Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [41]
“You fools,” he shouted. “Now there will be fighting!” But he could see at once that they were not heeding him, and silently he cursed the medicine man.
Liam knew what should be done:
“You must kill the medicine man,” she declared. “I said he could not be trusted, and now he has defied you.”
But Krona sadly shook his head. He was too wise to suppose that the situation could be remedied for the present. There was nothing to be done except ensure that each farm was well fortified.
The attacks came the next morning and they continued for three days. A farm was burned down; but it was chiefly the hunters who suffered. Expert stalkers though the hunters were, Krona’s men were battle-hardened warriors who built stout palisades which they attacked without success. By the third day, six of the hunters were dead.
The medicine man was delighted by these events. His authority was greater than ever, and though he took no risks himself, he encouraged the warriors to press home their attacks.
It was on the third day of this useless killing that Krona took matters into his own hands. Slowly and deliberately, he walked down the hill at the valley entrance to the river, and when he reached the place by the river bank where the settlers had first landed, and where he knew the hunters would see him, he laid his club on the ground, and quietly sat down to wait.
There could be no mistaking his intention.
In the early afternoon, Magri appeared, and sat down opposite him.
KRONA: The killing must stop.
MAGRI: Why did your men kill the soothsayer?
Krona understood exactly why the medicine man had acted in this way. He was appalled by the folly of the action and would rather have disowned it. But he knew that if he did that, the hunters would think the settlers weak and divided and might press their attack still more strongly: and by the same token, if the settlers thought that he was siding with the hunters, they would no longer listen to him and they would follow the medicine man into who knew what madness that he might devise. Whatever Krona did, the medicine man had won, and he cursed the fat man’s cunning.
KRONA: He came with evil magic. The sun god punished the valley because of him.
MAGRI: So you say.
KRONA: The sun god has spoken to our medicine man. He was angry with the soothsayer. It was the sun god who ordered his killing. You must understand.
MAGRI: So you say.
KRONA: It is so.
Magri was silent for some time. From the first moment that he had seen the settlers, he sensed their superior power; because of it, he had counselled the hunters to give them the valley when Taku and others had wanted to kill them. Had it been a mistake after all? It certainly appeared so: his people had been insulted; now they were being killed. For the first time in countless generations the little community of hunters was threatened with exile or extinction, and it was up to him to find some way of saving them.
MAGRI: Your medicine man says we must worship the sun god. But hunters worship the moon goddess. If we do not worship her, she will desert us and we shall have no hunting.
KRONA: You can worship both. You can honour the sun also, then we shall be your friends again.
MAGRI: My people are angry.
KRONA: If our people make war, the killing will be terrible. Our men are warriors and the hunters will be destroyed. We must make peace and exchange gifts once more.
MAGRI: How do we know the medicine man will not kill again?
KRONA: The sun god is satisfied. There will be no more killing.
The next four days were tense. The hunters did not attack again, but it took all Krona’s powers of persuasion to hold the young settlers back. Had he not done so, the hunters would probably have been exterminated; but as it was, an uneasy