He was still outside their hearts and minds and could not know the things that drew them. Signs, miracles, magic. That a virgin should give birth astounded them. They identified with Joseph and Mary because traveling was part of their lives. And anyone knew a warm underground crannog was the only place for winter children to be born and that it was natural for animals to be present. Their obeisance to the magic baby seemed a lovely filigree to the tale. As for the angels, in fhain imagination they were literally standing on nothing in the sky, singing their hearts out with great wings arustle under the wondrous music. Truly, Padrec spoke well of magic. He gave them new colors to adorn their world. In their generous way they must reward him.

Of course, fhain generosity might be taken for assault. When Padrec went outside to relieve himself, the men

followed and pounced on him from all sides, pinning him to the ground.

"What is this? Let me up."

"Must thank thee, Padrec."

"Wait! Stop—"

"Must give thee gifts."

"Let me up, you little—what are you doing?"

"Do bring thee gifts. Will go as one of us."

Gentle but determined, they wrestled his robe over his head, leaving Padrec in his breechclout, thin linen shirt, and the remains of his dignity.

"Come in the rath. Have gifts for thee."

They left him there and returned to the rath, bearing away his priest's robe. Embarrassed and furious, Padrec finally steeled himself to go in before the women; after all, they went as shamelessly bare.

"Give me my clothes, Cruaddan."

"Cannot, Padrec."

His robe was no more. Neniane and Guenloie had already divided the worn homespun between them.

"Damn you, I am a priest!"

"Do nae shout, Padrec," Dorelei cautioned in an unruffled tone that meant every word. "Be in my rath. Take thy gifts."

"So white," Guenloie appreciated him openly. "Padrec be beautiful."

He was miserable. "Woman, be kind. Do not look upon my shame."

"Thy Briton-clothes be ragged," Dorelei judged. "Not strong enough for rath or riding."

"But you don't understand," Padrec sputtered. "A priest must look a priest. You took my Chi-Rho the first day."

"Was of Blackbar."

"And now you take my robes. They are not just clothes, as I am not just a man."

Cru felt at Padrec's genitals in corroboration. "Be man."

''Stop that! I am a priest of God. I can't go as other men. Can't you understand that?"

"Will now or will be cold," said the inexorable Cru, holding up a sheepskin vest. "Borrowed from Venicone but too big for me. Cruaddan thanks thee."

"And this." Bredei came forward and laid the hide trousers at Padrec's feet with a flourish. "Too big. Must learn to borrow from smaller men. Do thank thee, Padrec."

"Well. Well, I just don't know ..." To salvage his dignity, Padrec stepped into the trousers. A little tight but comfortable. The sheepskin vest was thick and soft.

Malgon held up his own contribution. "Old leggings."

"Borrowed, I suppose."

"From Tod-Lowery. Malgon thanks thee."

Padrec supposed he must wear something now that his robe was destroyed, but he drew the line at the knife they offered him. "I can wear no knife. I can draw no man's blood."

Could not even cut his meat at meals?

Useless. They understood that no more than the rest of what he said. Padrec tried to summon a holy wrath, but it wouldn't quite boil. Profanation or not, the new clothes were more practical than his, which had become ragged and stiff with dirt. Seeing Guenloie with her prized half of the tattered robe and Neniane folding hers with nimble and loving fingers, he saw the trade he'd given them: helpless people who couldn't weave well and had no looms of their own. They'd find good use for the material until it fell apart. Neniane cached her half in the empty reed cradle.

She smiles so little. She never just touches that cradle, it's a caress. The phantom pain from the amputated limb. It makes me feel. . .

"Fhain thanks thee, Padrec," said Dorelei with regal calm.

Oh — botheration. I don't know how I feel. And that

was disturbing to a young man with an overriding sense of destiny.

4 'Did speak of great magic," Dorelei said thoughtfully. "Will this father-god know of Prydn?"

"And of thy fhain. Should He heed the sparrow and forget thee?"

Dorelei beckoned him from her gern-stone. With tactful urging from Cru, Padrec squatted before her in the uncomfortable position so natural to them.

"Hold out thy hands, Padrec."

Dorelei pushed back the linen sleeves of his shirt and clamped the heavy gold bracelets about his wrists. Padrec goggled: each was about five inches long, finely bossed with a design like twisted coils of rope. Ancient work and most like containing some copper and tin, but the gold weight was considerable. In Briton such bracelets could buy a modest house and plot.

"Do thank thee, Gern-y-fhain. Borrowed from Veni-cone?"

