Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [46]
But Krona knew it could not be.
“One day my son will be chief,” he promised Liam, “but not yet.”
It would be a difficult choice. For despite the peace that seemed to have settled over the place, the hunters still lived a life apart, worshipped the moon goddess, and made no attempt to raise livestock or sow corn themselves. He needed to choose a man who could command authority amongst the dominant settlers, but who was sympathetic to the hunters as well.
The solution to this problem presented itself unexpectedly.
When old Magri had brought the two girls to Krona’s camp, the chief had decided to give one of them to a promising young farmer named Gwilloc, who was distantly related to him. Gwilloc was a tall man of twenty-two with a long, intelligent face; the other farmers called him the dark man because his hair, his thick beard and his eyes were all jet black; and his dark and swarthy look was made more striking by his tallness. He spoke little, but when he did, his words were listened to with respect. Gwilloc accepted the girl from Krona without complaint and before long there were three children, all of them with striking dark good looks; Krona noticed with interest that these children seemed to be equally at home with both the settlers and the hunters, and he smiled at Magri’s wisdom in making the gift of the girls. In a few generations, he could see, the two peoples, despite their different cultures, might merge into one.
But such a blending would take time, and meanwhile, it was young Gwilloc who now presented Krona with a new and unexpected development.
At the time when Taku was preparing for his voyage across the sea, Gwilloc came to Krona and asked permission to stake out a new farm.
“My brother and his family will take over the farm we have been sharing,” he explained: “for he has three sons now. It is time for me to start a new one.”
This request was reasonable enough. But when Krona asked what place he had in mind the young farmer named a spot outside the valley.
“But our farms are all in the valley,” Krona said. “There is good land there.”
“The land opposite the valley entrance, to the south wes’ of where the rivers meet, is even better,” Gwilloc replied. “And there,” he added to the old man’s surprise, “my woman will be nearer her own people.”
This was a new idea that had not occurred to Krona before.
“We gave our word to the hunters to stay in the valley,” he said. “I promised to protect their hunting grounds.” Such an extension of their settlement would provoke exactly the kind of bad feeling he was trying to avoid. “You are a fool,” he told the young farmer.
“What if I can persuade the hunters to agree that my farm should be here?” Gwilloc asked, undismayed.
Krona shrugged. If that were the case, then he would have no objection.
“They will not agree,” he said.
But to his surprise, ten days later, Magri and another hunter approached him and proposed that Gwilloc’s farm should be situated exactly at the spot he had requested.
“But that is on a hunting ground,” he said.
Magri nodded.
“But this farm would lie at the entrance to the western valley; and the hunting there is less good than to the east. If there are to be new farms, let them be in the western valley,” he replied; the other hunter nodded.
“We promised to stay in the northern valley,” Krona persisted. “And we keep our promises. There is plenty of land there.”
The second hunter smiled.
“You make promises, but look at the way your farms advance. Sooner or later the hunters know you will want to leave the valley. Better to have Gwilloc, whose woman is one of us, than another of your farmers.”
“The children of Gwilloc already begin to hunt with our children,” Magri explained. “In time they will respect our hunting grounds the more if they have lived amongst our people. It is better this way.”
At this moment Krona saw who it was who should succeed him as chief.
In the five years that followed, Krona lived contentedly. In the third year, during a particularly