Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘The traders talk with a system based on tens. Hundreds, thousands.’

  ‘Well, so do the common folk, mostly. I’m told the priests’ count of days has reached somewhere over five thousand years.’

  It was an incomprehensible number. ‘We’ve been counting the days that long?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But our history goes back even before that, and we plan for a future stretching far ahead, and our calendar accommodates that. Remember, we have eleven cycles. The first cycle is five fives of fives of-’

  ‘What language is the priest using?’

  ‘It is said to be the language spoken even before Prokyid, perhaps in the time of Ana, who built Etxelur.’

  ‘Ana is a little mother. So is Prokyid.’

  ‘Yes, but they were both human too. Gods made incarnate. Don’t you know any of this? You aren’t cut out for the House of the Wolf, are you? The priest is consigning your mother to the endless sleep of the little mothers. The Wall is built not just of rock and growstone but of the bones of all our ancestors, back to the days of Prokyid, even the mythical time of Ana, who defied the First Great Sea. All our ancestors sleep in the stone that defies the sea.

  ‘The priest is reminding your mother that the Wall is not still. As the sea wears the Wall away at its front, we build it up at the back. Thus the Wall itself is like a slow tide, that marches slowly back across the land. And Kuma is learning that the day will come when the alcove of stone in which she lies will be opened by the sea, and then she will have a new flesh of stone, and muscles of air, and she too will join the endless war against the sea…’

  Another mason came forward with his bucket of growstone. With a shining bronze spoon he began to ladle it into the hole, sealing in Kuma until her liberation by the sea, in the far future.

  Milaqa thought about Teel. She had lost her father when she was very small, and her uncles, Teel and Deri, loomed huge in her memories of her childhood, these brothers of her mother, then young men with faces like her own. While Deri had taken her sailing in his fishing boat, Teel had played elaborate games with her, testing her mind, making her think. Now that her mother was gone, she reflexively looked to Teel for guidance. Yet there had always been something opaque about Teel. She had grown up not quite knowing if she understood him, or if she could trust him. She wished Deri was here. Or better yet her mother.

  She whispered, ‘What assignment were you talking about?’

  He pressed something into her hand. In the uncertain light of the wall lamps, she saw it was the iron arrowhead.

  ‘Find out who killed your mother, and why.’

  7

  Qirum decided that a queen should not enter Troy by climbing through a generations-old hole in city walls smashed by marauding Greeks. No, she would enter by the gates, like royalty. So he walked her around the walls. He’d had Praxo cut the shackles on her ankles, but at Praxo’s dogged insistence they kept the ropes on her wrists. Kilushepa must have been exhausted; if so, she did not show it in her face, or her gait, and as she walked on doggedly she gazed around, imperiously curious. Praxo followed, silent and resentful.

  As they skirted the city, to their left was what remained of the wooden outer walls and the double-ditch earthworks, built to keep out war chariots, now clogged with twenty years of debris. To the right was the shore, a long, sandy beach, the lagoon beyond swampy and plagued by mosquitoes. Ships were pulled up on the strand, each the centre of an impromptu camp, and sailors, traders, wives, children and whores followed rough trails between the ships and the city. It was the sea that had always given Troy its commanding position; the city dominated the sea lanes between Anatolia and Greece, and controlled trade with the rich lands of Asia to the north.

  Qirum said to Kilushepa, ‘The currents are strong here. Takes some skill landing. The traffic is not what it was twenty-five years ago, before the Greeks sacked the place. But it is a valuable site for all that.’

  ‘Of course. The logic of land and sea is unchanged, no matter how much men may loot and burn. Troy will recover. And is this the gate?’

  It was a break in the wall, flanked by two imposing stone columns carved with the image of the god Appaliunas. The god-stones had survived the fires, but the gates and wooden curtain wall had not, and traffic flowed around the standing stones, rough carts drawn by oxen and horses, people on foot, a few on horseback. Within the walls the city stank of dung and piss and rot. Kilushepa stared around without comment, at rubble and shacks and half-collapsed walls. The Pergamos still rose up, dominating the lower city, a citadel within a city. Hattusa itself was laid out like this; it was the Anatolian fashion. But this citadel’s watchtowers were smashed and fallen, and you could see the ruins of the palace, and the temples and abandoned mansions that surrounded it.

