Stonehenge (7 page)

“Erek is their name for Slaol,” Valan told Hengall.

Hengall, pleased to have forced the admission from the strangers, stood. “We shall think on this matter,” he announced.

Food was fetched from the settlement. There was cold pork, flat bread, smoked fish, and bowls of chickweed and sorrel. The strangers ate warily, fearful of being poisoned, but afraid to give offence by rejecting the food. Only their priest did not eat, but just lay staring into the sky. Gilan and Ratharryn’s priests huddled together, whispering fiercely, while Lengar and his friends formed another small group at the circle’s far side. Folk came to inspect the offered gifts, though none crossed the charm-ringed circle to touch them for the gifts had still not been cleansed of Outfolk sorcery by Ratharryn’s priests. Hengall talked with the elders and sometimes asked questions of the priests, though it was mainly with Gilan that he talked. The priest had now made two visits to Cathallo and he spoke urgently with Hengall who listened, nodded and finally seemed convinced by whatever Gilan urged on him.

The sun was sliding down to its western home when Hengall resumed his place, but custom demanded that any man in the tribe could have his opinion heard before Hengall pronounced a decision. A few men did stand and most advised accepting the Outfolk’s payment. “The gold is not ours,” Galeth said, “but was stolen from a god. How can it bring us good luck? Let the strangers have their treasures.” Voices murmured in support, then Lengar beat the ground with his spear staff and the murmurs died as Hengall’s son stood to address the crowd.

“Galeth is right!” Lengar said, causing surprise among those who thought that the two men could never agree. “The Outfolk should have their treasures back. But we should demand a higher price than these scourings from their huts.” He gestured at the goods piled in front of the strangers. “If the Outfolk want their treasures returned, then let them come from their far country with all their spears and all their bows and offer themselves to our service for a year.”

Haragg, the Outfolk interpreter, whispered to his companions, who looked worried, but Hengall shook his head. “And how are we to feed this horde of armed Outfolk?” he asked his son.

“They will feed from the crops and cattle that they capture with their weapons.”

“And what crops and cattle are they?” Hengall asked.

“Those that grow and graze to the north of us,” Lengar answered defiantly, and many in the tribe voiced their agreement. The tribe of Sarmennyn was famous for its warriors. They were lean, hungry men from a bare land and they took with their spears what their country could not provide. Such feared warriors would surely make brief work of Cathallo and more of Hengall’s folk raised their voices in Lengar’s support.

Hengall raised his vast club for silence. “The army of Sarmennyn,” he said, “has never reached this far into the heartland. Yet now you would invite them? And if they do come with their spears and their bows and their axes, how do we rid ourselves of them? What is to stop them turning on us?”

“We shall outnumber them!” Lengar declared confidently.

Hengall looked scornful. “You know how many spears they muster?” he demanded, pointing to the strangers.

“I know that with their help we can destroy our enemies,” Lengar retorted.

Hengall stood, a sign that Lengar’s time of talking was over. Lengar stayed on his feet for a few heartbeats, then reluctantly squatted. Hengall spoke in a loud voice that reached the outermost part of the crowd. “Cathallo is not our enemy! Cathallo is powerful, yes, but so are we! The two of us are like dogs. We can fight and maim each other, but the wounds we would inflict would be so deep that neither of us might live. But if we hunt together we shall feed well.” The tribe stared at him in silent surprise. They had expected a decision about the gold lozenges and instead the chief was talking of the problem of Cathallo.

“Together!” Hengall shouted. “Together, Cathallo and Ratharryn will be as strong as any land in this earth. So we shall bind ourselves in a marriage of tribes.” That news caused a loud gasp from the crowd. “On midsummer’s eve we shall go to Cathallo and dance with their people.” The crowd thought about that, then a slow-growing murmur of agreement spread among them. Only a moment before they had been eagerly supporting Lengar’s idea of conquering Cathallo, now they were seduced by Hengall’s vision of peace. “Gilan has talked with their chief and he has agreed that we shall not be one tribe,” Hengall declared, “but two tribes united like a man and a woman in marriage.”

“And which tribe is the man?” Lengar dared to shout.

