Bronze Summer n-2

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘No, they aren’t, by the Storm God’s left testicle. If it isn’t the poison it’s the sickness rising up from the soggy ground, and I have the priests chanting to Iyarri about that from morning to night. And then there are these wretched winter days of yours — if you can call them days at all!’ He gestured at the window. ‘Look — the light’s going already, and I’ve barely woken up. A man needs the sun, as does a field of wheat. We are men from countries of light and heat — decent places to live, not like this gloomy bog of yours.’

  ‘Then go back there.’

  ‘And then there’s the hunger. Our crops struggle to grow in these drowning fields. Some of your warriors and their Hatti scum allies have been mounting raids on the granaries. Takes a lot of courage, I’m sure, to sneak up on a grain of wheat. You know, I have people out there foraging. Like rooting pigs! They bring back mushrooms. Birds. Even crows, toppled from their nests! They dig up hibernating animals, dormice… Pah! Yet it is all we have.’

  You are hungry because you do not know how to live here, Milaqa thought. Northlanders live off the land; they can easily melt away into the country for a few days. While you Trojans and the Greeks, used to your great stone cities crowded with people and loot and food, are left baffled. You cannot see the riches all around you, even at this time of year, in the rivers, the seas. And evidently those you use as slaves will not tell you.

  She said sharply, ‘I thought you were feeding yourselves by raiding our communities. Like your raid on My Sun.’

  ‘Where? Oh, that was the first one, wasn’t it? Ah, yes — Hadhe, your cousin. That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?’ He called to a servant, and briskly ordered her to summon Hadhe. ‘What were we saying — My Sun?’

  ‘That was easy pickings for you. And my own family suffered.’

  He scowled, as if she was being unfair. ‘I saved Hadhe, didn’t I? And I didn’t wield every sword personally.’

  ‘Well, we’ve learned to fight back since then.’

  He grunted. ‘If you can call it fighting. You flood the ground — you cut your own roads, to stop us advancing. Sometimes when I attack a settlement, which is all but lost in the green in the first place, I find it empty! Abandoned! It is like fighting fog — like fighting the diseases that strike down my warriors. You won’t stand and fight like men!’

  Because we would lose if we did, Milaqa thought. That was the prevailing wisdom of the Annids and the Hatti who advised them. She leaned forward. ‘This is why I am here — Deri and I — as well as for Hadhe. To make you see sense, Qirum. Your great adventure has not worked. You cannot defeat Northland, it is too big and ancient for that. Even the Wall is too big for you. And besides, we are prepared now. But nor can we defeat you, for we are too few. So this stalemate goes on, with pointless cruelty and suffering on both sides. Let us end this now.’

  He laughed hollowly. ‘And then what? Shall I withdraw from Northland? My basileis would butcher me if I tried.’

  ‘Let’s just stop the fighting. That’s all the Annids want, for now.’

  ‘Ah, but I can’t, you see. There is a question of honour. And surely you know, little Milaqa, that all of this is only a step on the road to a greater goal.’

  ‘The day when you mould an army out of Northland clay, and march on Hattusa? This is all so you can get your revenge on Kilushepa, isn’t it?’

  He grinned, and drank more beer. ‘More or less. We are all driven by personal goals, Milaqa. What else is there in life? And my goal is to destroy that bitch, and the country that spawned her.’

  Yet there was more he did not know. ‘Qirum. I probably shouldn’t tell you this. Your plans against Kilushepa. She knows.’

  ‘Of course she does. She probably has spies in this very room.’ He glanced at his priests, who seemed to shiver slightly, no doubt hearing every word. ‘What of it?’

  ‘She is no fool. We have had a new embassy from Hattusa. Her position there is strong once more. She does not intend to let you become a significant threat. Not significant enough to damage her, in any case.’

  He sat up. ‘What does that mean? Is she coming herself?’

  ‘She is sending more troops. Soon there will be a Hatti force here strong enough to-’

  ‘ Is she coming herself? She is, isn’t she? Well, well. My showdown with the bitch queen might not be as remote as I have feared.’ His eyes were alight with passion; he no longer seemed drunk at all.

