Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

‘Perhaps they’re asking for his mercy,’ Milaqa said. ‘To blow away the endless clouds.’

‘Then they need to ask harder.’

Their friendly sergeant was able to get them past the guards without any trouble. They had to abandon their carts, however. Qirum left a couple of his men to watch the carts, while the rest escorted the party through the gate.

Inside, the city was a warren of crowded alleys between tall, enclosing walls. Though the streets looked clean enough there was a lingering stink of sewage, and Milaqa wondered if all cities smelled this way. There were many men wearing uniforms like the sergeant’s; this was evidently an age when the military were to the fore. Near the gate the visitors passed through a district that appeared damaged, burned out, abandoned. Here there were beggars, and Milaqa glimpsed gangs — young men and women wearing garish colours, brightly dyed hair, staring from broken doorways. But then they walked on, just a short distance, to a more orderly area where well-dressed people hurried busily, both men and women, many carrying clay tablets; Milaqa imagined they must be clerks, scribes, palace and temple officials. This was a city with problems, but evidently still a functioning capital.

They came to a wide, straight track and followed it through a precinct crowded with temples, walls of white marble enclosing gods carved of some sea-green stone, dimly glimpsed. Officials hurried between the buildings, as did servants and slaves — cooks perhaps, cleaners, even these great houses of the gods must need the most basic kinds of maintenance. The track merged with others, evidently coming from other gates in the walls, and the crowd thickened. A baffling clamour of languages was spoken. Milaqa recognised fragments of Nesili, Trojan, Akkadian, Egyptian, Greek — even a few Northlander words here and there.

And now, to add to the confusion, a procession came down the great way, forcing people to stand aside. Around a cart which carried a roughly shaped monumental stone priests shouted blessings, musicians played drums and flutes and gongs, dancers whirled and acrobats and jugglers put on spectacular shows. People applauded, and formed up a loose spontaneous procession behind the cart. It was a display of energy, of vigour — of fun, Milaqa thought, surprising in what she sensed was a city of harsh discipline and fear.

But, bewildered by the rush, the noise, the crush, the looming walls, Milaqa felt turned around, lost. Even Troy had been nothing like this in scale. Hunda, sensing her disorientation, pointed out how you could always see the higher land within the city walls — a big outcrop to the north of the temple district, and an even stouter-looking fortress within a fortress, the citadel that contained the palace of the King, and the great Sphinx Gate to the south that overlooked the whole city. As long as you could see palace or temple or guardian sphinxes looming against the sky you could find your direction, anywhere in this great stone tomb of a city.

When the procession had passed they walked on, heading steadily north.

They came to a modest dwelling, one of a short row of blocky buildings constructed of mud brick and plaster.

The sergeant turned to Kilushepa apologetically. ‘This is my own home, queen. I can’t think where else to take you that would be safe, for now. There is a man I know at the palace, he was the chief of the chariot-warriors and I got to know him when he reviewed our training. His name is Nuwanza-’

‘I know him,’ Kilushepa snapped. ‘A second cousin of the King, and so a relative of mine.’ In the Hatti empire all the senior army officers were relatives of the King. ‘One of Hattusili’s more sane appointments.’

‘I will try to get a message to him. I’ll find somewhere for your warriors too. Please… It is much less than you are used to, I know-’

Kilushepa smiled. ‘I am very grateful to you, sergeant. Your loyalty and your wisdom will not go unrewarded.’

He seemed embarrassed. He pulled back the door curtain, and Kilushepa walked through into the little space within.

‘By the Storm God’s left nostril,’ Qirum murmured to Milaqa as they followed Kilushepa, ‘I suppose there have to be a few honest soldiers or the whole thing would break down. But Kilushepa’s been very lucky in happening on this fellow — very lucky indeed, and not for the first time in her life.’

The house’s single room was gloomy, the light a greyish glow from a window cut in the wall. A woman had been labouring at a grindstone. She stood nervously, wiping her hands. There was a low table, wooden shelves at the back of the room piled with clutter, a stack of cloth pallets and blankets. Children huddled over toys in a corner, staring wide-eyed at the strangers. The room was tiny, yet its floor of packed earth was clean, evidently recently swept.

Hunda spoke calmly to the woman, explaining who Kilushepa was. The woman, called Gassulawiya, evidently Hunda’s wife, only looked more nervous. Then Hunda disappeared, off to the palace.

Noli sat beside Kilushepa on the pile of pallets. Milaqa and Qirum settled on the floor. Riban helped Kurunta down, but he sat heavily, without hands unable to lower himself easily. The sergeant’s wife bustled around with a tray of cups of wine and water, slabs of bread. Qirum drained a single cup of wine, and waved away the rest. ‘Take sparingly,’ he said to the rest in his own tongue. ‘We should not eat up all that this poor woman has got.’

The woman took her tray to the children at the back of the room. The three of them chewed their bread, silent, staring at the newcomers.

Milaqa said in her clearest Hatti, ‘Your children are charming.’

Gassulawiya smiled, still nervous. ‘Not all mine.’ She tapped the older girl on the shoulder; she was no more than eight or nine. ‘Orphaned. A comrade of Hunda’s, fell on patrol. Bandits. His wife already dead of the plague.’

‘Ah,’ breathed Kurunta, turning his sightless head to the voices. ‘There are always lots of soldiers’ orphans in such times.’

‘And this one,’ Gassulawiya said, pulling forward the youngest child, a boy about five with his left arm behind his back, ‘not charming at all. Show the lady. Show her!’

The boy, holding his bread in his right hand, produced his left arm. The flesh was covered in weals, the result of a beating.

‘Stealing meat,’ said his mother. ‘If he was seven he’d have been put to death. Stupid, bad boy. Stupid!’ She cuffed the back of his head. The boy slumped back into the shadows.

‘That is how these Hatti are,’ Qirum murmured. ‘Laws! The severest penalties! Duty, discipline and sacrifice! You have seen their arid country. The farmers must work hard to feed the soldiers, who must fight hard to hold their sprawling empire together. Discipline is the only way to drive people to such unrelenting effort, and when times are hard they fall back on such barbarity.’

Kilushepa said quietly, ‘And if you don’t discipline that tongue of yours, Trojan, it will be sent back to your home city separately from the rest of you.’

They lapsed into silence, the tension palpable. Hunda seemed to be gone a long time. And until he returned, Milaqa thought, the day remained in the balance — and all their fates, not least Kilushepa’s.

When Hunda did return he brought with him, not a set of guards to haul Kilushepa away, but a prince.

That was how the newcomer looked to Milaqa, anyhow. He glanced around the room, his eyes evidently adjusting to the gloom. He wore a long white tunic, spotlessly clean; he was clean-shaven with his hair worn long and braided. Bronze amulets hung at his neck, in the shape of crescent moons, animals. His fingers were crusted with rings, his wrists with bracelets. Despite all that he looked like a soldier, for he had a deep scar gouged into one cheek. He might have been forty. Gassulawiya cowered back with her children, as if hoping not to be noticed.