Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Dluc murmured a few words to the chief, but he did not hear them.

  “He will die,” Ina said. Quietly she leant forward and wiped his brow.

  “It is the will of the gods that he should live,” the priest replied firmly. Ina said nothing.

  Brave words: yet was his faith so strong? Dluc knew that he had spoken them to make himself believe. He knew all the secrets of medicine – and he knew that there were maladies of the spirit which none of them could cure.

  Even so, he made potions of verbena, that sweet smelling and most efficacious of all herbs, and with these potions moistened the chiefs brow and his lips, while he prayed to the gods. The night passed and there was no change.

  For two days his life hung in the balance. They were terrible days for the High Priest. Could it be that the gods had deserted Sarum after all? Was the new temple not as they had ordered? It seemed to him that he no longer knew himself.

  The news of Krona’s sickness had spread all along the rivers. In every valley, the people of Sarum went about their business silently; what would happen if Krona died? No one knew. During those days, all Sarum seemed to be living with a sense of doom.

  Then, in the darkness, came a glorious ray of sunlight.

  Omnic returned; and with him he brought a bride.

  They came up the river in a large curragh – twice the size of the boat in which he had left – which was painted white. Wise Omnic, remembering the message of the auguries, which all the people knew, had covered the girl’s head not only with a coronet of gold, but an intricate golden net that reached down her back, and he had made her stand in the front of the boat so that the people in the settlements along the river would see her clearly as the boat passed. His choice was excellent; the girl was tall, high-breasted and slim. She was not beautiful; she had a long nose, solemn grey eyes and her skin was pitted; but she was the daughter of an Irish chief who had parted with her for a handsome payment, and her mother and grandmother had each borne twelve healthy children.

  Omnic had been thorough. He had not only taught her the dialect of the Sarum area on their long journey, but had carefully explained to her every aspect of her new role. The girl had made little comment, but the priest thought she had understood him well enough.

  News of their coming reached the hill at Sarum well ahead of their arrival and Dluc was waiting on the riverbank to receive them. When she stepped out of the boat and he conducted her up to Krona’s house, his heart rose; not because she was graceful – she was not – but because she, at least, seemed certain of her destiny. Whether guided by her own instincts, or by what Omnic had told her, she took charge of the situation at once. On entering the house she went straight to the bed where Krona lay and, taking no notice of Ina, in her strange accents she spoke firmly to the chief.

  “I am Raka, your wife. You must get well, for you are to have children again.”

  Ever since he had been a child, no time had been more magic to Krona than the ancient feast of Winter Day. Of all the feasts that were celebrated, this was the oldest, and although the priests set the date of the festival by the solar calendar – it fell thirty-nine days after the autumn equinox – it was thought that these rites were older even than the henge itself. Since time immemorial each farmer had performed the rite on the eve of Winter Day in his own house, before he killed the livestock he did not want to shelter during the cold months ahead. The farmers used to say that on Winter Day itself, even the sun god is asleep and that the spirits come out of their graves to walk among the living. The rite of Winter’s Eve was especially important, because that was when each farmer asked the gods to make his fields fertile.

  In the presence of this strange woman from the western islands, the chief felt his spirits slowly returning. The pallor left his face; his eyes grew clearer, but above all, a small hope, like an inner warmth, deep within his body, began to grow again.

  “I had lost faith in the gods,” he confided to the High Priest on the third day of his recovery. “It was as though, after my sons . . . Krona had begun to die.”

  Dluc nodded.

  “When Krona dies, Sarum also dies,” he said. “But now?”

  “I am still weak,” the chief confessed. “But I begin to live again.”

  Indeed, his recovery was remarkable. Raka and Ina were constantly at his side. The girl said little. She seemed to be self-sufficient. But each day she would look into Krona’s eyes and tell him: “You will soon be well,” in a voice that made it seem like a statement of fact rather than a hope. And from this Krona continued to draw strength and comfort.

