Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

'He can't go with you!' Aurenna shrieked. Saban had never seen her angry before, indeed he had not believed there was such fierce emotion inside her, but now she screamed at him and her hair was wild and her face distorted. 'How can he live with you? You have a slave woman in your bed!' She pointed at Kilda and Hanna who were following the sledge along with the folk of Cathallo who were eagerly listening to the argument. Leir was still on the stone from where he gazed at his parents while Lallic hid her small face in Aurenna's skirts. 'You keep a slave whore and her bastard!' Aurenna howled.

'But at least I don't dress in a bull-dancer's cloak to cover her!' Saban snapped. 'She is my whore, not Slaol's whore!'

Aurenna stopped and the anger on her face turned to a cold fury. She drew back her hand to strike Saban across the face, but he seized her wrist. 'You took yourself from my bed, woman, because you claimed a man would frighten Lahanna away. I did what you wanted then, but I will not let you deny my son his manhood. He is my son and he will be a man.'

'He will be a priest!' There were tears in Aurenna's eyes now. 'Lahanna demands it!'

Saban saw that he was hurting her with his grip, so he let her wrist go. 'If the goddess wants him to be a priest,' he said, 'then he will be a priest, but he will be a man first.' He turned on the ox herdsmen who had abandoned their animals to watch the confrontation. 'Watch the hauling lines!' he shouted. 'Don't let them slow down. Leir! Get down, use your goad, work!' He walked away from Aurenna who stood still, crying. Saban was trembling, half fearing a terrible curse, but Aurenna just turned and led Lallic back to her home.

'She will want revenge,' Kilda warned him.

'She will try to take her son back, that is all. But he won't go. He won't go.'

It took twenty-three days to move the long stone to Ratharryn and Saban stayed with the great sledge for most of the journey, but when they were a day or two away from the Sky Temple he hurried ahead with Kilda, Hanna and Leir for he knew that the temple's entrance would need to be widened if the stone was to be hauled through. The ditch by the entrance would have to be filled and the portal stones taken down, and he wanted both jobs done before the long boulder arrived.

The stone arrived two days later and Saban had forty slaves start sculpting it into a pillar. It might have been roughly shaped in Cathallo, but now it must be made smooth, polished and tapering. A dozen other slaves began to dig the socket for the stone, delving deep into the chalk under the soil.

Saban did not go down to the settlement, nor did Camaban come to the temple in the first days after the long stone had arrived, but Saban could smell the trouble in the air like the stench of a tanner's pit. Those folk who did come from the settlement avoided Saban, or else they forced idle conversation and seemed not to notice that Leir was now living with his father. The slaves worked, Saban pretended there was no danger and the stone shrank into its smooth shape.

The first frosts came. The sky looked washed and pale, and then at last Camaban did come to the temple. He came with a score of spearmen, all dressed for battle and led by Vakkal, his spear decorated with the scalps of men he had killed in the battle at Cathallo. Camaban, swathed in his father's bear cloak, had a bronze sword at his waist. His hair was bushy and wild, its tangles threaded with children's bones, which also hung from his beard that now had a badger's streak of white. He signalled for his spearmen to wait by the sun stone, then limped on towards Saban. A single young priest came with him, carrying the skull pole.

There was silence as Camaban crossed the entrance causeway between the two pillars that had been thrown down so that the longer stones could be hauled into the circle. His face was angry. The slaves close to Saban backed away, leaving him alone beside the mother stone where Camaban stopped to look around the temple, the priest with the skull pole two paces behind. 'No stones have been raised.' His voice was mild but he frowned at Saban. 'Why have no stones been raised?'

'They must be shaped first.'

'Those are shaped,' Camaban said, pointing his mace at some of the pillars for the sky circle.

'If they are raised,' Saban said, 'then they will get in the way of the larger stones. Those must be raised first.'

Camaban nodded. 'But where are the longer stones?' His tone was reasonable, as though he had no quarrel with Saban, but that reticence only increased the threat of his presence.

'The first is here,' Saban said, pointing to the monstrous boulder, which lay amidst piles of stone chips and dust. 'Mereth has taken the big sledge back to Cathallo and will be bringing another. But that one' — he nodded at the longest stone — 'will be raised before midwinter.'

Camaban nodded again, apparently satisfied. He drew his sword, walked to the long stone and began to sharpen the blade on the rock's edge. 'I have talked with Aurenna,' he said, his voice still calm, 'and she told me a strange tale.'

'About Leir?' Saban asked, bristling and defensive as he tried to hide his nervousness.

'She told me about Leir, of course she did.' Camaban paused to feel the edge of his blade, found it blunt and began scraping the sword on the stone again. It made a ringing noise. 'But I agree with you about Leir, brother,' he went on, glancing at Saban, 'he should be a man. I don't see him as a priest. He has no dreams like his sister. He is more like you. But I don't think he should live with you. He needs to learn a warrior's ways and a hunter's paths. He can live in Gundur's household.' Saban nodded cautiously. Gundur was not a cruel man and his sons were growing into honest men. 'He can live in Gundur's hut,' he agreed. 'No,' Camaban said, frowning at a small nick in the sword's edge, 'the strange tale that Aurenna told me was about Derrewyn.' He looked up at Saban. 'She still lives.. Did you know that?'

'How would I know?' Saban asked. But her child is not with her,' Camaban said. He had straightened from the stone and was staring into Saban's eyes now. 'Her child, it seems, was sent to live in a settlement because Derrewyn feared it would sicken and die in the forests. So she sent it away. To Cathallo, do you think? Or maybe here? To Ratharryn? The tale is whispered in Cathallo's huts, brother, but Aurenna hears all. Have you heard that tale, Saban?'

'No.'

Camaban smiled, then made a gesture with his sword and Saban turned to see that two spearmen had found Hanna and were dragging her from the hut. Kilda was screaming at them, but a third man barred her way as the terrified child was brought to Camaban. Saban moved to take the child from the spearmen, but one of them held his weapon towards Saban while the other gave the child to Camaban who first gripped her, then laid his newly sharpened sword across her throat. 'Her mother, if that woman of yours is her mother,' Camaban said, 'has fair hair. This child is dark.'

Saban touched his own black hair.

Camaban shook his head. 'She is too old to be your child, Saban, not unless you met the mother before we ever began to build the temple.' He tightened the pressure of the sword and Hanna gasped. 'Is she Derrewyn's bastard child, Saban?' Camaban asked.

'No,' Saban said.

Camaban laughed softly. 'You were Derrewyn's lover once,' he said, 'and maybe you still love her? Enough, perhaps, to help her?'

'And you wanted to marry her once, brother,' Saban hissed, 'but that does not mean you would help her now.' Saban saw Camaban's astonishment that he knew of his offer of marriage to Derrewyn, and the astonishment made him smile. 'Would you like me to shout that news aloud, brother?'

Hanna screamed as Camaban twitched with anger. 'Do you threaten me, Saban?' he asked.