Sarum (22 page)
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
As the steam cleared, it could be seen that a fissure had opened right through the red hot rock at the point where the split had been made. There was no sarsen, however large, that the mason could not reduce in this way.
Then Nooma led the party of priests over the rest of the site. The sarsens were in all stages of preparation and Nooma supervised everything. In particular, he watched over the dressing of the stone, which his masons did by pounding them with hard, round stones, which removed a little of the surface at a time.
“You see,” he explained to them, “the men always strike downwards, from the top of the upright towards the bottom. That way, every stone will have a consistent surface.”
When the priest inspected a finished sarsen, he could see that it was covered with minute grooves all aligned in the same direction, giving it a single grain so that when the stones were all in position, the light would always strike a vertical edge, enhancing the graceful effect of the whole.
Truly, he could see, Nooma was a master of his craft.
It was just as the High Priest was admiring this work that a messenger came running over the downland towards them.
“High Priest,” he cried, “you must come at once to Sarum: Krona is sick.”
He was more than sick: he seemed to be dying. The High Priest learned that a fever had seized him the very day that he had left for the quarry, but the chief had ignored it. By the time the priests were called, it had grown rapidly worse and soon they had despaired of saving him.
When Dluc entered Krona’s house, he was lying on a bed of straw; there was a lull in the fever and he lay very still, shivering only occasionally. His flesh was grey; his eyes were glazed, but fixed on the roof above him, and he did not appear to notice the priest. Dluc had seen men like this before; but none who had lived.
On the floor at his side, like a shadow, sat the stately figure of Ina. She had grown old suddenly, as the island women often did: her body was bent, her hair, which was now white, had grown thin. She was very quiet and he could see that she had been weeping.
Dluc murmured a few words to the chief, but he did not hear them.
“He will die,” Ina said. Quietly she leant forward and wiped his brow.
“It is the will of the gods that he should live,” the priest replied firmly. Ina said nothing.
Brave words: yet was his faith so strong? Dluc knew that he had spoken them to make himself believe. He knew all the secrets of medicine – and he knew that there were maladies of the spirit which none of them could cure.
Even so, he made potions of verbena, that sweet smelling and most efficacious of all herbs, and with these potions moistened the chiefs brow and his lips, while he prayed to the gods. The night passed and there was no change.
For two days his life hung in the balance. They were terrible days for the High Priest. Could it be that the gods had deserted Sarum after all? Was the new temple not as they had ordered? It seemed to him that he no longer knew himself.
The news of Krona’s sickness had spread all along the rivers. In every valley, the people of Sarum went about their business silently; what would happen if Krona died? No one knew. During those days, all Sarum seemed to be living with a sense of doom.
Then, in the darkness, came a glorious ray of sunlight.
Omnic returned; and with him he brought a bride.
They came up the river in a large curragh – twice the size of the boat in which he had left – which was painted white. Wise Omnic, remembering the message of the auguries, which all the people knew, had covered the girl’s head not only with a coronet of gold, but an intricate golden net that reached down her back, and he had made her stand in the front of the boat so that the people in the settlements along the river would see her clearly as the boat passed. His choice was excellent; the girl was tall, high-breasted and slim. She was not beautiful; she had a long nose, solemn grey eyes and her skin was pitted; but she was the daughter of an Irish chief who had parted with her for a handsome payment, and her mother and grandmother had each borne twelve healthy children.
Omnic had been thorough. He had not only taught her the dialect of the Sarum area on their long journey, but had carefully explained to her every aspect of her new role. The girl had made little comment, but the priest thought she had understood him well enough.
News of their coming reached the hill at Sarum well ahead of their arrival and Dluc was waiting on the riverbank to receive them. When she stepped out of the boat and he conducted her up to Krona’s house, his heart rose; not because she was graceful – she was not – but because she, at least, seemed certain of her destiny. Whether guided by her own instincts, or by what Omnic had told her, she took charge of the situation at once. On entering the house she went straight to the bed where Krona lay and, taking no notice of Ina, in her strange accents she spoke firmly to the chief.
“I am Raka, your wife. You must get well, for you are to have children again.”
Ever since he had been a child, no time had been more magic to Krona than the ancient feast of Winter Day. Of all the feasts that were celebrated, this was the oldest, and although the priests set the date of the festival by the solar calendar – it fell thirty-nine days after the autumn equinox – it was thought that these rites were older even than the henge itself. Since time immemorial each farmer had performed the rite on the eve of Winter Day in his own house, before he killed the livestock he did not want to shelter during the cold months ahead. The farmers used to say that on Winter Day itself, even the sun god is asleep and that the spirits come out of their graves to walk among the living. The rite of Winter’s Eve was especially important, because that was when each farmer asked the gods to make his fields fertile.
In the presence of this strange woman from the western islands, the chief felt his spirits slowly returning. The pallor left his face; his eyes grew clearer, but above all, a small hope, like an inner warmth, deep within his body, began to grow again.
“I had lost faith in the gods,” he confided to the High Priest on the third day of his recovery. “It was as though, after my sons . . . Krona had begun to die.”
Dluc nodded.
“When Krona dies, Sarum also dies,” he said. “But now?”
“I am still weak,” the chief confessed. “But I begin to live again.”
Indeed, his recovery was remarkable. Raka and Ina were constantly at his side. The girl said little. She seemed to be self-sufficient. But each day she would look into Krona’s eyes and tell him: “You will soon be well,” in a voice that made it seem like a statement of fact rather than a hope. And from this Krona continued to draw strength and comfort.
