Welcome to the round robin for December. Skye, our convener, challenged us to write a story, poem or essay for Christmas. Mine is called THE KING OF CLOUTIES. It's chopped into chapters to make it easier to keep track. If you'd rather read offline, send me a note and I'll email you the PDF.

Please check out my fellow bloggers' pieces. Their links are below.

The King of the Clouties

Rating

It was the day before Christmas—Christmas Eve, in fact—two years ago and I was nursing overstressed feet in a DYI B&B. According to the advert, Wayside Lodge was a historic, picturesque, economical, comfortable and flexible port of call on the Saxon Way.

When writing reviews of places I’ve stayed, I strive for impartiality. I remind myself that what I assumed is not important. What was stated or implied in the advertising; that’s what’s important. I’ll now consider those statements in detail.

1. Is Wayside Lodge historic? Undoubtedly. It was the lodge of a now-vanished manor house, long and low and solid. It counts its age in centuries. Architecturally it’s not especially significant, but it has seen plenty of action and it’s in good repair without being obviously remodelled.

2. Is it picturesque? Maybe. In the right light, through rose-tinted expectations. On the single day of summer the area allows itself. That’s a joke made at the expense of plenty of places, but for the Saxon Way it’s truer than it is for most.

3. Would I call it economical? That depends on the scale one uses to gauge such things. Let’s say it was much cheaper than a five-star resort, and much dearer than an unpowered campsite. Guess which one it more nearly resembled. For a start, it is unpowered.

4. How about comfortable? I refer you to Point 3. If your baseline concerns anything softer than concrete for a bed and a stone for a pillow, then yes. If you were hoping for goose feather mattresses at maximum squish and floof, then not very. The furniture is mid-century shabby basic.

5. Flexible, then? Ye-es. In that there’s no onsite staff, no set check-in, the fireplace could be used, or not, and the kettle was available, along with water from a well nearby. The beds are dormitory style, scrubbed wooden slats with thin rubber mattresses, to be used with one’s own sleeping bag and blow-up pillow. They have to be at least fifty years old, but they’re in good enough repair. The screws all fit snugly and there are no splinters. The fridge is a larder with a chill that suggests a boggart or two in residence. Oddly, the advert doesn’t mention the boggarts. It was Darius who informed me of their presence, but hey, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Now I’ve laid it all out, I think I judged too harshly.

Nothing was broken, or grubby. It’s a decent place to overnight.

The reviews I’d read about Wayside Lodge when I made the booking suggested convivial evenings spent before a glowing fire, drinking local ale and eating rustic bread and that sharp, crumbly red cheese they make thereabouts. They’d rhapsodised over midsummer festivals and standing stones in the moonlight. Not Avebury, let alone Stonehenge. The local stones are called Lords-in-the-Rain. One review made a glancing reference to the Stag Stone, near Stag St. Martins, but I couldn’t tell if the reviewer had visited the Stag from the Saxon Way or if he (it was a he) was recalling and comparing a former midsummer visit to standing stones. Stone, rather. The Stag is a single sarsen.

Pay attention to that… midsummer. The Saxon Way apparently has a hey-nonny-no charm when the sun is high on that one bright day of the year.

So, why was I there in winter when the sun had gone on holiday and didn’t expect to be back for—who knows? I got the feeling it had sent a memo to hikers; something along the lines of don’t call us.

Reason

It had seemed a fine idea at the time… a way to avoid the overcommercialisation of the season and the rinse and repeat of various friends and quasi-relatives seen once a year.

They’d given up saying Not married yet, Sara? in arch tones. Why was that still a thing? Why was it ever a thing?

I was fed up with being the cousin who made the calls, drove for emergency supplies, did the washing up, smiled…

I wasn’t even a cousin, not properly. Dad was an only child, long gone, and my stepmother, Elise, though kind and pleasant, never seemed to know what to do with me.

I didn’t blame her. I didn’t know what to do with me.

So, that was the year I bowed out, bunked off, boxed clever and booked myself a walking holiday through the Saxon Way.

I wanted to be thoroughly tired and thoroughly cut off from all the festive obligations.

Don’t call us…

Elise gave me her blessing (I didn’t need it) and a Christmas pudding the size of a grapefruit on steroids if not a coconut. It was swaddled in a white cloth which seemed a bit biblical, but never mind.

I thanked her and tried to leave it with her. “I’ll pick it up next time I call in. It’s not really the sort of thing to port on a walking holiday.”

“Just drop it in a pot of boiling water until it smells done,” Elise said. She had never stopped trying to mother me. It’s absolutely not her fault that she acquired me along with my dad when I was fifteen and lost him three years later. It was providential that she was no longer legally responsible for the newly eighteen-year-old uni-student me. We kept in touch and she never let me feel unwanted.

I nodded mendaciously, set the pudding in its bunny-ears cloth on the sideboard behind a blue and white coffeepot, ducked off to the loo, and segued into the cheek kiss of leaving without passing GO.

The pudding mysteriously appeared in my pack, but I didn’t discover it until I was halfway home on the bus.

I intended to stick it in the fridge for the duration of my walking holiday, but somehow it was still with me the next day when I got out of a different bus at the village marked with a red X as the start of the Saxon Way and started walking. The village is called Upper Swantide in case you’re interested. There is no Lower Swantide.

Restocking

By that Christmas Eve, the one in question, I’d been on the road for enough days to have sore feet, but not enough to have hardened up. I was about sixty-five miles from Upper Swantide, and well over a hundred from Brendon’s Pool, the other end of the Saxon Way.

I’d made it to Wayside Lodge late in the afternoon and been only mildly discombobulated to find it empty.

No staff meant no one to check me in, so I did it myself, following prompts from a laminated poster on the wall. I’d prepaid all my accommodation, so I used the code provided to let myself in.

The code was mechanical, I think. Wayside Lodge had missed the update about electronics and the world beyond its moor.

The fire was down to occasionally winking embers and the kettle on the hob was as lukewarm as unwilling hospitality.

I gathered that the last occupant had left hours ago. Whether he or she or they planned to return wasn’t my problem or my business. I surmised not, because there was a one-word review in the Leave us a Word ledger in the main room.

Different!

The exclamation mark said it all.

An arrow on the wall stating WOOD led me to a double-doored wood box. Help yourself. Restock from the woodpile behind the lodge.

I helped myself to the three small chunks of wood incumbent and used loose shavings and bark to persuade the fire into being.

I checked the aforementioned dorm-style bedding and laid out my sleeping bag.

I poked into the larder, without managing to catch a boggart in the act. To be fair, I didn’t know at that point that a boggart (or two) was even a possibility. I’d heard of them, but I put as much credence in their presence at the lodge as I’d have put in fairies or purple unicorns.

