Sarum Page 10

  “You fools,” he shouted. “Now there will be fighting!” But he could see at once that they were not heeding him, and silently he cursed the medicine man.

  Liam knew what should be done:

  “You must kill the medicine man,” she declared. “I said he could not be trusted, and now he has defied you.”

  But Krona sadly shook his head. He was too wise to suppose that the situation could be remedied for the present. There was nothing to be done except ensure that each farm was well fortified.

  The attacks came the next morning and they continued for three days. A farm was burned down; but it was chiefly the hunters who suffered. Expert stalkers though the hunters were, Krona’s men were battle-hardened warriors who built stout palisades which they attacked without success. By the third day, six of the hunters were dead.

  The medicine man was delighted by these events. His authority was greater than ever, and though he took no risks himself, he encouraged the warriors to press home their attacks.

  It was on the third day of this useless killing that Krona took matters into his own hands. Slowly and deliberately, he walked down the hill at the valley entrance to the river, and when he reached the place by the river bank where the settlers had first landed, and where he knew the hunters would see him, he laid his club on the ground, and quietly sat down to wait.

  There could be no mistaking his intention.

  In the early afternoon, Magri appeared, and sat down opposite him.

  KRONA: The killing must stop.

  MAGRI: Why did your men kill the soothsayer?

  Krona understood exactly why the medicine man had acted in this way. He was appalled by the folly of the action and would rather have disowned it. But he knew that if he did that, the hunters would think the settlers weak and divided and might press their attack still more strongly: and by the same token, if the settlers thought that he was siding with the hunters, they would no longer listen to him and they would follow the medicine man into who knew what madness that he might devise. Whatever Krona did, the medicine man had won, and he cursed the fat man’s cunning.

  KRONA: He came with evil magic. The sun god punished the valley because of him.

  MAGRI: So you say.

  KRONA: The sun god has spoken to our medicine man. He was angry with the soothsayer. It was the sun god who ordered his killing. You must understand.

  MAGRI: So you say.

  KRONA: It is so.

  Magri was silent for some time. From the first moment that he had seen the settlers, he sensed their superior power; because of it, he had counselled the hunters to give them the valley when Taku and others had wanted to kill them. Had it been a mistake after all? It certainly appeared so: his people had been insulted; now they were being killed. For the first time in countless generations the little community of hunters was threatened with exile or extinction, and it was up to him to find some way of saving them.

  MAGRI: Your medicine man says we must worship the sun god. But hunters worship the moon goddess. If we do not worship her, she will desert us and we shall have no hunting.

  KRONA: You can worship both. You can honour the sun also, then we shall be your friends again.

  MAGRI: My people are angry.

  KRONA: If our people make war, the killing will be terrible. Our men are warriors and the hunters will be destroyed. We must make peace and exchange gifts once more.

  MAGRI: How do we know the medicine man will not kill again?

  KRONA: The sun god is satisfied. There will be no more killing.

  The next four days were tense. The hunters did not attack again, but it took all Krona’s powers of persuasion to hold the young settlers back. Had he not done so, the hunters would probably have been exterminated; but as it was, an uneasy truce was established.

  All through the winter, both the settlers and the hunters went about their business anxiously; any move on either side might have started another crisis. There was no trading at the enclosure, but Krona reflected that this was probably a blessing – it was better that the two sides did not meet.

  The following summer there was a bumper harvest. The medicine man had triumphed.

  His success was complete; his authority now was greater than ever. He waddled about the valley in a stately manner and took gifts from the farmers – not because he needed them but to remind the people of his special relationship with the gods.

  “He speaks to the sun god,” they said. The farmers were respectful; and the hunters were cowed.

  At the summit of Krona’s hill, the medicine man now made his clearing into a small temple. It consisted of ten large tree stumps set in a circle in the middle of the clearing. In the centre of this little circle, which was only fifteen feet across, he would now build his fire and there, with the help of a young man whom he had selected to be his assistant, he made the sacrifices to the sun god. Twice a year not only the settlers attended, but a small party of hunters too would silently appear from the woods, bringing with them a deer to be given to the settlers’ god.

  “He burns his fires above your house,” Liam protested to Krona. “He makes himself chief of the valley.” She could not understand his patience.

  And when the hunters in the bowl of land to the south, or on the ridges opposite, saw the column of blue smoke rising from the hilltop they knew that the medicine man was powerful indeed.

  In the forest, however, far out of his sight, they made their own sacrifices to the moon goddess who protected all hunters, and performed the old dances before the hunt at full moon, as their ancestors had done since time began.

  But still Krona watched, and did nothing.

  For despite the arrogance of the medicine man, the two communities were slowly returning to a state of peace. At the trading post in the enclosure, the barter trade between hunters and settlers cautiously resumed. And although the passage of a few years could not remove the fear and distrust that the hunters still had of the settlers and their medicine man, on the surface at least all was calm.

