Stonehenge

by Bernard Cornwell

  Gundur, one of the men who had fled Ratharryn with Lengar, woke him. “Your brother wants you,” Gundur said.

  “What for?” Saban asked resentfully.

  “Just get up,” Gundur said scornfully. Saban put the bronze knife into his belt and picked up one of his hunting spears before following Gundur from the hut. He would kill his brother now, he had decided. He would spear Lengar without warning, and if he died under the blades of Lengar’s companions then at least he would have avenged his father. The ancestors would approve of that and welcome him to the afterlife. He gripped the spear shaft tight and stiffened his resolve to strike as soon as he entered the chief’s big hut.

  But an Outfolk warrior waiting just inside the hut seized Saban’s spear before he had even stooped beneath the lintel. Saban tried to keep hold of the ash shaft, but the man was too strong and the brief struggle left Saban sprawling ignominiously on the floor. Galeth, he saw, waited for him, and three more Outfolk warriors sat behind Lengar who had watched the scuffle with amusement. “Did you think to avenge our father?” Lengar asked Saban.

  Saban rubbed his wrist that was sore from the Outlander’s grip. “The ancestors will avenge him,” he said.

  “How will the ancestors even know who he is?” Lengar asked. “I chopped off his jawbone this morning.” He grinned, and pointed to Hengall’s bloody and bearded chin that had been spiked to one of the hut poles. If a dead man’s jawbone was taken then he could not tell tales to the ancestors. “I took Gilan’s too,” Lengar said, “so the pair of them can mumble away in the afterlife. Sit beside Galeth, and stop scowling.”

  Lengar was draped in his father’s bearskin cloak and was surrounded by treasures, all of them unearthed from the floor or dug out of the piles of hides where Hengall had concealed his fortune. “We are rich, little brother!” Lengar said happily. “Rich! You look tired. Did you not sleep well?” Gundur, who had sat beside Lengar, grinned, while the three Outfolk warriors, who did not understand what was being said, just stared fixedly at Saban.

  Saban glanced toward the leather curtain that hid the women’s portion of the hut, but he saw no sign of Derrewyn. He squatted in front of the tribe’s heaped treasures. There were bars of bronze, beautifully polished knives of stone and flint, bags of amber, pieces of jet, great axes, loops of copper, carved bone, seashells and, most curious of all, a wooden box filled with strangely carved pebbles. The stones were small and smoothly rounded, none of them bigger than the ball of a man’s thumb, but all had been deeply cut with patterns of whorls or lines. “Do you know what they are?” Lengar asked Galeth.

  “No,” Galeth said curtly.

  “Magic, I suspect,” Lengar said, tossing one of the stones from hand to hand. “Camaban would know. He seems to know everything these days. It’s a pity he’s not here.”

  “Have you seen him?” Galeth asked.

  “He came to Sarmennyn in the spring,” Lengar said carelessly, “and so far as I know he’s still there. He was walking properly, or almost properly. I wanted him to come with me, but he refused. I’d always thought him a fool, but he isn’t at all. He’s become very strange, but he isn’t foolish. He’s very clever. Perhaps it runs in our family. What is the matter, Saban? You’re not going to cry, are you? Father’s death, is it?”

  Saban thought of seizing one of the precious bronze axes and hurling himself across the hut, but the Outfolk spearmen were watching him and their weapons were ready. He would stand no chance.

  “You will notice, uncle,” Lengar said, “that the gold pieces of Sarmennyn are not here?”

  “I noticed,” Galeth said.

  “I have them safe,” Lengar said, “but I won’t display them because I don’t want to tempt our Outfolk friends. They’ve only come here to get the gold.” Lengar jerked his head at the Outfolk warriors who sat silent behind him, their tattooed faces like masks in the shadowed gloom. “They don’t speak our tongue, uncle,” Lengar went on, “so insult them as much as you like, but smile while you do it. I need them to think we truly are their friends.”

  “Aren’t we?” Galeth asked.

