Fair Ravenclaw, From Glen

Chapter Two

London

Rowena met Lady Moira the next morning outside of the Dusty Raven, shortly after dawn. Moira was holding the reigns of a fine grey horse, and smiled down at her pupil. "Do you ride, Rowena?" Rowena shook her head. "Well, you're still small enough that the two of us together shouldn't trouble Wealtheow," Moira said, patting the mare's neck. "And I can hang on to you, so you needn't worry about falling. Pity you can't Apparate... but that's magic for a few years from now." Moira looked up, brushing her veils back from her face. "And how much longer will you be staying in Alnwick, Arlice?"

The ginger-haired man had appeared in the doorway, and strode forward now. "No longer," he replied. "I am back to Ipswich this afternoon. I would not want to leave my student any longer."

Moira nodded. "We will have to keep each other informed, then. Your owl knows where to find me."

"And yours, me," Arlice said, nodding.

"Will I see you again, sir?" Rowena asked without shyness.

Arlice smiled beneath his mustache. "Would you like to?" The dark-haired girl nodded vehemently. "Well, I am sure our paths will cross again someday."

"When you've trained up a bit," Moira said, "perhaps you can meet his student. He is not so much older than you. Think you they might make good companions, Arlice?"

Arlice chuckled. "My dear boy makes a good companion out of anyone, whether they take to him initially or not. But yes, I do think he and Rowena would get on well."

Rowena's pale eyes lit up at the prospect of meeting the student of a man who appeared to be as great a wizard as Moira was a witch. "I would like that very much, sir," she said enthusiastically.

"We should be going, Rowena," Moira said. "Say goodbye to your parents."

Rowena ran to her parents and flung her arms first around Ainslee. "Goodbye, Mama. Don't look so sad! I'll be back soon." Ainslee did not say anything, but hugged her daughter tightly. Rowena did not see the tears in the blue eyes. When she hugged Enda, the man picked her up and swung her around, as he had not done before their move to Alnwick, and Rowena giggled delightedly.

"You be a good girl, Rowena," he admonished. "No acting up or upsetting the Lady."

"No, sir."

"And enjoy yourself." He smiled, looking younger than he had in some time. "This is a great opportunity, my dear girl. This is the beginning of your life's adventure." Enda said this in the tone of a man who had once longed for his life to have such an adventure, but whose path had gone a different direction. Rowena, too young to understand such things as regret for deeds left undone, only giggled and nodded. She kissed Enda on the cheek, and then wriggled to be put back down, running back to Lady Moira as quickly as she'd flown to her parents. Ainslee went inside immediately, unable to watch as another woman doted on her little girl.

Lady Moira swung herself up onto the horse, sitting gracefully sidesaddle. "Arlice, would you mind helping the child up? Hike your skirts, dear, you're young enough that it doesn't matter. There we are." Rowena sat astride the horse, nestled against Moira's protective arm. She waved one last time to her father as Lady Moira bade farewell to Arlice Bericheart, and then they were on their way.

~~*~~

For a girl who had never been out of upper North Umbria, London was almost overwhelmingly large. Rowena voiced this thought to Lady Moira as they wound their way through muddy streets, and the older witch laughed. "My dear Rowena, some day I will take you to see truly large cities... Toulouse, Rome - though Rome is not so fine as it once was - and perhaps even farther east, to Byzantium and Alexandria."

"Is London not so big, then?"

"For England, it is large. But for the world--" Moira made a dismissive gesture. "It hardly signifies. London was very important once, though. It used to be the capital city of England."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that the king lived here, with all his court, and they ruled the land from here."

"Where do they live now?"

Moira snorted derisively, though Rowena missed the political implications of the exhale. "Wherever they please. England is too divided to have a real capital. Did you know the people are ruled by a different ruler in Alnwick than they are here in London?" Rowena shook her head. Her eyes were darting around the streets, at the bakers and blacksmiths and housewives, and Moira realised that she was losing her student's attention, having delved into a topic perhaps too adult for the girl. "They used to call the city Londinium, in Roman days," she said, "and now some call it Lundenwic or Lundenburgh."

Rowena blinked up. "There were Romans here? When?"

"Many centuries ago. A leader called Julius Caesar led his legions here a thousand years ago, and was driven off by the great warrior-queen Boudicca. It was a few hundred years after that before the Romans were able to take the island."

