Sarum Read online

  Once begun, this destructive process had a momentum of its own. The chalky soil was often exhausted by the corn and the land had to be left fallow. Then the farmers would turn sheep on to it to crop the stubble and manure the ground, while more woodland was cut down for sowing. As generations passed, the sheep increased rapidly in number, and the human population increased too, so that the process of land clearance was accelerated still further. The farmers proceeded with a ruthless destructive efficiency: experiments have shown that with their flint axes, three men could clear six hundred square yards of birchwood in three hours. And as the centuries passed and more settlers came, all over southern England, these neolithic farmers cleared the light forest cover from the chalkland soils which they could so easily till.

  The bare, sweeping chalk downs of southern England, familiar today, are not a natural feature of the landscape: they were created by prehistoric man.

  There was another feature of the settlement which intrigued the hunters.

  For in the third year, when the settlers’ precious little herd of cattle was beginning to grow, Krona ordered all the men to come to the hill at the foot of the valley, and there, under his direction, a short distance from the medicine man’s sacred circle, they stripped away the remaining trees and shrubs from the hilltop and laid out a rectangle, forty paces long and twenty wide, heaping around it a modest wall of earth. For this was to be the corral, in which the cattle would be protected and watched over at night. When this work was done, and Krona looked at the sturdy earthwork, and the plots of corn on the nearby slopes, his fierce face broke into a smile. Now the valley was starting to look like a proper settlement.

  So far, the relationship between the hunters and the settlers had developed as Krona had hoped it would. The two communities lived well apart, but when they met, there was little trouble, and soon the enclosure on Krona’s hill became a meeting place and the focus of sporadic but lively barter trade between them. To the enclosure the hunters would bring furs and flints, and occasionally a fine deer they had killed; and the settlers brought woven cloth and pottery. Before long both sides knew a few necessary words of the other’s language.

  The incident with Taku was forgotten. Since he could not hunt easily on his maimed feet, he became the most expert of fishermen, and soon he was allowed to take the farmers along the five rivers in the boats he admired so much, showing them the best places to fish.

  It was when the settlement was six years old that this precarious harmony was broken and an open warfare broke out that nearly destroyed the settlement. It was the medicine man’s fault.

  Twice a year, at the start of winter and at the time of harvest, the medicine man would paint his face chalk white and go down the valley to Krona’s hill. Waddling and wheezing, he would climb to the top of the little promontory and there, watched by the settlers, he would perform the sacrifice to the sun god. In winter, he asked for a good harvest. And after the harvest, the community gave thanks. On each occasion he would sacrifice an animal, usually a lamb.

  The hunters were afraid of the medicine man. They knew that he sacrificed to the sun god but not to the moon goddess —and like most hunters, they had more reverence for the moon. Besides this, there was something about the fat, smooth-headed man with the shifting eyes that made them distrustful of his power. They trusted Krona, but they avoided the medicine man whenever possible.

  His power in the valley, however, was considerable. If a child were sick, he would be summoned to cure it. When a new plot had been cleared, he would walk slowly round the bounds with the farmer, muttering an incantation. Whenever an animal was killed, a choice cut would be sent to the medicine man in payment for his services; he lived well and was second in influence only to Krona. And if, unlike Krona, he was not brave, he was cunning and ruthless to make up for it.

  In the sixth year, despite a fine spring and a warm early summer, there were heavy rains soon afterwards which continued non-stop for twenty days. The harvest was ruined.

  Although the community had enough stores to last them through the winter, the failure of the harvest was a serious blow. Such a disaster could only mean that the sun god was offended with them for some reason and to placate him and ensure a good crop the following year, the medicine man made a special sacrifice of four lambs that winter, repeating this costly gesture again in the spring.

  That summer was an anxious time, not only for the farmers, but for the medicine man as well: for his magic was being tested and all eyes were now upon him. The spring and early summer were fine, however, and with a renewed confidence he waddled round the farmhouses, inspecting the extra land that had been sown, and predicted a bumper harvest. But then, at midsummer, the rains came yet again, and for a second time the entire harvest was ruined. This year the settlers faced real hardship.

  If this second failure of the harvest brought the threat of hunger to the farmers, it brought an even greater threat to the medicine man. For it was clear to all the settlers that the sun god must be angry and that the sacrifices of the medicine man had not worked.

  “The sun god has turned his face away,” they acknowledged. “He does not speak to the medicine man; he has refused the sacrifices.”

  The medicine man had failed and as each day passed, there were signs of the settlers’ anger and his declining influence with them that he could not ignore. There were sullen murmurs about him in the homesteads. Women with sick children did not go to him and the men avoided his company. One day, at the cattle enclosure, he even saw a settler woman whose child had stumbled into some poison ivy, accept gratefully a herbal cure from one of the hunters. He had waddled forward to stop this, but the woman had taken the herbs and quickly left without looking at him.

