He concentrated on the drawing. Not much for clarity, more like the stylized conceits on stone slabs. "About what?"

"What be atwixt me and Rainbow?"

■'Oh. Well. Space. Distance."

He thought he knew a piece of what Dorelei was fumbling at through pure intuition. Geometry. Angles. Stand in a fixed place . . .

"A ring of stones! It's the only place that makes sense. Fixed. Unchanging."

"Yah!" She yipped her excitement and pulled his head down to be kissed. "Do have the wisest of husbands. Circle!"

Where else? The very center of all Prydn life, like Jerusalem for Christians. Padrec smoothed over the sand and began afresh. A mere vertical digit for the watcher. A circle about it for the ring of stones. Then the rainbow and two lines radiating from it, one to the digit, the other from the downward end of the rainbow to earth. Dorelei hung over his shoulder, wide-eyed.

"What be that?"

"An attempt at mathematics, and don't I wish I'd listened more carefully to my tutors. Was never shrewd at it."

Yet Dorelei's people must have been using some of the principle for ages. The stones in the circle were precisely arranged so that at Bel-tein the sun rose over a certain one, at Midsummer another, and so on through Lughnassadh and Brigid-feast in order to know the precise times for moving with the flocks. With his stick he could give Dorelei some sense of her own insight.

"On Bel-tein, Lugh rises over a certain stone. Now, watch." Padrec jammed the stick upright in the ground to show the position of its shadow. "All day on the first of May, a stick placed in the center of the circle will have a certain relationship . . . well, let me put it so: an thee stand all day in the center, will see Rainbow in certain places."

"De-pend-ing?"

"Yah. Right. Depending on the time of day. Where Lugh Sun is after rain."

The vertical stick would indicate true meridian. In the morning Rainbow would appear in the west; in the

afternoon to the east, but dividing it would give them a smaller area to search out the long barrow.

Dorelei's eyes glowed with belief. ''Hoard be there, do feel it. The road of the gods. But.. . which circle?"

No, he wouldn't let her dampen her own victory. "Circles come later. Come, were gathering salt."

"Ai, what needs salt when—"

"We do."

"Which circle, Padrec?"

"Have nae come to't yet. Peace. Have just been brilliant. Must be God in the next breath? Salt."

Dorelei sighed at the enormity of it. "Must be tens and tens in Pictland."

"Hundreds."

She sifted the loose sand through her fingers. "One grain from the whole oft." She inclined her head toward the others working at the net, and the children. "Still, must have something to believe in for them. Could a be true, husband?"

"Could."

"But where?"

Gloomy truth to match the weather's treachery. The wind shifted, and fhain trudged home with their catch through a pelting rain. A late winter pall hung over the tower, shadows too deep, the smell of the close-mewed sheep for once too rank for Dorelei. Drying her hair with Neniane and Guenloie, Dorelei gazed about the dreary place they'd come to. Suddenly she swore gustily. "Gray, gray, gray, and what be not gray be black or brown. All shadow, all dark. Enough!" She swooped down on Neniane and Guenloie, linking her arms through theirs. "Tonight we comb out our hair to shine in firelight. Tonight we open fhain treasure and wrap ourselves in the brightest left to us."

Guenloie squealed yah\ for the notion, already seeing herself in a riot of color.

"Thee, Neniane," Dorelei kissed her cheek, "will wash off sadness and wear the color becomes thee most. Green, sister. Green for thee, scarlet for Guenloie, and

gold for thy gern." Dorelei felt lifted up just for deciding. "Let the men see us most fair this night."

Malgon and Padrec must be sick of the dark as they, she knew; as any crannogbound fhain in late winter, starved for the feel of warmth on their skin, the smell of fresh green in their noses.

So supper had that much color to it: Dorelei on her gern-stone, heavy with gold, Neniane ladling mutton-bone soup in an emerald pendant set in obsidian, Guenloie noisy in silver bangles clustered about a modest ruby, wrists clanking with copper bracelets inset with jade.

The men were pleased indeed, especially Malgon, who couldn't make enough of Guenloie in her brushed and rain-softened hair and flashing finery, and of course the children had to tug at the jewels and try to swallow them. Dorelei's simple stratagem worked. With the aromatic peat fire and warm soup, her people were at least content this night, and she led them in remembering good things from the early times when they were bairn themselves, barefoot and black-dirty to the knees, trudging after Gawse's ponies on rade.

