Swindapa came out of a hut. There was a squalling bundle in her arms. Oh, God, not another one… why couldn't it be puppies?

Her smile changed as the Fiernan lifted the baby up close enough to see. That milk-chocolate color was not something she'd expected to see in the White Isle. McAndrews's child.

"The mother is dead, in the birthing."

"Well," Alston said after a moment. "There's room on Main Street for the four of us, I suppose."

A chill colder than the rain ran down her spine as Swindapa lowered her eyes silently.

"We've won," Alston rasped into the microphone; her throat still hurt. "The question is, what the hell do I do now?"

"You've done a damn fine job," the chief said, his voice clear under the crackle of static-very clear, for a transatlantic broadcast with this equipment. "What you should do now is wait a little. From the sound of it, you're not up for much diplomacy."

She leaned back in the canvas chair, conscious mainly of an overwhelming weariness. Fort Pentagon's HQ hut was chilly and drafty in the aftermath of the week's rains, despite the brazier glowing in one corner. And Swindapa's hardly spoken to me in a week. She turned pale as a ghost when I mentioned going home… home, Christ, where is her home. Enough. There's work to do.

"I got a third of my command killed." She sat silent for a moment. "Christ, Jared, those were kids. They should have been back in the Academy, cramming for exams, with nothing more serious to worry about than zits and their social lives."

"We're none of us where we would have been," the slow Yankee twang said. "Anyway, we've sent some people over on Eagle this trip… That conference you arranged still on?"

Well, I said I was an ass-kicker, she thought wryly, suppressing a tinge of hurt. Jared's taking me at my word and sending someone to handle the problems that aren't nails. Put the hammer back on the shelf…

"Right. We've got a lot of mana with the Earth Folk now, and the Sun People tribes are too scared not to do what we tell them. They lost a lot of their fighting men, especially in the pursuit." She'd tried to keep the Fiernans from slaughtering those who surrendered, but it had cost her a lot of grief and chunks of political prestige.

"All the better," Jared said, a hint of iron in his voice. "If they wanted to stay safe, they shouldn't have started a war. Over."

"Over and out."

She clicked the microphone back onto the radio and sat, silent. It was with a start she saw how much time had gone by, and hauled herself erect. Eagle would be arriving with the flood tide; and for appearance's sake, she had to be on hand. Alone. Swindapa was off visiting her relatives again.

"Oh, Christ," she murmured, squeezing her eyes shut for an instant, gripping the edge of the table to the brink of pain. "Get a grip. Now go."

Jared Cofflin shook Alston's hand at the bottom of the gangplank.

"Martha and the daughter are along, too," he said, grinning. "Why miss the chance?" He looked around, searching the faces. "Where's Swindapa?"

"Visiting her mother," Alston said neutrally.

Cofflin started to speak and visibly switched gears. "Hope the voice is getting better," he said.

"The medics say it will. Inconvenient as hell, let me tell you. If I talk above a whisper for more than a few minutes I'm dumb as a fish. If you'll pardon me, Chief, I have some organizational work…"

He looked after her, then turned to the Arnsteins with raised brows.

Doreen coughed. "Swindapa's people… her family… they've been after her to stay. She won't talk about it. Marian…"

"Damn," he said quietly. "Well, let's get on with it," he said wearily.

He swallowed. The noise from the crowd outside was growing louder, almost a roar until a steady clanging cut through it. He puzzled over that for a second, then realized it was the sound of short swords being slapped against the sheet-steel facings of Nantucketer shields-the American troops reminding the audience of decorum.

"No sense in waiting," he muttered, squaring his shoulders. At least it wasn't raining anymore.

The crowd were standing-some had been sitting, but they stood for him-all around the slopes of the natural bowl. No more than a hundred all told; Spear Chosen of the Fiernans and a clump of Grandmothers to the left, and the Sun Folk chieftains to the right. Most of those were very young or very old, survivors because they'd been non-combatants. They looked at him with sullen, hangdog anger, seeming half naked without their weapons, bright with defiant finery. Along the circular ridge stood the Nantucketer troops, with another two squads on either side of him.

He raised his hand. "Please, sit down," he said. "We have to talk."

The translations echoed him; he forced the distraction from his consciousness, and the feeling of sweat trickling down under his collar. Christ, the fate of nations, and I have to decide.

"The war is over," he went on. "Too many have died in it, us"-the translators rendered that as Eagle People; he supposed the Americans were stuck with that moniker- "Fiernan Bohulugi, and the eastern tribes. No more."

That got him nods, even from the Sun People. Nobody here had ever experienced war on this scale before,

"We must take council to see that it never happens again, here in the White Isle."

A Spear Chosen shot to his feet, wincing and staggering a little as a bandaged wound on one leg caught him with a spike of pain. "Throw the Sun People back into the sea! They brought nothing but trouble with them. Their tread on the land disturbs its spirits. Let them go, or die if they refuse!"

That brought nods from the left side of the circle, and a sound halfway between a groan and a rising growl from the right. The American pointed to a white-bearded chief.

"My people came here in my father's father's time-" he began.

"Your tribe? One hundred twenty-six years this spring," one of the Grandmothers said dryly. "That is yesterday. Nothing."

The easterner glared at her. "-time out of mind, we have lived here. Here are the graves of our fathers and the holy shaws of our gods, here we plow and sow and herd, here our children are born. This is our home. We will not leave it."

Cofflin nodded. "We could expel you all-or kill you all, we and our Earth Folk friends. Do you doubt it?"

The charioteer lords fell silent again, a shuddering stillness. Jared turned to the Americans' allies. "But we will not, unless they force us to it. If you drive these out, others will come-or these again. You can't take away their knowledge of what Walker taught them… and Walker himself is still out there, over on the mainland."

Great, now I've got them both mad at me, he thought, through the uproar that followed. And Martha was right. The Fiernan Bohulugi were lovely people, but they needed what the charioteers had, or some of it.

Eventually the clamor found a voice: "Would you leave them free to attack us again?"

"No," he said. "Not that." He turned to the defeated, raising his hand. "If you are to live in this land, it's by our say-so-our leave," he added, as the translators looked puzzled. "On our terms."

"What terms?"

"First, you must swear by your own gods that you will make no more war on the Earth Folk or on us."

Slow nods; they'd expected that.

"Next, you will make no war on each other, either. Every teuatha of Sky Father's children must swear to aid us in punishing any tribe that breaks this pledge. In return, we- the Eagle People-will swear to let nobody"-that was directed at the Fiernan, but tactfully-"attack you, either. You'll be guaranteed safety in the lands you now hold, but no more."