knees and babble aves, but they did miracles in your name. They turned the other cheek, gave their substance to those who hated them. They were so ready to fight for you. And they were betrayed, that's the word for it. Betrayed by those who pray to you and act in your name.

"You hear me, God? You stir yourself now off your smug rock of ages and . . . and t-tell me . . . what good can come of this, what divine plan? My God ..." Pad-rec swayed forward, trembling, toward the symbol. "My God, you sicken me. We were better treated by Coritani whores/'

Meganius winced at the taut back. "With men and fools, a little patience."

"I'm not a fool," Padrec snarled at him. "Don't tell me that, old man. I was there. You saw how they sold us at the end, sold us all through it."

"I did. But Marchudd and Ambrosius have at least the purity of their motives. They know what they are and what they do and that they dealt with a fool."

"And you knew this would happen?"

"Not the end of it, no," Meganius denied. "Only the ultimate purpose. The Church must grow in Britain and Ireland if it is to grow at all. We may be the thorn in Rome's rump, but we have a genius for faith, no matter how troubled. And nothing and no one could have filled your expectations, Sochet, or those of your wife. Marchudd's motives were at least cut to a world he knows. Yours ..."

Meganius lifted his hands and let them fall with the impossibility. "And now God sickens you, eludes you in His design. Why not use the original words: 'Why has Thou forsaken me?' "

The force of Padrec's anger seemed to stumble on something. "What?"

"Surely you remember them?"

"No . . ." Padrec crumpled to his knees, collapsed in on himself, face buried in his hands. "He didn't say that."

"Sochet, what is it?"

"He never said that. I was there."

"What do you mean?"

"I was there, Meganius. I heard him. Saw him. He believed to the end. He never said that."

Padrec was weeping now. Meganius martyred his old knees to kneel beside the miserable priest, holding him. "Let it come, boy. There's no shame. Let it come."

Padrec swiped at his tear-blurred vision. "Have you ever seen a crucifixion?"

"Once. A long time ago."

"All these years, babbling by rote of Golgotha ... no one should die like that. You know what happens to a man when they hang him up like that? No, listen. Remember. None should speak of Christ's agony without seeing it. The hands are too weak to support the hanging body, so the nails are hammered through the wrists. Very quickly the man grows faint, dizzy. He finds it hard to breathe, then impossible. The heart fails. I used to think the crurifragium, the breaking of the legs, was a pointless cruelty. It was a mercy. There used to be a sedile for the man to ease his weight. When the legs were finally broken, the man could not support his weight, and so his heart failed the quicker and ended his suffering."

Padrec was calmer now but still insistent. "Rhiwallon wasn't that expert. They just—just nailed Drust's wrists and his feet and left him hanging. Oh, they gave him the irony of the spear in the side. And before he died, he tried to help me." His voice broke again. "Hanging there, he tried to h-help me pray. He went on that stinking cross, Meganius, because he believed where I didn't, couldn't. Even Jesu doubted then, but Drust didn't. What god would allow this? Play him so false, ask his belief, and have it given, purer than any psalm, and then ..."

It was too much. Padrec clung to Meganius while the ugly, wracking sounds tore from the pit of his stomach. "W-what kind of god, Cai?"

"Was nae Father-God, but thee, Padrec."

Malgon hovered in the chapel entrance, still, his voice with no accusation, only truth. "Was thee told us to believe."

Padrec looked up at him, haggard. "Yes." He rose wearily. "Yes, I did, didn't I? Will I ever earn your forgiveness for that?"

"Thee was sold as well, fhain brother." Malgon beckoned. "Come home."

"You can't go now," Meganius implored.

"He's right, Cai. It was me."

"You can't go like this, not apostate. You need time to think, meditate."

"On what?" Padrec asked desolately.

"Don't just shake your head at me, Father Patricius. Will you accept the responsibility, the fact that you are God's priest and always will be?"

"Priest?" There was a mocking weariness in the sound. "I don't even have the faith to pray before sleep. But it was me."

"Oh, God in heaven, is there no end to your vanity even in guilt? Can't you be as human as your own Christ and forgive yourself?"

' 'When I think of faith, it's not Christ, but Drust hanging there."

If it's his crisis, it's mine as well, Meganius thought. What do I tell him when only time will make him know it? One of us has to believe in him.

