Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Since their arrival at the place where the rivers met, the high point of each year had been the time in late spring when he and Hwll, accompanied usually by hunters form other camps, had trekked across the high ground to find the bison who might appear briefly from the north west at that season. It was a thrilling and dangerous exercise and they often followed the lumbering beasts for days at a time. It was a form of hunting closer to that which Hwll had practised in the tundra but Tep, too, had excelled at it and his son showed promise of doing the same. It was not a form of hunting to be undertaken alone and Tep was anxious that he and his sons should not be excluded from ever joining in again.

  Hwll considered the request. He knew how bitter the blow was to the little hunter, but he did not want to restore him to the area.

  “You may camp here one month, every other year,” he decided finally. “Your sons may hunt if I send for them. But you may not visit our camp, and if you touch Akun again, I and the other hunters will kill you.”

  Tep had no doubt that Hwll could carry out this threat: he was respected by the other hunting families and, knowing the case, they would support him. He hung his head.

  “We shall speak of this no more,” Hwll concluded. “You can come for the bison in two years. I will send for you.”

  In this way the two men parted and Hwll prevented further bloodshed in the valley. Akun was angry that Tep had not been killed, but she had to accept Hwll’s wise decision.

  So began a new phase in the life of the wanderer and his little family. Hwll and his son now hunted alone in the valleys, except when the other families in the region joined them for the boar and bison hunts; and Tep returned to his life on the river as an outcast. Occasionally Akun would warn Hwll to expect trouble.

  “He or his sons will have to steal their women; they may kill for them,” she said, but Hwll was not concerned.

  “They will not dare attack any of the families in this region,” he replied, “for fear of revenge. If they do as you say, they will steal from far away, as Tep stole Ulla before.”

  In the second year after the incident, Tep reappeared with his family and camped by the river where he had lived before. His two sons, one a youth, the other a boy, were allowed by Hwll to accompany the other hunters when they tracked the bison, and at the kill received their share. Tep remained at his camp and kept out of sight. The family was subdued, conscious of their disgrace, and departed quietly at the appointed time.

  It was two years later that the problem of the outcast family was resolved, in an unexpected way.

  They had arrived in early spring, somewhat before the other hunters had gathered, and set up their camp as usual. As yet no bison had appeared, but already Hwll was busy tracking over the high ground, looking for signs of them.

  One morning he went out, taking with him Otter and Tep’s eldest son. He took a route almost due north across the wooded ridges but although he covered the ground swiftly, by midday they had found nothing. Accordingly, they cut across to the west a few miles and descended the valley to the river.

  “We’ll follow it down until we get back to camp,” Hwll announced. “Perhaps we’ll find something on the way.”

  The hunter and the two youths made their way carefully down river. The banks were wooded, but occasionally they came upon patches of marsh which they had to skirt, or upon clearings where lush grasses grew and where deer often came to drink and graze. The river was still in its spring spate and moved by swiftly and heavily on their right. For several hours they continued their slow journey, watching for signs; but neither down by the river, nor on the valley ridges above did they see any evidence of the bison.

  It was late afternoon, and the sun was already low over the ridge opposite when Hwll pulled up sharply and stared ahead in astonishment.

  Then he whispered a single word to himself:

  “Auroch.”

  Of all the animals on the island of Britain at that time, the most dangerous and the most highly prized by the hunters was the auroch. It was every hunter’s ambition to kill one but they were so rare that even to catch sight of the animal could be counted as good luck.

  Hwll had seen an auroch only once before, when he was a boy in the tundra; now only two hundred paces away stood a single beast grazing quietly by the river bank, in front of a small clump of trees.

  The auroch was the prince of beasts: it resembled a black bull, but was about twice the size, standing over six feet high at the shoulder. From nose to tail it was about ten feet long and weighed many tons; although cumbersome, it was almost unstoppable once it began to charge. The aurochs roamed in small groups of usually a dozen or less, and all the other animals feared them – as well they might: for beside one of these mastodons even a full grown bison looked puny.

  It was, above all, the horns of the auroch that were such a wonder. Hwll had never forgotten the time when he had seen one killed. The hunting party led by his father had taken half a day to wear it down, hurling spear after spear into the huge form. When finally, weary of the struggle, it had sunk to its knees and a brave young hunter had run forward and cut its throat, he too had rushed forward in the ecstasy of the moment to seize the horns – and found to his amazement that he could not reach across them. Even his father had only just been able to do so and Hwll still trembled when he thought of it.

  The auroch did not survive. Although small herds were to be found all over Europe in prehistoric times, it was too large and too fierce to be domesticated by man – and too clumsy to escape the hunters. Over the centuries its numbers shrank until it finally became extinct – or almost. For in the seventeenth century, in an obscure corner of Poland, a single auroch was found in a forest. No one knew how it came to be there, but there is written evidence from the time, given by reliable witnesses, that the huge beast did indeed exist. That was its last appearance. No example of this prehistoric species has ever been seen since.

