Bronze Summer (41 page)

He laughed. ‘Oh, I care nothing for your Wall! Let it fall or stand, I don’t care. No, wait – I always rather liked those big stone heads that adorn it. What was the name of your Jaguar-girl sculptor, Milaqa? Perhaps I will have her chip off the old faces and replace them with my own handsome smile – looking down on Northland, for ever!’

Noli seemed to consider. Then she took back the tablets from Milaqa and raised them both, as if she was going to smash them to the floor.

‘Annid – wait.’ Teel took her arm, and guided her a few paces away. Deri joined them, and Milaqa. They spoke softly, but Milaqa was sure that there were ears to hear every word. Teel said, ‘We must consider his offer.’

‘What offer? To be a vassal or a slave?’

‘You see how strong he is already. At least we can buy time, find ways to deal with this threat—’

‘No,’ Deri said sternly. ‘This place, this ‘‘kingdom’’ of warriors and farmers, is like a growth in the body that kills you if you don’t cut it out.’

‘Sometimes such a thing will kill you
because
you cut it out,’ Teel replied.

Noli shook her head. ‘In another generation it will be impossible to shift them, and all will be lost. You heard how he spoke of the Wall. This fool understands nothing of how Northland is maintained, how we have preserved it in the hundreds of generations since the days of Ana and Prokyid. This is a day that has long been threatened. The records of the Annids show how we have kept the cattle-folk at bay, and their warriors and weapons and war-making, through ingenuity and determination. But a final conflict was inevitable, I suppose. Has it has fallen to our generation to face that conflict? Then face it we will. We must resist this man, this monster. And if we fail – well, at least our children would not have long to suffer servitude, for soon the sea will rise up and drown all of us, warriors, slaves and all.’

‘All right,’ Teel said hastily, hushing her. ‘Save the speeches for the Water Council. But do we have to
tell
him we will resist? As I said, if we can only buy some time—’

‘By lying?’ Noli looked at him with utter contempt. Teel rolled his eyes.

Qirum faced them, hands on hips, growing impatient. ‘Well?’

Noli looked down on him, stern, rather magnificent, Milaqa thought. She quietly handed the tablets back to him. ‘We reject your terms, Trojan. We will not rest until we have driven you from this land, and burned down this palace of shit you have built. Is that reply clear enough for you?’

Qirum was ominously still. For all his promises of safe conduct Milaqa felt their peril building with each heartbeat. At length he said, ‘I bring civilisation to this place. Civilisation, to replace your antique savagery. Do you think I grab power for its own sake? And your tone – do you Annids imagine you are superior to the cultures I represent? You may have no armies, but do you not control the water that feeds this land? Is it not just as the way the kings of Egypt and Hattusa control their great irrigation networks, and so control the people? Are we not images of each other?’ He was smouldering now. ‘Do you imagine you are superior to me, woman? Do you imagine you are
better
?’ And Milaqa knew the deepest levels of his personality were being exposed, the shameful memory of his boyhood.

‘This conversation serves no purpose.’ Noli turned on her heel and stalked from the room.

Qirum, furious now, lunged after her. But Milaqa grabbed his arm, despite the glares she got from Erishum and the guards. ‘Don’t, Qirum. She’s going to have to convince the Annids to fight you. If you send back her head in a basket you’ll make the argument for her.’ She tried not to flinch from the anger that burned in his eyes.

Then he calmed, apparently through sheer effort of will. ‘You’re right. Of course. You always were a wise one, as well as a truth-teller. I must be patient. After all, the next time I meet that woman she will be dancing on the end of my cock.’

She pulled away from him, repelled. ‘Is this why we must fight, Qirum? Because yet another woman has wronged you?’

He looked her full in the face, and she felt that strange, liquid, hot-metal sensation inside. ‘Milaqa – come to me. Fight by my side.’

‘You ask me such a thing, at a moment like this? Why?’

‘Because we must stand together, the likes of you and me. We who are outside. We who have no place. We have more in common with each other than with those who’ – he waved a hand at the others – ‘weigh us down.’

