Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  When it came to raising the lintels – each weighing several tons and needing to be lifted twenty feet into the air – the labourers had at first been uncertain which was the best way to proceed.

  Nooma supplied the answer at once.

  “It’s easy,” he explained. “Just build a wooden scaffold under the lintel and raise it.” He showed then what he meant, using a pebble and some twigs. “We raise the stone with levers at one end and slip a wooden pole under. The same the other end. Then lay two more poles over them, crossways so that you have a square. Then you lever the stone up again over the crosspoles, exactly as before. And you do this again and again, securing the scaffolding underneath with ropes as you go.” His quick fingers arranged the twigs so that the workers saw the stone rise before their eyes. “When the scaffolding is as high as the uprights, we lever the lintel across into place.”

  It worked very well. Under Nooma’s direction, the scaffolding was built and the lintels slowly rose. By the festival of the solstice, two of the tallest trilithon arches at the centre of the henge were in place.

  They were awesome: and when the people saw them at the festival, there was a gasp of wonder.

  “The new temple will be the greatest ever built,” they said; and they were right.

  The harvest was the best in living memory; Krona now smiled as the High Priest had not seen him do for years; Raka grew big with child.

  “The sun god smiles on us at last,” Krona said to the priest, who nodded in agreement.

  And summer passed and early autumn came, before the blow fell.

  It was a warm, clear night in early autumn; the moon was in the thirteenth year of her cycle, with six years left before the great henge must be completed. Dluc and Krona were quietly conversing together in his house on the hill, and the High Priest was looking forward to his usual visit to the henge later that night, when suddenly a scream from another room brought both men hastily from their conference.

  Raka had gone into early labour; and as soon as Dluc looked at her, he knew that something was badly wrong.

  The rest of that night remained in his memory as a succession of blurred images: of Krona, distracted, cursing him; of his own, desperate prayers to the gods, and his awful conviction that they were useless; of Ina, as always, silent and strong, holding the poor girl in her arms; of the chief, ashen, leaving the room like a sleep-walker. But above all, it was the blood that he remembered. It seemed to be everywhere, as though a sacrifice had been messily performed. It covered the bed, the floor, even the walls. She had been dead, and so had the child before it left her body; it lay on the floor, a small, bloody, grey bundle of flesh, the death of all their hopes.

  Then, while Ina, shaking her head, gathered up the dead child, her women began to keen and moan over Raka’s body, scattering herbs as they did so. And he, too, had wept.

  He remembered the blood; and he remembered Krona’s face, when he went to him afterwards.

  The chief was sitting alone in an out-house in which only two candles were lit; but by their light the priest could see his face clearly. It was more terrible than any human face he had seen: for it was not angry, nor in despair: it was blank.

  When Dluc came towards him he stared as though he could see through him and, even before he spoke, the priest knew that he was mad.

  Another, though quite insignificant series of events had been taking place in the valley below, during that summer.

  It was by chance that Katesh had been standing by the riverbank below the hut one brilliant day in early summer when Tark the riverman had also chanced to bring Nooma the mason down the river from the henge to his home.

  The water was moving slowly, and the long green waterweeds caused tiny eddies and ripples which caught the sun so that, as she watched with her baby, the surface of the water seemed to dance with light.

  Katesh was contented that day. As she closed her eyes and let the warm sun play on her face, and then looked down at the chubby baby gurgling happily beside her, she felt a peacefulness she had not known for many months.

  She had followed her mother’s advice. She had put all other thoughts out of her mind and tried to make her strange little husband happy; and in a way she had been rewarded.

  For she loved her baby; as for her husband, if the other women sometimes smiled at his appearance, they were always quick to say:

  “But you are lucky Katesh: your husband is the greatest mason of them all.”

  She saw the canoe when it was still some distance away. Nooma had his back to her; Tark was paddling.

  As she saw the squat little form of her husband, his broad strong back leaning forward as he earnestly made some point to the riverman, and the tall, spare form of Tark, as he quietly listened and guided the canoe down the steam, she could not help noticing how curious the little mason looked beside the riverman. For an instant – no longer she thought than one of the flashes of sunlight upon the surface of the river – it seemed to her that the small form of Nooma was that of a stranger, while that of Tark . . . she could not say what; but she watched the canoe with fascination as his long arms gently lifted and dipped the paddle in the stream.

  When they came ashore, the little mason leapt on to the bank with a cry of joy, took his wife in his arms, and then lifted up his baby son and showed him to Tark, saying “Here’s a fine young mason,” before he led them all up the path to his hut.

  It was the first time that she had been near the riverman for some months. She had seen him pass in one of his boats from time to time though, and had seen him giving orders at the trading post. Her husband had often spoken highly of him too, and she had learned from the women that he had another reputation, which did not surprise her. She had been curious about him.

  But now she found that his presence disturbed her.

