Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [95]
The mason prepared a plug of clay and filled the hole; and across the plug he placed a disc of grey stone that he made from chippings; and when he had done this, his work was so good that no one but himself could even find the place where the mistake had been made. But the lintel was no longer perfect: the henge contained a tiny flaw; when he thought of this news reaching the High Priest, he shook. Neither the priests, nor the gods, would be able to forgive this.
“They will sacrifice me to the sun,” he muttered sadly. “After all, that is how it will end.”
However, the lintel was raised into place, and with five days to spare before the all-important solstice, the new Stonehenge was complete.
Half proud, half terrified, at the feast for the labourers held by the river the following night, Nooma drank himself to sleep.
But the next morning, one thought kept coming to his mind: “I have killed a man; I have made an error in the building of the sacred henge. Nothing is hidden from the priests: they will destroy me.”
It was nearly dawn. The moon was still high.
As Dluc the High Priest surveyed the new temple that the mason had built, he experienced a profound emotion.
“It is complete,” he murmured. For it seemed to him that not only the building itself, not only a cycle of the sun and moon were now completed, but also that the terrible journey along which the people of Sarum had passed had now reached its completion, which the perfect circle of stones symbolised. Sun and moon, day and night, winter and summer, the spring time and the harvest: all these things seemed to him to be contained in the henge: all Sarum’s life and all its destiny lay in the stones that recorded the endless procession of the days and the harmony of the heavens.
It was five days before the solstice, and, that day, as he always had in times gone by, Chief Krona was to hunt the boar.
As dawn approached, Dluc called his litter, and gave the runners their orders.
It was the custom that before the hunt, he would perform the ritual asking the moon goddess to bless the huntsmen, and so, soon after dawn, he arrived in the broad clearing which lay at the foot of the escarpment by the entrance to the eastern valley, where the hunters were meeting.
Ah, the beauty of it! When he saw them, he too felt young again. There were fifty hunters, in their thick leather jerkins, carrying bows, heavy quivers of arrows and the short, heavy spears with flint tips that were used for hunting the boar. They were standing in groups, joking together. Krona was in the centre of it all, just as he used to be: tall and impressive, with his flowing beard, all white now, and wearing the jaunty headdress with long green feathers stuck in it that he favoured for hunting. His harsh laugh rang round the clearing, as he jested easily with the huntsmen. Beside him rested the light litter made of pine, and carried by four surefooted runners, which would carry him over the ground while the other men walked or ran beside him. He wore a short green cloak and in his belt was a magnificent hunting knife made of flint. This was Krona the chief as he truly was: how his brother the priest rejoiced to see him like that once more!
The men were delighted to be hunting with the chief again. Old Muna the chief huntsman, his hair grizzled and his face now very red, with his stocky figure in its crimson and black tunic, was everywhere. On his head he wore the small set of antlers that were his badge of office, and in his hand he held a hunting horn decorated with bronze and gold. He was cheerfully directing the men who handled the hounds – eight couples of the sleek, swift hunting dogs, who could follow a scent all day, and whose excited pants sent steam into the cold morning air. With Muna was his grandson, a wide-eyed boy of ten. It was the boy’s first hunt.
“Krona has promised that he will blood this boy himself if we kill today,” the old man grinned. Hearing this, the chief turned.
Krona looked at the boy’s eager