Hengall ignored him. “There will be no war,” he said flatly, then he looked down at the strangers. “And there will be no exchange,” he went on. “Your god was given the treasures, but you lost them, and they were brought to us. They came to our Old Temple, which tells me they are meant to stay here. If we give back the gold, we insult the gods who sent the treasures to our keeping. Their coming is a sign that the temple must be restored, and so it shall be! It will be rebuilt!” Gilan, who had been urging that course, looked pleased.

The one-eyed man protested, threatening to bring war to Ratharryn.

“War?” Hengall brandished his great club. “War!” he shouted. “I will give you war if you come to Ratharryn. I will piss on your souls, enslave your children, make playthings of your women and grind your bones to powder. That is war as we know it!” He spat
toward the strangers. “Take your belongings and go,” he ordered.

The stranger’s priest howled at the sky and their leader tried a last appeal, but Hengall would not listen. He had rejected the exchange and the Outfolk had no choice but to pick up their gifts and return to their horses.

But that evening, when the sun was tangled among the western trees like a fish caught in a woven-willow trap, Lengar and a dozen of his closest supporters left Ratharryn. They carried bows and spears and had their hounds leashed on long leather ropes, and they claimed they were going back to their hunting grounds. But it was noted that Lengar also took an Outfolk slave, a woman, and that shocked the tribe for women were not taken on hunting expeditions. And that night a half-dozen more young women slipped out of Ratharryn, so next morning the horrified tribe realized that Lengar had not gone hunting at all, but had fled, and that the women had followed their warrior lovers. Hengall’s anger overflowed like the river flooding with storm water. He raged at the malign fate that had sent him such an elder son, then he sent warriors on Lengar’s trail, though none expected to catch up with the fugitives who had too long a start. Then Hengall heard that Jegar, who was reckoned Lengar’s closest friend, was still in Ratharryn and the chief summoned Jegar to his hut door and there ordered him to abase himself.

Jegar lay flat on the ground while Hengall raised his war club over the young man’s head. “Where has my son gone?” he demanded coldly.

“To Sarmennyn,” Jegar answered, “to the Outfolk.”

“You knew they planned this,” Hengall asked, his rage mounting again, “and did not tell me?”

“Your son put a curse on my life if I betrayed him,” Jegar said.

Hengall kept the club poised. “And why did you not go with him? Are you not his soul’s friend?”

“I did not go,” Jegar answered humbly, “because you are my chief and this is my home and I would not live in a far country beside the sea.”

Hengall hesitated. He plainly wanted to slam the club down and spatter the earth with blood, but he was a fair man and he controlled his anger and so lowered the weapon. Jegar had answered his
questions well and though Hengall had no liking for the young man, he still raised him to his feet, embraced him, and gave him a small bronze knife as a reward for his loyalty.

But Lengar had gone to the Outfolk. So Hengall burned his son’s hut and pounded his pots to dust. He killed Lengar’s mother, who had been his own first wife, and he ordered Gilan to use the Kill-Child on a boy who was popularly supposed to be Lengar’s son. The child’s mother screamed, begging for mercy, but the aurochs’ bone swung and the boy died. “He never lived,” Hengall decreed of Lengar. “He is no more.”

Next day was the eve of midsummer and the tribe would walk to Cathallo. To make peace. And to face Sannas.

At the dawn of the day on which the tribe was to walk north, Saban’s father brought him a deerskin tunic, a necklace of boar’s teeth and a wooden-handled, flint-bladed knife to wear in the belt. “You are my son,” Hengall told him, “my only son. So you must look like a chief’s son. Tie your hair back. Stand straight!” He nodded curtly to Saban’s mother, his third wife, whom he had long since ceased to summon to his hut, then went to examine the white sacrificial heifer that would be goaded to Cathallo.

Even Camaban went to Cathallo. Hengall had not wanted him to go, but Gilan insisted Sannas wanted to see Camaban for herself. So Galeth had fetched the crippled boy from his lair in the Old Temple, and now Camaban limped a few paces behind Saban, Galeth and Galeth’s pregnant woman, Lidda. They walked north along the hills above the river valley and it took a whole morning to reach the edge of that high land which meant they were now halfway to Cathallo. For most of the people who stood on the crest and gazed at the woods and marshes ahead, that was the greatest distance they had ever walked from home.

Their path now dropped steeply into thick woods dotted with small fields. This was Maden’s land, a place of rich soil, tall trees and wide bogs.

