Stonehenge: 2000 B.C.

by Bernard Cornwell Narrated by George Guidall

Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, the tale of three brothers and of their rivalry that created the mysterious Stonehenge.
One summer's day, a dying stranger carrying great wealth in gold comes to the settlement of Ratharryn.
The three sons of Ratharryn's chief each perceive the great gift in a different way.
The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. Saban's love for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head. But it is also his skills that will build the vast temple, a place for the gods, certainly, but also a place that will confirm forever the supreme power of the tribe that built it.

Editorial Reviews

Times Literary Supplement

An epic story told with a master's skill, presenting powerful personalities, high dramas and terrific climaxes with colour and pace.

South Wales Echo

An ambitious, thrilling and imaginative yarn [about] the riddle of who built Britain's greatest historical monument.

Yorkshire Evening Post

[Bernard Cornwell] makes use of all his skill in creating memorable characters and historically authentic settings...Powerfully imagined and well-sustained.

Bookpage

A sweeping, dramatic epic ... a story of human greed and passion backlit by the construction of [Stonehenge].

New York Times Book Review

A fantastic story of intertribal rivalries, Machiavellian scheming...and fierce battles.

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

"Evocative and stirring," this "compelling" historical novel explores the possible origin of one of man's greatest mysteries: Stonehenge. Weaving "a tapestry rich in detail and characterization," though "a bit gruesome in parts," it centers on the relationships between three rival brothers, and details various religious and "deliciously primitive" coming-of-age rites, as well as sorcery and battle scenes of that era. "A potent tale of what might have been." " A great read that was tough to put down."

Library Journal

This new novel by Cornwell, author of the best-selling Sharpe series, is the epic tale of the construction of the famous megalithic temple. It is also the story of three quarrelsome brothers vying for leadership of their tribe: Lengar, the fierce warrior; Camaban, the maimed sorcerer-priest; and Saban, the compassionate hero. Each brother has a different idea of what is best for the people of Ratharryn, but it is Camaban's vision of a glorious temple to the sun god that fires their imagination. Saban must figure out how to build the enormous stone rings while protecting the people he loves from his brothers' obsessive behavior. Cornwell's work is rich in detail, but Stonehenge is slow paced and light on plot, while its characters seem one-dimensional. Suitable for public libraries where Cornwell is popular. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/00.]--Laurel Bliss Sterling Memorial Lib., New Haven, CT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Micheal Porter

Bernard Cornwell has written a diverting novel that imagines the history behind Stonehenge... The historical note that closes the book attests to Cornwell's concern with getting the details right, but his chief interest seems to lie in borrowing these details for a fantastic story of intertribal rivalries, Machiavellian scheming by rival sect leaders and fierce battles over talismans. In the end, the book is more likely to appeal to fans of J. R. R. Tolkien than of David Macaulay.
—New York Times Book Review

Kirkus Reviews

An acclaimed historical novelist (Sharpe's Triumph, 1999, etc.) casts a canny eye way, way back. It's 2000 b.c., and the old ways—and the old gods—seem somehow less controlling than they used to be. Even Hengall, the once tyrannical chief in Ratharryn, appears unusually vulnerable, and his oldest son, sensing this, is on the point of challenging his authority. Hengall has three sons: Camaban, whom he's ashamed of because he was born club-footed; Saban, whom he favors but who, at age 12, is a nonplayer, politically speaking, and Lengar, who is the tribe's great warrior and hunter. Obviously, then it's the latter who will have to be killed if Hengall's to stay alive. The power struggle mounts in intensity, complicated by the existence of nearby marauding bands in Cathalla and far-flung ones in Semennyn. And as men betray and murder each other, the wayward gods watch—ever in need of placating, usually by human sacrifice. Camaban, written off, startles all by becoming a first-class sorcerer-visionary and later point-man for a new religion, one that will award ascendancy to Slaol, the sun god, who in turn will end winter, eliminate death, and generate better behavior among humans. A new temple must be built in his honor, Camaban insists, the likes of which has never been seen before, a circle of magnificently massive stones and boulders—never mind that nothing of this description is indigenous to Ratharryn. Camaban has his way. Saban, the youngest of the brothers, grows old building a Slaol-worthy edifice; but when it's finished, the men are still up to their old tricks: betrayal, murder, the usual. Whatever the period, count on Cornwell to serve upthedetails on which verisimilitude thrives. Lots of that here, maybe more than required, but it's a sturdy story, too—an ancient sibling rivalry full of enough blood and thunder to hold anyone's interest.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171024772
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	05/27/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

The gods talk by signs. It may be a leaf falling in summer, the cry of a dying beast or the ripple of wind on calm water. It might be smoke lying close to the ground, a rift in the clouds or the flight of a bird.

But on that day the gods sent a storm. It was a great storm, a storm that would be remembered, though folk did not name the year by that storm. Instead they called it the Year the Stranger Came.