  ‘Once this area was crowded with houses,’ Qirum said to Kilushepa. Oddly he felt as if he was apologising for his city. ‘Shops, traders’ posts, markets. There was a big slavers’ market just over there, and that big ruin was a granary. The houses crowded right up to the city walls. And there were tight little alleyways where you could barely see where you were going, and you’d always get lost. So they say.. ’

  As they stood there, children began to emerge from the rubble. Dust-covered, they were the same colour as the fallen houses. Kilushepa did not seem to see them, though they stood before her and plucked her robe. They came to her, Qirum saw, responding to her regal aspect, despite her own filthy clothes, and the dirt and blood on her face, and the bonds that still tied her wrists. Maybe she really was a queen.

  Qirum led Kilushepa to the broken-down house he had been sharing with Praxo. At least there were no whores hanging around looking for repeat business. He took her to the room he had been using, the one room that still had a roof on it. Kilushepa stood amid the debris as if she belonged to some other reality.

  ‘Sit.’ Qirum indicated the pallet on the floor.

  Elegantly she settled down. Some of the tension seemed to leave her body. The room was warm, the light that flooded through the doorway bright.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘I have been walking rather a long time. But my thirst is greater.’

  ‘Praxo. Water and wine. Go fetch some.’

  Praxo hovered in the doorway, huge, scowling. ‘No good will come of this, Qirum. Hump her, get it out of your system, and have done with it.’

  ‘Water!’

  Growling, Praxo went off.

  ‘He is jealous,’ Kilushepa said with a smile. ‘I notice that, among young men who fight side by side.’

  ‘Forget him,’ Qirum said.

  ‘Yes. Forget him. Here we are, the two of us, alone. Surely the gods have brought us together to serve their purposes. Let us tell each other who we are.’

  ‘You are really a Hatti queen?’

  ‘I was the senior wife of King Hattusili, who was the fifth of that name in our history. He in turn had taken the throne from his cousin Suppiluliama, the second of that name, who almost lost Hattusa at the height of the uprising.’

  ‘What uprising?’

  ‘The one we are still putting down. It is the famine, Qirum. Hungry people do not listen to princes or priests. They move to where they think the food is. They storm cities for their granaries. And then provinces and vassal territories rebel, and our neighbours make war and invade. Hattusa has always been surrounded by enemies, within and without. Some of our historians say it has been a wonder of diplomacy that we, my family, has managed to maintain the realm across five centuries… Of course we are not alone — even the Egyptians are suffering from the famine, and the Greeks’ petty kingdoms are falling like rotten fruit from a dead branch.

  ‘My husband Hattusili was able to take the throne from his cousin because he was able to promise a new source of food. We had been relying on grain from southern Anatolia and from Egypt, but the trade routes were precarious. And our access to our source of tin, too far to the east, was always uncertain. But my husband, as a young man, had travelled,
and he forged a trading link with an empire far to the west of here, called Northland.’ She said this word in a tongue with which Qirum was unfamiliar. ‘They send us tin from their own sources. And they send us food, great barrels of it, by the shipload. In return we send them wealth of various sorts. I think they see us as useful, because we help keep the pirates and raiders — people like you, Qirum — away from their ships, and ultimately their own lands and their allies.’

  ‘What kind of food? Grain, meat?’

  ‘Not that. Food made from the produce of plants we have no knowledge of. And they do not send us the seed stock so we cannot grow it ourselves. Northland is a strange country that nobody has ever been to and nobody knows anything about.’

  ‘And you were involved with this?’

  ‘I was senior wife of Hattusili the Fifth. I was involved in the negotiations with the Northlanders. But Hattusili died. Some say it was plague.’ Her face was blank. ‘He was succeeded by his nephew, Hattusili the Sixth, who is a callow boy much under the influence of another of his uncles. In our court, you may know, a queen who survives her husband has influence. I was Tawananna. I am Tawananna. I had priestly responsibilities, and was involved in diplomacy and affairs of state. It is our way.’

