"Which is good in Briton-land," Guenloie glowered.

"Not for us." Cru spat out a piece of gristle. "Lugh promised us Tir-Nan-Og."

"When?" Neniane asked. It was a hopeless, disbelieving sound. "Where?"

"In the west," Bredei said. "At world's edge."

"Or even farther," Artcois amended.

Neniane glared at her husbands like a brace of idiots. "What be farther than world's edge?"

"Thee knows the story," Dorelei said. "Can see the mole on thy own back?"

Family bickering subsided as the richness of the feast thickened and warmed their blood. When all were mellow with mead and only nibbling at honeycomb, when talk had fallen to a torpid murmur, one or two of them glanced expectantly at Dorelei. She sat cross-legged on the stone, back straight, hands on her knees, and spoke the ritual words as gern, praying she had her mother's stern command or at least a hint of it.

"Was in the first days."

Dutifully, fhain sat back to listen, although Dorelei knew there was none of Gawse's husky, low authority in her voice. Nevertheless, she told the story as her mother did, even with the remembered inflections that she practiced in secret. Gawse did it so easily; her voice had the weight of distant thunder across the sky even when it sank to a whisper.

The Lughnassadh story was mainly for children, that they remember their honored place among the offspring of earth and sky. Neniane took up her child and brought her to the fire.

"Gern-y-fhain, tell my first daughter of Mother and Lugh."

"Was a time when all men were nigh beautiful as Prydn," Dorelei began.

But Mother and Lugh gave so much of food and wealth that many grew larger and sleeker. They could look down on the heads of the first children, and so looked down on their hearts as well. In their pride, tall-

folk forgot their kinship with Prydn and the animals, and even the generosity of their parents.

''Was in the long summer before Lugh grew angry and went away. Before the ice came. Was in the first days of his love for Mother. A were like fhain then." Dorelei smiled at her folk. "Young and strong and loving all the time."

But the younger children grew too proud for even Mother's patience and she admonished Lugh. "See how haughty they grow. They need a lesson."

Lugh knew Mother was right. Tallfolk were so proud they no longer spoke the language of their kin even though Lugh commanded it.

"Speak to your brothers. Thee knows I go as raven on earth. What is my song then? What does the wolf say?"

But in their arrogance and greed, in making new words for new things, they had forgotten the first language. Only the Prydn remembered and were able to speak to Mother and their brothers.

"What is that to us," the tallfolk jeered. "They're stupid and backward, these first children. We are the humans. They are not our brothers."

Well, what father or mother could tolerate such arrogance?

"So be it," Mother said in judgment.

"So be it," said Lugh to seal her command. "You are no longer my children. Do you go out and make your own way. Only these first small ones will we call our own."

And that was the whole of it. The proud ones went off in a huff, and to mark the division, Mother kissed the Prydn on each cheek to leave her sign, and Lugh saw to it that their black hair and beautiful dark skin did not lighten, as with some of the ignorant ones. This honor was passed from generation to generation among Prydn in the fhain marks they wore with pride. Oh, there were some crafty tallfolk who tried to pass as Prydn

when things went bad for them, dyeing or scarring their skin as the Picts still did.

"And were some who cut the foreskins of their men," Dorelei confided darkly, "and others even the pleasure-buds of women."

Guenloie squirmed her legs together at the distressing thought. "Ooo..."

"But could nae fool our parents. Did know a's own. And real as the fhain marks on our cheek is Tir-Nan-Og, the land of the young where a will lead Prydn in a time after tomorrow. Was promised."

"Yah!" Cru hissed in approval.

Dorelei took up her mead bowl and drank, pleased that she'd told the tale almost as well as her mother. The story of Mabh, now, was usually told at Brigid-feast, but she guessed it wouldn't hurt to hear it this night. Perhaps Neniane would tell it. All through the feast her sister had been withdrawn and joyless.

"Neniane second daughter, will thee tell fhain how Mabh led her people to this land?"

Neniane's head was bent over the swaddled child. Dorelei touched her arm. "Sister?"

From Neniane came only a low, falling whine. "A's gone. My bairn is gone. Mother does turn from us."

She rocked back and forth as the bowls were lowered, food dropped from all hands. One by one Artcois and Bredei took the dead child from her and looked to see, as if only then would it be true. Then they added their deeper voices to Neniane's keening. Dorelei wanted to flee as the sound of it darkened around her and tore at her courage. Just now it was too much for her: all this way south just to find poor grass, hostile tallfolk, and dead children. Were she alone she'd run home to Gawse this night, whatever the shame.

