"Padrec, Gern-y-fhain be wrong."

"Hold still," Guenloie sniffled. "Must bind thy brave arm."

Drust twisted about, beseeching the other men to know the sharper pain he felt. He found no words of his own, only the seared music of a beleaguered king. "My soul... be among wolves. Do lie down with them

whose teeth be arrows. But my heart is fixed, O God. My heart is fixed."

The Fifty-seventh Psalm as Drust remembered it, not perfect, but shaped to his need. He held Guenloie while they both shook, and Malgon embraced them both in silence. Drust might love his wife with the more desperate need, but Malgon understood both of them, which was the greater burden. Padrec felt a deep shame for his own kind. Tallfolk? Wherefore tall?

About a mile from the village, in a small draw between two low hills, fhain waited for them—hovered rather, poised behind Dorelei, who sat her pony in coiled fury, still holding her arm.

"Guenloie, have told thee more than once to turn aside from tallfolk men."

Guenloie bowed her head. "Did naught, Dorelei."

"Thee speaks to thy gern. Naught? Do know thy naught. So proud of thy Taixali blood thee flaunts it for all, even among them, with thy weak little smiles all come-hither."

"Do swear on Mother, did not."

"Dorelei, they weren't alone. Drust was there. He'll tell you the truth of it."

Cru warned seriously. "Padrec, stay out. Take no part of this."

"Nae, need not stay out," Drust flared in defiance. "Were but measuring out the oil, and a was paid for. Taixali tried to take wife's gold circlet."

And to touch her in other places with more intimate purpose, as Drust spat out the facts. Padrec knew enough of them to believe it. The Taixali man flustered her. She was never able to manage men easily. Drust tried to be tactful, cautioned the youth politely and then in outright warning. When the man just laughed and thrust his hand through Guenloie's fringed skirt, she pushed him away. Before Drust could intervene, the man struck her hard, knocking her down.

"Dost change naught." Neniane still trembled from

the fear she felt in the village. "Did never think but of men, men, any man, like bitch in heat."

"Lie!" Guenloie screamed. "Lie! Lie! Lie!"

"Neniane lies!" Drust choked.

Dorelei held up her hand. "Gern will speak. Look what thy ways have brought to fhain." She showed her arm. Something turned over in Padrec's stomach. Impossible but there: Naiton had barely touched the flat of the blade to her arm, but the reddening, blistered outline of it was like a severe burn. He wouldn't have believed it.

"See the evil of that blood thee prates of," Dorelei said with sick contempt. "And take a's own word for thee. Whore. Go from fhain, Guenloie. Husbands too, if a will yet have thee."

"Dorelei, please." Guenloie slid from her pony to kneel before her cousin. "Send me away when have done what thee speaks, but not so. Did fight the Taix-ali."

"Was so." Drust spoke respectfully but would not drop his eyes before Dorelei's challenge. Suddenly she lashed out with her foot and kicked Guenloie hard.

"Go, pig."

Guenloie cried out more in desperation than pain. Padrec dismounted and grasped her to him. "Dorelei, for God's love, think what you do. This is not even good sense."

"Did say stay out," Cru warned him again.

"I will not." Padrec pressed the weeping Guenloie to him, glaring up at him. "Not in this."

"Not in this." Drust moved to shield his wife on the other side.

"Will say as much." Malgon got down from his pony to join them. "Let Cruaddan stay out."

Cru started to dismount, but Drust, never coolheaded, snaked his knife from the sheath and leveled it at him. "Cru and all else: do wish to try against Drust as Taixali did? Artcois? Bredei?"

Artcois looked down at his hands. "Thy wife brings ruin to fhain."

"Never to thee, fhain brother."

"Brings Blackbar evil. See where a marked Gern-y-fhain."

"And look at her under Padrec's arm," Dorelei seethed. "Will nestle to any man."

It was too much for Padrec. "Oh, stop it, Dorelei. Were thee hurt as she is? Stop it!"

None of them, not even Cru, expected it from Dorelei. In a flash her leg was over the pony's head. She dropped to the ground and flew at Guenloie, flailing at the girl as Padrec tried to fend her off.

"Out, whore. Tallfolk pig. Out!"

"I said—get away!" Padrec shoved Dorelei harder than he intended. The small girl lost her balance and fell, not hurt, but livid at the profanation. No man might interfere with punishment of a woman, not even a husband. Cru moved toward Padrec, but Drust's knife was still out, and now Malgon's as well.

"No, Cru." Dorelei rose, fighting to control a rage she couldn't name herself. "Thee dares so, Padrec? Have said. Guenloie goes with a's husbands. And thee an thy heart be with them, and there done.''

Cru nodded. "Done."

