Sarum

by Edward Rutherfurd

  There were ten sarsens to move. Two journeys were needed. One by one the sarsens were strapped to the frames, and on the fifth day after the equinox, the enormous caravan began to make its way across the ridges, raising a steady cloud of dust.

  It was four days before Winter Day when the five sarsens reached the henge. Never before had the journey been done so quickly, and the men, already exhausted by the crippling pace that had been set, returned to begin their journey for the second time. More slowly this time, despite the urging of Nooma, Tark and the frequent whippings of the priests, the men dragged their ungainly burdens along.

  The disaster, when it struck, came in the form of a snowstorm – a three-day blizzard more violent, and much earlier in the year, than any the mason could remember. For three days it raged without stopping, a searing northeasterly wind driving the snow into enormous drifts. During this time, the men were crowded into hastily erected huts and deerskin tents in which they huddled miserably. The sudden cold was terrible. By the third day, a hundred men had frostbite.

  Nooma watched the snow with terror. Before his eyes, first the wooden runners, then the frames, and finally even the huge sarsens themselves began to disappear in the snow. Two of the sarsens were on an incline where the snow was rapidly drifting; on the second day, he and Tark had to go out into the raging blizzard and place stakes around each sarsen to mark the spot where it lay. By the third, only the top of the stakes could be seen.

  On the third day, the blizzard stopped.

  When Nooma looked out over the high ground his heart sank. For mile after mile, the snow lay thick. The rifts and gullies had completely disappeared in the snowdrifts. The sky was clearing, but it was cold and there was no sign that the snow would melt. Perhaps it would stay there all winter. And anyway, even if the snow did melt, the ground would be so sodden that it might be late spring before the stones could be moved again. Furiously his mind made the necessary calculations. In that event, could the henge be finished on time? He did not think so.

  Later that morning, a party of three priests sent by Dluc approached across the snow.

  With scarcely a word to the mason, they inspected the sarsens and stared at the white ridges.

  “How will you move them?” they finally asked.

  Nooma looked miserably at the ground.

  “I do not know.”

  “Find a way,” they told him, and departed across the snow.

  The mason hunched his shoulders and thought. He knew now very well what fate awaited him if he failed.

  Meanwhile, the men were becoming restive. They were cold; many were ill; one man who had wandered away from the tents in the blizzard had died. They wanted to go home. Nooma did not know what to do. He stamped about in the snow and made one attempt to move a sarsen on a huge sled. He knew it would fail. It did. Tark moved amongst the men, trying to keep their spirits up; but even he did not have much success.

  By the afternoon, Nooma wanted to let the men return to their homes; but the priests accompanying them forbade it.

  “The High Priest requires you to finish the task,” they said. “Stay here until you do.”

  When three men tried to escape, the priests caught them and flogged them unmercifully, and left them bleeding in the snow. There were no more attempts to leave.

  For two more cold and bitter days, Nooma and his thousand men waited, inadequately camped, on the cold, bare ridge; and at the end of that time, Nooma could only see the prospect of a miracle from the gods themselves, or the failure of all his plans and his own execution.

  When Dluc had recovered from his first fury at the incompetence of the mason in falling behind with the work, and when he got over his shock at the sudden snowstorm, he knew what he must do.

  At the henge, in the thick snow, a space was hurriedly cleared on the altar stone, and Dluc himself sacrificed six rams to the sun god, while the priests knelt in the snow.

  “Great sun,” he cried, “your servant Dluc has placed his trust in you. We await your will.”

  And conquering his doubts he told the priests:

  “The temple will be built. It is the will of the gods. The sun god will help us.”

  The sun god heard them.

  For on the third day, a warm wind blew up from the south west, bringing with it a heavy rain that fell steadily all day, and began a general thaw. Then, that same night, while the drenched ridges were awash, the wind changed yet again, the sky cleared, and there was a heavy frost. The temperature plummeted, and the following morning when Nooma looked out from the camp, he saw an extraordinary scene.

  It was unlike anything he had witnessed before. For mile after mile, as far as the eye could see, over the rolling ridges and under a clear blue sky, there lay a sparkling land of solid ice; as the sun struck the ground, it dazzled him. He stamped on the ground. It was hard as iron. He took a stone out of his pouch and hurled it. The stone bounced and slithered away for a hundred yards.

  Nooma smiled.

  “I think,” he muttered, “that now we can move the sarsens.”

  He was right. For now he could construct the huge sleds, as he had tried so unsuccessfully to do before; and this time they worked. When the teams of men hauled on the long leather ropes, the mighty stones on their sleds now hissed easily over the unyielding ice on the bare ridges.

  There were still problems. On the long downward slopes between the ridges, it was necessary for two or three small teams of men to go in front, to steer the sleds; the bulk of the men on these occasions being placed behind the stones, steadying them and preventing them from rushing forward down the slope. But their foothold on the slippery ice was precarious and the danger was always that the stones would go out of control. Twice this happened – the sleds plunged forward wildly, dragging the teams along behind for painful yards, until the ropes snapped; and then hurtled forward on to the men in front, crushing them. Twenty men were killed in the two incidents, and many more were injured; but the stones crossed the land of ice.

