The tea worked with her exhaustion to dull the pain of being stretched farther apart than she ever thought possible. "In three days, if a takes good suck and thrives, thee will christen my son as Crulegh."

He wouldn't let Dorelei see his disappointment. After Cru, then. Not him. "And what in Christ?"

"Padrec. Crulegh Padrec."

"Must be holy. Mine be just a name."

She lay with her eyes closed, thinking on it. "Moses."

"No, Dorelei. You see—"

"Father-God spoke to Mo-ses as to Paul."

"Paul would be better. Moses be from Hebrew-fhain."

"What difference? Did hear the same voice. Mo-ses." His silly differences were lost on her. She would have no other name. Padrec said it meant "from the rushes," which grew at the edge of water. If Crulegh was not the promised bright daughter from the sea, he would be close. "Have dreamed of water, Padrec. A great, crashing world of water.

Crulegh took to the nipple like Cruaddan to the bow, a messy but efficient engine of digestion. Padrec was concerned for Dorelei, worse than an old woman at it in some ways, the more because no one else seemed to regard the gern as fragile. They all thought it quite proper when she rose within hours of her labor, while Neniane nursed the infant for his first feeding. Padrec's male protectiveness was outraged.

"Go back to bed at once."

"Why?"

"Damn it, woman, you need to. Why, a woman at home would—"

"Tallfolk women be soft" Dorelei dismissed them with audible contempt. She must be up, and there an end. Soon they would move to new pasture. With the young men gone to holy war, there would be more work for the rest. She must be strong enough to ride. Child must toughen through spring and summer to survive the autumn rade and the winter again. For all their Rainbow-gift and iron-magic, there were things Prydn could never afford, and frailty among them.

"Be time, Padrec. Take my child and let Jesu hear a's name."

"The wind still draws a knife across Cnoch-nan-ainneal. Can do it here by the hearth."

"No." Dorelei wouldn't consider it. "Will be cold on rade. Bairn must learn it now."

Padrec wrapped himself and the bairn in Cru's big cloak, and Dorelei put on her new one bought from the Venicones. Together they left the crannog and went to Malgon's tempering trough. The few people about the ridge saddle made way for them, as they were on solemn business. About and below them, the bright rath-tents were being struck, the sheep being counted and culled of the sick. Weak or deformed lambs would be butchered for eating now and salting for the rade. Far down in the meadow, the stallions kept jealous watch over their mares. Padrec dipped a bowl into the trough and consecrated the water. He pushed back the heavy folds of the cloak to expose the tiny forehead, still soft and misshapen from its passage into life. Padrec touched a finger to the fine dark fuzz that would grow someday to black silk like Cru's.

Ave, my son, as well you may be. I don't know exactly what day you were born. I am forgetting my kalends. No matter. We Prydn go by our own signs. Look, son: the hazel and alder are in bloom. The kestrel flies north again, and Tod-Lowery cries for his vixen. These are your kalends. They tell you to ride as I must.

Padrec dipped two fingers in the bowl and signed the Chi-Rho on the tiny brow. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I christen thee Crulegh Moses. Thy sins this water washes away as Christ took upon himself those of mankind. And no iron shall have power over thee/'

Crulegh. Small Cru, it meant. He could be Cru's son; there was nothing of himself that Padrec could see, and he'd certainly searched, worked at it. The baptism was done. For the moment, Padrec ignored the cold wind and the uncertain future.

You are God's for all time. For this one moment be mine. I loved your mother. Let me think you are the bright piece of forever we made between us. I have preached of miracles, but you are the meaning. I've prattled of love and know now it was only a word, only a sound. I have read of God's only begotten Son until the phrase blurred in my soul's sight. Until now. To think of it: if God is love, then He felt this pang of mine so much more keenly, sending His Son, a little thing like you, to begin that short, sad journey in a byre, to trust such a tiny spark in so miserable a place. Did He look down as I do now, wondering and exalted and terrified, and feel unready for it, as I do? Jesu was part of Him, was Him, and yet—I can see how He must have missed the boy sometimes. Could he inspire the passion and anguish of the Psalms and not feel this? Yes, God must have loved the world very much.

"Padrec?"

Dorelei had to call him twice. He placed the swaddled child in her arms. "Done. Take thy wealth to crannog."

"And thee?"

"Would be alone." He said it too gruffly, eyes averted. "Please."

