Troy-’
‘I’ll not forget it.’
‘This is something of a contrast, isn’t it? It’s good to see you in your natural home. Like a bird back in its silver cage.’
‘Oh, this is nothing. We’re in the palace precinct, the King could hardly keep me out given the support Nuwanza has mobilised for me — and given that my son still lives, and embodies a strand of inheritance. But all this is far from the true luxury that the Hatti court is capable of.’
He surprised himself by taking her hand. He knew that his privileged cock was doing the thinking for him, but he found he felt surprisingly tender towards her. ‘We have been cold to one another. We have let events drive us apart. Other people.’
‘Yes.’ Her delicate fingers squeezed his palm, rough with the calluses of sword fighting. ‘And, let’s be honest, we both enjoy the sparring, for that’s the sort we are. But there has always been something between us, Trojan. Something more than self-interest. As to the future, I intend to win.’ She said this firmly, flatly. ‘But regarding my position in the new court — well, there are many possibilities. It may be I will be able to resume my position as Tawananna, with Hattusili still on the throne.’
He grunted. ‘The existing Tawananna may have something to say about that.’
She waved a hand, dismissive. ‘The King’s mother-in-law is a greedy crone. She will be no obstacle. The King himself is more of a challenge. A cunning man, and a circumspect one, or he wouldn’t have survived the complicated family politics of our court to get to where he is now, and he wouldn’t have lasted once he got there. But still, he can be removed, or controlled.’ She eyed him. ‘I may have to marry him.’
He laughed. ‘But you’re his aunt!’
‘ That’s no obstacle, not here. We are all one vast family, centuries old; every marriage you make is to a cousin of some kind, unless you’re farmed out to a pharaoh or an Assyrian king. My ultimate goal is the next generation — to get my own son installed as tukhanti, the crown prince, heir to the throne. There are always plenty of princes and princesses running around the city, and out in the country there are whole mobs of disinherited descendants. I told you we are a very old family. One must fight for one’s position.
‘What I’m telling you is that I must either be a royal widow, or a royal wife. I cannot be with you. Not openly. You can’t be my husband. Yet I want you at my side. My partner. My ally.’ She took his hand again. ‘For you will help me make all this come to pass.’
Absurdly, he felt his eyes prickle. ‘Of course. Anything.’ His life had been turned on its head since he had met her. He had never known such heights of passion, or such depths of rage, when she had casually insulted him before others. For all his ambition and his dreams, he knew he could never have risen to this without her. In his heart there had always been a grain of doubt, the derisive voice of Praxo at the back of his head, perhaps, reminding him that she was driven by self-interest, that she was using him. But seeing her now, his vision of her face softened by his tears, that last grain of doubt washed away, and he saw nothing but glory for himself in the future: a king in all but name, here in the capital of the Hatti, the power and wealth of an empire his to command, and a queen to warm his bed — and, perhaps, his heart too.
She pressed gently, ‘You will do anything that is needed, to make this come about?’
‘Anything,’ he said gruffly.
She touched his cheek. ‘Now go. Get cleaned up. I would dine; the gods know I need to keep up my strength.’
He rolled off the bed, landed on his feet with a jump, and took a robe from the serving girl. ‘Good idea. Though you’ve so used up my cock I probably won’t be able to piss straight!’
When Qirum had gone, Muwa Chief of Bodyguards emerged from his hiding place, behind billows of soft fabric in a corner of the room.
Kilushepa was fixing her hair, using a mirror of polished bronze the girl was holding. She turned. ‘You heard it all.’
‘Yes.’ He glanced over his shoulder; the spy-hole in the wall was well concealed.
‘What a coarse man he is. All that bragging. He turns my stomach. Well, I led him to confess his intentions. It wasn’t hard. I, of course, am entirely loyal, while wishing to offer my service in this year of famine. He would murder the King, if that’s what it would take to further his own ambition.’
‘It was clear from what he said.’
‘And his rage — his desire for revenge against the world, for the abuse that was inflicted on him as a child — that was there for all to see. He is like a bull, loose in the palace. Who knows what the man is capable of?’
‘I have a feeling we are soon going to find out, Tawananna.’
‘Oh, do hold the mirror properly, you idiot child…’
His business done, Muwa withdrew from the chamber.
40
Hunda led Teel, Milaqa and Riban through the city to the Mound of Lelwani, Goddess of the underworld. This was the huge structure of sloped walls and steps which Milaqa had spotted from outside the city itself, a great flat- topped heap of stone over which the city wall strode. Hunda said it was a ‘pyramid’, and was the envy of every Egyptian who came to Hattusa, a boast that only made the Northlanders shrug and roll their eyes.
But it was beneath the Mound that the lair of the Hatti iron-makers was to be found.
Hunda was extremely wary, for, he said, the mystery of the Hatti’s hardened iron was kept secret from the ordinary population, and even from most of the court. ‘Some say only the King himself is supposed to know about it. On his accession each successor to the throne is led to this place by his Chief of Bodyguards to meet the Master of the Iron, and to be shown his secrets. I’ve never been this way myself before. I wouldn’t want to now, but Chief Muwa ordered me, as he was ordered by the Tawananna herself.’
‘You needn’t worry, man,’ Teel said. ‘We know how precious this secret is. After all, if not, we wouldn’t have come so far for it, would we? Or paid so high a price.’
Hunda glanced at him as he hurried them down yet another alley. ‘I am putting my life in the hands of you people. And my family’s, I suppose. But if it must be done, let’s get it over.’
He brought them to the base of the pyramid. A flight of steps led up to a raised platform — dozens of steps, perhaps a hundred, Milaqa thought — and on the platform itself a tremendous gate had been cut through the towering city wall. There was nobody around save a few supplicants to Lelwani, scattered on the steps, kneeling, nodding and praying.
Hunda grunted. ‘You’re supposed to climb the steps on your knees, and then climb down again the same way. This is to have Lelwani intervene on behalf of the spirits of your loved ones, down in the underworld. And there’s a tithe to be paid to the priests at the top. A few years of that and you end up praying to other gods for relief of the pain of your wrecked knees. But we’re not going up there today. Come on — this way.’
Keeping an eye on the pilgrims so they didn’t spy where they went, Hunda led the Northlanders around the side of the mound to where it butted against the city wall. This neglected corner was shabby and filled with litter, a few rags, smashed clay tablets, the bones of some small animal roasted and consumed. Checking again to be sure nobody saw, Hunda kicked this debris out of the way, bent down, and pressed a stone near the base of the mound wall. A section of the wall slid back, revealing a doorway. ‘There’s a counterweight, ropes and stone blocks, a clever little mechanism-’ The receding stone stopped halfway. ‘Jammed,’ growled Hunda. ‘Like all things clever, it trips up all the time. Help me.’ Teel stood back while Milaqa, Riban and Hunda got their shoulders against the polished surface of the stone slab. It gave with a jerk, scraping back and out of sight, revealing a darkened passageway. Hunda reached inside, fumbled in the dark for a shelf, and pulled out a clay lantern. He had a fire-making kit in a pouch on his soldier’s belt, a bit of flint and pyrite, and he soon sparked a flame.
‘Follow me into the underworld, then. And just remember — I’ve never been down here before either, and I’m even more afraid than you are. After all, Lelwani is my goddess…’ He led the way through, then hauled on a rope.
The doorway slabs slid back into position, and the last bit of daylight was shut out.
Hunda’s lantern revealed a stone-walled passageway, dank and cold. ‘Muwa didn’t give me directions past
