Stonehenge 2000 B.C.
This month I’m looking at things way back, starting with historical fiction, making this weeks book Stonehenge 2000 B.C. by Bernard Cornwell. The accompanying cocktail is Stonehenge, it is 30ml Navy Strength Gin, 30ml Crabapple Juice, and 230ml Brown Ale. So lets do this.
The book opens at a pivotal moment in time, and one that is recognized as such by the tribal people around whom the story is built. Because they don’t have cities like we have, they live in small, palisaded settlements of the sort where everyone works, even the chief. And because they are tribal and atavistic, their priests and even the common people, see signs everywhere. They have to. They live close to nature, and nature is fucking terrifying.
This pivotal moment happens as Lengar, who is the oldest son of the Chief Hengall, has been tasked with teaching his younger brother Saban how to hunt and to survive the manhood trials, which Saban has not yet taken being 6 years younger than Lengar, who HAS. Lengar, it is quite obvious, HATES his younger brother, and resents being given this task. But he does it, and as they are out, they see an Outlander, someone not of their tribe, riding through. The Outlander eventually stumbles into one of their temples and it’s clear he’s already injured and he asks to see Sannas. Now, they don’t speak the same language, but Sannas is a well known sorceress not of their tribe, the Ratharynn’s, but of a nearby tribe, Cathallo’s. Lengar is terrified of her and his first inclination is to take the Outlander to his father. Let me clarify here….Cornwell does not call them The Ratharynn’s and the Cathallo’s. Those are what the towns are called. But saying Town of Ratharynn, Town of Cathallo…it’s gonna get bulky. There are other towns that I will refer to as Tribes for ease of this review, but in the book, they are towns.
However, the Outlander, shows the gold. It’s a lot of gold. Enough that Lengar realizes he could buy his own troops, and possibly take out the old man, jumpstarting his own career as Chief. Except that Saban has also seen the gold, and will surely tell Hengall. So Lengar shoots the Outlander, then turns toward Saban, who wisely runs like hell, screaming the whole way, back to the settlement. Where a showdown commences between Hengall who demands the gold, and Lengar who wants to keep it. Lengar gives in, but his resentment grows.
And that night, an immense storm tears through Ratharynn. And the head priest Hirac speaks with Hengall, and they decide that the gods are unhappy, and a sacrifice is needed. Hengall decides to kill two birds with one stone…not actual birds, but he has a middle son between Lengar and Saban, Camaban, who was born with a club foot, and Hengall tries to deny is even his. He chased Camaban out of the settlement to live as a forest outcast when Camaban’s mother died. So he decides Camaban should be the sacrifice, and Hirac agrees because hey…outcast or no, Camaban is the son of the chief, and should be a worthy sacrifice. So they round up Camaban from the forest, who had snagged a few of the gold lozenges while Lengar chased Saban, and used those to scare the bejeezus out of Hirac, who failed to complete the sacrifice, and died a few days later. All of this is seen as evil portents from the gods, and Camaban vanishes. He resurfaces in Cathallo, where he pays those pieces of gold to Sannas to teach him magic and fix his club foot, both of which she does. He still walks with a limp, but his foot is no longer bent and twisty. And then he leaves again, to parts unknown.
A few weeks later, a trading emissary from the Outlanders arrives, turns out they are Sarmenynns, and offers lots of good specifically for THAT gold, which had ben stolen from them, and is important to their sacred rites in worship of Erek, aka the Sun, which the Ratharynn’s and Cathallo’s know as Slaol. However, Hengall has a different plan, and declines their trade, pointing out that the gold came to them, it must be intended for their worship. The Sarmenynn’s leave, and a the Rathalynn’s head to Cathallo, where Hengall makes a purchase with the gold for some large stones, to erect a new temple to Slaol, and a marriage is agreed on between Derrewyn, the Cathallo chiefs daughter, and Saban, who is of the age to marry her after he passes his manhood trials. These become the first Stones of Stonehenge. Hengall thinks this will appease the gods and bring favor back to Ratharynn.