  Nooma, in search of something, had dived inside the hut, leaving her alone with him in the sunlight outside. As a good wife should, she offered him wheat cakes and drink and sat modestly on the ground while he ate, looking up at him only when he spoke to her the formal compliments that custom required. Even so, she felt herself blush.

  Tark the riverman looked down at the mason’s young wife. She was little more than a girl. And he understood at once everything that was passing in her mind. He smiled pleasantly at her, noting once again the points about her that had first made him tell Nooma that she was the best of the girls he had seen. She was indeed, with her dark eyes and creamy skin.

  Above all he felt sorry for her.

  “I did this poor girl no favour when I told the mason about her,” he thought. Had she ever known passion with this squat fellow who was now bustling around in his hut looking for some stone he had picked up that he wanted to show him? He doubted it. He felt sorry for her; but there was nothing he could do now.

  Just then, Nooma appeared triumphantly with his stone.

  “Look,” he exclaimed as he handed Tark the little figure of the ancient hunter’s woman; “isn’t it fine workmanship?” As Tark turned the little figure over in his long fingers, and felt the firm, voluptuous curves of it, he had to agree that the mason was right.

  “The carver loved his woman,” Nooma grinned, “as I love mine.” As Nooma put his arm round Katesh’s waist, Tark found that he was looking into her eyes.

  Katesh looked down at once. She had not meant to look at him. And for the rest of the time that Tark was there, she kept her eyes downcast.

  What was it about the tall figure that made her afraid she would blush if she looked at him again? Was it the memory of his rich voice and his far-away eyes when he had sung that night after Noo-ma-ti had been named? Was it something she had seen just then, as he paddled down the stream? Was it the fact that he was close to her now, that she knew he guessed the feelings that she had hardly even allowed herself to think?

  She thought she was glad when he left.

  “Isn’t he a fine fellow?” Nooma said enthusiastically, as Tark walked down to his boat.

&n
bsp; “He is too tall,” she replied.

  “Most women like him,” Nooma laughed.

  “I prefer my husband,” she said, and pulled him to her.

  Did she, after that day, go more often to the riverbank? She did not think she did.

  It was almost a month later that Tark pulled in to the bank one afternoon to exchange a few words with her. His boat was laden with goods that he was taking up from the harbour to the henge and politely she enquired:

  “Were you trading with merchants from over the sea?”

  He nodded. “They brought things from many lands.”

  Then he explained to her where each of the items in the boat came from: the rich cloths from the far south, the bronze knives from the north, the richly decorated belts from cunning artisans who lived in the east. She was impressed with this knowledge and the fact that he spoke of these distant places with such familiarity. Her shyness with him grew less.

  “Have you been to these places?” she asked.

  “Some, but not all,” he told her easily. Then, stepping out of the boat and sitting beside it on the riverbank, he gave her some account of the journeys he had made across the sea in the course of his trading, of the merchants he had met and the stories they had told him. No one had ever spoken to Katesh of such things before; she was entranced; and when he left her to continue on his way, she watched him thoughtfully until he disappeared around a bend in the river.

  Often, from that day, he would pause to speak a few words to her as he passed; and as time went by, she could not help contrasting the sense of power and ease which exuded from every movement he made, and the roving life he led, with the short, jerky movements of her husband who only bustled, like a beetle, from the sarsen site to the henge and back again. As the summer days passed, she would sit by the river with Noo-ma-ti and watch the elegant swans: and when one of them stretched its great neck and, with a beating of its wings, took off so easily from the water to soar into the air, she thought of the river-trader who so calmly crossed the seas.

  It was an early afternoon in mid-summer and Katesh and Noo-ma-ti were by the riverbank. Katesh had eaten some wheat cakes and fed the baby, and now he lay in her lap, his eyes closed. Katesh felt drowsy, and lifting the baby gently she placed him beside her on the ground, then stretched out herself, curling her arm round the child. The smell of the riverweed was good. The water made gentle, rippling sounds, as it flowed past below her feet. Lazily she turned her face towards the sun, which was directly above a clump of trees and closed her eyes.

  She woke with a start. The sun was still high, but had moved some way from its previous position. And the baby was gone.

  She looked to right and left but there was no sign of Noo-ma-ti. Quickly she inspected the riverbank. How far would the child have gone?

  Beginning now to fear the worst she started to run along the bank downstream, her eyes anxiously scanning the water. But she found nothing, and with a pounding heart, and a terrible, ice-cold mind, she thought: the baby is drowned, and I shall not even find him.

  Still scanning the water, she returned along the bank. Those long river weeds with their waving green tendrils could so easily drag a baby under the water and then conceal it. The pounding of her heart grew stronger as she approached the empty spot where she had been.

  Then she saw him.

  The baby was on the bank where he had crawled, only ten yards from the spot where she had fallen asleep. There was a small bush there and the child must have lain concealed behind it when she ran down river in her panic. But now, little Noo-ma-ti was sitting perilously on the edge of the bank, and as she watched, slowly, it seemed deliberately, he leaned forward and fell into the water. There was eddy in the current at that point, and at once, before Katesh could even move herself, it carried the baby which floated quietly, face downwards, out into the stream.

