Stonehenge - Bernard Cornwell

'Why?'

She shook her head, almost as if Saban's question were irrelevant. 'I just did,' she said, 'though I hardly dared believe the hope. Of course I wanted to be his bride,' she added hastily, frowning, 'but I also wanted to serve him. When I was a goddess I had dreams, and in the dreams Erek told me the time of change was coming. That the time of his loneliness was ending.'

Saban was always uncomfortable when she talked of having been a goddess. He was not certain he really believed her, but he admitted to himself that he had not grown up in Sarmennyn and so he was not accustomed to the notion of a girl being changed into a goddess, or, indeed, changing back again. 'I prayed you would live,' he said.

'I still get the dreams,' Aurenna said, ignoring his words. 'I think they tell me the future, only it's like looking into a mist. It's how you told me you first saw Scathel's temple, as a shape in the mist, and that's how my dreams are, but I think they'll become clearer.' She paused. 'I hope they'll become clearer,' she went on, 'but at least I still hear Erek in my head and I sometimes think I am really married to him, that perhaps I am the bride he left on earth to do his work.'

'To move a temple?' Saban asked, suddenly jealous of Erek.

'To end winter,' Aurenna said, 'and bring an end to grief. That is why your brother came to Sarmennyn and why he saved you from Lengar. You and I, Saban, are Erek's servants.'

That winter Saban and Mereth roamed the southern woods of Sarmennyn and found the tallest, straightest oaks and elms, taller even than the highest temple poles at Ratharryn, and they touched their foreheads to the trunks, begging forgiveness of the trees' spirits, and then they cut the trees, trimmed them of branches and used a team of oxen to drag the trunks to Aurenna's settlement. There they shaped the massive trees into double-prowed hulls. They fashioned the outside of the hulls first, then turned the trunks over and hollowed them with adzes made of flint, stone or bronze. A dozen men worked on the river bank, singing as they swung the blades and piled the ground with wood chips. Saban loved the work for he was used to shaping timber and he took pleasure in watching the clean white-golden wood take its shape. Aurenna and the other women worked close by, singing as they slit hides into the thongs that would be used to bind the cross-beams to the hulls and the stones to the beams. Saban was happy in those days. He had been accepted as the head man of Aurenna's settlement and everyone there shared a purpose and took pleasure in watching the work progress. They were good times, filled with laughter and honest work.

When the first three hulls were finished Lewydd carved an eye on each bow so that the god who protected boats would look out for storms and rocks, and then he laid the three boats side by side. Each craft was as long as three men, and the width of the three boats together was half the length of the hulls, which Saban now joined together with two huge beams of oak as thick about as a man's waist. The beams were squared with flint and bronze and their lower halves fitted into slots chipped from the three hulls' gunwales. Once the timbers were jointed to the hulls, they were lashed tight with the long strips of hide. It was a monstrous thing, that first boat, and the fishermen shook their heads and said it would never float, but it did. Twenty men heaved it off the bank onto the mud at low tide and the incoming tide lifted the triple hull easily. They called that boat Molot, which meant monster, and Lewydd was certain it would take the weight of the greatest stone and still survive the sea's malevolence.

Camaban travelled to Ratharryn at winter's end and returned to Sarmennyn just as the Molot was finished. He admired the great boat, glanced at the other hulls that were being shaped, then squatted outside Saban's hut to give him news from home. Lengar, he said, was more powerful than ever, but Melak of Drewenna had died and there had been a struggle for the chieftainship between Melak's son and a warrior named Stakis. Stakis had won. 'Which is not what we wanted,' Camaban said. He took a bowl of gruel from Aurenna and nodded his thanks.

'What's so bad about Stakis?' Saban asked.

'We have to float the stones through his territory, of course,' Camaban explained, 'and he might not prove a friend to us. Still, he's agreed to meet us.'

'Us?'

'All of us,' Camaban said vaguely, waving a hand that could have encompassed the whole world. 'A meeting of the tribes. Us, Ratharryn and Drewenna. One moon before midsummer. The problem is' — he paused to scoop up some of the gruel — 'the problem' — he went on with his mouth full — 'is that Stakis doesn't like Lengar. I can't blame him. Our brother has to keep his spearmen busy, so he's been raiding Drewenna's cattle.'

'He doesn't fight Cathallo?'

'All the time, only they hide behind their marshes and their new chief is a good warrior. He's one of Kital's sons, Rallin.'

'Derrewyn's cousin,' Saban said, remembering the name.

