‘We are not here to criticize the practices of the Hittites,’ he replied. ‘But I admit, the sight is distressing. The Hittites are not perhaps as advanced as we are in their treatment of slaves.’
Suddenly, one of the captives surged out of the column of men, and caught my foot in his grasp. He was younger than I, and something about his features, and his black hair, however dirty with dust, reminded me of Khety. I realized his eyes were the same colour as Khety’s, and they were staring at me desperately. He uttered some words in a language I could not understand, but I knew they were pleas for help. He gripped my leg again, as if to pull me from my horse. Instinctively, in shock, and determined to protect Nakht against any danger, I kicked back against him, but he held on with the strength of despair. All at once, he was enraged, calling upon the other men close to him to join him; but to his despair they merely gazed on in a kind of apathy. A young woman, presumably his wife, clutching a bundle that must have held a baby, began to scream; and then very quickly his captors closed in on him, and one clubbed the man’s skull, and he loosened his grip, and with a low moan fell away from me, into the dust.
‘Don’t look back,’ commanded Nakht, but I felt that man’s desperate eyes on me every step of the way. What could I have done? I asked myself, over and over. I told myself, nothing. And yet he haunted me, and his face blurred with Khety’s. I could have saved Khety, too, if I had listened to him more carefully.
The landscape ahead seemed to mirror my dark mood, for the open plateau now gave way to dense, endless forests of dark trees with sharp, viridian needles. Their strange angular shadows fell across the way, creating worrying unseen hiding places, where birds and creatures rustled, and sudden crickets let off their alarms. Everything made me nervous now; such forests could easily disguise bandits or enemies waiting in ambush. And then, one morning, as we rode, suddenly we were surrounded by a group of men on horseback. They appeared out of the forests, before and then behind us, shouting orders in an incomprehensible language. Simut’s guards immediately deployed into a defensive cordon around Nakht, and I raised my spear in readiness. My heart was beating fast. I looked around for any possible route of escape, but all I saw were the impossible depths of the dark trees.
But the ambassador called out in his own language, and raised his hand in salute, and the leading horseman of the group responded with the same gesture. Then the ambassador turned to Nakht.
‘There is no need for alarm. These are Hittite soldiers. They were just doing their job, and we appeared unexpectedly. They will accompany us the rest of the way. Tell your men to stand down.’
All the Hittite soldiers wore conical leather helmets with ear-flaps, and leather shoes with curled-up toes; and they carried spears, scimitars and hide-covered shields. Their black hair was worn long, and was as glossy and well-combed as a woman’s. And they were clean-shaven, too. Their sharp eyes flickered over us, curious and hostile. They quickly fell in before and behind our company, and we moved past a wooden watchtower, its guards regarding us carefully, and on through the endless, dark forest of the Hittite homeland, towards their capital.
Finally, towards the evening of the following day, covered in dust, weathered by the harsh light and the buffeting wind of the high world we had traversed, we saw the dark green forests unexpectedly give way to open, rolling land bathed in sunlight; in the distance were the pale-yellow mud-brick towers and the tall city walls of Hattusa. It was built on long green hillsides, surrounding an impressive summit of rock that rose high above everything else in the landscape.
As we came closer to the city, workmen carrying long, lightly coloured stripped timbers on their shoulders paused to watch us, and gangs of foreign labourers-just like those we had passed on the way-roped together, toiled in the fields. But something was wrong with them; they held on to each other, and seemed uncertain of the world around them. And then I realized: most of them had been blinded-even the children. They moved like lost, hopeless people, going about their interminable labour.
‘What has happened to them? Why are these people blinded?’ I asked.
Hattusa was not impressed by my reaction. ‘To stop them fleeing for their homelands,’ he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘And what do they need sight for now? They can labour perfectly well without it.’
And he turned his haughty face to the towers of Hattusa.
‘Welcome to my city,’ he said proudly.
19
Lions leapt out at us from the light stone of the city’s great gateway, set into the towering walls; these were not lions of terror and war, but of pride, magnanimity and courage. We clattered through the gate, past the guards of the watchtowers, through a long, dark, high triangular tunnel that led under the massive ramparts-and finally entered the capital of our arch-enemies.
Once inside, we ascended a stone-paved, stepped ceremonial way that wound past small dark temples, low warehouses, and what seemed like sizeable underground grain siloes, beside extensive offices and elite dwellings. Hattusa pointed out the impressive engineering of the terraces and the viaducts that audaciously spanned the crevasses surrounding the citadel rock.
‘This is the Upper City. Here are all the offices on which the palace of the King depends.’ Hattusa nodded at the prominent acropolis above us, clearly separated from the rest of the city by its grand elevation, and by more encircling, protecting high stone walls.
‘If we have leisure I will be glad to give you a tour of the greatest of them, the Temple of the Storm God. That is a wonder you must see,’ he added, pointing at a vast building, its great walls covered with carvings and reliefs of lions and sphinxes fashioned from a dark-green stone the colour of deep water.
‘I would much appreciate the opportunity to admire it,’ answered Nakht.
As we made our way up and up, groups of Hittite men in fine woollen robes stared at us. Some nodded respectfully to the ambassador, and exchanged earnest greetings of welcome; but most turned aside so as not to look upon us, and a few even spat ostentatiously on the ground as we passed.
The ambassador showed us our accommodation, in a timber and mud-brick dwelling decorated with simple friezes.
‘These are your quarters. They are simple, in the Hittite fashion. But I hope you’ll be comfortable here. So, please rest, and wash, and refresh yourselves. Tonight there will be an official banquet, and then tomorrow morning, the King has granted us an audience. I hope it will be the first step in the successful resolution to our project. If you need anything at all, before then, I am at your service. The servants will assist you. Guards have been posted, but please be assured, they are there for your protection. You are not their prisoners. Meanwhile, I must return to my home, and then attend the King himself. I have been away for a long time. Perhaps my wife has finally noticed my absence!’
We waited until the guards had closed the wooden doors to the outside world, and Simut had ordered his guards to take up their own positions; and then we set to talking.
‘Is this strange place really the capital of our great enemy? Compared with Thebes or Memphis, it seems primitive!’ said Simut.
‘The old city was sacked and almost destroyed by fire, before the reign of the present King’s father,’ said Nakht. ‘So this is a relatively new city, and from that perspective, it’s more impressive. All the same, I’d assume the Hittite King has been greatly preoccupied with his military campaigns, at the expense of any magnificent building projects. This is not what I expected at all. It’s all very interesting…’
Simut raised his eyebrows at me, in mockery of Nakht’s high-handed tone.
‘This is a strange land in every way. And yet they seem to have created an empire to rival our own in just two or three generations. How have they done it? It would seem impossible,’ he said.
‘Do not be deceived. For all their foreign triumphs, the Hittite empire is young, unstable and underdeveloped. They are surrounded by domestic enemies to the north and west, and have therefore to fight wars and defend borders on several fronts simultaneously. They lack reliable supplies of grain sufficient to feed their population, and so they are dependent on the international market-and as you see, transportation from the ports is a serious
