Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'Lengar loves to make war,' Camaban said.

'And loves to make babies,' Sannas said. 'Derrewyn is pregnant.'

'I heard as much.'

'May her milk poison the bastard,' Sannas said, 'and its father too.' She pulled the furs round her shoulders. 'Lengar takes our men prisoner, Camaban, and sacrifices them to his gods.'

Camaban rocked back on his heels. 'Lengar thinks the gods are like hounds that can be whipped into obedience,' he said, 'but he will learn soon enough that their whips are bigger than his. But for the moment he does Slaol's work so I imagine he will prosper.'

'Slaol!' Sannas hissed.

'The great god,' Camaban said reverently, 'the god above all gods. The only god who has the power to change our sad world.'

Sannas stared at him as a dribble of honey trickled from her lips. 'The only god?' she asked in disbelief.

'I told you that I wished to learn,' Camaban said, 'so I have learned, and I have discovered that Slaol is the god above all the gods. Our mistake has been to worship the others, but they are much too busy worshipping Slaol to take any notice of us.' He smiled at Sannas's appalled expression. 'I am a follower of Slaol, Sannas,' he said, 'and I always have been, ever since I was a child. Even when I listened to you talk of Lahanna, I was a worshipper of Slaol.'

She shuddered at his impiety. 'Then why come back here, fool?' she demanded. 'You think I love Slaol?'

'I came to see you, my dear, of course,' Camaban said calmly. He put a last piece of wood on the fire, then moved to her side where he sat and cradled her shoulders. 'I paid you to teach me, remember? Now I want my final lesson.'

The old woman saw the blood on his hands then and tried to claw his face. 'I will give you nothing,' she said.

Camaban turned his body to face her. 'You will teach me the last lesson, Sannas,' he said gently. 'I paid for it with Slaol's gold.'

'No!' she hissed.

'Yes,' Camaban said gently, then he leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. She struggled, but Camaban used his weight to push her down. He still kissed her, his mouth fixed on hers, and for a few heartbeats she tried to escape his kiss by twisting her head, but her strength was no match for his.

She glared up at his eyes, then he moved the furs from her breasts and put one arm around her body and began to squeeze. The old woman struggled again and a small whimper escaped her, but Camaban pushed his mouth hard down on hers, squeezed with his arm and pinched her nostrils with his left hand. All the time he kept his green eyes on her black eyes.

It took a long while. A surprisingly long while. The old woman kicked and twitched under the furs, but after a while the spasmodic movements ended, and still Camaban kissed her. The fire was almost dead again by the time Sannas's small, birdlike movements had ended, but her eyes were still open and Camaban stared into them until at last, though cautiously, as if expecting a trick, he slowly pulled his face from hers. He waited, his mouth just a finger's breadth from her mouth, but she did not move. And still he waited, scarce daring to breathe, but finally he smiled. 'What a honey-sweet kiss that was,' he said to the corpse, then touched his finger to her forehead. 'I took your last breath, lady. I have stolen your soul.'

He sat for a moment, savouring the triumph. With her last breath he had stolen her power and engulfed her spirit, but then he remembered the closeness of dawn and he hurriedly crossed the hut. He cleared away the stones that ringed the small hearth and then, using a piece of firewood, shifted the burning wood, embers and hot ashes aside. He found a broken antler and used it to dig into the hot soil beneath the hearth, scrabbling the earth away where he knew Sannas hid her most precious possessions.

He uncovered a leather pouch. He prised it gently from the earth's grip, then pulled aside the leather curtain at the hut entrance where the first seeping grey of the morning provided a sullen light. He untied the pouch and spilt its contents on to his palm. There were eleven of Sarmennyn's small lozenges and one large one. It was the gold Hengall had exchanged for Cathallo's stones and the two lozenges Camaban himself had paid to Sannas. He gazed at the treasure for an instant, then returned it to the pouch, tied the pouch to his belt and went out into the cold.

He went north, and a child saw him leave the shrine in the misty greyness but did not raise any alarm. He limped across the frost-whitened fields to the dark woods in which he vanished before the sun rose to blaze across Cathallo's shrine.

Where Sannas the sorceress lay dead.

—«»—«»—«»—

Haragg hired three slave women for the winter. They came from a tribe that lived yet farther north and spoke a language that even Haragg did not understand, but they knew their duties. The youngest slept with Haragg, and Saban and Cagan shared the other two. 'A man should sleep with a woman,' Haragg told Saban. 'It is a natural thing, the proper thing.'

Haragg seemed to take small pleasure from his own woman. Instead his joy came from the spare, cold life of that long winter. Each morning he would go to the temple to pray and afterwards he would bring water or ice to the fire while Cagan fed hay or leaves to the three horses that shared the hut. The chief of the settlement regarded Haragg as an honoured guest and provided food for all of them, though Saban supplemented those gifts by hunting. He preferred hunting by himself, stalking the scarce prey through an ice-bound land, though he did once join the men of the settlement when a bear was found sleeping in a cave. They woke the beast with fire and killed it with flint and bronze and afterwards Saban carried a bleeding haunch of meat back to the hut. There was never quite enough food, at least for the giant Cagan, but none of them starved. They ate berries and nuts that were stored in jars, eked out their bags of grain and herbs, and occasionally gorged on venison, hare or fish.

And day after day the snow glittered on the hills and the air seemed filled with a sparkling frost and the sun came for a short time and the nights were endless. They burned peat, which Saban had never seen before, but sometimes, to make the light in the hut brighter, they would add logs of resinous pine that burned smoky and pungent. The long evenings were usually silent, but sometimes Haragg talked. 'I was a priest,' the big man said one night, startling Saban. 'I was a priest of Sarmennyn, and I had a wife and a son and a daughter.'

Saban said nothing. The peat glowed red. The three horses stamped their feet and Cagan, who loved the horses, felt the vibration and turned and gurgled soothingly to them. The three women watched the men, sheltering under a shared pelt. They had tangled masses of black hair that half hid the scars on their foreheads, which showed they were slaves. Saban was learning their language, but now he and Haragg spoke in the Outfolk tongue.

'My daughter was called Miyac,' Haragg said, staring into the fire's steady glow. It was almost as though he were talking to himself, for he spoke softly and did not look at Saban. 'Miyac' — his voice caressed the name — 'and she was a creature of great loveliness. Great loveliness. I thought she would grow to marry a chief or a war leader, and I was glad, for her husband's wealth would keep my wife and me in our old age and would preserve Cagan when we were dead.'

Saban said nothing. There was a slithering noise from the roof as a mass of snow slid down the roof turfs. 'But, in Sarmennyn,' Haragg went on, 'we choose a sun bride each year. She is chosen in the spring and for three moons' — he rocked his hand back and forth to show that the three moons were an approximation — 'she is a goddess herself. And then, at midsummer, at the sun's glory, we kill her.'