Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

That summer the new sun bride burned, going to her death in a blaze of glory. The folk of Sarmennyn had never seen Erek so red, so swollen and so majestic as he was that midsummer night, and the bride died without a cry. Aurenna did not go to the Sea Temple for the ceremony, but stayed in her hut. She was pregnant.

The child was born early the next year. It was a boy and Aurenna called him Leir, which means 'One Who Was Saved', and she named him that because she had been saved from the fire. 'I never really thought I would die,' Aurenna confessed to Saban one winter evening after Leir's birth. They were sitting on their stone, the pink-flecked greenish boulder that lay on the river bank close to their hut, and sharing a bear's pelt to keep warm.

'I thought you would die,' Saban admitted.

She smiled. 'I used to pray to Erek every day, and somehow I knew he would let me live.'

'Why?'

She shook her head, almost as if Saban's question were irrelevant. 'I just did,' she said, 'though I hardly dared believe the hope. Of course I wanted to be his bride,' she added hastily, frowning, 'but I also wanted to serve him. When I was a goddess I had dreams, and in the dreams Erek told me the time of change was coming. That the time of his loneliness was ending.'

Saban was always uncomfortable when she talked of having been a goddess. He was not certain he really believed her, but he admitted to himself that he had not grown up in Sarmennyn and so he was not accustomed to the notion of a girl being changed into a goddess, or, indeed, changing back again. 'I prayed you would live,' he said.

'I still get the dreams,' Aurenna said, ignoring his words. 'I think they tell me the future, only it's like looking into a mist. It's how you told me you first saw Scathel's temple, as a shape in the mist, and that's how my dreams are, but I think they'll become clearer.' She paused. 'I hope they'll become clearer,' she went on, 'but at least I still hear Erek in my head and I sometimes think I am really married to him, that perhaps I am the bride he left on earth to do his work.'

'To move a temple?' Saban asked, suddenly jealous of Erek.

'To end winter,' Aurenna said, 'and bring an end to grief. That is why your brother came to Sarmennyn and why he saved you from Lengar. You and I, Saban, are Erek's servants.'

That winter Saban and Mereth roamed the southern woods of Sarmennyn and found the tallest, straightest oaks and elms, taller even than the highest temple poles at Ratharryn, and they touched their foreheads to the trunks, begging forgiveness of the trees' spirits, and then they cut the trees, trimmed them of branches and used a team of oxen to drag the trunks to Aurenna's settlement. There they shaped the massive trees into double-prowed hulls. They fashioned the outside of the hulls first, then turned the trunks over and hollowed them with adzes made of flint, stone or bronze. A dozen men worked on the river bank, singing as they swung the blades and piled the ground with wood chips. Saban loved the work for he was used to shaping timber and he took pleasure in watching the clean white-golden wood take its shape. Aurenna and the other women worked close by, singing as they slit hides into the thongs that would be used to bind the cross-beams to the hulls and the stones to the beams. Saban was happy in those days. He had been accepted as the head man of Aurenna's settlement and everyone there shared a purpose and took pleasure in watching the work progress. They were good times, filled with laughter and honest work.

When the first three hulls were finished Lewydd carved an eye on each bow so that the god who protected boats would look out for storms and rocks, and then he laid the three boats side by side. Each craft was as long as three men, and the width of the three boats together was half the length of the hulls, which Saban now joined together with two huge beams of oak as thick about as a man's waist. The beams were squared with flint and bronze and their lower halves fitted into slots chipped from the three hulls' gunwales. Once the timbers were jointed to the hulls, they were lashed tight with the long strips of hide. It was a monstrous thing, that first boat, and the fishermen shook their heads and said it would never float, but it did. Twenty men heaved it off the bank onto the mud at low tide and the incoming tide lifted the triple hull easily. They called that boat Molot, which meant monster, and Lewydd was certain it would take the weight of the greatest stone and still survive the sea's malevolence.

Camaban travelled to Ratharryn at winter's end and returned to Sarmennyn just as the Molot was finished. He admired the great boat, glanced at the other hulls that were being shaped, then squatted outside Saban's hut to give him news from home. Lengar, he said, was more powerful than ever, but Melak of Drewenna had died and there had been a struggle for the chieftainship between Melak's son and a warrior named Stakis. Stakis had won. 'Which is not what we wanted,' Camaban said. He took a bowl of gruel from Aurenna and nodded his thanks.

'What's so bad about Stakis?' Saban asked.

'We have to float the stones through his territory, of course,' Camaban explained, 'and he might not prove a friend to us. Still, he's agreed to meet us.'

'Us?'

'All of us,' Camaban said vaguely, waving a hand that could have encompassed the whole world. 'A meeting of the tribes. Us, Ratharryn and Drewenna. One moon before midsummer. The problem is' — he paused to scoop up some of the gruel — 'the problem' — he went on with his mouth full — 'is that Stakis doesn't like Lengar. I can't blame him. Our brother has to keep his spearmen busy, so he's been raiding Drewenna's cattle.'

'He doesn't fight Cathallo?'

'All the time, only they hide behind their marshes and their new chief is a good warrior. He's one of Kital's sons, Rallin.'

'Derrewyn's cousin,' Saban said, remembering the name.

'Derrewyn's pup, more like,' Camaban said vengefully.

'She calls herself a sorceress now and lives in Sannas's old hut where she wails to Lahanna, and Rallin won't take a piss without her permission. It's strange, isn't it' — he paused to eat more gruel — 'how Cathallo likes being ruled by a woman? First Sannas, now Derrewyn! A sorceress indeed! She grubs about with herbs and makes threats. That isn't sorcery.'

'Did she have Lengar's baby?' Saban asked. He had a sudden image of a dark face framed by black hair, of Derrewyn laughing, then of the same face crying and screaming. He shuddered.

'The baby died,' Camaban said carelessly, then sneered. 'What kind of sorceress can't keep her own child alive?' He put the empty bowl down. 'Lengar wants you to bring Aurenna to the meeting of the tribes.'

'Why?'

'Because I told him she's beautiful.' Camaban said, 'which is good reason to leave her here.'

'Lengar wouldn't touch her,' Saban said.

'He touches every woman he wants,' Camaban said, 'and no one dares deny him for fear of his spearmen. Our brother, Saban, is a tyrant.'

Kereval, Scathel, Haragg, Camaban and a dozen other elders and priests travelled to the meeting of the tribes. Seven boats were needed to carry the delegation, and Saban went with Lewydd in a fishing boat that was driven by eight paddlers. The weather was blustery, and the seas promised to be big, but Lewydd was unworried. 'Dilan will preserve us,' he promised Saban, who faced his first proper sea voyage with trepidation.

The fleet left in a summer dawn, paddling down the river until they reached the sea where they waited in the shelter of a headland. 'The tides,' Lewydd said, explaining the pause.

'What of them?'

'The tides don't just rise and fall, but are like winds in the water. They flow up and down the coast, but unlike the winds they keep to a rhythm. We shall go east with the water-wind, and when it turns against us we rest until it helps us again.' Lewydd had sacrificed a piglet in Malkin's temple, then splashed the animal's blood on the boat's prow, and now he dropped the carcass over the side. The crews of the other six boats did the same.