Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd Page A

and dried moss for kindling, he started the fire. As the sacrificial pyre began to burn, and to send its smoke into the cloudy sky over the valley, he moved solemnly from one person to another, carefully cutting a lock of hair from each; when he had obtained hair from everybody present, he threw it all into the flames, thus ensuring that the sun god knew that each of the settlers was equally associated with the sacrifice. As though in answer, the sun suddenly appeared from behind one of the clouds and for a few moments, the bare summit of the little hill was bathed in light.
    The settlement had been founded.
    The changes that took place in the coming months astonished the hunters, who watched from the ridges nearby. At once the settlers began to clear the slopes of trees by felling and burning, and the women began scraping the earth and planting their precious grain on the thin soil. Beside these little plots, the men used the felled timber to build stout houses, surrounding them with palisades of wattle. On the upper slopes, the children guarded the community’s precious flock of brown fleeced sheep, and watched to see that the cattle did not wander onto the growing corn. At night, the animals would be brought down to Krona’s farmstead, and though the wolves’ echoing cry was often heard from the nearby woods at night, Krona saw that the livestock was carefully guarded and none was lost. Incomprehensible as most of this activity was to them, the hunters were impressed, The settlers obviously meant business. Krona’s men meanwhile, under his instructions, made no attempt to meet the hunters. They went about their business and remained strictly in the valley.
    The settlers were pleased with their new home, and none more so than Krona himself. He enjoyed his young wife with her proud walk and her flashing eyes. He smiled to see his two little boys following behind her slim lightly-stepping figure as she went down the slope into the valley.
    He might be getting old, but Liam was fiercely proud of him; and now, in this new land, he could almost forget the pain of the family he had lost.
    In the first months, however, two incidents occurred which established the future relationship between the two communities.
    Just before the first snows came, the long-toed hunter Taku followed a handsome deer down the valley. The deer got away; Taku killed one of the precious calves and started to pull it up the slope under cover of the trees. It was a foolish thing to do; he was seen by one of the women and before he had reached the top of the slope he was caught. Three of the settlers, furious at this outrage, dragged the wiry little hunter down the valley to Krona’s farm, collecting others on the way so that it was a large group of half the settlers in the valley and their families who clustered in front of the farm on the hill.
    As Krona faced the angry little crowd, he considered the situation carefully. The trespass must be punished; and the killing of the all important calf merited death. But against this, he had also to think of the settlers’ relationship with the hunters. He stared at Taku thoughtfully, and then he looked at his long toes.
     
    KRONA : You have killed one of our animals. The penalty is death. Do you understand?
     
    Taku said nothing.
     
    KRONA : You should die. But instead, you shall take a message to your people to warn them. We have come in peace, but they must not touch our animals.
     
    He turned to the settlers, and cried:
    “His toes are too long!”
    Then he signalled to the medicine man, who at once stepped forward, and with a sharp flint knife cut off the last joint of Taku’s big toes. The hunter yelped with pain.
     
    KRONA : You will not run into the valley again.
     
    The settlers thought this a great joke, and Taku hobbled away. No hunter ever touched the animals in the valley again.
    The second incident occurred during the winter. It was particularly cold and long, and even the river had