Stonehenge - Bernard Cornwell

'I am relieved,' Camaban said drily, then looked at Gundur, whom men said was the best of Ratharryn's warriors. 'See to the boys' deaths,' Camaban ordered and moments later the mothers screamed as Lengar's sons were dragged away. They were taken to the ditch inside the embankment and there killed and their bodies given to pigs. 'It was Slaol's will,' Neel said enthusiastically to Camaban.

'It is also Slaol's will that Haragg should be the new high priest here.'

Neel twitched as though he had been struck, then opened his mouth to protest, but no words came. He stared at Camaban, then at Haragg who looked equally startled. Haragg recovered first. 'I stopped being a priest years ago,' he said mildly.

'And I am high priest!' Neel complained shrilly.

'You are nothing,' Camaban said calmly. 'You are less than nothing. You are slime beneath a stone and you will go to the trees or else I shall bury you alive in the dung pits.' He pointed a bony finger towards the southern causeway, indicating that Neel was outlawed. 'Go,' he said. Neel dared say nothing more; he just obeyed. 'He was a weak man,' Camaban said when Neel had gone, 'and I would have my high priest strong.'

'I am not a priest,' Haragg insisted. 'I am not even of your tribe.'

'You are of Slaol's tribe,' Camaban said, 'and you will be our high priest.'

Haragg took a deep breath and stared over the embankment's crest and thought of far places, sea cliffs, wild forests, strange tribes and all the world's untravelled paths. 'I am not a priest,' he protested again.

'What is it you want?' Camaban asked him

'A land where folk do good,' Haragg said, frowning as he considered his words, 'where they live as the gods meant us to live. A land without war, without unkindness.'

'You talk like a priest,' Camaban said.

'Men are weak,' Haragg said, 'and the demands of the gods are strong.'

'Then make us stronger!' Camaban insisted. 'How are we to bring the gods to earth if we are weak? Stay, Haragg, help us make the temple, help us be worthy! I would have you as my priest and Aurenna as my priestess.'

'Aurenna!' Saban exclaimed.

Camaban turned brooding eyes on Saban. 'You think Slaol spared Aurenna's life so she could whelp your children? You want her to be a sow? A ewe with swollen udders? It was for that we stirred the thunder in Sarmennyn?' He shook his head. 'It is not enough to keep men busy,' he went on, 'we must also inspire them, and who better than Aurenna? She has visions and is beloved of Slaol.'

'Slaol must want something of her,' Haragg agreed. 'Why else did he spare her?'

'And he spared you,' Camaban said forcefully, 'on the night your son died. You think there was no purpose in that? So be a father to my tribe. Be my high priest.'

Haragg was silent for a while, his implacable face unreadable, but then he gave a reluctant nod. 'If it is Slaol's will,' he said.

'It is,' Camaban said confidently.

Haragg sighed. Then I will be high priest here.'

'Good!' Camaban smiled, though the smile hardly detracted from the grimness of his thin face. He had washed most of the ash from his hair and had twisted its long braids round and round his head before pinning them with long bone spikes, but his face still had the ineradicable black barred tattoos. 'Haragg will be high priest, Aurenna will be a priestess, Gundur will lead our spearmen and Saban will make the temple. What will you do, Lewydd?'

Lewydd glanced at the smoking remnants of the feasting hall. 'Bury my folk,' he said grimly, 'and then go home.'

'Then you must take these with you,' Camaban said, and he gave Lewydd a leather bag which, when it was opened, proved to hold the golden lozenges of Sarmennyn. 'There are three missing,' Camaban explained. 'Last night I learned that they were stolen by Derrewyn, but we shall retrieve those pieces and return them to you.' Camaban leaned over and patted Lewydd's shoulder. 'Take your treasure home,' he said, 'and become chief of Sarmennyn. Grow fat, grow wealthy, grow wise, and do not forget us.'

Saban suddenly laughed, and Camaban looked enquiringly at him. Saban shrugged. 'For years now,' he said, 'everything we have done has been driven by that gold. And now it is over.'

'It is not over,' Camaban said, 'it is just beginning. The gold dazzled us and so we sought our destiny in Sarmennyn, but it never lay there. It lies in Cathallo.'

'In Cathallo?' Saban asked, astonished.

'How can I make a temple worthy of Slaol if I don't have boulders?' Camaban asked. 'And who has boulders? Cathallo.'

'Cathallo will give you stones,' Saban said, 'or exchange them.'

