Bronze Summer (52 page)

‘I certainly regret loading her up with so much jewellery. 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 offence 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 “dishonourable” ploy? Look – fools like Qirum speak of waging war with honour. But it is all lies. Qirum destroyed your little communities with overwhelming force, there is no honour in that. And when the fire comes, or the storm, or the flood or the drought, no amount of these heroes’ precious courage or honour 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 civilisation 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 organise 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 armour and bearing elaborate gifts: clothes, cosmetics, jewellery. 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.

And it was on that day that she first began to suspect Qirum was growing ill. In the few moments she did spend with him his breathing was rattling and heavy, and he coughed frequently. But he was not a man with the patience for illness, and he ignored the symptoms, while his generals discreetly ignored the spittle he sprayed over their clay tablets and maps, and over their persons.

On the third day the feast itself was set up in an open space in the outer city, beyond the citadel. Everybody was ordered to attend, to watch. There was music, dancing, feasting, tables laden with elaborate dishes from across the Continent, even some plainer Northland fare. The ordinary folk turned up, but there was no sense of joy; Milaqa thought they wore ghastly forced grins, in the presence of a capricious king with the power of life and death. And anyhow there weren’t many of them to be rounded up in the first place.

The highlight of the day was the competition between Milaqa’s suitors. Qirum asked Milaqa to sit on a kind of throne to preside over the contest, wearing the outfit she had worn when she had come here three days before. The day was comparatively sunny, comparatively mild, but even so it was cold enough that her nipples were hard as stones.

In Qirum’s own country and in Greece such contests were conducted in deadly earnest, between princes who might be seeking to win not just a bride but a good alliance for their nations. So it was serious stuff, the tests of archery and slingshotting and spear-throwing, the hand-to-hand fighting with swords and spears – fighting intense enough for wounds to be inflicted, despite the expensive armour on display.

An older man called Urhi, a scribe, was ordered to stand by and make careful notes of the outcomes of all these futile contests. Milaqa thought he looked as if he was going mad with boredom, an intelligent man in a land of brutal young fools, and she wondered what his story was, how he had got here. Qirum had disrupted many ordinary lives in the course of his spectacular career.

And Qirum himself was manic. At first he threw himself into as many contests as he could. But his breath was short, and when he coughed Milaqa thought she saw speckles of blood. So he withdrew, and missed the boxing too, and saved himself for the culmination of the day, his favourite sport, the wrestling.

At a suggestion from Erishum, the King sat out the preliminary bouts, waiting until a victor among the other ‘suitors’ had emerged to challenge him. That man was Erishum himself. Milaqa could not tell if that was a genuine victory or not. Anyhow it was he who would face the King, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, warriors, generals, and the common people of the city.

The King stripped to a loincloth, and leaned so his hands were resting on his knees. ‘Don’t go easy on me, sergeant,’ he warned. ‘If I think you let me win I’ll have your head as a trophy. On the other hand, if you beat me . . .’ The sentence tailed off in another coughing fit. More blood speckles, Milaqa saw. Qirum’s bare skin was pale, slick with sweat, and oddly mottled with small black marks.

If Erishum was troubled by this impossible balancing act he did not show it. Milaqa supposed he was used to the King’s capriciousness, and had after all survived so far. ‘I have no doubt you are the better suitor, lord. But you have to prove it first.’ He grinned, and crouched.

Qirum laughed out loud. Then he launched himself at Erishum. The crowd roared and clapped as they clashed, heads together, straining, reaching. Erishum got the first break; he twisted, got his arm around the King’s neck, and flipped them both over backwards.

And Qirum vomited blood. Erishum let him go in dismay and stood back.

It was in at that moment that Milaqa, in a flash of understanding, realised what had been done – how she had been used, what the true purpose of this expedition to New Troy had always been. What she had done to Qirum’s petty empire, and to Qirum himself.

She was even allowed into the King’s bedchamber, where he lay on a couch.

