by Jacky Gray
Talnach put on a performance worthy of the finest actors Slater had ever seen, calling upon the energy and spirits of all four elements, and the sun and sky to help in his glorious task. He moved in an erratic dance to the four directions, pausing at each one until he could acknowledge a suitable portent, such as a scampering rabbit, a hawk swooping for prey, or a flock of birds circling overhead.
Abruptly, there was no sign of the shaman; he had simply disappeared. For a few seconds, the crowd chattered excitedly, comparing stories about his exact position when they last saw him. A wild shriek announced his presence amongst them, and the crowd parted as he made his way back to dais, bowing and touching outstretched hands.
Albion waited until the applause died down. ‘A very impressive trick, the people obviously liked it. However, I cannot see too many ways in which it would benefit the tribes. Lunella, it is your turn.’
‘I need some help from the people of Durren. Who is in charge of moving the stones in your village?’
‘That would be me.’ The shaman’s grin was gleeful as he anticipated how he could obstruct her.
‘Do you have a harness I could borrow?’
‘No.’ A furtive glance at the disapproval on the face of his chief prompted further explanation. ‘The haul masters keep those.’
Even before the priestess could make the request, two of Durren’s burliest men came forward claiming to have what she required. With a gentle smile, she asked them to send lads to fetch the harnesses while she explained what she would need. A short while later, they were all assembled at the temple, both haul masters had their teams of thirty men, all experienced in moving the stones. Two of the stones had fallen down and she explained to the crowd that each team was going to see how far they could move a stone, one without her help and one with.
‘But I have a small adjustment to make. Will ten of the men in the second team, please move to the first team?’ Ignoring the gasps from the crowd and objections from the men, she selected the ten men closest to the first team and moved them across. Albion had marked the grass at the edge of each stone with a blue dye so he could measure how far the stone had travelled in the time allotted to each team. Turning the time-glass over, he signalled the herald to blow on the horn and the first team began. The stones were almost identical in size: a little taller than the tallest man, the width of a hay wagon and the depth a little longer than a man’s arm. The team’s experience was obvious as they quickly fitted the harness over one end of the stone, lifting it up so two of the men could wedge logs in to use as levers.
Between the two techniques, they quickly managed to raise the stone enough to place the first three rollers underneath. Swapping the harness over to the other end, they repeated the exercise from the opposite direction. This time the heavy stone was a lot easier to lift, as soon as they began the chant which accompanied their heaving, the stone levelled itself and began to move forward on the greased logs. By the time the top part of the time-glass was empty of sand, they had managed an impressive thirteen paces. The crowd applauded their efforts enthusiastically.
While the men had been working, Lunella walked amongst the crowd giving small stones to some of them. She now called for all of those people and the second team to surround her while she explained the differences this time. The token holders were mostly women and all from Durren village and she explained to the remainder of the crowd, that she had never met any of the people before. They were chosen with no pattern or reason.
Then she went to the second stone and paced out the path she wanted them to follow – it was not straight, but curved in places. Closing his eyes, Slater concentrated, and on opening them, smiled as he realised what she was doing.
Albion started the second team as before, and the crowd watched in growing amazement as the men raised the stone onto its rollers in less than half the time of the team with twice as many men. The first team had only ten men swapping the rollers from the back of the stone to the front, the other thirty were all hauling on the ropes. It was the complete opposite this time, only four men were pulling on the harness with the other sixteen swapping the rollers.
The stone was moving so quickly in places that the men with the rollers had to run to keep up. The contribution from the stone-holders was not at all apparent, they had returned to their places in the crowd and seemed to be making no special effort – many of them were talking and laughing with their families. By the time the sand emptied, the stone had travelled forty one paces, three times further than the first team.
The applause for Lunella was deafening, both tribes whistled and stamped their feet as she mounted the dais and the vote on the third challenge was recorded. She bowed deeply to acknowledge their support as Albion announced her as overall winner.
He called for quiet to explain the next stage. ‘The consequence of this result is that the winner of each contest must perform the same task. This is the design of the new temple, which will represent the union of the two tribes. As you can see, Solah is about to take his rest, so each contestant will be provided with the same materials to create a model of their temple and these will be presented one hour after sunrise tomorrow. I wish you all a happy eve, but before you retire, I believe Lunella would like to talk to you all.’
‘Thank you Albion. I am very happy with the way both Durren and Kenit peoples have come together today and especially in the way we have been welcomed by Durren. They shared their food without complaint even though we know they have suffered a poor season this year. We would like to offer a token of our gratitude, and hope you will join with us in a celebration which shows how much we are committed to this union.’
As she spoke, her words were drowned by a great lumbering vibration and people craned their necks to see what was causing this noise. From the north east came a sight few were likely to forget. At first, Slater could only see a team of men pulling something which looked like a huge wooden platform – except it reflected the fiery rays of the setting sun. As the thing got closer, the sun glinted off objects on the top, giving the appearance of being on fire.
