Bronze Summer

14

It took only a few days’ sailing before Qirum’s boat reached the mouth of a river called the Na by the local people, and thus recorded in his periplus. This was the southern shore of the western country called Gaira. They arrived on the afternoon of a warm early summer day.

They came to a fishing village sprawled untidily along a rocky strand. The shore above the waterline was cluttered with overturned boats, and small squat wooden houses, racks of drying fish, a big open-air hearth that smoked languidly. Beyond the beach, forest rose up, dense. More boats were out on the deeper ocean, to the south.

A child playing in the surf at the water’s edge was the first to spot their sail. Naked, no more than four or five years old, she ran up the beach to the houses, calling out. Soon adults emerged to watch Praxo’s crew furl their sail and row in towards the shore. One man came down to the water where they would land, but others hung back.

‘Take care,’ Praxo said to the rowers. ‘Let me do the talking. I can speak the local jabber, a bit of it anyway. See how they’re hanging back from the shore? See that mother gathering in her children? We’ve come a long way west, and these parts aren’t as infested by sea raiders as back east, but they have their problems, and they’re wary. By the way, this isn’t Troy. You can’t assume that every woman you meet is a whore. You’ll get your share in time, have no fear, lads. But not yet.’

The ship pulled into the shore, and they all jumped out at Qirum’s command, Kilushepa included, splashing in knee-deep surf. The men lined up and hauled the ship until its flat base scraped over the beach. Then they relaxed, panting, and reached for their water flasks.

The man who’d come to meet them stood before Qirum and Praxo. He was young, under twenty, and he wore a tunic of coarsely spun linen, a short cow-hide cloak, and boots covered in fish scales. He was dark, his face round, his hair black. He tapped his chest. ‘Vertix,’ he said. ‘Vertix.’ He spoke on in his own coarse tongue, but there was Greek, Egyptian and even Hatti in the mix, Qirum could tell. ‘Show? Show way? Food, water? Guide?’

Praxo started to negotiate with the man. Kilushepa stood with Qirum. ‘What does this fellow want with us? Can you understand any of what he’s saying?’

‘He’s asking to be taken on as a guide. A navigator.’ He pointed up the river valley, which narrowed as you looked inland, cutting through a forested landscape. ‘We’re going across land. Otherwise we’d have to go out through the strait, out of this Middle Sea, and brave the Western Ocean — a much tougher journey, and a longer one. We’ll go north-west, that way, following the valley of this river as far as we can. We’ll have to walk as far as the watershed, I’m afraid.’

‘I did plenty of walking in the company of those Hatti soldiers, as you will recall. My soles are like leather.’

‘After the watershed we’ll follow another river further to the north and west, until we come to the land of the Burdi, as the people there call themselves — different from this lot by the way, and speaking a different tongue altogether, I’m told. We should be able to barter for a boat to take us down the lower reaches, and into a great estuary called the Cut. From there we’ll reach the southern coast of Northland. And there, I hope, we’ll meet the Hatti trading party you wrote to.’

‘Who will escort us the rest of the way to the midsummer Giving at Etxelur.’

‘We’ll be there in time, with a fair wind and a little help from this local fellow Vertix, who seems to know his business.’

‘And he knows his value,’ Kilushepa said drily, as they watched the man pick over the goods Praxo had to offer as payment, bits of silver and bronze, carved bone and wood, shaped stone.

Soon a deal was done. Praxo returned to Qirum. ‘We start at first light tomorrow. Come on, you men, you’ll be sleeping on dry land tonight, let’s get set up.’

The men hauled the ship’s sails out on the beach to dry, and spread blankets and sacks on the ground. Two of them set off up the valley in search of firewood, and straw or grass to stuff sleeping pallets. Praxo went up the beach with Vertix to negotiate for some fish and meat and water.

Kilushepa said, ‘Would you walk with me into the forest, Qirum? I’d be interested to see what herbs grow here. Perhaps we can flavour the fish supper we will soon be sharing.’

The idea of exploring a forest glade with a queen appealed to Qirum greatly. They walked together up the beach to the edge of the forest, followed by Praxo’s baffled, irritated gaze.

In the morning, at first light, Vertix came down the beach to meet them, laden with a heavy pack of his own.

Praxo had picked two men to stay behind here and watch the boat. These two were going about their morning chores sleepily, banking down the big fire they’d built, kicking sand into the holes they’d dug as latrines. Nobody bothered saying goodbye. The rest of the crew were gathered beside the boat, all of them, save only for Kilushepa, wrapped in their cloaks with packs on their backs or heads.

Vertix grinned at them all. ‘Nice day, nice forest, nice walk,’ he said in broken Greek. ‘And then land of Burdi, and then — Northland! Now walk.’ He turned and led the way up a narrow track that led along the eastern side of the river valley.

