Bernard Cornwell - Stonehenge

A silence fell as Haragg entered and Saban sensed that the men were wary of the big trader, but Haragg ignored them, pointing instead at a small man sitting at one end of the hall close to a smoky fire. The man's wiry hair was crammed into a bronze circlet, while his face was thick with ash-grey scars. 'The chief,' Haragg whispered to Saban. 'Called Kereval. A decent man.'

Camaban was sitting next to Kereval, though at first Saban did not recognise his brother, seeing instead a hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed sorcerer with a frightening face framed by bones woven into his hair. Then the sorcerer pointed a long finger at Saban, crooked it and gestured that he should come and sit between himself and the chief, and Saban realised it was his brother.

'It took you long enough to get here,' Camaban grumbled, without any other greeting, then he grudgingly named his brother to Kereval who smiled a welcome then clapped his hands for silence so he could tell the feasters who the newcomer was. Men stared at Saban when they heard he was Lengar's brother, then Kereval demanded that a slave bring Saban some food.

'I doubt he wants to eat,' Camaban said.

'I do,' Saban said. He was hungry.

'You want to eat this filth?' Camaban demanded, showing Saban a bowl of stewed fish, seaweed and stringy mutton. He lifted a strand of seaweed. 'Am I supposed to eat this?' he asked Kereval.

Kereval ignored Camaban's disgust and spoke to Saban. 'Your brother cured my best wife of a disease that no one else could mend!' The chief beamed at Saban. 'She is well again! He works miracles, your brother.'

'I simply treated her properly,' Camaban said, 'unlike the fools you call healers and priests. They couldn't cure a wart!'

Kereval took the seaweed out of Camaban's hand and ate it. 'You have been travelling with Haragg?' he asked Saban.

'A long way,' Saban said.

'Haragg likes to travel,' Kereval said. He had small beady eyes in a face that was good-humoured and quick to smile. 'Haragg believes,' he went on, leaning close to Saban, 'if he journeys far enough, he will find a magician to give his son tongue and ears.'

'What Cagan needs is a good blow on the head,' Camaban snarled. 'That would cure him.'

'Truly?' Kereval asked eagerly.

'Is that liquor?' Camaban asked, and helped himself to a decorated pot that stood beside Kereval. He tipped it to his mouth and drank greedily. 'You will stay now? Through the summer, perhaps?' Kereval asked Saban with a smile.

'I don't know why I'm here,' Saban confessed, glancing at Camaban. He was taken aback by the change in his brother. Camaban, the stuttering cripple, was now seated in the place of honour.

'You are here, little brother,' Camaban said, 'to help me move a temple.'

Kereval's smile vanished. 'Not everyone believes we should give you a temple.'

'Of course they don't!' Camaban said, not bothering to lower his voice. 'You have as many fools here as in any other tribe, but it doesn't matter what they think.' He waved a dismissive hand at the feasters. 'Do the gods seek the opinion of these fools before they send rain? Of course they don't, so why should you or I? It only matters that they obey.'

Kereval quickly diverted the conversation, talking instead about the change in the weather, and Saban looked about the firelit hall. Most of the men had drunk enough of the Outfolk's famously fierce liquor to be loud and boisterous. Some were arguing about hunting exploits while others bellowed for silence so they could listen to the flautist whose thin notes were being overwhelmed by the uproar. Women slaves brought in food and drink, and then Saban saw who sat beyond the hall's farther fire and his world changed.

It was a moment when his heart seemed to cease its beating, when the world and all its noises — the rain on the thatch, the harsh voices, the splintering of burning wood, the airy notes of the flute and the pulse of the drums — vanished. All was suspended in that moment as if there were nothing left but himself and the white-robed girl who sat on a wooden platform at the hall's far end.

At first, when he glimpsed her though the swirling smoke, Saban thought she could not be human for she was so clean. Her robe was white and hung with shining lozenges, while her hair fell in a cascade of shining gold to frame a face that was the palest and most beautiful he had ever seen. He felt a surge of guilt for Derrewyn, a surge that was swept away as he looked at the girl. He stared and stared, motionless, as though he had been struck by an arrow like the one that had flickered through the twilight to kill his father. He did not eat, he refused the liquor that Camaban offered, he just gazed through the smoke at the ethereal girl who seemed to hover above the brawling feast. She did not eat, she did not drink, she did not speak, she just sat enthroned like a goddess.

Camaban's harsh voice sounded in Saban's ear. 'Her name is Aurenna, and she is a goddess. She is Erek's bride, and this feast is to welcome her to the settlement. Is she not beautiful? When you speak to her, you must kneel to her. But if you touch her, brother, you will die. If you even dare to dream of touching her, you will die.'

'She's the sun bride?' Saban asked.

'And she will burn in less than three moons,' Camaban said. 'That's how the sun brides get married. They jump into a fire at the sea's edge. Hiss of fat and splinter of bone. Flame and screaming. She dies. That's her purpose. That's why she lives, to die. So don't stare at her like a dumb calf, because you can't have her. Find yourself a slave girl to rut with because if you touch Aurenna you'll die.'

But Saban could not take his eyes from the sun bride. It would be worth dying, he thought recklessly, just to touch that golden girl. He guessed she was fourteen or fifteen summers old, the same age as himself, a bride in her perfection, and Saban was suddenly assailed by a gaping sense of loss. First Derrewyn, and now this girl. Had Miyac, Haragg's daughter, presided over a feast like this? Had she been as beautiful? And had some young man gazed at her with longing before she went to the flames at the sea's edge?