I saw an unopened packet of crackers and a big paper bag a quarter full of potatoes with half a roll of tinfoil and a picnic salt. That wasn’t too unusual. Walkers often left unneeded food behind for their less provident fellows. I admired the fortitude of whoever had carried the potatoes this far before abandoning them. There is no vehicular access to the lodge.

I found and used the facilities, which were old enough to have been designed by Thomas Crapper (who didn’t invent the flushing toilet, but who did popularise it).

Then, aware of falling frost, I went to investigate the woodpile.

The logs were enormous, the roughly chopped remnants of a felled oak whose twin still scratched at the sky in proud solitude. The axe was huge. The chopping block would have rejoiced the heart of any headsman.

But-but-but… wood is supposed to be provided! complained my mind.

It was provided in that it was there. Apparently, it was my responsibility to render it fit to wedge into the fireplace.

How do they know you can manage?

I shrugged. I supposed no one goes on the Saxon Way without being reasonably hardy. The Way huts or lodges or camps or inns are more than twenty miles apart. That ought to be a warning to anyone not to expect a doddle.

After three days supporting a pack, my shoulders didn’t want to heft an axe that size, but my toes were already feeling nipped as well as stubbed numb, so I hoisted a lump of wood onto the block and hit it in the middle.

To my amazed pleasure, it cleaved right down the centre with a satisfying crunch.

I propped up one of the halves and essayed again.

As the pieces got smaller, balancing them became more difficult, so I started over with another solid log. This time, I tried to hit it to the side to flake off a piece the right size. I intended to go on whittling it down like a doner in a kebab shop. Naturally, the axe bounced off and so did the log.

My leap to save my already-sore toes would have done credit to a gymnast.

Of course, it was right then that someone greeted me from behind.

Raiding the Larder

“Hey oop! Watch tha’self!”

I gasped and spun round, dropping the axe.

The person behind me was male. That was about all I could tell because he was muffled up to the amused grey eyes.

“I suppose you want to take over?” I suggested.

“No, ma bonnie. I’m reet happy to watch ye.”

I retrieved the axe and handed it over. “In your dreams, old son.”

“Ah, don’t be afther—”

Mentally, I threw a chip of wood at him.

He picked up the axe and chopped more logs, efficiently, if not with the mighty cleaving effect he probably hoped for.

“Are you mine host?” I asked as I gathered an armful of firewood.

“Just a wayfaring stranger, like yourself, sithee,” he said.

I turned away.

His accent was all over the place from cod Scotsman to even codder Irishman and Yorkshireman. I wondered when the Welsh would show up.

We ferried the wood into the lodge. He did something to the sulking fire and got it going.

“Not exactly a hearty blaze,” I observed.

“That would be wasting the wood, bach,” he said, investigating the moribund stove. He gave it a good riddle with the brass poker and built a neat little tepee of kindling.

There was the Welshman sing-songing from the valleys.

I wondered if each accent came with a separate personality and if any of them posed a threat.

I had my phone in my pack, but its charge was low and I wouldn’t be able to feed it until I reached Moorland Cabins, two days from now.

Never mind. If I’d been the timorous sort I’d not be walking the Saxon Way. Its designation is moderate in summer and moderately challenging in other seasons and it comes with an isolation warning.

The newcomer refilled the kettle and raided the larder, returning with a covered basket I didn’t remember seeing.

I had no idea how I could have missed it, though it was pretty dim in there and growing dimmer.

I didn’t argue, especially when he brought out a large brown cob loaf, some suspiciously yellow butter, crumbly red cheese and a sleek white one, a pot of blackberry jam, two apples, a bunch of radishes and a caddy of coarsely-cut tea.

He started slicing and buttering and spooned tea in a dumpy stoneware pot where it exhaled a bracing aroma even before the boiling water was introduced.

I gloomed at a lamp on the mantelpiece, wondering how to use it. I know electric light. I know candles. Anything in between is a foreign country.

The stranger finished filling up a platter of old, scrubbed pale wood that must have been in the basket, and got up to deal with the lamp.

“Now we can be cosy, hen,” he said as the light bloomed out like a yellow mist.

The room was warming up nicely, so I removed my mittens and coat. I hooked them and my beanie on a carved wooden peg to one side of the fireplace.

“You might want to do that too, unless you plan to steam like a wet dog,” I suggested.

“Right grand idea.” He nodded to my pack which I’d propped near the door and said, “Mebbe get out any damp things in there an’ give ‘em a good airing, forbye.”

It was good advice, but I lingered to watch him pull off the beanie, unwind the muffler and peel himself out of his jacket.

“That’s better.” He stretched, and pried off his boots, revealing hand-knitted grey wool socks.

Made by his auld mither?

“Get your boots off before your feet swell in the heat,” he suggested.

I nodded, and ostentatiously undid the lacing, revealing my red and grey technical socks. They were still dry— as well they ought to be, having cost more than my waterproof Slipstream jacket.

“That’s the ticket, mate.”

The accent had shifted again, flatter somehow. Cockney? Not really.

“I’m Sara Holiday,” I said. Having both of us down to socks made me feel I ought to introduce myself.

“Darius Godfrey.” He stepped over and offered his hand which wasn’t damp, or rough or bearing a ring. He wasn’t wearing nail polish picked out with silver glitter, either.

What did he look like, aside from the negatives regarding his hand? Ordinary, which is to say, not average at all. I know he had grey eyes. His face was on the long side, clean-shaven, and his hair, cut in a style that suggested it looked windblown even on still days, was an unremarkable brown with lighter threads as if it might be considering premature grey.

He might have been forty, or forty-five. Or thirty-five.

It was one of those faces, pleasant, friendly, lived in, and having no feature to hang on the memory hook.

His voice, was ordinary too, except for the shifting accents.

Darius Godfrey. It seemed an upmarket name—even aristocratic—for such an ordinary man.

I didn’t say so. After all, he hadn’t mentioned my unfortunate surname. I’ve often wished it could be Halliday or even Holliday with two Ls.

At least I can (and do) use my second name. No one should be forced to contend with a first name like mine.

Really

Happy Holiday! I ask you!

I’d change it legally if only it wasn’t a legacy name from my mother. She died before I was registered, so my grieving dad moved the unremarkable Sara they’d chosen together to the substitute’s bench in favour of my mother’s nickname. She was registered as Happenstance Smith—no doubt my grandparents’ effort to give a bit of character to their surname.

I wish I’d known her—and them. I’d have hugged it out, then given them a stern talking-to.

We ate the platter my companion had prepared, and he heated some extra water which he poured into two enamel dishes. “You can wash in here, darl,” he said. “I’ll go out t’back.”

“Australian?” I hazarded.

He shrugged. “Could be.” He added, “It’s a side effect of my entirely mixed ancestry. I can suppress it if it bothers you.”

