Sarum (8 page)
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
Akun did not stop. As he rolled in agony on the ground, she ran through the wood, still holding his knife in one hand and pulling her clothes around her with the other. She did not stop until she reached the camp on the hill; and there, until Hwll returned, she stood on guard with one of Hwll’s bows and a quiver of arrows, in case Tep should think of following her.
As events turned out, she need not have done so.
It was late afternoon when Hwll returned. Still trembling with rage and fear she told him what had occurred.
“You must kill him,” she said, “or I am sure he will try to kill us both.”
Hwll’s face darkened with rage, and his first impulse was to do exactly as she suggested. But after a moment he became thoughtful.
It was a simple if unspoken rule of life amongst the hunters in those deserted regions that strife between families must at all costs be avoided. The population was tiny: life was precious; mates must be found each generation. If he killed Tep and started a feud with his family, then Tep’s sons, when they were full grown, would seek revenge. In a few years, both families could be destroyed. He shook his head: that was not the way. It was this simple instinct for preservation that had kept the peace in many of the hunting communities in those empty spaces.
“I will consider what must be done,” he said. And all that night he sat alone in front of their tent, pondering this difficult problem.
By dawn it was clear to him that there was only one possible solution; early that morning he took both his spear and his bow, and moved softly through the woods towards Tep’s camp. He moved cautiously. Tep would expect reprisals; he might be in hiding; he might try to ambush him. He made a circle round the camp by the river before closing in.
As he expected, the huts were deserted, although Tep’s dugout was still resting on the riverbank nearby.
Carefully choosing a position where he could not be surprised from behind, he placed his spear beside him and sat down to wait, Laying his bow across his legs. He had the feeling that Tep was nearby and probably watching him, but there was no sign of him. The morning passed; the sun reached its high point and slowly began to descend, but still there was no movement except that of the swans drifting by on the river, and no sound but that of the birds and the soft breeze rustling in the trees. Hwll waited, knowing that his patience would be rewarded.
It was mid-afternoon when Tep appeared. He came slowly forward from a clump of trees opposite, moving haltingly, as though he did not trust himself, and as he drew closer Hwll saw the reason for his shaky gait: his right eye was nothing but a mass of pulp around which the blood had hardened; he would never see with it again.
Silently the two men faced each other, both watching cautiously in case the other attacked. Then Hwll spoke.
“You must leave here,” he said simply. “Go back to your camp down river.”
It was the only solution and both men knew it.
Tep considered.
“My boy, your girl,” he ventured.
“No.” Hwll shook his head. He did not feel bound to honour his promise to give little Vata to Tep’s son any more; and he was not sorry for the excuse to end this rather unsatisfactory arrangement. For some time he had considered a boy from the camp of hunters to the east – a cheerful, lively boy like his own son who had appeared with his father the last time there had been a gathering of men to hunt boar.
Tep said nothing for a moment. He could not argue with Hwll’s decision; but it was the second time that he had been cast out of a community and he knew that the prospects for his son now of finding a woman were bleak. There was still something else on his mind however.
“When the bison came over the high ground,” he began, “my sons . . .”
Since their arrival at the place where the rivers met, the high point of each year had been the time in late spring when he and Hwll, accompanied usually by hunters form other camps, had trekked across the high ground to find the bison who might appear briefly from the north west at that season. It was a thrilling and dangerous exercise and they often followed the lumbering beasts for days at a time. It was a form of hunting closer to that which Hwll had practised in the tundra but Tep, too, had excelled at it and his son showed promise of doing the same. It was not a form of hunting to be undertaken alone and Tep was anxious that he and his sons should not be excluded from ever joining in again.
Hwll considered the request. He knew how bitter the blow was to the little hunter, but he did not want to restore him to the area.
“You may camp here one month, every other year,” he decided finally. “Your sons may hunt if I send for them. But you may not visit our camp, and if you touch Akun again, I and the other hunters will kill you.”
Tep had no doubt that Hwll could carry out this threat: he was respected by the other hunting families and, knowing the case, they would support him. He hung his head.
“We shall speak of this no more,” Hwll concluded. “You can come for the bison in two years. I will send for you.”
In this way the two men parted and Hwll prevented further bloodshed in the valley. Akun was angry that Tep had not been killed, but she had to accept Hwll’s wise decision.
So began a new phase in the life of the wanderer and his little family. Hwll and his son now hunted alone in the valleys, except when the other families in the region joined them for the boar and bison hunts; and Tep returned to his life on the river as an outcast. Occasionally Akun would warn Hwll to expect trouble.
“He or his sons will have to steal their women; they may kill for them,” she said, but Hwll was not concerned.
“They will not dare attack any of the families in this region,” he replied, “for fear of revenge. If they do as you say, they will steal from far away, as Tep stole Ulla before.”
In the second year after the incident, Tep reappeared with his family and camped by the river where he had lived before. His two sons, one a youth, the other a boy, were allowed by Hwll to accompany the other hunters when they tracked the bison, and at the kill received their share. Tep remained at his camp and kept out of sight. The family was subdued, conscious of their disgrace, and departed quietly at the appointed time.
It was two years later that the problem of the outcast family was resolved, in an unexpected way.
They had arrived in early spring, somewhat before the other hunters had gathered, and set up their camp as usual. As yet no bison had appeared, but already Hwll was busy tracking over the high ground, looking for signs of them.
One morning he went out, taking with him Otter and Tep’s eldest son. He took a route almost due north across the wooded ridges but although he covered the ground swiftly, by midday they had found nothing. Accordingly, they cut across to the west a few miles and descended the valley to the river.
“We’ll follow it down until we get back to camp,” Hwll announced. “Perhaps we’ll find something on the way.”
