The Rings of Poseidon (6 page)

"You know," she continued, "this amulet has a
pattern on it which nobody has explained satisfactorily, though it
appears very widely on Bronze Age and later stone age remains."

Gill peered at it. "I've seen it before," she
said, "A series of rings linked by lines going across them in the
form of a cross."

"But not with a seven point star in the
centre. I always thought that was a medieval symbol," added
Alicia.

Steve stood listening to them for a moment or
two, then picked up the ring.

"Funny how this ring hasn't rusted," he
remarked

"Copper and Bronze don't rust," said
Gill.

"You know what I mean," Steve told her,
laughing. "Anyway it hasn't turned green and rotted."

"No, you're right," Alicia said, "that's
puzzled me as well. It appears to be a clear, amber sort of colour,
like nicely polished copper."

"It's a fairly small ring," said Steve,
holding it up to the light, "It looks as if it would just about fit
on my little finger." He placed the ring on his finger before
anyone could stop him, had they been so minded, and pushed it
down.

Chapter 5

I parted the grass carefully to get a better
view of the fort or farm or whatever they were building.

'It looks permanent.' I thought.

One of the big people was standing guard
about ten or twelve feet away, wearing his helmet and leaning
against his spear, which was tipped with that hard new metal they
use. I imagined that his sword would be made of the same precious
stuff but it was stuck into his belt and I could only see the hilt,
the rest being hidden by his cloak. His shield, propped against a
nearby rock, was the round wooden sort covered with layers of hide.
The kind used by most of his people. I did not think he really
expected any trouble, although they don't usually see us - even
when they seek us and we are not trying to hide. Whenever we have
really sought concealment they have seen nothing at all. I believe
they have some kind of tale about us being swallowed up by the
ground.

This one was enormous. He must have stood at
least five foot four or five. There was another guard nearly as
tall, standing further away on the hill and one taking charge of
things. This third one had put his helmet down, along with his
shield and spear, in the long, wiry grass. He was directing the men
doing the building. They were just piling the stones on top of each
other and sticking them together with muddy looking stuff. It was a
lot quicker than sorting out exactly which stone to lay and sloping
the walls inwards but they had to keep stopping to mix some more of
the mud. Moreover, I wasn't sure how safe it was. I mean, what if
rain washed it out or a storm blew it out? I wouldn't want to be in
the building then!

The one in charge kept pausing to look
around. I had the impression that he was concerned about something
quite different from the construction, but what it was I couldn't
for the life of me guess.

I had no wish to tangle with the big people,
but it seemed there was no help for it. I knew of at least two
villages on the mainland where they had killed all the people - and
now they were spreading onto the islands. There seemed no end to
their greed for land. Maybe elsewhere there was room for us to keep
out of their way, but not on the islands. I signalled to the others
to come forward with their bows. There were just the nine of them I
could see and there were seven of us - eight of us including me. I
fitted an arrow to my bow, drew it back carefully and waited.

I gave the sign. Arrows flicked silently
across the grassy hollow. The one in charge dropped suddenly:
before an arrow hit him I'm sure. I fired three arrows in all, but
the others in my group only had to let loose two before all the
remaining big people were dead. When all was still, we crept out
and gathered up our arrows. Of the leader there was no sign. If
he'd been hit I couldn't see him. There was no time to wait around
looking: we just left quickly, covering our tracks.

Back at the village the others were grimly
jubilant but I wasn't. I thought they'd be after us. In their place
I would be now. Not that I'd choose to do different, mind, I just
don't have the same optimism that the others seem to have.

One of the old women came out. "Your father's
dead!" she said. "You'll have to make the great marriage, as he
did."

I reflected. I didn't have much choice. My
father had been ill for some time and he was a good age too -
perhaps even forty. Now the people would look to me. The great
marriage was a wedding to the land, represented by one of the
priest-girls and would make me king and war chief as well as
bridegroom. I didn't have much illusion about how the war would end
but I'd no choice about that either.

"First the funeral duties to my father and
then the great marriage", I said at length.

I lay with my hands clasped behind my head
and stared at the roof without seeing it in the dim light. The fire
had burned low and was little more than a collection of red embers
and a single, flickering log in the centre of the room. I could see
that the patch of sky visible through the smoke-hole in the centre
of the roof was already beginning to turn from the black of night
to the first early grey of dawn. The bed beneath me was of young
heather with a wool blanket thrown over. The blanket was thick
enough and the heather young enough that I couldn't feel it
sticking through and there was just enough heat left in the embers
for me to be comfortably warm as I lay without covers, though I was
fully dressed. My few personal possessions were in the shadows of
this room with me but I was thinking about the future and my
destiny and the destiny of my people.

I heard the footsteps of two older people in
the passageway outside the house and the sound of the skin at the
doorway being drawn aside to admit someone, but I did not move
until an old woman leaned over me and said, simply, "It is
time."

I got up and followed her outside, the second
old woman following us.

The sun was just rising above the horizon
when the fire was lit. I watched flames curl at the base of the
cone and then rush upwards with a shower of sparks as first the dry
twigs and then the bigger boughs caught light. By the glow of the
fire I could see the faces of some who had come to the
chief-making. We were a pitifully small number. There were just the
two villages remaining on this island and the village on the high
island. I tried to concentrate on the job in hand.

What is there to tell? A priestess invoked
the blessing of the goddess on the ceremony, then I had to catch
and kill a deer before the sun set that day. Perhaps catching a
deer was once a test of real importance when the tribe depended
upon their chief to lead them in the hunt for food, but we kept
animals ourselves now and, if we did need to supplement that food,
we hunted in a group.

Still, a ceremony is a ceremony, so I tracked
the symbolic deer, went downwind of it, sneaked close to it, using
an uncured hide as a precaution to cover my scent and shot it with
the bow I also carried.