“Not at all,” I said.

I accepted the bowl of water.

He was out for a good while, and I hoped he wasn’t freezing on my account. Give me warm water and I can do a top-and-tail in two minutes minus.

He came back in long after I’d changed into my track pants and fleece.

“Bad news.”

“Yetis, I suppose,” I said with an ooze of sympathy.

“Not that bad, darl. Boggarts.”

“Oh.”

“In the chimney. Or they were, until you stoked the fire.”

“Oh.”

“The good news is, they’re not smoked enough to be dangerous.”

“Really,” I said.

“Really. But the weather’s getting into the season to be—”

I stared at him.

“Snow,” he clarified. “It’s already lying out there and looks set to keep up for a while.” He added, “I’ve chopped more wood, and set some water in the porch barrel. We’ll be all right.”

“I suppose we’ll lose a walking day,” I said.

“Probably. Unless you have snow chains for those boots.”

I might have laughed, but I noticed he’d stopped it with the accents. Either they were an affectation, or he was rattled…or suppressing it, as he’d offered to do.

“Never mind,” I said. “Really.”

Right

Darius was right.

The snow came in hard.

He built the fire up and made soup from whatever he had in his pack plus the potatoes and some other vegetables he unearthed in the larder.

We ate it with bread and cheese.

Darius took two prepared slices into the larder.

“For breakfast?” I asked when he returned without them. I was too tired by then to make a lot of sense.

“For the boggarts,” he said.

I thought I remembered something and said, mock-seriously, “Aren’t you afraid they’ll take offence and leave the building?”

He laughed. “Ye cannae offend a boggart, Sara. Brownies now—they’re touchy wee souls. Upsticks they will at the drop o’ a gifted shoe.”

The accent was showing again.

I said goodnight and retired to the dorm room. It wasn’t too cold, because we’d left the door open to let the fire’s heat permeate the lodge.

I slept heavily and woke later than I would have on a walking day. I don’t know how my psyche knew it was snowing, but evidently it did.

It was Christmas Day.

It was also my birthday, a slightly momentous one, which was another good reason I hadn’t wanted to spend it stirring gravy and trying to recall which uncle liked stuffing and which was gluten intolerant.

I’d chosen to skip the family festival. I hadn’t chosen to spend the day snowed in with a stranger in an old lodge without electricity, but I’d still rather be here than there.

Once up and dressed, I went out into the main room where Darius was already boiling the kettle and feeding the stove.

His cheeks were red and so was his nose and he had snow in his hair. Obviously, he hadn’t bothered with a beanie.

“What’s it like out there?” I asked.

“Drifting deep,” he said. “Unless someone brings a snow plough no one’s getting in or out today.”

“My feet will probably thank me,” I said. “Is there more food?” I had some emergency rations in my pack, but I was keeping them for a proper emergency—shared, maybe, with a cragfast sheep.

“We won’t starve,” he said, slanting a glance at the larder.

I scoffed. “There’s nothing in there but a few crackers, and the boggarts probably ate those for breakfast.”

“Not they, hen. The wee beasties are nae sae fond o’ processed food. Mind, we’re not so likely to find a turkey and trimmings in there. That they would eat, an’ play tunes on the wishbone.”

It was the first time he’d referred to the festival, even obliquely, unless I counted the into the season reference he’d made before.

“I could manage more bread and cheese,” he added.

I said, “Well, I can manage a Christmas pudding.”

He smiled at me. “I were wondering when ye’d mention that wee detail, lass—or if ye’d decide to share.”

That took me aback. I was morally sure no one but myself and Elise knew about that pudding and Elise wouldn’t have expected me to take it along the Saxon Way.

Darius might have gone through my pack—but he wouldn’t do that. Why would he?

“How did you know?” I asked, keeping my voice level. If there’s a large spider in the room I want it where I can see it. If I was sharing quarters, however temporarily, with a bag-botherer, I wanted to know.

“Maybe I smelled it. Maybe the boggarts told me.”

“Right.”

The Royal Recipe

I waited a few seconds and said, “Which?”

He shrugged. “Which do you want it to be?”

“Whichever is real.”

“Reality is where you find it, hen.”

He looked back steadily at me and added, “If you don’t want folk to know ye’re carrying the King o’ Cloutie wid ye—and he made to the royal recipe, unless I mistake me, which I don’t—then ye’d best store he in an airtight snap-lock. Or else, not wrap he in yon wee flannie.” He indicated the fleece I’d slept in which was now draped over my pack.

I snatched it up and held it to my nose. Now that he’d mentioned it…

Royal recipe? Maybe. Now I thought of it I didn’t recall Elise making a Christmas pudding before.

I dropped the fleece and unbuckled the pack before delving around until I located the pudding. I dragged it out by one bunny ear.

“Have a bit o’ respect!” Darius chided. “That’s no way to treat the King!”

I gave the pudding a good swing to signify my intention then let it fly.

Darius caught it in both hands. “He’s been at the brandy,” he said, sniffing. “Auld Henry, if I’m a judge, which I am. May I ask why ye’d be carrying a pudding dowsed in Auld Henry in your pack?”

“Why not?”

“I’ve seen no other sign that ye plan to celebrate the day.”

“No.” I shrugged. “My stepmother gave it to me. I tried to leave it with her, then I meant to leave it at home but somehow…” I let the implied ellipsis hover in the air.

“The King would have his way.”

“He wants to be eaten?”

“His reason for being is to be eaten.”

“We’d better eat him—it—then,” I said. “Elise said to boil it until it smells done.”

“That’s Christmas dinner sorted,” Darius said.

Recounting

It was an odd day. Apart from the necessities of civilised life, there was literally nothing we had to do. The fire kept us warm. Going outside for a walk wasn’t an option. There were no jigsaws or crosswords, books or board games in the lodge. I didn’t see so much as a pack of cards.

That was surprising to me because walkers often leave cheap occupations and entertainments behind in shelters. It’s an informal swap system. Carrying six books is wearisome but carrying one and swapping it for someone else’s carry-and-leave is a breeze.

Having nothing pressing to do, we talked.

He learned about Elise and our cordial but not warm relationship.

I learned that he was a publican.

I suppose I must have looked disconcerted because he assured me again that it was so.

“I’m landlord at The Pride of Erin,” he said.

“Where’s that?”

He named an unfamiliar but generic-sounding village.

“Where’s that?”

He gave me another name.

I hadn’t heard of that place either, but there are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45,000 towns and villages in the UK, so I let it go.

“An old smugglers’ pub?” I hazarded.

“Not at all, my handsome.”

I laughed. “Cornish. That’s new,” I said.

He slapped his own cheek and took a deep breath. “It’s not old at all. Custom built, clean and snug. Tourists like it, and so do the locals, which is by far the bigger test.”

