Chapter 3

Now, you may well be thinking that my Anglo-Saxon is pretty fluent, but to be honest it isn't that good, but if I were to write in all the stutterings, ums, ahs, and corrections you'd find it hard to follow. And then there are the words themselves, I mean, I don't know whether they had bathrooms in Saxon times, but I suspect not, so when I write "bathroom" I am really saying "The place where you wash yourself" and when I wrote that we would go "shopping" what I actually said was that we would go to "the market". Obviously that would give the wrong impression to the modern reader who would expect a guy speaking with a Brummy accent, but whose forebears clearly came from somewhere east of Suez, selling cheap frocks from under a poly tarp. If that gentleman sold bras, and he probably would, he certainly wasn't going to do the fitting. However much he would like to. Not for someone who is a LADY. No, we were going to a proper shop. Where they had a proper fitter.

And shopping you might ask. Truth to tell I am one of a tiny minority of blokes, well, possibly just me, who actually enjoy taking a woman shopping, it's about the only good thing my ex-wife found to say about me. So there was a motive, other than the obvious one that the girl had nothing to wear and seemed incapable of creating anything other than to reproduce what she already had, added to which she had little or no concept of underwear, well none at all really. The other motive, somewhat impure I admit, was that I would get to see a very pretty girl try on all sorts of outfits and who knew what else I might see? Yes indeed.

Time was when almost everyone in England wore underwear with 'St Michael' on the label. Having said that, English readers will realise we were heading for Marks and Spencer, this being their old trade mark, although I have often wondered why a couple of Jewish shopkeepers would adopt such an obviously Christian symbol. If asked they'd probably have shrugged their shoulders and said something like, 'Most of the customers are Christian, so it's good for business, and our Jewish customers just want good quality at a sensible price, so they don't care.' Sensible and pragmatic, my life. M&S's, or 'Your M&S' as they call themselves nowadays, had competitor at the time of 'St Michael', a shop called C&A. (who, since I've mentioned religion, were Dutch and devout Roman Catholics. Actually I don't think 'Dutch' is a religion) which was all they put on their labels. Blondes of course would have gone to C&A so that they knew which way round to put their knickers on. Sorry, never can resist an old joke.

The nearest M&S was in the middle of a very large shopping centre in a nearby town. I got Ælfthryth settled into the 'chariot'. She flinched when the engine started and I realised that we could be in for a difficult time. I really thought that the other traffic would freak her out, but no, she just seemed to ignore it. Whether she didn't understand what it was and therefore didn't 'see' it, or whether she just accepted it I wasn't sure. But I decided not to find out.

"Master?"

"Yes, Ælfthryth?"

So pretty normal so far. She seemed very adaptable, the traffic really didn't bother her, and how many women wouldn't like the prospect of a bloke buying them frocks? We arrived at the shopping centre and parked.

She was unconvinced, but I was sure that I would be proved right.

If she was awed by the size of the building she didn't show it, but she was clearly stunned when we walked through the main entrance to be confronted by all the merchandise on display, dresses on mannequins, glittering bits of display materials all set on white pedestals. Hats, coats, scarves, shoes, I grasped her hand and towed her through to the escalator.

"Wha ... the stairs move. Is this more of your magic?"

I guided her on to a tread carefully making sure that she didn't fall, and we went up to the next floor. For someone who is standing still on something that is moving it can be a strange experience arriving on something that isn't moving, but standing behind her, at the appropriate moment I took a chance, put my hands around her waist and lifted her, stepping off myself and setting her down. I don't think she noticed, because there in front of us was the lingerie display and she stopped dead. The woman behind us didn't, but after I had disentangled myself from her and apologised, and noted that she was well worth apologising to for a bit longer, perhaps it was my weekend for gorgeous blondes, I returned my attention to Ælfthryth.

"Truly you did not lie, Master, they are beautiful."

And she started forward intent on getting her hands on the merchandise.

There must be some sort of etiquette that applies in lingerie departments, but being a mere male I have no idea what it is. But of one thing I am sure, running your hands all over the garments displayed on artistic representations of female breasts and buttocks definitely isn't the 'done thing'. I may be wrong, of course, where females are concerned I cannot claim to have a perfect record. I managed with some difficulty to persuade her to desist.

I propelled her over towards the changing rooms and found a very nice lady to whom I explained that my young friend didn't speak English and that she wished to purchase some underwear but had no idea what sizes she required. To say that I received what would be described as an 'old fashioned' look would be an understatement, but she stood back for a moment and then said:

"Bra size 34B and a small size in knickers. I think that should be right. If you find the size and style you like on the racks, bring them back here and the young lady can try them on."

