It is the doctrine of the Fathers of our Church that these elder and false gods were given to mankind to raise him step by step toward that faith and redemption proved on Golgotha. All true, and yet to fulminate among the idolaters—as you know certain of our brethren can certainly fulminate— to say: Now that you know the correct way, cease the error and practice the truth, is in logic to set a student to the harp for years and then to send him to his first performance with a horn.

Your grace, I do not presume to refute revealed truth but only question methods and strictures

laid down by the holy who have never been anywhere but among the converted. These Prydn have no sense of time, of months and years as we have, but have moved with the sun and seasons, breathing in tune with the very humors of the earth they call their mother.

Therein is the problem. He who was promised has come, and the earthly lease of man is circumscribed. By raising man's soul from the dust, we must inevitably part him from the dust, part him from the nature he has known. Illusion or error, this nature, this earth and sky have always been the center of his belief. I could not impart the first word of faith to them until I accepted and proceeded from this fact...

This from a young man who, only a year before, would have yelped "heresy!" at the mere hint of such thoughts. No, Meganius would not discuss the letter with anyone, lay or clerical. He hadn't expected the northern tribes to accept faith in panting multitudes, but the boy had gone far beyond that.

Preserve me, he married her. A creature of debatable humanity, one half-naked husband already, and he married her.

God would not lose Patricius, but the Church might.

Only Cru. It hurt her.

All fhain rejoiced in her marriage but him. It wasn't like Cru. Although it was foregone since the time of the Jesu-magic that she would marry Padrec, Dorelei waited until they'd moved the herds north to fresh pasture. Like wealth spilled over from a laden chest, the magic brought other fortune. This year the grass was good everywhere, and the news of Dorelei's new power preceded them as she moved boldly through the lowland

pastures. When tallfolk relied on iron to turn them away, Salmon offered to buy it and made impulsive gifts to their astonished but grateful children.

They passed through the bewildered Damnonii without incident, but leaving their fame behind, not so much for Dorelei or Padrec but her sister's love of children. Neniane drew a broken and infected milk tooth from a toddler and cleaned the gum, stilling the pain with willowbark. Not without some coaxing, of course. Children know what's going to hurt. Neniane spoke to her like a merchant about to dicker.

"Do know thee hard bargainer. Let me draw thy tooth, useless as't is, and this night thy head will dream bright on the pillow. When Lugh rises will be gift under it."

Like her mother, the child had a true Pictish love of bargains. The tooth was swiftly and almost painlessly drawn.

"Now, run and play. Will not forget the magic."

"What is the gift that you will give her?" the mother plied.

"In thy pocket," Neniane said, patting it. When the woman reached to see, there was a bright-burnished little bead of gold. Neniane knew its worth. The woman did, too, from the quick light in her eye.

"Be a blessing from Jesu, but a has moods," Neniane cautioned. "Unless thee places it beneath bairn's pillow, will bring nae good to anyone. And teeth will be harder to draw."

The Damnoni woman took the hint and bestowed the gold where promised. The story passed among her neighbors, canny mothers themselves, and ever after their children shed milk teeth faster and more profitably than others.

Trees were fewer and stunted this far north. On Midsummer Eve, when fhain kept vigil all night in the ring of stones, Mother's mooneye turned the bare, rounded hills and moor to silver. Standing in the axis of the east and west stones at dawn, Padrec said the Jesu prayers,

Dorelei scattered the white stones and invoked their Parents. Lugh Sun rose when and where he should, his first ray streaming over the center of the eastern stone.

Dorelei married Padrec on the next night, since there would be no more blessed time until Lughnassadh. A flawed happiness because of Cru, but Dorelei was learning that Gawse hadn't taught her everything, nor were her own instincts infallible in the matter of men. Oh, but the marriage gown, the new linen kirtle! That was a triumph. Neniane cut the cloth with her new iron scissors, and her hands were inspired. She fretted and frowned and patted, took a tuck, put in a pin, and thoroughly enjoyed herself, even patient with Guenloie, whose needlework was more enthusiastic than skillful. There were the usual jokes as they fluttered about Dorelei like birds at nesting. No matter how well a fit, was wonder tallfolk women could move at all, so bound up.

