Bronze Summer

5

Outside Troy’s broken walls, the land under a harsh noon sun was dusty, rocky, bare, marked by a few abandoned dust-bowl fields. Roads radiated away from this place, roads that had once carried the seaborne produce of Mycenae and the other Greek cities overland to much of Anatolia — roads now becoming invisible beneath the drift of the dust, the product of decades of drought. Qirum felt his mouth dry, his skin desiccating, and he pulled a soft felt hat from his belt to shield his brow from the spring sun.

Qirum and Praxo were not alone in coming out of Troy to greet the train. Alerted by the war trumpets, vendors drifted up to offer the troops water, food, trinkets, whores, and slavers came out to take a first look at the fresh merchandise.

And Qirum heard a deep rumble of thousands of voices. Here came the march.

They climbed a ridge to see better. The caravan was revealed as a tremendous column stretching back along the road from the east as far as Qirum could see, thousands of feet raising a long yellow dust cloud. Somewhere behind the column itself must come the baggage train, ox carts bearing the senior officers and a Hatti prince or two in command, and heaps of booty, gold and silver and defeated gods, and the tremendous quantities of food and water required to keep this shuffling crowd alive. There would even be cattle and sheep, stolen herds driven along the trail.

But the people came by first. The Hatti infantry walked in files alongside the main column, their officers on horseback. They were Hatti warriors, each with a loose shin-length robe tied around by a leather belt, and a conical helmet, spear and sword, and that oddly shaped shield of theirs, a slab of wood and leather with rounded corners and indents to either side. They all wore their hair long and plaited so it hung down their backs, and Qirum, who had fought Hatti, knew that this thick tail afforded a little extra protection to the neck. The walk had clearly gone on for many days; the soldiers looked footsore, their pace a dull plod. But their officers looked reasonably alert. From horseback they scanned the country for bandits and robbers, and watched the column of marchers they shepherded.

And that column was made up of ordinary folk, not soldiers, two or three or four abreast, men, women and children alike, shuffling in dull misery.

Qirum stared curiously at the booty people. He had seen such columns before, but you never got used to the sight. Here was the population of a town, or maybe even a whole country, emptied out once the fighting was done, the warriors killed off, the buildings looted and torched, grain stores and farms picked over — and the people rounded up and driven out. Most of the captives had their hands tied up with rope. Some were hobbled, and walked with difficulty. Most were clothed, some in the ragged remains of what might have been fine clothes, but some went naked, perhaps after some act of spite or punishment by their guards, or even after being robbed by their fellow captives. And many walked barefoot, with splashes of dried blood about battered feet and legs. Qirum saw few old folk, and nobody obviously lame, and few little ones, toddlers too heavy to carry but too young to be able to sustain the pace. The marches were a great winnowing, and their trails were always littered with corpses. As always some of the more attractive women and girls had evidently been used by the soldiers; you could see it in the way they walked, the state of their clothes, the bruising and the blood. Was there a lack of young men? They were always the most trouble, but the most valuable on the slave markets.

Most trudged in silence. Qirum realised now that the crowd murmur he had heard came mostly from the soldiers. This tremendous column was actually quiet, for its numbers.

Praxo nudged Qirum, for coming past them now was a group of young women — six or seven of them, no more than girls really, it was difficult to tell their ages under matted hair and caked dirt. They wore similar clothes, or the remains of them, tunics of pale linen edged with what looked like gold thread. Most walked with their heads down, as if they neither knew nor cared where they were. One had a kind of bag over her head, obscuring her face. A taller, perhaps older woman walked behind them, her long robe a shapeless rag, her face hidden by a dusty hood.

‘Come on,’ Praxo murmured to Qirum. ‘Let’s do some shopping.’

‘I doubt you’re going to find many fresh apples in that barrel, friend.’

