only a name that men used as excuse. Now Drust knew it too, must know it. Why forsaken?

"Dost forget. . . words, Padrec Raven?"

Fixed, but there was no darkness in the eyes, no shadow of it over the light that shone there. Drust's head lolled forward. "I shall not want, Padrec. He maketh me to lie down . . ."

The final convulsion. The death.

/ will not look away. I will remember this and tell Meganius. A man who speaks of crucifixion should see it once to know what he y s prating of

Crouched by Padrec, Malgon was brushed close in his soul by that death and began to keen softly. They had not moved when Ambrosius strode up, hoping to save the three men. The boys from Reindeer fhain were more than half dead when Rhiwallon put them up. It would have helped nothing to take Drust down even then. Thoughtful Rhiwallon had even pierced his side with a spear.

Padrec understood little any of them said to him, even Malgon. Not important. Padrec crimsoned his hands from Drust's wounds and smeared his face with the blood. Once more he worked his hands over his dead brother's broken body, pattering the words of the Mass more purposefully than ever before in his life. He bore the hands before him like the Host, to where Rhiwallon lay dying. Padrec smeared the proud mouth and moustaches with the offering. The last thing Rhiwallon saw was a coiled madness that worked over him while the febrile laughter spattered in and out of the words.

"It is the blood of the lamb, tallfolk. And none so deserving as you and I."

The Iberian scout reflected with comfort how little the mad priest's worship differed from his own. There was always blood. Men could understand that.

Meganius hurried his servants along the street, heedless of the chair jouncing about over the cobbles and doing nasty things to his digestion.

The holy war was over, the Coritani capitulated on Rhiwallon's death, the last fort opened to VI Legio with no resistance, and Marchudd's message required him at the forum on a matter of Church authority. Sochet, alive by a miracle. Meganius would burst the lungs of a hundred lazy servants to get there.

"I said hurry. You call that hurrying? Run!"

They just dropped down in front of the palace, run out. Meganius puffed up the steps through the entrance where the guards knew him too well to question, and caught his breath in the hallway leading to the forum.

Prince Marchudd sat in his chair of state on the dais. His leg was draped over the chair arm, but the sandaled foot jiggled nervously. A study in detached contrast, Ambrosius Aurelianus lounged against a pillar, arms crossed. The tribune was crisp and simple in a white tunic under the lightest ceremonial breastplate. Still a picture of young vitality, but much of the starch was gone from the Beardless Mars. He looked used.

Marchudd rose to greet his bishop. "Your grace. Our thanks as usual for your promptness."

"My lord, thank my servants. They certainly won't thank me."

"It's a matter that won't take too much of your time."

"Formality. Your priest." There was a faint tinge of distaste in the shift of Ambrosius' glance to Marchudd. "I am quite willing to dismiss charges, since Patricius is really your responsibility."

"But we must still adhere to judicial form," Marchudd stipulated. "All right, bring them in."

From a small antechamber off the forum, two guards waved in Padrec and Malgon. They were not bound. They'd been given clean garments of linen and homespun, but their alae boots were disintegrating from every mile of the long summer's march. Padrec did not kneel to the diocesan ring.

"Meganius."

"I am very glad to see you alive, Sochet. I prayed for your safety."

"Thank you."

"And this is Malgon, if I remember."

"Aye." The small man stayed close to Padrec, suspicious of houses so big and roofs so high that evil could slip between to do a man harm. To Meganius, a sensitive man, there was a peculiar coldness that surrounded the two like a bog. "And your men, Sochet? How fares your company?"

"You are looking at my company."

Surely he doesn 7 mean . . . there were a hundred eighty of them.

Padrec spared him the question. "We sustained ninety-eight and the half percent casualties. I am one percent of the survivors." He touched Malgon's shoulder. "Mai is the odd half. The rest spread the faith. Glory to God."

"Alleluia," Malgon mumbled.

They look dead. Vve seen cadavers with more life in their eyes.

Marchudd unrolled a notitium and gave it swift perusal. "Father Patricius, I have my tribune's full report of your offense. The killing of your superior, Gallius Urbi, in the field—Father, do I have your attention?"

Barely audible. "Yes."

Marchudd snapped. "Yes what?"

"What would you like?"

"Don't be insolent, priest. Both I and Ambrosius are disposed to clemency in this matter. Do not insult your way back into jeopardy. The killing of your superior officer, which the legate pro tern of the Sixth Legio is willing to mitigate. Are you not, Tribune?"

