the spirits of mischief are most active, mortals lay a rowan sprig over the lintel of doors and windows, so that evil spirits cannot enter. Some mortals wear necklaces of rowan wood and hang garlands of it in the cattle byres or over the horns of a beast that they fear has been overlooked by the evil eye.
Those whose milk is witched so that it will not turn to butter had best get themselves a churn made from rowan wood. If their horse is bewitched and throws the rider, it may be tamed with a rowan whip. But those who really fear the spirits seek out the flying rowan, the tree whose roots do not touch the earth, but grows in the cleft of a rock or on another tree, for its wood is the most powerful of them all.
But take heed, mortals, rowan will protect you from the evils of men, but it will not protect you from a mandrake's power, for we are neither witches nor spirits to be commanded. We are gods.
The Mandrake's Herbal
The Shearing
'You'll never wind the bairn like that,' Athan's mother declared, scooping the baby from Elena's arms and patting him briskly on his back.
The infant stopped grizzling and looked vaguely surprised.
'You'll join the other women in the barn soon as you've finished here,' Joan said. It was a command, not a question. 'They'll help you with the little one.'
What you really mean is, I can't be trusted to look after him, Elena thought, but she held her tongue and merely nodded. It was the first time since the baby had been born that she would spend the day away from her mother-in-law. With the sheep-shearing about to begin and ploughing still to be done and the first haymaking starting in the forward meadows, every man, woman and child was pressed into labour, no matter what their age or infirmity.
Athan had left for the fields at ghost light, before the sun was even visible above the dark fringed marshes. Every precious hour of daylight had to be used while the weather held fair. But his mother continued to linger at the door, still watching Elena as a fox watches a rabbit, waiting for it to come close enough to pounce.
Please just go, Elena willed her.
'Remember to take clean rags, he'll need changing'
Elena nodded to the bundle she'd made ready. 'I have them. Hadn't you better make haste? Marion'll not be best pleased if you're late.'
Joan sniffed. 'Just because that harlot is keeping the bailiffs bed warm, doesn't give her the right —'
She broke off abruptly as Marion and some of the other Women called out to her as they passed the open door of the cottage. Pausing only to issue a further list of instructions about the care of her grandson, she sped off to catch up with them, only too eager to regale them with the latest of Elena's failings as wife and mother.
Peace seemed to roll in through the open door in the wake of Joan's departure. Elena took her son in her arms and gently kissed his face. His eyes were heavy with sleep, but the lids were almost transparent so that the blue of his eyes glowed through them like a jewel through gauze. She stroked the soft apricot down on his warm head and slid her finger into the tiny fist, feeling the fingers curl tightly round her own as if he knew without looking that it was his mother's hand.
The bairn, that's what they all called him. Athan said he had chosen a name, but Joan declared it was bad luck to say it out loud before the baptism in case a stranger or the faerie folk should learn it and use it to witch the child before his name was sanctified by the Church. At his baptism Athan would whisper it to the priest at the font, but only when the priest proclaimed it to the congregation would Elena knew what they were going to call her baby.
She already had a name in her heart for him, though she would never be allowed to use it. She whispered it sometimes when she was sure no one would hear her, a secret name because she adored him and he was her son. But she knew that any name she gave the child would not keep him safe, only the Church, only baptism could do that. But when would he be baptized?
With the Interdict and all the churches closed and