Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  What was it about that lilting melody that stirred her so deeply? Feelings, passions she had only half dreamed of, never known how to name, seemed to be spoken of in the haunting words.

  “Aie,” she murmured, “it is beautiful.”

  Sleep pretty one, sleep

  Dreams of the forest will come to you;

  Sleep pretty one, sleep

  Hear the voice of the birds in the waves;

  Let the birds sing you a lullaby

  Sleep, baby, sleep on the waves.

  His face was so strong, his body, she knew, so hard. But his faraway eyes and his voice were so gentle. Katesh rocked back and forth to the song and wondered what it meant, this strange and wonderful feeling that stirred her.

  Later that night, taking little Noo-ma-ti who was fast asleep, she slipped away from the circle and returned alone to the little hut; after she had put the child in his little cradle, she sat outside in the warm night, and gazed at the stars.

  The song haunted her, and so did the riverman.

  A little later she thought she heard the soft sound of his paddling in the river below, and she strained her eyes to pick out his canoe in the darkness; but she could not.

  Then she saw him. He came softly up the path, making no sound, his tall lean form moving like a great cat.

  And as he drew close, she forgot her husband, her child, everything as instinctively she rose to meet him.

  His voice came softly through the shadows:

  “Did you know I would come?”

  Her mouth open, her eyes half closed, with a gasp she felt herself in his strong arms, pressed against him.

  “The lullaby was for you,” he whispered.

  She felt his careful hands begin to take the covering from her shoulders, and his mouth descended on hers. Instinctively, they moved together into the hut.

  Nooma the mason had been away at the sarsen site for a month, but at last, on a warm day in the late summer he set out to walk over the high ground to Sarum. He had planned to leave by early afternoon to reach his home by dusk.

  But there was much to do that day and it was already late afternoon when the sturdy little mason set out to walk home to his wife. On the way, he rested twice. Once, at dusk, he heard a wolf’s cry, but he ignored it.

  Night had fallen long before he reached the ridge above the valley and a few stars were visible through the thin clouds. The moon had not yet risen. A light dew had already fallen on the turf. On the high ground above, which only the sheep inhabited, there was the faint, tangy smell of the sheep droppings; but as he began to descend from the ridge, another welcome smell greeted him: the scent of woodsmoke hanging in the air over the hut below. Although the mason was tired from his long walk, his heart began to beat faster as he thought of his wife in the valley below. With a new burst of energy, he wen t down the path, and as he did so he decided to shout her name: “Katesh,” so that it echoed across the valley. Immediately, several dogs from nearby farmsteads began to bark and Nooma grinned.

  “Katesh!” he shouted again, “Nooma is back!” Chuckling to himself at the din he had created, he hurried down the path.

  From a turn in the path he could see the hut. It lay about three hundred paces away and he could make out its shadow clearly. There was a small fire burning in front of it. Immediately above and below the ground had been cleared, but to the right of the hut were the trees of a little coppice. Further along the valley, a dog was still barking; but otherwise, everything was silent. “Katesh!” he bellowed happily once again.

  At that moment he saw it. A figure, he was almost certain, slipped stealthily out of the little hut, moved past the fire, and went quickly across into the shadow of the trees. He stopped, peered into the darkness and blinked. Surely he must have been mistaken. And yet he could have sworn that he had seen a tall and familiar figure there – familiar not only by its shape, but because of that particular, long-toed, loping walk which he knew so well belonged only to Tark the riverman.

  His heart was suddenly beating wildly. He bustled down the path and rushed breathlessly in through the doorway of the hut.

  Katesh had just taken Tark in her arms when she heard her husband’s call, and in an instant the spell of the moment was broken.

  “Go,” she whispered desperately, “Go!”

  What had she done? With a rush of guilt she pulled herself together. How could she so nearly have betrayed her little husband?

  As his moonlike face appeared in the doorway she rose to greet him with a smile as he looked about him in angry suspicion.

  “Who was here?” he cried, staring at her.

  “No one,” she lied, praying that he would believe her.

  “I thought I saw someone.”

  She shook her head.

  But Nooma turned, and bustled away towards the woods.

  Dluc the High Priest had no doubt that Krona had been driven insane by grief. The priest could hardly blame him. Nor, when he remembered the room full of blood had he any power to comfort him. He could only hope that Krona would recover himself. For at present, he was obviously mad.

  Even so, on that fatal day, when Raka lay dead, Krona’s first words had taken him completely by surprise.

  “The moon goddess watches over hunters, doesn’t she?”

  Dluc stared at him. Every child knew that the sun gave seedtime and harvest and that the moon goddess watched over hunting, as she had always done. For the moment he did not know how to respond.

  “You are a priest,” he cried. “Answer.”

  “She does,” Dluc replied.

  “And she also watches over the houses of the dead?”

  “Of course.” The tombs of the ancestors on the high ground were also under her special protection.

  He nodded slowly, then indicated the walls of the room.

  “This,” he said bitterly, “is the house of the dead.”

  The priest was silent. What could he say?

  “You priests,” he went on, “you begin your prayers: ‘Sun, giver of life.’” Suddenly he pounded his fist into his hand. “But to Krona, the sun gives nothing but death,” he screamed.

