Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Many strangers were now at Ratharryn. None had been invited, but all came from curiosity. They had been arriving for days. Most were from neighbouring peoples, from Drewenna and the tribes along the southern coast, but some came from the distant north and others had braved a sea journey to see the miracle of the stones. Many of the visitors were from tribes that had suffered cruelly from Ratharryn's slave raids, but they all came in peace and brought their own food and so were allowed to build shelters among the berry-rich bushes of the nearby woods. On the day after the slaves fled Lewydd arrived with a dozen spearmen from Sarmennyn and Saban embraced his old friend and made room for him in Mereth's hut.

Lewydd was chief of Sarmennyn now and had a grey beard and two new scars on his grey-tattooed cheeks. 'When Kereval died,' he told Saban, 'our neighbours thought we would be easily conquered. So I have fought battles for years.'

'And won them?'

'Enough of them,' Lewydd said laconically. Then he asked about Aurenna and Haragg, and about Leir and Lallic, and he shook his head when he heard all Saban's news. 'You should have come back to Sarmennyn,' he said.

'I always wished to.'

'But you stayed and built the temple?'

'It was my duty,' Saban said. 'It is why the gods put me on the earth, and I am glad I did it. No one will remember Lengar's battles, they might even forget Cathallo's defeat, but they will always see my temple.'

Lewydd smiled. 'You built well. I have seen nothing like it in any land.' He held his hands towards Saban's fire. 'So what will happen tomorrow?'

'You must ask Camaban. If he'll talk to you.'

'He doesn't talk to you?' Lewydd asked.

Saban shrugged. 'He talks to no one except Aurenna.'

'Folk say that Erek will come to earth,' Lewydd suggested.

'Folk say many things,' Saban said. 'They say that we shall become gods, that the dead will walk and that the winter will vanish, but I do not know what will happen.'

'We shall discover soon enough,' Lewydd said comfortingly.

Women prepared food all that day. Camaban had revealed no plans for the temple's dedication, but midwinter had ever been a feast day and so the women cooked and beat and stirred so that the whole high embankment was filled with the smells of food. Camaban stayed in his hut and Saban was glad of that, for he feared his brother would miss Leir and demand to know where he had gone, but neither Camaban nor Aurenna questioned his absence.

Few slept well that night for there was too much anticipation. The woods were bright with the visitors' fires and a new moon hung in the west, though at dawn the moon faded behind a fog as the people of Ratharryn dressed themselves in their finest clothes. They combed their hair and hung themselves with necklaces of bone, jet, amber and sea-shells. The weather was still strangely warm. The fog cleared and a sudden rain shower made the people dash for their huts, but when the rain ended there was a magnificent rainbow hanging in the west. One end of the rainbow swooped down to the temple and folk climbed the embankment to marvel at the good omen.

The clouds slowly drifted northwards to leave a sky scraped bare and pale. By midday there were hundreds of folk from dozens of tribes up on the grassland about the temple and though there were scores of liquor pots no one became drunk. Some danced, some sang and the children played, though none ventured across the ditch and banks except for a dozen men who drove the cattle from among the stones then cleared the dung from inside the sacred circle. People stood beside the low outer bank and gazed at the stones, which looked splendid, clean, placid and filled with mystery. Folk complimented Saban, and he had to tell and retell the tales of the temple's making: how some pillars were too short; how he had raised the lintels; and how much sweat had gone into every single stone.

The wind dropped and the day became oddly still which only sharpened the air of expectancy. The sun was sinking in the southern sky and still no procession came from Ratharryn, though folk said there were dancers and musicians gathering about the temple of Mai and Arryn. Saban took Lewydd through the entrance of the sun and told him how the stones had been sunk in the ground and raised into the sky. He stroked the flank of the mother stone, the only stone of Sarmennyn remaining in the ring, and then he picked up some chips of rock that still lay on the grass about Haragg's bones. The rain had washed away the blood of the last sacrifice and the temple smelt sweet. Lewydd gazed up at the arches of the sun's house and seemed lost for words. 'It is…' he said, but could not finish.

'It is beautiful,' Saban said. He knew every stone. He knew which ones had been difficult to erect, and which had gone easily into their holes. He knew where a slave had fallen from a platform and broken a leg, and where another had been crushed by a stone being turned for shaping, and he dared to hope that all life's hardships would end this day as Slaol seared to his new home.

Then someone shouted that the priests were coming and Saban hurried Lewydd out of the temple, leaving it empty. They pushed through the crowd to see that the procession was at last coming from the settlement.

