The Golden Strangers

Henry Treece

Description

This novel is set in the period in which Stonehenge was built. It tells the story of the invasion of the Southern country of Britain by the Golden Strangers, the men of the Sun from across the seas who come in search of fresh pastures. The invaders are turned back from the Village on the Hill, Craig Dun, by Garroch, the young Chieftain of the primitive and terror-ridden community.
But his triumph is short-lived, for he falls under the sensual spell of Isca, the golden-haired princess who rides with the invaders.
Set at a vital cross-roads in history, this is the story of a young Prince of the dawn world, his henchmen and his woman. It shows the triumph of the fair-haired nomads from the North.
The Golden Strangers  is a simple, direct and very moving story; and it is one that should be told, for it is the beginning of the story of Britain, of primitive Britain and the dark savage people who were conquered by THE GOLDEN STRANGERS.

Sujets

• Viking
• Fiction
• Romance
• Historical

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 09 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644058
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Golden Strangers
by Henry Treece

First published in 1956
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The Golden Strangers

by Henry Treece

Barley Dream
A t last the ice withdrew over the edge of the world andnow, wherever willow did not grow, the wide plainsswarmed with creatures, reindeer and buffalo, so that themasked Hunters forgot the thin days when they had dug deepin the ground for frozen roots and grubs. Now they had butto cast a spear to eat meat for a week.
Then as darkness fled and sun smiled warmly on the land,the rains began to fall. Trees planted themselves wherever theycould find a footing—birch and pine, oak and elm, hazel andindomitable alder.
So the hunting grounds became fewer, for the trees’ greatarmy had occupied the land, and at last men looked towardsthe sea for food, forgetting the sweet taste of deer and giant ox,grateful gleaners of salt shellfish now.
At length, majestic, sea roared down the tree-hung valley,and one golden morning an island stood separate, new-born,afraid with loneliness. Those who came now must cross inboats, must dare death in the valley, among the blackened oaks.
This was the way the dark folk came, the little ones whobrought the barley seeds.
The hungry hawk, poised high above the hills, at last lookeddown on a land that shaped itself into something it had notbeen before, an island that had made up its dark mind to live,in its fashion, to give home to men, to such men as werebrave enough to help in the remaking of a world.
And this hawk saw the roads these men trod for themselves,white snail-tracks, high above the dusky woods, running thelength of the land wherever ridges were; saw the great stonespointing, stark fingers to the sky, from hilltop to hilltop,guiding the dark ones down their spider’s webs; saw the brownvillages, clustered hives, grabbed in a hedge of thorn, whosefires must never be allowed to die; saw the strange barley-fields,set round with lumps of chalk.
Kaleidoscopic eye swept over hilltop corral where the short-hornedcattle lowed; swept down the slope to where a shepherdlad leaned with his back against an ancient tomb, dreaming ofbarley-cakes and honeyed milk, leaving his dogs to watchthe thin-legged flock.
The hawk’s keen eye followed the flax-field down, downpast the clustered bracken in the wood. There by a fallen oaka blind man lay, happy in sunlight, grunting to his herd.
The hawk’s red eye tasted the jostling swine, picked out thefarrowing sow who struggled from the crowd into thesheltering patch of willow herb, swollen with time.
“Now! Now!” the buzzard’s cold heart urged.
“Now! Now!” called beak and talons back.
The hawk’s stone eye saw feast below it laid, red meatamong the fern—and stooped to strike.
Then stone to stone, flint arrow-head struck deep, andplummet to the earth the buzzard fell, grey feathers scatteredcareless on the herd, among the squeaking new-born farrowlings.
Archer, smiling in his dark-eyed way, watched tired sowtake up the staring hawk, watched those gold eyes ringedround with blood’s bright hue, stare fearless down the glisteningdark maw.
So hawk was paid. He’d known the best, the worst.
The Archer watched the sow crunch up the bird. Morehawk than swine, regretting the quick loss of that dear arrow-head,he walked up to the village, wondering.
The land was born. Yet with its birth had come anotherthing that made men fear the force that gave them life.
‘A payment must be made,’ they said, ‘for nothing comes ofnothing.’
They said, ‘The bread we eat calls out for blood. Out ofthe belly of the earth it comes. Into that belly we must pourour blood if we would prosper. Nothing is given for nothing;barley asks for blood.’
So grew the Barley Dream, out of men’s fear; and so theEarth, as though anxious to please her new children, createdsigns for them to follow, granting their wayward heartspermission to shed blood in the furrows every year.
PART ONE Dark Folk
1: Strangers
T wo-fingers stood on the bare chalk hilltop, black as a stoneagainst the red sun. He was quite still. Even the clay beadson the thong round his neck had stopped clinking against eachother. He was listening, his thin dark face screwed up like anotter’s, his broad nostrils opening and shutting as though hemight find the scent he wanted, wanted and feared, if only hetried hard enough.