  “She knows I shall be well,” he told the priest. “She is the one sent by the gods. This time I am sure of it.”

  On the fifth day Dluc said: “It is time to set a marriage day.”

  To which Krona replied: “Let it be the eve of Winter Day, in three days’ time. No day in the calendar is more lucky.”

  The ceremony took place as night was falling, in the main room of Krona’s house. All the tapers were lit, and twenty of Sarum’s most important families crowded into the room.

  “Let the couple come forward,” Dluc called, and Krona stepped forward with Raka. He looked younger and stronger than he had for many months, and the priest rejoiced to see the great chief he had loved restored to something like his former self. Then, following the time-honoured custom on Winter’s Eve, Dluc said loudly:

  “Let the corn maiden enter.”

  Old Ina and her serving woman brought in that strange and wonderful figure which, even then, brought a flush of excitement into Krona’s heart: two cubits long, made of braided cornstalks cunningly woven together to form a female figure with huge breasts and legs spread wide apart, the corn maiden was the image of fertility. The women laid her carefully on a bench in the centre of the room. Next Dluc called out:

  “Sun, bless this fair maiden and let her be fruitful.” And all those present cried: “See she is fruitful!”

  As soon as these words had been said, Ina and her women slowly danced around the corn maiden three times, pausing to bow as they completed each circle.

  As Dluc performed the next part of the ceremony he thought of Krona. He took a heavy oak club, black with age, and laid it between the maiden’s open legs.

  “We have ploughed and sown,” the men all cried. “See that we reap!”

  For the second time, Ina and her women went three times round the corn maiden, and this time they clapped their hands and made provocative signs to indicate to the corn maiden that she must be fruitful.

  The ceremony of the corn maiden was complete; she would lie there, the club between her legs, until sunset the following day. Then Dluc led Krona and the girl forward.

  “Greatest of all gods, sun,” he cried, “giver of life: bless the marriage of this man and woman and let her, too, be fruitful.”

  All the men and women in the room clapped their hands. Then he placed a circle of gold upon the girl’s head.

  “Raka,” the priest said earnestly, “you are chosen by the gods.”

  And as Chief Krona looked at the corn maiden, that wonderful, pregnant symbol of the fields that reminded him so vividly of his childhood; as he gazed fondly at his faithful old wife and stared in wonder at the strange girl by his side; as he went through the time honoured ritual of this most magical day of the year – when even the implacable sun god slept – he felt a glow of happiness and excitement in his body that he had not felt for many years. It was like a great warmth. It seemed to him that on this day his spirit had been reborn.

  This time both Krona and the High Priest really believed that Sarum had come to an end of her troubles.

  A few days later, in the modest hut in the northern valley, a small event took place that gave the mason more joy than the knowledge that at last Krona had found his chosen bride.

  His son was born: a splendid little boy with a large round head, huge, serious eyes and stubby little hands with short thumbs; when Nooma held the boy up high and ins
pected him he grinned with satisfaction.

  “You’ll be a fine mason one day,” he chuckled. “Look at his hands.” He handed the baby back to Katesh and stroked her hair affectionately. “Soon we’ll have a team of little masons,” he said enthusiastically; and she smiled weakly.

  At the next full moon, just before the first frosts came, a feast was held at the little hut in the valley. The mason carefully laid out rush mats on the ground outside, while Katesh prepared a meal, the centrepiece of which was the greatest delicacy the valley knew – a whole sucking pig which she turned slowly on a spit over the open fire. There were wheat cakes, ripe berries and – most important after the pig – great flagons of the dark ale of the region and the thick, sweet and highly alcoholic mead, fermented from the honey that had been scooped from the nests of the bees in the surrounding woods.

  To this feast he invited his best masons, the family of Katesh, his friend Tark and – without whom the feast would have no meaning – one of the priests: for it was the privilege of the priests to name the child.

  Before the sun set, the baby was brought out and shown to the priest.