The hunter and the two youths made their way carefully down river. The banks were wooded, but occasionally they came upon patches of marsh which they had to skirt, or upon clearings where lush grasses grew and where deer often came to drink and graze. The river was still in its spring spate and moved by swiftly and heavily on their right. For several hours they continued their slow journey, watching for signs; but neither down by the river, nor on the valley ridges above did they see any evidence of the bison.
It was late afternoon, and the sun was already low over the ridge opposite when Hwll pulled up sharply and stared ahead in astonishment.
Then he whispered a single word to himself:
“Auroch.”
Of all the animals on the island of Britain at that time, the most dangerous and the most highly prized by the hunters was the auroch. It was every hunter’s ambition to kill one but they were so rare that even to catch sight of the animal could be counted as good luck.
Hwll had seen an auroch only once before, when he was a boy in the tundra; now only two hundred paces away stood a single beast grazing quietly by the river bank, in front of a small clump of trees.
The auroch was the prince of beasts: it resembled a black bull, but was about twice the size, standing over six feet high at the shoulder. From nose to tail it was about ten feet long and weighed many tons; although cumbersome, it was almost unstoppable once it began to charge. The aurochs roamed in small groups of usually a dozen or less, and all the other animals feared them – as well they might: for beside one of these mastodons even a full grown bison looked puny.
It was, above all, the horns of the auroch that were such a wonder. Hwll had never forgotten the time when he had seen one killed. The hunting party led by his father had taken half a day to wear it down, hurling spear after spear into the huge form. When finally, weary of the struggle, it had sunk to its knees and a brave young hunter had run forward and cut its throat, he too had rushed forward in the ecstasy of the moment to seize the horns – and found to his amazement that he could not reach across them. Even his father had only just been able to do so and Hwll still trembled when he thought of it.
The auroch did not survive. Although small herds were to be found all over Europe in prehistoric times, it was too large and too fierce to be domesticated by man – and too clumsy to escape the hunters. Over the centuries its numbers shrank until it finally became extinct – or almost. For in the seventeenth century, in an obscure corner of Poland, a single auroch was found in a forest. No one knew how it came to be there, but there is written evidence from the time, given by reliable witnesses, that the huge beast did indeed exist. That was its last appearance. No example of this prehistoric species has ever been seen since.
Motioning the two youths to remain where they were, Hwll began to move cautiously closer. The auroch was alone and had not picked up his scent. Keeping to the trees he crept forward further. Once, for a heart-stopping moment, it raised its head and stared straight towards him, and he froze; but then it lowered its gigantic horns again and continued to graze. It was a cow, not a bull, that had somehow become separated from the rest of the group, and though he watched for some time he could see no sign of its companions.
The fact that it was a cow did not make the auroch less dangerous; at the first attack the animal was capable of charging any hunting party with devastating force. But if one could bring it down – what a prize!
“Give me this auroch,” he prayed. “Moon Goddess, I have sacrificed to you many times; give me, once, the mighty auroch.”
The sun was sinking fast and the auroch showed no sign that it intended to move. It would probably spend the night by the river and rejoin its group the following day. Taking careful note of the spot, he returned to the others and the three of them slipped away into the woods.
He was tempted to attack the auroch there and then – anything rather than allow such a prize to escape! Excited though he was, however, he knew that it would be foolish to try to kill the huge beast alone; but what should he do? Darkness was about to fall and he was still far to the north of his own camp. The nearest camp where other hunters might be found was over twelve miles away through the woods.
“We need help,” he said, “but where?”
All three were silent; then Tep’s son spoke.
“I can bring my father. His aim is still good.”
Hwll considered the proposition. He was torn: on the one hand he had no wish to hunt with Tep again; on the other he desperately wanted the auroch. With Tep that made four hunters. But Tep had only one eye – could his aim still be good?
“Tell him to meet me at the river before dawn,” he said finally. “We’ll have the auroch.”
It was already after dusk when he came up the hill to the camp, and Akun could tell from his walk that he was excited. When he squatted by the fire, she saw that his eyes were shining. Then, in a few words, and using dramatic gestures, he told her about the auroch.
“Tep is ready,” he announced. “He will bring his older son and we shall hunt at dawn.”
One man, one cripple and two boys. At once Akun was afraid. Her youngest child was still a baby, and she could not afford to lose her man to an auroch.
“Go to the other camps,” she said. “Get a hunting party.”
But Hwll shook his head.
“No time. It will be gone by early morning.”
“It’s madness,” she protested.
“The auroch is big, but it’s slow,” he countered. “We can lame it, then follow until it grows weak. Wear it down.” It was the method of hunting used in the tundra and no one understood it better.
But if they made even one mistake, they could just as easily be killed, and Akun looked at him in despair. She knew his obstinate nature, though – it had brought them to Sarum from the tundra; and so she only shook her head.
“My son will say that his father killed the mighty auroch,” he said with pride.
The little party was on the move before dawn. Tep and his son each carried a bow and two spears, as did Otter. Hwll brought spears and a heavy axe made of a broad flint head he had obtained from his quarry, fastened to a shaft of oak. The arrows would weaken the beast; but the spears with their long, deadly heads of sharpened flint would pierce the auroch’s strong hide and embed themselves deeply. Since the technique of the hunters would be to maim the auroch, it was important that the first spear should strike deep behind the shoulder, slowing the beast down and working its way in towards the heart. After the first assault, the hunters would follow it relentlessly, striking again and again, until the auroch was finally so exhausted that they could move in for the kill. Then Hwll would slit open its throat with his knife. It was an effective method, but it was essential that the first attack be successful: for if they failed to maim the beast, then it would either career away, or it would turn on them and destroy them. All four hunters knew they risked death that morning.
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