Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  It was a relief when the Kanti farmstead came into view on the higher ground. At least the farm was an open sprawl, on a hillside above a river bank. Around a big central house, long and square-cornered, fields were roughly scratched in the earth, storage pits, animals in pens, and the usual dumps of ordure and waste. Other, smaller buildings were scattered around. The animals were cattle, stunted-looking creatures much smaller than the graceful aurochs Milaqa was used to in Northland, and sheep and goats, long-legged, hairy creatures, exotic imports from the east. People worked in the fields, mostly women and children, poking at the chalky soil with sticks and pulling up weeds. The farm as a whole was encircled by stones, each as high as Milaqa’s waist and spaced a few paces apart.

  And all of this was surrounded by the endless forest of southern Albia, the tremendous oaks with their long straight trunks. Milaqa could see there had been burning at the forest edge, where huge fallen trunks lay blackened and scorched, and bright new growths of saplings and hazel pushed into the light. The farm looked poor to Milaqa, the ground desiccated and weed-choked. Maybe the drought that was famously afflicting the Continent was breathing on Albia too — and, indeed, she knew that a number of nestspills from Albia had come to Northland in their distress.

  The folk in the fields were distracted by the new arrivals, and stood and stared as they walked up towards the big house. One woman stood apart, at the head of the rough track by the house. Tall, slim, dressed in a robe of some ornate cloth, her hair close-cropped, she looked utterly out of place in this scrubby farm. A handful of men stood behind her, dressed like well-off Hatti, as Milaqa recognised. They all stood silent. You could see they were utterly dominated by the woman.

  And Bren was suddenly excited. ‘It is her. Her! Queen Kilushepa! The last time I saw her was at a feast in the heart of Hattusa itself — years ago, oh, a world away. And here she is, the Tawananna herself standing in this grubby Albian farmstead! I never thought I’d live to see the day…’ He hurried towards her.

  A couple of the farmers approached now, a man and woman. Handsome, not tall, their hands grimy with farm dirt, they spoke in their own strangulated Kanti tongue. The man ostentatiously displayed a bronze dagger at his waist, probably his most precious treasure.

  Bren just brushed past them to get to the regal woman. He switched to the Hatti tongue. ‘Tawananna. When the runners told me you were here I could not believe it. It is an honour to be in your presence once again.’ He bowed before the woman. A man of position in Etxelur fawning over this representative from a distant empire — before cattle-folk, as a Northlander would say. Milaqa was faintly disgusted.

  The woman looked down at him. ‘Oh, get up, man, there’s no need for that.’ Her Nesili was richly accented and fluent. Milaqa, who had been studying the Hatti tongue since becoming attached to this expedition, had trouble following it. But it was just another farmers’ tongue, like Greek; they all sounded the same to outsiders. ‘I’m pleased the runners got through, to inform you of my approach. But evidently they did not give you the full story. I am no longer Tawananna — not, at least, in the eyes of the man who usurped me, and who now occupies the throne of the Hatti.’ who had been studying the Hatti tongue since becoming attached to this expedition, had trouble following it. But it was just another farmers’ tongue, like Greek; they all sounded the same to outsiders. ‘I’m pleased the runners got through, to inform you of my approach. But evidently they did not give you the full story. I am no longer Tawananna — not, at least, in the eyes of the man who usurped me, and who now occupies the throne of the Hatti.’

  Bren stood straight and stared at her, evidently shocked, and yet Milaqa saw calculation in his narrow face. If she’d learned one thing about Bren, who was in some ways typical of the clan of traders he led, it was that he was constantly looking for advantage in the endlessly fluid world of human affairs. And in this sudden revelation he saw opportunities and threats. He said carefully, ‘Then much has changed since we last met.’

  ‘Oh, it has indeed,’ she said drily. She glanced at Milaqa and Voro, and the other junior traders.

  Bren hastily introduced the youngsters. ‘Voro is one of our less foolish young Jackdaws. I have instructed him to make it his special task to ensure that all your needs are met during your time in Northland. Milaqa here is no trader. However, she is the daughter of our late Annid of Annids, and she has some skill with languages.’