  He was a serious young man. Like all the priests he wore a single heavy robe of undyed brown wool and his head was shaved in the customary way into a single V, with its point between the eyes. For some time he stood silently, gazing severely from the large, solemn head of the baby to the equally solemn face of the little mason. Then suddenly his stern expression creased into a laugh.

  “The son is like the father. Let him be called Noo-ma-ti,” he said, smiling.

  This was a clever pun, for it meant both ‘like-Nooma’ and ‘man-of-stone’. The party shouted with delight at the appropriateness of the name and the feast began.

  At the end of the feast, when the sweet and heady mead was drunk and Nooma felt his whole being glow with warmth, it was the turn of Tark the riverman to lead the guests in song. And as he began in his rich, deep voice, the men gladly followed his lead. They sang the old hunting songs of the region, and some others of a more bawdy nature. But while the men rolled about and frequently sang out of tune, Tark was always still, his dark, lean face like a glowing wooden instrument from which there came always a wonderful, melodious tune. At last he said:

  “Now, a lullaby for the child.”

  And very softly, while the men and women listened silently, he began a slow rhythmic song which seemed to curl up into the air and disperse like the woodsmoke rising from the glowing embers of the fire; it was a strange old song about a forest, full of animals and birds, that lay under the sea. It was a haunting song; and all the time that he sang, his dark eyes, which seemed to be focused on the far distance, wandered round the circle of happy faces by the fire.

  That night, when the guests had gone, Katesh said: “He is a fine singer, your friend Tark.” And the little mason warmly agreed, before he fell contentedly asleep.

  Three days later, Nooma began to move the first of the completed sarsens to the henge.

  He had chosen this time of the year because it was then that the first frosts had made the ground hard, so that the huge weight of the sarsens would not cause them to get bogged down.

  “We can get the sarsens halfway to the henge before the snows come,” Nooma said. “Perhaps they will go over the snow too.”

  On his orders, each sarsen was strapped to a framework of timber, and hundreds of trees had been felled and their trunks stacked at points along the route, to be used as rollers over which the frames could be guided. The route was carefully chosen, keeping as much as possible to the higher ground where the going was easy. He began this work with five hundred men and a hundred teams of oxen.

  The men worked efficiently, but Nooma had soon found that the oxen were a problem.

  “The obstinacy of these beasts,” one of the priests said to him, “is greater even than the obstinacy of men.” And it was certainly true.

  A single pair, or even a team of oxen could be driven easily enough. But to pull one of the huge stones, many pairs of oxen, twenty or thirty were needed, and though their strength was enormous, their movements were spasmodic.

  “They are impossible to handle,” the mason cried in despair, and he called for more teams of men to replace them.

  In the end, the oxen were used only on the uphill slopes, where their extra power was useful in helping the disciplined teams of men who pulled steadily on the leather ropes and sang as they worked.

  When the snows came, Nooma tried to build a great sled under one of the sarsens, but the weight of the stone was so great that it sank into the snow and was impossible to budge; and the moving of sarsens had to stop until the early spring.

  It was in the spring, soon after the equinox, that the news for which Sarum had waited so long finally came. Raka was pregnant.

  She was a strange creature. As the months passed, she still spoke little, complained about nothing, asked for nothing, had no friends and no enemies; she was always at Krona’s side; and of the other women in the house, including old Ina, she took no notice at all. She did not insult them; but it was as if they did not exist. There might have been complaints at such conduct: old Ina, though she said nothing, walked about the house in dejection; but now that the girl was with child, no one could speak a word against her. The fate of Sarum rested in her belly.

  Was the girl happy, Dluc once or twice asked himself? Who knew? And truth to tell, who cared? She had beer, brought there for a purpose; there could be no doubt about her destiny; and she was fulfilling her task.

  Above all, Krona was happy. Each day, it seemed to the chief that he drew strength from Raka, and each day, as he saw her belly swell, he would exclaim: “The gods sent you to us.”

