The Stone Arrow

by Richard Herley

  On his arrival the hill had been in the possession of a group of natives, brigands who lived by raiding the villages in the region and pressing their inhabitants into labour in the mines. The brigands had built for themselves a kind of fort, levelling part of the summit.

  The Gehan force swiftly overwhelmed the fort and dealt with its occupants. Slaves were seized from the surrounding countryside and the building of the Trundle began. This was to be the heart of Valdoe, an impregnable fortress. Further levelling of the summit took place, forming a plateau of roughly oval shape, some fourteen acres in extent. A ditch nine feet deep was dug round the circumference, and inside the ditch was erected a burnt oak palisade twenty feet high, with elevated guard-towers at intervals of sixty or seventy yards. Two gates, at south-west and north-east, gave ingress and egress. A second ditch and palisade, with a single heavily fortified gate, enclosed three acres in the centre of the main enclosure, and here Brennis Gehan First (the first Gehan who ruled over the island country) established his residence and the barrack to house his personal guard.

  The main barracks were built in the outer enclosure, in two sections, one by each of the gatehouses. Other buildings and structures, including dwellings for craftsmen and overseers, storehouses, animal sheds, an armoury, two brothels, reservoirs for ten thousand gallons, dewponds, hawk mews, kennels, and a prison, were set out close inside the main palisade, leaving an open space and parade ground by the inner palisade. Quarters for slaves and miners were erected outside the defences.

  Meanwhile the hill itself was cleared of whatever timber remained, and strip-fields dug on the lower slopes. Roads to Eartham in the east, Bow Hill in the west, and Apuldram Harbour in the south, were pushed through to form the basis of a road system.

  Soon the investment of time and effort began to pay. A stream of trading vessels from the homelands docked at Apuldram, where a quay and worksheds were under construction. Ships from the home yards were paid for with exported flint of the best grade, manned with soldiers, and sent on slaving sorties to the Normandy coast, for local labour could no longer supply the ambitious programmes of road-building and mining. Freemen at home, dazzled by the tales of wealth and plenty, eagerly applied to the Gehans for permission to make the sea crossing, and within five years the slopes of Valdoe Hill supported the largest single community the island country had ever seen: there were soldiers, farmers, and friendly natives too, derived from those tribes which over the years had intermixed and provided petty traders or itinerant workmen wandering from village to village and harvest to harvest. At the age of forty-two the first Lord Brennis returned home, leaving his nephew in charge.

  The initial impetus did not continue. The second Lord Brennis had failed to inherit his uncle’s particular talents, and the rate at which Valdoe annexed new tracts of land became slower. A policy of exterminating the native nomad stock was allowed to fall into decline, and in consequence their numbers again built up in the densely wooded region north of the downs. Domination of the coastal villages was relaxed. The secondary forts at Butser, Harting, Whitehawk and elsewhere became weaker and in some cases were abandoned altogether, as were the small mines at Findon and Cissbury and Raven Hill.

  It was not until the advent of the fourth Lord Brennis that the Gehan attitude was reasserted. Now the mines were vastly extended, the secondary forts refurbished. The number of slaves was doubled, then trebled and quadrupled. Military and naval strengths were stepped up. French and Cornish raiders, who in the past had made heavy depredations among the slow-minded farmers of the coast, now met a different reception as their ships were seized and the crews enslaved. During this period certain coastal villages, such as Burh, were becoming more settled, and the fourth Flint Lord tried a system of direct extortion rather than troubling with trade, but this was soon given up: it was easier and more productive to control the slaves at Valdoe than the scattered population along the coast. To enforce the revised discipline, tough new recruits were brought from the homelands and trained, and with their help the boundaries of the Valdoe empire began once more to expand.

  Now the fourth Lord Brennis was dead. His son remained. At the age of twenty-nine, he had been in command for six years, in control of all the soldiers, the ships, the craftsmen and overseers, the slaves and miners, and in control of the Trundle, the unassailable fortress built by his ancestors on the top of Valdoe Hill.

