Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,1

there simply was no money to hire better - her good for nothing husband took every penny she couldn’t hide. Still, she never ordered, instead always asked and never complained of her lot in life. It wasn’t in her to do it.

A sharp petulant voice came from the door to the west wing of the house startling everyone.

“What’s going on, what’s all that racket? Can’t a body get some sleep of a night? Bad enough with this storm but then folk banging around…”

Closing her eyes, Delae willed patience as she had a thousand times before.

“It’s nothing, Cana. Travelers have broken down in the storm,” she said to her husband’s mother. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Then you must send aid,” the woman said, sharply - as if Delae were witless.

“This I know,” Delae said. “And I will. Go back to bed, Cana, I’ll take care of it.”

Despair and frustration weighed on her, battered at her soul. It was at rare times such as this that Delae wished she had a husband in truth, instead of only in name. This would’ve been his duty had he been there, although she would have gone with him to brave the storm and give aid. Instead it fell to her. All of it.

She took a breath - willed strength and patience. These folk needed her. There was no one else and there was something - some satisfaction - to be found in the knowledge that she could help.

“Hmmmph,” Cana said and slammed the door shut behind her.

At least Kolan, her husband’s father, hadn’t come, too, Delae thought, which was one blessing - his joints bothered him too much on these days.

Letting out the breath she’d taken, with a wince at the door slam, Delae turned to Hallis.

“Go fetch Dan, Morlis and Tad for me would you please, Hallis? Tell Morlis we’ll need our hay cart, two of the draft horses and Besra. Then you and Petra get the rooms in the east wing ready.”

Those rooms were usually reserved for rare visitors to the homestead - or for travelers such as these caught out in the storm. In this isolated part of the Kingdoms the smallholders used them most when they came in during the harsh days of winter, now fast upon them.

“Yes, Delae,” Hallis said and hurried off as best he could with his stiff joints and aching bones, as Petra came down the hall toward him.

Their fingers - his and Petra’s - touched for just a moment with love and understanding and then Hallis hobbled down through the west wing of the quarters toward those of the south wing. It would take longer but he was too old to fight the winds of the storm by cutting across the square.

Petra came to sit by the boy, a mug of hot herbal tea laced with wine in one gnarled hand. She gave a nod to Delae.

“Help will be on its way shortly,” Delae said, laying a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder.

As she hurried away to her rooms, she knew she wouldn’t tell him it would be she who would go. She, her smith, her wrangler and the addled but strong young man who assisted Petra in the kitchen.

That was all there were here save for the women and children of the homestead. All the smallholders were sheltering from the storm in the safety of their cottages and too far away to aid her.

It would have to be enough - it would have to do. Somehow.

Casting aside the threadbare robe and the thin linen nightdress she wore, Delae quickly drew on her working clothes - simple but heavy men’s winter trews, her heaviest tunic, layering over it a sweater Petra had knitted for her and thick woolen socks before she stamped her feet into her working boots. She threw her sturdiest cloak over all of it. A woolen scarf covered her abundant hair. She wrapped the scarf around her throat - despite the itch of the wool - before gathering up her sheepskin gloves.

She stopped to gather a jug of fortified wine from the storeroom, pausing in the kitchen to fetch a piece of warmed iron from the fire, and letting it drop it into the jug of wine with a hiss, before she pounded the cork stopper back in place.

By the time she reached the great room, the men were waiting.

Dan was huge and burly - heavily muscled in the chest, arms and shoulders from his hours at the forge and capable enough