Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “There will be vengeance.”

  The next year, when the invaders came whooping through the fields, they suddenly encountered an organised force of thirty men drawn from farms all over the region. The farmers were well armed and lying in wait for them, and after a hard struggle, the invaders were driven off. To their amazement, Krona and his men then followed them relentlessly, day after day, in an effort to obliterate them. For Krona now sought only one thing: revenge.

  The same pattern was repeated the following year when the invaders returned in greater force; and in succeeding years.

  Soon Krona was able to muster fifty or sixty men, and because they were fighting for their own homesteads, they were easily worth twice that number of raiders. They wore blue warpaint, and they would lie in ambush for their enemies and hit them with a devastating fusillade of flint tipped arrows. The insurgents began to dread them. But it was in hand to hand fighting that they were most feared. They wielded short axes of polished stone and they were methodical and merciless.

  Krona himself however, only ever carried one weapon: it was a huge oak club, blackened with age. The heavy end was formed by a big knot in the wood; into the thin end he had fitted a vicious spike of flint. It was a terrible weapon, and with it Krona could club a man to death with a single blow, or split him open with one tearing upward sweep – and it was impossible to tell which kind of blow to expect.

  When he was not fighting, he reverted to being a peaceable farmer, and so it was that the saying arose in the region:

  “You can argue with Krona; but never argue with his club.”

  After a dozen years of this warfare, the invaders wisely left the region alone and turned their attention further south and peace returned for the time being.

  But there was a sense of unease in the area. There was the fear that the raiders might return. There was also a pressure on the land, for though the soil in Krona’s region was poor and easily exhausted, other farmers had been tempted to come there to enjoy his protection and now the place was overcrowded. Finally, the younger farmers who had fought with Krona and enjoyed a taste of action found they were growing restless. They had discovered that they could defeat these savage tribesmen: what else could they do? A spirit of adventure was in the air; and as these young farmers looked about them, a desire arose to find new land: but where?

  “The island across the sea is said to be rich,” one declared. “No one lives there except some hunters. If we go there, we can take all the land we want.”

  “If the hunters don’t kill you first,” another laughed.

  “Krona might lead us,” suggested a third.

  And so it came about. Krona was tired of fighting; he was growing old now, nearly forty and although he had defended them so stoutly, he too found that he was ready to leave the lands where his first family had been murdered and avenged. Despite his age, he had taken a new wife – a high-spirited girl who had given him two boys – and he soon agreed to lead the party to the island in search of a new settlement.

  Now, as he took his first look at the island, he was pleased with what he saw.

  The harbour was sheltered. As they went up the river, the banks were wooded – he saw no signs of any settlers there before them – but he could see that the land was rich. However, this low-lying and indefensible terrain was not what the cautious leader was looking for, and he urged the boats forward. They pushed up river some ten miles and then camped for the night.

  It was on the afternoon of the next day that he reached the place where the five rivers met; and as soon as he saw the bowl of land and the surrounding hills he smiled. At his urging the boats soon reached the entrance to the northern valley and the hill which guarded it. Its natural defensive position was obvious.

  “We settle here,” Krona declared.

  But there remained the question of what to do about any hunters they encountered.

  Krona was not only a brave warrior; he was also a shrewd and wise leader of men, and his instructions to his men had been given carefully.

  “Do not attack any hunter,” he told them. “They know the terrain and they can destroy us. If we are to live here in peace we must win them to our side.”

  This strategy was to be tested at once; for as the six boats pulled into the bank, Krona saw that along the edge of the trees, which were set back some ten yards from the water at that point, a dozen men had silently stepped forward, their bows and arrows at the ready. They had been warned of the boats’ arrival the night before by the long-toed hunter named Taku, who had run all the way from the harbour to prepare his people. They did not move, but watched the newcomers suspiciously.

  Slowly, and alone, Krona stepped out on to the bank. He laid his club ceremoniously on the ground as a signal that he had come in peace, and walked towards the hunters. The conversation between them, which had to be carried out in sign language, went as follows:

  KRONA: I have come in peace.

  HUNTERS: Where from?

  KRONA: Across the sea.

  This caused a murmur of astonishment.

  KRONA: I bring you gifts.

  At his signal, Krona’s young wife, Liam, now brought forward a magnificent pottery bowl, and a tunic made of woven cloth, that she herself had thickly embroidered with beads and gems. The hunters inspected both, first cautiously and then with wonder. The workmanship of the bowl was remarkable. It was a large, rounded object, which looked almost like a leather bag. Its surface contained tiny grits of flint, giving it a consistency like a biscuit and it had been fired to a rich dark brown colour. They had seen nothing like it before. Quickly it was passed from hand to hand. As for the tunic, it, too, was unlike anything they possessed. The cloth was woven and the whole front was covered with brightly coloured beads, drops of amber, and even pearls that had reached Krona by a circuitous route through friendly merchants from the south.

  HUNTERS: What do you want?

  KRONA: To live in this valley.

  HUNTERS: These are our hunting grounds. You cannot hunt here or there will not be enough game.

