"Do even wolves pray, then?" Vaco laughed.

"When a sees Rof," Bredei attested through a mouthful.

"Be not a thing of hungry or fed, but—of—faith!" Drust bounced to his feet. "Vaco, be Drust Dismas, honored by Raven to carry the Chi-Rho. Hear me, as have been reborn in Jesu."

Ambrosius regarded him with a mixture of puzzlement and pity. "Patricius, how old is that boy? He looks a child."

"Ask the time in Eden," Padrec said easily. "He's closer to it than I."

"The magic of Jesu be no trick," Drust maintained. "How many dogs dost speak of, Vaco?"

"Three there are."

"Let a come out."

"Against the queen's hound, and himself half asleep?"

"Against me."

Holy Jesu. Padrec choked on barley beer to mask his

dismay. He saw Vaco's eyes narrow with a crueler interest. "And what weapons?"

Drust drew his knife and handed it to Malgon, spreading his empty hands. Mother of God: Padrec glanced furtively at Dorelei, who seemed calm as Drust. None of fhain turned a hair at the suicidal recklessness. Guen-loie even trilled her delight at the challenge.

"Drust be most beautiful among men. Be gentle with's poor hourids, husband."

"As lambs," he promised. "Let Padrec shrive me and hounds will sit at thy husband's foot and lick a's hand."

Incredulous reaction murmured up and down the hall. "Boy-child," Vaco rumbled, "it is a braggart you are."

"Nae, be God in my heart as in Daniel's. Do nae carry the Sign alone, do live in it. Will Vaco try't?"

One of Ambrosius' aides, moving up from the lower hall, bent down to whisper in his tribune's ear. "Sir, is that little savage mad?"

"Worse, a total Christian. I'd rather not see this." Ambrosius leaned to Padrec. "Faith or not, this is folly. Can't you stop it?"

"Not now. I know them."

The thing bothered Ambrosius most in that he foresaw impediment to his mission. Negotiations were hard enough in tranquility. "Stop him, Patricius. Surely you fear for him?"

Padrec looked strangely troubled. ' T do. And perhaps to the measure I fear, my faith may be less than his. They've not yet learned to ration faith, Tribune. Remember Daniel."

"Fat lot of good that'll do."

"Who can say?" Padrec watched Drust as the proud boy led Guenloie out of the longhouse. "Rome has not all the words for faith."

Faith? To Ambrosius in his self-occupied youth, faith was something kept in a niche and trotted out for ceremony; common sense was quite another. While the excited Venicones readied the contest, no one talked about

anything else, nor would they for some time, and even his own men were wagering, giving long odds on the dogs. Whatever the outcome, it took Vaco's mind off recruits. Ambrosius would have to labor longer in this Venicone vinyard of misery.

From the open gate, he watched the boy Drust lead his tiny wife up the hill to a purpled smear of heather, where they began to remove the little clothing they wore.

"By the Bull of Mithras." Ambrosius turned away in consternation and discovered Padrec at his elbow, beaming at the distant lovers. "Do you see what they're doing up there?"

"Making love, I suppose."

"In the middle of the day? In the bare open like dogs?"

"Or Eden," Padrec suggested. "It puts his spirit at peace, opens it to happiness and God. I will shrive him, but Guenloie first. It shoked me once, too. The acceptance is all."

"Rot." Ambrosius felt his sophistication had been tweaked. "Not shocked at all. Seen cruder customs among the Demetae. But civilized men have some sense of occasion."

"Really?" The priest's direct gaze might have seemed rude to the brittle young soldier without its leavening mildness. "You could watch two gladiators gut each other in the arena and even cheer, I daresay. Yet an act of simple loving makes you uncomfortable."

"One has nothing to do with the other."

"You think not?"

"The arena is manly."

"And this is effeminate? I once thought Germanus the most passionate soul housed in a living body. Drust is all of that and love beside. I don't think the soul's joy divides in separate closets."

Ambrosius bridled somewhat under Padrec's scrutiny. The priest had the same expression to his eyes as his Faerie wife and the rest of them, used to open vistas with nothing between himself and the horizon or pos-

sibly some other world. The man looks right through you.

"Excuse me, Tribune." Padrec bobbed his head. "Drust will be wanting confession before he meets the dogs." He started away, then halted with a footnote by way of afterthought. "The Venicones make love sometimes in the middle of eating. They're on their best behavior for you; didn't want to offend Roman sensibilities."

And he was gone, leaving Ambrosius to seethe over the talent of savages for wasting time and energy.

"Idiots."

