Stonehenge

by Bernard Cornwell

  “It is my fight!” Saban said.

  “It isn’t wise to pick a fight with wolves,” Camaban said.

  “I made a promise,” Saban said and he threw Lewydd’s hand off his arm to run toward the woods. Lewydd picked up his own spear and followed.

  Dead and dying men lay among the trees. Like all those who had attended the meeting of the tribes, Stakis’s warriors had worn their finery and Jegar’s men were now stripping them of necklaces, amulets and clothes. They looked up in alarm as Saban and Lewydd appeared, but most recognized Saban and none feared Lewydd for the gray-tattooed Outfolk were not their enemy this day.

  Saban climbed the hill, looking for Jegar, then heard a scream to his right and ran through the trees to see his enemy hacking with a sword at a dying man. The sword was strapped to Jegar’s maimed hand, but he still wielded it with sickening force. “Jegar!” Saban shouted, hefting his spear. It would have been easier to have loosed an arrow from the golden string of his bow, but that would have been the coward’s way. “Jegar!” he called again.

  Jegar turned, his eyes bright with excitement, then he saw the hunting spear in Saban’s hand and it dawned on him that Saban was not an ally here, but a foe. At first he looked astonished, then he laughed. He stooped, picked up his own heavy war spear and straightened to face Saban with both weapons. “Sixty-three men have I slaughtered,” he said, “and some had more killing scars than I did.”

  “I have killed two that I know of,” Saban said, “but now it will be three, and sixty-three spirits in the afterlife will be in my debt and Derrewyn will thank me.”

  “Derrewyn!” Jegar said scornfully. “A whore. You’d die for a whore?” He suddenly ran at Saban, lunging with the spear, and laughed as Saban stepped clumsily aside. “Go home, Saban,” Jegar said, lowering his spear’s blade. “What pride could I take in killing a bullock like you?”

  Saban thrust with his spear, but the blade was contemptuously knocked away. Then Jegar lunged again, almost casually; Saban hit the spear aside and saw the sword coming fast from his other side and had to leap back to escape the fast swing. Then the spear came again, then the sword, and he was scrambling desperately back through the leaf mold, mesmerized by the flashing blades that Jegar used with such confident skill. Fighting was Jegar’s life and he practiced with weapons every day so he had long learned to compensate for his crippled hand. Jegar stabbed the spear again, then abruptly checked his attack to shake his head. “You’re not worth killing,” he said scornfully. Some of his men had come up the hill to watch the fight, and Jegar waved them back. “It’s our argument,” he said, “but it’s over.”

  “It isn’t over,” Saban said, and he lunged with the spear, dragging it back as soon as Jegar began to parry and then ramming it forward again, aiming at Jegar’s throat, but Jegar swayed to one side and struck the spear down with his sword.

  “Do you really want to die, Saban?” Jegar asked. “Because you won’t. If you fight me, I won’t kill you. Instead I shall make you kneel to me and I’ll piss on your head as I did before.”

  “I shall piss on your corpse,” Saban said.

  “Fool,” Jegar said. He thrust the spear blade forward with a serpent’s speed, driving Saban backward, then he thrust again, and Saban leapt up onto a rock so he was higher than Jegar, but Jegar swung the sword at his legs, forcing Saban to retreat higher still. Jegar laughed when he saw the fear on Saban’s face, stepped forward to stab with the spear, and Slaol struck him.

  The beam of sunlight came down through a myriad shifting green leaves. It was a spear of light that slid through the branches to strike and dazzle Jegar’s eyes. The brilliance lasted only for a heartbeat, but Jegar flinched and jerked his head away and in that heartbeat Saban jumped down from the rock and rammed his spear straight into Jegar’s throat. He screamed as he did it, and the scream was for Derrewyn’s torment and for his own victory and for the joy he felt as he saw his enemy’s blood misting bright.

  Jegar fell. He had dropped his spear and was clawing at his throat where his breath bubbled with dark blood. He twitched, and his knees came up to his belly and his eyes rolled as Saban twisted the bronze blade, then twisted it again, so that yet more blood ran into the leaves. He dragged the spear free and Jegar looked up at him with disbelief and Saban drove the blade down into his enemy’s belly.