  KRONA: We do not wish to hunt.

  The hunters looked at one another. This made no sense at all. How could the strangers live if they did not hunt?

  KRONA: (seeing their mystification): We bring our own animals.

  He showed them the animals in the boats. The hunters could still make nothing of this.

  KRONA: We want only the valley. All the other hunting grounds are yours. If you give us the valley, we will give you many gifts. But you must leave the valley and not hunt there. That must be our agreement. If you do this, we will live in peace.

  To give emphasis to his words, the women now brought from the boats six more of the fine bowls and three more tunics. To the hunters this seemed riches indeed.

  Krona waited without moving while they conferred amongst themselves. Taku, who had preceded the boats from the harbour, argued that they should kill the newcomers.

  “They are lying,” he said. “They will hunt all over our lands. Kill them now and take their gifts.” Several of the hunters agreed with him.

  “What Taku says may be true,” a stout elderly man called Magri replied. “But they are strong and well armed. Let them enter the valley. If they keep their word, it is well. If they have lied, then we can wait and ambush them later, when they are not prepared.”

  After some further argument, this wise and provisional plan was agreed.

  And so that day, in a matter of minutes, Krona bought the valley and the little hill of Sarum; the hunters, pleased with their new riches, departed to their camps along the rivers.

  The next morning Krona stalked up the small valley, pointing with his club to the boundaries that were to divide each homestead from the next. He allotted to each man and his family a parcel of land on the well-drained slopes that rose high above the river. There each family would be able to clear the ground, sow crops and raise their stock for generations to come. He inspected the river, and smiled to find it
full of fish; his hard, weatherbeaten face creased with pleasure as he saw the swans which had built their nests in the reeds on the riverbank opposite the hill where he had decided to build his own farm.

  And now a most important event took place. Leading the entire band of settlers up the hill, with a speed and agility that were astonishing for a man his size, the medicine man directed them to clear a space at its summit some thirty feet across. Men, women and children all set to: for this was important and sacred work that no able-bodied person who feared the sun god could neglect. This took several hours, but when it was done, not only had they made a fine clearing, but they had also opened up a magnificent view. All around on the northern side they saw the endless folds of the lightly wooded high ground: below, and to the south, the broad rich valley of wood and marshland led into the blue distance, to the sea from which they had come; and a murmur of approval went up.

  Calling them to order, the medicine man commanded them to build a large fire in the centre; and while this was being done, he prepared himself for the all-important ceremony that was about to take place by painting his face chalk white with the powder he always carried with him. He also made a small incision in his finger and with the blood from this, he painted circles round his eyes.

  When all this work was completed, Krona himself solemnly led forward a lamb, one of the eight on which the future of the community’s flocks was to depend. No higher proof of their reverence for the sun god could be given than this present to him of such a precious commodity.

  Then, in his high, but carrying voice, the medicine man cried out:

  “Oh sun god, look down upon us now. You who shall bring us seedtime and harvest in this new land, you sun who direct the seasons, you who fatten our sheep and cattle and smile upon our crops – our lives and our valley are yours: accept our sacrifice.”

  Quickly he slit the lamb’s throat and laid it on the pyre; then, using the dry sticks which he rubbed into flame, with twigs and dried moss for kindling, he started the fire. As the sacrificial pyre began to burn, and to send its smoke into the cloudy sky over the valley, he moved solemnly from one person to another, carefully cutting a lock of hair from each; when he had obtained hair from everybody present, he threw it all into the flames, thus ensuring that the sun god knew that each of the settlers was equally associated with the sacrifice. As though in answer, the sun suddenly appeared from behind one of the clouds and for a few moments, the bare summit of the little hill was bathed in light.

  The settlement had been founded.

  The changes that took place in the coming months astonished the hunters, who watched from the ridges nearby. At once the settlers began to clear the slopes of trees by felling and burning, and the women began scraping the earth and planting their precious grain on the thin soil. Beside these little plots, the men used the felled timber to build stout houses, surrounding them with palisades of wattle. On the upper slopes, the children guarded the community’s precious flock of brown fleeced sheep, and watched to see that the cattle did not wander onto the growing corn. At night, the animals would be brought down to Krona’s farmstead, and though the wolves’ echoing cry was often heard from the nearby woods at night, Krona saw that the livestock was carefully guarded and none was lost. Incomprehensible as most of this activity was to them, the hunters were impressed, The settlers obviously meant business. Krona’s men meanwhile, under his instructions, made no attempt to meet the hunters. They went about their business and remained strictly in the valley.

  The settlers were pleased with their new home, and none more so than Krona himself. He enjoyed his young wife with her proud walk and her flashing eyes. He smiled to see his two little boys following behind her slim lightly-stepping figure as she went down the slope into the valley.

  He might be getting old, but Liam was fiercely proud of him; and now, in this new land, he could almost forget the pain of the family he had lost.

  In the first months, however, two incidents occurred which established the future relationship between the two communities.

