Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

‘You are my Ishtar, I think. Goddess of sex and war. What a combination! That’s you, Kilushepa. Fire through and through. And yet

…’ He touched her thighs. There were scars there, inflicted by some soldier’s raking nails, that ran up into her pubic hair. ‘Given what you have been through — how you were used, and then you gave birth, by the gods’ mercy — it’s a miracle your body works so well.’

She grunted. ‘ ‘‘Works so well.’’ Like a well-oiled chariot wheel, perhaps? That’s a soldier’s poetry. But it’s no miracle, Qirum. Remember, I kept a king for many years against the competition of the junior wives, some of the most beautiful, and generally younger, women in Hattusa, who all eyed my position. I learned to use my body and to maintain it. There are arts the ladies have here, ideas and techniques brought in from the Egyptians and from the people beyond the Indus. Even in my captivity I was able to use some of this to mitigate the worst of the damage that was being done to my body. But you were used too, as a child.’

It was as if a shadow passed over him. He glanced at the serving girl, oddly embarrassed; he didn’t want even this trivial girl to know of his past. ‘I don’t think about that.’

‘But you must think of it. As I think of my own trials. How can you not? I sometimes imagine the anger that must rage in you. Like a fire mountain. An anger that longs for expression.’

‘It is gone, it is done, look at me now!’

‘Yet you bear the scars, inside and out. As I do. I know I will never be as I was.’ She grinned, slyly. ‘You should have known me at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-’

‘I’d have been left an empty bag, like my ball sack feels now.’ He massaged his cock, which ached pleasantly. ‘Do you remember the first time? After I saved you from the booty people — we were in that ruined house in Troy-’

‘I’ll not forget it.’

‘This is something of a contrast, isn’t it? It’s good to see you in your natural home. Like a bird back in its silver cage.’

‘Oh, this is nothing. We’re in the palace precinct, the King could hardly keep me out given the support Nuwanza has mobilised for me — and given that my son still lives, and embodies a strand of inheritance. But all this is far from the true luxury that the Hatti court is capable of.’

He surprised himself by taking her hand. He knew that his privileged cock was doing the thinking for him, but he found he felt surprisingly tender towards her. ‘We have been cold to one another. We have let events drive us apart. Other people.’

‘Yes.’ Her delicate fingers squeezed his palm, rough with the calluses of sword fighting. ‘And, let’s be honest, we both enjoy the sparring, for that’s the sort we are. But there has always been something between us, Trojan. Something more than self-interest. As to the future, I intend to win.’ She said this firmly, flatly. ‘But regarding my position in the new court — well, there are many possibilities. It may be I will be able to resume my position as Tawananna, with Hattusili still on the throne.’

He grunted. ‘The existing Tawananna may have something to say about that.’

She waved a hand, dismissive. ‘The King’s mother-in-law is a greedy crone. She will be no obstacle. The King himself is more of a challenge. A cunning man, and a circumspect one, or he wouldn’t have survived the complicated family politics of our court to get to where he is now, and he wouldn’t have lasted once he got there. But still, he can be removed, or controlled.’ She eyed him. ‘I may have to marry him.’

He laughed. ‘But you’re his aunt!’

‘ That’s no obstacle, not here. We are all one vast family, centuries old; every marriage you make is to a cousin of some kind, unless you’re farmed out to a pharaoh or an Assyrian king. My ultimate goal is the next generation — to get my own son installed as tukhanti, the crown prince, heir to the throne. There are always plenty of princes and princesses running around the city, and out in the country there are whole mobs of disinherited descendants. I told you we are a very old family. One must fight for one’s position.

‘What I’m telling you is that I must either be a royal widow, or a royal wife. I cannot be with you. Not openly. You can’t be my husband. Yet I want you at my side. My partner. My ally.’ She took his hand again. ‘For you will help me make all this come to pass.’

Absurdly, he felt his eyes prickle. ‘Of course. Anything.’ His life had been turned on its head since he had met her. He had never known such heights of passion, or such depths of rage, when she had casually insulted him before others. For all his ambition and his dreams, he knew he could never have risen to this without her. In his heart there had always been a grain of doubt, the derisive voice of Praxo at the back of his head, perhaps, reminding him that she was driven by self-interest, that she was using him. But seeing her now, his vision of her face softened by his tears, that last grain of doubt washed away, and he saw nothing but glory for himself in the future: a king in all but name, here in the capital of the Hatti, the power and wealth of an empire his to command, and a queen to warm his bed — and, perhaps, his heart too.

She pressed gently, ‘You will do anything that is needed, to make this come about?’

‘Anything,’ he said gruffly.

She touched his cheek. ‘Now go. Get cleaned up. I would dine; the gods know I need to keep up my strength.’

He rolled off the bed, landed on his feet with a jump, and took a robe from the serving girl. ‘Good idea. Though you’ve so used up my cock I probably won’t be able to piss straight!’

When Qirum had gone, Muwa Chief of Bodyguards emerged from his hiding place, behind billows of soft fabric in a corner of the room.

Kilushepa was fixing her hair, using a mirror of polished bronze the girl was holding. She turned. ‘You heard it all.’

‘Yes.’ He glanced over his shoulder; the spy-hole in the wall was well concealed.

‘What a coarse man he is. All that bragging. He turns my stomach. Well, I led him to confess his intentions. It wasn’t hard. I, of course, am entirely loyal, while wishing to offer my service in this year of famine. He would murder the King, if that’s what it would take to further his own ambition.’

‘It was clear from what he said.’

‘And his rage — his desire for revenge against the world, for the abuse that was inflicted on him as a child — that was there for all to see. He is like a bull, loose in the palace. Who knows what the man is capable of?’

‘I have a feeling we are soon going to find out, Tawananna.’

‘Oh, do hold the mirror properly, you idiot child…’

His business done, Muwa withdrew from the chamber.

Hunda led Teel, Milaqa and Riban through the city to the Mound of Lelwani, Goddess of the underworld. This was the huge structure of sloped walls and steps which Milaqa had spotted from outside the city itself, a great flat-topped heap of stone over which the city wall strode. Hunda said it was a ‘pyramid’, and was the envy of every Egyptian who came to Hattusa, a boast that only made the Northlanders shrug and roll their eyes.

But it was beneath the Mound that the lair of the Hatti iron-makers was to be found.

Hunda was extremely wary, for, he said, the mystery of the Hatti’s hardened iron was kept secret from the ordinary population, and even from most of the court. ‘Some say only the King himself is supposed to know about it. On his accession each successor to the throne is led to this place by his Chief of Bodyguards to meet the Master of the Iron, and to be shown his secrets. I’ve never been this way myself before. I wouldn’t want to now, but Chief Muwa ordered me, as he was ordered by the Tawananna herself.’