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘Your Annids will say you shouldn’t. But you and I know you have done the right thing, Milaqa, don’t we? You came here to bring forward the ending of this war. Well, I believe you have. Just not the way those dried-up old sticks on the Wall intended you to. Ha!’

  ‘Milaqa?’

  Hadhe stood in the doorway. Her hair was tied up, her skin looked oiled, and she wore an expensive-looking gown that did not conceal the swelling of her pregnancy, now eight months advanced.

  Milaqa ran forward, and the cousins embraced. ‘Your children are fine,’ Milaqa said quickly. ‘Keli and Blane. After My Sun, they both reached the safety of the Wall, and they live there still, with the family.’

  Hadhe was trembling. Milaqa imagined having to wait so many months for such brief, vital pieces of news. ‘Thank you. And Jaro-’

  ‘There was no sign of him. He may have died in the fighting. The bodies were burned, we could not tell. And Hesh — lost too.’

  She nodded. ‘But Hesh lives on through his unborn child. I will mourn them later. Thank you, Milaqa.’

  Qirum was pacing now. ‘How touching. Say what you have to say to each other and get out. I have much thinking to do. You, guard — send for the basileis.’

  Hadhe murmured in the Etxelur tongue, ‘I haven’t seen him as animated as this since winter closed in.’

  ‘I gave him some news — I fear I have made a terrible mistake.’

  Hadhe shook her head. ‘Nothing we do or say is right or wrong in the presence of such men as this; all we can do is survive.’ Under the expensive facial oils she looked old, Milaqa thought, old and worn out, and there was something elusive in her eyes. She was not yet eighteen years old. ‘Things could have been worse for me, in My Sun, on that terrible day. I was lucky, comparatively. Your poor aunt Vala-’

  ‘I know. They found her body in the ruins of the mound house.’

  ‘She survived the fire mountain, but she could not survive the Trojans. I survived. I did not deserve to, for I had argued against defending ourselves against the Trojans. I could not believe it was true, that it could ever happen. If I had not, perhaps we would have been better prepared.’

  ‘I have some sway over Qirum. In some ways he’s so like a child, you know. Maybe I can persuade him to let you go. Deri is here. We could get you home.’

  Hadhe patted her bump. ‘No. I cannot travel — not now. As I said, I am surviving here. More than that. I am trying to be a wife to Qirum. A companion at least. I think he needs that.’

  That baffled Milaqa. It didn’t sound like Hadhe at all. What was going on in her mind?

  But there was no time to discuss it further, for the generals were arriving for their council, and Qirum was impatient for them to be gone. After a hasty goodbye to Hadhe, Milaqa was hurried out of the palace.

  It was only later, when Erishum and his guards had escorted Deri and Milaqa far from New Troy and set them walking north again, that Milaqa discovered that the bronze dagger she kept at her waist had gone.

  Qirum’s response to Milaqa’s mission came a month later. The Trojan army left their city and marched on the Wall.

  The bulk of Qirum’s army followed the great central track of the Etxelur Way. As they advanced, Northlanders fled or hid.

  Qirum established his main camp just off Etxelur Way on the south bank of the Milk River, an easy march from the Wall’s central District of Great Etxelur. Even as he dug in, he began a cycle of patrols and raids far along the face of the Wall to east and west, cutting tracks and sm
ashing dykes and weirs, seeking to cut off Etxelur from the country that sustained it. For their part the Annids ordered the digging of great ramparts and ditches before the line of the Wall. As the weather eased the fishing fleets went out; the oceans would provision the Wall even if the country could not.

  So the siege was set. Both sides dug in, and on both sides the dying continued.

  55

  The Third Year After the Fire Mountain: Late Spring.

  After midnight the party came out to repair the Words on the Wall. It was pitch dark, under a sky choked with cloud.

  Tibo stood with his father at the balcony, in a gentle, cold rain. They were high on the Wall here, high over Old Etxelur. The night was cold, and the day under a sunless sky hadn’t been much warmer. Looking down, Tibo saw that the latest bonfires the Trojans had built at the base of the Wall had died back, thanks to the heavy rain earlier in the day; only a sullen red glow came from the huge heapings of wood. Further out, nothing could be seen of the enemy save the diffuse lights of the Trojans’ fires. Some of the fires cast reflections in standing water. Northland under siege had become a soggy landscape, all the way to the face of the Wall itself.

