Vaco felt truly beleaguered. A fly-swarm of Roman and Faerie. Had he known of Pharaoh, he would have commiserated. They'd be everywhere, so small, so many of them, a man would need a dozen eyes to keep them from stealing him blind. . . .

Not so. They came to his village in a great singing parade behind the red-haired priest and the queen, carol- ing on flower-decked ponies, and the sight of them was both awesome and laughable, a strain on the eyes. The brevity of their ciothing and the breathtaking riches they wore tike children's beads! When they trooped through the open stockade gate, they scattered gold coins, flashing in the sunlight, to the pop-eyed women and children, who scampered about to retrieve them all.

191.

"We follow the sign ofjesu," Dorelei called to them.

"His law be to love and give- We share our wealth that thee know us thy brothers and sisters."

Waiting with his aides beside Vaco and his blue-painted brethren, Ambrosius marveled at the visible wealth among these people whose very existence, until now, had been mostly fable to him. The red-bearded man beside the pregnant queen swung down from his saddle-an Army mount, if Ambrosius was any judge-and strode energeti- cally to Vaco, a fortune in gold and jewels dangling over his grimy hide vest.

"May the sun be at your back. Elder. Perhaps now Vaco will believe in the strength of my Cod, who once again comes in peace."

"Well," Vaco countered circumspectly, "at least I will listen as carefully as before. Your gods are strong for you."

"He understood and forgave the doubting Thomas.

Then so must I. Ave, Tribune!" Padrec thrust out his hand to the young officer. "I am Father Patricius."

Ambrosius grasped the offered arm. "Ave, Father.

Ambrosius Aurefianus. Nuncio from Prince Marchudd."

"From Eburacum?" Padrec brightened. "Then you would know Bishop Meganius."

"To some extent."

"His grace is well?"

"Wise in the prince's council." Ambrosius remembered the benign presence who listened much and spoke little, and then to great effect. "And worrying over his peacocks."

"Ah . . . yes. Forgive me," Padrec confessed, "I've hardly written Latin this year and spoken it not at all outside of prayer. What news of-oh. A moment, sir."

Quickly Padrec stepped to Dorelei's side, where she'd planted herself before Vaco and his brothers in a cool appraisal.

"Be Dorelei Mabh, Vaco. Do give thy people Rainbow- ^ift to show our love. Will borrow not a stone from thy and. So let be peace between us."

Vaco peered down at the tiny woman. "It is familiar that you are."

"Have summered on the fell before," Dorelei allowed in a noncommittal tone. "And my blood sometimes."

192 Parks Godwin

"Gern-y-fhain is held in that Hand which upholds me." Padrec prompted. "Give us welcome, and I will tell your people once more of my God. this time in words that will not offend the dignity of Venicones. Ambrosius, this is Dorelei Mabh, to whom I am priest and second husband."

... I could only be polite and reach down for her little overdecorated paw (Ambrosius wrote to Marchudd), and she and Patricius alike fra- grant as their sheep when the wind was wrong.

Their wealth is unquestionable, most of it visi- ble as Trimalchio's, rattling about loud enough to give one a headache. The woman Dorelei has enormous prestige among these creatures, Patricius is more demigod than priest, and both act like it. To win them to his side, Patricius has gone to theirs-marriage, ritual scars, the lot- with thumping success. The Faerie are Christian with a vengeance, literal believers in the Word.

The Venicones are evasive anent my arguments for an alliance and recruits. Under the rose, I would much rather enlist the Faerie, who seem quicker mettle; not only superb archers but the finest horsemen and women one could find, though they ride ponies stunted as themselves.

Better mounted and trained, they would make excellent alae. Knowing my lord's views on cav- alry, I won't press the point. They are, of course, utter savages and shameless as animals. "Queen"

Dorelei goes about bare as a concubine under her jewelry, the swelling of her pregnant belly displayed as a mark of pride. Animals, but loyal as good dogs under a trusted master ...

"Interesting," Ambrosius noted to Padrec as they am- bled toward the stockade from the garish tents on Cnoch- nan-ainneal. "You say the Mass in their dialect."

"I know it's wrong." Indeed, the practice troubled Padrec's sense of orthodoxy more than his marriage. "But they must understand it. The Transubstantiation is very literal magic to them. That and certain other passages I leave in Latin, when they receive the Body and Blood."

193.

"Like a Druid."

"You might say, yes. They have a deep need for magic. The sense of reality is quite different from ours, and there is no linear sense of time. Like Dronnarron."

Ambrosius, fairly fluent in the northern dialects, didn't recognize the word or the weird inflections the priest gave it. "What's that, Pictish?"

"Older," Padrec told him. "God knows how much older. No Gaelic root at all. It, means the Green Time, or the Good Time That Was. This island was theirs alone before Abraham brought Isaac down from the mountain."

The tribune's sense of history was totally Roman: fact at the center but myth about the edges. "Really. The Dobunni bards always said it was the sons of Troy who colonized Britain."

"Bards need not be accurate, merely colorful."

"That's true enough. Windy old sods." Ambrosius slowed his stride, matching it to that of the shorter priest, who stumped along on level ground with feet that remem- bered hills. "All this gold, the jewels and the rest of it:

where does it all come from?"

"Rainbow," Padrec answered casually.

"Pardon?"

"A gift from Rainbow,"

They were near the stockade now. Ambrosius halted, smiling ironically. "By way of the imperial mini, Patricius.

The eager Venicones missed this in the scramble." He held out the gold aureus clearly stamped with the likeness and inscription of Trajanus.

Padrec said delicately, "They have no word for 'theft,'

Tribune."

"I'd say not."

"To ask is to be given."

"You taught them that?"

"No, Ambrosius. They taught me. They are innate Christians, Are you?"

"When I have to be," Ambrosius fended, "but 1 see your point."

"Good; then you must school me in turn. I've been long from home. When I left, the Council of Princes was on the verge of trusting one of themselves enough to call him king. What's the news?"

194 "Vitalinus is raised lo imperator by the tribes."

"The one they call Vortigern?" Padrec weighed the notion. "More of a bargainer than a war-chief, I hear.

And this war of Marchudd's against the Coritani: what does he hope to gain from it?"

"Every gradus of land they've stolen from him in the past ten years, and an extension of the Church into pagan lands. Missionaries like yourself, Father. Perhaps a new diocese."