‘They always keep some whole to get a better price from the slavers.’ He nudged Qirum’s back. ‘Go on. Pick a couple for us. You do the talking…’

They fell in pace with the column. Qirum nodded in a friendly fashion to the nearest soldier, a tough-looking veteran of maybe thirty who walked with a slight limp. He regarded Qirum and Praxo with blank contempt, as all soldiers regarded those who were not soldiers. But his interest quickened when Praxo dug a pouch out of his sack and threw it to him.

‘Wine and water,’ Qirum said, trying his Mycenaean Greek. ‘Keep it.’ The soldier took the pouch but looked blank. You never knew with Hatti soldiers; their empire was a conglomerate of many peoples, of vassal kingdoms and dependencies like Troy itself, all ruled by the kings at Hattusa. Qirum switched to the language the Hatti used themselves, which they called Nesili, supposedly the language of their old kings. ‘Wine and water,’ he repeated.

This time the man nodded grudgingly. One-handed, holding his spear, the soldier flipped out the stopper and took a deep draught. ‘Thanks.’ He held out the pouch.

Qirum waved it away. ‘I told you, keep it.’

The soldier shrugged and passed the pouch to the fellow behind him. One or two of the prisoners looked on longingly. The soldier looked Qirum up and down as they walked by the column. ‘What are you, a sailor? I can tell by the stink of salt under the woman’s perfume you’re wearing.’

‘We’re traders. A bit of this, a bit of that — you know. Who are this lot?’

‘Arzawans. Always a troublesome bunch. This action should keep them quiet for a while. We’ll sell some to the slavers from Egypt and Assyria. The rest are going to be used to rebuild some city up in the north.’

That, Qirum knew, was the way of the Hattusa kings — to move whole captive populations around the country, to sell them on, or recruit them into the armies, or use them in the fields, or to repopulate empty cities or countries. The strategy of an empire always short of manpower.

The soldier eyed Qirum. ‘As for you, I can guess what you’re sniffing around.’

‘Just one of these beauties in the robes,’ Praxo said in his own rough Hatti, and he licked his lips. ‘One for me and my buddy to share.’

The soldier looked faintly disgusted. ‘Not this lot. Temple maidens. Or court servants. Something like that. Should fetch a high price.’

Qirum grinned easily. ‘Your sergeant will get the profit, not you. You’ve come all this way, you’re at the gates of Troy itself, the city of traders. Why not make it worth your while? I know it’s against the rules. But look along the line.’ The soldier turned his head. All along the column the traders from Troy were doing bits of business with the soldiers. ‘Everybody’s at it. Nobody’s watching. Nobody’s going to miss one.’

‘These girls are special. They’ll have been counted.’

‘Then say she fell to a scorpion bite in the night. Oh, come on.’ Qirum dug into Praxo’s pouch and dug out a broken silver necklace. ‘Look at that. Egyptian. Made for the wife of a pharaoh.’ In fact, that was true. ‘You and your pal could have a fine night in Troy for that. Believe me, it’s not a pricey town.’

The soldier’s comrade saw the necklace, and murmured something.

The soldier laughed. ‘All right. Just get her out of here quick before the officers notice.’

Qirum handed over the silver chain.

The soldier reached back for the girl with the bag over her head, grabbed the bonds of thick rope that tied her wrists together, and pulled her away from the others. One of her companions called out. Maybe this was a sister, Qirum thought, or a friend, about to lose a companion she would never see again, but the soldier glared, and she shrank back. Praxo grabbed the girl’s bound wrists in one huge fist, and squeezed her rump with the other hand. The girl stumbled, instinctively trying to pull away. She turned her bagged head fitfully, this way and that.

Qirum frowned. He had caught a whiff of corruption. ‘There’s something wrong.’ He had been sold sick slaves and whores before, or insane ones; you had to be careful.

‘Yes. There is something wrong with her.’ The voice, speaking Nesili, was commanding, clear — and a woman’s.