Was he imagining, or could he smell the delicious scent of roasting pig wafting toward him? From the comments of people around him, their noses were being tantalised by the same enticing aroma. This came from a different direction and people shouted as they spotted the three huge spits approaching from the small copse to the north. Each spike bore a huge animal which had been roasting for some time. No one had seen the Kenit envoys slip off to help the cooks bring in their welcome offerings.
The hauling team had reached the edge of the henge and Slater could see they had brought a stone for the new temple. The sarsen was on a different scale to the bluestones and would dwarf them completely. Using the nearby men to compare, Slater estimated the stone to be the height of three tall men and the width about the same size as Maxoli.
Lying sideways on top of the logs, the stone came up to the chest of the nearest men, making it as deep as the bluestones were wide. Closing his eyes, he visualised his temple – this stone seemed a little long. Of course, just over a quarter of the stone would be buried in the ground – it was definitely one of the thirty stones making up the sarsen ring, not one of the great gateways.
No one else appeared to be distracted by the size; they were all focusing on the baskets of food laid out on top. Bread, cheese, meats and fish surrounded the many beakers of ale and mead. Dishes of nuts and berries, cakes and fruit, accompanied the large pots of fruit juices. The food was enough to feed both tribes for several days and the stone served as a huge banqueting table.
Lunella struggled to make herself heard against the excited chattering as she thanked Mother Earth and Father Sun for providing the food. She then suggested everyone feast and enjoy themselves. They needed no further prompting, and torches were lit all around the temple which hosted the biggest party it had ever seen.
30 – The Final Design
Upon waking, Slater couldn’t tell where or when he was. He
didn’t take long to work it out; the small, crudely built hut gave a clue. The loud snoring came from Maxoli, who had offered him a bed at the end of the feasting. Taking a minute to recall the previous day’s events, Slater wondered why he was still there. Surely he had done as much as he could to influence the union of the tribes and the rebuilding of the temple? From what he had seen, these people had the knowledge to move the stones. He knew they would be able to work out how to stand them upright. After all, the Kenits had been doing it for several centuries, even if the stones were a bit smaller.
The bad shaman seemed to have lost his power over the good chief. It was strange how no one had seen hide nor hair of Talnach during the feast. His stash of treasure had disappeared, too. Good riddance.
As for the good lady shaman – or was it shawoman? No, that didn’t sound right at all. Anyway, Lunella definitely showed signs of getting together with Roldan, which would make the tribal merger a lot easier. And as for the big white chief shaman … Slater paused mid-thought. When Lunella mentioned Albion, he thought she referred to the legendary high priest who gave the bluestones to Rufus to build the original temple.
Similarly, when the great man’s message appeared in his mind, Slater assumed she had planted it there. So he was shocked when a real person with that name turned up, especially when he seemed strangely familiar. But Slater had been so caught up in the events of the contests, he had not thought about it again until the feast. He could not talk then, because Albion retired early, exhausted from a long journey and all the excitement.
With a loud snort, Maxoli woke himself and his energy and humour curtailed Slater’s musings. Everything about the man was large and loud. After breakfast, Slater was surprised by a visit from the high priest, requesting his help.
This was one of the hardest things Slater had ever done in his life. He pleaded with Albion that someone else might be better suited to the role, but quickly understood no one else could because they lacked the technical understanding. The task stretched his powers of observation and description to their limit, but the biggest test was his ability to remain impartial.
His choice of a single word could influence the contest by making one of the temple designs seem better than the other. The massive responsibility terrified him, but Maxoli oozed reassurance. As Slater stepped up to the dais, both Roldan and Lunella’s expressions showed their confidence in him.
A small panel of experts judged the two models. They gave their opinions on the feasibility of the designs in terms of construction, maintainability, religious significance and practicalities of use. Without knowing who had created which design, each judge gave a score out of seven. These were totalled, resulting in a tie with both designs getting twenty-five out of twenty-eight. This meant even more pressure on Slater since the winner would be decided by the audience. Because there wasn’t enough time for every person to study both designs, Albion projected an image of each temple into the minds of the people. This required enormous amounts of energy.
A verbal description of each element of the model accompanying the image made the task easier. It also ensured each person had two ways of understanding the model. Slater belonged neither to Durren or Kenit, so both tribes could accept his words as truth.
As the guest, Lunella was offered the choice of going first or second, but she declared that Roldan should state his preference as she had already been given the chance to choose once. Roldan had no preference either, so she elected to go first. Slater followed Albion’s instructions carefully, starting at the outside of the model and giving no interpretation of the possible uses of each feature; this would be done by the model’s designer at the end.
‘The outer circle is made of thirty tall sarsens, one of which is half the width of the others. They are equally spaced around the circle and all stand about twice the height of a tall man, like the stone Lunella brought with her. Inside this is a ring of sixty of the healing bluestones.’ Drawing a breath, he chose his words carefully. ‘The next layer consists of five huge gateways which form a horseshoe aligned with the Yule sunset and Litha sunrise. These are made from pairs of sarsens, each one the height of four men so they can be seen from a great distance. Each pair is topped with a flat stone to make the gateway. Inside this is another horseshoe, made of twenty healing bluestones, like the ones you see here.’