A dozen women dancers came first, sweeping leafless ash branches across the ground, and behind them came drummers and more dancers, and then came the priests who had their naked skins chalked and patterned and wore antlers or rams' horns on their heads. Last of all came a great band of warriors, all with foxes' brushes woven into their hair and hanging from their spears. Saban had never seen weapons carried to a temple's dedication, but he supposed that nothing about this evening would be the same for the crooked child was setting the world straight.

One of the approaching priests carried the tribe's skull pole and Saban saw the white bone start and stop as the priests placated the spirits. They prayed at the place where a man had fallen dead, wailed to the bear god where a child had been mauled to death, then stopped at the tombs to tell the ancestors what great thing was being done at Ratharryn this day. The sight of the skull reminded Saban of his false oath and he touched his groin and prayed to the gods to forgive him. Beyond the approaching priests the smoke from the settlement rose vertically into the sky, which was still clear of clouds, though the first faint shadow of night was dimming the north.

The procession came on again, dropping into the valley then climbing between the banks of the sacred path. The crowd had begun to dance to the approaching drum beats, shuffling left and right, advancing and retreating, beginning the steps that would not end until the drums ceased.

Camaban and Aurenna had not come with the priests who now spread themselves into a ring about the temple's ditch while the dancers swept their ash branches all about the chalk circle to drive away any malevolent spirits. The warriors, once the circle had been swept, made a protective ring about the chalk ditch.

The women of Ratharryn sang the wedding chant of Slaol. They danced to their own voices, stopping when the song stopped, then stepping on again when the beautiful lament resumed. The music was so plangent and lovely that Saban felt tears in his eyes and he began to dance himself, feeling the spirit inside him, and all about him the great crowd was swaying and moving as the voices swelled and stopped, swooped and sang. The sun was low now, but still bright, not yet touched with the blood-red of its winter dying.

A murmur sounded from the back of the crowd and Saban turned to see three figures had emerged from Ratharryn. One was all in black, one all in white and one was dressed in a deerskin tunic. It was Lallic who wore the tunic, and she walked between Camaban and Aurenna who were arrayed in feathered cloaks. Camaban's cloak was thick with swan feathers while Aurenna, her hair as bright as the day Saban had first seen her, was swathed in ravens' feathers. White and black, Slaol and Lahanna, and Aurenna's face was transfigured by a look of ecstatic delight. She was unaware of the waiting crowd or of the silent priests or even of the towering stones because her spirit had already been carried to the new world that the temple would bring. The crowd fell silent.

Camaban had ordered two new piles of wood to be made on either side of the temple, but well away from the stones, and a hundred men had laboured all the previous day to rebuild what Derrewyn had burned. Now those new heaps of timber were set on fire. The flames climbed hungrily through the high stacks in which whole trees had been placed so that the fires would burn through the whole long midwinter night. The fires hissed and crackled, the loudest noise of the evening, for the drumming, singing and dancing had all stopped as the three figures came up the sacred path.

Camaban stopped by the sun stone, and Lallic, obedient to his muttered order, stood in front of the stone and stared towards the temple. 'Your daughter?' Lewydd asked in a murmur.

'My daughter,' Saban confirmed. 'She is to be a priestess here.' He wanted to walk closer to Lallic, but two spearmen immediately stepped into his path. 'You must be still,' one said and lowered his spear blade so that it pointed at Saban's chest. 'Camaban insisted we must all be still,' the spearman explained. Aurenna was walking on into the long shadow of the stones and then she disappeared into the temple itself.

The crowd waited. The sun was low now, but the shadows of the temple did not yet stretch to the sun stone. There was a faint pinkness in the sky and the southernmost stones were touched with that colour while the inside of the temple was already dark. The pattern of shadows was becoming clear as the stones took on depth when, from the temple's darkened heart, Aurenna sang.

She sang for a long time and the crowd strained to listen for her voice was not powerful and it was muffled by the barriers of tall pillars, but those closest to the spearmen could hear her words and they whispered them on to the folk behind. Slaol made the world, Aurenna chanted, and made the gods to preserve the world, and he made the people to live in the world, and he made the plants and animals to shelter and feed the people, and in the beginning, when all that was made, there was nothing but life and love and laughter, for men and women were the companions of the gods. But some of the gods had been envious of Slaol for none was as bright and powerful as their creator, and Lahanna was the most jealous of all and she had tried to dim Slaol's brightness by sliding in front of his face, and when that failed she had persuaded mankind that she could take away death if they would just worship her instead of Slaol. It was then, Aurenna chanted, that man's misery began. Misery and sickness and toil and pain, and death was not vanquished for Lahanna had lied, and Slaol had moved away from the world to let winter ravage the land so that the people would know his power.

