Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'Then you will,' Saban said, and he lifted his delighted son and put him on the stone so that Leir rode the moving boulder.

Saban took the cumbersome sledge north around Cathallo's shrine because the team of oxen was much too large to go through the gaps in the temple's embankment. Aurenna paced alongside, followed by the crowd, and when the boulder had gone past the temple she called for Leir to jump down from the sledge and follow her home. Leir looked at her, but stubbornly stayed where he was. 'Leir!' Aurenna called sharply.

'Leir is coming with me,' Saban told her. 'He is coming to Ratharryn. He will live with me there.'

Aurenna looked surprised, then the surprise turned to anger. 'He will live with you?' Her voice was dangerous.

'And he will learn what I learned as a child,' Saban said. He will learn how to use an axe, an adze and an awl. He will learn how to make a bow, how to kill a deer and how to wield a spear. He will become a man.'

The oxen bellowed and the air stank of their dung and blood. The stone moved at less than a man's walking pace, but it did move. 'Leir!' Aurenna shouted. 'Come here!'

'Stay where you are,' Saban called to his son and hurried to catch up with the sledge.

'He is to be a priest,' Aurenna shouted. She ran after Saban, jay feathers fluttering from her cloak.

'He will become a man first,' Saban said, 'and if, after he has become a man, he wishes to be a priest, then so be it. But my son will be a man before he is ever a priest.'

'He can't go with you!' Aurenna shrieked. Saban had never seen her angry before, indeed he had not believed there was such fierce emotion inside her, but now she screamed at him and her hair was wild and her face distorted. 'How can he live with you? You have a slave woman in your bed!' She pointed at Kilda and Hanna who were following the sledge along with the folk of Cathallo who were eagerly listening to the argument. Leir was still on the stone from where he gazed at his parents while Lallic hid her small face in Aurenna's skirts. 'You keep a slave whore and her bastard!' Aurenna howled.

'But at least I don't dress in a bull-dancer's cloak to cover her!' Saban snapped. 'She is my whore, not Slaol's whore!'

Aurenna stopped and the anger on her face turned to a cold fury. She drew back her hand to strike Saban across the face, but he seized her wrist. 'You took yourself from my bed, woman, because you claimed a man would frighten Lahanna away. I did what you wanted then, but I will not let you deny my son his manhood. He is my son and he will be a man.'

'He will be a priest!' There were tears in Aurenna's eyes now. 'Lahanna demands it!'

Saban saw that he was hurting her with his grip, so he let her wrist go. 'If the goddess wants him to be a priest,' he said, 'then he will be a priest, but he will be a man first.' He turned on the ox herdsmen who had abandoned their animals to watch the confrontation. 'Watch the hauling lines!' he shouted. 'Don't let them slow down. Leir! Get down, use your goad, work!' He walked away from Aurenna who stood still, crying. Saban was trembling, half fearing a terrible curse, but Aurenna just turned and led Lallic back to her home.

'She will want revenge,' Kilda warned him.

'She will try to take her son back, that is all. But he won't go. He won't go.'

It took twenty-three days to move the long stone to Ratharryn and Saban stayed with the great sledge for most of the journey, but when they were a day or two away from the Sky Temple he hurried ahead with Kilda, Hanna and Leir for he knew that the temple's entrance would need to be widened if the stone was to be hauled through. The ditch by the entrance would have to be filled and the portal stones taken down, and he wanted both jobs done before the long boulder arrived.

The stone arrived two days later and Saban had forty slaves start sculpting it into a pillar. It might have been roughly shaped in Cathallo, but now it must be made smooth, polished and tapering. A dozen other slaves began to dig the socket for the stone, delving deep into the chalk under the soil.

Saban did not go down to the settlement, nor did Camaban come to the temple in the first days after the long stone had arrived, but Saban could smell the trouble in the air like the stench of a tanner's pit. Those folk who did come from the settlement avoided Saban, or else they forced idle conversation and seemed not to notice that Leir was now living with his father. The slaves worked, Saban pretended there was no danger and the stone shrank into its smooth shape.

The first frosts came. The sky looked washed and pale, and then at last Camaban did come to the temple. He came with a score of spearmen, all dressed for battle and led by Vakkal, his spear decorated with the scalps of men he had killed in the battle at Cathallo. Camaban, swathed in his father's bear cloak, had a bronze sword at his waist. His hair was bushy and wild, its tangles threaded with children's bones, which also hung from his beard that now had a badger's streak of white. He signalled for his spearmen to wait by the sun stone, then limped on towards Saban. A single young priest came with him, carrying the skull pole.