  One day a small deputation arrived at the farm on the hill to see Krona.

  “The medicine man has brought two years of rain,” they complained. “He is displeasing the gods and we should drive him out.”

  After they had gone, Liam joined her voice with theirs.

  “He has failed,” she reminded him, “and besides, he is not to be trusted.”

  The ageing chief knew that his proud young wife resented the influence of the medicine man in the valley, and he understood the feelings of the settlers, but he was unwilling to do such a thing.

  “We shall not be hasty,” he decreed. “Speak to me of this no more.”

  But from that day, the medicine man noticed that whenever Krona saw him his weatherbeaten face took on a hard and angry stare that was frightening. Still more disturbing was the suggestion he overheard a young farmer make to some companions, none of whom disagreed with him:

  “I think the sun god has no power in this place,” he said. “Perhaps it belongs to the moon goddess the hunters worship and we should sacrifice to her instead.”

  When he heard this, he knew that he had not much time.

  It was at this critical moment, when the very future of the settlement in the valley seemed in doubt, that an event took place that was to give the medicine man his opportunity.

  Early one morning, near the end of summer, a single man walked slowly out of the woods to the east and entered the place where the five rivers met. He was very old – probably older than any other man living in the south of the island; he carried a staff to lean on and walked with a shuffle; and his sudden arrival caused a flurry of excitement amongst the hunters.

  They had not seen him for twelve years and his presence amongst them meant that there would be a great feast in his honour, when important matters such as the arrival of the settlers would be discussed, and his advice sought. For no man was more revered, and none wiser, than this old man, who might appear only once or twice in the lifetime of a hunter.

  He was the soothsayer.

  There were several soothsayers on the island at that time – strange figures who usually lived alone, travelling through the forests from one isolated camp to another; and wherever they went, the hunters welcomed them as honoured guests. They were
mysterious, disappearing into the forests sometimes for months at a time; they were wise, for they knew every secret of the forest, every root that cured sickness, and the habits of every animal. The soothsayer who approached was especially revered because he was known to have magical powers, and to be able to predict the movements of game and of the weather.

  “He is protected by the forest god,” Magri explained to one of the farmers. “And when the moon is full, he converses alone with the moon goddess and she tells him her secrets. We call him the Old Man of the Woods.”

  He was very old: over sixty at a time when few men lived to be fifty. His knowledge was indeed extraordinary: for with all the ancient lore of the natural world, he also carried in his head a vast store of knowledge concerning the hunters themselves. He knew the family histories of most of the settlements in the south of the island; he was a great teller of tales; he was in truth the keeper of the hunters’ culture.

  “He will tell many stories,” Magri told a farmer, “and then he will make a great sacrifice to the moon goddess, to give us good hunting.”

  It was when he heard of this visitor that the medicine man knew what he must do.

  A few nights later, a remarkable sight could be seen at the place where the five rivers met. On the riverbank, where the river made its lazy sweep to the south west, two large fires were burning. Over one of these, a wild horse was roasting and over the other, a deer. Between the fires, in a large circle, sat no less than fifteen families of the hunters who had come from miles around to hear the old man. The blue smoke rose into the late summer night. The hunters ate well; there was a constant murmur and occasional bursts of laughter from the festivities beside the crackling fires. It was many years since there had been such a large gathering, not since long before the settlers had come to their valley, and as they feasted on the meat, the fish and berries that the land had always given them, the hunters could almost forget that anything had changed.

  In the place of honour sat the soothsayer. He was a strange figure: none of the hunters had ever seen a human being so old. He had once been a man of average height, but age had shrunk him and now he was tiny. His body was like a little stunted tree, his bones and joints showing through like branches and knots in the wood. His hair was silver white and the long strands from his head and his beard brushed the ground where he sat. His skin was very clear, almost translucent, yet the surface was broken into tiny wrinkles, so many and so small that the eye could hardly pick them out. He sat very still, cross-legged, his long staff laid in front of him, and as he gazed at the faces round him his pale blue eyes seemed almost to look through those they rested upon. Although the hunters offered him every delicacy they knew, he ate little.

  They had told the soothsayer about the settlers and he had listened carefully, but had made no comment yet: that would be discussed at the conference the hunters would hold the following day. For the moment, the soothsayer would content himself with reminding his people about their past, as only he could. He sat with his hands folded in his lap until the moment should arrive.

  At last, when the feast was over, the hunters fell silent and it was then that the soothsayer began to speak. At first his voice was little more than a whisper, but in the hushed silence it cut through the night like a ray of light: and as he warmed to his theme, his voice, too, rose to a magical, tuneful chant that seemed to come from very far away.

