In 2000 B.C., a case of sibling rivalry among the sons of Hengall, the chief in a place called Ratharryn, gives rise to the building of a temple to a new deity, the sun god Slaol. The temple is an immense circle of stones that taxes the ingenuity and strength of several generations of Ratharryn men. The result, of course, is Stonehenge , which Cornwell recreates in this vivid novel, along with the imagined world in which it was constructed.