Stonehenge Read Online Free Page B

sinews so that her son could wear them all as necklaces, and she had sewn the four large gold pieces directly onto his deerskin jerkin over which he wore the stranger’s gold-buckled belt. A dozen young warriors, all of them Lengar’s close hunting companions, followed him while behind that spear-carrying band was a muddy group of excited children who waved sticks in imitation of the hunting spear in Lengar’s hand.
    Lengar ignored his father at first. Instead he paraded through the huts, past the two temples built within the great embankment, then up to the potters’ huts and tanners’ pits at the north of the enclosure. His followers clashed their spears together, and more and more folk gathered behind him so that eventually he led his excited procession in an intricate path that twisted between the rain-soakedthatch of the low round huts. Only after he had threaded the settlement twice did he turn toward his father.
    Hengall stood as his son approached. He had let Lengar have his time of glory, and now he stood and shrugged the bear cloak from his shoulders and threw it, fur down, into the mud at his feet. He wiped the mist’s moisture from his face with the ends of his big beard, then waited bare-chested so that all the folk in Ratharryn could see how thick the blue marks of dead enemies and slaughtered beasts clustered on his skin. He stood silent, the wind stirring his ragged black hair.
    Lengar stopped opposite his father. He was as tall as Hengall, but not so heavily muscled. In a fight he would probably prove the quicker man while Hengall would be the stronger, yet Hengall showed no fear of such a fight. Instead he yawned, then nodded at his eldest son. “You have brought me the stranger’s gold. That is good.” He gestured at the bear cloak that lay on the ground between them. “Put everything there, son,” he growled.
    Lengar stiffened. Most of the watching tribe thought he would fight, for his eyes bespoke a love of violence that verged on madness, but his father’s gaze was steady and Lengar chose to argue instead of striking with his spear. “If a man finds an antler in the woods,” he demanded, “must he give it to his father?” He spoke loudly enough for all the crowd to hear. The people of Ratharryn had clustered between the nearer huts, leaving a space for the confrontation, and some of them now called out their agreement with Lengar. “Or if I find the honey of the wild bees,” Lengar asked, emboldened by their support, “must I endure the stings, then yield the honey to my father?”
    “Yes,” Hengall said, then yawned again. “In the cloak, boy.”
    “A warrior comes to our land,” Lengar cried, “a stranger of the Outfolk, and he brings gold. I kill the stranger and take his gold. Is it not mine?” A few in the crowd shouted that the gold was indeed his, but not quite so many as had shouted before. Hengall’s bulk and air of unconcern was unsettling.
    The chief fished in a pouch that hung from his belt and took out the small lozenge that Saban had brought from the Old Temple. He dropped the scrap of gold onto the cloak. “Now put the rest there,” he said to Lengar.
    “The gold is mine!” Lengar insisted, and this time only Ralla, his mother, and Jegar, one of his closest friends, shouted their support. Jegar was a small and wiry man, the same age as Lengar, but already one of the tribe’s greatest warriors. He killed in battle with an abandon that was equal to Lengar’s own and he was avid for a fight now, but none of Lengar’s other hunting companions had the belly to confront Hengall. They were relying on Lengar to win the confrontation and it seemed he would do that by violence for he suddenly raised his spear, but instead of stabbing with the blade he held it high in the air to draw attention to his words. “I found the gold! I killed for the gold! The gold came to me! And is it now to be hidden in my father’s hut? Is it to gather dust there?” Those words