Stonehenge

by Bernard Cornwell

  He ignored Kereval and prodded Leckan out of the way with his spear so that he could advance on the frightened Aurenna. If Scathel was impressed by her beauty he did not show it, but instead thrust his raw-skinned face at her. “You are a goddess?” he demanded.

  Aurenna could not speak, but did give one small nod in nervous acknowledgement of the question.

  “Then I have a petition for you,” Scathel shouted so that every soul in the settlement could hear him. “Our treasures must be returned! They must be returned!” His spittle flecked her face as he shouted and she stepped back to avoid it. “I have built a temple!” Scathel bellowed over Aurenna’s shoulder, addressing the whole crowd, who stared at him aghast. “I have made a temple with my own hands and I have bled for the god, and he has spoken to me! We must fetch the treasures back!”

  “The treasures will be returned,” Kereval intervened.

  “You!” Scathel turned on the chief, and even leveled his spear so that a dozen warriors ran to Kereval’s side. “What have you done to retrieve the treasures?” Scathel demanded.

  “We have lent men to Ratharryn,” Kereval replied courteously, “and will send them a temple.”

  “Ratharryn!” Scathel sneered. “A small place, a miserable place, a bog of stunted people, goitered pigs and twisted serpents. You are a chief, not a trader! You do not bargain for our gold, you take it! Take our spears, take our arrows, and take back the treasures!” He stepped aside and raised his arms to attract the tribe’s attention. “We must go to war!” he shouted. “To war!” He began to beat his spear against one of the stones. “We must take our spears, our swords, our bows and we must kill and maim until the things at Ratharryn scream for our mercy!” The spear shaft broke and the crude stone head flew harmlessly away. “We must burn their huts and raze their temples and slaughter their livestock and throw their infants into Erek’s fires!” He turned back on Kereval and thrust out the splintered spear staff. “Lengar has our men to fight his wars, and he has our gold, and when his wars are won he will turn on our men and kill them. You call yourself a chief? A chief would even now be leading the young men to war!”

  Kereval drew his sword. It was a bronze blade, beautifully balanced, part of the tribute that each trader who came from the island across the western sea had to pay to the folk of Sarmennyn before he was allowed to carry his goods further eastward. Kereval suddenly slashed at the spear staff and the ferocity of the attack drove Scathel backwards. “War?” Kereval asked. “What do you know of war, Scathel?” He slashed again, knocking the staff violently aside. “To go to war, Scathel, I must lead my men across the black hills, then through the land of Salar’s people. You would fight them?” The sword cut a third time, slicing a thick splinter from the rough ash staff. “And when we have buried our dead, priest, and crossed the further hills, we shall come to the tribes of the great river. They have no love for us. But perhaps we can fight them too?” He slapped the staff aside again with his sword. “And when we have fought our way across the river, and up into the farther hills, then Ratharryn’s allies will wait for us with spears. With hundreds of spears!”

  “Then how did Vakkal reach Ratharryn?” Scathel demanded. Vakkal was the man who had led the forces to help Lengar take the chieftainship.

  “They went by hidden paths, led by your brother,” Kereval said, “but they were only fifty men. You think I can take all our spearmen secretly? And to conquer Ratharryn, Scathel, will take all our men, and who will stay here to protect our womenfolk?”

  “The god will protect them!” Scathel insisted.

  Kereval slashed the sword again. This time Scathel dropped the staff and spread his hands as though inviting Kereval to drive the heavy sword into his belly, but the chief just shook his head. “I have given my word,” Kereval said, “and we shall give Lengar of Ratharryn time to keep his word.” He raised the sword so that its tip disappeared into the filthy tangle of Scathel’s wild beard. “Be careful of what you stir in this tribe, priest, for I still rule here.”

  “And I am still high priest,” Scathel spat back.

  “The treasures will be returned!” Kereval shouted. He turned to look at his tribe. “We have chosen a bride who is more lovely than any girl we have ever sent to Erek’s bed,” Kereval announced. “She will carry our prayers.”

