But then their herd dog, Rof, barked from a shoulder of the hill. Artcois hallooed after, holding up cheese and milk and reminding Dorelei and Cru that they were hungry.

Some fire festivals were shared with tallfolk, but not Lughnassadh, since it meant different things to them. To Venicones and Votadini, it was a harvest fire, a lamentation for the death of old Barley Woman and celebration of new Barley Maid. In old times a person was chosen as Barley King for the year and scythed with the harvest at the end of it. Prydn once sacrificed for the same reasons, for the prosperity of the herds, usually a prisoner or stolen child. Old days were crueler. With children so precious now, such a thing would be foolish.

Now it was all pretend, although the devotion and the serious meaning remained. From their hilltops fhain could see the harvesters working furiously through the narrowing stands of barley. None wanted to be the last to finish. On the last day the remaining workers were closely watched until only one man or woman remained with a sheaf uncut. Then, with much ceremony, the village head or the wise woman would lead the ritual mourning for Barley Woman who gave birth to Barley Maid even in her death. The cailleach doll made from the last sheaf would bear in its center a smaller image of the Maid, and mourning would turn to celebration. The last laggard harvester took a fun drubbing from the rest of the village, and dire predictions for the next year were cast for him. If a man, he would be childless. A woman would remain barren or unmarried at all. There was feasting then and much making of child-wealth, as was fitting. As man sowed wealth in woman, hay and cabbage and other crops could now be sown in the ground. All their magic had to do with crops and staying in one place.

Prydn remembered the reindeer. The herds moved in the oldest dance of earth. Fhain's festival was one of movement. In the summer Lugh rode close to earth, his feelings for Mother at their warmest. It was this marriage Prydn celebrated. The men brushed down their shaggy ponies, decked the saddles with heather, and rode in a procession to the foot of Cnoch-nan-ainneal. Dorelei, Neniane, and Guenloie waited there, circlets of vervain, ragwort, and pimpernel in their hair. As Cru pranced his pony toward her, Dorelei shot her hands high in the air.

"Have seen Raven. Lugh be with us!"

Raven was one of the forms Lugh took in flesh, and to see him on this day was a sign that he favored Salmon fhain. Cru leaned from the saddle and caught Dorelei, who hopped up nimbly behind him. Neniane rode with Bredei, Guenloie with Malgon, Artcois and Drust bringing up the rear. They paraded in solemn pomp three full circles about Cnoch-nan-ainneal.

There was work to do preparing the Lughnassadh feast. There would be oats and ground pork cooked in a sheep's stomach with aromatic basil and garlic to make the pleasured tongue beg for more, barley soup thickened with mushrooms and all the week's leftovers, and a measure of mead traded from the Venicones, plus a honeycomb paid to Guenloie for a charm against the suspected evil eye of a neighboring ancient. Fhain had great fun with that.

"Will work as well as not," Guenloie reasoned.

And the centerpiece of their repast! A lamb who looked unhappy in its Venicone captivity until Cm night-borrowed the fortunate lostling, its tender meat flavored with mint and wild garlic. This night fhain would feast until their stomachs popped.

At dusk, like eyes opening all over the land, one could see the Lugh fires kindled in one tallfolk village after another, inside the stockades or beside the fields. From a special dry corner of the crannog, unburned remnants of last year's fire, a gift from Gawse, were brought out and used to kindle the flame and replenished with aromatic clumps of dried peat. From the new fire torches were lit by Neniane and passed up to the mounted fhain.

Torch aloft, Dorelei gazed across the few miles to the closest fire-lit village and felt the fierce, ancient pride swell her chest. "We are the Prydn," she whispered to the distant light. "You are not so old in the land as us."

She swooped her torch in a fiery circle. "Be the people of the hill!"

The torches wheeled against the darkening sky. "Yah!"

"First children!"

"Yah!"

"Will carry Lugh's light."

Six torches strung out behind her, Dorelei rode a route along the hilltops. As her sure-footed pony plunged up and over the ridges, she knew no lowlanders would venture within a mile of them this night; they called this procession a Faerie rade, and deep in their beliefs was

the certainty that this time could bring the worst luck one could imagine, like blighted crops or dead children. Some Venicones would not even look up at the moving lights, and every person and threshold bore iron as protection. In these southern parts where the crown-shaven priests of the Christ-man had passed, some believed that these were the false lights of Lucifer, sower of confusion and harm. No matter how one believed, Faerie were best avoided when thev rode at night.