Now and then Dorelei's glance slid to Padrec and his silent enjoyment of their sharing without needing to be part of it. While they chattered on, he'd not spoken for some time, holding Crulegh in his lap and gazing over his tea from one woman to the other. Then he put down the cup and said:

"Dorelei, it is true. It must be."

"Nae, wait." She silenced the others with a gesture and turned to him. "Say, husband."

"Thee did ask this afternoon, in all the mathematics and reasons, if Rainbow-song could be truth."

"Do much believe't."

"More true than not." Padrec leaned past her to finger Neniane's emerald and obsidian pendant. "Bredei said once that many things speak an we've ears to listen, eyes to see. The treasure thee wears: did see it and nae see it before this moment."

Like holding a truth in each hand without the plain wit to join them together. Look at what Neniane wore: emerald set in obsidian. Emerald came from Africa, obsidian nowhere but near volcanoes. He had to describe a volcano for fhain, but the point was made. Were none in Britain, and they were grateful. The ruby Guenloie wore came from nowhere near Britain but from Cathay in the Far East, alike the rare green jade. All were foreign to Britain but not to Rome, whose wealth came from all points of the known world and beyond, and much of it brought to Britain in the days of the long peace. Did not most of the coins they flung to tallfolk have a Roman's face on them?

Padrec grinned slyly at them. "Dost know what I think? A was borrowed."

Indeed? This fhain could appreciate.

"For who be more skilled night-borrowers than Prydn?"

"Borrowed!" Neniane hooted, and then the others with her, the children shrieking in chorus to the joke.

"So Gern-y-fhain's belief be more true than not."

Guenloie winked like a conspirator. "Will nae tell an thee'll not."

A braw joke on tallfolk. The good spirits bubbled around the fire, but Dorelei was reflective, turning the clay cup slowly in her palms. "Would think on this. Padrec showed how tallfolk numbers could make Rainbow help us. Now, an hoard be borrowed, was done south of Wall and carried north."

"And must think in tallfolk time now," Padrec said.

If he was right, Rainbow-gift was not ancient at all. Roman citizens like himself and his family were traders and importers for centuries. The wealth of the world poured into Britain to adorn the villas. But about eighty years ago, the Picts and Irish started to raid the coasts for whatever they could carry away, including slaves, as Padrec himself was taken to Ireland. As the strength of the regular legions depleted and then vanished, the raids grew bolder and more frequent.

"My own great uncle buried a's wealth as did others. Many fled to Armorica, many were killed before they could return."

In fact, Meganius told Padrec that only about fourteen years past, shortly after Padrec was taken by the Irish, there was a great collecting and burying of treasure against such raids. So it could all be that recent, didn't fhain see?

For Prydn, all the past was like looking at the world with one eye closed; all flat, no depth. But open the other eye, and some things are farther away, others nearer. Like Rainbow-gift.

They ruminated on the new concept in silence. Do-relei wondered, "Eighty years be how much?"

"Three hundred twenty seasons, Gern-y-fhain."

The number was meaningless. "Tens and tens."

"Tens o/tens. Hoard might have been barrowed in the time of Gawse's mother."

"Then much was borrowed," Malgon guessed. "Look thee at the treasure each gem held so long."

"A great borrowing," Guenloie agreed. They all approved heartily; somewhere in the notion shimmered a pride. "A braw rade such as Artcois, Bredei, and Cruad-dan did make for horses," Guenloie continued. "Come like shadow, go like wind. But how fast could wind fly with such a heavy load, or how far? Would take many horses and the silent speed of Tod-Lowery to get across Wall in secret. Were many men on the Wall."

True, it would ask much even of Prydn stealth. If the hoard came even from a series of borrowings, the loads would be considerable. Padrec estimated their worth in millions in Roman gold, no stretch of imagination when he'd seen a million's worth or near it jangling from more than one gem's neck. Across the Wall with all this, then through the thieving Venicones and dishonorable Taixali after them? Difficult. Perhaps impossible. Dorelei realized that all this truth, dazzling as it was with tallfolk numbers and history, still left them where they were before.

"Where, Padrec? What circle out of hun-dreds?"

"Well, Gern-y-fhain." Guenloie's laughter tinkled in the stone chamber as she gathered the cups and platters for washing. "Thee dost nae make hard work harder."

"Cousin has new thought?"

1 'How many tens of seasons have raded with Gawse and thee?" Guenloie sighed. "And who was't must always help load fhain treasure? Did always need three ponies for the whole of it, and a did need much rest on rade."