  Dluc tried to interrupt him, but he took no notice. His eyes were blazing with anger and he began to rave.

  “Krona is given death: he accepts it! We shall not worship the sun at our henge any more. We’ll worship the moon and her alone. Sarum shall no longer be called the Fortunate. It shall be called: the Place of Death!”

  The priest began to protest at this blasphemy; but Krona did not hear him.

  “We shall sacrifice to the sun god no more,” he shouted. “The sun is dead in Sarum. Each month you shall sacrifice to the moon goddess, and to her only. And your new henge – that too shall be to honour her.”

  After this he fell silent for a time. Dluc, thinking that perhaps his grief had now made him unconscious, rose to leave. But his voice rasped out, cutting through the shadows.

  “Where is Omnic?”

  “At the house of the priests.”

  “He brought the girl from Ireland. He said she would give me sons.” He paused and Dluc wondered what direction his thoughts would take next. When he continued, his voice was almost a groan. “He lied: and he is a traitor.”

  “You are mad,” Dluc cried.

  Again, he ignored him.

  “Omnic must die,” he said.

  This was worse than madness: it was sacrilege.

  “He is a priest,” Dluc blazed. “His body is sacred.” But he could see that Krona’s eyes were staring into space and that the chief no longer heard him. He left.

  He could not believe that even Krona in his madness would dare to lay hands on one of the priests of Stonehenge; but he took no chances, and that very night he had the faithful priest taken along the river to the west and hidden in the woods a day’s journey from Sarum. It was as well that he did: the next day Krona’s men came to the henge looking for Omnic and when they found that he had gone they reported back to Krona that he m
ust have been hidden. Krona sent for the High Priest at once.

  “You have hidden Omnic,” he shouted.

  Dluc said nothing. He saw that Krona was little changed from the previous day except that now he looked at him with suspicion and fear, and it made him sad.

  “So you desert me too?” he muttered.

  “No,” Dluc replied. “But I will not desert the gods.”

  He shook his head.

  “They have deserted me. Bring me Omnic.”

  “No.”

  He began to curse, but Dluc left him and the next day, he sent the worthy young priest to a temple far away in the mountains of Wales where he would be safe.

  There were times during the next five years, when Dluc wondered if Krona would try to kill him too.

  For now at Sarum a reign of terror began. The darkness of Krona’s spirit descended on the entire territory like a terrible blight. Word of events there had soon travelled all over the island and beyond, and before long, even the visiting merchants would not venture up the river from the harbour.

  “Sarum is a place for the dead,” they said.

  And so it seemed.

  A month after the tragedy of Raka, old Ina died, and from then on there was no one who could alter Krona’s moods. He was silent and morose; he withdrew his spirit and soon retired completely into his house. For months at a time he would be invisible to all but his closest servants; and yet in his seclusion he was all the more terrible.

  Not only did his anger, and his passion for the moon goddess grow obsessive, but he became suspicious. The people of Sarum were terrified.

  For his servants were everywhere. The workers in the fields, the traders at the port, the farmers who owed him tribute – and even the priests in the temple – all were watched. His spies were endlessly inquisitive and reported to him each day.

  Those were the years when it became common to hear a farmer say to his wife:

  “Be careful what you say: Krona is listening.”

  During this time, Krona forbade any public celebration of the festivals of the sun god: the great feasts at the solstices and equinoxes ceased. Instead, rites were performed each month when the moon was full, followed by dances and feasts. Whenever Dluc protested at this reversal of the natural order Krona would shout at him furiously.

  “If you do not honour the moon goddess,” he would cry, “then I will stop the building of the henge.”

  Yet despite these terrors, Dluc remained calm.

  “Be patient,” he told his priests. “The building of the henge must continue. These terrible times will pass and the will of the gods will be made clear.”

  He also gave orders that the ceremonies to honour the sun god should continue in secret; and often he prayed to him:

  “Give me strength, Sun, in this time of darkness; guide my hand.”

  But it was the sacrifices which were sickening.

  In his quest for an heir, Krona no longer asked for help from the priests, but he developed his own system, which he claimed was dictated by the moon goddess.

  Once every three months, his servants would stalk from farm to farm, looking for young girls. When they found one to their liking they would seize her and take her to Krona. At first the farmers were hopeful that this was an honour which might bring riches to their family. They soon learned better. The girls were forced to be at Krona’s side day and night, ministering to his every need. Dluc would see them when he had business at the chiefs house: wide-eyed, frightened, cooped up like animals with the ageing tyrant; and if ever he was not with them himself, they were watched by his servants. He would keep them like this for three months. At the end of that time, the girl was watched with particular care, and if she still menstruated, then Krona would give her to the temple and order the priests to sacrifice her to the moon goddess. Three months was all the time he gave them to get pregnant, never more.

  The first time it happened, Dluc refused to perform such a monstrous rite. Krona grew furious.

  “Give her to the moon goddess,” he raved. “She accepts my sacrifices though the sun does not!” When the priest still tried to argue, he swore: “Then I will kill her myself.” And again he threatened: “If you will not perform my sacrifice. I will stop the work on the henge.”