"Nae."

From her cool emphasis, he was conscious of a social error. They joked about many things but never the jewelry.

"Was always Prydn," Dorelei corrected with certainty. "Like Raven-spirit to Ma-ry. Gift from Rainbow."

Outside the rath alone, staring perplexedly at the great stones circling the crest of Cnoch-nan-ainneal, Padrec shook his head and despaired. They appreciated his sermon, one could see that; then why did he feel so confused and unsure? For God's chosen it was an uncomfortable sensation.

Am I the teacher or the taught?

They were ready to move when morning was a mere smudge in the east. Dorelei took from the firepit two unburned ends of wood, which she packed away for travel. They left behind some of the clay pots and bowls too bulky to carry, and like as not the new crannog

would have a supply left by the vacating fhain. Over the summer Malgon had decorated most of the clayware with fhain symbols, adding their own fish sign to the older bestiary painted or etched into the pots and walls. His work was remarkably energetic, even humorous. Malgon's fish looked glum and purposeful, like all fish. Reindeer was caught looking back over his shoulder, wary: ah-ah . . . here comes hunter trouble.

4 'What kind of fish, Malgon?"

"Salmon."

"Why salmon, who spends most of his time in the far sea?"

"Be born here. Salmon will die to go where a must, like Salmon fhain."

The rath was collapsed and packed away, and Cru led Padrec to the new horse saddled for him. The animal was coal black in the early light, a fine gelding with steady nerves, not too skittish at the wild smell of fhain ponies. An army horse from one of the Wall forts, Padrec guessed.

"Taken from Roman-men by Venicones," Cru informed him, adding that all knew what a dishonest lot Venicones were. "A takes so much must have a word for it. A steal anything not tied down."

"Indeed, a brutish and unprincipled race," Padrec agreed with the beginnings of tact. "Help me up, Cru."

When he asked for his crutches to be passed up, Cru only broke them across his knee. "Padrec must be strong as fhain. Like Salmon—move or die."

"Well, I guess I don't need them that much."

"Yah, Padrec."

Silhouetted against the morning, Dorelei looked back to where their rath had stood. ' 'The blessing of Mother and Lugh on this pasture. Better grass for next fhain."

When the sun rose, Padrec knew they were traveling northeast. As they progressed under the brilliant September sunshine, they passed through brief rain showers that barely smudged the azure sky before they ceased. As the

Venicone foothills steepened into mountains, the weather chilled and darkened.

Padrec tired rapidly. When Faerie moved, they moved fast, the ponies sure-footed as goats, with a unique gait between a walk and a trot. His larger mount winded long before the others, and it was obvious why fhain sheep were so tough and wiry, living all their lives on hilltops and crags. The reason for lack of cattle among Prydn was equally clear. Compared to these rugged sheep, kine were fragile creatures that needed much pampering and lusher grass.

Guenloie and her husbands brought up the flock in the rear, Rof bounding furiously back and forth in a continual pendulum, nipping at strays, ears pricked up, nose to the ground for any suspicious scent like Tod-Lowery or his vixen.

Villages were distant and rarely sighted. Riding with Cru, Padrec saw the small stockade in the valley to the west of their ridge. "What people are those?"

"Taixali. Cruel folk. Like bear. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes not."

Another look told Padrec more than he wanted to know about Taixali Picts. Far as they were, he could see the human bodies hanging from a rack at the gate. But then something else caught his attention. A horse and rider trotted out the stockade gate, paused for a moment as the rider searched the high ground in their direction, then galloped toward the wooded slope.

"Who's that coming, I wonder?"

"Woman," Cru said.

Lost now in a patch of fir, the rider was too far for definition. "How can you tell?"

"Tallfolk do nae run to meet Prydn unless a need magic," Cru stated with cold amusement. "Oh, then will promise much and even keep a's promise on a good day. When Lugh Sun rises in the west. See where a comes, Padrec: woman and bairn."

The rider broke out of the stand of fir trees, much closer now, a woman with a child slung on her back.

Dorelei halted fhain as the woman pulled up the horse at a wary distance, dismounted, and took the child from her back. A red-haired woman with peculiarly protruding eyes and a nervous manner. The kind with humors in her body never far from hysteria, Padrec knew. She would not come close to Dorelei but held up the child, her eyes bulging at Gern-y-fhain.

"Faerie queen, I saw you coming along the ridge."

"Did nae come in night-secret," Dorelei allowed stiffly. "Why dost stop us?"