She understood, He never asked as Cru did and yet must be asking in silence every day with every sight of the child. There were times when even a gern should simply shut up and be a wife. She walked back toward the crannog, jiggling the baby with a fierce tenderness.

"Ai, sweet. Ai, Crulegh. Thee will marry sister's wealth and be a braw man."

Neniane's daughter had been named Morgana Mary for the prophecy. Bruidda might curl her lip at the presumption, but there was nothing amiss in helping along what was to come. And Guenloie's child had been named for Bruidda, so the women had really nothing to complain of.

Under a light spring drizzle that brought all the rich smells of the heath to life, the milling Prydn gradually separated into two groups—the women, children, and older men with the wet and ill-tempered sheep, and the young men prancing their ponies about, supposed to form a military line behind Padrec and absolutely no notion of how to go about anything so regular.

Watching them from his stockade walls, Elder Vaco felt enormously relieved to be rid of Romans and Faerie alike. "True it is, brothers, that it is almost worth eating the body and blood of this peculiar Jesu to be quit of his priest."

The parting threatened to evolve into reunion as wives ran back to husbands to hold up their children for one more kiss good-bye. Padrec twisted about in the saddle, searching for Drust and Malgon, who were in place not a moment ago. Then out of the chattering press, Drust emerged with Guenloie in one arm and little Bruidda curled in the other. He kissed the child once more, tucked it in Guenloie's hip sling, caught her in a last crushing embrace, then stood aside for Malgon to make his (absolutely) last farewells.

"Drust, Malgon. Come. We must start."

Fine intentions, but then didn't Dorelei dart forward with Neniane close behind, to tug at Padrec's leg. "Down, husband." And he had to dismount again to kiss her face and rain-straggled hair and not show how hard she made leaving. Her mouth crushed to his.

That was the best of us, Padrec remembered later. He must have said something then but couldn't bring it to

mind an hour later. Those gone from Faerie-land said they wandered outside of time itself and never found their way back. None of us did. He remembered his heart squeezed tight with feelings that turned meaning to mumble. The Prydn word for love was old as Mabh, beggaring attempts like amor.

"In my knowing of thee," Dorelei's lips murmured against his. "Will be empty, will be filled with thee. Jesu and Mother bless thee, Padrec."

Drust set the tall Chi-Rho in its socket. Padrec raised his sword. "God's benison on our holy cause. One fhain in Christ, one rade in God! To Eburacum!"

Corns had never seen northern tribesmen before. The novelty appalled. He did not even ask their business at the gate, just ran to summon the bishop. Meganius had just stepped out onto the portico when one of them came down the walk with a lithe stride. A Pict by the look of him, dark with sunburn and dirt but jangling with a fortune in jewelry, red hair caught in a headband from which dangled the pinion feather of a raven's wing. Meganius stopped dead in astonished recognition.

"Sochet!"

His surprise momentarily forgot its Latin. He hurried forward to embrace the young man in an effusion of Brigante. "Magon Sochet! Good Jesus God, boy, and look at you! I didn't know you, and yourself half dirt and the rest finery. Dyw, lad—if this were Babylon, I'd think you a graven idol."

The grimy, gaudy apparition knelt to kiss his ring. "Ave, your grace."

"I am very glad to see my priest, Father Patricius." The young man who rose before Meganius was a year older and somehow physically different. Stronger, stiller, more concentrated. "So. These are the . . . Prydn?"

"I've brought them to Christ as you bade me."

"By a debatable route, perhaps."

More than strength, a new ease. The laugh betrayed it. "Your grace means my marriage."

"But brought nonetheless. Corns, bring us drink. What news, Sochet? You've seen the prince?"

"And have his promise of land for service. That's his word. And with my folk, a word is a contract."

Privately Meganius hoped it was so with Marchudd. He steered the conversation elsewhere and his priest toward a nearby garden bench, amused when Padrec ignored it at first and squatted out of habit like the small men waiting near the gate. "No, sit here by me, Sochet. Good Lord, and aren't you a sight! I hope you wore canonicals to the palace."

"My last canonicals went to line a cradle." Padrec settled himself on the bench. "Not very practical up there."

"And when do you march?"

"Perhaps tomorrow; soon, at any rate. Ambrosius is snapping at his officers to be ready."

"And you are his archers?"

"And his cavalry. All he's got, so it appears. We receive our orders today."

"I see." Meganius did. He might never look on Pa-tricius again. "You'll want confession then."