  Sometimes, after this, he would be calmer, put out his hand and take Dluc by the arm. “Sarum must have an heir,” he would remind him urgently. “Time is passing.” And Dluc would shake his head, for he had no solution to offer.

  In the end, the High Priest always did as Krona asked. It seemed to him that the girls would be better sacrificed than murdered by Krona: for those sacrificed to the gods were received by them at once after death, and walked with the spirits on the sacred grounds.

  Every three months a new girl was sacrificed on the altar, while the henge slowly grew, and Krona’s servants would go out to find another victim for his bed. The farmers began to hide their daughters to save them from this fate, but such attempts were useless. Krona’s servants were cunning, their spies were everywhere; nothing and no one could escape them. And often they would come to the chosen house at night, dragging the girl from her couch, slashing and hacking at her parents with their terrible stone axes if they dared to protest.

  As for Krona, it seemed to Dluc that he became more than ever like a bird of prey. Physically he did not deteriorate. Indeed, apart from the fact that his hair was grey, he looked as fit as he had been in years. But he was, in a way, no longer a man, so hardened had he become by this appalling way of life. He cast off each girl as casually as if she had been one of his cattle to be slaughtered.

  When the red harvest moon appeared, no one at Sarum rejoiced any more, as they used to do.

  “See,” people whispered, “Krona has filled the moon with blood.”

  None of Krona’s girls conceived. The priests sacrificed nineteen of them.

  Krona knew, for nothing was hidden from him, that the priests still performed secret rites to the sun god. Many times he summoned the High Priest to him and raged:

  “You make the moon goddess angry!” And each time that another girl failed to conceive he shouted: “This is all your fault.” Several times he became so angry that Dluc feared for his life, but even in his rage Krona hesitated to strike down the High Priest. And it occurred to Dluc that perhaps even in his madness, the chief was still secretly afraid of the sun god.

  The work on the new Stonehenge went on. But with what a change! The men no longer sang hymns as they dragged the sarsens over the chalk ridges: they were silent and sullen; even Nooma’s masons had to be watched carefully.

  “Sarum is cursed,” they said. “What’s the use of building a new temple?”

  And sometimes the priests had to whip the labourers to make them approach the sacred grounds at all.

  Somehow faithful Nooma, his solemn face serene, his little hands always busy, led the masons and kept them all at work. But despite the beauty of the new building, which was already become apparent, it was often a long and bitter task, and sometimes when he was alone in the henge at night, the High Priest would cry out into the sky:

  “Give me a sign, Sun and Moon – give me some sign, at least, that we are doing your will.”

  Nearly five years of Krona’s madness had passed when Dluc sacrificed the nineteenth of his luckless victims. She was little more than a child – a dark haired, dark eyed, creature with a pretty little red mouth. Her terror when she was dragged from her parent’s hut to the house on the hill was heart rending. Dluc had seen her with Krona twice in the three months she was allotted to give him an heir and watched her pathetic attempts to please him, which the chief accepted with a coldness that was terrible. He knew that it was said that a woman who is frightened is more likely to conceive; but in the case of Krona’s women, it seemed to make no difference. When Dluc slit her throat, her wild, child’s eyes gazed up at him as though to ask: “Why?”

  And to that question the High Priest knew that he had no answer.
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  When Katesh looked back, she could no longer say exactly when her painful love had begun. Was it on that first day when he had paddled the canoe that took her with her husband to her new home in the valley? She remembered that he had quietly hummed as they went along. Had he looked at her?

  But no, she was sure it was not then.

  Was it one of the times when she had seen his tall, handsome figure hovering over the little mason as they discussed the building of the henge? Or when once she had seen him throw back his powerful head to laugh, and she had noticed the shape of his mouth, turned up to the sun? Was it one of these times?

  She did not think so.

  Surely then it was the time when he had sung, after the naming of Noo-ma-ti, when his voice had seemed to caress the circle of people round the fire and when, as Nooma’s head had fallen sleepily on her shoulder, she had found herself looking straight into his eyes, so clear and understanding.

  Yet she did not think it was even then, nor when he had rescued her baby in the river.

  No, it was that night after the harvest when, though they had hardly looked at each other all evening, she had known that he would come to her.

  And since then – it seemed to her that once the process of her passion had begun, nothing in the world could be more beautiful than her pain.

  Nooma had been suspicious, that first night. But he had found no trace of Tark in the woods, nor of his canoe in the river; and finally he had decided that, after all, he must have been mistaken.

  In the months that followed, as Sarum plunged into gloom after the death of Raka, she had done all she could to make the mason happy and she had been careful to avoid Tark. Several times she went with Nooma to the henge and admired the work as the sarsens continued to rise.

  And indeed it was a remarkable sight. For already, a quarter of the arches were up, and the mason moved briskly about in the dust, directing everything.

  “My husband is a great man,” she said to him on these occasions, and walked obediently behind him to let the labourers know that the mason was respected by his wife.

  The winter passed, and the spring. She looked after her husband and child and even believed for a time that she had forgotten Tark.