  She screamed. But there was nobody there. Then she threw herself into the river.

  As she frantically thrashed towards midstream, the river weeds caught her.

  They were so soft, yet so insistent. They wrapped themselves around her legs, holding her back, and seemed to wish to embrace her arms. It was as though she was in one of those dreams in which, despite her will, her body was forced into slow motion. The baby was already nearly level with her, out of reach and about to glide past. She shouted frantically.

  Tark’s canoe came round the bend of the river with a speed that was astonishing. He had heard the scream, and his long arms now made fast, powerful strokes with the paddle so that the light boat sped over the water. He saw everything at a glance; and as Katesh saw her baby drift past her, out of reach, the canoe rushed after it. As he came level with the child, Tark scooped it into his boat with a single gesture, and sent his canoe skimming to the bank. Moments later, having pressed the water out of the child and made sure that it was still breathing, he turned his attention to its mother, who was now struggling to get her legs disentangled from the weeds. He dived into the water and swam easily towards her with powerful strokes; in seconds, his strong arms were round her, and Katesh found herself supported and soon lifted out of the water on to the bank.

  As his long, dark body came dripping out of the river, she had just time to notice the dark hairs on his arms, and the drops of water that fell from his beard as he smiled before she half ran, half clambered along the bank to her baby.

  They went together up the path to the hut, and whilst she was inside wrapping the baby in a woollen shawl, Tark built up a fire in front of the hut and sat cheerfully in front of it to dry himself. He made her sit down opposite and eat. While she shivered from shock, he calmly sat watching her, the steam hissing from his leather jerkin, and when she tried to thank him, the riverman smiled down at her and laughed softly.

  “The river is dangerous, Katesh, like a woman. You never know what she will do next. So be careful of her.”

  He ran his hand through his long black hair and smoothed his beard. His black eyes, she saw, were watching her thoughtfully.

  When he had dried himself, he rose to go. Katesh rose too. As she put out her hand to thank him, he took it gently and held it. She looked up into his face.

  For the first time in her life she felt a rushing current of excitement pass through her whole body; it was more violent, more urgent than anything she had felt in her life before. She could not help herself; she trembled.

  Tark said nothing, but he knew. He moved closer. She felt her lips part on her upturned face, saw his head about to swoop down upon it.

  Then, to her surprise, his face looked instead to a point somewhere behind her, and, still holding her hand, he called in a friendly voice:

  “Nooma, you come at a good time. Your son has been swimming!” as the little mason approached his hut from the path.

  When, soon afterwards, Tark left them, Nooma turned to her and said:

  “You may not like Tark, but he has saved our son’s life. He is a good man.”

  Katesh herself was frightened by the effect that Tark now had upon her and she tried to put him out of her mind.

  Most of the time she was successful. She stayed away from the riverbank where she might see him, and the trader though he often passed, made no efforts to seek her out.

  The summer passed. Two months after the solstice, the priests ordered the harvesting to begin.

  The harvesting was completed quickly in the northern valley that year, and in the final days, Katesh went to help the family of a neighbouring farmer to get the last of his corn in. Nooma was away.

  The work was hard and she enjoyed it. She and the farmer’s wife took turns to sit in the shade with Noo-ma-ti and the children of the farmer who were too young to work with the adults in the field.

  By early evening, the last of the fields was cleared, and all the women went to the farmhouse to prepare a meal to celebrate the completion of their work. It was just as the sun was setting and the men were coming towards the fire that a happy shout came from below the farm to
wards the river, and a few moments later the farmer appeared, his face wreathed in smiles.

  “Look who I have found passing us on the river!” he cried. “He shall sing to us tonight.” And behind him came Tark.

  Before she could stop herself, she looked at him. She had not spoken to him since the incident in the river, and now that she saw him once again, the trembling sensation that had come over her then – and which she had afterwards told herself was caused by nothing more than the shock of the occasion – now came to her again more violently than even before. Fortunately, in the shadows, and with all eyes on the riverman, no one noticed.

  As the stars came out and the farmers sat round the fire, once again Tark led the singing. The men called for all kinds of songs: some bawdy, some recounting hunting feats. Once again, it was Tark who finally said softly:

  “And now a lullaby.”

  It was indeed a wonderful song that he loved to sing: lilting, mournful, yet soothing. And the words, Katesh thought, were so strange: for the song was more than a lullaby: it told the story of a forest long ago, full of great trees, and birds and animals; and how one day the gods tired of the noise of the forest and decided to send it to sleep: so they sent a great sea to cover it like a blanket. But although the forest slept under the sea, from time to time, the sounds of the animals living below the waters would be heard in the waves.

  Sleep baby sleep:

  The waters are over the forest

  Sleep, pretty one sleep:

  The birds are all under the sea.