  The frost held for over a month and by the midwinter solstice, all the sarsens were at the henge.

  But although one danger was past, the cloud over Nooma’s life remained; for as he looked at the ten, unfinished stones, at the pits still to be dug, and at the dour faces of the priests, he wondered: “Shall I, even after this, complete the henge in time?”

  But Krona was filled with a new confidence. For just as the great blanket of ice formed over the high ground, the gods kept another of their promises and Menona let him know that she was pregnant.

  Once again, Dluc sacrificed a sheep to the gods who had kept faith with Sarum. Even Nooma the mason, beset as he was with troubles, smiled with relief when he heard of it.

  The period from that cold midwinter to the summer was a busy one at Sarum; but with each succeeding month, both the priests and the people felt a lightening of their spirits.

  Nooma worked feverishly with his masons. The remaining sarsens were hurriedly beaten into shape and each day the labourers carried away dozens of baskets full of chippings and deposited them in pits they had dug some distance from the sacred grounds. Other gangs of labourers were needed to raise the huge sarsens into place as the circle was completed.

  Above all however, Nooma found that he had to supervise the masons to make sure that in these last, critical stages, no mistakes were made.

  As for Tark, who saw the mason almost every day, he observed no change in Nooma’s manner towards him.

  Soon after the birth of the little girl, whom they called Pia, he had visited Katesh.

  “Does he know?” he had asked.

  She shook her head. “I do not think so.”

  “Does he show any anger towards you?”

  She shrugged. “He is away at the henge so much. He has never spoken to me of it.”

  Tark considered. “He has given me no sign either,” he remarked, marvelling at the simplicity of the mason.

  As the months had passed, Nooma had still seen little of
his wife, and Tark had seen him several times with slave girls; but he attached no special significance to this. No doubt the mason was seeking variety.

  Several times he returned to Katesh, but each time she was reserved towards him.

  “What we did must be over now,” she told him. “I have forgotten.”

  He saw that she was lying and saw the effort it cost her. Despite the neglect of the mason, she was now determined to remain faithful to him.

  “The gods punish me,” she said simply. “I have deserved it.”

  When Nooma was at home, though he paid only perfunctory attention to his wife, he found to his surprise that he delighted to watch Noo-ma-ti playing with little Pia, and he would often take them both in his arms and carry them round the hut in triumph while they shouted with joy. Although she was not his, he took a special pleasure in the fact that little Pia adored him and would often sit staring at him fascinated, with her large round eyes.

  Often now, Dluc came to look at his work, to make sure for himself that the new Stonehenge would be completed on time, and Krona too now emerged from his seclusion to inspect the temple.

  As the spring progressed, Menona grew larger.

  Though they looked forward to the birth of Krona’s child, neither the High Priest nor the chief had forgotten the instructions of the gods set out in the auguries, that his first born was to be given to the gods.

  “The auguries must be obeyed in every detail,” Dluc reminded his priests.

  But Krona showed no alarm at this. “I feel a young man again,” he told the priest. “I think I shall have many sons before I die.”

  Before the winter was over, to the delight of all Sarum, he several times went hunting in the woods again.

  Under Nooma’s ceaseless care, the last of the huge sarsens were made ready. By the end of the spring, all the uprights were in place, with only five lintels remaining to be finished and lifted into place; and it was announced that as soon as the work was completed, a great feast would be held for all the labourers.

  The dedication of the temple was to be an impressive and solemn affair. Already, pilgrims from all over the island were approaching the sacred high ground along the chalk ridges. For the dedication of a new temple, not only a huge sacrifice of animals was called for in the sacred sayings of the priests, but an impressive human sacrifice as well.

  “The great sacrifice is necessary,” Dluc reminded the priests, “to show the gods we honour them. Nineteen shall be sacrificed: one for each year of the sacred moonswing.” And the priests were told to consider carefully who they should be.

  There was less than a month to go before the summer solstice and for Nooma the mason, the completion of the henge and the realisation of all his plans was now rapidly approaching.

  “Less than a month,” he told himself, “and all will be accomplished.”

  The two remaining tasks were simple enough. It was necessary only to scoop out the two sockets on the underside of each lintel, into which the tenon joints on the uprights would fit, and to raise them on the scaffolding. He enjoyed this operation, delighting in its simple efficiency and precision. The construction of the scaffolding was straightforward, and when fastened with ropes it was strong. The only moment requiring delicate handling was when the heavy lintel was carefully levered across from the scaffolding on to the uprights and slotted into position. He took a particular pride in the skill with which this was done, always supervising this operation in person.

  One evening in the late spring, after his men had left the henge, Nooma lingered as he often did, to watch the priests begin their nightly vigil under the stars. It was a fine night, although the moon had not yet risen, and the few priests already there took no notice of him. Quietly the diligent mason checked on the work that had been done, even climbing the scaffolding and spending some time on his final check, adjusting a rope here and there, making sure that everything was exactly as he required it.

  When he had finished, and he gazed at the silent grey temple around him, so nearly perfect, he spoke a single prayer aloud to the sun god.

