Kilushepa must have been exhausted; if so, she did not show it in her face, or her gait, and as she walked on doggedly she gazed around, imperiously curious. Praxo followed, silent and resentful.
As they skirted the city, to their left was what remained of the wooden outer walls and the double-ditch earthworks, built to keep out war chariots, now clogged with twenty years of debris. To the right was the shore, a long, sandy beach, the lagoon beyond swampy and plagued by mosquitoes. Ships were pulled up on the strand, each the centre of an impromptu camp, and sailors, traders, wives, children and whores followed rough trails between the ships and the city. It was the sea that had always given Troy its commanding position; the city dominated the sea lanes between Anatolia and Greece, and controlled trade with the rich lands of Asia to the north.
Qirum said to Kilushepa, ‘The currents are strong here. Takes some skill landing. The traffic is not what it was twenty-five years ago, before the Greeks sacked the place. But it is a valuable site for all that.’
‘Of course. The logic of land and sea is unchanged, no matter how much men may loot and burn. Troy will recover. And is this the gate?’
It was a break in the wall, flanked by two imposing stone columns carved with the image of the god Appaliunas. The god-stones had survived the fires, but the gates and wooden curtain wall had not, and traffic flowed around the standing stones, rough carts drawn by oxen and horses, people on foot, a few on horseback. Within the walls the city stank of dung and piss and rot. Kilushepa stared around without comment, at rubble and shacks and half-collapsed walls. The Pergamos still rose up, dominating the lower city, a citadel within a city. Hattusa itself was laid out like this; it was the Anatolian fashion. But this citadel’s watchtowers were smashed and fallen, and you could see the ruins of the palace, and the temples and abandoned mansions that surrounded it.
‘Once this area was crowded with houses,’ Qirum said to Kilushepa. Oddly he felt as if he was apologising for his city. ‘Shops, traders’ posts, markets. There was a big slavers’ market just over there, and that big ruin was a granary. The houses crowded right up to the city walls. And there were tight little alleyways where you could barely see where you were going, and you’d always get lost. So they say.. ’
As they stood there, children began to emerge from the rubble. Dust-covered, they were the same colour as the fallen houses. Kilushepa did not seem to see them, though they stood before her and plucked her robe. They came to her, Qirum saw, responding to her regal aspect, despite her own filthy clothes, and the dirt and blood on her face, and the bonds that still tied her wrists. Maybe she really was a queen.
Qirum led Kilushepa to the broken-down house he had been sharing with Praxo. At least there were no whores hanging around looking for repeat business. He took her to the room he had been using, the one room that still had a roof on it. Kilushepa stood amid the debris as if she belonged to some other reality.
‘Sit.’ Qirum indicated the pallet on the floor.
Elegantly she settled down. Some of the tension seemed to leave her body. The room was warm, the light that flooded through the doorway bright.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘I have been walking rather a long time. But my thirst is greater.’
‘Praxo. Water and wine. Go fetch some.’
Praxo hovered in the doorway, huge, scowling. ‘No good will come of this, Qirum. Hump her, get it out of your system, and have done with it.’
‘Water!’
Growling, Praxo went off.
‘He is jealous,’ Kilushepa said with a smile. ‘I notice that, among young men who fight side by side.’
‘Forget him,’ Qirum said.
‘Yes. Forget him. Here we are, the two of us, alone. Surely the gods have brought us together to serve their purposes. Let us tell each other who we are.’
‘You are really a Hatti queen?’
‘I was the senior wife of King Hattusili, who was the fifth of that name in our history. He in turn had taken the throne from his cousin Suppiluliama, the second of that name, who almost lost Hattusa at the height of the uprising.’
‘What uprising?’
‘The one we are still putting down. It is the famine, Qirum. Hungry people do not listen to princes or priests. They move to where they think the food is. They storm cities for their granaries. And then provinces and vassal territories rebel, and our neighbours make war and invade. Hattusa has always been surrounded by enemies, within and without. Some of our historians say it has been a wonder of diplomacy that we, my family, has managed to maintain the realm across five centuries… Of course we are not alone — even the Egyptians are suffering from the famine, and the Greeks’ petty kingdoms are falling like rotten fruit from a dead branch.
‘My husband Hattusili was able to take the throne from his cousin because he was able to promise a new source of food. We had been relying on grain from southern Anatolia and from Egypt, but the trade routes were precarious. And our access to our source of tin, too far to the east, was always uncertain. But my husband, as a young man, had travelled, and he forged a trading link with an empire far to the west of here, called Northland.’ She said this word in a tongue with which Qirum was unfamiliar. ‘They send us tin from their own sources. And they send us food, great barrels of it, by the shipload. In return we send them wealth of various sorts. I think they see us as useful, because we help keep the pirates and raiders — people like you, Qirum — away from their ships, and ultimately their own lands and their allies.’
‘What kind of food? Grain, meat?’
‘Not that. Food made from the produce of plants we have no knowledge of. And they do not send us the seed stock so we cannot grow it ourselves. Northland is a strange country that nobody has ever been to and nobody knows anything about.’
‘And you were involved with this?’
‘I was senior wife of Hattusili the Fifth. I was involved in the negotiations with the Northlanders. But Hattusili died. Some say it was plague.’ Her face was blank. ‘He was succeeded by his nephew, Hattusili the Sixth, who is a callow boy much under the influence of another of his uncles. In our court, you may know, a queen who survives her husband has influence. I was Tawananna. I am Tawananna. I had priestly responsibilities, and was involved in diplomacy and affairs of state. It is our way.’
‘But Hattusili the Sixth-’
‘Or his uncle.’
‘Found you in the way.’
‘I was asked to help organise a major military expedition against the Arzawans, of western Anatolia, who as you know have always been a problem. But this was a ruse to get me out of Hattusa. Once I was alone with the King’s soldiers, away from the palace bodyguards, I was taken. Hands were laid on me.’ She paused. Qirum could imagine what had followed. ‘I was thrown among the population of a captured city. Those around me did not believe I was who I said I was. So I was brought here. And then I met you.’
‘And in me, you saw…’
‘A chance.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Ultimately, to return to Hattusa in triumph. To remove the fool Hattusili from the throne along with his obnoxious uncle, and to install my own son in his place — if my boy survives.’
Qirum was astonished; in this saga of palace politics and betrayal this was the first time she had mentioned she had children.
‘And, incidentally, I will save the Hatti kingdom from drought and famine, and secure our future for all time, so that we may fulfil our service to the great Storm God Teshub.’ She was exhausted, he saw, barely able to sit up straight. Yet her words were strong and clear.
He had to laugh, though. ‘Is that all? And how will you achieve that?’
‘By using my knowledge of Northland. My links with it. I will go there. We must acquire the seed stock behind their strange food. We cannot remain dependent on the goodwill of a country so far away. I have thought on this for a long time. It was a project I pursued before I was deposed, in fact. It remains a valid strategic goal. And with that treasure I will buy back my influence and position at court.’
All this sounded impossible, a fantasy. He had only a hazy idea where Northland actually was; although he had travelled far compared to most, he could not even imagine such a journey. ‘The Northlanders won’t just give
