Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

And if the stone broke now, Saban thought, then the temple would never be built for there was no slab long enough to replace this first great pillar.

It took the best part of the morning to arrange the ox teams, to anchor the tripod's legs in small pits dug into the soil just inside the bank and to attach the ropes, but at last all was ready and Saban waved at the ox drivers and watched as the ten ropes lifted from the ground. The tripod settled into the earth, it creaked, and the ropes went taut as bronze bars. The men beyond the ditch stabbed the oxen with goads so that blood poured down their hind legs. The ropes seemed to catch in the tripod's peak for there was a jerk and a shudder, but then they slid and there was suddenly a small gap between the pillar and the ramp and the slaves began to cram the gap with the stones fetched from the river.

'Drive them!' Saban shouted. 'Drive them!' And the oxen had their heads down and the trembling tripod creaked as the stone edged up, its front edge gouging the timbers that faced the deep hole, but the higher the stone went the easier the hauling became because the ropes, coming from the tripod's peak, were now pulling at a right angle to the stone. Saban watched, holding his breath, and still the stone was rising and its base was grinding the hole's face and the slaves were desperately hurling baskets of chalk rubble and stones into the ramp so that if the stone did fall back it would not collapse all the way.

'Drive them! Drive them!' Camaban shouted, and the goads prodded, the ropes quivered, the oxen bled and the stone shuddered upwards.

'Slow now! Slow!' Saban cautioned. The pillar was close to its full height and if the oxen pulled too hard now there was a danger they might pull the pillar clean over and out of its socket. 'Just one step more!' Saban called, and the ox teams were goaded a last time and the stone shifted another fraction and then its own weight took over and the pillar thumped upright, its leading edge smashing into the protective timbers with a sickening crash. Saban held his breath, but the stone stayed where it was and he screamed at the slaves to fill the hole's edges and ram down the filling. Camaban was clumsily leaping up and down and Haragg was crying for joy. The first, the tallest stone of the temple was raised.

The ropes were taken away, the hole was filled, and at last Saban could step back and see what he had done.

He saw a marvel to exceed any at Cathallo, a marvel such as no man had ever seen in all the world.

He saw a stone standing as high as a tree.

His heart seemed to swell as he looked at it and there were tears in his eyes. The stone looked gaunt and high and slender against the grey winter sky. It looked, Saban thought, beautiful. It was smooth and shaped and awesome; it suddenly dominated the wide landscape. It towered over the mother stone which he had previously thought so huge. It was magnificent.

'It's splendid,' Camaban said, his eyes wide.

'It is Slaol's work,' Haragg said humbly.

Even the slaves were impressed. It was their work, and they looked at the pillar in wonder. In none of their tribes, in none of their temples, in none of their lands and in none of their dreams was there a stone so large and sculpted and stark. At that moment Saban knew the gods must recognise what Camaban was doing and even Kilda was impressed. 'And you will place another stone on top of that?' she asked Saban that evening.

'We will,' he said, 'for that is just one pillar of an arch.'

'But you still don't know how?'

'Maybe the gods will tell me,' he said. They were alone by the great stone. Night was falling, turning the grey rock black. Saban gazed up the monolith and was overcome again, astonished that he had ever moved it, ever shaped it, ever raised it, and he knew at that instant that he would finish the temple. There were men who said it could not be done, and even Camaban did not know how it could be achieved, but Saban knew he would do it. And he felt a sudden certainty that by building the temple he would appease the gods who would then forgive him the oath he had sworn on Lallic's life. 'I sometimes think,' he told Kilda, 'none of us really knows why we are building this temple. Camaban says he knows, and Aurenna is certain it will bring the gods to a marriage bed, but I do not know what the gods want. Except that they want it built. I think it will surprise us all when it's done.'

'Which is what Derrewyn always said,' Kilda answered.

Midwinter came and the tribe lit their fires and made their feast. The slaves ate by the temple and after midwinter, when the first snow came, they began shaping the second pillar of the long arch. That pillar was the second longest stone, but it was too short for Saban had been unable to find a stone as long as the first, so he had deliberately left the second pillar's foot clubbed and bulbous, just like Camaban's foot before Sannas had broken and straightened it, and he hoped that the heavy clubbed foot would anchor the pillar in the earth. He would sink it in a hole he knew was too shallow, but the hole had to be shallow if the second pillar were to match the height of the first.

He raised that stone in the spring. The tripod was placed and the oxen were harnessed and when the beasts took the stone's weight Saban heard the pillar's clubbed foot scrunching the chalk and timbers, but at last it was standing and the hole could be filled and there were two pillars in the earth now, side by side and so close together at their base that a kitten could scarce wriggle between them, while at their tops the twin pillars tapered and so made a gap through which the winter sun would shine.

'When do you put the top stone on?' Camaban asked.

'In a year's time,' Saban said, 'or maybe two.'

'A year!' Camaban protested.

'The stones must settle,' Saban said. 'We'll be ramming and filling the holes all year.'

'So every pillar must stand a year?' Camaban asked, appalled.

'Two years would be better.'

Camaban became even more impatient then. He was frustrated when oxen were stubborn or ropes broke or, as happened twice, a tripod splintered. He hated it when stones ended up canted and it took days of hard work to haul them straight and ram their bases with rocks and soil.

It took three whole years to shape and raise the ten tall pillars of the sun's house. The raising of the stones was the easiest part; the hardest was the grinding and shaping that still filled the temple with noise and dust. The knobs on the pillars' tops, which would anchor the capstones, proved hardest to carve, for each was twice the width of a man's hand and to make the knobs the slaves had to wear away the rest of the pillar's top, which they did dust grain by dust grain. Saban also had them leave a lip around the stone's edge so that the capstones would be held at their sides as well as by the protruding knobs.

Leir became a man in the year that the last of the sun house's pillars was raised, the same year that six of the sky-ring stones were sunk in the ground. Leir passed his ordeals and gleefully broke the chalk ball of his spirit into fragments. Saban gave him a bronze-headed spear, then hammered the tattoos of manhood into his son's chest. 'Will you go and show yourself to your mother?' he asked his son.

'She will not want to see me.'

'She will be proud of you,' Saban said, firmly, although he doubled that he spoke the truth.

Leir grimaced. 'She will be disappointed in me.'

'Then go to see your sister,' Saban said, 'and tell her I miss her.' He had not seen Lallic since he had taken Leir away from his mother, not since he had sworn her life on the skull pole.

'Lallic sees no one,' Leir said. 'She is frightened. She shivers in the hut and cries if her mother leaves her.'

Saban feared his false oath had settled a dreadful curse on his daughter and he decided he would have to see Haragg, swear the high priest to silence, confess the truth and do whatever penance Haragg commanded.