‘You’d have me fight my people, my family?’

He smiled. ‘I listened to you complain about them long enough in the Wall taverns.’

‘Perhaps. But I could not betray them.’

‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose I would expect nothing less. Ah, Milaqa – even though the world has separated us, I pledge that I will never harm you.’

Teel plucked at her sleeve. ‘We must go. I think Noli is out of the building already. It would not do to become separated.’

Milaqa let herself be led away. Qirum stood alone, briefly, in this great room, in his palace of wood and mud and stone. He smiled at her, then turned away.

52

The Second Year After the Fire Mountain: Late Autumn

Hadhe and Vala were sitting with the other women at the open-air fire in the hearthspace. They were working on the fruits of the autumn forests: acorns from the oaks being readied for the winter storage pit, and leaves, bark, flowers from the horse chestnuts, all of which could be used in cooking and in medicine.

For a heartbeat nobody moved. Somehow Hadhe couldn’t hear what Mi was saying, couldn’t take it in. Here was her village, her home, the neat houses around the central hearthplace, the big communal house standing proud on its flood mound, the hopeful symbols carved by Caxa into the high hillside that had become so popular that everybody called this place ‘My Sun’ now, rather than its old name of Sunflower. Even the bare earth of the new defensive rampart they had had to build did not spoil the beauty of the prospect. She took a deep breath, of air that was tinged with the smoke of the quietly crackling fire, and with a deeper, burning scent of the turning leaves. And the child inside her, five months into its term, turned in its contented sleep.

She looked at Mi, this urgent fourteen-year-old with her bad news. It had been five months since the Trojans had landed, three since Noli’s showdown with Qirum. The summer was long gone, the season when the soldiers liked to fight. They were safe, for this year at least. Weren’t they?

‘I saw purple hairstreaks today,’ she said.

‘What?’ Mi snapped. ‘What?’

‘Near the oaks, when we were gathering the acorns. What pretty butterflies they are. The sun was shining right through their wings. It’s been a funny year for butterflies and moths, but—’

‘Butterflies? Didn’t you hear what I said?’

Vala got up and put an arm around her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Mi? Are you sure?’

Mi pointed to the south, in the direction of New Troy. ‘I saw their fires, mother. Smoke. I crept closer.’

‘That was foolish—’

‘I took care!’ Mi snapped, defiant. ‘They would not see me! But I saw them. Men. Horses. Chariots. Weapons everywhere.’

‘They were hunting,’ Hadhe said. ‘That is what they do. They eat the bread from their farms, but they hunt for sport.’

‘These were too many for hunting. There were a hundred men – maybe more. I counted! And they had breastplates, plumes in their helmets, shields. I have seen this before. I have watched them train. It is a
phalanx
.’ Another Greek word that had entered the Northlanders’ vocabulary since the coming of King Qirum. ‘They are marching. They will be here tomorrow at the latest.’

Hadhe might be hesitating, but the alarm was spreading. The circle at the fire was breaking up, and the men emerged from the houses. One woman was calling for her children. Caxa came out of the shade of a house. Hadhe saw that the slender Jaguar girl had been sketching designs on a clay tablet.

‘What’s going on?’ Hesh came walking over from the house, pulling a rope belt around his tunic. Hadhe’s second husband was a heavy-looking man with an odd little ring of beard around his mouth. His first wife had died in childbirth, and he had no children of his own. He leaned over Hadhe and hugged his wife, his breath rich with stale Trojan beer. ‘You woke me up,’ he said, grinning at Mi. ‘All I could hear was your voice.’ He flapped his fingers like a duck’s beak. ‘Quack, quack.’

Mi was furious. Hadhe recalled she had already fought against the Midsummer Invasion, had already killed Trojans. She had a right to be furious, Hadhe supposed. ‘You’re a fool,’ Mi snapped at Hesh. ‘If my father was here—’

‘But he’s not,’ Vala said sternly. ‘And as Hadhe’s husband he is your uncle, girl. Show some respect.’