  Kilushepa turned to Milaqa, her interest briefly engaged. She must once have been very beautiful, Milaqa thought, looking up at this tall, slender woman. She had fine high cheekbones, a strong nose, a firm chin, a full mouth. But there were lines around her mouth and eyes, small scars on her forehead, and her skin looked taut, weather-beaten. And her pale gold-brown eyes were eerie. Without pity. It was like being eyed by some huge bird of prey. Milaqa suppressed a shudder.

  ‘I never met your mother,’ Kilushepa said now. ‘She was called Kuma, was she not?’

  Milaqa said carefully, ‘It’s an honour for me to meet you now.’

  ‘We did correspond, however. Myself and your mother. A correspondence which is now stored away in some archive in Hattusa. We did not always agree. Indeed I thought of your mother as an opponent. Yet our correspondence was always courteous and constructive. I suppose one can’t ask for more than that.’ Kilushepa straightened up, pressing a slim hand to her back. ‘Oh, will you walk with me, trader? Standing for any length of time makes me sore, yet I cannot bear to sit for long in the hovels of these people.’

  ‘We are at your disposal,’ Bren said hastily.

  ‘Even though,’ Voro muttered to Milaqa, ‘ we just walked most of the way from Etxelur.’

  They fell in beside Kilushepa as she began a slow march around the edge of the fields. The other Hatti followed, and the two farmers trailed after, ignored by all concerned on their own land. Milaqa heard the other Hatti murmuring, when they thought that Kilushepa could not hear, and that the others could not understand. They complained how they had not come here to support this Kilushepa, but for very different reasons, now utterly ignored. It was just as Teel had predicted; as a mere interpreter she was invisible to them, and they spoke freely despite her presence.

  ‘The Trojan and I are staying in that hut on the left,’ Kilushepa said, pointing. ‘With the rest of the party, who were sent from Hattusa. Not that they matter. There is room for you, trader. Sooner a hut like that than to stay in the big hall, which these people share with their cattle in the winter, imagine that! I mean, look at this place. They don’t even use bronze to blade their hoes!’

  Bren said gently, ‘Bronze is expensive. And flint, as you can see,’ he said, kicking the dirt, ‘is plentiful in this country. You only have to dig it up.’

  ‘But they don’t plough the fields properly, they don’t mark the land — it seems to me they only spend half their time at the proper work of farming, and the rest drifting off into the forest to chase deer. And that,’ she said, pointing a finger at Bren’s chest, ‘is your fault, Northlander. It has been this way ever since the Trojan and I reached the hinterland of your country. If not for you, this would be sensible farming country, just like the civilised world of the east.’

  ‘Of course we think of ourselves as civilised, in our way.’

  ‘I suppose you do. So tell me of the new Annid of Annids, who must have been selected by now?’

  ‘Oh, yes. A fine candidate. In fact a protege of mine, from the House of Jackdaws. She met with some controversy, but so does every Annid selection.’

  ‘And do you think she will be easy to work with?’

  ‘Unlike my mother?’ Milaqa snapped.

  Kilushepa glanced back at her with a humourless smile. ‘Feisty one, isn’t she?’

  ‘Not necessarily a bad trait in the young,’ Bren said.

  ‘As long as it’s beaten out of them before they are grown.’

  ‘Your mother and the Tawananna did have their differences, Milaqa,’ the Jackdaw said. ‘Kuma wan
ted only what was best for Northland, as she saw it. But our two countries have been closely linked for so long — our destinies are intertwined — I don’t think your mother saw that. And I don’t think she saw the greatness of the Tawananna here, who, working behind the throne of Hattusa, kept an empire intact in a time of famine and drought. Planning military interventions. Restoring irrigation and water storage systems. Ensuring flows of food into the desiccated heartland-’

  ‘And the last is where I relied on our traditional links with Northland,’ Kilushepa said. ‘And the miraculous foods you ship to us in such massive loads. If not for that, yes, I believe the Hatti empire would have collapsed by now. Even Hattusa itself burned and abandoned, perhaps.’

  Milaqa said, ‘If Northland’s foods were so valuable to you, why the differences with my mother?’