"Urn? Yes." Wrapped in his own thoughts, Ambrosius responded absently. His face was thinner than Meganius remembered. "As convening authority in the field, I press no capital charge against Succatus Patricius."

The prince accepted this mildly. "None whatsoever?"

4 'None, sir. Since this inquiry is under the rose, as my

report to you, I declare that Patricius struck in self-defense. Gallius raised his sword first."

4 'I see." To Meganius, Marchudd seemed far from concerned and barely curious. "Quite. We remand the prisoner to canonical authority. But for the record, Tribune?"

4 Tor the record," Ambrosius appended, "guilty of dereliction of discipline in the field."

"And the specifications?"

"Faulty judgment." Ambrosius moved to Padrec. "Insubordination. Accordingly reprimanded and fined two sesterces. Let the record reflect the penalty."

Not like a man delivered out of the lion's mouth, Padrec just stood there like an ox. "I don't have any money." He stripped off one of the heavy gold bracelets and held it out.

"Oh, put it away." Ambrosius gave it up. "Yours, your grace."

Padrec spoke then. "Since I am acquitted, I ask the prince to keep his promise."

"What?" Marchudd's head came up like a nervous spaniel. "Man, you've been given your life. What promise?"

"Land for the Prydn, which you pledged in return for our service. I must collect it for those who could not appear today with me. For Dorelei, who stipulated the bargain to Ambrosius."

The tribune shrugged politely. "I was merely the conveyor of terms."

44 What land, what promise?" Marchudd demanded. 4 'Must your bishop describe for you the blessings and indulgence you've already received? You are free to go, and I advise it."

But Padrec persisted with the wan patience of a ghost. "You promised land in perpetuity to the Prydn. To Queen Dorelei. It was the very basis of our enlistment."

4 'What memory I have of that wholly unofficial discussion was that I would consider it." Marchudd lunged off the dais to Ambrosius. "Do you recall or have you

recorded such an agreement in the terms of their enlistment?"

The tribune was a study in innocence. "Not I."

4 'I thought not. Father Patricius, have you about you written memorandum of such an agreement, signed by myself?"

"You did not give us a writ."

"Ah. Well—"

"Only your word as a man."

Marchudd stung under the implied reproof. He turned on the smaller man, ready with all the thunder at his formidable command, when the other voice, gentle but weighted with authority, checked him.

"Father Patricius said as much to me, my prince," Meganius declared. "As I recall, the first word out of him after greeting. On the very day they enlisted."

And you, Brutus 1 . "Indeed? Your grace remembers so?"

"Clearly. And as your spiritual father and counselor—"

"Yes, yes."

"Father Patricius' converts, while not Augustinian," the bishop parenthesized meaningfully, "are still a light of God among heathens and deserving of the support of a Christian prince."

"Well. Well, then." Marchudd bounded back onto his dais and hurled himself at the chair, frowning. From a pile of rolls by his foot, he scooped one up and tossed it to Patricius. "Find Churnet Head on the map."

The fort was marked with a tiny circle. Entirely inadequate to what happened there.

"From Churnet Head, we give you in perpetuity the land north to River Dane, south and west to the Cair Legis road."

Studying the map over Padrec's shoulder, Meganius knew the impossibility of it. He asks a flame and gets ashes. The violation is complete.

Padrec saw the circle on the map and past it to ditches where men drew and loosed, drew and loosed again.

Under a ghost-clamor he lay with Bredei's brain on his fingers. He knew that hill and those around it. Mostly forested, miserably suited for sheep, still full of Coritani trevs. Everything Dorelei or any gern called her own in such a place would be disputed forever, never truly theirs any more than what they had now.

And it was small for people used to changing pastures each season. Even a handful of fhains would find themselves cramped in competition with each other. Move a day's ride to new grass, and they would be outside this pathetic portion, among people who hated them as virulently as the Picts. Padrec controlled an urge to ram the map down Marchudd's smug throat.

"They can't live there."

With plodding patience, Padrec told Marchudd why. The prince was not impressed. "There was no mention of seasonal migration. Or of where you would settle them. The land is there. You have my redeemed pledge. I wash my hands of it."

"You give them nothing. They are not farmers or town folk. They must move. Like the salmon or reindeer, it is their way of life."

"Priest." Marchudd folded his arms like a barrier and leaned back behind it. "I have said and you have received, and other business calls me. Your grace, take this so-called man of God and school him in obedience."