He grumbled over the dismal lot of an envoy and the insanity of Drust Dismas, before the Roman of him asserted itself with the cool judgment that would one day make him emperor of Britain. Make use of it all Play the game their way, but be the player. Fine horsemen and archers, quicker-mettled than the Venicones. You need only the right time.

In a small bower borrowed for the occasion, Padrec sat on a low stool, eyes shielded with one hand while Drust knelt beside him.

"How long since thy last confession?"

Always difficult for Drust to think in measured time. "Two days."

"And what sins since then?"

A recollective silence. Drust honestly thought on it. "None, Padrec. But would have thy blessing anyway."

Probably true; just as true that pride in spiritual purity could be the subtlest sin, but Drust would confess the smallest things. Since none of them could really think in terms of sin, Padrec had devised a simpler question to help them along.

"This moment before God, Drust, and His ear turned to thee, how dost feel in thy heart?"

The sigh of contentment was quite genuine. "Good, Padrec."

"In all things?"

"All. Father-God and Jesu love me, and Guenloie. Did feel the warm wealth between us on the hill. Be happy."

"No fear or sin goes with thee to the cage?"

"What fear?" Drust's clear laugh was honesty in sound. "Have nae seen the magic that holds me in a's hand? Nae, look on me, Padrec." Drust sniffed delightedly at his hands and arms. "Do smell of heather and Guenloie."

"Brother, thee need not do this."

"Would show faith to Venicones."

"God knows thy faith and treasures it."

"But Venicone tallfolk do not. Being slow of wit, a must have clear lessons. Nae fear, Padrec. God and Guenloie be about me." Drust looked radiant, exalted. He bowed his head expectantly. "Say the magic."

"Te absolvo in nomine Patri et Fili et Spiritus Sanc-tus. Thee has taken the Body and Blood of Christ into thine own. Go and pray for me."

"Will," The boy jumped up as if he were going to breakfast rather than bloodshed. Then his smile faltered to a shade less certain. "Do remember one sin. The Roman Ambrose has braw horse. Did have passing thought to borrow't."

Padrec ruffled the boy's silky hair. "Nae, hast not horses enough?"

"Aye ... but Cru would. Do miss Cru."

"So do I, Drust."

"Yah! Come, Padrec. Watch thy brother show God to dogs and other Venicones."

The baiting pit was a wicker enclosure anchored to stout posts with a kennel inside. The three hounds were huge, misshapen and scarred. They looked to Padrec like animated lumps of malevolence with fangs at one end. Rof quivered at the sight and smell of them, hackles rising, whining in his throat. The pit was already circled two and three deep with eager spectators when Drust came forth—Venicones, Romans, and as many Prydn who could wriggle between larger bodies.

*'Roman-men give four pieces of silver to one on the dogs," Artcois chortled to Malgon. "Ai! Could we not scrub them clean an't were not forbid by Jesu!"

Malgon only prayed earnestly that Jesu was in a mood for miracles. He crushed his brother husband in a protective hug. "Jesu be with thee."

"Where else?" Drust shrugged innocently. He kissed Guenloie and knelt to Padrec and Dorelei for their blessing. From across the pit, where Vaco's men prodded the dogs to snapping fury with long poles, the elder called, "Is the holy one ready?"

"Ready!"

Drust put his palms to Dorelei's belly, received Padrec's benediction, and nodded to the grinning Venicone at the cage door. Guenloie held on to him as long as she could, her hand sliding along his arm as her husband moved away.

"Thee was beauty in the heather, Drust."

He stepped through the open gate. It closed behind him. Three Venicone youths hauled on the ropes that opened the kennels. The three brutes shot forward. A sibilant rush of breath burst from the crowd. One hand white-knuckled on the wicker, Padrec saw the moment as lethal contrast: the stillness of Drust and the dogs coming like missiles. God, what you did for Daniel do it now.

Before the oh of released tension died away, the plunging hounds skidded to a clumsy halt before the unmoving figure.

They were confused.

They inched closer, snarling. Drust's gaze was fixed on the ground at a spot just in front of the nearest dog. The brute pranced and writhed in a display of fury but came no closer. Gradually the pitch of their challenge dulled to bewilderment. Small-brained murder had propelled them at the figure, but their sense of smell gave them no familiar message. From humans and their own kind they knew the scents of danger and fear; that it was

absent now disoriented them. The creature did not run, did not threaten.

They were kept brutes, lacking the complex memory that enabled their distant wolf-kin to survive. Faced with quandary, they hesitated and looked for a second sure sign of danger, the hands. To them, the hand was an entity in itself, dealing food and pain. When the palm was down, its smell denied them, there was potential danger. These were turned up, empty and devoid of the fear smell.