  “And what will you do” – Scathel repeated Camaban’s grim question – “if the god rejects his bride?” He suddenly turned and snatched the bronze knife from Leckan’s hand. For a heartbeat men thought he was about to attack Aurenna, but instead he held his own beard with his left hand and slashed at it with the knife, slicing off great tangled hanks of matted hair. Then he threw the hair into the temple’s center. “With my beard I put a curse on Kereval if the god refuses this bride! And if he does, then it will be war, nothing but war! War and death and blood and slaughter until the treasures are back!” He stalked toward his old hut and the tribe parted, letting him through, while behind him, at her temple, Aurenna shuddered in horror.

  Camaban watched, and afterward, when no one watched him, he retrieved the hanks of Scathel’s hair and wove them into a ring through which he stared at a cloud-shrouded Slaol. “He will fight me,” he told the god, “even though he loves you as I do. So you must turn his thoughts as I have turned his hair,” and with that he cast the circlet of hair into the river that flowed past Kereval’s settlement. He doubted the small charm would effect the change by itself, but it might help, and Camaban knew he needed help for the god had given him a gigantic task. That was why he had returned to Sarmennyn in the time of their sun bride’s rule for it was then that the Outfolk tribe was most vulnerable to suggestion, to magic and to change.

  And Camaban had a whole world to change.

  Chapter 9

  Haragg, Saban and Cagan reached Kereval’s settlement on the same day as Aurenna, but it was evening when they came and the good weather had turned into a heavy downpour that beat on the dark land and soaked Saban’s hair and tunic. Haragg unloaded his horses, then led the weary beasts into a decrepit hut, evidently his home, before taking Saban and Cagan to a great hut that stood on the highest ground within the settlement’s timber palisade. Water streamed from the thatched roof of the hut that was larger than any Saban had ever seen, so large that, when he ducked inside, he saw that its ridge pole needed the support of five great timbers. The hall stank of fish, smoke, fur and sweat, and was crowded with men who feasted in the light of two great fires. A drummer beat skins while a flautist played a heron-bone flute in the hut’s corner.

  A silence fell as Haragg entered and Saban sensed that the men were wary of the big trader, but Haragg ignored them, pointing instead at a small man sitting at one end of the hall close to a smoky fire. The man’s wiry hair was crammed into a bronze circlet, while his face was thick with ash-gray scars. “The chief,” Haragg whispered to Saban. “Called Kereval. A decent man.”

  Camaban was sitting next to Kereval, though at first Saban did not recognize his brother, seeing instead a hollow-cheeked, sunkeneyed sorcerer with a frightening face framed by bones woven into his hair. Then the sorcerer pointed a long finger at Saban, crooked it and gestured that he should come and sit between himself and the chief, and Saban realized it was his brother.

  “It took you long enough to get here,” Camaban grumbled, without any other greeting, then he grudgingly named his brother to Kereval who smiled a welcome then clapped his hands for silence so he could tell the feasters who the newcomer was. Men stared at Saban when they heard he was Lengar’s brother, then Kereval demanded that a slave bring Saban some food.

  “I doubt he wants to eat,” Camaban said.

  “I do,” Saban said. He was hungry.

  “You want to eat this filth?” Camaban demanded, showing Saban a bowl of stewed fish, seaweed and stringy mutton. He lifted a strand of seaweed. “Am I supposed to eat this?” he asked Kereval.

  Kereval ignored Camaban’s disgust and spoke to Saban. “Your brother cured my best wi
fe of a disease that no one else could mend!” The chief beamed at Saban. “She is well again! He works miracles, your brother.”

  “I simply treated her properly,” Camaban said, “unlike the fools you call healers and priests. They couldn’t cure a wart!”

  Kereval took the seaweed out of Camaban’s hand and ate it. “You have been traveling with Haragg?” he asked Saban.

  “A long way,” Saban said.

  “Haragg likes to travel,” Kereval said. He had small beady eyes in a face that was good-humored and quick to smile. “Haragg believes,” he went on, leaning close to Saban, “if he journeys far enough, he will find a magician to give his son a tongue and ears.”

  “What Cagan needs is a good blow on the head,” Camaban snarled. “That would cure him.”

  “Truly?” Kereval asked eagerly.

  “Is that liquor?” Camaban asked, and helped himself to a decorated pot that stood beside Kereval. He tipped it to his mouth and drank greedily.