  ‘But Hattusili the Sixth-’

  ‘Or his uncle.’

  ‘Found you in the way.’

  ‘I was asked to help organise a major military expedition against the Arzawans, of western Anatolia, who as you know have always been a problem. But this was a ruse to get me out of Hattusa. Once I was alone with the King’s soldiers, away from the palace bodyguards, I was taken. Hands were laid on me.’ She paused. Qirum could imagine what had followed. ‘I was thrown among the population of a captured city. Those around me did not believe I was who I said I was. So I was brought here. And then I met you.’

  ‘And in me, you saw…’

  ‘A chance.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Ultimately, to return to Hattusa in triumph. To remove the fool Hattusili from the throne along with his obnoxious uncle, and to install my own son in his place — if my boy survives.’

  Qirum was astonished; in this saga of palace politics and betrayal this was the first time she had mentioned she had children.

  ‘And, incidentally, I will save the Hatti kingdom from drought and famine, and secure our future for all time, so that we may fulfil our service to the great Storm God Teshub.’ She was exhausted, he saw, barely able to sit up straight. Yet her words were strong and clear.

  He had to laugh, though. ‘Is that all? And how will you achieve that?’

  ‘By using my knowledge of Northland. My links with it. I will go there. We must acquire the seed stock behind their strange food. We cannot remain dependent on the goodwill of a country so far away. I have thought on this for a long time. It was a project I pursued before I was deposed, in fact. It remains a valid strategic goal. And with that treasure I will buy back my influence and position at court.’

  All this sounded impossible, a fantasy. He had only a hazy idea where Northland actually was; although he had travelled far compared to most, he could not even imagine such a journey. ‘The Northlanders won’t just give such a prize to you. Look at you — you’re in rags — you have no power to speak for the King in Hattusa. What could you possibly have to trade?’

  ‘In these turbulent times, they and their allies will receive the partnership and the protection of the mightiest empire the world has ever seen.’

  There was a guffaw from the doorway — Praxo, laden with sacks of water. ‘Trojan, you need to stop up that mouth of hers with your pork sword before she makes me piss my pants laughing.’ He threw down the sacks.

  Qirum set a sack before Kilushepa, and loosened the bonds at her wrists so she could drink.

  ‘I won’t tell you how much this water cost me,’ Praxo said, settling to the floor. ‘There’s a secret pipeline, you know. Laid down in previous generations by wise rulers, to keep the town watered during sieges. There’s a sort of cabal that knows where it is, and runs it. About the only place you can get clean water in Troy nowadays. I hope what you’ve got between your legs is worth it, oh queen.’

  She did not reply. She merely drank, steadily.

  Gently, Qirum took the sack away from her. ‘Take it easy. Your stomach needs to get used to being full. You’re expecting me to help you achieve this dream you speak of?’

  ‘As I said, I don’t have much choice.’ She turned that startlingly pale gaze on him again. ‘But perhaps the old gods favoured me. For I saw something in you, Qirum. Something you may not know is there yourself. A hunger. I think you will rise up from this squalor, the ruins of a devastated town…’

  Praxo swigged wine and laughed. ‘You’ve got it wrong, lady. If not for this squalor he wouldn’t exist at all.’

  ‘Be still, Praxo.’

  ‘No, it’s true. He was conceived on the very night Troy fell to the Greeks. I don’t suppose he told you that. His mother was a highborn, supposedly, but everybody in Troy these days says they are descended from highborns-’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘And his father was a Greek. It was a rape! A quick in-and-out, and the lad goes on his way for a bit more plunder and mayhem, and if he still lives he probably doesn’t even remember it. Just one more hole to plug, in a long line of holes.’ He gestured at Qirum. ‘And here’s the result. Neither Greek nor Trojan, unintended, wanted by nobody, dumped by his mother as soon as she could manage it, and left with nothing to sell but his little pink arse!’

