Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

If it gave way, Saban knew, then the capstone would collapse. 'Don't even touch it,' he told the slave, and when Camaban came that evening Saban told him the grim news.

Camaban peered at the crack, then looked up at the lintel. 'The stone stands, doesn't it?' he declared.

'It stands, but for how long?' Saban asked. 'It should be replaced.'

'Replaced?' Camaban sounded astonished.

'We should bring another stone from Cathallo.'

'And how long will that take?' Camaban demanded.

'To move the stone? To shape it? To take this one away?' Saban thought for a few heartbeats. 'And we'll have to take both lintels off the narrow pillar,' he said, 'which is why I left the platform in place.' He shrugged. 'It might be done by next summer.'

'Next summer?' Camaban shouted. 'We are going to dedicate this temple in three days' time! Three days! It cannot wait! It is done, it is done, it is done! Of course it won't fall.' He beat the flat of his hand against the cracked pillar and Saban instinctively stepped back, but the stone did not shatter. Then Camaban tapped it with his small mace and afterwards, because he saw Saban was flinching, he picked up one of the heavy round stone mauls that had been used to shape the boulders and he beat it with all his strength against the cracked pillar. He smashed the stone again and again, grunting and sweating, filling the temple with the echoes of each hammering blow, and still the stone remained whole. 'You see?' Camaban asked, letting the maul fall, and then, his temper rising as it always did when his temple encountered an obstacle, he placed himself between the cracked stone and its neighbouring pillar and began to throw his full weight at the flawed stone, bouncing back and forth between the pillars. 'You see?' he screamed, and the slaves glanced nervously at Saban.

The pillar did not break. Camaban threw himself a last time at the stone, then tried to shake it with his hands. 'You see?' Camaban asked again, pulling his cloak straight. 'It is done. It is finished.' He backed away from the sky ring and stared up at its lintels. 'It is finished.' He cried those last words in triumph, then unexpectedly turned and embraced Saban. 'You have done well, Saban, you have done well. You have made the temple. It is finished! It is finished!' He screamed the last word and capered a few clumsy dance steps, then fell on his knees and prostrated himself on the ground.

And it really was finished. There was the just the last platform to dismantle and the debris of the long years to clear up. The stones of Sarmennyn were to be left in the low ground to the temple's east, while the timber of the sledges had already been piled into two great heaps that would be burned at the temple's dedication. That ceremony was three days away and Camaban, when he had finished his prayers, said that it was time the slave huts were pulled down and their timbers and straw added to the fire heaps. 'Huts burn well,' he said wolfishly.

'If I pull down the slaves' huts,' Saban asked, 'where will they sleep?'

'They can go free, of course,' Camaban said dismissively.

'Now?' Saban asked.

'Not yet,' Camaban said with a frown. 'I want to thank them. Should I give them a feast?'

'They deserve it,' Saban said.

'Then I shall arrange it,' Camaban said carelessly. 'They will have a feast on midwinter's eve. A great feast! And you can pull down the slave huts on the morning of the ceremony.' He walked away, though he continually turned to stare back at the stones.

Leir and Hanna both now lived in Saban's hut. The couple had come back from the island where Leir had left the lozenge, though there had been no reply from Derrewyn and Saban feared she was dead. Leir, far from being shocked at Hanna's parentage, seemed excited by it and demanded to hear the old stories of Cathallo and Ratharryn, of Lengar and Hengall, and of Derrewyn and Sannas.

'Derrewyn is not dead,' Kilda said stubbornly on the night of the temple's completion. The stones were deserted and Saban and Kilda walked hand in hand through the dark pillars that were touched with moonlight so that the tiny flecks embedded in the grey rock glinted like reflections of the uncountable stars. Somehow the stones seemed taller at night, taller and closer, so that when Saban and Kilda edged between two of the sun house's pillars it was as though they were enclosed by stone. Haragg's bones were shadowed, but the sour smell of blood lingered in the cold air.

'It seems smaller when you're inside,' Kilda said.

'Like a tomb,' Saban said.

'Maybe it's a temple of death?' Kilda suggested.

'Which is what Camaban wants,' a harsh voice said from the shadows that shrouded Haragg's stinking bones. 'He thinks it will give life, but it is a temple of death.'

Kilda had gasped when the voice interrupted them and Saban had put an arm around her shoulders as they turned to see a hooded figure stand up from beside the bones and walk towards them. For an instant Saban thought it was Haragg coming back to life, then Kilda suddenly released herself from his grip, ran to the dark figure and dropped at its feet. 'Derrewyn!' she cried. 'Derrewyn!'

The figure pushed back the hood and Saban saw it was indeed Derrewyn. An older Derrewyn, white haired and with a face so thin and skull-like that she resembled Sannas. 'You left the lozenge, Saban?' she asked.

'My son and your daughter left it,' Saban said.

Derrewyn smiled. Kilda was embracing her legs and Derrewyn gently disentangled herself and walked towards Saban. She still had a small limp, a legacy of the arrow that had pierced her thigh. 'Your son and my daughter,' she said, 'are they lovers now?'

'They are.'

'I hear your Leir is a good man,' Derrewyn said. 'So why did you send for me? Is it because your brother will kill all the slaves? I knew that. I know everything, Saban. Not a whisper is uttered in Ratharryn or Cathallo that I do not hear.' She stared around her, gazing up at the tall stones. 'It already has the stench of blood, but he will give it more. He will feed it blood till his miracle happens.' She laughed scornfully. 'An end to winter? An end to sickness? An end, even, to death? But suppose the miracle doesn't happen, Saban, what will your brother do then? Make another temple? Or just feed this one with blood, blood and more blood till the very earth is red?'

Saban said nothing. Derrewyn stroked the flank of the mother stone, which reflected the moon more brightly than the stones from Cathallo. 'Or perhaps his miracle will work,' Derrewyn went on. 'Perhaps we shall see the dead walking here. All the dead, Saban, their bodies white and gaunt, walking from the stones with creaking joints.' She spat. 'You'll dig no more graves in Ratharryn, eh?' She crossed to the outer stones from where she stared at the glow of the fires from the slave huts in the small valley. 'In two days, Saban,' she said, 'your brother plans to kill all those slaves. He will pretend he is giving them a feast, but his warriors will surround the huts with spears and drive them to these stones to kill them. How do I know? I heard it, Saban, from the women at Cathallo where your brother goes to lie with your wife. They rut together, only of course they don't call it that. Rutting is what you and I did, what you and Kilda do, what your son is probably doing to my daughter even as you stand there with your jaw hanging. No, Camaban and Aurenna rehearse the wedding of Slaol and Lahanna. It is their sacred duty,' she sneered, 'but it's still rutting, however you decorate it with prayers, and when they have finished, they talk, and do you think the women of Cathallo do not pass on to me every word they overhear?'

'I sent the lozenge so you would help me,' Saban said. 'I want the slaves to live.'

'Even if that means Camaban's miracle does not work?'

Saban shrugged. 'I think Camaban is frightened that it will not work, which is why he is touched by madness,' he said quietly. 'And that madness will not end until he has dedicated his temple. And perhaps Slaol will come? I wish he would.'