  First he related tales of ancient hunting days: how their distant ancestors at Sarum had killed auroch, bison and boar in the region. Then he told stories of the gods. Then he described the land and its geography, and the other people he had seen in his travels round the island. The hunters were spellbound. The scent of woodsmoke and roasted meat hung heavily in the air. He told them about the lineage of their families, who had settled at Sarum, where they had come from and when they had come; their names and deeds lived in his memory and those sitting around him felt the wonder of knowing their own ancient history.

  Finally, he came to the oldest story of all, of how the island was formed, of the great wall of ice in the north, how the sun melted it and how the sea covered the great forest of the east. This was the ancient story that Hwll the hunter had composed over three thousand years before, and it had travelled all over the island during that time, with remarkably little alteration. The old man told it wonderfully in his singing voice, just as countless generations of soothsayers before had done; and the hunters were as lost in the story as he was. As the river made its faint sound nearby, and the fires rustled, the old man’s chant rang out clearly. The listeners could see it all: the great wall of ice, the frozen tundra, the angry sun god flying over the ice like a swan, and the mighty flood of waters that rushed south and engulfed the forest.

  Rhythmically, the old man chanted:

  They are all gone, under the sea,

  They are all gone, under the waters:

  The game and the birds,

  The foxes and the deer,

  And the oak and the elm.

  The way to the east is lost;

  And the sea is rising still.

  Now the old man’s voice sank to a whisper.

  But under the dark waters

  The forest is still alive.

  Stand on the shore and listen —

  You can hear the forest creatures;

  You can hear their voices crying in the waves.

  The attack came suddenly and without warning. As the old man reached the end of his tale, the silence was broken by a shout from outside the circle. The astonished hunters turned and saw that they were completely surrounded by fighting men who stood in the shadows, impassive but fully armed. Before they knew what was happening, they saw the medicine man detach himself from the shadows; with a surprising agility, he stepped quickly over the seated hunters and waddled to the centre of the circle. His face was painted white; around his eyes were circles of blood. He moved with purpose.

  Whatever the reason for this intrusion, there was nothing the hunters could do, since none of them was armed. There was a tense silence.

  The medicine man had prepared his ground carefully and he had moved with speed and cunning. Keeping his action secret from Krona, who he knew would not support him, he had hurried stealthily that afternoon from one farm to another at the north end of the valley with a simple and persuasive message: so persuasive that by dusk he had collected a force of fourteen young warriors eager to see action and convinced that their medicine man had discovered the cause of the bad harvests. At dusk, and before Krona had discovered what was taking place, the party slipped out of the valley in their boats and made towards the place where the rivers met.

  His plan was bold. If it worked, he would at a stroke recover his prestige, and make his position stronger than ever before.

  The conversation which now took place between the medicine man and Magri, who as the senior man spoke for the hunters, was to be remembered for generations.

  MEDICINE MAN: We come in peace.

  MAGRI: What do you want?

  MEDICINE MAN: (pointing to the soothsayer) Who is this man?

  MAGRI: The soothsayer.

  MEDICINE MAN: He is evil. We have come to punish him.

  MAGRI: He is a holy man.

  MEDICINE MAN: (excited) He is a devil! He lives in the forest and tells lies. He has secret meetings with the moon goddess and he tells you not to worship the sun god.

  MAGRI: (reasonably) But the moon goddess protects hunters.

  MEDICINE MAN: The sun god is greater. He makes the seasons and gives us good harvests. All other gods are less than him. But now he has turned his face from the valley. Twice he has destroyed our crops.

  MAGRI: The rain destroyed your crops.

  MEDICINE MAN: (pointing) He is the cause! He has taught the hunters evil magic! He tells you not to sacrifice to the sun god. The hunters must not listen to him any more. The sun god says that he must die.

  There was a gasp of stupefaction. The soothsayer did not move.


  “Evil!” screamed the medicine man, who had been working himself up to a pitch of rage. “Evil.”

  At this signal, while the circle of hunters was still stunned at what was taking place, two young warriors ran forward, seized the old man and dragged him away into the shadows. The hunters rose in fury, but the medicine man had anticipated them. With a speed that was remarkable for a man his size, he had already leaped out of the circle as the soothsayer was being taken, and the hunters now found themselves faced with twelve warriors with spears raised.

  “Those who do not worship the sun god must die,” the medicine man cried in exaltation. “Remember.” And within moments, the warriors had vanished into the darkness in their boats.

  When they reached the valley, the war party headed north, to a spot on the ridge above the medicine man’s house and there, watched by the warriors, the medicine man executed the soothsayer, who still had not spoken a word. He burned his head and his heart on a little fire and announced with confidence:

  “Next year, there will be a good harvest.”

  The outrage had been committed, and once done, there could be no turning back. The news of the killing, so quickly accomplished, reached Krona at dawn when a party of triumphant murderers came to his house with flickering torches to announce the great deed they had performed. When he heard it, the old warrior’s face grew dark with anger.