Dorelei squirmed up to huddle her knees against her chest. "Be small to purpose. Have always been first chil- dren. Who else be given Rainbow-gift?"

"Who can say? But even Brigantes have a song about it."

She flatly disbelieved that. Brigantes?

"My father's folk."

Dubious but intrigued: "Say."

Why not? He was bored with matters cosmic, feeling drowsy and loved and sufficient. "Thy Rainbow song: thee hast the words wrong. Mark."

Padrec sang it softly to her. The phrase "Faerie gold"

Dorelei knew as "Prydn hoard" and sometimes just "Rainbow-gift," but undoubtedly the same song. She was astonished that something so much a part of Prydn should be familiarly used by tallfolk. "A did borrow't from us."

"Why not of both peoples? Did not say we all live in the same world? If you can't see the mole on your lovely back, there's always someone who can. Come here to me."

When Dorelei was lying against him, one slender leg warm between his, Padrec began to caress her back and hips. It was a sensual pleasure to her as well as relaxing.

319.

"Dost want me again?" she murmured.

For answer, he extended the stroking to her shoul- ders and between her thighs, moving his hand in long, soothing movements. "I want to be simple. Yes, I want you." Padrec smiled to himself, thinking of Meganius.

"Let's give the poor gods a rest."

Their loving was simplicity, more deep than passion- ate, a pleasure and a bonding between bodies that knew each other well enough to trust. Not joyful children now- older and full of shadows that neither expected the other to banish, and thoughts they could not share.

/ am not in their world and never will be, Dorelei knew silently, her mouth against Padrec's shoulder. What will I do now?

She wanted to be simple, too. She found it a relief sometimes to be alone with nothing to do but feed Crulegh.

To him she could pour out the worry in baby-prattle as he nestled against her.

"What shall thy mother do, Crulegh? Ask Mother for a new world like Mabh? Ai, bairn, kiss me and tell. Kiss me, Cru. . . ."

Cru, where are you gone? Tell me what to do.

To speed him toward sleep, Dorelei crooned the Rain- bow song to her son, the new words Padrec taught her.

Brigante or not, something in them felt right.

Padrec woke when the early winter light was filtering through the skin roof, and smelled porridge cooking. He paused to wash in the open space now rank with the smell of their animals, and then climbed into the common cham- ber, where Neniane had a bowl waiting for him. She worked over the food with her daughter dangling in the sling on her hip. Maigon and Guenloie were there, and a glance at the two of them, close and content, Bruidda tucked between them, told Padrec their differences were mended.

"Where be Dorelei and Crulegh?"

"Riding," Neniane said.

"Where?"

Neniane only shrugged. "Dost so often now." She settled in her place, lifted Morgana Mary to the front, and spooned porridge to the dark child. Her smail cat-face was

320 serene at such times. Neniane completely lacked the rest- lessness of her sister. She had none of Dorelei's complex- ity and was, very like, the happier for it

Padrec missed the boy this morning. He would have enjoyed playing with Crulegh, who'd taken his first wob- bly steps this last week before collapsing on his swaddled rump. Prydn young were tougher than tallfolk and walked earlier. Unlike other infants on the threshold of speech, they rarely prattled. They traveled a-sling with mothers who themselves were not garrulous, and many of their lessons were wordless. They cried or burbled like any infant but very quickly learned the stillness of their kind and touched more than they spoke.

Crulegh's first recognizable word was "nenna" for Neniane, then "puhrk" for Padrec, "Durry" for his mother.

Malgon he left for later and a nimbler tongue, and Guenloie he couldn't manage at all beyond "gwish," usually man- gled through a mouthful of porridge.

Holding him sometimes, Padrec was filled with a peace that went far to compensate for things lost or mislaid.

This small, palpable wonder was enough for the time, although Padrec worried, like any father, What sort of world will I leave you, and what place in it?

The question niggled at Malgon, too. "Do much won- der on't, Padrec," he confessed in private. Whatever they'd left behind in spring, they'd not found the way back.

Perhaps they never would, Matgon feared, caught forever in tallfolk time.

And Dorelei rode apart herself.

She dreamed the night before of the sea again, a round world-dish of sea, no land in sight. All her life she was used to dreams as the voice of Mother speaking to a

B-rn. But gerns must be able to understand the signs, and orelei was confused, her confidence gone. The sea-dream came back and back, while Prydn melted away from her, deserted her. Now visions came to men alike, as if sight were taken from Dorelei for being unworthy. The vision at Camlann . . . Bruidda said a thing was ended. Perhaps every ending was a beginning. But where?

She rode the narrow strip of beach below the cliffs, Crulegh straddled in front of her. From the day just past when her son bunched his untried legs under him like a 321.

new foal and stood for a wavering moment. Dorelei dis- carded the sling and held the boy before her on the pony to curve his soft bones to the animal's back from the start.

For his first years, he would walk, then run behind the pony. By his fifth year, Crulegh would be legged up to his own pony; by the sixth, his springy limbs would launch him unhelped, but it started here in the cold rain. If nothing else, she could give him this much of the heritage her foiTy disordered.

/ am not a girl anymore. Mother, but a woman with the marks of bearing on my belly, and a fool who can no longer hear your voice. Padrec and I are a braw pair, lost to his ^od and you alike. We have a word for faith and magic, no more. When the magic was with us, the word was not needed. I will go in the circle this Bei-tein, scatter the moonstones, and pray to you, but I will understand if you choose not to answer. Mabh tried your patience as well. Must I live to her years to hear you again?

When the rain slackened, Crulegh peeped From the folds of his mother's cloak. Dorelei bent her head to kiss the fuzzy crown of his head. The fuzz was lengthening and darkening into the gloss that would be his pride through life. She pointed to the clearing sky.

"See? Will be a good day. Lugh begins to smile."

She joggled Crulegh to make him laugh, proud that he took to the pony with no fear, as he should. The beach grew rocky here, hard even on a Prydn pony. Dorelei slid down with Cru. leading the animal.

Some distance beyond them, small and slender on a shelf of rock thrust out into the surf. an Atecotti woman in a sealskin cloak spread a net wide and tossed it into the white foam with a graceful motion, waiting, then hauling it in slowly. She was small and dark as Dorefei; one couldn't tell the two peoples apart but for fhain marks, which Atecoui never wore. Good folk; one could be neighbors with them without fear of betrayal.

"See, Cru. Rainbow."

The Atecotti woman looked up as she did, enjoying the wash of color across the sky and bending to the sea.

"Thee's heard Rainbow song enough, Crulegh. Come, sing with thy mother."

As she sang the last notes, the other woman straight-

322 Parke Godwn

ened up and called to Dorelei in the soft, liquid speech of her people. "Rainbow song?"

"Aye, friend. Thee knows't?"

The woman, a little older than Doretei, busied herself snatching fish from the net and flopping them into a large wicker basket. "Did hear it now and again. And of Dorelei Mabh of the iron magic."