He couldn't really see any of them now, but into his outstretched hand Cru pressed a fresh cup of uisge. Well enough; his mouth was dry and his tongue thickening inconveniently. Just a drop to wet it, then.

"And you, my brothers, though you know not the letter of sin, yet do ye sin. You live in sin!"

A smothered sound from one of the men, a coy re- sponse from Guenloie. Lying in Cru's arms, Dorelei won- dered against his cheek, "What be sin?"

"Do nae know." Her husband's fingers smoothed lightly over her bare belly. "But dost have sweet sound. Sin . ..

si-i-n. Like small bells in wind."

No, Dorelei heard more than the pleasing sound of the word, and something in her bridled at the alien sense of it. If unlettered, her intelligence was equal to Padrec's and constantly honed on the need to survive. What he said disturbed her.

"Let you therefore take one wife and one husband."

For Padrec, the crannog had grown somehow darker and closer. The world softened to shadows attentive to his mission. He spoke with crystal reason and the deep music of his faith, and they responded from their symbolic dark- ness beyond his pulpit by the fire; a murmur, a smothered cry. Oh, yes, they heard. They understood. They thirsted for the truth he poured out to them. In a moment they would come closer again, eager to see as well as hear him-

And then the rising ululation from Guenloie that could not be mistaken for any part of religious fervor:

"Drust, oh, Drust, aye, aye-"

Padrec broke off. "What .. . what's that? Are you listening to me, Guenloie? Drust?"

He staggered, rubbing his eyes, then seized a faggot from the fire and thrust it aloft, stumbling into the fur- ther recess of the crannog, pouring light over the writh- ing, coital lump of them.

"Jesus!"

They paid little attention to him. Neniane thoroughly involved with Artcois, generous Guenloie unable to ex- .

109.

elude either husband from this night's outpouring of her love. Padrec barely quelled an urge to kick them.

"Guenloie! Drust! All of you: what have I-oh, abomination!"

"Stop, Padrec!"

He whirled, reeling, at the whiplash sound of her voice as if she had authorized this desecration to humiliate him. Dorelei hovered like a warning at the edge of his light. "Damn you, woman."

"Be nae more fool than Mother made thee, Padrec."

"Fool?" he seethed. "Fool is it? What have I been talking about? And what to? Animals . . . animals!" Padrec hurled the stick into the firepit and lunged for the ladder, Cru's delighted laughter floating after like a stmg; up, out into the fresh-aired dark to glare blearily at the moon.

"Mooneye . . ."

The uisge and crannog warmth had crept up and struck him down from behind. He was drunk enough not to think what he did at all ridiculous but the reasoned acts of a rational mind. Padrec staggered off across the ridge saddle toward the ring of stones, falling now and then, to reach the circle and clutch precariously at one of the huge liths to steady himself, snarling his challenge to the moon.

"Mother is it? Fat, greasy sow-idea of a god!" Padrec swayed and stumbled about the center of the ring, scream- ing his contempt at the stones, as if to shatter them with his tongue alone. "Aye, and Lugh Sun. Come up'n I'll spit on you. Is this all you can do for your own? Teach them to rut like animals anywhere, any time they've a mind? Well, I am Patricius. Father Patricius. Here I am! Here I stand!

Now come and strike me down if you can. Past and gone, the both of you. Frauds!" He hurled his arms aloft. "/ am the sword of God, you hear me?"

"All the world hears thee, Padrec fool."

He turned at her voice, trying to steady the circle of treacherous stones that reeled sickeningly in front of him.

With an effort, Padrec focused his sight on Dorelei. She stood only a few feet away, hands on slender hips, out- lined by moonlight from behind. Her face was shadowed, but the attitude of her head and body told Padrec in the smalt reason left him that she was here for a purpose.

Good. Time to pay her out, too.

110 "Indeed," he said with sneering dignity. "Indeed, so

they do, so they should. 'Now Padrec will speak of Father- God!' Speak what, savage? Speak of God while they rut like animals?"

He was drunk, but her words cut through the fire in his head like shards of diamond. "Teach belief, Padrec?

Wise or foolish, words be only words. Did hear the words on the Moses-stones, and so many be what thee shall not.

Did think on that? All not, all no." Dorelei whipped her arm toward the crannog. "Loving be teaching. Loving be faith. Fool!"

"Faith in what?"

"In . . . tomorrow. Thee stands here, near to falling down and dare curse Mother and Lugh? Be nae Lugh and Father-God the same?"

"No, Dorelei. No, ignorant lump, they are not the same. Your sun is only trivia! fire that God conceived, that He could snuff out with a flicker of His wilt."

"Yet thee rage at Lugh as if a could answer."

Blinking at her, Padrec felt distinctly that he was losing his advantage in argument; in fact he had difficulty following it. "Figure of speech. Mere . . . figure'f speech."

"Padrec fool, thee knows nothing worth breath to tell."

"Oh, no?"

"Nae. And do not start away, but hear me!" With an arm stronger than he would have guessed, Dorelei spun him about to face her. In his unreliable sight, she went on spinning with the stones.

"This dirt thee spits in a clean crannog-"

"What!"

"Aye, of marriage: better none at all, but will allow't from pity if a must. Better to marry than to burn- No word of loving, none of joy. Thee's ill, Padrec. Must be child-wealth as must be lambs and crops, but thee says to marry is only bare best of a poor bargain. One wife if thee must, but, oh, much better to put love aside for the naught it is and spend thy time howling to Father-God. A wilt grow tired of thee as Mother tired of Mabh. Give fhain something a can use."

DoreYei tore away from him. Padrec tried to keep her in his failing sight, feeling the tension in her small form, something more than anger.

111.

"Thee troubles me, Padrec. I tell thee, could be wrong in bringing thee to fhain. Could be very wrong."

"Then le'me go."

"Nae."

"Why not?"

Dorelei hesitated. "Parents would not ... lie to a gem," she answered with halting obstinacy. "Where, Padrec?

Where the sense in thy teaching?"

He was tired, befuddled, and wanted passionately to lie down in his tracks and sleep. Speaking was a thick- tongued effort. His mouth kept going dry. "D'you not know this world will soon pass away?"