“She knows I shall be well,” he told the priest. “She is the one sent by the gods. This time I am sure of it.”
On the fifth day Dluc said: “It is time to set a marriage day.”
To which Krona replied: “Let it be the eve of Winter Day, in three days’ time. No day in the calendar is more lucky.”
The ceremony took place as night was falling, in the main room of Krona’s house. All the tapers were lit, and twenty of Sarum’s most important families crowded into the room.
“Let the couple come forward,” Dluc called, and Krona stepped forward with Raka. He looked younger and stronger than he had for many months, and the priest rejoiced to see the great chief he had loved restored to something like his former self. Then, following the time-honoured custom on Winter’s Eve, Dluc said loudly:
“Let the corn maiden enter.”
Old Ina and her serving woman brought in that strange and wonderful figure which, even then, brought a flush of excitement into Krona’s heart: two cubits long, made of braided cornstalks cunningly woven together to form a female figure with huge breasts and legs spread wide apart, the corn maiden was the image of fertility. The women laid her carefully on a bench in the centre of the room. Next Dluc called out:
“Sun, bless this fair maiden and let her be fruitful.” And all those present cried: “See she is fruitful!”
As soon as these words had been said, Ina and her women slowly danced around the corn maiden three times, pausing to bow as they completed each circle.
As Dluc performed the next part of the ceremony he thought of Krona. He took a heavy oak club, black with age, and laid it between the maiden’s open legs.
“We have ploughed and sown,” the men all cried. “See that we reap!”
For the second time, Ina and her women went three times round the corn maiden, and this time they clapped their hands and made provocative signs to indicate to the corn maiden that she must be fruitful.
The ceremony of the corn maiden was complete; she would lie there, the club between her legs, until sunset the following day. Then Dluc led Krona and the girl forward.
“Greatest of all gods, sun,” he cried, “giver of life: bless the marriage of this man and woman and let her, too, be fruitful.”
All the men and women in the room clapped their hands. Then he placed a circle of gold upon the girl’s head.
“Raka,” the priest said earnestly, “you are chosen by the gods.”
And as Chief Krona looked at the corn maiden, that wonderful, pregnant symbol of the fields that reminded him so vividly of his childhood; as he gazed fondly at his faithful old wife and stared in wonder at the strange girl by his side; as he went through the time honoured ritual of this most magical day of the year – when even the implacable sun god slept – he felt a glow of happiness and excitement in his body that he had not felt for many years. It was like a great warmth. It seemed to him that on this day his spirit had been reborn.
This time both Krona and the High Priest really believed that Sarum had come to an end of her troubles.
A few days later, in the modest hut in the northern valley, a small event took place that gave the mason more joy than the knowledge that at last Krona had found his chosen bride.
His son was born: a splendid little boy with a large round head, huge, serious eyes and stubby little hands with short thumbs; when Nooma held the boy up high and inspected him he grinned with satisfaction.
“You’ll be a fine mason one day,” he chuckled. “Look at his hands.” He handed the baby back to Katesh and stroked her hair affectionately. “Soon we’ll have a team of little masons,” he said enthusiastically; and she smiled weakly.
At the next full moon, just before the first frosts came, a feast was held at the little hut in the valley. The mason carefully laid out rush mats on the ground outside, while Katesh prepared a meal, the centrepiece of which was the greatest delicacy the valley knew – a whole sucking pig which she turned slowly on a spit over the open fire. There were wheat cakes, ripe berries and – most important after the pig – great flagons of the dark ale of the region and the thick, sweet and highly alcoholic mead, fermented from the honey that had been scooped from the nests of the bees in the surrounding woods.
To this feast he invited his best masons, the family of Katesh, his friend Tark and – without whom the feast would have no meaning – one of the priests: for it was the privilege of the priests to name the child.
Before the sun set, the baby was brought out and shown to the priest.
He was a serious young man. Like all the priests he wore a single heavy robe of undyed brown wool and his head was shaved in the customary way into a single V, with its point between the eyes. For some time he stood silently, gazing severely from the large, solemn head of the baby to the equally solemn face of the little mason. Then suddenly his stern expression creased into a laugh.
“The son is like the father. Let him be called Noo-ma-ti,” he said, smiling.
This was a clever pun, for it meant both ‘like-Nooma’ and ‘man-of-stone’. The party shouted with delight at the appropriateness of the name and the feast began.
At the end of the feast, when the sweet and heady mead was drunk and Nooma felt his whole being glow with warmth, it was the turn of Tark the riverman to lead the guests in song. And as he began in his rich, deep voice, the men gladly followed his lead. They sang the old hunting songs of the region, and some others of a more bawdy nature. But while the men rolled about and frequently sang out of tune, Tark was always still, his dark, lean face like a glowing wooden instrument from which there came always a wonderful, melodious tune. At last he said:
“Now, a lullaby for the child.”
And very softly, while the men and women listened silently, he began a slow rhythmic song which seemed to curl up into the air and disperse like the woodsmoke rising from the glowing embers of the fire; it was a strange old song about a forest, full of animals and birds, that lay under the sea. It was a haunting song; and all the time that he sang, his dark eyes, which seemed to be focused on the far distance, wandered round the circle of happy faces by the fire.
That night, when the guests had gone, Katesh said: “He is a fine singer, your friend Tark.” And the little mason warmly agreed, before he fell contentedly asleep.
Three days later, Nooma began to move the first of the completed sarsens to the henge.
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