  ‘I didn’t just want shipments of mash. I wanted the secret of that food, the seed stock, for which I was prepared to pay a very high price. Hattusa and Etxelur are close allies; I could see no reason why a sharing of such resources should weaken the bond between us rather than strengthen it. Yet the partnership I offered was rejected by the Annid of Annids…’

  Milaqa studied Bren as she described this. Was this Bren’s plan too, this heady scheme, this integration of Hattusa and Etxelur? Was this the reason her mother had had to die? And was this why Hatti iron had been used to kill her mother — did Bren somehow think it was appropriate, or just? And who was Bren to discuss such issues with the representative of a foreign power?

  They came to the stone circle that surrounded the village. Kilushepa sneered. ‘Oh, look at this wretched effort. It would be dwarfed by some of the tremendous structures we have seen in Gaira! And I am told some in Ibera are even more dramatic.’ She led them to walk within the circle. ‘In any event my failure to make headway with this child’s mother surely contributed to my fall.’

  ‘Which was a disaster for the Hatti, and for the whole world,’ Bren said soothingly. ‘But a disaster I hope we can put right, in the days and weeks to come.’

  ‘That,’ said Kilushepa firmly, ‘is what we must discuss.’

  18

  When the conversation began to break up, Milaqa made for the hut Kilushepa said had been given over to their use. Maybe she could clean up in there, have something to eat and drink. Such was her mood of impotent fury at Bren and his lethal scheming, just to get out of sight of people for a while would be a good thing.

  But as she approached the hut she heard a belch erupting from it, thunderous, liquid, drawn out, delivered with relish.

  A man came strutting out of the house. Aged perhaps mid-twenties, he wore a tunic of grey wool that just reached his knees, leather leggings, strapped-on sandals, a scabbard with a bronze sword on his back, and a breastplate he laced about his body as he emerged into the light. He was shorter than she was, muscular. His head was bare, his dark hair cropped short and tousled, and his face was smoothly shaven. Even from a distance he smelled of spices, of perfumes she couldn’t identify, and of ale.

  When he saw Milaqa his hand was on the hilt of the sword in an instant. He was a man used to sudden threats, she saw, a warrior. She took care not to move a muscle, showing her hands were empty.

  He grinned, dropped his hands to his sides, and said something in what sounded like poor Greek.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she replied in Hatti. ‘And by the way, you stink of ale.’

  ‘Oh, you speak the tongue of the longhairs, do you?’ he said, reverting to that tongue. ‘Passably well, too.’

  ‘It’s what I study. Languages.’

  ‘Really? You study?’ He looked her up and down. ‘A girl like you doesn’t need to be studying anything at all. Except maybe how to twist her hips.’ And he gave his own pelvis an obscene wiggle. His arms were bare, heavily muscled, and striped with small scars. He was stocky, but he moved with an animal grace — he was a slab of muscle, with not an ounce of fat on him.

  Revolted, appalled — fascinated — she snapped back, ‘Not too respectful, are you, to the daughter of an Annid? Well, you won’t get any hip-twists from me.’

  ‘Daughter of an Annid? So you’re a Northlander. The first I’ve met in fact. Explains the skinny frame, the complexion like water, the arrogant ways. As for stinking of ale…’ He raised a hand to his mouth, breathed, sniffed deeply. ‘It will wear off. Anyhow, what do you know about beer? Got a husband who likes a drop, have you?’ When she hesitated, his grin widened. ‘Oh. No husband. Well, that makes the situation more interesting. Like a drop yourself, do you? You want to join me? I’ve a cask in the back, barely touched. Kilushepa sips a little, leaves the rest to me. Not bad stuff — not made by these dirt-scratchers here, but bought from a village a couple of days away where they specialise.’

  She felt like jabbing at him. ‘Queen Kilushepa told us about you. Or at least, she let slip that you existed. She calls you “the Trojan”.’

  He grunted. ‘My name is Qirum. She has other names for me, when we’re alone in the dark, as we have been nightly, ever since I bought her.’

  She tried to understand the sudden swirl of emotions inside her. This repulsive man, this arrogant, dirty, hard-drinking bully of a soldier was the opposite of everything she respected. What did she care if such a woman as Kilushepa lay with such a man as this, or not?

