Bronze Summer

18

When the conversation began to break up, Milaqa made for the hut Kilushepa said had been given over to their use. Maybe she could clean up in there, have something to eat and drink. Such was her mood of impotent fury at Bren and his lethal scheming, just to get out of sight of people for a while would be a good thing.

But as she approached the hut she heard a belch erupting from it, thunderous, liquid, drawn out, delivered with relish.

A man came strutting out of the house. Aged perhaps mid-twenties, he wore a tunic of grey wool that just reached his knees, leather leggings, strapped-on sandals, a scabbard with a bronze sword on his back, and a breastplate he laced about his body as he emerged into the light. He was shorter than she was, muscular. His head was bare, his dark hair cropped short and tousled, and his face was smoothly shaven. Even from a distance he smelled of spices, of perfumes she couldn’t identify, and of ale.

When he saw Milaqa his hand was on the hilt of the sword in an instant. He was a man used to sudden threats, she saw, a warrior. She took care not to move a muscle, showing her hands were empty.

He grinned, dropped his hands to his sides, and said something in what sounded like poor Greek.

‘Excuse me?’ she replied in Hatti. ‘And by the way, you stink of ale.’

‘Oh, you speak the tongue of the longhairs, do you?’ he said, reverting to that tongue. ‘Passably well, too.’

‘It’s what I study. Languages.’

‘Really? You study?’ He looked her up and down. ‘A girl like you doesn’t need to be studying anything at all. Except maybe how to twist her hips.’ And he gave his own pelvis an obscene wiggle. His arms were bare, heavily muscled, and striped with small scars. He was stocky, but he moved with an animal grace — he was a slab of muscle, with not an ounce of fat on him.

Revolted, appalled — fascinated — she snapped back, ‘Not too respectful, are you, to the daughter of an Annid? Well, you won’t get any hip-twists from me.’

‘Daughter of an Annid? So you’re a Northlander. The first I’ve met in fact. Explains the skinny frame, the complexion like water, the arrogant ways. As for stinking of ale…’ He raised a hand to his mouth, breathed, sniffed deeply. ‘It will wear off. Anyhow, what do you know about beer? Got a husband who likes a drop, have you?’ When she hesitated, his grin widened. ‘Oh. No husband. Well, that makes the situation more interesting. Like a drop yourself, do you? You want to join me? I’ve a cask in the back, barely touched. Kilushepa sips a little, leaves the rest to me. Not bad stuff — not made by these dirt-scratchers here, but bought from a village a couple of days away where they specialise.’

She felt like jabbing at him. ‘Queen Kilushepa told us about you. Or at least, she let slip that you existed. She calls you “the Trojan”.’

He grunted. ‘My name is Qirum. She has other names for me, when we’re alone in the dark, as we have been nightly, ever since I bought her.’

She tried to understand the sudden swirl of emotions inside her. This repulsive man, this arrogant, dirty, hard-drinking bully of a soldier was the opposite of everything she respected. What did she care if such a woman as Kilushepa lay with such a man as this, or not?

He was staring at her, as if he could see into her head, her heart. He took a bold step forward. ‘The daughter of an Annid — you know, I’ve never lain with a Northlander-’

‘And you’re not going to now.’

‘What, is it the drink you’re worried about? Think it will hinder my prowess?’ And he stepped back, performed a back-flip that left him standing on his feet, and drew his sword from the scabbard on his back and slashed at the air. His body had moved in one piece, as if carved from oak; the strength of his core muscles must be remarkable. ‘See? Not even sweating. Tell you what — fetch me some of the nettle tea the farmer women serve up, and come and join me in here. It’s warm and dark…’

‘No, thanks.’ She walked away.

His laughter pursued her. ‘I’ll see you later, little girl, daughter of an Annid. See you later!’

That evening the farmers built a tremendous bonfire at the heart of their village. Sheep were slaughtered for the roast, as was a boar trapped that day in the forest, and there were mounds of the coarse bread the farmers made from their grain. In return the visitors handed over gifts: bronze and amber from the Northlanders, and from Kilushepa’s party exotic artefacts of glass, copper, tin, even a creamy white substance that turned out to be from the tooth of some tremendous animal whose description Milaqa didn’t quite believe, and iron, ornaments and tools made of the precious stuff.

It was a clear starry night. After the feasting, while Bren engaged Kilushepa in deep conversation, the Kanti farmers began a ritual of their own. They tracked around their circle of stones, trampling flat a kind of walkway as they did so. Every so often the elders lay on the ground and took sightings of stars along lines of the stones, sometimes right across the village space, while the children danced and sang.

When she got the chance, Milaqa pulled Voro aside.

‘Bren speaks with Kilushepa of alliances between the Hatti and Northland. But he is not the Annid of Annids. He is not even of the House of the Owl. He does not speak for Northland!’