The men of Hengall’s tribe moved close to their women as they entered the trees and small boys were given bundles of straw bound
tight to sticks, and the straw was set alight from smoldering coals carried in perforated clay pots. The boys then raced up and down the path, waving their smoky clubs and shrieking to drive away the malevolent spirits who might otherwise come and impregnate the women. The priests chanted, the women clutched talismans, and the men beat their spear staves against the tree trunks. Even more chants were needed to propitiate the spirits as the tribe crossed a tangle of small streams close to Maden.

Hengall walked at the head of his tribe, but he waited on the bank of one of the bigger streams for Saban to catch up. “We must talk,” he told his son, then glanced at Camaban who limped just a few steps behind. The boy had found another rotting sheep’s pelt to replace his old tunic, and carried a crude leather bag in which his few belongings, his bones and snakeskin and charms, were stored. He stank, and his hair was once again tangled and dirty. He looked up at his father, gave a shudder, then spat onto the path.

Hengall turned disgustedly away and paced ahead with Saban. After a while he asked Saban if he had noticed how plump Maden’s wheat looked? It seemed the storm had spared those fields, Hengall said enviously, then commented that there had been some fine fat pigs in the woods by the river. Pigs and wheat, he said, were all folk needed for life, and for that he thanked the gods. “Maybe only pigs,” he mused, “maybe that’s all we need to eat. Pigs and fish. The wheat’s just a nuisance. It won’t seed itself, that’s the trouble.” Hengall was carrying a leather bag that clinked as he walked and Saban guessed it contained some of the tribe’s treasures. The people far ahead had started singing and the song grew louder as folk caught up the tune. It passed to the walkers behind, but neither Hengall nor Saban joined in. “In a few years,” Hengall said abruptly, “you’ll be old enough to become chief.”

“If the priests and the people agree,” Saban said cautiously.

“The priests just need bribes,” Hengall said, “and the people do as they’re told.” A pigeon clattered through the leaves and Hengall looked up to see in what direction the bird flew, hoping that it would be a good omen. It was, for the bird made toward the sun.

“Sannas will want to see you,” Hengall said ominously. “Kneel to her and bow your head. I know she’s a woman, but treat her like a chief.” He frowned. “She’s a hard woman, hard and cruel,
but she has powers. The gods love her, or else they fear her.” He shook his shaggy head in amazement. “She was already old when I was a boy!”

Saban felt fear at the prospect of meeting Sannas. “Why will she want to see me?”

“Because you’re to marry a Cathallo girl,” Hengall said flatly, “and Sannas will choose her. There’s no decision made in Cathallo without Sannas. They call Kital chief, but he sucks on the old woman’s tits. They all do.”

Saban said nothing. He knew he could not marry anyone until he had passed the ordeals of manhood, but he liked the idea.

“So you’re to take a bride from Cathallo,” Hengall said, “as a sign that our tribes are at peace. You understand that?”

“Yes, father.”

“But Cathallo doesn’t know you’re my only son now,” Hengall said, “and they won’t be happy that you’re still a boy. That’s why you must impress Sannas.”

“Yes, father,” Saban said again. He understood now that Kital and Sannas were expecting Lengar to come to Cathallo and claim a bride, but Lengar was gone and so he must take his place.

“And you will be chief,” Hengall said heavily, “and that means you have to be a leader of our people. But being chief doesn’t mean you can do what you want. Folk don’t realize that. They want heroes, but heroes get their people killed. The best chiefs know that. They know they can’t turn night into day. I can only do what’s possible, nothing more. I can break down beaver’s dams to stop the fish traps drying out, but I can’t order the river to do it for me.”

“I understand,” Saban said.

“And we can’t have war,” Hengall said forcibly. “I’m not worried that we’d lose, but that we’d be weakened whether we won or lost. You understand that?”

“Yes,” Saban.

“Not that I mean to die yet!” Hengall went on. “I must be close to thirty-five summers. Think of that, thirty-five! But I’ve plenty of good years left! My father lived more than fifty years.”

“So will you, I hope,” Saban said clumsily.

“But you must prepare yourself,” Hengall said. “Pass your ordeals, go hunting, take some Outfolk heads. Show the tribe the
gods favor you.” He nodded abruptly and, without another word, turned and signaled for his friend Valan to join him.