The fhain swayed back and forth around the fire in the mourning that began as feast. Neniane's cries rose above the others. She tore at her hair and stumbled out of the rath into the darkness of the hill. With a glance

at Cm, Dorelei followed. Neniane stared up at the moon riding over a bank of cloud.

"A turns from us, Dorelei."

"Nae, dost not."

"Must go home."

"Cannot, thee knows it. Be home now."

"No. Would not have died at home," Neniane denied, hoarse with crying. "Gawse be strong. A's strong magic."

"And sister has not? Be nothing for us north. Would be shamed."

"Want my baby!" Neniane wailed. "Want to go home. Mother turns from us. Be nothing here but death." She wilted on the ground, beating her fists against the turf. Dorelei cradled her close as if Neniane were the sick child, wiping the tears from the small face, crooning to her. "Will take the bairn to the circle afore harrowing. Will to speak to Mother about this."

"Will need more than speaking," Neniane whimpered.

"Nae, strong words. Do need better fortune for fhain."

"A will not h-hear, sister—"

"Hush, hush. Did see thy husbands' sorrow? Would make it heavier?"

"What of mine?"

"Will go in the circle."

"Will go homer

"No, no." Dorelei rocked her back and forth. "Sister will care for you. Thee has good husbands. On Bel-teins after tomorrow, our flocks will cross Gawse's trail, and thee will have child-wealth anew to show her. Will ride with one child on the saddle and another running behind as we did, and Gawse will know her seed was strong enough to grow where tallfolk could not."

"Was mine," Neniane whimpered against Dorelei's breast. "Was out of me, a piece of me. So little. Artcois thought 'twas his but Bredei made it... oh, must nae tell that, sister."

"Nae."

"Was a good mother, never left her alone."

"Be still. . .hush."

Their words blurred to mere soft sounds, the cry for comfort, the comfort given, blended with the keening from the rath in a single bleak voice that cried the loss of future in the midst of now, for the flesh of tomorrow cut from them. The chill sound like a bleeding lifted on the night air and sang to the wind that carried it from the hill to the valley beyond. The feast-drunken Veni-cones, lying with their own women, heard the loss of life in the act of getting it, and were goaded to fiercer need without knowing why. The hill was far, the wind an unreliable messenger. It spread the mourning wail thin on its wings, not quite like wolves nor yet quite human as it reached their ears and those of their fathers for hundreds of generations, so that it even had a name now. The bravest of them would not go outside his iron-bolted door while the bean sidhe cried from the ancient stones on the hill.

They could not give up now. At least Cru realized that, but Cru was older and steadier than the rest. Dorelei depended on his strength more than she ever admitted. A Gern-y-fhain with a weak husband was a woman with only one arm, and Dorelei 1 s mind struggled with a problem that touched them all. If Mother and Lugh had forgotten them, where could she take fhain? Dorelei wondered if Gawse ever felt so confused and alone, having to be strength itself when she felt lost and frightened as Neniane.

Men were no more helpful in death than in birth. A word to Cru and he kept them enormously concentrated on the stone molds, making new arrowheads and gathering white moonstones for the coming night. Neniane couldn't bear to look at her dead daughter, and Guenloie was watching the flocks. Dorelei alone prepared the child for harrowing. It should be interred right away, but she'd come to a decision. When the fhain had voiced

their proper grief, Dorelei told them what she planned.

"Will take the bairn and show it to Mother in the circle of stones. And the grass and oats."

Neniane assented listlessly. Dorelei felt her helpless fury and that of the others. That day the wheeling birds learned quickly to fly wide of Cru's angry bow. Tod-Lowery, the fox, narrowly escaped with his hide when Bredei sank an arrow inches from his swift-running paws.

Drust made a paste of clay and reddish macha for Dorelei to work with. The dead child was painted with the mixture and each eye sealed with white clay. Dorelei placed the body on her gern stone, took up a bronze hammer, and broke the large bone of each limb with one sharp blow, which must be done to release the spirit. Then she wrapped the child in its lambskin and carried it out to Neniane.

"Go in the circle with thy husbands. Uncover it to Lugh. Our parents must be concerned with this."

Dorelei fasted all that day as Gawse would. No more than water had passed her lips since the child died. When the moon rose, she led the rest of fhain up Cnoch-nan-ainneal to the circle. Neniane had placed the child before the large eastern stone where Lugh rose on Midsummer morning. With her people behind her, Dorelei cupped her hands to take the stones from Bredei. He'd washed and rubbed each carefully so that they shone white as moonlight itself.