Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

Camaban frowned. 'We came here to do Slaol's will, and it is not Slaol's will that Lengar's children should live. If you find a nest of vipers do you kill the adults and let the snakelings live?' He shrugged. 'I like it no more than you, my friend, but Slaol spoke to me in a dream.'

Lewydd looked to Haragg, expecting the big man's support, but Haragg said that the boys' deaths were probably necessary if the new chief were to be safe. 'It has nothing to do with the gods,' he said.

'It has everything to do with the gods,' Neel snapped. Neel had been an avid supporter of Lengar, but overnight he had transferred his loyalty to Camaban. 'Slaol spoke to me also in a dream last night,' he claimed, 'and Camaban's decision is the wise one.'

'I am relieved,' Camaban said drily, then looked at Gundur, whom men said was the best of Ratharryn's warriors. 'See to the boys' deaths,' Camaban ordered and moments later the mothers screamed as Lengar's sons were dragged away. They were taken to the ditch inside the embankment and there killed and their bodies given to pigs. 'It was Slaol's will,' Neel said enthusiastically to Camaban.

'It is also Slaol's will that Haragg should be the new high priest here.'

Neel twitched as though he had been struck, then opened his mouth to protest, but no words came. He stared at Camaban, then at Haragg who looked equally startled. Haragg recovered first. 'I stopped being a priest years ago,' he said mildly.

'And I am high priest!' Neel complained shrilly.

'You are nothing,' Camaban said calmly. 'You are less than nothing. You are slime beneath a stone and you will go to the trees or else I shall bury you alive in the dung pits.' He pointed a bony finger towards the southern causeway, indicating that Neel was outlawed. 'Go,' he said. Neel dared say nothing more; he just obeyed. 'He was a weak man,' Camaban said when Neel had gone, 'and I would have my high priest strong.'

'I am not a priest,' Haragg insisted. 'I am not even of your tribe.'

'You are of Slaol's tribe,' Camaban said, 'and you will be our high priest.'

Haragg took a deep breath and stared over the embankment's crest and thought of far places, sea cliffs, wild forests, strange tribes and all the world's untravelled paths. 'I am not a priest,' he protested again.

'What is it you want?' Camaban asked him

'A land where folk do good,' Haragg said, frowning as he considered his words, 'where they live as the gods meant us to live. A land without war, without unkindness.'

'You talk like a priest,' Camaban said.

'Men are weak,' Haragg said, 'and the demands of the gods are strong.'

'Then make us stronger!' Camaban insisted. 'How are we to bring the gods to earth if we are weak? Stay, Haragg, help us make the temple, help us be worthy! I would have you as my priest and Aurenna as my priestess.'

'Aurenna!' Saban exclaimed.

Camaban turned brooding eyes on Saban. 'You think Slaol spared Aurenna's life so she could whelp your children? You want her to be a sow? A ewe with swollen udders? It was for that we stirred the thunder in Sarmennyn?' He shook his head. 'It is not enough to keep men busy,' he went on, 'we must also inspire them, and who better than Aurenna? She has visions and is beloved of Slaol.'

'Slaol must want something of her,' Haragg agreed. 'Why else did he spare her?'

'And he spared you,' Camaban said forcefully, 'on the night your son died. You think there was no purpose in that? So be a father to my tribe. Be my high priest.'

Haragg was silent for a while, his implacable face unreadable, but then he gave a reluctant nod. 'If it is Slaol's will,' he said.

'It is,' Camaban said confidently.

Haragg sighed. Then I will be high priest here.'

'Good!' Camaban smiled, though the smile hardly detracted from the grimness of his thin face. He had washed most of the ash from his hair and had twisted its long braids round and round his head before pinning them with long bone spikes, but his face still had the ineradicable black barred tattoos. 'Haragg will be high priest, Aurenna will be a priestess, Gundur will lead our spearmen and Saban will make the temple. What will you do, Lewydd?'

