“You’ll pay for that insult, witch.” He told her at once, “Here we know how to deal with your kind. You won’t be going home, let me tell you that.”

Once again had come that self-same mistake; this assumption that everybody had a home; and even witches had some place of comfort, only leaving those hospitable shores to wreak mischief amongst the innocent. Relda saw red; an appalling surge of rage that seemed to centre in her mind, just behind her nose; where it wound up in a vicious pall, directed at this malevolent stranger holding her, as he shouldn’t.

“Burn, you swine!” She shrieked; or thought; or thought she shrieked; or maybe heard from a terrible place far away; and the swine burned.

Orphan Relda in the town of Noruhegia round about 45 A. D. learning about the cruelty of the island at the time. The church; the legionnaires; the people; though she meets more kindness than harm, the harm is more than enough. She finds a book; belonging to an old man who rides a little white donkey; and her life is changed forever.