They gave him uisge to tell of himself. Funny in a sad way. What these folk took for magic was only Cru's sense of reality. Then they grew used to him and contemptuous, a monkey on a chain, a dancing bear, more annoyance than amusement with his begging. Sober he wouldn't clown for them, but drunk he was a lark, a sport. They fed him cheap uisge to see him whirl about, trying to sing in his heathen gibberish, fall over chairs. There was always a bruise or scab on his face from where someone cuffed him or he fell down drunk. Oh, it was fine to watch him. A body could die laughing. A man could die . . .

"Did live by making a laugh," Cru rasped in Dorelei's arms. "And did need the uisge."

Needed it to dull the fact that he was lost, gone from Dorelei, gone from fhain and no place in this loud, ugly tallfolk world still enough to hear Mother. Like Padrec's tale of Satan, he'd fallen out of heaven into hell, no fire but noise, empty laughter, meaningless cruelty.

Dorelei asked again and again through it, "Why did thee nae come home'1 Did forgive thee ten times over."

Cru only looked away then, and the sound he made was weak as the rest of him. "Forgive?"

387.

It-

He heard that the fhains were rading all together under Dorelei and Padrec, He was proud of them but would not stain their triumph with the shadow of Judas, - as Dorelei named him. He drifted farther west. On a day when his head was aching but clear, he heard of the Coritani war and that the fine young men of Prydn rode ahead under Padrec and Malgon.

The hand on Malgon's trembled visibly. "Was a braw pride to hear of thee, Mal. My own fhain brother at the head of tallfolk. Did make to join thee."

Malgon's eyes brimmed with awkward pity. "Was nae pride, Cru. All gods did turn from it."

No matter, Cru was going to join Padrec's horse and redeem himself. After the next drink, just one or two, a few to stop the sickness. He was unconscious when the Irish slavers came into the village, and he woke up in chains.

Cru lifted his hands as if they still bore the obscene weight. "Chains. Such sweet sound for so evil a thing.

Cha-ins."

Neither the slavers nor the other captives understood what chains did to one born to hilltops and far sight, never fettered. The first set of irons put on him were meant for tallfolk. Cru greased his ankles with the slop he was fed, slipped free, and ran. They rode him down.

Once more he escaped, and once more they caught him through his own folly. He'd meant to keep running and got as far as the next village to Eburacum; didn't he need rood, and the wine-seller's stall close by? He needed a drink first, just one. So they caught him again. This time the slavers weighed a bird in the hand against a gaggle in the bush. They were tired of this; they'd take a cut price on the little bastard. Sidhe or not, they broke his legs to slow him down. Some of them were against it. Faerie didn't forget a kindness and for sure not an injury. No good would come of it.

Padrec slapped his knee. "That's why they made off so neat. Because of thee, what fhain would do in vengeance."

Dorelei nodded grimly, knowing the value of reputa- tion. "Would 1 not."

Then Cru said a strange thing none of them under- stood. "A did nae do this to me. Were only the hands.

388 This . . ." He trailed off. busying himself with Crulegh, pretending to nuzzle the bairn to hide his eyes. "Did deserve it."

"Thy legs be nae well healed, but enough," Padrec said. "Why dost cling to these sticks?"

Cru looked away.

"Why?"

"I need them," he said. He didn't want to talk about it. He had the spirit of a whipped dog. Cru would not waik without the crutches and little with them. They weren't free of trouble yet. All of them knew where they went and what would be needed. A husband who had to be lifted to horse and down tike a child?

They begged him by all he meant to them, all he loved. "Try," Malgon pleaded. "Try, Cruaddan. Nae, an thee will walk unaided to my braw army horse, a's thine.

And I will walk until can borrow more."

"Try," Dorelei held him. "For me. For Crulegh, thy own wealth."

"What difference?" Cru was strangely remote. "Did say a was Padrec's."

"Never. Did never, Cru."

"Oh, nae word for word, but-"

"Husband, thee must walk."

"Nae, leave off," he lashed out suddenly. "Leave me be. Canraof."

Dorelei looked up at the sun. So much time they could wait and no more. Two years ago she could not have left him. Now such a thing would be conceivable in her necessity, and more than that. "Think thyself the only fallen one? Thee dost nae know, Cru. I tell thee, try.

Walk!"

Cru only rolled over on his side, sobbing with a greater loss than his legs. "Was so proud to be first husband to thee. And then Padrec came."

"Oh, Cru." There was pity in her voice, but it was thinning. "What it be that makes a man, thee's gone dry oft. A gern can nae ride with weak husband." Dorelei rose from his prostrate misery, calling to the others. "Better we never found Cru. Can nae weep with him. We go."

Cru turned to her, unbelieving. Go widiout him? "Wife.

Please."

f .

389.

"Better we never found you." She tore Crulegh out of his arms and left him lying in the pool of his midday shadow between the miserable crutches. "Come. Will leave him."

Malgon refused flatly. "Will not."

"MaTgon, thy gern speaks."

"I know what Mal says," Padrec spoke up. "Have left too many."

Dorelei's expression was strange; looking at her, Padrec would call it terminal. "Be a's only chance, Padrec. Would speak to thee alone."

Apart from the others and the desolate Cru, Dorelei showed him her desperation. "Padrec, did never take thee into me once, love thee once that I did nae know 1 held a man of magic, a king. Asjesu. Do need thy magic again."

"You need Cru."

"Truly. From the first days." She touched his chest.

"Here. As you need thy God, and neither of us will be filled without that."

"I know, Dorelei."

"Then let one love help another. I beg it, Padrec."