  The fact that this state continued unbroken was mostly the work of the two old men: Krona and Magri.

  Krona was determined to maintain peace. He had come to the island because he knew that the sea wall would protect the new settlement from the kind of marauders who had destroyed his farm and his family when he was a young man, and he had no wish to see the valley become involved in a useless and bloody dispute with the hunters. He hated the course of action that the medicine man had followed; but even if he suffered personal humiliation, he knew he must still be patient.

  “This madness must run its course,” he muttered; and he did not oppose the medicine man.

  Instead, he occupied himself quietly on his farm and in all matters except those concerning the sacrifices of the gods, he remained the most influential voice in the community. He became attached to a particular spot immediately in front of the oblong house and there, on one of the big sacks in which the farmers stored the wool from their sheep, he was often to be seen, with his club resting at his feet as a symbol of authority, gazing over the settlement that he had founded. The farmers still came to him as the arbiter of their disputes and even the medicine man approached the old warrior on his sack with some caution. But on most days, Krona was content to sit there alone, attended only by Liam, his sharp, fierce eyes watching the winding river below and the swans that silently glided upon it.

  It was to this place that Magri often came. He too was growing old, and he too knew the value of patience. The two men would sit quietly opposite each other, perhaps only exchanging a few words during the course of several hours, but always treating each other with the respectful politeness which they knew must be maintained if harmony were to be preserved between their two peoples, and by this means many small disputes that arose between the communities, which could have become dangerous, were quietly and peacefully settled.

  It was during these conversations that Magri gradually conceived the remarkable idea which was to decid
e the course of the settlement’s history for many generations.

  For often the old hunter would question Krona about his life on the other side of the sea. Gradually he learned about the coastal community that Krona had left, about the hundreds of other farming settlements that existed on the mainland, and as he came to realise their full extent he was deeply thoughtful.

  “If there are so many farms,” he said one day, “then the time will come when other settlers cross the sea to this island. They will arrive, as you did, and they will take more of our valleys.”

  “Perhaps,” Krona replied. “But the sea is dangerous. They may not come.”

  “They will come. It will be so,” Magri answered calmly, and his weatherbeaten old face was sad. “There will be many of them, too strong for us; and they will destroy my people.”

  For the more he observed the life of the farmers, the greater he understood their power to be. Already the young men were building new farms and clearing more land further up the valley. He saw the small herds of livestock, the flocks of sheep who were steadily taking over the higher ground, and he knew that nothing could stop them.

  “You make the land itself obey you,” he reflected. “The sun god is very strong.”

  “If more settlers come,” Krona said truthfully, “the hunters will have to make peace with them, and with their gods.”

  The old hunter turned these matters over in his mind for many months; and finally he came to a remarkable decision which he announced to his people when they were next gathered together for a big hunt.

  When they heard Magri’s proposal, the hunters were dumbfounded.

  “We cannot agree to such a thing,” they protested. But he was determined and argued his case again and again, for he was certain that only in this way could he protect his people for the future.

  “The sun god makes the settlers strong,” he told them. “We cannot resist them. It will be better if we do what I suggest.”

  This dispute amongst the hunters, of which the settlers in the valley remained ignorant, lasted for two years; and at the end of that time the authority and arguments of the old man gained his idea a grudging acceptance.

  It was a surprise to Krona one summer when he saw Magri approaching with a small deputation consisting of the limping figure of Taku and two of the older hunters, together with two girls who walked behind them. He greeted them politely and the men quietly sat on the ground in front of his farm, while the two girls stood silently a short distance away. Krona wondered what this visit could mean.

  Magri began slowly.

  “For over three years there has been peace between our peoples,” he said. “We have brought sacrifices to the medicine man and we have kept our promise not to hunt in the valley.”

  “And we have not disturbed your hunting grounds,” Krona reminded him.

  “It is true. But every year,” Magri continued, “your people clear more land and one day they will want more land than there is in the valley.”

  “We have all the land we need,” Krona assured him.

  “For the moment, perhaps,” Magri replied. “And for the moment we have peace. But in time your farmers will want to take more, for each year your cattle and your sheep increase in number and you cut down more trees. It must be so,” he insisted. “And already,” he warned, “our young men are getting restless. If your people want more land, they will say that it is time to drive them from the valley; they have not forgotten the killings and this time they will be well prepared. Many will die.”

  “We can stop them,” Krona said. “You and I.”

  Magri shook his head.

  “We are growing old,” he replied. “In a few years we shall have gone; our advice will be forgotten.”

  Krona was silent. He knew that what Magri said was probably true, and it was the prospect of the peace being destroyed which he feared most. The old man’s words filled him with dismay.

  “What is it you propose?” he asked.

  “We must make sure that there is peace for many generations,” Magri said. “There is only one way,” he explained: “the peoples who live where the five rivers meet must become one people.”

