The next day, she went into town a little early so she could look in and see how Dougal was doing before going to teach class.

     The lad was awake, she was relieved to see, and was sitting up in bed, his back against a great pile of pillows. His leg was splinted between two stout lengths of wood and there were bruises on his face and arms. He was a handsome lad, she saw. Fit and muscular, with the beginnings of adult hair on his broad, bare chest. She felt her body responding to it and forced the feelings away with an effort.

     "Thank you for saving me," he said when he recognised her.

     "I'm glad I happened along," Tala replied. "How are you feeling?"

     "I hurt everywhere," the lad replied with a rueful smile. "I'm probably not supposed to say that. I should be manly and brave, to impress you."

     "False displays of manliness don't impress me," Tala replied. "I just think they're stupid, and I don't think you're stupid."

     "Thanks," Dougal replied, his smile turning genuine.

     "What was stupid was tearing along that road fast enough to break an axle on a pothole. Why were you in such a hurry?"

     Dougal looked down at his splinted leg. "My Da wanted the spuds in Sweddell in time to meet Mikkel the Merchant," he said, "and he were leaving town at midday. I were delayed by a tree that fell across the track. Took me and me Da two hours to shift the thing."

     "Was it so important to get your potatoes to the merchant that day? He'll be back next week."

     "Aye, and by then he might have bought all the spuds he needs from someone else. We'd be left taking our spuds to Merrin ourself and selling them at half the price to undercut him. And that would have made an enemy of him and he'd have put the word out on us with all the other merchants."

     "And now, not only have you missed the merchant but you'll be in no state to work the farm for a month at least, and with the ploughing season coming on." Tala scowled reproachfully at him. "My Ma used to say that haste is more important than speed."

     "Your Ma sounds like a wise woman," said Dougal with another smile.

     "She were, before the fever carried her off."

     "I'm sorry," said Dougal. "That were in forty nine?"

     "Aye." Tala turned to look out the window, unwilling to show emotion in front of a stranger.

     "Lot of people died that year. My brother died the same year. And my uncle as well, although he lived fifty miles away and we hardly ever saw him." Tala said nothing.

     "May I ask the name of the pretty lady that saved me?" asked Dougal, lifting himself to sit higher on the bed.

     It took Tala a moment or two to realise who he was referring to. "Tala," she said. "My name is Tala."

     "That's a pretty name."

     Tala said nothing but her face smiled all by itself. She thought about leaving. She'd seen that the lad was alright and her class would soon be waiting. She had no further reason for being there. She felt her eyes wanting another look at his bare chest, though. One quick look would do no harm, she thought, and it was rude to keep her back turned to him. She turned back to face him, therefore, and let her eyes satisfy themselves, but then she made herself focus on his face in case he saw and got the wrong idea. It was a handsome face with a warm, genuine smile. A face that was easy to look it. He was trying to grow a beard, she saw, but it was nothing more than a few straggly wisps of brown hair so far.

     "You live with your father then?" he prompted when she remained silent.

     His eyes were fixed on hers, she noticed, as if he were also struggling to keep them from going where they weren't supposed to. Other men weren't so considerate, and when she passed them in the street they would stare at her chest where it pushed out the front of her cotton shirt. It made her wear a thick, woollen jumper even when it was too hot for it. Dougal had clearly been taught manners by his parents, though, and it made her warm to him even further. Careful, you fool, she warned herself. A lad like that must already be walking out with a girl, and you don't dare get involved with a man in case he learns your secret. The secret that could get you locked in the stocks and stoned to death.

     "I never knew my father," Tala replied. "My Ma only knew him for a year or two and then he left. She loved him, she said, but he never loved her back, it seems."

     "I'm sorry. Who do you live with, then?"

     "I live alone."

     "Here, in town?"

     "I have a cottage along the Merrin road."

     Dougal stared in surprise. "You live alone in a cottage miles away in the country? How come no-one took you in?"

     "It were six months before anyone knew she'd died. They only found out when I came into town looking for work, to make money, and by then I'd already proved I could look after myself. When I said I wanted to go on living there no-one could think of a good reason not to let me."

     "What about..." Dougal began hesitantly. "I mean, you're very pretty and there's no-one to look after you. What if..."

     "If any man tries to bother me I know how to use a knife."

     "Even so, you're taking a big risk, don't you think? You should think about... About what might happen."

     She did indeed. That was the thing that scared her almost as much as the Crone. Being a pretty sixteen year old woman was like having a purse of gold coins that you carried everywhere you went, and everyone knew you had it. Any strong man could take it from her. And being a woman was worse than that because her purse of gold coins could be taken from her again and again by man after man and she'd still have it. She had to live alone, though. She had no choice. She had to protect her secret. She had her forest friends, of course. Especially the wolves, who would come if she called them, at least as long as Torn Ear was still the leader of the pack. And as a last resort she had what the wolves called the Eyes that Bite. She'd never used them on a human, but she had no reason to believe that they'd be any less effective than they were against the wolves. That would be a last resort, though, because then her secret would be out and she'd have to flee before the King's men came for her.

