that they still lived. He must go as soon as possible to the
Place of Power. Surely there he would find some answer,
some assurance that this thing had meaning for his people.
He heard the drone of voices about him and knew im-
patience. They occupied themselves only with the things of
MERLIN'S MIRROR 15
this earth, with death. Yet this night he was sure the
things of the sky had touched here and brought life, not
death. Truly this was the hour that legend promised, when
the Sky Lords would come again!
2.
It was thickly hot within the upper chamber. Brigitta,
between the waves of pain, longed to lay her swollen body
in the stream which ran from the Fortunate Spring. She
was dimly aware that most of the people in the fort vil-
lage had been gone before sunup, out into the fields to cel-
ebrate the Feast of Lughnasa when the harvest fell to the
sickle. Julia, who had been her mother's nurse, sat pa-
tiently beside her, dipping a cloth into a basin of tepid
water, using that to wipe the dripping salt-sweat from the
girl's face. There was a brazier in the far comer and from
that came the scent of burning herbs, strong enough to
make Brigitta cough and gasp when some trick of the
breeze blew it in her direction. They had opened all the
doors within the house, untied all knots, done what they
might to make this birth an easy one. But, Brigitta
thought dully, it was not easy. How could it be easy for a
mortal woman to bear the son of a god?
The past monthsўhow strangely they had eyed her. It
was only Lugaid's prophecy which had kept the kin from
laying black shame on her and so on the House of Nyren.
There had been times when she would have willingly taken
her own sharp dagger and cut from her living body this
thing some strange force had, bred in her. It was very hard
now to remember the golden happiness of her dream,
though Lugaid had assured her that it had actually been
no dream, but that one of the Sky Sons had come to claim
her.
Now she knew nothing but the pain, and between the
onset of that, the fear that the next would be worse and
worse. Yet she set her teeth and would not cry out. If one
bore a god's son one did not wail him into the world.
