Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [88]
On the deck of the little ship stood a girl, entirely naked, and unlike anything they had ever seen before. Her eyes, which stared straight over the heads of the crowd, were blue. And her hair, which caught the sun so that it flashed, was golden!
It was the first time that a blonde woman had ever been seen on the island.
So stunned was the crowd that for minutes there was silence, and the shrewd merchant watched with satisfaction.
Nooma stood quite still; but his mouth had fallen open. It seemed to him that this extraordinary vision of loveliness was as far above all other women as the henge was above all temples. He noticed her well-formed body, her pale and delicately coloured skin, her wonderful, hard young breasts. But above all, it was the faraway blue eyes and the magnificent, the abundant golden hair that fascinated him. It seemed to him that she belonged not to the race of men but to the gods themselves. He could hardly believe that this marvellous creature was an ordinary woman at all.
The hair was genuine, the merchant assured them. To prove his point, he plucked several hairs from her head, and one also from her body, and passed them round for inspection. The girl, Nooma noticed, winced, but gave no cry of pain, and her eyes never left the horizon on which they were fixed.
She had been captured the previous year from one of the many and nameless tribes which roamed the vast, uncharted expanses that stretched between the eastern Mediterranean and distant Asia. She had been transported west, and then sold to the captain of a vessel which traded up the great rivers of south west Europe. Finally she had been seen by this clever trader as he was about to leave for the northern island and he had at once appreciated her value to the dark-haired islanders and paid a good price for her.
To Nooma she was a revelation. Suddenly the little fellow experienced emotions, passions, that he had never known before. It seemed to his dazzled eyes that the girl was above even the passage of time itself; he felt the years drop away and the blood race in his veins. He forgot his age, his unfaithful wife, his humble life. Above everything else in the world, he wanted to own this wonder. He must have the girl.
As the merchant began the bidding, the little mason forgot his reserve and began to shout, jumping up and waving his arms.
“Five pelts! Five pelts!” he cried.
The crowd laughed. The bid was ridiculous for such a rarity as this. The price for her would be far beyond anything Nooma the mason could afford and only the richest farmers could think of her. But Nooma was completely oblivious to everything except the girl.
“Twenty pelts,” he shouted wildly. Such a sum was a fortune to him.
Still there were more laughs.
Then, abruptly, the auction stopped. It did so at a sign from one of the priests who now stepped forward. Calmly he went up to the merchant, the crowd parting to let him pass, and in a few words let the merchant know that the girl was to be reserved for the temple. The trader bowed his head respectfully and the girl was immediately covered again. The merchant was well-pleased. He knew that the priests would pay a good price.
A sigh went up from the crowd as the girl was quickly removed from their sight. No doubt she was to be reserved