'Derrewyn's pup, more like,' Camaban said vengefully.

'She calls herself a sorceress now and lives in Sannas's old hut where she wails to Lahanna, and Rallin won't take a piss without her permission. It's strange, isn't it' — he paused to eat more gruel — 'how Cathallo likes being ruled by a woman? First Sannas, now Derrewyn! A sorceress indeed! She grubs about with herbs and makes threats. That isn't sorcery.'

'Did she have Lengar's baby?' Saban asked. He had a sudden image of a dark face framed by black hair, of Derrewyn laughing, then of the same face crying and screaming. He shuddered.

'The baby died,' Camaban said carelessly, then sneered. 'What kind of sorceress can't keep her own child alive?' He put the empty bowl down. 'Lengar wants you to bring Aurenna to the meeting of the tribes.'

'Why?'

'Because I told him she's beautiful.' Camaban said, 'which is good reason to leave her here.'

'Lengar wouldn't touch her,' Saban said.

'He touches every woman he wants,' Camaban said, 'and no one dares deny him for fear of his spearmen. Our brother, Saban, is a tyrant.'

Kereval, Scathel, Haragg, Camaban and a dozen other elders and priests travelled to the meeting of the tribes. Seven boats were needed to carry the delegation, and Saban went with Lewydd in a fishing boat that was driven by eight paddlers. The weather was blustery, and the seas promised to be big, but Lewydd was unworried. 'Dilan will preserve us,' he promised Saban, who faced his first proper sea voyage with trepidation.

The fleet left in a summer dawn, paddling down the river until they reached the sea where they waited in the shelter of a headland. 'The tides,' Lewydd said, explaining the pause.

'What of them?'

'The tides don't just rise and fall, but are like winds in the water. They flow up and down the coast, but unlike the winds they keep to a rhythm. We shall go east with the water-wind, and when it turns against us we rest until it helps us again.' Lewydd had sacrificed a piglet in Malkin's temple, then splashed the animal's blood on the boat's prow, and now he dropped the carcass over the side. The crews of the other six boats did the same.

When the tide turned Saban did not detect it, but Lewydd was satisfied and his eight paddlers gave a shout and drove the boat out to sea. They went well away from the coast before turning east and now the wind was behind them and so Lewydd ordered a sail raised. The sail was made of two ox hides that were hung on a short spar suspended at the top of a stubby mast, and once the wind caught the leather it seemed to Saban that the boat flew, though still the waves came faster. The great seas would heap up behind and Saban feared the boat must be overwhelmed, but then the stern would lift and the paddlers would redouble their efforts and for a heart-stopping moment the wave would carry the boat forward in a great seething surge before the crest passed under the hull and the boat would lurch back and the sail would crack like a whip. The other crews raced them, driving their paddles hard so that the spray flicked up in the sun. They chanted as they worked, rivalling each other in music as well as in speed, though sometimes the chanting paused as men used sea-shells to scoop water from their boats.

Late in the morning the seven boats turned into the land. The tide, Lewydd explained, was turning, and though it was possible for paddles and sail to drive them against that current, their progress would be small and the effort great, so the boats sought shelter in a small bay. They did not go ashore, but rather anchored with a great stone through which a hole had been chipped and to which a long line of twisted strips of hide was attached. The seven boats rested through the afternoon. Most of the crews slept, but Saban stayed awake and saw men with spears and bows appear on the cliffs of the small cove. The men stared down at the boats, but made no attempt to interfere.

The crews woke towards evening and made a meal of dried fish and water and then the stones were hauled up from the sea's bed, the sails were hoisted and the paddles were plunged into the sea again. Slaol set in a blaze of red that was broken by streaky clouds and all the heaving sea behind flickered with the taint of blood until the last colour drained away and the grey gave way to black and they were sailing in the night. There was no moon at first, and the land was dark, but the sky had never seemed to hold so many stars. Lewydd showed Saban how he was following a star in the group that the Outfolk called the Mooncalf and the people of Ratharryn knew as the Stag. The star moved across the sky, but Lewydd, like all fishermen, knew its motion, just as he recognised the dark outlines of the low hills on the northern bank which, to Saban, were mere blurs. Later, when Saban woke from a half-sleep, he saw that there was land on both sides because the great sea was narrowing. A near full moon had risen and Saban could see the other boats stretched on either side with Lahanna's light flashing rhythmically from their paddles.

