deep-cut gorges and sharp ridges. This upland was inhabited only by birds, scrubby grass and spindly trees, and the few farms crowded in the valleys. It was a landscape that made you work hard, for the Hatti roads cut through gorges and valleys and over ridges and summits without sympathy for mere human limbs, and the men hauling the carts grunted with the effort. And the lowland opened up as they rose, with sweeping views stretching far away, across an ocean of farms and scrubby forest patches, with glimpses of even mightier mountains on the horizon. Milaqa had grown up in Northland, a tremendous plain. She had never seen country like this.
Sometimes they saw herders, gaunt men tracking herds of gaunt cattle across the dusty plain. They glimpsed deer, wolves. Once they heard a deep rumble, like a groan in the earth itself, that Qirum said was probably a lion.
And still they climbed. Soon they were so high that the air was even colder than it had been at the level of the sea, a deep, bitter, dry cold that dug into your bones when the wind was up. Each morning they found their gear covered in frost, though it was still late summer, and on the shaded sides of the hills the men pointed wonderingly to patches of snow not melted since the winter.
This was the forbidding landscape within which the Hatti had set their capital city.
They came upon a patrol of foot soldiers. It was the first evidence they’d had that Hattusa was still functioning at all. Qirum called the party to a halt. The six soldiers were dressed in what Milaqa had come to recognise as standard Hatti kit, each with a long tunic, a thick leather belt, a conical helmet with a brilliant feathered plume, boots that curled up oddly at the toe, and their black hair grown long and thickly plaited at the back. The soldiers each carried sword, spear, pack. This was just as the Spider’s troops had been equipped, save that their kit had been dyed black.
Their sergeant approached the travellers. Two of his men pointed spears, while the others headed for the carts.
‘Take it easy,’ Qirum murmured in Trojan. ‘They’re just inspecting us. Don’t give them cause to get upset.’ His men scowled, but kept their hands away from their weapons.
The sergeant, a weary-looking veteran, called in clear Nesili, ‘Who leads you?’
‘I do.’ The Tawananna stepped forward.
The sergeant looked her up and down cautiously. ‘And you are?’
She smiled easily. ‘Do you not remember me? I was never very good at showing my face to the people. Always too busy with affairs of family and state. I am Kilushepa, Tawananna, aunt of Hattusili the Sixth — who I presume still occupies the throne?’
‘He does.’ The sergeant peered at her. ‘If you are the Tawananna, they said you were dead. And that before you were dead you were a traitor.’
‘Lies.’
‘You tried to poison the King.’
Kilushepa was utterly fearless. ‘Would I dare return if that was so? I was betrayed by my enemies at court, that much is true.’
‘If those enemies still live, why have you returned? For revenge?’
‘Not that. To help. For Hattusa, and all the Hatti realm, faces a terrible crisis. You must see that.’
‘It’s true, it’s true,’ he said grimly. ‘My own wife and kids — well. You don’t need to hear my little troubles.’
‘The question is,’ Kilushepa said, ‘will you let us pass?’
He looked uncertain. ‘I’m just a sergeant.’
Teel murmured to Milaqa, ‘And yet what he decides now will shape all of history to come. What an extraordinary scene to witness. But he’s not the first common soldier to be put in such a position, and he won’t be the last. Every time there is a palace coup the decision of a lowly bodyguard can shape the destiny of a trembling empire.’
‘You speak as if you’re not here,’ Milaqa whispered back. ‘As if you’re outside it all, looking in. Reading about it in some archive.’
‘Maybe it helps me control my fear.’
Kilushepa simply smiled at the sergeant. ‘What is your name?’
‘Hunda, madam.’
‘Hunda, then. Follow your heart.’
‘Hmm. Well, you’re impressive enough. And if it’s true your family betrayed you, they deserve what’s coming to them.’ Milaqa had learned that to the Hatti family loyalty was the strongest bond — and to betray family was a powerful taboo, which even a king dared not break. ‘On the other hand, if you’re lying, you’ll soon get what’s coming to you. You may pass. No — I’ll escort you the rest of the way. The country isn’t as safe as it used to be.’
So the Hatti soldiers formed up around the party, and they moved on, with the sergeant leading, and Kilushepa on her cart. The Hatti soldiers and Qirum’s hired Trojan thugs eyed each other with contempt and hostility. Tension crackled.
And soon they came over a final rise, and at last Hattusa was laid out before them.
A scribble of walls across the folded, mountainous landscape — that was Milaqa’s first impression.
The great city, capped by a fug of smoke from its endless fires, was ringed around by a circuit of walls, mud brick over stone, painted brilliant white and topped by arrowhead crenellations, walls that strode up hillsides and over summits and ridges and along cliff edges, punctuated by huge blocky towers. In one place there was a tremendous structure, a square base tapering up to a flat summit, the sloping sides combed by steps. The outer wall simply rose up and over even this vast obstacle, although it was broken by an enormous gate. And the walls were not restricted to the outer curtain but extended inward in loops and folds, enclosing whole districts within the city itself. It was extraordinary — ghastly — a place of exclusion and control, as you could see at a glance.
But Milaqa could see that this monstrous fort-city had fallen on hard times, for the great walls were scorched and scarred, and the familiar mud-brown tide of a shanty town had washed up against the outer curtain.
They set off down a slope, following the track, heading for a gate in the south-west corner of the wall curtain.
‘Of course we don’t have your growstone,’ Kilushepa said. ‘Perhaps that’s the next secret I should trade for, and we could build even higher. But even so, we’ve done rather well, haven’t we? It would take you the best part of a day just to walk around the circuit of the outer walls.’
Riban just stared. ‘I can’t believe that you have built all this, up here. Most great cities are built on the lowland. That’s what I’ve read. By the rivers, by the sea coast. Troy, Ur, Uruk, Memphis. They are placed for ease of access. Whereas Hattusa-’
‘Whereas Hattusa,’ Kilushepa said, ‘is a fortress. Set in a country that is itself a natural wall of granite. We are five days’ walk from the nearest river, much further from the sea. Most armies starve even before they get the chance to fall on Hattusa itself. And in the winter, when the snow comes, none can get through at all. Of course there are vulnerabilities. We have always depended on imports for almost every bit of food, every grain of wheat. But without our fortress capital, Northlander, we could never have won our wars against enemies within and without, never have established our dominion over the greatest empire the world has ever seen. All of which is utterly beyond your petty imagination.’
As they neared the wall they had to get through the shanty town. The people came rustling out of their shacks and lean-tos, as always, the children with cupped hands. The soldiers snarled to drive them back, but they came again, their hunger and need outweighing their fear. Kilushepa seemed perturbed by this, Milaqa thought, watching her. Not distressed at the plight of the children. Embarrassed by the spectacle they made.
Soon the wall towered over their heads, four or five times the height of Milaqa, and the gate was taller yet, wood with bronze panelling, guarded by two lions carved in stone. A huddle of soldiers at the gate, Kilushepa called them ‘Golden Spearmen’, had their own little shrine set up behind a sullen fire, with a small, crude statue of a god, dressed in Hatti warrior garb and carrying an axe and a spear that was jagged like lightning.
‘Teshub,’ Qirum murmured to Milaqa. ‘Their Storm God, although actually they borrowed him from the Hurrians. Like everything else about this empire their pantheon is a patchwork.’
‘Perhaps they’re asking for his mercy,’ Milaqa said. ‘To blow away the endless clouds.’
‘Then they need to ask harder.’
Their friendly sergeant was able to get them past the guards without any trouble. They had to abandon their carts, however. Qirum left a couple of his men to watch the carts, while the rest escorted the party through the