“So who’s looking after it while you’re wandering the Way?”

“My friend Irish Toby and his wife.”

He told me about them and about other locals. Half of what he recounted sounded mundane and ordinary. The other half was so unlikely it had to be true.

“And what do you do when you’re not walking the Way or snowbound with a publican, Sara?” he asked.

I bit my lip. “Snap. I’m a barmaid.”

“Then I lay ye’ll have some tales to rival me own.”

“I do, but most of them aren’t fit for a licensee’s ears.”

“Try me.”

I told him a couple of the tamer tales, and we swapped cocktail recipes and stories of difficult customers while we ate more bread and cheese.

Rigmarole

It was getting on in the afternoon when Darius proposed boiling the pudding.

“In the kettle?” I hazarded.

“In the soup pot.”

I’d forgotten about that.

He filled the pot waist-deep from the barrel outside and brought it in bobbing with ice.

He set it on the stove where it gave a menacing and prolonged hiss like a disappointed gorgon.

“Now what?” I asked.

“We bring ‘un to t’boil then immerse the King o’ the Clouties.”

“You can do the honours,” I said.

He nodded and sat down. “I propose a rigmarole,” he said.

“A long and complicated story?”

“Precisely.”

“Go on then.”

I sat back, waiting to be entertained.

What accent would he choose? Did he choose?

He began.

“My parents were married in a little old church called Saint Botolph’s.”

I nodded encouragement.

He shook his head at me. “Never assume, Sara. It was not Saint Botolph’s Abbey on the historic island of Ely, and not the lovely old place (old by the standards of its congregation, at least) which is somewhere in Australia.”

“Are you Australian, then?” I interrupted.

“No.

“This church—the site of my parents’ wedding— is known as Saint Botolph’s on the Wold.

“A wold, in case you don’t know, is a high piece of uncultivated moorland or heath.”

“I did know,” I said. “I can also define a crag, a tor, a heath, a soak and a coomb…”

“I look forwards to hearing that, ma belle.”

“French now?”

He shrugged. “Saint Botolph was, or is, a saint associated with journeys, which may account for his name gracing the decidedly rustic church in question.”

“I know who he was—but there’s not much else to know about him,” I put in.

“You wish to tell the story, ma’am?”

“No, no. I’ll be quiet. I’ll just raise my finger if I know something and—”

“Your toe if you want clarification. Bien!

“The name was fitting because only a determined journeyer would have reached that point on the moors where the wind, baulked of trees, does its best to rip the heather and bracken from its roots.”

A strange, muffled thud came from outside and I jumped.

“T’ boggarts pushin’ snow off the gable,” he said. He went on, “There’s an old engraving in The Chronical of Wulfgar the Wanderer showing the eponymous Wulfgar striding across the heath with his cloak billowing and straining like a sail. He leans at an angle, resting on the blast, and he’s smiling, unless it’s a slip of the engraver’s tool.”

He shifted diction and intoned, “And Wulfgar sped, step by sturdy step, across the roof of the land, carried by the breath of the seven, and he walked to the blare of the trumpets that shall sound.”

I mimed applause. I wondered if he did am-dram. He had the voice for it—ordinary, conversational but flexible.

“That’s a translation from the Chronical, done in modern times by a man who knew the Swan of Avon,” he went on. “Or so they say.”

“Did you once see Shelley clear?” I misquoted in rhetorical tones.

He silent-applauded me back.

“I fancy he, whoever he was, had more regard for a fine rolling phrase than for accurate translation, but then again—Wulfgar is smiling.”

I raised a toe…well, my whole foot, really. I had on my pair of soft woolly comfort socks, letting my tired feet relax.

He raised his eyebrows. “Aye?”

“Please sir, what has this peripatetic Saxon to do with Saint Botolph’s on the Wold?”

“Not a thing—for it was a different heath where he strode and smiled, and even a different century.”

“Why did you mention him, then?”

“Why not? I was using his image to demonstrate the feral nature of the wind. I could get up and enact it for you, but I might fall into the cellar.”

“Is there one?”

He nodded towards the rustic table. “There’s a trapdoor there. That suggests a cellar.”

“Oh.” I shivered.

He raised his hand to forestall more questions. “Let’s just say St Botolph’s on the Wold is a place of wuther and bother, and that’s before you get within five miles of it.”

I nodded comprehension.

“You might, therefore, wonder what it’s doing there at all. It’s for sure Botolph didn’t build it. He was dust before a stone was raised upon another, well tucked up in the seventh century.

“And no, it was not built by the Wanderer either—as I said, he’s not a part of the story except to demonstrate the wutheriness of the wind.”

“Wutheriness,” I pondered aloud. “Is that a word?”

“Enough! I spake it, therefore, a word it is. And yes I do know who did build the church. I know the tradition, anyway, and who’s to say a tradition is less truthful than a supposition?”

I drew breath.

He shook his head at me and went on.

“The story goes that the church, made from roughly cut local limestone, was raised by a couple in thanks for the miracle that allowed them to marry.”

“Your parents.”

“Oh, now ye’re taking the piss, ye wee besom. How old are ye afther thinkin’ I am?”

“Methuselah is your brother,” I suggested. “Your younger brother.”

He laughed. Properly.

“Their names were Arlette Giverny and Alfric Bythorn—a Norman lady and her father’s servant.”

“And they were in lerve,” I prompted.

“Indeed, but you may depend that neither family would countenance such a shocking mésalliance.”

“I’ve often wondered how Cinderella and the prince, and the goose girl and the king dealt after they said I do,” I mused. “They’d have utterly different expectations and experiences.”

“Ella and her prince—who was actually a son of a son of a by-blow of one of the French kings—or some such thing— dealt very well,” he said. “The sleeping beauty…not so much perhaps, because there’s a suggestion she was an imposter.”

“Are by-blows a thing now?” I asked.

“Officially?” He shrugged and said something in what I think was Welsh… the actual language, not just the cod accent.”

“Let’s get to the miracle,” I suggested.

“Aye, that mebbe for the best. The ‘miracle’, which is deserving of air quotes even though they were not a thing at the time, that brought about their union involved the elopement of two other people.”

I nodded intelligently. “So we have Wulfgar and—”

“Alfric and Arlette. Wulfgar has nothing to do with anything except—”

“A demonstration of the wutheriness,” I said.

“Eh, ye’re a proper caution… So sharp ye’ll cut yourself. The other two people were Eowith of York and Stephen Hoult who had fled on the eve of their weddings to Alfric and Arlette who really would have preferred to marry one another. As, of course, they did.”

“Huh?” I lifted my foot.

“Alfric was meant to marry a stout Saxon lass named Eowith, and Arlette was intended for an even stouter Norman named Stephen. Only Stephen and Eowith ran off the night before.”