Qirum turned. It was the older woman who had been walking behind the girls, her hands tied as theirs were. Now she shook back her hood to reveal a face of fine command, despite streaks of dirt and blood and a shaven scalp. Like an eagle, Qirum immediately thought. A downed eagle.

The soldier who had spoken to Qirum strode over and aimed a punch at her.

Qirum called impulsively, ‘No. Let her speak.’

Praxo was holding the girl by her wrists at arm’s length. ‘What’s wrong with this one?’

‘See for yourself,’ the woman said. ‘Pull back that bag.’

The soldiers looked at each other, and shrugged.

Praxo pulled the bag from the girl’s head. Flies swarmed out, buzzing, and Praxo flinched, gagging.

Qirum put his fingers under the girl’s chin and raised her face. Her eye sockets were pits of black corruption; he saw maggots squirm.

‘This is what we do,’ the older woman said.

‘ ‘‘We’’?’

‘She tried to escape. She flirted with the guard in the night. He loosened her bonds and she ran. Every night, some run — sometimes hundreds. Better the parched land than slavery, I suppose. Most are caught. They are punished like this — with blinding. It does not harm their capacity to walk, you see. Or to work, in some circumstances. In a mill, chained to a wheel. Or pulling an oar on a ship like yours, trader. Or a brothel. But it is a punishment that makes further escape impossible, and deters the rest, of course.’

‘You said, ‘‘we’’. What did you mean?’

‘Take me and I will tell you.’

Now Qirum laughed. ‘A wizened old stick like you?’

‘I am thirty-two years old. Take me — buy me, not one of these girls.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I am not like these others.’ She broke out of the line and pushed past the soldiers. The one negotiating with Qirum went to grab her, but she shook him off. She stood before Qirum, filthy, hands bound, head held high. ‘I am not Arzawan. I am Hatti. I am of the royal family, of the family of the first Great King Hattusili, who reigned five centuries ago having descended from the Annita kings before him.’

Praxo snorted. ‘Everybody in Hattusa is related to a king.’

She ignored him and kept her gaze on Qirum. Her eyes were an extraordinary pale brown, almost yellow. ‘My name is Kilushepa. I am Tawananna.’

Praxo frowned. ‘What does that mean? Tawananna?’

‘Queen,’ Qirum said. His heart was pounding at this utterly unexpected turn of events. ‘It means queen.’

‘I was delivered into this bondage by my enemies. You can free me from it.’

‘Why should I?’

‘I have a plan. I will return to Hattusa. I will save it, with your help — and you will be rewarded.’

Qirum felt he ought to be laughing at these grandiose claims from a woman in a queue of booty people. ‘Why me?’

‘Because I see something in you, trader, sailor. Pirate, are you? Raider? Well, such are the times we live in. I see a spark. A potential. Something I can work with. And because-’ with an extraordinary flash of humour, ‘-I don’t have much choice, do I?’

Praxo shook his head. ‘Even if this woman’s telling the truth, you’re a trader, brother. You’re not a king, or a kingmaker.’

Qirum snarled, ‘You don’t know what I am, or could be. You don’t know anything about me.’

‘You’re a street kid from the ruins of Troy!’

‘Shut up.’ He met the woman’s steady gaze.

Bound as she was, helpless before the men who surrounded her, she seemed utterly fearless. ‘What is your name?’

‘Qirum. I am Qirum.’

‘You have dreams, don’t you, Qirum? Dreams that burn you up at night — or nightmares-’

‘That’s the future. What can you promise me now?’

She stepped closer, and he could smell the dust of the arid plain on her breath. ‘I was a queen. For a decade I entranced a king, until his enemies, and mine, struck him down. Tonight I will entrance you.’

‘No,’ Praxo called. ‘This isn’t good. This isn’t right. I can feel it. No good will come of you coupling with this witch. Qirum, there are any number of girls here, some of them tupped only once or twice, probably. Pick another. Not her!’

But Qirum could not draw his gaze from her pale brown eyes, windows to the future.