"These are the Eagle People, from across the waters beyond the Summer Isle," she said. "They come friends. Last little planting season they rescued me from the Sun People-the Iraiina, the new tribe, caught me, they held me captive-and I have been a Moon Year in their land, guesting. This is their… Spear Chosen," she said, touching Marian on the shoulder. "Marian Alston. My lover," she added proudly.

More gasps and murmurs; she might as well have claimed to have spent the year among the stars and brought back Moon Woman's heart.

"They come friends?" the man said, looking at her with respect shaded with awe, taking half a step back. "That is well. We have need of friends."

"There is war?" she asked anxiously.

"When hasn't there been, since the Sun People came?" the man said bitterly. "But since last year, it's worse in all ways. They have a sorcerer to lead them now, a child of Barrow Woman's own suckling. Instead of fighting each other mostly, they beat us like threshers nailing out the grain. And their Tartessian friends raid along the coast in their ships."

Swindapa's eyes went wide in fear as she turned to translate.

The captain of the Eagle looked down at the picture again. It had been taken with a telephoto lens, from the deck of a moving ship, but it was clear enough.

"Will you look at that," she said, throwing it down on the folding table with a tightly controlled gesture of disgust.

It was growing dark, the sun a fading crimson in the west, but the sides of the tent were still rolled up and the lantern hanging from its peak made the inside bright enough. The officers gathered round and leaned over the glossy photograph, exclaiming. Alston scowled out through the open side of the tent as they pointed out the details.

With three hundred and fifty pair of hands working, the American camp was going up rapidly. She'd had it laid out in the shape of a pentagon; there had been a few smiles at that, but it wasn't really a joke. The five-sided figure gave you enfilading fire on the flanks from all the points where the lines met. A few locals-Do not think of them as "natives, " she reminded herself firmly-stood by and watched, gaping. They'd picked a stretch of firm meadow not far from the high-tide mark, and the ditch went in quickly, dirt flying up. It was six feet deep and twelve across, with the earth piled on the inner side to make the rampart; inside went laneways flanked by ditches, with tents in neat rows and a clear central space for a parade ground. Working parties carefully cut squares of turf and laid the grass on the soil of the embankment; without cover the whole thing might well erode into a mudpie at the first hint of rain.

Time for refinements later, Alston thought, hands clasped behind her back. A palisade, of course, when they had time to cut the necessary timber; huts for stores… and a central platform for Leaton's pride, the centerpiece of the ROATS program.

"That's the Yare, isn't it?" Ian Arnstein said, peering at the photograph. "And that other one doesn't look at all like the Tartessian ships we saw this time last year."

The Coast Guard officers looked at him, silent. "Well, I'm not an expert," he said defensively.

"It's a bloody brigantine," Alston said. "Look at the thing, the way it's rigged. Oh, she'll have a lot of leeway sailing close and she's too beamy to be really fast, but that bastard Isketerol didn't waste his time on Nantucket, if he could build that from scratch."

She saw his incomprehension. "Remember what I said, about sailing across the Atlantic in the ships they had?"

He nodded. She stabbed a finger into the picture and went on: "With this, he could sail across the Pacific. He probably broke up a couple of those ships we saw last spring to make it. You could circumnavigate the world in this-Magellan did it, in somethin' less seaworthy-or carry a hundred men to Nantucket."

"This brig isn't just a copy, either," she continued. "It's a clever adaptation of our ideas for local use. That shallow draft…"

"You can beach it without damage," Sandy Rapczewicz- she'd kept her maiden name in her second marriage too- said mournfully. "That'd be handy, for inshore work."

"Or an invasion," Alston said, nodding. "Well, taking Isketerol with us-I made a bad mistake, there. We've got to put a stop to this now, if we can."

She looked up at Lieutenant Commander Hendriksson. The young Minnesotan drew herself a little more erect. "What did you make the water there, Ms. Hendriksson?"

"I had twelve feet, but that was quarter of a mile offshore," she said. "From the color and the look of the bottom on the lead line, it shelves quickly."

Alston picked up the photograph again and measured with her eye. A man was standing upright beside the beached hull of the Tartessian brig to give her some idea of the size. Somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred tons displacement, she decided. Slightly less than half the size of her two schooners, but much stubbier and tubbier than the Tubman or Douglass. Which meant…

"This thing may draw less than four feet," she said.

"And the brig's got oar ports," Hendriksson pointed out. "That could be useful, inshore, given a calm or a wind right in her teeth."

"Well, at least we know the range of those rock-throwers," Alston said. "What did you make of their camp?"

"Ma'am, that wall and ditch they've got… I wouldn't like to try and storm it."

"No, you're right on that," Alston said. "If I know Walker, he's had the Tartessians put underwater obstacles in, too."

She spread her fingers on the table and looked around at the others. "I hope I don't have to say keep a careful lookout," she said dryly.

There were somber nods. Together the Yare and this brig could carry almost as many fighters as the expeditionary force numbered, at least for a short coasting voyage.

"From what Ms. Swindapa's people were able to tell us, Walker has a strong position in the east-either he's in charge, or nearly so, with a real army under his control. Plus we're not nearly as completely in command of the sea as we'd hoped. We obviously need better intelligence, and we need help. This is the back crick of the beyond, by local standards. We'll have to send a party inland."

She smiled, a shark's expression. "And perhaps we'll give him a surprise or two, busy little bee that he's been."

"Ma'am? Lieutenant Commander Ortiz is back."

She ducked her head out of the tent for a second; the commander of the Frederick Douglass was coming up from the improvised dock. She returned his salute.

"I've got 'em," Ortiz said. "And ma'am, you're welcome to them."

Alston nodded, hands clasped behind her back, watching the livestock coming ashore from the schooner. All of it safely dead, at least; there was slaughter stock for sale a few hours' run up the channel. They'd put in a small wharf, enough for the ships' boats, and wheelbarrows and handcarts and strong young backs began trundling the carcasses up into the camp. Several dozen locals were among them, led by Pelanatorn's sons and nephews, daughters and nieces.

"No problems, Mr. Ortiz?"

"Well, the locals are damned light-fingered, ma'am," he said. "Anything metal particularly. And, ah, some of them are so friendly that it creates problems. Otherwise no; once we convinced them we weren't pirates, they were eager to trade."

"Good. Have a look at this, Mr. Ortiz-Ms. Hendriksson hasn't been idle."

He exclaimed over the picture of the Yare and the Tartessian brig. Alston stood deep in thought, rising and sinking slowly on the balls of her feet with her hands clasped behind her.

"Which brings me to a matter of standing orders," she said. "Now, you've all read the briefing sheet. These people here don't have anything like what we'd call a government. If we want to get them on our side-and we need them- we have to win them over small group by small group. Ms. Swindapa and the Arnsteins and I are working on the, ah, the Grandmothers-fairly soon we'll be taking a party off to consult with more of them inland. However, they've also got a series of local councils and another great council covering most of the southwestern part of England that meets near Stonehenge. It's a more of a religious institution, in charge of what they call the Sacred Truce, but it has a lot of influence. It's composed of men, but they're selected by the Grandmothers. On top of all this, there are the Spear Chosen, who are the closest thing the Fiernan have to military leaders. They're not elected or appointed at all; anyone who gets a good reputation as a leader and who throws a lot of parties gradually becomes accepted as one-sort of a potlatch thing. Land here is owned by lineages; trading or owning a lot of cows is the only way you can become really rich. Evidently among themselves the Fiernan Bohulugi don't really fight, they skirmish in a sort of ritual way with livestock as the prize."