Lengar gets pissed, not understanding the need to build a new temple to Slaol and takes off in the night, leaving one of his henchmen Jegar behind. Hengall decides Jegar has acted wisely and so does not kill him for Lengar’s perfidy in leaving.
As the stones are delivered and built, Saban passes his trials, and it’s determined that his and Derrewyn’s marriage will be the first ceremony celebrated at the new temple. The day of the dedication, however, ends in bloodshed and misery, and Lengar returns, with his troops and troops from Sarmennyn. He has promised the return of Sarmennyn’s gold if they help him take the village from his father, and take Saban away as a slave. And Lengar claims Derrewyn as his own and passes her around to his favored troops.
So Saban is dragged off and once they’re pretty far away, his master Harragg frees him, says Camaban needed Saban to be out of Ratharynn. Camaban is seen as a sorcerer and quasi-holy man in Sarmennyn, and Saban is brought to this town, where there’s some conflict with the local priest, who eventually comes to see things Camaban’s way, mainly because their ritual sacrifice, wherein they have a specially chosen girl walk into a fire and self-immolate, fails. And this girl, Aurenna, is astoundingly beautiful, so much so that her parents raised her knowing she would be chosen to be a bride of Erek, so she grew up knowing she was special. But the sacrifice fails because of a massive rainstorm on the day of the sacrifice, the wood wouldn’t catch and burn, but she still tried to walk into the fire, so it was determined Erek had rejected her as a bride. So she marries Saban and they have two children, a boy and a girl.
And the temple stones from Sarmennyn are transported back to Ratharynn. See, to get the ritual gold back, Camaban, working with Lengar, said Sarmennyn had to sell them their temple stones AND take the village.
And Lengar agrees to build the temple, because Camaban tells him it will be to Slaol, who is ALSO now a war god. And Lengar has become an absolute tyrant. Derrewynn escaped his clutches, about three months pregnant, and killed the baby once it was born in order to work magic with the parts. She returned to Cathallo, where Sannas was murdered by Camaban, which they know because he was seen limping away. And she rallies Cathallo to wage brutal warfare against Ratharynn.
Several years later, all the stones that Sarmenynn is required to deliver to get their sacred gold back are delivered except for one, which was stolen the day before final delivery is made, and Saban is pretty sure Lengar arranged for the theft so that Lengar wouldn’t have to give the gold back. Saban is there for the final delivery, as are Aurenna and their two children, because Camaban believes it is necessary and Aurenna, as the moon goddess incarnate, agrees. Aurenna is pretty sure she’s still the bride of Erek and that Erek speaks to her in her dreams that her fate is with the new temple being built in Ratharynn. If you’re feeling bad for Saban married to batshit crazy….well, there’s more.
Lengar says he won’t deliver the gold because a stone is missing, UNLESS Saban hands Aurenna over to him as a new bride for Lengar. Aurenna agrees but swears Erek has told her it will be fine and she won’t be raped. And it IS fine, because Camaban shows up and kills Lengar, and becomes the new chief of Ratharynn, because everyone is sure Camaban’s great power as a sorcerer has marked him for chieftain.
Camaban knows they are going to need A LOT more people. And even more stones. The ones from Sarmennyn are not going to work for what Camaban is envisioning. However….Cathallo has the stones they need. And Cathallo despises Camaban as much as they hated Lengar, because they know Camaban killed Sannas. They don’t, however, hate Saban. Derrewynn maintains fondness for Saban not just from their engagement where they got to know each other quite well, but because several years before, when negotiating with other tribes to bring the stones through their land, Saban had killed Jegar and brought his head to Derrewyn as tribute and justice for the crimes done against her.