"A warrior-queen?" Rowena asked. "Can you tell me more about her?"

Moira chuckled. "Someday, perhaps. Or I will teach you Latin, and you may read about her for yourself." Rowena bounced a little, looking thrilled at the prospect. "But now..." Moira had stopped in front of a tavern with a thatched roof. "We have shopping to do." She took Rowena's hand and pushed open the door to the tavern, whose charcoal-written sign proclaimed it the Flightless Dragon.

Once inside, Moira strode directly to a man behind a counter and requested a room. "Only for a night," she said. "The child and myself. I will pay for privacy." The tavernkeeper nodded, and led Moira and Rowena to a small but clean room upstairs. Within, Moira sighed, removing her mantle and headrail. "Silly Muggle conventions," she muttered, shaking out her waist-length red-gold curls. Rowena thought that Moira appeared younger and more beautiful with her hair showing. "Remember this, Rowena - among our own kind, a woman, a witch, may dress and act as she pleases, though you'll take care always to do so with grace and dignity, but in the Muggle world..." Moira sighed heavily, folding the garments and setting them on the bed. She took Rowena's hand and started back downstairs. "Well, the Muggles have some very strange ideas on how to treat the fairer sex." Rowena nodded in understanding. She was still young enough to avoid the restrictions placed on full-grown women, but she saw the silent wives of the travelers that passed through the Dusty Raven, and how they never spoke in public and did precisely as their husbands bade. "Come, Rowena. Time to show you Diagon Alley."

Moira led Rowena back downstairs, through a series of small corridors that ended, seemingly, in a tapestry. Woven on it were images of the great witches and wizards past, from Circe of Aiaia and the Princess Medea, to the Druid poet-kings of Britain's earliest days, to the struggles of Merlin and Morgan both fighting for their way of magic to prevail. Rowena could have stared at the artwork for hours, but Lady Moira pulled her wand from her sleeve and uttered, "Aperio." The tapestry pulled itself back, revealing a wooden arch, a gateway to an entirely different world.

Rowena gasped to see the street beyond the archway. It seemed so different from Muggle London, and she could hardly believe that they were only separated by a single building. "Wand first, I think," Moira said, steering Rowena towards a shop whose sign read: "Ollivander's - Fine Wands since 382 B.C."

Rowena looked up at Moira as they entered the shop. "382 B.C. Was that before or after the Romans?"

"Before. Well before, my dear." Moira brushed hair from Rowena's eyes, then looked up and called out, "Hephaestus Ollivander! Hephaestus, you barmy old coot, where are you?"

A man of middling years, with graying brown hair and dusty robes, appeared from around a shelf. "Moira Aighan! Are the plagues of Egypt following close behind?"

Moira laughed and stepped forward to embrace him. "Hephaestus, how have you been?"

"Well enough, Moira my dear, well enough. Business isn't what it might be, but then it never is." He suddenly seemed aware of Rowena's presence. "And who is this little lady?"

Moira smiled broadly, putting a hand on Rowena's shoulder. "Rowena Ravenclaw, of Alnwick, my new pupil."

Hephaestus straightened, wide-eyed. "Does that mean--?"

Moira nodded, but gave him a sharp look. "Yes. I'll be teaching her and her alone for the next while."

Hephaestus blinked a few times before nodding in comprehension. "Well. I suppose she'll be needing a wand, then? Come here, Rowena." He lifted her onto a stool, then dashed to the shelves, which were overflowing with little wooden boxes. He returned with a stack of them and stood before Rowena. "Pick one. Intuition's as good a place to start as any." Tentatively, Rowena reached out and selected a narrow box. Hephaestus plucked the wand from it, but no sooner had he put it in her hands than he snatched it back again. "No, no, not that one... ebony, perhaps?" Another was given and taken away. "Certainly not, all wrong. Maybe--" He picked up a black box and put a wand in her hands. Immediately, it sparked, sending little blue bursts everywhere. Rowena laughed delightedly. "Excellent! That will be it, then!"

"What's it of, Hephaestus?" Moira asked

"Willow. Nine and three-quarters inches. Core of Sphinx hair. Do you know what Sphinx is, Rowena?"

She nodded. "A lion-woman who asks impossible questions."

Hephaestus laughed. "Well, thankfully not quite impossible. I answered one's riddle, and in exchange for not telling anyone her secret, she gave me a hair from her mane." Rowena looked in amazement at the rod of wood in her hands, hardly believing it had such a story behind it. "Alright, then, Moira, I assume you're paying?"