Dusk deepened to dark and stars as they rode. Mother's eye rose and opened to approve their worship, and Dorelei's heart felt warm as they approached the rocky outcrop that marked the entrance to their rath. Neniane stood waiting with the bairn in her arms, shaggy Rof capering about among the ponies.

"Feast! Come feast," she called to them as they dismounted. "All's prepared." But Dorelei sensed a forcing in the welcome and knew her sister's heart was not in it. While the men led the ponies to their byre, she placed her own flower crown on Neniane's head and kissed her.

"The bairn?"

Neniane's serious dark-kitten face bent to the wrapped child. "Still fevered."

Dorelei placed the backs of her fingers against the tiny brow: far too hot. In spite of potent magic, the child's preserved birth string greased and laid near the fire, in spite of lavender tea and beech-fungus poultice, the bairn still grew weaker.

"Should never have left Gawse," Neniane mourned.

"Hush. Be home now. Will brew more tea for it."

Neniane's daughter was given more hot lavender and wrapped in lamb's wool to sweat the fever out of her. The flushed infant barely moved. Dorelei felt hopeless. She had no real zest for the feast but dared not show it. More and more this summer she was coming to realize that much of the strength and courage of a gem lay in the masking of troubles from her people while they nourished on her spirit.

The order of seating at a meal was a statement of position within fhain. Everyone had a certain place. Only children were allowed to roam about or partake of any dish at random. As gern, Dorelei sat on a flat stone in the highest place. Cruaddan on her right hand, Neniane on her left. Then to Neniane's left and Cru's right came Artcois as first and Bredei as second husband. Then Guenloie, Malgon, and Drust in the same order.

Dorelei dipped from the soup and cut a portion of meat; Neniane followed, and then they talked and laughed freely, deferring only to Dorelei when she spoke as gern. For this reason, as Gawse had, she chose her times carefully for gern-speaking and listened more than she spoke. It lent her needed gravity and set her somewhat apart like her mother.

The men's talk turned to the Wall. It fascinated them even more than the high stone brochs of the north, a solid stone wall fifteen feet high and stretched the width of the land from sea to sea with castles every mile and camps in support. All things Roman were a source of wonder and more than a little fear. Everything they built was to last, all square and counted and uniform, cities, armies, even men. Squares seemed awkward to fhain, whose idea of perfect unity was circular. The Romans had been in Britain forever; yet now, suddenly—

"A's gone," said Cru.

Drust couldn't believe that. "Nae!"

"Did hear from Venicones."

"Gone where?"

Well, as Cru gathered from villagers, there were wars oversea and all the soldiers went to fight in them and none were left but Briton-men. Rome claimed all the earth south of the Wall, which meant nothing to fhain. Their journey south this spring was the longest any of them could remember. Anything greater had no meaning. And when was this leaving?

Cru searched for a measure. "Oh, tens of seasons past. But Wall be guarded yet."

" 'Gainst Venicones?"

"And us," said Cru.

That sat strangely with Malgon. " 'Gainst Prydn? What be in Briton-land we would want?"

The notion was comic; Artcois spluttered through his soup. "Can picture it: tens and tens of Briton-men a-shiver on the Wall while Dorelei and Cruaddan lead fhain flying against them."

Cru swept his arm in a great arc. "Forward!"

"Forward! Yah!"

Neniane lashed out suddenly. "Be still!" They all heard the thin-worn desperation behind her temper. "Bairn can nae eat. Can nae have a little rest at least?"

Artcois subsided. "Be only joke, wife."

"Thee's always joking. Thee's a fool."

"Why?" Guenloie wondered. "May not even laugh at feast?"

Neniane turned away in disgust. "Be those who can do little else."

"Second daughter be right," Dorelei settled it. "Bairn needs rest. Do not wake her."

They quieted in concern and respect. Neniane was worried and not enjoying the feast even though Dorelei saved the tenderest cuts of lamb for her.

"But did hear there be good graze south of Wall," Guenloie nodded. "An could use't."

"And thee's worse than fool," Neniane lashed out at her. "With thy mooning after tallfolk men and boasting thee's one of them."

"Nae true," said loyal Malgon.

Guenloie bristled. "Mother be Taixali."

"And proud to be fhain," Dorelei reminded her. It wasn't wise for Guenloie to hold such thoughts, much less voice them. Her husbands were pained by it, especially Drust who was achingly in love with her. Dorelei was suddenly sick of them all. "Neniane, hold thy temper. Do all care for bairn. Guenloie spoke only of graze."