     And there was the Crone, of course. Always hunting her. What if she cried out for help with her green Speech and the Crone's astral form was nearby?

     "Nothing's happened so far," she said. "I reckon I'll be okay. I should be going now. I teach a class and the children will be waiting for me."

     "Yes, of course. Well, thanks again for saving me."

     "Thank yourself for having such a good, strong voice," said Ethel, appearing in the doorway with a steaming bowl of soup. She smiled with a hint of playful mockery. "Otherwise she'd never have heard you a mile away in the woods."

     "Heard me?" said Dougal, frowning with confusion. Tala shrank into herself with fear.

     "Aye, when you cried out so loudly with the pain you were in," said the healer's wife, smiling wickedly. "And you such a strong young man, all full of muscles."

     "I was shouting at the wolves," the lad protested. "To make them keep away. I didn't cry out."

     "The lass here said you screamed so loudly that God Himself on his high throne must have heard you."

     "I said no such thing!" protested Tala, trying to sound indignant rather than fearful. "It must have been your shouts of anger I heard, just barely on the edge of hearing through the trees. I thought they were cries of pain. I apologise for my mistake."

     Dougal nodded, mollified. "Even so, though, to hear anything so far away, through thick forest..."

     "I have very good ears," said Tala, a little more stiffly than she'd intended. "Just not as good as I thought, it seems. Good day to you, Sir."

     Dougal smiled at the formality. "And you, My Lady."

     Ethel laughed as Tala pushed her way past her to get through the door. Then the healer's wife placed the bowl of soup carefully on Dougal's lap and handed him the spoon.

☆☆☆

     There were nine children in her class ranging from nine to thirteen years old, all of them the children on townspeople including the son of the preacher and the daughter of the town constable. There were no farmers children. They were all too busy helping work the farms for their parents, who considered a formal education to be a wasteful extravagance. "Why does my boy need to know how to read?" one farmer had asked when Tala had happened to meet him in town. "There are no words written on the arse end of a horse." Tala had had no answer to that and had only been able to watch as the man had ushered his horny-handed seven year old back o2nto their cart.

     All nine children were sitting patiently in their folding chairs as Tala walked in and they chimed a welcome in unison. "Good morning miss Viddyr."

     "Good morning children," Tala replied happily. "Did you all finish your practice writing?"

     They all waved their slates at her, all covered with several lines of chalk writing. Tala examined each of them in turn, complimenting the spelling and the neatness of the writing. Cindy Tanner had written the words  I love you, Miss Viddyr,  seven times, the top line almost level but each subsequent line at a greater angle until the bottom one was at almost forty five degrees. Tala smiled as she handed the slate back to its owner.

     Paul Meercroft, on the other hand, had written the words 'Kill all the witches' in large, angry letters. "Why did you choose these words?" asked Tala, trying to hold her hands steady as they held the suddenly very heavy slate.

     "Because witches are evil," the boy replied, in a tone of voice that made it clear how very, very obvious it was. "They tried to take over the world."

     "Yes, of course," Tala replied, carefully putting the slate down on Paul's desk. "It's very strange that they did that, though, when they'd lived in peace with the people of the world for hundreds of years, isn't it?"

     "They didn't live in peace," Paul replied. "They put spells on people and made animals attack people. They work for the devil."

     "If they work for the devil, why did Good King Roderick ask them to help him fight the Berkish?"

     "To make them reveal themselves," the boy replied confidently while the other children looked back and forth between them. "Nobody knew how many witches there were so King Roderick promised them gold if they joined his army. He tricked them into showing themselves."

     "But most witches refused his offer," said Tala, pacing back and forth across the small room. "They wouldn't use their powers to make animals fight."

     "Because they're evil," said Paul triumphantly. "They wouldn't help King Roderick defend the Kingdom."

     "So if they had helped defend the Kingdom they would have been good," said Tala, turning her face to the front of the room to hide her smile.

     "No, they were all evil," Paul replied defiantly. "That's why King Roderick ordered them all put to death."

     "Not because they refused to join the army when he asked them," said Tala carefully. These children would all go home and tell their parents what Tala had taught them. If they said that the witches had been persecuted by an insecure King because he'd been embarrassed and ashamed at being snubbed by them, she would be in big trouble. If she was going to change the attitudes and opinions of the next generation she would have to do it very, very slowly and carefully.

     "He was the King," said Paul, playing his trump card. "If the King tells you to join the army, you have to do it. The witches disobeyed him. They were traitors."

     "So before they were traitors, they weren't evil," said Tala, looking thoughtful. She'd found that sometimes the best way to convince someone of something was to make them think they were convincing you.

     "No, they were always evil," said Paul, now looking confused.

     Tala decided to give him time to think about it. "Well, anyway, time to get to the subject for today," she said. "Today we're doing sums. Everybody clean off your slates and write these numbers down."

     She turned to the big blackboard at the front of the room, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote down the numbers that she was going to ask the children to add together.