‘Respect?’ Mi stamped her foot in frustration. ‘Why won’t any of you listen to me?’

Hadhe, still sitting, said, ‘I believe you saw what you say, Mi. But – well, we must be sure. Maybe it’s just another show of force.’ And there had been plenty of those, including spectacular chariot drives along the wide straight avenues of Northland. All meant to intimidate. ‘And besides, we should be safe.’ The new defensive rampart that circled the community’s central hearthplace was a bank of earth taller than the tallest warrior, and out of sight beyond it was the ditch from which the earth for the bank had been dug, implanted with broken spears, arrowheads and thorns laced with various exotic poisons. All this had been set up at Raka’s order. ‘None of us wanted to build such a thing. You know I argued against it as a waste of effort.’

Vala knelt by Hadhe and took her hand. ‘Listen, Hadhe. I heard the fire mountain’s shout, but did not believe its warnings. Just as we did not believe Qirum would raise an army, but he did. We did not believe he would land in Northland, but he did. Now we don’t want to believe he will start a war. And yet—’

‘And yet his soldiers are coming,’ Mi insisted.

And Hadhe was sitting here as if trying to make it all go away. She pushed herself to her feet, laying her hand on her belly. I’m sorry, she told the child within. Maybe I have been lost in your dreams of the womb. She faced Mi. ‘You say a hundred. How long would it take them to get here?’

‘Less than a day.’

‘We cannot fight a hundred,’ Hesh muttered.

‘But we must,’ Mi insisted, young, earnest, defiant.

He nodded. ‘Yes. I will gather the men and older boys.’ Of whom there were about forty in the settlement. ‘We should check the rampart, man it. Burn the bridges over the ditch. Ready our bows and spears . . .’ These were all actions they had planned under the tutelage of the Hatti warriors Raka had brought, actions they had never really imagined would need to be taken.

‘Use the women too, and the older girls,’ Vala snapped. ‘I can throw a spear. Remember what that Hatti corporal said. The Trojans will need more attackers than defenders, two to one, three to one. The more of us we can muster the better chance we will have.’

Hadhe glanced around, trying to think, to contribute. What else? ‘What about the children? The infants should be taken to the flood mound, with their mothers. If the Trojans do break through the rampart, at least we can fall back there and make a stand. As for the older children, Mi—’

Mi stood with Hesh. ‘I’ll fight.’

‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ Vala snapped.

Mi flared, ‘Mother, I’m old enough to choose.’

Vala held her shoulders. ‘Oh, child, but you’re not old enough to die!’

Hadhe stepped forward. ‘Mi – listen. We need someone to evacuate the older children. Those old enough to walk, not old enough to fight. Your brother Puli, he’s only four. And my kids, Keli, Blane . . . There are plenty of others. Round them up and get them out of here before the Trojans come – if they come. Take them to the Wall, where they will be safe. Please, Mi. Find a couple of others to help you.’

‘They won’t leave their mothers.’

Hadhe squeezed her arm. ‘That’s why it must be you. Tell them it’s a treat, a hunt for eels or grass snakes. They’ll believe you. Go.’ She pushed her away, gently. ‘Take blankets, water flasks, fire-making gear, mashed food for the little ones. Oh, and take Caxa. I think the Annids would want her to be kept safe. She can help with the children. And, Mi. This is most important.’

‘Yes?’

‘When you get to the Wall, tell them what’s happening here. Tell them we need help.’

Vala hugged Mi. ‘Maybe you’ll be back here in a few days and the sun will be shining and everybody will be fine, and nothing will have happened.’

‘I’ll have been wrong,’ Mi pointed out. ‘But I could live with that.’

‘Good girl,’ Vala said. ‘Go now. Go!’ She turned away quickly, and Hadhe saw how she was fighting back a sudden tear.

As Mi ran off to find the children, the adults huddled, talking urgently. Through his wooden teeth the priest began muttering prayers to the little mothers, while checking that his bronze knife was in its sheath at his waist.