And then his thoughts were broken as the leather curtain in the wide doorway was snatched aside so violently that it tore from the wooden pegs holding it to the lintel. A gust of chill damp wind flickered the two fires as a tall, gaunt and wild-haired man strode into the hut. 'Where is he?' he shouted, his wolf pelt cloak dripping rainwater.

Haragg, thinking the wild-haired man sought him, stood, but the newcomer just spat at Haragg and turned on Kereval instead. 'Where is he?' he shouted. Three other men had followed him into the hut — all priests, for they had bones woven into their beards.

'Where is who?' Kereval asked.

'Lengar's brother!'

'Both Lengar's brothers are here,' Kereval said, gesturing at Camaban and Saban, 'and both are my guests.'

'Guests!' the wild man sneered, then he threw his arms wide and turned to stare at the feasters who had fallen silent. 'There should be no guests in Sarmennyn,' he cried, 'and no feasts, no music, no dances, no joy until the treasures are returned to us! And those things' — he whipped round to point a bony finger at Saban and Camaban — 'those two bits of dirt can bring Erek's gold back.'

'Scathel!' Kereval shouted. 'They are guests!'

Scathel pushed past the seated men and stared down at Saban and Camaban, frowning when he saw the bones tied into Camaban's hair. 'Are you a priest?' he demanded.

Camaban ignored the question. He yawned instead, and Scathel suddenly bent and seized Saban's tunic and, with an astonishing strength in a man so thin and bony, pulled him upright. 'We shall use the brother magic,' he told Kereval.

'He is a guest!' Kereval protested again.

'The brother magic?' Camaban asked in a tone of genuine enquiry. 'Tell me of this magic'

'What I do to him,' Scathel said, digging a finger into Saban's ribs, 'will be done to his brother also. I take his eye; Lengar loses an eye.' He slapped Saban. 'There,' he crowed, 'Lengar's cheek is stinging.'

'Mine isn't,' Camaban said.

'You are a priest,' Scathel said, explaining why Camaban had failed to feel Saban's pain.

'No,' Camaban said, 'I am no priest, but a sorcerer.'

'A sorcerer who does not know the brother magic?' Scathel jeered. 'What kind of sorcerer is that?' He laughed, then turned Saban around so that all the hall could see him. Lengar of Ratharryn will never yield the treasures!' he shouted. 'Not if we give him every temple in Sarmennyn! Not if we take every stone from every field and lay them at his feet! But if I take his eyes, his hands, his feet and his manhood, then he will yield.'

The listening men beat their hands on the floor in approval and Camaban, watching silently, saw how much opposition there was in Kereval's tribe to the agreement with Lengar. They did not believe Ratharryn would ever yield the gold. They had agreed to the bargain for, at the time, there had seemed no alternative, but now Scathel had come roaring from the hills and proposed using magic, torture and sorcery. 'We shall dig a pit,' Scathel said, 'and drop this louse inside, and there he shall stay shut up until his brother yields us the treasures!' The feasters shouted their approval.

'Put my brother in a pit,' Camaban said when there was silence, 'and I shall fill your bladder with coals, so that when you piss you will writhe from the agony of liquid fire.' He leaned over and took a morsel of fish from Kereval's bowl and calmly ate it.

'You? A crippled sorcerer? Threaten me?' Scathel gestured at Camaban's left foot, which was still misshapen, though no longer grotesquely clubbed. 'You think the gods listen to things like you?'

Camaban took a fishbone from his mouth, then delicately bent it between a thumb and forefinger. 'I will make the gods dance on your entrails,' he said quietly, 'while dead souls suck your brains out of your eye-sockets. I shall feed your liver to the ravens and give your bowels to the dogs.' He snapped the bone in two. 'Let my brother go.'

Scathel leaned down to Camaban, and Saban, watching, thought how alike the two men were. The Outfolk sorcerer, Haragg's twin brother, was the older man, but like Camaban he was lean, gaunt and powerful. 'He will go in the pit tonight, cripple,' Scathel hissed at Camaban, 'and I will piss on him.'

'You will let him go!' a woman's voice commanded, and there was a gasp in the hall as the men turned to look at Aurenna. She was standing, pointing a finger at the angry priest. 'You will release him,' she insisted, 'now!'

Scathel quivered for a heartbeat, but then he swallowed and reluctantly released his grip on Saban. 'You risk losing everything!' he said to Kereval.

'Kereval does Erek's will,' Camaban said, still quietly, answering for the chief, and then he leaned forward and dropped the two scraps of fishbone into the fire. 'I have long wanted to meet you, Scathel of Sarmennyn,' he went on, smiling, 'for I had heard much of you and thought, fool that I am, that I might learn from you. I see, instead, that I will have to teach you.'

Scathel looked into the fire where the two slivers of bone lay on a burning log. For a heartbeat he stared at them, then he reached down and carefully picked them up, one after the other; the hairs on his arm shrivelled in the flames and there was a rank smell of burning flesh that made men wince, but Scathel did not flinch. He spat on the bones, then pointed one at Camaban. 'You will never take one of our temples, cripple, never!' He flicked the bone scraps at Camaban, plucked the damp wolf pelts close about his thin body and walked away leaving the feast hall in silence.