Read Online Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd - Free Book Online Page A

at it and his son showed promise of doing the same. It was not a form of hunting to be undertaken alone and Tep was anxious that he and his sons should not be excluded from ever joining in again.
    Hwll considered the request. He knew how bitter the blow was to the little hunter, but he did not want to restore him to the area.
    “You may camp here one month, every other year,” he decided finally. “Your sons may hunt if I send for them. But you may not visit our camp, and if you touch Akun again, I and the other hunters will kill you.”
    Tep had no doubt that Hwll could carry out this threat: he was respected by the other hunting families and, knowing the case, they would support him. He hung his head.
    “We shall speak of this no more,” Hwll concluded. “You can come for the bison in two years. I will send for you.”
    In this way the two men parted and Hwll prevented further bloodshed in the valley. Akun was angry that Tep had not been killed, but she had to accept Hwll’s wise decision.
    So began a new phase in the life of the wanderer and his little family. Hwll and his son now hunted alone in the valleys, except when the other families in the region joined them for the boar and bison hunts; and Tep returned to his life on the river as an outcast. Occasionally Akun would warn Hwll to expect trouble.
    “He or his sons will have to steal their women; they may kill for them,” she said, but Hwll was not concerned.
    “They will not dare attack any of the families in this region,” he replied, “for fear of revenge. If they do as you say, they will steal from far away, as Tep stole Ulla before.”
    In the second year after the incident, Tep reappeared with his family and camped by the river where he had lived before. His two sons, one a youth, the other a boy, were allowed by Hwll to accompany the other hunters when they tracked the bison, and at the kill received their share. Tep remained at his camp and kept out of sight. The family was subdued, conscious of their disgrace, and departed quietly at the appointed time.
    It was two years later that the problem of the outcast family was resolved, in an unexpected way.
    They had arrived in early spring, somewhat before the other hunters had gathered, and set up their camp as usual. As yet no bison had appeared, but already Hwll was busy tracking over the high ground, looking for signs of them.
    One morning he went out, taking with him Otter and Tep’s eldest son. He took a route almost due north across the wooded ridges but although he covered the ground swiftly, by midday they had found nothing. Accordingly, they cut across to the west a few miles and descended the valley to the river.
    “We’ll follow it down until we get back to camp,” Hwll announced. “Perhaps we’ll find something on the way.”
    The hunter and the two youths made their way carefully down river. The banks were wooded, but occasionally they came upon patches of marsh which they had to skirt, or upon clearings where lush grasses grew and where deer often came to drink and graze. The river was still in its spring spate and moved by swiftly and heavily on their right. For several hours they continued their slow journey, watching for signs; but neither down by the river, nor on the valley ridges above did they see any evidence of the bison.
    It was late afternoon, and the sun was already low over the ridge opposite when Hwll pulled up sharply and stared ahead in astonishment.
    Then he whispered a single word to himself:
    “Auroch.”
    Of all the animals on the island of Britain at that time, the most dangerous and the most highly prized by the hunters was the auroch. It was every hunter’s ambition to kill one but they were so rare that even to catch sight of the animal could be counted as good luck.
    Hwll had seen an auroch only once before, when he was a boy in the tundra; now only two hundred paces away stood a single beast grazing quietly by the river bank, in front of a small clump of