Dorelei endured their chatter, satisfied. They were happier, better fed, free of want and fear for once. For the first time they could all see a future better than the past. They played and sang and relaxed. They both carried child-wealth. A gift from Father-God, Padrec said, and who would bother to question happiness? For Neniane pregnancy was a remembered joy, but Guenloie blossomed as a novelty, more beautiful than ever, even a shade plump until the autumn rade.

The marriage garment was a cross between British kirtle and Roman tunica, as Neniane conceived it from Padrec's vague description. Women's garments had never concerned him much.

"Well, they more or less go in at the waist like this, and tie at the shoulder like this, then drape. Fall, you know."

"Fall where?" Neniane asked.

"To the foot."

The result was too tight in some places and too loose in others. Tallfolk women hid more of their bodies, especially the breasts, which seemed pointless in the matter of feeding newborn, and they certainly didn't move

as much as fhain women. In such garments, who could? Dorelei wondered when she wriggled and writhed into it. But never had there been a garment so ravishing, and no gern ever had fhain sisters so dear or attentive. They helped her bathe with much fuss, and when Dorelei was tugged and tied into the marriage garment, Guenloie brought the bridal coronet. If they were blessed in new magic, they carefully included the old. Among the summer flowers woven together were bunches of vervain and mistletoe, that Dorelei would be mother to many children.

All the men were out of the rath. This night was as significant for Padrec as for Dorelei, and he himself blessed the knife Malgon would use. Alone with Neni-ane and Guenloie, Dorelei bade them fetch and place about her throat the necklace of blue stones. Caught in the depths of the stones, sunlight looked young and small, a little light trying to grow. Moonlight turned cold and deep, full-grown, turning old, so that the stones had changing moods like Mother.

This night her sister and cousin would scatter the moonstones in the circle. Her own flower-decked pony was ready. She would ride to her wedding, where Padrec waited alone, where Cru once waited... no, she couldn't think of Cru this one night.

"Be fair?" she worried as Neniane worried at the hem. "Dost fall like Roman clothes?"

"Will have't on so long to matter?" Guenloie giggled. "Be fair."

"Be that and more," Neniane asserted.

"Most fair," said the flat male voice behind them.

They were surprised to see Cru rising out of the cran-nog below the rath. He should have been with the men preparing Padrec, but he came to Dorelei with an object wrapped in a length of the new linen.

"Gift for Gern-y-fhain. Would be alone."

He seemed to speak from a great distance; Dorelei could not read him just then, but a first husband had

some privileges. "Sister, cousin, go offer the moonstones to Mother. Tell her I come."

For a passing moment, she thought Cru might be drunk on barley beer. She didn't smell it on him. When they were alone, Cru unwrapped his gift.

"Will show Dorelei a be truly most fair. See."

She gasped in surprise: a bronze hand mirror with fine loops and curls etched into the back like a flower gone daft with the idea of itself. Briton-men made such mirrors in their fancy, the face burnished bright enough to see her own unblurred face—hair combed into a black river over her shoulders and breasts, the white linen and cool blue of the necklace turning her brown skin into new bronze. All this she saw in the mirror-gift as Cru held it for her. But she couldn't read the thing in his eyes, and that troubled her.

"Sister and cousin be girls. Dorelei be woman."

He'd never said such a thing before, never needed to. She wanted to kiss him, but he turned to evade her. So serious and sad. Dorelei tried to lighten his mood. "Did borrow?"

"Nae, did not!" Cru hurled it at her with such pent fury that Dorelei could only stare at him. "Great Pad-rec's Father-God forbids borrowing. Did work for't. Shod horse for Damnoni. Leave be." Cru hunched forlornly on his stone seat by the fire.

"Husband?"

"Nae, what husband, what wife? Look in thy mirror-gift. Dost see Cru's wife or tallfolk woman?" He turned mean with the thing that ate at him. "Nae, cannot even walk in thy silly wrapping. Would . . . would have killed Padrec if a's magic harmed thee. Would kill a now—"

"Cru!"

"—if thee said, if thee turned from this." Cru hid his face in his hands. Dorelei heard the ugly, unfamiliar sound of her husband's weeping. In her woman's way, she loved him the more for it. Even wise Cru had this much child to endear him. Gently, Dorelei opened his fingers and kissed them. "Cru, I must do this. Padrec

saved fhain; would be nothing without him."

"And first husband so little?"