Milaqa thought they wore ghastly forced grins, in the presence of a capricious king with the power of life and death. And anyhow there weren’t many of them to be rounded up in the first place.
The highlight of the day was the competition between Milaqa’s suitors. Qirum asked Milaqa to sit on a kind of throne to preside over the contest, wearing the outfit she had worn when she had come here three days before. The day was comparatively sunny, comparatively mild, but even so it was cold enough that her nipples were hard as stones.
In Qirum’s own country and in Greece such contests were conducted in deadly earnest, between princes who might be seeking to win not just a bride but a good alliance for their nations. So it was serious stuff, the tests of archery and slingshotting and spear-throwing, the hand-to-hand fighting with swords and spears — fighting intense enough for wounds to be inflicted, despite the expensive armour on display.
An older man called Urhi, a scribe, was ordered to stand by and make careful notes of the outcomes of all these futile contests. Milaqa thought he looked as if he was going mad with boredom, an intelligent man in a land of brutal young fools, and she wondered what his story was, how he had got here. Qirum had disrupted many ordinary lives in the course of his spectacular career.
And Qirum himself was manic. At first he threw himself into as many contests as he could. But his breath was short, and when he coughed Milaqa thought she saw speckles of blood. So he withdrew, and missed the boxing too, and saved himself for the culmination of the day, his favourite sport, the wrestling.
At a suggestion from Erishum, the King sat out the preliminary bouts, waiting until a victor among the other ‘suitors’ had emerged to challenge him. That man was Erishum himself. Milaqa could not tell if that was a genuine victory or not. Anyhow it was he who would face the King, surrounded by a crowd of courtiers, warriors, generals, and the common people of the city.
The King stripped to a loincloth, and leaned so his hands were resting on his knees. ‘Don’t go easy on me, sergeant,’ he warned. ‘If I think you let me win I’ll have your head as a trophy. On the other hand, if you beat me…’ The sentence tailed off in another coughing fit. More blood speckles, Milaqa saw. Qirum’s bare skin was pale, slick with sweat, and oddly mottled with small black marks.
If Erishum was troubled by this impossible balancing act he did not show it. Milaqa supposed he was used to the King’s capriciousness, and had after all survived so far. ‘I have no doubt you are the better suitor, lord. But you have to prove it first.’ He grinned, and crouched.
Qirum laughed out loud. Then he launched himself at Erishum. The crowd roared and clapped as they clashed, heads together, straining, reaching. Erishum got the first break; he twisted, got his arm around the King’s neck, and flipped them both over backwards.
And Qirum vomited blood. Erishum let him go in dismay and stood back.
It was in at that moment that Milaqa, in a flash of understanding, realised what had been done — how she had been used, what the true purpose of this expedition to New Troy had always been. What she had done to Qirum’s petty empire, and to Qirum himself.
On the day after that, Milaqa’s fourth in New Troy, nobody seemed to know what to do with her. She was brought food and drink in her room. The senior woman of the house was attentive to her needs. She was allowed to roam as she would.
She was even allowed into the King’s bedchamber, where he lay on a couch.
He was surrounded by soldiers, and by buckets full of blood and stool and piss; the stink was unbearable. She was not allowed to speak to Qirum, but she could not tell if he was conscious anyhow. From time to time he would cry out, as if in great pain. Scared-looking physicians came and went, desperately trying remedies. She heard them speaking of blood in the vomit and the urine, and of painful swellings in his groin and armpits. When they brushed past her, Milaqa saw they were spattered with the King’s blood.
She retreated to the King’s big reception room. By the shrine with the restored mother goddess figure, the priests intoned steadily, asking Apollo god of plague to put aside his bow. There was nobody else here but the guards, who looked at her with black expressions. Milaqa went back to her room.
That night she could not sleep. The house was full of people coming and going, and it rang with anxious talk, weeping, increasingly angry shouting. I did this, she thought. I brought this here.
In the end she got out of bed and dressed in the pitch dark, in the most practical clothes she could find, and sat on her bed and waited.
Just before dawn Erishum came to her room, bearing a lamp, oil burning in a shallow bowl. ‘I will take you back to your uncle.’
‘I must see Qirum.’
He grunted. ‘Why? To apologise? To finish him off?’
‘Erishum, please-’
‘You will never see him again. Get ready.’
She clambered off her bed. She glanced back once at the goods that had been brought with her, the Tawananna’s jewellery. It meant nothing to her.
He led her through corridors, making for the street door.
‘What is happening?’
‘Protis is to challenge for the crown. But others oppose him. It makes no difference. Too many others are ill, and the contest is futile until this plague has run its course.’
‘Why must I leave?’
‘Because there are those who blame you for bringing the plague here.’
‘If it’s true I did not know, Erishum. I did not know! I have been used. You have to tell him, Erishum.’
He did not answer.
They reached the street, deserted in the dawn light. Milaqa imagined she could feel the fear washing out across the town from the King’s house. Erishum hurried her along to the house where Teel and the rest had lodged.
When they reached the house she asked him directly, ‘If you think Qirum’s death is my fault, why release me?’
‘If you are innocent, it is just. If you are guilty, you will take your “gift” back to your own people. And, listen to me.’ He leaned towards her, his face hard, dark, grim. ‘I am but a soldier; I am no priest. But now I curse you. You and all your cowardly kind, you Northlanders. For what you have done here, your black crime, may our gods destroy you, and may your own gods, the mothers of sea and sky and earth, desert you. And as for you, I will wait for you in the underworld.’ And he turned and hurried away.
Milaqa, deeply shaken, ducked quickly inside.
By the light of a single lamp, Teel sat by a couch, on which Raka lay under a heap of blankets. The Annid was unconscious. Milaqa saw swellings on her neck, like those on Qirum’s body.
Teel, too, looked waxy, pale, and was breathing heavily. ‘This gift of Kilushepa’s travels quickly.’ He laughed, and coughed.
The world seemed to swivel around Milaqa. ‘Then it’s true. You sent me to kill Qirum, not to woo him.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Teel stood stiffly. ‘Oh, I am so tired… I’m sorry, child.’
Milaqa launched herself at him. He tried to hold her off, but she was stronger than he was, and he could not stop her blows. ‘How could you? You are my uncle! All my life you have used me. How could you betray me like this?’
‘We had to,’ he said. ‘Because only you could do it. Only you, child! You with your relationship with Qirum. You with your heart like an empty cup. Only you would go back to the man, knowing what he had done to your own family. In a way you’re as much of a monster as he is. So we used a monster to trap a monster! It had to be done. Can’t you see that?’ Coughing, he sat again, clutching his chest. ‘Well, remember me, Milaqa, even if you can’t forgive me. I’m a sort of anti-Qirum, you know. I don’t suppose you’ll ever understand that. If a warrior brute like Qirum is the kind his country needs, brave, impulsive, impressive, I am what Northland needs. Cold, manipulative, scheming. I can imagine which of us history will favour. But you must remember me, I am the man who gave Northland iron, and changed the world. Ah, but none of it matters. I did love you so much when you were small. I’m sorry that it has come to this.’
She wanted to kill him. She pulled back her fist.
And she coughed convulsively, and her blood sprayed over him.
