Stonehenge (Italian Edition)

by Bernard Cornwell, Lidia Perria

Overview

“Gli dei parlano per mezzo di segni: il cadere di una foglia in estate, il lamento di un animale in agonia o uno squarcio tra le nubi. Quel giorno gli dei mandarono una violenta tempesta, di quelle che restano impresse nella memoria; fu il giorno in cui a Ratharryn giunse lo Straniero. E con lui le losanghe d’oro. E con esse la fine della pace. Gli dei non si limitarono a parlare, quel giorno: gridarono.” È un giorno d’estate, quello in cui lo Straniero giunge a Ratharryn e viene ucciso nel Vecchio Tempio. Eppure non è la sua morte a cambiare la vita degli abitanti del villaggio, bensì la prodigiosa quantità di losanghe d’oro ritrovate accanto al suo corpo, in apparenza un dono del cielo, il tanto atteso segno di benevolenza del temibile Slaol, il dio del sole, la cui ira ha causato a Ratharryn indicibili sofferenze. E invece sarà proprio quella miracolosa, inaspettata ricchezza a provocare altre sciagure, scatenando un conflitto insanabile tra i figli del capo tribù. Per mezzo dell’oro, infatti, Lengar, il guerriero, intende spodestare il padre e ridurre in schiavitù i popoli vicini, e ciò a dispetto del fratello, il temutissimo mago Camaban, il quale non soltanto ha avuto la “ visione ” di un tempio imponente che inaugurerà un nuovo mondo di pace, ma ha anche previsto che sarà il fratello più giovane, Saban, “il Favorito ”, a portarne a termine la costruzione. Ma alla profezia che indica Saban come nuovo capo di Ratharryn non si possono piegare né Lengar né lo stesso Camaban, geloso dell’amore che lega Saban alle proprie spose, la potentissima maga Derrewyn e la splendida Aurenna. Eppure sarà proprio grazie alla determinazione di Saban che il tempio sarà costruito, diventando non solo un luogo caro agli dei, ma anche un’imperitura testimonianza di grandezza della tribù che l’ha concepito e edifìcato... Stonehenge: un nome che, lungo quaranta secoli di storia, è diventato sinonimo di mistero; un luogo che ha alimentato ogni sorta di ipotesi e leggende; ora, grazie a Bernard Cornwell, una saga appassionante intorno a uno dei monumenti più inquietanti (e proprio per questo più ricchi di fascino arcano) costruiti dall’uomo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788830438118
Publisher:	Longanesi
Publication date:	07/25/2013
Sold by:	GeMS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	501
File size:	3 MB
Language:	Italian

About the Author

BERNARD CORNWELL è nato a Londra e si è laureato alla London University. Dopo aver lavorato per anni alla BBC, si è dedicato alla narrativa e, oltre alla serie di romanzi avventurosi ottocenteschi incentrati sul personaggio di Sharpe (I fucilieri di Sharpe, La sfida della tigre, Assalto alla fortezza, L’eroe di Trafalgar, Sharpe all’attacco, Le aquile di Sharpe, L’oro di Sharpe, L’ultimo baluardo e La conquista di Parigi), ha scritto moderne avventure di mare (Scia di fuoco e Figlia della tempesta). Ha trovato la più fortunata delle sue ispirazioni nelle saghe di avventure medioevali. Dopo la trilogia di L’arciere del re, Il cavaliere nero e La spada e il calice, ha dato vita a un’appassionante epopea ambientata tra l’Inghilterra e i mari del Nord durante il primo Medioevo: L’ultimo re, Un cavaliere e il suo re, I re del Nord, Il filo della spada, Il signore della guerra, La morte dei re, Re senza Dio, Un trono in fiamme, La spada dei re e Il destino del guerriero. Presso Longanesi sono usciti anche L’arciere di Azincourt, L’ultima fortezza e L’eroe di Poitiers. Nel 2015, in occasione dell’anniversario della celebre battaglia, Longanesi ha pubblicato il saggio Waterloo. 

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 Right 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 screarming.

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 anarrow face 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 namemeant Favored One, and many in the tribe thought it apt for,even at a mere twelve summers, Saban promised to be hand-some. 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, forLengar was likely to be the tribe's next chief. Lengar and Sabanwere 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 stranger eastward. 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...

Editorial Reviews

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

Yorkshire Evening Post

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

South Wales Echo

An epic story told with a master's skill.

Times Literary Supplement

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

Bookpage

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

New York Times Book Review

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

New York Times

"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."

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

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.\

Library Journal

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

Micheal Porter

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.

Kirkus Reviews