Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  In the next few minutes the two men discovered that although they spoke different dialects, they could make themselves understood well enough with the aid of sign language and Hwll, anxious to secure aid if he could, told this curious figure about his journey.

  “Are you alone?” Tep asked suspiciously.

  “I have a woman and two children,” Hwll told him.

  Slowly Tep lowered his aim.

  “Walk in front,” he instructed. “I will come and see.”

  By the end of the day, Tep had inspected the new arrivals and decided that it would be wise to make friends with the stranger from the north. He had a son who would one day need a woman; perhaps Hwll’s girl would do.

  When he understood that Hwll was looking for high ground, his calculating eyes lit up.

  “I know such a place,” he assured Hwll. “There are many valleys, full of game, but above them there is high ground,” he indicated a great height, “many days journey across.”

  “Where?” asked Hwll.

  Tep looked thoughtful. “It is far away,” he said finally, “and the journey is not easy; but I can guide you.” He paused. “Hunt with me first,” he suggested. “Then I will show you the way.”

  Although Hwll was not sure he could trust the little man, this was not an offer that any hunter could refuse; and indeed, after the endless days of loneliness, he was not sorry once again to have a companion.

  “I must reach the high ground before winter,” he said.

  “I promise that you shall,” Tep replied.

  Thus began the curious relationship between the hunter from the tundra and the hunter from the southern woods. Tep had four children. His first woman had died, so he had travelled to the west and stolen another from a band of hunters, when she was little more than a girl. Her name was Ulla and two of the children were hers. She was a round-faced creature with large brown eyes that wore a perpetually frightened look, and a scrawny body. The children all resembled their father, running swiftly through the woods on their long-toed feet and catching small animals with a ferocious dexterity that was frightening.

  It was Tep’s intention, by whatever means, to keep Hwll and his family with him until he had reached an understanding that, at the least, he should have the little girl for one of his sons. But, disingenuous though it was, his offer had advantages for the newcomers. While Hwll made his camp in the clearing, Tep showed him all the best fishing grounds. One day he also took him some miles west along the seashore and showed the northerner something he had never seen before: an oyster bed. Soon he had taught Hwll and his son how to dive for the oysters and prise them from the bed below with a knife; so adept did the boy become that they called him Otter, like the little animals who built their houses under the water, and the name stuck. That night both families feasted by the side of the lake on trout, mussels and the oysters which were swallowed whole, while the reflection of the stars shimmered on the clear water. Never had the family from the tundra eaten so well, and again Akun demanded:

  “Why not stay here?”

  But Hwll was anxious to go on and the next day he reminded Tep of his promise to show him the high ground; once more, however, the cunning little man temporised.

  “First, let us hunt deer together,” he insisted. “When we have killed a deer, then I will show you the high ground.”

  Hwll was reluctant this time to delay any further, but he finally agreed to this plan.

  “But after that, I must find the high ground before winter,” he insisted.

  “I promise,” Tep assured him. “We hunt at the full moon.”

  There was one other reason why Hwll agreed to delay. Skilful as he was in the tundra, he saw clearly that in these southern woods, Tep was a better hunter than he.

  In the open tundra, where game was so scarce, men hunted in groups and followed their prey for days, wearing it down before moving in for the kill. But Tep hunted alone, in woods where game was plentiful and varied. Roe deer, the swift wild horse, hare, grey partridge, swans and geese were all easy prey. More dangerous were the wild boar and brown bear; and fellow hunters were the polecat, the fox, the wolf, badger, stoat and weasel. Blackberries grew on the edge of the clearings, and juniper berries. There were edible fungi and grasses. All these animals and plants, the narrow-faced man with the bent back understood. He knew everything that was edible and where it could be found.

  His weapons were more varied too. In the tundra Hwll had carried a single spear and a bow and arrow. The ends were made of flint, carefully chipped to a razor-sharp serrated edge, and bound to the shaft with twine. But Tep’s weapons had many different heads, each one for a different animal. They were smoother, usually chisel-ended rather than pointed; his arrow heads fitted neatly into a notch in the shaft, and some of his spearheads had a socket into which the handle could fit snugly. The spear he used to catch fish had barbs so that the fish would not slip off; in particular Hwll admired the delicate, lancet-like arrows Tep used to kill the fox so that its fur remained undamaged.

  Nor were these the only differences. Tep’s clothes, unlike his, were close-fitting and sewn together with twine made from animal gut. He wore a single jerkin and loincloth in summer, and added long leggings in winter. But he could also dress himself as a fox, or a deer, wearing the animal’s head over his face to complete the camouflage. And Ulla made baskets of osier and beautifully carved bowls of wood superior to anything Akun could have attempted.

  For though he did not know it, Hwll was one of the last of his kind. All over the northern hemisphere, the Palaeolithic hunters, the wanderers of the tundra, were gradually being displaced as the warm forests crept northwards and more sophisticated Mesolithic forest hunters like Tep took over the land.

  Several days now passed as they waited for the full moon, and Hwll was careful to ensure that this time was put to good use. He learned from Tep how to make better weapons and how to set cunning traps in the woods, while Ulla showed Akun how to weave baskets. Something approaching friendship arose between the two families, and Hwll was bound to admit that, so far, meeting them had been to his advantage.

