Stonehenge (31 page)

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 toward 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 color drained away and the gray 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 recognized 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 toward 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 toward 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 anymore, 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 marvelous 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.

The famous settlement lay on the river’s northern bank. Fields spread downstream, hacked out of the forests that had once grown in the fertile valley, and a score of boats were hauled up on the bank, beyond which Saban could see smoke rising from thatched roofs. The hills were close on either side, steep hills, but looking lush and green after Sarmennyn’s wind-scoured slopes.

The folk at Sul had heard the boats were coming upriver and a
group of dancers waited at the landing to welcome Kereval and his men. Scathel was first ashore. The priest was naked and carried a great curved bone, a sea-monster’s rib, and he crouched in the mud and smelt the air for danger, then turned three times before declaring the place safe.

Stakis, a scarred young warrior who was Drewenna’s new chief, welcomed the Outfolk and Saban found himself translating the flowery words. Stakis embraced Saban, saying he was pleased to meet the brother of the mighty Lengar, though Saban sensed that the pleasure was feigned. Indeed, it was rumored that Stakis had only won the chieftainship of Drewenna because he was reckoned strong enough to resist Ratharryn’s insistent demands, while Melak’s son, who had expected to succeed his father, had been thought too feeble. Lengar had not yet arrived, though a plume of smoke showing in the clear sky above the eastern hills was a signal that his party had been sighted.

Dancers escorted the visitors from Sarmennyn to some new huts specially raised for the meeting of the tribes and beyond the huts, on the grassland to the north of the settlement, there was a throng of shelters for the folk who had come to witness the meeting. There were jugglers in the crowd and men who had tame wild beasts: wolves, pine martens and a young bear. A larger bear, a great old male with a scarred pelt and claws the color of scorched wood, was imprisoned in a wooden pen and Stakis promised that when Lengar’s men arrived he would arrange a fight between the bear and his best dogs. A score of female slaves waited in the huts. “They are yours,” Stakis said, “yours to enjoy.”

Lengar arrived that evening. Drums announced his coming and the whole crowd walked eastward to greet his procession. Six women dancers came first, all naked to the waist and sweeping the ground with ash branches, while behind them came a dozen naked priests, their skin whitened by chalk and their heads crowned with antlers. Neel, whom Saban remembered as the youngest of Ratharryn’s priests, now wore the large antlers denoting he was the high priest.

Behind the priests came a score of warriors and it was those men who caused the crowd to gasp for, despite the day’s heat, they wore cloaks made from fox pelts and high-crowned fox fur hats plumed
with swan’s feathers. They had bronze-headed spears and bronze swords and all looked alike, which made them oddly formidable.

And in their midst were Ratharryn’s warlords, their battle captains, led by their renowned chief. Lengar was heavier and full-bearded now, so that he looked like his father, but his horned eyes were as sharp and cunning as ever. He wore his leather tunic on which the bronze plates gleamed, while on his head was a bronze helm like none Saban had ever seen before. He smiled slyly when he saw Saban, then walked on to greet Stakis. Drewenna’s dancers circled the newcomers, kicking up a fine dust with their feet. Behind the warriors came a score of slaves, some bearing heavy sacks that Saban guessed must contain gifts for Stakis.

Lengar crossed to Saban when the greetings were done. “My little brother,” he said, “no longer a slave.”

“No thanks to you,” Saban said. He had neither embraced nor kissed his brother; he had not even offered his hand, but Lengar did not seem to expect a fond greeting.

“It is thanks to me, Saban, that you live at all,” Lengar said. Then he shrugged: “But we can be friends now. Your wife is here?”

“She could not travel.”

Lengar’s yellow eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

“She is pregnant,” Saban lied.

“So? She loses a pup and you have the pleasure of whelping another on her.” Lengar scowled. “I hear she is beautiful.”

“So men say.”

“You should have brought her. I ordered you to, didn’t I? Have you forgotten I am your chief?” His anger was rising, but he shook his head as though forcing it down. “Your woman can wait for another time,” he said, then tapped the blue tattoo on Saban’s bare chest. “Only one killing scar, little brother? And only one son, I hear? I have seven that I acknowledge, but there are plenty of others.” He plucked Saban’s tunic, guiding him toward the huts set aside for Ratharryn’s people. “This temple,” he asked in a low voice, “is it really a war temple?”

“It is Sarmennyn’s great war temple,” Saban said. “Their secret temple.”

Lengar seemed impressed. “And it will bring us victory?”

“It will make you the greatest warlord of all time,” Saban said.

Lengar looked pleased. “And what will Sarmennyn’s folk do if I take their temple and keep their gold?”

“They might do nothing,” Saban said, “but Slaol will doubtless punish you.”

“Punish me!” Lengar bridled, stepping away. “You sound like Camaban! Where is he?”

“Gone to look at the goddess’s shrine.” Saban nodded toward the high wooden palisade that surrounded the settlement and the goddess’s spring, and when he turned back he saw that Jegar was approaching.

Saban was astonished at the upwelling of hatred he felt at the sight of Jegar and for an instant all the ancient misery about Derrewyn swamped him. It must have shown on his face, for Lengar looked pleased at his reaction. “You do remember Jegar, little brother?” he asked.

“I remember him,” Saban said, staring into the eyes of his enemy. Jegar was wealthy now, for he was swathed in a cloak of fine otter fur and had a gold chain about his neck and a dozen gold rings on his fingers, but the fingers of his right hand, Saban saw, were still curled uselessly. His hair was streaked with red ochre and his beard was plaited.

“Only one killing scar, Saban?” Jegar said scornfully.

“I could have another if I chose,” Saban said defiantly.

“One more!” Jegar pretended to be impressed, then shrugged off the otter cloak to reveal a chest smothered in tattoos. Each blue scar was a row of dots hammered into the skin with a bone comb. “Every scar is a man’s spirit,” Jegar boasted, “and every dot of every scar is a woman on her back.” He placed a finger against one blue mark. “And I remember that woman well. She fought! She screamed!” He looked slyly at Saban. “Do you remember her?” Saban said nothing and Jegar smiled. “And as she wept afterward, she promised me that you would have your revenge.”

“I keep promises made on my behalf,” Saban said stiffly.

Jegar whooped with laughter and Lengar punched Saban softly in the chest. “You will leave Jegar alone,” he said, “for tomorrow he will speak for me.” He gestured toward the big cleared space, marked by a ring of slender wooden poles, where the negotiations between the three tribes would take place.

“You won’t speak for yourself?” Saban asked, shocked.

“They tell me there is a bull aurochs in the forest north of here,” Lengar said carelessly, “and I have a mind to hunt it. Jegar knows what to tell Stakis.”

“Stakis will be insulted,” Saban protested.