Pausing for a longer breath, he sought for the words to help him describe the altar stone in a way they would relate to. ‘At the centre of the circular part of the horseshoe, is a single stone which lies flat on the ground and is aligned to the Litha sunset and the Yule sunrise.’
Closing his eyes, he saw the image Albion projected to the people based on his descriptions, it was an almost exact copy of the model. Along with the rest of the audience, he kept his eyes closed and focused on the image while Lunella spoke. She explained the function of each part of the temple, how the circles were dedicated to Lunai and the horseshoes to Solah. That the outer ring could be used to track the moon’s cycle accurately because there were always either twenty-nine or thirty days between full moons. How the bluestones would absorb the power of the sun and the moon and could be used for healing during the sabbats and esbats.
When she finished, there was a huge round of applause; her vision of the temple which brought together the sun and moon was astounding. Roldan was very generous in his applause and Slater heard him whisper to Maxoli that he couldn’t hope to best her design. Slater’s description used the same words to describe the second model as they were extremely similar. Most of the differences were in numbers. For example, Roldan’s had only twenty-eight sarsens and fifty-six bluestones in the outer moon temples.
The main variation was that the twenty-eight standing sarsens were topped with a ring of horizontal stones. In addition, the heights of the gateways varied; the one facing the sunrise was tallest, the next two were slightly smaller but larger than the final pair, closest to the henge entrance. Also, there was no inner horseshoe of bluestones, but a full ring. It was not circular, but followed the horseshoe sarsen, resulting in an egg shape. When Slater finished his description, Roldan cleared his throat, and his obvious nerves endeared him to many of the Kenit people. ‘I cannot hope to compete with Lunella; she has done a wonderful job of explaining the reasons behind so many of the features of our temples. As you can see, they are very similar, and if I tried to explain about them I am sure I would not do it half as well.’
The crowd murmured, but the general tone was approving, so he continued. ‘I will say that my moon temple is not as accurate as hers in terms of the numbers as it was based on the very first temple. It appears that the Kenit people are more advanced in their studies than us.’
It was a good tactic, prompting a cheer from a group of Kenits who could only be Magis. He bowed to them and they echoed his move, acknowledging his appreciation.
‘However, the idea of the ring of flat stones is to contain the energy raised during a ceremony and magnify it. You all know the power of the circle, and this will strengthen the healing.’ Several people clapped, but he held up his hand for silence as he described the final feature.
‘The inner horseshoe guides Solah into the cradle of the earth when he is at his strongest at Litha, giving him a crown worthy of his power. But the most important thing by far is that the temple is a marriage of Solah and Lunai, honouring men and women equally.’
Once more, people started clapping and this time he could not stop them, no matter what he did. The momentum built up with whistles and stamping that continued long after Albion appeared, asking for silence. He let it go on for a few minutes more, then tried again. Finally, there was enough quiet for him to explain the voting. It was quite simple: at the sound of the bell, people wanting Lunella’s design to win should move to the left and Roldan’s supporters to the right.
The vote was close to begin with, as similar numbers moved to both sides. Gradually, it became clear that the crowd on the right was bigger than the crowd on the lef
t. Lunella did not seem at all upset, accepting her defeat graciously. She acknowledged his design was better, and agreed to defer to him as the ultimate ruler.
But Roldan would not hear of it. ‘I think there is no need to have an absolute leader. Lunella has shown she has exceptional gifts we could not hope to match.’ Pausing to allow the shouts of agreement, he followed her gaze to the group of women who were responsible. Each of them was holding her stone high so it caught the morning sun. ‘And I’m sure we Durren men could learn a thing or two from our women – they did the work of more than twenty men without having to lift a finger. This is a skill I’m sure we’d all like to learn.’ Turning to Lunella, he gave a rueful grin. ‘Or is it only women who can lift heavy objects with the power of their minds?’
Lunella’s reply was lost in the clamour that followed: a mixture of laughter, applause and cheerful insults, which finally died away as Albion came forward.
‘People of Durren and Kenit, I am heartened by what I see here today. I think your tribes will form a very strong union, which will send a powerful message of peace to the surrounding tribes. The temple will be magnificent. Both designs have many good features and a marriage of the two will result in an amazing creation, the like of which has never been seen before.’ Again, he had to pause as people clapped and cheered.
‘People will flock to marvel at the symmetry and majesty, to worship at the grand ceremonies and bring their sick people to be healed. They will bring prosperity to Durren and Kenit and as long as the people work together, crops will grow, animals will thrive and babies will be born strong and healthy.’
Finally, Slater understood the reason for this last journey – the work from the previous two visits was not complete and it was his task to bring the necessary people together.