Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

But however he lifted the stone he knew he would need a sledge that was three times bigger than any he had made before, and he decided the sledge must be made in Cathallo from oak timbers that he would place in a long and narrow hut so that the timber could season. Dry wood was just as strong as green timber, but weighed much less, and Saban reckoned he must make the sledge as light as possible if the big boulder were to be shifted off the hill. He would let the timbers dry for a year or more and in that time he would worry at the problem of how to lift the stone.

He found Aurenna in Cathallo's shrine. She was wearing a strange robe made of deerskin cut with a myriad tiny slits into which she had threaded jays' feathers so that the garment seemed to shiver blue and white whenever a breeze blew. 'The people expect a priestess to be different,' she said, explaining the robe, and Saban thought how beautiful she looked. Her pale skin was still unflawed, her gaze was firm and gentle, while her ravaged hair was growing back so that it now enclosed her face like a soft golden cap. She looked happy, radiantly so, and laughed off Saban's worries that the defeated folk of Cathallo would burn his drying timbers. 'They'll work hard to make our temple a success,' she promised.

'They will?' Saban asked, surprised.

'When the temple is finished,' Aurenna explained, 'they will be free again. I have promised them that.'

'You promised them freedom?' Saban asked. 'And what does Camaban say?'

'Camaban will obey Slaol,' Aurenna said. She walked Saban through the settlement and though she proclaimed a blithe belief in the goodness of Cathallo's people, to Saban they looked sullen and resentful. Their chief was dead, their sorceress had vanished and they lived under the spears of Ratharryn's warriors, and Saban feared they would try to burn the long timbers. He also feared for Aurenna's life, and for the life of his two children, but Aurenna laughed at his worries. She explained how she refused the protection of Ratharryn's warriors and how she walked unguarded in the humiliated settlement. 'They like me,' she said simply, and told Saban how she had fought to keep the shrine unviolated. Haragg had wanted to pull down the temple's boulders and move them to Ratharryn, but Aurenna had persuaded Camaban to leave the stones alone. 'Our job is to entice Lahanna, not to offend her,' she said, and so the temple had remained and the folk of Cathallo took some comfort from that.

They evidently took more comfort from Aurenna. She had proclaimed herself a priestess of Lahanna and though, obedient to Haragg, she would not permit the sacrifice of living things, she had taken care to learn the tribe's ritual prayers. Each night she sang to the moon and in each dawn she turned thrice to lament Lahanna's fading. She consulted Cathallo's priests, rationed the settlement's food so that none starved and, best of all, she was proving to be a healer as effective as either Sannas or Derrewyn. Indeed, she was reckoned better than Derrewyn, for Aurenna loved all children and when the women brought her their sons and daughters Aurenna would soothe away their pain with a kindness and patience that Derrewyn had never shown. A dozen small children lived in Aurenna's hut now, all of them orphans whom she fed, clothed and taught, and the hut had become a meeting place for Cathallo's women. 'I like it here,' Aurenna said as she and Saban walked back to the shrine. 'I am happy here.'

'And I shall be happy with you,' Saban said cheerfully.

'With me?' Aurenna looked alarmed.

Saban smiled. He had not seen his wife since midwinter and he had missed her. 'We shall start moving stones very soon,' he told her. 'The small ones first, then the bigger, so I shall be spending time here. A lot of time.'

Aurenna frowned. 'Not here,' she said, 'not in my hut.' A gaggle of children spilled from the hut, led by Leir. Saban lifted his son, whirled him round and tossed him in the air, but Aurenna, when Leir's feet were safe on the ground, pushed the boy away and took Saban's arm. 'We cannot be together as we used to be. It isn't proper.'

'What isn't proper?' Saban growled.

Aurenna walked a few paces in silence. The children followed, their small faces watching the adults anxiously. 'You and I have become servants of the temple that you will build,' Aurenna said, 'and the temple is Lahanna's bridal shrine.'

'What has that to do with you and me?'

'Lahanna will struggle against the marriage,' Aurenna explained. 'She has tried to rival Slaol, but now we will give her to his keeping for ever and she will resist it. My task is to reassure her. That is why I was sent here.' She paused, frowning. 'Have you heard the rumour that Derrewyn still lives?'

'I heard,' Saban grunted.

'She will be encouraging Lahanna to oppose us, so I am to oppose Derrewyn.' She smiled placidly, as if that explanation must prove satisfying to Saban.

He gazed into the shadowed ditch where the pink and brown blossoms of bee orchids grew so thick. The children crowded round Aurenna who broke off scraps of honeycomb to put into their greedy hands. Saban turned back to look at her and, as ever, was dazzled by her startling beauty. 'I can live here,' he said, gesturing towards Sannas's old hut. 'It's a better place to live than Ratharryn, at least while we're moving the stones.'

'Oh, Saban!' She smiled chidingly. 'Don't you understand anything I've said? I cut my hair! I turned away from my other life! I am now dedicated to Lahanna, only to Lahanna. Not to Slaol, not to you, not to anyone but Lahanna! When the temple is built then we shall come together, for that is the day Lahanna will be coaxed from her loneliness, but till then I have to share the loneliness.'

'We're married!' Saban protested angrily.

'And we shall be married again,' Aurenna said placidly, 'but for now I am Lahanna's priestess and that is my sacrifice.'

'Camaban told you this?' Saban asked bitterly.

'I dreamed it,' Aurenna said firmly. 'Lahanna comes to me in my dreams. She is reluctant, of course, but I am patient with her. I see her as a woman dressed in a long robe that shines! She is so beautiful, Saban! So beautiful and hurt. I see her in the sky and I call to her and sometimes she hears me. And when we bring Slaol to the temple she will come to us. I am sure of it.' She smiled, expecting Saban to share her happiness. 'But until that day,' she went on, 'we must be calm, obedient and good.' She turned and asked the question of her children: 'What are we to be?'

'Calm, obedient and good,' they chorused.

She looked back at Saban. 'I cannot stop you coming to the hut,' she said softly, 'but you will drive Lahanna away if you do and the temple will be meaningless, meaningless.'

Saban went to Haragg when he returned to Ratharryn and told the high priest what Aurenna had said. Haragg listened, thought for a while, then shrugged. 'It is the price you pay,' he said, 'and we shall all pay a price for the temple. Your brother is tortured with visions, I am made a priest again and you will lose Aurenna for a while. Nothing good comes easily.'

'So I should not insist on sleeping with her?'

'Get yourself a slave girl,' Haragg said in his grim voice. 'Forget Aurenna. She must share Lahanna's loneliness for now, but you have a temple to build. So get yourself a slave girl and forget your wife. And build, Saban, just build.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Before Saban could build he had to move the stones from Cathallo. He knew he could not shift them along the direct path to Ratharryn for that crossed the marshes by Maden and climbed the steep hill just south of that settlement, and the big boulders would never pass those obstacles, so he spent that summer searching for a better route. He insisted that Leir should accompany him for it was time, he told Aurenna, that the boy learned how to survive far from any settlement. He and Leir roamed the western country in search of a path that avoided the wet lands and the steepest hills. Their exploration took the best part of the late summer, but eventually Saban discovered a path that would take the stones out of Cathallo towards the setting sun, then round in a great arc so that they would approach the Sky Temple from the west.