For a stranger came to Ratharryn on the day of the storm. It was a summer's day, the same day that Saban was almost murdered by his half-brother.

The gods were not talking that day. They were screaming.

Saban, like all children, went naked in summer. He was six years younger than his half-brother, Lengar, and, because he had not yet passed the trials of manhood, he bore no tribal scars or killing marks. But his time of trial was only a year away, and their father had instructed Lengar to take Saban into the forest and teach him where the stags could be found, where the wild boars lurked and where the wolves had their dens. Lengar had resented the duty and so, instead of teaching his brother, he dragged Saban through thickets of thorn so that the boy's sun-darkened skin was bleeding. "You'll never become a man," Lengar jeered.

Saban, sensibly, said nothing.

Lengar had been a man for five years and had the blue scars of the tribe on his chest and the marks of a hunter and a warrior on his arms. He carried a longbow made of yew, tipped with horn, strung with sinew and polished with pork fat. His tunic was of wolfskin and his long black hair was braided and tied with a strip of fox's fur. He was tall, had a narrowface and was reckoned one of the tribe's great hunters. His name meant Wolf Eyes, for his gaze had a yellowish tinge. He had been given another name at birth, but like many in the tribe he had taken a new name at manhood.

Saban was also tall and had long black hair. His name meant Favored One, and many in the tribe thought it apt for, even at a mere twelve summers, Saban promised to be handsome. He was strong and lithe, he worked hard and he smiled often. Lengar rarely smiled. "He has a cloud in his face," the women said of him, but not within his hearing, for Lengar was likely to be the tribe's next chief. Lengar and Saban were sons of Hengall, and Hengall was chief of the people of Ratharryn.

All that long day Lengar led Saban through the forest. They met no deer, no boars, no wolves, no aurochs and no bears. They just walked and in the afternoon they came to the edge of the high ground and saw that all the land to the west was shadowed by a mass of black cloud. Lightning flickered the dark cloud pale, twisted to the far forest and left the sky burned. Lengar squatted, one hand on his polished bow, and watched the approaching storm. He should have started for home, but he wanted to worry Saban and so he pretended he did not care about the storm god's threat.

It was while they watched the storm that the stranger came.

He rode a small dun horse that was white with sweat. His saddle was a folded woolen blanket and his reins were lines of woven nettle fiber, though he hardly needed them for he was wounded and seemed tired, letting the small horse pick its own way up the track which climbed the steep escarpment. The stranger's head was bowed and his heels hung almost to the ground. He wore a woolen cloak dyed blue and in his right hand was a bow while on his left shoulder there hung a leather quiver filled with arrows fledged with the feathers of seagulls and crows. His short beard was black, while the tribal marks scarred into his cheeks were gray.

Lengar hissed at Saban to stay silent, then tracked the strangereastward. Lengar had an arrow on his bowstring, but the stranger never once turned to see if he was being followed and Lengar was content to let the arrow rest on its string. Saban wondered if the horseman even lived, for he seemed like a dead man slumped inert on his horse's back.

The stranger was an Outlander. Even Saban knew that, for only the Outfolk rode the small shaggy horses and had gray scars on their faces. The Outfolk were enemy, yet still Lengar did not release his arrow. He just followed the horseman and Saban followed Lengar until at last the Outlander came to the edge of the trees where bracken grew. There the stranger stopped his horse and raised his head to stare across the gently rising land while Lengar and Saban crouched unseen behind him.

The stranger saw bracken and, beyond it, where the soil was thin above the underlying chalk, grassland. There were grave mounds dotted on the grassland's low crest. Pigs rooted in the bracken while white cattle grazed the pastureland. The sun still shone here. The stranger stayed a long while at the wood's edge, looking for enemies, but seeing none. Off to his north, a long way off, there were wheatfields fenced with thorn over which the first clouds, outriders of the storm, were chasing their shadows, but all ahead of him was sunlit. There was life ahead, darkness behind, and the small horse, unbidden, suddenly jolted into the bracken. The rider let it carry him.

The horse climbed the gentle slope to the grave mounds. Lengar and Saban waited until the stranger had disappeared over the skyline, then followed and, once at the crest, they crouched in a grave's ditch and saw that the rider had stopped beside the Old Temple.

A grumble of thunder sounded and another gust of wind flattened the grass where the cattle grazed. The stranger slid from his horse's back, crossed the overgrown ditch of the Old Temple and disappeared into the hazel shrub that grew so thick within the sacred circle. Saban guessed the man was seeking sanctuary.

But Lengar was behind the Outlander, and Lengar was not given to mercy.

The abandoned horse, frightened by the thunder and by the big cattle, trotted west toward the forest. Lengar waited until the horse had gone back into the trees, then rose from the ditch and ran toward the hazels where the stranger had gone...

Videos