  2

  The next day Tagart was put into the mines. He was given no chance to recover from his journey: on their arrival long after midnight, Fallott had informed Bewry’s overseer that it was Tagart who had struck and broken the neck of the boy, and the other slaves heard the news.

  The fertility of the mines – the richness and extent of their flint-seams – was influenced by Gauhm just as the fertility of her fields. Effigies of the Earth Mother in chalk, together with chalk phalli, were enshrined at the entrance to each shaft and in alcoves underground. Ladders went down from the surface to galleries which led off from the shafts at various levels and in various directions, up to seventy feet below ground. The slaves worked by the light of oil lamps, roughly hollowed from small lumps of chalk. To remove flint from the rock-face, they were issued with picks made from the antlers of red deer. The point of the pick was hammered into the chalk and the flint-bearing rock levered out and broken up, the rubble being pushed back with a shovel made from a cattle shoulder-blade lashed to a handle.

  The shafts and galleries, from two to six feet high, were shored up with oak planks and props. These frequently failed and collapses were common. When this happened no real attempt was made to rescue the trapped men, for they had been claimed by Gauhm and were regarded as her right, an offering, payment for the flints extracted from the soil. The dead were only slaves, easily replaced – especially if not too many had been lost. A shrine would be made at the entrance to the fallen tunnel, to remind Gauhm of the sacrifice that had been made.

  Throughout the mines, a system of ropes and leather bags brought the newly dug celts to the surface, where they were sorted by specialists, ready for transmission to the knappers’ and blade-makers’ workshops inside the Trundle. Here the raw flints, first split along lines of natural weakness to make two or more implements from each, were shaped by simple chipping, or, for axes and tools of a better grade, the flints were subjected to pressure-flaking: a highly skilled technique in which the pressure of a hand-held stone, precisely applied, forced away flakes of flint to leave a sharp and durable cutting edge. The blades were then ground down by rubbing on a slab of wetted sandstone. In this way an axe-head could be produced that was capable of felling a hundred trees before it dulled, and with which one man could clear fifty square yards of birch forest in under an hour.

  * * *

  Tagart did not see Segle, Bewry’s sister, until work finished that night. She was serving food in the slaves’ quarters, in the refectory, passing bowls of gruel from the ladlers to the man at the head of each bench. An inclined head, a pointed finger, and Tagart was brought to her attention.

  Tagart was on the verge of collapse, from lack of sleep, exhaustion, and from the punishment he had received on the walk and since his arrival. During the day, in the mines, he had been kicked and shoved and deprived of his lunch-bowl. Neither had he slept, for word had quickly reached the sleeping quarters that he had been responsible for Bewry’s death. Supervision there was less rigid than in the mines, and he soon learned that the overseers were prepared to ignore peccadilloes which if acted on might incite the majority of slaves to more general trouble. They had done nothing while he was being beaten up.

  During the day he could barely summon the strength to move. His partner, the man allotted to work beside him in the gallery, had been compelled to push Tagart up the ladders in order to get out himself.

  Together with the rest of the day-shift, some ninety men in all, they had been marched from the flint workings to the slaves’ quarters, a collection of tents and canopies enclosed by a wooden cage in the shad
ow of the south-west gatehouse. The quarters were partitioned into a refectory and a sleeping area, the sleeping area being enclosed by an inner cage with a roof of tattered skins on a grid of poles. The refectory, next to the kitchens, was formed by four canopies over eight long wooden tables flanked by benches. It had just been vacated by the outgoing night-shift: their dirty bowls still cluttered the tables.

  Tagart’s partner, Boak, was a heavily built, doleful man with black eyes, wide lips and nostrils, and an overlarge square chin showing under a sparse black beard. He was handing dirty bowls to Tagart, who in turn handed them to the next man, up the table to kitchen-slaves who took them to the ladlers. The long wooden ladles dipped again and again into the smoke-blackened clay cauldrons and emptied their steaming contents into the bowls, while other slaves, including the girl, distributed the filled bowls among the tables.

  “That’s the sister of the boy you say you did not kill,” Boak said.

