and dropped it on to a stone in the glowering embers of the fire. It lay for a moment before suddenly blazing into a single flame. Then almost before she could draw breath it had vanished, leaving a tiny mound of ash in the shape of a little grey fox. Gytha smiled to herself as she blew the ash into the wind.
She added a few sticks to the fire and rocked back on her heels, gazing up at the canopy above. The sunlight trickled down through the branches, illuminating the tiny cobweb of veins in every tender new leaf. It was a good time of year to be living outdoors. She'd missed this.
Gytha sensed a movement behind her, but she didn't bother to turn her head. She knew a lad had been hovering out of sight in the forest since first light, trying to pluck up the courage to approach the clearing.
At last the boy cleared his throat. 'There's this lass.'
He added no further explanation, as if he thought those three words were more than enough for anyone to expect of him. He continued to study her intently as she mended the fire, as though he thought there was dark magic in the way she laid the wood or blew upon the embers.
'Can you do it?' he finally blurted out.
'Course she can,' Madron said.
The boy spun round as if an arrow had struck him.
'Who was that?' he asked, looking fearfully about him. 'Was it a spirit?'
'An evil old spirit,' Gytha muttered.
Then, seeing the boy's terrified expression, she relented and gestured towards a little bothy woven from branches and last year's bracken, half hidden under the trees.
'Just the old besom in there. She's blind. She'll not hurt you.'
The boy took several steps backwards, not at all convinced by this assurance.
He was one of the sons of the charcoal makers who lived most of the year deep in the forest, tending their fires night and day. Every inch of visible skin was grimed with smoke and burnt wood, and his clothes were many layers of mud- coloured rags. He was a tall, angular creature, thin as a sapling that has shot up too fast. His blond hair bushed out wildly from beneath his cap, grazing his shoulders. He fidgeted restlessly like a child, but the sparse growth on his lip and chin suggested he might be older than he looked.
Gytha sighed. 'So, this girl you're in love with, when did you last see her?'
With another fearful glance at the bothy, the lad wrenched his attention back to Gytha.
'At Michaelmas, at the Herring Fair on the isle of Yarmouth. M'father took us there to sell the charcoal to the ships. M'father and brothers sent me to buy us some supper first day and there she was, walking up the length of the sand selling oysters from a great pannier on her back. I went back the next day, and the next, to buy oysters, twice sometimes, till m'brothers said they were sick of the sight of them, but then I went just to stand and watch her. She was ... like a queen, her hair ... it was sparkling all over like she was wearing jewels. When I told her, she said they were fish scales blown there by the wind, and she laughed and these two little dimples —'
'Did you tell her you loved her?' Gytha interrupted, knowing from experience that love-lorn youths can easily talk to a woman about their sweethearts all day, given any encouragement.
The boy hung his head and scuffed the deep leaf litter miserably with his bare toe.
'You didn't.' Gytha said.
'But this year when we go back I'll do it. I will this time, only. . . what if she's fallen for another afore I can tell her. . .'
'Then you'll need something to make her fall out of love with him and fall in love with you.'
'Can you give me something that'll make it happen?' the lad asked eagerly.
'I'll need something of hers to use in the charm. Do you have anything that she's touched or worn? A lock of this wondrous hair of hers? A scrap of ribbon?'
The lad hesitated, then reached into his shirt and pulled out half an oyster shell that dangled round his neck from a bit of twine.
'She opened this herself and poured the oyster into her own mouth. Then she threw the shell away. But I picked it up and kept it,' he said, touching the flaking shell as reverently as