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parsley butter,” Olga added yearningly.
    â€œI’ve never had mussels,” said Elda. “Would I like them?”
    â€œYou’re bound to. Your beak looks made for opening shellfish,” said Felim.
    â€œAnd chicken pie to follow,” said Claudia. “What pudding, do you think?”
    â€œClaudia,” said Lukin, “stop encouraging everyone to think of food and tell me how to deal with Wermacht. If he calls me ‘you with the secondhand jacket’ once more, I may find I’ve opened a mile-deep hole underneath him. I won’t be able to help myself.”
    â€œAnd I might savage him”—Elda agreed—“next time he calls me an animal.”
    â€œLet’s think.” Claudia leaned forward, with both bony hands clasped around one of her sharp knees. Her eyes took on a green glow of thought. In some queer Marshperson way, her hair seemed to develop a life of its own, each dark lock coiling and uncoiling on her shoulders. Everyone turned to her respectfully. They had learned that when Claudia looked like this, she was going to say something valuable. “I’ve heard,” she said, “that Wizard Wermacht is the youngest tutor on the faculty, and I suspect he’s very proud of that. I think he’s rather sad.”
    â€œSad!” exclaimed Ruskin. His voice rose to such a hoot that students on the refectory steps jumped around to look. “I may cry!”
    â€œPitiful, I mean,” Claudia explained. “He swanks about with those heavy feet, thinking he’s so smart and clever, and he’s never even noticed that those other wizards make him teach all the classes. Why do you think we’re so sick of being taught by Wermacht? Because all the older ones know it’s hard, boring work hammering basics into first years and they let Wizard Wermacht do it because he’s too stupid to see it isn’t an honor. That’s what I mean by sad.”
    â€œHmm,” said Lukin. “You’ve got a point. But I don’t think it’ll hold me off forever.” A grin lit his heavy face, and he flung an arm around Olga. “If I get angry enough, I may tell him he’s being exploited.”
    Olga leaned her face against Lukin’s shoulder. “Good idea.”
    The rest watched with friendly interest, as they had done all week. Olga was extremely beautiful. Lukin was almost handsome. Both of them were from the north. It fitted. On the other hand, Lukin was a crown prince. All of them, even Ruskin, who was still having trouble grasping human customs, felt anxious for Olga from time to time. Elda had her beak open to ask, as tactfully as possible, what King Luther would think about Olga when they heard, quite mystifyingly, the sound of a horse’s hooves clopping echoingly through the courtyard. There was a great, admiring “O-o-oh!” from the refectory steps.
    â€œRiding in here is illegal, isn’t it?” asked Felim.
    Well-known smells filled Elda’s open beak. She clapped her beak shut and plunged around the statue, screaming. In the empty part of the courtyard beyond, a superb chestnut colt was just trotting to a halt and folding his great shining carroty wings as he did so. His rider waited for the huge pinions to be laid in order, before slinging both legs across one wing and sliding to the ground. He was a tall man with a wide, shambling sort of look. “Dad! ” screamed Elda, and flung herself upon him. Derk steadied himself with several often-used bracing spells and only reeled back slightly as he was engulfed in long golden feathers, with Elda’s talons gripping his shoulders and Elda’s smooth, cool beak rubbing his face.
    â€œLords!” said the horse. “Suppose I was to do that!”
    â€œNone of your cheek, Filbert,” Elda said over Derk’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen Dad for a week now. You’ve seen him every day. Dad, what are you