  And beyond that was only darkness. Any Northlanders between here and the horizon were in hiding. If the land was dark it was silent too — almost, anyhow. You rarely heard the sounds of the night any more, the cries of wolves, the calls of owls. Even the animals and birds fled from the Trojans.

  But tonight Tibo thought he heard something coming out of the gloom, a murmur of voices, a deep creaking like the swaying of a gigantic tree. The Trojans often worked at night, launching their pinprick raids on the Wall under cover of the dark. Were they up to something this night?

  The rain fell harder. Tibo lifted his face, letting the droplets prickle on his skin. It felt oddly soothing, cooling. Briefly he closed his eyes, and concentrated on the feeling of the moisture on his face. He had continued his military training, but his anger kept getting him into trouble, and he had been working with cousin Riban the priest on mastering his rage. Caxa had tried to help him too, as, she said, he had once helped her. But sometimes it felt as if his head was too full, of the hours on the fire mountain when he thought he would die, the days in the camp of the Spider when he wished he had. Now he faced these Trojans, who ripped up the very country his ancestors had made. In a world full of such huge destructive forces, he needed his strength, and he needed his anger to fuel that strength. But he had to learn to put aside that anger until he was in a position to unleash its lethal energies usefully. At least he had found a way to treasure moments of stillness, like this, whenever he could. He had even begun to sleep properly, some nights anyhow.

  His father clapped his shoulder. ‘You all right? Here comes Mi with the lantern bearers. We’ll be moving soon.’

  The bearers were coming forward now, carefully carrying a wide-mesh net to which small oil lamps were attached, already lit. The bearers stood at the balcony in a line, and let the net down the face of the Wall, gently, gently, making sure the lanterns were not spilled. The watching Trojans would see this, of course, and they would know what the Northlanders were up to, but there was nothing they could do about it. The bearers were mostly older folk and children, too old or young to fight. As Raka kept saying, in this war for survival every Northlander was a warrior, and could find some role to play.

  Mi murmured quiet commands to make sure her team worked as one. Fifteen years old, focused, intense, Mi always seemed capable, always in control, despite her youth. Some people were flourishing in this protracted war, and Mi was one of them, people said, one of the brighter of the young generation. She was using the hideous death of her stepmother Vala to fuel her determination. She was coping. That was what people said. Nobody said such things of Tibo. He didn’t care, as long as he got the chance to kill a few more Trojans, before, inevitably, one of them killed him.

  Again he heard that deep creaking from the landscape below, a crack like a root breaking. ‘Father, I think the Trojans are doing something out there.’

  Deri grunted. ‘Whatever it is we’ll see it in the morning, and we’ll deal with it then. As we have everything else they’ve thrown at us.’ He stretched and yawned hugely, and Tibo smelled the fish on his breath. Everybody’s breath smelled of fish, as did their farts. There was plenty of fish to eat on the besieged Wall, delivered to the growstone harbours facing the Northern Ocean that the Trojan ships couldn’t reach, but little else.

  At last Mi whispered to Deri, ‘Ready.’

  Deri nodded, and beckoned to his team. The other sign-makers came forward now, all along the balcony, picking up their paint even as Mi’s team finished anchoring the net securely. Tibo lifted a jar of paint and fixed it to his leather belt with a bit of rope. The wooden jar was heavy, and would make climbing awkward. There were brushes too, simple tools of split willow; Tibo took a couple and stuck them in his belt. He also had his sword in its scabbard, strapped to his back, out of the way.

  Deri led the way. He sat up on the low balcony parapet, swung his legs over, and then began to climb one-handed down the net.

  Tibo followed his father. Soon he was clambering down the net, down the outer face of the Wall. The climb was easy save for the awkward bulk of the jar, and the scabbard digging into his back. But the Wall was covered by greasy rain-soaked soot from the Trojans’ fires, and soon his hands, his bare legs, the front of his tunic were all stained black. Of course the soot stains were the reason they were here.

