Bronze Summer : The Northland Trilogy (9781101615416)

by Baxter, Stephen

  Now they dressed her in a robe of thick, colorfully striped wool. It looked beautiful, Milaqa had to admit. It seemed to shine in the light, and felt greasy to the touch; the wool was thick with oil. But the robe was cut so low in the front that her breasts were bare.

  She tried walking around. “Are you sure you’ve put it on the right way round? I feel ridiculous walking around with my udders hanging out. And it’s so heavy and clumsy I keep tripping up.”

  “No,” Kilushepa all but snarled. “It’s you who are heavy and clumsy, you great she-aurochs. Lift your feet when you walk. Lift!”

  Now she was sat on a stool with a mirror of polished bronze held up before her face, and the cosmetics were applied. These came from tiny boxes of glass and silver and gold, themselves ancient and exquisite, the traveling kit of a queen. Milaqa’s oiled hair was teased into curls and glossy tumbles down her neck. A white powder was applied heavily to her face, so she turned pale as a ghost, then bright red starbursts were carefully painted on her cheeks, chin, forehead. Black kohl was delicately applied around her eyes, by a girl younger than she was, who came so close Milaqa could smell the spiced meat on her breath. Perfume was dabbed at her neck, her breasts, a scent of rich flowers.

  Then she was made to stand, and the finishing touches were applied. A bodice and golden belt were tied around her waist—the belt was heavy, she was astonished to find, it was not plate, it was solid gold, from Kilushepa’s personal collection. A brooch was fixed to each side of her bare chest, and bangles, more gold and silver, were slipped over her arms. Kilushepa herself set a headband in her hair, richly jeweled.

  When Milaqa stood to face Raka and Teel, she rattled.

  “You are beautiful,” Raka said.

  “I’m ridiculous.”

  “Not in Qirum’s eyes,” Kilushepa said. “To him you will be the embodiment of royalty, of a Trojan princess. The fulfillment of a dream—a woman fit for the king he imagines he has become. And within this beautiful shell is you, Milaqa, the mate of his soul. To him, you will be perfect.”

  “And irresistible,” said Teel, grinning sourly.

  There was a murmuring outside the house. A lady came running in.

  “It is time,” the Tawananna said. “You have been summoned. Already! I told you, we did not have a breath to spare.” She faced Milaqa one last time, critically, her mouth pursed. “It’s been like putting rouge on the cheeks of an ox. But the results are moderately acceptable, for which I take full credit.”

  “Of course.”

  “Erishum will escort you to the citadel, to meet Qirum. He has a carriage.”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “You will use the carriage. Once you’re in the King’s presence—well, of course, you’ve no idea how to behave, but neither does that brutish Trojan, so I suppose it will not matter. Don’t trip over. Don’t drink too much. Try not to hit anybody.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “One more thing.” Kilushepa snapped a finger, and a girl came running with a package still sealed in ox hide from the journey. As the servant began hastily picking at knots, Teel and Raka watched intently. Suddenly the atmosphere was tense, but Milaqa could not imagine why. The girl unwrapped the hide and an inner linen cover to reveal a box. Shallow, about the length of Milaqa’s forearm, it was elaborately carved with images of oak leaves and mice, and inset with gold. Kilushepa took this, and handed it to Milaqa. It was not heavy.

  “A gift,” Kilushepa said. “We have sent tokens for Protis and the other savages. But this is for Qirum himself.”

  “What is it?”

  “A gift fit for the king Qirum imagines he is. A treasure from old Troy, looted when the Greeks sacked the city, and acquired by me at great expense. The Greeks called it the Palladium. Qirum will know what it is.” She glared at Milaqa. “Do you understand? This must be opened by Qirum himself. This gift is for him and him alone.”

  Milaqa nodded, not much interested in one more bit of manipulation. She took the ox hide from the girl and wrapped up the box again, to keep it safe while she carried it.

  Raka stood, came to Milaqa, and unexpectedly hugged her, leaning over the box. “I must not smudge your face. Even in my eyes you look beautiful. Thank you, Milaqa. The mothers will reward you for this. And I—” She broke away, and Milaqa was startled to see tears in her eyes.