  Motioning the two youths to remain where they were, Hwll began to move cautiously closer. The auroch was alone and had not picked up his scent. Keeping to the trees he crept forward further. Once, for a heart-stopping moment, it raised its head and stared straight towards him, and he froze; but then it lowered its gigantic horns again and continued to graze. It was a cow, not a bull, that had somehow become separated from the rest of the group, and though he watched for some time he could see no sign of its companions.

  The fact that it was a cow did not make the auroch less dangerous; at the first attack the animal was capable of charging any hunting party with devastating force. But if one could bring it down – what a prize!

  “Give me this auroch,” he prayed. “Moon Goddess, I have sacrificed to you many times; give me, once, the mighty auroch.”

  The sun was sinking fast and the auroch showed no sign that it intended to move. It would probably spend the night by the river and rejoin its group the following day. Taking careful note of the spot, he returned to the others and the three of them slipped away into the woods.

  He was tempted to attack the auroch there and then – anything rather than allow such a prize to escape! Excited though he was, however, he knew that it would be foolish to try to kill the huge beast alone; but what should he do? Darkness was about to fall and he was still far to the north of his own camp. The nearest camp where other hunters might be found was over twelve miles away through the woods.

  “We need help,” he said, “but where?”

  All three were silent; then Tep’s son spoke.

  “I can bring my father. His aim is still good.”

  Hwll considered the proposition. He was torn: on the one hand he had no wish to hunt with Tep again; on the other he desperately wanted the auroch. With Tep that made four hunters. But Tep had only one eye – could his aim still be good?

  “Tell him to meet me at the river before dawn,” he said finally. “We’ll have the auroch.”

  It was already after dusk when he came up the hill to the camp, and Akun could tell from his walk
that he was excited. When he squatted by the fire, she saw that his eyes were shining. Then, in a few words, and using dramatic gestures, he told her about the auroch.

  “Tep is ready,” he announced. “He will bring his older son and we shall hunt at dawn.”

  One man, one cripple and two boys. At once Akun was afraid. Her youngest child was still a baby, and she could not afford to lose her man to an auroch.

  “Go to the other camps,” she said. “Get a hunting party.”

  But Hwll shook his head.

  “No time. It will be gone by early morning.”

  “It’s madness,” she protested.

  “The auroch is big, but it’s slow,” he countered. “We can lame it, then follow until it grows weak. Wear it down.” It was the method of hunting used in the tundra and no one understood it better.

  But if they made even one mistake, they could just as easily be killed, and Akun looked at him in despair. She knew his obstinate nature, though – it had brought them to Sarum from the tundra; and so she only shook her head.

  “My son will say that his father killed the mighty auroch,” he said with pride.

  The little party was on the move before dawn. Tep and his son each carried a bow and two spears, as did Otter. Hwll brought spears and a heavy axe made of a broad flint head he had obtained from his quarry, fastened to a shaft of oak. The arrows would weaken the beast; but the spears with their long, deadly heads of sharpened flint would pierce the auroch’s strong hide and embed themselves deeply. Since the technique of the hunters would be to maim the auroch, it was important that the first spear should strike deep behind the shoulder, slowing the beast down and working its way in towards the heart. After the first assault, the hunters would follow it relentlessly, striking again and again, until the auroch was finally so exhausted that they could move in for the kill. Then Hwll would slit open its throat with his knife. It was an effective method, but it was essential that the first attack be successful: for if they failed to maim the beast, then it would either career away, or it would turn on them and destroy them. All four hunters knew they risked death that morning.

  With suppressed excitement, they made their way along the riverbank, in the early dawn when the birds had just begun the first, tentative sounds of their dawn chorus.

  “Let it still be there,” Hwll softly prayed, as he searched the darkness.

  The first grey light was appearing when they reached the place where the auroch had been the day before. As the earliest tinge of dawn lit the horizon, it was just possible to make out, about half a mile away, a dark shape by a bend in the river. His hand clenched on the handle of his axe.

  “It’s there,” he whispered.

  The hunt was conducted in silence. A faint wind was blowing from the south up the river. The four hunters fanned out, keeping up wind in the cover of the trees, or the clumps of reeds in the clearing.

  The sun rose over the ridge, breaking through the grey clouds. The auroch continued to graze, and the hunters remained invisible.

  The attack was sudden. In perfect unison, all four hunters rose and hurled their spears. They came from three sides, and were all within thirty feet of the auroch when they threw. It had been an expert piece of stalking.

  Hwll watched the auroch’s head jerk violently as it let out a bellow that echoed down the valley. And at the same instant, he knew the attack had failed.

  His own spear had been well aimed. It had struck behind the shoulder but it had failed to penetrate deeply. Otter’s had struck the auroch’s throat, but had not done much damage either. Both Tep and his son had missed completely. It was the worst possible combination: the animal was enraged but not badly hurt.

  The disaster took place in seconds.