  He was staring at her, as if he could see into her head, her heart. He took a bold step forward. ‘The daughter of an Annid — you know, I’ve never lain with a Northlander-’

  ‘And you’re not going to now.’

  ‘What, is it the drink you’re worried about? Think it will hinder my prowess?’ And he stepped back, performed a back-flip that left him standing on his feet, and drew his sword from the scabbard on his back and slashed at the air. His body had moved in one piece, as if carved from oak; the strength of his core muscles must be remarkable. ‘See? Not even sweating. Tell you what — fetch me some of the nettle tea the farmer women serve up, and come and join me in here. It’s warm and dark…’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She walked away.

  His laughter pursued her. ‘I’ll see you later, little girl, daughter of an Annid. See you later!’

  That evening the farmers built a tremendous bonfire at the heart of their village. Sheep were slaughtered for the roast, as was a boar trapped that day in the forest, and there were mounds of the coarse bread the farmers made from their grain. In return the visitors handed over gifts: bronze and amber from the Northlanders, and from Kilushepa’s party exotic artefacts of glass, copper, tin, even a creamy white substance that turned out to be from the tooth of some tremendous animal whose description Milaqa didn’t quite believe, and iron, ornaments and tools made of the precious stuff.

  It was a clear starry night. After the feasting, while Bren engaged Kilushepa in deep conversation, the Kanti farmers began a ritual of their own. They tracked around their circle of stones, trampling flat a kind of walkway as they did so. Every so often the elders lay on the ground and took sightings of stars along lines of the stones, sometimes right across the village space, while the children danced and sang.

  When she got the chance, Milaqa pulled Voro aside.

  ‘Bren speaks with Kilushepa of alliances between the Hatti and Northland. But he is not the Annid of Annids. He is not even of the House of the Owl. He does not speak for Northland!’

  ‘Yet his favoured candidate is now installed as Annid,’ Voro murmured back.

  ‘And I heard the other Hatti talking. If what they’re saying is true it’s an astonishing story. They are the embassy from Hattusa — not her! She found them, and just — well, she took over.’

  Voro smiled. ‘This is how the world works, I think. An ambitious Jackdaw, a disempowered queen, with knowledge and ability and cunning, in the right place and the right time — such people can change everything.’

  As long as obstacles like Milaqa’s mother were removed. ‘It’s not right. If my mother were alive-’

  ‘But she is not,’ Voro said
firmly. ‘Anyhow I thought you were the famous rebel, Milaqa. It’s hard to believe you’re demanding that things be done by the rules now!’ He was grinning at her. Mocking her. Voro, the puppy dog!

  Furious at him, at Bren and Kilushepa — furious at her mother for being dead — she stalked away and found a place to sit alone at the edge of the clearing, beside the tipped-up root of a great fallen tree.

  Of course it was the Trojan who found her first.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ He settled easily to the ground behind her. His lips shone with the grease of the meat he had eaten, and he carried a skin flask. ‘I brought you some of my ale. You want to try some?’

  ‘No.’ But now she felt graceless. She lifted a flask of her own. ‘I have this. Fruit, honey and water.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ He took a draught of his ale, and let out a satisfied belch. ‘We didn’t get off to the best of starts, did we? My fault, I admit it.’

  She fingered the iron arrowhead at her neck — a nervous gesture; she dropped her hand. ‘And this is your way of having another try at me, is it?’

  He laughed. ‘I’m not that subtle. Believe me — I’m really not. We’re going to be stuck with each other all the way across Northland. And besides, you’ve a choice of talking to me or that streak of gristle over there.’ He meant Voro, who was hovering by the fire, trying not to be seen to be watching them. ‘He’s no doubt a decent fellow. If you want me to clear off so you can call him over-’

  ‘No,’ she said impulsively.

  He laughed again and drank more ale. ‘Or of course you could talk to some of these farmers, if you know the tongue.’

  ‘They aren’t the savages Kilushepa believes them to be.’

  ‘Of course they’re not. Do you know what they call themselves? The People of Venus. The wandering star is their principal goddess. And the way these stones are lined up is something to do with how Venus drifts around the sky. Don’t ask me to explain. All this is locked up in the memories of their elders. They’re a deep people — as all people are.’