  Teel stepped up now. “Don’t mind her. She always was sentimental, that one. She’s got worse since she’s had to send soldiers out to die. Well. Good luck, Milaqa. You made a good Crow, in the end, even if your training was a little unusual. As was your career. But then we live in unusual times.” He patted her arm.

  She stared into his face. His skin was slack, a plump man’s face emptied by years of privation. A face that hid secrets. He seemed to want to say more, but now, in this last moment, the flow of words on which he had built his career failed him. “What are you keeping from me this time, Uncle?”

  Teel just smiled.

  Kilushepa plucked at her sleeve. “Come. A king awaits.”

  Clutching the box, she turned and walked out through the door. Erishum gravely stood in the evening light. She tried to focus on the challenges that lay ahead, and put aside a growing unease.

  63

  When she walked into Qirum’s crowded inner chamber, carrying Kilushepa’s gift, at first the King simply stared.

  He had been lying on a couch by the window, where a filmy drape lifted in a soft breeze. Lamps burned in alcoves cut into the wall. The usual guards stood in the corners, and a single priest bowed before the small shrine at the back of the room. Bear-like military men, officers in elaborate tunics and leather kilts, were gathered on low stools, arguing over clay blocks scattered on a low table, apparently records of troop movements or provision shortfalls, the business of an army. A boy in a plain tunic stood by, nervously translating the languages of Qirum’s officers for those who needed it. Serving girls flitted around the men, bearing trays of drink and food, under the watchful eye of an older woman who stood by one door.

  And Qirum gazed at Milaqa, transformed by Kilushepa’s arts. At last he jumped up from his couch. “Out, all of you.” The servants filed out immediately. The military men got up reluctantly, glaring at Milaqa. “Oh, leave the tablets, Asius, you fool. Out, out. You, priest. And you.” He waved to his guards. They looked uncertainly at Erishum, who nodded, and they left their places. “Go on, all of you. You too, Erishum!”

  Erishum was the last to leave, evidently reluctant. When he had ushered the rest out, he pulled a heavy cover over the doorway.

  The two of them stood at opposite ends of the room, Qirum barefoot in a wine-stained robe, Milaqa still holding her box, from which the ox-hide wrap had once more been removed.

  “So we’re alone,” Milaqa said. “For the first time since—”

  “Since I became the King.” He laughed. “But really we’re never alone. Even now we’ll be watched. Even if I ordered it not to be so, my men know the consequences if anything should befall me through their negligence. But we are as alone as I will ever be until the time comes for me to venture into the underworld. By the Storm God’s teeth, Milaqa. Suddenly you are beautiful.”

  “You’re blushing.”

  “So are you. Right down to your—”

  “Stop looking.”

  He laughed. “Well, I can scarcely promise you that! Kilushepa’s doing, this, is it? That woman always did know how to twist my heart. And now she’s doing it even from afar—even though she knows that if I ever lay eyes on her again I will kill her with my bare hands.”

  Milaqa felt an absurd prickle of jealousy. “I’m standing here flapping in the wind. Must we talk of her?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” He took big clumsy steps toward her, reaching out. But he stopped short, and dropped his arms. “Milaqa, you occupy a special place in my spirit. I’ll never forget that you saved my life when Kilushepa betrayed me in Hattusa. It is a cruel fate that has separated us, a game of the gods that has put us
on opposing sides in a war. And now, to see you like this—I am overwhelmed.”

  “As I will be soon,” she said practically. “My robe is heavy, and this box is getting heavier. Could I sit down?”

  “Of course—I apologize. Sit with me.” He went to the table, brushed the clay tablets and wine cups onto the floor with his arm, took the box and placed it on the table. He sat on the couch, patted it.

  She sat beside him cautiously; she didn’t entirely trust her dress. “The box is a gift from Kilushepa, and all of Northland. As from one great king to another, the Tawananna said. In this box, she said you’d know it, is something the Greeks took from Troy. She called it the Palladium.”

  His eyes widened. Then, eagerly, he took the box, turned it around, found a catch. The box’s lid slid open, pushed by some hidden spring. Within, on a bed of purple cloth, lay a small statue. To Milaqa’s eyes the stone figure of a woman with her arms upraised, worn almost to featurelessness and stained with smoke, was unimpressive. But Qirum was astonished. “It is true. Milaqa, no Trojan has seen this since the Greeks sacked my city before I was born, and took away our most precious treasures, our most sacred relics. This is the mother goddess. She is the one the Greeks call Athena, in some of her aspects.”