I raised a finger. “Got it.”

“The wedding feasts were already prepared, and the priest and handfaster—” He stared at me.

I raised my finger.

He nodded. “The priest and handfaster were ready, so a quick substitution of bridegroom was—”

“Banns?” I asked, kicking my foot so energetically my slipper would have flown off if I’d been wearing one.

“I beg your pardon? I have no clue about banns, or which feast the couple ate…although on reflection, I expect they chose the one intended for Arlette and Stephen. The one meant for Alfric and Eowen would have been more like a mug of ale and a hunk of bread.”

I waved a bit of bread and cheese. “Better than what we have. No ale here. Just tea. Only I suppose they wouldn’t have had tea in those days.”

“There mebbe some ale in t’cellar. Besides, look you, we have the King o’ the Cloutie.” He got up and peered into the pot. “She’s a’bubble. Let’s lower His Majesty into his bath.”

I waved to him to do the honours and watched with amused horror as the pudding, swinging from its bunny ears, descended with a gulp rather than a splash.

“Go on then,” I said as he—Darius, not the pudding—hesitated before sitting down again.

“I was wondering if I ought to intone a traditional charm.”

“Probably.” I waited.

“I don’t actually know one. Ale songs though—ale is a subject I can hold forth on for hours if I have some to quaff.”

“Later.” I shivered again at the idea of that putative cellar.

Darius sat and went on. “Back to the miracle-in-air-quotes. Arlette’s father—another Stephen, just to be awkward— fell down in an apoplexy when he discovered the substitution of bridegrooms, and shortly thereafter, Arlette (and Alfric as her legal husband) inherited Stephen Giverny’s holdings. She was her father’s only legitimate child, and he’d chosen her as his heir on account of fearing his by-blows—”

Up went my toes.

“By-blows were a thing then all right. And Stephen Giverny, who was a minor baron, thought they might have patricidal tendencies.”

I thought sourly that it was his daughter he ought to have feared.

“Arlette and Alfric may not have gone so far as to claim her father’s sudden death of apoplexy a miracle,” Darius said, “but there’s no doubt they benefitted from it as much as from the sudden unreasoning passion their intendeds discovered for one another before fleeing.”

I kicked air.

“Yes?”

“Not a question. I just wondered if that union lasted. It was another upstairs downstairs case, right? Except this time it was the man who was upstairs.”

“Indeed to goodness. The Hoults no doubt benefitted from some stout Saxon stock, and they flourish to this day.

“Arlette and Alfric must have felt a wee bit uneasy about their air-quote miracle. They couldn’t do penance because that would have admitted to wrongdoing and led to questions where there had been none, but they pledged to build a church where couples less blessed by air-quote miracles than they might be married in haste and secrecy.”

“Just like Gretna Green,” I said.

“Mayhap, but no anvils were involved. The secrecy clause is one explanation for the remoteness of Saint Botolph on the Wold. Haste, however, seems less well represented.” He stopped and gave me a look and a wave. “Comment?” He said it in the French way, of course.

“I suppose if this church is remote, couples in haste might have a problem getting there,” I said.

“Indeed. So why build it so far from their manor?”

I shrugged.

“It may be that the wold, being uncultivated and of little practical use seemed a good property for Arlette (and Alfric) to relinquish. Giving up land was a big concession but giving up untamed and unwanted land can be a pretty easy sacrifice.

“Another possibility is that though they had pledged to raise the church, Alfric and the Lady Arlette preferred to keep the raising private, for fear someone might show too much interest in their motives. If that happened, they might as well have done public penance. Any hint of scandal might have given the lady’s half-brothers a foothold to claiming the lands.”

I wiggled my toes. “What exactly is apoplexy?”

“A stroke or brain bleed, most likely, lass.

“Whatever the real reason for the site they used, the church was raised, made of limestone and timbers that must have cost them some ingenuity and not a little coinage to transport.

“Saint Botolph’s on the Wold is not a graceful building. It is not quite square, and its walls are thick and double-layered. No doubt this keeps out the vengeful jilted suitors or brides and furious fathers as well as the wind.

“Its roof is low-pitched, and its steeple little more than a chimney pot, surmounted by the oddest cross in Christendom; one formed from bones.”

“Not Arlette’s dad’s bones, please,” I said.

Raconteur

“No. His funeral was public and included a minor version of lying in state. Someone would have noticed if a leg or so had gone walkies or been exchanged for a piratical peg.”

I choked.

Darius grinned. “Whose bones they were is unrecorded, but the reason for them is plain enough. Beneath the trappings of flesh and fine fabric, men of Alfric’s class and ladies of Arlette’s are equals.

“By the same reasoning, a stone box is tucked on either side of the modest entry to the church. On the lid of one is carved a shoe, and on the other, a scale. Couples coming to be joined would take off their shoes and leave them in one, while the other would receive a token of wealth from one partner and a token of poverty from the other.

“Once married, they might retrieve their things, which now belonged to each of them equally.”

“That sounds as if it’s reinforcing the division,” I said, not bothering to lift my foot. I was feeling like an upturned tortoise as it was.

“What? No, you mistake me, girleen. The token of poverty came from the one with more worldly consequence; something signifying the willingness to put aside wealth and circumstance. It was often a wooden cup, or a piece of plain bread. The token of wealth was usually of sentimental value or even personal pride, though next-to-worthless in the eyes of the world.

“You may be sure a man of consequence must be quite besotted with a milkmaid to treasure a tuft of hair from her favourite cow if that is the best thing she had.”

“I suppose it represented the cow,” I said.

“Indeed. To add to the difficulty of travel, any couple choosing a blessing at Saint Botolph’s on the Wold would have to provide their own priest… a monk would do at a pinch, but only if he had taken holy orders. The rumour that the village midwife, undertaker or smith could pronounce a marriage has persisted over the centuries, but it has never been so.”

“How about a ship’s captain?” I interjected.

“Not unless he, like the monk, has taken holy orders.”

He looked at me steadily for about six seconds then, when I made no more comments, he continued.

“Some couples, according to the letters of Cedric of Curness whose fascination with gossipy minutiae could rival that of the immortal Pepys, found the priest problem so taxing that they quarrelled and thought better of wedding at all.”

Better before than after, I thought, but didn’t say. I wondered who Cedric of Curness might have been and resolved to look him up…unless Darius chose to enlighten me.

“It’s difficult to know the truth about that, forbye, because the Father Joshua to whom the letters were addressed has never been identified,” Darius said. “A small but persuasive group of theorists has suggested a parallel with the biblical name from the book of Joshua, in which Joshua is the Son of—” He looked at me again.

“Nun,” I said obediently. “Son of none—no one—and this a ruse to make it seem this Cedric had friends to write to.”