So Camaban sends Saban to try and negotiate for the stones and labor Camaban is going to need to build the temple he wants. And Derrewyn says only if you bring me the head of Camaban, he killed Sannas. So there is another war, and Cathallo loses, and Derrewyn is sent into hiding as an outcast in the forest. But the people of Cathallo remain loyal to her and feed her intel throughout the rest of the book.
Back in Ratharynn, Aurenna swears she’s been having dreams that the new temple will reunite Lahanna, aka the Moon, with Erek/Slaol the Sun, and as Lahanna incarnate on earth, she can’t give offense to Erek/Slaol by engaging in relations with Saban. And to make sure nothing happens, she’s gonna go live in Cathallo and be the priestess there. The people there are awed by her beauty, but still loyal to Derrewyn.
Saban, left behind in Ratharynn, is told by Camaban that it is his destiny to actually build the temple to Camaban’s specifications. And he does. Camaban keeps sending out raiders for more and more slaves to do the labor to build the temple, and all slaves are promised their freedom once the temple is built.
One day, while burying his uncle at the tribes cemetery, Saban spots a halfmoon inscription, which is Derrewynn’s signal she wants to speak with him. So after sending the rest of the funerary party home, he hangs out, and she brings him her handmaiden and her daughter. Derrewynn’s daughter is too young to survive an outcasts life in the forest, and she needs Saban to take Kilda, the handmaiden, and her daughter, who will be called Hanna, and protect them. So Saban does. And during a trip to Cathallo to obtain one of the largest stones, Kilda sneaks him to an overlook where a “ritual” is taking place, and shows him that Aurenna has been “practicing” to be the bride of Slaol with Slaol’s earthly representative Camaban.
When they’re leaving Cathallo, Saban is pretty much heartbroken, but relaxed because hey, if she can he can, so he starts boinking Kilda, his son approaches him and says I don’t want to be a priest, which is what mother wants. I want to come with you and pass the manhood trials. So he says sure, come along. Aurenna get’s pissed and in a highly memorable passage says “He can’t go with you!....How can he live with you? You have a slave woman in you’re bed! You keep a slave whore and her bastard!” This cheeky bitch is having sex with Saban’s BROTHER and is pissed he’s found someone else. Saban snaps back “But at least I don’t dress in a bull-dancer’s cloak to cover her! She is my whore, not Slaol’s whore!”
I mean…he’s righteously pissed, and he’s taken A LOT of shit from Aurenna over the years because of her visions and her faith in her dreams of Erek/Slaol. But he dumped the batshit crazy bitch. And that bitch, in a fit of malice and pique, tells Camaban that Hanna is Derrewynn’s daughter. Which Saban is forced to swear on his own daughter’s life that Hanna is NOT Derrewynn’s daughter. And now Saban HAS to finish the temple, or his daughters life will be forfeit, because the gods will kill her for his perfidy.
The climax is pretty awesome, and also terribly sad, there is a lot of death, but not necessarily whose death you would expect. Cornwell is a wonderful storyteller, and he builds this entire world, including theologies and peoples, around the building of Stonehenge. And around the building and the moving of the stones, which include very plausible methodology for how Stonehenge COULD have been built.
Now, for those of you who don’t read historical fiction, Bernard Cornwell is the guy who wrote the Richard Sharpe series, aka the only character bad ass enough to survive being played by Sean Bean. And his historical fiction tends to be well researched. The details he includes in the book, the Outlander at the beginning was killed with three arrows, there was a body found near Stonehenge that dates to about that time, that was found with three arrows in it. There was another body found nearby that was buried with goods Camaban carried and used in the book. Details like that. Now, having said that, Cornwell includes a historical note saying flat out this is clearly a work of fiction, no one knows what gods were worshipped 4000 years ago in Britain, before written records existed. And he points out that Druids also did not exist when Stonehenge was built, they didn’t come around until about 1500 years after the monument was erected. So who built Stonehenge? And why? These are the questions that Cornwell answers, fictionally of course, with Stonehenge, 2000 B.C.