  “For the moment,” Lengar said. He smiled, pleased with himself. “I had originally decided to give them back their gold if they defeated Cathallo for me, but Camaban had a much better idea. He really is clever. He went into a trance and cured one of their chief’s wives of some loathsome disease. Have you ever seen him in a trance? His eyes go white, his tongue sticks out and he shakes like a wet dog, and when the whole thing is over he comes out with messages from Slaol!” Lengar waited for Galeth to share his amusement, but Galeth said nothing. Lengar sighed. “Well, clever Camaban cured the chief’s wife and now the chief thinks that Camaban can do no wrong. Imagine that! Crippled Camaban, a hero! So our hero told the Outfolk that not only would they have to defeat Cathallo to get their gold back, but also give us one of their temples. Which means they have to move a temple across the country, which they can’t do, of course, because their temples are all made of stone.” He laughed. “So we’ll defeat Cathallo and keep the gold.”

  “Maybe they will bring you a temple,” Galeth said dryly.

  “And maybe Saban will smile,” Lengar said. “Saban! Smile when you look at me. Have you lost your tongue?”

  Saban was gouging his fingernails into his ankles, hoping that the pain would keep him from crying or betraying his hatred. “You wanted to see me, brother,” he said harshly.

  “To say goodbye,” Lengar said ominously, hoping to see fear on his brother’s face, but Saban’s expression showed nothing. Death, Saban thought, would be better than this humiliation and the thought made him touch his groin, a gesture that made Lengar laugh. “I’m not going to kill you, little brother,” Lengar said. “I should, but I am merciful. Instead I shall take your place. Derrewyn will marry me as a symbol that Ratharryn is now superior to Cathallo and she will breed me many sons. And you, my brother, will be a slave.” He clapped his hands. “Haragg!” he shouted.

  The Outfolk trader, the grim giant who had come to interpret when the folk of Sarmennyn had pleaded with Hengall for the return of the treasures, stooped to enter the hut. He had to bend double to get through the low doorway and when he stood he seemed to fill the hut for he was so tall and broad-shouldered. He was balding, had a thick black beard, and a face that was an implacable mask. “Your new slave, Haragg,” Lengar said courteously, indicating Saban.

  “Lengar!” Galeth appealed.

  “You would prefer me to kill the runt?” Lengar inquired silkily.

  “You can’t put your own brother into slavery!” Galeth protested.

  “Half-brother,” Lengar said, “and of course I can. Do you think Saban was honest when he knelt to me last night? I trust you, uncle, but him? He’d kill me in an eyeblink! He’s been thinking of nothing else ever since he came into this hut, haven’t you, Saban?” He smiled, but Saban just stared into his brother’s horned eyes. Lengar spat. “Take him, Haragg.”

  Haragg leaned over and put a vast hand round Saban’s arm and hauled him upright. Saban, humiliated and miserable, plucked the small knife from his belt and swung it wildly toward the giant, but Haragg, without any fuss, merely caught his wrist and pinched hard so that Saban’s hand was suddenly nerveless and feeble. The knife dropped. Haragg picked up the blade then dragged Saban from the hut.

  Haragg’s son, the deaf-mute who was even larger than his gigantic father, waited outside. He took hold of Saban and threw him to the ground while his father went back into Lengar’s hut, and Saban listened as Lengar sought assurances from the huge trader that the new slave would not be allowed to escape. Saban thought of trying to run now, but the deaf-mute loomed over him and then a wailing made him turn to see Morthor’s wife leading her husband from Gilan’s old hut. Outfolk warriors were prodding the couple toward Ratharryn’s northern entrance.

  “Morthor!” Saban called out, then gasped, for when the high priest of Cathallo turned Saban saw that Morthor’s eyes had been gouged out. “Le
ngar did that?” Saban asked.

  “Lengar did this,” Morthor said bitterly. His arm hung limp and blood was thickly crusted on his wounded shoulder from which the arrow shaft had been pulled, but his face was nothing but a dreadful mask. He pointed to his ravaged eyes. “This is Lengar’s message to Cathallo,” he said, then the spearmen pushed him on.

  Saban closed his eyes as though he could blot out the horror of Morthor’s face, and then he was assailed by the image of Derrewyn stripped naked in the night and his shoulders heaved as he tried to suppress the tears.