  Tagart looked up. He saw the circle on the back of her tunic, just as Bewry had described. She turned from the cauldrons with two bowls. In cast of feature she resembled her brother; but where Bewry had been ordinary, she was delicate, and even now, begrimed and oppressed by her existence, Tagart could see that in the forest, clean and free, she would be very beautiful.

  “Pretty for a kitchen-slave,” Boak said. “It won’t be long before they move her to more important work.”

  “Like what?”

  Boak gave a cynical smile, showing yellow teeth in a weary face that had seen too many people degraded and destroyed.

  “She is not yet ready,” Tagart said.

  “Tell that to the brothel Trundleman.”

  “What is a brothel?”

  Boak explained. “Blean has an eye on her,” he said.

  “Who is Blean?”

  “You saw him today. In the lynx jacket. He wants her out of the kitchens. Come Crale Day he’ll have the first taste. When he’s finished with her, she’ll go into the Trundle. For the soldiers. Later for us.”

  With his baton the nearest overseer warned the two men to stop talking.

  Tagart was seated third from the end of the table. The dirty bowls were cleared. Full ones were being given out. Gradually each man was served. When Tagart’s turn came, he saw that the bowls were being brought by the girl.

  She paused at the head of the table, and for a moment stared at Tagart, a bowl in each hand, steam curling upwards. She gave one bowl to the first man, who passed it to the second, who passed it to Tagart. He slid it in front of Boak, whose meal it was.

  Segle stood holding the second bowl, the one destined for Tagart. All eyes were turned. The overseers watched. Everyone in the refectory knew who Tagart was, knew what Fallott had told the supervisor.

  Segle drew her arm back and with all her strength threw the bowl at Tagart’s face.

  The boiling gruel seared his face and neck; the bowl hit his temple. He sat motionless, gripping the edge of the table, his eyes downcast.

  There was a murmur of approval from the slaves. Three of the overseers stepped forward, and it ceased.

  The meal resumed in silence. Boak shared his gruel with Tagart, giving most of it away. At first Tagart protested when Boak offered him his bowl; but Boak from the corner of his eye noticed the overseer and by a quick lowering of his head warned Tagart to be quiet.

  After the gruel the kitchen-slaves came round with water and baskets of the coarse bread baked in the camp ovens. Segle came to the table once more and Tagart seized his chance. When she put down the baskets he lunged across the two men beside him and took hold of her wrist. She tried to pull away as if his touch were poison.

  “Listen to me,” he said, as she struggled at arm’s length. “Your brother died for you. Before Fallott killed him I made Bewry a promise.” Tagart noticed the overseer stepping forward, pulling out his baton. “I promised I would get you out.”

  “Hands off,” the overseer said, prodding the back of Tagart’s neck. “In two weeks she’ll be promoted. You might be lucky then – if you wait your turn.”

  Tagart released her. Segle drew away, nursing her wrist.

  “What were you saying to her?” Boak whispered.

  Tagart disregarded the question. “Why are they waiting two weeks? What happens then?”

  “In two weeks is Crale Day.”

  “What is that? A feast?”

  “The first day of Harvest. High Summer comes to an end. We get beer, some real food, and a visit to the Trundle. I told you she was too pretty for the kitchens.”

  * * *

  When the meal was over the miners were herded into the sleeping cage, moving in single file through the wicket while the overseers watched and counted heads. In the dim light of the oil lamps, Tagart shuffled behind Boak. He passed the overseer at the wicket.

  “Sleep well, nomad.”

  Inside the cage the smell of sweat and excrement was stifling, despite the fact that it had just been sluiced down and besomed by other slaves, cleaning up after the night-shift. Tagart, knowing that he could expect a repetition of his previous night’s treatment, tried to find a position in one corner.

  “Stay with me,” Boak urged him, stepping over those who had already staked places on the floor.

  They sat down, Tagart with his back to the bars.