  Krona stared at him. “How?”

  “You must become our leader. We place ourselves under your protection. Will you accept?”

  This surprising proposal was followed by absolute silence.

  “But our peoples have different ways,” Krona objected at last.

  “We must learn the ways of your people,” Magri replied.

  “Your gods . . .” Krona began.

  “We make sacrifices to the moon goddess who protects hunters,” Magri said. “But we see that the sun god is greater. We have seen his power,” he acknowledged truthfully. “We worship both, but the sun is greatest of the gods.”

  “And do your people agree to this thing?” Krona asked.

  “Yes. If you will protect the hunting grounds, they will call you their chief and give you gifts,” he replied. For even the more rebellious of the young hunters respected Krona’s word and acknowledged the fairness of his rough justice.

  Krona considered.

  “It is agreed,” he said finally. “From today, I will be Krona, the protector of the hunting grounds.”

  Magri rose and led the two girls forward. Krona now saw that they were just past puberty. Both had dark good looks, small, lithe figures and they stepped lightly over the ground.

  “Two of your young men need women,” he said. “Take these.”

  It was true that there were two young farmers without women at that moment. Krona looked at the two girls with admiration, and saw at once the wisdom of the old man’s gift.

  “They will have to learn your ways,” Magri said. “But you will teach them.”

  “We accept your gift,” Krona replied. And as the hunters rose to leave he knew that a new era had begun.

  The new arrangements worked well. In the years that followed, it was to Krona’s hill that both the farmers and the hunters came for the settlement of disputes, and he dispensed his rough justice impartially. He and Magri also insisted that all the hunters should attend the sacrifices to the sun god and so, twice a year, ten families of hunters led by Magri and Taku would enter the valley and make their way up to the little temple at the top of the hill where Krona and the medicine man would solemnly greet them. Then with the whole community of farmers on one side of the clearing, and the hunters on the other, the medicine man – who was pleased with this new extension of his authority – would make the sacrifices to the greatest of all the gods. After this all-important ceremony, there would be a feast and then, in the enclosure, Krona would call a council of the older men from both communities at which matters of weight could be discussed.

  It was at such a meeting, in the third year of Krona’s leadership, that an important decision was taken. For some time the flocks of sheep had grown at a healthy rate, providing excellent meat, and wool which the women spun and then wove into the cloth that the hunters had so much admired when they first came. But lately the quality of the wool had been poor and it was clear that a new strain was needed in the settlers’ flocks.

  “We need sheep with the finest wool, no matter what size,” one of the farmers said. “Cross-bred with the big ones we have . . .” he made a sign to indicate the excellence of the result.

  “But we can’t get them on the island,” another said. “We’ll have to make the crossing again,” he added reluctantly. Few of the settlers were anxious to brave the English Channel a second time in their fragile boats.

  Krona, however, was firm.

  “We’ll get more sheep and cattle,” he decided. “Improve the quality of all our livestock. We can get all we need from the farmers on the coast of the mainland. But we must go soon, while the summer weather lasts.”

  “What can we trade?” the first farmer asked. “Our pottery and our basketwork?”

  Krona considered briefly, then shook his head.

  “No,�
� he said, “we have something better.” And he turned to Magri and Taku. “We need skins, pelts, fur,” he said. “The farmers on the mainland will make a good exchange for those.”

  It was true: these items were greatly prized by the farmers on the north European coast, and the island was rich in all of them.

  “Taku shall arrange it,” Krona concluded.

  In the last few years, the lame hunter had become a remarkable trader, taking the big skin canoes up and down the five rivers and even along the coast in search of goods which he brought back to the settlement. Now it took him only a few days to amass an impressive cargo, enough to fill two of the biggest canoes. There were deer skins, fox furs, badger pelts and even some bison skins which had made their way down the island’s network of rivers from the north. These activities of Taku’s were the first beginning of what was to become a substantial island trade; and with justifiable pride Taku hobbled from one pile to another, pointing out the high quality of each pelt.

  “It is enough,” Krona said when he had inspected them. But if he thought that Taku was satisfied, he was mistaken; for now the lame hunter laid before the chief his most important request.

  “Let me go with them,” he asked, “with my son,” and he indicated the eldest of his sons, a young man who appeared to be a carbon copy of his father.

  Krona paused. Would he be useful?

  “We can paddle,” Taku added. Indeed the hunter and all his children had made themselves accomplished boatmen. But still Krona was not sure. He wondered if the settlers manning the boats would accept his presence. To his surprise, however, there was general support for the idea. The former criminal turned ubiquitous trader had become quite a popular figure, arriving unexpectedly at farmsteads, but always with some new item that he had found to please the farmer or his woman.

  “Very well,” Krona said. “Let him go with his son.”

  That night Taku addressed his children solemnly.