  “I can’t make out her face.”

  “She is old, and much loved—or was. Some of us believed that she had been smashed, not just stolen. What must Kilushepa have paid some warlord for this? How did she find her in the first place? Well—now I have her.” He bowed to the goddess, reverently lifted her from her bed of cloth, and carried her to the shrine cut into the thick wall. He placed the goddess carefully at the center of the shrine, where she stood amid similar statues, none of them tall, all garlanded with tokens. “For now, lady, you may dwell in the King’s own personal shrine. And tomorrow we will begin work on a temple for you, a temple in New Troy finer than any in the old.” Again he bowed, and murmured a prayer—and jumped back. “Ow!”

  Milaqa stared. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Something ran over my foot. A mouse!” He came back to Milaqa and the box, reached down, lifted a fold of the purple cloth—and small brown forms squirmed out from under the cloth, out of the box, off the table and went scampering over the floor. He stared at Milaqa. “Did you see that? Mice—in a gift from the great Tawananna!” He burst out laughing.

  She couldn’t resist it. Maybe it was the tension, the sheer incongruity. She laughed with him, even harder when one of the little rodents ran over her own leg, and she squealed with shock.

  Qirum cupped her face gently. “You are even more lovely when you laugh, dear Milaqa.” He straightened up and strutted around the room. She saw something like the old energy, the confidence she remembered about him. “But even the mice are probably a good omen. Well, no doubt I can find a priest who will tell me so. One aspect of the deity the Greeks call Apollo is god of plagues and mice. Maybe the gods are trying to tell us to put an end to this plague of war that blights us. Maybe they are agreeing with Kilushepa, for once! For it’s obvious what she intends, you know. By sending you here like this. Looking like this. She knows exactly what message she is sending me.”

  “I think they are hoping for an alliance.” She took a breath, and plunged on. “Of the kind you forge between your eastern countries. Where princesses are exchanged to bind nations by marriage.”

  He gestured. “I don’t have much of a country. Not yet.”

  “And I’m no princess.”

  “Ah, you always will be to me, dear Milaqa.” He studied her. “Look—we don’t have to do what they say, you and I. There can be peace whether we marry or not. Or war, come to that. The rules don’t apply to us. Do they, Milaqa? They never did, and never will. Whether we marry or not is up to us—nobody else. But that’s not to say we can’t have some fun, preferably at somebody else’s expense.” He clapped his hands, a sharp, shocking noise. “Woman! Bring wine!”

  The senior serving woman came bustling in immediately, bearing a tray of wine and fresh cups. Milaqa was impressed; evidently the servants had learned to anticipate their capricious ruler’s moods.

  “And send for my head of household. And Erishum. There may or may not be a wedding, but there’s certainly going to be a wedding feast. The way the Greeks do it, a pack of curs they may be but they do know how to have fun.” As the woman hurried out, he called after her, “And musicians! Come, Milaqa.” He held out his hand. “Will you dance with this humble suitor? For I am going to have to impress you to win your hand.”

  She stood, but held back. “In this dress?”

  “Oh, nobody’s watching. Well—only an entire kingdom. And I—ow!” He hopped, and slapped at his leg. “Something bit me …”

  Kilushepa had begun packing as soon as Milaqa had been taken away by Erishum, snapping at her serving women as they packed and repacked bits of jewelry and cosmetics in her boxes.

  Teel sat with Raka. They were both drinking Trojan wine, imported by Qirum. Teel was getting drunk, but he suspected Raka wasn’t. He watched Kilushepa sourly. “Do you have any regrets about what we’ve done, woman? Any at all? If you weren’t so busy fussing over things at such a time—”

  “I certainly regret loading her up with so much jewelry; I suppose it’s possible it could be retrieved, once this is all over.”

  Teel grunted. “You will pluck it off my niece’s cold corpse, will you?”

  “Enough,” Raka said tiredly. “We all agreed to this, Teel. In fact, as I remember, it was you who persuaded me to accept Kilushepa’s scheme in the first place. We are all complicit. We are each of us guilty, or none of us is.”

