Padrec dipped two fingers in the bow! and signed the Chi-Rho on the tiny brow. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 1 christen thee Crulegh Mo- ses. Thy sins this water washes away as Christ took upon himself those of mankind. And no iron shali have power over thee."

Crulegh. Small Cru, it meant. He could be Cru's son;

there was nothing of himself that Padrec could see, and he'd certainly searched, worked at it. The baptism was done. For the moment, Padrec ignored the cold wind and the uncertain future.

You are God's for all time. For this one moment be mine. I loved your mother. Let me think you are the bright piece of forever we made between us. I have preached of miracles, but you are the meaning. I've prat- tled of love and know now it was only a word, only a sound. I have read of God's only begotten Son until the phrase blurred in my soul's sight. Untii now. To think of it: if God is love, then He felt this pang of mine so much more keenly, sending His Son, a little thing like you, to begin thai short, sad journey in a byre, to trust such a tiny spark in so miserable a place. Did He look down as I do now, wondering and exalted and terrified, and feel un- ready for it, as I do? Jesu was part of Him. was Him, and yet-1 can see how He must have missed the boy some- times. Could he inspire the passion and anguish of the Psaims and not fee! this? Yes, God must have loved the world verv much.

"Padrec?"

Dorelei had to call him twice. He placed the swaddled child in her arms. "Done. Take thy wealth to crannog."

"And thee?"

"Would be alone." He said it too gruffly, eyes averted.

"Please."

She understood. He never asked as Cru did and yet must be asking in silence every day with every sight of the child. There were times when even a gern should simply shut up and be a wife. She walked back toward the cran- nog, jiggling the baby with a fierce tenderness.

219.

"Ai, sweet. Ai, Crulegh. Thee will marry sister's wealth and be a braw man."

Neniane's daughter had been named Morgana Mary for the prophecy. Bruidda might curl her lip at the pre- sumption, but there was nothing amiss in helping along what was to come. And Guenloie's child had been named for Bruidda, so the woman had really nothing to complain of.

Under a light spring drizzle that brought all the rich smells of the heath to Tife, the milling Prydn gradually separated into two groups-the women, children, and older men with the wet and ill-tempered sheep, and the young men prancing their ponies about, supposed to form a military line behind Padrec and absolutely no notion of how to go about anything so regular.

Watching them from his stockade walls. Elder Vaco felt enormously relieved to be rid of Romans and Faerie alike. "True it is, brothers, that it is almost worth eating the body and blood of this peculiar jesu to be quit of his priest."

The parting threatened to evolve into reunion as wives ran back to husbands to hold up their children for one more kiss good-bye. Padrec twisted about in the saddle, searching for Drust and Malgon, who were in place not a moment ago. Then out of the chattering press, Drust emerged with Guenloie in one arm and little Bruidda curled in the other. He kissed the child once more, tucked it in Guenloie's hip sling, caught her in a last crushing embrace, then stood aside for Malgon to make his (abso- lutely) last farewells.

"Drust, Malgon. Come. We must start."

Fine intentions, but then didn't Dorelei dart forward with Neniane close behind, to tug at Padrec's leg. "Down, husband." And he had to dismount again to kiss her face and rain-straggled hair and not show how hard she made leaving. Her mouth crushed to his.

That was the best of us, Padrec remembered later. He must have said something then but couldn't bring it to mind an hour later. Those gone from Faerie-land said they wandered outside of time itself and never found their way back. None of us did. He remembered his heart

220 squeezed tight with feelings that turned meaning to mum- ble. The Prydn word for love was old as Mabh, beggaring attempts like amor.

"In my knowing of thee," Dorelei's lips murmured against his. "Will be empty, will be filled with thee. Jesu and Mother bless thee, Padrec."

Drusi set the tall Chi-Rho in its socket. Padrec raised his sword. "God's benison on our holy cause. One fhain in Christ, one rade in God! To Eburacum!"

Corus had never seen northern tribesmen before. The novelty appalled. He did not even ask their business at the gate, jusi ran to summon the bishop. Meganius had just stepped out onto the portico when one of them came down the walk with a tithe stride. A Pict by the look of him, dark with sunburn and dirt but jangling with a for- tune in Jewelry, red hair caught in a headband from which dangled the pinion feather of a raven's wing. Meganius stopped dead in astonished recognition.

"Sochet!"

His surprise momentarily forgot its Latin. He hurried forward to embrace the young man in an effusion of Brigante. "Magon Sochet! Good Jesus God, boy, and look at you! I didn't know you, and yourself half dirt and the rest finery. Dyw, lad-if this were Babylon, I'd think you a graven idol."

The grimy, gaudy apparition knelt to kiss his ring.

"Ave, your grace."

"I am very glad to see my priest, Father Patricius."

The young man who rose before Meganius was a year older and somehow physically different. Stronger, stiller, more concentrated. "So. These are the . . . Prydn?"

"I've brought them to Christ as you bade me."

"By a debatable route, perhaps."

More than strength, a new ease. The laugh betrayed it. "Your grace means my marriage."

"But brought nonetheless. Corus, bring us drink. What news, Sochet? You've seen the prince?"

"And have his promise of land for service. That's his word. And with my folk, a word is a contract."

Privately Meganius hoped it was so with Marchudd.

221.

He steered the conversation elsewhere and his priest to- ward a nearby garden bench, amused when Padrec ig- nored it at First and squatted out of habit like the small men waiting near the gate. "No, sit here by me, Sochet.

Good Lord, and aren't you a sight! I hope you wore canonicals to the palace."

"My last canonicals went to line a cradle." Padrec settled himself on the bench. "Not very practical up there."

"And when do you march?"

"Perhaps tomorrow; soon, at any rate. Ambrosius is snapping at his officers to be ready."

"And you are his archers?"

"And his cavalry- Ail he's got, so it appears. We re- ceive our orders today."

"I see." Meganius did. He might never look on Patricius again. "You'll want confession then."

"Yes. I suppose. Though it won't be much."

"After a year and more? There's arrogance, boy."

"Is it, your grace?" Padrec smiled across the atrium at his brothers. They were following intently the movements of the bishop's peacocks, having never seen one before.

How dost fly and why dost cry so mournful with such beauty on's back?

"Would it be confession?" Padrec posed the question out of the serenity that covered him like a cloak. "There's more broken vows in me than a brothel, and I've never felt happier or closer to God."

"To God, Sochet, or merely a man's acceptance of himself?"

"I've considered that too. I've a wife. I may have a son."

"May? Preserve us!"

"One can't be sure, and one doesn't ask. It's a matter of good manners. The only thing I could confess now is joy and pride. How strange it is to err m love and through an error to find the right. To find how much I love them. The truants return to Eden. Their sins are like tiny flecks of dust on God's notion of perfect. One flick of His finger and they shine again. Suffice to say," Padrec admitted with a sidelong glance, "I am no longer quite an Augustinian."

The bishop shrugged. "1 cannot grieve for that."