He was surrounded by soldiers, and by buckets full of blood and stool and piss; the stink was unbearable. She was not allowed to speak to Qirum, but she could not tell if he was conscious anyhow. From time to time he would cry out, as if in great pain. Scared-looking physicians came and went, desperately trying remedies. She heard them speaking of blood in the vomit and the urine, and of painful swellings in his groin and armpits. When they brushed past her, Milaqa saw they were spattered with the King’s blood.

She retreated to the King’s big reception room. By the shrine with the restored mother goddess figure, the priests intoned steadily, asking Apollo god of plague to put aside his bow. There was nobody else here but the guards, who looked at her with black expressions. Milaqa went back to her room.

That night she could not sleep. The house was full of people coming and going, and it rang with anxious talk, weeping, increasingly angry shouting. I did this, she thought. I brought this here.

In the end she got out of bed and dressed in the pitch dark, in the most practical clothes she could find, and sat on her bed and waited.

Just before dawn Erishum came to her room, bearing a lamp, oil burning in a shallow bowl. ‘I will take you back to your uncle.’

‘I must see Qirum.’

He grunted. ‘Why? To apologise? To finish him off?’

‘Erishum, please—’

‘You will never see him again. Get ready.’

She clambered off her bed. She glanced back once at the goods that had been brought with her, the Tawananna’s jewellery. It meant nothing to her.

He led her through corridors, making for the street door.

‘What is happening?’

‘Protis is to challenge for the crown. But others oppose him. It makes no difference. Too many others are ill, and the contest is futile until this plague has run its course.’

‘Why must I leave?’

‘Because there are those who blame you for bringing the plague here.’

‘If it’s true I did not know, Erishum. I did not know! I have been used. You have to tell him, Erishum.’

He did not answer.

They reached the street, deserted in the dawn light. Milaqa imagined she could feel the fear washing out across the town from the King’s house. Erishum hurried her along to the house where Teel and the rest had lodged.

When they reached the house she asked him directly, ‘If you think Qirum’s death is my fault, why release me?’

‘If you are innocent, it is just. If you are guilty, you will take your “gift” back to your own people. And, listen to me.’ He leaned towards her, his face hard, dark, grim. ‘I am but a soldier; I am no priest. But now I curse you. You and all your cowardly kind, you Northlanders. For what you have done here, your black crime, may our gods destroy you, and may your own gods, the mothers of sea and sky and earth, desert you. And as for you, I will wait for you in the underworld.’ And he turned and hurried away.

Milaqa, deeply shaken, ducked quickly inside.

By the light of a single lamp, Teel sat by a couch, on which Raka lay under a heap of blankets. The Annid was unconscious. Milaqa saw swellings on her neck, like those on Qirum’s body.

Teel, too, looked waxy, pale, and was breathing heavily. ‘This gift of Kilushepa’s travels quickly.’ He laughed, and coughed.

The world seemed to swivel around Milaqa. ‘Then it’s true. You sent me to kill Qirum, not to woo him.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Teel stood stiffly. ‘Oh, I am so tired . . . I’m sorry, child.’

Milaqa launched herself at him. He tried to hold her off, but she was stronger than he was, and he could not stop her blows. ‘How could you? You are my uncle! All my life you have used me. How could you betray me like this?’

‘We had to,’ he said. ‘Because only you could do it. Only you, child! You with your relationship with Qirum. You with your heart like an empty cup. Only you would go back to the man, knowing what he had done
to your own family
. In a way you’re as much of a monster as he is. So we used a monster to trap a monster! It had to be done. Can’t you see that?’ Coughing, he sat again, clutching his chest. ‘Well, remember me, Milaqa, even if you can’t forgive me. I’m a sort of anti-Qirum, you know. I don’t suppose you’ll ever understand that. If a warrior brute like Qirum is the kind his country needs, brave, impulsive, impressive, I am what Northland needs. Cold, manipulative, scheming. I can imagine which of us history will favour. But
you
must remember me, I am the man who gave Northland iron, and changed the world. Ah, but none of it matters. I did love you so much when you were small. I’m sorry that it has come to this.’