  “Cry, little one.” A mocking voice spoke above him and Saban opened his eyes to see Jegar standing over him. Two of Lengar’s friends were with Jegar and they leveled spears at him and, for a moment, Saban thought they meant to kill him, but the spears were merely there to keep him still. “Cry,” Jegar said again.

  Saban stared at the ground, then shuddered because Jegar had begun to piss on him. The two spearmen laughed and, when Saban tried to jerk aside, they used their spear points to hold him steady so that the urine splashed on his hair. “Lengar will marry Derrewyn,” Jegar said as he pissed, “but when he is tired of her, and he will tire of her, he has promised her to me. Do you know why, Saban?”

  Saban did not answer. The liquid dripped from his hair, ran down his face and puddled between his knees while the deaf-mute watched with a look of faint puzzlement on his broad face.

  “Because,” Jegar went on, “ever since Lengar went to Sarmennyn, I have been his eyes and his ears in Ratharryn. How did Lengar know to come last night? Because I told him. Did I not tell you?” He asked this last question of Lengar, who had just come from his hut to watch his brother’s humiliation.

  “You are the most loyal of friends, Jegar,” Lengar said.

  “And a friend who has a maimed right hand.” Jegar stooped suddenly and seized Saban’s hand. “Give me a knife!” he demanded of Lengar.

  “Let him go,” Haragg said.

  “I have business with him,” Jegar spat.

  “He is my slave,” Haragg said, “and you will leave him alone.”

  The big man had not spoken loudly, but there was such force in his deep voice that Jegar obeyed. Haragg stooped in front of Saban, holding Saban’s own bronze knife in his right hand, and Saban thought the huge Outlander planned to do what Jegar had meant to do, but instead Haragg seized a hank of Saban’s hair. He sawed at it, cutting it through and tossing it aside. He worked roughly, slashing off great handfuls of hair and scraping Saban’s scalp to make it bleed. All slaves were shaved like this, and though the hair would grow again, it was meant to show that the newly shorn captives were now mere nothings. Saban was now a nothing, and he flinched as the hard blade grazed down his scalp and the blood trickled down his cheeks where it was diluted by Jegar’s urine. Saban’s mother came from her hut as Haragg cut his hair and she screamed at the big man to stop, then threw clods of earth at him until two of Lengar’s spearmen, laughing at her anger, dragged her away.

  Haragg finished cutting off the hair, then took Saban’s left hand and placed it flat on the ground.

  “I will do this,” Jegar offered eagerly.

  “He is my slave,” Haragg answered, and again the power in his voice made Jegar step back. “Look at me,” Haragg ordered Saban, then nodded to his son who clamped a huge hand across Saban’s wrist.

  Saban, his eyes blurred with tears, looked into Haragg’s harsh face. His left hand was being held hard against the ground and he could not see the knife, but then there was a terrible pain in his hand, a pain that streaked up to his shoulder and made him cry aloud, and Haragg pulled the bleeding hand up and clapped a piece of fleece over the severed stump of Saban’s small finger. “Hold the fleece,” Haragg ordered him.

  Saban clamped his right hand over the fleece. The pain was throbbing, making him feel faint, but he clamped his teeth together and rocked back and forth as Haragg scooped up the chopped hair and the severed bloody finger and carried them to a fire. Jegar interceded again, demanding that the trader give him the hair so he could use it to have a spell made against Saban, but the grim Haragg doggedly ignored the demand, instead throwing both hair and finger onto the fire and watching them burn.

  The deaf-mute now dragged Saban north through the huts to where Morcar, Ratharryn’s smith, had his forge. Morcar was a friend of Galeth’s and his usual work was making spearheads from bronze bars, but today he was heating bronze that Haragg had given him. The smith avoided Saban’s eyes as he worked. Haragg pushed Saban onto the ground where Saban closed his eyes and tried to will away the pain in his hand, but then he felt an even greater pain in his right ankle and he whimpered, opened his eyes and saw that a bronze manacle was being placed around his leg. The manacle had already been bent so that it was nearly a closed circle and Morcar now hammered the heated bronze quickly so that the two ends of the curved bar met. The manacle was joined by a bronze chain to its twin that was forced over Saban’s left ankle and hammered shut. The metal was scorching hot, making Saban gasp.

  Morcar poured water onto the metal. “I’m sorry, Saban,” he whispered.