‘Yet his favoured candidate is now installed as Annid,’ Voro murmured back.

‘And I heard the other Hatti talking. If what they’re saying is true it’s an astonishing story. They are the embassy from Hattusa — not her! She found them, and just — well, she took over.’

Voro smiled. ‘This is how the world works, I think. An ambitious Jackdaw, a disempowered queen, with knowledge and ability and cunning, in the right place and the right time — such people can change everything.’

As long as obstacles like Milaqa’s mother were removed. ‘It’s not right. If my mother were alive-’

‘But she is not,’ Voro said firmly. ‘Anyhow I thought you were the famous rebel, Milaqa. It’s hard to believe you’re demanding that things be done by the rules now!’ He was grinning at her. Mocking her. Voro, the puppy dog!

Furious at him, at Bren and Kilushepa — furious at her mother for being dead — she stalked away and found a place to sit alone at the edge of the clearing, beside the tipped-up root of a great fallen tree.

Of course it was the Trojan who found her first.

‘Go away.’

‘Oh, come on.’ He settled easily to the ground behind her. His lips shone with the grease of the meat he had eaten, and he carried a skin flask. ‘I brought you some of my ale. You want to try some?’

‘No.’ But now she felt graceless. She lifted a flask of her own. ‘I have this. Fruit, honey and water.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He took a draught of his ale, and let out a satisfied belch. ‘We didn’t get off to the best of starts, did we? My fault, I admit it.’

She fingered the iron arrowhead at her neck — a nervous gesture; she dropped her hand. ‘And this is your way of having another try at me, is it?’

He laughed. ‘I’m not that subtle. Believe me — I’m really not. We’re going to be stuck with each other all the way across Northland. And besides, you’ve a choice of talking to me or that streak of gristle over there.’ He meant Voro, who was hovering by the fire, trying not to be seen to be watching them. ‘He’s no doubt a decent fellow. If you want me to clear off so you can call him over-’

‘No,’ she said impulsively.

He laughed again and drank more ale. ‘Or of course you could talk to some of these farmers, if you know the tongue.’

‘They aren’t the savages Kilushepa believes them to be.’

‘Of course they’re not. Do you know what they call themselves? The People of Venus. The wandering star is their principal goddess. And the way these stones are lined up is something to do with how Venus drifts around the sky. Don’t ask me to explain. All this is locked up in the memories of their elders. They’re a deep people — as all people are.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Because I keep my ears open, and my eyes. Because I too am deeper than you might think. Certainly than Kilushepa suspects, and that suits me fine. Mind you, I wouldn’t go into that big central hall if I were you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because among these people, when grandmother dies they cut out her guts and her brains and hang her up to dry out in the rafters, over the fire. It’s nothing but corpses in there, dangling. Their feet knock your hat off.’

She snorted laughter.

‘Here’s what I think, daughter of the Annid. I think you and I have a lot in common.’

She remembered Voro saying something similar. Somehow she believed it of Qirum. ‘How can that be? I never met anybody like you before.’

‘Like me?’

She looked at him, his slab of a body, his scars, his arrogant bearing. ‘A fighter.’

‘So nobody fights in Northland?’

‘Not the way you people do.’

He grinned. ‘That fascinates you, doesn’t it? And that’s why we fight, you know. Deep down, underneath it all. The glamour. The thrill of hard muscle, the stink of blood. The finest sport anybody ever invented — war! You Northlanders don’t know what you’re missing.’

‘Then why do you say we have something in common?’

‘Because we’re both outsiders. We’re neither of us here for our own reasons, are we? I’m here because of what the Tawananna wants to achieve, which is to rebuild the Hatti’s relationship with Northland, use that to win back her own position at home, and skewer her enemies. And you are here because — well, I’m not sure. You’re no trader, are you? Must be something to do with your famous mother. And that nice Hatti arrowhead you wear around your pretty neck.’

She frowned. ‘You don’t know anything about me… How do you know it’s Hatti?’

He reached out and cupped the arrow-point in his fingers. The back of his hand brushed her bare flesh, as he surely intended, and she tried not to show how it thrilled her. ‘Only they can manufacture iron hard enough to use as a weapon.’ He glanced across the village space. ‘So here we are in the presence of an exiled Hatti queen, and a Northland trader who seems hungry for a little power himself, and a bit of weapon-quality iron. How does it all fit together, do you think?’ He pulled back. ‘Listen, daughter of an Annid — let’s you and me stick together. We each need an ally.’

She said grudgingly, ‘As long as it’s convenient.’

He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t expect anything else. Well, I’d better go have a nap before it’s time to service the Tawananna again. Goodnight, Annid’s daughter.’ He leaned over and kissed her cheek, quite gently. Then he got to his feet in a single bound, and walked off to the house he shared with Kilushepa.

She wiped away the meat grease he had left on her cheek. And then she touched the place he had kissed her, again.