  The enclosure was full. The overseers shut and secured the gate, and the miners were locked in till mid morning when the night-shift would return to take their place. For a while longer the glimmer of the lamps lingered on the dull leather awnings, the bars of the cage, the limbs and bodies and heads of those within, and then the overseers withdrew, taking the lamps with them.

  Boak formed his words distinctly, so that all could hear.

  “Any who strikes Tagart will have to strike me too. He’s had enough.”

  “He killed Segle’s brother,” came a voice on their left.

  “For that we have an overseer’s word. Tagart says he didn’t do it. I choose to believe him.”

  “And if we do not?”

  “Then you are insulting me and I must act accordingly.”

  The others objected, but did nothing to approach. Tagart remained unharmed.

  “I am grateful to you,” he told Boak.

  “Don’t be. Like it or not I’ve got you as a partner. If the roof falls in tomorrow I depend on you to pull me out. Whether you killed Bewry or not, I don’t care. My only interest is in a partner who is strong and well.”

  “That I understand. But for my sake I tell you again: Fallott killed the boy. He hit him in a fit of rage and broke his neck. Fallott can blame me because a slave’s word here is worthless.”

  “I have only heard of this Fallott,” Boak said. “You may even be telling the truth. That’s how I came to be here myself – a walking team caught me. They took me from the fields while no one saw.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A long time. Years. I cannot remember how many. Some have been here all their lives.”

  “Do you ever think of escape?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “It’s impossible. You will learn.”

  “Has it been done?”

  “Once a man was brought back. They said he’d got away. A nomad, like you. They made us watch what they did to him. If you’d seen it you would not be asking these questions.”

  Tagart lowered his voice still further. “You’ve given up all hope, then.”

  Boak did not answer at once. “Life is sweet,” he said. “Even for a worm.”

  “Not at Valdoe.”

  “Even at Valdoe.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “I would rather be dead.”

  “You are young and know nothing.”

  “I know that I must get out.”

  “Those men in armour today, did you take them for ghosts?”

  “Not ghosts. Nor are they gods. They are soldiers, that’s all. Cut
a soldier’s throat and he bleeds to death like anyone else.”

  “That is what the other nomad thought, the one they brought back.”

  * * *

  In the morning the slaves were counted out of the cage, fed, and taken downhill to the mines. The older men, or those who had found favour with the guards, were given light work such as rubble-clearing, hauling up the leather bags of flints, fetching and carrying water and food. Others were formed into details to replenish the heaps of struts and planks used for shoring and shuttering below ground. The rest of the slaves were counted down the ladders and sent into the galleries.

  Tagart and Boak and two more descended the creaking ladders to one of the deep seams off a minor shaft. The first man down carried a light, a flame in a chalk lamp which served to do no more than throw confusing shadows. His partner carried a bundle of fifteen or twenty deer-horn picks. Boak wore a leather pouch with supplies of lamp fat, hammers, and a water-bag, while Tagart drew down the ropes which would be used to bring out the flints.

  As they went deeper the air became cooler. The chalk, brown and dirty white, came off on their clothes and knees. In some places the walls of the shaft were unstable and had been shuttered with planks. They passed the entries to several galleries before reaching the one they had been told to work.

  It was low and constricted, narrowing from the entrance, turning from side to side as it followed the flint seams. At its end, twelve feet from the shaft, there was not even room to move on hands and knees, nor was there enough room for a light, and Boak had to work blind. He levered out the chalk blocks with his pick and with his fingers, passing them back to Tagart further down the tunnel. Tagart passed them back to the third man, who broke up the blocks and pushed the rubble aside. The flints went into the leather bags, which when full were dragged out of the gallery by slaves on the surface. The fourth man went up the shaft with the bags to bring them back. While they were being filled, he fanned a panel of laminated reed-leaves stuck with glue, trying to bring fresh air into the gallery. But it had little effect. With the lamps lit, and four men working in a restricted space, the air rapidly became foul. Sweat ran unceasingly into Tagart’s eyes; the chalk dust clogged his nose and mouth and turned his hair and beard white. Every few minutes the four men changed places so that none should have to spend too long at the end of gallery. Boak took the brunt of Tagart’s work.