Sarum (29 page)
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
When he reported his difficulties to the priests, he could see that they were angry. The will of the gods and the fate of Sarum was not to be jeopardised by the failure of the little mason to complete his appointed task. When the priests reported to Dluc, the High Priest frowned dangerously.
“If necessary, every man in Sarum shall work on the henge,” he ordered. “There must be no delays.”
And an order went out that day that the priest would marry no man in Sarum who had passed fifteen summers if he did not work at hauling the stones that year.
By three days after the quinox, nearly a thousand men were assembled at the sarsen site, and helping to supervise them was Tark the riverman.
Tark felt sorry for the little mason. Though he had admittedly stolen his wife, it did not lessen his respect for the craftsman and he did all he could to help him now. He was everywhere, finding provisions, preparing extra tents to house the men as they hauled the sarsens over the ridges, and encouraging the men.
Nooma saw this. But what he saw above all, were the eyes of the priests as he made the final preparations. For now their eyes when they looked at him were hard and cold, and inwardly the mason trembled.
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.
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