Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [77]
Sleep baby sleep:
The waters are over the forest
Sleep, pretty one sleep:
The birds are all under the sea.
What was it about that lilting melody that stirred her so deeply? Feelings, passions she had only half dreamed of, never known how to name, seemed to be spoken of in the haunting words.
“Aie,” she murmured, “it is beautiful.”
Sleep pretty one, sleep
Dreams of the forest will come to you;
Sleep pretty one, sleep
Hear the voice of the birds in the waves;
Let the birds sing you a lullaby
Sleep, baby, sleep on the waves.
His face was so strong, his body, she knew, so hard. But his faraway eyes and his voice were so gentle. Katesh rocked back and forth to the song and wondered what it meant, this strange and wonderful feeling that stirred her.
Later that night, taking little Noo-ma-ti who was fast asleep, she slipped away from the circle and returned alone to the little hut; after she had put the child in his little cradle, she sat outside in the warm night, and gazed at the stars.
The song haunted her, and so did the riverman.
A little later she thought she heard the soft sound of his paddling in the river below, and she strained her eyes to pick out his canoe in the darkness; but she could not.
Then she saw him. He came softly up the path, making no sound, his tall lean form moving like a great cat.
And as he drew close, she forgot her husband, her child, everything as instinctively she rose to meet him.
His voice came softly through the shadows:
“Did you know I would come?”
Her mouth open, her eyes half closed, with a gasp she felt herself in his strong arms, pressed against him.
“The lullaby was for you,” he whispered.
She felt his careful hands begin to take the covering from her shoulders, and his mouth descended on hers. Instinctively, they moved together into the hut.
Nooma the mason had been away at the sarsen site for a month, but at last, on a warm day in the late summer he set out to walk over the high ground to Sarum. He had planned to leave by early afternoon to reach his home by dusk.
But there was much to do that day and it was already late afternoon when the sturdy little mason set out to walk home to his wife. On the way, he rested twice. Once, at dusk, he heard a wolf’s cry, but he ignored it.
Night had fallen long before he reached the ridge above the valley and a few stars were visible through the thin clouds. The moon had not yet risen. A light dew had already fallen on the turf. On the high ground above, which only the sheep inhabited, there was the faint, tangy smell of the sheep droppings; but as he began to descend from the ridge, another welcome smell greeted him: the scent of woodsmoke hanging in the air over the hut below. Although the mason was tired from his long walk, his heart began to beat faster as he thought of his wife in the valley below. With a new burst of energy, he wen t down the path, and as he did so he decided to shout her name: “Katesh,” so that it echoed across the valley. Immediately, several dogs from nearby farmsteads began to bark and Nooma grinned.
“Katesh!” he shouted again, “Nooma is back!” Chuckling to himself at the din he had created, he hurried down the path.
From a turn in the path he could see the hut. It lay about three hundred paces away and he could make out its shadow clearly. There was a small fire burning in front of it. Immediately above and below the ground had been cleared, but to the right of the hut were the trees of a little coppice. Further along the valley, a dog was still barking; but otherwise,