mocked his hopes.

"Savages . . . animals."

The child had been left dead or nearly so. No one would come. Besides the Venicone village he could see only hills and unbroken moor. Crawl as he might, in two days or even one he'd be too weak to move. The wolves and ravens would find him long before that.

He heard the sudden rusdmg and turned' his head.

One of them had found him already.

The raven perched like disinterested Fate on a stone across the circle. Two more wheeled in the morning sky.

Patricius dragged the little bundle closer to him. A poor end to his mission, but the child was already gone- He would follow shortly. He must pray for them both, even though the infant was probably unbaptized. He mum- bled through dry lips, felt the weak tears of self-pity Welling up. "And yet I fear the hour of-oh"

He was jerked over onto his back. felt the cold blade at his throat. The scarred faces peering down at him were detached and expressionless as the raven. They looked like twins, two small, fierce children. Quickly the boy cut the thong that held the iron Chi-Rho medallion at Patricius'

breast and hurled it beyond the circle.

When he realized they were more curious than preda- tory, he managed to speak. "The child is dead," he croaked, hoping they understood. He nodded weakly at the boy's bronze knife. "No need of that. I'll die soon anyway. Do

you . . . have some water?"

He had to ask again. The girl said something to her companion, pointing to Patricius' legs. Then she scurried behind one of the stones and brought back a clay jar. She pointed to the wounds again, excited. She seemed over-

Joyed at his injuries.

"Drink," she said.

Sweet Jesus! Not water but good, strong mead. He

swallowed greedily. "Thank you."

The girl touched the thick, gold tore around her brown neck. Able to think more clearly now, Patricius .

49.

the incongruity of the opulent tore against the rest ^her scant, ragged costume. The fine-worked gold was h enough by itself; the emeralds and rubies inset made fcorth a prince's ransom.

. She spoke again, something about . . . being sent by

raven? Mother? Her dialect was akin to the Venicone

even more archaic, with some words he understood , at all. especially with her queer, aspirated manner of cch. When he could only sign his lack of understand- , she touched the tore and said it again.

, "Be Dorelei. Dor-a-lay. Gem-y-fhain."

The boy jabbed his knife at Patricius. "Thee's Briton- i?"

"I am Fa . . . Father Patricius."

, The boy cocked his head at the queer sound. "Pad .. . ?"

"Patricius."

They had difficulty until he repeated it again, each able distinct. Then the girl flashed a sudden smile of Bprehension, small white teeth startling against the brown e and even darker lips.

"Padrec, Cru. Padrec."

Although she came to love him dearly, that was the it Dorelei could ever do with such an ungainly name.

: was Padrec.

II.

Gift from Raven

They were already weighted with the death of Nemane's child. This new thought of

Dorelei's was odd and dangerous, that Padrec was sent by their Parents to aid them. They saw only a crippled stranger, and tallfolk at that. They didn't question Gem-y-fhain, who appeared a rock of certainty. It must be so, she said:

how often did Venicones venture to the hill of fires in the daylight, let alone the dark? And see where the bones of his legs were broken as they broke those of the dead child to let the spirit out. So the living spirit of Padrec was now at the service of fhain.

Well-it could be true, but not even staunch Cruaddan was convinced at first- "Be sure, Dorelei?"

She only gazed down at him from the height of her infallibility and touched her gold tore. "Did speak as Gern.

A's sent to us. Gift from Lugh-Raven."

Once the rest accepted this much, that Dorelei herself believed it, they took good care of Padrec, shared unstint- ingly. and drowned him in comfrey tea to heal his bones.

Padrec missed his Chi-Rho; they might have left him that, but when they prudently removed his tinderbox as well, he realized it was not the symbol but the iron itself they feared.

"Worst evil of all," Drust warned darkly while Dorelei whispered magic over the tinderbox to dispel any linger- ing evil before it was abandoned a goodish way down the hill.

53.

54 They splinted his legs with meticulous care and made sure he had soft fleeces to rest on. Hardly a laconic tot, they talked Eo him all the time-talked at him, rather;

Padrec had difficulty at first catching the queer fall of their dialect. Under the Roman veneer, the Brigante of him took it as axiom that Faerie were less than human.

His ear, sifting its knowledge of various dialects, knew otherwise. If alien, they spoke an argot he analyzed as more Gael than Brythonic, older than both and akin to that of remote villages in Gaul. Some words were com- pletely foreign, more aspiration than sound. They re- minded him of the old Atecotti man from the barren country of the brochs in the far north who'd been one of his father's slaves.

"You are Atecotti?" he asked Dorelei.

She knew the name, apparently, and with gestures and few words told him Atecotti were honorable folk, oldest in Mabh's island next to hers. Then she touched her own breast.

"Prydn. Pruh-din."

"Faerie?"

She only shrugged, squatting beside him with her wrists dangling over her knees. That was his word, if he wished to use it. Prydn was an older name from before Britain was an island. "Most oldest."

Her stunted size confused Padrec at first, no larger than a child of twelve. The smallness was deceptive. Dorelei was a full-grown young woman in exquisite miniature. She would be ancient at fifty, if she lived that long. but her slight body would remain tough and supple throughout the brief, rigorous life of her kind.

They were not that far from the village that cast him out to die, yet no men came any nearer Cnoch-nan-ainneal than they could help. Not that it mattered. Soon enough fhain would be moving to new pasture before settling into crannog for the winter. To a certain extent they hiber- nated like bears.

When his legs were well on the mend they carried Padrec out of the rath to enjoy the last of summer. He breathed deep of the fresh air after the heavy atmosphere of the rath. It was no longer offensive to him, an efflu- vium of food, dog, human skin and sweat, sheep-odors, 55.