"Cru, how be we ugly?"

"Remember the Lughnassadh tale," he soothed her.

"A's but jealous."

He was a comfort and a steady warmth, her Cru.

These summer nights Dorelei and Cru liked to take their sleeping robes away from the rath where they could hear the night sounds around them as they loved, starting out snug between the heavy fleeces, throwing them aside as their hunger rose and they went deliciously mad with each other. Then, sated, the night would chill their sweat and they'd cover again, only to start all over, stroking and licking each other's flesh until the sheepskin went Hying once more along with their spirits. But though they loved enough for the whole fhain, no child-wealth came of it.

"Do try too much," Neniane counseled. "Wait until thy blood's come and gone. Rest and try again."

But they couldn't wait any more than a river could pause or Lugh turn back in the sky. Cru had the fire of Herne in him, she had Mother's own need to be filled.

Their bodies and spirits were so matched, one hungered with the other's need.

Cru rolled over, face up. Dorelei brushed the hair aside where it tangled over his cheek and kissed the two V-shaped fhain marks. She eased down on her back be- side Cru, staring full into Mother's eye.

What dost want of me? Be too young for Gern-y- fhain, not wise like Gawse.

Yet now she must be wise. She must learn more about tallfolk to be ware of them. They were strange. Sometimes Prydn were allowed in the villages, sometimes no closer than the stockade gates, the village traders wearing Blackbar ' magic about their necks as protection, knowing as well as

12 Parhe Godwin

Dorelei's folk that the iron would always be a wall between them. For tens of generations her people had feared the magic of Blackbar that they couldn't make or master. She didn't know why it was potent against them, but Gawse never questioned it or her mother before her, so Dorelei never touched, named, or even looked at iron if she could help it. Only in rare moments like this, awake beside sleeping Cru, did she sometimes ponder on it. What was in the Blackbar magic to make it so potent against her people?

Whatever, tallfolk knew and used it. They would never allow Dorelei near their children, but they would travel a full day to find a Prydn midwife whose birth-magic they knew far better than their own and for good reason.

Prydn women bore their children in far less comfort than Picts or Britons and knew the best ways td bring them easily and keep them alive. If one of their own lived past its first year, it would grow stronger than others, supple and tough as willow from running the hills. Many were born on the move. Tallfolk never understood the moving.

"Why do you always wander?" a Venicone asked Cru only weeks past. "Why not stay in one place?"

"Herds move."

"Pen them up as we do."

"Why?"

"Do we not own the land?"

Own? Pen? Tallfolk always used such words. Dorelei couldn't fathom their thinking except for the greed. Small wonder they fought all the time. They'd forgotten Mother and her way. A poor lot. Mother must have made them on a bad day toward the end when she was tired of it all. How do children pen off pans of a mother? That was like Salmon fhain saying Doreiei's left arm was Neniane's, the other Guenloie's. How could that be when earth was a living thing, Lugh moved, and the herds drifted as they always had since Mabh followed the reindeer? They moved as birds who were born on the wing, their whole lives pressed to the breast of the wind and taking suck from it.

And yet a hard truth stayed with Dorelei. There was only one sickly infant in the rath, and she had none in her. The grass was not good here, nor was it belter for diem anywhere she could remember. If they were Moth-

13.

er's First children, why did they grow fewer and weaker while tallfoik lived fat in the glens? Why did outsiders seek Prydn magic in important matters like birth or illness and then hate and fear them for having it to give?

Gawse must have pondered these things. That was what. took the lightness from her step and made her brood in the crannog of winter nights. While Dorelei rolled in her sleeping robe, Gawse thought of tomorrow. Now it was her turn. She could already feel the weight that bowed Gawse's shoulders and turned down the corners of her mouth, a weight on the soul.

Where is tomorrow for us?

She wouldn't think of that now. Lughnassadh was coming, the day when their sun father marked them apart from tallfolk. Dorelei would tell the story to fhain as Gawse did each year. Neniane's infant daughter was too young to understand, but the others would expect it. They would feast and drink barley beer, but after Lughnassadh the mist on the moor would grow colder each day, the sun lose its warmth, and forgetful Lugh be that much more distant from them until it was time to crowd the flocks and ponies into the crannog against one more lean winter.

She turned to push herself against Cru, half hoping he'd wake and talk to her, but he only sighed and bur- rowed deeper into sleep. It would be light soon. Already Dorelei could smell the rain on the east wind. She couldn't sleep with so much troubling her. Perhaps if she went alone into the circle now and talked to Mother, there might be wisdom. The hill above her, Cnoch-nan-ainneal, was the oldest circle known to Prydn. It was said Mabh's own people dragged the stones into place. She could start her own fhain in no stronger place. Dorelei wrapped the wool kilt about her hips, clasping it with the bronze brooch.

She slipped into her vest, bent to pull the robe over Cru, then padded barefoot up the dew-wet slope toward the circle of great stones.

On summer nights the heath never grew really dark, lust a silvered gray. Dorelei could see every part of the hill, every tight and shadow on the stones above her.

Then the gray and silver moved.

Dorelei froze to a stone herself. Only her eyes IT: s^ following the shape that flowed in and out of spJ/^S^

14 Parks Godwin

Wolf.

Dorelei wailed, it moved again. Only one. Not hunt- ing. Wolf never hunted alone. Like Prydn they lived beyond the tallfolk fires and spent much time singing to Mother.

Tallfolk feared Wolfs song without understanding that Wolf sang much the same as men did, for [he pleasure.

Hungry wolves were a threat, but in deep summer with food plentiful, Wolf was just another child wandering the moor for the whim of it.

The gray wolf sat near one of the stones. She growled deep in her throat when Dorelei slipped into the circle but did not crouch or retreat. Dorelei moved upwind of the wolf bitch and squatted on her haunches, arms dangling from her knees. The wolf growled again, a tentative warning.

"Be still," Dorelei assured her.

Wolf lifted her muzzle to try the new scent and its many facets-grass, sheep, man, but none of the fear smell that came from humans when she was close. That confused Wolf. Fear and threat always went together. The growl softened to a questioning whine.

Dorelei grinned at her. "Dost talk to Mother?"

What mother?

Wolf clearly didn't know what she meant. Foolish bitch, be nae better than dog.

There were fewer wolves now. Men hunted them out of their lairs, remembering a time when they themselves huddled in protective circles of fire and Wolf waited pa- tiently in the dark beyond for the fire to burn down, though it never did. Men grew bigger and Wolf smaller-

Like thee.

-And now Wolf was dying out of the land.

Like thee, said Wolf.

"Be still. Dost nae remember Mother?"

Wolfs tongue lolled out. She laughed at Dorelei in the moonlight.

Remember what? There is hunting and mating and cubs, and now your fear smell rising. You will die out.

"And what of thee? Could not even bargain with men to live by their fire like common curs. Must always live outside."

u. Like thee. Will come a time when Prydn-Faerie is only 15.