needed one, that he had not been born with the ability of a full Wizard.
That was a relief to her, for if he had been a Wizard he would, eventually, been given responsibility for Kingdoms of his own, and he would have had to set up his own household in the midst of them. Now that she knew what to look for, she had gone back through all of the Library books and the Godmother chronicles, and had found Champions after all. She had paid little attention to the mentions of them before this, partly because she had been under the mistaken impression that they were just a different sort of knight, and that their ability to slay the terrible creatures of the Black Fae and those enslaved by Dark Sorcerers was merely that somewhere along the line they had gotten hold of those rare magical weapons. It had never occurred to her that they were magical weapons in and of themselves.
Silly of her, now that she came to think of it.
Still, in all of it, she never came across a reference to a Champion attached to the household of a Godmother. To Sorcerers and Sorceresses, yes. To Kings, certainly. Most of them seemed to wander about, singly, or with a group of adventurers, looking for trouble to eliminate. She was put in mind — which would, at this point, not be the thing to tell Alexander, even though it was awfully funny — of the bands of traveling rat-catchers, with their rat-charmers, rat-trappers, and ferreters, who went from town to town getting rid of pests of all sorts.
It seemed that no matter what, she would have him with her, undisturbed, through the winter at least, for as the season turned, it became quite clear that magic did not answer readily to Alexander's hand. The last of the harvest was gathered in, as the leaves turned and fell from the trees and the cruel November winds began to blow, and only by that time was he getting the knack of directing power into material objects and having it remain there. He did turn his hand to the household work without being asked — but Elena had the distinct feeling that there was a lot more being harvested from the orchards and gardens than could be accounted for by only overt work of the six members of the household. She had a shrewd guess that the Brownies were now using more of their magical powers than they used to. But of course, by The Tradition, that sort of thing had to happen in secret, where and when no mortals could see, so she just averted her eyes from the huge stores of apples, vegetables, and nuts in the cellars and went on about her business.
There was still an abundance of magical power looming over the household; not pushing, as she was accustomed to feeling The Tradition, but just — hovering. If a mountain could 'hover' that is, for that is what it felt like to her. The Tradition was clearly nonplussed by what was going on here, but as she was operating completely outside of any Traditional path, it didn't quite know what to do with her and Alexander. For the moment, she was not going to argue; it kept her personal stores of magic topped up, and provided extra for all the things that the House-Elves were doing.
Meanwhile it appeared that Hob and Robin were calling in favors from Fae outside the household. Piece by piece, armor was appearing, wonderful stuff as light as cork, but stronger than steel, and fitted to Alexander exactly. He had a bow already from the hunting-lodge; Hob found him a sword and an axe and shield, and Robin made him a lance.
He was a proper part of the household now, and even the house responded by opening up an entirely new suite of rooms, uncompromisingly masculine and suited to a warrior, complete with an armor-stand and a big, empty, barnlike room in which he could practice. The windows looked out into some other part of Faerie than the hunting-lodge did; his rooms appeared to have been built in the edge of a sheer cliff overlooking the sea. It gave Rose vertigo; she had to leave the cleaning there to Robin or Lily.
It was not an amethyst-colored sea under a sky with two moons, though. Elena expected him to comment on that — but he did not. In fact, even though the delicious, frustrating dreams continued, he said nothing.
He treated her with respect, with honor, with courtesy; in fact, he was acting in the most Knightly fashion possible. It was utterly maddening. Not that she didn't want respect, honor and courtesy; but —
But she also would not let The Tradition turn this into a bedroom farce. Or worse. She would not let it undo all the work she had done to help him become someone that the Great Fae — the Great Fae! — had been willing to make into a Champion.
She would not allow all of that to be wasted, no matter what it cost her. On that, she was determined.
Even if all she got out of this was respect, honor, and courtesy....
Alexander stood quietly, looking out of the window of the library at the road to the cottage, which was disappearing under a thick snowfall as dusk fell. The House-Elves had gone to bed — or at least, they had gone to wherever their private quarters were, leaving the house quiet.
Elena had sent them off early tonight, insisting that they could and should take a kind of half-holiday. 'We can manage dinner for ourselves,' she'd said.
He hadn't objected, though she had looked at him oddly, as if she had expected him to. This fit in altogether perfectly with some half-formed ideas of his own, and even if he had to eat stale bread and rancid cheese tonight, he wasn't going to discourage anything that left the house empty for once.
Because having the Brownies around was, frankly, awkward. You never knew when they were going to just pop in a doorway. And he was very tired of awakening in the morning with his groin aching from one of those delightful and frustrating dreams.
He had decided that he was going to court Elena. Court, not seduce, because his intentions were ultimately honorable. That is, if Godmothers were permitted to wed. Mind, if the bedding preceded the wedding by quite some time, he wouldn't object; it wasn't that he objected in the least to a wedding, but — well, he had the feeling that the wedding of a Godmother would turn into an Occasion that would be the talk of a dozen Kingdoms and possibly the center of news for a dozen more. He knew what weddings were like in a single Kingdom — bloody hell, you had to plan the wretched things for months or even years in advance, and the celebrations generally stretched on for a month or more, which tended to make things a great deal less than comfortable for the newly wedded couple. And the wedding of a Godmother? He rather fervently prayed that he was wrong. Because there were old, old stories that described wedding celebrations between very great heroes and important Princesses that carried on for a year and a day, and —
— no. No. He could not manage to perform — for 'performance' would be what it was — for an audience of thousands, every day, all day, for a year and a day. And he didn't think that such a thing would really appeal to Elena, either.