Praxo, laden by his own immense pack, marched ahead with him. The men shuffled after them. Kilushepa and Qirum brought up the rear, treading side by side along a path not much more than an animal track. Qirum listened to the men’s grumbles, amused. For days they had been complaining about their sore backsides on the ship’s rough benches, and their blistered hands; now, right from the start of the trek, they complained about their feet.

Kilushepa murmured, ‘That man is my implacable opponent.’

‘Praxo? He’s a good man. He does his job-’

‘What hold does he have over you?’

He turned his head in surprise. ‘He has no hold. I lead.’

‘Yet you defer to him.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I say it is. Tell me about him — how you know him.’

He hoisted his pack more comfortably on his shoulders. ‘He’s a Trojan, as I am.’

She said softly, ‘Though I suppose he would say you are merely half-Trojan.’

‘He was a child at the time of the Greek siege — only two years old, less perhaps. But his family had money. They bribed a Greek officer to let them escape before the final assault, the fire. I’m not sure where they ended up. From what he’s said I think it might have been Patara.’ A city on the southern shore of Anatolia, in another Hatti dependency. ‘He doesn’t talk about that much. Anyhow he always seems to have been a tough kid.

‘As soon as he was old enough to steal one of his father’s horses, he rode out of there and made his way back to Troy. That’s where he’s been based ever since, as far as I can tell — making a living by trading, mercenary fighting, sailing-’

‘Piracy. Banditry.’

‘That’s the nature of the times.’

‘Tell me how he met you.’

‘He saved my life.’ He paused. ‘There was a fight in a tavern. I was fourteen. I was on the losing side. But when Praxo waded in, he was only sixteen but already twice my size, the odds changed. We’ve been friends ever since. At first he was dominant, of course; he was older, more street-tough, stronger. But with time-’

‘You hesitate. What haven’t you said? Go back. This “tavern”. Was it really a tavern?’

Suddenly he feared her, her sharp mind, her probing words.

‘Praxo told me what you had to do to survive. There is no shame-’

‘It was a brothel.’ The words came in a rush, but softly, so the others could not hear. ‘One man refused to pay me. He-I was thrown out into the street, for I did not have the bit of silver that was the barman’s usual fee. The man was waiting, with his friends. They grabbed me. Five or six of them. They were farmers, I think, strong as oxen. They got me in a ruined house. I…’

‘They took it in turns, I suppose.’

‘They were crushing me. I could not breathe. They would have killed me, I think, before they finished. But Praxo had seen me, saw the men pull me into the house.’

‘He saved you.’

‘I think he just felt like a fight. They were drunk and foolish, and, though strong, they were farmers, not warriors. He pulled them off me, broke the arm of one of them, the rest ran off. One against five or six, and he won.

‘I was barely conscious. He sat me up against a wall until I could breathe properly.’ He remembered the ache in his bruised chest, the burning pain of his ripped rectum, the foul taste of semen. These were memories he had put in a sealed pot and buried in the dark undersoil of his mind. How had this woman dragged them out of him so quickly?

She was staring at him as she walked, studying his face as he scrutinised his periplus, squeezing meaning out of it. ‘You shouldn’t be ashamed. You couldn’t help any of it. You were a victim.’

‘No.’ He hated the word, and anger flashed. ‘Not a victim.’

‘All right. But that’s not all. Is it? What else happened? Go back again. Praxo sat you against the wall. You were recovering. What then?’

‘He was laughing. Full of fire. He’d just won a fight that he would talk about for years. The men had brought some mead, and he took that and he drank it. And he said I should pay him for saving me. Years later, you know, he spoke of that night. He apologised, he said we would never speak of it again, that no man would know, and that.. ’

‘How did you pay him?… Ah. With your only coin.’

‘He doesn’t lie with boys, not Praxo. Not to his taste. But that night, he was full of himself, he said the fight had made him hard. I used my mouth. He closed his eyes, and shouted the names of women he had lain with.’

‘So that’s it,’ she breathed. ‘And yet you stayed with him?’

‘He was ashamed, I think. Well, he was once he’d slept off the drink. He said I could go with him. I didn’t have to go back to the brothel. I could stay beside him, learn to fight. I think he meant this as a gesture of pity, he thought I wouldn’t last. But I learned fast, and bulked up, and we were soon an effective team. Then we rowed our first ship together.’

‘And that’s the hold he has over you.’

‘No. He has no hold! I told you, as we grew older, and it became clear I was the smart one-’

She was whispering now, into his ear, intense. ‘I know how it feels, Qirum, believe me. I was used by Hatti soldiers. I remember their faces, every one. I remember their filth. I learned their names when I could. When I return to Hattusa in my pomp I will seek them out, and their families.’ She smiled. ‘You, though. You are the victim who kept his rapist close, haven’t you?’ And she walked ahead of him, cutting off the conversation.

Qirum strode on, angry, humiliated, as he had not felt for many years. Up ahead he heard Praxo’s voice, telling some joke to the men, his booming laughter, his gusty singing resuming once more.