There was silence as Camaban crossed the entrance causeway between the two pillars that had been thrown down so that the longer stones could be hauled into the circle. His face was angry. The slaves close to Saban backed away, leaving him alone beside the mother stone where Camaban stopped to look around the temple, the priest with the skull pole two paces behind. 'No stones have been raised.' His voice was mild but he frowned at Saban. 'Why have no stones been raised?'

'They must be shaped first.'

'Those are shaped,' Camaban said, pointing his mace at some of the pillars for the sky circle.

'If they are raised,' Saban said, 'then they will get in the way of the larger stones. Those must be raised first.'

Camaban nodded. 'But where are the longer stones?' His tone was reasonable, as though he had no quarrel with Saban, but that reticence only increased the threat of his presence.

'The first is here,' Saban said, pointing to the monstrous boulder, which lay amidst piles of stone chips and dust. 'Mereth has taken the big sledge back to Cathallo and will be bringing another. But that one' — he nodded at the longest stone — 'will be raised before midwinter.'

Camaban nodded again, apparently satisfied. He drew his sword, walked to the long stone and began to sharpen the blade on the rock's edge. 'I have talked with Aurenna,' he said, his voice still calm, 'and she told me a strange tale.'

'About Leir?' Saban asked, bristling and defensive as he tried to hide his nervousness.

'She told me about Leir, of course she did.' Camaban paused to feel the edge of his blade, found it blunt and began scraping the sword on the stone again. It made a ringing noise. 'But I agree with you about Leir, brother,' he went on, glancing at Saban, 'he should be a man. I don't see him as a priest. He has no dreams like his sister. He is more like you. But I don't think he should live with you. He needs to learn a warrior's ways and a hunter's paths. He can live in Gundur's household.' Saban nodded cautiously. Gundur was not a cruel man and his sons were growing into honest men. 'He can live in Gundur's hut,' he agreed. 'No,' Camaban said, frowning at a small nick in the sword's edge, 'the strange tale that Aurenna told me was about Derrewyn.' He looked up at Saban. 'She still lives.. Did you know that?'

'How would I know?' Saban asked. But her child is not with her,' Camaban said. He had straightened from the stone and was staring into Saban's eyes now. 'Her child, it seems, was sent to live in a settlement because Derrewyn feared it would sicken and die in the forests. So she sent it away. To Cathallo, do you think? Or maybe here? To Ratharryn? The tale is whispered in Cathallo's huts, brother, but Aurenna hears all. Have you heard that tale, Saban?'

'No.'

Camaban smiled, then made a gesture with his sword and Saban turned to see that two spearmen had found Hanna and were dragging her from the hut. Kilda was screaming at them, but a third man barred her way as the terrified child was brought to Camaban. Saban moved to take the child from the spearmen, but one of them held his weapon towards Saban while the other gave the child to Camaban who first gripped her, then laid his newly sharpened sword across her throat. 'Her mother, if that woman of yours is her mother,' Camaban said, 'has fair hair. This child is dark.'

Saban touched his own black hair.

Camaban shook his head. 'She is too old to be your child, Saban, not unless you met the mother before we ever began to build the temple.' He tightened the pressure of the sword and Hanna gasped. 'Is she Derrewyn's bastard child, Saban?' Camaban asked.

'No,' Saban said.

Camaban laughed softly. 'You were Derrewyn's lover once,' he said, 'and maybe you still love her? Enough, perhaps, to help her?'

'And you wanted to marry her once, brother,' Saban hissed, 'but that does not mean you would help her now.' Saban saw Camaban's astonishment that he knew of his offer of marriage to Derrewyn, and the astonishment made him smile. 'Would you like me to shout that news aloud, brother?'

Hanna screamed as Camaban twitched with anger. 'Do you threaten me, Saban?' he asked.

'Me?' Saban laughed. 'Threaten you, the sorcerer? But how will you build this temple, brother, if you fight me? You can build a tripod? You can line a hole with timber? You can harness oxen? You know how the stone breaks naturally? You, who boast that you have never held an axe in your life, can build this temple?'

Camaban laughed at the question. 'I can find a hundred men to raise stones!' he said scornfully.

Saban smiled. 'Then let those hundred men tell you how they will raise one stone upon another.' He pointed to the long stone. 'When that pillar is raised, brother, it will stand four times the height of a man. Four times! And how will you lift another stone to rest on its summit? Do you know?' He looked past Camaban and shouted the question even louder. 'Do any of you know?' He called to the spearmen. 'Vakkal? Gundur? Can you tell me? How will you raise a capstone to the summit of that pillar? And not just one capstone, but a whole ring of stones! How will you do it? Answer me!'

