Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  Most trudged in silence. Qirum realised now that the crowd murmur he had heard came mostly from the soldiers. This tremendous column was actually quiet, for its numbers.

  Praxo nudged Qirum, for coming past them now was a group of young women — six or seven of them, no more than girls really, it was difficult to tell their ages under matted hair and caked dirt. They wore similar clothes, or the remains of them, tunics of pale linen edged with what looked like gold thread. Most walked with their heads down, as if they neither knew nor cared where they were. One had a kind of bag over her head, obscuring her face. A taller, perhaps older woman walked behind them, her long robe a shapeless rag, her face hidden by a dusty hood.

  ‘Come on,’ Praxo murmured to Qirum. ‘Let’s do some shopping.’

  ‘I doubt you’re going to find many fresh apples in that barrel, friend.’

  ‘They always keep some whole to get a better price from the slavers.’ He nudged Qirum’s back. ‘Go on. Pick a couple for us. You do the talking…’

  They fell in pace with the column. Qirum nodded in a friendly fashion to the nearest soldier, a tough-looking veteran of maybe thirty who walked with a slight limp. He regarded Qirum and Praxo with blank contempt, as all soldiers regarded those who were not soldiers. But his interest quickened when Praxo dug a pouch out of his sack and threw it to him.

  ‘Wine and water,’ Qirum said, trying his Mycenaean Greek. ‘Keep it.’ The soldier took the pouch but looked blank. You never knew with Hatti soldiers; their empire was a conglomerate of many peoples, of vassal kingdoms and dependencies like Troy itself, all ruled by the kings at Hattusa. Qirum switched to the language the Hatti used themselves, which they called Nesili, supposedly the language of their old kings. ‘Wine and water,’ he repeated.

  This time the man nodded grudgingly. One-handed, holding his spear, the soldier flipped out the stopper and took a deep draught. ‘Thanks.’ He held out the pouch.

  Qirum waved it away. ‘I told you, keep it.’

  The soldier shrugged and passed the pouch to the fellow behind him. One or two of the prisoners looked on longingly. The soldier looked Qirum up and down as they walked by the column. ‘What are you, a sailor? I can tell by the stink of salt under the woman’s perfume you’re wearing.’

  ‘We’re traders. A bit of this, a bit of that — you know. Who are this lot?’

  ‘Arzawans. Always a troublesome bunch. This action should keep them quiet for a while. We’ll sell some to the slavers from Egypt and Assyria. The rest are going to be used to rebuild some city up in the north.’

  That, Qirum knew, was the way of the Hattusa kings — to move whole captive populations around the country, to sell them on, or recruit them into the armies, or use them in the fields, or to repopulate empty cities or countries. The strategy of an empire always short of manpower.

  The soldier eyed Qirum. ‘As for you, I can guess what you’re sniffing around.’

  ‘Just one of these beauties in the robes,’ Praxo said in his own rough Hatti, and he licked his lips. ‘One for me and my buddy to share.’

  The soldier looked faintly disgusted. ‘Not this lot. Temple maidens. Or court servants. Something like that. Should fetch a high price.’

  Qirum grinned easily. ‘Your sergeant will get the profit, not you. You’ve come all this way, you’re at the gates of Troy itself, the city of traders. Why not make it worth your while? I know it’s against the rules. But look along the line.’ The soldier turned his head. All along the column the traders from Troy were doing bits of business with the soldiers. ‘Everybody’s at it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s going to miss one.’

  ‘These girls are special. They’ll have been counted.’

  ‘Then say she fell to a scorpion bite in the night. Oh, come on.’ Qirum dug into Praxo’s pouch and dug out a broken silver necklace. ‘Look at that. Egyptian. Made for the wife of a pharaoh.’ In fact, that was true. ‘You and your pal could have a fine night in Troy for that. Believe me, it’s not a pricey town.’

  The soldier’s comrade saw the necklace, and murmured something.

  The soldier laughed. ‘All right. Just get her out of here quick before the officers notice.’

  Qirum handed over the silver chain.