He could only be a man and hold the open wound of Padrec close to him. "Sochet," he murmured, "I can't presume to speak for Christ, but I know something of the men who give Him their lives. No wonder you admired Augustine; in that much you are still like him, a blunt fist, a battler. You've not left God. You couldn't. He'd have to draw you like an aching tooth, roots and all."

"Come, Padrec," Malgon said, half turned to go in the doorway.

"Aye, Mai. Farewell, your grace."

"Will you not wait at least a little?"

"There's my family. I must find them." Padrec turned absently and genuflected to the Chi-Rho. Meganius smiled.

"You still have at least the habit of God. That will have to do for now. Some men never have any more than that. I suppose you should know: Germanus has nominated you bishop to the Coritani. Something of an honor, I suppose. He was your mentor once."

Padrec said something in Prydn to Malgon; their laughter was not pleasant. "Shall I suggest what Germanus do with his biscopric?"

"Good Lord, no."

"I don't think I could quite find the right words. On the other hand, perhaps I could."

"I'll convey your regrets."

"Thanks. Are the horses ready, Mai? Farewell, Cai."

"God's blessing on you. And will I see His toothache again?"

"I don't know." He gave the bishop a lopsided grin. "Hast nae heard? Holy war be over." Padrec didn't kiss the ring, merely embraced his friend—"But I will miss Cai meqq Owain"—and followed after Malgon.

They had two fine army horses; swords and shields, and a bow and army arrows for Malgon. That Meganius knew where to procure them quickly was a measure of his awareness. That Ambrosius personally supplied them at no cost commented, perhaps, on a peripheral sense of guilt. The bishop sent a formal note of gratitude.

There were no prayers on the road. Malgon did not ask them, Padrec didn't offer. They followed the army road north to the Wall fort at Camboglanna.

"Brigantes call it Camlann," Padrec waved ahead across the undulating moor. Malgon knew it, a British village cut from Britain when the Wall veered south of it. Deserted now, used as a casual resting place by traders and hunters. To the east, tucked among the hills, was Vaco's stockade and Cnoch-nan-ainneal.

Some time after crossing the Wall, the fort well be-

hind them, Malgon drew up, alert. It seemed odd to Padrec: the horses would have sensed any real danger first, but they were oblivious.

"What is it, Malgon?"

Malgon listened for a space. He studied the milky sky and then the hills ahead. "Ravens."

Padrec saw nothing. "Where?"

Malgon's visage contorted with the mystery. Padrec sensed a sudden distance between himself and his fhain brother. Malgon's eyes were clouded with something when they moved on. Padrec read nothing in the sky but coming rain, probably before night. They skirted south of Vaco's stockade, then northeast toward Cnoch-nan-ainneal to spend the night in a known crannog. The few shepherds they glimpsed were tallfolk, and none of their own long-haired sheep. Malgon's tension began to infect Padrec, licking about the edge of his senses. They walked their horses slowly across the level heath toward the hill of the stone circle. Suddenly Malgon threw his leg over and dropped to the ground to pause with the feral stillness of his kind. He handed his reins to Padrec and walked forward, searching the ground.

As Padrec watched him, he was also aware of profound silence. There'd been an east wind before. Nothing now. The world had gone mute, leaving them in the wash of eerie quiet. The grass and flowers about them might have been painted by an uninspired artist unable to convey even the suggestion of life.

"Padrec, save us!"

"Mai...?"

The horror was already bright in Malgon's eyes. He raised his hands to the sky and down to cover his face in the death sign, sinking to his knees, and Padrec went cold to the bone as the sky darkened rapidly, far too rapidly for any natural element, from milk to gray.

Malgon moaned and covered his head, rolling into a small defensive ball on the ground. Padrec felt his skin crawl in the charged, unhealthy hush.

No, not hushed. Shadows that were not of clouds

rushed over the ground—faint at first, then louder and nearer, a sound grown too familiar in places like Chur-net. Fighting men. The air sang with the whine of arrows. The whine deepened to a roar topped with terrified voices, the scream of a dying horse, all battering against Padrec's ears. Even as the darkness grew, the tumbling shadows were darker still, racing over and around them, the shapes of men—running, stricken, falling, panicked horses. Padrec covered his ears against, squeezed his eyes shut against the shadows.

It is not real. Or I am stone mad.

For the ravens were there on the ground, more swooping from the sky. Stretching away around Padrec and Malgon, the heath was littered with arrow-shot knights, each with a blazoned shield askew on a dead arm or lying near. Queer armor covered the bodies: not leather or scales but flexible coats of minute metal rings looped and sewn together.