"Yes. Rowena, go wait outside while I have a word with Master Ollivander." As the curly-haired girl left the shop, looking more at her wand than at anything around her, Lady Moira turned her glance to Hephaestus, and opened up her pouch. "Hold your tongue in the future, might you?" she asked, laying a gold coin on the table. "I've only known her a day, and she's only just eight years old. I don't know how I'd explain to her that she may well be one-fourth of the fulfillment of a prophecy made before the time of Merlin."

Hephaestus nodded. "My apologies, Moira. It was just - such a shock, you taking on a new student. I thought it could only be--"

"Of course. I understand. But... discretion, please, Hephaestus."

"Of course, my dear." He pocketed the gold coin. "So tell me how you found her."

"Master Arlice Bericheart, actually. You recall him?"

"Ah, yes. Fine man. From Ipswich, I believe?"

"Yes... well, he stumbled across the girl during his travels, and was so taken with her natural abilities that he owled me to come up to North Umbria straight away."

"Remarkable... she must be a wonder."

Moira tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "She's certainly precocious. I hate to jump to conclusions regarding the prophecy, though... a matter of such importance..." She sighed, turning her blue eyes up to Hephaestus again. "The fate of all the wizarding world may hinge on that little girl, my friend, and the companions she makes in the next few years."

"That's quite a burden," he remarked.

"So you can see why I do not want to lay it on her mind yet." She sighed again. "She will have to know someday, I suppose, but... eight is far too young to even comprehend that sort of responsibility, much less to be able to handle it."

Outside the shop, Rowena was experimentally flinging her wand about, trying out swishes and flicks she had seen her parents use on various occasions. Nothing happened, but for a few more bursts of fading blue sparks, but Rowena was delighted nonetheless. She was so absorbed in her experimentations that she did not see the red-tuniced boy barreling down the street until he ran into her, and they both fell to the damp ground. "Oh!" Rowena cried, and kicked at him.

"I'm sorry!" he yelped, scrambling to his feet. "I didn't see you, I--" He looked behind him, then extended a hand to help her up. "I wasn't looking. I'm sorry."

Rowena scowled for a moment, but the youth, not much older than herself, had friendly eyes, and she believed he had not really meant to harm her. "You're forgiven," she said, a bit imperiously.

He looked backwards again, then grinned. "Hey, what's your name? I haven't seen you around here before."

"I'm only visiting," she explained. "And my name's Rowena."

"Lovely," he said, tossing his hair out of his eyes. It was, Rowena thought, the colour of brightly polished copper, blondish with a shining red hue. "What poor manners of me. I should be more careful when I'm running away from Master, lest I trample any more fairies like yourself."

Rowena knew he was teasing, but giggled anyway. "I'm not a fairy."

The boy affronted a shocked expression. "Surely you mock me!" She giggled more. "Think you I do not know a fairy when I see one, so delicate and dark? What are you, if not a fairy?"

"Celtic," she replied, still laughing. "And with that hair, you can't be anything but Saxon. And you still haven't told me your name."

The boy grinned again, but before he could reply, Rowena heard her name being called. She whirled about, and was taken by the shoulder by Lady Moira. "Good heavens, Rowena, how did you get so dirty?" she asked, steering Rowena away from the boy.

"That boy - he ran into me -"

"Well, never mind, you'll be needing a new shift anyway. You're about to grow out of that one, I can tell. Now, then. A cauldron, a scrying glass, a chalice... Fundo's next, I think."

Rowena looked over her shoulder as Lady Moira led her away. The boy, it seemed, had also been intercepted by his keeper. The man was darkly cloaked, and had taken the boy by the ear and appeared to be giving him a firm scolding. Rowena looked up, and realised Moira was watching them as well, and frowning. Then she prodded Rowena onward, as the boy and the man turned a corner and disappeared.

By the end of the day, Rowena had collected all of the affects necessary to begin her magical training. All the packages had been bundled up, with instructions for them to be delivered to the Flightless Dragon no later than the next morning. Rowena was exhausted. She had been dragged all up and down the street, and made to tell who she was no fewer than a dozen times. As they trudged back up to the tavern, Lady Moira smiled indulgently down at her.

"I know you faced a lot of questions today, Rowena, and you did very well, but this is something you're going to have to get used to. As my pupil, you will always face questions regarding yourself."