But now, Aurenna sang, the world would be turned back to its beginnings. Lahanna would bow to Slaol and Slaol would return, and there would be an end to the misery. There would be no more winter and no more sadness, for Slaol would take his proper place and the dead would go to Slaol instead of to Lahanna and they would walk in his vast brightness. Aurenna's voice was thready and sibilant, seeming to come disembodied from the stones. We shall live in Slaol's glory, she sang, and share in his favour, and with those words the shadow of the topmost arch stretched to touch the sun stone and Slaol was poised, dazzling and terrible and vast, just above his temple. The evening was cooling and the first shiver of the night wind stirred the plumes of smoke from the fires.

Slaol is the giver of life, Aurenna sang, the only giver of life, and he will give us life if we give life to him. The shadow was creeping up the sun stone. All the ground between that stone and the temple was dark now, while the rest of the hillside was green with the year's last light. Tonight, Aurenna sang, we shall give Slaol a bride of the earth and he will give her back to us.

It took a few heartbeats for those words to register with Saban and then he understood Lallic's purpose, the same purpose that Aurenna had avoided at the Sea Temple in Sarmennyn, and he knew his oath was being returned to him in blood. 'No!' Saban shouted, shattering the crowd's solemn stillness, and one of the spearmen clubbed him on the side of the head with his spear staff. He struck Saban to the ground and the other man placed his blade on Saban's neck. Camaban did not turn round at the commotion, nor did Lallic move; Aurenna went on undisturbed.

We shall give a bride to the sun, Aurenna chanted, and we shall see the bride return to us alive and we will know the god has heard us and that he loves us and that all will be well. The dead will walk, Aurenna sang, the dead will dance, and when the bride comes back to life there will be no more weeping in the night and no more sobs of mourning, for mankind will live with the gods and be like them. Saban struggled to rise, but both spearmen were holding him down and he saw that the sun was now hidden behind the topmost arch and blazing its light all around the temple's outline.

Camaban turned to Lallic. He smiled at her. He raised his hands from under his white-feathered cloak and he gently untied the lace at the neck of her tunic. She trembled slightly and a whimper escaped her throat. 'You are going on a journey,' Camaban soothed her, 'but it will not be a long journey and you will greet Slaol face to face and bring his greeting back to us.'

She nodded, and Camaban pushed the deerskin tunic down over her shoulders and let it fall so that her white naked body shivered against the grey of the sun stone. 'He comes,' Camaban whispered, and from beneath his cloak he brought out a bronze knife with a wooden handle studded with a thousand small gold pins. 'He comes,' he said again and half turned towards the stones and at that instant the sun lanced through the topmost arch of the temple to send a spear of brilliant light towards the sun stone. That ray of light, narrow and stark and bright, slid over the capstone at the far side of the sky ring, through the tallest arch and under the nearest lintel to strike against Lallic who shuddered as the knife was raised. The bronze blade flashed in the sun.

'No!' Saban shouted again, and the spearmen pressed their bronze blades against his neck as the crowd held its breath.

But the knife did not move.

The crowd waited. The beam of light would not last long. It was already narrowing as the sun sank towards the horizon beyond the temple, but still the blade stayed aloft and Saban saw that it was shaking. Lallic was shivering in fear and someone hissed at Camaban to strike with the blade before the sun went, but just as Hirac had been paralysed by the gold on Camaban's tongue, so Camaban himself was now struck motionless.

For the dead walked.

Just as Derrewyn had promised, the dead walked.

—«»—«»—«»—

There was a small group of people at the end of the sacred avenue. No one had remarked on their presence, assuming they were latecomers to the ceremony, but they had stayed in the lower ground as Aurenna sang the story of the world. Now a single figure came from the group and climbed the sacred path between the white chalk ditches. She walked slowly, haltingly, and it was the sight of her that had stilled Camaban's hand. And still he could not move, but only stare at the woman who advanced into the temple's long shadow. She was swathed in a cloak made from badger skins and had a woollen shawl hooding her long white hair, and the eyes that peered from the hood were malevolent, clever and terrifying. She came slowly for she was old, so old no one knew how old she was. She was Sannas and she had come to collect her soul and Camaban suddenly screamed at her to go away. The knife trembled.