Each Circle was marked by a ring of white cord laid on the grass, of a diameter still referred to by the traditional measure of nine feet but produced – as every efficient High Priestess knew by heart – by a circumferential cord of 8.62 metres. Most covens, like Moira's, kept a special 8.62-metre ring ready spliced for public Festivals. Since the Craft had become open and widespread (the historic Glastonbury Beltane of 1983 was generally accepted as the turning-point) many new conventions had evolved naturally. One of these was that it was selfish, and therefore bad manners, to have an individual Circle larger than nine feet at a mass Festival, however large your coven. In any case, covens which grew beyond the equally traditional thirteen-member maximum, without hiving off, were looked at askance by their neighbours and hints would be dropped; Craft opinion strongly favoured the small, personalized, autonomous group, feeling that oversize covens ran the risk of a change of nature.

Moira and Daniel's coven consisted of five; six if you included four-year-old Diana, who was here tonight, bouncing excitedly at Moira's side and squealing 'Blessed be!' to everyone who passed, friend or stranger. Rosemary and Greg, their next-door neighbours in Staines, had founded the coven with them three years earlier when Moira had decided that, as a wife and mother, it was time for her to hive off from her own mother's group – a decision for which, she knew, Daniel had been secretly eager, though too fond of his mother-in-law to urge it. Too bad that Sally, she of the large heart and the ironic tongue who was their neighbour on the other side, could not be here tonight; but Sally had to admit, regretfully, that at eighty-two, hilltop Sabbats were no longer for her… It was a happy and close-knit coven, of which Moira as High Priestess was proud. Dan had joked once that it worked well because it had its own built-in representatives of the Triple Goddess: fairylike Rosemary as the Maid, tall Moira as the Mother and shrewd Sally as the Crone; and Moira had known that, like so many of Dan's jokes, it was meant seriously.

'Which side does the salt go,. Mummy?' Diana interrupted her thoughts. 'I can't properly remember.'

'You should ask Rosemary that, darling. She's High Priestess tonight.'

'Why, Mummy? You're High Priestess really.'

'Because in a little while they'll light that big bonfire in the middle, and everybody'll go and dance round it. Except for very old people or people with little children who'll stay in their own Circles and watch. Daddy and I will stay with you but Rosemary and Greg will go and do our dancing for us. So it's their special night and they're being High Priestess and High Priest. It's only fair, isn't it?'

'Why can't I dance too? Then we could all go.' 'Next year, maybe. The dancing gets very fast, and you're a bit small for it yet.' 'But I can run like mad.' 'I know you can, darling. But next year you'll be a little taller and stronger.' 'Like the Goddess up there?'

'Not quite that tall,' Moira laughed, looking towards the Demeter-like figure of the Goddess which towered three metres high behind the Great Altar, the very last rays of the setting sun reddening its pure whiteness. It was unmistakably a Howard Frank creation; Frank was the Craft's most gifted sculptor and his work was much in demand, particularly the one-occasion polystyrene figures like this, of astonishing vitality, which he could shape in a day's working when the mood was on him. He never charged for Festival pieces but he never did more than three or four and he made his own decisions as to who should have them. This Midsummer Bell Beacon had been lucky.

'I'm glad it's warm,' Diana said. 'I don't like robes.'

'Me neither,' Moira agreed, enjoying the feel of the grass under her bare skin. This part of the Thames Valley was predominantly Gardnerian territory, and the Gardnerians (and their Alexandrian offshoots, though the two had tended to re-merge) had clung to their 'skyclad' tradition " of ritual nudity even for public Festivals, weather permitting; so most of the covens on this mild Midsummer night were, like Moira and Dan's, skyclad. The individual Circle fires helped, of course; they had become an established part of the public Festival tradition, encouraged no doubt by the British climate. Moira could just remember the public controversy that had raged and quickly died away over those early skyclad Festivals. The police (in Warwickshire somewhere, wasn't it?) had made a much-headlined test case of one Midsummer Festival in 1985, arresting a dozen people and charging them with causing a breach of the peace. But since the peace, on that occasion, had only been disturbed by a handful of hecklers who (as the defence had delightedly proved) had travelled all the way from London for the purpose – and since nude bathing had been unofficially tolerated on many British beaches since the end of the 1970s – the bench had dismissed the charges. There had been no more arrests and few Festivals nowadays attracted more than a sprinkling of voyeurs, whom the covens ignored.

Here and there on the plateau Moira could make out robed covens, presumably Celtic Traditionals; but in these ecumenical days they would be as welcome as the rest. The Craft was too jealous of coven autonomy for anyone to try to impose uniformity. There had been one attempt, in 1989, to summon a National Convention for such a purpose. It had been heavily attended and the floor had defeated the conveners on every point, except for a few proposals to make voluntary communication between covens smoother – which meant little in practice because inter-coven links were and had remained mainly local and almost entirely spontaneous.

Ad hoc meetings of High Priestesses and High Priests in various areas provided what little organization was needed for public Festivals, which were the only occasion – eight a year – when large numbers of covens gathered together. Each Yule the same ad hoc caucus would choose the local Sabbat Maiden for the following year's eight Festivals. This choice was really a two-year appointment, because each Sabbat Maiden became the following year's Sabbat Queen, leader of the whole mass ritual. Her consort Priest needed no choosing; her own working partner automatically took the role.

Now the sun had set. It shouldn't be long before the

Queen, the Maiden and their Priests made their ceremonial appearance.

Moira, from habit, glanced around her own Circle to make sure that all was in order; then reminded herself that tonight was Rosemary's honour. North, east, south and west candles burned in the little glass lanterns kept for outdoor use. By the north candle, a picnic hamper with a cloth over it served as an altar, with the ritual tools and two more candle-lanterns arranged on the cloth. When the ritual part of the Sabbat was over, the ceremonial objects would be packed away and the altar-cloth folded, and the hamper would surrender its food and drink. Then the feast would begin, and the coming and going of friends

A hush falling on the plateau made Moira look up.

All eyes were turned to a small tent near the Great Altar

– the only enclosed structure in the whole Great Circle. Moira's Circle was about twenty metres from the tent, so she could see clearly the two men who had emerged and now stood flanking the doorway, in the light of the many fires and candles and of the nearly full moon which was already bright.

She knew them both. Nigel Pickering from Cookham, robed in dark red, High Priest of Mary Andrews, this year's Sabbat Maiden. (Even though the covens were skyclad, custom laid down that the Four always at least began the Sabbat in ceremonial vestments.) Nigel, as the Maiden's Priest, would have little to do but escort her, he would come into his own next year. John Hassell from Chertsey, splendid in gold kilt and pectoral, High Priest and husband of Joy Hassell, the Sabbat Queen; Moira felt a tremor of excited pride, for John and Joy were close friends of theirs – in fact she and Dan had conducted their Handfasting and had a slightly parental feeling for them, even though the Hassells were barely their juniors.