Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'And Neel?' Saban asked. 'What did he do?'

'Neel!' Galeth spat at the mention of the high priest's name. 'He's nothing but a dog at Lengar's heels.' Galeth turned to Aurenna. 'You must go, lady, before Lengar returns.'

'Lengar will not touch me,' Aurenna said, using the language of Ratharryn that she had learned from Saban.

'We are here with warriors of Sarmennyn,' Saban explained, 'and they will protect her.' He touched the nutshell beneath his tunic.

Galeth looked dubious at that assertion. 'When my brother was chief,' he told Aurenna, 'we were happy.'

'We were happy,' Lidda echoed.

'We lived in peace,' Galeth said, 'or tried to. There was hunger, of course, there is always hunger, but my brother knew how to share food. But it has all changed, all changed.'

Next morning, under a cloudless sky and a warm sun, a hundred men slid the mother stone ashore and levered it onto a sledge that was harnessed to sixteen oxen. The beasts dragged the stone away from the river while Galeth took Saban and Aurenna to the Sky Temple and asked where the stone should be placed. It was Aurenna who decreed that it should stand on its own within the double ring and opposite the lintelled gateway of the sun. That way, she said, the rising sun at midsummer would touch the mother stone as a symbol of the earth and sun united. There was no one else to make the decision so Galeth ordered a dozen men to make a hole where Aurenna had indicated.

Galeth watched as the turf was peeled back and the antler picks prised at the chalk beneath. 'I can't dig any more,' he told Saban. 'My joints ache. I can't even swing an axe now.'

'You've worked hard enough,' Saban said.

'If a man can't work, a man shouldn't eat, eh?' Galeth said, then turned to watch the oxen hauling the mother stone, which was so long that it overhung its sledge at both ends. Three of the smaller stones were following, their sledges being dragged by men. 'All slaves,' Galeth told Saban. 'Our spearmen raid constantly for slaves and food. We trade in slaves now and it makes Lengar rich.'

A horn sounded to the south. The noise was booming, but made tremulous by the warm autumn air. Saban looked enquiringly at Galeth, who nodded. 'Your brother,' he said wearily.

Saban crossed the banks and ditch, going to Aurenna. He put an arm about her and placed his other hand on his son's shoulder. The horn sounded again, and then there was a long silence. Saban watched the near crest that was broken by the humps of the graves. Farther off, blurred by the warm air, the distant horizon was dark with trees.

They waited, but still nothing showed on the crest. A wind lifted Aurenna's long hair and rippled the grass, turning it pale and then dark again. Lallic was wriggling in her mother's arms and Aurenna soothed the child. The men digging the hole for the mother stone had dropped their antler picks and were staring south. Even the oxen dragging the boulder were standing still, their heads low and their flanks bleeding from the goads. A hawk slid across the sacred path, its black shadow flicking sharp against the chalk banks.

'Is a bad man coming?' Leir asked his father.

Saban smiled. 'It is your uncle,' he said, ruffling his son's hair, 'and you must treat him with respect.'

The ox-horn sounded again, much louder and closer, and Leir, startled by the blast, jumped under Saban's hand, though still nothing showed at the hill's crest. Then the ox-horn sounded a fourth time and a single man ran to the top of one of the grave mounds. He carried a long pole from which hung a standard of fox brushes and wolf tails. The standard bearer wore a cloak of an untrimmed wolf pelt and the wolf's mask was perched on his head like a second face. He stood silhouetted against the sky and shook the standard and a heartbeat later the whole crest filled with men.

They had come in a long line, and if they meant to impress, they did. One moment the crest was empty, the next it was thronged with a battle-line of spearmen, so many spearmen that Saban knew that he must be staring at the combined armies of Ratharryn and Drewenna. Their spears made a ragged hedge and their sudden shout frightened Lallic. It was a display of awesome power, only this army was not arrayed before an enemy, but in front of Lengar's own home. Lengar must have known Cathallo would hear of this horde, and he wanted them to fear its power.

Lengar himself, tall and cloaked, spear in hand and with a sword at his belt, appeared at the centre of his army. A dozen men, his war chiefs, surrounded him, while next to him, looking short and plump, was Kellan, chief of Drewenrta and Lengar's lackey. Lengar stood for an instant then beckoned his escorts forward.

'How are they all fed?' Aurenna wondered aloud.

'In summer it's easy enough,' Saban said. 'There are deer and pigs. More pigs than you can imagine. It is a fat country. In winter,' he went on, 'you raid your neighbours.'

Lengar saw Saban and swerved towards him. The chief of Ratharryn was wearing his long leather tunic that was sewn with bronze strips, a woollen cloak hung from his shoulders and he carried a massive spear with a polished bronze blade. Strips of fox fur hung from the spear shaft and more were wound about his legs and arms. Eagle feathers had been woven into his hair that had been oiled so that it lay slicked back close to his skull, reminding Saban of that far-off day when the stranger had died and Lengar had pursued him down to the settlement. The kill scars now stretched to cover the backs of Lengar's hands and fingers, while the tattooed horns at his eyes gave his face a terrifying intensity. Saban felt Leir give an involuntary shudder and he patted the boy's head reassuringly.

Lengar halted a few paces away. For a heartbeat or two he stared at Saban, then spoke derisively. 'My little brother. I thought you would never dare come home.'

'Why should a man fear to come home?' Saban asked.

But Lengar was not listening to Saban. He was staring at Aurenna. She was still as tall and slender and straight-backed as on the day Saban had first met her, still a woman who could have drawn chieftains across the sea, and she met Lengar's gaze calmly, while Lengar looked truly astonished as if he did not really believe his eyes. He kept staring at Aurenna, he stared from her head down to her feet, then back up again. 'Is this Aurenna?' he asked.

'My wife, Aurenna,' Saban said, his arm still about her shoulders.

'Gundur told the truth,' Lengar said quietly.

'About what?' Saban asked.

Lengar still gazed at Aurenna. 'About your woman, of course,' he answered brusquely. His war chiefs stood behind him like leashed hounds, all of them tall men with long spears, long cloaks, long plaited hair and long beards, and they too stared hungrily at the tall, fair-haired woman from Sarmennyn. Lengar at last forced himself to look away from Aurenna. 'Your son?' he asked Saban, nodding towards Leir.

'He is called Leir, son of Saban, son of Hengall.'

'And that child is a daughter?' Lengar nodded at Lallic who was in Aurenna's arms.

'She is called Lallic,' Saban said.

Lengar smiled derisively. 'Only one son, Saban? I have seven!' He looked back at Aurenna. 'I could give you many sons.'

'I am content with your brother's son,' Aurenna said.

'My half-brother's son,' Lengar said scornfully, 'and if the boy dies your life would have been in vain. What use is a woman who whelps only one son? Would you keep a sow that littered only one piglet? And sons do die.' He still gazed at Aurenna, indeed he seemed incapable of looking anywhere else. He looked her up and down again, not bothering to hide his admiration. 'Do you remember, Saban,' he asked, keeping his eyes on Aurenna, 'how our father would always tell us to marry wide-rumped girls? Women are just like cattle, he used to say. The thin ones are not worth keeping. Yet you chose this woman. Perhaps you would have more sons if you followed Hengall's advice?'