Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [250]
The shearing had been going on ever since early morning, and though it would probably be two more days until it was completed, the pace had slackened. Here and there men were standing together by the piles of sacks containing the fresh wool, quietly chatting. The place had the air of an untidy camp. The sharp-sweet smell of sheep-droppings was everywhere.
Godric was busy helping the men collect the wool, and though Harold rose and ambled over to greet her, he did not notice her at first. When he did, he smiled and came towards her.
“Finished at the dairy?”
She nodded.
He noticed the little package she was carrying.
“What’s this?”
She held out the little cheese, her face impassive.
“It’s for you.”
He looked at her carefully, then took it solemnly from her. She had never given him a present before and he knew what it meant: she had made her decision. The men standing nearby were grinning.
“We’ll be some time,” he began . . . but from thirty yards away he heard the voice of the reeve.
“Godric Body: you’ve finished for today.”
There was laughter all around. Godric blushed, and glanced towards the reeve, who was smiling broadly. It was not often that the reeve gave him a friendly look. “Go!” he shouted.
Godric looked down at the girl. For the first time since he had started to court her, he now felt awkward.
“Shall we walk?”
She nodded. “That way.” She pointed across the high ground, away from the valley.
As they moved away, and he felt the sun on his back, she slipped her arm through his. Ahead of them Harold happily bounded, chasing his own shadow across the turf.
They walked for nearly half an hour, neither saying much. Here and there was a clump of trees, but almost all the ground was bare. The grasses were just beginning to become parched. The chalk ridges were mostly deserted as the sheep had been driven to the shearing.
At the outer edge of the land where the Avonsford flocks were grazed, there was a dip in the ground, at one end of which lay a long stone building. Centuries before it had been a farmhouse; now it was used only for sheep; and on the open land a little way off there was a large, round depression in the ground, some five feet deep at its centre, which even now, at the dry height of summer, contained more than a foot of water.
Here they sat down and ate the bread and cheese she had brought.
Mary squinted at the pond curiously. There seemed to be no stream to feed it, and Godric, following her gaze explained:
“This is a dew pond. It was made up here for the sheep.” And he outlined how, once in a generation, the men would go and line the bottom of the pond with clay and straw, packing them so tight that no water was lost. “And then,” he went on, “when the dew falls on the ground around, it drains into the pool so that the sheep can drink here right through the summer.”
And as he enthusiastically explained about it, Mary decided that she was glad he was a shepherd, and that she was even proud of him.
It was a pleasant spot, but she was not ready to stop yet; the sheep house was still too near the place where the men were shearing; so after a little time she made him get up and they walked on.
They walked together for another half an hour, with nothing, now, except the blue butterflies for company.
It was evening, but still warm when they reached the henge.
Only a third of the huge sarsens were still standing, and less than a third of the smaller bluestones within the ancient circle. The earth wall and ditch was only a little bigger than one of the earth banks dividing the strips of furrows in the open fields. The ceremonial avenue had almost disappeared and only one of the two gateway pillars remained. As the midsummer sun bathed the worn grey stones in its red-gold light, the ancient henge seemed a quiet, harmless place.
“They say giants built it,” he remarked. “It’s magic.”
She took his hand.
“Come,” she said softly.
As the sun sank over the henge, he was not aware