The most difficult part was carrying the
animal back to the village when I'd killed it. The day was not so
very hot, but it was warm enough that I sweated with the exertion
of carrying my burden, my throat was dry, my back ached and my
muscles turned to jelly before I returned.

The priestess set the deer to roast after
they had taken its blood and sprinkled the homes, the animals and
the fields with their blessing. Then they painted me with the
symbols of the goddess and tattooed the snake around my wrist and
forearm.

By the time they had finished the sun was
setting. The fire was stoked up again and the priestess faced me.
She said, "I now place this symbol of the rulership on the hand of
Bend as he goes to complete the great marriage," and she put my
father's ring onto my finger. It was his and I thought it had been
buried with him.

Then the priestess surprised me again by
taking an amulet from her own neck and raising her arms to the last
traces of the setting sun. "Visible symbol of the goddess which
sets in the west," she said, "charge this jewel, handed down from
one to the other, so that it may become a symbol of our
people."

She fastened it about my neck, saying, "One
thing only remains to complete the great marriage. Go to your
house. A priestess-virgin awaits the moment when you fill her with
the life of our people. Go, and the goddess be with you."

I allowed the two older women to lead me back
to the entrance of the village and underground along the passage to
my own house. I let them hold aside the hide and entered.

"The goddess be with you", one of them said,
and the hide fell back into place behind me.

Inside the fire had been built up and its
flickering light showed that the bed was occupied. The woman, or
rather the girl, was twelve or thirteen summers old at most and was
wearing nothing on her dark skinned body. On her budding breasts
had been drawn the symbols of the goddess. Her dark hair framed the
dark face and her hands were by her side. It was to her credit that
she was not covering herself in any way but awaiting the coming of
her lover in the great marriage with as much composure as she could
manage.

I unfastened the belt of the woollen,
one-piece jerkin I was wearing and let it fall onto the floor then
I stripped off the jerkin itself and let that fall alongside it. I
could see the girl watching me and felt mildly embarrassed as I
took off the linen loincloth.

She gazed at my manhood for a moment, then
said, "I am ready, my king. Together we serve the great mistress."
She paused and then added, her voice a little husky, perhaps with
fear, "I am ready for you and may the Goddess be with us."

The fire had burned almost out and daylight
streamed through the fire-hole before I rose and went out to meet
the rest of the tribe, who were still waiting for me. I looked at
the expectant faces and said, "It is completed as the goddess
wills." The priestess smiled a little in relief and the tension
eased.

"Before we talk of the big people and what to
do about them, tell me something," I asked her.

She nodded.

"The ring and the talisman. Where did my
father get them?"

"From his father. He inherited them."

I tried again. "But where did they come
from?"

"Legend tells that they were brought from far
to the south. They were brought by your father's fathers, many
generations ago."

I pondered a moment. "Do the legends say
whether they were won in battle or ... or how the bearer came by
them?"

"They were sent in safe keeping. Or so the
stories run," she said. "I know nothing beyond the stories."

I sighed, though I do not know why. "Now we
must decide what to do about the big people", I said.

The priestess nodded.

We could count only twenty-two men between
ten and thirty-five. Women who were not nursing and not too old
joined the men defending ... Defending what? I don't know. I had
nothing against the big people. I would simply stay out of their
way but I know it's no good. There are too many of them and they're
too hungry for land. They're too hungry for OUR land and in the
past they've killed those who stood up to them. I think they're
afraid of us because they don't often see us and they sometimes
walk right past our villages without seeing them either. It may be
a combination of them not being all that observant and our not
being all that numerous but, whatever it is, when they get the
chance they kill us all. Their stories are of folk who mean malice
and misfortune. I think perhaps the priestesses are right; it is
our existence we're defending.

Anyway, thirty-seven people, not all of them
real fighters, were not enough to meet the big ones in open battle
and I couldn't manage more than that. In council with the
priestesses I decided that all those too old or too young to fight
should go to the village on the high island. I made up my own mind
to abandon the two villages on the main island, but in such a
manner that the big people would think they had won and got rid of
us for good. I didn't think they'd follow us to the high island. I
also made up my mind not to tell anyone, including the priestesses,
that I had decided to abandon the main island. This decision was
unfortunate when you consider what happened.

I thought the location of one of our villages
was more or less known, so we'd use that one. If we attacked the
settlement at Holm and left a clear trail for the big people to
follow, they would have no choice but to come after us. We could
ambush them on the way and make them pay dear for the village I had
already decided to give up. They wouldn't know that; they'd think
it was a hard won victory. I wanted them to think that a few
survivors were running to one of the small islands northwards of
the main island.

Those who were not fighting went to the high
island as planned and some of the boats were brought back and were
hidden a little down the coast. To make abandonment seem more real,
dummies made of straw and heather placed inside them. The rest of
the boats were concealed conveniently, ready for a hasty departure
to the high island. Next some of the tribe hid themselves with bows
at the temple of the sun at Brodgar. The stones stand in a circle
on gently rising moorland, so there's plenty of cover in amongst
the heather. A temple is not really the place for an ambush, but my
people use it, though it was there before us, the big ones are
afraid of it and don't understand it and it makes a good landmark
to make for.

Our attack on their settlement was almost
better and more effective than I had hoped. Several of our tribe
went into the settlement after dark with straw and heather wrapped
around branches and started fires in boats and buildings, then we
used our arrows on those who were lit up by the moonlight or the
glow from fires. I don't suppose we even hit, let alone killed
many, but there was no shortage of confusion. We left a pretty
clear trail but, to make sure there was no mistake, we set fire to
a farmhouse. We also attacked a shepherd, scattered his sheep and
killed his dog.