Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

Teel asked, ‘And will you be the next Master?’

The boy looked shocked to be asked. ‘Me? No. Of course not. I’m not nearly high-born enough. No, my job is to assist the current Master, and to help train his replacement, when he is selected.’

Riban walked around the workshop, curious, peering into the pit. ‘How do you make your iron, apprentice?’

Zidanza looked doubtfully at Hunda. ‘We don’t talk about this. Let alone to foreigners. No offence. Maybe I should wake the Master-’

The sergeant shook his head. ‘These aren’t normal times, Zidanza. Answer their questions.’

Zidanza grinned. And, with an audience for perhaps the first time in his life, he opened up.

He took them around the secret stages of the processing. In the pit of fire, twice-burned coal was consumed to give a high temperature, much higher than you needed for the smelting of mere bronze — which, by comparison, Zidanza made sound like a game for children. This twice-burned coal was what Milaqa had taken for rocks on the fire. Iron ore subject to such heat resulted in the porous, floating-rock-like product he called a bloom. But this was not yet the finished product. You had to heat it again, and beat it, and quench it with water to cool it — but not too rapidly or you would crack it — and then heat and beat and cool it again, over and over. This got rid of ‘slag’ that you removed from the melt, until you were left with ingots of iron — he showed them samples, small finger-sized bars — that you could work up into finished objects like Milaqa’s arrowhead.

Teel smiled at Milaqa. ‘Following all this?’

‘Very little. But I see how complex it is. I wonder who first worked all this out.’

‘Who knows? Probably not one person. A whole chain of people, trying this and then that, over generations perhaps, trying to make this hard, useful iron, out of humble rock.’

Hunda joined Milaqa and Teel. ‘So what do you think? What do you need to take away, if you’re to have a gift of Hatti iron-making?’

‘Nothing,’ Teel said, ‘save the wisdom in the head of the Master. Everything else we can build in Northland.’

Hunda looked doubtful. ‘I can’t imagine the King allowing you to steal away his Master of the Iron.’

Partahulla stirred and snorted, choked briefly, then chewed a lump of phlegm in his sleep. Zidanza, eagerly showing a lump of bloom to Riban, didn’t notice.

Milaqa said to Teel, ‘But it’s not the Master who’s doing all the work down here. Not him, but his apprentice. Perhaps his is the head we need.’

Teel frowned. He seemed startled by the idea. ‘Well, let’s test him.’ He walked over to Zidanza and Riban. ‘Apprentice. I’ll share one of our secrets with you now. We don’t want iron-making so we can make gifts for kings. We want it so we can fight wars. Not just one arrowhead, not just one dagger — we want to equip an army, as now they are equipped with bronze.’

Zidanza looked astounded. ‘A whole army. Why, the first army with decent iron weapons would be unbeatable.’

‘We know,’ Teel said. ‘That’s why we want to be the first. But don’t worry, we are allies of the Hatti kings. If, in theory, I asked you to turn out, not one arrowhead, but hundreds — thousands — and daggers, swords, even armour — could you do it?’

He looked around the workshop, thought about it, and scratched his head. ‘I’m going to need a bigger pit.’

Teel grinned at Milaqa. ‘Good answer. I think you’re right, niece. Now all we need is for Kilushepa to persuade the King to let him go..’

Two days later the Northlanders were summoned to a session before the panku, the King’s council.

Muwa came to collect them from Hunda’s house. Hunda himself was here waiting. Nobody knew where Tibo was, he had left before dawn, and a faintly concerned Deri was out searching for him. But Noli, Teel, Milaqa, Riban were all ready. Teel and Riban carried the precious sacks of seed stock. They had all put on their smartest, cleanest clothes. Teel and Noli wore their Annids’ cloaks, and Riban the priest had looped around his neck a very ancient ceremonial axe of Etxelur flint, finely shaped and polished until it shone.

They set out through the city, flanked by Hunda and Muwa with an escort of palace guards, and climbed the sloping streets. Heading north, they passed out of the temple district and came to a rocky outcrop, itself crowded with grand buildings and mausoleums, from where they had a good view of the ‘lower city’, separated from the rest by its own walls and split up into precincts by more walls within — and the citadel itself, behind even stouter walls, which contained the apartments of the King. To their left, the west, Milaqa could see an astounding temple, dedicated to the Storm God, a box of stone set on a mighty plinth surrounded by lesser buildings, workshops, breweries, bakehouses, residential houses — a temple so huge it was like a city within a city, complete unto itself.

From the outcrop on which they stood a pair of spectacular stone bridges led directly to the King’s own house. But Qirum’s party was not to be so honoured as to go this way today. They had to make their way down from the outcrop, and through a gateway in the western side of the citadel wall.

At this gate Qirum waited in his polished armour. ‘So today’s the day. A day on which all history will hinge… Iron for the Northland! I have the scent of victory in my nostrils — my blood is on fire, as before a battle.’

‘Maybe,’ Muwa said drily. ‘But you’re not invited in, Trojan. The Tawananna specifically said you were to wait outside the citadel.’

Qirum looked baffled, then grew quickly angry, as was his way. ‘But Kilushepa told me-’

‘Just wait, Trojan. Get something to eat. Do a bit of whoring. You’ll learn the outcome soon enough.’

Qirum was smouldering. But to Milaqa’s relief he didn’t try to force his way past Muwa; he just stalked away.

When he had gone Muwa produced a clay tablet from a pouch at his belt, which he gave to Hunda. ‘A message from Kilushepa. She says you are to go to this address. You’ll understand what to do when you get there.’

Hunda looked as confused as Qirum had, but he obeyed, and slipped away.

Muwa beckoned. ‘The rest of you, follow me.’

And he led them into the citadel of the Hatti king.

Within the citadel’s walls they passed through wide courts lined with columns, each with its own guarded gateways. The citadel was a jumble of distinct buildings, and yet there was a cohesion to the design, Milaqa thought, all these grand structures serving a single purpose, unified by courtyards and colonnades. It was not like the rest of the city here. The courtyards were swept clean, the buildings well maintained, there was no crush, there were no hungry children with their palms out — indeed nobody they saw, finely dressed and evidently busy, looked hungry at all.

They were brought to a house of stone and mud brick that looked imposing to Milaqa, but she could see it was dwarfed by the grander buildings on the very top of this hill, the highest ground of all, where the King in his apartments could view his capital city at his leisure. Inside this house was a single vast room, the walls adorned with tapestries and filmy curtains. Soldiers, bodyguards, lined the walls of the room, their faces blank, their weapons visible.

And Kilushepa was already here, waiting patiently. In full Hattusa finery at last, she looked impossibly glamorous to Milaqa, with her hair piled high and her figure draped in a robe of soft, brightly coloured fabric; her eyes were lined by kohl, her lips stained a deep plum-red. Milaqa thought it was astonishing how far she had risen since her lowest moment, when Qirum had rescued her from a column of booty people, a whore of her own soldiers. And if she still felt begrimed inside, and Milaqa understood the deep Hatti taboo about cleanliness, she showed no sign of it.