  The soldier reached back for the girl with the bag over her head, grabbed the bonds of thick rope that tied her wrists together, and pulled her away from the others. One of her companions called out. Maybe this was a sister, Qirum thought, or a friend, about to lose a companion she would never see again, but the soldier glared, and she shrank back. Praxo grabbed the girl’s bound wrists in one huge fist, and squeezed her rump with the other hand. The girl stumbled, instinctively trying to pull away. She turned her bagged head fitfully, this way and that.

  Qirum frowned. He had caught a whiff of corruption. ‘There’s something wrong.’ He had been sold sick slaves and whores before, or insane ones; you had to be careful.

  ‘Yes. There is something wrong with her.’ The voice, speaking Nesili, was commanding, clear — and a woman’s.

  Qirum turned. It was the older woman who had been walking behind the girls, her hands tied as theirs were. Now she shook back her hood to reveal a face of fine command, despite streaks of dirt and blood and a shaven scalp. Like an eagle, Qirum immediately thought. A downed eagle.

  The soldier who had spoken to Qirum strode over and aimed a punch at her.

  Qirum called impulsively, ‘No. Let her speak.’

  Praxo was holding the girl by her wrists at arm’s length. ‘What’s wrong with this one?’

  ‘See for yourself,’ the woman said. ‘Pull back that bag.’

  The soldiers looked at each other, and shrugged.

  Praxo pulled the bag from the girl’s head. Flies swarmed out, buzzing, and Praxo flinched, gagging.

  Qirum put his fingers under the girl’s chin and raised her face. Her eye sockets were pits of black corruption; he saw maggots squirm.

  ‘This is what we do,’ the older woman said.

  ‘ ‘‘We’’?’

  ‘She tried to escape. She flirted with the guard in the night. He loosened her bonds and she ran. Every night, some run — sometimes hundreds. Better the parched land than slavery, I suppose. Most are caught. They are punished like this — with blinding. It does not harm their capacity to walk, you see. Or to work, in some circumstances. In a mill, chained to a wheel. Or pulling an oar on a ship like yours, trader. Or a brothel. But it is a punishment that makes further escape impossible, and deters the rest, of course.’

  ‘You said, ‘‘we’’. What did you mean?’

  ‘Take me and I will tell you.’

  Now Qirum laughed. ‘A wizened old stick like you?’

  ‘I am thirty-two years old. Take me — buy me, not one of these girls.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘I am not like these others.’ She broke out of the line and pushed past the soldiers. The one negotiating with Qirum went to grab her, but she shook him off. She stood before Qirum, filthy, hands bound, head held high. ‘I am not Arzawan. I am Hatti. I am of the royal family, of the family of the first Great King Hattusili, who reigned five centuries ago having descended from the Annita kings before him.’

  Praxo snorted. ‘Everybody in Hattusa is related to a king.’

  She ignored him and kept her gaze on Qirum. Her eyes were an extraordinary pale brown, almost yellow. ‘My name is Kilushepa. I am Tawananna.’

  Praxo frowned. ‘What does that mean? Tawananna?’

  ‘Queen,’ Qirum said. His heart was pounding at this utterly unexpected turn of events. ‘It means queen.’

  ‘I was delivered into this bondage by my enemies. You can free me from it.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I have a plan. I will return to Hattusa. I will save it, with your help — and you will be rewarded.’

  Qirum felt he ought to be laughing at these grandiose claims from a woman in a queue of booty people. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Be
cause I see something in you, trader, sailor. Pirate, are you? Raider? Well, such are the times we live in. I see a spark. A potential. Something I can work with. And because-’ with an extraordinary flash of humour, ‘-I don’t have much choice, do I?’

  Praxo shook his head. ‘Even if this woman’s telling the truth, you’re a trader, brother. You’re not a king, or a kingmaker.’

  Qirum snarled, ‘You don’t know what I am, or could be. You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘You’re a street kid from the ruins of Troy!’

  ‘Shut up.’ He met the woman’s steady gaze.

  Bound as she was, helpless before the men who surrounded her, she seemed utterly fearless. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Qirum. I am Qirum.’