  Jegar shivered, then was still. Saban, eyes wide and breath heaving, stared at his enemy, scarce daring to believe Jegar was dead. He had thought himself outmatched, and so he had been, but Slaol had intervened. He pulled the spear from Jegar’s corpse, then turned to look at Ratharryn’s shocked warriors. “Go and tell Lengar that Derrewyn is avenged,” he told them. He spat on Jegar’s corpse.

  Jegar’s men backed away and Saban stooped to untie the leather thongs that strapped the sword to Jegar’s dead hand. “How long will you stay at Sul?” he asked Lewydd, who had stayed close to Saban throughout the brief fight.

  “Not long,” Lewydd said. “We must be home by midsummer. Why?”

  “I shall be back here in four days,” Saban said, “and I would travel to Sarmennyn with you. Wait for me.”

  “Four days,” Lewydd said, then flinched when he saw what Saban was doing. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I shall be back in four days,” Saban repeated, and would say no more. Then he picked up his burden and walked uphill.

  The killing at Sul was over.

  Chapter 12

  Saban was tired, hungry and sore. He had walked for the best part of a night and a day, first traveling eastward from Sul, then following a well-worn traders’ path that led northward through unending woods. Now, on the second evening after leaving Sul, he was climbing a long gentle hill that had been cleared of trees, though any crops that had ever grown on the slope had long vanished to be replaced by bracken. There were no pigs, the only beast that ate the bracken, and no other living thing in sight. Even the air, on this warm and oppressive evening, was empty of birds, and when he stopped to listen he could hear nothing, not even a wind in the bracken, and he knew that this was how the world must have been before the gods made animals and man. The clouds about the low sun were bruised and swollen, shadowing all the land behind him.

  Saban had left his bow, his quiver and his spear with Lewydd and he carried only Jegar’s bloodstained tunic with its weighty burden. He was dirty, and his hair hung lank. Ever since he had left Sul he had been wondering why he was making this journey and he had found no good answers except for the dictates of instinct and duty. He had a debt, and life was full of debts that must be honored if fate was to be kind. Everyone knew that. A fisherman was given a good catch so he must offer something back to the gods. A harvest was plump so part must be sacrificed. A favor engendered another favor and a curse was as dangerous to the person who pronounced it as to the person it was aimed against. Every good thing and bad thing in the world was balanced, which was why folk were so attentive to omens – though some men, like Lengar, ignored the imbalance. They simply piled evil on evil and so defied the gods, but Saban could not be so carefree. It worried him that a part of his life was out of balance and so he had walked this long path to the bracken-covered hill where nothing stirred and nothing sounded. More woods crested the hill and he feared to walk in their darkening shadows as night fell, and his fear increased when he reached the trees for there, at the edge of the forest and standing on either side of the path like guardians, were two thin poles that carried human heads.

  They were mere skulls now for the birds had pecked the eyes and flesh away, though one of the skulls was still hung with remnants of hair attached to a yellowing scalp. The eyeholes stared a bleak warning down the hill. Turn now, the eyeholes said, just turn and go.

  Saban walked on.

  He sang as he walked. He had little breath for singing, but he did not want an arrow to hiss out of the leaves so it was better to announce his presence to the spearmen who guarded this territory. He sang the story of Dickel, the squirrel god
. It was a child’s song with a jaunty tune and told how Dickel had wanted to trick the fox into giving him his big jaw and sharp teeth, but the fox had turned around when Dickel made his spell and the squirrel got the fox’s bushy red tail instead. ‘Twitch-tail, twitch-tail,” Saban sang, remembering his mother singing the same words to him, and then there was a sound behind him, a footfall in the leaves, and he stopped.

  “Who are you, twitch-tail?” a mocking voice asked.

  “My name is Saban, son of Hengall,” Saban answered. He heard a sharp intake of breath and knew that the man behind him was considering his death. He had announced that he was Lengar’s brother and in this land that was enough to condemn him and so he spoke again. “I bring a gift,” he said, lifting the blood-crusted bundle in his hand.

  “A gift for whom?” the man asked.

  “Your sorceress.”

  “If she does not like the gift,” the man said, “she will kill you.”

