S"Was nae told so?"

"-, "Where?"

30 Parks Godwm.

"Who can say? Beyond world edge."

"Could Prydn go there? Find a curragh to sail beyond world edge tike Lugh?"

It was not one of his wife's strange questions, like Where do the clouds go? or What holds the world up?

Dorelei wanted an answer. "Well, now . . ." Cru tried to picture such a craft but honestly considered it beyond even Mabh's formidable powers. "Who could build such?"

Dorelei didn't know, but they must go somewhere, find quickly those ends and rewards promised them, or all go into the barrow with Neniane's child. The shape ot wolf-truth and world-truth was plain as that.

Cru's arm emerged from the cloak, pointing down the valley. "See."

In the gloom where the Venicone village would be, a torch was lit, tiny in the distance, but as they watched another and another spark flared up until Cru counted ten of them. The lights milled about tor a few moments, then formed two straight lines close together and began to move.

The lights passed out the stockade gate and kept moving.

Most strange: tallfolk never left their stockade after dark.

"Where do a go?" Dorelei wondered.

In a few moments they knew: not going but coming.

"Here," said Cru.

His name was Magonus Succatus Patricius, and it had been remarked of him, to his secret pleasure, that he was obsessed with God. In later years he would sign himself Patrick to all the Christian world. In later centuries mira- cles as preposterous as his present youthful self-esteem would be solemnly ascribed to him and devoutly believed.

In his twenty-eighth year, like many men who grow slowly to the simplicity of greatness, he was quite unfinished and thoroughly insufferable. Patricius admitted this in mo- ments ot candor, but it disturbed him to think that men who professed a devotion like his own, men of the Church, found him abrasive. Later in life, Patricius often chuckled over the obvious answer. Not his holiness but his holy nai'vete and brash assumption of absolute right. Among wise and worldlier men, a little youth goes a long way.

Patricius' father was a decurion of ClannavenEa on the northwestern coast just south of Solway. Since the rank 31.

. hereditary, Patricius might have looked forward to a fre and uneventful career preparing the town's tax edules, maintaining the baths, and arranging public ertainments. The legions left when he was a child; the iain in which he grew to young manhood was a part of Be only in hopeful spirit. Most men were sure the Ons would return; meanwhile, the engine of adminis- on churned on in Roman form if not efficiency.

In his early youth Patricius could not be called either in or Christian. More accurately he thought very little H it. Rome had given him a secure land to grow in, tianging and tolerant, sheathed in the Pax Romana.

father, Calpurnius, was a Christian, and his grandfa- r Potitus a priest of the growing new faith. Like most cated citizens of the Empire, they took sophisticated light in the verses of Martial, were vaguely disturbed by ; attacks on the rich by young British monks-not wrong- ded attacks, but tending to shake the established order hings-and in matters of faith inclined to the reason- humanism of Pelagius rather than Augustine. Pelagius , after all, British and patrician, postulating a reason- SSge God who would not create men intrinsically incapable his own credit, Amathor had enough tolerance for mself and one fire-minded young man. When his social ends in Auxerre made fun of the terribly serious young olyte, Amathor only responded with a knowing smile.

"This one is tough. This one will last. Give him time."

; Patricius heard with a flush of righteous vindication It Augustine was favored over Pelagius at Rome. When nathoi died and was succeeded in the diocese of Auxerre fc a rigorous Augustinian, Germanus, the young priest ew he'd come into his own. Germanus had no use for lying with words or the easygoing Pelagianism that per- led the British Church and was spreading its seductive ^n even to Gaul- Man's pride-ridden error that his intelligence and natural inclination to good would him, Germanus thrust aside with rough contempt, iching that only those chosen by God would receive

34 Grace, and chat blessed company was much smaller in number than the complacent heretics would dare to guess.

Germanus routed out and challenged the Pelagian heresy wherever he found it. When he sailed for Britain to beard them on their very doorstep, Father Patricius followed in his wake like Peter after Christ on the shore, to be a fisher

of men.

Germanus was much more popular with the British commoners than the educated followers of Pelagius. Like Caesar, he came and conquered. His appeal was emotional and direct, a strong man in severe garb, plainly speaking his beliefs and supporting them with Scripture. He caused a stir and flutter, announced his victory, and left Britain

again.

After Germanus' departure, Patricius was something of a man without a star. For all the triumph, he could see no marked difference in his countrymen, not even his parents, with whom he now had nothing in common spiri- tually. It was not enough to preach, then; one also had to proselytize. The true men of God were not in the estab- lished centers of faith. Potitus had been thus, comfortably preaching to the converted. His father still dozed through the Mass and the sermons along with the other well-fed decurions and tradesmen of Clannaventa. Not for him:

Patricius' panting zeal remembered the caustic purity of Germanus and viewed with the eye of unforgiving youth those Britons whom he now saw as a people gelded of honor or pride, begging Rome to return because they were unable to fend for themselves, yet, like contrary children, wanting their own way in the bargain. Where was the glory in such a congregation of sheep? He would go where men were still benighted but vital, fallow but ripe for his seed. To Ireland.

This called for a tedious round of protocol. Certain prelates must be seen; he must have a sponsor. Patricius grated as harshly on clerics as he did on the laity. The bishop of Camulodunum listened politely and referred Pairicius west to the prelate of Caerleon, who neatly de- flected him with tactful letters of introduction to Bishop Meganius at Eburacum.

Thus, blind luck and God's intervention being per- haps two names for the same effect, Patricius came on a 35.

summer evening to the man who could shape his life for ; the best while it was still malleable.

Like Patricius, Cai meqq Owain was the son of a decurion 'and styled himself Caius Meganius to the clergy at home and abroad, with whom he was in continual touch. A mellow and worldly man well past fifty, Meganius knew to the core the spirit and needs of his people and those of the Church that had consecrated him bishop of Eburacum. If the needs were often at odds with the spirit, so were those in any marriage. The faith would endure, as would the people of his diocese, both strong enough to tolerate a few differences.

"Surely you will take a little more wine, my lord."

Smiling at Prince Marchudd, Meganius barely lifted his hand to the hovering servant, and the prince's silver goblet was refilled. Meganius savored both his wine and that exquisite moment when the heat of the afternoon was softened but not quite gone from the day. The sun was : well below the courtyard wall, light still sparkled on the water of the fountain, and the mournful falling cry of the peacocks punctuated the tranquil afternoon.