  ‘You have dreams, don’t you, Qirum? Dreams that burn you up at night — or nightmares-’

  ‘That’s the future. What can you promise me now?’

  She stepped closer, and he could smell the dust of the arid plain on her breath. ‘I was a queen. For a decade I entranced a king, until his enemies, and mine, struck him down. Tonight I will entrance you.’

  ‘No,’ Praxo called. ‘This isn’t good. This isn’t right. I can feel it. No good will come of you coupling with this witch. Qirum, there are any number of girls here, some of them tupped only once or twice, probably. Pick another. Not her!’

  But Qirum could not draw his gaze from her pale brown eyes, windows to the future.

  6

  Teel met Milaqa as she entered the Vestibule. He wore his ceremonial robe of leather stitched with owl feathers, and cap adorned with the beak and talons of the bird, the Other of his House, the Annids. The ground-length robe hid his excess bulk and made him look imposing rather than fat. ‘You’re late,’ he said. He wrinkled his nose. ‘And you smell of sweat. You’ve been running, I suppose. Well, you’re here now…’

  He led her to the stone table on which her mother’s remains lay, a jumble of bones under the bronze breastplate.

  The dignitaries solemnly gathered around, lit by lamps of whale oil that flickered in alcoves cut into walls rubbed smooth by generations of passage. All the great and ancient Houses were represented here. The Annids, of course, in their cloaks of owl feathers like Teel’s — all women save for Teel, for few men would pay the price of joining the Order of those who governed Northland. Then there were the priests with their mouths made grotesque by the teeth of their own Other, the Wolf, and the Beavers and the Voles, workers of Wall and land, and Jackdaws, the traders — even a few representatives of the lowly but essential House of the Beetle, who cleaned drains and dredged canals and shipped waste, resplendent today in their carapaces of polished black leather. Most exotic of all to Milaqa’s eyes were the Swallows, the wayfinders, the sailors and navigators and surveyors, men and women who mapped the world in their heads and knew the shape of it. Her own uncle Deri, Teel’s brother, was a Swallow, but today he was out on the ocean. Of all the Orders, Milaqa longed most of all to be a Swallow, to be standing there in one of those black shaped capes, so like graceful swallows’ wings. But her strength was languages, speech, not numbers and maps.

  None of these dignitaries would speak to her. Milaqa had a right to say goodbye to her mother, Kuma Annid of Annids. She had a right to be here. But she was not an Annid, and never would be, and so nobody gave Milaqa more than a passing glance.

  None save Voro. The young Jackdaw, tall and ungainly, approached her, shyness and self-doubt covering him like a shadow. ‘Hello, Milaqa.’

  ‘Voro.’ She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss.

  He almost crumpled, blushing. She tried not to laugh. This boy had had a crush on her, she knew, since they had both been younger than Jaro. He was easy to chase away. But today he stood his ground. ‘I’m sorry about your mother.’

  ‘Well, that’s why we’re all here.’

  ‘You know I was there. When she died in Albia.’

  ‘There was nothing you could do.’

  ‘Perhaps we could talk about it. I always thought-’

  ‘No.’ She felt impatient, irritated. Her mother’s interment was no time to be dealing with what sounded dangerously like it was going to be some kind of declaration of affection. She wheeled away, leaving him standing.

  Teel walked with her. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Nothing important.’

  ‘All right… There are some family here. There’s my father, your grandfather Medoc.’ A big man with a booming laugh, dressed in walrus fur. ‘Come all the way from Kirike’s Land to say goodbye to his daughter. You should talk to him.’

  ‘All these people, all this finery — all for my mother. It’s a shame she couldn’t have been here to see it. I heard what they said about her when she was alive.’

  ‘That’s a mark of greatness, the quality and number of your enemies.’

  ‘I have no enemies. I suppose I will never be great.’

  ‘But you must find your place. ‘‘Everyone in Etxelur is a hunter and a scholar.’’ You know that’s the rule, Milaqa. You know it’s your duty, you must find your place. And if you haven’t made your House choice by the appropriate Family Day, which I remind you is the spring equinox of your sixteenth year and will be here soon, the choice will be made for you.’