No one spoke. They just stared at him. Camaban shrugged. 'A ramp of earth, of course,' he said.

'A ramp of earth?' Saban sneered. 'You have thirty-five capstones to raise, brother, and you'll make thirty-five ramps? How long will that take? And how will you scrape those ramps from this shallow soil? Raise the stones with earth and our great-grandchildren won't see this temple finished.'

'Than how would you do it?' Camaban asked angrily.

'Properly,' Saban answered.

'Tell me!' Camaban shouted.

'No,' Saban said, 'and without me, brother, you will never have a temple. You will have a pile of rocks.' He pointed at Hanna. 'And if you kill that child I will walk away from this temple and I will never look back, never! She is a slave's whelp, but I am fond of her. You think she is Derrewyn's daughter?' Saban spat his scorn onto the long stone. 'Do you think Derrewyn would send her child to a tribe where you ruled? Search the land, brother, haul down every hut, but don't search here for Derrewyn's child.'

Camaban watched him for a time. 'Do you swear this child is not Derrewyn's daughter?'

'I do,' Saban said, and felt a chill run through him for a false oath was not to be taken lightly, yet if he had hesitated, or if he had told the truth, Hanna would have died instantly.

Camaban watched him, then gestured that the priest should step forward and lower the skull to Saban. Camaban still held his sword at Hanna's small throat. 'Put a hand on the skull,' he ordered Saban, 'and swear before the ancestors that this child is not Derrewyn's whelp.'

Saban reached his hand out slowly. This was the most solemn oath he could make, and to lie to the ancestors was to betray his whole tribe, but he placed his fingers on the bone and nodded. 'I swear it,' he said.

'On your daughter's life?' Camaban demanded.

Saban was sweating now. The world seemed to tremble about him, but Hanna was staring at him and he felt himself nod again. 'On Lallic's life,' he said and he knew he had told a terrible lie. He would have to make amends if Lallic were to live and he did not know how he could do that.

Camaban pushed Hanna away and she ran to Saban and clung to him, weeping. He picked her up and held her close.

'Make me a temple, brother,' Camaban said, pushing the sword into his leather belt, 'make me a temple, but hurry!' His voice was rising now. 'You are forever making excuses! The stone is hard, the ground is too wet for sledges, the oxens' hooves are breaking. And nothing gets done!' He screeched the last four words. He was shaking and Saban wondered if his brother was about to roll his eyes and go into a howling trance that could fill the temple with blood and fear, but Camaban just yelped as if he were in pain and then abruptly turned and walked away. 'Make me a temple!' he shouted, and Saban held Hanna tight for she was weeping with fear.

As Camaban crossed the temple causeway, followed by his warriors, Saban leaned on the long stone and let out a great breath. It was a cold day, but he was still sweating. Kilda ran to him and took Hanna into her arms. 'I thought he would kill you both!' she said.

'I have sworn my daughter's life on Hanna's life,' Saban said dully. 'He knew who Hanna was and I swore she was not.' He closed his eyes, shaking. 'I have sworn a false oath.'

Kilda was silent. The slaves watched Saban.

'I have risked Lallic,' Saban said, and the tears ran down his cheeks to make furrows in the white stone dust.

'What will you do?' Kilda asked quietly.

'The gods must forgive me,' Saban said, 'no one else can.'

'If you build the gods a temple,' Kilda said, 'then they will forgive you. So build it, Saban, build it.' She reached out and wiped a tear from his face. 'And how will you raise the capstones?' she asked.

'I don't know,' Saban said, 'I truly don't know.' But if he found out, he thought, then perhaps the gods would forgive him and Lallic would live. Only the temple could save her now, and so he turned on the slaves. 'Work!' he told them. 'Work! The sooner it's done, the sooner we're all free.'

They worked. They hammered, they ground patches of stone to dust, they dug rock and earth, and they polished stone until their arms ached and their nostrils were filled with dust and their eyes stung. The strongest of them worked on the long stone and, as Saban had promised, it was ready before midwinter. The day came when it could not be shaped any more, it had been turned from a rock into a slender, elegant and tapering monolith, and Saban knew he must raise it. He remembered Galeth's advice and proposed raising the stone on edge, for he feared the narrow stone's weight might shear it in two. But first the stone had to be manoeuvred to the edge of its hole and that took six days of levering and sweating and cursing, and then it had to be turned onto one of its long narrow edges and that took a whole day, but at last it stood on its log rollers and Saban could loop ropes about the whole length of the stone and attach the ropes to the sixty oxen that would haul the monstrous rock into its hole.