"Thankyou," I said and did my best to explain this to Ælfthryth.

Now I've really no precise idea but based upon the stories I read, I get the impression that American sizing is different to British, and I would suggest that since the American inch is clearly shorter than ours – I base this on the fact that British male equipment is generally about six inches in length, and US males measure the same equipment at ten inches, so it follows that the cup sizes of bras follow a similar pattern, so that whereas an American considers a 'B' cup as being no more than perhaps a young girl, the average Brit considers this to be a good handful. Or perhaps Americans have bigger hands than Brits; I haven't looked.

But I digress.

I propelled Ælfthryth over to the racks of bras. I've said that I propelled her on several occasions, and perhaps I should say guided, but to be honest I had my hand on her shoulder and was doing a fair amount of pushing to get her to move. It was a few moments later that I discovered that she couldn't read. Not just couldn't read English, I'd have been very surprised at that, but couldn't read at all. You see, Saxon, is for the most part written using the Roman alphabet, there are a few extra letters, but if you think about it, if you see a foreign language you can often have a stab at pronouncing it even though you have no idea what it means because you know the letters and how they sound. Well, not Polish of course. Or Hungarian. Or Welsh and certainly not Irish Gaelic. But you see what I mean. So when I pointed out '34B' on the end of a box, if you could read then you would have no trouble finding another the same. But she couldn't, the figures meant nothing. And another thing. If she was, as she claimed, a Genie, then where the hell was the magic? I wasn't supposed to be buying her clothes, she was supposed to be making me rich, and all she had done so far was provide a sword and armour that I'd have hell's own game trying to account for, and demonstrated an ability to alter people's minds. Well, one suggestible female anyway.

I set these thoughts aside for the moment and sorted out some matching sets of bras and knickers for her to try. We returned to the changing rooms and the lady ushered her inside. I stood around outside with several other blokes trying to look as though we were doing something completely different, although none of us could make up our minds what that might be.

A few minutes later there was a bit of a scuffle and Ælfthryth appeared shouting look Master.

I was not, of course, the only one to look, and I can't say I blame anyone, male or female for doing so because Ælfthryth with a matching, though abbreviated, set of pale blue and white bra and knickers was well worth looking at. With all eyes upon her she realized that she had committed a faux pas, although whether she would have put it that way is moot, suffice to say that blushes do extend all over, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. Bright red. The inside of her body must have been devoid of blood. She turned and collided with the store lady who caught her and escorted her back into the changing room grinning.

A little while later she appeared again, this time fully dressed. She was still blushing, and the lady handed her over to me smiling.

"She's wearing that set, if you take the boxes with your other purchases to the paypoint and tell them they'll sort it out."

We picked out several other sets and paid for them.

No indeed, the equipment underneath is rather different too.

The hangers for the dresses have a plastic tag on them giving the size, but each size has a colour and that made it easy to show Ælfthryth what to look for. I don't know whether it is genetic or what, but, like almost all women, she took to retail therapy like a duck to water, pulling out items, holding them up against her, occasionally seeking an opinion, and sometimes hanging yet another dress over my arm. I was weighed down with skirts and jumpers and dresses and I was beginning to think about calling a halt as she approached me with another selection, when she looked up over my shoulder and froze, her face a white mask of shock. I started to turn to see what she had seen when a voice said:

"Hello, Ælfthryth."

My turn was almost complete when I realised that the speaker was the lady who had collided with me at the top of the escalator. But I stopped dead, and almost dead from shock at Ælfthryth's next word.

"Mother!"

What?

I turned to fully face the newcomer.

"Who are you?" I asked, no demanded.

The woman smiled.

"I'm Merewenna. I am Ælfthryth's mother."

The woman standing before me was a slightly older version of Ælfthryth, I could see a familial resemblance, quite strongly in fact, but if Ælfthryth was a rosebud this was the fully opened rose, the beautiful young woman turned into the stunning adult. I realised that I was standing there with my mouth hanging open, although whether that was because of the revelation or the vision I'm not sure. I closed my mouth and glanced back at Ælfthryth. She had now more than recovered her colour and was standing with eyes downcast in the age old pose of the child that has been caught with their hand in the biscuit barrel, still clutching her latest selection. This, more than anything else, told me that there was some truth in the woman's assertion.