A skein of geese crossed the sky. Greylags, perhaps.
Qirum pushed her inside the house. The floor was littered with furs, there was a heavy wooden couch, and a serving girl, barefoot, stood by a low table laden with food, water and wine. As it happened this had been the house of Sila’s family. Qirum clapped his hands to send the girl away. He kicked off his boots, threw himself back on the couch, and considered Hadhe.
Hadhe stood in the middle of the floor. She was tempted to cover her body with her arms, but she stood tall, still hoping she might be spared because of her pregnancy.
‘Speak to me,’ he said, in heavily accented Etxelur-speak. ‘You hear me? I know Milaqa.’
‘She…’ Hadhe hadn’t said a word since the morning, and her throat was dry as dust. She tried again. ‘She is my cousin.’
‘You want water?’ He threw over a sack.
She grabbed it and gulped it down.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Hadhe.’
‘ Haa-thee. I saw your face before.’
‘I’m Milaqa’s cousin,’ she repeated.
That word baffled him, but he seemed to get the idea. ‘The battle. What did you think?’ He sought for the words. ‘Frightening? Like wild animals, were we?’ He growled and made mock-claws with his fingers. ‘I want to make your Annids frightened. That way they won’t fight. That way people won’t have to die. They have to learn. I offered peace; they rejected it. This is what happens when you reject peace.’
‘I have children,’ she blurted.
He pointed at her belly. ‘In there? I don’t care.’
‘No…’ She saw no point in telling him other than the truth. ‘Three. Three other children. Two have been taken away to the Wall.. The third. A boy. He fought.’
He shrugged. ‘If he lives, he is with the slaves. You will never see him again.’
‘Only yesterday I did not believe you would come. Not like this.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘I even argued against preparing, defending ourselves.’
‘Wrong.’
‘What will happen to us?’
He shrugged. ‘The men will be slaves. But we are a long way from those who buy slaves. We may have no use for them. The women will be sold as slaves too. Or, if you are not sold, you will cook, clean, spin, draw water for my soldiers. Or’ — he patted the couch — ‘you may keep my bed warm.’
Anger flared. She took a step forward, almost stumbled. ‘You slaughter our children. Murder our husbands. And you expect us to sleep with their killers? What horror is this?’
He laughed at her. ‘It is our way. All across Greece, Anatolia, Egypt, the whole of the east. Women are booty.’ His face hardened. ‘If you don’t stay with me, I will give you to the Spider. You’ll be dead by morning. With me, maybe you’ll live. Your baby inside you will live.’
‘Why? Why do you want me?’
‘For your cousin. For Milaqa.’ He lifted his tunic, revealing an erection. ‘I’m being kind to you.’
She hesitated. Then she knelt beside the couch.
In the morning, it did not take long to organise the march back to New Troy. A few carts were laden with what loot there was to be had. The booty people, all naked, those who could walk, were roped together and hobbled, and shoved into rough columns. Those who could not make the march, including most of those used as the night’s camp whores, were swiftly dispatched, and added to the pile of corpses. The pyre was then set alight and burned with a greasy stink.
Torches were applied to the surviving houses, and dirt was kicked on the big central hearth. Then the column formed up, and Protis led the march south, out of the smashed community.
But Qirum lingered, along with the Spider, and a handful of picked men. The Spider, in his days before joining Qirum, had developed a particular trick in these situations that Qirum never tired of watching.
The men stayed just out of sight of the ruined village, as the sounds of the marching column slowly receded, and waited. The sunless sky brightened slowly. From the forest, a wild pig came rooting in the ruined hearthspace, looking for scraps. Qirum noticed a strange sign in the Etxelur script, loops and lines, cut into the hillside. Idly, he considered sending a man up there to break it up. Something to be done later. He began to feel sleepy, after the hard work of yesterday.
And then the Spider grinned and pointed at the acorn pit, beside the ruined fire. Qirum saw one hand emerge, then a blond head, and a slim body. Soon a boy climbed out of the pit, bloodstained, bewildered.
For a while the watching men allowed the boy to wander around the ruined village. Nobody else came out. Then the Spider unsheathed his sword. This was his speciality — to return to devastated farms and villages and cities, to wait until those who had hidden away came stumbling out into the ruins, and then to slaughter them in turn. It was the exquisite shock on the victims’ faces that seemed to thrill the Spider, the sudden horror of one who had thought he was saved.
But not today, Qirum suddenly decided.
‘No.’ He held back the Spider’s arm. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, man. I have a better idea. The rest of you stay back. You!’ he called in Etxelur-speak.
The boy turned. He actually had a sword in a scabbard at his side. His hand went to the hilt.
‘Don’t dare!’ Qirum roared, striding across the churned-up ground. ‘And don’t run!’
The boy stood stock-still, snared by the command. He took his hand from the sword.
Qirum stood over him. The boy’s tunic was encrusted with blood. Piss trickled down one leg. Comically, he had crushed acorns stuck in his hair. He was no older than twelve, thirteen. Yet he looked back at a warrior-king with a trace of defiance. On impulse Qirum reached out and ruffled his hair. ‘Name?’
‘I am Liff. Liff, son of Medoc, son of — ’
‘I don’t care whose spawn you are. Do you want to live, warrior Liff?’
‘All men die.’
‘True. But not today.’ Qirum pointed. ‘You go that way, north. You find the Wall. The Annids. You understand? You tell them what you saw. You tell what King Qirum did here. Yes?’
The boy just looked at him, baffled.
‘Go.’ He shoved the boy’s shoulders with his fingertips. The boy stumbled. ‘Go, go!’
The boy couldn’t seem to turn his back. But at last the spell broke, and he turned and ran, heading for the great Northland track that headed north.
Qirum turned away and walked back to his men.
54
The Third Year After the Fire Mountain: Early Spring
Four months after the attack on My Sun, after a desolating winter of hunger and want, of raid and counter- raid, of a slow bleed of deaths on either side, a woman came to the Wall.
She had escaped from New Troy. Once she had been a young mother of My Sun, the first community to be attacked. She had seen her children killed, and for months had been used as a warrior’s servant and whore. She had bided her time, killed a man, got away. She brought news that there was growing discontent in the Trojan camp, because the easy victories had stopped coming. The Northlanders had learned how to resist; every flood mound south of Etxelur had been turned into a citadel, a tough nut to crack.
And the woman said that Hadhe was still alive, and living in New Troy with Qirum.
Raka, acting quickly, summoned Noli, Deri, Teel, Milaqa, the party who had gone to New Troy before. Perhaps this was a chance to get through to Qirum, by sending Milaqa and others of Hadhe’s family. And maybe the Trojan would be in a mood to listen this time, if his campaign of brutality wasn’t working.
Milaqa sensed the tensions that lay behind this decision. Not everybody had Raka’s flexibility of thought. To
