Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [61]
If his appearance was absurd, it was misleading. For generations his family had been fine craftsmen – potters and carpenters usually – and he had all their skill. The stubby fingers, that looked ill-suited to delicate work, could produce miracles. Although only twenty-five, he had worked all over the island since he was a boy and was said to be the best stone worker living.
Nooma was excited that the priests had chosen him to build the new henge: not only was this a great honour that made him stick out his chest with pride, but it was also a challenge to his craftsmanship; and he hurried towards the sacred grounds with eager anticipation.
But when he heard the priests’ instructions, and when finally he comprehended the enormous scale of their plan, and the short time in which the work was to be completed, his solemn eyes grew larger. Despite the chill autumn day, he felt small beads of perspiration breaking out on his broad forehead.
“Such huge stones? Completed in ten years?” It was a wail of dismay.
The priests took no notice of his protests, and now the little mason began to tremble with fear. How could such a vast temple be completed so quickly? It would need an army of masons! But as he looked into the impassive faces of Dluc’s priests, he had no doubt of his fate if he failed him.
“They will give me to the sun god,” he thought. “They will sacrifice me at dawn.”
When the priests next showed him the drawings that the High Priest had made, and he bent his head to study them, his large oval face fell even further.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before,” he muttered as he stared at the great arches. And jabbing his finger at one of the drawings he protested: “How am I to do that?”
For Dluc’s designs made clear that each of the massive stone lintels of the ring of sarsens was to be slightly curved so that together they would form a perfect circle. How could such huge stones be transformed – thirty of them – into identical blocks each shaped with such precision?
“You must find a way,” they told him.
Nooma shook his head slowly. “I shall certainly be led to the altar stone,” he thought sadly.
But there was nothing he could do. The priests could not be refused. Somehow, he must devise a way to build this huge new henge.
“I should need fifty masons to work under me,” he said finally. “And as for labourers . . .” He tried to calculate the size of the army of men that would be needed to haul such enormous stones. For each sarsen would weigh up to thirty-five tons – the largest half as much again – and would have to be moved nearly twenty miles across the rolling high ground. “Why,” he exclaimed, “it would take five hundred men at least, and teams of oxen too.”
But the priests were unmoved by these astounding demands.
“You shall have all the men you need, and the oxen,” he was informed.
Nooma thought. The practical problems of organising such a force, of feeding and housing them would occupy much time. He could not do this and supervise the stone-working alone. “I shall need help to organise the men,” he said.
“Choose whom you wish.”
The little fellow considered.
“I should like Tark the riverman,” he said.
It was a good choice. No one on the five rivers was cleverer than Tark, the best known and most highly regarded of all the riverfolk. The riverfolk at Sarum were an extensive tribe, somewhat apart from the farmers, and mostly descended in one way or another from the crafty fishermen and hunters who had first inhabited the place millennia before. It was not uncommon to see mean, hard little faces and long toes which bore a remarkable similarity to those of Tep the hunter, along the riverbanks of any of the five rivers, as these people went about their business as trappers, fishermen and traders. Water rats they were often called by the Sarum people.
Tark was of this tribe, but a nobler specimen than most. Though he, too, had the long toes of the water rat, he was a tall, good-looking man with