“Verily, they posit, Cedric was writing to no one… the fact that his letters were found neatly numbered but without replies after his death adds some weight to the theory.”

Darius stopped his raconteuring, if that’s the right word, to sniff the air like a questing hound. “Sithee, does that smell doon to thee?” he asked.

I sorted out his question by running it through my accent filter, realising I must have been doing that subconsciously for a while now.

“Not quite,” I said. “I’ve never cooked a King of the Cloutie before, but I have been in the kitchen while Elise was cooking cake, and there’s always the moment when the scent permeates the kitchen.”

Recap

Darius subsided and I waited for him to resume his tale.

When he didn’t, I said, “Ya. Und?” which is something I picked up from a formidable headmistress I once met in a pub.

He stared at me with an arrested expression, and I suddenly realised he might think I was mocking him.

I think I blushed, making me look guilty even though I wasn’t.

I have no use for subterfuge, so I said, “I wasn’t getting at you. It’s a quote.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “It would be okay even if you were… publicans have to have thick skins.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered.

“The barmaids at the Pride often do. Mind, they have permission to dump a mocktail over anyone who gives them offensive lip. The rules are on the wall beside the order list, so no one has any excuse for pleading ignorance.”

“Not got any vacancies have you?” I muttered.

“Sometimes. I pay well and there’s always time off—I’m taking mine right now.”

I was disconcerted for a moment, then I said—“You were saying? About the church, I mean.”

“I was, but the story’s told now.”

I probably gaped at him. “To recap, you started telling me about an old church that’s hard to get to, and about how it came to be built, and about how people BYO priest and someone writing letters and someone else wandering about smiling because of a slip of a chisel—”

“A fair recap.”

“But what for?” I asked. “Why are we talking about Saint Botolph’s on the Wold at all?”

His face cleared. “Oh, I see! You’re waiting for a punchline. Sorry to disappoint, but I was just telling you my parents were married there.”

I remembered that now.

Darius sniffed again. “I’d say that’s done,” he said.

He got up and using a large ladle he must have picked up in the larder, he fished the Christmas pudding out of the pot.

It gushed steam and the powerful scent of fruit and spices.

“I’ll let it cool a wee while,” he said, decanting it, swaddle and all, onto a plate. “Now—ale, wasn’t it?”

He set the pudding aside and shifted the table without apparent effort. I was impressed. I was more impressed when he lifted a stone trapdoor with one hand, flipping it back as if it had been made of plywood.

“Shall we?” he asked.

Should I go down creepy stone steps into a dark, creepy cellar with a man I don’t know? I grumbled silently to myself.

I shrugged. “Why not?”

“You won’t come to any harm with me,” he said.

“Said no strange man, ever…” I got up. “Will you get the lantern?”

“Good plan.” He picked it up and lit it using a spill from the fire. “I’ll go first to light the way.”

I stood back to watch him disappear slowly, like an absentminded pantomime king.

When his head dropped below the level of the floor, I waited a few more seconds.

“I’m at the bottom,” he called, and light flowed up the steps.

I followed him down cautiously.

It was a mug’s game, I supposed, but my practical side told me the trapdoor was visible in the main room (even though I hadn’t spotted it until Darius pointed it out). Scads of walkers must have checked it out before we did, and if there had been a rash of mysterious disappearances in the vicinity of the Wayside Lodge, someone would have said so.

It was cold but not frigid in the cellar. Even with the lantern light it took my eyes a while to analyse what I was seeing. The cellar was lined with shelves bearing bottles, crocks and sacks of potatoes and turnips. There were fleeces, and a spinning wheel, what I thought was a loom, and a lot of old carved furniture that looked antique.

“Ale,” Darius said, slapping a small keg. “Let’s see.” He picked up a wooden tankard and tapped the keg. Dark liquid poured like a peaty stream to pool in the mug.

He sniffed. “No’ sae bad.”

I could smell it from where I stood, hoppy and strong.

It must have been made no more than a few months ago. Unlike some wines and spirits, ale is meant to be drunk fresh.

Darius handed me the tankard and picked up the barrel. “Carry the lantern will ye, hen?”

I picked up the lantern and set off up the steps. Darius followed, emerging behind me to deposit the keg on the table. He closed the trap and shifted the table, keg and all, back into place.

“Ale,” he mentioned again. He filled two tankards and turned his attention to the pudding.

Ring

For the next half hour, we were busily regaling ourselves with Christmas pudding and ale.

The pudding was good, and Darius and I ate it slice for slice.

There was no cream or custard, but I don’t think I’d ever enjoyed a Christmas dinner more.

A good pudding stuffed with fruit, brandy, almonds and suet as this one was, is filling.

Our chewing slowed down, which was as well because my tongue detected something hard in my slice.

A nutshell?

I put my fingers in my mouth and pulled out the offending object.

“What hae thee there?” Darius enquired.

I placed the item on my palm.

“Aye, the ring. Guid fortune to ye,” he said.

He inspected his own slice, and removed something small and silver. “The clock. I’ll be waiting a while more.”

I stared at the tiny ring, too small for my smallest finger.

“Oh, it’s a pudding charm,” I said.

Darius nodded, showing me his miniature silver clock. “Best take it back wid ye,” he said.

I shook my head. “Keep it. Elise would have said if she wanted them back.”

I thought she should have mentioned them either way, to save possible choking or a chipped tooth.

Evil stepmother wiles.

I laughed. Elise is the most inoffensive of people.

I regarded the last of the pudding. Good as it was, I’d had enough for now… well, until next year, at least.

I wondered where I would be next time I ate Christmas dinner.

I nodded at the small wedge of pudding. “Can we give that to the boggarts? Do boggarts celebrate Christmas?”

“Boggarts celebrate food,” Darius said. He cut the wedge in two. “We’ll put it in the larder tonight.”

Roundup

Darius went out to the porch for water and came back smiling. “It’s clearing, and the wind’s wuthering up. Come daybreak it should be fit for walking out.”

“That’s a relief,” I said.

“Aye, one snow day my schedule can stand…”

I said, “I made provision for a plus-or-minus in my bookings, in case I got caught up or made better time than I expected. I suppose you did the same?”

“This was the last o’ them for me,” he said.

“What?”

“Journey’s end, hen. Or journey’s pivot, rather. I’m awa’ to the wee church tomorrow, then it’s oop to the Stag Stone an’ home.”

I realised my eyes were wide and screwed up my face to break the stare.

“Oh. I thought you were walking the Saxon Way.”

“I have been. I started at Brendon’s Pool.”

His meaning fell into place with a plop. “That’s where I’m finishing. You’re walking the Way in reverse.”

“So I am.”

Now my mouth felt numb and there was a metallic tang on my lips.

How much brandy was in that pudding? Was the ale rancid?