  “You will stay now? Through the summer, perhaps?” Kereval asked Saban with a smile.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” Saban confessed, glancing at Camaban. He was taken aback by the change in his brother. Camaban, the stuttering cripple, was now seated in the place of honor.

  “You are here, little brother,” Camaban said, “to help me move a temple.”

  Kereval’s smile vanished. “Not everyone believes we should give you a temple.”

  ‘Of course they don’t!” Camaban said, not bothering to lower his voice. “You have as many fools here as in any other tribe, but it doesn’t matter what they think.” He waved a dismissive hand at the feasters. “Do the gods seek the opinion of these fools before they send rain? Of course they don’t, so why should you or I? It only matters that they obey.”

  Kereval quickly diverted the conversation, talking instead about the change in the weather, and Saban looked about the firelit hall. Most of the men had drunk enough of the Outfolk’s famously fierce liquor to be loud and boisterous. Some were arguing about hunting exploits while others bellowed for silence so they could listen to the flautist whose thin notes were being overwhelmed by the uproar. Women slaves brought in food and drink, and then Saban saw who sat beyond the hall’s farther fire and his world changed.

  It was a moment when his heart seemed to cease its beating, when the world and all its noises – the rain on the thatch, the harsh voices, the splintering of burning wood, the airy notes of the flute and the pulse of the drums – vanished. All was suspended in that moment as if there were nothing left but himself and the white-robed girl who sat on a wooden platform at the hall’s far end.

  At first, when he glimpsed her though the swirling smoke, Saban thought she could not be human for she was so clean. Her robe was white and hung with shining lozenges, while her hair fell in a cascade of shining gold to frame a face that was the palest and most beautiful he had ever seen. He felt a surge of guilt for Derrewyn, a surge that was swept away as he looked at the girl. He stared and stared, motionless, as though he had been struck by an arrow like the one that had flickered through the twilight to kill his father. He did not eat, he refused the liquor that Camaban offered, he just gazed through the smoke at the ethereal girl who seemed to hover above the brawling feast. She did not eat, she did not drink, she did not speak, she just sat enthroned like a goddess.

  Camaban’s harsh voice sounded in Saban’s ear. “Her name is Aurenna, and she is a goddess. She is Erek’s bride, and this feast is to welcome her to the settlement. Is she not beautiful? When you speak to her, you must kneel to her. But if you touch her, brother, you will die. If you even dare to dream of touching her, you will die.”

  “She’s the sun bride?” Saban asked.

  “And she will burn in less than three moons,” Camaban said. “That’s how the sun brides get married. They jump into a fire at the sea’s edge. Hiss of fat and splinter of bone. Flame and screaming. She dies. That’s her purpose. That’s why she lives, to die. So don’t stare at her like a dumb calf, because you can’t have her. Find yourself a slave girl to rut with because if you touch Aurenna you’ll die.”

  But Saban could not take his eyes from the sun bride. It would be worth dying, he thought recklessly, just to touch that golden girl. He guessed she was fourteen or fifteen summers old, the same age as himself, a bride in her perfection, and Saban was suddenly assailed by a gaping sense of loss. First Derrewyn, and now this girl. Had Miyac, Haragg’s daughter, presided over a feast like this? Had she been as beautiful? And had some young man gazed at her with longing before she went to the flames at the sea’s edge?

  And then his thoughts were broken as the leather curtain in the wide doorway was snatched aside so violently that it tore from the wooden pegs holding it to the lintel. A gust of chill damp wind flickered the two fires as a tall, gaunt and wild-haired man strode into the hut. “Where is he?” he shouted, his wolf pelt cloak dripping rainwater.

  Haragg, thinking the wild-haired man sought him, stood, but the newcomer just spat at Haragg and turned on Kereval instead. “Where is he?” he shouted. Three other men had followed him into the hut – all priests, for they had bones woven into their beards.

  “Where is who?” Kereval asked.

  “Lengar’s brother!”

  “Both Lengar’s brothers are here,” Kereval said, gesturing at Camaban and Saban, “and both are my guests.”

  “Guests!” the wild man sneered, then he threw his arms wide and turned to stare at the feasters who had fallen silent. “There should be no guests in Sarmennyn,” he cried, “and no feasts, no music, no dances, no joy until the treasures are returned to us! And those things” – he whipped round to point a bony finger at Saban and Camaban – “those two bits of dirt can bring Erek’s gold back.”