  In a fury the auroch wheeled about, stamping its huge hoofs and searching for its attackers. It was Tep that the auroch saw: for he had come across the clearing with only the reeds for cover. The auroch put down its tremendous head, and charged. The cunning little hunter with the long toes had no chance. He faced death calmly, his hard, mean little face staring straight at the huge form rushing towards him. At the last moment, knowing that it was useless, he made a dart to one side, but the auroch’s great horns caught him and with a single burst of blood, Hwll saw his small body broken apart. Tossing the body high into the air, the auroch thundered forward towards the trees and a moment later he could hear the great beast stumbling about in the wood, snapping the spears off against the tree trunks. The hunters made no attempt to follow.

  Tep was dead: a sad little mess of flesh and blood, scarcely recognisable. Without a word, they carried him back to the camp and that evening they buried him on the high ground, under a small cairn of stones.

  The death of Tep left the little community with a new problem, and one that had to be solved quickly. Ulla was still of child-bearing age, and her family, except for her son, who was still a youth, had no protector. But there was no available man in the area. They could not be sent down river again alone.

  No words were spoken between Hwll and Akun on the subject but both of them knew what must happen.

  Two days after the death of Tep, Akun herself strode down the hill to the camp by the river and brought the family there up to her own camp on the hill. There, forty paces along the slope, they set to work to build a new shelter: it consisted of two parts, one for Ulla and one for her children.

  Ulla said nothing. It was hard to know whether she was frightened by the loss of her protector or glad that Tep, who had always bullied her, was gone. In any case, her new status was uncomplicated: she and her children were now under Hwll’s protection. Akun inspected the girl carefully while they built her new home. She was a stringy, unsatisfactory creature used to being treated as a workhorse by Tep. But she had survived, if nothing else, and Akun had no doubt that she would have more children.

  She explained the matter to Ulla simply and succinctly:

  “Hwll will be your man now; we shall both be his women. But I am the senior woman and you will obey me.”

  Ulla said nothing, but made a token nod of submission. For many years she had learned how to submit.

  It was Hwll who was most affected by the change. Akun had been his woman for many years and when he thought of a woman, it was she alone who came into his mind. Now all was to be changed and it gave him a profound sense of unease.

  While the two women prepared Ulla’s new home, the hunter went off alone. He was gone several days and when he returned, he said nothing about his absence, but moved quietly about the camp with a new look of satisfaction on his face.

  During his time away, he had wandered along the valley to the west. Some miles away he had often noticed an unusual slope above the river. There, instead of the usual chalk, the ground exposed a long rib of soft grey rock with a wonderful texture and colour, quite unlike anything else in that area. He had passed it many times and noticed the curious grey light it seemed to return when the sun struck it. The only stone that he had any use for was flint, and so he had passed by the grey stone without giving it much thought. But now, in this crisis in his life, a strange new idea had formed in his mind.

  At the rockface he had searched the ground for some time, picking up lumps of stone and discarding them, until finally, with a grunt of satisfaction, he found what he was looking for. It was a lump about the size of his fist, oval in shape and smooth to the touch. The stone was not hard, and settling down on his haunches beside an oak tree, he began to work it with a flint.

  That night he stayed by the grey rockface, and the next day he strode up to the high ground he loved. All the time he worked the stone, hardly pausing. Several times he washed it in a stream, and by the end of the second day he had begun to polish it. On the third day, his work was finished, and putting the stone in a pouch, he went back to the camp on the hill.

  The figure that he had so painstakingly carved was remarkable. It resembled a short, squat female torso and head. The face was indicated by a ridge for the no
se and three little holes for eyes and mouth. It was crude. And yet, taken as a whole it had an extraordinary beauty: for this primitive little sculpture was nothing less than Akun herself; the heavy, full breasts, the rounded, fertile stomach and hips, the big, muscular buttocks – it was the essence of his woman that the hunter had created, and he stroked the little figure lovingly.

  What had possessed him to carve in stone? He could not say. Something about the feel of it, the way it caught the light, the wonderful heaviness of it had taken his fancy. Perhaps the challenge of the thing. At all events, he was pleased with it. Akun was fertile, the mother of his children. She was everything that he knew about a woman; and the curious little figure, he felt sure, would bring him good fortune.

  The following day, taking the little stone figure with him, Hwll went to the hut where Ulla awaited him, and there he lay with her for seven days before returning to Akun. This practice he repeated, at different phases of the moon, all through that winter and the following spring. And in the autumn, Ulla produced a child: a handsome baby boy which, unlike its half brothers and sisters, did not have long toes.

  For seven more years Hwll continued this pattern of life, producing three more children. And always, each time he lay with Ulla, he took with him the little stone figure he had made.

  If Hwll was the father of the valley, there was never any doubt about who was the senior woman.

  Akun had not come so far, against her will, not to enjoy the advantages that were now due to her. In her high, sheltered camp near the top of the hill she would come out each day onto the little lip of ground that formed a sort of natural walk in front of it, and as she moved along the line of gnarled trees, it was the signal for the girls and younger women in the camp below to run up to her and do her bidding.

  She taught them – how to skin game, how best to trim the skins of every different animal, how to cook and preserve their meat. Sometimes she would lead all the women into the woods and direct them in their search for herbs and roots, moving about herself briskly, prodding the ground with a stick.