The village, only a ways down the road, was not much of a village. A few small, roughly built houses were huddled together, and the fields for their crops smelled sickly to Sif.

" Aoife!" the woman called, going ahead of them to a house no bigger than the rest.

" Yes, Brige?" A younger woman in a brown dress came out, her hair tied up and her hands floured. Her face became drawn when she saw the coven's cart.

" People from Vóda have come, saying they seek counsel," the other woman, apparently Brige, said. She gestured to them.

Aoife dusted her hands on her aprons, her manner becoming sharper.

" Bring them in, then," she said. " They can do no worse to us than has already been done."

Brige nodded at Yrnhold, and so he left his horse; the other men joined him, and Sif followed.

The inside of the house was not quite as bad as the outside; there had been effort to make it homey. The girl named Aoife sat down on a rug placed under a shelf of carved idols.

" Brige, finish shaping my bread," she said, and Brige nodded, scurrying through a doorway cloaked by a woven curtain.

Yrnhold looked around expectantly.

" Where is your coven?" he asked.

" My father, the chieftain of Cwge, passed a year ago of illness," Aoife said. " I have been managing the clan in his stead, as there is no one suitable to marry."

Yrnhold blinked at her, taken aback.

" No one? In your whole village?" he asked, seating himself across from her.

" All the men were forced to battle by Caedwghe," she said. " Only the elderly and the children were left. Most of the old folk passed when we were forced out from the central land."

A shadow passed over Yrnhold's face.

" Aye," he said, "And my son Rágn has told me that Calsar held his defeated army to do labour in the capital."

The girl covered her mouth, fast, only the corner of a sob edging out.

" They yet live?" she asked, as though she did not want to ask.

" I don't know," Yrnhold said. " What I do know is that Calsar has threatened the lot of us. He sent a man to our village to recruit back soldiers, saying he must drive the Cwge from Calmat."

Her face contorted once more, and she grit her teeth, squeezing her hands into fists.

" There is nowhere to go from here," she said. " The only fertile land is on the bank of the river, and that only barely. Everything in this damn place is faybane. We cannot even brew beer without curse leaching through the still and souring it."

" You have no priests or spirits, to pray lift it?" Yrnhold asked.

Aoife at last seemed to give up her formality at last, and slumped across her rug to cry.

" Caedwghe took them! He took our men, our priest, and our sacred trees! All so we may drive out those Vóda, he said, that keep us from living peacefully!" she sobbed. " And they were all killed! He said you heathens would never win against us spiritually, that he must have all of it, and so none of it... None of them were ever returned to us..."

Yrnhold and his men were at a loss for words.

" Have you entreated the spirits of this land?" Sif asked.

Aoife seemed to notice him for the first time.

" What spirits?" she spat. " It is empty, or they are wicked. Who are you to question my efforts?"

Indeed, Sif could find no trace of them in the air. He wondered, vaguely, if that was why this place smelled of illness.

Yrnhold gestured to him.

" This is the Lord Hélna, who is the god of the land we ourselves settled on," he said. " My lord, pray remove your hood."

" As you wish," Sif said, drawing his hood down so that his ears were no longer concealed. The girl covered her mouth and stared at him with blatant shock.

" My lady, I've finished with your bread-" The other woman, Brige, chose this time to come back, poking her head through the curtained doorway. She also let out a cry of surprise.

" It is because I disagree with Calsar's ways that the coven and I decided to come speak with you in person," Sif said. " I believe it to be dishonest and cowardly to renege on letting you the land. And seeing the state of things here, I find my judgment correct. What man recruits soldiers to drive women and children from one poverty into another?"

" A god," Aoife said. " Hold up your wrists! Let me see that you have been untethered, and that this is no farce!"

Yrnhold and his men exchanged a look, but Sif agreed quite easily; the red mark of where Helna's wrists had been bound to the stake had never faded.

Brige, having fully come back into the room, looked him over as well.

" So you are," she said, as though that settled some matter. " Aoife, what shall we do with them?"

Aoife waved her off.

" I need time to think," she said. " I have never met one myself. They must think well of us to bring their god along."

She looked back to Yrnhold, Sif, and their men.

" Does your god not grow weak away from its land?" she asked.

Sif thought about it, wiggling his fingers to test his abilities. He flicked his ear.

" I myself feel the same as I always do," he said, " But it seems that the sickness in the air will not allow me to bestow blessing."

At this, both women he was addressing looked disappointed.

" So it truly is faybaned," Brige said.

Aoife, having already straightened herself and recovered from her earlier crying fit, swallowed, her throat bobbing as she tried to look composed.

" We cannot overlook that you wish to extend kindness to us," she said. " Let us make space for you to sleep here tonight, and tomorrow we'll discuss this more at length."

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