"From England," Marcello answered. "I had my parents bring it with them; it's roses." He pursed his lips. "Do you like it?"

Already she was examining the bottle to figure out how to break the little seals and uncork it. She looked up at him, surprised. "Aye, of course I do, it's lovely. It's just . . . you had your parents bring me things all the way from England." She set the bottle down and flung herself at him. "Rat!" she cried again. "Now I shall have to remember henceforth that two days after Midwinter's is a gift-giving day. And a fortnight after Samhain is your birthday."

He laughed, and wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to soften the blow. "Oof! It's...it's nothing," he said. "It wasn't too dear, I promise."

She looked at the bottle again. "I shall save it for Midsummer's when the real roses are in bloom," she said fondly, then snuggled back up to him. "Is this the only present-y day? Are there any others I should know about?"

Marcello frowned. "Well, this is really the only big one. There's...twelve days from now is Twelfth Night? And there's more for that, but that's still part of this holiday. And...well, in a little less than two months is Valentine's Day, but that's more of a lovers-exchange-flowers-and-notes sort of thing."

"Flowers at Imbolc?" she asked, surprised. "That's going to lead to the same trouble we had with the act, where we had to cut out fabric ones. I do like the idea of having a feast just for lovers, though. What happened then?"

"What happened then?" Marcello asked. "Er. Well, it's the feast day of a saint. Saint Valentine. He died on that day. I...there are a lot of pretty stories about why it's a day for lovers, but as far as I know,t he fellow had nothing to do with lovers. He was a holy man who was arrested, and cured his jailer's daughter of blindness. There are stories now that they were in love, but I think that's just an addition."

Niabheara flopped down beside him and buried her cold toes into Omauduan's furry flank. The wolf scarcely noticed; he had just found a yummy chunk of gristle and looked as if he was trying to stuff the whole bone lengthwise down his throat. "How do you remember all these feast days?" she asked. "You have them all the time, it seems. We do too, of course, but they're always at the same time every year."

"Ours are always at the same time every year, too," Marcello replied. "Christmas is always December twenty-fifth. St. Valentine's day is February fourteenth. The only one that changes a little bit is Easter, and that is the first Sunday after the first full moon in Spring."

Niabheara blinked, then laughed. "That's mourning-day! The first full moon of Spring is the day to go out and decorate all the old barrows."