S. Stirling - Against the Tide of Years

"There's nothing like having your back to the wall to make people reasonable, and they were pretty impressed with the Emancipator. Propaganda value alone is going to make that a cost-effective project… now spit it out."

"Sir?"

"Whatever it is that you're reluctant to talk about, Colonel Hollard. Oh, by the way, for the duration of this war, you're a brigadier general."

Jared Cofflin lowered the microphone of the shortwave set. It was a pleasant late-spring day on Nantucket, not long before Daffodil Weekend. From the second-story radio room he could see some, nodding in yellow glory like a promise of peace.

But there is no peace, he thought to himself.

Martha looked up from her knitting. "I suspect it's about King Kashtiliash," she said.

"Ah…" Hollard's voice came through again. "It's King Kashtiliash, sir. He wants to marry my sis-, ah, Lieutenant Colonel Hollard."

Oh, Jared Cofflin thought. Oh, shit.

"There's no law against marrying noncitizens, dear," Martha pointed out. "In fact, it generally confers automatic resident alien status on the spouse-and there are hundreds of cases."

"Yes, but usually the spouse moves here. And Kashtiliash is a head of state."

"Swindapa is a… well, a Kurlelo Grandmother."

"That's different. And there's a law against citizens seizing power or aiding foreign governments."

"Yes, but Kathryn Hollard isn't proposing to do either. The legitimate government of an ally is proposing to give her a position, and she's not proposing to use it in a way contrary to the interests of the Republic."

"You caught that, Brigadier?"

"Yessir. All right, I've got the text of a goddam proposed marriage contract the two of them drew up. You want me to read it?"

"Go ahead," Cofflin said. After he'd listened, he whistled softly. "Well, I'm surprised he agreed to all that."

There was a slight smile in Kenneth Hollard's voice. "He's got it bad, sir. And it's mostly to his advantage, too-this bit about a Nantucket tutor for any kids they have, and sending them to the Island for schooling as well. That's not unusual here-fostering, that is."

"Marian," Cofflin said, "you've been listening?"

"Mmmm-hmmm," another voice said. "You getting this, Hollard?"

"Yes, ma'am. A bit scratchy but clear."

Swindapa's voice came in: "I think it's sweet."

Hollard chuckled. "Lieutenant Commander, I don't think either of the people concerned is what you could call 'sweet.' "

"Ian?" Cofflin said. "You're not saying anything?"

"I wasn't surprised, and the rest of you are just talking yourselves around to accepting it," Arnstein replied, infuriatingly reasonable. "Could we do that, and get on to things that still aren't settled? Tudhaliyas is dithering, and this barbarian invasion is looking more and more serious."

"And I'm just about ready to go," Marian Alston cut in. "If what I'm planning comes off, the equations in the Middle East all change, too."

Jared Cofflin sighed. I wonder how people like Churchill and FDR kept all their balls in the air at the same time.

"Alaksandrus of Wiulusiya is the key," Tudhaliyas said.

Ian Arnstein nodded, shivering slightly. His scholar's ear looked past the Anatolian pronunciations and supplied Hellenic alternatives- or Achaean, the archaic Mycenaean Greek he'd learned after the Event. Alexandros of Vilios. Later Greek would drop the V sound altogether; it would be Ilios-Troy, as it was also known. Inquiring, he'd learned that the kingdom in question was on the northwestern coast, just south of the Dardanelles. The people were closely related to the Ahhiyawa; and yes, that was a powerful kingdom west across the Aegean.

Doreen leaned over and whispered in his ear, "This is getting too creepy for words."

Ian nodded. So far the Hittites had been vastly impressed-except for King Tudhaliyas, who Ian thought wasn't impressed by much of anything. He'd supplied mooring for the Emancipator, comfortable quarters, lavish gifts… and an endless tale of woe. Tudhaliyas had brains and guts, but he was a complainer. In fact, it would be fair to say he whined.

Still, I get to see the capital of the Hittite kings, he thought. The great stone walls, the pointed-arch gates with monoliths of frowning gods carved beside them… And then I get sucked into the Trojan War, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

"Alaksandrus is your vassal, isn't he?"

"He is supposed to be," the king nodded.

They were sitting in an audience room flooded with light; unlike Babylonian architecture, Hittite ran to big square external windows, although they didn't have window-glass, of course. Nor did they have chairs, except for royalty.

Why, O Lord, do so many countries back here have this ridiculous rule? They know how to make chairs, and chairs aren't particularly difficult to make, so why don't they? He was sitting on a stool, and his back wasn't enjoying it.

Otherwise it was quite pleasant, stuccoed inside and done in geometric designs in ocher and cinnabar, with carpets that looked astonishingly Turkish draped over built-in benches. Even more pleasant, nobody had made any objections to Doreen's being present. The king's wife was too. Zuduhepa was Tawannannas, a title in its own right; the next king's wife wouldn't inherit it until Zuduhepa died herself.

Arnstein unrolled his map. "Troy is here?"

After the exclamations and explanations, the royal couple nodded. "And that is where the… barbarians have invaded?"

"To the north of it, but they come closer every day. As I said, Alaksandrus is the problem. For years he has been scanting his tribute and sending excuses when I summon his men and chariots for war- perhaps that was why the Assyrians beat me, three years ago."

"O King," Doreen said, "you need not fear Asshur again. With my own eyes I saw their cities burn."

"Would that I had been there to see it!" Zuduhepa said, clenching a fist.

She was a slight woman about ten years younger than the king, with huge, dark eyes and a towering headdress on her abundant black hair; the rest of her was invisible under layers of embroidered gown. The hand that clenched on the table bore rings set with turquoise and un-faceted emeralds.

"Would that I could have seen Tukulti-Ninurta flayed, castrated, and impaled!" she went on. "Or brought bound before my lord, beaten with rods-"

The king cleared his throat. "We heard of his death and overthrow and questioned refugees, but the tales seemed… exaggerated."

He glanced out the window; the Emancipator had made more than one journey, ferrying personnel and supplies up from Babylon. It had also taken Tudhaliyas's own envoys south and back. He nodded.

Ian smiled, reading the Hittite monarch's thoughts: Not only do I need these Nantukhtar to ward off the menace to the West, but if I do not learn some of their arts, Kashtiliash will overshadow me as an oak-tree does a radish. Tudhaliyas had been dropping broad hints as to whether Jared-Cofflin had a marriageable daughter he would care to wed to his son, Arunuwandas.

It's nice to be loved, but just about as pleasant to be needed.

"And Alaksandrus's faithlessness hurts the realm," Tudhaliyas went on. "For the Wiulusiya are very skilled horse breeders and tamers."

Yes, Arnstein thought as he took a fig out of a bowl to hide his shiver. Homer had called them the "horse-taming Trojans."

The Tawannannas cut in: "Alaksandrus son of Pirusia is a hothead- no better than a pirate, carrying off plunder and women from foreign parts."

That fits the legends too, Ian thought. And three thousand years from now a younger Ian Arnstein would read Homer's immortal words, and now-

"Now the Man of Troy screams for help," the king said. "But the question is, Will he obey? Will he cooperate? Has he even now begun to put out feelers to the enemy, as I suspect? And as I know my traitor cousin Lord Kurunta of Tarhuntassa has done?"