I realised I’d been depending on continuing in Darius’s company for the next seven days.

Something else clicked into place. “You said you were going to church.”

He looked surprised. “Yes. That’s why I’m here.”

“What church?” As I spoke I realised what a nitwit I was. Hadn’t he been telling me the tale of the church?

“You’re going to Saint Botolph’s on the Wold,” I said.

“I am. It’s a pilgrimage I’ll make every two years. It’s where my parents were married.”

“Yes, I know. You said.”

“It’s where they met. They were going to marry someone else. Two someones else, I mean. But they hadn’t understood about bringing their priest, and they struck up a conversation with another couple who had got a priest and—” He broke off and waved his hand.”

“Just like Wulfgar and Arlette.”

He sighed. “Wulfgar had nothing to do with it. Alfric and Arlette.”

“But those aren’t your parents.”

“No, sweet, despite your earlier jab I am no relation to Methuselah. My parents, aside from a single shared case of fickledom, are nothing to do with Alfric, or Arlette, or Wulfgar, for that matter. Their names are Nora-Mary and Beau and they’re growing older disgracefully.”

“I still don’t see why you’re going to the church.”

“A couple of years ago, they asked me to take over the pilgrimage and the penance. Not that they’re so aged, despite your crack, but because they’re off on a long peripatation and don’t know when they’ll be back.”

“Wha—no. You know what? I don’t need to know.”

“As you wish.”

He rinsed the pudding cloth in clean water and draped it over a rack above the stove, then started rolling socks.

I stood it as long as I could, then said, “Oh, go on. Tell me.”

He said as if he’d never been interrupted, “My parents’ switch of partners caused a good deal of trouble for other people, so they consulted a priest—the one who married them—and he suggested they might bring an offering… just something small. They liked that idea and they’ve done it every alternate year ever since… until two years ago when they asked me to take over.”

“On account of their peripetation, which I don’t think is a word,” I said intelligently. “What kind of offering are you making?”

“Whatever comes into my hand. In this case, lass, it mun be t’ clock.” He held up the pudding charm. “That’s from Dad. I’ll find summat for Mum.”

“Take this,” I said, and I held out the ring.

He took it, and my hand. “Come with me tomorrow?”

“How long will it take?”

“A day to walk to the wold… pay my respects, and spend the night by the altar, then a day back to the Stag.”

Two full days.

“I can’t,” I said with regret. “I had one day of plus-or- minus wiggle room, and this was it. I can’t afford two more days. I have to be back at work.”

Darius hesitated. I thought he was on the verge of trying to persuade me, but he visibly made a decision.

“Well then, Sara Holiday. We part friends—for now. I’ll propitiate the boggarts with pudding and ale and turn in. I’ve an early start.”

Rumpus

I heard the boggarts in the night. I really did. They were singing a drinking song and munching loudly.

Remembering

In the morning, when I woke, Darius had gone.

He’d left more wood in the box and a note to tell me about the other places I’d be overnighting. His observations were wry and humorous and outlandish, but never cruel, just like him. His handwriting looked as if it had been formed by a committee.

He’d also left a one-word review for Wayside Lodge. Remember, done in Old English script.

I do.

I left as soon as I could pack up, drinking cold tea from the pot we’d shared after the ale because I lacked the heart to make more.

As I checked the larder to make sure it was tidy for the next wayfarer, I found two silver charms inside a tankard. At first, I thought they were the two Darius had taken, but I realised they were quite different. Instead of a clock and a ring, these were a wishbone and a filigree heart.

“Hello?” I called softly.

A soft laugh came from behind the ale barrel which Darius had set on a low shelf.

“Don’t you want to keep these?”

A hiccough and a giggle.

Then came a little voice singing a nursery rhyme tune.

“A wish and a heart—

Not to part

A kiss for thee

A hug for me

Gift for a gift

A heart to lift…

It will all be well in the morning…”

“I don’t understand.” The hair on my neck prickled.

“Take them, Happy,” whispered the voice.

So I did.

It occurred to me much later that if I had the DNA on the charms analysed, I might come to know the genetic makeup of boggarts.

Of course, I never did that. The lab would have thought I was mad.

Resolving

Wayside Lodge to Jennifer’s Rest to Moorland Cabins. I showered there and recharged my phone where the chatty concierge said the weather was clear. Old Cross Inn to Pilgrim Pass, High Craik and on to Brendan’s Pool. My shoulders and feet acclimatised, and I wasted too much time wishing and pondering.

I’d never walked with Darius, but every wuther or turn of a pebble and every sombre gleam of a raven’s feather made me half turn to comment before recollecting that I was travelling solo.

At Brendan’s Pool, I stood by the dark waters and leaned over, with my arm looked around a slender ash.

They say if you look long enough a kelpie might blow you a kiss. Darius had written that in his note, but I didn’t see the kelpie. He’d added, They also say if you look too long old Brendan himself will tap ye on t’ shoulder an’ ask your business. I didn’t see old Brendan, either.

After I’d looked enough, I caught my bus and, by degrees, returned to civilisation.

I went back to work, and sometimes my fingers itched to dump a mocktail over an annoying patron. I never did. The landlord wasn’t as understanding as Darius.

A few days after my return, I went to visit Elise and returned the pudding cloth.

“Did you eat it or bin it?” she asked, smiling to take the edge off her words.

“I ate it,” I said. “In fact, I shared it with friends on the trail.” I added, “We found the charms, but I hope you didn’t want them back.”

“No,” she said. “They’re sterling silver, but some people think they’re a choking hazard. I would much rather someone appreciated them than complained about them.”

Presumably, someone had complained at Christmas dinner en famille. It couldn’t have been Uncle Gluten-free because he would have avoided the pudding and eaten fruit salad instead. My money was on Cousin Mother-of-Millions whose children are behatted, sun-screened and booted before they’re let outside for the briefest breath of fresh air.

I chose not to speculate aloud. Not having children myself, I felt I really had no right to make value judgements of the quality of supervision by those who did.

I just nodded and felt a lump in my throat. “Next Christmas…”

“Come, or not,” said Elise. “You’re welcome and always will be, Sara, but there’s no obligation between you and me. We both loved the same man for a while—and continue to love his memory—that’s all.”

“Thanks, Lise,” I said. I gave her a hug. “I probably will come next year. You’re the only family I have.”

“This year,” she corrected gently. “It’s Twelfth Night.”

So it was. The decorations were down and Christmas was packed in lavender for the next nine months before the whole hoopla started again sometime in October.

I thought of Darius often over the next too-long time. I wished we’d swapped numbers or worked out a way to stay in touch. I really wished I’d gone to Saint Botolph’s on the Wold.

I didn’t know where it was, exactly, except it must be a punishing day’s walk from Wayside Lodge.