  “Stand,” Haragg said.

  Saban stood. A small crowd of Ratharryn’s folk watched from a distance. His feet were chained so he could walk, but not run, his head was shaved, and now Haragg stood behind him and slit his tunic all the way down the back with his knife. He pulled it away so that Saban was naked. Last of all he cut the necklace of seashells around Saban’s neck and crushed them into the ground with a massive foot and pocketed the amber amulet that had been a gift from Saban’s mother. Jegar laughed and Lengar applauded.

  “You are now my slave,” Haragg said tonelessly, “to live or die at my whim. Follow me.”

  Saban, his humiliation complete, obeyed.

  Lengar feared the gods. He did not understand them, but he understood himself and he knew that the treachery of the gods could far outdo anything man could contrive, so he feared them and took good care to placate them as best he knew how. He gave gifts to the priests; he buried symbolic chalk axes in all Ratharryn’s temples; and he permitted Hengall’s surviving wives to live and even promised to make certain they did not starve.

  His father’s spirit was about to go to the afterworld where it would live with the ancestors and gods, but it would go without a jawbone and without a right foot so that Hengall could neither tell of his own murder nor, if his spirit remained earthbound, pursue Lengar. The jaw and foot were fed to pigs, but the rest of the corpse was treated with respect. Hengall was burned on a great pyre in the manner of the Outfolk. The fire was lit three days after Hengall’s death and it was allowed to burn for another three days, and only then was a mound of chalk and soil thrown up over the smoldering embers.

  On the night that the mound was raised Lengar knelt on its summit and bent his head to the chalky rubble. He was alone for he wanted no one else to witness this conversation with his father. “You had to die,” he told Hengall, “because you were too cautious. You were a good chief, but Ratharryn now needs a great chief.” Lengar paused. “I have not killed your wives,” he went on, “and even Saban still lives. He was always your favorite, wasn’t he? Well, he lives, father, he still lives.”

  Lengar was not sure that letting Saban live had been a good idea, but Camaban had persuaded him that to kill his half-brother would be fatal. Camaban had gone to Lengar in Sarmennyn, no longer the stuttering fool Lengar had always despised. Instead he had become a sorcerer, and Lengar found himself strangely nervous in Camaban’s presence. “The gods might forgive you Hengall’s death,” Camaban had told him, “but not Saban’s,” and when Lengar demanded to know why, Camaban claimed to have spoken with Slaol in a dream. Lengar had yielded to the dream’s message. He still half regretted it, but he feared Camaban’s sorcery. At least Camaban had suggested that Saban should become Haragg’s slave and Lengar was certain that the big trader’s slaves did not live long.

  Lengar rested his forehead on the mound’s summit. The
soil and chalk had been roughly piled on the fire’s remains and the fumes still seeped through the mound to sting Lengar’s eyes, but he dutifully kept his head down. “You will be proud of me, father,” he told Hengall, “because I will raise Ratharryn and humble Cathallo. I will be a great chief –” He went very still for he heard footsteps.

  The footsteps were close to him, very close, then they were on the mound itself and despite having cut off his father’s foot Lengar was suddenly terrified that this was Hengall’s spirit come to avenge itself. “No,” he whispered, “no.”

  “Yes,” said a deep voice, and Lengar let out a great sigh of relief and straightened his back to look up at Camaban. “I decided to follow you from Sarmennyn after all,” Camaban explained.

  Lengar found he had nothing to say. He was sweating with fear.

  Camaban was a man now. His face was thinner than before and much harder, with high cheekbones, deep eyes and a wide, sardonic mouth. His hair, that used to be a tangled mat of filth, was now neatly tied at the back of his scalp with a leather thong from which a rattling tassel of small bones hung. He wore a necklace of children’s rib bones and carried a staff tipped with a human jawbone. He now rammed the butt of the staff into the grave mound. “Did you feel that, father?”

  “Don’t,” Lengar croaked.

  “Are you frightened of Hengall?” Camaban asked derisively. He rammed the staff into the mound again, then spat. “Did you feel that? I spit on you!” He gouged the staff in the chalk rubble. “Can you feel it, Hengall? Feel it burning? This is Camaban!”