  Each night now, as they stood beside the river, or down at the lake, the two men watched the moon, the goddess of all hunters, grow larger and more splendid in the sky. For both men, it was this silver goddess whom they revered above other gods, for the animals altered their behaviour according to her seasons, and was it not by her light that men hunted in the long nights?

  The nights passed, then at last the moon became full and they knew the eve of their hunt had arrived; it was time now to prepare themselves and to perform the necessary rituals in honour of the goddess.

  On the shore beside the sheltered lake they built a fire. As the moon rose high over the lake in the night sky, its reflection gleamed at them in the waters.

  “She comes to drink,” said Tep, and as they watched the silver disc shimmering on the lake, it did indeed seem as though she had dived under its waters to drink.

  While their children built up the fire, the two men performed a curious but most important ritual. Over his head, Tep held the antlers of a deer killed the year before, and very slowly, he danced round the fire, imitating exactly the deer’s delicate walk, its pauses, the quick, nervous turn of the head as it looked about for signs of danger. While Tep so perfectly acted the part of the deer, so that the children gazed at him in wonder, Hwll stalked him round the fire, with infinite care, exactly as he would when the hunt began. With meticulous precision, the men rehearsed every detail of the hunt – how the deer would be found, how stalked, and finally how it would be shot and die, while the women and children watched each move intently. This ritual was not only the hunter’s way of instructing the children in the ways of the hunt. It was a rehearsal, a piece of magic performed in the sight of the moon goddess, to ensure that their desires were known to her and that they would be given a kill the next day.

  So brilliantly did Tep the hunter act his part, that it seemed as if he had,
in truth, become a deer, taking on the animal’s soul, and sacrificing himself to the will of the hunter. When they killed the next day, both men understood that the spirit of the chosen deer would already have been promised to and accepted by the moon, and its body to themselves: nothing was left to chance. After this ceremony was done, the little group fell very quiet, knowing that an important and ancient magic had taken place amongst them, while the fire crackled and the moon continued on her silent way across the sky.

  The following morning, a few miles up river, Hwll and Tep, accompanied by Tep’s older son, a wiry boy of ten, found and killed a magnificent stag. They ferried it back to Tep’s camp where the two women carefully skinned it, cut the meat away from the carcass and collected the blood in a leather pouch. They would feast that night, but even so, they would be able to keep back most of the meat, slicing it into strips and drying it in the sun. Meanwhile, shallow trays of seawater that had been left to evaporate now provided salt which they sprinkled over the meat to preserve it. Thanks to their care, the meat would last for weeks.

  Before the feast, however, a second and most important ceremony had still to be performed by the men. When the meat had been removed from the carcass, the women handed them the skin. Inside the skin they placed the deer’s heart, and then the men filled the remainder with stones and sewed the skin together again. Together Hwll and Tep lifted the deer across the dugout, and as the moon was rising, they paddled down stream towards the lake.

  It was already dark when they reached the lake’s placid waters, and the moon was high. Silently they pushed out to the middle and there they tipped the weighted carcass overboard. At once it sank to the bottom.

  “Now the moon may eat as well as drink,” said Hwll reverently, and they turned the dugout and paddled upstream to where their own feast was waiting.

  The meat of the deer was for them, but its form and its spirit belonged to the moon goddess who had given them good hunting.

  The two families ate well that night. The smell of the succulent roasting meat drifted across the river; and as Hwll looked at his children, now romping on the ground, and at his contented wife, he was tempted to move no further. But later in the night, when he buried himself in the warmth of Akun’s still magnificent body he vowed:

  “I’ll find the high ground – and we shall live well too.”

  The very next morning Tep approached Hwll solemnly. It was now time for him to redeem his promise and show them the way inland; Hwll wondered what trickery the wily hunter would try.

  Tep came straight to the point.

  “Your girl. I want her for my boy,” he stated. “If you give her, I will show you the way to the high ground.”

  Hwll considered. Tep had broken his word, but the bargain could be worse. At some stage the girl would have to be given to a man, and Tep’s son was a good hunter.

  “Take me there,” he countered, “and if it is as you say then he may have the girl.”

  After a suitable pause Tep agreed to this, and the next day both families began to follow the river upstream. Tep led them at a leisurely pace.

  It was good land. The fertile alluvial soil had been deposited by retreating waters, during millions of years, over a broad gravel plain. As they went along, Tep excelled himself in catching fish for them: trout, tasty eels, perch, pike and the delicately flavoured grayling. He seemed determined to please his new friends.

  Only one thing worried Hwll – they were moving at such a slow pace, covering only five miles a day. It was now late summer. Would they reach the place before winter set in? Repeatedly he questioned the little man.

  But whenever he heard this, Tep only grinned and shook his head.

  They travelled up river, at a snail’s pace, for five days. On the fifth day, they found themselves in a broad, shallow valley between gently sloping ridges. But these shelving hills were hardly high ground and Hwll was amazed therefore when Tep suddenly said to him:

  “This is the place where the five rivers meet.”