'They will not,' Camaban replied fiercely. 'I met Derrewyn this summer. Did you know she has a daughter? Merrel is the wretched infant's name. Derrewyn lay with Rallin because she wanted the chief's child and she will raise it, she tells me, to be a sorceress like herself. A sorceress! She rubs bones together, mutters over snail shells, pounds toadflax and butter into paste, stares into pisspots and thinks she's influencing the gods. But I still went to her this summer. I went in secret, in the dark of night, and I bowed to her. I abased myself. Give me stones, I begged her, and I will bring peace between Ratharryn and Cathallo, but she would not give me so much as a pebble.' He was bitter at the humiliating memory. 'Sannas once told me she prayed to the wolf god when she walked where wolves ran, but why? Why even give him a prayer? For why should the wolf god listen? It is the nature of wolves to kill, not to spare. By begging of Derrewyn I was making Sannas's mistake. I was praying to the wrong god.'

'Give her Lengar's head,' Saban suggested, 'and she might give you every stone in Cathallo.'

'She will give us nothing,' Gundur said, his hands still bloody from the killing of Lengar's sons.

Camaban looked at the warrior. 'If I attack Cathallo tomorrow, can I win?'

Gundur hesitated, then glanced at Vakkal, the Outfolk war leader whose allegiance was now to Ratharryn, and both men shrugged. 'No,' Gundur admitted.

'Then if we cannot get what we want by war, we must try peace,' Camaban said. He turned to Saban. 'Take our brother's head to Derrewyn,' he said, 'and offer her peace. Say all we want of them is some stones.'

'Praying to the wolf god?' Haragg suggested.

'Threatening the wolf god,' Camaban insisted. 'Tell her she must give us stones or I will give them war as they have never seen it.'

So Saban took his elder brother's head, put it in a bag and next morning walked north.

—«»—«»—«»—

Saban carried no weapons, for he went in peace, but he was still nervous as he crossed the streams beside Maden and climbed the hills into Cathallo's skull-marked territory. No one accosted him, though more than once he had the sensation that he was being watched and he flinched at the thought of an arrow flicking through the leaves to strike his back.

It was evening when he crossed the small river to climb the hill that led to the small temple and the sacred way. He had not gone more than thirty paces from the river when a dozen spearmen came from the scattered woods behind, ran through the stream and formed a silent escort on either side of him. They had not only tracked him through the woods, but seemed to expect him, for none challenged his right to be there, but just led him between the paired stones of the sacred path, about the double bend and so into the shrine where, outside Sannas's old hut, a fire burned bright in the gathering twilight and three people waited for him. Rallin, chief of Cathallo, was there, and to one side of him was Derrewyn and on the other her father, the blinded Morthor. Behind that group were the warriors of Cathallo, blue-stained for war and with spears in their hands.

Rallin stood to greet Saban. 'You bring us news,' he said flatly.

Morthor also stood. His skin was chalked white and his empty eye-sockets had been rimmed with red ochre. 'Is that you, Saban?'

'It is.'

Morthor smiled. 'You are well?'

'He crawls in his brother's shadow like a worm,' Derrewyn said, staying seated. She was thinner than ever and her pale skin was stretched taut across her cheekbones, making her dark eyes look very large. Her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck, but Saban saw she had discarded the necklace of her dead child's bones. Perhaps that was because she now had another child, the daughter who lay in her arms and who was a dark-haired girl no older than Lallic. 'Saban has come, father,' Derrewyn went on, to tell us that Lengar is dead, that Camaban is chief and that Ratharryn threatens war if we do not meekly allow them to take stones from our hills.'

'Is it true?' Rallin asked.

'Of course it is true!' Derrewyn hissed at him. 'I felt Lengar's death here!' She slapped her belly, making Merrel cry aloud. With surprising gentleness, Derrewyn stroked her daughter's forehead and crooned a few words to soothe the girl. 'I felt his death when the nutshell was broken. Did you bring me his head, Saban?'

He held out the bag. 'Here.'

'It will match Jegar's,' she said, gesturing for Saban to drop the bag. He obeyed, spilling Lengar's bloody head onto the grass, then he looked at her hut and saw that Jegar's skull was displayed on a pole beside its door.

Rallin and Morthor sat, and Saban followed their example. 'So why are you here, Saban?' Rallin asked.

'What Derrewyn says is true,' Saban said. 'Camaban is now chief of Ratharryn and he does not want war with you. He wants peace and he wishes to take stones from your hills. That is all I came to say.'

'Lengar is truly dead?' blind Morthor asked.

'Truly dead,' Saban confirmed.

'Lahanna did that!' Morthor said, and raised his eye-sockets to the sky. 'If I could weep,' he added, 'I would shed tears of joy.'

Derrewyn ignored her father's pleasure. 'And why do you want stones?' she asked.

'We wish to build a temple,' Saban said. 'It will be a great temple to bring us peace. That is all we want, peace.'

'We have a great temple here,' Rallin said, 'and your people can come and worship.'

'Your temple has not brought the land peace,' Saban said.