  “Great sun, let the work of your servant Nooma, who has laboured so hard, be completed perfectly.”

  And with that he returned home contented.

  It was the following morning that Nooma had to meet Tark at the henge to discuss the arrangements for the great feast that was soon to take place. Over a thousand people would be fed on a broad stretch of open ground on the riverbank in the valley about a mile from the henge and there were many matters to organise.

  It was just as the two men were deep in conversation at one side of the henge that a call from the masons told Nooma that his men were about to lever a lintel across from the scaffolding into its final position. Still talking to Tark, and paying no very close attention to the workers, Nooma waddled across, with the riverman loping beside him, and took up his normal station on the ground directly underneath the lintel, to supervise the delicate task. Tark, beside him, noticed with admiration the expert way in which the huge stone was slowly moved out to the edge of the scaffolding and across the narrow gap on to the uprights. He was so busy watching that at first he did not hear what the mason was saying.

  Then he did, and gazed down at him in amazement. The absurd little fellow’s normally solemn face was contorted into a mask of rage and hatred such as he would not have believed possible. Between his teeth he hissed:

  “You lie with my wife, riverman! You gave her the child! Do you expect that I will forgive?”

  He stared at Nooma in surprise. He did not think the mason had realised. But as he did so, it was now Tark who blanched: for as he looked into the transformed face of the mason, he understood the meaning of his words, and for the first time in many years, the riverman was afraid. Never had he seen anger so absolute, so condensed as now, to his astonishment, he saw in the eyes of his strange little friend.

  And at that moment he knew that Nooma was going to kill him.

  How it happened that one side of the scaffolding suddenly collapsed that morning, no one could ever explain.

  Tark the riverman, who happened to be standing underneath and had just opened his mouth to say something, had hardly even time to look up as the four tons of the stone lintel that was being moved tipped off the edge of the scaffolding, struck the side of the uprights and crashed down upon him, striking his head and crushing the life out of him immediately.

  No one had noticed anything amiss with the scaffolding. All eyes, until the moment when it collapsed, had been on the delicately balanced lintel. Two of the workers on it had fallen too. One broke his collarbone, the other a leg. But Nooma, who had been directly under the lintel, by a miracle of luck, managed to throw himself to one side and escaped with only bruises.

  Two days later the lintel was successfully raised into place.

  The priests made no comment on the accident. Nooma hoped that they had not guessed the truth.

  When Nooma described the accident to Katesh, he saw her grow pale; her lips quivered; for a moment she seemed to stagger, reaching out for something to support her. And then she stood silently, looking at the ground.

  “It is only by the will of the gods that I was not killed myself,” he said.

  Katesh did not seem to hear. But Nooma could see that she was holding back her tears; and the little mason secretly rejoiced.

  Then suddenly, Katesh looked up, and her large dark eyes looked straight into his. She did not try to hide her secret; she let her little husband see the pain in her eyes. With complete honesty, for the first time in their lives together, their eyes met; and Katesh saw, as she thought she had heard, triumph in his expression. It was at that moment she knew with absolute certainty what the mason had done.

  And Nooma, in his triumph, saw in his wife’s eyes the naked soul of a woman who has lost her lover, and for a moment, in his way, he felt ashamed. But then the mason saw the expression in his wife’s eyes change from one of pain to hatred and contempt. It was only for an i
nstant, before she lowered them; but in those moments the marriage of Nooma and his wife achieved, for the only time, complete honesty, and at the same time ended.

  In the following days, Katesh moved about the hut quietly. She fed her husband and did all that a wife should: but as if he was a stranger. They neither spoke unnecessarily, nor approached each other.

  Though Nooma had assumed that nothing could now go wrong at the henge, he was mistaken. Three days after the death of Tark, as he was inspecting the last of the lintels to be raised, he suddenly noticed that something was amiss. The socket on the underside was in the wrong place. He stared at it in astonishment. It was too far towards the centre by the span of a man’s head. This was a serious matter. Not only would a new hole have to be quickly made, but the lintel was no longer perfect, as every stone on the sacred henge should be. Had there been any time, it should have been replaced. But there were only days until the solstice. It was impossible to do anything.

  How had this happened, he demanded angrily? Someone, it seemed, had made a careless scratch mark on the stone and one of the younger masons, seeing this, had assumed that it marked the spot where the hole should go. Before anyone knew what had happened, it had been hollowed out. It was a simple, and foolish mistake. But it was Nooma’s fault that it had occurred.

  The hole would be just visible from beneath the completed arch. He could not, even if he wanted to, hide it from the priests. Miserably, he had to report the matter.

  “I cannot make a new stone in time,” he ruefully explained.

  The priest inspecting it gave him a cold stare that made him tremble.

  “The mistake must be invisible,” he said. “And the stone must be put in place.”

  The mason prepared a plug of clay and filled the hole; and across the plug he placed a disc of grey stone that he made from chippings; and when he had done this, his work was so good that no one but himself could even find the place where the mistake had been made. But the lintel was no longer perfect: the henge contained a tiny flaw; when he thought of this news reaching the High Priest, he shook. Neither the priests, nor the gods, would be able to forgive this.