  To left and right, in the light of the lamps, the others climbed down in a rough line, all along this part of the Wall’s face. These workers were all fighters, men and women, all seasoned in combat. A couple of times the Trojans had hastily erected long ladders and come swarming up to the painters’ nets, trying to use them to gain access to the Wall galleries. If the Trojans tried that again it would be the job of Deri and Tibo and the others to hold them off. There was no sign of Trojan activity tonight, not here. But Tibo was wearing no armour, and he had his back to a plain occupied by the enemy, and the space between his shoulder blades itched as if inviting the kiss of an arrowhead.

  Around halfway down the net he came to grooves cut into the growstone face, visible in the light of the torches, swooping circles and lines, with splashes of red and orange paint under the obscuring film of the soot. This was the Word he was to work on. He anchored himself, braced against the net with his booted feet on the face of the Wall, and tied a loop of rope from his belt to the net. Then he got out a brush, dipped the frayed end in the paint bucket, and started smearing the sticky stuff on the Wall. Soon the orange stain of the paint added to the black muck on his tunic. He just had to paint the grooves as far as he could reach, and then move on, down or sideways. After the first few trials nobody had bothered trying to clean off the Trojan soot; it was found that from a distance, across the landscape, the repainted Words stood out even more strongly against the soot’s dark background than the white face of the Wall itself. All the better if you could use the Trojans’ own efforts against them.

  The Words had been an inspiration of Caxa, the Jaguar-girl sculptor who had memorably carved a sign to the gods outside My Sun — a sign now desecrated by the Trojans who had smashed the place up, but the Annids had promised that some day it would be restored. The Trojans’ advance on the Wall had cut off Etxelur, the Wall and the Annids from the rest of Northland. So Caxa, inspired by the colourful banners that were draped over the Wall’s face on festival days like the midsummer Giving, had suggested painting slogans on the Wall itself: tremendously tall designs, Words that could be seen many days’ travel away. The idea had been accepted with enthusiasm. Soon sections of the Wall’s white face were covered with the ancient ring-and-groove lettering of Etxelur, messages shouting out to all who could see, and read them: THE WALL STANDS! THE LOVE OF THE MOTHERS PROTECTS US ALL! THE TROJANS CANNOT PREVAIL!

  Of course the Trojans responded. Even if they couldn’t read such signs they could
guess their purpose. So in their assaults on the Wall the Trojans defaced the signs, and built bonfires to smear them with soot. In response the Northlanders had cut the signs deeper into the Wall’s sheer face and painted over the soot. It had become a strange side-battle in this war, a battle over words, symbols, ideas, one side writing, the other side erasing, over and over. And it was a uniquely Northlander battle too. Most Northlanders could read and write, whereas in Troy and Greece and the land of the Hatti, literacy was the province of the scribes — not even the kings could read the proclamations they applied their seals to. Regardless of what the Words said, their very existence were a reminder of the uniqueness of Northland civilisation.

  Tibo worked steadily, shifting his position, balancing the weight of his bucket. The work was easy, if repetitive. It seemed to satisfy some corner of his soul to complete such a simple task, just filling a groove with paint. Another way to achieve the calmness Riban had urged him to find within himself. And as he worked on he became aware of the dawn approaching. He worked with his back to the landscape, but gradually he made out the face of the Wall before him in the gathering daylight, a blue-grey wash that picked out the pocks and flaws in the Wall’s growstone surface.

  Then there was another wooden creak, louder, and voices calling from the plain.

  Tibo turned to see, hanging one-armed from the net. Northland had emerged from the dark, flat to the horizon under a cloudy blue-grey sky. The land was scarred by the Annids’ huge new defensive earthworks, ramparts and ditches, running for long stretches along the face of the Wall. At the base of the Wall itself water stood in hollows, building up against the growstone. Trojan raiders had long ago torched the windmills on the Wall’s roof, so now, in chambers safely tucked deep within the Wall, work gangs were turning great wheels to keep the pumps working — gangs manned by volunteers, it was said. But it was impossible to keep the flooding down completely. Looking along the face of the Wall itself Tibo could see more relics of the Trojans’ many assaults: broken ladders, the wreck of a battering ram that had smashed itself to pieces against the Wall’s growstone face, earthen ramps, even pits where Qirum’s men had tried tunnelling under the Wall.