  Qirum bunched his fist, longing to strike the man. But his anger was overwhelmed by a deep ache of humiliation.

  Kilushepa watched him steadily. ‘We will put this right, you and I"

  These words drew him in like a fish on a line. ‘How?’

  ‘By winning. In the morning we will start.’

  ‘And tonight?’

  She held out her arms. ‘If you untie me, and send away this oaf — and allow me to clean myself, to make myself as I once was — I will show you, as I promised, how I captivated a king.’

  Praxo laughed, and stood clumsily. ‘Well, you’ll find me at the whorehouse as usual. Enjoy the night, friend, for it’s all you’re going to get out of that old stick.’

  ‘Go!’

  Kilushepa held out her bound arms. Entranced, fearful, Qirum reached for his knife.

  8

  The men hauled the skin boat safely up the beach from the rushing surf.

  Tibo, exhausted by the rowing and the sun, got his father’s permission to take a break. Stiffly, unused to the land after so long at sea, he walked away from the boat, up to the softer sand above the waterline. It was morning still but the sun beat down from high in a cloudless sky, and his skin prickled with sweat and sand and salt, slick with the oily unguent the men had given him to keep from burning. He climbed a shallow dune and flung himself down, panting.

  He had crossed the mighty Western Ocean. He was far from home. He was fifteen years old.

  From here he could see more of the landscape of this distant continent, a bank of sandy hills, a forest like a wall, remote mountains. The forest was dense and mysterious, and he saw rustlings in the green — heard a cry like a distressed child. Soon he would have to penetrate that strangeness. To his left, to the south, he saw a stream of clear-looking fresh water, gushing down a gully in the open, sandy earth and to the sea. Beyond it he saw more such streams, and further out the ocean itself was discoloured. This, his father Deri had told him, was an estuary, the outflow of a tremendous river that drained the heart of this strange country.

  It was no accident the boat had landed here. Traders from Northland had been coming to this remote shore since time beyond memory, voyages recorded in graceful swirls and loops in the Archive in the Wall. With Deri’s detailed periplus and the knowledge and experience worn deep in the heads of the older sailors, they had made their way here without any difficulty, hopping down the long and convoluted c
oasts of these western continents, foraging and trading for provisions. But it was all extraordinary to Tibo, even though he had spent much of his young life travelling with his father between Northland and his father’s family home on Kirike’s Land, an island in the middle of the Western Ocean.

  Looking back, he saw the sailors were getting on with the chore of unloading the boat. They dumped out the oars and leather sail and mast, their packs of clothing, dried food, water sacks and fishing gear. Then they turned over the boat itself to allow it to dry out, exposing a hull of tanned ox-hide crusted with barnacles. Most of the men had stripped down to their loincloths. They looked like winter animals, bears perhaps, muscular and hairy, out of place on the hot sand of the beach. A cousin of Tibo’s father’s called Nago, comparatively skinny, of few words but a leader when the oars came out, ran down to the sea, pissed noisily, and hurled himself into the water.

  His father Deri walked up. He carried two light packs, and bronze swords in their scabbards. He sat on the dune crest, and handed his son a flask. ‘We’ll fill these up in the stream. You look thoughtful.’

  ‘Look at the lads on the beach. We’re a long way from home.’

  ‘I know it’s all strange,’ Deri murmured. ‘But we of Kirike’s Land are at home here, we know our way around. You’ll see.’

  Deri was not yet thirty. He wore his red hair long and tied back from his face; his skin was paler than his son’s and burned easily, but in the months of the journey it had weathered to a leathery texture, the creases around his eyes prominent where he had been squinting against the sun. He looked strong, at ease. Tibo couldn’t believe he would ever be so effortlessly confident. And yet Deri had been younger than Tibo was now when he had become a father.

  ‘So,’ Deri said. He held out one of the packs to Tibo. ‘You ready to go?’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘To find the Jaguar people, of course.’ He stood in a single, supple movement. ‘We’ll just follow the estuary inland, and into the green. You won’t believe their country until you see it. And there we will beg the services of their king’s sculptor.’