  “If she does not like this gift,” Saban said, “then I deserve to die.” He turned to see there was not one man, but three, all with kill scars on their chests, all with bows and spears, and all with the bitter and suspicious faces of men who fight an unending battle, but fight it with passion. They guarded a frontier that was protected by the skulls and Saban wondered if the whole of Cathallo’s territory was ringed by the heads of its enemies.

  The men hesitated and Saban knew they were still tempted to kill him, but he was unarmed and he showed no fear, so they grudgingly let him live. Two escorted him eastward while the third man ran ahead to tell the settlement that an intruder was coming. The two men hurried Saban for night was looming, but the summer twilight was long and there was still a thin light lingering in the sky when they reached Cathallo.

  Rallin, the new chief, waited for Saban on the edge of the settlement. A dozen warriors stood with him while the tribe had gathered behind to see this brother of Lengar who had dared come to their home. Rallin was no older than Saban, but he looked formidable for he was a tall man with broad shoulders and an unsmiling face on which a wound scar streaked from his beard to skirt his left eye. “Saban of Ratharryn,” he greeted Saban dourly.

  “Saban of Sarmennyn now,” Saban said, bowing respectfully.

  Rallin ignored Saban’s words. “We kill men of Ratharryn in this place,” he said. “We kill them wherever we find them and we strike off their heads and put them on poles.” The crowd murmured, some calling that Saban’s head should be added to the cull.

  “Is it really Saban?” Another voice spoke, and Saban turned to see Morthor, the high priest with his empty eye sockets, standing among the crowd. His beard was white now.

  “It is good to see you, Morthor,” Saban said, then wished he had not used those words.

  But Morthor smiled. “It is good to hear you,” he answered, then he turned his sightless eyes toward Rallin. “Saban is a good man.”

  “He is from Ratharryn,” Rallin said flatly.

  “Ratharryn did this to me,” Saban answered, holding up his left hand with its missing finger. “Ratharryn enslaved me and cast me out. I do not come from Ratharryn.”

  “But you were whelped in Ratharryn,” Rallin insisted obstinately.

  “If a calf is born in your hut, Rallin,” Saban asked, “does that make it your son?”

  Rallin considered that for a heartbeat. “Then why do you come here?” he demanded.

  “To bring Morthor’s daughter a gift,” Saban answered.

  “What gift?” Rallin demanded.

  “This,” Saban said. He lifted the bundle but refused to unwrap it, and then a scream like a vixen’s shriek sounded and Rallin turned to stare toward the great embankment of the shrine.

  A pale slim figure stood alone in the temple’s dark. She beckoned, and Rallin, obedient to the summons, stood aside and Saban walked toward the woman who waited for him where the paired stones of the western avenue met the temple’s embankment. It was Derrewyn and Lahanna was shining on her to make her beautiful. She wore a simple deerskin tunic that fell to her ankles and which appeared almost white in the moonlight, while round her neck was a chain of bones. But as Saban drew nearer he saw that her beauty was the moon’s reflection, little more, for she was thinner now and her face was angrier and lined and bitter. Her black hair was scraped back into a tight knot, while her mouth, which had once been so quick to smile, was a thin-lipped slit. In her right hand was the thigh bone that Sannas had once carried and Derrewyn raised it as Saban reached the avenue’s last pair of stones. “You dared to come here?” she asked.

  “To bring you a gift,” Saban answered.

  She looked at the bundle, then gave an abrupt nod and Saban untied the tunic and shook its contents onto the bare moonlit ground between them.

  “Jegar,” Derrewyn said, recognizing the head despite the blood which matted its beard and smeared its skin.

  “It is Jegar,” Saban said. “I cut off his head with his own sword.”

  Derrewyn stared at it, then grimaced. “For me?”

  “Why else would I bring you the head?”

  She looked at him, and it seemed that a mask dropped away for she gave him a tired smile. “Is it Saban of Sarmennyn now?”

  “It is.”

  “And you have a wife? A lover of Slaol?”

  Saban ignored the sourness of the question. “All the Outfolk love Slaol,” he said.

  “Yet now you come to me,” Derrewyn said, the mask of anger back in its place, “you crawl to me with a gift! Why? Because you need protection from Lengar?”

  “No,” Saban protested.