I looked it up in Wayside Churches of Great Britain, and found an engraving.

Not a tree, not a plant that wasn’t thrawn and wiry. The wind wuthered in my imagination.

The way, I learned was lined with cairns, put there after a nineteenth century couple almost toppled into a ravine.

I pictured Darius making the trek, probably resting on the blast and smiling… blast him.

He had said he was heading for the Stag Stone and home after visiting the wold, but I had the impression he didn’t live near the Saxon Way.

One slow day at work I wrote down everything I remembered. His parents’ names were Beau and Nora-Mary, though I had no idea if that had a hyphen or not. The surname was presumably Godfrey.

Darius was the landlord of a new pub called The Pride of Erin.

I couldn’t remember the name of the town he’d mentioned. It had meant nothing to me. Neither had the one that he’d said was nearby.

I asked Check-Me-Out about pubs called The Pride of Erin and found several, mostly in America. I didn’t think he was American. The strange random accents made it difficult to tell, but his conversation suggested English heritage. The pubs I found were all too old.

I looked for Darius Godfrey and found four, none of whom was him.

His parents didn’t come up in a search either. I found a Flambeau Godfrey who was a retired professor, but his wife was named Laura.

It was driving me nuts.

The obsession was unhealthy, and ridiculous and unnecessary. In all our whirlwind conversations, we could have swapped number and addresses. We hadn’t.

If he wanted to, he could find me.

Oh, really! Sara Holiday, barmaid. I hadn’t said where I lived or worked, and my legal name was Happy. I certainly hadn’t told him that!

We part friends—for now.

Didn’t that imply he wanted a second meeting?

Then he should jolly well have given me his address.

I resolved to forget it.

I forgot it.

Yes. The way I forgot the boggarts.

The next Christmas, I went to Elise’s place and gave the stuffing to the wrong uncle.

Fortunately, he was nice about it. “Can’t eat that, Haps.”

“Oops.” I swapped plates between him and Uncle Stuffing.

“Tell you what,” Uncle Gluten-free added, “How about we use wristbands in future? We used to do that when we were kids, so no one offered me a sandwich by mistake.”

“Sure,” said Uncle Stuffing with his mouth full.

“I wish you would,” Cousin Mother-of-Millions said with a gush of good humour. “Then I could label the kids as well.”

Reconnecting

The next Christmas, which is this one, was going to be different.

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed…

Elise seemed unsurprised that I was going walking again. She even gave me another pudding.

The new King of Clouties lounged in my pack along with a small bottle of ale, an address book, and two silver charms possibly salted with boggart DNA.

I did this thing properly, starting my walk from Brendan’s Pool where I again failed to be kissed by a water-horse or chided by old Brendan.

This time, I was staying in places I remembered. I even found my own reviews from two years ago in a couple of the longer ledgers. By paging backwards and counting days, I found two pithy notes from Darius, written before our brief encounter.

So I hadn’t imagined him.

Of course I hadn’t. I had his travel review notes, didn’t I?

The weather wasn’t agreeable, and I was caught with snow days twice. I should have started earlier… I reached Wayside Lodge late on Christmas night, a full twenty-four house behind schedule.

I wondered if the uncles were labelled this year. Funny, how one hears of twin children being hard to tell apart, but of course the state is lifelong.

Two other walkers were in the lodge, drinking punch and singing carols. They told me cheerily that they’d arrived half a day before me and found a good supply of wood. I checked the review book… nothing from Darius.

I’d missed him.

Or he hadn’t yet arrived.

Or his parents were back from their peripetation (which I still thought wasn’t a word but which I had tentatively identified as Darius’s misinterpretation of peregrination) and had taken up their self-imposed duties again.

The boggarts were silent, and with the other couple there I couldn’t call them. I did creep into the larder with two single-serve packs of After Dinner Mints.

I left the lodge before dawn on St Stephen’s Day, signing off with a two-word message—I remember.

I knew it would be a long walk, and probably a waste of my time, and before I left I refreshed my memory with the photocopy of the map I had found in Wayside Churches of Great Britain.

It was harder than I ever imagined, wading through snow or rock-hopping in the blasting wind.

I followed the tiny rock cairns that marked the way, picturing Wulfgar the Wanderer in my mind’s eye, cloak streaming, and smiling as he leaned on the blast.

The last hour was gruelling, a scramble rather than a walk.

My feet in their technical socks were numb and so were my fingers.

I was so tired, and it was nearly dark.

I almost missed the church. It really is unprepossessing; squat and rugged, crouching grimly on the wold.

I saw the two boxes, just as described, but I was not there to be married, so I passed them by without taking off my boots.

I climbed the three steps into the entrance. The limestone was pitted and dipped and polished from the feet of centuries, and there was a smooth part on the wall as if exhausted wedding parties had leaned for a moment to gather the strength to step inside.

A candle burned on the altar.

A bundle of blankets huddled near the pulpit.

I gave it a good poke with my chilled left foot. “You never gave me your contact details, blast you! I had to come all this way!”

The blankets heaved indignantly, and Darius sat up. “Hello to you too, hen. You’re nobbut a year late.”

“Nonsense. There was no point coming last year. You wouldn’t have been here.”

“I was though.”

I fished the address book out of my pack and handed it over. “Use this.”

Darius pried off the attached pencil and scribbled busily; name, contact, address…

Australia? Really? No wonder I hadn’t found the right Pride of Erin. I’d been searching in the wrong hemisphere.

“I even looked for your parents!” I reproached.

“An’ did ye once see old Beau plain…”

“I did not. I found someone called Flambeau Godfrey in a newspaper report, but his wife was named Laura.”

“That’s them.” He clicked his tongue. “Though how they got Laura from Elenora-Mary defies creative belief.”

“There are four people called Darius Godfrey,” I complained.

“Five. But I’m the only one in Australia.”

“You said you’re not Australian!”

“So I’m not. I just live there.”

I growled at him.

“Did ye bring t’ King o’ the Clouties, hen?” he asked, as he printed a telephone number in Gothic lettering.

I was intrigued to see that his writing was still as variable as his speech.

“What do you think?” I fished it out by one rabbit ear and lobbed it at him. “And you were right, blast you. It is Auld Henry brandy. Elise made it especially to use up a bottle Uncle Stuffing gave her for her birthday.”

“Lucky I have a fuel stove and a folding pot,” he said, swinging the King by his ears. “The water should be boiling by now.”

I plonked my pack against the pulpit, weak with relief.

Oooh, that bumped me noggin! said a little voice.

Darius turned to me, laughing. “Dinnae tell me…ye’ve even brought t’ boggarts!”

And on to the other bloggers' posts!

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com (Graham)

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Diane Bator https://escapewithawriter.wordpress.com/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-3BZ