  “Scathel!” Kereval shouted. “They are guests!”

  Scathel pushed past the seated men and stared down at Saban and Camaban, frowning when he saw the bones tied into Camaban’s hair. “Are you a priest?” he demanded.

  Camaban ignored the question. He yawned instead, and Scathel suddenly bent and seized Saban’s tunic and, with an astonishing strength in a man so thin and bony, pulled him upright. “We shall use the brother magic,” he told Kereval.

  “He is a guest!” Kereval protested again.

  “The brother magic?” Camaban asked in a tone of genuine inquiry. “Tell me of this magic.”

  “What I do to him,” Scathel said, digging a finger into Saban’s ribs, “will be done to his brother also. I take his eye; Lengar loses an eye.” He slapped Saban. “There,” he crowed, “Lengar’s cheek is stinging.”

  “Mine isn’t,” Camaban said.

  “You are a priest,” Scathel said, explaining why Camaban had failed to feel Saban’s pain.

  “No,” Camaban said, “I am no priest, but a sorcerer.”

  “A sorcerer who does not know the brother magic?” Scathel jeered. “What kind of sorcerer is that?” He laughed, then turned Saban around so that all the hall could see him. “Lengar of Ratharryn will never yield the treasures!” he shouted. “Not if we give him every temple in Sarmennyn! Not if we take every stone from every field and lay them at his feet! But if I take his eyes, his hands, his feet and his manhood, then he will yield.”

  The listening men beat their hands on the floor in approval and Camaban, watching silently, saw how much opposition there was in Kereval’s tribe to the agreement with Lengar. They did not believe Ratharryn would ever yield the gold. They had agreed to the bargain for, at the time, there had seemed no alternative, but now Scathel had come roaring from the hills and proposed using magic, torture and sorcery. “We shall dig a pit,” Scathel said, “and drop this louse inside, and there he shall stay shut up until his brother yields us the treasures!” The feasters shouted their approval.

  “Put my brother in a pit,” Camaban said when there was silence, “and I shall fill your bladder with coals, so that when you piss you will writhe from the agony of liquid fire.”
He leaned over and took a morsel of fish from Kereval’s bowl and calmly ate it.

  “You? A crippled sorcerer? Threaten me?” Scathel gestured at Camaban’s left foot, which was still misshapen, though no longer grotesquely clubbed. “You think the gods listen to things like you?”

  Camaban took a fishbone from his mouth, then delicately bent it between a thumb and forefinger. “I will make the gods dance on your entrails,” he said quietly, “while dead souls suck your brains out of your eye sockets. I shall feed your liver to the ravens and give your bowels to the dogs.” He snapped the bone in two. “Let my brother go.”

  Scathel leaned down to Camaban, and Saban, watching, thought how alike the two men were. The Outfolk sorcerer, Haragg’s twin brother, was the older man, but like Camaban he was lean, gaunt and powerful. “He will go in the pit tonight, cripple,” Scathel hissed at Camaban, “and I will piss on him.”

  “You will let him go!” a woman’s voice commanded, and there was a gasp in the hall as the men turned to look at Aurenna. She was standing, pointing a finger at the angry priest. “You will release him,” she insisted, “now!”

  Scathel quivered for a heartbeat, but then he swallowed and reluctantly released his grip on Saban. “You risk losing everything!” he said to Kereval.

  “Kereval does Erek’s will,” Camaban said, still quietly, answering for the chief, and then he leaned forward and dropped the two scraps of fishbone into the fire. “I have long wanted to meet you, Scathel of Sarmennyn,” he went on, smiling, “for I had heard much of you and thought, fool that I am, that I might learn from you. I see, instead, that I will have to teach you.”

  Scathel looked into the fire where the two slivers of bone lay on a burning log. For a heartbeat he stared at them, then he reached down and carefully picked them up, one after the other; the hairs on his arm shriveled in the flames and there was a rank smell of burning flesh that made men wince, but Scathel did not flinch. He spat on the bones, then pointed one at Camaban. “You will never take one of our temples, cripple, never!” He flicked the bone scraps at Camaban, plucked the damp wolf pelts close about his thin body and walked away leaving the feast hall in silence.