Lewydd glanced at the smoking remnants of the feasting hall. 'Bury my folk,' he said grimly, 'and then go home.'

'Then you must take these with you,' Camaban said, and he gave Lewydd a leather bag which, when it was opened, proved to hold the golden lozenges of Sarmennyn. 'There are three missing,' Camaban explained. 'Last night I learned that they were stolen by Derrewyn, but we shall retrieve those pieces and return them to you.' Camaban leaned over and patted Lewydd's shoulder. 'Take your treasure home,' he said, 'and become chief of Sarmennyn. Grow fat, grow wealthy, grow wise, and do not forget us.'

Saban suddenly laughed, and Camaban looked enquiringly at him. Saban shrugged. 'For years now,' he said, 'everything we have done has been driven by that gold. And now it is over.'

'It is not over,' Camaban said, 'it is just beginning. The gold dazzled us and so we sought our destiny in Sarmennyn, but it never lay there. It lies in Cathallo.'

'In Cathallo?' Saban asked, astonished.

'How can I make a temple worthy of Slaol if I don't have boulders?' Camaban asked. 'And who has boulders? Cathallo.'

'Cathallo will give you stones,' Saban said, 'or exchange them.'

'They will not,' Camaban replied fiercely. 'I met Derrewyn this summer. Did you know she has a daughter? Merrel is the wretched infant's name. Derrewyn lay with Rallin because she wanted the chief's child and she will raise it, she tells me, to be a sorceress like herself. A sorceress! She rubs bones together, mutters over snail shells, pounds toadflax and butter into paste, stares into pisspots and thinks she's influencing the gods. But I still went to her this summer. I went in secret, in the dark of night, and I bowed to her. I abased myself. Give me stones, I begged her, and I will bring peace between Ratharryn and Cathallo, but she would not give me so much as a pebble.' He was bitter at the humiliating memory. 'Sannas once told me she prayed to the wolf god when she walked where wolves ran, but why? Why even give him a prayer? For why should the wolf god listen? It is the nature of wolves to kill, not to spare. By begging of Derrewyn I was making Sannas's mistake. I was praying to the wrong god.'

'Give her Lengar's head,' Saban suggested, 'and she might give you every stone in Cathallo.'

'She will give us nothing,' Gundur said, his hands still bloody from the killing of Lengar's sons.

Camaban looked at the warrior. 'If I attack Cathallo tomorrow, can I win?'

Gundur hesitated, then glanced at Vakkal, the Outfolk war leader whose allegiance was now to Ratharryn, and both men shrugged. 'No,' Gundur admitted.

'Then if we cannot get what we want by war, we must try peace,' Camaban said. He turned to Saban. 'Take our brother's head to Derrewyn,' he said, 'and offer her peace. Say all we want of them is some stones.'

'Praying to the wolf god?' Haragg suggested.

'Threatening the wolf god,' Camaban insisted. 'Tell her she must give us stones or I will give them war as they have never seen it.'

So Saban took his elder brother's head, put it in a bag and next morning walked north.

—«»—«»—«»—

Saban carried no weapons, for he went in peace, but he was still nervous as he crossed the streams beside Maden and climbed the hills into Cathallo's skull-marked territory. No one accosted him, though more than once he had the sensation that he was being watched and he flinched at the thought of an arrow flicking through the leaves to strike his back.

It was evening when he crossed the small river to climb the hill that led to the small temple and the sacred way. He had not gone more than thirty paces from the river when a dozen spearmen came from the scattered woods behind, ran through the stream and formed a silent escort on either side of him. They had not only tracked him through the woods, but seemed to expect him, for none challenged his right to be there, but just led him between the paired stones of the sacred path, about the double bend and so into the shrine where, outside Sannas's old hut, a fire burned bright in the gathering twilight and three people waited for him. Rallin, chief of Cathallo, was there, and to one side of him was Derrewyn and on the other her father, the blinded Morthor. Behind that group were the warriors of Cathallo, blue-stained for war and with spears in their hands.