  Just before the first snows came, the long-toed hunter Taku followed a handsome deer down the valley. The deer got away; Taku killed one of the precious calves and started to pull it up the slope under cover of the trees. It was a foolish thing to do; he was seen by one of the women and before he had reached the top of the slope he was caught. Three of the settlers, furious at this outrage, dragged the wiry little hunter down the valley to Krona’s farm, collecting others on the way so that it was a large group of half the settlers in the valley and their families who clustered in front of the farm on the hill.

  As Krona faced the angry little crowd, he considered the situation carefully. The trespass must be punished; and the killing of the all important calf merited death. But against this, he had also to think of the settlers’ relationship with the hunters. He stared at Taku thoughtfully, and then he looked at his long toes.

  KRONA: You have killed one of our animals. The penalty is death. Do you understand?

  Taku said nothing.

  KRONA: You should die. But instead, you shall take a message to your people to warn them. We have come in peace, but they must not touch our animals.

  He turned to the settlers, and cried:

  “His toes are too long!”

  Then he signalled to the medicine man, who at once stepped forward, and with a sharp flint knife cut off the last joint of Taku’s big toes. The hunter yelped with pain.

  KRONA: You will not run into the valley again.

  The settlers thought this a great joke, and Taku hobbled away. No hunter ever touched the animals in the valley again.

  The second incident occurred during the winter. It was particularly cold and long, and even the river had frozen solid. At this time, with the first harvest not yet arrived and the livestock still no more than a few precious animals needed for breeding, the farmers nearly starved. Then it was Magri, the stout hunter and his son who came down into the valley from the high ground one day, carrying between them a deer they had killed. They dropped it in front of Krona’s house and moved away without a word.

  From that time onwards, the settlers and the hunters lived in peace.

  There were many things that puzzled the hunters, and many that interested them.

  They were fascinated by the long painted boats which the settlers let them inspect. Taku in particular, who despite his punishment, struck up a curious friendship with several of the farmers, was delighted with them.

  “They are strong, but so light,” he marvelled as he hobbled round them. There was no question that the boats made of skins were larger, more manoeuvrable, in every way superior to his own dugout.

  The women were amazed by the woven clothes, and both men and women impressed by the solid timber houses. But for a long time, the entire complex business of sowing crops and raising livestock confused them; and they were deeply puzzled by the way that the farmers took the livestock into their own houses to protect them during the winter months. It was normal and sensible for the farmer and his family to sleep next to animals on which their life depended, but to the hunters this seemed strange indeed.

  By the end of the second year however, with the first crops harvested and the stock beginning to increase in number, they had to admit that the settlers had kept their word. They lived in the valley, and they had not needed to encroach upon the hunting grounds outside.

  “They eat well,” the women said.

  “But they live like old women,” old Magri retorted. He pitted his wits against the animals he hunted; he roamed free over the great ridges under the open sky, where the wind moaned. The static, confined life of the farmer harvesting his crops and keeping his animals in pens had no appeal for him.

  “It is not a life for a man,” he stated, and the other hunters agreed with him.

  Two more years passed, and now the hunters could hardly recognise the valley any more.

  On the hill overlooking the river Krona’s farm now con
sisted of a stout wooden building thirty feet long and fifteen deep with a sloping thatch roof and a large doorway to let in light and air. Around it were grouped several small outhouses. Beside the hill, on the slopes, where the soil was light and well-drained, small plots of various shapes had been laid out, their borders marked with stones. He had sown them with wheat, barley and flax, after cross ploughing them with a light ard – a small hoe with a flint head – which he could handle, if necessary, without even the aid of an animal. This process of ploughing fields first one way, and then at right angles, was the most efficient way of breaking up the soil with so light an implement. Near the huts were two pits, six feet deep and four across, lined with plaited straw; in these, and in their pots, they would store the grain. Beside the river, pigs and cattle wandered, and on the high ground above the fields, a few sheep cropped the coarse grass that grew in patches cleared among the scattered trees. All the way up the little northern valley, the pattern was the same, as the trees were destroyed and the land taken up instead by crops and livestock.

  The hunters gazed at it all with increasing wonder.

  It was a tiny beginning – the clearing of the slopes of a small, obscure valley in the midst of an immense forest that covered most of the island: an almost invisible scratch on the surface of the landscape.

  And yet for the landscape of much of Britain, such early clearings were to have profound significance.

  For when Krona and his men started to cut down trees on the edge of the high ground, they began a process whose result would be a permanent change in the composition of the soil. Previous ages had created the rich topsoil which covered the chalk downlands of Britain, and the trees which covered the ridges held this topsoil, often only inches thick, in place. When men cut down the trees, this fragile covering was exposed at once to wind and rain, and in many places it would be washed downhill, leaving behind only a harsh chalky soil full of flints. Sometimes trees would grow again in such places before the topsoil was gone; often man or his animals destroyed them once more. If the topsoil were displaced, the chalky soil remaining was good enough for growing corn, or grazing sheep on the turf covering that would form when it was not ploughed; indeed, the process brought much new life to the land – cowslips, buttercups, huge quantities of butterflies, all of which found the fields their natural habitat – but the woods did not grow there again.