  “But two of us are staying, to share the fate we have ordained for poor Milaqa, and the Trojans of course, but I care not a jot for them. And she”—he gestured at Kilushepa—“is running away to save her scrawny hide.”

  Kilushepa stood so her maid could hang her cloak on her back, and fixed it with a gold clasp at her neck. “I would take offense at that, Northlander, were you not effectively a dead man already, by your own choosing. Our work is done here. What good does it do to stay? Guilt, you say, Annid? What guilt? Guilt at the fate of Milaqa? You understand that girl as well as I do—I know you do, Teel. You see the flaw in her, the emptiness. Let her be useful for once in her life. Or is it guilt at this ‘dishonorable’ ploy? Look—fools like Qirum speak of waging war with honor. But it is all lies. Qirum destroyed your little communities with overwhelming force, there is no honor in that. And when the fire comes, or the storm, or the flood or the drought, no amount of these heroes’ precious courage or honor will help them survive.” She tapped her forehead. “All that will save you is up here. Intelligence. Cunning. And the determination to use it. Which is what enabled your fabled Ana to beat off the Great Sea of legend, from what I’ve heard of your tradition.”

  “You’ve done this kind of thing before,” Raka said. “You Hatti.”

  Kilushepa sniffed. “It is in the annals. We have an old prayer to the plague gods: ‘Shoot my enemy, but when you come home unstring your bow and cover your quiver.’ The first incident of record was some generations ago, when the King sent donkeys infected with plague into the lands of our enemies the Arzawans. We won the war, and now the Arzawans remember that fever as ‘the Hatti plague’. There have been a number of instances since then.” She spoke dismissively. “We have experts in these things. The box I brought to Northland is not the only one of its kind stored deep in the royal vaults of Hattusa, like memories of the horrors of the past. There are cages of mice and rats, tended by specially trained priests. Pieces of cloth cut from the bodies of the dead, which in some cases can carry a memory of the disease itself.”

  “Weapons of last resort,” Teel said.

  “Precisely. And is this not a time for a last resort? After all, that foolish battle you let yourself be talked into waging did even more damage than merely exhausting you. My spies say that before the battle the Trojans were on the brink of fissuring. Sieges are
wearing on the besiegers as well as the besieged. But we invited them to battle exactly as Qirum would have wished, we met Qirum on ground he would have chosen, and we enabled him to motivate his men and unite his warring commanders in the process.” She pointed at Raka. “You boast that this is the oldest civilization in the world. You boast that you have saved the Jaguar people across the Western Ocean, just as you have saved the Hatti empire from dissolution. Perhaps you have. But that is all in the past. Today, Raka, you are Annid of Annids, and if Northland were to fall now it would be entirely your responsibility. And that is why you have allowed me to do what I have done. Because you had to, and don’t tell me otherwise.”

  Raka simply nodded. “I have asked Muwa to take back one more message to Etxelur for me.”

  “What is that?”

  “The name of my preferred successor.”

  Kilushepa sneered. “How noble you both are. I hope it comforts you when the Trojans pursue your shades into the underworld.” She glanced around, as if to make sure she’d left nothing, and without further farewells she marched out of the house.

  “Well,” Teel said in the sudden silence, “at least that’s the last we’ll see of her, and that’s a comfort.” He reached for the jug. “More wine? We may as well finish this.”

  64

  It took Qirum three days to organize his betrothal feast.

  Milaqa spent much of the first day with him. She stayed in his house, at the heart of his citadel. She had her own room, her own little squad of servants dedicated to her, which she found distressing as some of them were clearly Northlander slaves. But she slept alone, and her relationship with Qirum remained chaste, as it had always been. He did not even kiss her, he hugged her only as a brother might. “For now,” he said, winking broadly.

  But on the second day Qirum said he had to attend to the business of his kingdom, and he huddled in his private chamber with his officers, ministers and priests. Meanwhile Milaqa was distracted by a string of visitors, embarrassed-looking officers who showed up in polished armor and bearing elaborate gifts: clothes, cosmetics, jewelry. These were the rival “suitors” Qirum had ordered to come and woo her, in competition with him. Even Erishum showed up, bowing gravely, bearing a rather pleasing silver pendant.