  And then Hwll saw it, directly ahead.

  It was as though a huge bowl, miles across, had been scooped out of the land to form a broad system of wood and marshland surrounded on east, west and north sides by ridges. Even from where they stood, he could see that these ridges were of considerable size, and rose steeply. In one place he could see a sharp escarpment; in another, a daunting slope. Just right of the centre of this arrangement of ridges, a single wooded hill pushed forward from the edge of the high ground into the bowl, and behind it he could see the entrance to one of several valleys that cut through the uplands.

  “There are three valleys,” Tep explained. “West, north and north east.” He pointed to the entrances of each. “That hill,” he indicated the one near the centre, “guards the entrance to the northern valley; that’s the smallest of the three. There’s a river coming out of each valley, except that the western valley has two rivers. They join near the valiey entrance.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Down there, all the rivers run together and then they make a big loop around the south west.”

  Hwll could see the big curve of the flowing waters near the centre of the bowl, before it flowed towards them.

  “The fifth river joins from the west, just upstream from here,” Tep concluded. “See, it’s like this:” and he put his left hand on the ground, palm upwards, with fingers and thumb outstretched. “Like a man’s hand. We’re here.” He indicated his wrist.

  The analogy was perfect.

  “And the high ground?” Hwll asked eagerly.

  “In front of you.” Tep indicated the huge ridges. “Once you climb the ridge to the north, it is all high ground. You can walk across it for days.”

  So it proved, when, two hours later, the two men stood at the top of the northern ridge some hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor. The panorama in every direction was magnificent, but what pleased Hwll was the view to the north. As far as the eye could see, a gigantic plateau of high, lightly wooded ground unfolded itself in ridge after ridge. Only the wind hissed quietly over this vast empty space. His broad face broke into a smile. At last: this was what he wanted. Even if the sea broke down the cliffs and swamped the low ground across which he had been travelling, it would never, he was sure, be able to break down this huge plateau. He was safe.

  He turned to look at the rivers in the marshy ground below, where the swans made their stately way upon the water.

  “This is where I will stay,” he said.

  He had found Sarum.

  For the great plateau he had reached was Salisbury Plain, the huge, empty tract of high ground where all the natural land roads in southern England meet. From this rolling upland, the long ridges spread out south-west, east and north including, far to the north, the part of the great Jurassic ridge down which he had begun his journey from the tundra. To the east also stretched another ridge he had already encountered: for he had stood upon its last section as he stared across the Straits of Dover, where the sea had cut through it like a knife. These and other ridges, extending hundreds of miles over the island, all ran down to the great central hub of Salisbury Plain.

  He looked at it with awe.

  “It’s like a sea,” he murmured. “The land folds like waves.”

  He would have been astonished to know how close to the truth this statement was. For the geology of Salisbury Plain is not unduly complicated. About sixty-five million years ago, the plain and most of southern Britain lay under water, and when subsequently the sea receded in the so-called Cretaceous period, a massive layer of chalk, sometimes hundreds of feet thick and forming the covering of the ridges, was laid over the older shelf of Jurassic limestone beneath. It is this chalk which forms the soil of the high ground. Recently however – that is to say in roughly the last two million years – the wind and water of a long succession of ice ages interspersed with warm spells produced a very thin, very delicate sediment of earth over the chalk; and it was in this rich and shallow earth that the tre
es he saw were growing. This was the land of Salisbury Plain.

  It was deserted. But Hwll was by no means the first hunter to encounter the place. Hunters had intermittently made the plateau and the valleys below their home for a period of a quarter of a million years, roaming over them, leaving small traces of their passing – arrowheads, the bones of animals – in the shifting soil, and then passing out of sight. They too had recognised the benefits of this little collection of valleys.

  “The place is as you said,” he remarked dryly to Tep. He knew now that the cunning little hunter had deliberately misled him in the first place by indicating that the place was hard to find. Obviously, he would easily have discovered it himself simply by walking up river. No wonder Tep had taken them north so slowly! But though he had been cheated, he had made a promise, and there was nothing to be gained by quarrelling with the only fellow hunter he had been able to find since he left the tundra.

  “When the time comes,” he said, meaning the moment when the girl reached puberty, “your son may come for her.” And with that, he turned back to the valley below.

  The following day, he investigated the area thoroughly, paying particular attention to the hill that protected the entrance to the northern valley. It rose steeply, jutting out from the edge of the high chalk ridge like a sentry post. From the top of the hill there was a magnificent view in every direction; and at the bottom, the ground sloped gently to the river.

  “I think this is the place,” he said to Akun, and she nodded. So on the south west side of the hill, which faced towards the place where the five rivers met, they built their shelter together. It lay in a small hollow with the hill behind it and a lip of ground in front, so that it had complete protection from the wind but, at the same time, an unsurpassed view. A tangle of stunted trees gave further cover.

  To Hwll’s surprise, Tep did not return to his own camp down river. The truth was that the little hunter was tired of living as an outcast, and glad to find someone who knew nothing of his bad reputation. So the day after Hwll selected his hill, Tep came to him.