Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'Spring will come,' he said.

'As always,' Aurenna said and turned away.

Saban and Mereth made more boats. They found the last big oaks in the nearer forests and from those trunks they could make just five more craft. If Lewydd returned and brought his boats with him they would have fifteen boats, and fifteen boats could carry all the stones eastward in four voyages. But if Lewydd did not return then the temple could not be moved and, as day followed day, and as winter's grip locked the land hard, there was neither news nor sight of Lewydd.

Lewydd's long absence began to unsettle the folk of Sarmennyn. Rumours spread. One story claimed that the ten boats had foundered and their crews had been drowned, dragged down by the stones because Erek did not want them moved. Other folk claimed that Lewydd and his men had been slaughtered by the folk of Drewenna who, instead of providing the sledges as their new chief had promised after the massacre at Sul, had decided to take the stones for themselves. The rumours fed on themselves and, for the first time since Aurenna had walked from the fire, there were murmurs that Camaban and Kereval were wrong. Haragg tried to keep the tribe's faith, but more and more folk muttered that the temple should never have been given away. Over a hundred of the tribe's young men were gone with the boats and the tribe feared they would never see those men again. They had left widows and orphans, they had left Sarmennyn dangerously weak in spearmen, and because so many of the missing were fishermen, it meant there would be hunger in Sarmennyn that winter, and it was all the fault of those who had said the temple should be moved. Scathel, Haragg and Kereval tried to stanch the anger, advising the people to wait for news, but still the rumours flourished and turned to a sudden rage one winter evening when a crowd of resentful folk left Kereval's settlement and crossed the river with burning torches to walk south to Aurenna's settlement.

Scathel took a boat down the river to warn Saban that men were coming to burn the settlement and destroy the new boats. Kereval had tried to stop them, the high priest said, but Kereval was ailing and his authority was weakening.

Haragg spat angrily. 'Who leads them?' he asked his brother. Scathel named some of the men who were coming and Haragg shook with anger. 'They are worms,' he said derisively, and seized a spear.

'Let me talk to them,' Saban said.

'Talking won't stop them,' Haragg retorted as he stalked down the path, spear in hand. Cagan went with him. Saban ordered Mereth to take the women of the settlement into the trees then he ran after Haragg, catching the huge man just as he confronted the firelit crowd on the narrow forest path. Haragg lifted his spear. 'You are fighting against Erek,' he shouted, but before he could say another word an arrow whipped from the crowd to strike his chest and Haragg staggered back to fall against an oak. Cagan bellowed in distress, plucked up his father's spear and charged at the crowd. He was met by more arrows and a shower of stones, but the arrows might as well have been loosed at an aurochs. The giant deaf-mute flailed the spear clumsily, driving men back, and Saban ran to help him, but then Cagan was tripped; he fell, and the crowd surged over the huge man and their spears were rising and falling as he writhed beneath the blades. Saban seized Haragg's arm, hauled the trader to his feet and dragged him away so he would not see his son's death. 'Cagan!' Haragg called.

'Run!' Saban shouted. An arrow hissed past his ear and another thumped into a tree.

The crowd was following, their blood roused by Cagan's death. A spear was thrown and it skidded along the path, nearly striking Saban's ankle, then he saw Aurenna standing in the path's centre. 'Go back!' Saban shouted at her, but she waved him aside. Her golden hair hung free and her deerskin tunic swelled over her pregnant belly. 'Go!' Saban said. 'They've killed Cagan. Go!' He tried to pull her away, but Aurenna shook off his hand, refusing to be moved. She waited calmly, as placid as she had been when she had waited to endure the sun-bride's fire, and then, when the rampaging crowd came into sight, she walked slowly forward to meet them.

She did not raise her hands, she did not speak, but just stood there and the attackers checked. They had killed a man, but now they were faced by a bride of Erek, a woman who was either a goddess or a sorceress, a woman of power, and none had the courage to attack her, though one man did step out of the crowd to confront her. His name was Kargan and he was a nephew of Kereval and a famous warrior in Sarmennyn. He wore ravens' wings in his hair and had ravens' feathers tied to the shaft of his spear which was longer and heavier than any other in Sarmennyn. He had a long jaw and brooding eyes and thick grey scars that boasted of the souls he had slaughtered in battle, but he reverently bowed his head to Aurenna. 'We have no quarrel with you, lady,' he said.

Then with whom, Kargan?' Aurenna asked gently.

'With the folk who stole our young men,' Kargan said. 'With the fools who would move a temple across a world!'

'Who stole your young men, Kargan?' Aurenna asked.

'You know who, lady.'

Aurenna smiled. 'Our young men will return tomorrow,' she said. 'They will come in their boats and their song will be heard in the river. There will be joy tomorrow, so why cause more sadness tonight?' She paused, waiting, but no one spoke. 'Go back,' she instructed the crowd, 'for our men will come home tomorrow. Erek has promised it.' Then, with a last calm smile, she turned and walked away.

Kargan hesitated, but Aurenna's certainty had taken the anger from the crowd and they obeyed her. Saban watched them go, then followed Aurenna. 'And when the boats do not come tomorrow,' he asked her, 'how will we stop them killing us?'

'But the boats will come,' Aurenna said. 'Erek told me in a dream.' She was quite confident, even astonished that Saban might doubt her dream. 'The dream mists have cleared,' she told him happily, 'and I see Erek's future.' She smiled at him, then led Haragg to her hut where she soothed the trader's grief. He was breathing hard for the arrow had struck deep and pink blood was dribbling from his mouth, but Aurenna assured him he would live and gave him a potion to drink and then pulled the arrow's shaft free.

Next morning, after Cagan's body had been burned on a pyre, almost all the tribe walked south to the headland where the river met the sea, and there they waited above the grey waters. The white birds wheeled and their cries were like the wailing of drowned spirits. Saban was on the cliff top with Scathel and Mereth, and Kargan had come with the folk who had followed him the previous night, but Aurenna did not go. 'The boats will come,' she had told Saban that morning, 'and I do not need to see them.' She stayed with Haragg.

The morning passed and all that came was a squall. The rain hissed on the sea and the cold wind whipped it into the faces of the watching crowd. Scathel was praying, Saban was hunched in the lee of a rock and Kargan was pacing up and down the cliff top thumping the pale grass with his heavy spear. The sun was hidden by cloud.

Kargan finally faced Saban. 'You and your brother have brought a madness to Sarmennyn,' he said flatly.

'I brought you nothing,' Saban retorted. 'Your madness came when you lost the gold.'

'The gold was stolen!' Kargan shouted.

'Not by us.'

'And a temple cannot be moved!'

'The temple must be moved,' Saban said wearily, 'or you and I will never have happiness again.'

'Happiness?' Kargan spat. 'You think the gods want our happiness?'

'If you want to know what the gods want,' Saban said, 'then ask Scathel. He's a priest,' and he gestured towards the gaunt man who had been praying at the cliff's edge, but Scathel was no longer holding his arms to the sky. Instead he was staring eastwards, staring into the grey, shifting veils of rain and suddenly he shouted. He shouted again, pointed his staff and all the watching people turned to see where the high priest looked.