"Done," said Neniane. "Husbands?"

Bredei spoke at last, not equal to dissension, hating it all. "Nae, be wrong. Do believe Guenloie."

Cru's anger was audible. "Do we have gern-law, or only the squall of bairn? Thee's heard Gern-y-fhain. Done!"

"Oh, yes," Padrec said. "The word of Dorelei, who is rich in years and wisdom. She raises her hand and cuts a family from fhain as Mabh cut Britain from Gaul, without counting the cost. Has the gern-daughter of a gern so many she can waste three with no loss and winter coming? Believe in my Christ or not, Dorelei, He yet had more mercy dying on the cross than you in your childish ignorance."

When she turned on him, he felt the cold will that froze the Taixali boy with his silly arrow. She might cheerfully cut his heart out now, but her voice was steady.

"Then four will go, Padrec-tallfolk. And thy weeping Jesu who will bring no more good to fhain than Black-bar. Aye, go! Do give thee this night in crannog, but go at morning. Have said."

Her fury translated to energy. Dorelei vaulted her pony, yanked its head around, and galloped away to the east without looking back. Then Cru, Neniane, and her husbands followed at a slower pace. Malgon watched them go.

"Thee speaks well, Padrec. Thee has the truth of it."

"For all the good it did. Here, take thy wife. Where will thee go?"

Malgon shrugged. "Where indeed? Come, wife."

"Padrec be cast out, too," Drust reminded them. "And where will a go who's more man than tallfolk and almost Prydn a's self? Come with us, Padrec. Who will give us the David-songs now?"

Truly, no one. This failure hurt the most. The Veni-cone only broke his legs.

He didn't know why he chose the ring of stones for his prayers, but that it was the nearest thing to a chapel in three days' ride, and God was everywhere when it came to that. Under the moon that lit the swift-running clouds, Padrec knelt and earnestly tried to pray. He truly needed a confessor himself. The love once wholly dedicated to God was now divided and blurred, seething with human hurt. More than all this, he'd failed, first with the Venicones and now here where the need for God cried out.

No. Better not to pray when his heart wasn't in it but raging at Dorelei. He rose and wandered about the moonlit circle, his sleeping blanket wrapped about him against the wind.

/ only tried to help Guenloie. Why did you turn on

me? Even your own folk can make nothing of it. I never thought you this cruel.

Guenloie was—well, as innocent as a woman could be with that kind of beauty and so careless in covering it. That was a fault and her only fault, innocent in all else. Why did Dorelei act so irresponsibly? Was that her heathen idea of leadership?

And what is yours of a priest? Wherein celibate when your soul and your eyes have yearned every day after her? Dreamed of her, imagined coupling with her? What part of the sin but the mere act have you omitted? Lord, was I wrong? Was my calling a vanity, a delusion? A moment's answer to loneliness?

It could be; he wasn't sure of anything anymore. His cosmos had turned on its head to show him facets and depths never guessed under Germanus or even Amathor. The world, real and spirit, was larger than his idea of it, and he smaller, weaker, and more contemptible than Padrec ever imagined in his worst moments of self-flagellation. And ignorant as Dorelei. How would he explain the mark on her arm, the inflamed, obscene outline of the knife against her smooth skin, as if the metal were red hot when it couldn't be?

How many times had he sheathed Dorelei in the blessing of God? And what good did it do her when she needed it? There was virulent sorcery in the iron: admit that and admit as well a whole dark, demon-driven cosmos beyond the edge of God's holding where His Grace did not apply, with only fools and failures like himself to make it work. He could preach of the loaves and fishes, Lazarus and the Resurrection, but he didn't know any magic, didn't even know human beings as Meganius did. Padrec was a stupid child trying to build a fire and burning nothing but his fingers.

Where will Meganius send me now? Not even Germanus will give me Ireland if 1 fail here. I only wanted to tell them of You, Lord. Was that vanity?

What else, liar? Did I not seek my own praise in that service!

"But look at Drust, Lord, how he already loves the Psalms. All of them love the miracles. I tell them in their own way, as stories of magic. Jesu did no less. Lord, I learn slowly but I do learn. If I know not the vessel, I know the wine You would pour into it. To be consecrated Your priest is not enough. Make me one in truth, or put me aside for good and all, as You will divide goat and sheep. Do it now, I pray. Do not bow me down with Meganius' years before I have his wisdom. Let me know men now. Not in safe Eburacum or Auxerre or Rome, my Lord, but here, now, in the forefront of the battle. The iron of me is white on Your anvil. Strike now, shape me now. Give me a sign."

Padrec gazed morosely about the shadowed circle and blew out his cheeks in exasperation. "Miracles ..."