He slept again, not waking until the dawn. The paddlers were driving their boats towards the blaze of the rising sun. Great sheets of gleaming mud lay on either side, and folk walked on the mud's ripples and stared at the boats. 'They're hunting shellfish,' Lewydd said, then lifted his spear because a dozen boats had come from the southern shore. 'Show them your bow,' Lewydd said, and Saban dutifully held up the weapon. All the men in Sarmennyn's boats now brandished spears or bows and the stranger's boats sheered away. 'Probably just fishermen,' Lewydd said.

The sea narrowed between the wide muddy flats on which intricate fish traps, woven from hundreds of small branches, made dark patterns. Saban, looking over the side, saw the sea-bed writhing. 'Eels,' Lewydd said, 'just eels. Good eating!' But there was no time to fish, for the tide was again turning and the paddlers were chanting hard as they drove the boat towards the mouth of a river which slid into the sea between glistening banks. Lewydd said it was the River Sul, the same name that was used in Ratharryn. Birds rose from the mudbanks, protesting at the boats' intrusion, and the sky was filled with white wings and raucous cries.

They waited for the tide to turn again, then let it carry them far up Sul's river. That night they slept ashore and next morning, freed now of the tide's influence, they paddled the boats upstream, gliding beneath vast trees that sometimes arched overhead to make a green tunnel. This is all Drewenna's land,' Lewydd said.

'You've been here before?'

'When I hunted your young men on their ordeals,' Lewydd answered with a grin.

'Maybe I saw you,' Saban said, 'but you didn't see me.'

'Or maybe we did see you,' Lewydd said, 'and decided a little runt like you wasn't worth keeping.' He laughed, then lowered his spear shaft over the side to test the river's depth. 'This is the way we shall bring the stones,' he said.

'Only three days' journey?' Saban asked, pleased that the voyage had been so swift.

'The stones will take much longer,' Lewydd warned him. 'Their weight will make the boats slow, and we shall have to wait for good weather. Six days, seven? And more to bring the stones upriver. We shall be fortunate to make one voyage a year.'

'Only one?'

'If we are not to starve,' Lewydd said, meaning that the paddlers could not abandon their fishing or farming for too long. 'Perhaps, in a good year, we might make two voyages.' He poled with his spear shaft, not to test the depth but to push the boat forward. The seven craft were driving against the river's strong current now and most of the crews had abandoned their paddles and were standing and using their spears as Lewydd was doing. Every now and then, through the trees, they could see fields of wheat and barley, or pastures with cows. Pigs rooted on the river bank where herons nested high in the trees. Kingfishers whipped bright from either bank. 'And from here to Ratharryn?' Lewydd asked. 'I don't know how long that will take.' He explained how they could follow the Sul until it was too shallow for the boats to float any more, and there the stones and the boats would have to be hauled onto the bank and dragged on sledges to another river, perhaps a day's journey away. That river flowed into the Mai and once on that river the boats could be turned upstream until they came to Ratharryn.

'More sledges?' Saban asked.

'Ratharryn's folk will build them. Or Drewenna's,' Lewydd said, which was why the new chieftain of Drewenna had called this meeting of the tribes. The stones must pass through his land and their passage would require his help and doubtless Stakis wanted a rich reward for letting the boulders go safely past his spearmen.

The river was narrowing beneath the green trees and each of the boats now carried a leafy branch in its bows to show that the men of Sarmennyn came in peace, yet even so the few folk who saw them hid or ran away. 'Have you been to Sul?' Saban asked Lewydd.

'Never,' Lewydd said, 'though we sometimes raided close to it.' He explained that Sul's settlement was too large and too well guarded and so Sarmennyn's raiders always skirted the place.

The settlement was famous, for it was the home of a goddess, Sul, who welled hot water up from the ground and so had given her name to the river which curled around the cleft in the rocks where her marvellous spring bubbled. Drewenna ruled the settlement and guarded it fiercely, for Sul attracted scores of people seeking healing and those supplicants had to bring gifts if they were to gain access to the waters. Saban had heard many stories of Sul; his mother had told him how a monster had once lived there, a massive beast, larger than an aurochs, with a skin hard as bone and a great horn reaching from its forehead and massive hoofs heavier than stones. Anyone trying to reach the hot water had to pass the monster, and no one ever could, not even the great hero Yassana, who was the son of Slaol and from whose loins all Ratharryn's people had sprung, but then Sul had sung a lullaby and the monster had laid its heavy head in her lap and she had poured a liquid in its ear and the monster had turned to stone, trapping her. The monster and the goddess were still there, and at night, Saban's mother had said, you could hear her sad lullaby coming from the rocks where the hot water flowed.