She couldn’t resist it. Maybe it was the tension, the sheer incongruity. She laughed with him, even harder when one of the little rodents ran over her own leg, and she squealed with shock.
Qirum cupped her face gently. ‘You are even more lovely when you laugh, dear Milaqa.’ He straightened up and strutted around the room. She saw something like the old energy, the confidence she remembered about him. ‘But even the mice are probably a good omen. Well, no doubt I can find a priest who will tell me so. One aspect of the deity the Greeks call Apollo is god of plagues and mice. Maybe the gods are trying to tell us to put an end to this plague of war that blights us. Maybe they are agreeing with Kilushepa, for once! For it’s obvious what she intends, you know. By sending you here like this. Looking like this. She knows exactly what message she is sending me.’
‘I think they are hoping for an alliance.’ She took a breath, and plunged on. ‘Of the kind you forge between your eastern countries. Where princesses are exchanged to bind nations by marriage.’
He gestured. ‘I don’t have much of a country. Not yet.’
‘And I’m no princess.’
‘Ah, you always will be to me, dear Milaqa.’ He studied her. ‘Look — we don’t have to do what they say, you and I. There can be peace whether we marry or not. Or war, come to that. The rules don’t apply to us. Do they, Milaqa? They never did, and never will. Whether we marry or not is up to us — nobody else. But that’s not to say we can’t have some fun, preferably at somebody else’s expense.’ He clapped his hands, a sharp, shocking noise. ‘Woman! Bring wine!’
The senior serving woman came bustling in immediately, bearing a tray of wine and fresh cups. Milaqa was impressed; evidently the servants had learned to anticipate their capricious ruler’s moods.
‘And send for my head of household. And Erishum. There may or may not be a wedding, but there’s certainly going to be a wedding feast. The way the Greeks do it, a pack of curs they may be but they do know how to have fun.’ As the woman hurried out, he called after her, ‘And musicians! Come, Milaqa.’ He held out his hand. ‘Will you dance with this humble suitor? For I am going to have to impress you to win your hand.’
She stood, but held back. ‘In this dress?’
‘Oh, nobody’s watching. Well — only an entire kingdom. And I — ow!’ He hopped, and slapped at his leg. ‘Something bit me…’
Kilushepa had begun packing as soon as Milaqa had been taken away by Erishum, snapping at her serving women as they packed and repacked bits of jewellery and cosmetics in her boxes.
Teel sat with Raka. They were both drinking Trojan wine, imported by Qirum. Teel was getting drunk, but he suspected Raka wasn’t. He watched Kilushepa sourly. ‘Do you have any regrets about what we’ve done, woman? Any at all? If you weren’t so busy fussing over things at such a time-’
‘I certainly regret loading her up with so much jewellery. I suppose it’s possible it could be retrieved, once this is all over.’
Teel grunted. ‘You will pluck it off my niece’s cold corpse, will you?’
‘Enough,’ Raka said tiredly. ‘We all agreed to this, Teel. In fact, as I remember, it was you who persuaded me to accept Kilushepa’s scheme in the first place. We are all complicit. We are each of us guilty, or none of us is.’
‘But two of us are staying, to share the fate we have ordained for poor Milaqa, and the Trojans of course, but I care not a jot for them. And she-’ he gestured at Kilushepa, ‘-is running away to save her scrawny hide.’
Kilushepa stood so her maid could hang her cloak on her back, and fixed it with a gold clasp at her neck. ‘I would take offence at that, Northlander, were you not effectively a dead man already, by your own choosing. Our work is done here. What good does it do to stay? Guilt, you say, Annid? What guilt? Guilt at the fate of Milaqa? You understand that girl as well as I do — I know you do, Teel. You see the flaw in her, the emptiness. Let her be useful for once in her life. Or is it guilt at this “dishonourable” ploy? Look — fools like Qirum speak of waging war with honour. But it is all lies. Qirum destroyed your little communities with overwhelming force, there is no honour in that. And when the fire comes, or the storm, or the flood or the drought, no amount of these heroes’ precious courage or honour will help them survive.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘All that will save you is up here. Intelligence. Cunning. And the determination to use it. Which is what enabled your fabled Ana to beat off the Great Sea of legend, from what I’ve heard of your tradition.’
