32: Night
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in the middle morning the folk of the Sun hoisted the two up on to the leaning stone, The Old Woman, with strong thongs of bull’s hide. Isca they laid, leaning back, on the flatter face of the stone; Garroch hung, his arms dragged back in the motion of flying, as though he was about to plunge forward to the ground. His eyes were still closed and his thick hair hung down about his face. He looked like one in a deep sleep from which there was no waking, beyond pain now, a dead bird hung up to scare the other crows away.
For a while some of the golden-haired ones squatted or lolled about the stone, watching the two, commenting on the woman’s body, even scratching insulting symbols on the base of the monolith with lumps of chalk. Then when the sun grew in power and stood over