'And yours will?' Derrewyn asked sourly.

'It will bring peace and happiness,' Saban said.

'Peace and happiness!' Derrewyn laughed. 'You sound like a child, Saban! And Camaban has already been here. He crawled to me in the summer and begged for stones, and I will give you now the same answer I gave him then. You may have your stones, Saban of Ratharryn, when you return Sannas's spirit to her ancestors.'

'Sannas's spirit?' Saban asked.

'Who stole her last breath?' Derrewyn demanded fiercely. 'Camaban did! And she can have no peace while Camaban holds her breath in his belly. So bring me Camaban's head, Saban, and I will exchange it for a stone.'

Saban looked at Rallin, hoping for a kinder answer. 'We have no quarrel with Cathallo,' Saban said.

'No quarrel!' Derrewyn screamed, startling her child again. 'Ratharryn brought Outfolk to the heartland, and worse, you brought an Outfolk temple. How long before you march the brides to the fire? And for what? For Slaol! Slaol who deserted us, Slaol who brought the Outfolk vermin to our land, Slaol who gives us winter, Slaol who would destroy us if we did not have Lahanna and Garlanna to protect us. No quarrel? I have a quarrel.' She suddenly pushed her crying daughter into the arms of a slave, then stripped the cloak from her upper body to show Saban the three lozenges, the one great and the two small, hanging between her small breasts. 'It burns!' she said, tapping the large piece of gold. 'It burns me night and day, but it reminds me of Slaol's evil.' She wailed, swaying from side to side. 'Yet Lahanna has promised us victory. She has promised that we shall destroy you. We shall cage up your Slaol and burn your corpses to fill his nostrils with filth.' She stood, leaving the cloak on the ground, and brandished the human thigh bone that Sannas had once wielded. 'You shall have no stones,' she declared, 'and you shall have no peace.'

Saban tried a last time. 'I would that my children grew up in a land of peace,' he said.

'I want the same,' Rallin answered, glancing at Merrel who lay in the slave's arms, 'but there cannot be peace so long as Camaban has Sannas's spirit.'

'Our ancestors are unhappy,' Morthor explained. 'They want Sannas to join them. Send us Camaban, Saban, and we shall give you stones.'

'Or tell Camaban to make war on us,' Derrewyn sneered. 'You think he is a warrior? Let him come to our spears! And tell him, Saban, that when he comes we shall tear the flesh from his bones piece by piece and we shall make him scream for three days and three nights and at their end I will take his soul and the soul of Sannas.' She spat into the fire, then plucked the cloak from the ground to cover her nakedness. 'I thank you for Lengar's head,' she said coldly, 'but have nothing to give you in return.' She took her daughter back, then stalked to her hut and ducked inside.

Saban looked at Rallin. 'Do women make the law here?'

'Lahanna does,' Rallin said curtly. He stood, and pulled Morthor to his feet. 'You should leave now,' he told Saban.

'There will be war if I leave.'

'There will be war whether you leave or stay,' Rallin said. 'We have known nothing but war with Ratharryn since your father died. Do you think we can so quickly make peace?' Rallin shook his head. 'Go,' he said, 'just

go.'

So Saban went.

And the war would go on.

—«»—«»—«»—

Camaban did not seem surprised or disappointed that Saban's mission had failed. 'They want war,' he said. Camaban was at the Sky Temple where Saban found him brooding over the twin rings of Sarmennyn's stones. 'Cathallo thinks that with Lengar dead we shall be easy prey to their spears,' Camaban went on. 'They think I cannot lead men into battle.'

'They said as much,' Saban confessed.

'Good!' Camaban said happily. 'I like an enemy who underestimates me, it makes his humiliation so much easier.' He raised his voice so that Gundur and Vakkal, the war leaders of Ratharryn who were among his entourage, could hear him. 'Men think war is the application of force, but it isn't. War is the application of thought. Cleverness. And I think we should march tomorrow, straight across the marshes, over the hills and into Cathallo.'

Gundur half smiled. 'We have tried that before,' he said softly, 'and failed.'

'You've tried everything and failed,' Camaban retorted.

'And we hear Cathallo is filled with spearmen,' Vakkal put in. 'They expected to meet our forces and the men of Drewenna and so they gathered their allies.'

'But they will know Drewenna has deserted us,' Camaban said, 'and will hardly believe we dare to attack them. What better time to do so?'

'They're probably planning to attack us,' Gundur said gloomily.

'You always think of difficulties!' Camaban shouted at them, astonishing both men. 'How can you win a war if all you do is worry about losing one? Are you women?' He limped towards the warriors. 'We shall leave tomorrow morning, we shall attack in the next dawn and we shall win. Slaol has promised it. Understand? Slaol has promised it!'