‘You’ve done this kind of thing before,’ Raka said. ‘You Hatti.’
Kilushepa sniffed. ‘It is in the annals. We have an old prayer to the plague gods: “Shoot my enemy, but when you come home unstring your bow and cover your quiver.” The first incident of record was some generations ago, when the King sent donkeys infected with plague into the lands of our enemies the Arzawans. We won the war, and now the Arzawans remember that fever as “the Hatti plague”. There have been a number of instances since then.’ She spoke dismissively. ‘We have experts in these things. The box I brought to Northland is not the only one of its kind stored deep in the royal vaults of Hattusa, like memories of the horrors of the past. There are cages of mice and rats, tended by specially trained priests. Pieces of cloth cut from the bodies of the dead, which in some cases can carry a memory of the disease itself.’
‘Weapons of last resort,’ Teel said.
‘Precisely. And is this not a time for a last resort? After all, that foolish battle you let yourself be talked into waging did even more damage than merely exhausting you. My spies say that before the battle the Trojans were on the brink of fissuring. Sieges are wearing on the besiegers as well as the besieged. But we invited them to battle exactly as Qirum would have wished, we met Qirum on ground he would have chosen, and we enabled him to motivate his men and unite his warring commanders in the process.’ She pointed at Raka. ‘You boast that this is the oldest civilisation in the world. You boast that you have saved the Jaguar people across the Western Ocean, just as you have saved the Hatti empire from dissolution. Perhaps you have. But that is all in the past. Today, Raka, you are Annid of Annids, and if Northland were to fall now it would be entirely your responsibility. And that is why you have allowed me to do what I have done. Because you had to, and don’t tell me otherwise.’
Raka simply nodded. ‘I have asked Muwa to take back one more message to Etxelur for me.’
‘What is that?’
‘The name of my preferred successor.’
Kilushepa sneered. ‘How noble you both are. I hope it comforts you when the Trojans pursue your shades into the underworld.’ She glanced around, as if to make sure she’d left nothing, and without further farewells she marched out of the house.
‘Well,’ Teel said in the sudden silence, ‘at least that’s the last we’ll see of her, and that’s a comfort.’ He reached for the jug. ‘More wine? We may as well finish this.’
64
It took Qirum three days to organise his betrothal feast.
Milaqa spent much of the first day with him. She stayed in his house, at the heart of his citadel. She had her own room, her own little squad of servants dedicated to her, which she found distressing as some of them were clearly Northlander slaves. But she slept alone, and her relationship with Qirum remained chaste, as it had always been. He did not even kiss her, he hugged her only as a brother might. ‘For now,’ he said, winking broadly.
But on the second day Qirum said he had to attend to the business of his kingdom, and he huddled in his private chamber with his officers, ministers and priests. Meanwhile Milaqa was distracted by a string of visitors, embarrassed-looking officers who showed up in polished armour and bearing elaborate gifts: clothes, cosmetics, jewellery. These were the rival ‘suitors’ Qirum had ordered to come and woo her, in competition with him. Even Erishum showed up, bowing gravely, bearing a rather pleasing silver pendant.
And it was on that day that she first began to suspect Qirum was growing ill. In the few moments she did spend with him his breathing was rattling and heavy, and he coughed frequently. But he was not a man with the patience for illness, and he ignored the symptoms, while his generals discreetly ignored the spittle he sprayed over their clay tablets and maps, and over their persons.
On the third day the feast itself was set up in an open space in the outer city, beyond the citadel. Everybody was ordered to attend, to watch. There was music, dancing, feasting, tables laden with elaborate dishes from across the Continent, even some plainer Northland fare. The ordinary folk turned up, but there was no sense of joy;