Then it came to him like a harsh slap in the face, and he knew.‘Hair! Hair!’ he said to himself, for in his village below thehill no man must ever name a wolf. That would be the quickestway to bring them howling round the stockade at night.
He reached down to his cowhide belt for the polished greenstoneaxe with his right hand. Then he remembered and draggedthe axe out with his left. His right hand was only a finger and athumb, barely healed yet, and they would not hold an axe. It hadhappened only recently, the adder-bite, when he was gatheringred berries, and did not see the coiling creature till it had bittenhim. He was not used to it yet, just a thumb and a finger.As he grasped the axe, he recalled the Old Man curing him ofthe bite. His arm was swollen and red in long streaks when theyfound him. The Old Man made them hold him down while hedid what had to be done with his keen black-flint knife. Two-fingersdid not remember it all. But he remembered someonescreaming, and then he was home again, in his mother’s houseunder the stockade. The Old Man made a paste with the threefingers and tied it to his swollen arm with strips of flax cloth.Two-fingers was able to walk and talk again when three moonshad come and gone. He was grateful to the Old Man. Thatmust have been strong magic. Now he must repay the OldMan and tell him quickly about Hair.
Below him the little sheep nibbled at the short wiry grass.They had smelled nothing. Nor had the two young dogs wholay beside them. Two-fingers was angry with the dogs for notsmelling Hair. He thought of hitting them, on their heads, justhard enough, with the axe, but then he remembered they werelittle more than puppies and did not know much as yet. TheOld Man had asked for their mother, the trained bitch, at thetime of fires, before snow-falling. She went into the big fire,with the other animals. There was a baby in the same fire; onefrom a young man’s house, too poor yet to own animals. Two-fingersthought how lucky that man was, not to lose a trainedsheepdog, as he had done. Yet the fire was a success, for thesnows came and went quickly, and the Old Man was right. Hehad guided his people through the dark-year once more andinto the light.
Two-fingers drew out a little bone whistle, carved with bullsand stags. It was very old—older than the People of the Hill.His father had found it deep in the dank moss of the oak forestthat swirled below the hill, about the river. Two-fingers onlyused it on special occasions like this, for he was afraid to wasteits magic by blowing through it too often. It was made by theearly folk, he knew, and they were powerful spirits. Now heblew it gently and the two dogs sprang silently into action, asthough wakened from sleep, jostling the puzzled sheep downthe hill.
Two-fingers followed, looking fearfully over his shoulderfrom time to time, lest Hair was behind him. He wonderedwhether to drive the sheep over the hill’s shoulder to the nextone, where the village had its great earthwork corral, protectedwith rampart and ditch. But perhaps there would not betime. He hurried on, turning his head away from the LongHouse that suddenly loomed out of the dusk, a fearsome hunchbackedthing. This was the place of long silence, where the mostimportant of the People of the Hill went, back into the womb ofEarth Mother, to lie in their rows, painted with bright redochre to represent the blood of birth. Its stone entrance seemed toyawn at him and he struck himself hard on the temple with theantler shaft of the axe, as a gesture to Earth Mother. She let himpass on safely down the hill, so he knew that she was not tooangry with him.
An owl started from a gorse bush and Two-fingers wasalmost sick with fright. At first he thought it was the man theyhad put at the bottom of the mine-shaft when they sank thenew cutting for flint. His bones were still there and each minertouched them when he climbed down the notched tree-trunkin the morning on his way to work. That ensured a good day inthe curving, treacherous galleries where the hard keen flintswere dug with the antler picks. Two-fingers barely rememberedthe man being put down there to bring luck, but he wasalways afraid of the place.
Then his quick steps brought him to the last slope before thestockade. In his haste he almost passed the great, leaning stone,which they called ‘The Old Woman’ because of the two lumpswhich stuck out from it. He shuddered to think what mighthappen if he ever did forget, and ran back to bruise his jawagainst the hard mossy surface before passing on. That was thelaw; all villagers must do that by night and by morning. Onlythe sick did not do it and they soon died, which was a proof ofits importance.
‘Forgive me, Mother,’ he said, and then ran after the littlesheep, who were already rubbing themselves against the oakenstockade.
He had expected everyone to be excited when he shouted‘Hair!’ as they swung the heavy gate wide for him to enter. Butthey only smiled in their dark slow way, and nodded as thoughit happened every day. Some of the women, the younger ones,even tapped their foreheads and then shrugged their shoulders.
Two-fingers felt hurt. One of the men he spoke to shared afield with him. They had worked together, b