  As the spring ended, there was every sign that there would be a brilliant summer that year: a seemingly endless succession of hot, still days followed each other and on the broad slopes above the five rivers, the heavy corn seemed to promise a bumper harvest. Sarum, at last, was at peace with the gods and Krona was full of hope. A month before the summer solstice Nooma began to erect the first of the huge grey trilithon arches of the new Stonehenge.

  And during these months, the mason too was contented. After all, his wife had given him a son. The work on the henge was proceeding quickly. Like all the people of Sarum, he was conscious of a lightening of his spirit now that Raka was with child and the gods smiled upon its valleys and ridges once again.

  It was true that from before the time that their son was born he had seen that Katesh was sometimes irritable and short-tempered, but he put this down to trivial causes, and their life together continued placidly enough. Indeed, the girl proved herself a good wife: she cooked well and the leather jerkins he wore were now beautifully trimmed with fur. Her care for him was everything it should be: and if sometimes her response to his enthusiastic and energetic lovemaking was lukewarm, the little fellow was still so excited by her splendid young body that he hardly thought anything of it. When he came home to find her sitting cross-legged by the fire in front of the hut with their little son and saw her smile of welcome, he would lift her up and carry her indoors just as he had when they first married.

  Often he was away; for it would sometimes be necessary to camp at the sarsen site for a month at a time; and during these periods Katesh was left alone to fill the time caring for their little plot of ground on the hillside, and sitting with the other women who lived in that part of the valley. But many of the men were away for long periods while the great work on the henge continued, and Katesh never complained.

  Truly, she was a good wife.

  Sometimes, if he had been absent for a while, Nooma would consult his friend Tark the riverman, and ask him:

  “What can I give Katesh that will please her on my return?”

  Tark would tell him to wait and then, after one of his visits to the harbour, he would return with some fine ornament or a string of gleaming beads that he had traded with the merchants who came from across the sea.

&nb
sp; “These are the things women like,” he told the mason. When Nooma gave these presents to Katesh, she flushed with pleasure, and the little mason grinned to see that he had made his wife happy.

  It was during the late spring, when he was returning to the valley one evening, that Nooma made a small discovery which delighted him. Beside the path that led down from the ridge, he had often noticed a small thorn tree whose roots for some reason had pushed up through the ground so that one had to be careful not to trip over them. That day he carelessly caught his foot in one of these, and almost fell. And it was in turning to look at the root, that he noticed it had pushed up a small piece of stone which must have been lying under the surface. He stopped to look at it. To his surprise, he saw that the little lump of grey stone, which was no bigger than his fist, had already been carved – crudely but unmistakably – into the form of a little woman, squat and full-bodied. Something about the curious little figure pleased him as he cradled it in his stubby hands. He saw and felt how the carver had succeeded in reproducing lovingly the big, firm curves of the squat little woman, how he had captured the very essence of her boundless fertility.

  “The man who made this loved his woman,” he murmured. And he pushed it into the leather pouch he wore on his belt and took it home with him.

  In a corner of his hut he had a pile of such objects – flint arrowheads, spearheads, and stones with curious formations that he had found and which he delighted to study, noting the grain and the secret inner forces of the rock that had caused each strange shape. Onto this pile he placed the little figure that Hwll the hunter had made of his woman Akun, thousands of years before, and there for many years it remained.

  It was during the long warm days of summer that Nooma began to erect the first arches of the new Stonehenge.

  The raising of the sarsens was a delicate matter. The huge uprights were brought to the edge of the pit that had been dug for them so that a few feet overlapped the edge. Then ropes were attached, and two hundred men would lever and haul the stones, inch by inch, into an upright position – one group pulling the ropes over a high wooden frame while another pushed in props behind the slowly rising stone. Gradually it would slip into the pit – the greatest trilithon was set eight feet deep – and gangs of men would pack in the chalk filling around it.