  “But you do,” Derrewyn said. “You killed his friend, and you think he won’t return that favor? Touch one of those maggots of Ratharryn, and the rest pursue you.” She frowned at him. “You think Lengar won’t kill you? You think he won’t take your wife as he took me? You’ve hurt him!”

  “I came to bring you this,” Saban said, gesturing at Jegar’s head, “and nothing more.” In truth he had thought little of Lengar’s reaction to Jegar’s death. His brother would be filled with rage, of that Saban was sure, and he would probably want revenge, but Saban believed he would be safe in Sarmennyn.

  “So you brought me your gift, nothing more,” Derrewyn said. “What were you hoping for, Saban? My gratitude?” She hoisted her deerskin skirts, lifting them almost to her waist. “Is that what you want?”

  Saban turned away to look across the dark fields. “I wanted you to know that I had not forgotten.”

  Derrewyn dropped the skirts. “Forgotten what?” she asked sourly.

  “That we were lovers,” Saban said, “and that I knew happiness with you. And since that time to this there has not been one day in which I have not thought of you.”

  Derrewyn gazed at him for a long time, then sighed. “I knew you had not forgotten,” she said, “and I always hoped you would come back.” She shrugged. “And now you are here. So? Will you stay? Will you help us fight your brother?”

  “I shall go back to Sarmennyn,” Saban said.

  Derrewyn sneered. “To move your famous temple? The temple that will draw great Slaol to Ratharryn! Scorching the sky as he comes to do your bidding? Do you really believe he will come?”

  “Yes,” Saban said, “I do.”

  “But to do what?” This time Derrewyn spoke without scorn.

  “What Camaban promises,” Saban said. “There will be no more winter, no more disease, no more sadness.”

  Derrewyn stared at him, then put her head back and laughed, and her mockery echoed from the farther side of the great chalk embankment, which shone white in the twilight. “No more winter! No more sadness! You hear that, Sannas? You hear it? Ratharryn will banish winter!” She had been dancing as she mocked, but now she stopped and pointed the thigh bone at Saban. “But I don’t need to tell Sannas that, do I? She knows what Camaban wants because he stole her life.” She did not wait for an answer, but spat and strode forward to pick up Jegar’s head by its bloody crown. “Come wi
th me, Saban of Sarmennyn,” she said, “and we shall find out whether you will conquer winter with your rattling stones from the west. If only you could! We could all be happy again! We could be young and happy, with no pains in our bones.”

  She led him into the shrine. There was no one else there, just the rising moon shining on the huge boulders in which tiny flecks of starlight seemed to be embedded. Derrewyn took Saban to Sannas’s old hut, which was still the only building inside the embankment, and there she tossed Jegar’s head beside the entrance before pulling up her tunic and tugging it over her head. She dropped the bone necklace on the tunic. “You too,” she said, indicating that he should take off his own tunic. “I’m not going to rape you, Saban, I merely want to talk with the goddess. She likes us naked, just as your priests go naked so that nothing lies between them and their gods.” She ducked under the door.

  Saban took off his tunic and boots, then followed her into the hut. Someone, presumably Derrewyn, had placed a baby’s skull above the door. It had been a very young baby when it died for the crevice in the skull’s dome still gaped. The interior of the hut had not changed. There were the same bundles hanging in the shadowed roof and the same jumbled piles of furs and baskets of bones and pots of herbs and ointments.

  Derrewyn sat cross-legged on one side of the fire and indicated that Saban should sit opposite. She fed the fire, making it burn bright to flicker ominous shadows among the bat wings and antlers suspended from the roof pole. The flames lit her body and Saban saw she had become cruelly thin. “I’m not beautiful any more, am I?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Saban said.

  She smiled at that. “You tell lies, just like your brothers.” She reached into a big pot and brought out some dried herbs, which she threw onto the fire. She threw more, handful after handful, so that the small pale leaves first flared brilliant, and then began to choke the flames. The light dimmed and the hut began to fill with a thick smoke. “Breathe the smoke,” Derrewyn ordered him, and Saban leaned forward and took in a breath. He almost choked and his head spun, but he forced himself to take another breath and found there was something sweet and sickly in the harsh smoke’s touch.