to be home again. She had heard reports from obliging passersby that terrible things were to come. She had reports from Theoderic, who had come before her that her lands were safe and managed well.
Her husband, Sir Eoin O'Neale (knighted recently by the English king) had been to see the monks at the Cistercian monastery, however and had attempted to press them for rights to her mill on the lands.
Galahad and Theoderic were out this morning on a hunt.
She was with her child Maren, but her mind was on the troubles she was having with her eldest son. It seemed his heart was still with the brave Scots and their campaign against the crown.
She conceded that it was a noble fight and though she agreed that the school's best advantage lay with the independence of the Scottish lands, she would not go against the wishes of Salazar. This had angered her son to the point of silence. He would not speak to her and spent most days on the hunt. She feared that the time would soon come when he would leave and return to Scotland and its conflict.
She was rocking the sleeping Maren when she heard a shout just outside of the door. It sounded like the voice of her steward.
Rowena stood and placed the sleeping child in her bed, her back turned to the door as it burst open in splintering wood.
She turned quickly, jumping, startled by the entrance of her husband. Her hands were clutching the posts of the bed she had laid Maren in.
"You are not wanted here, Eoin," Rowena growled. "Leave!"
"So it is true," Eoin said, moving into the room slowly. The spurs on his boots counted out the paces in metallic rhythm as he neared her. His eyes were full of malice.
"So what is true?" Rowena spat angrily.
"You have come back to make trouble for me," Eoin said.
Rowena pushed herself away from her child and stood facing him. "I have come back to see to my lands. They do not belong to you."
"They will," Eoin said with a smirk.
"What makes you so sure?" Rowena countered, raising her chin defiantly to him.
"The King of England makes me think so," Eoin grinned.
"You can take yourself and your king to the devil for all I care. We are never going to give our lands over," Rowena spat.
Eoin brought his hand hard across her face. He was still wearing his mail gloves and they bit into her cheek with a metallic zing.
She staggered but held herself up, pinned against her child's crib.
"Who is the 'we' you speak of? You and that child?" he asked incredulously. "Whose child is she? Whore. Do you even know?"
"She is not your concern. I am. And I will see that you burn in hell. I swear I will make your misery my life's work!" She tore at his cloak and at his neck.
But he moved aside and struck her again, sending her crashing into a table in the middle of the room.
The child was awake now and screaming.
Rowena got to her feet stubbornly and her husband smiled, hitting her again, tearing at her lip.
"You dare to threaten me, witch? I shall have you hanged for the offense."
He made to strike her again before she could get to her feet, she reached for her wand concealed in the folds of her rich robes, but in that moment Theoderic was in the doorway with his sword drawn. Galahad was behind him, sword in hand as well.
It was Rowena's worst nightmare, her son's fighting and cursing their father.
But he held his sword and smirked, insulting them and their mother as well, inviting their combat willingly.
Theoderic struck first. A dizzying blow that sent Eoin back against the stone mantle of the fireplace.
Before he could right himself, Galahad was on him dealing blow after furious blow. Eoin moved to one side of his son's enraged swings and pushed himself off of the wall, taking an ill aimed swing of his own, catching Galahad on the shoulder only.
She could tell that the wound was deep. He could not fight with his right arm and so switched his sword into his left hand.
He fought well with either hand and reigned dizzying blow after blow upon his father.
Eoin was so engaged with the masterful swings and decisive blows of his younger son that he had forgotten about the older one behind him.
Theoderic nodded to Galahad who drove his father back against his brother. Theoderic used his father's backward momentum and the driving force of Galahad to take his father's feet out from under him. Moving quickly, he was on top of the man, his sword trained on the man's throat.
"By God and this day, I swear I will kill you!" he shouted.
His father was dully terrified by the combined rage of his sons.
"Then do it, boy. Whatever is stopping you?" Eoin growled under the blades glinting point.
Galahad stood by, heaving great exhausted breaths.
Rowena lay watching the scene of Theoderic over his father with horror. He really would do it. "Theoderic!" she cried. "Do not do this. He is your father. Have compassion!"
Theoderic looked to her and considered this. A moment later he stood. "On your feet, brigand!" he commanded of his defeated father.
Eoin O'Neale stood and sheathed his sword. With his hands against the back of his head, one firm hand of Theoderic's over the both of them, he was lead by his son's sword out of the room.
"By your compassion, mother, he is spared. But I will have no more for him," he said angrily before leading the captive Earl out of the castle and to his horse.
Rowena put one hand over her face and began to cry, rejecting Galahad's offer to see to her wounds.
He held her shaking and weeping, vowing that his father would set foot on the lands of their family nevermore.
"See to the steward outside the door. Your father has wounded him, I fear," Rowena sobbed to her son as the baby Maren wailed on. "And then untie your surcoat so I can see to that shoulder wound."