Stephen Baxter: Bronze Summer

He thought she was a Kaskan, from the north. He didn’t know her name, or care. ‘You’ve been asleep since dawn.’ The last time he’d managed it. ‘Now it’s noon. Up and out with you. Praxo! Wake up, you fat slug.’ He rummaged for his clothes on the floor, amid the stale, half-eaten loaves, a spilled cup of wine.

The girl pulled the blanket over her small breasts. ‘You want me tonight?’ She forced a smile, but her eyes were like a hunted animal’s.

He’d seen that look before in his women; they wanted his money, but feared the strength of his lust. This girl hadn’t satisfied him but he supposed it wasn’t her fault. He needed an athlete, to match him. A Spartan maid! Rummaging in the heap of stuff he found a tiny goblet, a miniature as you might make for a baby prince. It had lost its base and was badly dented, but it was silver, and it would keep this girl fed for a week or more — and her family, her babies, whoever controlled her, whatever shadowy figures lay behind the child-woman he had taken a fancy to in the street last night. ‘No. I won’t want you again. Here.’ He threw the cup over to her.

She grabbed it, sniffed it, tucked it under the blanket out of his sight, gone in a flash. She smiled again. ‘You were strong. Like bull of legend-’

He swept the back of his hand towards her, and she flinched. ‘You won’t get any more out of me. Out. Now. Oh, and empty the night soil bowls on your way.’ He turned his back and pulled on loincloth, tunic, boots. He heard her move around, finding her clothes. Then she was gone, and he knew he would never think of her again.

He stood, fully dressed. The sudden movement brought a sharp pain to the base of his skull, a relic of the lousy wine which was all you could find in this town these days. He stretched and bent, tensing his muscles. He felt familiar twinges, the scar tissue on his back, the broken cheekbone that had never quite healed right, the burned patch on his arm — each a souvenir of a fight fought, and won. He found his bronze sword and swung it a couple of times, and he let out a roar. Blood pumping, lungs drawing in the foul air, he could feel the day’s recovery starting. It never took long. He was no bull, no war god, he wasn’t prone to flattery of that sort. But he thought of himself as a healthy animal in his prime, and if the Storm God favoured him he would stay that way until a decent death spared him the humiliation of illness and age. Refreshed, he slipped his sword into its scabbard and picked up the rest of his gear, his bronze dagger, his leather belt with its pouches.

Still Praxo’s snore rattled the walls, despite the gathering din of the approaching caravan. ‘Praxo!’ Qirum raised a boot and started to slam his heel into the wall. It smashed in a shower of lathes, dried mud, wicker and plaster, and there was a faint smell of soot and smoke. Before the fire this had probably been quite a grand house, even though it was a long way out from the Pergamos. Now it was a crumbling wreck. He kept kicking the wall until he had made a hole big enough to step through.

He loomed over Praxo, who lay on his belly under a scrunched-up blanket that barely covered his hairy backside, his head tipped sideways, his mouth open, his big fleshy nose squashed, his snoring like an earthquake. Qirum’s closest companion was only a couple of years older than Qirum himself, only twenty-five, but the jowls and folds of his fleshy face made him look a good deal older than that. Praxo’s own whores — he preferred two at a time if he could afford them — had long gone, though at first glance it didn’t look as if they had had the nerve to rob the sleeping sailor.

Qirum picked up a slat from the walls, and laid about Praxo’s back and arse with vigorous blows. ‘Up! Up, you beached whale. The day’s half gone, and there’s booty coming to town.’

Praxo stirred, snorted, coughed, and rolled onto his back, leaving a puddle of snot where his nose had been. He had a monstrous waking erection that stuck up like a ship’s mast. He opened one eye. ‘Clear off, I need a piss.’ But then the martial trumpets sounded again, and a broad grin spread over Praxo’s grimy face.

‘Do what you have to do, my friend, but get on with it.’ Qirum pushed through the remains of a doorway and emerged onto the mud track outside. Once this had been a fair-sized street. But now it was greened over by weeds, and cluttered by huts, shacks and lean-tos, smoke trailing through their roofs. If you stood still for too long the kids came swarming out with their little hands out towards you, chattering, begging for food. Living like rats on a midden.

Behind him he heard Praxo swear and strain at his stool.

Qirum walked away up a low rise. From here he looked out over the ruined lower town towards the Pergamos, the citadel, with its ring of cracked walls, the palace with its fallen towers and smashed-in roof. Once this view would have been cluttered by crowding buildings, winding alleyways; now it was all but clear. This was Troy. Qirum had been born here — he had been conceived during the disastrous night of the fire that had ended the Greek siege — this was his home city, and always would be. But he had travelled widely; he had seen Mycenae and Hattusa and Ashur, he had seen what a city should be. Maybe Troy would recover some day, maybe it would get back to the greatness it had enjoyed. But not while drought and famine stalked the land, and populations fled and princes toppled everywhere. And he, Qirum, was meant for better than this. He dug a leather pouch from his belt, and absently sprinkled himself with scent, of lilies, roses, saffron crocuses. In a stinking world, a stinking city, smelling good was a sign of wealth, of posterity. Troy was the past, the place he had begun his journey in life, not the place he would end it.

Praxo emerged at last, dressed in a tunic that looked more stain than cloth, with his weapons on his back, his battleaxe and heavy sword. He carried a sack with the bits of booty they carried to pay their way around the city. ‘That last stool was a beauty. I feel like I gave birth to a tree.’

‘Of all your revolting habits, your boasting about your bowel movements is the worst.’

‘I try to please.’

The trumpets pealed again. Looking east over the outer city’s walls Qirum glimpsed movement, a river of people, the glitter of bronze, banners fluttering in the languid air. Hatti! He felt as if he could smell the gold. ‘Come on.’

Praxo said, ‘You have an admirer.’

Qirum glanced down. A boy, skinny, naked, no older than eight, turned and bent, showing his bare arse. Qirum turned away, disgusted.

But Praxo lingered. ‘Oh, aren’t you going to give this little one a ride? Just for old times’ sake. After all he’s got to start somewhere in the world. Selling the only thing he’s got, just like you did. Come on, be a sport!’

Qirum stalked away from the boy, from Praxo, emptied his head of the goading, and focused his gaze on the glitter of Hatti bronze.

On the day of her mother’s interment Milaqa woke early in her cell, deep in the belly of the Wall, in the District known as Great Etxelur. It had been an uneasy night, of dreams of dead iron punching through ribcages. It was a relief when the flickering torch glow around the door of her room was at last dimmed by the cold grey of dawn.

She clambered off her bed, a pallet of soft deerskin on a growstone platform, heaped with blankets of aurochs wool and cloth. Moving quickly in the cold, she stripped off yesterday’s tunic and loincloth. She drank water from the bowl she had brought in last night, and emptied her bladder into a channel that led her urine away to the fullers’ tanks somewhere deep in the fabric of the Wall. She voided her bowels into her night bowl, cleaned herself with a handful of dried moss, and pulled on fresh clothes, leggings and boots. She took her cloak, picked up the night bowl, and pulled back the heavy linen door flap.