  He was right, of course. Northlanders were comparatively few, and their very land survived only through continued and dedicated maintenance. Everybody had to play a part. ‘You sound like my mother.’

  ‘Good. My sister was a great Annid of Annids.’

  A priest stepped forward now, murmuring a prayer to the little mothers, and the babble of conversation hushed. The priest scattered a salty incense over Kuma’s shrunken corpse. Then, gently, he lifted the damaged breastplate away from her chest, and handed it to a member of the House of the Owl. The plate would be passed on to the next Annid of Annids, when she (or, just possibly, he) was chosen. Now the priest reverently wrapped up Kuma’s bones in a cloth blanket and lifted her up. Milaqa saw her mother’s head loll, the fleshless jaw gaping. Carrying the corpse the priest made for the door. There he was met by a senior Annid, a severe older woman called Noli, and a procession began to form up behind them.

  ‘Walk with me,’ Teel murmured to Milaqa.

  The two of them took their places at the rear of the group of Annids, who in turn led the priests and the wayfinders and the others, with the humble Beetles bringing up the rear. Then, to the soft beat of a drum, they shuffled forward, along a candlelit passage that led deeper into the Wall. They turned corners, and soon the last of the daylight was excluded. The corridor was musty and dry. When Milaqa glanced back she noticed the Beavers looking around, sniffing the air for damp, instinctively checking the walls for crumbling and mould. One of them carried a pot in which liquid growstone sloshed.

  ‘We’re walking very slowly,’ she whispered to Teel. ‘I wish we could get this over with.’

  ‘Have you not been to one of these ceremonies before?’

  ‘Not since my father died, and I was very small then.’

  ‘Not even for the family?’

  ‘I always chose not to come. I suppose you’ll say that’s me running away from my responsibilities again.’

  ‘There are men and women younger than you who are already in their Houses of choice, training as wayfarers or builders — even as priests and Annids.’

  ‘I have no skill.’

  ‘Your languages are good. Everybody says that.’

  ‘I only learned them because of getting drunk with traders and sailors in the taverns in the Scambles, and nobody approves of that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how you learn. What matters is ability. With a skill like that you could become a Jackdaw.’

  She sniffed. ‘Like Voro? Haggling over tokens of clay? Travelling to mines in Albia, or stinking farms on the Continent? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Nevertheless you must do something. Actually I have an idea,’ Teel said. ‘Something that might help you decide.’


  ‘I’m wary of your ideas.’

  ‘You’re probably right to be. Call it an assignment.’

  ‘What assignment?’

  But he had no time to reply, for they had reached the Hall of Interment.

  In the weak glow of smoky lamps this long, shallow room extended out of sight to left and right. The wall opposite was a smooth growstone surface with small alcoves cut into it in rows. Milaqa was reminded of a sandy river bank, the burrows of sand martins above the water. All the alcoves nearby were open, those further away blocked off, their shapes clearly visible in the discolouring of the growstone. There was a soft breeze. Somehow air reached this place, feeding the lamps, and the people who quietly spread out into the room.

  The priest stepped forward, lifted the slight bundle in his arms, and slid it into an alcove at chest height. He chanted a series of numbers: ‘One. One. Five. Four. Four. Two. Four. Two. Three. Five. Two.’

  A mason, clad in a cloak of beaver fur, armed with a shaped chisel, stepped forward. Briskly he stamped the priest’s number into the wall below Kuma’s alcove, using the ancient concentric-circle number symbols of Etxelur. The priest began to chant, in a language so old it was unknown even to Milaqa.

  Teel murmured, ‘Do you remember this place from your father’s ceremony?’

  ‘I remember the holes in the wall. They scared me.’

  ‘Yes… The priest has recited the number of the day. Do you know about that? We began the counting from the very day Prokyid saved us from the Second Great Sea. Prokyid left us a system of cycles, based on the number five.’ He spread his hand in the gloom. ‘For five fingers. The last of the priest’s eleven numbers was two; we are in the second day of the current eleventh cycle of five days. The second last number was five. We are in the fifth element of the current tenth cycle of five fives, which is twenty-five days. The third last number was three. We are in the third-’