"Why is that, Lady Moira?" Rowena was trying very hard to keep her weariness from her voice; she did not want Lady Moira to think her weak or disinterested.

"Because people know me. And they know that, for reasons I need not explain, I have not taken a pupil in a very long time. So they will naturally be interested." She guided Rowena back into the Flightless Dragon. "Some supper, and then a bit of instruction before bed." Rowena's eyes lit up. Shopping had been fascinating at first but quickly tiring. Finally getting to instructions, however, excited her greatly.

Lady Moira requested that she and Rowena take dinner in their room, to spare the child any more prying eyes and curious inquisitors. When the serving girl entered with a wooden tray and trenchers, a gamboling kitten entered at her heels. Rowena squealed in delight as the little ball of fur clambered up onto the bed and deposited itself in her lap.

"Well, I'll be," the serving girl said. "She's taken a likin' to ye." Rowena giggled. "Ye should keep her. Th' house cat just kittened and we're near overrun with th' things. She could use a good home, if ye don' mind me sayin' so," she added hastily, with an uncertain look at Lady Moira.

Moira chuckled. "What do you think, Rowena? Would you like a kitten?"

"Oh, yes, my lady!" Rowena exclaimed, giggling and cuddling the tortoiseshell fluff to her chest. The kitten seemed to know what was going on, and mewed happily.

"Ah, excellent well," said the serving girl. "A place shouldn' have more cats 'n mice, after all."

When Moira and Rowena had finished their meals, Moira went to her traveling pack and pulled out a roll of parchment, a feather-quill, and some ink. "Come here, Rowena." Rowena hopped off the bed, leaving her new kitten on her pillow, and went over to Moira's side. "The very first thing I must teach you is how to read and write. Without this knowledge, you will never fulfill your potential. Now, dear, write your name for me." Rowena took the quill and did so, in halting, fragmented letters.

"Not entirely bad," Moira said. "Do you know the whole alphabet, or just the letters in your name?"

"I think... I think I might know most of them," Rowena answered uncertainly.

"Give it a try, then." Rowena managed to scratch out most of the alphabet she knew, leaving out a few letters but getting the general gist of it. "And what about in the Roman way of writing?" Moira asked. Rowena bit her lip, and tried to copy out what of those she had seen, but there were far fewer characters that she could remember. "I expected as much. Here, Rowena, watch carefully." Moira then took the quill and wrote out the full alphabet, first in Latin characters, then in the runes with which Rowena was more familiar. After explaining each one, she patiently listened as Rowena recited them to herself. It did not take long for the girl to commit both alphabets to memory, and when Moira smiled at her, Rowena felt an inner burst of pride. "You're a very clever girl, Rowena. I want you to practise writing these letters every day until you can make them all properly, and to recite them to yourself until you have no hesitation about them. Tomorrow we'll start on words and such, but I think that's enough for tonight." Rowena felt disappointed, until Moira stood and went on, "Go tuck yourself into bed now, and I'll tell you some history before you go to sleep."

Rowena unbelted her gunna, quickly shucked it and her kirtle off, and leapt into bed. Moira frowned at her slightly. "We must buy you some new clothes, child. That chemise is falling apart." She shrugged, and though Rowena was very excited at the thought of having new clothes, the thought vaguely occurred to her of how out of place she would look back in the Dusty Raven.

She settled into bed, and Moira sat down beside her, and launched into a tale from ancient Greece, about the group of witches known as the granddaughters of the sun, a coven of which Circe, Medea, and Dido were all members. Woven together were mythology and history, and even as Rowena listened, entranced by the stories of love and betrayal, she was absorbing all the knowledge Moira offered her about the magic used by these ancients. Of them, only Circe had used a wand, and Rowena found it fascinating to imagine that the others had worked such powerful magic without such an instrument. She learned how the arts of herbology and potion-brewing were as old as humanity itself, as Moira backtracked a little to even older forms of magic, from Sumeria and Egypt. Moira talked until well past midnight, after the tallow candles had gone out, and though it was far past Rowena's usual bedtime, the pale grey eyes refused to close until Moira smiled and said, "I fear if I do not stop now, I will continue teaching until dawn, and you will have no time for sleep. Rest now, little one. We will have another busy day tomorrow."

Rowena nodded, yawning as Moira touched her forehead lightly. She was asleep as soon as she allowed her eyes to close.