Free How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas by Jeff Guinn

in those days Christian priests were known to be noncombatants, and so were allowed to wander where they would. Nicholas and Felix were assumed to be priests, and, in the case of my husband, that was close to the truth. Any time we were stopped and questioned, we simply said we were on our way somewhere to minister to the poor—and that, too, was certainly true.
    As he had promised, my wonderful husband treated me as an equal partner, both in our marriage and in gift-giving. No decisions were made by Nicholas alone. He always consulted me, and Felix, too. Sometimes Felix or I might suggest where to go next. Of course, in some ways having a woman along was very helpful. In a small village, I could casually join other wives washing clothes in a stream or gossiping by a well. I would hear about local families who were hungry or wearing ragged clothes. More and more, we concentrated on gifts for children. This was not because we didn’t care about grown-ups. It was just that there was so much need that we had to set priorities, and, more than anything, we wanted all children to grow up feeling loved and hopeful about their lives. A constant source of frustration was that, no matter how hard we tried, we could never bring gifts to every deserving, needy child. There were so many children, and in so many places!
    I had the great pleasure of seeing Rome, and Alexandria, and other famous cities. Gradually I became familiar with hundreds of towns and villages in what we called “the known world.” But all three of us never stopped feeling curious about those countries we had yet to visit, and finally in the year 453 we decided it was time to travel to the legendary, mysterious land of Britain. What we knew of the island nation was fascinating. The Romans had conquered some of it for a time, but according to most stories it was still inhabited by wild people who painted themselves blue and lived in trees. It sounded too interesting to resist, so we began making our way there. Under peaceful circumstances we could have made our way from Rome to Britain with three or four nights of magically fast walking, but there were battles all around us and we could only manage about ten miles a day. In particular, a famous Hun war chief named Attila was known to be marching toward Rome. As it happened, we met him, or, I should say, were taken prisoner by him. But after some conversation with Nicholas, Attila admitted he was tired of war. When Nicholas impulsively told him about our special mission, Attila asked to join us, along with Dorothea, his wife.
    This was a turning point. Until that moment, we had never even discussed adding to our number. “Do we really want a warrior coming along?” Felix asked me, and I believe it was then that he finally accepted me as an equal rather than just as his best friend’s wife.
    â€œI think we have to trust Nicholas’s instincts, and he wants Attila and Dorothea to join us,” I replied. “We’ll watch Attila carefully, because he’s used to fighting with anyone he meets. And it will be nice for me to have another woman to talk to.”
    In fact, our two new friends fit in right away. Because he’d had to study so many maps while planning battles, Attila knew his way around better than the rest of us. Dorothea was very kind and, though soft-spoken, quite intelligent. By the time we crossed the channel to England—a monk named Patrick happened to be floating by in a small boat on his way to Ireland and offered us a ride—we were all enjoying one another’s company very much, except for Attila and Felix, who constantly argued with each other. But these arguments were entertaining, and kept the rest of us amused as we traveled.
    We loved England immediately, for it had the greenest hills and clearest streams any of us had ever seen. Sadly, the lives of the people there did not match the beauty of their land. There was fighting everywhere, with