Stephen Baxter - Bronze Summer

Muwa guided the Northlanders in, and settled them on benches on one side of the room. It was only when the Northlanders had taken their places, and after serving children had come among them with plates of delicate foodstuffs and cups of wine, that the members of the panku arrived. Of course, Milaqa thought, they would not be kept waiting by mere foreigners. There were a dozen of them, nine men and three women. They all wore clothes at least as gorgeous as Kilushepa’s; all wore their hair elaborately plaited or braided, and the men were clean-shaven. They were all so heavily coated with creams and other cosmetics that Milaqa could not tell how old any of them were. And, unlike Kilushepa, they were all festooned with jewellery, pendants around their necks, rings on their fingers, bangles on their wrists and ankles, gorgeous wares from Crete and Egypt, and they tinkled and clattered as they moved.

None of them deigned to so much as glance at the Northlanders. They took their places on benches opposite, and pecked at the foodstuffs brought before them, chatting in low tones to each other.

Muwa hastily told them about Hatti politics. ‘The panku is a council called for specific purposes — to consider the rights and wrongs of a particular issue, and to advise the King. You see, it doesn’t have a formal constitution. And it doesn’t have a fixed membership. Anybody can serve — the palace servants, the bodyguards, the Men of the Golden Spear, the Captains of the Thousand — even cooks, heralds, stable-boys. Anybody who has the King’s ear at a particular time, or who just happens to be around when the panku is called.’

‘It sounds a mess,’ said Teel. ‘Our Annids are much more proper about deliberations and decision-making.’

‘Well, this is our way,’ Kilushepa said. ‘This is a rather ancient institution, fallen by the wayside in recent times, but revived by the current King who likes its flexibility in these times of change and stress. You shouldn’t underestimate its power. There have been times when the panku has even challenged the King, over the conduct of a war for example. So don’t think that if it goes badly for us at the panku we can appeal to the King. This is where we need to make your case well, and win it.’ She glanced at the members of the panku. ‘I can see, however, that the crone who calls herself the current Tawananna has not dared to show her face. The most important people here are the two men in the centre. The one on the right is Nuwanza. My second cousin, and the man who has supported me so far in my quest for rehabilitation. The other is called Tushratta. He is a closer relative of the king — ours is a complicated family — and one of his senior advisers. The rest are not important, nobodies come to show their pretty faces, and have a bit of fun, and maybe to make a name for themselves. I, by the way, will do the talking.’

Noli nodded silent agreement.

But Teel was tense. ‘If we leave without the secrets of the iron-’

Kilushepa held up a silencing finger. ‘You will get what you want — and I will get what I want — although things might not work out quite the way you expect.’

Now Nuwanza, Kilushepa’s cousin, rose to his feet. The hubbub of conversation among the panku members died away.

Nuwanza smiled at Kilushepa, and extended outstretched arms to the Northlanders. He was a portly man of about forty, and he struck Milaqa as sane, competent. ‘All children of the little mothers of sea, sky and earth are always welcome here in our magnificent capital, which bathes in the light of My Sun, our King. And we are aware that you have journeyed far and have braved many perils to bring us your gifts. Please, cousin — proceed.’

So Kilushepa began. Sitting calmly, her voice carrying through the large room, she outlined again the journey they had undertaken — and the promise of potatoes and maize.

She showed a sample seed potato from the sacks. ‘It will grow where no other useful crop survives, in the uplands, in poor soil, anywhere, given water. A given field will produce more raw food in the form of potatoes than any other crop. Potatoes can even be grown between grain crops, thus multiplying the value of a piece of cultivated land. As a root, the crop is difficult to steal, for it remains underground until it is dug up, and few raiding armies will pause to do that…’

Milaqa marvelled as she spoke on, making a humble root crop seem almost glamorous. But so it was, she supposed, if your concern was the destiny of an empire, and how it was to be fed.

‘Finally — one can survive on nothing but this root, and cow’s milk… I am sure you can see how this will transform the potential of our farmland, and all our fortunes.’ Kilushepa handed the root to Nuwanza.

‘Such a humble thing,’ Nuwanza said, turning the potato over in his hands. ‘Yet each mouthful of food I put into my mouth is a humble thing.’ He glanced at the few sacks. ‘You cannot feed a city of fifty thousand on a handful of these roots, no matter how vigorously they grow, queen.’

‘No. It will take years — crop after crop must be planted, and protected, and harvested, and the seed dug in again. Nuwanza, what we must do, you and I and our allies in the palace, is to work for stability — frankly, to hold the empire together for the three or four or five years it will take for these new crops to start producing on a massive scale. With these crops, these gifts from the gods, as soon as the sky clears, the famine will be banished and a new generation will grow up fat and healthy. And then new Hatti armies will march out to subdue the rebellious dependencies, and once more impose the will of My Sun the King on surrounding nations.

‘But without this gift — and let us speak honestly, councillors, for if we do not acknowledge the magnitude of our debt we cannot begin to repay it — without it our empire might crumble. Hattusa itself might fall. Just as, indeed, we might already have fallen if not for the gift of the Northlanders’ mash, which filled the bellies of our troops when we had nothing else to give them.’

Tushratta leaned forward grandly. He was a thin, older, more sinister-looking man than Nuwanza, Milaqa thought. ‘I do not deny the magnitude of your achievement in bringing us this treasure, fair Kilushepa. And this from a position of desolation, of false banishment.’

Milaqa saw Kilushepa sit straighter at his use of that word ‘false’, an indication of how far her rehabilitation had already come.

‘But,’ went on Tushratta, ‘you ask too much in return. We cannot give up our Master of the Iron! For centuries our gifts of iron have awed the other Great Kings, of Egypt and Assyria… How can you expect us to sacrifice that?’

Then followed a long and complicated sequence of negotiations, which Milaqa found hard to follow. Kilushepa argued that the Northlanders lived far away, and would pledge not to divulge the secret of iron-making to any of the Hatti’s local rivals. And they wanted the iron only for tools and weapons, not for gifts; they would not try to compete with the Hatti kings on that level. Noli confirmed this, speaking quietly. The Hatti seemed to think war-making was a rather vulgar and wasteful use of such a precious substance. ‘Like stopping up your enemy’s mouth with gold,’ said Tushratta.

But the Master of the Iron had been in his post since the King himself was a small boy. How could such a venerable gentleman be taken away? Perhaps the Northlanders would be willing to leave an apprentice or two to learn the craft at the feet of the Master himself, and then take the secrets of the process home. But that could take years; the Northlanders insisted they needed the iron now.

The argument seemed to be stuck in stalemate.

Then Kilushepa rather grandly stood — the first time she had been on her feet in the whole session, Milaqa noted. ‘I have the solution,’ she announced. ‘It has just struck me — of course — you are right, good Tushratta, it is unreasonable to expect the King to give up his Master of the Iron. But the Master has an apprentice, and he seems an able lad, from what I’ve heard. I doubt if the King even knows he exists. And if he were to leave, no harm would be done to the iron-making tradition here, for the Master would soon find another assistant to train up.’ She turned to the Northlanders. ‘Annid Noli — would you consider this?’